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Source: Dr. Paul F. & Bill W. – IDAA Banquet Opening and Remarks – Indianapolis (1966).mp3 File: dr-paul-f-and-bill-w-idaa-banquet-opening-and-remarks-indianapolis-1966.mp3 Duration: 00:14:01
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This is your annual banquet. I am Dr. Paul F., alcoholic, non-drinking, sober today only because I put sobriety above everything else, and with the help of my higher power and the good fellowship of AA, I'll keep it there. At the beginning, to start off with, let me make one announcement. [name omitted] is going to pass some baskets around in order to start this kitty for Luke. It in no way is a reflection on this convention, which I assure you is financially solvent, but we thought we'd at least get it started.
This is entirely voluntary and there wouldn't be an AA meeting unless the basket was passed anyway. At the beginning, I would like to, for myself and the committee, and for the entire organization, I would like to thank the Motel for a Herculean task which they have succeeded in performing very nobly. When we left Chicago last year and knew that the convention was going to be here, we used Chicago's figures as a baseline. These were the figures we quoted to the Motel.
Since that time, for what reason I don't know, and I don't particularly care so long as it happened, but the thing seemed to mushroom, and if it wasn't for the International Brotherhood of Machinists, it would be bigger than it is, and I have half a notion to send them a bill for $175. But whatever it was, this thing has mushroomed out of all expected proportion. Essentially what we've done in the last three days is try to put seven pounds of sugar in a five-pound bag, as far as the accommodations of the Motel are concerned.
I have to thank the members of the group for the cooperation we've had in getting in and out of here so that the rearrangements could be made, and the Herculean task that the Motel has accomplished, and I think they deserve a very round, warming hand of applause. When we left Chicago last year, the banquet figure that was quoted to me for the banquet was 105. As of this moment, the closest figure I know is that we now have 160 in this room.
Our registrations for the convention total 142 paid. So you see, we are now operating at 142 percent of Chicago, which is the reason we're in this [unclear] that you've been through for the last 24 hours. It's amazing. I happen to think of a joke. Well, this organization fits the joke, you see. Don's heard this, he can put his earplugs back. It seems that a man walked into a bar, and as he walked in he saw this unfortunate individual who had imbibed too much and had passed out and just slid off the chair onto the floor and was out cold.
So he had a bright idea and he went back out and he came back in a minute and he taped a piece of Limburger cheese under this man's nose. Well, it didn't take very long, as you well know, for this person to come charging up off the floor. And he staggered around with a very stupid look on his face, as we all get, and he charged out the front door and he came back in and he charged out the back door and was back in a few minutes, still with this stupid look on his face, looked all around the barroom, got out in the middle of the floor, and said, "My God, the whole world stinks." Now, you see, this is the height of egoism. And I know of nobody that has more egoism than doctors. And if anybody would ever have told me that I could put this many egotists in one room, I'd have never believed them, but I did it.
This organization has a unique position. Since it is made up of physicians and travels around the country as it does, it is in the unique position of intelligent information for the places that it goes.
[00:05:07]
As guests, we have members of the press at times, we have outside visitors, you never know who your guests are. And it makes an ideal situation for the thing that is lacking in most situations, and that is a lack of communication. This organization makes an ideal communicating body between us and our ancillary services, and nobody in this room would deny the worth of these ancillary services as far as the fellowship of AA and what they do for their fellow alcoholics.
So that to belong to this organization and come to these meetings and be a part of this trying to communicate the problem to those who are also trying to do something about the problem is commendable. There is a phrase that says, start where you are. Everybody in this room, no matter what is past, has the God-given right to get up from his chair, and no matter what your past, to do exactly whatever you want to do from this moment on.
As we go to these meetings, you see, then our goals begin to change, and with our communications we can accomplish things if we'll just get up off the chair and do it. And I hope we continue to have meetings such as this and things like we had this afternoon, scientific and otherwise. [Unclear] I heard the other day what I think was the height of rationalization. A alcoholic patient was giving his doctor the usual excuses for why he drank, and he blamed everything in the world on his mother. He was an alcoholic because of his mother, and the doctor wanted to know why.
And he said, because every night when I went to bed, she tucked me in and said, sleep tight. And to me, I think that's the height of rationalization. But you didn't come here to hear me talk. I would like to introduce our distinguished people at the head table. I will start over on the left. On the end is Bill W. and Lois W. And Bill has said that he talked enough this afternoon and he has enough to do tomorrow, so he doesn't wish to address us this evening.
Oh, I didn't say that. Now you know what I mean by communication. That's what I thought you wanted. In that case, Bill, the podium is yours. Right now? Bring on the thing. And we'll also have some more lack of communication in just ten seconds. Because our next guest, as you well know, is our beloved Polly, who has also chosen not to say a few words this evening because she is talking tomorrow also.
Next to Polly is Christine G. and Dr. William G., who you've already met. Ralph G., sorry. On the end is Luke R. and Harriet R. Do you have anything you want to talk about, Luke? I'll save it till morning. You'll save it till morning? We'll be in for it in the morning. And next to Harriet is Mary L., and we'll hear from the other half of that in a little bit. I have been asked to also announce that the change in the program for tomorrow morning that the time has been changed to 9.30 instead of 10.
And I have no other further announcements to make, so we'll let Bill go at it for a little bit. Well, he did catch me off balance. I got a lot of long lingos I could tell you. We'll save that for tomorrow.
[00:10:00]
But you know, I would like to renew the thanks that Lois gave for the privilege of being with this magnificent crowd. We have heard unsurpassed talks on every aspect of that benign, that providential synthesis which is our society. We have seen and felt and heard expressions of its spiritual essence, of its moral substance. We are reminded that our malady was lack of a life in the spirit, lack of morality.
But lest we get too guilty, we are also happily reminded that this is also a bodily disease. You know, I recently went to Sister Ignatia's funeral. And in a very real sense, it was a time not for mourning, but of rejoicing that God had been so good to us all. And there, as the mind's eye turns back to those early days, we can see Dr. Bob, the representative of medicine and AA, and Sister Ignatia, all the best in religion.
Again, it was the divine synthesis of which this group, in my belief, are the special inheritors. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. I have here a clipping which I clipped out of the Indianapolis Star some time ago. And it is pertinent because the article comes from the Speaker's home state of Texas. It is datelined Edinburgh, Texas, and I have no idea where that city is, but it's in Texas. It says one Pablo J. was fined $50 and faced a week in jail for the unprecedented crime of driving a cotton picker while drunk.
J. told the judge that he drove the picker for only four hours, he stopped only at bars, and his trip ended in a ditch. The highway patrolman estimated the damage to the picker at $4,000. I read this to point out to you that at least in the great state of Texas there is such a thing as a cotton-picking drunken driver.