Frank Said the Women Will Have to Leave — Nobody Told Him California’s First Woman Alcoholic Was Sitting Right There – Sybil C.

About This Speaker Tape

Sybil C. shares her extraordinary story as one of the first women in Alcoholics Anonymous in California. She discovered AA through the Saturday Evening Post article by Jack Alexander on March 1, 1941, while hungover in a Turkish bath after a blackout drive to San Francisco. She had first read about AA in the 1939 Liberty magazine article "Alcoholics and God" but waited two years before acting. At 32 years old with 17 years of drinking behind her, she wrote a letter to AA headquarters in New York, which was answered by Ruth Hock, Bill Wilson's secretary, who directed her to the Friday night meeting at the Elks Temple in Los Angeles.

Her first meeting ended in humiliation when the chairperson Frank Randall announced that "the women will have to leave" — a standard practice to clear non-alcoholic wives from the closed meeting. Not realizing this, Sybil believed she was being thrown out and fled crying to the lobby. After a drunken phone call to AA at two in the morning, she was told the misunderstanding and encouraged to return. The following Friday, her brother Tex drove her back in his vegetable truck with eleven winos from his crew, outnumbering the members. Frank Randall then handed her a stack of letters from women alcoholics across California and declared her "in charge of all the women" — a promotion she found astonishing after being "thrown out" the week before.

Sybil recounts the early growth of AA in California, her brother Tex starting the Hole in the Ground group in Huntington Park despite opposition from members who had "incorporated" AA, and the beautiful simplicity with which Tex explained the twelve steps to a struggling member named Joe. She shares a deeply moving letter from Bill Wilson after Tex's death, and reflects on 44 years of sobriety at age 77, comparing all AA members to fledgling birds learning to fly.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and Sybil's five marriages, life with husband Bob Corwin and their menagerie of animals
• 3:00 Compliments Cincinnati and describes her love affair with AA
• 5:00 Blackout drive to San Francisco, Turkish bath, discovering the Saturday Evening Post article on March 1, 1941
• 10:00 Writing the letter to AA from the Turkish bath, Ruth Hock's reply directing her to the Elks Temple meeting
• 15:00 First meeting disaster — told women must leave, Sybil believes she is being thrown out, flees to lobby in tears
• 22:00 Drunk phone call to AA at 2 AM, learning the misunderstanding about wives leaving closed meetings
• 27:00 Second meeting — brother Tex arrives with vegetable truck and eleven winos; Frank Randall puts Sybil in charge of all women's twelve-step calls
• 35:00 Tex starts the Hole in the Ground group, members claim they incorporated AA and try to shut him down
• 42:00 Tex's death, Sybil's emotional shutdown, and Bill Wilson's healing letter about mansions and fledgling birds
• 50:00 Tex walks Joe through all twelve steps on the front porch using a postage stamp inventory — simplicity of the program