Aa history Lovers 2004 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page

"reason"

she

drank.
But one day she realized that it wasn't him.
"What happened to me in 1977 was the most amazing grace," she said. "I saw

myself for

what I really was, and I remember thinking, 'It's not his fault.' I uttered,

'God

help me.'"
Some time after receiving help at a treatment center, she met with a woman

from

an AA

group.
"I zeroed in on her eyes," she said. "I looked at her eyes, and they were

bright

and

shining and they danced ... and they were full of life."
What hooked her on AA were the people, she said.
"I was enamored and enthralled with you," she said to the crowd. "You hooked

my

soul,

and I didn't know you hooked my soul."
Despite her jokes, she said "being forced to your knees is a blessing" and

warned

about thinking of ways to avoid doing what you know you need to do.
"Alcoholism is just beneath the skin," she said. "Don't think it ever goes

away."
DEMETRIUS

Those listening to the speakers had their own stories as well.
Demetrius J., an AA district committee member, has been sober for more than

nine

years. He first came to AA, he said, to save his marriage and his job.
"After being in here a couple of days, I began to stop trying to save my

marriage and

stop trying to save my job and started trying to save my life," Demetrius

said.
To be sober "feels wonderful," he said. But he knows what might have been

had he

not

found help.
"I believe if it wasn't for Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd been in jail or an

institution

or I'd be dead," he said. "Alcoholics Anonymous guided me back to my God."
He said he took his first drink, whiskey, at 10 years old and began drinking

"for the

confidence" he believed it gave him.
"It would make me 10-foot-tall and bulletproof," he said. "It would make me

sauve and

debonair. It would also make the life of the party. It would also make me

Dr.

Jekyll

and Mr. Hyde. I drank 20 years trying to escape who I was."

He swore off drinking time and time again during those 20 years, but when he

saw

that

he was hurting other people, that he might lose his children and his job, he

knew

something had to change.

"When I realized I had to drink to live and lived to drink, then and only

then

did I

realize I had to do something about my drinking."

And while contemplating suicide when he was "all alone" in his house, he

said,

"three

words came into my mouth, 'God help me.'"

GAYLE
For Gayle, the drinking began after the birth of her second child in 1965,

and

it

became a "security blanket" for her, she said.

"I had denied being an alcoholic," she said. "I blamed my husband."
But, like Maryann, one day she realized she couldn't shift the blame

anymore.
Her husband, who also drank, left on a business trip, and she got drunk by 8

p.m.

every night.

"I couldn't blame it on him anymore," she said.

The hardest part about dealing with the problem was admitting she had one,

she

said.
But coming to AA helped her look at her drinking in a different way.

"It gave me an opportunity to see that I was not a bad person trying to get

good,"

she said. "I was a sick person trying to get well."
And she said AA is important because of the people there who can relate to

each

other

and help each other.

"Another alcoholic can help an alcoholic when no one else in the world can,"

Gayle

said. "They can help them where professionals might not be able to."
She has remained sober since 1980.
To say that she has been sober for 24 years, "to me, it sounds wonderful,"

she

said.

"It's not to brag by any means. I never thought I would live to be 24 years

sober and

have a wonderful, fruitful ... life. My life is just so full now."

But she must stay on her toes, she said, and be vigilant and diligent.
"You can't be careless about your sobriety," she said. "It (alcoholism) is

always

beneath the surface."
Gayle and Demetrius advised those battling a drinking problem to find an AA

meeting

to attend.
"Look in the phone book under Alcoholics Anonymous, call and find out where

a

meeting

is," Gayle said. "Take some action. You can't sit at home ... and expect to

get

any

better."
For more information on AA meetings in Tyler, call the Central Service

Office at

[phone].

Megan Middleton covers Gregg and Anderson counties. She can be reached at

903.596.6287. e-mail: [e-mail]

©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2004
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++++Message 1631. . . . . . . . . . . . Stepping Into History -Westchester

Journal News Jan04

From: t . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/31/2004 7:42:00 PM
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Stepping Into history
By ROB RYSER

THE JOURNAL NEWS of Westchester County NY

(Original publication: January 20, 2004)
BEDFORD HILLS -- It's hard to say how Alcoholics Anonymous would have ended

up

if

Bill and Lois Wilson had stayed homeless in 1941.
Bill Wilson's only work then was with alcoholics, and his 1939 book about

the AA

fellowship had not gotten the acclaim that the group's early members

expected.

