Archival note: This complete two-part workshop includes audience questions. The automatic transcript contains uncertain wording in some audience comments; consult the recording for exact wording.
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Source: Mike F – Traditionally Speaking – Montreal – 2008 – Complete Session – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mike-f-traditionally-speaking-montreal-2008-complete-session-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:46:49
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I'm going to see if I can knock this over. My name is Mike F. and I'm an alcoholic. It's a privilege to be here. You know, a lot of times when I speak before I get to go up or sometime early in the day, somebody will come up to me and say, are you nervous? When you speak in front of large groups of people, do you get nervous? And I want to let you know that I'm not one bit nervous tonight because I've got a pretty good idea what I'm going to talk about. And you have no idea what you're going to hear, so if anybody should be nervous, it should be you and not me. Now, being asked to share on a tradition, we could talk, you know, probably for, you know, 20, 30, 40 minutes on a tradition or a particular area of the traditions. And, you know, I don't have time to do that and I promised Bruce that I would get you out of here by 10, so I'm going to do that. And everybody's like, no way. That was really a joke, okay? They kept me up last night late drinking coffee until midnight, so it took me a while to wind down. But I've really enjoyed my visit here and all of those of you that have participated in, you know, helping to make my stay comfortable, I want to thank you and let you know that it has meant a lot to me. I really, truly have enjoyed myself. And when I got back last night, my clothes were at my hotel, so that was great, too. You know, the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous didn't just happen.
You know, the traditions evolved, kind of like the steps. And for those of you that are new, I'm going to give a little bit of the AA story for you, just to kind of get me warmed up and get on track. But, you know, back in 1934, Bill W., the guy that you just heard reading How It Works, one of our co-founders, got sober in Towns Hospital in New York City. And he got sober in December 1934, and for six months, Bill tried to sober everybody up in New York. And he was excited. Bill was passionate. And at that time, he knew he had something, because in his hospital room, he cried out, if there's a God, show himself. And the room lit up, and he described it as feeling the wind of the spirit blowing through him. And he felt as though he was standing on a mountaintop. And this spiritual experience that Bill had was profound in nature. And of course, he had enthusiasm, and he knew that this was something that he wanted to share and help other people. So, he went out and he talked to people. And at that time, he was attending meetings in New York of the Oxford Group. And the Oxford Group had some principles that became part of Alcoholics Anonymous. They had the four absolutes. Absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love. Well, Bill was out trying to talk to people about his profound spiritual experience and these absolutes. And then they had kind of put together like six short little steps, like deflation, confession, restitution, working with others. So, he had these steps, and he went out and he started talking to people. And in six months, no one got sober. And Bill, of course, would, like any of us, if we went out every day, pulling people off of bar stools, and out of hospital beds, and out of jail, and worked with them.
And at the end of six months, nobody was sober, we'd probably begin to feel that maybe we were failing at what we were doing. And Bill had a tendency to slip into depression from time to time throughout his life. And I'm sure that he was going through one of these times and his wife, Lois, looked at him and said, Bill, you stayed sober. And the magic of what he was doing by trying to carry the message was, he stayed sober.
And Dr. Silkworth, there at Towns Hospital, had talked to Bill shortly before he took a business trip to Akron. And the doctor said, Bill, why don't you, when you're talking with these drunks, why don't you talk to them about the allergic reaction that the alcoholic has, when he drinks alcohol, that the alcohol sets up an allergy within the body and an obsession to drink more. And that's the medical approach to it. And Bill learned from Dr. Silkworth, and he went down to New York, from New York to Akron, on a business deal. And he got there
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and the business deal, for all intensive purposes, had fallen short of the goal. The people who were involved left town and Bill was at the Mayflower Hotel with $10 in his pocket. And again, he was probably slipping into a little bit of a depression. I can imagine if any of us were, you know, 600 miles away from our significant other and our business deal just fell apart, we're in a city we don't really have any contacts or friends in, and we're just six months sober, we might be a little shaky. I know I would be. And Bill knew the one thing that worked for him to stay sober was another alcoholic. And he's down at the hotel and he's kind of pacing around the lobby down there and going back and forth. And down at one end of the lobby is a bar and it's a Saturday afternoon and people are starting to go in. And I'm sure that there's a little smoke and haze in the bar, maybe a little music, a little smell of stale beer. And, you know, it's probably the atmosphere was probably appealing to Bill. And he's frustrated. At the other end of the hallway is a church directory. And Bill is back and forth, what do I do, what do I do?
And finally he saw a name on that directory and the guy's name was Walter Tunks, Reverend Walter Tunks. And Bill thought, well, I'll call Tunks. And he gives this guy a call and he says, I'm a drunk from New York and I need another drunk to work on. He didn't really know how to say it, but, you know, I need to share this. Do you know of any drunks in town that I can work with? And Tunks said, no, I don't. He said, but I do know this fellow, and this is interesting because this part of the story is a little bit different than what I've been hearing, but I listened to a recording on my way here from Arizona, and Bill was talking about this at one of the Founders Days. And he said that the name that Tunks gave him was a guy named Shepard, okay? And I don't know if that was his last name or his first name, but it wasn't Shepard C., the one that met with Ebbie and Roland H..
This was a new guy in Akron there named Shepard, who was a member of the Oxford group. So, Walter Tunks gave Bill this guy's phone number, and Bill called Mr. Shepard and he said, I'm a drunk from New York and I need a drunk to work on. And this guy said, I don't know one, but I can give you some names of some of the folks in my group. We have tried to work with a few people unsuccessfully, but I'll give you some names and maybe one of those folks can help you out. And he gave him ten names, and Bill went down that list, and, you know, it was Mother's Day weekend, so people were going to visit their mothers and going out of town on Saturday evening, getting ready for dinner, and, you know, they didn't really have time for this drunk from New York. So, you know, they said, sorry, I can't help you.
And he got to the last name on the list, and the name was familiar to him. It was S., and he knew that name from the tire manufacturing, from when he used to do stocks and things. So that name, it was a prominent name in the Akron area. So Bill called over there and he told this woman who had answered the phone, Henrietta, of his dilemma. And she said, come on over, I've got somebody that maybe we can talk to. And she called, she invited Bill over and she called Dr. Bob S.'s house, and Ann S. answered the phone. And Henrietta said, I've got a guy here from New York who's found a cure to alcoholism. And Ann S. is happy about this, but she said, the doctor came home with a plant for Mother's Day and he's under the table. And, you know, we'll come see you tomorrow. So they made an arrangement for Bill and Dr. Bob to meet on the next day, which was May 12th of 1935, and it was Mother's Day. And Dr. Bob showed up and he said to his wife and son who were with him, I'll give this guy 20 minutes and we're out of here. And I can, you know, again, being an alcoholic, I can understand, you know, the day after and how you feel. And you've got to go meet this stranger. And you've already been trying to get sober unsuccessfully. And you're with some prominent lady, you know, of the community, and you feel washed up. They're ready to repo his house. And he was really having some challenges. And I can imagine that Dr. Bob didn't want to go. And he said, I'll give this bum 20 minutes. And him and Bill went into the library.
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Nobody really knows exactly what they talked about that day, but they stayed for a little over five hours. And I'm sure that Bill talked to him about what Dr. Silkworth had talked to him about. And when they did come out of that room, Bill said, he's the first one. He's the first one that knows how I feel. You know, we as alcoholics have a power to do things with another alcoholic. And I think later, you know, as we start to talk about the traditions and the primary purpose and the reason that we're here, some of the reason that we need to stick to the primary purpose is just what Dr. Bob experienced that May 12, 1935. And that was one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic because they connected.
