A.A. History—month & day unknown

1986: By this time, A.A. meetings, or at least gatherings of A.A. friends, were being held on bulletin board systems (BBSs) in Seattle, Washington; San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; and likely other cities across the U.S. [right: welcome screen for the Dura-EuropaS BBS in Tacoma, Washington, 1986–93]. A few staff members at the General Service Office (GSO) in New York City were aware that A.A. members were meeting electronically and began maintaining contact addresses.

Little is known about the first A.A. members who reached out to others through computer-based communication. It is likely that those among the first to use email sought to connect with others to share their experience, strength, and hope. There are fragmentary records and oral histories of A.A. members using the earliest BBSs over local telephone connections via modems, which were both slow and unreliable. Hardware concerns were paramount, and while communication between computers over distances was possible, it was very challenging.

1986: A.A. members began meeting on Q-Link, also known as Quantum Link, an online service launched in 1986 as a precursor to modern Internet services. Within two years, the group grew to 200 members across the United States. Designed specifically for users of Commodore 64 and 128 home computers, Q-Link featured a relatively advanced graphical user interface for online services at the time [left: Q-Link home page, c. 1986]. It connected users via dial-up modems, typically at speeds of 300 or 1200 baud (bits per second [about 2.9–4.3 Mb per hour]), and offered a variety of innovative online services, including:

• online chat;
• multiplayer games;
• early versions of role-playing games;
• file sharing;
• email; and
• news, weather, and other information.

1986: The first mention of anything “online” in Box 4-5-9 appeared in the Holiday issue in an article [right] titled “A.A.W.S./Intergroup Seminar” (the first ever). Of the 82 Intergroups and Central Offices, “12 have on-line computers and 12 more are considering” going online.

1986: For the first time, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS) published the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, in a softcover (paperback) 3½" × 5½" format [left]. By the end of the year, approximately one softcover copy was sold for every nine hardcover copies (81,200 vs. 725,000).

September 21 in A.A. History

1902: Six-year-old Bill Wilson [left, c. 1902] wrote to his mother [right, c. 1905], who was away with his sister Dorothy:

Dear Mama,

School has begun and we are in the second reader. I have a brand new arithmetic. We have the same teacher that was here before. I have two new under teeth. They look just like little saws. Granpa and I went to Captain Thomases show. The Cap is a slick one. When are you and Dorothy coming home? I want to see you ever so much. I try to be a good boy. Grandpa says I am. I am learning to read and do numbers very fast.

From your little son Willie.

P.S. Kiss sister for me.

A.A. History—year, month & day unknown

1980s: The first A.A. bulletin boards, online meetings, and chat rooms were introduced.

A.A. History—month & day unknown

1985: [Early] Jon R. Shilling of Akron, Ohio, had discovered that the copyright on the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous had expired and was in the public domain.^* He announced plans to publish a facsimile, complete with a dust jacket, to coincide with the 50th Anniversary International Convention.

Eight years earlier, the 27th General Service Conference had recommended that “publication of a facsimile of the first edition of the Big Book should not be undertaken [by A.A.W.S] as it would destroy the sentimental value of the actual first edition [Floor Actions, #3].”

Reactions among A.A. members were mixed. Mr. Shilling’s publishing company, Carry the Message, Inc., sold thousands of copies. However, Mr. Shilling faced severe backlash; he was called a communist, received death threats, was compared to a serial killer, and had his actions likened to genocide. The General Service Board (GSB), the A.A. World Services (AAWS) Board, and the staff of the General Service Office (GSO) were alarmed. They envisioned outside publishers printing the Big Book, altering the text at will, and compromising the message of recovery. They also feared that such developments might threaten financial support for A.A. services.

These fears largely proved unfounded. It became clear that most A.A. members would continue to purchase A.A. literature from A.A. entities, regardless of outside publishing efforts, and that the A.A. message would remain unadulterated.

In the early 2000s, Anonymous Press, Inc. acquired the rights to Mr. Shilling’s Big Book facsimile and continues to sell it today.Regarding this facsimile affair, federal “fair trading” laws protect A.A. from anyone marketing products that appear to be A.A.’s. After 1985, the GSB and GSO took additional administrative, organizational, legal, and publishing steps to ensure that a loss of copyright would not occur again and that A.A. would remain competitive with any outside publisher.

