Dec
Dec 1934 - Bill & Lois start attending Oxford Group meetings.
Dec 1934 to May 1935 - Bill works with alcoholics, but fails to sober
any of them. Lois reminds him HE is sober.
Dec 1938 - Twelve Steps written.
Nov/Dec 1939 - Akron group withdrawals from association with Oxford
Group. Meetings moved from T Henry & Clarence Williams to Dr Bob and
other members homes.
Dec 1939 - First AA group in mental institution, Rockland State
Hospital, NY.
Dec 1939 - 1st home meeting in Los Angeles at Kaye M.'s house.
Dec 1939 - Matt Talbot Club has 88 members, uses wagons to collect
old furniture to recondition & sell, not A.A., used A.A. program,
material, marked 1st effort reach alcoholics outside married middle-
class category.
Dec 1940 - 1st AA group formed in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dec 1940 - group started Ashtabula, Ohio due to Plain Dealer
articles. A.A. Cleveland has about 30 groups.
Dec 1948 - Dr. Bob's last major talk, in Detroit.
Dec 1950 - Grapevine article signed by both Bill and Dr Bob recommend
establishing AA General Service Conference.
Dec 1955 - 'Man on the Bed' painting by Robert M. first appeared in
Grapevine. Painting originally called 'Came to Believe'
Dec 1982 - Nell Wing retires from GSO after 35 years of service.
Dec 1, 1940 - Chicago Daily Tribune begins a series of articles on AA
by Nall Hamilton.
Dec 5, 1985 - Dave B, founder of Montreal Group dies weeks before
50th anniversary. His story added to the 4th Edition Big Book.
Dec 6, 1939 - Bert the Tailor lends Works Publishing $1000.
Dec 6, 1979 - Akron Beacon reports death of Henrietta Sieberling.
Dec 7, 1949 - Sister Ignatia received Poverello Medal on behalf of
A.A.
Dec 10, 1975 - Birds of a Feather AA group for pilots is formed.
Dec 11, 1934 - Bill admitted to Towns Hosp 4th/last time
(fall '33, '34 in summer, midsummer and final admittance).
Dec 11, 1941 - Dallas Morning News reports 1st AA group formed in
Dallas.
Dec 12, 1934 - Bill has Spiritual Experience at Towns Hospital.
Dec 12, 1937 - Bill meets with Rockefeller Foundation and tries to
get money.
Dec 13, 1937 - Rockland State Mental Hospital takes patients to
meeting in New Jersey.
Dec 13 or 14, 1934 - Ebby visited Bill at hospital, brought William
James's book, "Varieties of Religious Experience".
Dec 19, 1939 - Los Angeles hold their 1st AA meeting there.
Dec 20, 1945 - Rowland H dies (he carried the Oxford Gp message to
Ebby).
Dec 27, 1893 - Rev Samuel Shoemaker is born.

Who is the doctor that Bill is referring to on
the bottom of page 122?

regards nick

- - -

"A doctor said to us, 'Years of living with an
alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child
neurotic.  The entire family is, to some extent,
ill.'"

- - -

Note from the moderator: this is the "founding
manifesto" (if we may) of Al-Anon Family Groups,
Alateen, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and the
other twelve step groups which were formed to deal
with this enormous problem.  Glenn C.

The Dec. 1993 Grapevine article says that two
companies were sued for refusing to stop using the
Circle and Triangle emblem, as requested by New
York. More than 100 other companies making doo-dads
and trinkets had already acceded to NY's request.

My questions are: What companies were those two?
What law firm represented AA in what court? What
was the outcome of the suits?

Edgar C, Sarasota, Fla.

Glenn C., "Twelve-Step Meditation in the A.A. Big
Book and the 12 & 12," describes the way Bill W.
recommended that we meditate in Alcoholics Anonymous
and in the Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions. This
is a Microsoft Word document, requires MS Word
to read:

http://hindsfoot.org/medit11.doc
(found on page http://hindsfoot.org/spiritu.html)

In the eleventh step, "meditation" does not mean
the same thing as the Hindu technique called
Transcendental Meditation. But it is recommended
that part of our period of morning prayer and
meditation be a brief "quiet time." Various methods
of quieting the mind, including using mental
imagery (suggested by Bill W.), Jacobson's method
of progressive relaxation, and so on. Richmond
Walker's Twenty-Four Hours a Day and Emmet Fox's
Golden Key.

- - -

Responding to Message 3857
from "Henrik Rue" henrik.rue@...
(henrik.rue@...)

He asked for "a definition of what meditation was
defined as, at the time of writing Alcoholics
Anonymous? I do not expect it to be some eastern
way of meditation."

- - -

A NOTE FOR GERMAN-SPEAKING AA's:

It is very difficult to translate the English word
"spirituality" into German. For German speaking AA's,
it is easier to understand what was being talked
about in the Big Book by looking at Jakob Friedrich
Fries' idea of obtaining an Ahnung (a hint, intuition,
or presentiment) of the Infinite, Friedrich
Schleiermacher's idea of the Gefühl (feeling) and
Anschauung (intuition) of absolute dependence upon
God, and especially Rudolf Otto's idea of the Gefühl
of das Heilige (the awareness of the holy or sacred
dimension to reality). That was what Bill W. was
talking about in the Big Book on pp. 1, 10, and 12
(the experience at Winchester Cathedral and Bill's
grandfather's experience when gazing at the starry
heavens above and experiencing what Immanuel Kant
called the experience of the Sublime).

