Photos of Henrietta Seiberling's grave (and
that of her parents) posted at
http://hindsfoot.org/photos1.html

Sent in by Charles K., A.A.
archivist from California
cdknapp@... (cdknapp at pacbell.net)

Subject: Re: Henrietta Seiberling's grave

I am not sure of the exact location of the
cemetery, but here is a photo of her tombstone
and her parents. She is buried in her family
plot (Beckler).

I was driven to the cemetery when I attended
a National Archives Workshop a few years ago.

Hope this helps
Charles from California

Since we can't put attachments on
AAHistoryLovers messages, Charles' photos are
posted in the A.A. Historical Materials Part 3
section at http://hindsfoot.org/archive3.html
on the http://hindsfoot.org/ website)

Any idea what Towns' Ph.D. was in and where
he earned it?

I notice in the articles they refer to him
as Mr. and physicians as Dr.

The academics would howl!

If memory serves me well, Silkworth was an M.D.
and a neurologist, and Thibault an M.D. and
psychiatrist, psychiatry and neurology at
the time overlapping quite more than today.

Tommy

Is anyone familiar with the origin of the
following writing?  One of my friend's first
sponsors received a copy of it in 1964 on
his 3rd anniversary.  I have typed the text
and it is as follows:

AA

AND THE

HIGHER POWER

God In His wisdom, selected this group of men
and women to be the purveyors of his goodness.
In selecting them, through whom to bring about
this phenomenon, He went not to the proud, the
mighty, the famous, or the brilliant; He went
to the humble, the sick, the unfortunate; He
went right to the drunkard, the so-called
weakling of the world.

Well might He have said to us:

"Unto your weak and feeble hands, I have
entrusted a power beyond estimate.  To you
has been given that which has been denied
the most learned of your fellows.  Not to
scientists or statesmen, not to wives or
mothers, not even to My priests or ministers,
have I given this gift of healing other
alcoholics which I entrust to you.

"It must be used unselfishly; it carries with
it grave responsibility.  No day can be too
long; no demands upon your time can be too
urgent; no case too pitiful; no task to hard;
no effort too great.  It must be used with
tolerance, for I have restricted its
application to no race, no creed, and no
denomination.  Personal criticism you must
expect; lack of appreciation will be common;
ridicule will be your lot; your motives will
be misjudged.  You must be prepared for
adversity, for what men call adversity is
the ladder you must use to ascend the rungs
toward spiritual perfection, and, remember –
in the exercise of this power, I shall not
exact of you beyond your capabilities.

"You are not selected because of your
exceptional talents, and be careful, always,
if success attends your efforts, not to
ascribe to personal superiority that to which
you can lay claim only by virtue of My gift.
If I had wanted learned men to accomplish this
mission, the power would have been entrusted
to the physician and the scientist.  If I
had wanted eloquent men, there would have
been many anxious for the assignment, for
talk is the easiest used of all talents with
which I have endowed mankind.  If I had wanted
scholarly men, the world is filled with better
qualified men than you, who would be available.
You were selected because you have been the
outcasts of the world and your long experience
as drunkards has made or should make you humbly
alert to the cries of distress that come from
the lonely hearts of alcoholics everywhere.

"Keep ever in mind the admission you made
on the day of your profession in A.A., namely
that you are powerless and that it was only
with your willingness to turn your life and
will unto My keeping that relief came to you."

In the Doctors opinion, it says, "Many types
do not respond to the ordinary psychological
approach."

Can anyone clarify what this approach/treatment
may have been?

Many thanks

Terry

- - - -

NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR:

The standard work on this topic is the extremely
thorough and detailed book by William White,
"The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery
in America."

Other members of this group may have details
on the specific things that Dr. Silkworth had
been trying before AA came along.

Glenn C. (South Bend)

New book out:

Jane S., Q & A:  Alcoholism and Sobriety,
March 2007, ISBN 0-595-42334-5, xvi + 135 pp.,
$14.95.

http://hindsfoot.org/kqa1.html

(and http://hindsfoot.org/index.html )

Contains historical material on AA practices,
how newcomers were sponsored, and the way AA
meetings and committees were run and organized
in Pennsylvania (on the East Coast of the
United States) in the 1970-2000 period.

At 14:52 3/21/2007 , Bob S. wrote:
>An archivist friend of mine, who lives in
>southern Indiana,  would like to learn where
>Henrietta Seiberling is buried.  Best
>information leads me to believe that her plot
>is in Kentucky and that her gravestone is
>inscribed "Let go and let God."

She was from Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, which
just so happens is the home of my daughter,
and she is buried there according to
"A Narrative Timeline of A.A. History."
Go here and use the search function:

<http://silkworth.net/timelines/AA_Timeline_2004-04-01_Public04.pdf>

I will mention it to her and see if she can
do a phone call or two.  I plan a visit
there in May and, if we find the grave, can
take some pics of it.

Lawrenceburg is just south of Frankfort and
a few miles west of Lexington in, I believe,
Anderson County.

Tommy H in Baton Rouge

The New York Times, April 29,1917
WAR IS INCREASING THE DRUG-CONSUMING HABIT
Hospitals Develop Craving, Says Charles B.
Towns, Who Urges Federal Action

No human intensity can compare with that of
the drug user for his drug. Unrelieved, he
will let nothing stand between him and it;
neither hunger, nakedness, starvation, arson,
theft, nor murder will keep him from the
substance he craves. This is the opinion of
Charles B. Towns of New York City, of whom
Dr. Richard C. Cabot of Boston does not
hesitate to say that he "knows, more about
the alleviation and cure of drug addictions
than any doctor I have ever seen." The man
who first indorsed Mr. Towns and urged Dr.
Cabot, to study his specific treatment for the
drug-taker, was Dr. Alexander Lambert of
Bellevue Hospital, Professor of Clinical
Medicine at the Cornell University Medical
College.

And it is also the opinion of Mr. Towns that
the war in Europe has resulted in a tremendous
and unnecessary increase in the use of habit-
forming drugs, and that the great need in our
country at the moment is that Congress empower
the President to appoint a committee of able
men to investigate this whole matter in all
its phases and make such appropriation as may
be required to protect our soldiers from the
insidious evil that is doing its work abroad.

Mr. Towns is going to Washington in a few days
with this object in view. He hopes to bring
forcefully to the attention of President Wilson
certain facts concerning the growth of the drug
habit among the troops in Europe, together with
the necessity that this country take up this
whole subject by commission, because it is so
far-reaching, involves so much detail, and
affects so many and such varied interests that
it would be impossible at this time to introduce
in Congress legislation that would meet the case
as it should be met.

"I presume you have read in the papers," said
Mr. Towns, "the account of the arrest of some
illicit traffickers in habit-forming drugs in
which an enormous quantity--- $500,000 worth,
it is reported--- of such drugs was found and
it was also stated that this organization had
representatives in foreign countries and was
carrying on a wholesale business in such drugs.
This is of great interest and confirms my
position, namely, that unless this problem is
taken up internationally it will be impossible
to reach such things, because, the present
Federal and State laws on the subject are
wholly inadequate."

Before any legislation is proposed, Mr. Towns
believes the subject should be investigated by
the Federal Government and that its findings
should be made public and studied as a prelimi-
nary to the enactment of any law or amendment
to the present law.

"With the united wisdom of Congress applied to
the matter,'' he said a few days ago, "there
can be no doubt that such an investigation as
I have in mind would lay the foundation for
Federal legislation that would once and for
all solve this monstrous problem. Such action
of Congress would mean not only a solution of
this subject as far as the Federal Government
is concerned; it would mean also a solution
for the States. And it would, mind you, establish
a legislative, medical, and sociological
precedent that would give this country for
the first time the primacy it ought to have
in asking other countries to join with us once
and for all in terminating this evil--an evil
which has now become not merely a series of
isolated national problems, but a united world
problem.

"I have recently had a patient in this hospital
who had been going through two kinds of battle
in France. He won the Victoria Cross. But he
also acquired the drug habit. The army hospital
made a drug taker out of him. It has probably
done the same for half a million other brave
men.

"Before enlisting in the present war he in South
Africa, was awarded a South African Service
Medal, and was honorably discharged. He went
to France in August, 1914, and was in his first
engagement on Aug. 25, 26, 27, and 28 when he
was 'gassed.'

"He told me that the physical condition produced
by gas was similar to pneumonia in several
respects. One being a contraction of the chest
which makes it impossible for the patient to
lie down. The patients, himself included, were
carried into the hospital, set up against a
wall, and immediately placed under the influence
of morphine. He said it had been found that
morphine was the only thing that would relieve
a sufferer from the effects of gas.

"As soon as the patients were able to help
themselves and to use a hypodermic a mixture
of this morphine solution was put on a table
within their reach, and they were allowed to
use it as often as they felt inclined.