They had something in common. And they began to have a vision. And Dr. Bob's wife, with tremendous wisdom, said, you know, Bill, we'd like you to stay at our house for a little while while you try to put this business deal back together that just collapsed on you. And Bill agreed to do that. Now, if it was me, I don't think I would have because, you know, I couldn't be away from my wife for any extended time. He had already been away on this business trip. And now he's going to stay there. And he stayed for three months in Akron at Dr. Bob's home. And Bill and Dr. Bob worked with as many alcoholics as you could possibly work with in three months. And they pushed each other. And they were doing this thing. And last night, I'm going to share a story for those of you that weren't there last night. I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Bob's son, Smitty, when I got sober in Texas. And I apologize for not really sharing any of my story. But I'll weave a little bit of it in from time to time tonight. But I'm sitting in this Midwest Tape Library, which was the largest AA tape library at the time in the world. And I'm with Bill O. and John C., my two. They became my sponsor and my co-sponsor. And this library had historical talks going back to 1946. And they were all on reel-to-reels. And we'd go over there every day. And these guys would teach me about the history. And we'd listen to different talks.
And then Bill would give them to me. And John and I would listen to them. And John and Bill would talk about different guys that they knew. And, you know, they both knew Abby. And they knew Bill W. And so they'd share these experiences with me. And it was wonderful to sit and listen to the stories that they would tell. Well, this one particular day, Smitty was there. And Smitty said, did John and Bill tell you about the first guy that my dad and Bill W. tried to work with? And I'm like, you know, yeah, Bill D., AA No. 3, Akron City Hospital. And they're like, well, no, it wasn't Bill D. There was a guy before Bill D. His name was Eddie. And Eddie R. And they moved Eddie and his family into Dr. Bob's house. And Eddie was trying to get sober. But he was having a lot of problems with it. Because when he would be coming off the alcohol, the obsession to drink and the compulsion was so strong for him, he would climb out the window and go down the drain pipe. And he'd go get drunk. And Dr. Bob and Bill would go round Eddie up. And this went on for a little while, until one day Eddie was chasing Dr.
Bob's wife Ann around the house with a butcher knife. So they had to commit Eddie. And he was committed. So the first guy that Dr. Bob and Bill worked with, for all purposes, appeared to be a complete failure. Okay? And Dr. Bob and Bill didn't wash their hands. They went on. And they got the next alcoholic, which happened to be Bill D., who did have permanence abroad. And that was A.A. No. 3. But Smitty said, the story doesn't end there, Mike. See, 15 years later at my dad's funeral, he said, a guy came up to him and said, do you know who I am? And he said, you're Eddie. And Eddie was sober. And when Smitty shared that story with me, for those of you who didn't hear my story last night, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous for 10 years and tried to get sober. I was first detoxed in Children's Hospital.
I came to A.A. and when it came to me, I said, I'm a problem drinker with alcoholic tendencies, because I didn't want to be an alcoholic. And then I felt like I was a failure, because I kept trying, but I thought A.A. was just go to a meeting and don't drink. And I'd go to a meeting and wouldn't drink, and I'd want to shoot myself. And it got bad enough, you know? Things got bad enough that I lost everything. And I was bankrupt in every area of my life.
I was 25 years old and I had nothing. Everything I owned fit nicely in a cardboard box. And when I got to Texas to get sober, I was, I grew up in Buffalo, New York, but when I got to Texas, I was carrying a cardboard box, I was wearing somebody else's pants, and I weighed 90 pounds.
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And that's how I came to you folks. And they extended a hand of kindness and consideration to me. And they said, welcome. We're glad you're here. Keep coming. And they shared these stories with me. And I'm grateful that they did. John was a funny guy. He would travel all over, and I would drive him. And he'd say, oh, I've got the kid with me. He's my chauffeur. And I'd be driving him, and he'd be quizzing me.
What's Dr. Bob's address, fathead? And I'm grateful today, looking back on those experiences, that he took the time to share with me the history. And then ask me, you know, was I retaining any of it? Because in the beginning, it takes a while before we begin to retain things. Because, you know, the miracle began there in Akron with Dr. Bob and Bill and Eddie and Bill D.. And the next one, I got an email last night after the meeting. Somebody emailed me and said, do you know who AA number four was?
And that guy, his name was Ernie G., and he was the young guy. They make reference to him in the big book. But Ernie married Dr. Bob's daughter, Sue. I wouldn't have wanted to hear his fifth step in heaven, marry my daughter. You know, AA started to grow there in Akron back in 1935. And then Bill went back to New York and he continued to work with alcoholics. And you see, the base for recovery had started.
And these guys in Akron and Bill in New York did everything that they could to work with alcoholics, to try to get people sobered up and to get them on track. Now, it was a nameless society at that point in time. As a matter of fact, in 1937, in the end of 1937, Bill went back to Akron. And he sat down with Dr. Bob one afternoon and they counted heads. And they wanted to figure out how many people were sober.
How many did they have? And Bill said they had 40. Now, that's the end of 1937. So you had all of 1935, all of 1936, and all of 1937. They had 40. I would imagine that they worked with probably a couple of thousand people their lives had touched. Forty were sober. I have to tell you that when they come to me today and they say, I want to go back to when AA worked, I hope they're not talking about that.
When they tell me they want to go back to the good old days, I hope that those aren't the days that they're talking about. Because, boy, they were grinding it out. And that day they met in Akron. Bill and Bob talked about how are we going to get this message to people. We know it works. It's worked for 40 of us. And the idea of writing a book was brought up. They had a few other ideas, too, of starting a chain of hospitals.
They thought that was a great idea, that they'll start a chain of hospitals. They'll have AA missionaries. They'll write a book. So the traditions really began that day in May of 1937. Even though they weren't written yet until 1946. But they began because they started the consideration of all these wild ideas of what they can do. And Bill was given the assignment to go back to New York and write the book.
Because Bill was close to the money. Obviously in Akron they didn't have money. That's where they thought. You know, Bill being a bit of a promoter, he went back to New York and he started writing the book of experience of Alcoholics Anonymous from what had happened. See, he was writing about the experience of the first 40 members. That's how he wrote the steps. He took the steps that they were using and he expanded upon them and he expanded upon the experience of those members, of the sobriety that they had.
And he enlarged on that. And then he wrote this beautiful book called Alcoholics Anonymous. And he got some input from different ones and they thought about a few things and, you know, just kind of like alcoholics do. And they kind of learned what the group conscience was all about during that time as well. Because one day, Charlie Towns, at Towns Hospital, offered Bill a job. And he said, Bill, we want to hire you here.
You know, you're working with these guys and, you know, they're getting their families back and they're taking your house. And he offered Bill a job. He offered him a good job.
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He offered him a salary. He offered him a piece of the pie. And Bill was kind of excited. And Bill talks about going home that day and he's thinking that a laborer is worthy of their hire. And, you know, Bill is quoting in his mind the Bible to try to justify him going to work for Charlie Towns at Towns Hospital and professionalizing AA. And he wanted to professionalize it because he knew that if he did, AA would grow rapidly.
See, he'd have Towns money, he'd have the hospital, he could be a lay therapist, things would be good. And he was trying to sell the little group in his home that night on Clinton Street of this proposition that Charlie Towns had offered him. And they said, Bill, it sounds good. And, you know, we really do feel for you. We know how hard it must be for you to have Lois working in a department store and how you really haven't had any income.
And we'd love to help you, but, Bill, you can't do this to us. Don't you understand? That'll ruin this thing that we've got. And Bill said for the first time, the group conscience spoke. And he was overruled, if you will. I think Bill got used to that. You know, Bill had a great way about him. And he was a tremendous observer of people. And he watched people come into Alcoholics Anonymous. And he watched those who made it.
And he watched those who didn't make it. He had one guy commit suicide in his house. Bill knew the depths of depression. And he felt it, and he lived it, and he lived through it. But he also knew that this AA was a good thing. He writes this book. Then they're trying to decide on a name for the book. And you know the controversy we have in AA. All right. And they come up with a couple of names. And it comes down to they're going to name it The Way Out.
And that was the consensus. It was going to be The Way Out. So before they made a final decision on The Way Out, Bill had one of the guys check with the Library of Congress on the name The Way Out to see if there were any other. And he called Bill back and he said, Bill, there's 12 Way Outs. We'll be the 13th. So Alcoholics Anonymous became the name. And then in March, April of 1939, the book was published.
