AA History Zoom Meeting — May 8, 2020

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Unknown AA History Zoom Meeting • 2020

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Unknown Listen to Meeting Recording

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Unknown ABOUT THIS MEETING

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Unknown Recording of the AA History Zoom Meeting from May 8, 2020. These weekly meetings explored the rich history of Alcoholics Anonymous through discussion, storytelling, and primary source research. Hosted by Mike Fitzpatrick and the Recovery Speakers community.

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Unknown Full Transcript

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Moderator It's being done on the phone and on Zoom and on Facebook and FaceTime, and I just think that that's wonderful to see this progression. What, uh, Tim and I were talking about, because I had been re- it had been requested that we do a, a meeting and that we should do it about history because we have so many archives and so much here, uh, for our history. So we're gonna... Over the coming weeks, we're going to just kind of spoon feed that out, and hopefully every week you'll sign on and you'll leave going, "Wow, I didn't know that," or, "That's really cool. I learned something new," or, "Wasn't that..." You know. So we're gonna be doing it every week. Sometimes Tim's gonna do it, sometimes I, I'm gonna do it. We're also gonna be inviting some guests. I wanna give you a little bit of background on Recovery Speakers, though, because many of you may not know anything about Recovery Speakers audio library, recoveryspeakers.com, and the project that we've created. I got sober in 1985 in Brownwood, Texas. And the guy who I'm gonna refer to as my co-sponsor was a man named Bill O'Neill.

2:03

Moderator And Bill had, at that time, the largest AA tape library ever put together. And the reason that the tape library got started was Bill's original sobriety date was in 1946, and apparently he was really looking forward to going to the international convention held in Cleveland in 1950. But something happened between '46 and '50, and that was that Bill took a drink, and he didn't make it to the conference. After the international convention had taken place, he called the general service office, at, at the time I believe it was still the foundational office, and he inquired as to whether or not they had the convention recorded. He wanted to, to hear what he had missed. And they told him no, and he was frustrated, maybe even resentful. I don't, I, I don't know. I wasn't there. But I know whatever it was was enough to motivate this guy to go out and start recording conferences on his own, and he was, to my knowledge, the first guy to record AA and Al-Anon conferences.

3:23

Unknown The other interesting thing about this man and his wife and the service that they provided was Bill had one arm and one eye. He didn't have an assistant. He dragged his recording material to every conference. He set up... He had reel-to-reel tape recorders. So he would set up these reel-to-reel tape recorders. He would sit at his little desk and he would record the entire conference. He recorded everything at these conferences, from the breakout meetings to the main speakers, to the introductions, to the readings, to the closing, to the, to the askat basket. He did all of it. And as Bill began to do this, he preserved this library. So he began to record. Then he got other people who were enthusiastic over AA history and preserving it and making it available to do the same. So we started having recorders. There was one that started in New York, another one over in, on the West Coast and up in San Francisco. There were a couple more in Texas and one in Omaha.

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Moderator And it started to grow, and Bill would show up to these conferences once these other guys got started, and they were kind of fighting, who's gonna put their microphone up to the podium? So Bill created this, this block. It's about five foot long, and he had these, uh, he had one input and all these outputs, and he, he built this himself. So when the tapers showed up, all they had to do is plug into his box and they could record the entire conference. So there may be three or four people recording a single conference during this time. He started that in the early '50s. He got sober in '51. He started it in the early '50s, and he continued this legacy until his death sometime, I believe Bill died around 2000... Well, he probably stopped recording around 2000. He died a couple of years after that, with long-term sobriety. Well, as a result of that, uh, I received a call from Brown University, and Brown wanted me to go to Texas and to appraise this library.

6:00

Moderator And I went down there to look at the collection and see what it was and, and inspect it, and I did all that. I gave them appraisal. I sent it back to Brown, and they decided that the project was a little bit more than what they wanted to undertake at the time. Probably looked at some of the expenses, what it would cost to store it. Because by the time I ended up, uh, by the time I ended up going to Texas to appraise it, um, there was 3,100 reel-to-reel tapes in the library- there were a couple dozen wire recordings in the library, and there were over 10,000 cassette tapes in the library. So, um, Brown decided not to go ahead and purchase the, the library. So I ended up purchasing it from the family and didn't know why, but decided that we would start to, uh, digitize this and preserve the contents for all future generations of recovery. Whether it was AA or whatever. We just wanted to make sure that all those recordings were preserved. I like to tell you that they're all done, and they're not.

7:25

Moderator We're still probably 70 to 75% left to do. It's become a very expensive project, and we've self-funded it. And these meetings, and none of what we're doing is trying to raise money. What we're really trying to do is raise awareness and get people who are enthusiastic over our history to get into it, to really go after it, and to learn and do any- anything they can to preserve it. And that was where I found myself. So I started digitizing these, these tapes, and we decided we'd make them available online, and it's always been my mission to make them available for fun and for free. And, you know, that's been my philosophy. It's cost us a lot of money to do that. Tim, my nephew, got sober almost seven years ago. I almost said seven years, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna front him any time. Um, but he came out seven years ago and began to really kind of get involved really first in the program, and then he showed an interest in the recovery speakers.

