14
THE TRAIN RIDE ALONG THE HUDSON RIVER FROM URBAN NEW York City into the picturesque countryside of Westchester County was something Lois always enjoyed. She would sit back and watch the scenery change from crowded Bronx apartment houses to sprawling landscapes dotted with suburban homes; from black-tarred city streets to winding country roads; from stark cement sidewalks to tree-lined paths. It was still only March, but she could tell by the yawning shrubbery and small patches of greening grass that spring was right around the corner.
Ruth and Wilbur, their dear AA friends in Chappaqua, had invited her and Bill up to their home for another relaxing weekend. As Lois stared out of the train window, her mind began racing again, excited about soon leaving their cramped and often too-public quarters at the Twenty-fourth Street Clubhouse.
Should they rent a small apartment back in Brooklyn Heights, she wondered, or one in the heart of Manhattan, since Bill would be spending much of his time there on AA business?
Certainly they had to have at least two bedrooms so that when Annie and Bob came to town or when other AA friends visited, they would have room for them. Of course, she would like a large living room for entertaining, maybe one with a skylight, and a nice kitchen and, oh yes, a big old fireplace like the one they had at Clinton Street. Then again, that might be overdoing it, at least for now. They could start small, and as Bill’s royalty income continued to grow, they could find something larger. But no matter what, whatever it was, it would be all their own.1
Ruth and Wilbur met them at the train station in their used Buick and, after hugs and kisses, loaded the bags into the trunk and headed off. They talked at first about Jack Alexander’s article and its far-reaching impact on the Fellowship, even here in Westchester County. Then the conversation turned to the war in Europe, the fall of France, and Winston Churchill and the Brits’ heroic stand against Hitler’s blitzkrieg of London. Would the United States enter the fray or not? Wilbur was also a veteran of World War I, so he and Bill were both convinced that President Roosevelt, like President Woodrow Wilson before him, would soon be forced to abandon his neutrality policy and come to the aid of the nation’s European friends.
The ladies also remembered the war that was supposed to end all wars. Lois and Ruth both hoped that somehow there could be a peaceful resolution to the growing crisis. It was 1941 and the entire country seemed to be holding its breath.
It was Bill who first noticed they had passed Chappaqua and were approaching the quaint little village of Bedford Hills. That’s when Ruth smiled coyly and told her guests they had a surprise for them. She and her husband wanted to show their friends a charming house that was perfectly suited to their needs. Not only that, the house was owned by a widow who absolutely revered the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because of how much it helped someone near and dear to her.
A house! Lois looked at Bill. He simply shrugged. Lois had often heard Wilbur talk to Bill about someday moving to Westchester, only a forty-five-minute train ride to the city. But buying a house there was out of the question. In fact, buying a house anywhere was a prospect so remote they never even gave it a thought. After all, they were only now beginning to see their way clear to rent an apartment. Then again, “what harm was there in looking?” Bill whispered to his wife as Wilbur turned off a small road and headed up a long dirt driveway. There, sitting atop the hill on a two-acre estate, was a charming country house.
Secluded among the thatch of trees on a lovely knoll overlooking a valley, the brown cedar-shingled house seemed to enchant them into taking a closer look. Bill discovered an unlocked window around back, climbed in and hoisted Lois in after him. They found themselves gazing into a marvelous fieldstone fireplace that ruled a large, wood-paneled living room. Lois had always fancied a little white cottage so the place immediately struck her as too large and solemn. She later admitted that perhaps she didn’t want to like the house at first because she knew they couldn’t afford it.2
But as Lois walked around the house that day, she came to realize it wasn’t all that big and formal. There were seven rooms: a living room, three bedrooms, and a kitchen downstairs, and a long, bookshelved library and one bedroom upstairs. When she stood in front of the fireplace, she felt warmth, friendship, and hominess. And when she stepped outside and saw the gardens and the surrounding woods, as much as she didn’t want to, she fell in love with this enchanting place.
Lois had never really believed in coincidences, not since she was a child. She believed that everything happened for a reason—not by accident. She remembered her mother used to tell her that “happenstance was God’s way of doing something nice for you in His own quiet and surprising way.”3 And at AA meetings she often heard some very spiritual members call coincidences “God shots.” So why should she be surprised, then, to learn that the owner of this wonderful house and grounds had been to some AA meetings, not for herself but to accompany and support a very close friend? And why should she be taken aback when her friends Ruth and Wilbur told her this lady had often expressed great interest in meeting her and Bill?
