Dr. Silkworth, Towns Hospital, and the Road to Akron — Tuesday Night History Workshop — May 15, 2020

Interactive Transcript

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Speaker Mike Fitzpatrick

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Date Recorded May 15, 2020

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Topic Dr. Silkworth and Early AA

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Mike Tuesday Night History Workshop • May 15, 2020

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Mike Listen to Meeting Recording

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Mike ABOUT THIS MEETING

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Mike A history session tracing Bill Wilson’s relationship with Dr. Silkworth, Towns Hospital, and the transition to Akron, with Bill Wilson archival material.

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Mike Full Transcript

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Moderator Mike, you live in Prescott? I do. Okay. I've been there many times. I have a sister that lives there. Now, I don't want to say she's an alcoholic, but I think she could learn a lot from this meeting. Not from this meeting, but at all AA meetings, so... Yeah. I, I think the whole world could learn a lot from the AA traditions right now. I, I believe that. And, yeah. You know, I- Hey, one, one quick question. Do you guys know, 'cause I was in a debate with somebody in the program, you know about GSO in New York having 50%, you know, income that sucks, there's nothing coming, coming in, and 80% drop in sales and stuff. And this one guy was talking, "Oh, that ain't- they don't need any money. They got tons of money." I thought, "Oh, God. Here we go." Oh. But he also said, he was talking about all the board members, the trustees, and I understand there's 21. 14 are alcoholic, seven are non-alcoholic. But is it my understanding that they all volunteer, that it's not some paid salary or anything there. Am I correct? That is correct. Okay.

1:58

Mike The manager of the general service office is a paid position. Correct. Yeah. Okay? There are about approximately 76 people in the building for world services, general services, and for production of all the publications. Yeah. So that, that, that work there, that are salaried people. So, you know, uh, for me to say they absolutely, you know, I know expenses are paid, things like that. Sure. I don't, I don't know 100% sure, but I don't believe any of the trustees. They're coming up from the fellowship except for the non- Correct ... AA members that are trustees, okay? And I don't know if there's any stipend for that or not. I could, we can find out. I, I think, I think I've, I've heard it before and I was trying to find something o- online and just to stick it in front of his nose so he can see that. He's thinking that, you know, there's somebody driving around in a gold Rolls Royce and all that crap. Yeah. Those rumors have been going around since AA started. I know. And this guy's got- I- ... these guys, he's got 40 years and he's staying this crap.

3:36

Mike Well, hey, there's still people saying Bill Wilson got rich off of The Big Book. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I, I, I know all about that. I love, I read a lot of the history, so that's why l- I was fascinated to hear about this group. But- Yeah, I think they do need money. They just took a $3 million, or they're requesting a- Yes ... $3 million draw from their reserve funds. Out of reserve. I, I heard that too. So yeah, they, they need money. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, I'm here to learn. There's no question. It's a big, it's a big operation. Okay. All right. Well, we're gonna start. By the way, that talk, that talk you posted of, uh, Bernard Smith. Uh-huh. One of the original trustees. Wow, is that great. Yeah. He's a great speaker. And- He, he made a heck of contributions to AA too. We'll actually do a week on Bernard Smith later on, him and Jack Norris. Where do you post the, this, the, the talks, or do you have stuff, is it a separate site? We, we, we send a, a featured speaker talk out every day. Oh.

5:13

Moderator And, um, currently we, uh, we're kind of going through a little bit of a timeline, and last week we focused on Bill's spiritual experience and time with E- uh, Ebby. And now we're rolling into, um, Bill's relationship with Dr. Silkworth and, um, going into Akron. So to start off the meeting, I'm gonna play a recording of Bill Wilson, um, reciting the Serenity Prayer. I wonder if you would be kind enough to repeat for us the Serenity Prayer used by AA, Bill? God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. Isn't that wonderful? Sure is. Not just for, not just for AA. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference I think the description of the prayer, as Bill said before, is that it's like a tent, that it encompasses and covers all of us. Thank you so much, Bill, for being with us again. Again, our great thanks to you people. And God bless you in your work.

6:47

Mike All right, so I'm back and, uh, we're gonna roll right into it. So Mike, you can take it away. I'm gonna unmute you, and, uh, we'll get started. For those of you that don't know or haven't heard or weren't familiar with that clip, that came out of the archives. That was an interview that Bill Wilson did on weekday radio broadcast in 1956 in New York, and the guy that was hosting the radio program was Mike Wallace, who later became a anchorman at CBS and did, uh, and worked with CBS for many, many years. So you might have recognized his picture there or his voice. But, uh, I thought that was pretty cool that he joined in and also shared the Serenity Prayer. One of th- one of our missions, one of our goals, is that we can continue to preserve the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon and all 12-step org- uh, fellowships, make those things available to all future generations through digital format. That's really our focus, is the digital format. So we've been converting the original library, which holds over 3,000 reel-to-reel tapes, and those are the things that make up the archive.