8:52

Moderator And I can tell you that, you know, Matt had said to me when the meeting started, or earlier, before the meeting started, "Thanks so much for sending out the daily talks." And I gotta tell you, that's been Tim. Tim has really over the last year and a half, he's handled the Facebook, he's handled the, the daily speakers, he's handled a lot of the digitizing, the videos that we're doing. Uh, Tim's really been w- working full time to do this for us, and I'm grateful to him. I'm proud of him and the job that he's been doing, and we're also gonna have him share some history in the coming weeks. So it, we're setting the bar real high for Tim. But what happened to me when we began this project was once we got some of the tapes digitized, we began to make them available. I was able to write three books for Hazelden that were all based on the contents of the audio that's in the library. So the most recent book came out in 2011, I think, and that was Dr. Bob and Bill W. Speak: AA Co-Founders Tell Their Stories.

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Moderator And in that book, it's all stories that came from the early recordings that we were able to digitize and I was able to compile and make, put together into that book. So what we're gonna do, uh, with these meetings is we're gonna share things each week, kind of have a theme, and this week is gonna be early AA, what happened to Bill Wilson. And how did the importance of working with others, how did that happen? And I think that it's important for us to look at AA history, and most of the time when I give history talks, I like to share a story that Howard shared with me and he told me about a disagreement that... Howard was my s- most recent sponsor before Bob B. Howard passed away a year ago. But one of the things that Howard shared with me was i- in his early recovery, his wife and him were having a disagreement about something. And, uh, he left for work that day, was quite upset. And he got home that night and he said his wife had changed.

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Moderator And he wanted to continue to fight because he had spent the whole day thinking about this little disagreement they had before he went to work. And he came home ready, prepared to, to win the battle, and he said something to Pat and she said, "Oh, no, Howard, you're right." And Howard didn't get it. Howard lo- uh, looked at her and said, "Wait, what? What do you mean? I'm suppo- we're supposed... This argument's not over. Now you're saying we're, I'm right." And she said, "Yes, and, and I'm right, too." Her Al-Anon sponsor had come by that day, and, uh, Pat had shared with her Al-Anon sponsor what had happened that morning. And the Al-Anon sponsor said, "Well, Pat, if I take a dollar bill and I put it between you and Howard, and you describe what you see and Howard describes what he sees, you're both gonna describe a different version of the exact same thing." Many times in our arguments, we're right and so is the other person. It's just understanding that they're looking at it from a different point of view or a different set of experiences. Alcoholics and- Anonymous is just that way.

13:32

Moderator AA history, if we look at it, we can see how there's different versions of AA history based on where you're at. Your AA history in Cleveland doesn't look the same as it does a few miles away in Akron. It doesn't resemble what it looked like in the early days in New York. Philadelphia looks a little different than New York, and Boston a little different than that. And then when you go to LA and you get on the West Coast, it looked a little bit different. So what happens when people start sharing the history, often that history is based on either the sponsorship and the lineage of how it was handed down to them, or territorial, based on the area where they came into Alcoholics Anonymous, how it was introduced and how AA began in that area. So I share that because anything that we share through our recovery speakers, we're not speaking as authorities on AA history. We're just speaking as people who are sober, who love the history, who want to preserve it, and have taken the time to study it.

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Moderator And I share that because if you are new to Alcoholics Anonymous, want some great material to study, I recommend some of AA's literature. Um, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Pass It On. I'm looking at... Somebody sent me a chat. Okay. Pass It On. Um, Dr. Bob and the Good Old-Timers. The, uh, AA, uh, as- I was gonna say AA Way of Life. The, it's called As Bill Sees It. All of those are great places to, to start and learn about AA history. And then of course there's Ernie Kurtz book, Slaying the Dragon. There are so many other material... Uh, uh, Ernie Kurtz book, Not God. Uh, Bill White's book, Slaying the Dragon. They're all great resources for us. So I recommend that anybody interested in AA history kind of go out there and, and learn from other places and pick some things up, and I think that you're gonna find that it's exciting. I know for me, if I wasn't introduced to the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't think that I'd be sober today. And I share that.

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Moderator I want to just share one story, and I'm gonna ask Tim to share another clip of Bill W. But the story I want to share with you is a personal one to me. I had been sober for a couple of months. I was very enthusiastic and I had a great sponsor, and he was taking me over to Bill O'Neill's house every day and we were learning about the history, and they were introducing me to people. And there were a lot of people left in Texas that were... There, Smitty was down there, Roy Uregan was down there. A lot of, uh, Searsty. A lot of old time AA. And John was introducing me to all of these guys. And Smitty was over at Dr. Bob's house, or over at, uh, Bill W.'s, or Bill O'Neill's house one day at the library, and he asked me, he said, "Did, did Bill or John tell you about my dad and Bill W. and the first guy that they worked with?" And by then I was excited, and I'm like, "Yeah, Bill D., AA number three, Akron City Hospital." And I started telling about the history.

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Unknown And Smitty looks at me and he s- says, "Well, Mike, there was a guy before Bill D. That guy was Eddie R., and Eddie was a bad drunk." He said, "Eddie would climb out the window of the up- of the top floor of the house, down the waterspout. He'd go get drunk and then he'd come back." And Dr. Bob and Bill would try to get him sober. They'd go get him and bring him home. So this one particular day, Eddie was chasing Anne Smith, Dr. Bob's wife, around the house with a butcher knife, and they had to commit him to a sanitarium. So the first guy that Bill and Bob tried to help ended up in a sanitarium. And Smitty said, "Mike, the story didn't end there. 15 years later at my dad's funeral, a man came up to me and extended his hand and said, 'Do you know who I am?'" And he looked at him and he said, "You're Eddie." And he said, "Yes, and I've been sober for two years." There's never a failure in Alcoholics Anonymous. Once the seed is planted, there's never a failure. It matures. Something happens.