It is not the same as a Begriff (an intellectual
concept). Unfortunately, the philosophy of G. W. F.
Hegel (1770-1831) turned the German word Geist into
an intellectualized notion (philosophy, political
theory, economic theory, legal theory, and so on
became die Geisteswissenschaften in post-Hegelian
German usage). In German culture to this day, the
word Geist therefore tends to have that kind of
intellectualized sense.

That was why Carl Jung used Latin instead of German
to speak of the solution to the alcoholic's problem
as "Spiritus contra spiritum." The English word
"spirit" still preserves the original meaning of
the Latin word "spiritus," so in English we do not
have to use the Latin word to make it clear that
we are talking about a non-intellectualized realm
of immediate feeling and intuitive knowledge and
awareness when we speak of the "spiritual."

This may help German speaking AA's to understand
what is meant by the "quiet time" which is part of
our eleventh step morning prayer and meditation.
The brief period of quiet time means a few minutes
when we stop thinking constantly in terms of Begriffe
and open our minds up instead to feelings of gratitude,
appreciation, being surrounded by God's love and
care, the beautiful and the sublime, the holiness of
the universe and everything in it (from the starry
heavens above to the wildflowers growing in an Alpine
meadow), the moral dimension of our lives, and so on.

- - -

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Rudolf Otto, "Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in
der Idee des göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum
Rationalen" (1917). The most useful book ever written,
I believe, for helping German speaking people in the
twelve step program to understand what the English
speaking people are actually talking about when they
talk about "spirituality" all the time.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, "Reden über die Religion"
(1799), English translations use titles like "Speeches
on Religion to its Cultured Despisers." Schleiermacher
was part of the same world as Goethe, Novalis,
Hoelderlin, and Schelling (and in music Mozart,
Beethoven, and Wagner). The tradition of German
spirituality (in the English sense of the word
"spirituality") began with Schleiermacher.

Rudolf Otto, "The Philosophy of Religion Based on
Kant and Fries" (1931). I assume that the original
German edition of this book is available in Germany,
but I must apologize, because I do not know the
exact German title. Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773-1843)
was the first great Kantian commentator (see his
"Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft").
He applied for the position as Professor of Philosophy
at the newly created University of Berlin, but
G. W. F. Hegel (who tried to completely intellectualize
spirituality, as the unfolding of the Geist in human
history through a sequence of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis) was given the position instead. And poor
Fries, who had spoken out openly in favor of democracy
and having democratically elected parliaments, was
stuck at the University of Jena, where the Grand
Duke of Weimar (who controlled that area at that
time) forbade him to lecture on philosophy for many
years, during which time Hegel's style of philosophy
took over the German speaking world. There has
recently been a revival of interest in Fries' work
in both the German and English speaking worlds, so
perhaps this brilliant philosopher may finally
receive his due.

I don't think I agree with Fries' solution to the
Kantian problem, but I can guarantee that Kant will
never look the same again to anyone who studies
Fries' detailed analysis of what Kant was actually
doing in his "Kritik der reinen Vernunft," and
why Kant's continued assumption of many Platonic
concepts of the world made him believe (falsely)
that our human minds could not gain access to
anything outside the box of space and time in
which they were imprisoned.

Richmond Walker talks about that part of Kant's
thought in many passages in "Twenty-Four Hours a
Day," but argues that our minds can in fact pierce
through the veil of the box of space and time through
a kind of meditation based on feeling and intuition.
This little book could also be useful to German
speaking AA's, in better understanding the feeling
and intuition based experience which is being
referred to by the English word "spirituality" in
the Big Book.

   Glenn F. Chesnut, South Bend, Indiana
   glennccc@...
   (glennccc at sbcglobal.net)



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have never read anywhere that the Oxford Group
ever had sponsorship.  Rowland never joined AA,
the only one of his friends that did was Cebra
Graves.

- - -

"Fred" <Fritz689@...> asked:

Who was Rowland Hazard's Oxford Group Sponsor?

- - -

From the moderator (Glenn C., South Bend):

This was not sponsorship in the AA sense, but see
Richard M. Dubiel, The Road to Fellowship: The
Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club
in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous.

(http://hindsfoot.org/kdub1.html
and http://hindsfoot.org/kdub2.html)

Courtenay Baylor of the Emmanuel Movement became
Rowland Hazard's therapist in 1933, and continued
to work with him through 1934. It is under the
influence of Baylor's Emmanuel Movement therapy
that Hazard actually began to recover. Hazard
was also attending Oxford Group meetings, but
his family was paying Baylor to be his regular
therapist.

Boston AA arose out of the context of the Emmanuel
Movement and the Jacoby Club (their group was
never part of the Oxford Group, unlike Akron,
New York, and Cleveland AA).

The word slip, meaning a recovering alcoholic
drinking again, is used twice in pp. 1-164 [current
editions] of the Big Book, on p. 100 and again on
p. 139.

Bill W used it in eleven entries of A.A. Way of
Life/As Bill Sees It: pp. 11, 28, 68, 99, 153, 184,
197, and 251.

He also used it in the article "Ours Not to Judge"
in the August 1946 Grapevine.

Ernie G's story in the First Edition Big Book was
titled "Seven Month Slipper."

Nancy O, the founder of this group, used it
repeatedly in her bios of Big Book story authors.

The word has been in the A.A. lexicon for almost
seventy years.

Tommy H in Baton Rouge

- - -

At 23:21 11/20/2006, James Blair wrote:

Use of the word "slip" in early AA: Not sure about
the Grapevine article but the term slip or slipper
was used very early on. The first edition story
"The Backslider" clearly explains what the term
slip means.  In a "spiritual life one is either
going forward or backwards and if one continues
going backwards, one will surely slip and fall."

Use of the word "slip" in early AA

Not sure about the Grapevine article but the term
slip or slipper was used very early on.

The first edition story "The Backslider" clearly
explains what the term slip means.  In a "spiritual
life one is either going forward or backwards and if
one continues going backwards, one will surely slip
and fall."

I used to have an old bible tract book titled "The
Backslider." A backslider in most churches is a
person who once experienced grace but turned away.

Jim

At the Pioneers Meeting of AA's International
Convention last year in Toronto, former AA
non-alcoholic trustee Michael Alexander mentions,
after the first speaker, about AA having an
"Indenture of Trust" and that the first Chairperson
was an alcoholic.

As a former Chairperson of the Southeastern
Pennsylvania Intergroup Association, I know that
on the legal  papers I was listed as President
and CEO rather than Chairperson. This was done for
legal purposes.

Mr. Alexander states that for this reason all
subsequent Chairs have been non-alcoholic so that
they can use their full name and so  there will be
no anonymity concerns.
______________________________

In post 3244 Art S. posted the following,

"The  first two Alcoholic Foundation Board Chairs
were alcoholics:

08/38 to  02/39 - William "Bill" R. Returned to
drinking and had to resign.

04/39 to 12/39 - Harry B. Also returned to drinking
and had to  resign.

Following Harry B the board chair has been a
non-alcoholic  ever since."
______________________________

These two men were the chairs of the Alcoholic
Foundation which later became the General Service
Board of AA.

Who was the  chair during the Time of the
Indenture of Trust ?

Hoping for an answer..

Shakey Mike Gwirtz
______________________________

P.S. The speakers of this Pioneers of AA Meeting were

1. Harry "the Wino" V. my sponsor

2. Margaret C

3. George D



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I am curious as to when and how the AA birthday
celebration started.

In a discussion with a friend about the forging
of the fellowship,in many places and different
publications Roland Hazard is mentioned and his
association with The Oxford Group. The discussion
centered around SPONSORSHIP and its origins.

Many times Roland Hazard's name is brought into
the discussion as carrying the message to Ebby and
working with Dr. Sam Shoemaker at Calvary Mission.
We could not determine, nor verify any reference
to Roland Hazard having an Oxford Group sponsor.

The Question for the group is, "Who was Roland
Hazard's Oxford Group Sponsor?"

Can anyone tell me where the just for today cards
we use in the UK originate from. Also are they used
in the rest of the world, USA, etc.?

Philadelphia and Ebby (Edwin Throckmorton Thacher)

As Mel B writes in his book "Ebby": on June 1940
Ebby decided to come to Philadelphia. He arrived at
10 A.M and was drunk by noon. He mentions that the
Philadelphia mother group was not too keen to help
a New York AA due to some rivalry between the cities.
He states they got him situated at P.G.H.(Philadelphia
General Hospital).

Mel states that this recollection was from a 1954
interview and says the Philadelphia Group, which
numbered 75, may not have been too keen to help
someone who didn't want it. Ebby  got out and lived
and worked at a mission similar to the Salvation Army
for three weeks. He then worked as a porter at a
Philadelphia hospital in the cancer laboratory for
three months.

The September 1940 Philadelphia meeting list does not
show his name. With our involvement in World War Two,
a 46-year-old Ebby did not have to worry about the
draft and with the shortage of able bodied workers
he secured employment with the US Navy as an associate
inspector of parts.

He arrives on the Philadelphia meeting list dated
November 1941 as Edw. Thatcher with an address of
Lankenau  Hospital. Also sharing that address was a
Mr. Art O'C.

Ebby went in and out and had no trouble finding jobs
crating trucks to ship overseas and at Westinghouse
at the steam plant division in South Philadelphia.
He also worked for the Red Cross packing depot and
worked at the AA Clubhouse at 219 S. 36th Street
near the  University of  Pennsylvania as an Assistant
Club Steward (1943).

Our June 1, 1942 meeting list has him at 242 S. 17th
Street in Philadelphia with a phone number of Kin 9881.
The same meeting list has Mr. William H. with the
same address and  phone number. It is interesting
to note that this address is close to the  offices
of Dr. A. Weise Hammer (see AA Comes of Age pg. 190
and Grapevine May 1957). His wife Helen overheard
Jimmy B. in a bookstore trying to sell the Big Book
and with a Mrs. (Dr.) Dudley Saul (of the Saul Clinic)
introduced him to their husbands. They were great
friends to A.A. and introduced us to Judge Curtis
Bok, of the Philadelphia Municipal Court and Curtis
Publishing, the owner of the Saturday Evening Post.

(Read 3/1/1941 Saturday Evening Post article
"Alcoholics  Anonymous" by Jack Alexander.)

Dr. Hammer was at 323 S.  17th Street and his
alcoholic nephew, Mr.  Charles A. D. (Dan) M. lived
at 237 S 18th Street.

Ed F., the founder of the Northeast Clubhouse, in
a tape recorded for the Archives of the Southeastern
Pennsylvania Intergroup Association recalled an
Ebby anecdote.