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^*See “A.A. History—Month & Day Unknown, Part 50,” in “Today in A.A. History—September 19.”

September 20 in A.A. History

1834: Helen Elizabeth Barrows was born to Betsey Cochran and Blake Barrows, the third of four children, in Almont, Michigan. On 5 May 1861, she married William Curtis W. in Dorset, Vermont, and on 13 September 1870 gave birth to Gilman Barrows W. [right], who would be Bill W.’s father.

1939: The first A.A. meeting in the Chicago area took place^* in the apartment of Earl T. [left] and his wife, Katie, at 1324 Central Street [right] in Evanston, Illinois. It was also the first A.A. meeting in Illinois. Eight people attended:† Earl and Katie; Dick R.; Ken A.; Sadie I.; newly sober Sylvia K. [left], who is generally considered to be the first woman to achieve permanent sobriety; George M.; and a non-alcoholic, Grace Cultice [right], who would later become the secretary of the group and be known as “The Angel of Chicago A.A.”

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^*One source notes that the meeting occurred on “a Tuesday night in September,” suggesting the 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th, while others indicate the 13th, 20th, or 21st. Still others claim the meeting was held “at Sylvia Kauffman’s apartment on Central Street,” but the 1940 US Census put her at 860 Hinman Street while that same census put the Treats on Central Street.

^†There are discrepancies regarding attendance; one source states there were “six brand-new A.A.s and three non-alcoholic spouses,” while another reports that “eight people were present, four men and four women, two of whom were non-alcoholics.”

A.A. History—month and day unknown

1983: Faith S.^* [left] founded “Creating a Sober World.” The brief biography on the back flap [right] of the dust jacket of her book, Distractions That Keep Us from Being Who We Are & Doing What We Really Want to Do [below left: cover], states:

In 1983, out of a vision, Faith founded “Creating a Sober World.” This project led to the establishment of the first Alcoholics Anonymous in the Soviet Union in 1986. From that beginning, A.A. and Alanon [sic] now flourish in Russia and adjacent countries.

Independent sources, however, tell a somewhat different story. A.A.’s own Box 4-5-9 newsletter, the Christian Science Monitor, and a firsthand A.A. Grapevine account of a 1989 visit to Moscow all credit the founding of the first Soviet A.A. group, “Moscow Beginners,” to the Rev. J. W. Canty, an American Episcopal priest who laid the groundwork starting in 1985 and saw the group get underway in 1987—not 1986.

None of these accounts mention Faith or “Creating a Sober World.” This doesn’t necessarily mean her claim is false; materials from New Directions for Women describe her leading “a contingency of volunteers to help the USSR” with its addiction problems, so she may have been involved in a parallel, lower-profile effort that the press and A.A.’s own newsletters simply didn’t cover. But as it stands, her specific claim to having sparked the first Soviet A.A. group rests on her book’s dust jacket and her affiliated organization’s own retrospectives, without outside corroboration.

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^*Faith S. was a founding board member of New Directions for Women, a Costa Mesa, California, women's treatment center, and made significant financial and non-financial contributions to it. Their site states that she started going to A.A. in 1942, that she joined A.A. in the 1950’s and at one point had 55 years of sobriety. It also says that she created Pills Anonymous, the first 12-step program for addiction to prescription medication in La Jolla, California, during the 1960s. Faith died peacefully in her sleep at 96 on 10 February 2010.

1984: The A.A. Grapevine, Inc. began publishing The Best of Bill [right: cover], a pocket-sized collection of five articles by Bill W, from the A.A. Grapevine on “Fear,” “Faith,” “Honesty,” “Humility,” and “Love.” This book replaced the original packet of five pamphlets introduced at A.A.’s 4th International Convention in Toronto, Ontario, in 1965.

1985: The 1978 proposal for an Asia-Oceania Service Meeting (AOSM) was raised again at a meeting in New York City and then further discussed in New Zealand. This was another of several discussions that eventually led to the first AOSM meeting in Tokyo, Japan in 1995.