It was all true. That Sunday they drove back to Bedford Hills, up the long dirt driveway, and there at the top of the hill standing next to her house was a warm and generous middle-aged lady by the name of Mrs. Helen Griffith—no relation to any of Bill’s kin. When her husband had died several years earlier, Mrs. Griffith moved back into the city, leaving her country home locked and shuttered until just the right buyers came along. And now here they were.
The tall, stately woman knew that Lois and Bill were living at the Twenty-fourth Street Clubhouse and said she was frankly “appalled at the notion.”4 She insisted they have her home and proposed a plan they could hardly refuse. She would let this stunned couple have it for sixty-five hundred dollars, a significant decrease from her original asking price. There would be no money down, and they could pay her forty dollars a month against the mortgage with no interest at least for the first year. Bill quickly calculated they’d be saving twenty dollars a month by taking their furniture and possessions out of storage, so all they would need was another twenty each month. He felt certain the book royalties would more than cover that.
All Lois could do was cry, she was so overcome. Mrs. Griffith embraced her and said that for all she and Bill had done for others, the least they deserved was a comfortable home for themselves. Before parting, Mrs. Griffith said she felt very grateful they had accepted her offer. Lois and Bill moved into their new home on April 16, 1941.
Their “vagabond” days were over. They finally had their own place, a home where they could once again be together to enjoy the normal pleasures Lois yearned for such as music, reading, gardening, and other activities Bill also loved. And they could now plan their future together as Bill continued to guide and grow Alcoholics Anonymous.
However, since one of Bill’s favorite sayings was “first things first,” he recognized that the house was in need of significant repairs and improvements. For example, there was no furnace. One day he spotted an old coal-burning furnace stashed beside a bar in the town of Bedford Hills. The owner was changing his heating system over to oil. Bill paid the man ten dollars and had several of his AA friends help him install the old furnace in the house. It lasted until they could change over to oil themselves.5
Having moved out of the clubhouse and also out of his digs in Newark, Bill established a central office for AA activities at 30 Vesey Street in lower Manhattan. This gave the Fellowship, for the first time, a headquarters of its own. It was also where the trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation now gathered to share their thoughts on the objectives and direction of the movement. The office was actually one large room that Bill had partitioned off to hold meetings with some privacy. The total staff at the time consisted of himself, Ruth Hock, and Ruth’s new assistant, Lorraine Greim, also a nonalcoholic.
At Vesey Street, the ripples from the Saturday Evening Post story turned into gigantic waves of activity—responding to a constant stream of inquiries; contacting members to go on Twelfth Step calls; answering questions from the many new groups sprouting up about how to organize and conduct AA meetings; and continually sending out copies of the Big Book across the country.
Then came that awesome Sunday of December 7, 1941. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt responded immediately. The United States was now engulfed in World War II.
Bill tried to reenlist, but at forty-six, he was not accepted. So he and Lois followed the war intently from the home front. Bill charted the battlefronts with pushpins on maps on his office wall. And as AA continued to grow through the war years, Lois recalled that her husband was intent on keeping the program strong for those returning soldiers who, like himself, would develop a problem with alcohol while overseas.
While Bill was running frantic at his new office in the city, Lois was busy with renovations in Bedford Hills. Being a creative person, she had always enjoyed working with her hands. And since there was still no money to hire help, she set about scraping and staining the wooden floors and painting the walls, highlighting the tops of them with the design of fancy drapery swags—something she loved to show off to her guests.
Lois then cut and laid squares of linoleum on the kitchen floor, creating her own pattern. She made valances for the windows, being careful not to obstruct the lovely views of their gardens and nearby hills. Each night she would soak in the tub to soothe her sore knees and aching muscles, yet she felt proud and happy that the house was taking on a life of its own.6
With Bill commuting to the city and busy working on other AA materials when he was home, he didn’t have much free time to help out with the remodeling chores. But there was one big job he had to tackle since it required a bit of muscle: “the waterworks.”
There was a pumphouse down the hill that pushed the water from a spring all the way up to the tank under the porch and then through the pipes in the house. The trouble was, the pump was slow to get the water upstairs, where their bedroom and bathroom were. So Bill purchased a large, open cattle-feeder tank from Sears & Roebuck and put it in the attic, reinforcing the supports in that area to hold the weight. The pump then filled this tank periodically, and gravity supplied the house with water. The problem was, Bill never knew when to turn the pump on and when to turn it off.
However, now sober and filled with creative juices, Bill devised a contraption that would signal when the tank was filled or empty. He connected a bell to a float he placed in the tank. When the tank was filled, the bell would ring and a red light would go on in the kitchen.
The contraption performed even better than Bill had hoped for, that is until one disastrous weekend when some AA friends dropped by unannounced. They all decided to go out for dinner. Bill forgot to turn off his contraption.
