About Us
The Alano Society, Inc. is located at 511 N Carroll St, Madison WI and is open 365 days a year, providing an accessible, safe space for anyone seeking recovery, and offers meeting space for groups to hold 12-Step meetings.
Just blocks from the Capitol and public transit, with onsite parking, groups are welcome to organize and hold open or closed 12-Step meetings for any program, whether it be AA, Alanon, Alateen, Narcotics Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, etc. The coffee pot is on and recovering people are around anytime the doors are open.
The club provides a meeting place for members of Alcoholics Anonymous and for their families and friends to gather for social activities. Members and groups are welcome to organize and schedule potluck dinners, picnics, and parties. The Alano Society, Inc. also organizes special events for members, family and friends. “Safe space” gatherings are often held for holidays.
Our History
The Alano Society Inc has been designated a historical landmark in the state of Wisconsin
The building at 511 N Carroll St is owned by the Alano Society, a non-profit corporation founded in 1943 under Chapter 180 of the Wisconsin State Statues. It was built as a residence by Willett S. Main in 1858 and occupied by his family until 1926 when it was sold to Carl R. Fish, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1948, building was sold to the Alano Society.
A.A. began in Madison in 1939 (the year the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was published), when Harry Smith, a cook at Mendota Mental Health Institute, wrote to the New York office and received a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, after he read an article in Liberty magazine. Leroy C. Gillis credits him as “probably the first member of A.A. in Wisconsin”. The Founders’ Day program states that in 1940 : “Harry S. gets assistance from two members of the Chicago A.A. group”; “first woman joins Madison group of A.A.”; and “Madison group rents a meeting room, corner of Wisconsin Ave and Dayton”. Also in that year “Madison group invites wives of the alcoholics to their meetings”.
So meetings obviously were being held before the first mention of a Madison group in the A.A. Directory of 1941, which lists Harry S. as the contact, and “30 members”. In 1941 the Jack Alexander article about A.A. appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, a very popular and widely read magazine at that time. In that year the Madison group rented a larger hall at 3 North Pinckney, and that is the address given in the original Articles of Incorporation.
In 1942 step meetings began on Wednesday night in addition to the Friday night open meetings. And the next year the Alano society was incorporated. The Capital Times’ 11/04/43 issue has a small article reporting the dedication of a new A.A. clubroom. One paragraph perhaps of interest today says “Location of the clubroom cannot be revealed, as it might hamper those determined men and women of AA in their fight for themselves and those they help. The clubroom site and the names of the members must remain anonymous.”
The Articles of Incorporation of the Alano Society were filed with the Wisconsin Secretary of State on September 27, 1943. Members of the original Madison Alcoholics Anonymous group formed the Society with the purpose as described in the original Articles as: “This corporation is formed for charitable and benevolent purposes and especially: to cultivate social intercourse among its members and assist in improving moral and social conditions of its beneficiaries; to provide for the relief of distressed members, the visitation of the sick, the burial of the dead, and such other benevolent and worthy purposes and objects as affects the members of the corporation; to purchase and own such real estate and other property as may be necessary for the purpose of the society; and for the purpose above specified, to receive donations, to receive, manage, take and hold real and personal property, by gift, grant, devise or bequest.”
The intent of the section dealing with real and other property and money was to separate the Society from the A.A. group itself in accordance with the original “long form” of the Sixth Tradition of A.A. : “Problems of money, property and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A. should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual”.
When the 511 property was purchased in 1947 there were two groups in Madison, the new Badger Group and the 511 Group. At 511 there was a “custodian hired and beds put in rooms for the sick alcoholics”. The A.A. Directory for 1947 lists the 511 Group at 75 members, the Badger Group at 30 members.
Since the purchase of 511 and the organization of the Alano Society, A.A. in Madison has grown, and reflecting the growth pattern of the city, spread its message successfully further from the central city. The Board and members of 511 hope to continue adding to the history of the grand old home of Madison AA on North Carroll Street into the foreseeable future.