August in A.A. History—day unknown

In 1919, Bill and Lois W. set off on a month-long walking tour, covering several hundred miles from Portland, Maine, through New Hampshire, to Rutland, Vermont. Lois encouraged this journey to give them time to think and to help Bill get off the booze.
    After leaving the Army, Bill struggled to adjust to civilian life, where drinking was typically reserved for evenings and weekends and moderation was expected. He faced the challenge of finding a job that required him to do the same thing during the same hours at the same time in the same place every day. He decoded cablegrams [below left: coded cablegram, 1917] for an exporter, clerked [below center: office workers, 1920] in the insurance department of the New York Central Railroad for Lois’s sister Barbara’s fiancé, and later worked for the railroad again, driving spikes [below right: pier construction] into planks on a pier. None of these jobs lasted long; he either quit or was fired from each job. 
    To calm his nerves and to escape into dreams of glory, Bill increasingly turned to alcohol, as he had done in the Army. However, now feeling sorry for himself, he also drank to nurse his resentments, often pushing himself to drink until closing time, which sometimes led to vomiting and blackouts.

 

In 1937, Bill and Lois W. [right] and other members of their small band of recovering alcoholics stopped attending meetings of the Oxford Group (OG) in New York City. 

    OG members had criticized Bill for working only with alcoholics, describing both Bill and Lois as “not maximum”—the ultimate OG put-down—and leaders had forbidden alcoholics staying at Calvary Rescue Mission from attending “drunk squad” meetings at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn. This happened while Sam Shoemaker [left] was on vacation.

    Similarly, in Akron, Ohio, OG members who were not part of the “alcoholic squadron” criticized OG meetings led by T. Henry and Clarace Williams [right] for focusing too much on helping alcoholics. This marked the beginning of A.A.’s separation from outside affiliation and laid the groundwork for Tradition Six. Nevertheless, the Akron “alcoholic squadron” would remain affiliated with the OG for more than two years. 

 

 

In 1939, Herbert “Bert” T. [left], a member of A.A. in New York City, pledged his fashionable 5th Ave. tailor shop—already heavily mortgaged due to his drinking—as collateral for a $1,000 [~$23,000 in 2025] loan to Works Publishing.
    Bill W. was desperate to keep the business afloat until the article “Alcoholics and God,” edited by Fulton Oursler, was published in Liberty magazine. To secure the funds, Bert reached out to a wealthy client, a Mr. Cochran, in Baltimore, Maryland, who was sympathetic to A.A. Bert explained the situation and requested a loan. Cochran hesitated. When Bert suggested that he buy stock in Works Publishing, Cochran expressed even more doubt and, after reviewing the balance sheet, declined the offer. Finally, Bert proposed co-signing a loan, which Cochran enthusiastically accepted. 

    Bill later wrote, “This probably saved the book company.” The magazine article would be published on September 30 [right: magazine cover]; it would generate 800 inquiries and result in sufficient book sales to sustain Works Publishing through 1939. Unfortunately, Bert’s tailor shop would go broke within a year or two.[Some sources date this loan to December 6, but that date makes no sense.] 

August 16 in A.A. History

In 1939 [Aug 18?], Dr. Robert “Bob” S. [right] and Sister Ignatia [left] (née Bridget Della Mary Gavin) facilitated the first admission of an alcoholic to St. Thomas Hospital [below right] in Akron, Ohio, using Dr. Bob’s diagnostic guise of “acute gastritis.”

     At that time, alcoholism was viewed as a moral failing rather than a disease, leading hospitals to generally deny admission to alcoholics due to a policy of “not treating drunks.” In fact, Sister Ignatia later vividly recalled a day when she had come…

    … to the [hospital’s] Chapel for prayer shortly after five one morning, only to be met by the night supervisor, who told me in unmistakable terms that the next time I admitted a D.T. [delirium tremens case] to the hospital, I had better stay up all night and run around the corridors after him.

    The first patient admitted was Walter B. “a notorious alcoholic and a regular consumer of paregoric.” His story, “The Back-Slider,” would later appear in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, as would that of his non-alcoholic wife, Marie, titled “An Alcoholic’s Wife.”
    This marked the beginning of the partnership between Dr. Bob and Sister Ignatia at St. Thomas, which became the first religious institution to welcome Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.). It would eventually have an entire wing dedicated to the treatment of alcoholism. Sister Ignatia later said, “I was pretty well governed by whatever Doctor said as to the length of the stay and type of treatment.” Dr. Bob, however, could never remember the hospital's policy, nor did he ever ask. Before his death in 1950, he and Sister Ignatia had cared for 4,800 alcoholics. A similar arrangement was made by the New York City group with Knickerbocker Hospital, but not until 1945.
    Initially, Sister Ignatia had no idea that Dr. Bob was a recovering alcoholic himself. However, he would later disclose his own past problems with alcohol and his recent recovery.

In 1987, Russian alcoholics established “Московские Начинающие” (Moscow Beginners), the first official Alcoholics Anonymous group in Russia [left: Moscow, 1987].

August 15 in A.A. History

In 1890, Elvin Morton “Bunky” Jellinek [right, 1920s] was born in New York City to a Hungarian father, Markus Erwin Marcel Jellinek, a merchant and descendant of the notable Jellinek family of Budapest, and an American mother, Rose Jacobson, best known as the opera singer Marcella Lindh.
    When he was five, his family relocated to Hungary, where he attended elementary and high school in Budapest, graduating with honors in 1908. He attended—it is unclear whether he enrolled—universities in various cities, including Leipzig, Berlin, and Grenoble, focusing on philosophy, ethnography, psychoanalysis, and cultural anthropology. However, it appears he never received a degree or doctorate, only honorary appointments.

    His time in Hungary ended under dramatic circumstances, marked by an arrest warrant issued in four languages. Although the details are unclear, reports suggested he embezzled half a billion koronas (crowns) [left: 1,000 kr note, 1920], which today would be about $1.3 million US. He was forced to leave the country in 1920, and sensational newspaper articles were published about him, with the arrest warrant remaining active for ten years.

    The next decade of his life is practically undocumented. He may have worked for a shipping company in Sierra Leone under the alias Nikita Hartmann, and records from his daughter imply that he engaged in barter and cooking during his time in Africa. After 1926, Jellinek moved to Honduras, where he worked as an agricultural engineer for United Fruit Company and later became its director of research there. By 1929, he had arrived in the U.S., working in the banana company’s Boston office, where he completed a book on banana diseases published under a name like “A. N. Hartman” or “Nikita Hartmann” [right: cover of Banana Growth and Fruiting: A Popular Summary, by A. N. Hartman, which researchers say “is a somewhat abridged and less technical version of earlier publications”].

    Jellinek spent the first nine years of his American life at Worcester Hospital [left, 2007], primarily working with schizophrenic patients. He contributed to a vast collection of over 500 million data points, which formed the basis for a five-point schizophrenia rating scale.

    In 1939, he shifted his focus to alcoholism at New York University’s medical schools, where he was tasked with collecting and organizing previously published works on alcohol. This scientific review laid the groundwork for the professional literature collection now at Rutgers University (moved there from the Yale Institute of Alcohol Studies in 1962). Jellinek emerged as a prominent figure in alcoholology, culminating in an award named in his honor—one of the most prestigious recognitions in the field. He also became a practicing biostatistician, physiologist, and alcoholism researcher, fluent in nine languages and proficient in four others.

He wrote The Disease Concept of Alcoholism [left: cover, 1st ed., 1st pr.] and created a table [right, Aug 1952], illustrating the progression of alcoholism from “occasional relief drinking” to “obsessive drinking continues in vicious circles.” It would be converted to a curve named after Jellinek, even though he disavowed it. Dr. Max Glatt [left, 1990] modified it [right] in 1958 to include a recovery element, it remains popularly known as the “Jellinek Curve.” Over the years, it has been adapted for various forms of addiction and continues to be widely referenced today.

In 1938 [16th?], Archibald “Archie” T. [right], who would have his last drink on September 3rd, later spoke about his activities in the days leading up to that day:

No money. No place to live. No help. No morale left. No will to live left. That was my condition in the Summer of 1938. It caused me to park myself on an unsuspecting friend whose family were out of town and who didn’t know much about my career for the past, or previous, several years and he unwittingly invited me to stay in his home because I was homeless. He had me on his hands for 19 days. Every one of those days I was drunk, continuously. I would come home and sleep off the effects of several hours of drinking, crawl out of bed and go back to the saloon and get drunk again. I managed in that cagey way that alcoholics have, of avoiding him pretty well. Or at least I thought I did. In fact, I was quite sure in my alcoholic way that he didn’t even know I drank. 

In 1940, Clinton “Duke” P. of Toledo, Ohio, was admitted to Akron City Hospital with a diagnosis of “acute gastritis.” Akron’s A.A. members visited him there and he sobered up, never to drink again. 

In 1941, the Cuyahoga Central Committee of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) held its second meeting, with the notice written by Chairman Clarence S. [left]:

    Being mindful of the need and usefulness of a central committee, our two meetings have been marked by an outstanding atmosphere of fine fellowship and co-operation between the groups. We have had excellent attendance and much interest is being shown by all committee members in the furtherance of our fellowship.

