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Illustration · A railroad signal beyond the end of a Chicago station platform in 1945, its arm raised and its lamp showing green, as in Joe C.’s letter to the Grapevine; the evening light is the drawing’s own. Not drawn from a photograph.

Atlanta, Chicago and Sydney · 1945–1953

Not conscious of ever having had one

In AA’s new magazine, members told of the change in them, and few could say when it had come.

“Very few of us know the exact hour and date we had our spiritual experience…”

T.B. of Atlanta, in an editorial on Step Twelve · AA Grapevine, October 1945

Somewhere along the line

AA’s monthly magazine, the Grapevine, had been coming out in New York since June 1944. From that November its editorial took the Steps one a month, and in October 1945 it reached Step Twelve. The member who wrote it, T.B. of Atlanta, quoted the Step with its old phrase, “Having had a spiritual experience…,” more than four years after the book had changed it (The educational variety tells the change).

Very few members, he wrote, could name the hour and date of theirs, and some weren’t aware of having had one at all. The proof was the change in them: “something” had happened “somewhere along the line,” as anyone who had known them before could tell.

Members wrote and spoke about their own. Of the eight in How they knew, below, two point to a moment, and neither tells of a vision. The others describe what it did, or tell newcomers it will come.

In 1953 AA published Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W.’s essays on each Step and Tradition, written in 1951 and 1952. Early in his chapter on Step Twelve he takes up the question new members ask: “What do you mean when you talk about a ‘spiritual awakening’?” Its most important meaning, he answers, is that a person “has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone.” It comes as a free gift, though usually the member has done something to be ready for it. And from many such cases, he wrote, members could predict that the doubter who said he hadn’t got the “spiritual angle” would “presently love God and call Him by name.”

Listen Not conscious of ever having had one About 1 minute

In their own words

How they knew

Eight members in the Grapevine between 1945 and 1948, in the order they were printed, and what each says about when the change came.

From the Grapevine’s online archive and the scanned issues at silkworth.net. Members are named by the initials or names the magazine printed. The labels are this site’s reading of each line. Quotations are short excerpts.

  1. AtlantaOct 1945

    “…some of us are not conscious of ever having had one at all.”

    T.B., in the editorial “On the 12th Step”

    Can’t say when

  2. St. PaulDec 1945

    A sudden conversion, or “…the more common result of the cumulative effects…” of working the program.

    L.S.L., on what the St. Paul Group’s discussions taught newcomers about Step Twelve (Four nights, in Suggestions Only, tells the classes)

    Either way

  3. ChicagoNov 1946

    “…I certainly list it as a great Spiritual experience.”

    Joe C., of a moment beside a railroad track in his first week in AA

    At a moment

  4. IndianapolisNov 1946

    “Don’t rush the spiritual factor.”

    R.P.C., in “Patience With the Spiritual Factor”

    Slowly

  5. Linda Vista, Calif.Nov 1946

    “…he, too, can someday, if not at once, have his spiritual experience.”

    J.F.H., on what Step Twelve promises a new member

    Still to come

  6. Manly, N.S.W.Mar 1948

    “Sometimes I actually feel that power go through me to a prospect.”

    K.G., of AA’s young movement in Sydney, on helping a newcomer

    In the work

  7. WashingtonMay 1948

    When she asked for help not to take a drink, “…something seemed to flow through me, and I think that was a spiritual experience.”

    Katherine L., at a forum reported by the city’s newspapermen’s group

    At a moment

  8. At seaNov 1948

    “Ever since I had my spiritual experience, the question of drinking hasn’t bothered me.”

    A tanker captain the magazine left unsigned, whom AA came to know as Captain Jack S., in a letter from his ship that March (A loner at sea, in Jittery and Alone)

    Doesn’t say when

Something happened

Two of the eight point to a moment, and neither tells of a vision: one watched a railroad signal turn green, the other asked for help not to drink. The others describe what it did, or tell newcomers it will come.

For a closer look

Go deeper

The rest of Joe C.’s green light, who notices first, and a member’s advice not to hurry.

One green light

Joe C. came to AA in Chicago in 1945, sure he wouldn’t last more than a few days. He could see how the First Step fitted him, he wrote, but he wanted sobriety for good, not “on the installment plan,” and couldn’t see how twenty-four hours at a time could work for him. Before he had been in the group a week, he saw friends off on a streamliner bound for Los Angeles, then wandered down the track toward the engine. A signal’s arm moved and a green light came on, and the train pulled out.

The engineer, he realized, was starting a trip of 2,300 miles with only one green light in sight. So would he: each morning, asking God, he would get a green light for the day. An amber light meant slow down and ask for more help, and a red one meant stop. When he wrote, sixteen months later, he had passed his 497th signal.

Those who knew us when

AA’s writing kept coming back to the idea that other people see the change first. The appendix added to the Big Book in 1941 put it this way: “Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself.”

T.B. leaned on the same witnesses in 1945. Twelve years after the appendix, the Twelve and Twelve said the members did the seeing: “Looking at those who were only beginning and still doubted themselves, the rest of us were able to see the change setting in.”

Don’t rush it

R.P.C. of Indianapolis had watched AA for more than two years when he wrote in 1946. Newcomers, he thought, were wary of what many called the “religious” phase of the program, perhaps after pleas from their families or a clergyman’s exhortations. He would let a newcomer lean on “nothing more spiritual than A.A. fellowship” for a while, and wait. “Certainly, you don’t take differential calculus before the arithmetic!”

The Twelve and Twelve allowed the same start in 1953. Its chapter on Step Two tells the doubter he can make AA itself his higher power, at least to begin with.

Sources
  • T.B., “Editorial: On the 12th Step,” AA Grapevine, October 1945.
  • L.S.L., “St. Paul’s Four Discussion Groups,” AA Grapevine, December 1945.
  • Joe C., “One Green Light Enough to Start Even Streamliner”; R.P.C., “Patience With the Spiritual Factor”; and J.F.H., “The 12th Step,” AA Grapevine, November 1946, in the scanned issue at silkworth.net.
  • K.G., “Likes Closed Meetings,” in “Mail Call for All A.A.s at Home or Abroad,” AA Grapevine, March 1948, in the scanned issue at silkworth.net.
  • “Group Meeting Discussion Pages,” AA Grapevine, May 1948: the Washington seminar-forums, reported by the Washington Newspaper A.A. Group, in the scanned issue at silkworth.net.
  • “A ‘Loner’ at Sea,” AA Grapevine, November 1948.
  • Alcoholics Anonymous. Fourth edition, AA World Services, 2001. Appendix II, “Spiritual Experience,” first added in 1941.
  • Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. AA Publishing, 1953. Step Two and Step Twelve.
  • Pass It On. AA World Services, 1984. Chapter 22, on the writing of the Twelve and Twelve.