September 19 in A.A. History

1953: Paul S. [left], 66, died in an automobile accident in Springfield Township, Ohio, southeast of Akron, Ohio [right: headstone]. Somewhat ironically, his brother Dick's story in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is titled “The Car Smasher.” Paul got sober on 2 July 1936 (A.A. #10), and his first edition story is titled “Truth Freed Me!”

1964: The Saturday Evening Post [left: cover] published the article “Alcoholics Can Be Cured—Despite A.A” by Dr. Arthur H. Cain [right]. The lower left corner of the magazine cover featured a teaser that read, “Down with A.A.” The article said, in part,

Unfortunately, A.A. has become a dogmatic cult whose chapters too often turn sobriety into slavery to A.A. Because of its narrow outlook Alcoholics Anonymous prevents thousands from ever being cured. Moreover A.A. has retarded scientific research into one of America’s most serious health problems.… Actually, there is no scientific evidence that alcoholism is an incurable, physical disease.… After all, sobriety in itself is not a way of life. It is simply the absence of intoxication. It is what one does with his sobriety and his life that is important.

2015: [±1 day] Bill W. was posthumously inducted into the Burr and Burton Academy Hall of Fame as the 2015 recipient of the Alumni Service Award, which recognizes “significant volunteer service to Burr and Burton and/or youth in the broader community” for those who “graduated 10 or more years ago.” The Hall of Fame was established in 2001, and in its 26 years, only 21 Alumni Service Awards have been given [right: list of all recipients through 2025, with Bill’s name highlighted; another will be inducted in September 2026].

A.A. History—year, month & day unknown

Late 1970s: Apparently, the General Service Office (GSO) Archives in New York City acquired a computer. In the Oct-Nov 1979 issue of Box 4-5-9, the last paragraph of an invitation to all A.A. members and friends to GSO’s “annual open house” said:

A highlight for more than 400 visitors last year was a trip through A.A. history with Nell Wing, nonalcoholic archivist, in the archives on the eighth floor. Visitors enjoyed, too, seeing their orders for literature sent out, meeting “Enterprise,” the in-house computer, and having a chance to view A.A.’s films and filmstrips.

Along with whatever else it was used for, “Enterprise” produced group contribution acknowledgments [left], and every January it produced three group directories: one each for Eastern U.S., Western U.S., and Canada [right: 2012–13 A.A. Directories].

A.A. History—month & day unknown

1980: The March–April issue of the Loners International Meeting bulletin was first printed on yellow paper.

1981: A General Service Office for Alcoholics Anonymous was established in Japan.

1982: The 1978 proposal for an Asia-Oceania Service Meeting was discussed in Australia. This was one of several discussions held in various countries and during World Service Meetings, which ultimately led to the first AOSM meeting in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995.

1983: The copyright on the second edition of Alcoholics Anonymous expired because it was not renewed.

All four editions of Alcoholics Anonymous were routinely registered with the U.S. Copyright Office at the time of their publication, including the third edition, published in 1976. However, there was a misconception that copyrighting the third edition automatically renewed the copyright of the second edition. In reality, only the additional material unique to the third edition was protected. This failure to renew the copyright for the second edition resulted in its expiration.

A similar situation had occurred with the first edition, which has kept the heart and soul of the Big Book—the first 164 pages—in the public domain since 1967, where they remain today.

September 18 in A.A. History

1929: Nancy C. M. (sometimes identified as Nancy M.-O. since acquiring the name O. during a brief marriage) [right, with sister Jean, c. 1933] was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania.

In 2000, she would found the A.A. History Buffs group on Yahoo, and then relaunch it two years later as the A.A. History Lovers group. These are predecessors to today’s online AAHistoryLovers Google group and AA History Lovers Facebook group.

Nancy would live a distinguished life. She would become a stage actor in Pasadena, California, performing alongside Dustin Hoffman. In 1951, she would become personal secretary to Mortimer Adler, PhD [left, late 1970s–late 1980s] who, with Robert M. Hutchins, created the Chicago Great Books of the Western World series, and would work for him until the mid‑1950s. They would develop a friendship, and Nancy would receive what was effectively a superb graduate‑level education in philosophy and the history of ideas. She would also serve as an aide to Senator Harold E. Hughes of Iowa [near right: Nancy with the Senator, from the cover of her book, mid 1970s], collaborating on alcohol and drug reform legislation. Later, she would write a book about this experience, With a Lot of Help from Our Friends: The Politics of Alcoholism [below, far right: cover], published by iUniverse in 2003.