He was at the 36th  Street clubhouse with his sponsor
George S. (the first open AA meeting in Philadelphia
was at his home). He related that he was the first
speaker that evening at the closed A.A. meeting and,
"after I finished talking I get back in the room
and George S. says Ann G. is having a problem. Now,
she is one of the few women we have in A.A. at the
time.  She lived at 23rd and Spruce in a third floor
apartment. Let's go  down and see if we can help
her. So we jump in my car and Ebby was just going to
close the meeting. So we went down to 23rd and Spruce
and we're walking up the steps and I'm right in
front of George. We get up to the third floor and
there's a pig-tail light hanging from the ceiling
of the long hall.  And here's our friend Ann G.
walking down the hall with a little mandarin coat
on and a mandarin hat and I swear all I can see was
bare legs. So I pointed to  her for George and he
coughed or said something and she turned around and
had a  bikini on. So we came up to the top of the stairs
and Ann says 'Come on into the  front room, the living
room.' So we walk into the living room and I started
to sit on the couch and she says 'No, no, no. You
don't do that.' We sit on the pillows. So she took
and put out three pillows out on the floor and it so
happens I was sitting on the pillow that looked right
down the hallway. And as we're talking, and she
had a few  drinks on board, and as we're still
talking I see this man and women coming down the
hall all the way to the other end door, open the
door and walk in. The man had two big what looked
like  shopping bags in his hand. They looked very
familiar. I'm looking at them from  the back. So I
  say to Ann, 'Where's the bathroom?' She says,
'It's the third door on the right.' So I walk down
the hall right past the third  door to the end door
that had just been opened and closed. I open the
door and I  walk in and there's our friend Ebby
and Emily his girlfriend sitting at the table each
with a quart of beer. I said, 'Well what's the beer?'
He said, 'Well, it's all right to drink between
meetings.'"

Yours in Service,
Shakey Mike Gwirtz


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Looking at the grammar:

"We were prepared to look AT IT..."
The antecedent of "it" is "The Inventory."
Therefore, "We were prepared to look at the inventory..."

"We were prepared to look FOR IT..."
The antecedent of "it" is "the key."
Therefore, "We were prepared to look for the key..."

From a grammatical point of view, either FOR or AT
makes perfect sense in that sentence. The meanings are
different but both valid sentences. You need to figure
out what the groups approved and not what someone
thought was better. Or did Bill change it himself?

As was obvious in the flap over changed commas in the
original Fourth Edition version of "Dr Bob's Nightmare,"
some of the "editors" who try to "improve" the Big Book
have yet to master the English Language. Some changes
that "sounded right" to them changed the meanings in
subtle ways.
_________
Tom E

-------------------------------------------------

From: "jimlynch279" <jimlynch279@...>
(jimlynch279 at yahoo.com)

I think to say the sentence with "for" makes no
grammatical sense is not accurate.

If the phrase is "look FOR it from an entirely
different angle," the antecedent of the pronoun "it"
is "the key", something that we need, must find and
will search for by looking from a different angle.

If the phrase is "look AT it from an entirely
different angle.", the antecedent of the pronoun "it"
is "the list," something that we have available for
review and will gain more infomation from if we view
it from a different angle.

Jim L
xpd in Pittsburgh


  -------------- Original message -----------------
From: "Charlene C." <ccp28para4@...>
> Not sure what you are looking for but from a
> grammatical point of view, the word "for" makes
> zero sense in that particular sentence.
> charlene
> austin, tx.
>
> Peter Tippett wrote: -------------->
> In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
> 3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
> for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
> to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."
>
> "AT IT" or "FOR IT"?
>
-------------------------------------------------

Not sure about the Grapevine article but the term slip
or slipper was used very early on. In Cleveland, ca
1941 (pre-Grapevine which was published 1944) in the
rules for hospitals there is a definition of a
"retrovert" or "slipper." That definition is "A man or
woman who has been sponsored, and has attended at
least one A.A. meeting, then takes a drink, is
considered a retrovert, or slipper."


Responding to Message 3872 from "john.otis"
<suzkem@...> (suzkem at theriver.com)

Subject: Early Grapevine article and the word "slip"

The Evolution of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Jim Burwell - The Agnostic

http://www.barefootsworld.net/aa-jb-evolution.html

Jim Burwell, one of the earliest AA members, says
in this little history of AA that he wrote at one
point, that Dr. Bob "dates his last drink June 15,
1935."

Jim preserves one version of some of the early AA
oral traditions.  What you have to do in this kind
of historical research is look at all the various
oral tradition material, because usually what
happens is that each version gets some things right
but other things wrong.  So the next thing you have
to do is look at written sources of information,
to see which oral tradition version best corresponds
to what can be corroborated from written documents.

Given the actual date of the AMA Convention in 1935,
Jim Burwell's memory may well have been more accurate
on this issue than the date which Bill W. and
Dr. Bob tried to reconstruct later on.

But the important thing to note is that not EVERYBODY
in early AA said that the date was June 10th, as
people today tend to falsely assume.

- - - - - - - -

In AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com,
"Russ S" <rstewart@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Fellow History Lovers,
>
> Today, on the anniversary of the passing of our
> beloved Dr. Bob I received an email saying he
> "began his sobriety on or about June 16, 1935."
>
> I know this issue has been raised in several
> previous AAHL posts.
>
> Has anyone ever tried to check hospital records in
> Akron to see when Dr. Bob operated and who the
> famous, um, person was, who had to have a "delicate
> procedure?"
>
> Love & Service,
>
> Russ Stewart
> Hooterville, NJ
>

Not sure what you are looking for but from a
grammatical point of view, the word "for" makes
zero sense in that particular sentence.

charlene
austin, tx.


Peter Tippett <petetippett@...> wrote:

In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."

"AT IT" or "FOR IT"?

Hi. Back in the 60s I had a sponsor in Lancaster,
Calif. and he had one of the first Grapevines.

In it someone had written "Slipping From the Hands
Of God," and said that this is what we mean by the
word "slip."

Is there any way I can get a copy of this Grapevine?

Your site puts tears in my eyes when I see the
roots of this LIFE SAVING PROGRAM.

John Otis

Hello Fellow History Lovers,

Today, on the anniversary of the passing of our
beloved Dr. Bob I received an email saying he
"began his sobriety on or about June 16, 1935."

I know this issue has been raised in several
previous AAHL posts.

Has anyone ever tried to check hospital records in
Akron to see when Dr. Bob operated and who the
famous, um, person was, who had to have a "delicate
procedure?"

Love & Service,

Russ Stewart
Hooterville, NJ

Peter Tippett <petetippett@...> wrote:

In a Big Book Study while reading page 66 from my
3rd Edition I read, "We turned back to the list,
for it held the key to the future. We were prepared
to look AT IT from an entirely different angle."

"AT IT" or "FOR IT"?

I went and checked in my library and found the
following differences in the Eidtions and Printings:

Page   edit./printing   Date    "at" or "for"

79     1st, 11th      June 1947     "at"
66     2nd, 7th         1965       "for"
66     3rd, 10th        1981       "for"
66     3rd, 56th        1996        "at"
66     4th, 14th     Sept., 2004    "at"

And on the spine of the 310 th printing of the 3rd
Edition it says, "Third Edition: New and Revised."

New and Revised?

I just have a curiosity as to any information
surrounding the "at" vs. "for" and the "New and
Revised."
__________________________

The Anonymous Press has a reproduction of the first
edition, first printing, which lists the changes
made from the 1st/1st to "modern text."  This change,
whether accidental or purposeful, is not listed.
This comparison list is interesting to read, but be
aware that there is at least one typo in it.  The
Big Book writers, for example, used the terms
ex-alcoholics and former alcoholics and these terms
were subsequently changed, but I digress . . .

I checked my library and four first editions, the
5th, 10th, 11th, and 13th printings all have "at."

I checked all 16 printings of the second edition
and they all have "for."  They all also have "New
and Revised" on the spine, even the one that says
"Third Edition."

The first twenty printings of the third edition
have "for."  The twenty-second printing has "at."
My modest library lacks a twenty-first printing,
so I can be no more definitive than that.  Subsequent
third editions that I checked have "at."  My one
fourth edition, a first printing, has "at."  It
does not have "New and Revised" on the dust jacket
or cover.

I realize this doesn't answer the why question, but
I can't answer that.

Tommy H in Baton Rouge

At 19:31 11/13/2006 , James Blair wrote:

>Sasha wrote
>
>"This year I had a strong sense of being  at a
>historical event, and I wondered what you all
>know about it."
>
>The December 1944 issue of the GV reported on the
>gathering of 1500 people, most of them drunks at the
>Hotel Commodore to celebrate the 10th anniversary
>of the founding of AA. Bill gave a report on the
>first 10 years of AA and a female member also shared.
>Fulton Oursler of the Reader's Digest was the
>non-AA speaker.
>
>(The date of the dinner is not mentioned).

The N.Y. World-Telegram article quoted by the N.Y.
Sun and included in the December 1944 Grapevine
article James Blair cited says "last night".  I
would presume "last night" was in the recent past.

None of the responses to the initial query addresses
two of the three questions Sasha posed:

1.  How did it come to be?
     [And why late October/early November?]

2.  Was it always conceived as a fundraiser?

3.  Akron has its Founders' Day [Shouldn't Founders
     be plural?] on the traditional founding date,
     June 10th, annually.

Perhaps, tho, we are trying to read importance into
it that isn't there. 8^)

My wife, late of Long Island, has attended the N.Y.
dinner and experienced feelings similar to those
Sasha experienced.

Tommy in Baton Rouge

Tommy H. asked:  Does anyone here know about Meyerson
and where I can find more information on this subject.

- - -

Dear Tommy,

Here follows an excerpt from a recent AA history of
Indianapolis written by Neil S., who is the current
Inter-group Archivist.

Bob S, from Indiana

[FROM THE MODERATOR:  For more details, see
http://hindsfoot.org/nIndy1.html and
http://hindsfoot.org/nindy2.html]

Excerpt from Indianapolis AA History:


From several sources I will attempt to weave a new,
but connected pattern of how AA was started here in
Indianapolis and identify the critical people who
constitute the threads.

Let me quote a description of Doherty Sheerin, the
man who founded AA in Indianapolis. J. D. Holmes (who
was one of the original AA group in Akron) said in
a letter that Doherty Sheerin was:

" ... the boy who put AA on the Indiana map. I have
always considered him the number 3 man in A.A., a
statement I can boldly make after having been
closely associated with Dr. Bob and Bill W. And
there are others who think the same as I."

That is an extraordinary thing to say. Next to Dr. Bob
and to Bill W. in his understanding of the AA program,
Doherty Sheerin was the number three man in
AA. Later I will read this letter in its entirety.

Who was this spectacular man who had such an affect
on my life and on yours?  No doubt AA would have found
its way to Indianapolis. But the historical evidence
seems to indicate this is how AA actually came together
in Indianapolis.

Who was this man?

His name, as we have said, was Doherty Sheerin.
Other names that you will hear are "J. D." who was
James D. Holmes. He was AA # 8 and lived in Akron,
Ohio. His wife was from Evansville, and J.D. and his
wife eventually relocated to Evansville, where her
family was still residing as this story unfolds. J. D.
had started the first A.A. group in Indiana in Evansville
on April 23, 1940.

