October 27–31 in A.A. History

2024: The 28th biennial World Service Meeting was held at the Westin at Times Square Hotel [left] in New York City. The meeting’s theme was “The Three Legacies in the Digital Era: Our Great Responsibility to the Alcoholic Being Born Today” [right: Final Report cover]. Seventy-four delegates represented forty-nine General Service structures:

Argentina     Australia     Belgium (Dutch-Speaking)     Bolivia     Brazil     Bulgaria     Central America/Southern Zone     Chile     Colombia     Czech Republic     Denmark     Dominican Republic     Ecuador

Finland     French-Speaking Europe     German-Speaking Europe     Great Britain     Greece     Guatemala     Honduras     Hong Kong     Hungary     Iceland     India     Iran

Ireland     Italy     Japan     Latvia     Lithuania     Mexico     Netherlands     New Zealand     Norway     Paraguay     Peru     Poland

Portugal     Romania     Russia     Slovakia     Slovenia     South Africa     Spain     Sweden     Turkey     U.S./Canada     Uruguay     Venezuela

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1956: The AA Exchange Bulletin [far left: p. 1; near left: excerpt, p. 4] included some unusual news:

Mates Disband, But Not Wives

When a four-member group in the U. S. Midwest “disintegrated” recently, the four wives involved refused to give up. They ordered copies of the Grapevine and other A.A. literature to have on hand “just in case” their husbands begin to take the program seriously.

1957: Bill W.’s Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age [right: 1st edition cover] was published as a retrospective historical account. It serves as a formal record of the growth of Alcoholics Anonymous, tracing its development from 1935 through the 1955 St. Louis Convention, which marked the organization’s “coming of age.” Bill concluded Part I, “When A.A. Came of Age,” by reflecting on a personal consequence of the 1955 Convention:

Clearly my job henceforth was to let go and let God. Alcoholics Anonymous was at last safe—even from me.

1958: The AA Exchange Bulletin [right: p. 1 with article highlighted] reported that the A.A. Grapevine published its first annual international issue [left: magazine cover], noting:

‘GRAPEVINE’ GOES GLOBAL

Twenty-nine different datelines ranging from the Fiji Islands to French Morocco are featured in the first “International” issue of The A.A. Grapevine being distributed this month.

An additional 3,000 copies of this issue of the A.A. Grapevine were sold.

1959: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article by Captain Jack (John S.) [right: as a young man] titled “From Captain Jack to His Buddies,” in which he reminisced about his 13 years of sobriety. A native of Maine, he was the skipper of a Socony Vacuum oil tanker [below: oil tanker like the one Captain Jack skippered]; he had gotten sober in A.A. in 1947. He maintained his sobriety by exchanging letters with groups he helped establish around the world. In 1949, he organized the Internationalist’s Seamen Group. That same year he created A.A.’s “The Internationalists Round Robin,” which eventually evolved into what is now the “Loners-Internationalists Meeting” (LIM), a confidential bimonthly bulletin featuring excerpts from LIM members’ letters sent to the General Service Office (GSO) for Loners, Homers, Internationalists, Port Contacts, and Loner Sponsors.

October 26 in A.A. History

1937: Dr. Leonard V. Strong [near right], brother-in-law of Bill W. [middle right], married to Bill’s sister Dorothy, wrote him a letter introducing Bill to Rev. Willard S. Richardson [far right]:

Dear Mr. Richardson,

This will serve to introduce my brother-in-law, Mr. William W—–, of whom I spoke in our telephone conversation yesterday.

His work with alcoholics appears very effective and I think merits your interest and possibly that of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Your courtesy in seeing him is greatly appreciated by me, and I regret my inability to be present.

Bill would meet Richardson shortly afterward in his 56th-floor office in the RCA building [left, 1937]. Richardson was warmly cordial; Bill described him as “an elderly gentleman who had twinkling eyes set in one of the finest faces I have ever seen.” He showed deep interest as Bill shared his own story and that of the struggling Fellowship.

