March 13 in A.A. History

1887: James “Jim” R. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the first son and third of eight children of Mary Fisher and Joseph R. He would get sober on 7 June 1933, more than 18 months before Bill W. In June 1940, he would co-found Alcoholics Anonymous in Baltimore.

1895: Henry “Hank” P. [right: as a young man] was born in Marion, Iowa, the second of three children and first son of Mary Giffen and Daniel P., whose family had lived in the area for several generations.

    Hank would become the first person in New York City to achieve sobriety with the help of Bill W. Considered by many to be the “forgotten” co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, he played a significant role in writing and publishing the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. His story in the first edition of that book is titled “The Unbeliever.”

Other significant events in March
                 (no specific date known)                 

1942: Irwin “Irv” M. [left] wrote the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City to report that he, along with three other alcoholics—Bill S., George S., and Louis J.—were forming an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Charleston, West Virginia. The group, the first in the state, was initially attended by three members: "W. T." S. [presumably the same person as Bill S.], secretary; George S.; and Louis J.
    Within six months, the group would double in size and move its meetings to W. T.’s office. Over the next three months, membership increased to 12, then 16, and eventually 29 members. These new members included individuals who had been active in A.A. in Cleveland, Ohio; New York City; Cincinnati, Ohio; Zanesville, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before relocating to Charleston.
    A year later, on March 22, Bill S. would write to National Secretary Bobbie B. at the Foundation, recognizing Irv as the “sponsor” of the group. Bill W. would visit in March 1943, and clubrooms would be established in 1944. By June of that year, membership would reach 71.

March 12 in A.A. History

1992: Dr. C. Nelson Davis [near right: from his obituary], 88, died at his home in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
    Recognizing the benefits of a 12-step program for recovering alcoholics, Dr. Davis and Dr. C. Dudley Saul [far right] became early advocates of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and lectured together on its behalf. In 1946, Dr. Saul had helped establish one of the first A.A. clubhouses, the 4021 Clubhouse [left] at 4021 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. That same year, the two doctors had opened the C. Dudley Saul Clinic in Philadelphia, the first private treatment center for alcoholism in the United States, with Dr. Davis serving as Physician-in-Charge. The clinic is known today as the Malvern Institute.

Other significant events in March
                 (no specific date known)                 

1940:The third and fourth meetings of the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Group of A.A. were held at the homes of Dr. A. Wiese Hammer [near right] at 323 S. 17th St. [far left, Nov 2018] and R. H. Bayard B., Jr at 1710 Walnut St. [near left, Jul 2011], respectively. At the latter meeting, Dr. C. Dudley Saul [far right] became the first medical advisor to A.A. Both doctors’ names were mentioned in Jack Alexander’s March 1941 article about Alcoholics Anonymous in The Saturday Evening Post, making them the first medical doctors publicly associated with A.A.

1941: The second printing of Alcoholics Anonymous, included two notable revisions. First, an Appendix II, titled “Spiritual Experience,” was added. Second, Step 12 was reworded to replace “spiritual experience” with “spiritual awakening.” These two changes addressed the common misapprehension that members needed a dramatic, sudden spiritual experience akin to that of Bill W, as described in his account in Chapter 1, “Bill's Story,” at Charles B. Towns Hospital. In addition to these content changes, a misprint on page 234, where the second and third lines from the bottom were duplicated, was corrected.

1941: The original Alcoholics Anonymous group in Baltimore, Maryland, was forced to leave its meeting place in the basement of the Altamont Hotel, 1215 Eutaw Street [left, 1930s], to accommodate World War II draftee processing. The group then found a run-down, second-floor mail-order house at 857 Eutaw Street [right: interior views]. With only $6 in their treasury, four members signed a two-year lease for $45 per month. Several members, some still newly sober, worked to remove shelving, paint, and lay a new floor. An employer, pleased that one of his employees had gotten sober, donated 50 chairs.
     In early 1941, the group moved into what became known as “857” and remained there until 1987, when they relocated to 123 N. Clinton St. in Highlandtown [left, Nov 2007]. After 53 years, the 857 Club—also called the Rebos Club—continues to reach alcoholics at 100 S. Haven Street [right, Jul 2024] after 53 years, hosting 13 meetings a week, including 2 hybrid meetings.

1941: In Jacksonville, Florida, the Alcoholics Anonymous group reported a membership of five. The previous fall, Cmdr. Junius C., Jr [left], a naval officer stationed at the nearby Air Force base, had introduced Tom S. [right] to A.A. Soon after, the two men began working together to carry the A.A. message to other alcoholics.