While Lois and Bill were enjoying a fine meal with their friends, the tank filled and filled and filled—and then overflowed. Upon their return, they could hear the bell ringing and ringing and ringing. Inside the house they found Niagara Falls. The parlor furniture was soaked, the kitchen linoleum curled up, and the water stains in the upstairs room could be seen for years after regardless of how often the ceiling was painted.7
Once the inside of the house was livable, Lois turned her attention to her first love—the outdoors. It was almost summer now, so she put in flower beds everywhere and manicured the rosebushes and shrubbery that surrounded the house.
Lois also planted a vegetable garden, hoping to grow lettuce, tomatoes, and corn. While she and Bill loved to watch the rabbits, deer, and other animals prance around their property, it became less enjoyable once they began to chew up Lois’s vegetables.
Bill’s creative juices came to the rescue once more. He put a battery-charged wire fence around the garden and the constant static noise from the battery kept most of the animals at bay.8
To get back and forth to the Bedford Hills train station, Bill needed transportation. So he bought an old Stutz from an AA friend in the city who had no more use for it. The car ran well and only cost him thirty bucks. Fortunately, there was a small garage on their property, but it stood at the bottom of a steep hill, reached from the house by a flight of rugged stone steps. Because of the constant climbing up and down, Bill turned to his wife one day and suggested they call their home “Stepping Stones.” Lois smiled and quickly agreed, perhaps because she knew her husband was implying a connection to the Twelve Steps of the Fellowship. So that’s how the home of Lois and Bill Wilson fondly became known to millions around the world as “Stepping Stones.”9
For Lois, the years from 1941 to 1949—aside from some friends losing sons in the war—were filled with many happy events. Their home was constantly overflowing with AA members and their families as the Wilsons continued to share themselves and their good fortune with others. Lois began traveling with Bill to visit AA groups in other cities. She often met with other AA wives, some of whom had started small gatherings just as she and Annie had done. But many others had not. And even when she would attend such meetings, she found many to be simply “gossip sessions” or places for wives to vent their anger and resentment against their alcoholic husbands.
At times when Lois shared about her own “kitchen group,” which was continuing to expand and start new meetings, and how these women like herself discovered they had to change along with their husbands, she often got blank stares or comments such as, “You just don’t understand.” She found such experiences disturbing and kept them in her mind—and in her heart.
Lois, like her dear friend and compatriot Annie Smith, had always felt a part of AA, perhaps because both played such a major role in the lives of the men who launched the movement. In fact, Dr. William Silkworth of Towns Hospital once said in his later years when questioned by an interviewer about the success of AA: “I doubt if there would be a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, no saving grace for thousands of men and women suffering from this malady, without the likes of Lois Wilson and Anne Smith. One should never underestimate the importance of the love and support they gave their husbands that enabled them to eventually come to grips with their disease and find a solution.”10 Maybe it was the commitment these two women felt for the AA program, together with their own personal experiences, that led them to comprehend alcoholism as a family disease. It was undoubtedly their continuous contact and intimate discussions that pulled them both through some extremely difficult times so they in turn might show other wives the ways they had found to better cope with life.
So when Annie took seriously ill in late May of 1949, Lois rushed to Akron to be at her side. While Annie had been in bad health for several years, which her smoking didn’t help, she rarely worried about herself. Her main concern as always was Bob, who had been diagnosed with cancer only the year before. As this generous and loving woman lay in her hospital bed with a serious case of pneumonia, her only worry seemed to be that her husband would be left all alone. She made Bill and other close AA friends promise her they would always be around Bob and watch over him.
Her struggle with pneumonia led to a massive heart attack. Annie Smith died in St. Thomas Hospital in Akron on June 1, 1949, at the age of sixty-eight. Lois, like Annie’s family and many friends, was devastated. At that moment, she wished the whole world had known the wonderful things her confidante had done for so many people. Lois was pleased when she saw the editorial that accompanied Annie’s obituary in the Akron Beacon Journal. It read, “It seems a pity Mrs. Smith’s wonderful work could not have received the public’s recognition while she was still alive, but she must have known the gratitude in the hearts of many people she had helped. . . . Akron should always be proud of the AA movement which was born here and proud of the fine woman who did so much to foster that movement.”11
Recalling his mother’s passing, Bob Smith, Jr., said, “After being involved with drunks for a while, nothing could ever shock or surprise her anymore. Even though their ways might be foreign to her own upbringing, Mother was extremely tolerant of others. She just would not criticize. She always sought to excuse their actions.