The other essential man in this unfolding episode
is Irving M. from Cleveland. Irving M. is sometimes
referred to as Erwin. His last name was Meyerson. The
long time Indianapolis Saturday Evening group still
honors him. His final residence was on the West coast.

The central figure in early Cleveland A.A. was Clarence
Snyder, the "Home Brewmeister" in the story in the
Big Book (pp. 297-303 in the 3rd edition).  He was the
dynamo who pioneered the printed word -- pamphlets,
advertisements and newspaper articles. Irving Meyerson
was one of Clarence Snyder's train of "pigeons" or
sponcees. When Irving came to Indianapolis and introduced
himself to Dohr Sheerin, he simply said, "I am from
Cleveland and I've come here to help you get to work."

Dean L. Barnett, who made the first attempt at writing
a history of AA in Indiana, gives one account of how
Irving and Dohr got together. One copy of Dean's history
is in the New York AA Archives, and another copy, which
seems to be a slightly different version, is in the
Indianapolis AA Archives. In the New York version, Dean
says that in the Spring of 1940, in Indianapolis,
"... a man who had been sober on his own for almost
three years read the Liberty Magazine article on A.A.
and sent to New York for what information was available,
but experienced little reaction from what he received.
This man was the late, beloved Doherty S[heerin]. Later
in the same year, Irvin S. M[eyerson] of the Cleveland
group visited Mr. S[heerin] and took him and a Mr. Barr
to Evansville to meet Mr. Holmes. Hope was revived in
D[ohr]’s breast, he once told me, so that when he
returned to Indianapolis, he soon interested another
sufferer in the program on or about October 28, 1940,
the date now marked as the founding of the movement in
the capital city."

End of excerpt

- - -

[FROM THE MODERATOR:  I should say that Dean Barnett
was not a very good researcher, and got a number of things
wrong in his history of how AA came to Indiana.  Dean
says that Doherty Sheerin read the Liberty Magazine
article and wrote the New York AA headquarters, and that
somehow or other Irwin Meyerson ended up coming out to
Indianapolis from Cleveland.  Dean would get the basic
story right, but tended to garble and confuse the details
and guess when he didn't know.  Many present-day Indiana
AA historians think that it is more likely that Doherty
Sheerin came upon some of the things printed about AA in
the Cleveland newspaper, and wrote directly to Cleveland,
where Clarence Snyder asked Irwin to pass through
Indianapolis when he was traveling around selling venetian
blinds.

But Dean Barnett could have been right, and perhaps
Dohr did write New York, and New York sent Irwin to
Indianapolis.

At any rate, Irwin made the twelfth step call on Dohr
in Indianapolis, but immediately took him down to Evansville,
Indiana, where the AA leader J. D. Holmes had already set
up an AA group.  It was J. D. who help Irwin show Dohr
how to set up an AA group, and the J. D. Holmes and Doherty
Sheerin then set up a highly organized campaign, where they
had soon set up AA meetings all over the state of Indiana.

I have been told, but have not been able to verify,
that AA in Louisville, Kentucky, was founded by contact
with Indianapolis, which is a straight drive north from
Louisville.

South Bend, Indiana, where I live, which is up in the
far north, is the only major part of Indiana where AA
was not founded (directly or indirectly) by the efforts
of J. D. Holmes (from Akron) and Doherty Sheerin (who
was twelfth stepped by Irwin Meyerson from Cleveland).

Glenn C.]

Meyerson was sponsored by Clarence Snyder. Irwin was
responsible for starting many meetings throughout the
US and 12 Stepping lots of other "founding" members
from states he traveled through as a salesperson.

Irwin had a very difficult time staying sober for any
continuous length of sobriety during his travels but
always carried the message wherever he went even
though he couldn't "get it" himself for much of his
time in AA.

Mitchell

He came from Cleveland, was a venetian blind salesman,
large, and he came on the train to start AA in
Birmingham.

Also started AA in Indianapolis, Indiana.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You may be thinking of the venetian blind salesman
Irwin M who was from Cleveland. He was a big man,
over 250 lbs.  He went to Atlanta, and  Jacksonville,
New Orleans etc. He had an unorthodox style of 12
stepping and  started many AA groups.

Yours in Service
Shakey Mike Gwirtz




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sasha wrote

"This year I had a strong sense of being  at a
historical event, and I wondered what you all
know about it."

The December 1944 issue of the GV reported on the
gathering of 1500 people, most of them drunks at the
Hotel Commodore to celebrate the 10th anniversary
of the founding of AA. Bill gave a report on the
first 10 years of AA and a female member also shared.
Fulton Oursler of the Reader's Digest was the
non-AA speaker.

(The date of the dinner is not mentioned).

The November, 1945 issue of the GV announces the
annual Metropolitan group dinner is November 7, at
the Commodore Hotel.

The December, 1945 issue containes a full page article
on Bill's talk at the dinner to over 1500 persons.

The October 1946 issue announces the annual dinner
of Alcoholics Anonymous to be held November 7 at the
Commodore Hotel.

The December 1947 issue reports on the 13th anniversary
banquet held November 6 at the Hotel Commodore and
sponsored by the New York Intergroup Assocation.

On Thu (11/2) jlobdell54 mentioned that:

> Yev G was a founder in Bethlehem PA and Granden City NY.

As a member here in Nassau county, Long Island, NY -
I believe you meant Garden City.