March 11 in A.A. History

1891: James McCready “Mac” H. [near right, 1925] was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania [far right: map, 1902]—about 30 miles [50 km] south of Pittsburgh—to Joseph Huston, a dentist, and Elizabeth Fishburn H. In March 1940, Mac would help found Alcoholics Anonymous in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1951: In American Weekly, Booton Herndon memorialized Dr. Bob S. in an article titled “Dr. Bob: His Only Monument Is a Plaque, but the Thousands He Helped Rescue From Alcoholism Will Never Forget Him” [left: article, illustration].

2020: “Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12‐step programs for alcohol use disorder,” [left: cover] by John F. Kelly, Keith Humphreys, and Marcia Ferri 
was published. They sought to

    … evaluate whether peer‐led AA and professionally‐delivered treatments that facilitate AA involvement (Twelve‐Step Facilitation (TSF) interventions) achieve important outcomes, specifically: abstinence, reduced drinking intensity, reduced alcohol‐related consequences, alcohol addiction severity, and healthcare cost offsets.

    Their methodology was to search

• Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group Specialized Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Embase, CINAHL and PsycINFO from inception to 2 August 2019.…
• ongoing and unpublished studies via ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) on 15 November 2018.…
• included non‐English language literature.…
• references of topic‐related systematic reviews and bibliographies of the included studies

    They looked for existing studies and included

    … randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi‐RCTs and non‐randomized studies that compared AA or TSF (AA/TSF) with other interventions, such as motivational enhancement therapy (MET) or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), TSF treatment variants, or no treatment. We also included healthcare cost offset studies. Participants were non‐coerced adults with AUD [alcohol use disorder].

    They concluded:

    There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence. Non‐manualized AA/TSF may perform as well as these other established treatments. AA/TSF interventions, both manualized^* and non‐manualized, may be at least as effective as other treatments for other alcohol‐related outcomes. AA/TSF probably produces substantial healthcare cost savings among people with alcohol use disorder.

    One anonymous Substack writer titled a post that referred to this study as “Guess What? AA Works.”

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^*In this study, manualized refers to interventions that follow a standardized, structured approach; they are characterized by:
1.    A session-to-session outline
2.    Treatment based on standardized content
3.    Content delivered in a linear or modular fashion
4.    Consistent treatment delivered across time and different sites

March 10 in A.A. History

1886: Frank S. Shaw, a descendant of Mayflower passengers, was born in Bath, Maine, to William R. and Jane Stinson Shaw. In 1914, he would join the Wall Street firm J.K. Rice, Jr. & Co. [right: post card solicitation, 1920] and eventually became a partner. Shaw remain with the firm until 1957, when he retired for health reasons, two years before his death in 1959. He would become a good friend of Bill W. and an early supporter of Bill’s stock market theories. Shaw would marry Elsie Valentine, a close childhood friend of Bill’s wife, Lois.

1916: The day after Pancho Villa [near right] raided Columbus, New Mexico, and the U.S. Army post at nearby Camp Furlong, killing 10 civilians and 8 soldiers, President Woodrow Wilson [left] ordered an armed force under Brigadier General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing [far right] to lead a “punitive expedition” into Mexico to capture Villa and prevent future raids. As a result, Norwich University readmitted and mobilized its sophomore class in June, who had all been expelled following a hazing incident in February. One was Bill W.

1939: After a 10-week separation, Hank P. [far left] returned from Bill and Lois W.’s home at 182 Clinton St. in Brooklyn to his wife, Kathleen [near left], at their home at 344 N. Fullerton Ave. in Montclair, New Jersey.

March 9 in A.A. History

1953: Works Publishing, Inc. was renamed Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing, Inc. [below: paperwork].  

Other significant events in March
                 (no specific date known)                

1919: [Early] Four months after the end of World War I, Bill W. sailed from Bordeaux, France, to New York City aboard the SS Powhatan [right: docked in New York City, 6 Sep 1918]. 

1934: After Bill W. relapsed following his first admission to Charles B. Towns Hospital, his wife, Lois, quit her job at Macy’s [left, early 1930s]. Hoping to keep him away from alcohol, she took him to his sister Dorothy and Leonard Strong’s farm in Green River, Vermont [right: aerial view with close-up inset of the farm]. However, on his first day of fishing, Bill encountered a generous man with a bottle and relapsed. They would stay until summer.

