Biographies of the Authors

A A Taught Him To Handle Sobriety -- Bob P
Connecticut
p. 554 3rd edition

"God willing, we may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day."

Bob joined A.A. in New York City in 1961, probably never dreaming one day he would be the manager of A.A.'s General Service Office.

Bob was born in Houston, Texas, but raised in Kansas, the only child of loving parents. His parents drank only socially, and his father gave him his first drink -- a tiny glass of sherry to celebrate the New York -- when he was thirteen. He immediately saw the effect it had on him and prayed he wouldn't drink any more. But in college he began to drink at fraternity parties and beer busts.

The family moved frequently and Bob found himself in a different school every year until high school, where he was always the new kid who had to prove himself. He retreated into a fantasy world. He became the classic over-achiever and sold his first article to a national magazine while still an undergraduate.

After graduation from college he moved to New York to pursue a writing career and landed a good job. He was soon regarded as a "boy wonder." But by age twenty-two he was a daily drinker.

He then had difficulty in every aspect of his life. His service in the Navy was marred when he was given a "Captain's Mast," i.e., discipline for trouble he got into while drinking. His marriage suffered, his values became distorted, and by forty his health was severely damaged.

When the doctor told him he would have to stop drinking he did, for ten months, with no apparent difficulty, but he did not enjoy life without drinking, and soon he was drinking again and his physical condition deteriorated further.

He developed cirrhosis of the liver, had frequent blackouts, severe nosebleeds, angry bruises which appeared mysteriously all over his body. Despite three episodes of losing large quantities of blood by vomiting and from his rectum, he drank again.

His doctor finally gave up on him and referred him to a psychiatrist in the same suite of offices. "He happened to be, by the grace of God," Bob wrote, "Dr. Harry Tiebout, the psychiatrist who probably knew more about alcoholism than any other in the world." At that time Dr. Tiebout was serving as a nonalcoholic trustee on the General Service Board.

Dr. Tiebout sent him to High Watch to dry out. There he read the Big Book and began his slow road back to health and sanity.

When Bob had been in A.A. only a short time, an oldtimer told him that A.A. does not teach us how to handle our drinking, but it teaches us how to handle sobriety.

Not only did his health recover, so did his marriage, his relationship with his children, his performance on his job.

All these things A.A. gave him, but most of all it taught him how to handle sobriety, how to relate to people, how to deal with disappointments and problems. He learned that "the name of the game is not so much to stop drinking as to stay sober."

"God willing, we members of Alcoholics Anonymous may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day. How do we do it? By learning -- through practicing the Twelve Steps and through sharing at meetings -- how to cope with the problems that we looked to booze to solve, back in our drinking days."

Bob has served A.A. in many ways. He worked for G.S.O. for twelve and a half years. He was a director and trustee of the General Service Board for six years and office general manager for a decade. Upon retirement from G.S.O. in 1986, he took on the task for G.S.O. of writing an update of A.A.'s history covering the period from the publication of "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes to Age," through its fiftieth year. Unfortunately, this manuscript was never published.

At the 1986 General Service Conference, Bob gave what the 1986 Final Report called "a powerful and inspiring closing talk" titled "Our greatest danger: rigidity."

He said: "If you were to ask me what is the greatest danger facing A.A. today, I would have to answer the growing rigidity - the increasing demand for absolute answers to nit-picking questions; pressure for G.S.O. to 'enforce' our Traditions, screening alcoholics at closed meetings, prohibiting non-Conference approved literature, i.e., 'banning books,' laying more and more rules on groups and members. And in this trend toward rigidity, we are drifting farther and farther away from our co-founders. Bill, in particular, must be spinning in his grave, for he was perhaps the most permissive person I ever met. One of his favorite sayings was 'Every group has the right to be wrong.'"

Bob continues to give his service to A.A. in many ways. At the International Convention in Minneapolis in 2000, he appeared to be handling many jobs. He filled in to lead at least one of the small meetings, "Pioneers in A.A." The program does not list him as the Moderator. He was probably filling in for someone else at the last minute.

A Close Shave - Henry J Zoeller (Harry Zollers? Boelen? Harry S.?)
Akron, Ohio.
Original Manuscript, p. 348 in 1st edition

Harry found sobriety in March of 1937, but he may have entered the fellowship as early a January 1937.

He was born in 1890, the youngest of five sons to a "fine Christian mother, and a hard working blacksmith father."

At the age of eight he began tasting his father's beer, and by fourteen, when he quit school, he was drinking wine and hard cider.

He worked as a barber, and acquired several lucrative shops, some with poolrooms and restaurants attached. He married in 1910, during the time he was running his own shops, and fathered ten children.

But the time came when he could no longer finance his own business, so he began to float about the country, working at various jobs, but invariably getting fired in a short time because of his unreliability. His children were usually desperately in need because he spent his money for drinking instead of providing for them.

He finally secured a job in a shop in a small town near Akron. His reputation for drinking soon became more or less generally known, and he was irritated by a deacon and the pastor of a church who when they were in the shop constantly invited him to church and Bible classes. He earnestly wished they would mind their own business. But he became friendly with these men, and at last they persuaded him to go to Akron and talk with Dr. Bob.

He listened to Dr. Bob for two hours, and although his mind was quite foggy, he retained a good deal of what was said. He felt that the combined effort of these three Christian gentlemen made it possible for him to have a vital spiritual experience.

That was in March 1937. At the time he wrote his story, he had not had a drink since. He had regained the love of his family and the respect of the community, and said the past few years had been the happiest of my life, spent helping others who were afflicted with alcoholism.

His date of sobriety was probably June 1938. It is said that he sued to get the money he had loaned A.A. to get the Big Book published refunded.

Harry was probably an accountant. He is believed to be "Fred, a partner in a well known accounting firm" whose story is told on pages 39 through 43 of the Big Book.

He was happily married with fine children, sufficient income to indulge his whims and future financial security. He was known as a conservative, sound businessman. To all appearances he was a stable, well-balanced individual, with an attractive personality who made friends easily.

However, he missed going to his office several times because of drinking, and when he failed in efforts to stop on his own, had to be hospitalized -- a blow to his ego. At the hospital a doctor told him about a group of men staying sober, and he reluctantly consented to have one of them call on him, only to be polite to the doctor. He refused help from the man who called on him, but within sixty days, after leaving the hospital the second time, he was pounding at his door, willing to do anything to conquer the vicious thing that had conquered him.

He soon learned that not only had his drinking problem been relieved, but quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all his problems.

While his old way of living was by no means a bad one, he would not go back to it he would not go back to it even if he could. His worst days in the fellowship were better than his best days when he was drinking.

His story is the shortest in the 1st edition. He had only one point he wanted to make. Even a man with everything money can buy, a man with tremendous pride and will power to function in all ordinary circumstances, could become an alcoholic and find himself as hopeless and helpless as the man who has a multitude of worries and troubles. Doctor Earl M. ("Physician Heal Thyself") described this as "the skid row of success," p. 345, 3rd edition.

Harry served on the first board of trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation, replacing Bill Ruddell, who got drunk. Soon Harry was drunk, too.

A Five-Time Loser Wins -- Morris B
Long Island, New York.  
p. 457 in 3rd edition

The worst of prison treatment couldn't break this tough con.  He was serving time on his fifth felony conviction when a miracle happened.

Morris said that, like most alcoholics, for him it was "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die."  But he couldn't die.  He kept painfully 
awakening each time, mentally, physically, and spiritually, sick.

There are worse things than dying, he points out, "but is there any death worse than the progressive, self-induced, slow suicide of the practicing 
alcoholic?"

Morris described himself as a five-time loser, and explained that this means that he had five felony convictions (not including the cases beaten). He
served time in four penitentiaries and several prison camps, including a maximum-security camp. He spent eleven months in solitary confinement,
bouncing in and out of the "hole" (a bare concrete-and-steel cubicle) about five times during those eleven months. The crimes that he committed were the
result of drinking and using drugs.

Even in prison he was always fighting the system, even to the extent of using his body: he cracked his leg with a sixteen-pound sledge hammer in the rock
hole; he let lye and water eat away at four of his toes and his foot for five hours.

