Behel H. was a key player in the development of Alcoholics Anonymous in two cities, Seattle and Salt Lake.

Behel first sobered up in Seattle in 1945, but that was not his birthday year. "My sobriety date is Jan. 7, 1950," he said when he sat for an AA historical interview several years ago. "I was in and out, in and out. I don´t include those first five years in my sobriety because I just didn´t remain sober. I went on a geographical and ended up in Salt Lake City. That´s where I finally got sober.

As he was a few years later in Seattle, Behel was a leader in the development of AA in Salt Lake. It was there, too, that he and Doris met Bill W. and his wife Lois, and shared a couple of meals with them. It was a contact that was to stand Doris and Seattle Alanon in good stead. More on that later.

My personal feeling," Behel said, "is there´s a fellowship in every drunk. If he could find somebody else to quit drinking for him, he´d be plenty willling to turn that job over so he didn´t have to do it. But it doesn´t work that way.

"Salt Lake City was a railroad center, and there were lots of drunks. We decided to organize a flop house, give ´em a chance to sleep a night or two and get a bath and shave, couple of meals and some clean clothes. We found a place called Plum Alley, and far as I know, it was the first rehabilitation center in the United States. We heard it had been an opium den for Chinese laborers who were building the railroad in the early days of Salt Lake.

"We begged beds and bedding, dishes,cookware, tables and chairs. We hosed that place down with a fire hose, painted it, got rid of the cockroaches and rats. And we built quite a little rehab center there. Had 30 beds. We were very successful, and used that as a springboard to go to the church for help. This thing churned, wouldn´t keep anybody very long.

"Up to that time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had a very redneck attitude toward alcoholism. ´Don´t drink and you won´t become an alcoholic,´ about summed it up for them. But when we pointed out what some of their population looked like, they became quite concerned and wanted to help. Doors opened to us everywhere Supermarkets would give us 50 loaves of bread at a time. That´s how we survived.

"We were able to open two or three other places before we came back to Seattle in ´53. So I had quite a bit of experience in rehab by that time.

"Around 1955, I was chairman of Intergroup here. That was an enthusiastic time. We were growing fast, and beginning to find out that although we were infants in this thing, we had a great deal of power to carry the message. It was at this time that the prison groups proliferated. AA gained a great deal of strength as we found that we had a message that was strong and good, and a program that worked. Everybody seemed to be involved in some type of service work. We had very active groups that were going to the state penitentiary at Walla Walla."

Behel remembered fondly the long trips across the state to Walla Walla to carry the message to the prison there. "We had a car full of guys. We´d sing and talk and tell stories, and come back singing. Get home early in the morning. We never stayed overnight. Very few of us could afford it. Some of us went to Monroe and McNeil Island, out in the Sound. It was a federal prison then. And we had a tie-in with the Seattle police through the Police Farm, which was a rehabilitation center for Skid Row drunks. The Police Farm was run by volunteers, not the police. Unfortunately, we had to give that up. It was at the old police pistol range, and they needed the space for some other purpose, maybe.

"We also organized a place where drunks could reside while still drinking alcohol. We were providing housing. I don´t think any group is doing that now."

When the federal government began funding alcoholism programs, Behel was again at the heart of the action, serving as chairman of the King County program. He was also chairman of Pioneer House in its early years. Pioneer House now operates a large industrial training facility in South Seattle.

Despite AA´s vigorous growth in that era, Behel was skeptical about the numbers. "People go to half a dozen different groups and they´re counted over and over and over again. New groups grow out of other groups when people get mad and quit and start another group somewhere. But heck, it´s all the same people, just meeting in a different place. We´re eating our young, you might say. By the turn of the century, there will probably be twice as many groups as now and only 25-30 per cent more members. But it´s a natural thing. The more groups, the better." It was as the groups proliferated that Intergroup´s role became vital, he said, tying them all together through the telephone service.

The service component of Alcoholics Anonymous was of vital importance to Behel. "My feeling is that AA was built upon the need of a certain class of people who had no other place to turn, that they came in out of desperation to save their own lives. There was personal involvement by everybody at that time. We felt that when we made our 12 Step calls. That´s how you survived in this program.

"But the minute people found out there was money in this thing,and insurance companies were paying people to rehabilitate themselves and tax money was becoming available, the professionals took over. "Now, you find people coming out of these institutions who are well informed. They know the 12 steps, the 4th step and the 5th step. Judges started referring drunks to AA groups, with their slips [to be signed] and everything, and it has become highly professional, which was the one thing we were always cautioned about at the beginning.

"The new drunk is very well served by this. He gets treatment and eventually is turned out to AA. No problem with that. The guy that´s not served by this is the one who´s already in the program who should be out making 12 Step calls to strengthen his sobriety, but that job´s been turned over to the professionals.

"In the old days, we may have been out there in the dark, but the main thing was we were doing something. In Salt Lake City, we´d give a guy that was really sick three or four teaspoonfuls of paraldehyde and a little water. It´s a wonder we didn´t kill him. But we were doing the 12th Step. Now I don´t see any more of that. I´m sorry for the guy who misses the opportunity to go on 12 Step calls." [Angus L., Intergroup office manager at the time of this interview, interjected to say, "I had two calls for help yesterday. Neither one of them got help. People would say ´Yes,´ and then they wouldn´t go. That´s sad ´cause these people are hurting."]

"It´s real sad," Behel said. "People have become complacent. They say, ´Why should I do that when we have paid professionals to do it?´ We´re missing the importance of washing the dishes and taking out the garbage."

Doris, who is often credited with founding Alanon in Seattle, takes a more modest tack.

"We had had a chance to meet Bill and Lois W. in Salt Lake. But I still didn´t know anything about alcoholism when we came back to Seattle [in ´53]. I just thought Behel drank too much, got out of control and caused problems, but I didn´t know it was a disease.

"I went with him to a couple of meetings, and then I heard about non-alcoholic women´s meetings at the old IOOF Hall. A couple of men attended too. But mostly, they (AA members) considered us coffee makers for their group.

"Finally, about five of us decided we wanted something more. I was the one who wrote to Lois and asked her about forming an Alanon meeting. This was about 1955 or ´56. Lois told us what to do and sent some literature, and we started meeting in each other´s homes. Later, we moved to the Big Hall (915 E. Pine St.) and that´s when Alanon really took off, to the point where they have their own Intergroup and their own officers."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.