Preface from : THE BOTTLE BOOK: ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS comes to the BC/YUKON AREA
It was a strange combination of events and people that brought Alcoholics Anonymous to British Columbia.
First there was the expert in films and slides in Victoria who wrote the A.A. office in New York in 1941, got a Big Book and stayed sober. Then there was the compassionate candy maker, a teetotaller, whose wife had died of alcoholism in the late 1930’s and who’s simple faith inspired him to persuade his brother in law in Sacramento to make a Twelfth Step call in Vancouver, 1,000 miles away. Working with the candy maker was a group of prayer – oriented Vancouver business men and a clergyman who met weekly in an exclusive club for dinner, after which they discussed spiritual matters. Finally, coming to the scene in 1944 were four men- 2 salesmen, , an optometrist and a soldier- filled with the fire of gratitude for sobriety, who visualized the A.A. fellowship throughout British Columbia and the Canadian west. It was their energy, dedication and enthusiasm that spread the A.A. message throughout western Canada.
There were others, of course, hundreds of them, but it was these four who, by their example, gave the dynamic leadership needed to steamroll the drive.