“Her advice was never given on the spur of the moment to anyone, but was reserved until she had time to pray and think about the problem. As a result, her answer was given in a very loving, unselfish way to whoever was involved.”12
While deeply saddened by Annie’s passing, Lois never forgot nor would she let anyone else forget the vital role her dear friend played in the development of Al-Anon. She would always point to the love and caring Anne Smith showed not only to the spouses of alcoholics but to their children as well. Dr. Bob’s wife recognized early on that alcoholism is a disease that affects the entire family and that there needed to be a program to help the entire family recover.13
Regarding her own many warm and wonderful memories of her departed friend, there was one that stood out above all the rest. It was Annie’s surprise visit to Clinton Street shortly after Lois received the dispossession notice. Over the banana split they had at Schrafft’s, Annie emphasized how important it was that they share their personal experience with the wives of other alcoholics no matter what kinds of problems they might be facing themselves. Sharing with others helped lessen one’s problems.
“You and I discovered that by living with this disease, we got as sick as our husbands,” she recalled Annie telling her again that night. “The problem is, not many wives realize that. That’s why we have to help them.”14
What Lois and Annie had found, and what Lois was now passing on to other spouses, was that they needed the same tools of recovery their husbands had been given in the AA Fellowship. Once they embraced this set of principles, both spiritual and practical, they too could change and find the serenity and happiness they sought.
But the Fellowship and the program that was to become Al-Anon was very slow in evolving. It did not have the sudden and dramatic genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, when Bill and Dr. Bob met at Henrietta Seiberling’s gatehouse and miraculously understood that they needed each other to stay sober . . . and stay alive. Nevertheless, its gradual but certain maturation was just as important in the lives of suffering spouses and their families. One of the reasons for its slow evolution was, perhaps, the lack of that same sheer desperation alcoholics feel when they reach the point where they must get sober or die—or at least escape the hell of the Bowery, a mental institution, or jail. Or then again, maybe it was the denial factor of many spouses who truly believed that the drinking wasn’t their problem. It was their husband or their wife, and once they stopped, everything would be fine.
Even Lois and Annie had taken a long time to fully recognize the impact the disease of alcoholism had on their lives—how living with and coping with an active alcoholic had changed their attitudes, their thinking, their actions, their morality, their very character.
Long before Annie’s death, Lois and Annie had talked frequently about wives of alcoholics needing more help and direction than they were getting, but neither was in a position to do anything about it at that time. Annie was in very poor health, and Lois was either homeless or working to make ends meet.
But now, just when Lois had everything in her life she ever really wanted—a sober and loving husband, a home of her own, gardens to tend, peace and serenity—her Higher Power was about to request that she give all that up, at least for a while, and be of service to Him once again. That is, if she were willing to accept His request.
It all began with Dr. Bob’s death. Even though expected, it stunned the world of Alcoholics Anonymous and sent Bill into another depression. Fortunately, he had spent considerable time with his partner in sobriety during those final days of his terrible bout with cancer. They had both agreed they must get out of the driver’s seat and turn the Fellowship over to its members. That the “Group conscience” should, as it had from the beginning, run the most democratic society man had ever created.
Certainly the board of trustees, which was now made up of both alcoholic and nonalcoholic members, would continue to suggest policy and direction, but the membership would always have the final say. On that Bill and Bob had finally come to total agreement.
Lois remembered the look on her husband’s face the day they left Akron in early November of 1950, shortly before Bob passed away. Bill couldn’t envision his life without his “anchor,” as he always called his closest friend. But Bob assured him his spirit would never leave his side.
Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith died on November 16, 1950, just seventeen months after his wife’s passing. The funeral service was conducted in the old Episcopal church by Rev. Walter Tunks, whose answer to a telephone call made by “a drunk from New York” fifteen years earlier had opened the way toward the formation of the worldwide Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Bob was buried without great fanfare in Mount Peace Cemetery next to his wife, Annie. There was no monument, only a simple headstone. However, every member of AA, then as now, would argue that the Fellowship was the greatest monument he could have ever wanted.
To shake his depression over his loving friend’s passing, Bill decided to travel the country, visiting AA groups new and old, in major cities and country hamlets. He talked about Dr. Bob wherever he went, letting everyone know about the important contributions his friend and cofounder had given this burgeoning Fellowship of drunks. He also talked about the need to hold a General Services Conference for AA in order to officially turn over the work and responsibility of the movement to its members, alcoholic and nonalcoholic alike, as he and Bob had agreed.
Wherever he went, he also noticed that Family Groups were sprouting up all over, usually small gatherings of spouses—both men and women—and their families who were trying to learn more about the terrible malady that had wreaked havoc in their homes and on their children. But Bill also noticed that most of these groups had no program, no organization. They were simply doing their best under very confusing circumstances.
