ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

"People, people everywhere, and not a drop to drink!" commented Trish from Florida. "It was too great for words." It was AA's 55th Anniversary International Convention in Seattle, Washington, our largest-ever birthday party, and as international a gathering as anyone could imagine. AAs, Al-Anons and Alateens from 75 countries virtually took over the city, to celebrate the Fellowship's 55th birthday. And celebrate they did, from July 5 to 8, 1990--crowding into the meeting rooms and sprawling on the lawns at Seattle Center, filling the Kingdome with applause and laughter and the silence of total identification, traveling back and forth by foot and monorail and shuttle bus, going to the top of the Space Needle and Mount Rainier, strolling on the waterfront and in Pike Place Market. In hotels and motels and dormitories all over the city and its outlying areas, somewhere between 47,000 and 48,000 sober drunks and their families and guests gathered for a long weekend: happy, joyous, and free.