    At the first meeting held five months earlier, attendees had voted to establish a Central Committee. During this meeting, Clarence was ousted as chairperson due to lingering mistrust stemming from a series on A.A. published by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Clarence referred to this upheaval as a “revolution,” and, as a result, little else was accomplished.

    During the second meeting, three committees were formed: Entertainment, chaired by Albert “Abby” G. [right]; Finance, chaired by Wm. “Bill” H.; and Hospital, chaired by H. L. M. Each committee comprised six members from various groups in the Cleveland area. Committee members were to serve a term of three months, or until the chairman’s term expires, or until the chairman replaced them.
    One of Clarence’s ideas, borrowed from Abby, was the “rotation” of officers, intended to ensure an equal and representative voice within the fellowship. Additionally, the meeting introduced the “new A.A. Pamphlets.” Mitchell K., Clarence’s biographer, believed these pamphlets were likely similar in content to earlier articles from the Houston Press, written by Larry J., whom Clarence sponsored before he moved to Texas and helped start A.A. there.

August in A.A. History—day unknown

In 1907, Bill Wilson’s grandfather, Fayette Griffith [left], who, along with his wife Ella, had been raising Bill and his sister Dorothy for about a year, offhandedly remarked to 11-year-old Bill [right], “It’s an odd thing, I’ve been reading a good deal about Australia lately and no one seems to know why Australians are the only people in the world who are able to make a boomerang.”

    Bill was taken aback. “The only people?”
    The following day, Bill borrowed two books about Australia from the library. That night, he went to bed with the second volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which featured several columns on the history, uses, and design of a boomerang.
    On Saturday, he visited a local French woodcutter and spent the entire afternoon talking to him. This led to more books and conversations with other Frenchmen about the types of wood best suited for shaping a weapon three feet long and weighing no more than eight ounces [~227 g].
    As summer turned to fall, every scrap of paper in the house was covered with diagrams and calculations. Bill spent increasing amounts of time in the shed next to the house, where the sounds of sawing, carving, and whittling became constant. What had begun as a mere interest evolved into an obsession. Chores were neglected, the cow was never milked on time, eggs were seldom collected, and in November, a note arrived from Miss Milot, his teacher. She expressed her concern: Bill was failing all his classes.
    Now his grandmother was worried. She believed it was plain silly and unnatural. After reading some of his books, she concluded that a returning boomerang was no toy; it was a deadly weapon that could harm both the thrower and the target. She spoke sternly to Willie, as they affectionately called him, as did his grandfather.
    Fayette nodded, agreeing to talk to the boy, but believed the time to worry would be when Bill decided to give up and admit failure.

 

In 1918, while his artillery regiment was delayed outside Winchester, Hampshire, England, by a minor epidemic among the troops, Bill Wilson [left: in France] walked alone to Winchester Cathedral. In his so-called “Original Story”—which is actually his second draft of “Bill’s Story”—he would describe what happened:

    I stood in Winchester Cathedral the day before crossing [into France] with head bowed, for something had touched me then I had never felt before. I had been wondering, in a rare moment of sober reflection, what sense there could be to killing and carnage of which I was soon to become an enthusiastic part. Where could the Deity be—could there be such a thing—Where now was the God of the preachers, the thought of which used to make me so uncomfortable when they talked about him. Here I stood on the edge of the abyss into which thousands were falling that very day. A feeling of despair settled down on me—where was He—why did he not come—and suddenly in that moment of darkness, He was there. I felt an all enveloping, comforting, powerful presence. Tears stood in my eyes, and as I looked about, I saw on the faces of others nearby, that they too had glimpsed the great reality. Much moved, I walked out into the Cathedral yard, where I read the following inscription on a tombstone [right]. “Here lies a Hampshire Grenadier, Who caught his death drinking small good beer—A good soldier is ne’er forgot, whether he dieth by musket or by pot.” A squadron of bombers swept overhead in the bright sunlight, and I cried to myself “Here’s to adventure” and the feeling of being in the great presence disappeared, never to return for many years. 

August 13 in A.A. History

In 1944, the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California, published an article [right] titled “Famous Organization of Rehabilitated Alcoholics Has 100 Members Here,” highlighting the success of Alcoholics Anonymous in Southern California. 

August 12 in A.A. History

In 1918, Bill W. arrived in Nexon, France, with his unit, Company C of the 66th Coastal Artillery Corps, U.S. Army. They were scheduled to remain there for training until September 27 [right: Company C soldiers at Chalus, France, 1918].

