Saturday, June 10, 2023, is the 88th anniversary of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, a good opportunity to practice gratitude. The date is taken from Dr. Bob's account in his Big Book story, "Dr. Bob's Nightmare," whose introduction and relevant passage are cited below.
"A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, the birth of our society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10, 1935.
To 1950, the year of his death, he carried the A.A. message to more than 5,000 alcoholic men and women, and to all these he gave his medical services without thought of charge.
In this prodigy of service, he was well assisted by Sister Ignatia at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio, one of the greatest friends our Fellowship will ever know.”
". . . That was June 10, 1935, and that was my last drink. As I write, nearly four years have passed. The question which might naturally come into your mind would be: ‘What did that man do or say that was different from what others had done or said?’ It must be remembered that I had read a great deal and talked to everyone who knew, or thought they knew, anything about the subject of alcoholism. But this was a man who had experienced many years of frightful drinking, who had had most of the drunkard’s experiences known to man, but who had been cured by the very means I had been trying [and failing] to employ [in the Oxford Group], that is to say, the spiritual approach. He gave me information about the subject of alcoholism which was undoubtedly helpful. Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers, and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading.”
– From "Dr. Bob’s Nightmare,” Big Book, p 180.