The Point

The Central Office Archives Committee and longtime Bay Area member Peter M. compiled a history booklet of our local Central Office which serves San Francisco and Marin counties. It highlights important facts and developments. In celebration of the 75th anniversary of Central Office this year, The Point is featuring the following highlights from the booklet.

As part of the 75th anniversary celebration and to honor Founders’ Day, Central Office is hosting an open house on June 11. Activities include a scavenger hunt, raffle and food. Literature will be discounted. Stop by for a visit, learn more about Central Office and join in the fun. June 11 @ 1-4pm, 1821 Sacramento St., San Francisco.

When Central Office First Opened

A February 1952 issue of A.A. Grapevine focusing on A.A. in San Francisco and Los Angeles describes problems at the Alano Club on Bush St. and that “strains had developed because of the uncomfortable overcrowding of A.A. meetings, drunks, panhandlers, wolves and Red Riding Hoods,” upsetting the meetings.

First Central Office and 1957 Meeting Schedule

Tempers flared and relationships became strained, but finally in January 1947, the first San Francisco Central Office was opened. Correspondence available in the GSO Archives indicates that the first Central Office Secretary (or manager) was a woman, Anne C., but by 1948, Bob G. had become the Secretary. There was a subsequent move to 406 Sutter St. in 1951, and three years later in 1954 to 166 Geary St. where the Central Office remained until 1981. 

The First Newsletter

The first local A.A. newsletter appears to have been created to coincide with Bill W.’s visit of March 1951, and the first issue appeared in January 1951 titled, You Name It. After consideration of various titles including Central Office Reporter, San Francisco A.A. Newsvine, Tangibles & Intangibles, Good News was decided upon for the publication. A.A. member, O.K. P., a career newspaperman, is credited with starting the paper. 

While the Good News has always been associated with the Northern California Council of Alcoholics Anonymous (NCCAA), and is still published by NCCAA, when the Good News started it was published monthly through the San Francisco Central Office and NCCAA used the Central Office as its mailing address. 

O.K. P., the first editor of the Good News, would later serve as Central Office manager and also as a delegate to the General Service Conference.

For many years, the Good News was the best source of local information on Alcoholics Anonymous and included updates on fellowship activities around Northern California from Monterey to Sacramento and Eureka. Still there was always news on the fellowship in San Francisco, including speaker line-ups for Central All-Groups which was a Friday 8:30pm meeting listed as open to the public and frequently included professionals from the community, including lawyers, judges, and doctors working with alcoholics in the community and A.A. members sharing their experience, strength and hope.

While the Good News is still produced, it has eventually come to focus more on the activities of NCCAA, and its three conferences per year throughout Northern California. Central Office developed a Secretary’s Newsletter in the 1960s focusing more specifically on activities concerning the Intergroup Fellowship.

Recollections of a Local Member

“My first memories of Central Office started in December 1968 with my first phone call, a very helpful volunteer tried to convince me to attend a meeting that evening. I declined and asked only for some literature, which arrived the next day! My first service commitment was Literature person which required a trip to Central Office at 166 Geary. What a great experience, a ride up to (I think the 6th floor) in an old-fashioned caged elevator, nervous if it would make it, but it was fun looking through the bars as we passed each floor.

I met all the office staff, Neva, Jen, Harriett, Kay and Paul G., Central Office Secretary. Paul was ever so gracious, invited me into his office, his door was always open to everyone. He was always dressed in a suit and his signature bow tie. I always looked forward to delivering the group contributions, having a chat with Paul and the staff. I would often drop in for a cup of coffee and a little arms-length A.A. fellowship. 

The Central Office later moved to 1046 Irving St. and that was a very nice office, spacious work area for the volunteers and a welcoming atmosphere. Chris W. was the front desk receptionist, Harry R. always sitting in one of the chairs in the reception area, lots of good A.A. Since I was working in the financial district, it was a little more difficult for drop in visits. Bill S. was now the Secretary, then it passed on to Erwin K. and the office moved to Oak and Fell, Market Street area. The eventual move to our present location on Sacramento St., where there is a great staff of volunteers, a renewed lease for the future!” — S.K. 

By Christine R.

For years I kept hidden the very topics we share daily.    A huge surprise to hear the men and women share their experience, strength, and hope on the topics I was sure “would go to the grave with me.” 

