The Sudden Growth In Cleveland

“​When Cleveland members separated from the Oxford Group (and Akron, OH meetings), they adopted a very rigorous pre screening procedure for prospects. Today, some AA members would consider it to be in direct opposition to the spirit and letter of AA’s Tradition Three. Others might interpret it as a rather rigorous set of beginners meetings separate from regular meetings. Akron and Cleveland members worked very hard with these prospects. It should also be noted that the early AA membership population primarily consisted of alcoholics that were considered hopeless and beyond any help.

In “Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers” one of the Cleveland successes states: After Clarence talked to me at my home, others would come over and talk to me. They wouldn’t let you in a meeting just by one guy talking to you, as they do now. They felt you should know something about what you were going to hear and the purpose of the program. Then Clarence made me go to the home of one of the newer members every night for 3 months, and they had 9 or 10 people talking to me. Then I had to read the Big Book before I went to my first meeting. As a result, I think I had a better understanding of what they were trying to do.” The following are additional excerpts from Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers” that condition the context of a claimed “93%” success rate for the Cleveland, OH groups. It would likely be better qualified as Cleveland achieving a 93% success rate among prescreened prospects that were already demonstrated to be successful. Meetings in Cleveland evolved somewhat differently from those in Akron. “We opened with an audible prayer,” said Clarence S. “The speaker, who was chosen four weeks in advance, spoke for 45 minutes, and we closed with the Lord’s Prayer. Then, we would reopen for informal comments, questions, and so forth. The total meeting might go on anywhere from one and a half to two hours. No smoking was allowed in the first part of the meeting, only in the informal part.” “That’s the trouble,” Clarence said. “They take it so casually today, I think a little discipline is necessary. I think AA was more effective in those days. Records in Cleveland show that 93 percent of those who came to us never had a drink again. When I discovered that people had slips in AA, it really shook me up. Today it’s all watered down so much. Anyone can wander in now.” Cleveland’s rigorous prescreening of prospects is also described in “Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers.” It does not appear to be a practice that was done for any negative or harsh reasons, but for practical reasons. A possible intent behind the prescreening of a very difficult and challenging population of chronic alcoholics was that the early membership base could serve as a dependable and living example that the AA recovery program worked. The active or even recently active alcoholic was definitely not welcome at early meetings in Cleveland. In September 1940, Clarence wrote Bill that “several groups do not permit a rummy to attend unless he has been hospitalized or talked to by ten men.” Clarence noted that they then had a “definite setup” with three hospitals and two sanitariums, and that there were ten to 15 hospitalized at all times. By January 1941, requirements had eased up –

slightly. Clarence wrote that “most groups” required either hospitalization, being talked to by a least five members, or being passed by a committee before a new person could attend meetings. In Youngstown, it was usual for two couples to visit the prospective member before he attended his first meeting. The husband would tell the man about AA, and the woman would talk to the wife. “That way, they would know what it was all about when they finally got to AA” said Norman V. “Various groups have various distinctions” Clarence wrote. “But the general idea is to try and prepare a fellow and give him a pretty good understanding of the aims and principles of AA before he comes to meetings. This eliminates much of the nuisance of entertaining boys under the influence at our meetings.” The prospect had to demonstrate the ability to abstain from alcohol for up to 3 months prior to being allowed to attend a meeting.. This type of prescreening restriction excluded those who could not stay sober from being factored into Cleveland’s reported “93%” success rate. A similar reference can be found in the book “Slaying the Dragon.” As AA completed its developmental separation from the Oxford Group and moved toward publication of the Big Book, other significant but less observable milestones occurred. Rules evolved (rules that were later relaxed) governing when a potential member, known variably as a “prospect,” “baby,” “pigeon,” “fish,” or “suspect,” could first attend a meeting. Several Cleveland groups, for example, would not allow any prospective member to attend a meeting until he had either been detoxified in a hospital or talked to by ten members. A Denver Group would not allow prospects to attend meetings until they had taken the Steps. The Cleveland area groups essentially “cherry picked” prospects who had already previously achieved recovery and demonstrated the ability to stay sober. They effectively went through a probationary or introductory period before being allowed to attend Cleveland meetings. Under the circumstances, portraying the Cleveland practices as achieving a “93%” success rate is tantamount to claiming a 93% success rate among prescreened prospects that were already demonstrated to be 100% successful for up to 3 months before they attended their first meeting. Without an indication of the number of prescreened “unsuccessful” alcoholics who were not allowed to attend Cleveland meetings, the reputed “93%” success rate is so dominantly biased to a demonstrated favorable subset of the prospect population as to be a dubious claim at best. Bill W had solid reasons for being selective in which prospects to approach, especially in getting a new group going. It was not to “get the numbers up.” He saw it as essential to the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. In a 1939 letter to Earl T, a member who was trying to start AA in Chicago, Bill advised: It is usually a big job, in fact a hell of a job, to get a group functioning in a new locality, but once you have eight or ten really on the ball, things go faster and much easier. Our experience shows that we cannot in the beginning walk into public hospitals or snatch lushers off the street willy-nilly and have much but a headache. It is very easy in this way to attract a big fellowship of panhandlers and mentally defective people. Surely, they are all as important in God’s sight as any of the rest of us. They have

just had a tougher break, and we are finding that later on, when a group gets size and power, quite a number of such individuals can be assimilated, and those who can’t, or won’t, fall away quickly; but if you get too many of them in the beginning, you are likely to find that your home becomes a drinking club, a hospital, a bank, or a nursery.”