August 18 in A.A. History

1938: The second meeting of the Alcoholic Foundation Board took place in the office of A. LeRoy Chipman [left] at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. During this meeting, the board decided to transfer the remaining $2,150 [~$51,000 in 2026] from the fund John D. Rockefeller Jr. had established to the Alcoholic Foundation, to support A.A. efforts in Akron. Additionally, they agreed to provide Dr. Bob S. [right] with $200 [~$4,700 in 2025] per month from September 1938 through April 1939.

Today in A.A. History—August 18–21

1988: Around 5,000 people attended the 1st Canadian National A.A. Convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Halifax Metro Centre (renamed the Scotiabank Centre in 2014) [left: aerial view from the east, early 1980s; right: notice of this event in the “Calendar of Events” section of the August–September issue of Box 4-5-9].

A.A. History—month & day unknown

1956: Switzerland's first Alcoholics Anonymous group formed after a Geneva alcoholic learned about A.A. through a lecture. He obtained A.A. literature and, with friends, organized a French-language meeting [left: aerial view of Geneva, 1956].

1956: The National Committee on Alcoholism (NCA) — formerly the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) — was renamed the National Council on Alcoholism.

1957: [Jan/Feb] The editorial offices of the A.A. Grapevine moved to 141 E. 44th St. [right] in New York City, joining the General Service Office (GSO)—also the headquarters of the Alcoholic Foundation—which had been located there since May 1950.

1957: Professor Emeritus E. B. (Ernest Bradlee) Watson [left], president of the Dartmouth class of 1902, which included Dr. Bob S. [right: portrait from an April 1994 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine], wrote to the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous, recalling a discussion regarding Bob at a house party on Cape Cod:

We think there has hardly ever been a more widely beneficial uplift effort of any sort to genuine, so fruitful in human rescue, and so practically sensible as your wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous.

He went on to describe his late classmate as…>

a great reformer of himself and others. As a class, we are proud to have had as a fellow member so dynamic and socially beneficial a creative figure as Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, whose influence now extends to the ends of the earth.

He had earlier written about Bob:

Although he indulged somewhat excessively in beer (the only beverage then obtainable in New Hampshire), he did not become a slave to alcohol until his graduate schooling.

In an undated interview, Dr. Philip P. Thompson [left], who was Bob’s roommate at Dartmouth, described him as “a tall lanky gentleman, a little bit abrupt in manner,” “restless,” and “rather quick spoken.” He also recalled a Saturday when several classmates engaged in a seemingly endless debate about where to go and what to do that afternoon, during which the topic of alcohol arose a couple of times. Dr. Thompson remembered Bob saying, “Well, if we’re going to get drunk, why don’t we get at it?”