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Moderator In addition to that, we have over 10,000 cassette tapes, and we have probably 20,000 CDs. I actually just had a library donated to me from a... I spoke in Florida this summer, and the gentleman that was taping the conference, uh, his wife had died a few years ago. And I had known them, but not very well. And I got to meet him when I was in Florida, and we just had a wonderful time, but he had had some health issues. He passed away about a month later. And his daughter, uh, called me up and she said, "You know, my dad was so honored and so pleased and so happy that he got to meet you and spend time with you, and he wanted you to have his masters for his library." So they sent me all the masters that he had collected over the years. So as we progress with this, uh, meeting and the history, uh, uh, meeting that we do, we're still working behind the scenes to go through the archives and find things that would be of interest. Later on in this meeting, we're gonna let you ask some questions.

9:54

Mike But before we get to that, I wanna share with you kind of the direction we're going in so you have some things to, to look forward to and to share with your sponsees or your friends in and out of the program. And first is that the rest of the month of May, we're going to be centered and talking about Akron, okay? So now we just finished with Bill's spiritual experience and his relationship with Ebby and Ebby coming to him and, and now we're gonna go to Akron and we're gonna talk about what happened there. We're gonna play some recordings. Some of them you've never heard. Some of them you might have heard little bits of. But we're gonna do the Akron thing. Next week we're gonna introduce some of the people. So this week it'll be Dr. Bob. Next week we'll talk about some of the characters that passed through Akron and helped AA spread and some of the challenges that they had there. So May is gonna be Akron. Then June, we're flipping to New York, okay?

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Mike And when we get to New York on June 5th, we're gonna have Bill Shayberg speak, and Bill's gonna talk about the book he recently wrote called The Writing of the Big Book. And Bill spent a decade studying and digging through the archives at Stepping Stones and at, uh, World Service Office, as well as other connections and people around the country as he was compiling his book on the writing of the Big Book. So I think that, that if you, if you're not into Akron, you're into New York and you wanna jump on, you wanna make sure that on June 5th, you're here because Bill's gonna be... He'll be a very interesting guest on our program. What we'll be doing for the remainder of June, because we're gonna be celebrating AA's, uh, 85th birthday, um, throughout the month of June, we're gonna talk a l- lot about some of the non- alcoholics that also participated. We're gonna start that when we're talking about Sister Ignatia and Walter Thompson, some of the people in Akron. But when we shift to New York, we're gonna do the same thing.

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Moderator So I just want you to know we've got a plan. It's gonna be fun, and we're excited to bring the history to you. Please sign up for the newsletter at recoveryspeakers.com, and what that's going to do is give you an inside track to our daily features and anything else that's, that we're doing or, or is going on. If you have any suggestions, anything that you want us to talk about or explore or dig into, we're happy to do that. Um, I'm just as much a history buff as anybody here. I've loved it. You know, it was spoon-fed to me when I was getting sober 'cause my sponsor, his grand sponsor was Bill W. And, and John used to ... I used to drive him around to conferences, and he'd be reading to me from AA Comes of Age or Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, and then he would quiz me. So I just kind of learned and gravitated toward the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it became very important to me.

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Moderator And, you know, the golden thread that's been pulled through my life has given me the opportunity to write a few books and have the library and to do some things with collectibles and, and things like that. You might notice behind me there's some first edition big books, and, uh, it's kind of my passion. So we'll get that out of the way. And I think last week when we left off, Tim, um, Bill had the spiritual experience and he was getting ready. Uh, his in-laws and people were getting nervous because they were wondering when this guy's gonna start making some money. And then he had an opportunity to go to Akron. So why don't we play that, the first piece now? All right. I'm lying in Towns Hospital, as I said, and the jig is up. And downstairs, a little doctor with china blue eyes and white hair and very pink cheeks and usually a half smile, but this evening grave, was talking to Lois. Well, she already knew a great deal about the kind of love that had no price tag on it, the kind of giving that demands no reward and gets no reward.

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Moderator She was still living on hope that maybe I'd pull through. And the good little doctor that we all recognize as our belo- beloved Silky was obliged to say, "No, I'm afraid he's like nearly all who pass this way. Perhaps within a year you'll have to confine him somewhere, or else he'll go mad or die." So the little doctor, who loved drunks, had been obliged to pass the sentence on me, under which nearly everyone here, alcoholic, has been under. I went out of that place in fear and trembling. Fear kept me sober a while. But on Armistice Day, 18 years come tomorrow, I was drunk again. You know, there's a funny thing about these anniversaries. This is the 10th, and Armistice Day is the 11th. So this must be the celebration of the time that I determined to get drunk once more. Soon I'm back in the hospital, but not before a friend had come to me saying, "Well, I got a release from this thing. I got honest with myself. I talked it out with somebody else. I straightened out my jams with other people. I tried some of this giving that demands no reward.

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Moderator I prayed to a higher power, God as I understand him." He'd come with that simple message, one alcoholic talking to another. And that was inside me, I think, deep when I went into the hospital that time. And after two or three days, I remember falling into a terrific depression. This time I knew it was over. I could not go on. I couldn't swallow this God stuff anyway. Yet I found myself crying out, "If there is a God, will he show himself?" And then the place lit up, and I was in an ecstasy. And was released from this obsession, and have been ever since. Then comes the little doctor with the china blue eyes and the half-smile on his mouth. And I say, "Doctor, am I crazy?" He talks to me a while. He says, "Well, I'm a man of science." He said, "I don't know what's happened to you, but I can see that something has. Whatever it is that you've got, you'd better hold on to it." Ah, let's stop and think.

