1 2 Published by Northern Illinois Area 20, Summer 1996. Copyright 1996 by NIA, Ltd. 3 PREFACE TO THE FIRST ISSUE A tapestry has thousands of threads, individually woven into a compelling image. Our living tapestry, the history of the groups in Northern Illinois Delegate Area 20, is an unfinished work, beautifully woven in the unity taught us through our Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and Twelve Concepts. This monograph, An Alcoholics Anonyous History In Northern Illinois Area 20, spans over fifty-six years from 1939 through 1995, having its first distribution to the Fellowship in 1996. A Brief History of NIA, prepared at the request of the NIA Assembly in 1987, has served as one source. Footnotes will direct the reader to sources worthy of further study. Every effort has been made to remain as factual as possible. Important acknowledgment is given to the A.A. Archives of Northern Illinois Area 20, Chicago Area 19, and the A.A. Archives at the General Service Office. The effort of those who assembled and maintain A.A. Archives in NIA has provided the example for my motivation to complete this project. The support of the NIA Assembly and the encouragement of the Archivist at the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous have provided the incentive for my work. A.A. history is not necessarily the repeated process of “reinventing the wheel.” It is the accurate account of success and failure that begins with our effort to carry the message of recovery to other alcoholics. It continues with our attempt to pass along the methods of how we carry our message. Over the years this effort has both preserved and strengthened our Three Legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service. Personal anonymity protection of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, whether alive or dead, is maintained throughout this work. Contacting families of past trusted servants presents a i 4 very difficult task. At this level of press, our history may be viewed by persons who are not members of the Fellowship. Our Alcoholics Anonymous history, the living tapestry I refer to, will always have its critics, its appreciative audience, and the leaders who will learn from its study. Its image changes and grows as we act upon the Legacies entrusted to us. This chronicle attempts to preserve the heritage of love and service given to our Fellowship in northern Illinois. AN ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS HISTORY IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS AREA 20 IS DEDICATED TO THE LEADERS AND TRUSTED SERVANTS WHO HAVE BECOME A PART OF OUR HISTORY. BEYOND ITS LINKAGE TO OUR PAST, THIS HISTORY IS DEDICATED TO THE FUTURE LEADERS AND TRUSTED SERVANTS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. Northern Illinois Area 20 Historian. January 1996 ii 5 _______________TABLE OF CONTENTS________________ Preface to the First Issue............................................................... i From Chapters To Sections........................................................... 1 The Delegates to the General Service Conference........................21 The Downstate Conference and Illinois Growth, Toward NIA Autonomy 1951-1972..............................27 NIA Map 1975............................................................................34 NIA Map 1996............................................................................35 1972-1973: An Accomplished Autonomy...................................37 The Growth of the NIA Committee with the NIA Assemblies.............................................................51 Charting the NIA District Boundaries: A Redistricting Time-Line...........................................................82 Appendices___________________________________________ Appendix I - April 1943..........................................................89 Appendix II - The Individual, A.A. and Society 1956..............................................92 Appendix III - Our Third Legacy and A Remarkable Consensus 1995............................95 Appendix IV - The Twelve Traditions (Long Form) 1946.........98 6 FROM CHAPTERS TO SECTIONS __________________________________________________ The message of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous had slowly begun to spread across the United States in 1939. At that time, the largest groups holding meetings were located in New York and Ohio. The New York City, Akron, and Cleveland chapters were growing well enough in numbers for the meetings to relocate out of members’ homes into more public meeting rooms. Sporadic newspaper coverage, word-of-mouth, and the efforts of early members in “finding and fixing drunks” brought recovery to more than one hundred men and women. The book Alcoholics Anonymous was published in April of that year, but inquiries to the small office of the Alcoholic Foundation1 in New York City were scarce. These first hundred men and women, with the aid of the new Big Book, continued to apply their personal approaches to attracting active drunks toward recovery. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous was primarily carried from one person to another. In September 1939 Liberty, a weekly magazine with a nationwide distribution, published a feature article on Alcoholics Anonymous called “Alcoholics and God.” It referred to the new book and recommended its readers to “get hold of a copy. It may very well help you guide a sick man---an allergic alcoholic---on the way to health and contentment.” 2 1 The Alcoholic Foundation, formed in May 1938 to meet in New York, consisted of three non-alcoholics and two alcoholics. Renamed in 1955 as the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Alcoholic Foundation was the original Board of Trustees. Refer to A.A. Comes of Age, pages 14-16 and 151-157. The book is available from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (catalog number B-3) 2 Liberty magazine, September 30, 1939, page 7. 1 A linkage to the medical profession was achieved within months of the book’s first printing, through a published review of our Big Book by a nationally respected theologian and health writer, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick. Doctor referrals would bring more alcoholics into our young Fellowship.3 The Big Book was not an overnight best seller, but all written inquiries received a personal answer from the staff at the Alcoholic Foundation office. While the existing groups of Alcoholics Anonymous in the different parts of the United States were initially called “chapters” by the New York office, the message of recovery circulated and additional small chapters formed. The Chicago chapter began holding meetings once a week at an Evanston, Illinois apartment in September of 1939, and a downtown Chicago meeting for A.A.s and their families was added in October. This Open A.A. meeting, the Tuesday night “Big” meeting, grew in attendance. Alcoholics Anonymous had come to Illinois. Another magazine with an even larger circulation than Liberty, the Saturday Evening Post, published a feature article about A.A. in March 1941. The Jack Alexander piece “Alcoholics Anonymous” (available today in Conference-approved pamphlet form) quickened the pace of attraction to A.A. recovery. When the Post printed the address of the Alcoholic Foundation, thousands of inquiries flooded the office, and its still small staff personally answered each letter. The Chicago chapter opened the Central Service Office in 3 Page 307 in the Big Book, Third Edition, describes the attraction of Sylvia K. of Evanston, Illinois to A.A. recovery through her doctor, in the story “The Keys to the Kingdom.” Also on page 295, Earl T., Chicago’s first A.A. member, describes the assistance of the same doctor in the story “He Sold Himself Short.” From First 17 Members Who Sobered Up In The Chicago Area, two pages. Source: Chicago Area Archives. 2 May 1941. It was the first Intergroup office anywhere in Alcoholics Anonymous, and assisted locally with the deluge of inquiries resulting from the Post article. During the spring of 1941, the Open Tuesday night “Big” meeting grew to over 250 persons attending each week and the home telephones of the Chicago “founders” were kept very busy. The Central Office, with its published telephone number, met the growing requests for information. Alcoholics Anonymous had become an authentic national institution after the magazine coverage, and across the United States the membership grew from 2,000 to an estimated 8,000 members by the end of the year. The Chicago office answered all inquiries and developed “districts” and groups for closed meetings, just as the New York office of the Alcoholic Foundation would refer the suffering alcoholic to the nearest location for an A.A. meeting. Personal response and encouragement continued from the small office of the Alcoholic Foundation. For example, a 1941 letter from Ruth Hock, the secretary at the New York office, was written to a woman in Springfield, Illinois, telling her of the nearest meetings in St. Louis, Missouri. It offered the woman encouragement and requested her continued correspondence.4 The Alcoholic Foundation office handled an enormous amount of mail and sold many copies of the Big Book following the 1941 Post article. Over the next eleven years, Jack Alexander wrote additional features about Alcoholics Anonymous for the magazine. His announcements of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous sustained the watershed of attraction that the March 1941 issue brought to the young Fellowship. The Chicago chapter found that its Central Office opening of 1941 would also help meet the requests and need for public 4 Letter located in the Northern Illinois Area Archives. 3 information outreach. The Chicago office, with the substantial efforts of its first secretary, Grace Cultice, became a welcome assistance to the Alcoholic Foundation office in carrying the A.A. message of recovery. It fielded many of the calls for general information, referred individuals to local hospitals for detox treatment, and sent out A.A. volunteers to call on people who requested help. The Central Office developed a set of ten city Districts within a short time, and many of its methods established an example that other central offices would follow. Meanwhile, each Tuesday night at the Central YMCA in downtown Chicago, the “Big” meeting continued to attract both the curious and the serious. One small group of “regulars” attending the Chicago meeting returned to their homes in Whiteside County (bordering on the Mississippi River) each week. In 1943 there were enough members to form a local group, and meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous began in the town of Sterling with a membership of three. In northern Illinois, the Sterling Group is the earliest recorded group to meet outside Chicago. Today it continues to meet each Tuesday night. The Alcoholic Foundation published United States Directories every six months during the 1940s. The format of the Directories has changed over the last fifty-five years, with the latest change taking place in 1994 (yearly group contributions are no longer published). The 1994 Directories state that the “information reflects that as provided to the General Service Office.” The 1941-1951 Directories also listed only the information provided to the Alcoholic Foundation: the number of members in each group, the group contribution amounts, a secretary or contact name, and a postal address (more often than telephone numbers). Each printing was emphasized as “A.A. confidential.” 4