How Did The "I'm An Alcoholic" Custom Start?

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"I'M AN ALCOHOLIC, MY NAME IS ________"

How Did The "I'm An Alcoholic" Custom Start?

Who was the first to start a meeting or a qualification with the
statement, "I'm an alcoholic"? How did the worldwide custom begin?

As late co-founder Bill W. used to observe: "Nobody invented AA.
It just grew." And so probably did its classic introduction at
meetings.

"Many members ask these questions." says G.S.O. archivist, Frank
M. "Unfortunately, only a few earlytimers are left, and not many of
them are able to produce plausible theories. So we can only
speculate."

According to an early friend of AA, the late Henrietta Seiberling,
the _expression dates back to meetings of AA's forerunner, The Oxford
Group Movement, which had it's heyday in the early 1930's. Mrs.
Seiberling, a non-alcoholic who had sought spiritual help in the
Oxford Group meetings, introduced Bill to AA's other founder, Dr.
Bob, then struggling to get sober in the Oxford Group.

At small meetings, the members knew one another and didn't need to
identify themselves. But in the large "public" meetings, there
was "witnessing," along the lines of an AA talk today, so personal
identification became necessary. Chances are that someone at
sometime said, "I'm an alcoholic" but, Mrs. Seiberling wasn't sure.
Nor did she remember that the phrase was used at early AA meetings
in Akron, before publication of the Big Book. In fact, she said the
word "alcoholic" was rarely uttered, at least in Akron. People
referred to themselves as "drunks" or "rum hounds" or "boozers" or
other epithets reminiscent of the Temperance Movement that gained
adherents during prohibition.

An early New York AA first heard _expression as "I'm an alcoholic and
my name is...". According to his recollection, that was after World
War II, in 1945 or 1946. And it is a matter of record that, in
1947, a documentary film, "I'm an alcoholic" was produced by RKO.
>From there on, as Bill might say, the custom "just grew."

from Box 459, date/issue unknown, copied from "The Messenger", June
2001

Roy T.
Baldwin, NY