Now, Alcoholics Anonymous, they had no money. They had tried some different things. There was a promise made to Bill by the Reader's Digest that they would do a piece on AA, on the book, when it was done. So that was how Bill encouraged some of the members to buy some stock in this newly formed corporation. And Reader's Digest decided when the book was done that they wouldn't do that. And of course, they didn't even know how they were going to get the books from the printer.
So there was a lot of stuff going on. And at that time, the owner of Harper's was given a copy of a rough draft of what became the big book. It just had a couple of chapters of it. I think there were three chapters. And this guy was given a rough draft and he read it over and he said, this could be good. And he offered Bill $1,500 to write the book as a payment ahead of royalties. So like a draw. And $1,500, 1938, was a lot of money.
And here Bill again is faced with another dilemma. What do we do? We've got Harper's that wants to buy the rights to our textbook. I need the money and I'm the principal author. Again, the group said, you can't do that to us. Why would we, if this is going to be our basic text, why wouldn't we create it in such a way that we can benefit from the proceeds of that book instead of Harper's? If Harper's thinks it's that good, it must be good.
So they got excited about it and the decision was made again not to professionalize Alcoholics Anonymous, not to affiliate with an outside enterprise, that being a book company, a book publisher. And AA has never done that. But again, the traditions were being born through these experiences. And that's why I started there for a reason. I wanted to kind of let you see, especially the newer members,
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and I want to qualify and let you know that I'm an alcoholic. I came into AA just like anybody else. Alcohol beat me into a condition of reasonableness. I came in hopeless, seemingly hopeless, not knowing if I could get and stay sober. I had a guy recently said to me, I went to two meetings a day, no, a meeting a day, my first two years in AA. And I said, I went to two meetings a day my last year drinking.
I had to be willing to do the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, as it was outlined in the book, with your help, and develop a relationship with a power greater than myself that I choose to call God. And they told me if you do that, you'll get up, stand up, and stay up. And I'm grateful that they told me that. Because, you see, the guys, they didn't lie to me, and they haven't lied to you. And remember, when we're pointing our finger, we've got three fingers pointing right back at ourselves.
And I was one of these guys who'd cheer up this room by leaving. And I said last night, I don't know if I said it while I was talking, but I said last night, later, that I was one of these guys who wanted to get even. And my sponsor said, kid, if you want to get even with someone, why don't you try to get even with someone that's been good to you? The steps grew out of the experience of the first few members sober.
The traditions grew out of the experience of the first few groups of Alcoholics Anonymous. See, the traditions were first published in the Grapevine in April of 1946. And Bill wrote the traditions based on the experience that he observed from the groups, from conversations and correspondence, and from the growth of Alcoholics Anonymous. By 1946, they had already completely destroyed anonymity. There's people out there doing press reports, there's pictures in magazines, there was one catcher for a baseball team, and they had his story recovered, Alcoholics Anonymous in a newspaper.
And some people said, these are good things. We want this because we need to get people to know the message of AA, and we want them to know that it works. And this is a great way to do it. And people came in to Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of some of these things. But then they started recognizing that a lot of us alcoholics can go off on these power trips. And somebody who might be good at giving a press conference, maybe someone who is a celebrity or a sports figure, would have an opportunity to capitalize on AA.
One guy wanted to go to work for a major beer distributor, and they wanted him to be their PR spokesman. And so basically the message would have been, if you're going to drink, drink our beer. And if you can't drink, go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Look what it did for me. And AA was just inundated with opportunities like this. And of course the promoter would be the one to say, hey, let's take advantage of this.
These books, we need to be selling these books, and we've got rent to pay, and we've got secretaries to give jobs to, and we've got the clubhouses. But the experience of these people showed that this stuff didn't work that way. That when AA affiliated itself with an outside enterprise, and that outside enterprise wanted to tell AA what to do. When AA started with rules, Bill had corresponded with the groups and asked them to send their rules in.
And he's going through the rules, and he looks at the pages and pages and pages of rules. And he thought, man, if we implement these rules, none of us can be members. And he said, what happens if we get some of the oldsters, the pioneers thought, there are going to be drug addicts come to AA. What are we going to do? There might be a queer. What are we going to do? There might be this and they'll ruin AA. These problems that we're
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faced with today didn't start today. They experienced them and that's why the traditions address the things that they address. And if we bring those into our groups and we begin to study them and read them and make them fun and make them interesting. I got to tell you, if you don't, you know, if I came here today and I said, hi, I'm like, I'm an alcoholic and I really don't know what I'm going to talk about. I really had a bad day. It's cold out there and that stuff and, you know, and I miss my wife and my kids and there's probably a football game on tonight and I'm just really having a rough time. You guys would be going, man, where's the exit? You know, you met these guys and somebody licked all the red off their candy. Those aren't the guys when they say, if you want what we have, I'll look around and say, no, I don't want that. Show me somebody that's excited. Show me someone that's having a good life. Show me someone that's willing, that's trying, that's showing up at the meetings and being honest, that's setting up the chairs and making the coffee and greeting the people. Show me those guys, that's what I want. I want to be useful because you told me that I could be that way. You know, there's promises in Alcoholics Anonymous, lots of them, but we begin to learn that as we're studying the book. But the groups, we need to have the same enthusiasm toward the traditions. You say, how do we do that? How do we have the enthusiasm toward the traditions as we have toward the steps? The steps saved our lives. Well, we start by discussing them and reading them and studying them, learning about them. You know, that first tradition. Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AAUnity. I want to read how it was first done. Now, the traditions when they were printed in April 1946, in the grapevine. You know, I had a page marked here. Okay. Here was how tradition one was first written. Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence, our common welfare comes first, but individual welfare follows closely afterward.
Now, we just think about that. I know tonight, for this alcoholic, if you weren't here to extend that hand of kindness and consideration, if there wasn't a meeting and there wasn't people in that meeting with some sobriety that could reach down to my level and lift me up, I wouldn't have gotten sober. And if I would have come in and there were a bunch of naysayers and negative Nancys and, you know, angry people. I had all that when I came in. That was my whole life. I came in and they said, this is the greatest book ever written on positive thinking. My sponsor told me that. Greatest book ever written on positive thinking. I'm thinking, well, I can handle that. I need a little positive thinking. And I started to gravitate toward people who were positive, who were seeing the sunny side of the street, who were getting their lives back together and doing some good things. And I thought, man, you know, I want that. And they were attracting me to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they helped me to understand that I was just as much a member of AA as they were.
See, I always felt like I wasn't a member because I hadn't yet done it. You understand what it is? I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure out what the heck it is. But I hadn't done it. And I knew that. And you did. And that's why you were a member and I wasn't. And when I came in, I knew it. I was lonely. I was angry. I was full of fear. I was jealous. I was envious. I was lustful. I'm like, oh, my. I was bad. And I knew it. I was. And they said, kid, you weren't bad. We're not bad people trying to get good. We're sick people that got to get better.
I didn't know that. I had to be educated. I needed folks like you to study your big book and study your 12 and 12 and to know the traditions so you could teach me, so you could lift me up and you could help me to understand that I didn't have to live that way. They didn't say you didn't have to drink that way. They said you don't have to live that way. We can show you a design for living that really works. Here's what it is. And we've got the traditions so that we'll continue to have that.
I'm grateful that I am. I don't know any other word to put it. And today, I would say if there's
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one character defect that I have, and that is I don't have enough gratitude for the life I get to live. And I get to live this life today. It is a privilege. When I get up sober, I am blessed. When I go to bed sober, I am blessed. When that phone rings and it's an interruption from somebody, I'm blessed. When somebody pops in, when we're on our way out to dinner, I'm blessed. When my kids want to do something, I'm able to do it. I'm blessed. I get to do these things because guys like me don't get to do them. We don't get to do them. We are the ones that are fortunate.
