Real People of the Big Book - looking at the individuals behind aa folklore

Henry G. "Hank" Parkhurst (1895-1954) is the person in these anecdotes:

About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to be a case of pathological mental deterioration. He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent brain injury. He accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year later he called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I talked with him for some time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To me he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol.

Big Book, page xxxi The Doctor's Opinion

We know of an A.A. member who was living in a large community. He had lived there but a few weeks when he found that the place probably contained more alcoholics per square mile than any city in the country... He got in touch with a prominent psychiatrist who had under taken certain responsibilities for the mental health of the community....

So our fellow worker will soon have friends galore. Some of them may sink and perhaps never get up, but if our experience is a criterion, more than half of those approached will become fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Big Book, page 163

Hank wrote the Big Book chapter To Employers and the First Edition story The Unbeliever, which was later taken out due to his relapse. Hank's major role in prodding Bill to write the Big Book, helping shape its ideas and getting it published are explored in the historical study Writing the Big Book by William Schaberg: