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.