Lois was finding scattered jobs as a decorator, but her real work was

keeping

the

couple off the street. The Wilsons slept at 51 places in two years.

Then 1941 brought what Bill Wilson called a godsend -- a chocolate brown

cottage

in

Bedford Hills with French doors that Lois adored and a fieldstone fireplace

that

reminded Bill of the East Dorset, Vt., home where he was born.

The house belonged to actress Helen Griffith, whose husband drank himself to

death

and whose alcoholic friend had been "revived" by an AA group in New Jersey.

She

knew

the Wilsons were destitute and offered them what Bill Wilson later called

"unbelievably easy terms."
The impact that the Wilsons had during the next four decades in the home

they

named

Stepping Stones is still being lived out today. Yet the contributions they

made

to

the understanding of alcoholism, the requirement for spiritual steps in

recovery

and

the need for families of alcoholics to have their own support are so

substantial

that

the National Park Service is preparing to crown the contemporary couple's

home

as

historic.

"The Wilsons' influence on 20th-century society is immeasurable," reads the

nominating statement, prepared by Margaret Gaertner, a preservation

specialist

with

the Dobbs Ferry architectural firm Stephen Tilly. "AA enabled, and continues

to

enable, millions of people around the world to achieve and sustain permanent

sobriety."
Although it may seem contradictory to call a 20th-century home historic in a

region

where historic properties often have 200-year pasts, the nominating form

says

the

Wilsons are legends who make it easy to forget that as recently as 1940,

alcoholism

was considered one of society's great unsolved public health enigmas.

Bill Wilson proclaimed that alcoholism was a disease three decades before

the

American Medical Association did in 1956. The 12-step solution that Wilson

and

AA

co-founder Dr. Bob Smith created to treat the physical, mental and spiritual

dimensions of alcoholism has become the standard for U.S. hospitals and

clinics.
Remarkably, AA was proved not in hospitals but in church basements, where

recovering

alcoholics shared their experiences, strength and hope to help others find

the

inspiration and power to stop drinking.

"Wilson realized that only another alcoholic could truly understand the

tangled

emotions evoked by his debilitating ordeal," reads the nominating form.
The Wilsons' cozy Dutch Colonial, with its barn-like gambrel roof and

cement-block

studio where Bill Wilson wrote, could be added to the state's Register of

Historic

Places in the spring. Stepping Stones could then join the National Register

of

Historic Places by summer.

Managed by a foundation that Lois Wilson formed in 1979, eight years after

Bill's

death at 71, Stepping Stones is a sacred site for Alcoholics Anonymous and

Al-Anon,

the 12-step program co-founded by Lois Wilson for the spouses and children

of

alcoholics.

Yet, Stepping Stones is not mobbed with pilgrims. A mere 1,000 visitors stop

by

each

year -- and up to half of those come for the annual picnic in June.
"We could increase our visitors by 100 percent, and we could handle it,"

said

Eileen

Giuliani, Stepping Stones' executive director.

Of course, she means that theoretically. For one thing, Stepping Stones is

surrounded

by single-family homes and wants to keep the peace. The other matter is that

not

all

recovering alcoholics and Al-Anons know that Stepping Stones is the Wilson

home,

much

less that it is in Bedford Hills.
The historical designation is sure to raise awareness among AA's 2.2 million

members

in 100,000 groups worldwide, and among the 29,000 Al-Anon groups with some

387,000

members in 115 countries, according to the organizations' estimates.
Giuliani said federal recognition will advance Stepping Stones' mission to

protect

the Wilson museum and archives, and promote the tenets of the AA experience.
Neighbors -- for once in Westchester -- seem ready to yield to the prospect

of

more

cars in the neighborhood.
"It's fine with me, and I've been here seven years," said Kim Cassone, a

mother

of

two who lives near Stepping Stones on Oak Street. "They were out there to

help

people

who had problems, and that is a good thing."
Once at Stepping Stones, visitors often feel an unmistakable presence: The

air

seems

sweet, as though bread has been baking, but no one has lived here since Lois

died at

age 97 in 1988.

The house is as Lois Wilson left it -- wall lengths of books stacked five

shelves

high, scores of grandmotherly collections, a gallery's worth of photos and

framed

proclamations by dignitaries ranging from Pope Paul VI to President

Eisenhower.

Susan Cheever, a Manhattan resident, will publish a biography, "My Name is

Bill:

Bill

Wilson -- His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous," this month.

