May 12 in A.A. History

1935: On this Mother’s Day, 39-year-old Bill W. [near right] met 55-year-old Dr. Bob S. [far right], his wife Anne, and their 17-year-old son Smitty. The meeting took place at 5 p.m. at the Gate Lodge [far left] of the Stan Hywet estate,^*the home of Oxford Group member HenriettaBuckler Seiberling [near left]. Dr. Bob was so severely hungover that he couldn’t eat dinner and planned to stay only 15 minutes.
    Left alone in the library, Bill told Bob he wasn’t there to help Bob, but to keep himself sober. Following Dr. Silkworth’s advice, Bill then shared his own experience as an alcoholic, emphasizing the medical hopelessness of the condition rather than preaching. Dr. Bob opened up, and their conversation extended from his planned 15 minutes to over six hours, lasting until after 11 p.m. As Dr. Bob would later recount in his story, “Doctor Bob’s Nightmare”—included in all four editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous:

    … he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers, and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading [emphasis by Dr. Bob].

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^*This was the home of Franklin Augustus “Frank” Seiberling (1859–1955), who co-founded The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in 1898 and the Seiberling Rubber Company in 1921. This historic estate includes a 65-room Tudor Revival Manor House, the Gate Lodge, historic gardens, and the Corbin Conservatory. Frank’s son, John Fredrick “Fred” Seiberling (1888–1962), married Henrietta (1888–1979) in 1917. They separated in 1935; Fred subsequently moved back into the Manor House. They never divorced.

1949: Bill W. addressed the American Psychiatric Association’s 105th annual meeting, held at the Mount Royal Hotel [right, 1950 postcard] in Montreal, Quebec. His talk was titled “The Society of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

1956: The First Annual A.A. Convention for England and Wales, a two-day event, was held at the Belle Vue Hotel [left, 1956] in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. By the time of the convention, 56 English groups were registered with the UK headquarters. Irish speakers Sackville M. and Richard P. addressed the convention.

May in A.A. History—day unknown

1947: The earliest known use of the term “co-founder” in reference to Dr. Bob S. appeared on the first page [right: a fragment of p. 1] of this month’s Central Bulletin, the newsletter of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio, in an item titled “Twelfth Anniversary.” This item stated, “[The] mass… meeting will be presided over by Dr. Robert S., one of the co-founders of AA, who will introduce Bill D., the first ‘Guinea Pig’ of Bill and Doc.” [Emphasis in original.]
    Bill also conferred the title of “co-founder” on several other individuals, including William James, Dr. William Silkworth, Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Anne S. (Doctor Bob’s wife), and Sister Ignatia.