"Now, this soldier was not aware that he was
becoming a morphine addict, but in those three
months he became one. The treatment followed
in his case was the usual one, and, so far as
his observations went, each of the gas victims
who entered the hospital for treatment left
it a confirmed drug user.

"He returned to the front and took part in
the Hill 60 engagement, where his battalion
was wiped out---the Eleventh Battalion of the
Black Watch. He stood for an hour and a quarter
at roll call, and was the only man who answered
to his name. But he was wounded and went again
to the hospital. He told them that he was up
against the morphine habit, and they gave him
what morphine he needed while there.

"He left that hospital and joined the Royal
Engineers. was again wounded, again went to
the hospital for three weeks in March, 1915,
and again was supplied with the drug during
that time. Then he was sent to the Somme front,
where it was trench fighting. But he was still
able to get the drug in any quantity from
civilians. As he put it to me: 'Thousands and
thousands of dollars' worth of drugs are being
sold by the women who are following the army.

"It is the firm conviction of this man that all
those who have been through the war from the
first and have been 'gassed' are takers of the
drug.

"On July 27, 1915, his officers had ordered the
blowing up of a trench. My friend started with
a crew of eleven men to cross 275 feet of
tunnel toward the enemy, when, after reaching
half the distance, shells from the Austrian
guns fell short and blew the tunnelers to
pieces. Where had been a tunnel was now only
a hole.

"My friend picked himself up and found that his
leg was sprained and his back hurt. There was
one fellow whose leg was blown off. My friend
carried him over to their trenches so looked
back and saw another companion trying to get
up. So he carried him in. He carried back the
whole eleven, and dropped when the job was
finished.

"When he knew anything again he was back in the
hospital--the same hospital at which he had
remained previously for nearly three months.

"He informs me that the hospital records show
that while he was in them morphine was admini-
stered to him regularly. This will appear
on the charts, but not the quantity. He has
seen morphine administered to twenty men at
one time from the same hypodermic; in fact,
the nurses never refused morphine to any one
who asked for it.

"After he arrived in this country he went to
Boston and the British Consul there arranged
for him to go to Bermuda with the nurse. He
stayed there about two weeks, but his cough
got no better and he came back. He then went
into the Maine woods, where he tried to rid
himself of the drug habit, but found he could
not. The open air did cure his cough, and he
returned to Boston determined to conquer his
addiction to drugs. A physician prescribed
for him for four weeks, and he was taking as
much morphine at the end of that time as he
had been at the beginning.

"This man told me that he was very discouraged,
and had made up his mind to shoot himself. He
talked the matter over with his wife, and they
came to New York and saw me. He had only $71
left when he reached New York. I gave him the
best room in the house, feeling that I owed it
to the boys over there in Europe to do something.
He is cured.

"Now the basic way for the United States or
any other country to deal with this question,"
Mr. Towns asserted, "to go at once and directly
to the very root of the whole business, would
be to restrict all use of opium to its crude
form and to its forms as laudanum and paregoric.
This would cut off all pecuniary interest in
it, save for supplying it for legitimate medical
needs in the crude form, and in its least
harmful forms of laudanum and paregoric. Opium
is produced only in a few countries--practically
none in our own country--and it is only the
manufacture of its alkaloids that requires such
large outlay of capital in laboratory equipment.

"Where an opiate is indicated there are very
few instances in which the required results
could not be had from the administration of
the crude product. Crude opium is the least
harmful form of opium that can be taken for it
contains all of the alkaloids and may be taken
either by the mouth or in suppositories. If
the traffic in and sale of this drug was
reduced to traffic and sale of crude opium
it would not inconvenience the medical
profession in its legitimate use of the drug
in any way whatsoever find it would Immediately
stop this large illicit traffic that has grown
out of the habit-forming drug situation.

"No possible good will come out of attempting
merely to forbid the importation, manufacture
or sale of heroin. The chemists are very clever
and they would give us in another day some
preparation of opium under some other trade
name. And if it was not an actual preparation
of opium they would claim that it was a synthetic
one. The only way to meet such a habit-forming
drug condition is, I repeat, to restrict the
manufacture, sale, prescribing and administering
of opiates to the crude opium, to laudanum, and
to paregoric, and then to hold the physician
to a strict accounting of all of these he
personally prescribes or administers. There
are no physical conditions in which heroin or
any other narcotic is indicated but what could
be met by these. We can dispense even with
morphine and all of the opium alkaloids.

"I can go back to the time in the South when
there was an old rosewood medicine chest with
a ball of opium and a vial of paregoric, and
these easily met every possible need where
opiates were considered necessary to alleviate
pain. The medical profession would not be
inconvenienced in the slightest degree by such
a restriction, and it would at once eliminate
every unfavorable hazard that has grown out of
the use of habit-forming drugs for medical
purposes.

"Stopping importation is a farce, unless at
the same time there is a rigid Governmental
control in those countries that produce or
import the drug. The only obstacle to an
international understanding is that the
producing countries know very well that
Government regulation would materially
lessen the sale of the drug. Within the
borders of our own country such a system
would simplify rather than complicate present
conditions. We have today along our frontier
find in our parts inspectors trying to stop
the illicit traffic in opium, and the money
thus spent by our Government would be more
than sufficient to handle and distribute all
of the drug that is needed for legitimate
purposes.

"Any druggist could of course continue to buy
all that he wished, but he would have to
account for what he bought. The drug would
serve only its legitimate purpose, because the
druggist could sell it only on prescription.
This would at once eliminate the gravest
feature of the case, the indiscriminate sale
of proprietary and patent medicines containing
small quantities of opium. The physician would
thus have to shoulder the entire responsibility
for the use of any habit-forming drug.

"I must hammer this point once more: With
the Government as the first distributor and
the physician as the last, the whole condition
of affairs would assume a brighter aspect,
for it would be a simple matter to get from
the physician a proper accounting for what
he had dispensed. Thus the new crop of users
would be small, and less than 10 per cent. of
the opium at present brought into this country
would be sufficient to meet every legitimate
need."

Charles B. Towns, Ph.D.

In 1917, Charles B. Towns, Ph.D., who had
founded a Manhattan hospital at the turn of
the century as a "drying-out” facility, wrote
a groundbreaking article for The Modern
Hospital magazine in which he asserted,
"There is no such thing as 'curing' a case
of alcoholism. There is nothing on earth you
can do to prevent any human being from taking
up the use of alcohol again if he wants to."

Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous started his recovery at that
hospital. When the time came in 1938 to
finance the writing of the Big Book of
Alcoholics Anonymous and the selling of
shares in Works Publishing Co., Dr. "Silky"
Silkworth, Bill's physician and a friend of
A.A., helped to convert Dr. Towns into a
great A.A. enthusiast and had encouraged him
to loan $2,000 toward preparation of the
book, a sum that was increased to $4,000 and
later paid back in full. But he would not
buy stock, he wanted a note for security!

Dr. Towns also approached Fulton Oursler, then
editor of Liberty magazine, who commissioned
feature writer Morris Markey to write the
article "Alcoholics and God" for the September
1939 issue, giving A.A. its first national
publicity.

As we know, Ebby Thacher, sober in the Oxford
Group 2 months, and living at Calvary Mission
run by Rev. Sam Shoemaker, had visited with
Bill shortly after Armistice Day 1934. Bill
Wilson then made his first visit to Calvary
Mission on or about December 7, 1934, just days
before his last admittance to Towns Hospital,
December 11, 1934. This could very well account
for the influence on Bill’s fascination with
the conversion experience whether he realized
it or not.

He had researched much religious material as
well as Richard Peabody’s "Common Sense Of
Drinking," and perhaps the works of Charles B.
Towns, although it is not well known that
Charles Towns wrote three important books on
alcoholism: "Habits That Handicap" (1915),
"Reclaiming The Drinker"(1931), and "Alcohol
And Drug Sickness"(1934). Bill, with his
inquiring mind, may well have read them in his
previous trips to Towns Hospital.

Towns was very emphatic about never talking
down to an alcoholic, or scolding a man that
you are trying to help. (12 Steppers and
Al-Anons take note.)

There are other articles by or about Towns
listed below, and the text of two of them
follow below that:

Habits That Handicap: The Remedy for Narcotic,
Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Addictions
(New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1919)

Help for the Hard Drinker; What Can Be Done
to Save the Man Worth While (New York, 1912)

"The Injury of Tobacco and its Relation to other
Drug Habits," 83 Cent. Mag. 766-772 (1912)

The Peril of the Drug Habit, and the Need of
Restrictive Legislation (New York: Century Co.,
1912)

Federal Responsibility in the Solution of the
Habit-forming Drug Problem (New York, 1916)

The Personal Problem Confronting the Physician
in the Treatment of Drug and Alcoholic Addiction
(New York: Charles B. Towns Hospital, 1917)

The Present and Future of Narcotive Pathology,
in Three Parts (New York: Charles B. Towns
Hospital, 1917)

The Alcoholic Problem Considered in its
Institutional, Medical, and Sociological
Aspects, in Three Parts (New York, The
C. B. Towns Hospital, 1917)


NEW DRUG LAW HITS ACCIDENTAL USERS
Towns Says Provision Must Be Made to Treat
Thousands Who Got Habit Unconsciously.
THEIR SUPPLY SHUT OFF
Drug Fiends of the Underworld Will Be Little
Affected by Statute Governing Physicians'
Prescriptions.
New York Times June 21, 1914

The Boylan anti-drug law, which was passed by
the New York Legislature on March 28, and which
becomes effective on July 1, will result in
serious consequences if State and city
authorities do not make immediate provision for
the treatment of "innocent" drug slaves,
according to Charles B. Towns of 119 West
Eighty-first Street, who framed the law.

