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Source: DICOBE-00014 – David A – TALKS ON TWELVE TRADITIONS – 1984-12-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00014-david-a-talks-on-twelve-traditions-1984-12-15.mp3 Duration: 00:35:14
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Are they requested? Are they appointed? Are you better? And so, all the way from coffee brewers to our general service board, those of us who take part in AA service work are assuming responsibility, not authority. And so, as a result of it, this is a highly, highly… And, you know, if you're going to pay them, pay them a decent wage, and then if they don't do the job, you can fire them. But if you ask a member and say, well, you're retired and you're rich and you ain't got nothing to do, and why don't you come down here and open up and answer the phone and order the literature and count the money and go to the bank, look what a tremendous job it'll do for you.
But the rest of them say, isn't it great? We're going to get it cheap. We don't have to pay nothing. And then the first time he makes a mistake on the deposit, and the first time he forgets to pay the light bill, and they come in and the rent and the meeting and the doors is locked, and somebody says, well, get rent. Wait a minute, wait a minute. He's doing it for nothing. And after all, don't be too hard on him. He'd liable to get drunk.
But you see, whether you're an alcoholic, sober or not, and you're working at a real definite job, and the job is from 8 to 5, whether it's in a service office in here or in New York, and you don't produce and your work progress is not satisfactory, then they can fire you, just like any job. Like any job. And that's the difference in the way we used to operate and the way we operate today. Tradition 10, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name ought never be brought into public controversy.
We think that the future safety of Alcoholics Anonymous greatly depends upon Tradition 10, AA's principle of no controversy to public health. Since AA began, AA has never been divided by a major controversial issue. And by some deep instinct, we have known from the very beginning that no matter what the provocation, AA itself, that is the name Alcoholics Anonymous, should never publicly take sides in any fight, even a worthy one.
We must remember, however, that this reluctance to fight one another or anybody else is not a special virtue, which makes us feel superior to other people. Does it mean that the members of AA who have been and are and will be restored as citizens of the world, that we're going to back away from our individual responsibilities to act as we see fit on the right upon issues of our time, to vote as we see fit, only as individuals?
But when it comes to AA as a whole, that's a different matter. Alcoholics Anonymous does not enter into public controversy because we know our fellowship will die if we do. We survive and grow and spread because we know that Alcoholics Anonymous is something of greater importance than any weight that we could collectively throw back at any cause. Recovery from alcoholism, which is life for us, for us, and we wish to preserve its full strength because it's our only means of survival.
This is the last house on the block, baby. Where are we going? Where are we going to go? Now, the Washingtonian Society, a movement among alcoholics, which started in Baltimore over a century and some odd years ago, almost found the answer in alcoholism. At first, the society was composed purely of alcoholics trying to help one another. And just in a few years, they grow to be two, three hundred thousand.
When I come to Alcoholics Anonymous over 17 and a half years ago or whatever it was, they estimated there were 350,000 members of AE in the United States and Canada, and yet the Washingtonians in two or three years got up as high as three or four hundred thousand. Now, had they stuck to their one goal, they might have found the full answer. Instead, the Washingtonians permitted politicians and reformers, both alcoholics and non-alcoholics, to use the society for their own purposes.
They took violent sides on slavery issues. They even put out pamphlets. And some became temperance crusaders. Now, ain't that a kick? An alcoholic becoming a temperance crusader. Well, I'll tell you, I don't know if you go to AE a lot, but I'll tell you what. You know what's the most nauseating member of AE? The most nauseating member of AE is that self-righteous, religious, sober alcoholic. That's nauseating, you know?
And here they became temperance leaders and everything, reformers, and they allowed both alcoholic and non-alcoholics to use the society for their own purposes. And guess what? Within a few years, they completely lost their effectiveness in helping alcoholics and the society collapse. And our tradition, then, is based basically on the mistakes that the Washingtonians made.
