A Coffeepot and a Resentment

Johnny P. from Chicago brought the AA message to Kansas City, Missouri, in early April 1941. He had lived on skid row and tried to kill himself three times before he had stumbled into the Chicago Group the previous summer. Now, with nine months of sobriety under his belt and a job as a candy salesman, he was doing so well that his company was about to transfer him to a new territory. He knew his life depended on finding some drunks to talk to, so he wrote the New York office asking for any information they had on AA groups in Missouri.