In 1958, Bill W. replied to a letter from Howard:

Dear Howard,
    Thanks deeply for your highly interesting letter of July 29th. I was thrilled by your account of the Old Timers meeting with the vast sobriety record that it portended. And also your observations on our 50%-25%-25% claim.^*
    I think you have something when you say that perhaps we give false hope to the newcomer by those figures. Actually, those figures have never been intended to apply to all drunks who come within range of A.A. and attend a meeting or so. They apply to those who really come in and take the treatment over a considerable period of time. On that narrow classification, I think the figures will stand up. In Philadelphia, for example, they kept records for a very long time, accurate ones. Not too long ago they case up figures on old timers which seemed to prove our claimed percentages. When the new edition of the A.A. book came out, the same thing happened. The story-tellers had better than the claimed percentage. So I think it ought to be emphasized with each newcomer that his chances are just as the figures say, provided he will jump into A.A. and is willing and capable of working at it.
    There is another angle, too. As you say, an awful lot of these people get hospitalized, attend a few meetings and then disappear. What becomes of them?
    Probably you've heard me tell the story about a group of 75 of these people that Lois and I once picked out of old address books from the very early days. Over the years, we located more than 60 of them. The 60 had returned to A.A. and most of them had made the grade. Some had been drunk 3, 5, 7, and 10 years. Finally, they were driven back on the do-or-die basis and really got the pitch. So our over-all claims are not excessive in my judgment.
    At the office, they continue to get wonderful reports of the change in feeling in your area about the Third Legacy, General Headquarters, and even about me! It is one of the most comforting and gratifying happenings that I can remember in my long A.A. live [sic]. Again, Howard, many thanks to you and to all those who have made this possible.
    Devotedly,
    Bill

---

^*See “Foreword to Second Edition,” Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition, p. xx.

August 11 in A.A. History

In 1937, Paul [right] and Hildreth S. from Akron, Ohio, arrived in Brooklyn for a visit with Bill and Lois W. They would leave on 15 August.

In 1938, the Trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation—Frank Amos [far left], Willard Richardson [center left], and Bill R. [near left]—held their first meeting. John Wood was unable to attend; Dr. Bob S.^* had sent a handwritten proxy letter authorizing Richardson to vote on his behalf, adding, “I instruct him, however, to vote for Mr. Frank B. Amos for Treasurer of said Foundation.”
    The six-day delay in officially establishing the Foundation was due to the time it took to mail the “Trust Indenture” document to Dr. Bob for his signature and notarization, which occurred on the 10th. The signed package from Dr. Bob arrived in New York City on the meeting date.
    

The Trustees met at the Honors Dealers office on the 6th floor of 17 Williams St. in Newark, New Jersey, where Ruth Hock [right], a secretary at Honor Dealers at the time, provided administrative assistance. At this first meeting, Frank Amos asked Hank P. to provide an update on their progress. Hank reported the following statistics on the “Eastern Section”:

    41    alcoholics recovered (“Definite on the ball” per Hank)
      6    alcoholics in the questionable class
    12    hopeless alcoholics (“so difficult practically denied” per Hank)
    10    alcoholics recovered but out of touch
    25    prospects 

     The Foundation and its office would eventually be known as the General Service Board and General Service Office, respectively. Ruth Hock would later become A.A.’s first National Secretary.

---

^*Dr. Bob did not attend any of the official Board of Trustees meetings during the critical period of 1938.

August 10 in A.A. History

In 1940, with the outbreak of World War II, Cmdr. Junious C. [left] was recalled to the Navy to serve as the First Executive Officer in charge of the Aviation Trades Schools at the soon-to-be-commissioned Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida [right, 1943].

    An Annapolis graduate from the Class of 1918 and a native of McComb, Mississippi, he had retired to Pasadena, California. One reason for his early retirement had been his excessive drinking. In Pasadena, his wife, Marie, had learned about a new organization called Alcoholics Anonymous and reached out to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City for assistance. Ruth Hock provided her with the address of the Los Angeles Group, where Marie bought a copy of the Big Book. Junious found sobriety in the Los Angeles group and maintained it for several months, eventually becoming a key figure in the establishment of A.A. in Florida.