With the passing of time and “constant contact with others,” not only was I given answers to my inner dilemmas, I was also shown the way through example.  One such example came when I was newly sober – and not going to meetings.  

I was resentful at my homegroup.  I did not want to do the work.  I could not find a sponsor. (Yeah, right!)  Three years sober but not in recovery.  When one gets into this position, one cannot take a drink, but suicide sure seems like a step up.  Suicidal, resentful, and lonely.  That’s where I was on a Thursday night.

On this particular Thursday night, I was putting up glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.  For the placement of these stars, I had to turn the lights off and on.  Lights off to see the glowing stars.  Lights on to put them up on the ceiling. Alone in the dark.  Back and forth.  Lights on.  Lights off.  Lights on.  Lights off.  That’s how they found me.

The “They” in this case, was a handsome dentist and two attractive women who came knocking on my door at 9:15 p.m.  The Thursday Night Chip Meeting ended at 9:00 and my visitors came directly from that meeting.  Several people from my home group, worried about my state of mind, decided to mount up a posse.  The dentist I knew.  The two women he brought with him, I did not.  Eager to put on a good face (especially for the handsome doctor), I welcomed them in.

Within a very short period of time, the dentist left.  What?  He left me in the care of the two women. This was a guy who knew how to care for the woman in trouble.  He brought women to help.  A worker among workers. A woman among women.  I did not know how to be a woman among women.  But that night – I learned.

Never had I met these two women.  Yet, they let me drop my “face” and allow the tears to flow. Patiently, they heard my tales of death. My loneliness.  My isolation.  With chamomile tea and their attention, they formed a loving bridge to bring me back to humanity and, again, to a place in the world.  

These women tucked me into my bed. Like angels, they stayed on either side of me until I drifted off to sleep.  Before nodding off, they insisted I meet with them at the 7:00 a.m. Fairfax meeting the following morning.  At 6:30 in the morning, going against morning commuter traffic, a pain in the ass to drive, and I said, “Yes!”  I’d be there.  Who was I to say “no” having loved back to health by two strangers all night long?  

Sure enough.  They were there waiting in the doorway for me.  Later, we went to the  “Coffee Klatch.”  Aptly named for us A.A. folk who gathered immediately after the meeting.

You see, it’s the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting that encourages the growth and maintenance of the sisterhood/brotherhood I found that night and the following morning.  These women lead by example.  The dentist lead by example.  To this day, when I understand one of us is in trouble, thanks to the lessons from these three, I mount up a posse and head out to help.  If it’s a guy, I call a guy in the program.  Get him to make the calls.  If it’s a woman, I take another woman with me, and we show up.  

Many an AA has told the story of showing up unexpectedly and the amazing grace that occurs when they do.  By working the Steps, attending meetings on a daily basis and by sharing my experience, strength, and hope with another human being, I recall that night.  A night of being rescued from the flickering darkness into unimaginable Light. 

Entirely Ready

by Dee H

When I am a better person I won’t harm myself

Are you ready? I am entirely ready. 

Pride, anger, fear—feelings come up

Self righteousness, sloth, too lazy to clarify

Resentment kicks up the dirty dirt

Defects of character? Yes?

More gently put—homeostatic imbalance

Maudlin guilt is exhausting when you’re sober

Let us change our uncomfortable story 

This too shall pass my dear

A vicious cycle, this wallowing in self-pity

How dare you remove my endearing characteristics! 

Does anyone love me because I am a perfect person? 

You love me in spite of things, don’t you?

Watch me manipulate my way to God

This is a learning disability

Delay is dangerous—perhaps fatal

My body likes what it likes

I now relinquish the need to harm myself

Everything is God’s

I am part of the greater reality

Everything and almost nothing

A tiny dot in the macrocosm

I need not fear loss nor trespass

I belong to God

(I need objective correlatives)

Would my life be easy if I were perfect?

In my disease I am right you are wrong

The tall Redwoods in my yard are beautiful in their imperfection

Not every brown pine cone sprouts seeds

But the trees’ faults will not kill them

They bend toward the light

It is not I who removes my defects

God shows me what they are and removes them 

Recovery is an education—a blueprint to remove suffering 

Quicker amidst this Group Of Drunks

Thanks to my fellow travelers

Our goal is enjoyment in service

I write to experience God’s mercy

It’s a privilege to have this time

Delay is dangerous—perhaps fatal

Would you like to help me write a poem? 

