I am starting to really LOVE the historical stuff about AA, and about treatment for alcoholism on the whole. Good lord, the things we used to have to go through to get help. We've come a LONG WAY, Baby!!!

I was telling you about some of the historcal, well A LOT of the historical stuff around here where I am (Akron, OH area), and I am going to actually get to take a yoga class (trying to learn how to meditate) at the very place where Dr. Bob first met Bill W. It was Henrietta Seiblerling's Gate House at Stan Hewitt Hall (it is a mansion owned by I think the Fireston tire and rubber family, which was booming in the 30's, and Henrietta was a philanthropist who introduced Dr. Bob to Bill W. at a dinner at that very place.) Although not an alcoholic herself, she played a great part in helping to get alcoholism recognized and the program being known better, through word of mouth.

I am right now getting my Group Therapy at Intensive outpatient Treatment at the very same hospital where Sister Ignatia helped Dr. Bob and Bill W. to start treating alcoholics in the hospital. (St. Thomas Hospital). Dr. Bob owrkwed there as a proctologist. The circle I sit in for AA-based therapy, sits in the very same SPOTS which were then part of a Ward for alcoholics, where Dr. Bob and Bill W. first went from room to room sharing their message and therby staying sober. Amazing stuff, and I am starting to have a deeper kind of gratitude as a result. Though the hopsital has been changed around and remodeled a bunch of times, they purposely keep the drunk ward in the very same spot it was back in the 30's, for its historical significance.

Anyway, I am going to go to the Gate House where Bill and Bob met for the very first time, in June, ino the lavish gardens that are kept there, for yoga. I will be so thrilled. I will be thinking recovery, and feeling so much spirit around me, I just know it. I will take pictures, if I am allowed, and post some of them here. It is just so neat to see and WALK THROUGH some of the cool stuff, the "hallowed ground" if you will, where it all began.

Thanks for whetting my appetite, Jerry, for more AA history! I will certainly share my historical AA experiences here, and any pictures I can manage. Thanks for starting this topic, I hope it continues to grow as new and interesting stuff is found and posted.

Joni