In 2015, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the birth of E. M. “Bunky” Jellinek [left], Judit Hajnal Ward posted an editorial in the Jellinek Special Anniversary issue of the Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS) Information Services Newsletter. Co-authored by Judit H. Ward and William Bejarano, the piece was posted to the “Secrets from the Past” blog within the Rutgers University Alcohol Studies Archive. It included the following reflection:

    In remembrance of Jellinek, the first questions should be, as suggested by Thelma Pierce Anderson, Jellinek’s ex-wife, 

    Which Jellinek are we talking about? Bunky, the man? Bunky, the scientist? Bunky, the humanitarian? Bunky, the screwball? Bunky, the kind? the ruthless? the genius? (Anderson to Keller, August 22, 1984)

    This special issue of the Center of Alcohol Studies Information Services Newsletter aims to present Jellinek’s colorful personality through his own words, deeds, and scholarship, coupled with thoughts and opinions from some leaders of the field. Our goal is to show that Jellinek was everything but the average researcher. Letters, memories, and articles (by him and about him) outline a controversial scholar. He might have been scorned by many and idolized by others, but no one could just ignore him and what he did, whether as a charming gambler in Hungary or an alcohol scientist in the United States.
E. M. Jellinek more than others, saw “the big picture” regarding what was necessary to establish a beachhead for mainstream science’s cultural “ownership” of the nation’s alcohol-related concerns in the post-Repeal period. (Roizen, 2014, p. 78)

[Below: two illustrations from the article—left: timeline of Jellinek's life; right: highlights Jellinek’s work from the 2014th [sic] SALIS conference]

August 9 in A.A. History

In 1943 [This event is frequently cited as having taken place in 1890!], The Los Angeles Times reported [left] that 400 members of Alcoholics Anonymous attended an annual picnic at Sycamore Grove Park [right, 1937] the day before. These attendees represented 11 groups, totaling around 1,000 members. During the picnic, it was announced that Bill W. would be visiting for two months, beginning in early October.

Supporting A.A. in Ukraine

[Note that this post was written in March 2022, shortly after the full-scale invasion of the Ukraine by the Russian Federation.]

An A.A. friend sent me a very well-done flyer for an online A.A. meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine. It's shown to the left, but I've removed the Meeting ID and Passcode; I don't want to make it that  easy to attend. When I first saw it, I thought, "I only wish that we could do something similar for all the Russian alcoholics, who must also be terribly distressed at this time" (especially those in the Russian military).

This flyer was immediately followed by a less well-done message, shown below, purporting to be from "Ukrainian AA Service Center and the Ukrainian AA Service Board" to "the AA World Community." I was skeptical. This looked so much like a myth that I expected to find it debunked at Snopes ("the internet’s definitive fact-checking resource"). I did not. But I did find an article titled, "UKRAINE: New Crisis, Grimly Familiar Disinformation Trends", which said, in part, 

It is a grim measure of the frequency of crisis events in recent years, and the ubiquity of online disinformation, that when a major story breaks — a terrorist attack, a mass shooting, or an act of war — the writers and editors at Snopes can typically predict what comes next. Recycled videos and photographs, stripped from their proper context, and the same old tropes, all designed to inflame or confuse, or even amuse, the reader.

This is followed by a "grim overview of the familiar disinformation trends and recurring memes… in the opening days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine."

But, as I said, I only later looked on Snopes. First I searched the Internet. To my surprise, I immediately got a hit that looked very promising. It was on the aa.lviv.ua website and looked like this:

Since I don't know what I presumed was Ukrainian, and not having much patience, I immediately had the page automatically translated into English. It is indeed Ukrainian, and here's the English translation I got:

It was only later that I noticed that an English translation of the message follows the Ukrainian on the original, one click further down. I felt stupid and impatient for not looking.

Ultimately, I decided I'd check into the Kyiv online meeting and see if there was some way I could be helpful. I tried to log in a few minutes before it was to start. Due to the meeting having reached capacity, it was impossible to get in. It then occurred to me, If I'm having this much trouble getting in, there are probably Ukrainians who are also unable to get in. It horrified me to think that I could have had a part in disrupting their meeting. If, by some miracle, I had been able to get in, I sure hope I would have realized that the meeting was at capacity and left. But even if I had, my spot would have been filled by a non-Ukrainian.

I tried joining after the meeting was over. It was bedlam. It appeared that most people were unmuted and there were multiple conversations going on at the same time. I saw one man, who appeared to be that single Ukrainian member. He appeared to be quite stressed out. I also saw some A.A.friends of mine, which was disappointing. I only stayed a minute. The last thing they needed at that point was yet one more non-Ukrainian A.A. to join the fray.

Tonight, I learned from a reliable source that only one of the seven or eight regular Ukrainian group members was able to get into the meeting (presumably, the Zoom host). No doubt, many of the attendees had good intentions, although I'm also pretty sure some did not. Clearly, many also didn't think through the consequences of their actions.