1946: Alcohólicos Anónimos was founded in Mexico. Days earlier, it had been announced in the pages of El Universal as a “dam against inveterate drunkenness.” The announcement included lines that, when translated into English, read:

The humanitarian work that our honorary consul in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Ricardo (Dick) B. Perez [left], who decided to take advantage of his vacations in Mexico to found in our country a branch of the association “AA” (Alcoholics Anonymous), it seems that it will bear fruit, as it is preparing for next Wednesday the 18th of this year, at 7:00 p.m., an act in the “Teatro del Pueblo” [right: facade, 2009] (attached to Abelardo Rodríguez market) in which Mr. Perez himself will personally give data, reports, as well as guidance.

In 1940, Ricardo had gotten sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio, where he and his wife, Helen, had translated the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, into Spanish.

1947: The Dallas Central Office of Texas held its first board meeting and officially opened for business. At that time, there were only two Alcoholics Anonymous groups in the metropolitan area. The Central Office was located in the Davis Building [left] at 1309 Main St., Dallas, in an old, musty, somewhat cluttered office. Dick P., who had suffered physical effects of poisoning from drinking Jamaica Ginger (“Jake”) [right] during Prohibition, served as the director.

1954: William “Bill” D. [left, with Helen B.], 63, died [right: obituary from unknown newspaper] at Crile Veterans Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, as a result of a heart attack he suffered 11 months earlier. His story, “Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” appears in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. He was buried at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Akron, Ohio. Henrietta would live for another 28 years and 3 days [left: their headstones].

Bill W. would say of Bill D.,

That is, people say he died, but he really didn’t. His spirit and works are today alive in the hearts of uncounted AAs, and who can doubt that Bill already dwells in one of those many mansions in the great beyond.

September 17 in A.A. History

1934: Bill W. [far left] was admitted to Charles B. Towns Hospital [near right] for the third time. His brother-in-law, Dr. Leonard V. Strong [near left], once again paid for his stay. Dr. William D. Silkworth [far right] pronounced Bill hopeless and informed his wife, Lois, that Bill would likely need to be committed. After leaving the hospital, Bill felt broken and scared; he stayed sober for a brief period, driven primarily by his fear of drinking again. Eventually, he found work on Wall Street, which helped him regain some of his confidence, but only briefly.

1968:At the 28th International Congress on Alcohol and Alcoholism in Washington, DC, Dr. Jean-Pierre von Wartburg [left, 1976] of the University of Bern, Switzerland, received the first E. M. Jellinek Memorial Fund Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge on alcohol and alcoholism. Dr. Wartburg had conducted recent experiments that “isolated an abnormal liver enzyme which oxidized alcohol five to six times faster than the normal enzyme in a test tube.” He suspected that the abnormal version of the enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, “may be significant in alcoholism” [right: “Liver Enzyme May Be Drinking Factor,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 18 September 1968, p. 41]. The award included a bronze bust of E. M. “Bunky” Jellinek [left] and $1,000 [~$9,600 in 2026].

The congress was the largest gathering ever dedicated to the prevention and treatment of alcoholism. The Governor of Iowa, Harold E. Hughes [left], also delivered a speech at this convention in which he announced,

I am an alcoholic. I was born an alcoholic. I never took a normal drink in my life. I realized in my late 20s that for me, to drink was to die. I could not drink and maintain sobriety [right: “Alcohol Under the Microscope,” The Windsor [Ontario] Star, 17 September 1968, p. 23].

1975: [The New York Times says the 16th] John “Jack” Alexander [left], 73, died [right: New York Times obituary, 20 September 1975]. His obituary in the West Texas Register credited him as the newspaperman who made “Alcoholics Anonymous a major organization by the articles he wrote about its work,” referring to the article he wrote titled “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others” in the March 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This article resulted in 6,000 inquiries to the New York City office of the Alcoholic Foundation over the next nine months. Jack also served as a Class A [non-alcoholic] Trustee of the Alcoholic Foundation from 1951–56.