At the age of forty-four, he finally hit bottom. And then the miracle happened. He saw a wooden sign with the Serenity Prayer printed on it. He
had been to A.A. before, in and out of A.A. in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco. He remembered that at one of his first A.A. meetings he had
heard, "If you are an alcoholic and if you continue to drink, the end is death or insanity." He added, "They hadn't mentioned the living hell before
death."

After seeing that sign, he took the first three Steps for the first time. He surrendered totally. Now he began to sleep, to relax, to accept his plight.
He started going to A.A. in prison at the group's next meeting.

While still in prison, Morris was given training and after he was paroled he went to work as a counselor in Corrections, then worked for a County Mental
Health organization, and when he wrote his story had been an alcoholism counselor for over a year and was off parole.

Morris was almost fifty years old when he wrote his story, and was expecting soon to meet his ex-wife and his two children, whom he had not seen in
twenty-three years. His son was to be married and wanted Morris at the wedding. His ex-wife, from whom he had not heard in over twenty-three years,
had telephoned him three weeks earlier about the wedding.

He wrote: "I am still arrogant, egocentric, self-righteous, with no humility, even phony at times, but I'm trying to be a better person and help
my fellowmen. Guess I'll never be a saint, but whatever I am, I want to be sober and in A.A."

He ended his story by saying: "God bless all you people in A.A. and especially you fellows in prison. Remember, now you have a choice "

When last heard of Morris was living in North Carolina.

Esther's date of sobriety was May 16, 1941.

She was a very attractive woman, full of pep. She was raised in New Orleans where social drinking was acceptable. At home they always had wine with
dinner and cordials after dinner. She attended cocktail parties, dances and nightclubs.

The first time she realized what alcohol could do for her was her own wedding. She was so afraid that everything wouldn't be perfect that she
became very nervous and "was really in a terrific state" when her father said "Miss Esther is about to faint. Get her something to drink." The servant
came back with a water glass full of bourbon and made her drink it down. The bourbon hit as she started down the aisle. "I walked down that aisle just
like May West in her prime. I wanted to do it all over again," she wrote.

From that day on she used alcohol to ease social situations and didn't know when she crossed over the line into alcoholism.

She divorced her husband after seven years and went home to her parents, but couldn't stand living with them and went back to Texas and remarried her
ex-husband. Then they moved to Oklahoma. The drinking got worse; her husband would come home day after day to find her passed out. She was sent
to a mental hospital where they kept her seventeen days.

When they moved to Houston the drinking continued. She went out one day to walk the dog. A patrol car passed and saw her staggering and stopped to take
her home, but she got "sassy" with him so he took the dog home and took poor Esther to jail. She was only there a few hours. When her husband came to
get her the look of disgust on his face helped her to hit bottom.

He had read a story about A.A. in the Saturday Evening Post a few weeks before. He finally showed it to her with the ultimatum "If you will try this
thing, I'll go along with you. If you don't, you will have to go home. I cannot sit by and watch you destroy yourself!"

She wrote to the GSO office in New York. Within a week a letter came back with A.A. literature. It was the routine letter they sent everyone, but with
it was a hand-written letter from, Ruth Hock, A.A.'s non-alcoholic secretary.

That personal touch did a lot to help Esther.

Esther was full of gratitude to her husband, and to A.A. members who had paved the way for her.  

During her second year in A.A. they were transferred to Dallas, and started an A.A. group there in 1943.  The telephone number in Dallas that Ruth Hock 
had given her had been disconnected when she arrived.  But undaunted, she started seeking other alcoholics to 12th step.  

Esther had lived in Dallas from 1927 to 1932 and, according to a letter she wrote to New York dated March 29, 1943, "This is where I had been so sick for 
five years.  Where I started trying out all the doctors, hospitals and cures (the Sanitarium three times) so I've lots to do.  First off, four doctors to 
call on and let them look over 'exhibit A' (me)!  My minister (Episcopal) has two prospects for us.  He tried so hard to help me for years, had never heard 
of A.A."  She added "Hope I have much A.A. to report in my next letter.  You'll be hearing from me!"  They did indeed.

A week later, April 5, she wrote "Dear Bobbie [Margaret R. Burger, Bill's secretary at the time]: The new Dallas Group met for their first time last 
night!  Three inactive alkies, one active from Detroit and two non-alcoholics who brought the active one."  The group met for some time in Esther's home.

Esther died on June 3, 1960, with slightly more than 19 years of sobriety.

A Teen-Ager's Decision -- Lisa
Washington State
p. 353 in 3rd edition.

Just three years of drinking pushed a shy, lonely young girl to the depths of depression. Out of sheer despair, she called for help.

Lisa's story was first named "The Story of Lisa" in an early printing of "Young People and A.A."

She began to drink at fifteen, and never drank socially, but always as often as much as she could. She wanted to drink herself to death. It seemed that
her whole life had been spent on the outside looking in. She had been unhappy, lonely, and scared for so long that when she discovered alcohol it
seemed to be the answer to all her problems.

But it became a painful answer as hangovers, blackouts, trouble, and remorse set in. She recounted driving her parents' car down a bank, ramming the
steel fence around someone's backyard. She was informed the next morning that she had not behaved like her shy, quiet self. She remembers lying on a
cold cement floor shredding into little bits several pieces of stolen identification cards, and washing her face in the toilet bowl trying to sober
up, and screaming hysterically while clinging to bars too high to see out of and cursing everyone that came near her.

She lost her driver's license and became a ward of the court, and was put on probation. None of this impressed her.

Thinking that school was interfering with her drinking, she ran away from home, despite the fact that she was near graduation and her mother was sick
in a hospital.

She recounts hitchhiking with a friend to Las Vegas from Washington State, spending a month drinking, taking drugs, and finding shelter where they could
and accepting meals from anyone, begging and stealing anything they needed. They were arrested and her friend was institutionalized for eight months.
But Lisa, who had turned eighteen during the trip, and was allowed to return home to a pair of miserable, hurt parents.

She began to hate herself, and drank primarily to ease her conscience and forget. But things got progressively worse. Finally, she began to take a
good look at herself: she had managed to drink her way through all her friends, had no one in the world to talk to, was increasing guilt ridden and
depressed. She was too weak to continue this day-by-day suicide.

Thank God she knew of A.A. and called. She had no idea what would happen, she just knew she didn't want to live if life was going to go on like it was.

At the time she wrote her story she was counting her blessings, instead of her troubles. A.A. became a way of life and living for her. It brought
about a revelation of self, the discovery of an inner being, and awareness of God. She wouldn't give it up or trade it for anything. And knows "the only
one who can take it away from me is me -- by taking that first drink."

Bill's sobriety date is uncertain. He joined the Fellowship in 1937, and slipped, but was known to be active in the program by September 1937.

Just out of high school Bill landed a job with a local university as an office assistant. He advanced in his work and took a year off to attend an engineering college.

He enlisted in World War I and served on five fronts, from Alsace to the North Sea. When back in the rest area he began drinking red wine and cognac.

When he returned from the war he tried to hide his drinking from his mother and the girl he was to marry, but he got drunk the day their engagement was announced, and missed the party. The engagement was off.

He was again working in the President's office at the university, but he also was active in many civic activities. He tried to control his drinking and his sprees were only in private clubs or away from home.

He lost his job at the University although probably not because of his drinking, then held a variety of jobs, and got married, but his marriage failed because of his drinking.

Soon he could not hold a job and began getting arrested for drunk driving and disorderly conduct. Eventually he became a ward of the Probate Court, and was admitted to a State hospital at least twice.

Finally, a friend he had known in his drinking days, who was now sober, sought him out and persuaded him to enter the hospital under the care of Dr. Bob.

He was one of the five men Sister Ignatia remembered coming to the hospital after being in terrible accidents because of drinking, who had later come into A.A..

Dr. Bob made a favorable impression on him immediately by spending much time with him telling him of his own drinking experiences.

At the meetings, however, he was not happy with some of the Oxford Group practices. He thought it was throwing the spiritual right at the new person. It was too hard for the alcoholics.

He must have had a friendly, outgoing personality. Dorothy Snyder, then wife of Clarence Snyder ("The Home Brewmeister") recalled how he had welcomed her when she attended her first meeting the day Clarence got out of the hospital. He told her that he wanted to meet her because they thought Clarence was a pretty wonderful person, and they wanted to see if she was good enough for him.