Share your story with me!

What was it like? What happened?

We can shift how we hold things

Just Another Friday

By John W

Only a fool would play with all chambers full

The brutal truth, they would do so only once.

So too the bottle for those enslaved by its pull,

Handcuffed in mind, donning hat of spiritual dunce.

Odd indeed it is that disguised as life,

To us comes the answer to our dilemma.

While spinning the chamber may end the strife,

There is instead a solution to our mania.

The immediate, yet penultimate task to achieve,

To put the plug in the jug, forego gat with chambers full.

With only death for failure, ourselves we could not deceive

So it was the decision after the admission or else the trigger pull.

At this game of Russian Roulette we no longer played,

We had found the heralded solution and with it we stayed.

What More Could a Person Want

By Rick R.

In my early days of sobriety, I was hearing a lot of words that were unfamiliar to me and I did not pay much attention to them at the time, since I had bigger fish to fry. I had a drinking problem and everything else took a back seat to that. I was overwhelmed by marital, legal and economic problems. Words like love, patience, spirituality and forgiveness were foreign to me and I did not see how they mattered when all I wanted to do was quit drinking. I stayed close to that group, and they started calling me the fortunate one. At the age of 28, I was the youngest one in that group. The rest of members in the group were over 40 and it stayed that way for quite a while as drug problems had not evolved enough at the time (1969) to affect the influx of younger members. I felt like the elders of that group took a special interest in me and that endeared me to them in a special way.

I was always listening for the magic word that would inspire me and give me a purpose in life and one day it happened. Tears come to my eyes when I recall the memory of the gentle voice of an old farmer named Harlan. As he talked about all the trials and tribulations in the past that he had endured, he explained how he had stumbled into A.A. and that all the answers were there, but he did not understand it until he had a goal to reach for. The next words that came out of his mouth changed my life forever. He said, “All I want from life is peace of mind and a quiet heart.” The next thought that came to me was, what more could a person want? To this day, I still quote Harlan and credit him with the inspiration. He passed away in 2007 being sober 51 years.

I have been through the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions many times and have made a slow but very purposeful attempt to rid my mind of all the tormenting memories and regrets of the past, and as I processed each one of them, the more I realize that peace of mind is the natural result 0f living by these principals. Clearing the wreckage of the past and changing those behaviors that caused it, and practicing unselfish behaviors with the help of seasoned veterans like Harlan, I move closer and closer to the promise: “We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.”

My books are marked and highlighted over the years as I evolved through the Step study meetings or checked out the references to the Big Book in Daily Reflections. Recently I have been focusing on the word peace and underlining it. It is amazing how often it is linked to other words that seem to get more attention. Peace of mind encompasses the spirit of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous and I will be forever grateful that God saw fit to lead me to this wonderful program. Harlan, rest in peace and thank you for the inspiration.

Getting Old While Sober

By Lizzie R.

This afternoon, I found myself sinking into one of those dark icky funks.  No reason, no particular cause—just a malaise that caught hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I’d been noticing all the ways I am getting old and feeling totally wretched.  I was Miss Cranky-Pants, judging just about everything and everybody—even the cat. I couldn’t remember one darn thing to drag my sorry ass out of it.  I forgot every slogan, tool and prayer—even the simplest one, “Help!”  Didn’t think to pick up the 300-lb. telephone where I have some terrific people on speed-dial.  No, I was just wallowing in this muck.  My one creative idea was chocolate.

I walked uptown and bought three Justin’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups and a box of Haagen-Dasz coffee almond toffee crunch bars (the equivalent of about six vodka tonics) and hurried home to get my chocolate fix.  When I came in the door, I saw it was 6:05 p.m. and remembered it’s Saturday night, time for the women’s meeting.  So, thank God, I jumped on Zoom and saw the beautiful faces of 10 women! I felt immediate relief but still thought I’ll just listen. What do I have to offer?  Nothing.  

Then the secretary said it was a discussion meeting and asked who wanted to propose a topic.  We all sat in silence for a bit. I knew I had nothing positive to suggest.  But I opened my mouth and just said, “I am having a horrible time with getting old.  And I don’t know what to do.  I need what you have.” 