And it's only by God's grace that I'm sober. And I know that. And I hope that I can continue to grow in gratitude because I feel like if I'm grateful, I'll be able to keep this thing. And the only way I can keep it is to do what you told me to do, and that's to give it away. Now, that didn't make sense to this alcoholic, but I started doing it. I'm going to tell you. It's amazing what will happen. See, I think that's what it's talking about where it says, if we're painstaking about this phase of our development, we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. That painstaking kind of implies perhaps there's a little effort. Go figure. We'll be amazed before we're halfway through. We're going to come to know a new freedom and a new happiness. That's the life we get to live, a new freedom and a new happiness, that we won't regret the past or wish to shut the door on it.
Well, I can appreciate that today because coming from where I came from, I couldn't get away from my past quick enough. That was where my fear was. I was caught in yesterday and I had no tomorrow. It wasn't going to be there and I knew it. See, the fear of impending doom, I knew something bad was going to happen, and I knew it was going to happen to me. I just didn't know when. That's a terrible way to live.
But in Alcoholics Anonymous, we learn to turn those things into the things that make us build our foundation, build us and give us a foundation for life so that we can have that design for living. And Bill, when he wrote that first tradition, the second tradition says, now he's got the first tradition and he's saying to us that our common welfare has to come first. Personal recovery, my recovery, your recovery, depends upon it. So the newest person comes in here tonight is just as much a member if they say so. If they say so. They're the only ones that can say so.
If they say so, it's the oldest member here tonight in length and sobriety. We all get the same thing today, but we're just as much members. Now, the second tradition, as it was originally written, says for our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority. A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Now, how do we do that? So here we are, alcoholics. We can't get sober in our culture. When you think about our culture, here's our culture.
Competitiveness. You've got to be number one. You've got to win that prize. You've got to make that money. If you do a good job, we're going to give you a promotion. You're going to be Mr. Big. That's how it works. You've got to win. And then when you do, you're recognized. AA says, whoa, wait a minute. That don't work for us. Our culture didn't get us sober. So we're going to have our own little culture within the culture and it's going to be the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. In order for us to make it, we can't have any big shots. We can't have any leaders. We can't have anybody in charge, because if we do, then they're going to be Mr. AA.
And if that happens, the rest of us are going to want to beat the crap out of them. Think about it. So who's in charge? Who's in charge? A loving God. How does God express himself? Through each of us. Through the newest member. When you have a business meeting for your home group and you're talking about something, each person should have an opportunity to discuss the topic. They should be able to share on it and then they should have an opportunity to vote.
And by doing that, we get an informed group conscience and then that group makes a decision. It really is simple. See, they say AA is a simple program for complicated people. Well, I don't know how complicated I am as a person, but I do know that it's the simplicity of Alcoholics Anonymous that was what kept me sober. Don't drink for one day. You know, you might be sitting in that chair
[00:40:02]
tonight. If you're anything like me and you're in your first six months of sobriety, you might be wondering, can I get through this day without taking a drink? Because that's where I was at. And there was a prayer I used to say every day. I'd get down on my knees because my dad was in AA and I used to see him get down on his knees. So I figured if my dad could do it, I could do it. I'd get down on my knees and I'd say, God help me get through this day without thinking about taking a drink. And that was it. And I'd go through the day and I'd do the stuff that was in front of me with the people that were there. And I'd go to the meetings, I'd greet the people when they came in and I started to get a little bit better. And you know, one night I was getting ready for bed and I realized I had gone through the whole day and I'd never thought about taking a drink.
Ah, the miracle began to happen. See, I began to get results. And if you do these things, you will get results. Positive activity equals positive results. It's in God's time, it's not in your time. And if you're there tonight and you're struggling with something, stick with it. You know, let go, give it to God, pray, ask for help, share it, you know. Now, if you look, everybody out there tonight, I don't know, there's what, 600, 700 people here tonight? They're recording it, so I wanted to make sure I had that out. Yeah, it's funny how, just as I said that, I can feel my first sponsor, Big John, jumping up on my shoulder saying, kid, it's only six inches from a halo to a noose.
If we had the opportunity, each one of us, to take our biggest problem right now, the thing that might be eating you alive, the thing that you don't know how you're going to resolve and it's inside and it's a concern for you and you're praying about it and you're frustrated with it and you don't know what to do. And maybe you're even feeling a little hopeless over it. And if you wrote that problem down in detail and it came up on this stage and you dropped it into a pile, it's not a problem. It's a problem.
You came up on this stage and you dropped it into a bag. And everybody had a procession and they all brought their problems and dropped them into the bag. And then you all sat down and I said, thank you for your problems. You get to pick a different problem. You just come on up and reach in that bag and you take out a problem. And that's going to be the problem that you go home with tonight. I have a feeling no one would get in line.
See, our problems are only big because they're ours. It's like the difference between minor surgery and major surgery. You know, the difference is when it's happening to you. If I wake up today, and thank God for alcoholics and non-addicts, and I mean that, okay? You ever wait like this committee, you know, in your head? It's like, I wake up in the morning and I have a little concern. And this is the truth. This is kind of how I, and I know some of you might be able to identify with this, but I'll wake up in the morning and I'll have a concern. I'm awake, concern hits me. Duh. Now I lay there and I think about that concern, you know, maybe 20 seconds. That concern is now a problem. 20 seconds, all I did is thought about it.
If I continue to think now about my problem, another 30 seconds, it's a crisis. It went from a concern to a crisis in a minute. If I lay there thinking about it any longer, I'm paralyzed, I can't even get out of bed. Nothing changed, other than I fed it. Alcoholics Anonymous gives me the opportunity to feed myself the things that I need so that I can get up, stand up, and stay up. What do I do when that happens? What does this alcoholic do? I get down on my knees and I say, God, take this away from me.
Help me to understand that my job today, because the big book tells me, is to be of maximum service to you and to my fellow alcoholics and my fellow man. Help me today to be of service. If anybody comes in my life today that I can serve, please help me to have my eyes open so that I see that opportunity to do your work. And God, please, when it passes, let me give the credit to you instead of to me.
That is so critical for this alcoholic. See, to me, that's my third step of Alcoholics Anonymous. Third tradition says, this is a long form, this is the way it was originally written, our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Suffer from Alcoholism, Hence, We May Refuse None Who Wish to Recover, Nor Ought AA Membership Ever Depend Upon Money or Conformity, Any Two or Three Alcoholics Gathered Together
[00:45:05]
for Sobriety May Call Themselves an AA Group, Provided That, As a Group, They Have No Other Affiliation. Well, that's pretty well opening up the doors, right? Now, they did a short form, and the short form says, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, right? It doesn't mean they did away with the ideas contained in the original third tradition. They actually built those ideas into some of the other traditions that we'll talk about in a little bit, maybe, if I get that far. See, they made them a thing. I said, well, talk whatever you want to talk about for as long as you want. I had 37 cups of coffee today. I'm kidding, I didn't really. I had a few, though, so I can stay up here a while.
But, you know, the reality is this, on the membership. Again, getting back to the naysayers, to the AA's not working, I could go through what the population totals of AA were annually from 1939 to about now, and we're going to come up somewhere in the figure of about 2 million members today in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's phenomenal. Now, what else is there? 1951, Al-Anon started. Al-Anon became the first, well, it actually started a little bit before that, but it took the name Al-Anon in 1951, and Al-Anon was the first organization to use the 12 steps and 12 traditions. From that time to now, there's been over 440 various organizations granted permission to use the 12 steps and 12 traditions. So there's OA, there's NA, there's CA, there's PA, there's EA, there's SA, there's GA. They've got all kinds of them.
They all use the 12 steps. I probably qualify for 90% of them. They got this new one, it's called Paranoia Anonymous. They've got an unlisted number, and they don't tell anybody where they meet. But if I could find them, I'd probably belong there too. Now, I mention that for a reason. See, we have traditions about the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. That's a responsibility that we have as members of Alcoholics Anonymous. We're not the tradition police.