And then, very late last night, My friend said that another friend of hers had found a Facebook post about the A.A. meeting in Kyiv earlier, shown at the left. It was so disheartening to read. Yes, many non-Ukrainians—maybe hundreds of them—got to feel good for a minute. Meanwhile, seven or eight locals never got to their meeting.

God As We Understand Him?

 I recently read Bill W.'s essay, “God As We Understand Him: The Dilemma of No Faith”, in The Language of the Heart (originally published as “The Dilemma of No Faith” in the April 1961 issue of the A.A. Grapevine). He begins this essay by saying, “The phrase ‛God As We Understand Him’ is perhaps the most important expression to be found in our whole AA vocabulary.”

For a long time, I've been vaguely uncomfortable with this wording, even though I knew what it meant the first time I heard it. In the last few years, but not in my early sobriety, I've sometimes heard newcomers asking about this expression, “How can anyone understand God?”  in a way that led me to think that perhaps this was an impediment for them. I realized my discomfort is just that. Perhaps understanding is not the best word. I think “God As We Conceive of God” is closer to the intended meaning. It will be interesting to see how the proposed plain language Big Book^* (i.e., Alcoholics Anonymous) will deal with this phrase. If at all.

---

^* If you don't know what this is or what it means, check out Advisory Action #28 (on p 7) in this document: Conference Advisory Actions of the 71st General Service Conference, a list of all such actions adopted at the 71st General Service Conference last April.

19,560 days

Yes, I am still sober, still above ground. My posts slowed down drastically and then stopped altogether because I feared it would become too easy to identify who I was from my posts, due to circumstances of my life. Already, my brother had figured out this was me. For those who don't realize it, I was doing my best to respect Tradition 12. My brother already knew I was a deeply involved member of A.A.

Future posts will probably be less personal, on the whole. I hope this is, at least in part, because I have less interest in myself and more interest in others [v. Alcoholics Anonymous, p 84].

A.A. in these times of pandemic has been a great experience for me personally. Since mid-March 2020, I've attended online meetings on every continent that has them (Antarctica does not, due to insufficient bandwidth). I've been regularly attending meetings all over the US and Canada, as well as in Australia and South Africa. It has also become much easier to find workshops, conventions, conferences, and meetings that focus on topics like Traditions, Concepts, The A.A. Service Manual, and A.A. history. These are topics that I love learning about. I've been sober almost 29 years, been involved in General Service for 25½ of those years, but I sometimes think I've learned more about General Service in the last 16 months than in all the time before. Maybe not. Maybe it just feels that way.

Eighteen years

Still here, still sober, even if I'm not posting. Yesterday I celebrated 18 years of continuous sobriety.

Seventeen years

Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of my first A.A. meeting, which marked the beginning of my current spell of continuous sobriety. I can't say I celebrated, because I was too busy doing things that are little more than the blessings of a sober life:

• Took my car in to have the oil changed and the engine light checked—I not only have a driver's license, I also have a car
• Worked—I am employable today
• Chaired a meeting of the local chapter of a professional organization—not only employed, but on the Board of Directors and also Program Chair
• Attended a funeral

The funeral, ironically enough, was for Bumblebee, someone I sponsored for a while. I suspect I was his last sponsor. I hadn't seem him in at least a year, and sometimes wondered if he named me when asked if he had a sponsor. Then I would wonder if he was even making meetings.

Apparently not. He was definitely out there. He committed suicide by stabbing himself to death in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived. In the femoral artery. Thank you, Bumblebee, for keeping it green for me on my anniversary.

Tonight I will celebrate with dinner and a meeting! Praise HP, from whom all blessings flow!

Is A.A. a religion?

On 17 March 2009, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in an appeal of the case of Glenside Center, Inc. [a clubhouse hosting meetings of various twelve-step programs] v. Abington Township. A lower court had found that the Glenside Center violated local zoning laws, after the Township received numerous complaints regarding an "adverse parking situation" that "made driving difficult and dangerous and prevented emergency traffic from getting through." There were also complaints about "urinating in public, using obscene language and trash which had been left by members attending meetings." Excessive noise and loitering are also mentioned in the opinion. (Clearly demonstrating the danger of these kinds of totally inappropriate, inconsiderate and non-sober behavior at any A.A. meeting.)

The appeal was on the basis of four issues, namely that the Zoning Board:

1. had incorrectly found that the use of the building did not meet the requirement of being primarily used as an "office,"
2. had denied the clubhouse its rights under RLUIPA¹,
3. had violated the clubhouse's right to free exercise of religion by determining that the clubhouse was a "Community Center," and
   
4. had failed to prove a compelling governmental interest and had failed to use the least restrictive means to further that interest.
   