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Moderator They don't all get sober, I'm not saying that. But in this particular case, the miracle happened and Eddie got sober, and he remained sober the rest of his life. And the reason that story was so important in my recovery was because I had come to Alcoholics Anonymous for 10 years and I thought I was a failure and I didn't think AA would work for me. And when I heard the story of Eddie, I knew it. I knew that AA would work for me because AA wasn't built on success- Yes. It was an outgrowth of failure. And it was guys like Tom and Eddie and Alan and Carl and me and Tim that were finding ways to get sober and stay sober. And we're all different, yet we're all alike because we had something in common. And what happened with Eddie was he stayed sober and dedicated his life to working with other alcoholics. So the next clip that we want to play is an audio, some of you have heard it, but it's Bill talking about the kitchen table experience that he had with his sponsor, Ebby. Tim. All right.

21:09

Moderator I'm going to share my screen again and play the video. Perhaps there is no better way at this time of parting. Then came an interval of a few months. And during that period, a friend of mine who had been released of his obsession by the grace of God came to visit me. And over my kitchen table, where I sat drinking whilst Lois was at work, he related this simple formula, which is now flowered in our 12 steps of recovery. And that simple essence was, you remember, that he admitted he could not manage his own life, that he had got honest with himself as never before, that he made a confession of his character defects, that he had tried to sweep away the debris of the past by mending his broken relations with others. And then he told me of a new kind of giving that demanded no reward. And then rather hesitantly, because he knew my agnosticism, he said, and to do these things, I ask God's help. Thus spoke one alcoholic to another in a kitchen basement on Clinton Street, Brooklyn in November 1934. I rebelled against his idea of God.

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Unknown But somehow the memory of that conversation could never escape me. He didn't stay long. Prudently, he withdrew, leaving me to my thoughts. And in no waking hour after could I banish what he had said from my mind. There was no new principle that he had enunciated. Of course there wasn't. But why did these simple precepts stick when poured into me by him? Well, you and I know, as we didn't realize then, we know that he impressed me because he presented a spectacle of relief. We knew that I was impressed. We know now that I was impressed because he was another alcoholic who spoke my language. And so a realization came that maybe there was hope. At length, I repaired again to the hospital to be cleared up. The doctor put me to bed. I wasn't yet in such a bad way. Three days later, free from sedative and alcohol, I looked up one morning out of my depression and saw this friend standing in the door. I feared he would evangelize me, but no, he didn't. He said he'd heard I was there, just came to pay a friendly visit.

24:04

Unknown I asked him once more what were the terms of his release. Quite simply stated them. And again, betook himself away. Well, when he had gone, my depression deepened until it seemed that I was in the bottom of a pit. For, you see, I still rebelled against the idea that there would be a God who could save me, who could enable me to do what I couldn't do myself. But presently, my rebellion ceased. And in an agony I cried out, "If there is a God, will He show Himself?" And then came an experience which, of course, is the great event of my whole life. I had a very sudden experience in which it seemed that the room lighted up. I was caught into a great ecstasy. It seemed as though I were on top of a mountain and a great wind blew, and I knew it was spirit. And at length, I find myself still on the bed, now surrounded by a presence. And I thought to myself, "So this is the God of the preachers." All right, Mike, you back? I think you're muted, Mike. All right. I won't say any more bad words.

25:34

Moderator Is this better background than when I was out on a deck? All right. Did, did anybody catch that? Yeah, everyone's muted. That's what, what- Amazing ... you're snot-nosed- Was it all first edition? If you didn't catch all that, you should get something else for that, I think. Um, you're muted again, Mike. Okay. Uh, I'm not muting myself, so, uh, can you hear me now, Tim? Somebody give me a thumbs up. Can you hear me? It... Mac? Tim? Okay. So throughout Bill's life, he considered Ebby to be his sponsor, and the reason he considered Ebby to be his sponsor was because Ebby's the one that carried a message to him. And as he said there, the message, you know, was a simple formula. It was six little things that he built the program on, and that was complete deflation, belief in a power greater than ourselves, regardless of what it is. And he said, "Even if we use it as an experiment." An inventory where we write down the things we've done and who we aren't. A confession where we share with God and another human being what it is that we have done.

27:08

Unknown Then a willingness to carry this message to others and, of course, a step for restitution, where we go out and, and right the wrongs that we've done. And Bill built the program on this, but you can see from his experience, he uses words when he's talking like release. We don't see this same language in the Big Book when we're reading the Big Book. But later when he looked at it, he... Because everything that they did, they looked backwards and, and it was like, even if you look at the program or the steps, I'm sure Bill sat there and thought, "Okay, what did we do? Oh, all right, we admitted we were powerless." Okay. "Oh, okay, we came to believe." Okay. So everything was looking in the rear view mirror as it began to document what was going on. And I think that, that often we, you know, think that he had this formula in place. He didn't. He was just kinda... It was, it was coming together as he was doing it.