Bill tried to emulate the humility he saw in Dr. Bob and Anne Smith. He had 12th stepped Lavelle K., who with his wife took care of Dr. Bob and Anne in their last years. Lavelle was devastated when Bill slipped, as he had tried to pattern himself on him.

After Dr. Bob and Anne died, Bill hated to go to the meeting at King School (to which the A.A. group had moved). It broke his heart not to see Dr. Bob there, because he had meant so much to him. He said he would go a hell of a long way to hear Dr. Bob.

There are different theories as to why the story was not included in the first edition. Some have suggested that the author became suspicious of Bill Wilson and Hank Parkhurst ("The Unbeliever" in the first edition) when Hank set up Works Publishing to raise money to publish the book, with himself as the self appointed president, and Bill began talking of listing himself as author of the Big Book. Bill would then be entitled to royalties. Others claim that the author wanted to be paid for his story, or to receive a share of the royalties on the book. None of these theories can be verified.

According to his story, he was the son of a pharmacist and studied pharmacy, but before he could take the state board examination he was drafted. In the Army he began gambling, and learning to manipulate the dice and cards to his own advantage.

After the war he became a professional gambler. He spent some time in jail, perhaps for gambling or drinking. One source claims it was for bootlegging.

He was hospitalized many times, and eventually his wife had him committed to an insane asylum. He was in and out of the asylum several times. During one of his confinements he met another alcoholic who had lost nearly all. This man had been a hobo, and may have been Charlie Simonson ("Riding the Rods" in the first edition). During his last confinement his friend was not there, but soon he came to visit and to carry the message of A.A.

An agnostic or atheist when he entered, he eventually came to believe in a Divine Father, and that His will was the best bet.

Pioneer member of Akron's Group No. 1, the first A.A. group in the world. He kept the faith, therefore, he and countless others found a new life.

Bill's date of sobriety was the date he entered Akron's City Hospital for his last detox, June 26, 1935, where Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob visited him on June 28.

His wife, Henrietta, recalled years later that she had asked her pastor to try to help him, and had prayed with another that someone who could help would visit him at the hospital.

He was a prominent lawyer, had been a city councilman, and was a well-adjusted family man and active in his church. Nonetheless, he had been hospitalized eight times in the past six months because of his alcoholism and got drunk even before he got home. When admitted this time he had DTs and had blacked the eyes of two nurses before they managed to strap him down. A nurse commented that he was a grand chap "when sober."

He walked out of that hospital on July 4, never to drink again. A.A.'s first group dates from that day. Within a week, he was back in court, sober, and arguing a case. The message had been successfully shared a second time. Dr. Bob was no fluke, and apparently you did not have to be indoctrinated by the Oxford Group before the message could take hold.

He immediately began working with Dr. Bob and Bill, and went with them to visit Ernie Galbraith ("The Seven Month Slip" in the 1st edition) and others.

Old-timers in Akron said he was indeed a grand chap, when sober, one of the most engaging people they ever knew. One said: "I thought I was a real big shot because I took Bill D. to meetings." Another noted that, though Bill Dotson was influential, he was not an ambitious man in A.A., just a good A.A. If you went to him for help he would help you. He never drove a car, but he went to meetings every night, standing around with his thumbs in his vest like a Kentucky colonel.

A.A.'s first documented court case was one Phil S., who was released to the care of Dr. Bob through the efforts of Bill Dotson, who talked with the judge who agreed to release him.

He never submitted his story for the 1st edition. Various theories include (1) he wanted to be paid for the story, (2) he was too prominent a person, (3) he was too humble to have his story appear. But in 1952 he told an interviewer that he hadn't been much interested in the project or perhaps thought it unnecessary. He added that Bill Wilson had come to Akron to record his story, which would appear in the next edition of the book. Perhaps by 1952 he was embarrassed that he'd originally wanted to be paid for the story so didn't mention it. But apparently he cooperated to have it appear in the 2nd edition.

Bill Dotson died September 17, 1954, in Akron. Bill Wilson wrote, "That is, people say he died, but he really didn't. His spirit and works are today alive in the hearts of uncounted A.A'.s, and who can doubt that Bill already dwells in one of those many mansions in the great beyond. The force of the great example that Bill set in our pioneering time will last as long as A.A. itself."

Marie, a non-alcoholic, was the wife of Walter Bray ("The Backslider"). Walter first joined A.A. in September 1935.

There is indication in the Akron archives that Marie may have written the first draft of "To Wives," which Bill then edited. But "Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers" and "Lois Remembers" both state that Bill wrote it.

She started her brief story by saying "I have the misfortune, or I should say the good fortune, of being an alcoholic's wife. I say misfortune because of the worry and grief that goes with drinking, and good fortune because we found a new way of living."

Marie worried constantly about her husband's drinking, went to work to pay the bills, covered his bad checks, and took care of their home and their son.

When he stopped drinking she thought their problems were over, but soon found she had to work on her own defects and that they both had to give their problems to God.

She ended her story by saying "My husband and I now talk over our problems and trust in a Divine Power. We have now started to live. When we live with God we want for nothing."

He began his story by quoting Herbert Spencer: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

He said that the quotation is descriptive of the mental attitudes of many alcoholics when the subject of religion, as a cure, is first brought to their attention. "It is only when a man has tried everything else, when in utter desperation and terrific need he turns to something bigger than himself, that he gets a glimpse of the way out. It is then that contempt is replaced by hope, and hope by fulfillment."

Ray chose to write of his search for spiritual help rather than "a description of the neurotic drinking that made the search necessary."

After investigating his alcoholic problem from every angle, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, he began "flirting" with religion as a possible way out. He had been approaching God intellectually. That only added to his desperation, but a seed had been planted.

Finally he met a man, probably Bill Wilson, who had for five years "devoted a great deal of time and energy to helping alcoholics." The man told him little he didn't already know, "but what he did have to say was bereft of all fancy spiritual phraseology -- it was simple Christianity imparted with Divine Power."

The next day he met over twenty men who "had achieved a mental rebirth from alcoholism." He liked them because the were ordinary men who were not pious nor "holier than thous.""

He notes that these men were but instruments. "Of themselves they were nothing."

He must have been an intellectual type. He not only quotes Spencer, but Thoreau: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."

It was Ray, a recognized artist, who was asked to design the dust jacket for the 1st edition of the Big Book. He submitted various designs for consideration including one that was blue and in an Art Deco style. The one chosen was red, and yellow, with a little black, and a little white. The words Alcoholics Anonymous were printed across the top in large white script. It became known as the circus jacket because of its loud circus colors. The unused blue jacket is today in the Archives at the Stepping Stones Foundation.

His story was not included in the Second Edition of the Big Book but the Spencer quote was placed in the back of the book in Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience."

Annie came to A.A. in April of 1947, at the age of sixty-seven. She was a "scrub lady," poor, and uneducated. She lived in a tenement house on First Avenue.

Her husband had left her, taking the children with him. At one point he invited her to move back with him and she did. She says that by then the oldest boy was married, and the youngest was studying to become a policeman. "Brother!"

She had her first drink at age 31. She fought with police and was frequently arrested for being drunk and disorderly. She cleaned rooms in a hotel, but got drunk on an occupant's liquor and fell asleep on his bed. She got fired. At one point she was drinking with the boys on the Bowery.

At her first meeting she met Nancy F. ("The Independent Blonde") who reports "She laughed and said 'You're jealous of me because I've had a few drinks and you can't have any.'" Nancy replied, "You're so right."

She had a slip, after which she went to High Watch Farm. When she returned Nancy suggested she take the fifth step, either with Dr. Silkworth or with a priest. She chose to do it with a priest. (The priest was probably also an A.A. member.)

She and the priest met at Nancy's apartment. Nancy made coffee and suggested that Annie attend the meeting on 58th Street when they were finished, then left. When Annie arrived at the meeting she seemed clearly relieved. Even though Nancy had told her this was not a confession, she was just to tell him her story, she did make a confession. She told the priest: "Father, I'll tell you everything, but don't ask me how many times."

She was a very simple, uninhibited woman. She cursed a lot when she spoke, but then would look at a priest in the audience say, "Excuse me, Father, but I'm trying to be careful."

Nancy was a hairdresser, and when Annie came to the beauty shop she would charge her a dollar "because I never wanted her to think I just gave her anything because she was very proud." Annie later went to another beauty shop and when they charged her six dollars she said, "Hell, I can get it done for a buck up on Park Avenue."

She is said to have had the time of her life in A.A. She had nothing, but she was sober, and she was having a ball. She was happy as a lark.

He begins by telling of his last drunk. He and a man he met at the bar planned how they would convince his wife that he had been about to commit suicide and how his new friend had saved his life, so that she would be sympathetic rather than angry at his drunken state. When the man started playing with a gun, Ralph got nervous and ran away.

Only the day before he had been in an accident. A Good Samaritan saw his condition and got him away quickly, before the police came, and drove him home. He was dreadfully drunk that day and his wife consulted a lawyer as preliminary to entering divorce action. He swore to her that he wouldn't drink again and within 24 hours, he was dead drunk.

Several months previously he had spent a week in a New York hospital for alcoholics and came out feeling that everything would be all right, but soon began drinking again.

The next morning was June 7th. He remembered the date because the day before was his daughter's birthday. And that, by the grace of God, was his last spree.

His wife, who had threatened to leave him, ordered him to get dressed because she was taking him to New York to the hospital.

His wife pleaded with the doctor to please do something to save her husband, to save her home, to save their business, and their self-respect.

The doctor assured them that he had something for him this time that would work.

Four days later a man called on him who stated that he, too, had been there several times but had now found relief. That night another man came. He, too, had been released from alcohol. Then the next day a man came, and in a halting but effective way, told how he had placed himself in God's hand and keeping. Almost before Ralph knew it, he was asking God to help him.

Some alcoholics feel a strong resentment against such a spiritual approach. But Ralph was ripe for it.

The following day was Monday and one of these men insisted that Ralph check out from the hospital and go with him to his home in New Jersey (This may have been Hank Parkhurst.) He did, and the next night he was taken to a meeting at Bill Wilson's home in Brooklyn, where there were more than 30 men like him.

When he returned home, life was very different. He paid off the old debts, had money enough for decent clothes and some to use in helping others. He also worked hard for A.A. He is believed to have started the group in Darien, Connecticut, and at the time he wrote his story there were four in that group. He also may have been the Ralph who worked in the pressroom at A.A.'s second International Convention in St. Louis in July of 1955.

Bill Ruddell was born in 1900. According to his story in the Big Book, he first got sober in February 1937.

When the Alcoholic Foundation was established in the spring of 1938, he was appointed as a trustee. He almost immediately got drunk and was replaced by Harry Brick ("A Different Slant")

He was underage to join the Army in WW I, but ran away from home and lied about his age to join up. It was in the Army that he started to drink.

He tried many geographic cures. Instead of coming home from Germany after the war he stayed, then took jobs in Russia, England, and back to Germany. He came home in 1924 hoping Prohibition could help him stop drinking. There he discovered the speakeasies. So he shipped off to the Venezuela for a job in the oil fields. They soon poured him on a ship and sent him home.

He had tried doctors, hospitals, psychiatrists, rest cures, changes of scenery, etc., to try to stop drinking. He got married to a woman named Kathleen, hoping marriage would solve his problem. But even Kathleen couldn't help.

Finally he consulted a doctor who referred him to A.A. Bill Wilson talked to him and told him his own story, then told him to think about it for a few days. He was back to see Bill again the next day.

Dr. Bob and the twelve men and women whose stories are in this section were among the early members of A.A.'s first groups. The third edition introduces this section by saying that they all had passed away of natural causes, having maintained complete sobriety. But it is known that Marty Mann and Clarence Snyder were both still living when the third edition was published, and Marty had a later slip of which perhaps the editors of the third edition were unaware.

Another Chance - Bertha V.
Louisville, Kentucky
p. 526, 3rd edition

Poor, black, totally ruled by alcohol, she felt shut away from any life worth living. But when she began a prison sentence, a door opened.

Bertha arrived at A.A.'s doors in April of 1972. She was the daughter of a clergyman, but had sunk low because of alcohol. She had served time in prison for killing a man in a blackout. It was in prison that she accepted A.A., having rejected it earlier. She only served three years of a twelve-year sentence.

She was a poor African-American woman from an area where there were very few African-Americans in A.A. And they didn't get involved much in A.A. activities. She thought some African-Americans were afraid to go to other meetings, but she wanted them to know that "there are no color bars in A.A." She talks movingly about how she was not discriminated against in A.A., nor made to feel different in any way.

Any Day Was Washday -- Author unknown.
(p. 369 in 3rd edition.)

This secret drinker favored the local Laundromat as a watering hole. Now, she no longer risks losing her home, her self-respect, or her laundry.

One source says this woman's date of sobriety was April 1973.

Her father was a big Irish oilman who came up through the "school of hard knocks" and so had to be a two-fisted drinker. Her sweet mother said he had a "weakness." The author realized that something was wrong and developed a great sense of insecurity.

She married at nineteen and had six children. In the beginning she and her husband drank on social occasions, but without problems.

Then a series of tragedies occurred. Her father died from falling down a flight of stairs while drunk, after his death her sweet mother took up drinking and died of cirrhosis of the liver; then her five-year-old girl was killed by a neighbor's car. She couldn't take all the stress and was soon admitted to a state hospital for the mentally ill. After a few months she was "released and left the world of insanity, only to return to the world of
alcoholic insanity."

Her husband disapproved of her drinking so she would gather up the soiled clothes and go the Laundromat, buying alcohol on the way. She would get drunk at the Laundromat, lose shirts, and once lost the entire wash. (During this time she was considering doing laundry for the neighbors as a part-time job, so that she could spend all her time at the Laundromat.)

Finally her husband decided he wanted a divorce and told her to leave because she was "unfit as a mother, a wife, and a laundress."

Fortunately her sister-in-law knew of a place that helped alcoholic women, a halfway house. There she found A.A. and learned that she didn't have a "weakness" but the disease of alcoholism.

One night, a few weeks after joining the Fellowship, she was surprised and delighted to see a familiar face -- her husband. It is unclear whether he was there because he, too, was an alcoholic, or whether it was an open meeting that he attended to learn about the disease in order to help her. She says only "he was learning, too."

They resumed their marriage, moved away from the street of sad memories, and found a new home. But for her, what is more important is "I found a new life in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm very active in A.A. work and active at home, too, with my family. I still wash clothes, lots of them, but I no longer lose them at the Laundromat. That's right! During three years in A.A., I haven't lost so much as one shirt."

Belle of the Bar - Author unknown.
p. 478 in 3rd edition

Waitress by day, barfly by night, she drifted down the years into jail. Then A.A. showed her the beauty of normal living, in a whole family reborn.

This alcoholic woman had been "slinging hash" for eighteen years, and she thought she was managing. She had a beat-up car that wasn't paid for, no clothes, no money, no home, no real friends to speak of, mentally and physically pooped, "but I was doing all right!"

She began drinking at the age of twelve and quit at thirty-two. She also had a pill problem and for two years she was also addicted to heroin, using as many as twenty caps a day. She felt she had wasted twenty years of her life, but was fortunate not to have brain damage.

After being arrested and serving six months on drug charges she didn't go back to heroin. Her poor mother had "three of her kids in jail that year -- two sons and a daughter." A few years later an older brother died in a house fire because of "pills and booze."

She attempted suicide on several occasions "making sure there was always somebody within reaching distance." On one of these occasions her brother-in-law ran to her rescue but she wound up in a mental institution.

Finally, she and her surviving siblings were all in A.A. and her mother in Al-Anon.

In her story she told of the many benefits she had received from A.A. She had a happy marriage to a man she met in A.A. He taught her that in their new life she was the most important person of all. For her, her sobriety came before his or even before her feeling for him. He taught her that she must help herself first, only then would she be able to help others.

She and her husband were aware of the nice things around them, things they had never noticed before in their drunken stupor. She planted her first flower garden the year she wrote her story, she was enjoying hockey games with her husband and her brother without being "all boozed up." She went to church on Easter Sunday with her husband and "it didn't hurt at all." (And the church walls didn't tumble down.)

She knew that the biggest word for her in A.A. is "honesty." "I don't believe this program would work for me if I didn't get honest with myself about everything. Honesty is the easiest word for me to understand because it is the exact opposite of what I've been doing all my life. Therefore, it will be the hardest to work on. But I will never be totally honest -- that would make me perfect and none of us can claim to be perfect. Only God is."

Calculating the Costs - Name unknown
(p. 396, 3rd edition.)

A retired Navy man looks back over twenty years of drinking, to add up his A.A. 'initiation fee.

This man's sobriety date is unknown. But since he likes calculations let us do some calculating, based on what he tells us in his story, to find out when he came into A.A.

If he entered the Navy at the age of twenty-one, not long after the United States entered World War II, say early 1942, and served twenty years in the Navy, he would have been forty-one when he retired in 1962. The heading on his story refers to twenty years of drinking, but he talks about twenty-five years of drinking (he started serious drinking at eighteen) so he must have entered A.A. two years after getting out of the Navy, i.e., about 1964.

Lack of funds and young age kept him from drinking much before the age of eighteen, but he was quite inventive. Beginning when he was fourteen he displayed alcoholic tendencies. He started to steal wine from the family jug, siphoning it off one drink at a time so it wouldn't be missed, and saving it up until he had about a pint so that he could get drunk. "Even at that age," he says, "I had learned that one drink was not enough. I had to have enough to get drunk on, or what was the use?"

He points out that his initiation fee was at least $10,000. All alcoholics pay a high initiation fee to enter A.A. But as this alcoholic points out, "Incalculable are the intangible initiation fees that A.A. members have paid, the sick, sick hangovers, the remorse, guilt, broken homes, jails, and institutions, and the mental anguish in general that has been generated over the years."

Desperation Drinking -- Pat M.
New York City
p. 509 in 2nd edition, p. 512 in 3rd edition

He was drinking to hold on to his job, to hold on to his wife, to hold on to his sanity. Finally, he was drinking to keep away those little men, and those strange voices, and the organ music that came out of the walls.

Pat probably joined AA and stopped drinking about 1952.

He was born in Ireland and came to the United States as a child. He started drinking at the age of sixteen, but wasn't a social drinker very long. He had blackouts, began swearing off alcohol, and taking the morning drink quite early. He became a binge drinker.

He thought the Army would be a cure all, a new life. But when he returned from the Army things were probably worse because now he had a lot more resentments.

He married the girl he'd left behind, who had been warned by his own mother that he was a hopeless drunk. He stayed sober for her for nine months but then took a drink at a party. No one had warned him that it was the first drink that did the damage. His drinking became desperation drinking.

Finally he hit bottom. He knew he had come to the end of his rope and turned for help to someone he had turned his back on for years: God. He then went the doctor who had treated him for DTs. The doctor sent him to the Alanon House on the West Side. There he was introduced to A.A. He found friendship and understanding he needed, he learned how to pray honestly.

Pat didn't take the 10th step inventory at night. He took it continuously during the day. At the time he wrote his story he had not had a drink since his first meeting.

For him, A.A. had become a way of life.

Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict -- Paul Ohliger, MD
Laguna Niguel, California.
p. 439 in 3rd edition

The physician wasn't hooked, he thought - he just prescribed drugs medically indicated for his many ailments. Acceptance was his key to liberation.

Paul's story is one of the most frequently quoted in the 3rd edition because it talks so much about acceptance (pages 449-450).

His original date of sobriety was December 1966, but he slipped until July 1967. He didn't think he was an alcoholic, he just had problems. "If you had my problems you'd drink too." His major problem was his wife. "If you had my wife you'd drink, too." He and his wife, Max, had been married twenty-eight years when he entered A.A. He said she was a natural Al-Anon long before they heard of either A.A. or Al-Anon.

His story in the Big Book, and tapes of his talks, show that Paul had a great sense of humor, and was a very humble man.

Paul had begun to drink when in pharmacy school to help him sleep. He went through pharmacy school, graduate school, medical school, internship, residency and specialty training and, finally went into practice. All the time his drinking kept increasing. Soon he began taking drugs to pep him up and tranquilizers to level off.

On occasion he tried to stop completely, but had convulsions from withdrawal. When he went to Mayo Clinic he was put in the locked ward. Another hospitalization was in the psychiatric ward of a hospital, on which he was on the staff. But there he was introduced to A.A.

It took him awhile to get off the alcohol and pills, but when he wrote his story he said: "Today, I find I can't work my A.A. program while taking pills, nor may I even have them around for dire emergencies only. I can't say 'Thy will be done,' and take a pill. I can't say, 'I'm powerless over alcohol, but solid alcohol is okay.' I can't say 'God could restore me to sanity but until He does, I'll control myself -- with pills.'"

He started Pills Anonymous and Chemical Dependency Anonymous, but did not attend them because he got all he needed from A.A. He did not introduce himself as an alcoholic and addict, and was irritated by people who want to broaden A.A. to include other addictions

He wrote an article for the Grapevine on why doctors shouldn't prescribe pills for alcoholics, and because he had a dual problem was asked to write his story for the Big Book. It was originally published in the A.A. Grapevine with the title "Bronzed Moccasins" and an illustration of a pair of bronze moccasins. It was eventually renamed and included in the Big Book. His book, "There's More to Quitting Drinking than Quitting Drinking," was published in 1995 by Sabrina Publishing, Laguna Niguel, CA.

Paul complained in an interview with A.A. Grapevine that the story might have "overshot the mark." One of the most uncomfortable things for him was people run up to him at a meeting and tell him how glad they are the story is in the book. "They say they were fighting with their home group because their home group won't let them talk about drugs. So they show their group the story and they say, 'By God, now you'll have to let me talk about drugs.' And I really hate to see the story as a divisive thing. I don't think we came to A.A. to fight each other."

But he denied that there is anything in the story he would want to change. The story "makes clear the truth that an alcoholic can also be an addict, and indeed that an alcoholic has a constitutional right to have as many problems as he wants! But that doesn't mean that every A.A. meeting has to be open to a discussion of drugs if it doesn't want to. Every meeting has the right to say it doesn't want drugs discussed. People who want to discuss drugs have other places where they can go to talk about that."

How did he work his program? "Pretty much every morning, before I get out of bed, I say the Serenity Prayer, the Third Step Prayer, and the Seventh Step Prayer. Then Max and I repeat those prayers along with other prayers and meditations at breakfast."

He had a special meeting format for early morning meetings. He called them Attitude Adjustment Meetings. They consisted largely of readings from the Big Book, prayers from the Big Book and 12 & 12, and a short session of positive pitches. The meetings were at 6:30 am or 7:00 am each day.

Paul died on May 19, 2000. Max, died on July 1, 2001.

The Career Officer -- Sackville Mollins
Dublin, Ireland.
p. 523 in 2nd, p. 517 in 3rd editions

A British officer, this Irishman -- that is, until brandy 'retired' him. But this proved only a temporary setback. He survived to become a mainstay of mainstay of A.A. in Eire.

Sackville attended his first A.A. meeting on April 28, 1947, and never took another drink. He was a "retired" major from the British Army, in which he served for twenty-six years. He had been discharged on medical grounds. This meant, of course, alcoholism. In a talk he gave in Bristol, England, in 1971, he said he received a letter from the Army saying they had accepted his resignation. But he didn't remember having sent it in.

He was living with his parents in Dublin, existing on his retirement pay. His long-suffering mother finally ordered him to pack his bags. He then remembered seeing something about A.A. in the Evening Mail, and told her he would try A.A. His parents agreed that if A.A. could help him he could live at home. But he would be on probation. He arrived at his first meeting that night, drunk on gin and doped up on Benzedrine and paraldehyde.

His first meeting was at the Dublin group. It was the first A.A. group in Europe, founded by Conor Flynn in November of 1946. Conor had got sober in Philadelphia three years earlier, and was on vacation in Ireland.

It was known as the First Dublin Group or The Country Shop Group, the name of the restaurant where they met. Sackville found what looked like a large group when he went to his first meeting. But it was the big Monday night open meeting, to explain A.A. to newcomers and their families as well as doctors and social workers.

Getting off to a shaky start, the secretary and a dozen others got drunk in the summer of 1947. Three remained sober, among them Sackville, who had joined in April. They re-formed the group in August with Sackville as secretary.

Sackville was a good organizer who had clear and definite ideas of what they should do. He suggest they switch the open public information meeting from Friday to Monday, the better to catch men coming off a weekend drunk. He also worked hard to get information about A.A. to the newspapers.