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Mike Supposing the little doctor who loved drunks had been a coldly scientific gentleman and had tapped his head and said, "My boy, you will feel better in a few days," we ni- might not be sitting together here tonight. But no, he gave me hope. He gave me encouragement. I frantically start working with other alcoholics. I come back up to him and say, "Won't you supply me with some, Doc?" Well now, talking God to drunks in Towns Hospital in those days, uh, just wasn't done. It took immense courage on this little man's part. He risked his reputation for us. He let me come. I worked frantically with drunks, telling them all about this hot flash and, uh, all about how they should get more moral and, uh... Well, the drunks tapped their, tapped their heads and they walked out. Nothing happened at all for six months. And then the little doctor who loved drunks made a contribution to this society that should name him a founder in anybody's book. He said to me one day, "Look, Bill," he said, "you're preaching at these guys.

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Moderator You've got something you aren't able to transmit." Says, "You're always talking to me about that book you read back some months ago called James on Varieties of Religious Experience." And sa- he said, "The, the common denominator of all those experiences was calamity, wasn't it? Hopeless people." He said, "Why don't you throw it into them how hopeless you are? It doesn't... They are. It doesn't do any good for me to tell them that. But supposing you, an alcoholic, tells them that. Why don't you tell them that they've got an obsession of the mind that condemns them to go on drinking against their will, an allergy of the body that ensures they'll go mad or die if they do? Put that over your transmissions, Bill, and quit the preaching. Then maybe you'll puncture those egos so some of the stuff will run out and your stuff can get in there." All right, we're back. Thanks, Tim. I had to give a little Doctor Silkworth story there because we hear so little about Silky and so little about his conversation with Bill before Bill left for Akron.

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Mike Had Silkworth not said to Bill, "Hey, stop preaching to them," and he went down to have the conversation and met up with Bob, I think things could have been altogether different. But what happened to Bill was Silkworth impressed upon him that he had stayed sober because he was working with other alcoholics. Silkworth had also risked his reputation by allowing Bill to talk to drunks in Towns Hospital. Charles Towns actually contributed, the owner of the hospital, some money toward the publication of the book and helping this thing get off the ground. So they really believed in Bill, and I, and I think if you look back, Bill was probably a better salesman than a lot of people give him credit for, 'cause he did an incredible job as somebody who was unqualified. His only qualification was he was an alcoholic that got sober, and he was only sober a matter of days before they began to let him make these calls in the hospital. As the result of that, he stayed sober. Silkworth recognized that.

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Mike Even though Bill had failed on all of these other folks that he was working with for that six months, had Silkworth not caught him before he went to Akron, AA may never have been able to happen. Because he was armed with the information he needed to conve- convey an effective message that Doctor Bob could identify with. And it was really there that I think the identification of one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic really happened for AA. It be- prior to that, there was no identification. It was Bill preaching to them. He had had this profound sp- Virtual conversion or religious experience, if you want to call it that. And he was telling people about it, hoping that they would get sober. He didn't have a program. He didn't have a plan. He just had a lot of excitement from his own sobriety, and he was so on fire that he wanted to tell everybody about it. The challenge was, is they could not duplicate what he had. And when he met with Dr. Bob, one of the first things he said to Dr. Bob is, "You look like you need a drink." And Dr.

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Mike Bob could immediately identify with that because it was a guy who understood what it's like to need a drink. I talked to a group the other day and I said, "You know, if you take an alcoholic and, and they come into my home and I start talking to them about what it's like to get up in the morning and need a drink, they're gonna be able to identify with me with that. But if they talk to my wife, who's not an alcoholic, she wouldn't be able to relate to that. She, there would be no identification." And I think that one alcoholic communicating a message of hope, as Bill said, and encouragement to another alcoholic is what we need initially, and that's certainly what he did when he met Dr. Bob. Kim, I think we've got another cool clip. All right. Here it is. You remember I arrived in this town on a business venture. It was a proxy row for control of what was then a little company in this town. The fight fell through. My associates were of the commelately variety. All my old friends in Wall Street were gone. So they also went.

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Moderator I was left in the Mayflower Hotel with ten bucks in my pocket. Prior to this, I had worked very hard back home with drunks, you know, Oxford Group people. Had a mission. We worked there. Worked at Town's Hospital where my doctor was. Absolutely no result. And looking back, I see that I was still preaching to people. But all of a sudden in the lobby of the hotel down there, I had my first temptation to drink since sobering up. And it suddenly dawned upon me that I might, while I had been granted by God a rebirth, it had been the effort to help others that had kept me sober. So I suddenly knew that if I were to stay sober, I needed to find another alcoholic in this town. So I looked down the church directory. There was a name, Walter Tunks, who turned out to be the Episcopal rector here. It was a little odd sounding and whimsically I picked it out. Providentially, I think, too. And this good man directed me to another, a member of the Oxford Groups here at the time.

28:19

Moderator And he in turn gave me a list of about ten names. And I began to call them up. Well, it was a weekend. I couldn't make any immediate dates for that day. Somebody I had to see right then. At the end of the list was the name Henrietta Stiblin. And I thought, well, gracious, I met the old gentleman one time and I can't possibly go out to this lady's home telling her I'm looking for a drunk to work on. This will never do. I walked up and down that lobby again. And a voice came saying, you had better make that call. I went upstairs and made the call. And here was Henrietta's delightful southern voice on the wire. And she said, I'm no drinker, but I think I understand. Won't you come straight out here? How much we owe our friends and to a stranger she said this. So out I went. Said she, "I think I know just the man. It's Dr. Bob. He and his wife, Anne, are in a terrible situation. He's desperately trying to get over his drinking. I'll call them up." She did. Anne's voice came on the wire.

29:58

Mike Said Anne, "It's the day before Mother's Day, you know, Henrietta, and Dr. Bob has just come home. He has brought with him a potted plant. It's on the table, but he's on the floor, and I'm afraid he can't get up, so we won't be there today." So nothing daunted, Henrietta said, "Well, s- what about tomorrow?" Now she said, "Bill, you come out here to dinner and let's see." So on tomorrow, at 5:00 in the afternoon, Dr. Bob and Anne stood in the door, and he did not look in the least like a founder. He was shaking like hell. And he said, eyeing me, uh, he said, "You know, I can only stay a few minutes. I have an appointment." So by way of identification, I said, "Well, I know, Bob. Uh, no question, you're very thirsty. Am I right?" He was. Discreetly, Henrietta moved us into the little library and we sat there and talked for hours. And right there, the whole character of what I had been doing back home changed. I thought to myself, I need this man as much as he needs me, and I so told him. Well, Dr.

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Moderator Bob, in spiritual matters, was far advanced upon me. But as far as the drinking was concerned, it hadn't taken hold. Yet, as a doctor, like so many, he had no idea that he was a sick man, and I acquainted him with that. Anne asked me to come over to the house and stay with them while I tried to carry on with this proxy jingle. All right, we're back. I, uh, I hope you guys enjoyed that clip, and I hope that you do enjoy the, the audio that we're sharing, and I don't know if this is... You know, I, I've spent hundreds of hours listening to Bill Wilson talks, and for some reason, I sometimes assume that everybody has. And every now and then, somebody will call me and they'll say, "Oh, I heard a talk from Bill Wilson, and it was the night that Dr. Bob died." And they'll share with me their excitement, and I have to tell them that Bill Wilson didn't make a talk that, the night that Dr. Bob died, that that was an actor that did a one-man play, Bill M.

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Moderator And then I feel bad because, you know, I'm sharing with them true information, but kind of deflating their excitement. But I hope that people will go on to the Recovery Speakers Library and listen to some of these old recordings. We've tried to, to... When we have digitized them, we've tried to enhance them a little bit so that they'll sound better. But at the same time, like that one, you could tell it came off a, a wire recording. So the wire recordings in, one of these weeks, I'll show them. Actually, I'll show you one right now. This is ad-libbing, Tim. The, the wire recordings are, they look like this, okay? Uh, compared to a size of a cell phone, just so you can get a, a perspective. The wire on it is like fishing wire, and it is so thin that there's no way you can see it, okay? But this plays on an old recording device, and you would be just... I mean, you just heard one off of a wire, okay? The, the quality of the talks from the wire are incred- way better than any cassette tapes or anything like that.

34:47

Mike So, uh, s- some of the things in the library were the wire recordings, and some of the wire recordings that we have, uh, were Bill Wilson's personal copies. So, uh, after Bill died, Lois donated Bill's wire recordings to the Midwest Tape Library. So when I got the library, I got those recordings. And I, I was up one night. Mike was on. I don't know if he's still on here, but Mike and I, this is... Ah, there he is. One night, re- I don't know if you remember, but it was late at night and he- we set up a microphone and we had the wire recorders, and we put the dogs to bed and everybody was quiet, and we started digitizing these wires. The first one that we digitized was a message from Dr. Bob and Bill. Or no, Dr. Bob and Anne, and Smitty and his first wife, Betty. So it's the four of them sending a message to Bill Wilson in New York. But I didn't know what it was.

36:11

Mike So we started playing it and, uh, I can't even begin to tell you that as the goosebumps covered my body and the tears floo- uh, flowed, I couldn't believe that, that I had this and that it was Bill's copy. So, uh, we returned that recording to Akron. And now when you go to Dr. Bob's house, if you go up the stairs right before you get to his bedroom, it's the closet. And they have taken, and they've got plexiglass, but they put the recorder in there and a recording, and you can press the button and you can hear that. So that was... You know, so we're really trying to do some good things with this library and make sure that the people who, who need this information can get it. And so that the, the largest group of people can experience that. And with so many people going to Akron for Founders' Day, what better place to have that original recording that was made in Dr. Bob's bedroom returned back home to Dr. Bob's home? So I, I wanna...

37:41

Moderator I kinda got off on that just because sometimes the quality of the recordings aren't gonna be perfect, but it's because we really did wanna capture what it, what it really was like when they did that. So you're gonna hear the, the, the ashtrays and the glasses clanging and all of that kinda stuff as we go on. So here now, Bill lands in Akron. He just told the story of how he met Dr. Bob. He mentioned the identification. He mentioned that Bob only wanted to stay a few minutes and stayed hours, and Henrietta stuck them off into the library. And really what happened in that room, no one really knows the details, but we can make some assumptions, and they were this. One was Dr. Bob found hope because he had another alcoholic sharing with him his experience, strength, and hope. So Dr. Bob re- he had been going to meetings of the Oxford Group. He had been trying to stay sober. He had been trying some medical things. Nothing was working. And here this guy from New York, this salesman, this stockbroker, comes in and his message was so powerful.

39:11

Moderator But it wasn't a message of preaching because he knew he couldn't do that. He understood that from his conversation with Silkworth, but he also understood that because it wasn't long and Dr. Bob allowed Bill to, to have a look inside at some of the things that, that Bob had been going through in trying to get sober. He was attending, um, all kinds of spiritual meetings. I, I talked with Smitty a bunch of times and Smitty said that they used to go to all these different churches. He was constantly looking for the answer, but he couldn't find it. And then here Bill came and laid it out for him. So the last little clip that we wanna share with you is what happened now that Bob almost gets sober permanently. Tim? Yeah. So I go over to live at the Smith household. Neve- What the hell? Was it playing? Yeah, it was playing, then you messed it up. And I forget those early mornings there, Anne sitting by the fireplace, our quiet time reading from the Bible.

40:35

Moderator Corinthians 1- That greatest of all definition of love, James, who said that, "Faith without works is dead." And suddenly that latter phrase began to burn into Bob's consciousness because he said, "Hadn't we better be doing a little 12-step work?" So we shopped around at first. There was a preacher down the street, uh, he had one in tow. He's right here today, too. And it wasn't Bill, AA number three, who is so sick. It was another one, Eddie, and his wife Ruth, and the kids. And Eddie wasn't ready. He was awfully badly derailed. Ann invited the whole family to come and live here. And how we worked with Eddie. And it was a bust. And along about this time, Dr. Bob said, "I've got to go to a convention down in Atlantic City." And Ann made frantic motions to me, "No, no, no." And, uh, well, Bob said, "But I've always gone. I couldn't miss one of these. Or could I? Or should I?" "Well," I said, "after all, you've got to live in a world where grog is, uh, so why don't you go?" This is about maybe two weeks after the conversation at Henrietta's.

42:21

Mike So the dear old boy started for the convention. Well, we didn't hear from him for quite a while for some reason or other. And about 4:00 in the morning of the fifth day, he got poured off the train, went over to the house of his nurse where we, Annie and I, found him. Well, there was a terrible dilemma then. Not only the alcoholic dilemma, but there was a certain surgical dilemma. About three days hence, an operation had to be performed by him on somebody, and it's serious. And when he realized the plight that he was in and with the frightful hangover he had, well, it was something fierce. So we started a round-the-clock tapering operation on the old boy. And, uh, the idea, you see, was to edge him up to that operation, not too tight to do it, but not so sober that he couldn't. And on the third night of this process in which we got him eased down off the perch, Dr. Ann had put Bob and me in the same room.

43:43

Mike And he was awake at about 4:00 the morning of the operation, and he turned and looked at me, and he said, "Bill, I'm going to go through with this." I said, "You mean the operation?" "Oh, yes," he said, "Yes, the operation to be sure. No," he said, "what we've been talking about." Smitty was a man of few words, quite unlike me. So he goes down there, and I remember how Ann and I waited and prayed while he went into that hospital. And we had him just right. Not too tight, just right. And he did it. And he came out of there, and that was June 10th, 1935. The candle was lit from the spark that had been struck. All right. That was it. Um, so am I muted? No, I'm, I'm good, right? Yeah, you're good. Okay. I hate to get five minutes into it and somebody go, "Well, I didn't hear a damn thing you said." So Eddie that he was talking about was Eddie Riley, and he moved Eddie and his wife. An- Ann invited Eddie and his wife into the house. They put him upstairs. Bill's there. Dr.

45:22

Moderator Bob's trying to get sober. Eddie's trying to get sober. Dr. Bob goes to Atlantic City. He gets drunk. He comes back. Bill had to think, "This thing isn't gonna work." Eddie keeps crawling out the upstairs window and going and getting drunk, and him and Dr. Bob go get Eddie and bring him back, and they're trying to sober him up, and he's chasing Ann Smith around the house with a butcher knife. So they had to have him committed to a sanitarium. So as far as Bill was concerned, around this time, he was completely wiped out, thinking, "This is not gonna work. I'm going back home." And he started talking about going back home. And Dr. Bob, at that point, insisted that they continue to work with other alcoholics. So he called the hospital and he gets ahold of the guy who ends up being AA number three.

