maddening possessiveness just melted away by the Twelve Steps as we practice them in the home. Like our A.A. partners, we Family Groupers are now getting the tremendous dividend which comes from the practice of Step Twelve, ‘carrying the message.’ And the message of our Family Group is this: ‘You can have more than alcoholic sobriety in your own family; you can have emotional sobriety, too. Even if the rest of the family about you hasn’t yet found stability, you can still have yours. And your own emotional sobriety often can hasten the happy day of change for them.’ ”
Many an A.A. member who saw the Family Groups in action in St. Louis said afterwards, “This is one of the best things that has happened since A.A. began.”
When they saw the Convention’s pressroom, many visitors realized for the first time that good communications, within and without, were the actual arteries in which A.A.’s life-giving blood circulates among us and thence out to brother and sister sufferers everywhere. Something more than slow word-of-mouth message-carrying obviously has been required. Certainly not much Twelfth Step work ever could have been done until the sick ones and their families had been reached and persuaded that A.A. might offer hope for them. This kind of communication often required the good will of clergymen, doctors, employers, and friends—indeed, the good will of the public at large. For years A.A.’s Headquarters had used every possible means of enlisting such good will, and in addition to our own efforts our friends of the press—newspapers, magazines, and later radio and television—had told our story faithfully and often and had reported eventful A.A. occasions whenever they occurred. Thus they had drawn thousands of alcoholics into our membership and were still doing so.
They had not done this, of course, without help from us. Years ago we found that accurate and effective publicity about A.A. simply does not manufacture itself. Our over-all public relations couldn’t be left entirely to chance encounters between reporters and A.A. members, who might or might not be well informed about our fellowship as a whole. This kind of unorganized “simplicity” often garbled the true story of A.A. and kept people away from us. A badly slanted press could prolong preventable suffering and even result in unnecessary deaths.
When in 1941 the Saturday Evening Post assigned Jack Alexander to scout A.A. for a feature story, we had already learned our lesson. Therefore nothing was left to chance. Had Jack been able to get to St. Louis for the Convention he himself could have told how skeptical he had been of this assignment. He had just finished doing a piece on the Jersey rackets, and he didn’t believe anybody on a stack of Bibles a mile high.
After Jack checked in with us at Headquarters, we took him in tow for nearly a whole month. In order to write his powerful article, he had to have our fullest attention and carefully organized help. We gave him our records, opened the books, introduced him to nonalcoholic Trustees, fixed up interviews with A.A.’s of every description, and finally showed him the A.A. sights from New York and Philadelphia all the way to Chicago, via Akron and Cleveland. Although he was not an alcoholic, Jack soon became a true A.A. convert in spirit. When at last he sat down at his typewriter, his heart was in it. He was no longer on the outside of A.A. looking in; he was really inside looking out. As soon as the article appeared, 6,000 frantic inquiries hit our New York post office. Jack’s piece made Alcoholics Anonymous a national institution, and it also made him one of our greatest friends and, finally, one of our Trustees.
The kind of help we gave Jack Alexander—our organized service of public information—is the vital ingredient in our public relations that most A.A.’s have never seen. But in the St. Louis pressroom the visitors did see one aspect of it, working this time for the Convention itself. There sat A.A.’s Ralph, handling our contacts with the press. He was surrounded by phones, typewriters, piles of releases, clip-sheets, telegrams in and out—all the gadgets of his trade. Now what was he doing and why? Could this be a ballyhooed promotion stunt, something quite contrary to A.A. Traditions?
Not a bit of it. Ralph was handling this job simply to help our friends of press, radio, and television. The whole world wanted to know about our twentieth anniversary. Newspapers and magazines wanted interviews and press releases. Radio and television broadcasters wanted to arrange for interviews. People wanted us to explain what we meant when we said that A.A. had “come of age.”
Our friends in A.A. and millions outside wanted to read and hear and see, and it was certainly up to us to help. It was not always a question of our communicating with them: lots of them wanted to communicate with us, especially alcoholics and families who were still suffering. The city fathers of St. Louis sent their warmest congratulations, and this reminded us of their generosity in giving the use of the Kiel Auditorium free of charge. We were further reminded of the wonderful cordiality of the local groups in town, the hospitable clubs and the many parties.
Telegrams came to us in the Kiel Auditorium from A.A. people and groups everywhere. One of the brightest highlights of the Convention appeared in this message:
Dateline: The White House; Sender: The President of the United States
Please convey to all who participate in your Twentieth Anniversary gathering my good wishes for a successful meeting. Your society’s record of growth and service is an inspiration to those who, through research, perseverance and faith, move forward to the solution of many serious personal and public health problems.
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
When this telegram was read to the Convention, we experienced great elation mixed with deep humility. A.A. had indeed come of age. In the eyes of the world we had now become full and responsible citizens once more.
The last day of the Convention moved from morning crescendo to afternoon climax. At 11:30 a.m. we began the meeting “God as We Understand Him.” Deep silence fell as Dr. Jim S., the A.A. speaker, told of his life experience and the serious drinking that led to the crisis which had brought about his spiritual awakening. He re-enacted for us his struggle to start the very first group among Negroes, his own people. Aided by a tireless and eager wife, he had turned his home into a combined hospital and A.A. meeting place, free to all. As he told how early failure had finally been transformed under God’s grace into amazing success, we who listened realized that A.A. not only could cross seas and mountains and boundaries of language and nation but could surmount obstacles of race and creed as well.
A great cheer of welcome greeted Father Ed Dowling as, indifferent to his grievous lameness, he made his way to the lectern. Father Dowling of the Jesuit order in St. Louis is intimately known to A.A.’s for a thousand miles and more around. Many in the Convention audience remembered with gratitude his ministry to their spiritual needs. St. Louis old-timers recalled how he helped start their group; it had turned out to be largely Protestant, but this fazed him not a bit. Some of us could remember his first piece about us in The Queen’s Work, the sodality’s magazine. He had been the first to note how closely in principle A.A.’s Twelve Steps paralleled a part of the Exercises of St. Ignatius, a basic spiritual discipline of the Jesuit order. He had boldly written in effect to all alcoholics and especially to those of his own faith: “Folks, A.A. is good. Come and get it.” And this they certainly had done. His first written words were the beginning of a wonderfully benign influence in favor of our fellowship, the total of which no one will ever be able to compute.
Father Ed’s talk to us at the Convention that Sunday morning flashed with humor and deep insight. As he spoke, the memory of his first appearance in my own life came back to me as fresh as though it were yesterday: One wintry night in 1940 in A.A.’s Old Twenty-Fourth Street Club in New York I had gone to bed at about ten o’clock with a severe dose of self-pity and my imaginary ulcer. Lois was out somewhere. Hail and sleet beat on the tin roof over my head; it was a wild night. The Club was deserted except for old Tom, the retired fireman, that diamond in the rough lately salvaged from Rockland asylum. The front doorbell clanged, and a moment later Tom pushed open my bedroom door. “Some bum,” said he, “from St. Louis is down there and wants to see you.” “Oh, Lord!”