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the final article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part:

It is hard for the skeptical to believe that no one yet has found a way to muscle into Alcoholics Anonymous, the informal society of ex-drunks that exists only to cure each other, and make a money-making scheme of it. Or that someone will not. The complete informality of the society seems to be what has saved it from that. Members pay no dues. The society has no paid staff. Parties are “Dutch.” Meetings are held at the homes of members who have houses large enough for such gatherings, or in homes of persons who may not be alcoholics but are sympathetic with the movement.

1939: The Alcoholic Foundation in New York City, presumably Ruth Hock [far left], wrote a letter to John “Fitz” M. [middle left], a “loner” living in Washington, DC. The letter referred another Washington “loner,” Hardin C. [near left?], to Fitz. Within days, the Washington Group of A.A., the first in that city, will be established out of the contact between these two men.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1955: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article by Rev. Samuel Moore Shoemaker [near right] titled “The Spiritual Angle of AA” [far right] which addressed a challenge faced by the founders of A.A.: “…how to translate the spiritual experience into universal terms without allowing it to evaporate into mere ideals and generalities.” He began his discussion of this issue by saying,

The basis of this belief was not theoretical, it was evidential. Before us were people in whose lives the beginnings of a transformation had taken place. You could question the interpretation of the experience, but you could not question the transformation itself.… AA has been supremely wise to emphasize the reality of the experience and to acknowledge the experience, and to acknowledge that it came from a Higher Power than human, and then leave it at that.

1956: The A.A. Grapevine [left: cover] published an article titled “Tranquilizers…!?” [right]. The teaser read:

THEY CALL THEM “A SAFE NEW DRUG” – Voice-of-experience report…

The author, B.R. from New York City, began his article:

PERHAPS THEY ARE for the “civilians” but for us, they may spell trouble. They did for me, anyway. Going under various names—thorazine, mebaral, sedamyl, butiserpine, nembu-serpin, equanil, dimethylane, butibel, miltown, sparine, reserpine, to name a few—these medical discoveries are also known as “mood pills”, “don’t-give-a-damn pills” (Time, Feb 24) and are supposed to help those with an anxiety, nervousness, tensions, etc.

We can speak only for ourselves and I say: “Don’t!” Even though these pills must be prescribed by a doctor, “Don’t!”

The author then describes his or her experience taking two such drugs, prescribed by “alcoholic-specializing psychiatrists,” who said “they are non-habit-forming, and harmless.” This led to “eight weeks of pure mental hell” until someone “Twelfth-Stepped me back to sanity.”

An editorial note at the end states, “… we take no official ‘stand’ on tranquilizers (or any other form of medical therapy). We do plan to publish, from time to time, personal experiences such as this one.”

The October 1956 issue of the AA Exchange Bulletin referred readers [right] to this Grapevine article and noted,

Should A.A. members use the new so-called “tranquilizer” drugs? That’s the big question in the featured article in the October A.A. Grapevine. The report describes what happened to a “typical alcoholic” when he sought tranquility through pills.

October 25 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the fourth article [right] in Elrick B. Davis’s five-part series titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

What gets the pathological drinker who finally has reached such state that he is willing to listen to a cured rummy member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is that the retrieved alcoholic not only understands what only another alcoholic can understand, but a great deal that the unreformed drunk thinks no one else could know because he has never told anyone, and his difficulties or escapades must be private to his own history.

Fact is the history of all alcoholics is the same; some have been addicts longer than others, and some have painted brighter red patches around the town — that is all. What they have heard in the “cure” hospitals they have frequented, or from the psychoanalysts they have consulted, or the physicians who have tapered them off one bender or another at home, has convinced them that alcoholism is a disease. But they are sure (a) that their version of the disease differs from everyone else’s and (b) that in them it hasn’t reached the incurable stage anyway.…

He presents his excuses to the retrieved alcoholic who has come to talk. Can’t sleep without liquor. Worry. Business troubles. Debt. Alimentary pains. Overwork. Nerves too high strung. Grief. Disappointment. Deep dark phobic fears. Fatigue. Family difficulties. Loneliness.

The catalog has got no farther than that when the member of Alcoholics Anonymous begins rattling off an additional list.

“Hogwash,” he says. “Don’t try those alibis on me. I have used them all myself.”

2007: Joe McQ. [left], the original “Joe” of the “Joe & Charley Big Book Studies,” died at 78.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1953: At a meeting of English-speaking and Belgian alcoholics in Brussels, the capital of Belgium^* [left: Sint-Joost-Ten-Noode, a municipality of the Brussels-Capital Region, just NE of the City of Brussels. 1953], Jean L. (a French speaker) introduced the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the principles of the A.A. program. Within months, A.A. groups were meeting not only in the Belgian capital but also in cities and towns throughout Flanders and Wallonia.

---

^* Belgium is multilingual, having three official languages—Dutch (1st language of ~50%, 2nd of ~13%), French or Belgian French (1st language of ~36%, 2nd of ~46%), and German (1st language of ~1%, 2nd of ~17%)—and, unofficially, four Romance languages (Walloon, Picard, Champenois, Lorraine), two Germanic languages (Marollian or Marois, Yiddish), three Dutch dialects (Brabantian, West Flemish, East Flemish), two German dialects (Limburgish, Luxembourgish), and three sign languages (French Belgian, Flemish, German). A number of foreign languages are also in use, mostly as second languages (population percentages given in parentheses): English (~49–58%), Spanish (~4–9%), Italian (~4%), Arabic (~2–3%), Russian (~2%), Polish (~1%), Portuguese (~1%), and Turkish (~1%) [right: ethnic/linguistic map of Belgium].

1954: The Alcoholic Foundation was renamed the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.

1954: The Al-Anon Family Groups Clearing House was incorporated as Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc.

1954: Arthur M., co-founder of A.A. in Argentina, died suddenly. By that time, a small group of eight A.A. members had formed in Buenos Aires.

October 24 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the third [right] in Elrick Boyle Davis’s series of five articles, “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here.” It read, in part,

The ex-drunks cured of their medically incurable alcoholism by membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, know that the way to keep themselves from backsliding is to find another pathological alcoholic to help. Or to start a new man toward cure. That is the way that the Akron chapter of the society, and from that, the Cleveland fellowship was begun.

One of the earliest of the cured rummies had talked a New York securities house into taking a chance that he was really through with liquor. He was commissioned to do a stock promotion chore in Akron. If he should succeed, his economic troubles also would be cured. Years of alcoholism had left him bankrupt as well as a physical and social wreck before Alcoholics Anonymous had saved him.

His Akron project failed. Here he was on a Saturday afternoon in a strange hotel in a town where he did not know a soul, business hopes blasted, and with scarcely money enough to get him back to New York with a report that would leave him without the last job he knew of for him in the world. If ever disappointment deserved drowning, that seemed the time.

1943: Bill and Lois W. [far left] left home for their first major A.A. tour. Bill called it their “trip to the coast,” and they stopped in at least three places: Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon, where they “looked in on Doc H., an Oregon chiropractor who was struggling with the alkies in Portland”; and Seattle, Washington, where they “first met businessman Dale A. [near left], who with real valor was trying hard to hold a small band together.” Bill and Lois returned home 87 days later, on January 19.

1973: The newly created Trustees’ Archives Committee held its first meeting. The committee consisted of alcoholic general service trustee Dr. George G. as chair, two non-alcoholic trustees—Rev. Lee Archer Belford and Dr. Milton A. Maxwell—and Archivist Nell Wing, who had been appointed A.A.’s first Archivist in 1972 [right: all four respectively].

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1951: Hospital Progress, the journal of the Catholic Hospital Association, published an article [left: p. 1] by Sister Ignatia titled “The Care of Alcoholics.”

1951: The A.A. Grapevine [right: cover] reported in a note titled “Headquarters Highlights” about a number of recordings available from the General Service Office, including:

• The Third Legacy of AA (new, a condensation of Bill [W.]’s remarks opening the historic first meeting of the General Service Conference), 
• Milestones of AA (by Bill W――), 
• AA Traditions (Bill and other AAs discussed the importance of the Twelve Traditions to the future of our society at the International Conference at Cleveland in 1950), 
• The Big Meeting (the final session of the Cleveland Conference, unique as the only recording on which both Bill and Dr. Bob may be heard), and 
• Dr. Bob’s Last Major Talk (recorded in 1947, four years before his death, outlines the early days of AA, with special reference to the growth of the first ‘group’ in Akron, Ohio). 

Finally, the Grapevine adds that “An earlier recording known simply as ‘A Talk by Bill’ has become a ‘collector’s item.’ It is no longer possible to make copies from the master record and the existing supply has been exhausted.” This was Bill's first recording, made in Los Angeles, California, in April 1947.

October 23 in A.A. History

1939: The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio) published the second article [left] in Elrick Boyle Davis’s series of five, titled “Alcoholics Anonymous Makes Its Stand Here”:

There is no blinking the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous, the amazing society of ex-drunks who have cured each other of an incurable disease, is religious. Its members have cured each other frankly with the help of God. Every cured member of the Cleveland Fellowship of the society, like every cured member of the other chapters now established in Akron, New York, and elsewhere in the country, is cured with the admission that he submitted his plight wholeheartedly to a Power Greater than Himself.

1940: Dr. Gilbert “Gib” K., a dentist, wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City for help, becoming the first alcoholic contact in Milwaukee:

Gentlemen,

Recently there has been called to my attention an article which appeared in the May 17, 1940 issue of the “Green Sheet” of the Milwaukee Journal that interests me very much. Several lengthy columns are there devoted to a general description of your unique attack, or rather approach, in the direction: “alcoholism.” Since the common sense method employed by your “Foundation” seems more nearly to solve my own personal problem than any other I have heard of, I am moved to write you for a little further information. Is there an active group or “chapter” located here in Milwaukee whom I might contact? If not, any other details you may wish to offer me will be greatly appreciated.

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1947: Herbert “Herb” D., an American expatriate living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, received another letter from the Alcoholic Foundation in New York City. The office—most likely Bobby B.—“expresses its happiness at the start of an A.A. Group in Brazil.” It is unclear exactly how or when this group was formed. However, the minutes of a 1950 meeting reveal the following:

Portuguese	English translation
Data – aniversário. Na reunião de hoje deliberamos comemorar o 3º (terceiro) aniversário da Fundação do Grupo A.A. do Rio de Janeiro no dia 5 (cinco) de setembro próximo. A referida data ficará, por tradição, como a data oficial da fundação do Grupo. Rio de Janeiro, 29 de agosto de 1950. Fernando, secretário.	Date – anniversary. At today’s meeting we decided to celebrate the 3rd (third) anniversary of the Foundation of Grupo AA do Rio de Janeiro on the 5th (fifth) of September. The aforementioned date will remain, by tradition, as the official founding date of the Group. Rio de Janeiro, August 29, 1950. Fernando, secretary.

1949: Dr. William D. Silkworth [near right] and Fulton Oursler [far right] joined the Alcoholic Foundation Board.

1950: In an A.A. Grapevine article titled “Too Far West Group” [left: cover], E. K. of Seattle, Oregon reported on…

the recently organized “Too Far West Group” of Adak, Alaska [right, with Razorback Mountain behind]. Six members of various Seattle groups, all firmly grounded in AA principles, form the nucleus of this first formal AA group on the fog-enshrouded outpost of the Aleutian chain.

With justification, the Adak members believe their group is the farthest west and still part of the North American continent.

How firm a foundation the new group is being built upon can be gleaned from the following lines in a communication received from Oran H., secretary:

“Should any man’s mind lead him into a belief that he is all important, he can most easily throw off such thoughts here in this outpost. He need but go outside about 9:30 on an evening the fog has not settled down—face the majestic bare crags that make up Mt. Moffett, turn around and gaze on the snow capped bondaged [sic] threat of the volcano Sitkea [sic] [left: Great Sitkin Volcano, the volcano being referred to], make a half turn and look out over the cold, bleak, limitless Bering Sea—and if he doesn’t believe in some Power greater than himself—he’s hopeless.”

October 22 in A.A. History

1923: As chemical trade commissioner to Germany for the U.S., Dr. Frederick B. [right, 1923] wrote a report to Charles H. Herty titled “Swiss Coal-Tar Chemical Industry—Prouction, Export and Import Statistics” [left]. 

At that time, the U.S. was highly dependent upon a chemical industry that relied on foreign sources for important raw materials, including potash for fertilizer and sodium nitrate for fertilizers and explosives. In addition, the coal-tar chemical industry, the basis of the synthetic organic chemical industry at the time, was virtually nonexistent in the United States because of a German monopoly. Coal-tar products included most textile and other dyes, many important medicinals, powerful explosives, and chemical warfare gases.

1939: The first public meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in New Jersey took place at the South Orange Community Center [right]. Gordon MacD., a newcomer with only five months of sobriety, along with Herb D., had arranged for the meeting space to accommodate the growing New Jersey Group, which then had between twenty-five and thirty members attending its meetings. The meeting was held on a Sunday evening at 5:30 p.m. and marked the beginning of regular Sunday night meetings at the Community Center. This group, the New Jersey Group, would eventually become the “mother group” for all of New Jersey and later be known as the South Orange Sunday Night Group.

1963: Alcoholism educator and friend of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), Dr. Elvin Morton “Bunky” Jellinek [left, c. 1955–1962], better known as E. M. Jellinek, died of a heart attack at his desk at Stanford University at the age of 72. Jellinek coined the phrase “disease concept of alcoholism” and significantly advanced the movement towards the medicalization of drunkenness and alcohol habituation. His initial study in 1946 was funded by Marty M. [near right, 1955] and R. Brinkley S. [far right, 1957].

According to a 1998 study by Mariana Valverde [left], Jellinek’s research was based on a narrow, selective group of hand-picked A.A. members who completed a self-reporting questionnaire. Valverde noted that the study’s findings were relevant only to “the experience of white, male, middle-class alcoholics in the 1940s.” She also argued that a biostatistician of Jellinek’s stature would have been well aware of the “unscientific status” of the “dubiously scientific data that had been collected by A.A. members.”

October in A.A. History—day unknown

1946: The A.A. Grapevine published a letter, titled “New Interest Created: Australian Branch Notes No. 1,” which was written by Rex A. to the publication in June, four months earlier. It read, in part

The Australian branch of Alcoholics Anonymous came into being in October, 1944. Its founders (all nonalcoholics) were the Reverend Father T. V. Dunlea^*…, Dr. S. J. Minogue^†…, and Mr. A. V. McKinnon⁺…

Now, in June, 1946, we have a convalescent home at Sutherland, capable of housing 20 or 30 patients, who are in need of mental and physical rehabilitation, and have taken over a residential in Sydney where members live, pay rent and go to work; this place can accommodate 20 or so people and in it we have our meeting room, where we congregate twice weekly.…

We estimate our membership at 150. It is too early to state how many have completely recovered, but probably no more than 12. Fifty-odd have shown very marked improvement, their relapses occurring less frequently as time goes on. The rest are just floundering around.

Our greatest difficulty has been to persuade many new members to carry out 12th Step work. No matter how much we talk, plead or point out the dreadful consequences of failure to help their fellow drunk, these lads and lasses just listen and continue to follow their policy of selfish and masterly inactivity. Then they crash. And we tell ’em why they crashed—failure to implement the 12, and particularly the 12th, Step. We help them to their feet again, get them jobs and away they go, keeping sober, buying themselves new suits and frocks, but utterly and completely ignoring the 12th and most of the other Steps, till they crash again and have to pawn their new suits and frocks to keep up their supplies of liquor. We don’t know what you Americans do with these lads and lassies, but we would like to, for they give us dreadful headaches.

Our greatest asset (apart from our founders) is one Frank Sturge Harty^‡ [right]. He is a veteran of World War I, and now runs a radio session of the personal problems type. Frank is an untiring worker for A.A., both on the air and off it. Tall, dark and soldierly-looking, he is to be seen at almost every meeting and frequently visits our home at Sutherland. Although not himself an alcoholic, his life has been as varied and has had as many ups and downs as that of the average inebriate, which naturally helps him to understand us the better.

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^*Thomas “Tom” Dunlea, OBE [far left]

^†Sylvester John Minogue [center left]

⁺Archie V. McKinnon [near left]

^‡A former religious minister, he was a Sydney radio announcer with a program called “Let’s Talk it Over.”