46:36

Moderator He gets ahold of his nurse and, and he says, you know, "I've got this friend in town and we have, and he's found a cure for alcoholism, and, uh, do you have anybody there we can work on?" And she politely says, "Doctor, have you tried it on yourself?" And, uh, and he said yes, and next thing you know, they're, they're meeting with, with Bill D., AA number three. What I'm hoping to do for next week's meeting is pull out a recording of Bill D., AA number three, Sister Ignatia, and some wisdom from Dr. Bob, and that's kind of what, what next week's gonna look like. I wanted to do more recordings this week 'cause I think that it's fun for us to listen to, to Bill's words years later when he's recalling the events. And it's interesting that when you read and study the, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the 160, first 164 pages where, where the program is outlined, there's not one time that Bill talks about being released.

48:08

Moderator He do- nowhere in there, there's only one time that word is used in a, in when they were talking about the release of the book. That was it. Not, not once. But in the talks that we listened to tonight, several times Bill talks about this great release that he had had. So that didn't really come into play for him to be talking that way until later on. Certainly he never included that in the book. But if you read the, the stories in the back of the Big Book, especially in the back of the first edition Big Book, you'll, you'll hear that word release throughout these stories, including when they talk about Bill Wilson. So I, I think some of that kind of stuff is interesting as we, as we go forward to look at some of that, study some of that. You know, be aware that, that this was not, you know, even the date, June 10th, right? You know, we know that that was not the date of Dr. Bob's last drink. It was probably more like June 17th.

49:35

Moderator But, but not to change the history, they weren't documenting everything thinking that, you know, 80 years later we would be, you know, digitally having these Zoom meetings and talking about what they did back then. So it wa- So the archives and the audio and the things that we have is so important in preserving and making available the history. So what I wanna ask Tim to do is to unmute, or maybe you could wave your hand if you have a question or a comment you'd like to make. We'd certainly like to give you an opportunity. If it's anything I can answer, I'm happy to. If someone else has a response or an answer, that would be great as well. So however we want to do that. Yeah. I would suggest if you have a question, just unmute yourself and ask the question. Tom. You're muted. There. There you go. Hi. I'm Tom O'Neil, I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Tom. Hi, everybody.

50:56

Moderator One of the things that, uh, you, when you started out this, this meeting and you talked about Bill Wilson, you know, and you talked about last week i- in Town Hospital, and you know, that he was, he had his white light experience on top of the mountain that, you know, like ether come running through him. And, and whether he saw God or whether or not, you know, whatever, but at the same time, you know, I mean it says on the Big Book on page seven, you know, of Bill's story, it says, you know, "Under the so-called belladonna treatment, you know, my brain cleared." And anyone that has a medical background can tell you that belladonna can be a hallucinogenic. And so whether, you know, he was, saw God or whether he was on some good shit, who cares? We got this program because of what happened to him that, that night, that what he felt. And, and then he, because he started preaching and everything and, and as far as he knew, he saw God and you know, something came out of him. And, and Dr.

52:23

Moderator Silkworth said, you know, "Go for it," you know, "Just go." And so he was trying to preach everybody's gotta have this, and like you said, it wasn't working. He was trying to shove it down their throat, and he just said, "Tell them your story." And that's basically what made so much more sense to me. A- and I agree. I actually, somebody told me about, you know, the June 10th wasn't the date and I went, "Why wouldn't," you know, my, my, my thoughts were shattered, you know? But if you Google it and you write June 10th, 1930. Or so what, what dates were, um, the American Medical Association in Baltimore, Maryland in 1935? What, when would it happen? And then all of a sudden they put pop up next to it, Dr. Bob's birthday, and they just said, b- basically it was like the 12th or 13th, 14th and 15th or something is when the American Medical Association. Then he came home drunk and then he went, had his last drink on Monday morning I guess, when he did his operation.

53:53

Mike And that's when Bill and Anne took him out there and gave him his last beer, and that was it. So anyhow, that was my foot. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. And I would, I would just comment and say that as we hear more and more Bill Wilson talks in the coming weeks, you're gonna... And, and you know, we're, we're gonna try not to play, you know, him telling the same story. You know, Bill told the same story at a whole bunch of places. He gave little different versions of it. Mm-hmm. What's interesting is when he talks about his spiritual experience, he says Ebby visited him. Ebby reacquainted him with a simple formula. Ebby left the room. He fell into a depression and in the depth of that depression, he cried out as a child, "If there's a God, show himself." Yeah. Yeah. And the room lit up a bright white light, he felt the breeze of the spirit. Yeah. He knew he had been released, and he was free. Yeah. Interesting, Bill never wavered on that story.

55:21

Moderator Every other story you got different versions of, but when he talked about his spiritual experience, it was as though it was burnt into his consciousness, and it was exactly the same. I find that fascinating. Now, whether or not any of it might have been induced by the belladonna treatment or not- I don't know ... clearly the man had a spiritual experience. Yes. A profound alteration- Yes ... of character, and that happened, okay? Now, whether that was God, I, you know, I don't want to argue any of that. I, I, you know, my philosophy really is divine order, you know? And I look at it and how it unfolded. Yeah. Anyone else have a comment, question? Come on. Mac. Mac. Mac. Unmute yourself. I will. Hey, Mike. Uh, thanks again for everything and thanks for those who've contributed, and thanks, Tim. Um, a couple of questions and I'll, um... So first of all, maybe you can, and it goes along with this, what Dr. Silkworth told him to talk more about his, uh, talk more about alcoholism than his spiritual experience.

