September 18 in A.A. History

1929: Nancy C. M. (sometimes identified as Nancy M.-O. since acquiring the name O. during a brief marriage) [right, with sister Jean, c. 1933] was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania.

In 2000, she would found the A.A. History Buffs group on Yahoo, and then relaunch it two years later as the A.A. History Lovers group. These are predecessors to today’s online AAHistoryLovers Google group and AA History Lovers Facebook group.

Nancy would live a distinguished life. She would become a stage actor in Pasadena, California, performing alongside Dustin Hoffman. In 1951, she would become personal secretary to Mortimer Adler, PhD [left, late 1970s–late 1980s] who, with Robert M. Hutchins, created the Chicago Great Books of the Western World series, and would work for him until the mid‑1950s. They would develop a friendship, and Nancy would receive what was effectively a superb graduate‑level education in philosophy and the history of ideas. She would also serve as an aide to Senator Harold E. Hughes of Iowa [near right: Nancy with the Senator, from the cover of her book, mid 1970s], collaborating on alcohol and drug reform legislation. Later, she would write a book about this experience, With a Lot of Help from Our Friends: The Politics of Alcoholism [below, far right: cover], published by iUniverse in 2003.

1946: Alcohólicos Anónimos was founded in Mexico. Days earlier, it had been announced in the pages of El Universal as a “dam against inveterate drunkenness.” The announcement included lines that, when translated into English, read:

The humanitarian work that our honorary consul in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Ricardo (Dick) B. Perez [left], who decided to take advantage of his vacations in Mexico to found in our country a branch of the association “AA” (Alcoholics Anonymous), it seems that it will bear fruit, as it is preparing for next Wednesday the 18th of this year, at 7:00 p.m., an act in the “Teatro del Pueblo” [right: facade, 2009] (attached to Abelardo Rodríguez market) in which Mr. Perez himself will personally give data, reports, as well as guidance.

In 1940, Ricardo had gotten sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio, where he and his wife, Helen, had translated the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, into Spanish.

1947: The Dallas Central Office of Texas held its first board meeting and officially opened for business. At that time, there were only two Alcoholics Anonymous groups in the metropolitan area. The Central Office was located in the Davis Building [left] at 1309 Main St., Dallas, in an old, musty, somewhat cluttered office. Dick P., who had suffered physical effects of poisoning from drinking Jamaica Ginger (“Jake”) [right] during Prohibition, served as the director.

1954: William “Bill” D. [left, with Helen B.], 63, died [right: obituary from unknown newspaper] at Crile Veterans Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, as a result of a heart attack he suffered 11 months earlier. His story, “Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” appears in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. He was buried at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Akron, Ohio. Henrietta would live for another 28 years and 3 days [left: their headstones].

Bill W. would say of Bill D.,

That is, people say he died, but he really didn’t. His spirit and works are today alive in the hearts of uncounted AAs, and who can doubt that Bill already dwells in one of those many mansions in the great beyond.

September 17 in A.A. History

1934: Bill W. [far left] was admitted to Charles B. Towns Hospital [near right] for the third time. His brother-in-law, Dr. Leonard V. Strong [near left], once again paid for his stay. Dr. William D. Silkworth [far right] pronounced Bill hopeless and informed his wife, Lois, that Bill would likely need to be committed. After leaving the hospital, Bill felt broken and scared; he stayed sober for a brief period, driven primarily by his fear of drinking again. Eventually, he found work on Wall Street, which helped him regain some of his confidence, but only briefly.

1968:At the 28th International Congress on Alcohol and Alcoholism in Washington, DC, Dr. Jean-Pierre von Wartburg [left, 1976] of the University of Bern, Switzerland, received the first E. M. Jellinek Memorial Fund Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge on alcohol and alcoholism. Dr. Wartburg had conducted recent experiments that “isolated an abnormal liver enzyme which oxidized alcohol five to six times faster than the normal enzyme in a test tube.” He suspected that the abnormal version of the enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, “may be significant in alcoholism” [right: “Liver Enzyme May Be Drinking Factor,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 18 September 1968, p. 41]. The award included a bronze bust of E. M. “Bunky” Jellinek [left] and $1,000 [~$9,600 in 2026].

