Io nli ilBnlia ll UNCENSOR,ED AND R,ECORD Sept. 25S

Bosebqll’s Best-KePt Secret : whot Broke Up Billy Eckstine.Denise Dqrcel R.omonce? Why Ted Willicrms ls s Loner

Koo 1$9-,..11

l’ii’ EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS! ,:ri*,,.

l{aur Rito Hovworlh’s

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS trlo Booze But Plenty of Buhes {t-:\q–.-+!i.F-s;lB

Sorne A A’s go to meetings to hear horv to stay dry. The others r well, manlr have discovered their club is a faster spot for a pick-up than the best saloon in torvnl

.{N OZABKS MOUNTAINS BOY who had a hankering to wrile b€fore he’ever saw,a typewriter, Homer H. Shsnnon graduated from the Univereity of Miseouri and set out on a newspapering, free-lance writillg csreer inter- ‘wars. Like nrany another excellent rupted only by service in both world b.fo”. apd after him, Shannon hae occasionally looked at life too “”.ib” from the bottorn of a highball elas” and reeently e3ve AA a hearrily whirl, as a corrective measure. His disillusiorrment is told with rf,r-v (or rye) humor in this penetrating report.

Bv HOMER H. SHANNON That’s regulation. It affords a greater variety of horror stories than if you stuck to home base. At every meeting three or four speakese-mgtg and female-tell in sordid HE TWENTiETH ANNIVERSARY r-rf the found- detail how lo* they had sunk while clutching the bottle ing of Alcoholics Anonymous most remarkable and how high they’ve climbed since they relaxed their grip hoax of this generation-will-be celebrated next on the foul-smelling thing. December. Tens of thousands of cups of eoffee will be By visiting various g:l’oups’ you not only get to hear downed by the membership of this noble order of some- morr. and better stories, you also meet more atrd sometime drunks in honor of the event. And, no doubt, a con- iimes tetter people of both sexes.. If you are a man, it’s siderable number of the brothers and sisters will be so especialty nice to meet more and better people of !I” inspired by the historic occasion that thel”ll take off on female sex, since your wife probably isn’t a member of AA’ a prolonged bender. My home group was in Brookiyn, a few blocks from The AA hoax not oniy has proved its durability, but it where I live. Naitrally, I know that gang a lot better is especially notable for the aura of sanctity it has than the others. Thechapter boasts a club house over a assumed in the minds of do-gooders and otherwise level- garage-open every evening, plus afternoons on saturday headed citizens who have swallowed-with or without ira Bunaiy. At one end of the long room is aa “bar” chaser-its brand of fairy tale. These inclqde ministers *ir””” you can buy a good cup of coffee for dime’ of the gospel, social workers, municipal judges, personnel Heavy drinkers are given to plenty of coffee when they executives of great industrial enterprises and even a scat- are off the hard stuff, in or out of AA. There are eomtering of medical and scientiflc gents who know the bottle iort”Ut” chairs and divans scattered about’ Also, old a radio, which is rarely turned babies only by reputation. -ug;rin”*’und books’ Evenup eonversation which, next to on f,ecause it would mess Love lo Be Humbugged – by o Pious Frqud romance, is the main business of the plaee’ Such good souls love to be humbugged-as long as it’s [Jo close to the cofiee bar are a couple of tables which a good, clean, pious fraud. They’d probably be horrified ,^,” ttl-overs’ Nook.” Romance was dt over the place, to know that many an AA still drops around to the club “l[.d but that was whete it really got organized. At ten cents e house for the sole purpose of picking up a date, rather in v* could buy &ink lfter drink and not be hurt than to bolster his new-found and oh-so-temPorary enmity too”* badly. towards John Badeycorn. It’s true, though. f can give you some proof in my own experiences and a whole lot more Lody lushes Moy Get Exlro’speciol Treotmenl from what other AA’s have told me. It must have gotten around the neighborhood that our But we’ll get into that later. First, let’s take a look at romance corner was pretty good. A middle-aged Sall AA’s proud claim that it has accumulated a membership slightly off her socker, began occupying a chair there of 150,000 around the world. At least that’s the figure evJry evening for several weeks. She had plenty of comput out by the zealous boys who run the show. No one pany until a male regular she had turned down got has ever seen the membership books because there iust around to asking her if she were an alky. Slr’e didn’t quite aren’t any. It’s Alcoholics Anonymous, remember. understand the si8:nificance of the question but pleaded But even if there are 150,000 who stay sober long not guilty. In a firm sort of way she was invited not to enough to be called members, it’s scarcely a drop in the come back. family beer bucket. In this country alone there are about Genuine lady lushds get all the loving treatment 4,000,000 alcoholics, periodics and problem drinkers. accorded the males, however, and sometimes extra-special They are all fit subjeets for AA, even though a real AA care if they’re goodlooking. Until reeent years, it was makes it important that, he is an alcoh.olie , not a namby- commonly believed among non-members that AA was pamby second or third-grade addict. strictly for the boys and the general public still has a ‘ The AA version of the lonE series of cults dedicated to childish opinion that the only females who ever join a the salvation of over-eager tipplers was the brain-child swearing-off society are wrinkled old trollops who spent ,’: of a fellow named Bill Wilson. It isn’t quite cricket to their youth in second-rate brothels. use last names of alkys who affiliate. But Bill has been I wish dl those who have fallen for ihis idea could ,-:.:: making speeches around the country for so many years, attend one of the many big parties tossed by the Marrhat’ it can’t be much of a secret his last name is Wilson. I met ‘: -“‘idt branch of’ AA-. The fitst time I trent,York’e tan-[,Jptown With that exception, I’ll play the game aeeording to rule *” who had been in tfie chorus of New ‘ ” ‘