"There are thousands of persons in this city
alone who have unconsciously become addicted
to the use of habit-forming drugs and who are
not in any way to blame for their condition,"
Mr. Towns said yesterday. "Some of these
innocent victims may not yet know that they
have become drug fiends. No estimate can be
made of their number. These are persons who,
perhaps several years ago, were given drugs on
physicians prescriptions to alleviate suffering
from some disease or injury which, in most of
the cases has since been cured. The administra-
tion of the drug, however, creates a craving
for it which the patient cannot withstand, and
after the cause for the first doses is gone
the habit remains. The victims then secure more
and more of the drug on their physicians'
prescriptions. If the drug is denied them they
become violently nervous and show all of the
horrible symptoms of the deprived dope fiend
within twenty-four hours; making it necessary
for their physicians to renew the prescriptions.

"The new law provides that in the future, it
shall be unlawful for any physician, veterina-
rian, or dentist to issue prescriptions for
drugs except after a physical examination for
the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity,
and to prevent the forging of prescription
blanks every doctor signing them must affix a
record of his name in full, his office address,
office hours, and telephone number, and to
whom the prescription is issued, together with
the date of issuance. It can be filled but once,
and must be filled within ten days. It will
also be unlawful for any person to fill such
prescription without first verifying its
authenticity by telephone or otherwise or to
have drugs in his possession without authority.
Aside from the fact that any dealer or physician
found guilty of breaking the new law will be
guilty of a misdemeanor, his license may be
revoked upon his conviction.

"These new strictures will make it impossible
for the innocent drug fiends to secure more
drugs from their physicians. The law for the
time being will hardly affect the drug users
of the underworld, who have long known secret
channels through which they can obtain their
drugs. It will fall most heavily on the person
who has broken no law in the past in securing
habit forming drugs and will drive him--or her,
for there are vast numbers of women who have
become drug fiends in this manner--to seek
illicit drug dens if other methods are not
speedily provided. The law provides that
persons who are found to be habitual users of
such drugs shall be committed to a State,
county, or city hospital or institution
licensed under the State Lunacy Commission
until they have been treated sufficiently to
warrant their release. It takes only five or
six days to cure a drug fiend in a hospital,
but as yet the hospitals licensed by the
commission have not made ample preparation for
the treatment of more than a small percentage
of the cases which should be sent to them when
the law goes into effect if the highest good
is to be derived from the law.

"The movement for intelligent legislation
regulating drug traffic is comparatively young
and New York's new law will not remedy
conditions in this State, but it is a good
beginning. It should attract the attention of
intelligent people in other States, and should
be imitated throughout the country. Until this
is done, however, and uniform anti-drug
legislation has been secured we will be
handicapped by the fact that drug users in
New York can send prescriptions across the
river to New Jersey, or elsewhere, and have
them filled with little inconvenience. The
law provides that all orders for the wholesale
purchase of drugs must be written on serially
numbered, duplicated blanks furnished by the
Commissioner of Health. This will keep track
of all supplies of drugs purchased in New York,
but druggists, or persons posing as druggists,
will still be able to order from Philadelphia,
or elsewhere on their regular letterhead paper
or on fake letterhead paper. The need of
national legislation is obvious."

Mr. Towns has prepared an act which he hopes to
have passed by Congress imposing a tax upon and
regulating the importation, production,
manufacture and distribution of habit-forming
drugs. Under the present Federal law, he said
yesterday, the government asks no question
concerning the disposition which is made of
crude drugs imported into the country, but
simply taxes them as they come in. His bill
proposes that a close record be kept of every
ounce of habit-forming drug that enters the
country until it is finally consumed under
orders from a reputable physician. There should
also be legal provision, he said yesterday,
to prevent the filling of prescriptions for
drugs issued by any physician not a resident
of the State in which the prescription is filled,
so as to overcome the present interstate laxity.
In setting an example in the matter for other
States to follow, it was suggested it would be
a good idea for the New York State Medical
Society to prepare official prescription blanks
exclusively for drugs and to have them
copyrighted so that similar blanks could not
be printed for illicit use.

When asked what he considered the principal
cause of the widespread use of drugs, Mr.
Towns said:

"In the six thousand cases I have studied,
I have found that in every case in which the
victim was a youth he had smoked cigarettes
long before he began to take drugs." Effective
universal anti-drug legislation, he said,
would reduce lunacy and criminality about
40 per cent.

An archivist friend of mine, who lives in
southern Indiana,  would like to learn where
Henrietta Seiberling is buried.  Best
information leads me to believe that her plot
is in Kentucky and that her gravestone is
inscribed "Let go and let God."

I would much appreciate this information -
thanks!

Bob S.

Richard M. Dubiel, The Road to Fellowship:
The Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the
Jacoby Club in the Development of Alcoholics
Anonymous (2004).

http://hindsfoot.org/kDub1.html
http://hindsfoot.org/kDub2.html

Dubiel showed in this book, that although A.A.
tradition said that Hazard was a patient of
the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung for a year
in 1931, he could have spent two months with
Jung at most during the course of that year,
and even that would have been difficult, based
on his study of the Hazard family papers.

But in the period immediately following the
publication of this book, two other researchers,
Amy Colwell Bluhm, Ph.D., and Cora Finch,
working independently, established that Rowland
actually arrived in Zurich in May 1926 (five
years earlier than the traditional A.A. date).

See Bluhm's article "Verification of C. G.
Jung’s analysis of Rowland Hazard and the
history of Alcoholics Anonymous" in the
American Psychological Association's journal
History of Psychology in November 2006 and

Cora Finch's long account of Rowland Hazard's
life and struggles with alcoholism at
http://www.stellarfire.org/

Other than the re-dating however, Bluhm's and
Finch's work corroborated the A.A. tradition
that Rowland Hazard was Carl Jung's patient
for a considerable length of time, and the
two of them discovered a good deal of detail
about Rowland's relationship with Jung and the
general background. Jung ended up telling
Rowland that he had never seen alcoholics of
his type recover until they became willing
to commit themselves to the spiritual life.

Since Rowland was a typical alcoholic, however,
it took him seven more years of denial and
misery -- as he continued to refuse to take
Jung's prescription seriously -- before he
met Courtenay Baylor from the Emmanuel Movement
and began seeking a spiritual solution to his
alcoholism.

Dubiel's book shows how Hazard had to be
hospitalized for his alcoholism in February
and March of 1932, and then from January 1933
to October 1934 was again in bad shape and
unable to carry on his business activities.
But then he explains how Courtenay Baylor
became Rowland Hazard's therapist in 1933,
and continued to work with him through 1934.
It was under the influence of Baylor's
Emmanuel Movement therapy (with its
combination of spirituality and simple
lay 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.

In August 1934, of course, Hazard helped
rescue Ebby Thacher from being committed to
Brattleboro, and three months later, in
November 1934, Ebby visited Bill Wilson in
his kitchen, in the famous scene recorded
in the first chapter of the Big Book.

Not sure why the link below was posted, but a
direct link to the information rather than the
below link to the copy is:

http://content.apa.org/journals/hop/9/4/313


---- Original message ----
From: "robin_foote" <gentle_bear@...>
> Bluhm, Amy Colwell. Verification of C. G.
> Jung's Analysis of Rowland Hazard and the
> History of Alcoholics Anonymous. History of
> Psychology. 2006 Nov Vol 9(4) 313-324.
>
>
http://alcoholselfhelpnews.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/verification-of-c-g-jungs-an\
alysis-of-rowland-hazard-and-the-history-of-alcoholics-anonymous/

Bluhm, Amy Colwell. Verification of C. G.
Jung's Analysis of Rowland Hazard and the
History of Alcoholics Anonymous. History of
Psychology. 2006 Nov Vol 9(4) 313-324.