28:31

Moderator So what we're gonna do over the next couple of weeks is we're gonna introduce and talk about the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous, the people that Bill Wilson called founders. Who were they? Some of them were non-alcoholics, some of them were alcoholics. We're gonna talk and, and share some things about those people as well as some of their recordings, so that you can have a chance to hear some of the pioneers' voices. Clarence Snyder, Bill Dotson, and some of the guys that were there in the beginning, and some of the messages that they shared. So I hope you'll continue to join us. You know, I asked Tim to share, uh, to put together another video. This one's a little shorter than that, and I wanna share that now because, um, I think it's a great time and, a- a- and it's gonna help me share what I wanna share after that. So Tim, do the next video. And mute me in case I say something bad. All right, this one is just audio. To me, this has come with such mysterious power, yet on such- Utterly simple terms.

30:00

Unknown Of course, I thought as you would have thought, "Why, every alcoholic should be able to find an experience like this." And then I questioned myself and said, "Well, why didn't these truths hit me this way before?" Why, of course, one alcoholic was talking to another. He must have struck me deep. He must have deflated me way down and made room for the grace of God that was forever blocked by my own raging ego. The ability to live in my world, the ability to transmit to me, the ability to humble me where no other living one could. That was one alcoholic talking to other, to another. Maybe that was the clue. Well, in my place, you would have started to work frantically with other alcoholics, and I did, as many of you have since done. Nearly all of you, in fact, as this vast gathering can see. I worked with these others. I tell them of this sudden experience, which incidentally, folks, down in New York is called by the cynical Bill Wilson's hot flash. Well, the drunks in those early days weren't a damn bit impressed with that hot flash business.

31:29

Moderator They all tapped their heads and said, "No." So I worked, and I worked, and I worked. Well, you know what the defect was. I had become a preacher. I was talking off a moral hilltop. For with this experience came a liability, a certain spiritual pride, a conceit. You know, I fancied I was divinely appointed to fix up all the drunks in the world. But boy, oh, boy, how the drunks knocked that out of me. Not one success in six months. About this time, Lois's relatives began to murmur, "When is this guy going to stop being a missionary and go back to work?" So under that gentle prodding, I used to go over to Wall Street, where I once had been, and I sat around on chairs in brokerage shops, and that made it look to folks like I was working. And one day, I'm sitting, uh, beside a stranger. We fall into a conversation. And you know how things can snowball in the streets. All of a sudden it runs into a deal. And very suddenly I'm in the midst of a proxy rout.

32:55

Unknown And all of a sudden I find that I have a controlling interest in a little company, and it looks like they're going to elect me president of a little company out in Akron, Ohio. All rolled up in a matter of a few weeks as a result of a conversation with a stranger. Oh, on what slender threads this destiny of ours has often hung. So I'm in Akron. Now I'm going to be elected president of the company. Now we're going to be respected. We'll hold up our heads in this community. And when I get the economic situation fixed up, then maybe I'll work some more with these drunks. And we'll get Lois out of that damn department store. Those were my thoughts. All right. I unmuted myself. Can you hear me now? I can. I hope you guys enjoy those clips. I'm so glad that, uh, that, you know, Bill recorded these things and preserved this. We have in, in the library, we have the, the largest collection of recordings of Bill Wilson anywhere on the planet.

34:20

Moderator And over the coming weeks, we're gonna play some really cool clips and some things that, that you're really gonna enjoy. At least I know I did. And I love... One of the things I've enjoyed most about having the library, digitizing it, spending the time that I have listening to this, is coming from the voices of the pioneers. To listen to Bill Wilson tell what it was like is a different feel for me than when I read it in a book. And I'm just so grateful for this and that we can do that. And you know, Bill, when he talked about Ebby coming in the hospital, uh, it, it was on a different recording, but it was very similar to what he had just shared. He says, "You know, here's this guy in the, in the doorway of his hospital room." And he thought that Ebby should be out looking for a job And he said, "Here's a man who really pract- practices what he preaches." And then Bill falls into this depression.

35:43

Unknown In the depth of the depression, he cries out like a child, "If there's a God, show himself." And he says a room lights up, a bright white light. He feels a breeze of the spirit, and he can tell he's been released. That excitement, that enthusiasm carried on in his work for the next six months while he was trying to sober up the drunks in New York. And no one stayed sober, but he did. And I don't know if it was his doctor, Doctor, Dr. Silkworth or, or Lois that said to him, "Bill, you've stayed sober." He was feeling kind of depressed, like no one was getting it. And he went to Akron, and we're gonna play some Akron stuff next week, but I wanna share with you what happened in Akron, okay? The first sober guy in Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron that stayed sober was Bill D., Bill Dotson. His story is in the Big Book, AA number three. Now, think about Wilson's spiritual experience, think about his enthusiasm, think about his words of preaching to the drunks. Here's what he said. This is Bill Dotson's story, okay?

37:15

Moderator "It would be hard to estimate how much AA has done for me. I really wanted the program, and I wanted to go along with it. I noticed that others seemed to have such a release." They kept using this word release. "A happiness. As something that I thought a person ought to have. I was trying to find the answer. I knew there was even more, something that I hadn't got. And I remembered one day, a week or two after I had come out of the hospital, Bill," referring to Bill W., "was at my house talking to my wife and me. We were eating lunch. And I was listening and trying to find out why they had this release that they seemed to have. Bill looked a- across the table at, and said to Henrietta, 'Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just wanna keep talking about it and telling people.' I thought, I think I have the answer.