My interest is only in the 2^nd and 3^rd issues insofar as they relate to whether or not A.A. can legally be considered a religion. In its opinion, the Court essentially determined that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion:

Glenside argues... it is a protected entity under RLUIPA because its activities are a religious exercise.... Glenside argues that AA is not a religion, but its activities and programs constitute a free exercise of religion under RLUIPA. It contends that the 12-step program that AA follows is certainly based upon a belief in a higher power, and various AA members testified that they found a connection with God by attending AA meetings. Glenside directs our attention to a New York Court of Appeals case, Griffin v. Coughlin,... which held that an AA meeting constituted an exercise of religion.

The Board, however, argues and we agree that Glenside presents no binding authority for its proposition that an AA meeting is a religious exercise as that term is used in RLUIPA.² Glenside failed to prove that any of the meetings are administered by a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader. Glenside does not hold any religious services or have any religious affiliations. Its Articles of Incorporation state nothing about being incorporated for a religious purpose, but only to assist people in recovering from addiction. Similarly, Glenside’s printed materials state that Glenside is not a religious organization and do not require that members possess any religious belief to participate. While Glenside argues that members have found a connection with God at its meetings, clearly, the primary purpose of the group meetings, whether they be for AA, NA or DA, is to support individuals who are recovering from alcohol, drug, gambling and debtor addictions, not to advance religion. Particularly where AA and NA meetings are concerned, the primary concern of those meetings is to treat substance abuse. Moreover, Glenside and others on its behalf testified that members come from all religious walks of life whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or non-believers in a higher power. The fact that the 12-step program is used and it contains references to “God” and a “Higher Power” does not mean that all members believe that they are partaking in a religious experience when they are attending an AA or NA meeting.

Good for the Court, bad for Glenside Center, Inc. Bad, not because they lost their appeal, but for (1) encouraging the courts to consider A.A. a religion, (2) giving the appearance of violating A.A. tradition of having no opinion on outside issues, and (3) for providing a forum for a number of members of A.A. to violate A.A.'s tradition of anonymity at the level of press, radio and film (not to mention on television and on the Internet).

Glenside Center is not in any sense A.A. or part of A.A. It is a separately organized enterprise with the [presumable] purpose of providing meeting space for various twelve-step organizations. From the point of view of A.A. groups, it is in no respect different from a church, municipal building or community center providing space for meetings—all these entities are nothing more than landlords.

However, I suspect that all the principals of the Glenside Center are members of A.A. As stated in the opinion, many of those who testified on behalf of the Glenside Center are also members of A.A. One was identified by full name as a member of A.A. for 53 years (you'd think he'd know better after that long). The Center's argument included the following:

While AA or its related organizations do not claim to be an established religion, the constituent groups can and have been viewed as engaging in an exercise of religion. The Act broadly defines religious exercise to include "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious beliefs."

I became aware of this ruling when a friend in A.A. sent me a link to an entry about it in a Washington Post blog named "Under God." In it, David Waters argues that the Court made a mistake on the basis of four objections. After each objection, I'll give my objections to Mr Waters' objections.

Objection 1: Any person of faith can be a spiritual leader.

Actually, I would go even further than Mr Waters. Lack of "a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader" should not preclude a gathering from being religious. A prime example would be an unprogrammed meeting for worship of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

Objection 2: Assisting people in recovering from any addiction is a religious (and spiritual) purpose.

Accepting this argument would make every rehab and detox in the U.S. a religious organization. It would also make seeing any health-care practitioner for help with an addiction into a religious activity.

Objection 3: Any group that advances the healing of bodies and souls (and the forgiveness of debts and debtors) also advances religion.

By this argument, entering into any course of psychiatric or psychological therapy, participating in any of numerous self-help organizations or classes, going to see the doctor, going to the gym to work out, or seeking credit counseling would be considered a religious activity. This is patently absurd.

Objection 4: Clearly the court is unaware of the history and purpose of AA.

Clearly Mr Waters is not fully aware of the history and purpose of A.A. Let me address each of the facts he cites in support of his objection.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded as a spiritual program, direct outgrowth of the Oxford Group at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.

True. But it's also true that the Oxford Group (known since 2001 as Initiatives of Change) considered itself non-religious. Furthermore A.A. separated from the Oxford Group at least in part due to the latter's belief that alcoholism was a sin rather than a disease, and to sever what might appear as ties to a Christian organization.

AA meetings include recitations of The Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer.