And then the magic started happening. (You know how that is!)  Women just started talking about where they are.  One woman had just had a booster shot and felt drained and low, but here she was, in the meeting.  Someone else talked about taking care of her father who has dementia and what she does to help him.  One woman said she was only 43 and not qualified to talk about old age, but described how she’s coping with physical losses: Shee has only two years of sobriety but is on Step 12 and it helps a lot.  Another reminded us about the 1-2-3 waltz and I secretly thought, “Oh yeah.  I forgot that.”  

Another old friend harkened back to when she had a brain disease 17 years ago (in sobriety) when she was only in her 50s and thought this is the end of life.  And after three surgeries it was gone, and she’s gone on to have a wonderful life.  She talked about how ever since then, she’s been grateful every day for everything.  One of our members has had to move to another state and is grateful for Zoom so she’s still a member of these local meetings which were with her when she first got sober.  One woman said something about living alone when you’re old and how younger people show up and offer help.  And she’s getting over feeling insulted about that!  

Every single share picked up my spirits and I remembered why I love meetings so much.  Especially this women’s meeting which has sustained me and my sobriety for over 26 years.  I do know to pick up the Big Book, to say the Serenity Prayer, Third Step Prayer and Seventh Step Prayer, to call someone and ask them how they’re doing.  But meetings?  Meetings are for me, the best thing of all.  I always get answers from my HP in the voices of other recovering alcoholics.  Always. From day one to this very day! 

I’m telling you, I do not feel old now, two hours later!  I mean, that’s nonsense, of course.  I’m still old.  But my whole attitude is entirely transformed!  My oldness is no longer a source of pain or dread or self-loathing.  I am restored to a place of acceptance.  Gratitude.  Connection.  Community.  I am restored to peace and the real joys sobriety—of growing old while sober.  

At the end of the meeting I raised my hand again and thanked everyone for the incredible gift of their shares. I told them I felt the love in the room.  This getting sober and living a sober life—in community—is all about love. Tonight I learned that really all that was going on with me earlier was a bout of loneliness which morphed into self-criticism.  Chocolate wasn’t the answer.  Being a member of my beloved A.A. community is.  It is indeed all about love.  I am a sober alcoholic who is loving and loved.  Thank you, God.  

Now I think I’ll have one of my ice cream bars. 

A Step One Poem

By Dee H.

Powerless without my stinking thinking

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

God wants me to stop drinking

Concretely and abstractly

My Father Mother God loves me

I align my will with God’s—I am free

I am creative, spiritually toiled

I’m an individual—a moral savage

In the flow of all that’s good in the world

One with the power of the universe

  and no longer ravaged

Powerless but feeling more powerful

Sick and tired of ugly hang overs 

In sobriety, I’m a peaceful gal 

There’s nothing to question anymore

God wants me to be a sober female

Liver disease and penniless insanity 

Await me If I take another drink 

I will die—demoralized and pitied

Everything gone down the sink

From a woman who’s no longer pretty

Yellow eyes, inflated belly, yet boney

Paranoid—nothing makes sense

Recklessly spending money

Staggering, reckless and feckless

Honestly—no good to anyone  

I’m powerless yet more powerful

Free to live and love my loved ones

No debt to that resentful creditor

Alcohol has no power over some

Today I live in gratitude and rapture

I don’t need alcohol—it’s too wild

Can’t have it. Allergic!

Nothing left to solve

Grateful for sobriety 

   and my sponsor, Theresa

For we are girls gone mild

Our Group Conscience, Our Higher Power

By Jamie M.

In the early days of A.A. we had some great support from various professional practitioners including, at least indirectly, Carl Jung. The quote from Herbert Spencer about “contempt prior to investigation” has been helpful to many. I would like to add another 19th century scientist to the forbears of A.A.—Sir Francis Galton. Here’s why: he was perhaps the first scientist to discover the wisdom of the group. In a famous natural experiment he took data from a contest to guess the weight of a prize bullock and averaged all of them. The animal weighed close to 1,900 pounds. The average of all the guesses was within about one pound of the actual number! Various experimenters have done much the same thing using a jar full of jelly beans or marbles and collecting guesses about how many are in the jar. It works! The wisdom of the group is a scientifically observed and real thing. 