The congress was the largest gathering ever dedicated to the prevention and treatment of alcoholism. The Governor of Iowa, Harold E. Hughes [left], also delivered a speech at this convention in which he announced,

I am an alcoholic. I was born an alcoholic. I never took a normal drink in my life. I realized in my late 20s that for me, to drink was to die. I could not drink and maintain sobriety [right: “Alcohol Under the Microscope,” The Windsor [Ontario] Star, 17 September 1968, p. 23].

1975: [The New York Times says the 16th] John “Jack” Alexander [left], 73, died [right: New York Times obituary, 20 September 1975]. His obituary in the West Texas Register credited him as the newspaperman who made “Alcoholics Anonymous a major organization by the articles he wrote about its work,” referring to the article he wrote titled “Alcoholics Anonymous: Freed Slaves of Drink, Now They Free Others” in the March 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This article resulted in 6,000 inquiries to the New York City office of the Alcoholic Foundation over the next nine months. Jack also served as a Class A [non-alcoholic] Trustee of the Alcoholic Foundation from 1951–56.

A.A. History—month & day unknown

1976: The A.A. Loners meeting-in-print merged with the original Internationalists meeting-in-print.

1979: Hazelden published Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous [far left: cover, 1st printing] by Dr. Ernest “Ernie” K. [near left].

1979: A second Swiss General Service Office was opened in Geneva to serve French- and Italian-speaking members and groups: Alcolisti Anonimi Regione della Svizzera Italiana (AASRI). The first, serving German-speaking members, had opened in Lucerne in 1967.

1979: Norris Embry [near right] (1921-1981) created an 18"×23⅝" mixed media work, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous,” that includes oil stick and watercolor on paper. The piece [far right] was described by the curator of the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium as being a depiction of “non-representational profiles of men with highball glasses, an eye and amorphous colorful shapes with [the] word NO scattered through image.”

September 16 in A.A. History

1971: [Early] Nell Wing [left] became the first official Archivist for A.A. Her friend and a former Trustee, Thomas A. “Tom” S. [right] from Jacksonville, Florida, visited her for the first time in two or three years. They discussed the preservation work she had been doing for some fifteen years. Fifteen minutes after Tom left, Robert E. “Bob” H., General Manager of the General Service Office (GSO), “dashed in… saying hurriedly, ‘Now, Nell, drop everything else you are doing and get right on the archives!’” Apparently Tom had realized she hadn't yet been named GSO’s Archivist and asked Bob to fix this. From that day until her retirement, Nell served as the official GSO Archivist.

Previously, in 1954, she and Edward H. “Ed” B. [left] had been appointed by Bill W. to be a Writing and Research Team; on their own, they had initiated archival activities in 1955.

1972: The remains of Father Edward “Ed” Dowling, S.J. [right], were reburied at Calvary Cemetery^* in Baden, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, where Fr. Ed had grown up. The seminary where he was originally buried, St. Stanislaus, closed in 1971, and the grounds were sold in 1972.

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^*This is the same cemetery where Dred Scott, the Black slave whose attempt to gain his freedom was a key factor in igniting the American Civil War, was buried. Dowling had led the Old Baden Society in its successful effort to identify Scott’s unmarked grave and erect a monument in 1956.

1973: Joe McQ. [far left] & Charlie P. [near left] met when Joe introduced Charlie as the A.A. speaker at an Al-Anon Convention. Joe had wondered if Charlie might be the country-western singer Charley Pride. He wasn’t even the right color, Joe lamented. They instantly discovered their mutual fascination with A.A.’s basic text: the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. What interested them most was that it had been written in a particular sequence to convey certain ideas. That interest began a close friendship which has lasted the rest of their lives. They would frequently meet to discuss the book, often driving 225 miles to meet in each other’s homes.

Soon they were planning meetings (with others, presumably) in hotel rooms at A.A. conventions in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and within a few years, the meetings grew in popularity.

