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First half, this speaker tape has lots of AA myth, hearsay and apocryphal or 2nd-hand ‘stories’ which are false or unreliable, but there is some firsthand AA history starting about 26:00.
In 1940, Clifford & Dorothy Walker (both born 1909) were both 31yo and parents of two infant boys/ Married in 1934/5? They lived at 320 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, Los Angeles.
The factual history about SoCal Los Angeles AA begins about 30:00. Morton Joseph (?) a stockbroker from Denver – who was treated repeatedly at the ‘Jaywalker’s Clinic’ (**in 1936/7, the owner of the Mt. Airie Sanitarium had employed the same ghostwriter mentioned in the AA Prospectus, J.Wainwright Evans. Mort got his own copy of Big Red from Dr. Chas. Sidney Bluemel, who had also employed Wainwright Evans to write his book. AA archival evidence from 1939/40 proves that Bill W. promoted this particular hospital with AA pamphlets.**) – got sober alone in a Palm Springs hotel room, in November 1939.
In LA, Mort approached Clifford through a non-alcoholic woman Kaye ___ (who had tried unsuccessfully to start an AA group in LA throughout 1939) and they started meetings. Neither worked the Steps formally with another AA or Sponsor.
It’s unclear when they did so, or when Step Sponsorship was first practiced in LA; we may guess sometime around 1944 (when different groups’ pamphlets started circulating.) In the early phase, a ‘Sponsor’ was merely someone who brought you to your first meeting, or carried the recovery message if you stayed sober. Early LA AA was not successful, according to this Speaker, a founder, until late 1941.
Step Sponsorship appears to have begun in Cleveland in 1941/2 (pamphlet delayed until 1945) but Akron’s ‘Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous’ dates to 1943. Its unclear exactly when ‘Step Sponsorship’ became popular on the West Coast, from this talk.