What We Were Like

Most AA members in these parts know the story of Pat C., the drunken newspaperman who borrowed the Big Book from the Minneapolis Library, read it, and wrote to the Alcoholic Foundation [forerunner of the General Service Office] asking for help on August 9, 1940. The Alcoholic Foundation replied to Pat and sent his name on to the Chicago Group. Two members of that group came to see Pat in November of 1940. Pat took his last drink on November 11, 1940, and began working with others, and the first AA meeting in Minneapolis occurred shortly afterward. That is the history and the founding that we hear about most in the Twin Cities, and many AA groups all over the state can trace their beginnings back to Pat C. and 2218 First Avenue South, the first (and still operating) Alano Society in this part of the country.