A.A. History—month & day unknown

1976: The A.A. Loners meeting-in-print merged with the original Internationalists meeting-in-print.

1979: Hazelden published Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous [far left: cover, 1st printing] by Dr. Ernest “Ernie” K. [near left].

1979: A second Swiss General Service Office was opened in Geneva to serve French- and Italian-speaking members and groups: Alcolisti Anonimi Regione della Svizzera Italiana (AASRI). The first, serving German-speaking members, had opened in Lucerne in 1967.

1979: Norris Embry [near right] (1921-1981) created an 18"×23⅝" mixed media work, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous,” that includes oil stick and watercolor on paper. The piece [far right] was described by the curator of the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium as being a depiction of “non-representational profiles of men with highball glasses, an eye and amorphous colorful shapes with [the] word NO scattered through image.”

September 16 in A.A. History

1971: [Early] Nell Wing [left] became the first official Archivist for A.A. Her friend and a former Trustee, Thomas A. “Tom” S. [right] from Jacksonville, Florida, visited her for the first time in two or three years. They discussed the preservation work she had been doing for some fifteen years. Fifteen minutes after Tom left, Robert E. “Bob” H., General Manager of the General Service Office (GSO), “dashed in… saying hurriedly, ‘Now, Nell, drop everything else you are doing and get right on the archives!’” Apparently Tom had realized she hadn't yet been named GSO’s Archivist and asked Bob to fix this. From that day until her retirement, Nell served as the official GSO Archivist.

Previously, in 1954, she and Edward H. “Ed” B. [left] had been appointed by Bill W. to be a Writing and Research Team; on their own, they had initiated archival activities in 1955.

1972: The remains of Father Edward “Ed” Dowling, S.J. [right], were reburied at Calvary Cemetery^* in Baden, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, where Fr. Ed had grown up. The seminary where he was originally buried, St. Stanislaus, closed in 1971, and the grounds were sold in 1972.

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^*This is the same cemetery where Dred Scott, the Black slave whose attempt to gain his freedom was a key factor in igniting the American Civil War, was buried. Dowling had led the Old Baden Society in its successful effort to identify Scott’s unmarked grave and erect a monument in 1956.

1973: Joe McQ. [far left] & Charlie P. [near left] met when Joe introduced Charlie as the A.A. speaker at an Al-Anon Convention. Joe had wondered if Charlie might be the country-western singer Charley Pride. He wasn’t even the right color, Joe lamented. They instantly discovered their mutual fascination with A.A.’s basic text: the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. What interested them most was that it had been written in a particular sequence to convey certain ideas. That interest began a close friendship which has lasted the rest of their lives. They would frequently meet to discuss the book, often driving 225 miles to meet in each other’s homes.

Soon they were planning meetings (with others, presumably) in hotel rooms at A.A. conventions in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and within a few years, the meetings grew in popularity.

1974: The first Italian-language A.A. group in Switzerland was formed in the Canton of Ticino (known as Tessin in French and German) [right: map of Switzerland, with Ticino highlighted], the southernmost canton of the country and the only one where Italian is the sole official language.

1975: Ernest “Ernie” K. [left, in Egypt], who would later author Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, was admitted to the Guest House’s three-month treatment program for priests after he continued to drink following detoxification at the Harvard Infirmary.

1976: The first Japanese-language 12-Step meeting officially registered as the “Tokyo Group” with the General Service Office in New York City. Following this, activities became more focused, leading to the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous groups throughout the country.

1976: Harbor House published Bert D.: Hardhat, Inebriate, Scholar [far left: cover] by Al S. [near left, 1947], a biography of Henry Berton “Bert” D. In 1962, with his wife Hazel, Bert founded Harbor House [near right: entrance (Mar 2019); far right: Harbor House itself], a treatment center in Memphis, Tennessee, based on Alcoholics Anonymous principles, religion, and philosophy. Bert’s life was a struggle for sobriety, and Harbor House became his life’s work. It remains in operation today.