Convention News
Families of Alcoholics at The AA Convention in St. Louis
Copyright © AA Grapevine, Inc, May 1955
Many families from all over the country are making plans for going to the big AA Convention in St. Louis, starting July 1, to celebrate AA’s Twentieth Anniversary. It will be an outstanding event, not only for AAs but for their close relatives, too.
The Al-Anon Family Groups, to which many of these wives, husbands, parents, and children belong, have planned an extensive program to interest and inspire these relatives, whether or not they belong to Al-Anon.
During the daytime on Friday and Saturday, while AA is holding sessions primarily for alcoholics, Al-Anon will hold similar meetings. There will be open and panel discussions on such subjects as:
What to do about the children of alcoholics
How to apply the Twelve Steps to ourselves
The adjustments necessary between husbands and wives, after AA
How the Family Groups can help you and the alcoholic alike
Explanation of what the Al-Anon Headquarters is, and what it does
Reports from Al-Anon groups all over the country
Four members from Al-Anon Headquarters will be on hand to help you in any way they can. Panels will be selected from Al-Anon members of groups all over this country and Canada. And one member from Sydney, Australia, who is accompanying her husband to the Convention, has been asked to lead a meeting.
A Reception Committee will try to make sure that everyone becomes well-acquainted, will know where and when the meetings take place, where coffee can be obtained at any time of the day or night, and where small gatherings are meeting for luncheon get-togethers.
Of course everyone at the Convention – AAs and relatives alike – will all want to attend the big open AA meetings on Friday and Saturday evenings and on Sunday morning.
It is hoped that Bill’s mother will be well enough to attend the Convention. One of the outstanding events will be a reception for her, if she is able to be there.
Sight-seeing trips and a program have also been arranged for the wives of Conference Delegates who will accompany their husbands to St. Louis for the Fifth Annual General Service Conference of AA, the week of June 26th, immediately preceding the Twentieth Anniversary Convention. Irma, our Program Chairman, and I will be on hand all week to do what we can to make the pre-Convention stay of the wives of delegates both interesting and profitable.
All who attend the Convention – families as well as AAs – must register in advance. If you are coming with your AA member, be sure he or she has registered for you.
If you are coming unaccompanied by an AA be sure that you yourself register. Send in your $5.00 registration fee and make your hotel reservations well in advance direct to: Hotels Convention Reservation Bureau for AA, 911 Locust St., St. Louis 1, Missouri.
If you have any suggestions for subjects you would like discussed at the Al-Anon meetings, write them to: Irma Flynn, Program Chairman, Box 1475, Grand Central Annex, New York 17, N.Y.
This Twentieth Anniversary should be an experience which will never be forgotten by anyone who attends.
See you in St. Louis!
Lois W.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
To be certain of getting the accommodations you desire, please note that all hotel room reservations in St. Louis for the convention period are made through the Hotels Convention Reservation Bureau, 911 Locust St., St. Louis 1. Do not write direct to a particular hotel, since all its available rooms have been “sold out” to the Reservation Bureau.
To assure completely fair treatment to all convention-goers, General Service Headquarters has assigned full responsibility for hotel reservations to the Reservation Bureau in St. Louis. Applications for rooms should be made on the special Convention application forms sent to all groups in November. Additional application forms may be obtained by writing to P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Annex, New York 17, N.Y.