1937: [1938? 13 Sep 1937?] Florence R. of Westfield, New Jersey, became the first woman to get sober in A.A.’s New York City Group and the second woman to do so anywhere. Previously married to a Wall Street acquaintance of Bill Wilson’s, Florence had believed that divorce would eliminate the cause of her drinking. Ironically, her ex-husband had been the one who brought Lois Wilson to visit her at Bellevue Hospital. Bill and Lois had gotten her out, and Florence stayed with them briefly before moving in with other A.A. members. Although she began attending meetings in March 1937, staying sober proved challenging. Florence’s presence in the group influenced the decision to drop the name “One Hundred Men” for the Big Book (and its publishing company). Her story, “A Feminine Victory,” would later appear in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

1939: Reviewers were returning multilith copies of the draft of Alcoholics Anonymous that had been sent out in February. Certain readers noted that the text frequently used directives and the words “you” and “your.” While “greatly impressed and enthusiastic,” Dr. James Wainwright Howard [left], Assistant Attending Psychiatrist at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, New Jersey, felt the tone was too dogmatic and directive. He suggested toning down the use of direct instructions to the reader in favor of relating personal experiences. Drs. William D. Silkworth [near right] and Harry M. Tiebout [far right] offered similar advice.

1940: Mort J. [left] had bought the book Alcoholics Anonymous in September 1939 and tossed it into his suitcase without even glancing at it. He had then embarked on a multi-week spree, traveling from Denver, Colorado, to California, through Arizona, and into Nogales, Guaymas, and Hermosillo in Mexico, ultimately arriving in Palm Springs.
    There, he had regained consciousness and discovered the book in his luggage. “Shaking violently,” he began to read it. From that day in November 1939, he never drank again.
    In Los Angeles, he contacted the Alcoholic Foundation, and Ruth Hock provided him with the phone number and address of Kaye Miller, a non-alcoholic who had been the driving force behind the first A.A. meeting and group in Los Angeles.
    Mort called on Kaye at her home and asked, “Where's the meeting?”
    “There are no meetings anymore,” Kaye replied. “I’m disgusted. I’m going to Hawaii or Europe.”
    “Where are all the members of A. A?”
    “They are all drunk,” she said bitterly.
    “Do you have any names for me? I want to get in touch with some alcoholics in town.”
    “You’re wasting your time.” She had cleaned out her apartment and thrown all the names of prospects and letters of inquiry into a wastebasket. Mort picked them out of the trash, pocketed them, and then left.
    Kaye’s last words to him were, “Don’t waste your time on them. I’ve called on them all. They can’t stay sober.”
    As Mort walked home, he sifted through the contacts and letters he had taken from Kaye. He found the address of Cliff W., whose wife had written to A.A. in New York for help after reading about the organization in the syndicated column of Beatrice Fairfax, the “Dear Abby” of that era.
    He went to Cliff’s house and rang the doorbell. Cliff opened the door.
“My name is Mort J. I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous; may I come in?”
    When Mort showed up at Cliff Walker’s door [right: 4222 Vantage Ave, Studio City in April 2024, likely his home in 1940], Cliff listened to Mort’s story, despite having no desire to stop drinking or attend A.A. meetings. However, he was spellbound as Mort recounted the story his last roaring drunk. Mort explained that, as he understood it, he could not stay sober unless he carried the message to other alcoholics. Would Cliff come to a meeting? Could he help organize one?
    Cliff liked Mort, and more as a favor to him, to help him stay sober, he agreed. Years later, after he had joined A.A. himself, Cliff reflected, “I had no desire to join Alcoholics Anonymous. But I had to see Mort again. He attracted me. And years later, when Bill W. came out with the 11th tradition, I realized how true it was when he said A.A. is a program of attraction rather than promotion.”
    Looking for a meeting place, Mort contacted Dr. Ethel Leonard, who worked with alcoholics and happened to be the house physician at the Hotel Cecil [left, c. 1928] on Main St. in Los Angeles, California. Through Dr. Leonard's assistance, Mort rented a large room on the mezzanine for $5.00 [~$113 in 2025]. This was the first public meeting of A.A. in Los Angeles, held on a Friday at 8 p.m. in March 1940. It was open to anyone who desired to stop drinking. Ted LeBerthon, a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, wrote about the meeting in his column, noting that it was held in the heart of Skid Row.
    “I chose this location,” Mort J. later recalled, “because the price was right, and there was a good psychological reason for holding a meeting down there because I knew it would show us where we were headed unless we did something about it—that was our destination, Skid Row, the drunk tank, sleeping in the alleys and under the bridges, winos, dead men…”
    Besides Mort and Cliff, about 10 other men attended—men who had failed to sober up at Johnny Howe’s classes or Kaye Miller’s meetings earlier that year. Mort urged them to give A.A. another chance.
    Mort didn’t know how to run an A.A. meeting. There was no coffee, no doughnuts; all he had was his copy of Alcoholics Anonymous. He opened the meeting by stating that he had not had a drink in five months. He asked if anyone would read a few pages. When no one volunteered, Mort opened the book to Chapter 5 and began reading, “Rarely have we seen a person fail…”
    Thus began the practice of reading a portion of Chapter 5, which eventually spread throughout A.A.

