AA Inside Hospital Walls

FROM A MEMORABLE MEETING IN 1934 of a doctor, a patient, a sympathetic hospital administrator and a visitor bringing a message of recovery, the first hospital group--hospital patients who meet as an AA group within hospital walls--could be said to have taken its form. Later on in 1935 a hospital again played a vital part in bringing about the further growth and development of AA. These two hospitals were, of course, Towns Hospital in New York City, where Bill was given the encouragement he needed by his visitor, Ebby, and by Dr. Silkworth--and St. Thomas' Hospital in Akron, Ohio, where Doctor Bob and Bill found the "man on the bed" who was to become AA's third member.