Introducing ourselves in meetings

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The question was asked by Larry in New Mexico, "How
did the tradition of
introducing ourselves as an alcoholic at meetings
get started?"

Sgt. Bill S. (Sonoma CA), who celebrated 55 years of
sobriety in July,
has just published a book telling about his early
years in the program,
and touches on this topic in one of his chapters.
The book is a goldmine
of information about early A.A. Bill started the
first officially
sanctioned military alcoholism treatment programs in
the U.S. He was
aided by Mrs.. Marty Mann, and also spent a year
studying the way that
Sister Ignatia ran her treatment program at St.
Thomas Hospital in
Akron. He achieved a fifty percent success rate in
the alcoholism
treatment program he ran at Lackland Air Force Base
in San Antonio,
Texas, during the early 1950's.

In Chapter 12, "Getting Sober: July 5, 1948," Sgt.
Bill S. says:

As I began spreading the message [in 1948] among
other alcoholics there
at Mitchell Air Force Base [on Long Island, just afew miles from New
York city], and taking them to A.A. meetings at
Valley Stream and
Hempstead and other towns in the vicinity of our
base, all of us found a
friendly, welcoming atmosphere. The civilian A.A.
members were outgoing,
and extended us the kind of support which made us
feel like we truly
belonged. It removed our feelings of rejection and
isolation, and helped
turn our lives around.

The meetings in those days were somewhat different
from the present
ones. There were both open meetings, and closed
meetings for alcoholics
only, just as there are nowadays. But the format was
different. There
was no reading of the preamble at the beginning, for
example. On the
east coast, in and around New York city, we
introduced ourselves by
saying, "My name is _____ ; my sobriety date is
_____ ." In those days,
I think that introducing yourself by saying, "My
name is _____ ; I am an
alcoholic" was more midwestern, and may have come
out of Akron, but I am
not sure. When I went out to California later on, in
1965, and would
introduce myself in meetings by giving my name and
sobriety date, people
just thought I was doing that because I was
bragging, so I switched over
to the other style.

I do not really think that things like this are very
important though.
When people in A.A. begin worrying too much about
this sort of thing, it
becomes like the kind of traditional dogmatic
religion where the members
are terrified that they will be condemned if they
use the wrong word in
some ritual phrase. A.A. is concerned with
spirituality, and was not
intended to be some new, rule-bound, legalistic set
of doctrines and
dogmas and complex rituals. No one ever resolved
crippling subconscious
conflicts, nor do people ever heal the resentments,
fears and guilt
which are destroying their happiness and their
lives, by repeating a
handful of mechanical words and phrases over and
over. You remember that
I had learned how to "say words" in A.A. meetings
back in Warren, Ohio,
in 1946, but I still kept on feeling bad about
myself, and after less
than three months, went back to drinking again.

SOURCES:

Sgt. Bill S., On the Military Firing Line in the
Alcoholism Treatment
Program: The Air Force Sergeant Who Beat Alcoholism
and Taught Others to
Do the Same (Hindsfoot Foundation/iUniverse, August
2003).

See also the sections on Sgt. Bill's work in:

Nancy Olson, With a Lot of Help from Our Friends:
The Politics of
Alcoholism, Hindsfoot Foundation/iUniverse, March
2003, which also talks
about Capt. Joe Zuska's extremely successful work
with alcoholics in the
Navy later on in the 1960's.

Sally Brown and David R. Brown, A Biography of Mrs.
Marty Mann: The
First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous (Hazelden, 2001),
for the connection
with Marty's work, and for additional information
about her right-hand
man Yev Gardner, who attended A.A. meetings on Long
Island and also
backed and supported Sgt. Bill when he began his
work with alcoholics in
the Air Force.