March 8 in A.A. History

1862: At age 26, Jeremiah “Jerry” McAuley [right] was released from Sing Sing Prison after receiving a pardon from New York Governor Horatio Seymour. He initially sought connection with Christians, but he found their faith “wavering, unstable, half-and-half” which “staggered” him. The lessons he learned during the 10 years after his release would profoundly shape his approach when he founded the first rescue mission in North America in 1872.

1944: In an article titled “The Church and the Alcoholic” [left] published in The Christian Century, Rev. Alson Jesse Smith^*, he likened Alcoholics Anonymous to a call made by Sebastian Franck^† in his 1531 book, Von dem greulichen Laster der Trunkenheit (The Horrible Vice of Drunkenness) [right]. Franck wrote, 

    It [drinking or drunkenness] is too deeply rooted and sin has become a habit. All would have to be reborn and receive new heads. Yes, a new world would have to come.

    Smith argued that A.A. offers such “new heads.” Until now, Franck’s book had been an obscure work on the topic of drunkenness.

---

^*Alson Smith [left, c. 1936] was a liberal independent scholar, a Methodist Episcopal minister, and a freelance journalist who had been reporting on the far right since the 1930s.

^†Sebastian Franck [right] (20 Jan 1499–c. 1543) was a 16th-century German freethinker, humanist, and radical reformer. Despite being an ordained priest, he combined the humanist's passion for freedom with the mystic's devotion to the religion of the spirit, and came to believe that God communicates with individuals through a portion of the divine remaining in each human being. He dismissed the human institution of the church and claimed that theology could not properly claim to give expression to this inner word of God in the heart of the believer. For example, he wrote, “To substitute Scripture for the self-revealing Spirit is to put the dead letter in the place of the living Word…” and “God is an unutterable sigh, lying in the depths of the heart,” which Ludwig Feuerbach called “the most remarkable, the profoundest, truest expression of Christian Mysticism.”

March 7 in A.A. History

1940: The first meeting of the Philadelphia Group of A.A. was held at the home of George “Bud” S. [right: Bud’s high school yearbook photo], located at 1212 Arrott^* Street [left] in Northeast Philadelphia. Bill and Lois W., and 15 others, attended this open meeting.

---

^*While all sources mention Arnott Street, no such street exists in Philadelphia. The closest street name is Arrott, which is ¾ mile (1.2 km) long, running between the 4600 and 4700 blocks from Frankford Avenue northwest to Adams Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. The 1940 Census records confirm that 1212 Arrott Street was the residence of George and Laura S.

1941: Ruth Hock [left], National Secretary for the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City, responded to a letter from Dale A.  [right] of Seattle, Washington just four days after he wrote it. She recommended that Dale contact Dave W., also of Seattle, with whom she had been corresponding for nearly a year. Ruth suggested that they start an Alcoholics Anonymous group in Seattle. Dave and two others soon did, though Dale was not among them. Dale would attend his first A.A. meeting in July and soon after establish a meeting in his home. Later, he would be recognized by many as the founding father of Seattle A.A.

2002: Clinton “Duke” Paddock, 98, died in Jacksonville, Florida [right: gravestone]. A pioneerng member of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio, he played a key role in establishing A.A. in Toledo, Ohio.

March 6 in A.A. History

1940: The Alcoholic Foundation responded to Margaret D. of Seattle, Washington, who had written to them about her husband on February 11, nearly a month earlier. She would later play a role—though details are scarce—in the establishment of Seattle’s first A.A. group.

1942: In a letter to the Adjutant General of the U.S. Army, Bill W. requested a commission “as a procurement or quartermaster officer, or to engage in some form of intelligence or morale work.” Bill [left] cited his service “in the World War [I] as an artillery officer” and his employment from 1920 to 1924 in “the insurance department of The New York Central Railroad” and at “The U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co.... as a criminal investigator.” He described his road travels from 1925 to 1930, often with Lois, as an independent field investigator “of large industrial companies, a role that, he detailed, demanded specific skills and knowledge and provided him with an “income [that] ranged from $5,000 to $20,000 [~$92,600–388,000 in 2026] annually.” Summarizing his pre-A.A. period, Bill noted, “From 1931 to 1934 my earning power was poor due to depression and other causes.”
    In 1934, his “interest in the cure of alcoholism... resulted in my becoming the founder of... Alcoholics Anonymous, which has since made possible the recovery of some 5000 cases of alcoholism of the most acute kind.” He predicted that A.A. “will probably clear up some 5000 new cases during the current year” and noted that A.A. was “nationally known through much newspaper and magazine publicity” and “enjoys the highest medical standing as well.” His added that his book, Alcoholics Anonymous, “earns him about $7000 [~$139,000 in 2026] annually.” He also noted, “In addition, I have handled the public relations of [A.A.]..., have done a very large amount of personal work with individuals, and am an experienced public speaker.”
    Finally, he provided four business references—Frank Shaw, Dick Johnson (of Greenshields & Co.), Clayton Quaw (of Quaw & Foley), and Rudolph Eberstadt—and two personal references: Willard Richardson and John Wood, the lawyer who had established the Alcoholic Foundation and both non-alcoholic Alcoholic Foundation Trustees.