[00:05:00]
And so, you see, in AE, we're not incorporated as a legal instrument with which to attack anybody, no matter how severe the provocation. We believe, since AE's inception and up to now, that AE is a fellowship and not an organization. Incorporation necessarily makes it an organization. And, you know, years ago, there was a tremendous alcoholic. Annie knew him. Some of you may have known him by the name of Bob Thompson.
Bob was a federal judge from Mississippi, Gulfport, Mississippi. Bob was a delegate at the General Service Conference, one of the finest legal minds, drunk or sober. And when he came up to that conference as a delegate, they thought about incorporating AA, the name Alcoholics Anonymous. Just AA. And so they asked Bob, with his legal mind, if he would chair a committee and he'd pick his men, so he got a fellow by the name of Willard Pegg.
Willard's dead, too. Willard's a very personal friend of mine. And when the conference started the next day, they said, well, did you come up with anything? He says, no, gentlemen. And this went on and went on, and they said Friday, and the conference would break up on Saturday. And they said, Bob, have you come up with anything about incorporating AA? He said, I'll let you know Saturday morning. Saturday morning, they said, Bob, did you come up about incorporating AA?
And Bob got up and he said, my members of Alcoholics Anonymous, I need to ask you but one question. How can you incorporate God? And the question never came up again about incorporating AA. We have to remember, now, listen to me carefully. If one does read the service manual, and one does read the General Service Board and its incorporationist bylaws, it'll answer a lot of your questions about why is it that certain fellowships can use our Twelve Steps.
And it says this, that the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous belong to all mankind. The Twelve Steps belong to all mankind, rather. But the minute you put the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the two words, Alcoholics, then reprint permission has to be asked for because of a copyright violation. But you see, because the Twelve Steps, what are they? It's nothing more than God as we understood Him.
You take that out, you take God out of the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you have no recovery program. Our power greater than oneself. And so, but our corporate entities, that's another matter altogether. Tradition 11, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity to the level of press, radio, and film. Now I want to remind you of something.
In AA, we ain't got but three absolutes. Absolute abstinence from alcohol. The absolute freedom for any alcoholic to be a member of AA and leave AA. And absolute anonymity on the public media. This is the only tradition where it doesn't say you ought to. It says we need always. You don't have to have too many study groups about the word always. Always maintain anonymity to the level of press, radio, and film.
Now, you say, well why isn't TV on there? Well, our conference is real fussy about changing anything that Bill wrote. And actually, films is still video anyway. So it really doesn't make a difference. Now the alcoholic who has and is recovering through our program is himself or herself the strongest attraction that AA has. When people, most people ask to let them seek AA help, the answer given, even though more and more are coming from us from treatment modalities, alcohol still today, it brings the greatest percentage of alcoholics to AA.
It just throws them in there. And if you listen to what alcohol tells you when it throws you into AA, you know what it tells you? Buster, you better stay in there because you poke your head out, I'll kill you. Well, but we ask, a lot of the members would ask them to seek AA help, the answer given most, and a lot of times it's the AA member. Now our chances would be slim if all of us had remained completely in hiding.
But many of us have chosen to tell our friends, our physicians, our clergymen, our employers, our neighbors, our co-workers that we are in AA, and when we do that we are not, breaking our anonymity in the meaning of this tradition. Now suppose a sick alcoholic who has never had the good fortune to meet AA, how's he going to find us? And his or her search will be difficult if the local group thinks it should be autonomous too.
Now the tradition is talking about personal anonymity, remember?
[00:10:02]
No alcoholic will be attracted to AA if he or she doesn't know that it exists, or if he or she has a distorted, unfavorable impression of its members and its program. This is the reason we have our TV spots on television, and our radio spots. You betcha. Giving the general public an accurate picture of AA is the chief job of public information committees. In addition, they carry the message to certain groups, from policemen to personnel directors, whose work, and physicians, whose work includes frequent contact with active alcoholics.
Now information about AA is being offered to the public through all communication media, in print and over the air. Now on radio it's easy to guard a member's anonymity, but TV, which was not in wide use when this was written, that's another matter. And according to our conference experience, a member is violating his or her anonymity when he or she is identified on TV as an AA, and his face is shown whether or not his or her name is given, and yet with this medium, with this vast audience, cannot be ignored.
