Carl Gustav Jung
By bob k In 1961, Bill Wilson, reached out, rather belatedly, to the famous psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, in order to express some gratitude to him, on AA’s behalf, for “…the conversation between you (and...
Category: Key Players in AA History
Chapters from the book, Key Players in AA History
Anne Smith
For some reason, we alcoholics seem to have the gift of picking out the world’s finest women. Dr. Bob Smith By bob k “In 1898, Anne Robinson Ripley was spending a holiday with a...
Jim Burwell
By bob k Bill Wilson wrote the Twelve Steps in 1938, “one night, late in December. He was frankly pleased with what he had written and was in no way prepared for the violent...
Key Players in AA History
Review by Roger C. Our friend, bob k, has written an exceptional book. But before we have a look at Key Players in AA History, let’s back up just a little bit. Bob first starting...
Dr. Bob – Part Two (Akron-Style AA)
From his last drink in June, 1935, AA became the centerpiece of Dr. Bob’s life… (He) worked with Sister Ignatia… to treat thousands of alcoholics, who were then channeled into AA. He provided all...
William Duncan Silkworth
By bob k The “Roaring Twenties” ended not with a bang, but a whimper, as the stock market crash of 1929 plunged America into the darkness of the Great Depression. Throughout the twenties, and into...
Lois Wilson
By bob k There are few people who better epitomize the sentiments of the Tammy Wynette country classic “Stand By Your Man”, than Lois Wilson. As the founder of Al-Anon, she is lovingly remembered by hundreds of...
Bill Wilson and Other Women
History cannot proceed by silences. The chronicler of ill-recorded times has none the less to tell the tale. If facts are lacking, rumors must serve. Failing affidavits, he must build with gossip. Winston Churchill By...
Sylvia K. – First Lady of Chicago AA
By bob k AA’s earliest efforts to rehabilitate women had not gone well. The ink was barely dry on the newly printed “Big Book,” when Florence Rankin, author of A Feminine Victory (BB, 1st Edition), returned...
William James and AA
By bob k For better or worse, whether real or imagined, drug-induced, or brought about by the most desperate need, Bill Wilson’s spiritual experience at Towns Hospital is perhaps the foundation point of Alcoholics...
Dr. Bob, AA Co-founder – Part One
By bob k St. Johnsbury, Vermont Dr. Bob Smith remembers his childhood hometown of St. Johnsbury, some 100 miles northeast of the East Dorset birthplace of Bill Wilson, as having a general moral standard “far above the average.” ...
Young Bill Wilson – Part Two
By bob k The Prequel Begins It was the night before Thanksgiving when the pains of child labor drove Emily Griffiths Wilson from preparations for the next day’s meal. Emily’s pains drove her from out...
Young Bill Wilson – Part One
By bob k Part One (Prequel to a Prequel) War fever ran high in the New England town to which we new, young officers from Plattsburg were assigned, and we were flattered when the first...
Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group
By bob k The founder of the Oxford movement – a Christian evangelical movement and the birthplace of AA – Frank Nathaniel Daniel Buchman was born in the small town (pop. 1,200) of Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, on June...
