October 30 in A.A. History

1940: The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in St. Louis—and in the state of Missouri—was held at the Gibson Hotel, 5883 Enright Avenue [right, c. 1940s]. Father Ed Dowling^* had been contacted by F., who claimed that his son-in-law had a drinking problem. However, it turned out that F. himself was the one struggling and seeking help. With Father Ed’s support and encouragement, F. gathered four other individuals and met with them at the Gibson Hotel. In December, they would form the first A.A. group in St. Louis.

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^*Some have suggested that this occurred after Father Edward Dowling returned to St. Louis from New York City, where he had met Bill W. at the 24th Street Clubhouse. However, that meeting did not take place until November 16, more than two weeks later.

1940: After being pressed by Charles McGhee Baxter^*—who went by “McGhee” and was from Richmond, Virginia—for an explanation as to why New York City Alcoholics Anonymous had separated from the Oxford Group three years earlier, Bill W. replied with a quite thorough explanation consisting of eight reasons. Bill Schaberg’s summary in Writing the Big Book follows.

1. The “aggressive evangelism” of the Oxford Group.
2. Their reliance on “excessive personal publicity or prominence.”
3. The unacceptability of the word “absolute” before the virtues of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love (four virtues that Bill rather testily claimed were “as much practiced [by A.A. members]… as by any other group of people.”)
4. The coercive nature of “guidance for others” and of the subsequent “checking” by those who had received that guidance to ensure that it was being followed.
5. The practice of writing down guidance during ‘quiet time,’ which, according to Bill, “was too often made ridiculous by novices scribbling messages from God in notebooks.”
6. “We found,” he observed with some irritation and judgment, “that the principles of tolerance and love had to be more emphasized in their actual practice than they were in the O.G., especially tolerance.”
7. There could be no “religious requirement” for membership in A.A.
8. The kind of dogmatism demanded by the Oxford Group necessarily precluded Catholics [and others] from joining A.A.

Despite these objections, Bill gave them credit, before subjecting them to his ever-present pragmatism:

I am always glad to say privately that some of the Oxford Group presentation and emphasis upon the Christian message saved my life. Yet it is equally true that other attitudes of the O.G. nearly got me drunk again, and we long since discovered that if we were to approach alcoholics successfully, these would have to be abandoned. Recovery being a life or death matter for most alcoholics, it became a question of adopting that which would work and rejecting that which would not.

In that same letter, Bill was unusually candid about his own beliefs:

By degrees I find that I have become a rather orthodox Christian. But I do not find, at least within our group, that I can better serve God by demanding that anyone agree with me. If I can be used to help people find a consciousness of the Presence of God I hope I shall please Christ quite as much, if I still permit each individual to attach his own label to that experience. Of course this is no final conclusion on my part. I may be entirely wrong, but I fancy Christ Himself would prefer the hottentot^† happily aware of God and usefully serving Him, than He would the most orthodox were he in a state of useless drunkenness. I think Christ would be interested in Christian results rather than Christian professions.

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^*Note that Baxter had been an associate of Frank Buchman and an Oxford Group member. In the spring of 1929 he had been Buchman’s sole companion while sailing to South Africa, where they both stayed for three years.

^†Hottentot was a South African Dutch term for the Khoikhoi (or Khoekhoe) natives. It was said to have originated as hot en tot to be imitative of the clicking, jerking quality of Khoisan speech. By the 1700s in Europe the meaning had been generalized to mean an ill-mannered, filthy, or otherwise uncivilized person. Today it is considered an offensive, derogatory, racist term.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1977: The A.A. Grapevine published an article titled “Our Primary Purpose And The Special-Purpose Group,” written by Dr. Jack Norris [left, 1973], Chair of the General Service Board. Excerpts follow.

IN RECENT YEARS, no subject seems to have been discussed more often, in more detail, for longer hours, and with more heat than the question of special-purpose groups. Both the advocates and the adversaries of special-purpose groups hold very strong opinions on the subject, and those of us who have tried to occupy the middle ground can see the logic on both sides.

Our Third Tradition says, “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.” In general, we have inclined to this view: When other requirements are added that might seem to exclude some alcoholics, these should be considered AA meetings and not AA groups. We have never discouraged AAs from forming special-purpose meetings of any or all kinds to meet the needs of interested individuals, but we have been hesitant to consider as groups those that might seem to exclude any alcoholic, for whatever reason.…

I mentioned earlier that we have never discouraged special-purpose meetings but have been hesitant to list as groups those that might seem to preclude other alcoholics’ attending. Perhaps we might talk a little bit about the differences between an AA meeting and an AA group. Our directories state: “Traditionally, two or more alcoholics meeting together for purposes of sobriety may consider themselves an AA group, provided that, as a group, they are self-supporting and have no outside affiliation.” And in the beginning of our Fellowship in countries outside the United States and Canada, we agreed on six points that describe what an AA group is. They are:

“(1) All members of a group are alcoholics, and all alcoholics are eligible for membership. (2) As a group, they are fully self-supporting. (3) A group’s primary purpose is to help alcoholics recover through the Twelve Steps. (4) As a group, they have no outside affiliation. (5) As a group, they have no opinion on outside issues. (6) As a group, their public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion, and they maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio-TV, and film.”

In addition, an AA group holds regularly scheduled meetings and has at least an informal structure with several “trusted servants” who serve in rotation, and who look after the meeting room, Twelfth Step calls, literature, program, and refreshments.…

At the 1973 General Service Conference, workshops on “The AA Group” were held and went into overtime, because of lengthy discussion on the subject of special-purpose groups. By request of this Conference, the subject was scheduled for full-scale discussion at the 1974 Conference. The time allotted for it again proved to be insufficient and a special session—lasting four hours—was called. The final action was that the AA General Service Office should list all groups in accordance with the definition of an AA group listed on page 2 of all our directories.

In the final analysis, perhaps, what we are really dealing with in special-purpose groups is communication among AA members and how to improve it so that we can do a better job of carrying the AA message to alcoholics of all kinds.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the earliest definition of an A.A. Group, which I believe ultimately led to the distinction between "real" groups and so-called "meetings."