38:33

Moderator Bill was so very, very grateful that he had been released from this terrible thing that he had given God the credit for having done it, and he was so grateful about it that he wants to tell people about it." That sentence, "The Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just wanna keep telling people about it," has sort of been the golden text of AA program and for me. And that was in Bill Dotson's story, AA number three. So when we listen to the recordings and we spend time, we can see how this is all connected and how Bill didn't lose that enthusiasm when he went to Akron. And I'll even say the preaching part of it. And another interesting thing I'll share with you is this, that Bill D.'s story did not appear in the first edition. It didn't appear until 1955 in the second edition. Bill D. died in 1954. Before his death, he had done some recorded messages with Bill Wilson and gave Bill Wilson permission to write his story and to include it in the second edition.

40:02

Moderator So the words that I'm actually, that are in that book, although they're Bill Dotson, it's Bill Wilson writing the story. So I'm sure that some of his flair is in the Bill Dotson story in AA number three. But nevertheless, you know that Bill Wilson wanted the validation of Bill D. before he did the story, and he wanted to include his story in the 1955 second edition because AA had worked that well for Bill D., AA number three, for that length of time. Don't forget, in 1950, they were still trying to get the AA message settled. Bill Wilson at that time was trying to not be so tied as the leader of Alcohol- Alcoholics Anonymous to step back. And for the next, the next 21 years, he tried to step out of AA and could never successfully do it. I'm personally very grateful for, for Bill and the, and the path that he led, and the fact that he recognized that it's in working with others that we, that we get our sobriety. And the quality of life that we get is measured by the service that we give, and Wilson knew that.

41:31

Moderator And he said in that talk, he said, "Ebby introduced this idea of giving without expectation, without looking for reward." And I know that was my personal failure, trying to get sober all those 10 years that I couldn't get sober, because I was always looking for the angle. I was looking to put the bite on somebody, or to get something for nothing, or somebody to take care of me, or somebody to, uh, treat me special or see that I was a victim instead of me being responsible and, and willing to serve. So I'm, I'm grateful for that. As a matter of fact, we're gonna share a audio in a couple of weeks called How We Serve, and it was a talk that Bill gave at the 1955 International Convention, and it's incredible. And if you want to hear it ahead of time, it's on Recovery Speakers. The other thing we'd like t- to invite you to do, if you haven't signed up for the newsletter, um, what that does is it's gonna get you the daily featured talk. So we send out a daily talk.

43:00

Moderator We would love to get recommendations of people that you would like to hear. Um, if you, if there was workshops or anything that we might have, we would love to, to make that available. If you have anything that you want to contribute, if you want to contribute your story, we can put that up there. Whatever, we, we really want to, to help continue to carry the message through the Recovery Speakers Network the best that we can. So I wanted to ask Tim, where are we here? Why don't we, if we could, it's 6:43, can you, uh, can we have people that might have a question or a suggestion want to raise their hand and maybe you can unmute them and they can ask? Anybody have any questions, comments, concerns? Anybody? Anybody? I feel like people should- Mac ... be able to unmute themselves if they want to. Oh, they can unmute themselves? Okay. They should be able to, yeah. Hey, Mike? Yes, Mac. So, um, I know in Ebby's, in, in the book about Ebby that Ebby's version of the, as they call it, the bedtime story, is a little different.

44:27

Unknown And I, I don't know, where do you come out on that? All right. Well, let me share that, Mac, and thank you. Um, actually, I, when I did the book on, uh, the co-founders, uh, Dr. Bob and Bill W. Speak, I wanted to include Ebby in it. And so what I did is I pulled all the Ebby talks that I could find, and I found eight or nine of them, okay? And then the other, and I want to preface this too with my first sponsor, Big John, Ebby spent 10 years in Texas, um, sober. And Big John and Ebby were very close. They would go fishing. They did meetings. They hung out together. So John would share a lot of Ebby's stories with me, and I really kind of learned to love the guy, right? I really kind of learned to love that Ebby was a guy that deeply cared for people, but he had some deep inferiorities. And he, yeah, and he struggled with his alcoholism. Yep. So what happened was Ebby got sober when, when, uh, the Oxford Group, there was, uh, Seabury Graves, Shep Cornell, and Roland Hazard.

45:53

Unknown I'm gonna give you the very short version, okay? Ebby had to go to jail or t- had to go to court. He was ready to go to jail. The judge was Judge Graves, which was the father of Seabury Graves. Seabury Graves was recently sober, and he got sober through the principles of the Oxford Group and a relationship that he had with Roland Hazard. As a result of that relationship, the judge looked at Roland. Roland showed up in court unexpected. The judge looked at Roland and said, "If you will take Ebby under your custody, I will release him to you and he does not have to go to jail." And of course, Ebby was grateful. And Roland and Shep and Ebby, they started traveling all over New England, and they were going to house parties and spe- speaking and Ebby was getting an opportunity to speak in front of people, and he was following this, the, the program that they had in place. Right? Part of that was paying restitution.