I'm going to share two actual experiences of my own. One on radio and one on television. I was on one of those talk shows, you know, where they call in, and they're on about three or four hours, and they always say they call in, you know, and on radio, and I never changed my name, you know, I just say I'm David, but I don't tell them how I make a living or anything else or where I live, just a member of AA.
And they usually have a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, an Al-Nan, an Al-Teen, and then they'll have a moderator, usually the announcer, and they'll call in, and every kook in the world calls in. Some are not kooky with some reasonably lucid questions. You've got a drunk drunk calls in every now and then, hey, did it work for me, and all this and all that. And so I'm on there, you know, at about 1130 at night, and there's always some little kid supposed to be sleeping, and he wasn't sleeping, he was listening to the radio.
And so about a quarter to 12, he runs into his mama's bedroom, and he wakes her up and says, Mama, wake up. Our dentist is on the radio, and he's a drunk. And he recognized my voice. And about three weeks later, that little monster had an appointment with me, and his mother brought him in, and she looked at me, and she said, Doctor, she said, how long have you been a member of AA? And at the time I was sober over 10 years.
She says, you know, my father passed away last year, and he was sober 19 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. But it's easy on radio to do it, as long as the full name isn't given, and, you know, where they can tell who you are. Now, on television, not this last election, but the one before that, not the two elections ago when it was right after the Nixon debacle. And extract that from the name TV, that name.
But anyway, it was one of those presidential elections, because we don't get into those kind of things, really, and those go and get taped out, you know. And this is the word. But you can put this part on. It don't make any difference. And anyway, and so I'm up, because a lot of people have heard this. And so I got up that morning. Nobody knew who was going to be the president. And so I go down to the barbershop every Wednesday morning, and I got to be down there at AA.
It's about 6 o'clock, and here's my bedroom television. So I turn the television on. There's a wall, and behind the wall is the bathroom, a big long mirror. And I'm in there, and I got the lather on my face, and I got my razor ready, and right as I'm getting ready to come down, I hear this voice on television that says, When your husband was drinking, he must have been an incorrigible, ugly drunk. And this other voice said, You're being very kind when you even describe him in that manner.
And I put the razor down, and I looked in the mirror, and I said, David, you have not had a drink of alcohol this morning since you got up, but you are hearing two voices. One is a strange voice, and one is very familiar. One voice sounds like you're a wank. So I stuck my head around there, and there my wife's back of her head, you know, with the shadow method of the head, back of the head, and this announcer on television, full face, and they're discussing me.
So I run into her bathroom. Now, we've been married long enough and are old enough to have separate bedrooms, so it's okay. And I run in there to see if she's in her bed, and her bed is made up, nobody in there, and I run back, and there she is, the voice, and I'm building up a tremendous resemblance. So I go down, and I park in the hotel parking lot, and as soon as I get in the parking lot, the manager says, Hi, good morning, Doc.
Saw and heard your wife on television this morning. And I go in the barber shop, the manicurist, the boot black, the guy, everybody there, and I'm building up a tremendous resemblance.
[00:15:02]
I get out to my office and call my wife up, I says, Grace, I says, you know, I watched you for a little while on television this morning, and see, their traditions are the same as ours, basically, as far as anonymity, and I said, you were just right, you had the back of your head, nobody of yours, but see, she used another name. She didn't use Grace. She used another name, but I said, Grace, I have a tremendous resentment.
She said, what's that? I said, of all the names you had to use, why did you have to use the name of the woman that you accused me of getting locked up with the last time I got drunk? And she said, that's what you call a live and let live, Buster. You know? But you see, you know, and she didn't violate her anonymity, and I think everybody in the country saw that, you know, at that time, and it just happened to be one of those things, and but, you know, and now you say, well, what about these so-called celebrities, quote, that are on television, full face?