From: Alcohol Self-help News
<
http://alcoholselfhelpnews.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/verification-of-c-g-jungs-an\
alysis-of-rowland-hazard-and-the-history-of-alcoholics-anonymous/>
















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

SOURCE REFERENCES:

AACOA--AA Comes of Age
AGAA--The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, by Dick B
BW-RT--Bill W by Robert Thompson
BW-FH--Bill W by Francis Hartigan
CH--Children of the Healer, by Christine Brewer
DBGO--Dr Bob and the Good Old-timers
GB--Getting Better Inside Alcoholics Anonymous by Nan Robertson
NG--Not God, by Ernest Kurtz
NW--New Wine, by Mel B
PIO--Pass It On, AAWS
RAA--The Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, by Bill Pittman

1909: The Akron Rubber Mold and Machine Co was founded. It reorganized
later, in 1928, as the National Rubber Machinery Co. In 1935, it became the
center of a proxy fight that brought Bill W to Akron, OH. (BW-RT 211-212, CH
4, NG 26, PIO 134, RAA 142)

1915: T Henry Williams went to Akron, OH to work as Chief Engineer for the
National Rubber Machinery Co. (PIO 145)

1935

April, Bill W returned to Wall St and was introduced to Howard Tompkins of
the firm Baer and Co. Tompkins was involved in a proxy fight to take over
control of the National Rubber Machinery Co based in Akron, OH. (BW-RT 211,
NG 26, BW-FH 74, PIO 133-134, GB 33)

May, Bill W went to Akron but the proxy fight was quickly lost. He remained
behind at the Mayflower Hotel very discouraged. (BW-RT 212, PIO 134-135)

===========
[after Bill and Bob met]
===========

June, Bill and Dr Bob went to Oxford Group meetings on Wednesday nights at
the home of T Henry and Clarace Williams. T Henry lost his job due to the
proxy fight that brought Bill to Akron. (AACOA 141, NW 68-69, 73, DBGO
70-71, 99-102, PIO 145-147, AGAA 186, NG 317) Favored Scripture readings at
meetings were The Sermon on the Mount, First Corinthians Chapter 13 and the
Book of James. (AAGA 193, 208-209, 253) (GTBT 95-96 says that meetings were
held at Dr Bob's house and moved to the Williams' house in late 1936 or
early 1937)

In other sources I've read, Bill also had dreams of possibly becoming the
chief executive of the company targeted for takeover.

Cheers
Arthur

--Original Message--

From: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Lee
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:12 PM
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Re: Proxy battle in Akron

No. Bill was representing a group of stockholders
who wanted to take over management of the Akron
company.  In a proxy fight an individual obtains
"proxies,"  a document which constitutes legal
permission to vote for the stockholder who
supplied the proxy.  A prospective management
group contacts stockholders with large voting
blocks of stock, and asks those stockholders
for their proxies.  Stockholders elect the board
of directors for a corporation. The board of
directors selects the officers of the company,
such as president, vice-president, treasurer.

From Laurie A., David J., and Shakey Mike:
ordering information for Share

From: <jennylaurie1@...>
(jennylaurie1 at hotmail.com)

Hi Frank,

Will forward your message to our GSO in York,
UK. If you get no reply you can contact them at:

aashare@...
(aashare at btconnect.com)

Or - telephone (UK) 01904 644026.

Thanks for your interst and good hunting!

Laurie A.

- - - -

From: Frank E. Nyikos, Milford, Indiana, USA
<fenyikos@...>
(fenyikos at hoosierlink.net)

>Would be interested in ordering Share magazine,
>but living in a small rural community, do
>not have access to convert dollars so as to
>send pounds - Would appreciate further info
>and/or email address to find out how this
>could be done.

- - - -

From: "David Jones" <davidjones@...>
(davidjones at davidjones3.plus.com)

The email address for Share magazine is:

aashare@...
(aashare at btconnect.com)

Hopefully, they will bee able to help you.

The subscription rate is £12 p.a for UK;
£22.50 p.a. for Europe; and £35 p.a
international airmail.

God bless
Dave

- - - -

From: Shakey1aa@...
(Shakey1aa at aol.com)

Shakey here - to update this ... I contacted
Share and was given the following information
in reference to their magazine. it may also
hold true for the book. I will pass on further
information as it becomes available.

>Hi Mike
>Thank you for your interest in subscribing
>to Share.  To order 2 copies per month for
>1 year is 135.513 USD (£70.00) or 2 copies
>for 6 months 67.736 USD (£35.00). If it
>is easier this can be paid direct into our
>bank, I will send you the details if you
>require them.
>Best wishes
>Chris

Yis,
Shakey Mike

Going to 11th NAW in Phoenix Sept 6-9,2007.
Plan now to make it. Hope to see you all
there.

- - - -

FROM THE MODERATOR:

Here is the information given online by the
British AA organization. They give a cost of
one pound per issue if you buy it one issue
at a time.  It seems to come out twice a
month, so that would be 24 pounds per year
bought in the U.K.

The price when sent by international airmail
is much steeper, because of postage.  That
seems to be 35 British pounds for a six month's
subscription (12 issues), and 70 British
pounds for a year's subscription.  That
would be about 2.92 British pounds per issue.

It's about two U.S. dollars to the pound,
which roughly doubles the cost in dollars. At
today's conversion rate, that would be 67.95
U.S. dollars for six months and 135.87 U.S.
dollars for a year's subscription.

http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/geninfo/11literature.shtml
http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/geninfo/share.shtml

AA Share Magazine

SHARE is the official magazine of Alcoholics
Anonymous in England & Wales.

Its 32 pages are a source of sober views and
ideas on the world-wide Fellowship and its
programme of recovery from alcoholism. It serves
as a meeting between meetings for newcomers to
AA, helping them to both identify with others
and learn more about the Fellowship. SHARE also
aims to assist experienced members in maintaining
and improving the quality of their lives in
sobriety.

All content is written by AA members and is
divided into articles reflecting general
experience, strength and hope; those that
trace the roots, early days and fundamental
principles of AA; and those submitted in
response to the advertised monthly theme,
e.g. The Telephone Lifeline or My Best Day
Sober.

A 300-word editorial usually dwells on the
theme and there are regular features like
Letters Pages, Diary of a Recovering Alcoholic
and SHAREisms... a collection of homilies
and insights that reflect the hard-edged
wisdom available around 'The Rooms'
(meetings).

No poetry or obituaries are published.

SHARE is put together by an Editor and
Production Editor taking their turn at
Fellowship service. The production disk is
laid out and illustrated professionally.
Both report to a London monthly meeting of
the Editorial Team who advise, support and
monitor guidelines. The final decision on
published material rests with the Editor,
who is appointed on a four-year term by
the General Service Board of AA.

The 4-page glossy centrefold -- the cover
too has access to full colour -- serves as
a pull-out information guide on AA groups
and events. It is assembled by AA's paid
staff at the York General Service Office,
which also logs and despatches contributions
to the Editor and three advisory Readers;
types up the selected content and distributes
the magazine to groups and individual readers.

GSO organises subscriptions, which are paid
in advance. SHARE costs £1 and circulation
is around 4,800.

This is A.A. General Service Conference-
approved literature Prepared by General
Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous

Abercrombie would be a common word. In the
west there is a city named after a fort named
after an American Colonel on the Red River.
As a doctor, Dr Bob would have had to be aware
of a foreign doctor known on for his work on
major diseases. On the web, one can see more
references to the name in the area where he
grew up and went to school.

Hi John

I beg to differ with your interpretation of
the Volstead or National Prohibition Act - it
did in fact include provisions limiting the
alcohol content of beverages and private
possession and consumption. As with most
federal law there were also exceptions defined
but they were not open ended.

Beverages with an alcohol content of 0.5% or
more were explicitly illegal. Also, while
there were some provisions for allowable
possession and use of alcohol in one's home,
it did not include alcoholic beverages that
were illegally manufactured.

There were no restrictions on alcohol used
for fuel, medicinal purposes and sacramental
usage in religious services. Needless to say
prescriptions for alcohol went through the
roof and people seemed to have taken a mighty
sharp turn at becoming awfully religious in
their use of sacramental wine (grin).

Movies, due to their poetic license and time
limitations, are very unreliable in demon-
strating actual facts and conditions. As an
example, the movie "The Untouchables" starring
Kevin Kostner (and to some degree the TV
series) would have you believe that Elliot
Ness was responsible for the indictment and
conviction of Al Capone and witnessed the
death of his underboss Frank Nitti.

None of that is true. The IRS nailed Al Capone
for tax evasion and he was also charged with
about 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act.
Frank Nitti committed suicide about 5 or 6
years after Capone's imprisonment rather than
go to prison himself. Ness' role is actually
much exaggerated but it makes for a good story.

To some degree I believe you are juxtaposing
the inability (and unwillingness) to enforce
the law as if the law itself allowed certain
things to be legal that it actually made
illegal. The Volstead Act was supposed to have
been heavily enforced in the South and West
but very sparingly enforced in the North and
East of the US. In many locations and communi-
ties it was not enforced at all and looked
upon with scorn.

For the enforcement that was done, court
dockets became so overloaded with criminal
cases that it too had the effect of limiting
enforcement. Also public intoxication arrests
skyrocketed during prohibition further
impacting the courts and overwhelming them.

In any event, the grand experiment was an
unmitigated failure. Supposedly per capita
alcohol consumption actually increased over
the duration of the Volstead Act until repeal
of the 18th amendment when it declined (go
figure).

Cheers
Arthur

- - - -

John Lee <johnlawlee@...>
(johnlawlee at yahoo.com) wrote:

Alcohol and drinking were never "illegal"
under federal law. The purchase or use of
intoxicating liquors was never proscribed by
the 18th Amendment or Volstead Act.  Those
laws prohibited the manufacture, transportation
or sale of intoxicating liquors.

Bob and Bill could drink and buy liquor without
fear of legal penalties during the Prohibition
period. When you see old movies of a "raid"
by Treasury agents, you won't see the agents
arresting the drinkers.  They just close the
joint and impound the hootch.

Abercrombie & Fitch was a big "casual luxury"
clothing retailer in the 1930's, .... very
common to see folks on the golf greens wearing
it so it might have been a moniker insinuating
someone was a social climber (predate yuppie),
but in a fun way, on their way up the sobriety
social scale.......a joking reminder not to
forget where they came from......

Rob

- - - -

Stephen Gentile <sagentile@...> wrote:
Many times throughout the show Dr.Bob callled
out to Bill with the name "Abercrombie." Was
this a nick name of Bill's or was this plain
garble?

Steve G in NJ

- - - -

  Note from the moderator: Dr. Bob liked to
  give people strange nicknames. He sometimes
  called James D. (J. D.) Holmes by that
  nickname "Abercrombie."

  J. D. said he was the tenth person to get
  sober in A.A. -- counting Bill W. and Dr. Bob
  as A.A. Number One and Number Two.  J. D. was
  the founder of the first A.A. group in Indiana

  http://hindsfoot.org/nhome.html
  http://hindsfoot.org/nfirst.html

  In his memoirs, J. D. says (of Dr. Bob):

  "He was great on slang. He used to call me
  'Abercrombie.' Why, I don't know. He'd call
  up and say, 'Bring your frail over,' meaning
  my wife. He had a peculiar vocabulary, but
  a wonderful one. He was an educated man, but
  some of his slang you didn't hear the ordinary
  person use."

  I've heard that Dr. Bob sometimes called
  Bill W. "Willy."  But did he ever call him
  "Abercrombie"?  What do our experts in the
  group say on that?

  Glenn C., South Bend

Would be interested in ordering Share magazine,
but living in a small rural community, do
not have access to convert dollars so as to
send pounds - Would appreciate further info
and/or email address to find out how this
could be done.

"Frank E. Nyikos" <fenyikos@...>
(fenyikos at hoosierlink.net)


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: "jenny andrews" <jennylaurie1@...>
   To: <AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com>
   Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 5:35 AM
   Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] RE: AA history in Great Britain


   > Share magazine - the British counterpart of
   > Grapevine - has produced a book called Share
   > and Share Alike to mark the 60th anniversary
   > of AA's foundation in Britain (England,
   > Scotland and Wales) on 31 March 1947. It
   > contains stories from each of the past six
   > decades of Share and its predecessor the AA
   > Newsletter. The book also includes information
   > about the British Fellowship's history. The
   > price is £4.75 sterling (inc p+p), checks
   > etc. payable to 'General Service Office'.
   >
   > Send orders to:
   >
   > Share and Share Alike,
   > PO Box 1, 10 Toft Green,
   > York YO1 7NJ UK.
   >
   > Laurie A.,
   > Editor, Share
   >
   >
   >
   >
   >
   >
   > Yahoo! Groups Links
   >
   >
   >
   >

Alcohol and drinking were never "illegal"
under federal law. The purchase or use of
intoxicating liquors was never proscribed by
the 18th Amendment or Volstead Act.  Those
laws prohibited the manufacture, transportation
or sale of intoxicating liquors.

Bob and Bill could drink and buy liquor without
fear of legal penalties during the Prohibition
period. When you see old movies of a "raid"
by Treasury agents, you won't see the agents
arresting the drinkers.  They just close the
joint and impound the hootch.

Is there any information as to why Ebby needed
to make amends to Bill?



> Is there any historical information of amends
> made to Bill W. from Ebby T.?
>
> If so, do any of you have a brief summary or
> can direct me to any books? (particularly page
> numbers)
>
> Thanks.
>
> Rotax Steve
> Nangi namaj perez
>
>

It is worth reminding those who read AA History Lovers:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aahistorylovers/
that the original AA History Buffs forum is available:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aahistorybuffs/
Nancy Olson moderated it from 2000 through 2002.

The move from  AAHstoryBuffs  to  AAHistoryLovers was
necessary because a technical glitch made it impossible
to add new members to the original Yahoo! group.

Nancy copied the significant posts (but not all of the
discussions) from  Buffs  into  Lovers  when she started
it as a replacement.

The proxy battle Bill lost in Akron was for
control of National Rubber Machinery (NRM), a
small manufacturer of machine tools for the
tire industry.  He lost out to a group headed
by a fellow named Nils Florman, who was soon
ousted from the company after a few years.

Either then or a short time later, a very able
man named Paul Frank took over the company and
ran it successfully for about 25 years.  He
was highly regarded in Akron and was also an
influential member of St. Paul's Episcopal
Church, which was pastored by Rev. Walter
Tunks (the man Bill called seeking contact
with an alcoholic).  I interviewed Mr. Frank
at his beautiful home in 1980.  He was 86 at
the time.

NRM had been made up of four companies brought
together in 1928.  But they had never been
able to realize the benefits of consolidation
and the company was in serious trouble by 1935,
which made it a candidate for a takeover.  At
that time, there were 113,000 shares of NRM
stock outstanding, and it had a market value
of about $1 per share.  Thus the company could
have been acquired for $113,000, but with the
price so depressed, shareholders were unwilling
to sell.  They were interested in seeing a
management change, however, and Florman's group
evidently made a better case than Bill and his
partners.

Had Bill succeeded in the fight and been named
president of the company, he would have been
paid a salary of about $14,000 per year---a
handsome income in 1935.  I doubt that he would
have been thinking about calling on another
alcoholic while facing the problems of running
a business.  (My personal opinion is that Bill
could have run NRM very well.)

T. Henry Williams, who with his wife Clarace
hosted the first group of alcoholics in Akron,
lost his job with NRM as a result of the proxy
battle.  He later became a principal in the
McNeil company, which was an NRM competitor
in manufacturing tire processing machines.

Both NRM and McNeil went through many changes,
but today they are joined as one company!

And that completes today's lesson about the
tire manufacturing business and its effect
on AA's origins.

Mel Barger



Mel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mel Barger
melb@...
(melb at accesstoledo.com)


   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Gallery Photography
   To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 3:17 PM
   Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Proxy battle in Akron


   Do any of you know more details about the Proxy
   battle Bill W. lost, in Akron, just prior to
   meeting Doctor Bob?

   I've also looked up information on just what
   a proxy battle is. I think I understand but it
   would help if I had more specific information
   on how and what the fight is about.

   If I understand it correctly, Bill was like
   some "middle man" fighting between company and
   stockholders as a substitute for them fighting
   each other directly.

   Well, who was he fighting and what was he
   fighting for?

   Hope you can help me understand this better.

   Thanks.

   Rotax Steve





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

To add to the commentary on prohibition:

The 18th amendment to the US Constitution,
prohibiting alcohol, was ratified on January
16, 1919. On October 28 of that year, Congress
passed the Volstead (or National Prohibition)
Act over President Wilson’s veto.

Terms such as “bootlegger” “speakeasy” and
“bathtub gin” entered the national vocabulary.

As a physician, Dr Bob could obtain distilled
alcohol "for medicinal purposes" with
virtually no effort. Prior to repealing the
18th amendment, beer was legalized and Dr.
Bob writes about it ("the beer experiment")
in his story. Bill also wrote in his story
about the concoctions he made in his home
("Bathtub gin, two bottles a day, and often
three, got to be routine").

On December 5, 1933, the 21st amendment to
the US Constitution was ratified repealing
the 18th amendment. The almost decade and
a half prohibition of alcohol was widely
disregarded and yielded fortunes for organized
crime in bootlegging and smuggling.

Both Bill W and Dr Bob did some of the worst
of their drinking at a time when alcohol
was illegal in the US.

Cheers
Arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Glenn Chesnut
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 12:45 PM
To: AAHistoryLovers group
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Richard Nixon, Tom Pike, and the Hughes Act

The two most important pieces of legislation
about alcoholism in the United States were
the Prohibition Amendment and the Hughes Act.
The first ended up being widely regarded as
a failure.* The second was not only a success,
it still lies at the base of some of the most
effective help being given to American
alcoholics even today, over thirty-five years
later. Most modern American alcoholism treatment
facilities, along with the kind of alcoholism
counselors whom they use and sometimes a
significant part of their funding, are based
on the provisions of the Hughes Act.

The Hughes Act was put on the legislative
agenda in the U.S. Congress by Senator Harold
Hughes from Iowa, who had served a series of
terms as governor of Iowa before being elected
to the U.S. Senate, in spite of admitting
openly that he was a recovered alcoholic.
Following the precedent set by Mrs. Marty Mann,
he and Tom Pike and other major political
figures freely acknowledged their alcoholism
in public, but made no mention of their
membership in A.A. except in private.

In private of course, we can see Tom Pike not
only mentioning his A.A. membership to President
Nixon, but preaching the twelve steps to the
president in this fascinating letter that Bill
Lash has found.

Of special interest to us in this group: Nancy
Olson, the founder of the AAHistoryLovers, was
another of the key political figures during
the period when the Hughes Act was being passed
and implemented (1970-1980). She was the
senatorial aide whom Senator Hughes assigned
to do whatever had to been done in order to
get the legislation passed. On many occasions,
Nancy also played a key role in coordinating
the efforts of the many other A.A. members in
Washington D.C. and elsewhere who were involved
in gaining passage of the bill.

President Nixon was one of the Washington
figures who opposed the Hughes Act. For a
long time after its passage, he refused to
sign it, which would have been the equivalent
of vetoing it. Tom Pike, whom Nixon regarded
as a good friend and staunch supporter, was
one of the influential A.A. people who kept
up the pressure on Nixon in their private
contacts with him until he finally grudgingly
put his signature on the bill.

Part of the problem was that Hughes and some
of his supporters were Democrats. Pike, as a
devoted Republican, was able to add his voice
in support of the Hughes Act and raise the
issue above the partisan level.

For a full account of the enactment and
implementation of the Hughes Act, see Nancy
Olson, With a Lot of Help from Our Friends:
The Politics of Alcoholism.

   http://hindsfoot.org/kNO1.html
   http://hindsfoot.org/kNO2.html
   http://hindsfoot.org/kNO3.html
   ______________________________

*During the Prohibition Era, the number of
people in the United States who died of
cirrhosis of the liver and other strongly
alcohol related diseases underwent a slight
but nevertheless significant and measurable
decline. On that ground, it could be regarded
as a public health success.

The two problems were that (1) it did nothing
effective to prevent true hardcore chronic
alcoholics from obtaining alcohol. It was not
a solution at all to the problem of alcoholism.
Real alcoholics obtained easily available
illegal alcohol or brewed or fermented their
own alcoholic beverages. And (2) the rise of
criminal associations for importing or making
illegal alcohol produced murder, violence,
and lawbreaking on a scale which the government
could not deal with effectively.






Yahoo! Groups Links

No. Bill was representing a group of stockholders
who wanted to take over management of the Akron
company.  In a proxy fight an individual obtains
"proxies,"  a document which constitutes legal
permission to vote for the stockholder who
supplied the proxy.  A prospective management
group contacts stockholders with large voting
blocks of stock, and asks those stockholders
for their proxies.  Stockholders elect the board
of directors for a corporation. The board of
directors selects the officers of the company,
such as president, vice-president, treasurer.

The GB GSO has recently moved to new space at
10 Toft Green, York, England.  There is an
abundance of archives and a growing interest
in that country. They will soon be on display
in a room at the new office space for visitors
to view similar to the GSO archives in New York.

Over the past few years, parts of these
archives have been displayed throughout the
countries of England, Scotland, and Wales in
Archives "Road Shows".  The growing interest
in archive work led to last years General
Service Conference approving a pamphlet on
the subject and this years conference will
consider the draft of a guideline for
archivists.

   Roger W.

Is there any historical information of amends
made to Bill W. from Ebby T.?

If so, do any of you have a brief summary or
can direct me to any books? (particularly page
numbers)

Thanks.

Rotax Steve
Nangi namaj perez

Do any of you know more details about the Proxy
battle Bill W. lost, in Akron, just prior to
meeting Doctor Bob?

I've also looked up information on just what
a proxy battle is. I think I understand but it
would help if I had more specific information
on how and what the fight is about.

If I understand it correctly, Bill was like
some "middle man" fighting between company and
stockholders as a substitute for them fighting
each other directly.

Well, who was he fighting and what was he
fighting for?

Hope you can help me understand this better.

Thanks.

Rotax Steve

Many times throughout the show Dr.Bob callled
out to Bill with the name "Abercrombie." Was
this a nick name of Bill's or was this plain
garble?

I first saw a prelude in Akron last year at
Founders Day weekend by the Gatehouse. They
were advertising its opening coming up this
year.

On opening night Coffee was served in the
aisles. On the 7th it was stopped permanently.
I was at the show and thought it was a well-
rounded little show with a good reflection of
AA history with slight overacting. I doubt if
any non-AA would appreciate this performance or
be able to give a favorable review. Any AA
would find it warming. Most were talking
favorably after.

Opinion of course.

Steve G in NJ

- - - -

Note from the moderator: Dr. Bob liked to
give people strange nicknames. He sometimes
called James D. (J. D.) Holmes by that
nickname "Abercrombie."

J. D. said he was the tenth person to get
sober in A.A. -- counting Bill W. and Dr. Bob
as A.A. Number One and Number Two.  J. D. was
the founder of the first A.A. group in Indiana

http://hindsfoot.org/nhome.html
http://hindsfoot.org/nfirst.html

In his memoirs, J. D. says (of Dr. Bob):

"He was great on slang. He used to call me
'Abercrombie.' Why, I don't know. He'd call
up and say, 'Bring your frail over,' meaning
my wife. He had a peculiar vocabulary, but
a wonderful one. He was an educated man, but
some of his slang you didn't hear the ordinary
person use."

I've heard that Dr. Bob sometimes called
Bill W. "Willy."  But did he ever call him
"Abercrombie"?  What do our experts in the
group say on that?

Glenn C., South Bend

Bill, this is very interesting but I was
wondering if you think Loners International
and World Hello might also be included?

Mary Pat
South Bend


On 3/7/07, Bill Lash <barefootbill@...> wrote:
>
>   FROM AKRON to the INTERNET
> A time line of A.A. communication
> The ways A.A's carry the message have changed over the years. The message
> hasn't.
>
> 1935: Bill W. & Dr. Bob meet face to face in Akron.
> 1939: The Big Book is published, carrying the message in print.
> 1939: First public service message about the Big Book appears in a New
> York
> Times ad, "Have You an Alcoholic Problem?"
> 1941: NBC begins a 13-part syndicated radio program called Is Alcohol a
> Problem in Your Home?
> 1941: Saturday Evening Post publishes Jack Alexander's article about AA.
> 1944: The AA Grapevine begins monthly publication as AA's meeting in
> print.
> 1945: Paramount Pictures releases the movie The Lost Weekend, based on the
> novel by Charles Jackson.
> 1946: Marty Mann explains alcoholism and AA on the radio show We The
> People.
> 1947: First transatlantic telephone call is received by The Alcoholic
> Foundation from an Army hospital in Germany.
> 1948: An AA member explains principles of the program on Hi, Jinx, a
> morning
> radio show on WNBC.
> 1949: CBS radio broadcasts a 10 episode drama about an alcoholic who finds
> AA. GSO is deluged with inquiries.
> 1953: HAAM, an international fellowship of AA ham radio operators, is
> established.
> 1953: Art Linkletter interviews a masked woman member of AA on his TV
> show.
> 1954: The Grapevine asks for the signals of amateur radio operators who
> would like to communicate via the airwaves.
> 1956: An all-AA TV program, Mr. Hope, an actual closed meeting of masked
> AA
> members, debuts in Detroit. AA HQ in Detroit is besieged by telephone
> calls
> and letters from people wanting more information.
> 1956: Bill W. and Eve M. from general service are anonymous guests on the
> popular radio show Martha Deane on WOR.
> 1960: Broadcast of a radio show called Alcoholism - The Problem and the
> Hope, featuring Marty Mann and a GSO staff member.
> 1962: The Betty Furness radio program features a show on international AA.
> 1963: The movie Days of Wine and Roses is previewed by GSO staffers before
> its release.
> l963: WNBC begins broadcasting an AA radio program called Ask an
> Alcoholic.
> 1966: AA creates a 60-second TV spot for distribution by public
> information
> committees.
> 1966: Five groups in two states hold the first telephone conference-call
> meeting.
> 1970: KUAT in Tucson, AZ, launches AA-of-the-Air, a radio show for
> homebound
> AAs.
> 1973: David Suskind interviews 5 women AAs on his TV show.
> 1976: Members of AA, Al-Anon, and Alateen are interviewed on the John
> Gentry
> Radio Show on WGCH in Greenwich, CT.
> 1979: The 29th General Service Conference views and approves Alcoholics
> Anonymous - An Inside View, a 28-minute color film produced by AA.
> 1980s: First AA bulletin boards, online meetings, and chat rooms appear.
> 1986: Q-Link, one of the first online AA groups, begins meeting, growing
> to
> 200 members nationwide in two years.
> 1988: GSO begins compiling a list of online AA groups.
> 1989: ABC-TV broadcasts My Name is Bill W. 1990s: TDD (text telephone)
> technology helps hard-of-hearing AAs talk with other AAs.
> 1990: Kansas Area public information establishes AA Message of the Day, a
> telephone service featuring daily readings from the "Twelve and Twelve."
> 1990: Connecticut's public radio show, Open Air New England, puts open AA
> meetings on the air.
> 1992: Thirteen 1-hour AA meetings airing 3 times a week are broadcast on
> cable TV stations in Portland, OR.
> 1995: Online Intergroup of Alcoholics Anonymous (OIAA) is established.
> 2002: The Queensland Young People in AA Convention is netcast worldwide
> from
> Australia.
> 2002: Online AA reps meet, hoping to establish a service conference for AA
> in cyberspace.
>
> From the AA Grapevine with addition:
> 2003-2004: Today there are literally thousands of Cyberspace Recovery
> sites
> and domains, AA chats, bulletin boards and meetings, a number of which are
> live voice meetings regularly scheduled 24 hours around the clock, and in
> many languages and countries other than the US.
>
>
>


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

For Men Only?
Anonymous
AA Grapevine – June 1960

One of AA's first woman members describes her
pioneering struggle to gain acceptance of her
sex in what was exclusively a man's world of
sobriety.

WHEN I attended my first AA meeting on April 11,
1939 I was the only woman alcoholic there. And
I might not have been there had there not been
one before me whose story I had read in the
manuscript of a book called "Alcoholics
Anonymous." Some weeks before, my psychiatrist
had handed me a red cardboard-covered document,
saying flatly that he had about given up hope
of being able to help me after nearly a year of
intensive treatment in the sanitarium he headed.
But, he added, he had just read something that
might help, and he wanted me to read it. He said
little more, except to remark that this group
of men (the emphasis is mine) seemed to have
discovered a way out of the same trouble I had
-- drinking.

I took the book in trembling hands and went
back to my room with a wild surge of hope
lifting me up the stairs three steps at a time.
As I read, the hope swelled and sank again and
again. My trouble had a name: alcoholism. It
was music to my ears. Alcoholism was a disease.
Shame, guilt and self-condemnation rolled away
like heavy fog, letting light and air into my
heart again. I could breathe; I could bear to
live. Alcoholism was "an 'allergy' of the body
coupled with an obsession of the mind"; there
was no known way of reversing the sensitivity
of the body to alcohol, therefore an alcoholic
could never safely drink again. This was the
first reason I had ever heard that made sense
to me. I could accept it. I could face a life
without drinking, because I had to; there was
no choice -- my body wouldn't let me. It wasn't
just a question of mental aberration after all;
I wasn't insane, or hopelessly neurotic; I had
a disease. And thousands of other people had it,
too. I wasn't the only one; I wasn't so peculiar,
so different, so alone beyond the pale. I had
a disease! My mind made a song of hope out of
those words. Then came the let-down.

This handful of men had found an answer to the
"obsession of the mind" that drove them to
drink against their own will, against their own
desire, against not only their better judgment
but against their own good. That answer was God.
My hope sank. This was not for me. I couldn't
use this answer. I had lost God in my teens. I
had outgrown this primitive notion. I was an
intellectual, a worldly, widely-travelled,
well-educated once-successful woman. A woman.
My hope completely disappeared. This was a
man's book, entirely about men, obviously
written by and for men, and a particular kind
of men at that -- religious men. Well, that was
that. I wasn't religious, and I wasn't a man.
I'd have to find my own way out after all. I
was still alone.

And so I argued with the doctor, day after day
and week after week, about the God business.
Patiently he let me get my arrogant, infantile
arguments off my chest. Firmly he would send
me back to "read some more," for I was creeping
through the book, dragging my feet over each
arguable phrase. He had quickly answered my
complaint that this was a book for men only by
saying simply, "What's so different about
women suffering the same illness?" But this
had seemed no more satisfactory an answer to
me than his careful parrying of my arguments
against God. I had consigned myself to outer
darkness and there I would stay, alone with my
ego and my pride.

Until the day came; the day the crisis in my
personal life did exactly what the book had
said it would. It raised the bottom to where I
precariously hung, and I fell right into God's
hands. Gloriously, joyously, ecstatically
surrendered to complete faith in a Power
greater than myself. I was free. So free that
I knew I could walk out my third-story window
and keep right on walking. God supported me at
a level I had never dreamed was possible, and
there was no prison -- neither of my own making,
nor of the wood and stone that made the
sanitarium, nor of gravity itself -- that
could contain me. I was free!

A vestige of my old suspicions sent me running
to the doctor. Was I now completely mad? If
so, I liked it. Sanity was never like this; I
felt wonderful, happy, radiant, bursting with
love and delight. The grass had never been so
green, the sky so blue, people so nice and
so good. The world was a divinely beautiful
place . . . . I was free. "Perhaps you are,"
the doctor said, "for I believe you have had
an authentic spiritual experience. Hold on to
it, and go back and read that book!"

I did, and it seemed a different book. True,
it was still obviously by and for men, but it
held truth for me and I gobbled it up. For
the first time, I read it through to the end.
And there I found, among the personal stories,
one entitled "A Woman's Story." Thank You, my
newly found God. I might have known You would
supply everything I needed.

For a while it seemed the book held everything
I needed. I was reluctant to meet the people.
I was too busy revelling in a state of mind I
had never known: a beatific state of pure
delight in living. Yet I was really a little
afraid -- of what these men would be like, of
how they would accept me, a woman. Would one
other woman be enough? Would she like me and
accept me? Would she be there if I went to meet
them? Would the reality of flesh and blood
spoil my ecstatic dream? Was it a dream?

Weeks passed and the good doctor took matters
into his own hands; he made a date for me to
meet one of these men and his wife, and to go
with them to a meeting in Brooklyn. I was
warmly received; first names were the rule,
they told me, and Mrs. M. -- Sandy -- made me
feel more than welcome. We had dinner and set
off for Brooklyn, to Bill and Lois's brownstone
house. The first floor seemed crowded as we
entered. I saw many women among the crowd, but
no one looked as if they had ever had a drink.
It looked like any friendly gathering in any
home, with far too many strangers for my taste.
I flew upstairs to leave my coat and lingered
there. Lois came up and put her arm around my
shoulder. "We want you down with us," she said.
"You are very welcome." And she looked as if
she meant it. I think I have never seen such
sheer lovingness shining out of a person -- it
warmed and comforted me. Lois, a non-alcoholic
wife, taught me about love. But that's another
story.

I was made welcome, and yet -- did I notice just
a flicker of uncertainty? Just a slight wariness,
a kind of disbelief on the part of these men
that I could really be one of them? I did,
for some of their questions revealed it. I was
the youngest person there, by far. And I was
a woman. I was fairly well-dressed, was
currently an inmate of a rather expensive
private sanitarium (they didn't know I was
stony broke, was there on a "scholarship" for
free), and was obviously from a "good" background
-- well-brought-up, well-educated, and
apparently meeting the specifications for that
old-fashioned label "a lady." These things
are not usually associated with drunken
women, even in the minds of drunken men. This
I knew from my own experience.

So I identified myself, and found myself
telling the naked truth about my drinking as
I had never been able to do even with my
doctor. And I noted the small intake of breath,
the widening of eyes, the retreating but still
dormant suspicion in some of my questioners.
But for enough of them, I made the grade. I
was accepted as an authentic alcoholic, and
therefore a qualified participant in the
meeting. There were a number of non-wives and
friends present, for this night was an occasion:
the first printed and bound copy of the book
"Alcoholics Anonymous" was on display. I knew
I was in when I was asked to sign the copy,
along with the rest. And I further knew I was
in when I found myself talking almost exclusively
to the men who were alcoholics. They so
surrounded me, and asked so many questions,
that I knew I was indeed a rarity -- something
of an occasion myself.

As soon as I decently could, I asked about the
woman whose story was in the book. She was much
older than I, with grown children. Her name was
Florence. No one seemed to know her except
Bill and Lois, for she was in Washington where
one of the earliest members of the group, a man
named Fitz, was trying to get something started.
He was having a very rough time, for all the
prospects, including Florence, kept getting
drunk. I breathed a prayer of thanks that she
had stayed sober long enough to write her story
-- for me. Bill said that she and Fitz would
be coming to New York soon, and I could meet
her. There were hopes, Bill said, that the one
other group, in Akron, might have a woman member
soon -- they were working on one. But here in
New York I had to face the fact that I was,
indeed, alone. Unique. I didn't like it. I had
been feeling alone and unique for far too long.
At least the men here were like me. Or were
they?

I began to understand the faint uncertainty,
the wariness, the disbelief. I began to wonder
myself if this program would work for women.
I could deal with their questions about my
rights to the title of alcoholic -- I had
qualifications to match anyone's -- but only
time could deal with their unexpressed doubts
as to the ability of a woman to live their
program successfully. And only time did the
job.

