Our History

Washington DC's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) AA meetings go back to 1971, when the first gay AA meeting was held in a private home. The same group soon began to meet at St. James Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, thanks to the permission of its pastor, Father Goodridgh. Fr. Goodridgh had a very close friend who had died of alcoholism and felt that if there had been a Gay AA meeting at the time perhaps his friend would have joined, sobered up and lived. The ashes of the gentleman are buried at the end of the walkway on the left. There is a marker at the site with the date’s 1937 - 1972.

Late in 1973 or early 1974, an Open Speaker Meeting was started at St. Margaret’s on Friday evenings. When that meeting started it was considered to be part of the St. James Group and was more accessible to the gay community around Dupont Circle.

In 1974, Lesbian and Gay groups were added to the World Directory of AA. For more information about this, click here.

By 1975 there were four nights of LGBT meetings at St. James and a speakers meeting at St. Margaret's on Friday night. Another gay AA meeting began in Virginia on Quaker Lane where the first AA dance was held in October 1975.

Also during October 1975, the Primary Purpose Group started meeting at St. Thomas Episcopal Church (The Ruins) on Church Street on Wednesday nights. It started as a Big Book meeting because most felt the need to be more focused on AA rather than on being Gay.

By the mid '80s, there were about 30 LGBT weekly AA & Al-Anon meetings throughout the area. However, many groups found it was not easy to find affordable and safe meeting spaces. Groups continually saw their meeting rents increase, and some faced eviction due to renovation. This gave rise to the “Gay Clubhouse Project” whose mission was to form a gay meeting place dedicated only to 12 step meetings. It was also clear that the LGBT recovery community needed place to expand their social needs in an alcohol and drug free environment. The Clubhouse Project was renamed the Triangle Club and incorporated in 1989 as a non-profit organization with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status.

The Triangle Club officially opened its doors on January 1, 1990. Since then the Triangle Club, supported by membership dues, donations and meeting rents has provided a physically safe, properly maintained facility where LGBT recovery persons may hold meetings in accordance with the 12-Steps and 12-Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Click here to read a more detailed history of the early years of Gay AA in Washington, DC.

* As a side note, the earliest known LGBT meeting in the country was a gay meeting organized in Boston in 1949. For more information abouth the early Boston meeting, click here.

Why a Club?

In the beginning, AA meetings were held in private homes. They were closed meetings, requiring that you have a sponsor bring you to them. As AA grew this became a somewhat awkward and undependable method as hosts of these meetings moved, spun off the program, or simply tired of the imposition of a weekly meeting in their home. Long before the 1955 adoption of the Traditions, the idea of clubs was formulated. This implementation was necessary in order to provide a fixed social setting where regular meetings could be held, and where a newcomer could be provided with safe refuge and support.

It is important to note the distinction between an “AA Club” (which is not recommended) and a clubhouse for AAs. This is the basis for the Sixth Tradition which states “An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.” The term “AA club” would imply AA ownership—thereby involving AA groups in “problems of money, property, and prestige.” That's why it is suggested to incorporate clubs for AAs as separate entities, not owned by any group or collection of groups. If a group wants to meet in a clubhouse, it pays rent as it would to a church or a community center. Bill Wilson stated in May 1948: “Strongly expressed is the opinion that even clubs should not bear the AA name; that they ought to be separately incorporated and managed by those individual AAs who need or want clubs enough to financially support them.”

How does this relate to the Triangle Club? Simple... any individual AA member (or member of a 12-step group) may personally endorse the Triangle Club (a related facility) through individual membership or donation, but no group of Alcoholics Anonymous should lend the endorsement. Why? Because nothing should be allowed to divert a group from its primary purpose of carrying a message of hope to the alcoholic who still suffers. The Sixth Tradition leaves every AA member the freedom to do that, if she/he cares to, so long as those actions do not constitute AA endorsement of the Triangle Club, nor “lend the AA name” to it. This principle also applies to every other 12-step group that follows AA's Traditions.

The Guidelines on Clubs published by AA World Services explains: “Even though the group meets in a club that may be composed exclusively of AA members, and many members of the group may be club members, too, the relationship of the AA group itself to the club should be the same as it would be to a church, hospital, school, or other facility in which it might rent space for its meetings.” The guidelines also recommend that clubhouses accept no money whatsoever from outside sources, being supported by membership dues and individual contributions from AA members. The Triangle Club abides by these guidelines.