Since the vast majority of the Irish population was Roman Catholic, Sackville knew it was important to win the goodwill of the Catholic clergy. He convinced a professor of theology at St. Patrick's College, Mayhooth, to publish an article favorable to A.A. in the college paper The Furrow. Bill Wilson later referred to the publication of this article as an impressive step forward in A.A.'s relations with the churches.

Bill Wilson visited them in 1950, and held a press conference in the Mansion House (Lord Mayor's house). Many years later Jimmy R. took great pride in showing the kitchen sink in his basement apartment into which Bill had knocked his cigarette ash as they sat around and talked for hours following the press conference. Sackville, in his 1971 talk, spoke of what a great man Bill Wilson was.

In 1948 Sackville began a small paper, The Road Back, which did much to give the group a sense of identity. A bimonthly group newsletter celebrating birthdays and group news, it also carried recovery sharing in a simple unpretentious five-page format. He edited it for more than twenty-eight years.

Sackville updated his story for the March 1968 Grapevine. It was titled: "Living the Program In All Our Affairs."

He hoped that what he wrote would not be taken as the view of an Angry Old Man. But he complained of those who give only lip service to the slogans and the steps.

He urged realism, with its frequent reminders of humility; faith, anchored to some unchanging norm of goodness (God, as I understand him); atonement; patience; and thinking with spiritual discipline.

He complained of those who tell a newcomer that he only has to stay dry for today and to come to meetings. He said the meetings were necessary, but would not practice the Steps for anyone. Even the most meeting-minded member has to pass many hours of the day when he is alone and must depend on his own inner strength. These are the hours when practice of these principles in all his affairs must cease to be a conventional, superficial acceptance of them and become a master of the heart and the will.

Sackville also wasn't fond of celebrity speakers. He urged that we take every speaker, silver-tongued or tongue-tied, at his real value of being another alcoholic who is doing his best to stay recovered himself and trying to help us to do the same.

And he thought that the increasing numbers of conventions and the like were diverting time and effort from our primary purpose.

He added, however, that these dislikes of his were "very slight ripples in a sea of contentment."

Sackville died in 1979.

March 1968 AA Grapevine
Big Book Stories - Updated (5 of 5)
This is the fifth article in the Grapevine's series by authors of the personal histories in the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book was published in 1939; a revised, enlarged version came out in 1955. Now, the author of "The Career Officer," page 523 in the revised (second) edition, reports on thirteen more years of sobriety in Ireland, where he first found AA twenty-one years ago.

Living the Program in All Our Affairs

More than twelve years have passed since I ended my story in the Big Book with the words "AA has made me very happy." Nothing that has happened since has made me change my mind. The personal details of my life in between are unimportant to anyone but myself. They have made me more grateful to our founders and to the vast army of my comrades in Alcoholics Anonymous. But the passage of time has given me more time to think. And in the hope that what I write will not be taken as the views of an Angry Old Man, I put forward some of the things I think about.

In No Man Is an Island, Thomas Merton wrote, "Tradition is living and active, but Convention is passive and dead. Tradition does not form us automatically; we have to work to understand it. Convention is accepted passively, as a matter of routine. It offers us only pretended ways of solving the problems of living, a system of gestures and formalities....One goes through an act, without trying to understand the meaning of it all, merely because everyone else does the same."

Convention does rule the lives of most of us. We do go through life saying things and doing things because others do them and say them. For instance, our Slogans. A slogan originally was the war cry of the Scottish Highlands. Anyone who can imagine a Highland chief urging his clan into battle with slogans such as Think or Easy Does It cannot be very well acquainted with the Scots. Yet for us, today, these AA Slogans are very useful pieces of advice. When we merely accept them passively, as if brainwashed, that is lazy thinking, and lazy thinking can become an important defect if applied to our Steps.

The Twelfth Step sets out that our founder members tried to practice these principles in all their affairs. And still, so many tell us that no one could possibly apply these principles to his whole life. Is this not lazy thinking? Do some of us just accept the Steps, to be "with it," without working out what these principles really are for each of us?

My own list of the principles I must practice consists of: realism, with its frequent reminders of humanity; faith, anchored to some unchanging norm of goodness (God, as I understand Him); atonement; patience; and thinking with spiritual discipline. Can I honestly tell myself that the practice (though not the finished accomplishment) of these principles is impossible for me in all my affairs?

Perhaps with advantage to ourselves - especially at the start - we might pay more attention to a few words in our purpose: to solve our common problem. Our common problem is not, as we quite naturally may have thought, just to stop drinking period; we can all remember from our past the dreary, unending sequence of stop, restart, stop, restart. The problem is to remain securely abstinent permanently, albeit we work at it one day at a time. Obviously, no one will stay dry for long or willing unless life without drink gives him satisfaction. He can arrive at that satisfaction only by learning to live with himself in peace, with his neighbor in charity, and with his conscience in reasonable repose. That, at least for me, is the guide motif of our Steps. That is why it doesn't now seem right to me to go about saying, "AA is a strange program," though I used to for a time. It no longer appears strange to me. It seems the only sort of recovery program that could possibly work for an alcoholic.

Yet so many of us still tell a newcomer that he has only to stay dry for today and to come to meetings. The meetings won't practice the Steps for him, though they may and should help him to persevere in his own practice of them. Even the most meeting-minded member has to pass many hours of the day when he is alone and must depend on his own inner strength. These are the hours when practice of these principles in all his affairs must cease to be a conventional, superficial acceptance of them and become a matter of the heart and the will.

I find that over the years I have acquired a few mild dislikes. The calling of the Higher Power, or God as we understand Him, "The Man Upstairs" is one. The advertising of some member as a star speaker and a special attraction is another. (This isn't envy!) Can we not take every speaker, silver-tongued or tongue-tied, at his real value of being another alcoholic who is doing his best to stay recovered himself and trying to help us to do the same? And I do somehow feel from time to time that the increasing number of conventions and the like, through the amount of preliminary organization and work involved, are diverting time and effort from our primary purpose. These distastes are, however, very slight ripples in a sea of contentment.

In the sense that I have been a member of our group for all but five months of its more than twenty years' existence, I suppose I rank as an old-timer. My group has always been marvelously kind to me and tolerant of a personality that has consistently demanded a great measure of tolerance. Old-timers must often be a headache to younger members. But the old-timer who has come to realize, as I hope I have myself, that he is not God's gift to AA, but that AA is God's gift to him, still has something good to give to his group: the demonstration of his continued sobriety, his active membership, and his gratitude for his recovery to - under God - the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My prayer for my AA contemporaries and myself is that we may to the end remain, in Tennyson's words, "Strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

S.M., Dublin, Ireland

A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The birth of our Society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10, 1935. To 1950, the year of his death, he carried the A.A. message to more than 5,000 alcoholic men and women, and to all these he gave his medical services without thought of charge. In this prodigy of service, he was well assisted by Sister Ignatia at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, one of the greatest friends our Fellowship will ever know.

Dr. Bob met Bill Wilson and stopped drinking on Mother's Day, May 12, 1935, but about three weeks later he drank again while on a trip to attend a medical convention. His last drink was June 10, 1935, (or perhaps June 17, 1935, according to some sources).

His son, "Smitty," described him as a very sensitive man, who loved being a doctor, and as "a man's man," who was also very courteous, especially to women. "Women felt comfortable around him, because he so obviously loved my mom." Smitty also describes him as having a great sense of humor.

He was born on August 8, 1879, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, about one hundred miles northeast of East Dorset, where Bill Wilson was born. He was the only child, of Judge and Mrs. Walter Perrin Smith, who were influential in business and civic affairs. He had a much older foster sister, Amanda Northrup, of whom he was quite fond.

His parents were pillars of the North Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury. They insisted Bob go to church not only on Sunday, several times during the week. He later rebelled against this and decided he wasn't going into a church again except for funerals or weddings. And he didn't -- for about forty years. But the religious education stood him in good stead in future years. Smitty said his father was one of the few people he knew who had read the Bible from cover to cover three times.

He entered St. Johnsbury Academy at fifteen. At a dance during his senior year he met Anne Ripley of Oak Park, Illinois, a student at Wellesley on holiday with a friend. It was not a whirlwind marriage. They weren't married until seventeen years later. He first had to finish his education, and later she may have been reluctant to marry him because of his drinking.

