Greater Boston Council
on Alcoholism
Board of Directors
President
Michael J. Widmer
Vice Presidents
Ruth Gardner Lamere
Roger D. Weiss, M.D.
Treasurer
Daniel J. Henderson, Jr.
Secretary
Lynn Bratley, M.Ed.
Board of Directors
Lynn Bratley, M.Ed.
William L. Burke III
Christina Everett
Daniel J. Henderson, Jr.
Constance Horgan, Sc.D
Deirdre Houtmeyers
Ruth Gardner Lamere
Jessica Lindley
Maureen McGlame, M.Ed.
Michael J. McHugh, Esq.
Theodore K. Wayman
Roger D. Weiss, M.D.
Michael J. Widmer
C.C. Williams
Elizabeth Whitney Post, Founder
Elizabeth Whitney Post, a pioneer in educating the public about alcoholism, founded Greater Boston Council
on Alcoholism, Inc. in 1945.
Her career of studying and treating alcoholism spanned 50 years, and began when she got sober through participation in Alcoholics Anonymous. She was sober four months when she attended Yale University's
first Summer School on Alcohol Studies in 1943. While at the school, she worked with Bill Wilson, the founder
of AA, and E.M. Jellinek, a chief proponent of the concept of alcoholism as a treatable disease.
She brought the lessons of Yale and Akron back with her to Boston and founded the Committee for Education
on Alcoholism in 1945, gathering civic leaders, physicians, clergy and friends, in one of the first volunteer
community groups to take an active role in educating the public that alcoholism is a treatable disease.
She also produced and hosted a weekly public service radio program called "Alcoholism is Everybody's Business" that aired from 1950 to 1970.
She wrote two books published by Boston's Beacon Press, Living with Alcoholism (1968) and Facilities for the Treatment of Alcoholism, a Practical Approach (1970). In 1971 she edited World Dialogue on Alcoholism and
Drug Dependence.
One of the thousands of people she counseled over the years - at her own estimation over 14,000 - left her
a substantial legacy for what had become the Greater Boston Council on Alcoholism, allowing an annual income sufficient to make a number of small, but important grants annually.
Elizabeth Whitney Post passed away in 1995 at the age of 91. The Council became a charitable foundation
in 1985 and continues Elizabeth Whitney Post's work by providing grants to non-profit organizations in the greater Boston area to support education and research relating to alcoholism and other drug addiction in organizations where the funding will make a significant impact.
GBCoA's symbol is the Phoenix
"Collectively, the voices of people in recovery say that, through their close encounters with death of body or self, they have come to understand both the fleeting transience and preciousness of life, and, as a result, the importance
of living every moment as a gift to be cherished and lived to its fullest....They constitute what might be called a Phoenix Society of men and women, who in the face of utter personal destruction, have not only survived but been reborn, often with decades of life to live, to serve, to teach."