Lois believed it was better that Bill go off on his own this time, that he be alone with his old friends in the Fellowship while meeting new ones along the way. By immersing himself totally once again with his fellow drunks he might find some much-needed solace. And he did. He returned home not only renewed, but with another vision—the vision that the work his wife and Annie Smith had started must be carried on, not just across the country, but around the world, where AA was now bringing sobriety to many lands, but still leaving families behind.
Lois said that upon his return home, Bill was bubbling over with excitement about all the family groups he ran into around the country, gatherings of spouses and children looking for direction, for some way out of all the hurt and confusion the alcoholics brought into their lives.
That’s when he turned to his wife and suggested she might want to do something about it since she and others were already meeting and finding some kind of answers for themselves. He thought perhaps that Lois could open a service office to provide a place for these groups to register and share experiences and advice.
At this time, however, Lois loved being at home and working in her gardens, enjoying the kind of life she had always dreamed of. Now her husband was asking her to give it all up and get back into the fray of alcoholism. She found his suggestion far from appealing so she didn’t respond right away. But the one thing it did was keep her awake for the next few nights thinking about it.15
Lois later said she realized how selfish she was. The more she thought about the need, something she and Annie had always talked about, the more she realized it had to be done. Recognizing this would not be a one-woman job, Lois immediately reached out for her close friend Anne Bingham. Anne also lived in Westchester County and had continued to be active in the growing Family Group movement. She quickly said yes to her friend’s request for help although neither of them had any idea how they would begin to tackle such a challenging task.
Like Lois, Anne was also born in Brooklyn. She was, by her own admission, a sickly child. She once said she had every known childhood disease all in one year, including diphtheria. Her sister died of heart disease when she was twelve, leaving Anne an only child. When she herself was eight, she contracted Saint Vitus’s dance, a nervous disorder, and it was the family doctor who suggested a move to the country for the sake of the young girl’s health.
Anne always regretted that she never had a close relationship with her mother and admitted that was probably the reason she married so young. She met Devoe Bingham at a Baptist Sunday school when she was seventeen and married him two years later. They had one daughter, who was named after her mother. Devoe, who was a few years older, owned his own filling station and sold and serviced high-priced foreign cars as well, until the outbreak of World War II.
According to Anne, her husband did not start drinking until he was thirty. Delayed at a business meeting one evening, he decided to stop at a bar to phone his wife, telling her he would be late for dinner. It was a chilly night so he thought a highball might warm him up. He never arrived home until the wee hours of the morning—totally ossified. Devoe Bingham’s progression into alcoholism was rapid and severe. During Devoe’s four trips to Towns Hospital and his several stabs at AA before finally getting sober, Anne turned constantly to Lois for support and consolation. Lois often said Anne helped her more than she helped her friend. Be that as it may, the two became very close, and when Lois and Bill moved to Bedford Hills, the foursome spent many an enjoyable Saturday evening together.
Bill chaired AA’s first General Service Conference in New York in April of 1951. At the close of the two-day event, Lois invited the wives of the member delegates for lunch at Stepping Stones along with a number of local Family Group members Anne had gathered together. More than three dozen came. All but two or three of the delegate wives said they attended gatherings of alcoholic families in their hometowns and that almost every one was conducted differently, with no established format. By the time the ladies departed, Lois and Anne had a growing list of Family Groups nationwide. Many other Family Group names were given to them by Ruth Hock from her files at the Vesey Street central office of AA. They wound up with eighty-seven contacts in all. Some of the delegate wives invited Lois and Anne to visit their groups to see how the meetings were conducted. They accepted their invitations. As Lois and Anne traveled by train, bus, and car, they soon found that most of the wives they met desperately wanted a program to live by, one that could help them better understand the disease of alcoholism and what they might do to improve their own lives and the lives of their children.
Upon their return in early May, Lois set up the first Family Group service office on the second floor of Stepping Stones and rented a post office box, number 1475. She acted as the temporary chairperson and Anne as secretary, since she knew how to type and had her own typewriter. They sent off letters to the eighty-seven groups, expressing the resolve of many they had met that the Family Groups should be unified under one organizational umbrella with one program for all its members. The letter asked for approval to use AA’s Twelve Steps for the program and that the currently amorphous organization be called AA Family Groups. The letter also suggested adoption of AA’s policy of anonymity—the use of first names only on the public level.