Now, if you really want to see one of the best, you won't be able to see it, because it happened two years ago, but the finest way to be on television that I have ever seen, A.A. or non-A.A., occurred right before the Super Bowl game when it was played up north. And they had a member of Gamblers Anonymous on television. That was absolutely the best that I have ever seen. Now, they had worked the format out with our office, and they had been up there together with some television people to be sure that the format was, but that's the best that I've ever seen as far as the lighting goes and for the mass media and exposure that it came along about that time.
And we have that. Now, the best way not to violate your anonymity on the public media is don't get up on the public media, but we see them all the time, and they, you know, and most of them, now, you know, they never have just a mill of a drunk that's been sober 40 years on there. They usually have a toe dancer or an athlete, because you have to remember, we're not the only, you know, us people in A.A., we're not the only ones that are hounded by sick emotions and screwy behavior.
The whole world's full of them. And you know, they got a lot of sick folks out there that ain't Alkies, you know, and they still have hero, and there's nothing wrong with it, they have hero worship, and they build monuments and medals, you know, and all this kind of thing, and statues. And so when a celebrity gets on, you know, oh, isn't that nice, you know? But let's talk about a couple of real celebrities and alcoholics now.
You'll never hear about them unless we talk about them. Now, out in West Texas, there was a drunk by the name of Horace F., and Horace had, he's dead, but Horace was a son of a Methodist minister, and he was a bad alcoholic, and he was later chairman, I mean, they had superintendent of a large school system, but due to his alcoholism and his actions, he was fired and ended up down with skid row. And he was down in the, in the Del Rio section down in through that part of the country, and back into that part of the world, back through there to where they have got nothing but 900,000 goats and 900 million sheep and cactus and rocks, and in the Big Bend country, and maybe about, God knows, very few people, and he runs across a Mexican sheepherder, and Horace could speak fluent Spanish.
So he said, what do you want to do about your drinking, and he got to talking to him, and you know, a sheepherder out there, a goat raiser out there, you ask him, what do you want to do about your drinking, you know, they'll say, why, because ain't nothing there but goats and sheep and cactus and rocks, and ain't no people. And so he got to, he said, wait a minute, I've got a friend on the next ranch, he's a worse drunk than me.
So Horace and him go over and they net the other one, and they get a group going. And Horace stays with them about three and a half weeks, and this is before the big book was translated in Spanish, and he read the big book to them, and they took their fourth step with them, they took their fifth step with them, they did the steps with them, the men's steps they couldn't do, and he wrote little things in Spanish for them to keep, and off he went.
Well, every day of the year, those two got together and had an A.A. meeting. And then here come another one, and they grabbed another four or five, you know, and then one of them moved 60 miles away, 120 miles away, rather, to the east. So five days a week, those two would drive 60 miles toward the center, one to the 60 miles to the west, the other to the east, they would meet. By this time, the big book was in Spanish, and the 12-12 was in Spanish.
And other little tourists that get from over in Puerto Rico or south of Central America, wherever they could find it, and they'd have a meeting, and they'd bring their lunch, and they'd have a two-hour meeting, and they'd go back.
[00:20:03]
Well, a few years, some years ago, one of them died, and he was 28 years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous without a hitch. And then three years later, the other one died, and he was sober 31 years in Alcoholics Anonymous without a hitch. Now let me tell you about those two men. When they were buried, they didn't have, in the little towns they were in, they didn't have a church auditorium big enough, a school gymnasium or a school auditorium big enough.
They had to hold their services for both of them in the football field. So they'd get all the people in there, and they'd come from miles around. And they had little kids that used to call them Grandpa. And others used to come, they used to call them Daddy, and God, those two men, they worked with drunks like you've never seen them, and they directed the family to Al-Anon and everything else. And the greatest compliment that any human being could ever receive from his fellow man that the minister, that the two ministers that administered the last rites said for both of them, it says these two men individually, they went about doing good.
And they were absolutely a joy. And many, many, many families and many, many homes in that whole countryside and many groups got started as a result of those two fellows. Now that's a real celebrity in Alcoholics Anonymous, folks. They didn't get up on a public television and say, see how great I am, now sign me to a new movie contract, or I've got a new record coming out, or I've got to pay my Coke dealer, and I ain't talking about Coca-Cola either.
