# How did the Cleveland group become the first to call itself Alcoholics Anonymous?

**In short:**
- In May or June 1939, Cleveland members who had been driving to the Akron meeting, held in an Oxford Group home, started their own meeting in Cleveland, open only to alcoholics and their families. Clarence S., one of its founders, said that they took the name "Alcoholics Anonymous" from the new book.
- That Cleveland was the *first* group to use the name is Clarence's claim, as *Pass It On* (1984) reports it, right after saying the debate "continues." Our sources don't settle it.
- The name itself is older than the Cleveland meeting: the Big Book, out in April 1939, already speaks for "Alcoholics Anonymous" (p. xiii). Bill W. dated the title to about October 1938; *Pass It On* (1984) finds it in letters from June and July 1938.
- The sources disagree on dates: May or June 1939 for the first Cleveland meeting, and the 1955 foreword even speaks of a group at Cleveland starting in 1937.

## Background: Clevelanders at the Akron meeting

Bill (1957) says Cleveland alcoholics had been going to the Akron meetings at the home of T. Henry and Clarace Williams, who were Oxford Group members, meeting Dr. Bob and Anne and going with Dr. Bob to the hospital (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Clarence S. and his wife Dorothy were among the earliest to come, and "By the early summer of 1939 a group had commenced to form around them in Cleveland" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

## The break, in the members' words (1980)

*Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* (1980) gives several members' memories, and says frankly that "There are several versions of how the split occurred" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

**Why.** Clarence said many of the men he brought from Cleveland were Catholic and were uneasy with the Oxford Group's public confession and "guidance" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). Dorothy added that the Cleveland contingent had simply grown too big to keep driving to Akron, and was putting a heavy load on Dr. Bob (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). Clarence remembered telling Dr. Bob they could start "a group without all this rigmarole that's offensive to other people" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). Dr. Bob answered, "We can't abandon these people," and "We owe our lives to them." (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

**Where.** Al G. (also called Abby), a patent lawyer with a big house in Cleveland, had just been through the hospital in Akron. Clarence asked Al's wife whether they could meet there, and when Al came out he offered his home for the Cleveland meetings (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

**The name.** Clarence said he announced at the Oxford Group meeting that the Cleveland members were starting a group "that would only be open to alcoholics and their families. Also that we were taking the name from the book 'Alcoholics Anonymous.'" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). He dated the first meeting to the following week, May 11, 1939, and said Oxford Groupers came and tried to break it up (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

The others remembered it a little differently:
- Dorothy: "We didn't have any name," (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980) only that everyone knew it was not an Oxford Group meeting.
- Al G.: the first meeting was "Toward the middle of May 1939" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980), and there was debate over a name; "No others seemed to be fitting, so we began to refer to ourselves as Alcoholics Anonymous." (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

The book adds that Dr. Bob supported the Cleveland group from the start and went to its early meetings (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). Another member, Warren C., remembered that the meetings at Al G.'s were still a mix of Oxford Groupers and newcomers, and that the first group with no Oxford Group people in it was the Borton Group, formed in November 1939 (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).

## "The first"? (1984)

*Pass It On* (1984) reports the claim alongside the doubts. The book's title quickly became the fellowship's name, "although debate continues about where and how the name was first used by a group" (Pass It On, 1984). "Oldtimer Clarence S. stated that the Cleveland group he founded in May 1939 was actually the first group to use the name" (Pass It On, 1984). Whatever individual groups called themselves, it says, the name was used earlier for the fellowship as a whole, and it points to the Big Book's own foreword (Pass It On, 1984).

The earlier uses are in our sources:
- The Foreword to the First Edition (April 1939) opens: "We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women" (p. xiii).
- Bill (1957) says the title "had appeared very early in the discussion, probably in October, 1938" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
- *Pass It On* (1984) says "The first documented use of the name in the A.A. archives is in a letter from Frank Amos to Albert Scott dated June 24, 1938." (Pass It On, 1984), and cites a letter from Dr. Richards of Johns Hopkins, July 18, 1938, showing Bill already using "Alcoholics Anonymous" as the book's working title and the fellowship's name (Pass It On, 1984).
- *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* (1980) says the name was "already in some limited use as a name for the Fellowship; references to it may be found as early as 1937" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). It doesn't say what those references are.

So: the Cleveland members may well have been the first *group* to call its meeting by the book's name, as Clarence said; our sources have his word for it and no one else's. The name for the fellowship was in use before that. See *How did Alcoholics Anonymous get its name? Was "The Way Out" the title?*

## What happened next in Cleveland

In the fall of 1939 the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a series of articles on A.A., backed by editorials (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Calls flooded in, and about twenty members suddenly faced hundreds of newcomers (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). To cope, each prospect was assigned an older member who visited him and took him to his first meeting, and new members "sober only a month or even a week, had to sponsor alcoholics still drying up in the hospitals" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Abby's meeting outgrew his house and split into the Borton, Orchard Grove and Lee Road groups (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). A year later Cleveland had about thirty groups and several hundred members, and Bill (1957) wrote that the results were so good "that many a Clevelander really thought A.A. had started there in the first place" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957; quoted in Pass It On, 1984).

## Where the sources differ
- **The first Cleveland meeting.** May 11, 1939 (Clarence, in the 1980 book); "Toward the middle of May 1939" (Al G., same book); June 1939 at Abby G.'s home (Bill, 1957: A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
- **1937?** The Big Book's 1955 foreword says a second group took shape in New York, "to be followed in 1937 with the start of a third at Cleveland" (p. xvii). That doesn't fit the 1957, 1980 and 1984 accounts, which have Clevelanders going to Akron until 1939. Our sources don't explain it.
- **When the name first appeared.** Bill (1957) says "probably in October, 1938" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957); *Pass It On* (1984) cites letters of June 24 and July 18, 1938 (Pass It On, 1984); the 1980 book says references go back to 1937 (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).
- **The name.** Clarence says they took it from the book at once; Dorothy says they had no name; Al G. says they settled on it after debate (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980).
- **The first all-A.A. group.** Warren C. names the Borton Group, November 1939 (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980), not the May meeting.

## Read it yourself
- Foreword to the First Edition (pp. xiii–xiv): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_forewordfirstedition.pdf
- Foreword to the Second Edition (pp. xv–xxi): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_forewordsecondedition.pdf
- *A.A. Comes of Age*, *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* and *Pass It On* are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
- Related: *How did Alcoholics Anonymous get its name? Was "The Way Out" the title?* · *What did early A.A. take from the Oxford Group, and why did it separate?* · *What happened at the 1950 Cleveland convention?* · *How were Akron and New York different in the early years?*

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Foreword to the First Edition | xiii | 1939 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Foreword to the Second Edition | xvii | 1955 |
| *A.A. Comes of Age* (Bill W.) | — | 1957 |
| *Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers* | — | 1980 (members' recollections) |
| *Pass It On* | — | 1984 |

The history books are cited by the file-page markers in our copies (f.), not printed pages.

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book,* A.A. Comes of Age, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers *and* Pass It On *are © A.A. World Services, Inc.*