Cheever,

who grew up in Ossining, is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning

short-story

writer

John Cheever, whose own battle with alcohol she documented in her 1984

memoir,

"Home

Before Dark."

"It is a very powerful place," Cheever said of Stepping Stones. "The ghosts

are

still

there."
It is a rite for visitors to sit at the 1920s porcelain-topped kitchen table

where

Bill Wilson had a spiritual breakthrough with his childhood friend Ebby

Thatcher, one

month before Bill got sober in December 1934. Ignoble as the little white

table

seems, it is venerated at Stepping Stones, sometimes drawing tears from

those in

recovery.

"I was overwhelmed," said Mark W., 51, of Topeka, Kan., a businessman who

has

been

sober 10 years and is obliged under AA's 12 Traditions to be anonymous when

speaking

to the media.

He has made three pilgrimages to Stepping Stones in the past three years. It

was

his

second visit with his wife when he dropped his composure and cried.

"I already knew how much I lost drinking," he said. "But sitting there made

me

realize how much I gained by staying sober."

Other relics nearly as special to visitors are the desk in Bill's backyard

studio and

the desk in the home's upstairs library, where in 1951 Lois Wilson organized

the

first Al-Anon groups.
It was on Bill Wilson's desk, which he brought to Stepping Stones from New

Jersey,

that he wrote the important opening 11 chapters to "Alcoholics Anonymous" --

the

575-page AA textbook that has sold 20 million copies.
"I don't want to call Stepping Stones a shrine, but it is pretty close,"

said

Mark.

W. "If it hadn't been for those people, I wouldn't be sane."

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++++Message 1633. . . . . . . . . . . . AA Group, Member, Growth and Recovery Statistics

From: Arthur . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/1/2004 4:28:00 PM

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Hi History Lovers
Below is a table of group and membership data reported by GSO. The figures come from Conference reports except where cited. The numbers must be interpreted very carefully, very skeptically and in proper context. Group counts include only those asking GSO to be listed (thousands do not). Groups may or may not report membership estimates or update estimates over time. Members can be counted in multiple group estimates and the composition of the numbers has changed at various times from “reported” to “estimated.”
In 1994, a major revision occurred in the GSO’s counting methods. The number of groups reported by GSO no longer included those described as "meetings" which chose not to be considered "groups." Such "meetings" (typically special interest) are included in prior year’s data. The 1994 revision can erroneously be interpreted as a steep drop from 1993 to 1994 when, in fact, it simply reflects a procedural change in counting methods.
AA is in about 150 countries (with 51 GSOs overseas). Each year, the NY office attempts to contact overseas GSOs and groups requesting to be listed in their records. Where current data are lacking, the NY GSO uses earlier year's figures. An estimate of membership of non-reporting groups is arrived at by taking an average of reporting groups.
From the beginning, the numbers are, at best, "fuzzy" and do need to be interpreted prudently to avoid drawing erroneous conclusions. The table data are not an accurate measure of a specific year’s increase or decrease. However, trends over the decades are indicative (but not exact) of AA groups reaching more places and more AA members achieving recovery.
Average (mean) annual growth in groups and members is 6% and 7% respectively.

(Message over 64 K, truncated.)

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++++Message 1634. . . . . . . . . . . . Periodical Literature, Akron Beacon

Journal, IA, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004

From: [e-mail] . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/2/2004 2:46:00 AM
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Thu, Jan. 08, 2004
A.A. members object to relocating history
Hospital may move world's first alcohol treatment site
By John Higgins
Beacon Journal staff writer
The first hospital in the world to acknowledge alcoholism as a disease

rather than a moral failing might move its revered treatment center to a

different floor.
St. Thomas Hospital would continue to provide alcoholism and drug treatment,

but Ignatia Hall would lose its fifth-floor home. The hospital wants to use

that space as a psychiatric unit for Alzheimer's and dementia patients; the

unit would be the first of its kind in Akron.

The rearrangements probably wouldn't attract much attention at most

hospitals, but to recovering alcoholics worldwide, Ignatia Hall is a sacred

site. Named after Alcoholics Anonymous pioneer Sister Ignatia, it became the

first alcohol treatment center in the world in 1939.