Here are two people who fell in love with life living sober as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous. Language was no barrier, education was no barrier, they were just common earth people. But they did the deal. And that's just the way it is. And A is full up. And so as a result of it, because we see that anonymity is a protective coat that covers our whole society, you know, sure. Where would we be today if Henrietta Seiberling hadn't said to Bill Wilson, Bill Wilson, I want you to meet Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith.
He needs you and you need him. And we're here today as a result of it. Step 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions that remind us to place principles and full personality. We have to remember that anonymity, not taking credit for our own or anybody else's recovery of humility at work. If I'm going to take credit for getting anybody sober, I better take credit if they get drunk again.
Anonymity as we observe it today is rooted in a very simple expression of humility. When we use the 12 steps to recover from alcoholism, we're each trying to achieve real humility to put our self-respect on a solid base of truth rather than on fantasies about ourselves. When we use our 12 traditions to work together in AA, we're all trying to achieve real humility as individual members by recognizing our true place in AA as a fellowship, by recognizing AA's true place in the world.
Tradition one just simply reminds each of us that we're not recovering on our own and that we should control our personal desires and ambitions in order to guard the unity of our group and our fellowship. We ought not, tradition two, imagine or fancy ourselves as big shots in AA, no matter what service office any of us are allowed to serve. All of us are just alcoholics together in our groups. We're not entitled, tradition three, to rule on the qualifications of other alcoholics seeking the same help that we have had.
One of the best ways to become all-inclusive in AA is just be in AA. Differences separate us. That means that I'm different, I've got to have a different program than you, you know. But it takes time, love them, hug them, you know, and it really works real good, yeah. We get all exercised, you know, about things that we don't need. We get what we call mental hernias. And that usually causes, that's what you call a strain on an immature mind.
And so we're not recovering on our own. And we can't rule on the qualifications of other alcoholics seeking the same help that
[00:25:03]
we have had. That a group needs humility too. One of the biggest problems, now let's, I'm going to stop right here and share some experience, and this is experience not opinion. You see, people get, members get very sensitive when they're criticized because they say something other than they're an alcoholic. And they don't believe that we really accept them. We do. The problem is they don't believe us.
And so they got a cause. And by the same token, the one that says we believe, they got a cause too. And so when that happens, you got friction in between. And where do the principles go? Then the personalities get involved. You know? So it really doesn't make any difference for this alcoholic, you know, I mean, I love you. And whether you love me or not, I have no control over it. If I did, everybody in AA would love me.
But they ain't supposed to. Because we've got to have those differences. Because there ain't no two people exactly alike in this world. If there were, one would be useless. And it's the individual freedom that I talked about at the beginning, and we talked, is the most precious thing we've got. And we've got to not defend it. You don't have to defend anything. We don't have to defend anything now that we're sober in AA.
We just live it. That's all. And allow the love and the grow and the love and the share and the care. And it's a wonderful experience. It certainly is. And as a result of it, because of, we don't have to worry about classifying alcoholics to seek the help we've had. Now it may, a group has to have humility too. It may make its name public, but in the spirit of anonymity, it should see that whatever group is merely a part of the bigger whole tradition for, careful in every enterprise to consider the welfare of all the other groups that make up AA.
In both group and individual activity, we should remember what the full name of our fellowship is. It's Alcoholics Not. It does not represent any established religion, nor is it a new religion. We're not evangelists, gurus, or temperance leaders out to save humanity. We're just simply anonymous alcoholics trying to help other alcoholics, tradition far. In the rising battle against alcoholism, we ought not to let our pride in AA mislead us in linking our fellowship with other agencies in order to bid for a share of their power, prestige, and money.
And if we keep tradition six and seven in mind, we will instead direct all our efforts towards AA's own unique purpose. When we go on a 12-step call or we sit and we work with alcoholics, we should not tell ourselves how noble we are for doing such valuable work without pay. The meaning of our 12-step work cannot be measured in money, tradition eight. We have received advanced pay for it in money far greater of any worth, and that's our very lives ourselves.