Except for a secret taste of hard cider when he was about nine, he didn't drink until he was about nineteen and attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, described as ""he drinkingest" of the Ivy League schools

A tattoo he wore the rest of his life was probably from those days at Dartmouth: a dragon and a compass tattoo. The dragon wound around his left arm from the shoulder to the wrist. It was blue with red fire. His son thinks "he had to have been drunk to have it put there, and you didn't do something that complicated in a day. When I asked him how he got it, he said, 'Boy, that was a dandy!' And it must have been, too."

He wanted to be a doctor, but for some reason his mother opposed it, so he spent the next three years in Boston, Chicago, and Montreal working. Finally he began studying medicine, first at the University of Michigan, and then at Rush University near Chicago. His drinking interfered with his medical education repeatedly, but he eventually received his medical degree, and secured a coveted internship at City Hospital in Akron. After his two years internship he opened an office.

Soon his alcoholism progressed and he was hospitalized repeatedly. His father sent a doctor to Akron to take him back to Vermont where he stayed for a few months, then he returned to his practice, sufficiently frightened that he did not drink again for some time. During this sober period he married Anne.

During Prohibition he thought it would be safe to try a little drinking, since it would not be possible, so he thought, to get large quantities. But it was easy for doctors to obtain alcohol. He also used sedatives to hide his "jitters." Things went from bad to worse.

In the late 1920s, he decided that he wanted to be a surgeon, perhaps because he would be able to control his schedule more easily in this specialty than he could as a general practitioner. The patients wouldn't be calling him for help all hours of the day or night, so they wouldn't catch him when he was drinking.

He went to Rochester, Minnesota, and studied under the Mayo brothers. He became a rectal surgeon, and did nothing but surgery for the balance of his life. But Smitty says that the other doctors knew he was a drunk, so the referrals were scarce and his practice small. (Despite the financial problems, they were able to keep the house during the Great Depression because the Federal Government placed a moratorium on foreclosures.)

When he was introduced to the Oxford Group he tried hard for three years to follow their program, and did a lot of study, both of spirituality and of alcoholism. But it wasn't until Bill Wilson arrived in the spring of 1935 that Dr. Bob found the kind of help he needed -- one alcoholic talking to another.

Smitty describes Bill Wilson as being the opposite of his dad and both of them were needed for the success of A.A. He once joked: "If it had been up to my dad, A.A. would never have spread beyond Akron. Had it been up to Bill, they would have sold franchises." On another occasion he said: "Bill was garrulous, Bill was a promoter, Bill was a visionary. I think Bill W. could see further in the world than anyone I've ever known. My dad wasn't that way." (Dr. Bob was quiet, cautious, conservative, steady, insistent on keeping things simple.)

Anne Smith died on June 2, 1949. Bill noted that she was "quite literally, the mother of our first group, Akron Number One. In the full sense of the word, she was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous."

Serenely remarking to his attendant, "I think this is it," Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950. The funeral service was held at the old Episcopal Church by Dr. Walter Tunks, whose answer to a telephone call fifteen years earlier had led to the meeting between Bob and Bill. He was buried at Mt. Peace Cemetery, next to Anne.

There is no large monument on his grave. Doctor Bob, who always admonished A.A. to "keep it simple," when he heard that friends were planning a monument, remarked "Annie and I plan to be buried just like other folks." Alcoholics Anonymous itself is Dr. Bob's monument.

Norman's date of sobriety is uncertain. One source says it was February 1938, another says June 1938.

He had been hospitalized four times. The first three times he left the hospital determined never to drink again. Now, on his fourth visit, he told the kindly doctor (perhaps Dr. Silkworth) that he was a thoroughly hopeless case and would probably continue to return as long as he could beg, borrow, or steal the money to get in.

On the second day in the hospital the doctor told him that he knew of a way he could stop drinking forever. On the third day a man came to talk with him. He talked about alcoholism and a spiritual way of life.

Norman was deeply impressed by his seriousness, but nothing that he said made sense to him. He spoke about God, and Norman did not believe in a God. It was not for him. War, illness, cruelty, stupidity, poverty and greed were not and could not be the product of any purposeful creation.

The next day another man visited him. He, too, was an alcoholic who no longer drank. This second man had not had a drink in over three years. This was probably Fitz Mayo ("Our Southern Friend") or Hank Parkhurst ("The Unbeliever").

He told him of other men who had found sobriety through the recognition of some power beyond themselves, and invited him to a meeting on the following Tuesday at Bill Wilson's home in Brooklyn.

He told his wife about this group, and she thought he was mentally unbalanced. But she had met this kindly doctor and, since he recommended it, she was willing for him to try it.

The following Tuesday, hardly daring to hope and fearful of the worst, he and his wife attended their first meeting. He had never been so inspired.

That was, for him, the beginning of a new life. Almost imperceptibly he began to change. In the process of this change, he recognized two immensely significant steps for him. He admitted to himself for the first time that all my previous thinking might be wrong, and he consciously wished to believe.

In his story, Norman ends by addressing himself directly to atheists or agnostics, who might read the book. He assured them that their questions had been in his mind also. He could see no satisfactory solution to any of them. But he kept hard to the only thing that seemed to hold out any hope, and gradually his difficulties were lessened. He said he had not given up his intellect for the sake of his soul, nor had he destroyed his integrity to preserve his health and sanity. "All I had feared to lose I have gained and all I feared to gain I have lost."

As a result of this experience he was convinced that to seek is to find, to ask is to be given. The day never passed that he did not silently cry out in thankfulness, not merely for his release from alcohol, but even more for a change that had given his life new meaning, dignity, and beauty

Fear of Fear -- Ceil F. (Ceil Mansfield?)
New York City
p. 330 in the 2nd edition, p. 321 in the 3rd editions

This lady was cautious. She decided she wouldn't let herself go in her drinking. And she would never, never take that morning drink!

Ceil's date of sobriety was, according to one source, July 1949. Her husband George joined shortly before she did.

She thought she was not an alcoholic, that her problem was that she had been married to a drunk. But she finally admitted, to a woman she met when she accompanied George to the Greenwich Village Group, that she, too, had a problem.

She was one who never went to a hospital, never lost a job, and had never been to jail. And she didn't drink in the morning. Nonetheless, she was a severe alcoholic. She believes that she should have lost her husband, but the fact that he was an alcoholic too kept them together.

She wrote an update of her story for the September 1968 A.A. Grapevine. In it she tells how dramatically their lives had changed.

When they came to A.A. they were spiritually, mentally, and physically beaten people. Their children were ashamed of them, their families did not want any part of them.

She reported that now their families trusted them again, and physically they were in better shape than they were when they came in. Their friends were all in the Fellowship.

George had found it tough going financially for a while, so the women in A.A. suggested she get a job.

She went to work for a New York advertising agency as a receptionist, but soon gained the confidence to look for a better job with more responsibility and a better salary. In 1968 she had been at her current job for eight years, getting advancements each year.

But she complained about the office politics and how the other women snickered when she told them she did not tell lies. Office politics were strange for her. She said she had always been honest, even when drinking, but "this office hanky-panky was new." She loved her work, but admitted that nineteen years earlier she would not have had the serenity to take the office politics.

After eighteen years, they were both still very active in A.A. and doing a lot of Twelfth Step work. She expressed enormous gratitude to the Fellowship for all it had given them. She said they were not reformed drunks, but informed alcoholics.

Like so many of us sober a long time, friends asked Ceil and George why they continued to go to meetings, do Twelfth Step work, and speak at other groups.

"They ask, 'Isn't eighteen years enough time to prove you have the alcoholic problem licked?' My answer is always the same: that I love my A.A. It is the one Fellowship that has given us our lives, freedom, and happiness. We are not reformed drunks -- but informed alcoholics."

And she concludes: "I know to whom I owe my gratitude: my fellow members of A.A. I hope I shall never forget to be grateful."

She has been identified by one source as Ceil Mansfield, but her update was signed C.F. Perhaps that was a typo in the A.A. Grapevine, or perhaps she had begun using her maiden name for professional reason, or perhaps she remarried after being divorced or widowed.

