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Women in AA in the 1950s

Remembering what it was like to get sober as a woman in the early days of AA in the Twin Cities

"One day in 1956 a new woman, Kathy B., came to my Robbinsdale group."

My name is Betty H., and I'm an alcoholic. In 1953 I got sober. I'm not sure what led me to sobriety—a three-day binge, my husband's threats to haul me to the state hospital, or suddenly being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Perhaps it was all of the above. I was in my mid-twenties but had already had a long history with alcoholism.

When I was a tot, my family, who were no strangers to drinking, thought it amusing to let me drink from their glasses to the point that I would get a buzz on. My mother found me in the pantry at about age two, drinking from my father's 'dead... Login to read more
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