1948: During the Nevada-Northern California A.A. Conference, the San Francisco Examiner published an interview [right] with Bill W. The article, titled “AA Founder Tells Effort To Rescue Young Drinkers,” was subtitled “Alcohol Addicts Must Have Real Desire To Help Selves, ‘Bill’ Says in S. F.”

March 5 in A.A. History

1870: Emily Ella Griffith [left, c. 1905], who would become Bill W.’s mother, was born in East Dorset, Vermont, to Ella Brock and Gardner Fayette Griffith. The second of three children, her birth is documented in the 1870 U.S. Census, which lists her name as “Jane” and her age as “3/12” of a year. This census data was recorded on June 25, when she was three months and twenty days old.

1941: After reading Jack Alexander’s article, “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others,” in The Saturday Evening Post, Robert M. MacW. wrote [right: letter] to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City from his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, saying,

    Am greatly impressed with the working of this group[.] And would appetite [sic] any information you may be able to furnish me as to whether there is such a group organized in Pittsburgh, their address, or the requirements of organizing such a group.

    The Alcoholic Foundation would reply eight days later.

1941: The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, took place at the Jacoby Club [left], located at 115 Newbury St., in the office of Dr. Lawrence M. Hatlestad, the club's non-alcoholic assistant secretary.
    In June 1940, Dr. Hatlestad had written to the Alcoholic Foundation, stating that he had read “your splendid book Alcoholics Anonymous” and declaring, “You have come upon something of real merit.” He noted that his club shared similar objectives and that some of its members were alcoholics who had stopped drinking. He expressed his eagerness to connect with A.A. members in Boston.
    Following the publication of Jack Alexander’s article in The Saturday Evening Post, Ruth Hock compiled a list of 31 inquiries from the Boston area to be contacted. Paddy K., who had been in contact with Ruth and Bill W. since 1939, had been trying to establish an A.A. meeting in Boston since as early as 13 November 1940. When Ruth was unable to locate Paddy, she sent the list to Dr. Hatlestad. Upon Paddy’s reappearance, something of a row ensured, partly due to the Jacoby Club’s willingness to accept outside contributions.
    Bill would travel to Boston “to straighten things out,” but ultimately, A.A. was banned from using the Club’s facilities.

1943: In his column for the Minneapolis Star-Journal, “In This Corner,” prominent local columnist Cedric Adams  [right] significantly boosted the profile of the local Alcoholics Anonymous when he wrote, in part, the following [left: full column]:

    Two years ago, this corner carried a simple announcement that A.A. was being launched in this area. From an initial membership of three, the group has grown to more than two hundred.

1945: In a short item titled “Alcoholics on the Air,” Time magazine reported on Detroit radio broadcasts of A.A. speakers on a program called “The Crutch” [left: WWJ broadcast tower, built in 1936]. The article appeared in the RADIO subsection of the ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT section [right: magazine cover, the item, highlighted in yellow]. The text of the item read:

    One of Detroit’s citizens stepped up to the microphone one night last week and told how he had “hit bottom” as an alcoholic. To underline his confession, some of the more melodramatic and sordid aspects of his past were dramatized. Then he told of his regeneration. Summed up the announcer: “Alcoholism is a disease … an obsession… an allergy.…”
    The man who “hit bottom” was the first in a parade of anonymous Detroiters who will describe their alcoholic pasts over WWJ every other Saturday (11:15-11:30 p.m., E.W.T.). The series is the first sustained air flight of the famed organization called “Alcoholics Anonymous.”
    Detroit A.A.s give credit for the broadcast project to 62-year-old William Edmund Scripps [a noted aviator], big boss of the Detroit News and WWJ. He was so impressed by A.A.'s reformation of a drunkard friend that he decided to do what he could to boost the organization's Detroit membership (now nearly 400).