In less than three weeks, forty-eight groups responded and an overwhelming proportion of them voted in favor of adopting AA’s Twelve Steps as their “Guide for Living.” As for a name, there was little consensus. Suggestions ranged from “AA Helpmates” to “Triple A” and from “First Step AA” to “Non AA.” It was a Family Group in California that suggested the name “Al-Anon,” a contraction of the words “Alcoholics Anonymous.” Lois and Anne extended it to “Al-Anon Family Groups” and the name was adopted unanimously. Al-Anon had now “officially” been born.16
By July of that year, only three months after the AA General Service Conference, the number of groups registered at the Stepping Stones service office had risen to one hundred and forty five. Leading among the states were New York with twenty—many of them offshoots of Lois’s original “kitchen group”—California with sixteen, and Texas with thirteen. However, thirty-nine states were represented and, in addition to eleven groups flourishing in Canada, others were registered from as far away as Australia and South Africa. And they all had questions and requests for information starting from how to conduct their meetings to the need for a better understanding of how the Twelve Steps should be taken and put into their lives.
Lois quickly recognized the need for literature as a helpful Al-Anon tool. So Lois and Anne wrote a pamphlet, Purposes and Suggestions for Al-Anon Family Groups, which included the primary principle she and Annie Smith had always talked about—focus on oneself rather than the alcoholic. She went on to say in that first simple publication, “To insure the success of the Family Groups, there should be no gossip, no complaints about the alcoholic’s faults at meetings. Newcomers can quickly make friends with older members with whom they will invariably feel free to discuss their personal difficulties privately.”17
From the outset, Lois and Anne funded their small service office out of their own pocketbooks. But they knew that should the Fellowship begin to grow and with it the expenditures for phone calls, literature, and mailings, they would be needing additional funds—hopefully voluntary contributions. But just how would they go about asking for them?18
Then spontaneously, but hardly by coincidence, contributions began to trickle in from grateful members. According to Lois’s detailed records, the first one came in on June 22, 1951, from a Sam K. of Lynn, Massachusetts. It was a check for ten dollars. Then others started flowing in, from Syracuse, New York; Montgomery, Alabama; and Yankton, South Dakota. Before long, the cramped office on the second floor of Stepping Stones was out of the red and in need of larger quarters. More space was certainly necessary if Lois and Anne and their growing number of volunteers were to keep abreast of the constant deluge of phone calls, correspondence, and requests for information and literature. The Al-Anon movement was coming together, and Lois wanted to be sure it spoke and acted with one mind and one voice.
When word got out that the recently organized Fellowship of Al-Anon was looking for a new headquarters office in a more central location, Lois received a call from the New York AA group that managed the old Twenty-fourth Street Clubhouse. They offered her the upstairs room she and Bill once used as a parlor. It now served as a recreation room for members at night, but Al-Anon, she was told, could use it as an office during the day. There was even a closet where they could lock away any valuables.
Lois smiled at the irony of being invited back to a place that held some rather unpleasant memories for her. But then, it had been a roof over their heads and an office where Bill continued his work of building AA. Then she smiled again when she realized it was the last place they lived “on the road” before entering the paradise of Stepping Stones—and for that she would be forever grateful.19
So, after thinking it over and learning the rent would be very low, Lois and Anne decided to make the move. They packed up the typewriter, a two-drawer filing cabinet, several boxes of stationery, and the little black book in which they kept the Fellowship’s financial accounts, loaded it all in Anne’s car, and headed down to New York City, where a small band of volunteers awaited their arrival. It was January 9, 1952, and Al-Anon had a new home.
“We could feel the excitement of all that was happening,” Lois once shared with a close friend, “the sense that Al-Anon was beginning to reach out and touch many, many people across the country, and we were part of it. While our new headquarters would only be one room at the old clubhouse, it symbolized for us the growth that was taking place.”20
Because of all the correspondence and literature moving in and out of the office, the cofounders decided to call it the Al-Anon Clearing House. More than two hundred Family Groups were registered by now, so any and all volunteers were welcome to handle the workload.
Since the vast majority of Al-Anon members at that time were women, so were the volunteers. And they came from all over. Irma F., Dot L., and Sue L. from Westchester were the first. They were joined by Mag V., Eleanor A., and Jean B. from New Jersey and Evelyn C., Vi F., and Henrietta S. from Long Island. And as the overhead, the cost of mailings, and other expenses rose, the tiny band asked the growing number of groups to voluntarily support the Clearing House by donating one dollar per member semiannually. The contributions from grateful members surpassed the request.