To me, this validates the idea that when we actually form a group conscience we are as much discovering something as we are creating something. Our group has a conscience, and we are articulating it when we form a group conscience through education, discussion, listening to each other, understanding both majority as well as minority opinion, and putting it into a form that can be communicated to each other and where applicable and necessary, to other groups or A.A. as a whole. It’s obviously more complicated than just getting a number as shown in the examples given, but to me it’s still a thing. And there’s a key thought that, for me, applies: In the example, some people’s guesses were way off—but all guesses count toward the final result. How many times have we been in a business meeting and someone had input that seemed tangential? Yet our commitment to A.A. unity means that we don’t have the dubious luxury of disregarding a person whose input isn’t comfortable or convenient. Whenever anyone participates in good faith, we are all part of the group and part of the group conscience. 

Another point that I think about when I reflect on the wisdom of the group is the common idea that a person who rejects theologically based concepts of a higher power may use the group as their higher power. No need for capital letters, reference to holy books, etc. The group definitely has greater wisdom than the individual. The group is not a substitute for “the real thing.” As with other spiritual concepts in the program, accepting one version doesn’t mean rejecting another. It’s a both/and view, not an either/or view. An early Christian writer once portrayed our existence as each person being like the spoke of a wheel, with the center of the wheel being God. Because all the spokes converge at the center, anything that brings us closer to each other takes us toward the center of the wheel. So whether we are atheist, agnostic, monotheist, or other, we still have a standard that works. Whatever brings us more into harmony and closeness with each other is what works. When we work in the context that “love and tolerance is our code,” whenever we participate with love and service to carry a message of hope and recovery to anyone who wants it, we’re on the right path.

Step Five Rewards

By Bob S.

My Fourth Step inventory focused the light of truth onto unrealized driving forces of selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. It also provided certain necessary tools to face and be rid of these newly discovered grosser handicaps (a great reward!) but still, countless other destructive little demons of the grosser variety lurked in some dark dank space deep inside. They freely frolicked in this invisible environment, happily protected from the sunlight of the spirit. It was as though they were protected under a very opaque umbrella, weaved with the fabric of the Twelve Steps: The grosser handicaps of selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear.

My sponsor informed me that Step Five was to include a detailed revelation of these grosser defects of character and shortcomings. Those little demons and devils of conceit, jealousy, carelessness, intolerance, ill temper and all the rest were about to be exposed—not only to my sponsor, but to God! Although my sponsor had not the power to close that umbrella, the Big Book tells me that God could and would if he were sought! (Those little fiends must have been trembling down there!). The sunlight of the spirit was about to shine on those little demons, for they cannot survive in the sunlight of God’s truth! 

The Fifth Step promises on page 75 tell us that we now begin to have a spiritual experience. Well, the realization that God is soon to remove the very things that blocked us from seeing and acting on the truth in drink indeed speaks to a radical inner transformation! I believe the main goal of this vital step is to allow us (me) to realize exactly what dominant inner forces have blocked the truth in drink. Only then will I know exactly what imperfections to ask God to remove in Steps Six and Seven. 

It was very important that I acted before my mind decided to remember only what it wanted to remember. I believe that the Big Book timetable is very important here! We are told to do Step Four “at once,” Step Five at “first opportunity,” review for a short period and then” (not later) do Step Six, go right into Step Seven “when ready.” Steps Five, Six and Seven are often referred to as the “same day steps.” 

Although I am still plagued by past guilt, I have the above tools to find relief by simply living in the spirit of Step Ten. When attacked, I ask God for help at once and discuss with others (maybe at my next A.A. meeting). I try to think of what I can do to help other alcoholics and to be a better person. This gets me—as Bill Wilson’s Oxford Group Sponsor, Sam Shoemaker, stated: “Out of self. Into God. Into others.” This sometimes immediately relieves me from the bondage of self and the demons subside their torment. 

Of course, Step Eleven helps as well. Before going to bed I often review whether I have been resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid. If so, I ask for God’s forgiveness. I believe that self cannot relieve self of self with self. The same goes throughout the day when experiencing a guilt attack. 

I believe that going to meetings on a regular basis prevents irrational guilt from appearing on the radar screen. I need to remain in fit spiritual condition! 

I am very happy that my sponsor, Carl, helped me close that umbrella via the Big Book directions. I haven’t taken a drink since joining A.A.—thank you, God!