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Who was the third member of A.A., and how was he found?

In short:

  • A.A.'s third member was Bill D., an Akron lawyer and former city councilman, strapped to a bed in Akron City Hospital in June 1935 after his eighth hospital stay in six months.
  • Bill W. and Dr. Bob found him on purpose: they phoned the hospital and asked the nurse for an alcoholic to work on, because they had seen they must help others to stay sober themselves.
  • They told him their own drinking stories, told him what alcoholism was, and left him free to say no. He walked out of the hospital a few days later and never drank again.
  • The Big Book dates A.A.'s first group, at Akron, from that visit.

How he was found (Chapter 11, 1939)

The Big Book's 1939 telling comes right after Bill and Dr. Bob meet. Both men "saw that they must keep spiritually active" (p. 156). So they called the head nurse of a local hospital and asked if she had "a first class alcoholic prospect" (p. 156). She had: a once well-known lawyer who had just beaten up a couple of nurses, had been in eight times in six months, and was strapped down (p. 156). One of them answered, "Put him in a private room." (p. 157).

That is Chapter 7's method in action: ask the hospitals for a drinker who wants help, and go to him (see What does Step 12 really say?).

What they did with him

For an hour they told him about their own drinking, and he kept saying "That's me." (p. 157). They told him about alcoholism, then about their spiritual experience and the course of action they followed (p. 157). He doubted it: he had prayed on hangover mornings and been drunk again by nine (p. 158). On the third day he gave his life to the care and direction of his Creator, and that afternoon he walked out "a free man" (p. 158). "That was in June, 1935. He never drank again." (p. 158). A footnote in today's edition says this visit "resulted in A.A.'s first group, at Akron, Ohio, in 1935" (p. 156).

His side of it (his story, "Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three")

Bill D.'s own story is in Part I of the personal stories. He had finished law school in Akron and served five years as a city councilman before drinking took everything (p. 182). In the first six months of 1935 he was hospitalized eight times, and on June 26, 1935, he came to in the hospital once more (p. 184).

His wife told him two men had a plan to stop drinking, and part of the plan was to tell it to another drunk (p. 185). He agreed to listen because he felt he would be "a real stinker" (p. 185) if he refused to hear out two men it might help stay sober; his wife also told him he could not pay them even if he wanted to (p. 185). They told him plainly: if he didn't want it, "we'll be going and looking for someone else" (p. 186). They asked whether he could quit on his own, whether he believed in a Higher Power, and whether he would ask that Power for help (p. 186). They told him he had a disease (p. 187), gave him the idea of "twenty-four hours at a time" (p. 188), went over his faults with him like an inventory, and told him to take the program "to somebody else who needs it and wants it" (p. 190).

The editors insert Bill W.'s account in the middle of the story. It says Dr. Bob had told him two days before, "If you and I are going to stay sober, we had better get busy." (p. 188). Dr. Bob phoned the receiving nurse at Akron's City Hospital (p. 188). When Bill D. told his wife to fetch his clothes and walked out, "A.A.'s Number One Group dates from that very day." (p. 189).

The 1955 Foreword to the Second Edition says the same in brief: their first case, a desperate one, "recovered immediately and became A.A. number three" (p. xvii).

Later accounts

  • Dr. Bob, 1948 (talk printed in P-53): they started looking for prospects at once, and before long one appeared, Bill D., a Sunday-school superintendent who Dr. Bob thought knew the Bible far better than he did (P-53).
  • Bill W., 1957: A.A. Comes of Age tells the same visit, calling Bill D. the first "man on the bed" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), though Bill also says he and Dr. Bob had tackled another man, Eddie, "just before our first visit with Bill D." (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). It also names A.A. number four, Ernie, a young man who caught on quickly (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957); Chapter 11 describes him without a name as a "devil-may-care young fellow" (p. 158).

Where the sources differ

  • The date. Bill D.'s story says he came to in the hospital on June 26, 1935, before he heard of the two men (p. 184). Comes of Age (1957) has Dr. Bob phone the hospital the day after his last drink on June 10, and the two men see Bill D. two days later (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Those two timelines don't fit together, and our sources don't reconcile them. Chapter 11 says only "June, 1935" (p. 158).
  • His hospital record. The nurse in Chapter 11 says eight times in six months (p. 156), and Bill D.'s story agrees (p. 184). In Comes of Age he tells them six times in four months (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
  • How long he stayed. Chapter 11 says he left on the third day (p. 158); Bill W.'s insert has him leave during their second visit (p. 189); Comes of Age says two days after that visit (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). All agree he never drank again.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 11, "A Vision for You" 156–159 1939
"Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three," Personal Stories Part I 182–192 story describes 1935; Bill W.'s insert says "Nineteen years ago last summer" (p. 188), so it was written about 1954
Foreword to the Second Edition xvii 1955
P-53, Dr. Bob's last major talk — talk December 1948; pamphlet © 2017
A.A. Comes of Age — 1957

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001).

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, P-53 and A.A. Comes of Age are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; Dr. Bob's 1948 talk in P-53 is © AA Grapevine, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.