Actually, this seems to me to be a reasonably good argument. It's one reason I do not participate in saying the Lord's Prayer at meetings. Not all meetings use the Lord's Prayer, though I'd have to say that most in the U.S.³ do. As for the Serenity Prayer, so far as I know, it is not perceived to be associated with Christianity, despite its purported author being a Christian theologian. As insightful as it may be to us drunks, the idea would seem to be quite universal in thought and application among those who consider and practice such things. Indeed, the essential idea can be found in a Mother Goose rhyme:

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

Back to Mr Waters' argument:

"AA indirectly derived much of its inspiration from the Church," Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Church, said in 1955.

Key word: indirectly. I'd say that a huge number of institutions of Western civilization were indirectly derived from Christianity, not the least of which is the United States of America. Furthermore, citing a single person—a non-A.A. member at that—saying this in a single speech is not much of an argument. Bill W., co-founder of A.A. and a much better source to cite, said of the phrase God as we understood him that it was "tremendously important," "a ten-strike," enabling "thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away," opening the door to "those of fine religious training and those of none at all," making "one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society."⁴

AA's Twelve Traditions includes No. 2: "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience." Seven of AA's famous Twelve Steps reference God, including:

• 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
• 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Newcomers to A.A. are commonly encourage to find a power greater than themselves even if that power is nothing more than a doorknob or an ashtray. Many A.A. members attain long-term sobriety using A.A. itself as a higher power (God is sometimes identified as an acronym, standing for "Group of Drunks"). Even casual acquaintance with A.A.'s program makes it clear that this higher power can be of whatever conception one so chooses. See also the quote of Bill W.'s referred to above.

"Would that the Church were like this," Shoemaker said in 1955, "ordinary men and women with great need who have found a great Answer, and do not hesitate to make it known wherever they can - a trained army of enthusiastic, humble, human workers whose efforts make life a different thing for other people!"

Is Mr Waters saying that a non-religious group of people cannot exhibit these same characteristics? I suspect that any number of political activists would be happy with such a description.

If a group that meets under spiritual precepts, performs rituals, and seeks to heal its members isn't religious, what else is it?

Rituals? To what rituals does Mr Waters refer? He hasn't mentioned any up to this point in the article and doesn't mention any after this either. And without rituals, all that's left is a group that uses spiritual precepts and seeks to heal its members. In at least one sense of the word spiritual, a vast number of groups satisfy this description.

Indeed, much of the argument comes down to whether or not there is a difference between spirituality and religion, and what that difference might be. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

spir·i·tu·al
ADJECTIVE:1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. See synonyms at immaterial. 2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul. 3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific. 4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred. 5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

As will be clear to anyone who is familiar with A.A. and its program of recovery, A.A. itself would not accept any definition other than one with the broadest possible meaning. The meaning of A.A. being a spiritual program could be that it is religious to the member who is herself religious. That meaning could be only that it is intangible or immaterial to the member who is himself not religious. A.A. itself doesn't care. A.A. is areligious.

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¹Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act—a federal statute passed in 2000 to provide stronger protection for religious freedom in the land-use and prison contexts.

²The opinion footnotes this sentence with the following:

RLUIPA defines “Religious exercise” as follows:

(A) In general. The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.

(B) Rule. The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

³I know from personal experience that the Lord's Prayer is rarely used in Australia, and that because of this Australian members of A.A. pride themselves on being more consistent with A.A. principles than A.A. in the U.S. is.

⁴Full quote, from A Conversation with Bill W., A Synopsis of the Question-Answer Period following Bill W.'s talk at the NCCA Syposium in New York in 1960:

When these Steps were shown to my friends, their reactions were mixed indeed. Some argued that six steps had worked fine, so why twelve? From our agnostic contingent there were loud cries of too much “God.” Others objected to an expression which I had included which suggested getting on one’s knees while in prayer. I heavily resisted these objections for months. But I finally did my statement about a suitable prayerful posture and finally went along with that now tremendously important expression, “God as we understand Him” — this expression having been coined, I think, by one of our former atheist members. This was indeed a ten-strike. That one has since enabled thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away. It enabled people of fine religious training and those of none at all to associate freely and to work together. It made one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society.

Still above ground and sober

For anyone who's wondering, I'm doing okay. I got elected to another Area office and expect to continue in General Service for another two years. Nimue is divorcing me after nearly three years of separation. Despite that, I feel as good as I have in a long time. Despite some heavy bouts of depression over the last nine months, I recently thought to myself, "Ah, so this is what it feels like not to be depressed! I had forgotten."

Despite the fact that I haven't posted for over nine months, every now and then, someone adds a comment to an old post. This, if nothing else, sporadically reminds me that I'd like to taking up at least semi-regular posting again. Absolutely no promises, we'll see.