1974: The first Italian-language A.A. group in Switzerland was formed in the Canton of Ticino (known as Tessin in French and German) [right: map of Switzerland, with Ticino highlighted], the southernmost canton of the country and the only one where Italian is the sole official language.

1975: Ernest “Ernie” K. [left, in Egypt], who would later author Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, was admitted to the Guest House’s three-month treatment program for priests after he continued to drink following detoxification at the Harvard Infirmary.

1976: The first Japanese-language 12-Step meeting officially registered as the “Tokyo Group” with the General Service Office in New York City. Following this, activities became more focused, leading to the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous groups throughout the country.

1976: Harbor House published Bert D.: Hardhat, Inebriate, Scholar [far left: cover] by Al S. [near left, 1947], a biography of Henry Berton “Bert” D. In 1962, with his wife Hazel, Bert founded Harbor House [near right: entrance (Mar 2019); far right: Harbor House itself], a treatment center in Memphis, Tennessee, based on Alcoholics Anonymous principles, religion, and philosophy. Bert’s life was a struggle for sobriety, and Harbor House became his life’s work. It remains in operation today.

September 15

1855: The future Dr. Clark Burnham [near right, c. 1888] was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a middle child, one of ten children of Mary Pancoast and Rev. Dr. Nathan Clark Burnham Jr. [far right, respectively]. His father practiced law, medicine, and religion, serving as an ordained minister in the Swedenborgian Church. Lois Burnham, who would become Mrs. Bill W. in 1918, would be Clark’s eldest child.

1940: A recently retired and newly sober Cmdr. Junius Lee Cotton [left] arrived at the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Jacksonville, Florida, from Pasadena, California, to organize the first Aviation Training Schools there. The NAS was set to be commissioned on October 15. Cmdr. Cotton would become a key player in the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous in Florida.

1978: Father Mychal Fallon J. (born Robert Emmett J. on 11 May 1933) [right] got sober. He would die in the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 Sep 2001, while serving as a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. Although he was not the first to die, he would officially be designated as Victim 0001 because his body was the first to be recovered and taken to the medical examiner.

2001: On the 23rd anniversary of his sobriety, a funeral Mass for Father Mychal Fallon J., 68, was celebrated by Cardinal Edward Egan, the Archbishop of New York, at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan. Father Mychal had died in the World Trade Center attack just four days earlier. The Mass was attended by 3,000 people, including former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. President Clinton said that his death was a “special loss” and urged, “We should lift his life up as an example of what has to prevail. We have to be more like Father Mike than the people who killed him” [left: FDNY Memorial to Judge at Engine 1, Ladder 24 in Manhattan].

September in A.A. History—day unknown

2003: Liberty Street published Time magazine’s 80 Days That Changed the World [right: cover, 1st edition, 1st printing], which reflects on more than 80 years of Time’s publishing history by revisiting the significant events that have shaped our lives today. One of those 80 days was June 10, 1935 [below left: anonymized illustration from the book]:

AA Takes Its First Steps
By James Poniewozik

Bill W—–, a stockbroker and a drunk from Brooklyn, N.Y., thought he had found the secret of kicking the bottle. But on a business trip to Akron, Ohio, in May he found himself outside a bar, tempted and desperate. In the past, he had fought the urge by talking to other alcoholics, who truly understood his struggle. Through a church group, he found local surgeon Robert Holbrook S—–.

Dr. Bob and Bill W., as Alcoholics Anonymous members know them, promised to keep each other sober, following Bill W.’s strategy: a simple set of principles — later refined into 12 steps — that would become the foundation of America’s self-help culture. Alcoholics, he said, must admit they are powerless over their addiction. They must make amends to all those they have harmed. And they must submit to God—however they define the deity.

The advice did not immediately take. Dr. Bob went to Atlantic City, N.J., for a convention; several days later, he showed up at the Akron train station, smashed. On June 10, the dried-out but still jittery doctor was due in surgery. That morning, Bill W. gave Dr. Bob a bottle of beer—to steady his scalpel hand. The operation was a success. The beer was Dr. Bob’s last. And the two men pledged that day to work to bring Bill W.’s principles to other alcoholics, one day at a time.

