October 18 in A.A. History

1952: The Saturday Evening Post [left: cover] published an anonymous article titled “I’m a Nurse in an Alcoholic Ward” [right: first two pages]. The author was Theresa “Teddy” R., a nurse at Knickerbocker Hospital [below left, c. 1940; below right: ambulance at Knickerbocker entrance] in New York City. Dr. William Silkworth, a colleague, referred to her as a “red-headed powerhouse.” The teaser for the article read:

The author—a onetime alcoholic—has nursed 5,000 drunks through the fading hours of their most spectacular sprees. Here is what she has faced in salvaging doctors, lawyers, ministers, priests, housewives, and stenographers from drink and the devil.

At the end of her article, Teddy explained her motivation: 

After a month of daily increasing happiness I was struck with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. I was grateful to that lonely handful of men who formulated the AA principles of recovery and set them down; grateful to the thousands of alcoholics who, in the face of every conceivable difficulty and temptation, had picked up these tenets and doggedly clung to them, fighting to hang on to their sobriety so it could be passed on to me. I felt I must do something in return.

When I learned about the A.A. ward at Knickerbocker I knew what that something would have to be. I was a trained nurse. During all the years I had frittered away, that training had seemed meaningless. Now it made sense—I was meant to work in that ward. I bombarded the supervising nurse with telephone calls by day, and prayers to God at night, and three months later I got the job.

These five years have brought deep satisfactions. I can’t convey how much it means to see the transformation in people. They come to us physical, mental and moral wrecks. They leave encouraged but still uncertain. Then, months later, they come back–bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, eager to help; job back, family back, going concerns again, ready to pass on, with dividends, what’s been given to them. To know that I had some small part in this rebirth is a blessing far beyond what I deserve. The failures, the lost ones? Well, they’re sad of course. However, we must accentuate the positive. But for the grace of God, all of us might have been lost.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1944: The Central Bulletin, a monthly newsletter for A.A. members near Cleveland, Ohio, reported [right: article] that a local Young People’s Group had been started this month. This is believed to be the first young people’s A.A. group anywhere.

1944: In Wichita, Kansas, near the center of the state, Sally E. wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City to request a copy of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, for her husband, Sid. Around the same time, Otis P. from the Kansas City, Missouri group moved to Wichita and reached out to Sid, whose name he had obtained from the Foundation. Together, they started Wichita’s first permanent A.A. group, holding meetings in several hotels and an art studio in the Butts Building [left, c. 1930s].

1944: The A.A. Grapevine published an editorial titled “On Simplicity, of Faith, of Living, of Outlook,” [right] written by Earl T. of Chicago, Illinois. The editorial also includes information about the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), explaining, among other things, why Marty M., one of its co-founders, chose to break her anonymity.