Fifty years ago there was very little known about the disease of alcoholism, so many wanted to understand how they could tell if their spouse was an alcoholic or merely a heavy, willful drinker. One of the questions Lois was often asked, both over the phone and in letters, was, “How can I tell if my husband is a real alcoholic?”21 Initially, even though she still bore the disappointment of not writing the chapter herself in AA’s Big Book titled “To Wives,” she urged her inquirers to read it. At times when the pleas seemed urgent or she sensed someone could not afford to purchase a Big Book, she sent them mimeographed copies of the two pages most pertinent to the subject at hand. They read:
The problem with which you struggle usually falls within one of four categories:
One:Your husband may be only a heavy drinker. His drinking may be constant or it may be heavy only on certain occasions. Perhaps he spends too much money for liquor. It may be slowing him up mentally and physically, but he does not see it. Sometimes he is a source of embarrassment to you and his friends. He is positive he can handle his liquor, that it does him no harm, that drinking is necessary in his business. He would probably be insulted if he were called an alcoholic. This world is full of people like him. Some will moderate or stop altogether, and some will not. Of those who keep on, a good number will become true alcoholics after a while.
Two:Your husband is showing lack of control, for he is unable to stay on the water wagon even when he wants to. He often gets entirely out of hand when drinking. He admits this is true, but is positive that he will do better. He has begun to try, with or without your cooperation, various means of moderating or staying dry. Maybe he is beginning to lose his friends. His business may suffer somewhat. He is worried at times, and is becoming aware that he cannot drink like other people. He sometimes drinks in the morning and through the day also, to hold his nervousness in check. He is remorseful after serious drinking bouts and tells you he wants to stop. But when he gets over the spree, he begins to think once more how he can drink moderately next time. We think this person is in danger. These are the earmarks of a real alcoholic. Perhaps he can still tend to business fairly well. He has by no means ruined everything. As we say among ourselves, “He wants to want to stop.”
Three: This husband has gone much further than husband number two. Though once like number two he became worse. His friends have slipped away, his home is a near-wreck and he cannot hold a position. Maybe the doctor has been called in, and the weary round of sanitariums and hospitals has begun. He admits he cannot drink like other people, but does not see why. He clings to the notion that he will yet find a way to do so. He may have come to the point where he desperately wants to stop but cannot. His case presents additional questions which we shall try to answer for you. You can be quite hopeful of a situation like this.
Four: You may have a husband of whom you completely despair. He has been placed in one institution after another. He is violent, or appears definitely insane when drunk. Sometimes he drinks on the way home from the hospital. Perhaps he has had delirium tremens. Doctors may shake their heads and advise you to have him committed. Maybe you have already been obliged to put him away. This picture may not be as dark as it looks. Many of our husbands were just as far gone. Yet they got well.22
While this chapter in the Big Book went on to offer some general suggestions to wives on handling their particular situations, Lois and Anne both felt, based upon their own personal experiences, that most of these women needed much more specific advice and guidance. So they put together another pamphlet, So You Love an Alcoholic, adapted from a leaflet from the Texas Commission on Alcoholism. It offered suggestions such as “Detaching with love” and “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” It pointed out that even when one tried to live by the principles of Al-Anon, coping with alcoholic behavior could often make one seethe with anger and resentment. The cofounders emphasized that while such emotions rarely affected the inebriate, they did considerable mental and physical harm to the spouse. So, they added, one must learn to work on and eliminate such rage whenever possible, for one’s own sake.
As more questions, comments, and suggestions poured into the Clearing House, along with notes from members sharing their own personal stories, Lois decided a monthly newsletter would be the best way to communicate regularly with the rapidly expanding movement, which, by the end of 1953, exceeded five hundred groups.
A typical day found Anne busy typing at her desk, other women sorting the mail or packaging literature at tables lining the one-room office, and Lois seated in a corner by herself with a yellow pad in her lap, drafting another issue. It would contain responses to inquiries, news about Family Group happenings, and edited versions of the personal experiences sent in by members. This Family Group Newsletter eventually became Al-Anon’s magazine, The Forum, which today disseminates information and sharings to thousands of groups worldwide.
In 1952, many of these groups still adhered to some of their old ways of doing things. Some, for example, refused to allow men or children at meetings. Others felt Al-Anon was strictly for spouses and no other relatives. And still others brought religion, psychiatry, medicine, and politics into their discussions, which often drove other members away.
Recognizing the problems and the need for unity, Lois decided to do exactly what her husband had done to solve similar situations in Alcoholics Anonymous. He had put together a list of suggested principles for all AA groups to follow called “The Twelve Traditions.” While it took some time, they were finally approved by the membership and created the strong unity in the Fellowship that exists to this day.
Lois consulted closely with Anne and some of their trusted volunteers before penning a specific list of principles, which was then sent out to all Family Groups for their consideration. Most members responded positively. Over time and after some minor squabbling and nitpicking by some of the older groups, Al-Anon’s Twelve Traditions were finally and unanimously approved. They read as follows:
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants—they do not govern.
3. The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend.
4. Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole.