The first year was the hardest. I had plenty
of prospects but few results. All that long hot
summer I went into New York once a week to the
meeting, hoping a woman might appear, find me,
know that she was not alone and unique, and
stay. Florence came, and left, without any real
contact being established between us -- she
did not seem to want to talk. I saw her only
once again, sober, and then she died on a
drunk.

I found it difficult to convince the older
members that I wasn't a freak, the only one
of my kind, and to convince the newer men that
there was such a thing as a woman alcoholic and
that I was one. The newer men often found it
difficult to conceal their disgust at the idea,
and more than once I heard, "If there's one
thing I can't stand, it's to see a woman drunk!"
They just couldn't believe that women couldn't
help it any more than they could. Most of the
men were wonderful, and fully accepted me as
one of themselves, but there remained a curious
loneliness, nonetheless.

Finally, in October, came Nona, whom I had met
when I entered the sanitarium nearly two years
before. She came in wholeheartedly, a quiet
girl not wanting to be noticed, but she was
there. In November I went with Bill and Lois
to Akron and called on the woman (drunk in bed)
for whom they had had hopes, but I was no more
successful than the men had been. I went on to
Chicago where Sylvia lived -- Sylvia who in
October had gone to Cleveland to find AA in the
home of an early member, and who had returned
to Chicago full of sobriety and zeal to help
others. Now there were three of us the country
over -- but three is a crowd. Three can be neither
alone nor unique, and we were all three too
different to be the same kind of a freak!

We used to hold long discussions as to why it
was so difficult to help women, why they couldn't
stay sober, couldn't make this program work.
Some of the men thought it was because women
were more dishonest than men, less direct.
"Sneakier" was a word they used. I had to agree
that this fitted most cases and that it made
my self-appointed task of getting women into AA
almost impossible. But I thought I understood
the reasons for this -- and I still think they
are the reasons that keep many women from
success in AA.

We have a double standard in our society. Many
things that are acceptable, or at least
forgivable, in men are not in women. Although
the high pedestal on which women used to be
enthroned is slowly descending to a more
realistic level (and most women are duly
grateful for this entry into more comfortable
realms), it is doing so only in fits and starts,
like a balky elevator. There are still areas
of behavior that are forbidden to "nice" women,
and excessive drinking is one of these. Many
men who are themselves alcoholic and because
of this have committed every sin the book, are
inclined to look down their noses at women who
have suffered the same mishaps, and for the
same reason. They can't be "nice." Many non-
alcoholic wives are inclined to be even more
sure of this last statement, and not to want
their husbands to associate with such
questionable types.

Women know this, of course, and the moment their
drinking shows signs of being different, even
slightly out of control, they instinctively go
for cover, and bend all their effort to
concealment. They become past masters at
deception, at hiding their condition and the
cause of it -- their bottles. Their opportunities
are great if they are housewives, as many of
them are. They are alone and in command of
their environment for most of their waking hours.
By the time their control is completely gone
and they are discovered, they have built a
pattern of deception that is nothing short of
superb. Such a fantastic construction, built
so painstakingly for so long, does not fall to
pieces easily, and they have trained themselves
so well to safeguard and protect it under all
circumstances, even helpless drunkenness, that
they often cannot relinquish this "protective
coloration" even when they finally want to and
know that they must if they are to live.

The double standard has created another hazard
for the woman seeking help in AA. Men are
not supposed to care too much about "what the
neighbors say" or "what will Joe think of
you," but women most definitely are. Girls are
brought up to consider other peoples' opinions
of them, first and foremost. When a woman starts
drinking too much, and then uncontrolledly,
this becomes a prime bugaboo that haunts her
sober moments. Unfortunately, the name
Alcoholics Anonymous is frequently all mixed
up in her already mixed-up thoughts with the
total unacceptability of alcoholism, alcoholics,
and everything to do with both, to most of
the people she knows and whose opinions of her
she has been taught to value above all else.
How can  she fly in the face of all she holds
most dear, and pin this taboo label on herself?
Better to hide in the bowels of the earth, or
the bottom of a bottle.

Finally, there are the misconceptions of an
earlier more prudish day, when only "loose
women" were supposed to drink; ergo, women who
drank were "loose women," and if they drank
badly, they were "lost women." The scarlet
letter has hung like a terrible barrier in
front of many women who desperately needed what
AA had to offer them. And I may add that the
scarlet letter has been pinned on many innocent
alcoholics -- whose only sins (?) were those of
alcoholism -- by self-righteous or fearful
nonalcoholic women -- and men, too. Man's
inhumanity to man might better read "women's
inhumanity to women" particularly in the smaller
communities of our enlightened country.

These, I think, are some of the valid reasons
why the growth of the number of women in AA
was painfully slow at first, and even now is
amazingly greater in the big cities than in
even their own suburbs, let alone smaller towns.
Yet growth there has been, and a commensurate
change in attitude both within and outside of
AA. For women have recovered and gone back to
their own close little societies to talk about
it, to teach them to know better, to let their
own stories be known in the hope that they
might reach into some other room, secluded and
well-hidden as their own once was. Women who
have embraced AA have found the God-given courage
to face their whispering accusers, and to face
them down; to hold on to their sobriety and to
build from it a good life, open to the most
critical inspection; to accept new values that
do not give weight to "what the neighbors think
-- or say"; and to rely on their own conscience
in communion with their own God as they
understand Him, for judgment of their worth.

All this is not easy. I think it must be said
that because of cultural and environmental
patterns which are beyond her control, it is
not yet the same for a woman to have alcoholism
as it is for a man. It is much, much more
difficult, and the chances of finding help and
achieving recovery are undeniably less. Yet
there has been improvement over the past twenty
years, and I believe that the situation will
become progressively better as alcoholism is
more widely accepted for the disease that it
is, and the unfair stigma gradually disappears.
Public acceptance will one day bring about the
cultural and environmental changes that are
beginning to be evident. The double standard
has no place in the realm of illness, and never
did have. Once alcoholism is firmly esconced
in that realm, much of the old prejudice
against women alcoholics will die a natural
death.

But it is a long, slow process. Five years after
I came into AA, in the spring of 1944, the
several large AA groups in Pittsburgh asked me
down to speak at a public meeting. They told
me outright that they wanted to show Pittsburgh
that there was such a thing as a woman alcoholic,
and that she could recover. Still, it was many
months after that before they got their first
woman member. Groups have written me from all
over the country to say that after four and
five years of intense activity and growth, they
had yet to have a woman member; I have made
countless trips and many speeches to show
myself and give evidence of the possibility.
This was a major reason why I temporarily gave
up my doubly precious anonymity (being a woman
and therefore vulnerable to scarlet letters
and a host of other unpleasant things) when I
entered public work in this field. No one was
ever happier to resume that protective cloak
after two years of both veiled and crass
remarks and looks. It takes great faith and
plenty of sheer strength to be an avowed woman
alcoholic. I am both humbled and proud of my
sex as I see the growing numbers who dare --
for the sake of all those others still
undeclared, still suffering the tortures of
the damned, alone.

Things move. During the late 1940s I had many
letters from lone woman members, seeking
comfort, company, and advice on how to find
and bring in others. Then in the 1950s I began
to be asked to come and speak at luncheons
and dinners of just AA women. I thought the
corner had been turned, that no one could ever
again imagine AA was "for men only." Imagine
my shock and horror when in December 1959,
twenty years and eight months after my solo
landing in AA, a woman member in a great mid-
western city I was visiting told me of several
AA groups in the city who would not receive
women as members -- stated flatly that they
did not want women in their groups. Several
men with us corroborated her story, adding,
before I could catch my breath, that it didn't
matter so much in a big city like theirs where
there were plenty of other groups a woman could
go to, but what bothered them was the fact
that this was true in many small cities and
towns where there was only one group, so that
in effect this meant denying AA to women
alcoholics.

I could hardly believe my ears, but the people
who told me this were not erratic, newly sober
alcoholics, but longtime members who know their
area well and traverse it frequently. If this
is so, in the mid-west, it may very well be so
in many parts of our vast country, especially
in sparsely settled areas with only small towns.

There obviously remains much to be done. After
twenty years, women coming into AA are still
pioneers. Those who make statistical studies
claim that there is only one woman alcoholic
for every five-and-a-half men. The records of
public outpatient clinics seem to bear out
this figure. But there are many physicians in
private practice, where a confidence is
considered as sacred as in the confessional,
who state categorically the women alcoholics
outnumber the men in their practice. Certainly
in the big cities, one often finds the women
outnumbering the men at closed meetings. Is
it just that women alcoholics more readily find
their way to the anonymity of the big cities?
Or are there more of us than even we think?

Once again, only time will tell us. But I hope
and pray it won't have to be another twenty
years for all those out there alone.