I have been involved here in Intergroup in Nassau
(after a stint in General Service) and Yev is very
much a part of the expansion of AA into Nassau county
(half way out toward Montauk Point from NYC). Local
"tradition" has it that he had started a meeting by
45/46 in his home in Garden City. Other early meetings
were in Glen Head, Manhasset, Freeport and Baldwin,
all dating from 45/46 or earlier. Members prior to
that time, had to head in to Forest Hills in Queens,
where Bill supposedly did stop in upon occasion. Got
to the point with gas rationing (guess this was 43/44?),
that people could not make the trip even with car
pooling. It has recently come to my attention (through
this group), that Sgt Bill, also got his start in
Yev's Garden City group of the time.

The Garden City Group remains one of the most active
groups here in Nassau to this day with 11 meetings
spaced over 3 nights a week. There are times that
they conduct 3 different meetings at the same time.

I am aware that Yev, who got sober in 41, served as
Marty Mann's assistant, but would love to hear more
of his PA connection, how he came to be involved with
Marty, was he one of those who worked on the early
Grapevine. Have seen a couple of secondary references
to him (in material about Marty), but have not been
able to find much information about him directly.
Especially interested since he resided here in Nassau.
He was also affiliated with a historic Episcopal
church in the middle of Hempstead. Was quite surprised
a number of years ago, when on a visit to the Wilson
House, saw a photograph of Bill on the wall that
had been inscribed by Bill "To Yev...".

Would appreciate being pointed to where I might
be able to find out more about Yev, Sgt Bill or
other information concerning early AA here in
Nassau county.

Thanx


Cory B

Please Note:

No trees were destroyed in the sending of this
contaminant free message.  We do concede however,
that a significant number of electrons may have been
inconvenienced.

- - -

NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR:

Sgt. Bill S., "On the Military Firing Line in the
Alcoholism Treatment Program: The Air Force Sergeant
Who Beat Alcoholism and Taught Others to Do the Same"
-- see http://hindsfoot.org/kBS1.html -- tells the
story of the way that Yev Gardner (and Mrs. Marty Mann)
helped Sgt. Bill set up the first officially recognized
alcoholism treatment program in the U.S. military at
Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island in 1948.

Glenn C., South Bend, Indiana

Hello,

I am curious to know about the preface to the third
edition of "Alcoholics Anonymous."  Specifically the
part that states on page xii: "If you have a drinking
problem, we hope you may pause in reading one of
the forty-four personal stories and think:  'Yes,
that happened to me'; or more important, 'Yes, I've
felt like that' ...."

What I am wondering is , since the 2nd edition preface
does not give this suggestion (specifically) and
the 4th edition does, what is the history of who wrote
this preface and why, including any possible special
motive?

Also, is there a preface to the 1st edition?

Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Dano

- - -

NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR:  In other words, if I
understand the question correctly, were there things
going on in AA circa 1976 that prompted the writers
of the preface to put a special emphasis on the
stories at the end of the book?

Or was this final sentence in the prefece part of
the justification for changing the stories at the
back of the book yet again, to make them (hopefully)
easier to identify with for a greater number of
alcoholics?

Glenn C., South Bend, Indiana

Charles G. tells us about the Hotel Cecil in Los
Angeles, which is still in existence.  This was
where reading "How It Works" at the beginning of AA
meetings first began:

The Hotel Cecil, where the first AA meeting (that
didn't fold right away) in Los Angeles took place, in
1940, is at 640 South Main Street (about a block from
Skid Row).  It was built in 1927 and it's been
remodeled.  The mezzanine, where the meeting took
place, is gone.  Here are two recent reviews:

"This place is terrible for anyone capable of looking
up this review. The hotel is dirty, stained carpets,
12x10 rooms IF you get a shower-included room, brown
water, just disgusting. I highly suggest staying
somewhere else if you value your life or things. "
travelocity.com - negative - traveler comment

"Great Value" - Alex Devito
"For $45.00 I wasnt expecting it to be that nice. My
room was great with nice view of LA, staff very
friendly and I liked going to the new art galleries in
the area. This reminds me of NY SOHO before it
changed. Couldnt beat..."



--- Robert Stonebraker <rstonebraker212@...>
wrote:

> Los Angeles in 1940, see AA Comes of Age, p. 93
> --- from Bob S., tom2cor134@...>, James R.,
> and Debbie U.
>
> Greg asked: “ Can someone point me in the right
> direction as to the origin of the custom (at least
> for some groups) of reading "How It Works" at the
> beginning of meetings.
>
> From: "Robert Stonebraker"
> <rstonebraker212@...>
> (rstonebraker212 at insightbb.com)
>
> Please read page 93 of  AA COMES OF AGE.  The year
> seems to be 1940 and a member named Mort J. insisted
> on reading Chapter 5 at the start of every session.
> This took place at the Cecil Hotel in downtown
> Los Angeles.   I think that hotel was on Hill Street
> or perhaps Broadway (Near Pershing Sq. Park).   It
> is probably torn down now, but it was still there
> in the 1960s.
>
> Bob S., Indiana

I recently heard a  talk given by Jimmy Burwell
in 1957. He states that a big Jewish fellow named
Meyerson from Cleveland was responsible for starting
AA meetings all over the South. He just went around
planting AA seeds and helping AA to get started.

Does anyone here know about Meyerson and where I
can find more information on this subject.

thanks
Tommy H.
Oakboro,NC

Hi

Does anyone have a a definition of what meditation
was defined as, at the time of writing Alcoholics
Anonymous?

I do not expect it to be some eastern way of
meditation.