It's a history that the 75-year-old hospital, now part of Summa Health

System, proudly claims. But tinkering with the past to accommodate the

future is a tricky business.
Ignatia Hall, which has been on the fifth floor since the early 1980s, has

become a shrine for the thousands of pilgrims who visit Akron each summer to

commemorate the birthplace of A.A.
Local A.A. members have heard rumors about the proposed changes for a few

months. Some have talked about trying to make Ignatia Hall an official

historical landmark to ensure the hospital doesn't mess with it.
"A lot of members are upset," said Rob of the Akron Intergroup Council of

Alcoholics Anonymous, which does not publicize the last names or titles of

its staffers.
"Even if we banded together and started to whine, it's a business decision,

and it's strictly the bottom line. (The hospital) doesn't care about the

history," he said, speaking for himself as a recovering alcoholic.
The council coordinates weekly meetings for 6,000 to 8,000 A.A. members in

the Akron area and oversees the annual Founders Day events. As a matter of

policy, A.A. doesn't take a position.
Hospital officials say money has nothing to do with the planned change.
"The legacy will continue. There's been no question about that," said Dr.

Robert A. Liebelt, the treatment center's medical director. "We're not going

to get rid of Ignatia Hall."
Patients who need medically supervised detoxification, a process that

typically requires three days' stay, probably would be moved to a medical

surgical floor. Liebelt said they would have to be kept together, separated

from other patients, to ensure confidentiality.

"It will be a designated area and have the same ambience that Ignatia Hall

as it stands today has," Liebelt said. "It's just that it will be in another

part of the hospital."
After those first three days, patients begin what is traditionally known as

treatment, which can include talk therapy, group meetings and other

counseling.
That had been done in Ignatia Hall until those patients grew too numerous

and were then scattered in classrooms throughout the hospital. More

recently, those services have had a permanent home on the third floor in the

former medical library.

Summa spokeswoman Carrie Massucci said the changes are still tentative and

the hospital has no timeline for the proposed transition.

But should plans go through, the hospital would want that space for elderly

psychiatric patients because it would be near other psychiatric services.

"Summa Health System now has the only dedicated senior services program in

Akron," she said. "This is just another way that we can continue to serve

that population."
The hospital hasn't forgotten about its past, she said. Since Ignatia Hall's

founding, "we've relocated those services at least six times," she said.

"They stayed in St. Thomas Hospital, but they've moved around."
Sister Ignatia originally put the cots in the chapel's choir loft, now

walled in, so the patients could participate in Mass, Liebelt said.

But for the last 20 years, visitors to Ignatia Hall have always found it on

the fifth floor. So have the former patients who return to the place they

say saved their lives.
At least 3,000 visitors paid homage at Ignatia Hall last summer during the

Founders Day celebration, which now attracts 10,000 visitors from around the

world.
"It's really sad that they would destroy their own heritage," said Mary C.

Darrah, the Fairlawn author of Sister Ignatia: Angel of Alcoholics

Anonymous. "Over the years, people have become more and more interested in

the founding places of A.A. It's like a family. They want to go back to

their family roots."
She likens relocating the center to tearing down A.A. co-founder Dr. Bob

Smith's house, another pilgrimage site, and rebuilding it somewhere else.

Physical locations matter.
"This is the birthplace of the first treatment center affiliated with A.A.,"

Darrah said. "That's a major piece of history that belongs to the community.

And the community should at least, in my opinion, have input."
Liebelt said the memorabilia will be relocated along with the patients, and

the pilgrims will still have a place to visit.

The center was already on the fifth floor when Liebelt began in 1982. He

stopped counting about three years ago, but he figures he's treated 15,000

patients and cares as much about the history of the place as anyone else.
"The legacy of Ignatia Hall and St. Thomas Hospital is doing well and is

viable and will continue to do well and be viable," Liebelt said.

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++++Message 1635. . . . . . . . . . . . 12 step prayers--a prayer for each step

From: buickmackane0830 . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/3/2004 5:03:00 AM

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Good morning,
I just been granted the privilege of working on the archives for my local intergroup. We have a newsletter which does a good job of putting information for our groups. We have been printing prayers for each step. I questioned this and was told A.A. at one time used these prayers. I have searched on my own and could not find 12 step prayers for each step connected to A.A.
Does anyone know of such prayers connected to A.A. (except 3rd, 7th step) In the big book and then there is the 11th step in the 12+12.
What really bothered me was the relious implication of the prayers so if any one is aware of these prayers connected to AA or know where I can find their connection to AA please email.
Note: I found 12th step prayers.
Thank you
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++++Message 1636. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Stepping Into History -Westchester Journal News Jan04

From: Lash, William (Bill) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/3/2004 1:02:00 PM

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