September 14 in A.A. History

1943: An unnamed A.A. member in Chicago wrote the text for “Out of the Fog” [right: cover], which is still available as a pamphlet from the Chicago General Service Office. It begins:

Thirteen months ago I was in an interesting position. No, Murgatroyd, I wasn’t an expectant mother. Had I been, I would have known what to do. I’d merely have written a piece for True Confessions Magazine and thereby earned the necessary $50.00.

This interesting and delicate position of mine, however, was at least pregnant with chaotic confusion. Mine was mainly a confusion in terms—and that, by a carefully arranged coincidence, enables me to drag in a cute saying by my younger son, Jerrold, better known as Jaybo. He was 6 years old at the time and consequently pure of mind, but I have confidence in your ability to enrich the story with the dirtiest possible construction on his remark.

1954: [John] Mark Whalon [left], 70, Bill Wilson's longest, closest, and only local friend, died. As Bill was being born, nine-year-old Mark was among a crowd of neighborhood boys gathered on the porch to listen to Emily's screams, evidence of the strangeness of the adult world.

As an adult himself, he worked as a mailman in rural Vermont, driving 24 miles a day to deliver the mail to 80 homes, six days a week. In January1943, he was the subject of a photo essay in Life magazine titled “Life Rides the Route of a Rural Mailman in Vermont.”

He wrote two books. Rural Peace [near right: cover], published in 1933, is a collection of poems about the carefree moments, hardships, stark realities, and difficult truths of daily life in East Dorset, Vermont. Rural Free Delivery: Recollections of a Rural Mailman [far right: cover] is a 1942 autobiography about growing up and living in East Dorset.

September in A.A. History—day unknown

1989: Dartmouth [College] Alumni Magazine recognized Dr. Bob S. in an article [left, with the recognition highlighted] titled “Dartmouth Undying”^*:

Robert Holbrook S―― ’02, popularly known as Dr. Bob, founded Alcoholics Anonymous.

The entire one-page article seems to be about Dartmouth students’ relationship to alcohol, and seems to be one of a series of 16 articles by that title from September 1988–April 1990, which seem to be focused on oddities concerning the Dartmouth student body.

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^*“Dartmouth Undying” has been a school song since 1921. In the November 1958 issue of the alumni magazine, an anonymously written article, “The College” (which appears to be a repeating column that ran from Feb. 1955–Jan./Feb. 1979), contains the following subtitled section (only its first sentence is quoted here):

Dartmouth Undying

The Class of 1921 last month presented the College with a specially bound volume containing the text of Dartmouth Undying, the poem by the late Franklin McDuffee ’21, which with music written by Homer P. Whitford has become Dartmouth's best loved song.

The Wikipedia article on “Alma Mater (Dartmouth College),” which is about the official school song of Dartmouth, titled “Alma Mater”, says that, “The difficult-to-sing [judge for yourself: here’s a musical rendition of it] ‘Dartmouth Undying’ replaced it in the fall of 1972, but the Alma Mater was restored as the official song in early 1973.” [right: sheet of music/lyrics for “Dartmouth Undying”].

1989: Glen Abbey Books published Richmond W.’s The Seven Points of Alcoholics Anonymous [left: “true” 1st printing].

2001: [Late—New York InterGroup (NYIG) history says, “A little more than two weeks after…September 11, 2001…”] In the aftermath of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, exhausted A.A. members among the firefighters, police, and clean-up crews recognized the need for meetings near Ground Zero. Simultaneously, a Red Cross official reported to the uptown General Service Office that they had received numerous requests for A.A. meetings. The Red Cross assigned A.A. a room in a respite center just southwest of the site, marked by a door bearing a circle and triangle. To accommodate everyone, Meetings organized by Southeast New York Area 49 and the New York Intergroup became places where A.A. members could not only meet but also rest, talk, and meditate. Members crafted an iron plaque [right] and presented it to GSO and NYIG as a memento.