and won’t mention out loud the names of any other mem- iriJ C”p”cabana line only the year before. -Later-that “-” ‘==’. bers I know. From here on it’s Bill and Jane and Harr], r”-.-.”.ii”g, f was introiuced io a pair of top’fight and Lucy. -“aa” *a;; beautiful faces had go.id the covers of “‘, Vhile I was a member, I toured meetings of half a’dozen leadinc –Th;;” fashion masazines. “250 persons at (Contfurued’ on page 54) ‘ gt’oups scattered about the variow boroughs of New York. w;;e some -=

the parff and the men outnumbered can find yourselves, much less the obeyg6 the rules to the letter. She had the gfrls slightly-a raltio of three- black-coffeeclub where you met. I a buddy-Sue and nita were ttreir to-two, I’d say-but there was plenty slipped off the wagon hard a couple names-in the Downtown_Manhattan of femininity there, much of it under of times before f learned not to toast brg.nef1. If-either got aa emergency 30, and many of the samples would a new romance with anything call, they’d team up on the have had to be.very pof,ted, indeed, stronger than 7-Up. I’hey,didn’t exacfly save many”Es”u”. guys, for the average man to pass up. In its most insidious form, this Dut they sure had a hell of a good One thing encograging about a fe- danger looms when you’re “twelfth- time and answered more alarms lhan male AA is that it doesn’t take much stepping a brother or sister AA,” as a Bellevue Hospital ambulanee. coaxing to make a date and then get the members call it. The “twelfth I’T g”a a member of AA .rny more even better acquainted. step” of the AA credo is: aad f don’t drink. Sometim* ii, h”J Maybe they figure that after seeing “Having had a spiritual awakening for me to decide which I so many spotted snakes and pink.ele- as the result of previous steps, we -;rr–“st: those binges before I joined or all phants they have nothing left to fear. try to carry the message to alcoholics those cozy evenings afteiwards. Donrt and to practise these principles in all get Ee wrong, though. Therets a fair Have to ktch lody AA’s our affairs.” sprinkliag of refoimed souses who AA’s are like call girls in ocre way. fn ot&er words, when the phone Ae soon as two get together, one or fings 66d an alky needs a h”lpi”g Tanage to stay dry for years, orce they make contacr with AA. Of the other always acks, “Ffow did you hand to get him out of the gutter, ids course, I’ve always suspected they just ever get intq this racket?” Swapping yout duty to report to t{re scene of got tited yarns with teformed binge babies. I the accident and lend as much moral 9f fa[ing down subwayitl”i”. and, maybe, sick and tired of waking digcovered there’s a deep matetnal in. support :rs you can muster. All too up_ every morning sic& and tireil. stinct in a female AA. If you sa), you often, if you answer the fue bett for .

were led dorvu the primrose path by another man, it meatrs tso gays gel I djd. Anybody want a cup of coffee? a heartless da-e who’s still lapping it druah lnstad of one. l.^,^. up aad still torturing other men, Gols Sure Hod q Good Time you’ve got your oew Bweeth€art hool(ed. Girls who fall off the AA wagon Maybe it makeo her mad to aren’t supposed to call gentler4en think of some other gal who can AA’s, nor are they supposed to go,to down a Martini witfiout climbing tight the aid of a plastered renegade, uninto dre botde; I don’t know. less they’re accompanied by another You have to watch them, though. woman. I know hundreds of cases The minute they feel they’re in love, where it didn’t work that way in they get a deadly urge to celebrate. actual practice, though I can tell of First thing you lnow, neither of you one case where a fun-loving blonde

Typicol of AA clubro,omr ocrosr nolion is fiis Brooklyn ooris where sulhor Shonnon.drled oui. ln bockground, cofiee bor ond “lovsrs’ nookr.”