Ten Men and a Committee

Cleveland, September 1940. Clarence S. wrote to Bill with an update on how the local groups were running, and the sentence is worth reading twice (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers): "several groups do not permit a rummy to attend unless he has been hospitalized or talked to by ten men." Not sponsored by ten men. Talked to. A quota, before you could sit down. By January it had loosened — you now needed hospitalization, or five members, or approval by a committee. There were men posted at the door to check. Other members called them the snifters, because they were "men who stood by the door, sniffing each man who came in." Cleveland was not a rogue outfit. It was the fastest-growing A.A. in the world at the time, run by people who had gotten sober themselves and were trying to keep the meetings usable. That's the whole difficulty. Every requirement had a reason behind it, and stacked together they built a door that the men who wrote them could never have walked through.