56:46

Mike And maybe you can comment on how that was the one step that was changed between the first edition of The Big Book and the second edition. That's one question. And then the second one was, um, the difference between the, of the impact on the Oxford Group between New York and Akron. Now, what, what do you mean the difference in the impact? What- Well, because they got kicked out of the Oxford Group early on in New York, and in, in Ox- in, um, Akron, they were continuing to go to the Oxford Group and be part of it, um, even after The Big Book was published. All right. So I think you have to look at the cultural changes, okay? Right. When you go to, to Akron, which was considered to be the Midwest, okay? You had a lot of rural communities around Akron. People were coming in, they were getting sober, but the foothold of the Oxford Group, okay, in Akron was really strong because you had, uh, uh, Henry Ford, okay? You had, um, Goodyear. You had CyberLink.

58:09

Mike You had some real money people in Akron, some business people that were really keeping the Oxford Group floating, okay? And the Oxford Group had in Mackinac Island, they had a retrea- a retreat center in Mackinac Island, and all these people from Michigan and Ohio would travel up there, and they had these huge house parties up there in, in, uh, Mackinac Island. So the Oxford Group was a little bit more accepting of the alcoholics in Akron because they were, uh, maybe a little more religious just from the culture and the environment they lived in. And in New York, you had, you had more of the New Thought movement going on. You had Emmett Fox and Florence Scovel Shinn and, and these folks that were doing a lot of the New Age kind of thing. And then you had the alcoholics getting sober and coming to the Oxford Group meetings and trying to get people out of the Oxford Group to have their little, uh- AA meetings. They weren't AA yet. It was still a nameless society.

59:30

Moderator But what was happening there is New York's version was a little, was a little more intense with trying to, to get the people from the Oxford Group that were drinking, 'kay, that had alcohol problems, and work with them separate. I think the Oxford Group actually welcomed that. 'Kay? Now, I think there was some things that were going on with egos in New York that was causing some other problems, and then Calvary Mission and Sam Shoemaker and the church was beginning to look at the Oxford Group. At that time, short- around, a little bit after Bill left the Oxford Group, they were getting ready to say the Oxford Group was no longer gonna be able to meet at Calvary Church. 'Kay? So it was all, you know, it was all happening, but yet Akron did hold on. 'Kay? And they continued, but New York... I've got a letter here from the, the, uh, I think it would have been, I think it may have been from the board of the church, of Calvary Church, telling Sam Shoemaker they couldn't have meetings at, of, uh, Oxford Group at the church anymore. 'Kay?

61:02

Mike And I'll share another interesting story. Um, we, we, we didn't really talk much about Rowland Hazard and his role. 'Kay? But if you get the book, uh, Varieties of Religious Experience, and you read the conversion stories, one of the conversion stories was a guy named Samuel Hadley. 'Kay? Samuel Hadley was a dr- a hopeless drunk in New York. This is years before. This is in the late 1800s. 'Kay? But Hadley was a bad drunk and couldn't get sober, and he finally decided he was gonna commit suicide. So he went down and he stopped at his brother's house and he told him, "I'm gonna commit suicide if you don't have me locked up." 'Kay? So they were gonna lock him up, but his brother suggested that he go to the mission, and there was a mission called the Water Street Mission, and there's a book called Down on Water Street, 'kay? And, and, and, and by Jerry McAuley, 'kay, who wrote the book. And if you have a chance, they, they probably have reproduced it, but it's called Down on Water Street.

62:35

Mike Samuel Hadley goes into the mission this night, and all these people are giving their lives to Christ. 'Kay? So Jerry McAuley, his nickname was the Apostle to the Lost. Samuel Hadley goes in there drunk, wanting to commit suicide, ready to drop- jump in the harbor, and he walks up front and he decides he's gonna give his life to Jesus. So he kneels down. He does whatever they do. 'Kay? He has this conversion, he gets sober, and he starts working at the Water Street Mission. For the rest of his life, he dedicated himself to helping alcoholics. When Rowland Hazard was getting sober, he went to the Calvary Mission, and when he got to Calvary Mission, now this many years later, he gets to Calvary Mission, which was the Oxford Group, and who greets him there but the son of Samuel Hadley. And I just think that the golden thread, when you, when you study the history and you see how things just come together, what's the chance of Rowland Hazard reading the story in Varieties of Religious Experience about Samuel Hadley and his conversion experience?

64:02

Moderator Rowland found some hope in that book and went to the mission and met the guy's son. Amazing. So things like that, uh, you know, just, we can go on and on and on down these rabbit holes, but I hope I answered your question. Yeah, you did. Just one other question. So I've heard that in the Oxford Group in Akron, before Bill showed up and met Dr. Bob, that they had had a prayer meeting or a prayer circle to pray for Dr. Bob. Absolutely. And that that, that, that Henrietta Seiberling was there- And, and- ... at that meeting. And then I'm not sure how, but it, it, I was, I, as I heard the story, it was very close in time to when Bill showed up in Akron. I believe it was just days before, and one version of the story was that when Bill called Henrietta, she said, "You're the answer to our prayer. We just had a prayer meeting where we're, where we were praying for Dr. Bob, and then you show up, Bill." So I think that it- And the, kind of the golden thread. Cool.