Henrik Rue

- - -

FROM THE MODERATOR:

"Meditation" in traditional western Christianity
had always meant reading a text, commonly from
a meditational book or pamphlet (like "The Upper
Room" or "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" in AA), and then
musing thoughtfully upon how the text helps me to
understand my own life and problems, and my
relationship to God.

See The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
for the traditional Catholic understanding:

Meditation is "mental prayer in discursive form.
It is the type of mental prayer appropriate to
beginners and as such accounted its lowest stage;
and it is commonly contrasted with Contemplation.
Its method is the devout reflection on a chosen
(often Biblical) theme, with a view to deepening
spiritual insight and stimulating the will and
affections.  Among the many methods of meditation
advocated by modern schools of spirituality, that
expounded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 'Spiritual
Exercises' ... is widely used."

[Sister Ignatia used Loyola's "Spiritual Exercises"
during her early spiritual formation, and would often
give little books composed of excerpts from that
work to AA people who went through her program at
St. Thomas Hospital.]

[Ralph Pfau -- Father John Doe -- uses the same
traditional western definition when he talks
about meditation in his Golden Books.  He was one
of the four most-read early AA authors, so his ideas
are extremely important for the understanding of
what AA people meant by meditation.]

It is important to note that "meditation" was a
thoughtful process, NOT the blanking out of all
conscious thought (which was called "contemplation"
instead in traditional western terminology -- see
St. Bonaventura's "The Mind's Path to God,"
St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross for
more on the subject of western techniques for
contemplation).

In AA circles however, "meditation" also took on some
of the characteristics of what the Oxford Group called
"having a morning quiet time."  So AA members might in
fact spend a short time blanking out all their conscious
thoughts and just remaining still and quiet in God's
presence, while waiting for God's "guidance" to give
them instructions for the day.

Richmond Walker's Twenty-Four Hours a Day gives the
best introduction to what the concept of meditation
meant in early AA.  He refers to the period of Quiet
Time as "entering the divine Silence" and recommends
it as a way to restore our spirit of peace and calm,
and as a way to obtain the power of the divine grace
for changing our lives.

In the Big Book, Bill W.'s short section on meditation
and the eleventh step gives instructions for quiet
time and seeking guidance.  By the time he wrote the
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. had become
convinced however that too many AA members were getting
into trouble by assuming that their own screwiest thoughts
were in fact "God's guidance," so we can see him trying
to steer AA members away from doing that too much.

- - -

Modern AA confusion about the meaning of the term
"meditation" arose during the 1960's and 1970's,
and we've never totally recovered from this.

In the 1950's a guru in India named Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi began teaching what he called Transcendental
Meditation, based on a technique going back to Shankara.
We recite a mantra (a simple word like "Om") over
and over in our minds as we attempt to remove all
conscious thoughts from our minds, and attempt to merge
ourselves into the impersonal divine reality which
is all that truly exists (this material world is an
illusion, and even our feeling of being individuals
is an illusion).

In the 1960's and 1970's this kind of Transcendental
Meditation was popularized in the United States by a
number of prominent entertainers and other public
figures, above all the rock music group called the
Beatles.

In addition, during that period, the famous professional
football player Joe Namath also preached Transcendental
Meditation, along with the music group called the
Beach Boys, comedian Andy Kaufman, and stage magician
Doug Henning.  Clint Eastwood, famous for shooting people
without qualms in so many of his movies ("make my day"),
also started preaching the virtues of transcendental
meditation!

As a result, Henrik, as you have pointed out, to this
day newcomers to AA read the eleventh step, and
immediately come to the false conclusion that they are
expected to sit crosslegged and start chanting "Om."
In traditional western terminology, this is
"contemplation," not meditation.  Hindu and Buddhist
techniques are perfectly O.K. for AA people who want
to use them.  Many AA members today come from one of
those Asian traditions.

And attempting to practice Transcendental Meditation
while listening to Beatles' records does not do anyone
any real harm.  But if we ask the historical question
of what the earliest AA people did, and we look at
what the eleventh step actually says, it is NOT telling
us to try to shut off all conscious thought while we
try to become "one with All," but to do something very
different:

- - -

"Sought through prayer and meditation [a] to improve
our CONSCIOUS contact with God as we understood Him,
praying only for [b] knowledge of His will for us and
[c] the power to carry that out."

Summed up, this means:

[a] Thinking about spiritual texts to help us develop
our God CONSCIOUSNESS.

[b] Seeking guidance (in the Oxford Group sense).

[c] Having a brief Quiet Time because when we finish
our prayer and meditation, we will find that during
this Quiet Time, God's grace has quietly entered our
souls, so that we will have new power and strength
(God's power and strength dwelling in our souls)
enabling us to do that which we could never do before.

- - -

The fine print sections at the bottom of each page
in Richmond Walker's Twenty-Four Hours a Day tell
you how to do that, and do it very effectively.
That is the reason why Rich was the second most-read
early AA author, second only to Bill Wilson himself.

To my own mind, this is one of the ten best books
on spirituality (East or West, from any century)
which has ever been written.  People who read that
book every morning make more spiritual progress, far
more quickly, than with any other meditational work
I have ever seen.  If you go though the fine print
sections of Twenty-Four Hours a Day carefully, you
can see the whole theory and practice of meditation
laid out in great detail.

Beyond that (and reading what Bill W. had to say, of
course) the best way of understanding what meditation
meant to early AA people is to go back to the Oxford
Group literature and see what they had to say about
quiet time and guidance.

Father Ed Dowling and Sister Ignatia would recommend
that one also look at St. Ignatius Loyola's
Spiritual Exercises for further guidance on the subject
of meditation.

Glenn C., South Bend, Indiana