47:10

Unknown So here he finds himself in New York and he's with, Shep Cornell had a place in New York, invited Ebby to come and stay with him for a while. Ebby went there and he was making amends. And while he was making amends, he inquired, while he was on Wall Street making amends, he inquired how his old friend, Bill Wilson, was doing. And he asked somebody, "How's Bill?" And they said, "He's in bad shape. He's a wreck. He's probably not gonna live a year. He's a mess." And Ebby thought he really wanted to reach out and try to help Bill, so he called over to the Wilson house and Lois answered the phone. And he said, "Lois, this is Ebby and I've been sober for three months, and I'm part of the Oxford Group, and I'm in New York, and I'm making amends to people, and I heard Bill's in bad shape, and I'd like him to at least hear about what's happened to me and maybe it can happen for him." And Lois said, "Oh my God, Ebby, please.

48:43

Unknown Come over." So they scheduled a dinner date for Ebby to come to the house, and Ebby showed up a little bit early. And he said Bill got there and then they had some small talk, and Bill had to go to the delicatessen to get some cigarettes, which was probably a drink. And then he came back and stayed a little while, then he had to go back and get some ice cream for dessert, which was probably a drink. And then Lois showed up. Lois hadn't been there yet. Lois showed up, and her and the woman that lived upstairs of them on Clinton Street made dinner, and they all went to the... a- and had dinner. So at dinner was Ebby, the woman from upstairs, Bill, and Lois.

49:41

Unknown Then they went to the parlor where they would sit and have their coffee a- and conversation, and Lois turns to Ebby and says, "Ebby, what's been going on?" And Ebby said that he took the next approximately five hours and he wanted to give Bill Wilson the best pitch that he ever gave anybody on this planet, because he knew Bill was either gonna take it or he was gonna say, "To hell with it," and have nothing to do with it. And Ebby apparently was on fire that night, so he told about the Oxford Group and the things that were going on, how he was changing, the principles that he had learned. He had explained to him these original six steps and talked about the absolutes. He really downplayed the God, other than telling Bill he could do it as an experiment. And this pressed hard on Bill and after that evening, Bill walked Ebby out and put his arm around his shoulder and said, "I don't know what it's, what you've got, kid, but I want it." And that was Ebby's version of the kitchen table.

51:10

Unknown I don't know whose version was right, Mac, but I know that Bill was drunk and Ebby was sober. Right. And, and also Bill was good at creating the Reader's Digest version of the story- Right ... which maybe had broader appeal than- That- ... what might have happened in addition to that. And I, and I think when you read Bill's story and you see what, the, the, the kitchen table experience, the main idea that was communicated to Bill from Ebby all fits. Right. So again, like the dollar bill, that may have been exactly the way that Bill Wilson remembered it. It also may have been something he took a little bit of liberty when he was writing the book to try to make it sound interesting and keep it as intact as possible. It's hard to know exactly what he was thinking, but I have a feeling that, that as Bill was writing, a lot of this stuff that he was remembering, he was writing the way that he remembered it. Mm-hmm.

52:28

Unknown And how much do you think, uh, because, uh, the, they hired an editor, Hank and Bill hired an editor to write, to help them with the book. How much of that editing do you think had, uh, to do with the way the story came out, if anything? Well, again, uh, uh, we're gonna invite Bill Sheaffer, okay- Great ... to come in- Great ... and speak, and speak. Bill, if you don't know Bill Sheaffer, he recently wrote a book called The Writing of the Big Book, and it's really focused on the very early writings and the things that were happening between 1935 and the publication in April of 1939. So we're gonna ask Bill to come on and talk about some of those things. Great. What type of editors were involved, who really did what, what did it look like? Was there... Y- you, there, there's conversations and rumors out there that there was an 800-page manuscript, um- ... I, I, I really like- To talk to, to, uh, and we, and we'll get Bill. He's a great guy and, and, and he's a great, he's... You guys'll love him. Yeah.

53:59

Moderator Is that- If you haven't heard- Correct ... if you haven't heard him. And, and we'll make sure we announce that. I'll get him, uh, probably, probably the end of May or right around, uh, the, the founding of AA, around June 10th. Oh. The anniversary is kind of what I was thinking to bring Bill on. Oh, wonderful. Cool. Anybody else have any questions or ideas or thoughts, criticisms, comments? Tim, over here. Just unmute yourself, Clay, Clyde. Uh, yeah. I'm an alcoholic. Uh, name's Clyde Freston from Gardner, Maine. Um, in the Big Book, when they originally started out, they only had six steps. Uh, do you know when, when they went from six to 12 steps, what year? Okay. Well, in, in the Big Book, they always had 12 steps. Okay? But prior to the writing of the Big Book, they had six steps, and the six steps were never really a, a part of AA, and they were never really part of the Oxford Group. They were really kind of a segment or a bridge between the Oxford Group and AA.

55:22

Unknown So what happened when the guys from the Oxford Group that were getting sober, Rowland, BC Kitchen, um, Seabury Graves, Shep Cornell, these guys were getting sober. They began to take the information that they were getting in the Oxford Group, and they were communicating that to other drunks like them. And the, and what happened there was complete deflation, a belief in some power greater than themselves, and the Oxford Group was very much a Christian organization. Then there was the confession, or, or the, I'm sorry, the inventory, the confession, the restitution, and working with others. So Bill took those steps, and he knew that he wanted to expand or enlarge upon those steps, and he wanted to do it in such a way that the alcoholics wouldn't have any, as he said, wiggle room to get out. Okay? He wanted to make sure that, that they were presented in such a way that they were all-inclusive, never exclusive, because he knew that there would people, be people who would be excluded if he didn't do that. So as he began to hammer these steps out, I believe they were written in, like, uh... Hey, Mark.

56:50

Unknown I know, I saw Mark M. on here. Are you still on? Yes. Do you know- Yes ... what, were they February of '38 that he wrote the steps? Yes. Does that sound right? Yeah. Okay. There, there's an article in The Language of the Heart, which of course is Bill's writing, and it's called The Origin of the 12 Steps. And if you believe it, he says he took a pad of paper out in November, I think it's October, November of '38 and wrote them down while he was having an ulcer attack. But there's a- Okay ... article that, where he talks about all of that. I know Schaeberg questions some of that, uh, the veracity of some of that. But if you want to read what Bill says about it in The Language of the Heart, which is a collection of his Grapevine writings, um, he recounts how he wrote them down. That's great. And so, uh, my first sponsor, John Carlton, was friends with Bill. And, uh, and John shared a story with me of one night they were all together in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas. Okay? This probably would've been 1951. Wow.

58:21

Unknown And they're in the hotel, uh, they're in a hotel room in Dallas, and Dick Breen, John's sponsor, was there. And Dick turns to Bill. There's a half a dozen guys sitting in the hotel room. And Bill Wilson used to love to stay up late. He'd loosen, and John said he'd loosen his tie. They all wore jackets. Bill would pull, pull his tie down, take his shoes off, stretch out. He was a lanky, uh, uh, Bill was a tall guy, long legs. John said, so he would just relax and, and Dick Breen looked at Bill and said, "Bill, why don't you tell the guys how you, how you wrote the steps?" And Bill said, "Well, I, I was taking a nap one, one afternoon," and he mentioned a place, and it's not, might not come to me where it was that he wrote it. It was a cottage, okay? That they would go to. He woke up this afternoon. He went over to the desk. The window was open. He looked out. It was a little foggy, and he thought he saw a silhouette of a woman.

59:52

Unknown It looked like a nun or a religious woman, okay? He said he sat there and there was a pencil and a pad, and he had been thinking about these six steps and he wanted to expand on them. He wanted to leave no wiggle room and he began writing one, two, three. And he said when he was done, the pencil dropped to the ground, dropped to the desk and he knew he was done. He knew there was no 13th step. And John said, and Bill slammed his hand down on the table and said, "And the pencil dropped," and he hit the table. Now, I never knew if that story was true or if it was make believe, if it was something that John made. I had no idea.

60:50

Unknown I'm, I'm on the street in Toronto, Canada at the International Convention and a guy comes up to me and says, "Was John Carlton your sponsor?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "Will you meet me tomorrow morning at the lobby of the hotel?" And I said, "I sure would, be happy to." And when he came that morning, he brought a typed transcription of how Bill Wilson wrote the 12 steps, John giving that talk in the hotel ro- uh, the same talk as what had happened in the hotel room. And it just, I mean, number one, it made me cry, but the reality of seeing s- how some of this stuff is passed around in, in the different versions is, is just a blast. So what I will do is I'll dig that out, 'cause I have that in, in my archives here. I will dig that out and I would be happy to share that on Recovery Speakers with anybody that wants it. Cool. And, and that's something that we're really trying to do is just share everything that we have.

62:17

Moderator Well, we got two minutes, Tim, and I think you got a, another audio to share to wrap the meeting up. We'll be back next week at 6:00. Right now we've got this set for 100 people to come in, uh, because I, I feel like any time you talk about traditions or history you have a small group. Um, but please feel free to share this meeting with your friends. Invite them. It's open. It's not an AA meeting, it is an open history meeting from Recovery Speakers. That's what it is, and we, we're grateful that you're here, that you invested this hour. I hope you learned something or picked something up or maybe you got a little interested in picking up, uh, the Grapevine book, um, Language of the Heart. What a great book. Thanks for sharing that, Mac. Tim, go ahead and take us home. All right, thanks. I am going to mute everyone and I'm going to close it out by playing a video of Bill reading a vision for you. For me to conclude than to read to you the last brief paragraph written in Alcoholics Anonymous 12 years ago.

63:47

Unknown "Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellow. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then." All right. Thank you all for tuning in and I'm gonna unmute everyone and feel free to, uh, stick around and, uh, chat. Thank you much. I do appreciate it. Thank you very much. Great talk. Thank you all. That was beautiful. Mike. Everybody. Glad to be here. Thank you. Mike. Thank you. Yes. See you guys next week. Thank you. Glad to be here. Do you have any recordings of, uh- Good night ... of Circe Wayland? Yes. Do you? Yes. Yeah, I'd love to hear that. I did meet the man and, you know, before he died, but he said he was Ebby Thatcher's one and only sponsor. Well, I'm not gonna debate- That's what he- But, Tom, I, I won't debate it.

65:16

Moderator There's no question that, that, uh, that Circe was Ebby's sponsor It was in Texas. And there were a few other guys who, who, uh, who were very instrumental in helping E- Ebby at that time too Oh, I'm sure. Roland and Seth and yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, Mayor. Good job, Tim. Thank you. Thank you very much. Really enjoy it. I'll be back- Honest opinion, it was a great time ... is it every Saturday? Or, or excuse me, every Friday night? Every Friday night, six o'clock, uh, Pacific Time. Sounds good. Thanks, bud. Appreciate you. All right. Yep. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. In Canada. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, Mike. All right. How do we get the tape from tonight? Oh, yeah. Uh, talk to Tim, but he's got, he's gonna have them on the site. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. And that, that talk that you put on the site a few weeks ago of Ebby speaking in that hotel room- Yes ... it was wonderful. Wonderful.

66:37

Moderator Uh, what I'm gonna do, Mac, one of the future meetings, next week we're gonna do the, kind of the Akron connection and then how AA grew. But, um, one of the things that, that I want to do is take all of those Ebby talks, okay? And then share them, you know, in this meeting so you guys can hear all of the recordings that we have of Ebby. All right. Cool. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Hey. Hey, Mike. Hey, Tim. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have, do you have any way of requesting that when people sign on that they could put their state, uh, where they're from? Or is that something that, uh, is that just some- somebody's, uh, own, own, uh, conclusion to do? Uh- I see, I see Ben B. Did it from Virginia. I don't know that we know that, Tim I did it too. You just go to where it says par- , uh, participants. Click on your own name, and then once you go up to your name, uh, you hit your name and it'll come up and it'll say change name. Okay.

68:05

Moderator Hit change name, type in what you want, and then put done. All right. And you can put up whatever you want on there. Sweet. Thanks, Eddie. Oh, no problem. You know, Ebby, I had a little brown book that was, uh, Ebby Thatcher. It was his story. And, uh, it had in there when he ran into the woman's, uh, kitchen in his car- Yeah ... or in his, in a, in her living room. Uh-huh. And he got out of the car and says, "Excuse me, ma'am, do you have any coffee?" Yep. We're gonna play that recording. We were gonna play it tonight, but I didn't want to... I, I felt like tonight's meeting it was important not so much to hear me, but for me to lay some of the background and some of what we're going to be doing. But that was one of the recordings we had selected, so we'll be playing that. Well, it was so fantastically done, Tim putting everything on the screen and the way y'all did it. It was really good. Thank you so much. Really great. And that book, that book you're referring to was written by Mel B.

69:39

Moderator Right. And Mel was, uh, he died a couple years ago with, oh, I don't know how many years, 60-something. Um, and Mel knew Ebby and Bill. Um, and he was a w- a wonderful guy. He and I did a book together called Living the 12 Traditions in Today's World. And, uh- Cool. ... and it was one of, one of the highlights of my life was, uh, being able to share time with Mel. He was a great guy. Well, according to that book- Mike, are you in Arizona? ... Ebby was something else. Yeah, I'm in Arizona. Okay. I want to thank yous all, guys, for your, your, your efforts tonight. I am from, from Ireland. Yes. And it's the first time I've heard an American meeting and it's brilliant. I like it. I'm coming back to America. So please, so please bear with me. Uh, I love yous all and I love AA, and I've been at, I've been at it, uh, I'm over 40 years off the booze, and thank God for that. Yeah.

71:03

Moderator I'm 79 coming, and I feel like about 29, and I don't, I want to keep this going for another 50 years, but I have to accept one day at a time. Thank God, and thanks for AA, and thank you for all your efforts. God bless you. I'm away. Thank you. They got, they got, they got sober drunk, huh? Good morning. Saturday morning here. Yep. All right, kids. What time is it? Yeah, I know. It's early. You got sober drunks in Ireland? It's after 3:00 on Saturday morning. I don't sleep. I'm a funny alcoholic. Wonderful. God bless. All right. See you next week. All right. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. See you guys. I see Jeff. Hi, Jeff. All right. I'm gonna sign off. See you, Mike. I'll s- talk to you soon I hope. All right, Mac. I love you, man. Good to see you. Thank you, guys. I'll see you next week. See you. All right. God bless. Have a good one. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Tim. See you. Thanks, Eric. Hey, there's Eric. All right, I'm jumping off. Yeah. See you smiling, Mike. Take care. Thanks, guys. Bye.

72:36

Moderator All right, have a good one Thank God, and thanks for AA, and thank you for all your efforts. God bless you. I'm away. Thank you. They got, they got, they got sober drunk, huh? Good morning. Saturday morning here. Yep. All right, kids. What time is it? Yeah, I know. It's early. You got sober drunks in Ireland? It's after 3:00 on Saturday morning. I don't sleep. I'm a funny alcoholic. Wonderful. God bless. All right. See you next week. All right. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. See you guys. I see Jeff. Hi, Jeff. All right. I'm gonna sign off. See you, Mike. I'll s- talk to you soon I hope. All right, Mac. I love you, man. Good to see you. Thank you, guys. I'll see you next week. See you. All right. God bless. Have a good one. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Tim. See you. Thanks, Eric. Hey, there's Eric. All right, I'm jumping off. Yeah. See you smiling, Mike. Take care. Thanks, guys. Bye. All right, have a good one

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

AA History Zoom Meeting — May 8, 2020

AA History Zoom Meeting — May 8, 2020

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