5. Each Al-Anon Family Group has but one purpose: to help families of alcoholics. We do this by practicing the Twelve Steps of AA ourselves, by encouraging and understanding our alcoholic relatives, and by welcoming and giving comfort to families of alcoholics.
6. Our Family Groups ought never endorse, finance or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always co-operate with Alcoholics Anonymous.
7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Al-Anon Twelfth Step work should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and TV. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all AA members.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.23
Fortunately, the Al-Anon newsletter helped to communicate these principles on a constant basis and thus enabled the Traditions to foster unity throughout the Fellowship—at the local, national, and international level as well.
One morning, while Lois was on the train from Bedford Hills into New York City, a picture jumped off the society page of the newspaper she was reading. It showed her old friend Elise Shaw’s youngest daughter coming out of St. John the Divine Church in Manhattan after marrying the son of wealthy New York socialites. She stared at the beautiful young bride as her mind tumbled back to her own wedding day when her then closest friend, Elise, was her maid of honor. Where had all the years gone? And what of those terribly divisive and confusing days that drove these two friends apart?
Lois had put it all out of her mind. During the long and painful ordeal of Bill’s drinking and the perplexities that initially followed his recovery, it had all been washed from her memory. It wasn’t until 1954, on that train ride to Manhattan, that Lois allowed herself to recall Elise’s painful revelation twenty-five years earlier.
Now, as those remembrances flashed back, Lois thought it strange that her recollection of Elise helping to thwart her attempt to adopt a child no longer caused her pain. Sadness and disappointment, yes, but not the deep, bewildering anger and resentment that Lois had often used to fire up her old self-pity whenever she was running out of better excuses.
Seeing that picture of Elise’s daughter may have prompted Lois to think about her own role in the hurtful break in their relationship. For Lois had to admit she never really tried to understand Elise’s reaction to Bill’s drinking. Only now, after all these years of suffering through it herself, did she finally realize how her husband’s drunken behavior must have brought back so many onerous memories of Elise’s childhood in an alcoholic home. Perhaps if they had talked more about it . . . although how could Elise possibly get through to someone who was in such denial? How many times did she attempt to discuss Bill’s growing problem only to be quickly and totally turned off, dismissed for even raising such an embarrassing subject? Lois had been absolutely closed-minded, even with a loving and caring friend. How it must have hurt Elise when she could do nothing to help.
Lois had been trying her best for a long time to live according to AA’s Twelve Steps. Now here she was faced once again with Steps Eight and Nine.
Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.24
More than twenty years had passed. Certainly Lois was right in feeling that Elise had hurt her deeply, had taken away any chance she might have had to have a family of her own. But now she knew that raising a child under such conditions would have been wrong. She also knew she had harmed her best friend by her anger, her insensitivity, and her self-righteousness. It was time that she cleaned off her own side of the street. So she found Elise Shaw’s phone number, called, and made an appointment to have lunch with her in the city.
Their meeting was awkward and uncomfortable at first. Then, after they caught up on news, it became almost pleasant. Elise had heard much about AA and was filled with praise for the good work Bill was doing. She said she knew her father would have been proud of him although, in all honesty, she herself thought Bill would amount to nothing and die a horrible death from drinking. Lois confessed that toward the end, she had felt the same way.
Elise appeared embarrassed at first that she knew nothing about Al-Anon. But, as she listened to Lois talk about it, one could see in her face she completely understood the great benefits such a program could bring to the families of alcoholics. “If only it were around in my day,” she said rather sadly.25
Lois waited until they had finished eating before expressing her apologies to her old friend for the way she reacted. She wanted to thank her for her honest concern about Bill’s drinking and the many attempts she made to help. Elise appeared shocked. She quickly interrupted to say she was the one who should be apologizing. After all, what she did was very cruel, even though she truly believed it was the right thing to do at the time.
Lois reached out and touched Elise’s hand. She explained that she had finally come to realize that not being able to bear children or adopt a baby was all part of God’s plan. That she had come to accept His will. Had they been blessed with a family, Bill would not have been able to devote all his energies into creating and building the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, nor could she have dedicated herself to the problems of the wives and families of alcoholics through Al-Anon.
Elise Shaw understood. One could see it in her eyes. After lunch, they walked back outside to her chauffeur-driven limousine. She offered Lois a ride downtown but her friend said the subway was faster. They hugged briefly and promised to have lunch again soon.
These two women who had grown up and spent their formative years together would never really be close again. Their lives had gone in very different directions. But the wounds had healed and the amends had been made. Lois Wilson went back to the old Twenty-fourth Street Clubhouse feeling comfortable inside, knowing that the program of Al-Anon really works—if you “work it.”26