65:33

Moderator So, what, in, in getting ready to cl- anybody else have any questions, comments this week? I hope that you'll invite, um, others to join us weekly. This is an open meeting. It's not really an AA meeting, it's really an anything meeting. You know, we're trying to follow a format of AA because, you know, I'm, I'm an AA guy and Tim's an AA guy. Let me just tell you about Tim, okay? Just for a minute, because Tim's doing all this work and I'm so proud of him. But seven years ago, I get a call from my nephew in, in Buffalo. I had talked to his dad, and, uh, his dad said, "What do you do when you got a, when you got somebody with a pill problem?" And I said, "Well, I, I recommend detox." I said, "Is he drinking or anything?" And he said, "No, he doesn't do any alcohol." And I said, "Okay." Well, he didn't tell me who it was. I thought it was some friend of his, right?

67:06

Moderator So a day or two later, I get a call, I think it was the next day, and it was my brother again and he says, "The guy I was talking to you about was my son." And I'm like, "Okay." And, and he said, "What can you do for him?" I said, "I can't do anything for him. Have him call me." 'Cause I didn't want to talk to him, to my brother, okay? I wanted to talk to Tim. So Tim called and I said, "How you doing?" He says, "I'm not doing good." And he's basically, you know, sleeping on a couch, just lost his job, hopelessly in debt, afraid of his own shadow. And I say to him, "Do you wanna get sober? Are you drinking?" And he says, "Yeah, I drink." I said, "How often do you drink?" He says, "Well, every day." And I thought, "Well, my brother told me he wasn't drinking at all. And my brother knows I'm in AA and my dad was in AA.

68:40

Moderator I wonder if there's still some stigma there of being an alcoholic, like there's something wrong with that." And anyway, I say to Tim, "Lookit, come on out to my house. You can stay 30 days. At the end of 30 days, I'll buy a plane ticket home or you can make a decision what you wanna do." Monday, this coming Monday, we're not fronting now, but this coming Monday, Tim's gonna have seven years of sobriety. Thank you. I don't, I don't tell him enough how much I appreciate him and how proud I am of his dedication to the program, to Recovery Speakers, to the fellowship, and to his own recovery. And, you know, sometimes when you're real close to people, you, you don't wanna do that.

69:46

Moderator I mean, my sponsor, my first sponsor used to say, "I don't wanna give you a fat head, kid." And, uh, the reality was he was constantly giving me praise and compliments and, and I want Tim to know that the work that he's done is not only valuable to us, but it's been valuable to tens of thousands of people that have come to our site over the last couple of years and have benefited from his work and what we've done together. So congratulations, Tim. Yeah. Next week we'll really give you the accolades and say you got your seven years. Right now, I'm only congratulating you on six years. Yeah. Keep on stepping, Tim. Well, listen, I'm, I'm done for this week. Um, you guys are welcome to hang out as long as you want and visit with each other. Um, and if you ha- my email is, I'm gonna give you the simple email, azmikefitz@gmail.com. That's azmikefitz@gmail.com. Azmikefitz. Tim's is tim@recoveryspeakers.com. And 154- If you guys have suggestions that you didn't wanna bring up, uh, maybe, maybe you're shy. You know, Todd's there.

71:26

Moderator He's gotta have some questions or some comments, but please email to us or text them. My phone number's 480-216-5134. You can text me anytime. Call me. Thank you, Mike and Tim. What, what's the area code? 586? 480. 480, sorry. 480-216-5134. Got it. Thanks, Mike. So n- next week, if you know any Sister Ignatia fans or early AA fans, invite them on. 6:00, same time, same place, same code. Everything's the same. Great. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Tim. Thanks. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Mike. Bye, everybody. So congratulations, Tim. Yeah. Next week we'll really give you the accolades and say you got your seven years. Right now, I'm only congratulating you on six years. Yeah. Keep on stepping, Tim. Well, listen, I'm, I'm done for this week. Um, you guys are welcome to hang out as long as you want and visit with each other. Um, and if you ha- my email is, I'm gonna give you the simple email, azmikefitz@gmail.com. That's azmikefitz@gmail.com. Azmikefitz. Tim's is tim@recoveryspeakers.com.

72:59

Moderator And 154- If you guys have suggestions that you didn't wanna bring up, uh, maybe, maybe you're shy. You know, Todd's there. He's gotta have some questions or some comments, but please email to us or text them. My phone number's 480-216-5134. You can text me anytime. Call me. Thank you, Mike and Tim. What, what's the area code? 586? 480. 480, sorry. 480-216-5134. Got it. Thanks, Mike. So n- next week, if you know any Sister Ignatia fans or early AA fans, invite them on. 6:00, same time, same place, same code. Everything's the same. Great. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Tim. Thanks. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Mike. Bye, everybody.

The following is an AI-generated transcript. Minor errors may occur. The audio is the authoritative source.

Dr. Silkworth, Towns Hospital, and the Road to Akron — Tuesday Night History Workshop — May 15, 2020

Dr. Silkworth, Towns Hospital, and the Road to Akron — Tuesday Night History Workshop — May 15, 2020

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