Foreword

      This book is for A.A. members and their friends. It is for all who are interested to know the history of how A.A. started, how its principles of Recovery, Unity, and Service were evolved, and by what means this fellowship has grown and spread its message around the world. Here is an inside and wide-angled view of Alcoholics Anonymous.

      The first part of the book presents a panoramic sketch of the historic St. Louis Convention at which the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous came of age and assumed full responsibility for all its affairs.

      The second part includes three talks, edited and enlarged, on the history of A.A. Recovery, Unity, and Service, which were given by co-founder Bill W. at the St. Louis gathering.

      The third part is devoted to addresses of a number of A.A.’s friends, all of them notable in their several fields: Dr. Harry M. Tiebout, psychiatrist, Dr. W. W. Bauer of the American Medical Association, Father Edward Dowling of the Jesuit order, Dr. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Episcopal clergyman, and Mr. Bernard B. Smith, New York attorney and former Chairman of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous. These friends tell of their association with Alcoholics Anonymous, the part they played in its development, and their view of what the future holds for this society.

      Dear Friends,

      As you read coming pages, it will be seen that their historical content is not arranged in a conventional, straight-line time-sequence.

      For the limited purposes of this book, it was deemed better to throw special emphasis on our A.A. Legacies of Recovery, Unity and Service by separately telling the stories of those crucial developments. This has the merit of focusing attention upon them, one concept at a time. Nevertheless some members may prefer to start reading at chapter 2, which leads quickly into the early A.A. story as it relates to our present-day program of recovery.

      The title of this volume, A.A. Comes of Age, is now and then questioned because it conveys to some people the idea that we A.A.’s really think we have “grown up”; that we have already achieved great emotional maturity.

      In reality, the expression “comes of age” is used by us in a very different sense. We simply say that we have arrived at the time of life when adult responsibilities have to be faced and dealt with, as best we are able. To this end we do try to rely upon ourselves—and upon God.

      Faithfully yours,

      Bill W.

      March, 1967

      I

      When A.A. Came of Age

      BY BILL W.,

      co-founder, Alcoholics Anonymous

      DURING the first three days of July, 1955, Alcoholics Anonymous held a Convention in St. Louis, commemorating the twentieth anniversary of its founding. There our fellowship declared itself come to the age of full responsibility, and there it received from its founders and old-timers permanent keeping of its three great legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service.

      I will always remember those three days as among the greatest experiences of my life.

      At four o’clock in the afternoon of the final day about 5,000 A.A. members and their families and friends were seated in the Kiel Auditorium at St. Louis. All of the United States and Canadian Provinces were represented. Some had traveled from far lands to be there. On the auditorium stage were the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, including some seventy-five delegates from the United States and Canada, Trustees of A.A.’s General Service Board, directors and secretarial staffs of our world services at New York, my wife Lois, my mother, and I.

      The General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous was about to take over the custody of A.A.’s Twelve Traditions and the guardianship of its world services. It was to be named as the permanent successor to the founders