The following AA Grapevine article was originally published in the September 1968 issue and reprinted in the November 1999 AA Grapevine, under the category of "Big Book Authors."

AA Grapevine
Fear of Fear -- Ceil F. (Ceil Mansfield?)
September 1968

So Changed A Life

The author of "Fear of Fear" updated her story.

What a change in our lives since that day eighteen years ago when George and I came into AA! We were two spiritually, mentally, and physically beaten people. Our children were ashamed of us; our family did not want any part of us. Our drinking friends (the only ones we had) were as almost far gone as we were, so we were two lost lambs -- more like goats, I would say. We were afraid of asking anyone for help (if we even knew we needed help), fed up with each other, ready to call the whole thing off, without the strength to know where to look for help.

Now, after these happy years, what do we have?

We still, thank God, have each other.

AA has taught us to be grateful. That sounds trite, but gratitude is the one thing neither one of us knew before AA.

Our families can trust us again. As for our friends, most of them, with the exception of our church friends, are in the Fellowship. And what friends!

Physically, we are in better shape (and I do mean shape) than when we came in -- two shaky, befuddled people.

My life has completely changed. George found it tough going financially for quite a while, so my gals in AA asked me why I did not find myself a job. For years, I had been a housewife, with absolutely no knowledge of office work. One of our AA gals got me a start in one of the very swanky advertising agencies, as a receptionist. Not much was required of me, but to be a receptionist at my age was something. It was fun, not much money and not much work, but fun.

Through the advertising-agency work, I gained enough confidence to look for a job that would mean more responsibility and thus a better salary. I came to my present job and have been here for almost eight years, getting advancements each year. After I had been here a few months, George got started again in his profession.

Working has been quite an experience for me. I had always done volunteer work at my children's schools, our church, and our AA Intergroup office; but getting along with people who were my bosses and were paying me good money was a new and, for me, a frightening thing. My AA principles had to be applied not just one day at a time, but every minute of each hour.

The politics of an office were strange to me. I have always been honest in all my dealings, even while drinking, but this office hanky-panky was new. The thing that really concerned me was the fact that the people did not believe me at all times. When I called to say I was sick, I really was sick. The other gals sort of snickered at me when I said, "I do not tell lies." I do love my workaday life, and I know if I had tried it about nineteen years ago, I would not have the serenity to take it as I do now.

Friends ask us why we continue to go to meetings, do Twelfth Step work, and speak at other groups. They ask, "Isn't eighteen years enough time to prove you have the alcoholic problem licked?" My answer is always the same: that I love my AA. It is the one Fellowship that has given us our lives, our freedom, and happiness. We are not reformed drunks -- but informed alcoholics.

I know to whom I owe my gratitude: my fellow members of AA. I hope I shall never forget to be grateful.
C.F., Manhattan, New York

Probably Wally first entered A.A. in May of 1937, but one source says October 1938. But after several years he slipped and had a hard time getting back.

He was an engineer. He must have been handsome, one Akron member described him as having iron-gray hair and looking like President Warren Harding.

He described himself as a man of extremes. When he learned to dance, he had to go dancing every night; when he worked or studied he wanted no interruptions; and of course when he drank he could never stop until he was drunk. He started getting drunk before he was sixteen.

Wally must have been a good worker because he rarely had a problem finding a job, and often was rehired by the same company and given another chance. But he was fired again and again. He was once fired from the WPA (Works Progress Administration, a Federal job program instituted during the Depression of the 1930s.)

He was irritated by efforts to help him. His family once persuaded him to enter a sanitarium for thirty days. He left with the firm resolve never to drink again.

Before he left the sanitarium he answered an advertisement for an engineer in Akron and after an interview, got the job. In about three months he was out of a job again.

Finally, a neighbor, who had heard of Dr. Bob's work, told his wife, Annabelle, about it and she went to see Dr. Bob. Soon Wally was hospitalized by Dr. Bob and began his recovery. About twenty men called on him while he was still in the hospital. He knew five of them, three of whom he had never before seen completely sober.

Annabelle was at first was hard to convince that the program would work, because Wally once brought home an A.A. member he had met in a bar. This was Paul Stanley ("Truth Freed Me!") during his slip in early 1936. Then her own doctor urged her to see Dr. Bob. Finally, her clergyman, J.C. Wright, got a woman to talk to Annabelle and then made an appointment for her with Dr. Bob. This was probably the neighbor Wally talks about in his story.

Dr. Bob called Maybelle Lucas, wife of Tom Lucas ("My Wife and I") and told her to get hold of Annabelle or her husband would be drunk before he was out of the hospital two hours. Finally Annabelle took Maybelle's advice and let go and let God. Anne Smith also took her under her wing.

After his recovery, Wally and Annabelle took many alcoholics into their home. According to Bill Wilson, they had more success with people they took into their home than did Dr. Bob and Anne or Bill and Lois.

Wally was Dr. Bob's right hand man for many years, and when he eventually slipped everyone was shocked. He had seemed to be doing everything right and working very hard.

Wally had been very hard on those who slipped and wanted to kick them out, which may explain why it took him a long time to get back, but Annabelle dragged him to meetings. He finally got sober again and stayed sober until his death. His attitude toward those who slip, however, changed.

Freedom From Bondage - Wynn Corum Laws
California
p. 553, 2nd and 544 in 3rd edition

Young when she joined, this A.A. believes her serious drinking was the result of even deeper defects. She here tells how she was set free.

Wynn joined A.A. in California in 1947 at age thirty-three.

She was described by the novelist, Carolyn See, one of her several step children, as "tall, and with a face that was astonishing in its beauty. She had "translucent skin with a tiny dusting of freckles, Katharine Hepburn cheekbones, bright red hair, and turquoise eyes." She was a "knockout."

She believed that her alcoholism was a symptom of a deeper trouble, and that her mental and emotional difficulties began many years before she began to drink. But AA taught her that she was the result of the way she reacted to what happened to her as a child.

She was born in Florida and, like Bill Wilson before her, her parents separated when she was a child, and she was sent to live with her grandparents in the Mid West. She reports feeling "lonely, and terrified and hurt." (This common childhood experience may have been one of the reasons for the reported close friendship she had with Bill Wilson.)

She married and divorced four times before finding A.A. The first time she married for financial security; her second husband was a prominent bandleader and she sang with his band; her third husband was an Army Captain she married during World War II; her fourth husband was a widower, with several children.

One A.A. friend quipped when first hearing Wynn's story, that she had always been a cinch for the program, for she had always been interested in mankind, but was just taking them one man at a time.

Sometime after 1955 when her story appeared in the Big Book, she married her fifth husband, George Laws, another A.A. member. George and Wynn were married for several years and his daughter Caroline lived with them when they were first married. After they were divorced, according to Caroline, she dated a wealthy insurance executive whom she had hoped to marry.

George and Wynn were a popular team speaking at meetings. "My dad was Wynn's opening act," said Carolyn. "He couldn't help but be funny. Then he would defer to Wynn, whose tale was hair-raising."

Carolyn writes: "Wynn's mother had deserted her in order to go out and live a selfish life. An unloving grandmother reared her in strict poverty. She contracted typhoid fever and hovered between life and death for about ninety days. All her hair and (though she would not admit this) her teeth fell out."

She recovered at about age sixteen. Her beautiful red hair grew back in and she wore dentures "stuck in so firmly that no one saw her without them." According to Caroline, "she began carving out a career as a femme fatale, and started drinking to bridge the gap between the grim hash

A A Taught Him to Handle Sobriety 3rd edition #554, 4th edition #553 Bob P CT	A Businessman's Recovery OM #29, 1st edition #242 William Ruddell NY 1st Board Chair 11/38-2/39	A Close Shave OM #NL, 1st edition #348 Henry J Zoeller OH Trustee 1/52-4/56
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Educated Agnostic OM NL, 1st edition #351 Norman Hunt CT	Empty on the Inside 4th edition #512 Beth H Cincinnati OH	Fear of Fear 2nd edition #330, 3rd edition #321, 4th edition #289 Ceil F. Cecil Mansfield NY
Fired Again OM #69, 1st edition #325 Wallace Gillam OH	Flooded With Feeling 4th edition #369 Author Unknown	Freedom From Bondage 2nd edition #553, 3rd edition #544, 4th edition 544 Wynn Corum Laws CA
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