In the same tradition, it is suggested that service centers maintain AA humility by paying its employees decent wages rather than considering AA so virtuous an outfit that employment there is a favor. And when we're given special responsibilities within AA, tradition nine defines these as opportunities to serve, not titles to flaunt in each other's faces. The humility of the fellowship itself is safeguarded by tradition 10 with the refusal to set ourselves up as general authorities, swinging and throwing our collective weight around in the public's business.
And we do not want to sell our program as a sure-fire remedy in the extravagant turn of promotional campaign, tradition 11, nor do we wish to dramatize it by identifying noted people in AA, thereby implying that for each of us, our sobriety has been an individual accomplishment. And tradition 12 reminds us that we have something far stronger than our human responsibilities to fall back on. Our principles come first.
They are not of our own invention. They reflect eternal spiritual values. And so with this tradition, both as individuals and as a fellowship, we humbly acknowledge our dependence on a power greater than ourselves. I want to thank you for your attention and for your attendance, and you've given far more to me than I could possibly give to you by just sitting there. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Has anybody here got any questions for David that they'd like to ask?
[00:30:20]
Well, that it's a common use that profanity, well, you know, I've been up here since one o'clock, right? And I don't believe that you have heard, you've heard heck and shoot and darn, but you haven't heard, pardon the expression, damn or even hell, have you? It can be done. Now I didn't used to do that, but I was nailed by some sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous who told me that if I weren't associated with the successes in AA, that my language had to get cleaned up too at that time.
Now I realize that, you know, there is a lot of it in AA today, but, you know, ego causes us to say a lot of things a lot of times to impress somebody, how tough we are. But basically, it also reveals how ignorant we are. And you know, a lot of times the language, there is a lot of it in there, and sometimes it gets to be very offensive. And there's, you hear a lot of it, and a lot of it comes, they don't, they're not told, they don't know any different.
And it comes as a result of, this is not critical, but this is my own experience, sponsorship also has a lot to do with how people conduct themselves and how they talk. I personally don't feel that that language is necessary to express anything. That's my own personal belief. However, it is not as prevalent as it used to be, maybe in some areas it really is. But you see, we can't control anybody's behavior in AA.
We can't control their language. We can lead by example. And there are a lot of groups who have suffered some very severe consequences because they've lost a lot of their good members who no longer go to that deal, and those usually who use that kind of language haven't got the money to continue to support those expensive places that they've got to pay rent on, you know, yeah. I know what you mean.
But there's nothing in there that has to come with growth and love and understand them and love them. And it's pretty tough when they start using those four-letter words over and over and over and over again, it really is. And yet, you know, it's an amazing thing, the thing that ups, that the only, you know, and I've been to a lot of them that have been that way and I just blotted out. But what concerns me as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous is when we invite ministers and police chief and lawyers and non-alcoholics in the community to come to an open meeting and you get some monkey up that uses every four-letter word in the deal and they say, my God, they talk about God in one minute and fornication in the other.
What is this? Where our open meetings, that's a showcase of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. I'm talking about using the words of fornication at the same time. And they say, well, that's a showcase of AA to where it's open to the public to come and see. So the best solution I have found in my own personal life, my own experiences, I just love them, you know. And I do with them, with what's been done with me, I say, you know, is it really necessary?
And I say, what's it got to do with you staying sober? Nine out of ten times I say nothing and I just walk away and they usually get the message, you know. But love them. You know, they don't know any difference. They got to grow. And a lot of times they don't realize they're doing it themselves until you say something to them. Some are going to get a little angry, but that's all right. And also when they find out they're not asked to talk very much anymore, they get the message a heck of a lot quicker.
Yeah. Any other questions? Yeah. Some groups, you know, they put on there absolutely no cussing. That invites the first one up there to test it. No defense is the best defense. That's always been AA's deal.
[00:35:01]
They certainly, it takes care of itself, it eliminates it. I want to thank David for coming and talking to us this afternoon. He's great.