Aa history Lovers 2009 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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well as in cafés.
and wife Winnie in Bolton he informed them that they were the Bolton Group. In November 1948 the Group held its first meeting in the Millgate Hotel, Manchester. When Canadian Bob introduced Bill H to sobriety in AA our service structure expanded with Bill's office in the London Fruit Exchange providing the fellowship with a postal address (BM/AAL London WC1) and a contact number (Bishopgate 9657) available Monday to Friday 10–5. By January 1949 meetings in London were being held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 Chandos Street and membership had passed the magic 100. In 1952 AA began to lease 11 Redcliffe Gardens with the Central Committee managing it as the Central Service Office. In 1970 it became the General Service Office under the management of the General Service Board. When GSO relocated to Stonebow House in York in 1986 the London Regional Telephone office remained at Redcliffe Gardens until January 1999 when it moved into the Regional Service Office (London) at Jacob House and Redcliffe Gardens passed out of AA history.
beginnings as they had in America. The wife of Philip D, an active alcoholic, attended an Oxford Group in Scotland and heard about the Groups' role in the start of AA. Philip visited America in 1948 and attended meetings before returning to Scotland and carrying the message. Forbes C got involved and meetings began in Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1949. Cathedral Road, Cardiff was the location of the first AA meeting in Wales. The meeting took place on Friday 13th April 1951 with five attendees. (Information collated from AA archives with particular reliance on Share: Alcoholics Anonymous in Great Britain The first fifty years 1947 to 1997: March 1997)
Ireland
From: Shakey1aa@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/25/2009 6:36:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII The Dublin, Ireland Group was formed November 18, 1946. On November 1, 1946 the Dublin Evening Mail printed Father Tom Dunlea's (visiting from Australia) outline of the AA method.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was set up with Dr. Moore's patient, Richard P, at St. Patrick's Hospital. The group's first meetings were held at the Country Shop in Dublin.
and Captain Mike from Dublin, Ireland submitted by Shakey Mike Gwirtz Phila, Pa USA IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 5896. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Information about Bernard B. Smith and Michael Alexander From: J. Lobdell . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/27/2009 4:08:00 PM
you
from personal conversations with Michael Alexander that MA worked with Bill in developing the Concepts, though he seems to me to be (characteristically) undervaluing his contributions. I think he may have been the one (or at least
one) who suggested the relevance of Tocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, though
(again) he played down his importance in my conversations with him. Unless I've
missed something (I'm out of touch with GSO), he's still alive and active at Trustees' Weekends and the Conference, and would be available and might be willing to be asked a question or two.
> Subject: Re: Information about Bernard B. Smith > > Thanks for the info. I have the capsule > version of his life. I'm looking for more > in-depth information. > > How specifically did he advocate for the first > General Service Conference? > > What were his thoughts? > > Did he have any writings which could be > examined? > > He was also present and chairman during the > period when Bill W was writing the concepts. > Did he review the essays and provide advice > to Bill? > > I also understand that Michael Alexander was > a young lawyer in his law firm and that Mr. > Smith had him help Bill with some of the legal > aspects of the Concepts. Does anyone know if > that is correct? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 5897. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: First AA meeting in Los Angeles From: Charles Knapp . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/27/2009 12:30:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hello, There has always been some cloud of controversy about the founding of AA in Los
Angeles. Kaye Miller, non-alcoholic, claimed that 1st meeting that was held in her home on December 19, 1939 not only did not die out before Mort J. started the Cecil Hotel meeting, but there were 2 meetings going at that same time. That first meeting only met in her home for about 2 weeks and she went to Honolulu. The meeting moved to Barney H.'s home in Glendale. Then back to her house on Gower in Hollywood in February 1940 when she returned.
early history as she remembered. In that letter she writes :"The very first meeting that Mort attend in LA he attend at my house on Gower street in Hollywood. I had gone to Honolulu and returned in the mean time. I know it was in April 1940 because it was a sort of double barrel affair, because it was a celebration of Johnny Howe birthday so it was about the 14th of April. Mort called me and I was so very happy to hear the voice of another sober alkie and
so now we has someone else to tell their story at our meetings." In this same
letter she claimed that in February 1940 Lee[T.] started the group that became
the Pasadena Home Group. Kaye was writing this letter to Bill because it was about this time period when
the history of AA in LA was beginning to get a little cloudy. The letter not only went to Bill but to several of the pioneers of AA in LA. A carbon copy of this letter is in the Area 9 Archives repository in Riverside CA. Again in February 1951 this letter resurfaced because facts were becoming even
more distorted. Bill W. came to LA to help with the election of the 1st delegate
to the general Service Conference. At one of the meetings that weekend, Mort was
given the credit for starting AA in Los Angeles. It seems the group of early members that saw the LA's history the same way Kaye did, were upset and it caused a great deal of controversy. Clyde D (future Area 5 Delegate) was circulating her original letter asking Secretaries to read it at their meetings There is another letter that was circulated by a member names Bud that also debunked some of the facts that came out at that meeting. But I guess it all died down without any changes in their history. The little booklet of How AA Came To LA that was written by the Southern California Archives Committee in 1986 was nicely done. I am sure the LA Central archives had some of these same letters that I have seen from Kaye and
the others members concerning the early history. So I am not sure why their version also differs. Their version even names the author of the "Lone Endeavor" as Peter C. Kaye's letter in 1946 named him as Pat C. I truely believe this history was done mostly by information found on tapes and not hard documentation. Oh by the way in that 1946 letter she stated Pat C had been going to meetings again and was doing well. A couple years ago I was privilege to go to the GSO Archives in New York and do some research on the history of Area 9. While there I did find some interesting information on this subject. I saw at least 2 letters from Kaye to Bill just before the book, AA Comes Of Age, was published pleading with him to correct the
book's version of the history of how AA got started in LA. She pleaded with him
to give some of the earlier members some of the credit as well as Mort. But it seemed Bill only corrected Street names and a couple smaller facts but left out some of the facts Kaye wanted added.. One last version that I found was in the February 1952 Grapevine. This entire
issue is dedicated to AA in Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you read AA Comes
of Age version of how AA started in LA and this article, it is two different versions of the same story. This version is also more along what Kaye was saying.
12 years I tried to get into the archives at the LA Central Office and was told it was a closed archives. Just before I left California restrictions were lifed and members are now able to go into that archives. Members can only go in during regular business hours Monday through Friday. Due to my work schedule I was never able to get by to do any research.. Maybe some archives committee or concerned members can go do some research and maybe rewrite the history of how
AA really came to LA. I am sure somewhere within all of the different versions
is how it really happened. Personally I would like to think it will be closer to Kaye's version.
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] First AA meeting in Los Angeles To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 7:18 PM In Los Angeles our AA meeting directory says that the first meeting in L.A. took place on December 19, 1939 but that meeting died out. The first meeting that lasted was started on either the last Friday in March or the 1st Friday in April, 1940, according to Mort Joseph, who organized it. In a talk given in 1975, he said he never could remember which Friday it was. That was at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, which still exists. It was called "The Old Mother Group." After moving to several locations, it eventually died out too.
in Montreal January 1945? From: anonymousseau . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/26/2009 12:38:00 PM
"Sunday Morning, Dec. '44 Began the Montreal Miracle" and "The Montreal Story."
message from Dick during Christmas time 1944. When Jack went back to Montreal he was put in contact with Dave (B?) who had been in correspondence with New York AA and struggling to start a meeting in this city for nearly a year.
January 1945. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 5899. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Group start date: how it is defined
From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/27/2009 11:04:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From Arthur S., Tim T., and Jon Markle - - - - From: "Arthur S" (ArtSheehan at msn.com) Jared on this one I guess we'll have to do the old friendly "agree to disagree." There are two things though I find interesting: 1. By the definition of "a group vs a meeting" you advocate, none of the early groups would qualify as a group 2. In a July 1946 Grapevine article titled "The Individual In Relation to A.A. as a Group" Bill W wrote: "... Yet Point Three in our A.A. Tradition looks like a wide-open invitation to anarchy. Seemingly, it contradicts Point One. It reads, 'Our membership ought to include all who suffer alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend on money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group'. This clearly implies that an alcoholic is a member if he says so; that we can't deny him his membership; that we can't demand from him a cent; that we can't force our beliefs or practices upon him; that he may flout everything we stand for and still be a member ..."
individual to such an apparently fantastic length that, so long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most anti-social, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, even anti-each other-these rampant individuals are still an A.A. Group if they think so! ..."
Cheers Arthur
From: Tim T. (pvttimt at aol.com) I've always thought that a simple explanation is that a group is registered with GSO and has a group number. ???? A meeting is not registered.
(serenitylodge at mac.com) All that means absolutely nothing to most people, ya know. The only explanation that makes any sense, or has any practical reality is that the difference between a meeting and a group is simple: A meeting is not registered. A group is registered. That's it. Simple. They both function in the same way. The rest is simply an exercise in semantics, as far as I can see. And AA's will argue 'till pigs fly over semantics! detail means. Nor do they care, in reality. Too much organization at this level and AA looses it's meaning for most people . . . except those who get off, get their jollies on "control issues" and obsess over the nitty gritty details of running things.
Neither do they (I) wish to have much to do with such emphatically declared guidelines.
care to subscribe to 12 concepts. And there are many who do not even subscribe to the suggested 12 traditions. They still remain AA groups, because they say they are and have no affiliation with any other process. They exist to carry the message of AA to the next alcoholic. They do not care about all this other bother. So . . . I don't understand your post in that context. But, I also do not particularly care to understand it either. Too much organization simply makes "us" sick, in my experience.
9/9/82
Original Message from: J. Lobdell Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Hi! Arthur As you point out, the Conference-approved pamphlet "The Group" says that "The main difference between meetings and groups is that A.A. groups generally continue to exist outside the prescribed meeting hours, ready to provide Twelfth Step help when needed. A.A. groups are encouraged to register with G.S.O., as well as with their local offices: area, district, intergroup or central office." As I understand it, the means for existing outside of "meeting hours" -- that is, to be more than simply a meeting -- is to have the service structure suggested in that pamphlet, and to link with Intergroup (by means of an Intergroup Representative) and with the General Service Structure (by means of a GSR). Hence my statement that the creation of the service structure leads to a quick test of what's a group and what's a meeting. I did not say that was AA's view -- as you well know, neither I (having studied AA) nor you (having studied AA and being an active member of the General Service Structure, as you say) can speak for AA. The "Twelve Concepts" may not be ambiguous, but the "Twelve Concepts" plus "The Group" pamphlet seem to present a certain degree of ambiguity (see also Jack Norris's attempt to distinguish between special-purpose groups, which may suffer from the "other affiliations" problem, and special-purpose meetings). I remained convinced that, if there is to be a distinction between a group and a meeting, it must lie in participation in the service structure, and the quickest test is whether there is a GSR or could be if requirements ("suggestions") for selection as GSR can be met. Of course, if a group which has two meetings says each one is a separate group, and claims the right therefore to two GSRs, presumably General Service must go along with it (I know an example in Area 59, District 36). Yes, a group is a group if it says it's a group, if you like -- that's the historical precedent, with which we as historians are concerned -- but the proof (another historical precedent for much of AA) is in the action. If it acts like a group, it's a group. If it doesn't, what's the point of saying it is one? And btw, if there are no home-group members, what is it that's a group? [P.S. -- I think NA refers to a GR, tho' here I speak under correction.]-- Jared
From: ckbudnick . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30/2009 12:54:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I'm curious if anyone has any information on some members of Alcoholics Anonymous from Frankfurt and Lexington, Kentucky who were instrumental in forming and/or supporting a 12-step group for addicts at the US Public Health
Hospital in Lexington, KY. In Feb. 1947 Houston Sewell helped start what was known then as Addicts Anonymous. The group eventually began publishing a newsletter called The Key. I've seen three copies of the Key (Feb. 1959, Fall
1963 and Fall 1964). The 1959 and 1963 copie show Houston S. as a sponsor. Starting in 1963 you begin to see Sterling S. and Jim M. Two copies of the Key had a mailing address for a Jim Music in Lexington, KY.
very significant service work they did.
Raleigh, NC IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 5901. . . . . . . . . . . . The A.A. Group From: Bill Lash . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30/2009 8:20:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Can someone please verify what it says below (if anyone have a version of this pamphlet prior to 1991). Thanks. Just Love, Barefoot Bill The 6-Point Definition of an AA Group from the 2/1990 version of the pamphlet "The A.A. Group": 1. All members of a group are alcoholics and all alcoholics are eligible for membership. 2. As a group they are fully self-supporting. 3. A group's primary purpose is to help alcoholics recover through the Twelve Steps. 4. As a group they have no outside affiliation. 5. As a group they have no opinion on outside issues. 6. As a group, their public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion, and they maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. These were taken out of the pamphlet in 1991. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 5902. . . . . . . . . . . . No groups before GSO ?? From: Shakey1aa@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/29/2009 11:49:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII A question arises; Were none of the original groups actually groups? All the discussion about a group only being a group if it registered with General Services in New York is preposterous .There was no registration of groups
(with group service number) when these original groups were formed. When did this fallacy that a group is only a group if it registers with GSO and is assigned a group number. There is AA outside of GSO. Most of the original groups formed in larger metropolitan centers and became Intergroups. The
Intergroup /Central Office Service Structure came before General Service and is not included in the GSO Service Structure. That's the way they wanted it. A group can be formed and not register with GSO if it chooses to do so. All groups are autonomous. Look at the early Service Bulletins that Bill sent out. There were reports of AA in ABC and XYZ cities and no group registration numbers. The early Grapevines mentioned the additional groups being formed. Ruth Hock would get a letter from the group secretary in the "early days"saying that the group had started, how many members were in the group and where to send a book or two(prepaid) to the group secretary's address. In Phila the secretary position was rotated I think every 3 months. Phila also was the first mother group to support NY financially. Wasn't it the Alcoholic Foundation then? Maybe someone can tell us when the first group service number was assigned and how long after it was proposed did it come to be? I'm trying to maintain the same enthusiasm for AA that I had when I first came in, and as always willing to learn and be taught by those that Yüklə 11,49 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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