I don't like the tradition police. I don't know where they came from. It's like, I'm the tradition police, and you're not doing it right. Really? Mind your own business. Somebody came to Bill, my sponsor told me this story. Somebody came to Bill one night, he's in the 24th Street Clubhouse, and he's carrying on a conversation with someone. Bill loved to do that. And he's talking to someone, and this guy kept interrupting him. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill.
You can't imagine an alcoholic doing that to the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill, this is important. Bill finally looks at him, what do you want? He says, Mickey and so and so are in the back of the car, and they're getting it on in the parking lot. And Bill said, are they drinking? And he said, well, I don't think so. He said, well, mind your own business. See, we don't have to police this thing. Because as Bill said, John Barleycorn will police this thing. See?
Alcohol will police this thing. If we don't conform to the best of our ability to the traditions and the steps that are outlined, the result of what happens is we drink and we die. That's what happens to the alcoholic. See, so there's a reason that we need to do our best to conform to this. And there's a reason that we don't need to police other people in doing that. Now, when we look at Tradition 3, and someone comes to my home group, I'll give them my experience, and we go around and say, I'm Mike, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm Tim, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm Bobby, and I'm an addict.
And I'm Beth, and I'm an alcoholic, and it goes through. Now, some of the bleeding deacons will wait for the chairperson to say, Bobby, this is a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Closed meetings are meetings for members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Get out! That's what they're waiting for. So what we did as a group conscience is we said, these are closed meetings.
[00:50:00]
So at the beginning of the meeting, we let the group know what a closed meeting is. We stated clearly, if there's someone there who identifies themselves as other than alcoholic, or does not identify themselves as having a desire to stop drinking, either the chairperson or one of the members, very quietly and very politely, goes over and either sits by the person or asks them if they can talk to them.
And we'll talk to them. I'll take somebody out in the hall, and I'll say, hey, this is a closed meeting, and I notice that you identified yourself as an alcohabetic, or an addict, or whatever. And I say, you know, I understand that. Do you have a problem with alcohol? If they say no, I say, I want to get you a meeting schedule. We have open meetings, and I would like you to attend. As a matter of fact, you can have my phone number. Let me get your phone number.
I will pick you up tomorrow, and I will bring you to an open meeting. And if you need someone to talk to now, let's go have a cup of coffee. And I'll go sit and talk with that person, or take them to an open meeting, and maybe by them coming to some open meetings, they can begin to get honest about their alcoholism, if, in fact, they are alcoholic and still in denial. Because believe me, when I came in here, I would have rather been flat-footed, a jaywalker, or anything else, than a damn alcoholic.
I didn't want to be an alcoholic, and if you would have let me say, I'm an addict, I would have been happy saying that, because I didn't want to say I was an alcoholic, because that meant I had to stop drinking. And what would I do on St. Patrick's Day? That was where my head was at. But so today, that tradition is an opportunity. Now, what happens is, if they're not an alcoholic, we help them find a program of recovery that will save their life.
See, that's the magic of what we do. See, in 1965, in Toronto, Canada, at the International Convention, they said, when anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA to always be there, and for that, I am responsible. I'm responsible. I can't say, get out. Now, I can't make that non-alcoholic an alcoholic. So I have to help them find where they belong, with love and tolerance. That's what the program is.
Our code is love and tolerance for others. So I need to try to do that with people when I have that opportunity. And I don't mean to belabor that point. What I'm sharing with you is kind of the statistical numbers. So here you have 400 and some odd organizations using the traditions. All these people are coming in, and they're finding recovery from whatever their malady is. They're using the same steps.
Of course, every now and then, AA's attendance and membership might drop a little bit. Some of these other groups are growing because of the traditions, and we're helping people find their place. Well, I think that it's a great time for a break. And I'd also like to say that I could go on, and I'm not. I know the chairs are uncomfortable. I've probably talked too long already. What I'd like to do is take a break, and we can come back and answer some questions if anybody has that.
Why don't we take a 10-minute break? Thank you. Hey, you guys have really been great tonight. You have. And all of your kindness and all of that, and I really do appreciate it. I have not gotten so humble that I don't like compliments. But the reality is, the truth is that before I came, I knelt down and said a prayer, which is what I do, and I asked God to help me. And I do realize that when I'm invited to speak that I'm opening myself up to hopefully let the spirit come out so that it can touch someone else like it's touched me.
And it's touched me through people, the men and women in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what it is. And everybody here has their story. And everybody's story is just as valid as mine. And it may even be, certainly to you and to most, it may be a whole lot more exciting than mine. But I'm privileged to have this opportunity,
[00:55:02]
and I hope that maybe you can invite me back sometime in the summer. It would be a nice break from the heat of Arizona. You know, I mentioned last night, and I mentioned this evening briefly, the audio library that my co-sponsor had. It was called the Midwest Tape Library, and it was all in reel-to-reels. And Bill died in 1999. And he got sober in 1951. So he had a long, long period of quality sobriety.
And he dedicated his life, as did his wife Arbutus, and she's still living, but they had dedicated their lives to carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon to the world, really, through their vision with these recordings. And they started groups all over, and they were out every weekend doing the recordings. It was just a privilege to be part of that. Well, a few years ago, I had the opportunity to purchase that library from the family.
I'm married to, like, the best person in the world. I really am. I'll tell you that story. Why not? Somebody said they needed a story to warm up with. You know, they were outside, you know, seeing the people smoke or something, and they came in and they said, tell me a story to warm me up. So I'm going to tell you my warm-up story. 1987. I went to live with my sponsor. I got sober in April of 85. I was going to stay with my sponsor two weeks.
I stayed, like, two years. Decided to move to Phoenix, Arizona, because I had been there as a youngster, and I knew the sun was always shining there. And I thought, I want to be where the sun shines. I grew up in Buffalo. Can you blame me? So I get back out to Phoenix. I'm hooked up with an AA guy. I'm going to a lot of meetings, and I'm living in his apartment. And, you know, during the day, I'd go out to the swimming pool.
So I'm out at the pool one day, and I'm just sitting out there, and this girl walks by and dives in the water, and I kind of took a look at her as she walked by. I kind of watched her swim. Figured I'll dive in the water, too. So I did. I dove in the water. I went up and started talking to her. And I talked about the only thing I know about, and that's AA. I mean, it's like… And I did. And she listened.
And she couldn't identify, because she's not an alcoholic, and had never really been exposed to any alcoholics, but she was very kind to me. And I asked her out on a date. And she said, well, I'm just visiting. I'm only going to be here a couple of days. My mom and dad live here, and I'm a school teacher in Michigan, and I've got to go back to teach. It was August. And besides that, I have some plans.
My sister lives here, and I've got a friend coming in town. I got the point. You know, the point was, I was not getting a date. But AA taught me how to respond to that, which is a big deal for this alcoholic. Because I wasn't crushed by it. I didn't sink into a depression. I went to a meeting, and I worked with some of my sponsees, because that's what you guys told me to do. You taught me how to respond to the problems of living by getting into action.
And I got into action, and I did that. And I want to tell you that I was not… Like, from 15 to 25, I was in a lot of hospitals, and psychiatric wards, and things like this, while I was trying to get sober. My life was plummeting out of control, downhill, all the time. And any dating that I did could be all summed up in one word, and that would be pathetic. Got that? You don't need to hear a fifth step from the podium.
One word accurately describes what my dating experiences were like. Pathetic. Well, a couple of days later, I see her back at the pool. She says, Hey, my friend didn't come into town. My plans changed a little bit. My dad has some tickets to a baseball game tomorrow evening, and if you'd like to go, I'd like to have you come as my guest. And I said, Well, I'll tell you what, I'll be happy to do that if you'll come to dinner with me.
It sounds like an alcoholic, you know. So she agreed. So I picked her up. Now it's August in Phoenix, Arizona. I don't know the conversion of Celsius and Fahrenheit, but I can tell you, hotter than hell, okay? Alright? Like 115, okay?
[01:00:03]
I pick her up in my black Ford Fairmont. No air conditioning, okay? I'm a newcomer, okay? It was the first car I ever had that I was actually paying for. We go to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant and she gets a fortune cookie and she opens it up and it says something like, you can trust the man you're with, his love is true. Four months later, we were married. I mean, she left like the next week for Michigan, okay?
I mean, this is like a telephone romance. Four months later, we were married. This December will be 21 years. Now, if that's not a story to warm you up, I don't know what else I could possibly do. And I get to live it. You know, when you're a little kid, you're growing up and you see the fairy tales and things going on. It's like I get to live that life today in Alcoholics Anonymous. I sometimes have to pinch myself to just make sure that it's not a dream.
Because it really is a dream. It is a dream. It's such a beautiful life. Every day I'm sober, I'm overpaid. I know that. I have three kids. I have like, people call me for advice. I mean, coming from where I am, that just doesn't even make sense. It just doesn't. Think about that. Like people come up real nervous, you know, will you sponsor me? Well, I sponsor you. I'm afraid I may kill you, but yeah, I'll try it.
You know, one guy said to me, he was over at my house and he's like, Mike, it's really good to meet you. I really appreciate you showing me some of your things. Oh, that's what I was talking about. Anyway, the guy's talking to me and he said that he fired his sponsor. And I said, why did you fire your sponsor? And he says, well, he's real busy and I'd call him and he wouldn't be available or he wouldn't call me back.
I said, oh, OK. A little while later, I'm walking him to his car and he said, hey, would you sponsor me? I said, I'm not so sure that that's a real good idea. Because I want you to know that I am a really busy person. I mean, I've got three kids. I've got a business. I'm busy. I already sponsor all kinds of people and I'm active in my community. I'm doing some writing and I'm… And I said, but I'd be grateful to sponsor you. I'd be happy to sponsor you.
Provided you understand one thing and that's all. And he's like, well, what's that? I said, your sobriety is not dependent upon your relationship with your sponsor. Your sobriety is dependent upon your relationship with your God. Please, please, don't put that on me. I don't want the credit for your sobriety and I don't want the blame either. All I want to do is share with you. That's all. I was telling you about that library. I bought the library. We converted my living room to an archival library.
So I've got like walls of 3,000 reel-to-reel recordings, 6,000 cassette recordings, just massive talks. Some of the reel-to-reels have as many as 15 talks on them. Well, over the last couple of years, I've been contracting with a guy to convert those to digital for me. It's been a very expensive project. I will tell you that my wife and I have completely funded it and we're not… I mean, we're 10% of the way there, but we've got 5,000 talks digitized right now.
We're 10% of the way there and hopefully, we're real close, but by December 31st, by January 1 of this year, we're going to launch a website called recoveryspeakers.org and all of those talks will be available for download and all of those talks will be free of charge to everyone. That's just a little service project that we're doing and I am grateful for the opportunity that God has given me to do that and maybe in some small way, help preserve the history of this wonderful fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
[01:05:03]
And besides that, I get to listen to them all and it's a lot of fun. You know, I've talked a lot tonight. I've tried to talk about the traditions in a way that was maybe a little unorthodox. I heard somebody talking about somebody with a pointer and that's not my style. It's really difficult actually to bring a book up and read out of it because the traditions and the steps to me are something that have to be lived.
It's something that we have to bring into our consciousness and we have to do that through meditation and through prayer and through exchange with other people, through the experiences of the groups that we participate in, the mistakes that we sometimes make and the education that we can get from listening to those recordings and reading and studying the books. The book A.A. Comes of Age is really a really, really well-written book and it gives a lot of the history of A.A.
and I would recommend it for anyone that is interested in knowing more about how the traditions evolved and how A.A. started. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we have three legacies. Recovery, that is our first legacy, that's our sobriety. Unity, which is our groups, the traditions. And service, which is everything. It kind of brings it all together. The foundation being sobriety and Bill knew that. And the three legacies are so important because they all started that day when Bill and Dr. Bob met at the Gatehouse, at the S. Estate in Akron.
Abby had talked to Bill and they knew the service and giving of ourselves to others without expectation of return. This was important and the events that occurred with John D. Rockefeller and Charles Townes and the jobs and the breaking of the anonymity and all the things that happened, all kind of directed Bill to writing these essays. And then Bill presented them in the Grapevine in April of 1946.
How do you think the membership responded to that? Some of them said, oh no, we're not, there's no way. Forget that, don't invite W., he's going to talk about those traditions. Before that it was like, don't invite W., he's going to talk about his hot flash. And Bill went around and he talked about the traditions because Bill cared so much for our organization. Bill cared so much for us. He knew that this fellowship needed to be here for the future and he knew other fellowships that didn't make it.
And he wanted us not to make those same mistakes. And he took the risks and he documented this and he fought to make sure that they would happen. And some old timers came to him in 1946 and they said, Bill, these are too long. Alcoholics aren't going to sit and listen to these traditions. They're too long. And they revised them and they came down with what we have today, which is the short form of the traditions.
And at the first international convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July of 1950, they met together, they presented the traditions in the short form and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous actually came of age and said, we accept these traditions. And they became part of Alcoholics Anonymous then. But really what happened was, they had become part of Alcoholics Anonymous from the very first meeting.
Because they were the experience. And that's what we have to remember. Alcoholics Anonymous is 70 plus years old right now. We're going to have our 75th big bash in San Antonio, Texas for AA. I got sober in Texas. I'm looking forward to that. I think that will be a lot of fun. But it's only 75 years. Historically speaking, that is insignificant. We are in the infancy of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are creating the future of Alcoholics Anonymous.
That's why we need to go back to our groups. We need to talk to the people that we work with. We need to sit down and read the traditions and ask questions and learn about them so that we can talk about them so others can understand. And then if you take the principles that are in the traditions and you bring them into your home and into your business, you'll find that you can have the same harmony there
[01:10:01]
as you have in your meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous. That doesn't mean we never disagree, but we learn that we don't have to be disagreeable. In my home, our common welfare has to come first. To participate, to be an individual, is important. But the group has to come first, as a family. We have a family and we discuss things. And what my youngest would say or my oldest would say is important. Doesn't mean that we're going to listen to them.
The reality is, honestly, that we don't talk about the traditions in my home. We try to live them. I don't talk about the steps. I try to live them. I try to take the principles that are contained there and bring it into part of my life so that people can see me exercise this. And I believe, just for me, I believe that that's what the intention of this book and the Twelve Traditions really was. It wasn't something for me to work at.
It was something for me to live and experience and be part of. And by doing that, then I could share with the enthusiasm that I have. And I hope that you can feel that from me. I hope that I can transfer that enthusiasm. And I hope that you understand that if I stand at a door, I'm working with a newcomer, I get excited when I'm here or sitting at a meeting. It's because this disease is serious. This disease kills people.
It almost killed me. I shouldn't be here. And I know that. And it wasn't by anything that I did. It was by what you did that got me sober. Not what I did. See, all I did is showed up stupid and drunk and wearing somebody's pants and pig-headed. And you guys put up with me and you taught me how to love. And you said, kid, if you want to keep this thing, you got to give it away. You want to be good to someone.
You want to even be good to someone. Learn how to love people and give away love. Have that abundance in your life. Develop a relationship with a God of your understanding. And I did these things and I brought these things into my home. And it's not by accident that you stay married for 21 years. I don't think that's a record amount of time, but it's a record amount of time for me. See, 21 minutes was a record.
We had a long relationship. But, you know, you all can understand. The reality is that everybody in this room has just as much ability to bring out of you what I've tried to allow come out of me tonight so that you can help that next dying drunk. Our common welfare comes first. It's us together. We don't have big shots in AA. We have some who think they are, but we don't. This is an even playing field.
The greatest you'll ever be, an Alcoholics Anonymous, is a trusted servant. It doesn't get any better than that, folks. That's the best that we can be. And I'm grateful for that. Somebody said to me, well, you know, I went through the 12 steps. This is a talk that I heard of a speaker that I have tremendous respect for. And in any case, basically the message that he said is after he went through the 12 steps, he knew he was a child of God.
But before he went through the 12 steps, he was a child of God. He just didn't know it. See? The 12 steps introduce us to a new light. That's why I come and I bring it enthusiastically. Because I know that's how I like to hear a message. And when I see you glowing, and I see your smile, and I see you extending a hand of kindness to a newcomer or picking someone up at a treatment center, I'm proud of being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I hope you are. And I feel sorry for the men and women that came and got theirs, and they're not here tonight. Because I believe It is my responsibility to be here, to freely give away what was freely given to me, and I hope I never refuse to go on a 12-step call. And I hope you never do either. Some of that has changed a little bit in the last 20 years, and it's changed because of a number of reasons.
[01:15:05]
We're having more and more people brought into Alcoholics Anonymous through treatment centers and through the courts. That's okay. See, what we have to do is meet them where they're at. Welcome them. We don't have to get mad at them. What's that all about? They're ruining AA. Oh, please. They're coming into AA for the same reason you came in, for an opportunity for hope. It's our responsibility to reach out to them wherever they're at.
And I don't care if they were in treatment for six days and they did the steps 19 times. Okay? I don't care. Thank you. I'm glad you did the steps. Let's talk about your experience. Let's talk about helping a newcomer. Let's talk about how we can begin to give this away. Hey, have you been through the book? Why don't we read the book? Let's start at the doctor's opinion. We'll go from there. You know, we don't need to get this thing by Thursday night.
Let's just take it a little bit at a time. And they come. They go to the meetings. And they pick people up. You know, eventually, they're not talking what they learned in the treatment center. They're talking Alcoholics Anonymous. But it isn't because I said something negative about how they got here. I don't care how you get here. I'm glad you're here. And I'm going to welcome you just like I would anyone else.
That's what I think we need to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think that's what Bill was trying to say. The primary purpose of every group of Alcoholics Anonymous is to carry the message to the still-suffering alcoholics in and out of these rooms. That's why we meet. It doesn't matter at what level. It can be a service convention. It can be right on down to your home group to a traditions meeting. It doesn't matter.
The primary purpose of that meeting is to carry the message of hope to the still-sick and suffering alcoholic. That's why we have the traditions. A few people said, Oh, I could listen to you for a while. Well, if you can, then you're going to have to get the CD. Because you know when you're done? You know when you're done. I love you guys. You guys have been really good to me and you've really made my experience here in Montreal a pleasant one.
And you have helped me to feel the warmth of the unity of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a privilege to be invited anywhere. I closed my talk last night the same way I close all my talks. I'm going to do my closing. I'm going to stop. And I'm going to let anybody ask questions that they want to ask. When you ask me the question, don't talk as fast as I do. I'm going to repeat the question so that it can be heard for the taper.
Is that what we call them? Are they recorders? I don't know what we call them now. The digitizer. The digitizer. I'm going to repeat the question and then I'm going to attempt to answer it, okay? A bell is not a bell until we ring it. And a song is not a song until we sing it. And love wasn't put in our hearts to stay. Love is only love when we give it away. And to me, A.A. is only A.A. if we give it away.
Thank you. And who says traditions are boring? Anyone have a question they'd like to ask? I can attempt to. And it can be about anything, really. Except for the Amazon. Hi, Rob. Two. Thank you very much. Can you, in your opinion, can you give and take back at the same time? The second question is, can I give something to A.A. back? I have a bunch of stuff that I've been collecting here. Can I give it back to A.A.?
Well, let me deal with the first question first, okay? Thank you. No, I'm not. We don't have bosses. I know. I believe that, you know, in my opinion, and anything I share tonight is my opinion of how I interpret the program.
[01:20:02]
Can we give and take at the same time? I think the blessing is this. That if we give and we don't worry about receiving, we do it truly with no motive and no expectation, then we are blessed abundantly with more to give. And when they told me, kid, you might be broke many times, but you'll never be poor as long as you have something to give away. And as long as you're an Alcoholics Anonymous, you have something to give away.
And I'm grateful for that, because today I've never experienced being poor. And I have been broke. I hope that answers your question. Your second question is can you give back to AA? You sure can. Can I come up and do it? Can I do it right here? You can come up. I think, well, I don't, I'm just a girl in AA. Without a boyfriend. And a PhD. And they gave me one of those crazy degrees. But the last few weeks I've been picking up trash from people's stuff that gets recycled or doesn't get recycled.
And I got Eric Clapton. I got roses. I got stuff from all the stores that are helping us out. I got stuff that I've been making. I got cigarette cases reminding us how fragile we are. I got Tinkerbell because I love her. I got flowers to say thank you. I got messages that I've been writing. I just want to give it to everybody. Thank you. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. And something else you can give away is your love to the newcomer coming in.
Keep coming back. Thank you. Come on. Somebody up here in the front row. Thanks, Mike. My name is Nick. I'm not a big newcomer. Hello. Can you talk a little bit about the Washingtonians' effect on the traditions? All right. The question is, can I talk a little bit about the Washingtonians' effect on the traditions? The Washingtonians were an organization that started in about 1842. And they actually started in a bar in Baltimore called Chase's Tavern.
And they started by a group of people that were drinking in the bar and decided that they would stop drinking. And they did something that AA does very well. They identified that one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic could result in sobriety. And within a very short period of time, they had 400,000 members in their organization. Now, AA, it took us many, many years to come even close to those numbers.
But you have to understand that only about 100,000 of those were alcoholics because they didn't have traditions. What they did is anybody could come in for any old reason. So people came in with their personal agendas. They came in with their politics. We don't have that in AA. They came in with their power. We don't have that in AA. They came in on this side of drinking and that side of drinking, the wet and dry issues.
And they argued and fought. And just as quickly as they grew, they dissolved. And Bill heard about this and learned about it and recognized that that could happen to alcoholics and alcoholics. And that's one of the reasons that AA doesn't get affiliated with any outside enterprise, any issues. We don't endorse. We don't support anything. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to do that.
And I believe that the experience are the types of things that have helped to mold the traditions. We didn't just have to have the experience of AA. We could look at the world and see what wasn't working in culture. And with the Washingtonians is a great example of how the traditions did evolve. I'm done with that one. Really, I am. Any other questions? Any burning desires here? All right. Well, listen.
Hi, Dave. Where do I stand on the money issue, the seventh tradition? That's great. It's an interesting question. Alcoholics Anonymous is self-supporting through our own contributions.
[01:25:03]
The basket gets passed at our meetings. I first came to AA in 1975. And I remember they passed the basket. When they passed the basket, they said, I'm going to pass the basket now and I don't want to hear anything. Now, I don't know if you understand what that meant. What that meant is they didn't want any change in the basket. They were asking for folding money. And then somebody else said, We're going to pass the basket now and give a couple.
And if you need it, take a couple. Nobody took it. And today, at our meetings, and I know that the economy here and the economy in the States is challenging today and it's affecting an awful lot of people. But with the principle of giving that we have, to continue to give, sometimes, until it hurts a little bit, if it's there to support the program that saved our lives, personally, you ask me, me, a dollar?
Are you kidding me? A donut costs more than a dollar. I'm going to come in and drink coffee and eat cookies and I'm going to throw a buck in the basket that saved my life? Not me. I've got to give a little bit. I've got to give a little back. Because I want that meeting to be able to pay the rent. I want them to be able to send some money to GSO and help Alcoholics Anonymous be there so somebody's answering the phone and taking those calls so that they can continue to carry this message, so that they can print the literature and make it available.
Today, there are more big books in circulation than any other time in the history of mankind. The big book is Alcoholics Anonymous. There's more 12 and 12. There's more AA literature available today than ever before. There are more people in AA. There's more sponsors. There's more meetings. There's more telephones to answer. And there's never been a better time to be in Alcoholics Anonymous than tonight.
And we are so lucky. And if you hear the prophets of doom telling you different, stand up and tell them they don't know what they're talking about. There has never been a better time to be in AA than right now. The opportunity for new people to come in and get sober and get quality sobriety is right now. I don't want to go back to some magic day. I want to help people. And the only way we're going to do that is when we reach a little deeper in our pocket and we give a little bit more.
We get here early. We inconvenience ourselves. And we stay a little bit longer. We help people understand that there's more to this deal than not drinking. I think I might answer this question. Yes, in the back. Hi, my name is Sheila. I'm a member of Al-Anon. Hi, Sheila. Have you ever attended an Al-Anon meeting? And if you have, why? And if you haven't, why not? Thank you, Sheila. Wow. Have I ever attended an Al-Anon meeting?
Yes. My mother, I think she's going to celebrate 43 or 44 years in Al-Anon this year. So I grew up in Al-Anon. I grew up in AA and Al-Anon. I've attended meetings. I spoke at Al-Anon meetings. I have probably the largest Al-Anon archive that exists in my home. Because when I bought the library from Bill and Arbutus, Arbutus had collected things over the years. And she came into Al-Anon in 1947. And Al-Anon didn't start until 1951.
So she was one of the pioneers in Texas and actually became the first delegate for the state of Texas for Al-Anon. So I've had wonderful relationships with Al-Anon. And I believe that Al-Anon, and in Bill W.'s words, in 1960, I think, was Al-Anon's first convention, World Service Convention. And Bill said that Al-Anon is the greatest thing that's happened since Alcoholics Anonymous started. And the reason for your phenomenal growth is due to your determination to fill that vast vacuum of family relationships.
And we all know that that's the most important, because that's the most important. That's the most important, because that's the most destroyed. I am grateful for Al-Anon. I am grateful for the families that put up with us, that love us and support us and encourage us. I hope I answered your question. Hi Sheila.
[01:30:18]
Thank you. The 11th tradition says that our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and film. And the reason that they have that tradition is so that we don't harm ourselves. And when someone comes in, you know, here's the deal. I fly into Montreal. There was no press at the airport waiting for me to arrive.
Really. And when I get off the plane in Phoenix, they're not going to be waiting there saying, we want to write a story about your trip to Montreal. Because I'm not a celebrity. All just maybe in my own head now and then. But there are celebrities who come into Alcoholics Anonymous. They start to get sober. They get into AA. And, you know, the press is around them all the time. And they find out that they're in AA.
Some of them come out and say it because they don't understand the traditions yet. Or they think, well, you know, it's an opportunity. They're a promoter, like Bill kind of told us about in the experience. So it's not unlike that. In the beginning, when that tradition was really looked at, because if you had a celebrity come into AA and say, I'm whoever, and I'm an alcoholic and I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they didn't stay sober, the next thing you'd see on TV is Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work.
So what happened was we said at the level of the press, we don't want our last names used or our pictures in the paper. We don't want to promote AA. And the press said, are you kidding me? Well, that's unheard of. We're going to write a story about Alcoholics Anonymous. As a result of it, we got more free publicity than we ever would have had people gone out on a public campaign. And it was good publicity because the press was overwhelmed with the fact that this organization, their sole intention was to help other people not to build their names up.
And it's important today that we recognize that. And that's kind of what happened. Now, the promotion rather than attraction part of that, too, is in the meetings. Here we are at a meeting. You all know my name. The big book says in the doctor's opinion that those people who were getting sober had become sold on the ideas contained in the book. I hope, in some small way, somebody's here tonight that was sold on the ideas contained in the book.
Because I believe that is my responsibility. When I'm invited to share, I remember saying to my sponsor, what should I talk about at a meeting? He said, talk about what you're reading in the book. I said, oh. So guess what? I started reading the book. I started getting sober. And I had something to talk about. And then after I was done, people would say, enjoyed what you had to say, kid. And they lifted me up.
And they got me to continue to do that. So I think we're promoting to each other by sharing our experience and our strength and our hope. There was one night I didn't want to go to a meeting. And, you know, this honesty stuff, you know, Johnson's death. How come you don't want to go to a meeting, kid? And I said, well, you know, a little meeting in a little town in Banks, Texas. And it was in a drugstore.
It was 5.30 on an afternoon. And I said, it's the same people there every Monday. And there's a baseball game on tonight, and I'd kind of like to see the baseball game. And he looked at me and he said, kid, you don't go to meetings to get. You go to meetings to give. And I said, yeah, you do, Mr. A.A. I mean, he was sober 34 years. He was dry so long he was a fire hazard. I said, maybe you, Mr. A.A., but me, what do I got to give?
I got nothing. I'm 45 days sober, and I'm still throwing up. I've got nothing. He said, oh, kid, there may be somebody down there tonight for their first meeting. And they're going to look at you and they're going to say,
[01:35:00]
if this guy can stay sober for 45 days, I can stay sober today. You might be the only big book that they ever read. And I'm grateful that the men and women and alcoholics and alcoholics took the time to explain that stuff to me. And I went to the meeting. And I haven't gone to a meeting since to get. And I hope you do, too. Are we done? Anybody else? Great. And I'm grateful we covered alcohol. Great.
Thank you, A.A. There's hardly any organization out there, government, charitable organization, church, that are declining inside competitions. Everybody does things like fundraising. Money is the answer to all problems. And I always marvel at the fact that A.A. declines inside competitions. I understand why you do that. But where does this wisdom come from? It came, you know, initially, the wisdom came from experience of things not turning out the way that A.A. wanted them to.
For example, John D. Rockefeller had a dinner for A.A. And he invited all these bankers and all of his friends. And Bill said there were billions of dollars in the room. And Bill was excited. And he met with those A.A.s in New York and he positioned the A.A.s at the different tables at the banquet so that they could impress these people, so that he could put the bite on them for a few bucks. So that we could get this thing, a foundation, built for Alcoholics Anonymous.
John D. Rockefeller's son got up and read a letter. His dad wasn't able to be there. He read a letter from his dad and basically the letter said, this is a good thing. These folks are doing something. I've been watching them. It is a good thing. We want to continue to watch them. And we know that the reason that it's so effective is because it's for fun and it's for free. And because of that, I'm not going to give them money.
And Bill said the air just came out of them. Alcoholics, it's demeaning. But that was providence. That was God doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Because that helped to make that tradition what it was later. Now John D. did give Bill a little bit of money and they were able to pay Dr. Bob's mortgage and they were able to draw like 30 bucks a week or a month. It was insignificant though.
I think it was around $5,000. Even then, $5,000 was not a tremendous amount of money. But it took the pressure off so that they could answer the phones and kind of get the office going. And we're grateful for that. And Rockefeller ended up buying books. Again, Bill gave them a deal on the books to make up for the money that he gave. So really, it was supporting through that too, if you really analyzed it.
AA has turned down large sums of money. And there's times that AA needs money. Right now is one of those times. And your groups need money. We do need to do our best to try to give more and to announce that at our meetings. Let them know. And make sure your group is sending money to the area and to New York. Please do that. Because we want the phones to be answered. It is important. That's just my opinion.
Yes. I want to thank you for when you were saying, it doesn't matter how we get to it. Whether they're at the center or whatever it is, we pick them up where they're at. And even if they're appointed to the courts, maybe we planted a seed. Maybe something will happen. And I agree with that. And you criticize it a lot. And you put a different perspective on it. But I'm not a prophet of doom. But I do worry that this might not be around.
Because what faith tradition is very clear. And we have to carry this message. And I've been to enough AA meetings to see that the message that we're supposed to be carrying is not the same message that's being carried all around. What is your view on that? Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And basically, his question is, he sees that the message of AA is inconsistent. And that it's not accurate.
[01:40:02]
I got to go over in a place where the big book is very important. And they told me exactly what I needed to do in order to recover from my problems. And I think we don't need to see that. Maybe that's not the same message that everybody's carrying. OK. And basically, what he's saying is, not everybody's carrying the same message. And you're right. And they weren't then. And they won't in 50 years from now.
The reality is, the book hasn't changed. The program hasn't changed. The preamble hasn't changed. One alcoholic talking to another alcoholic hasn't changed. The idea of people being ushered in by the courts. My dad got sober in early 1960-ish. My dad's sponsor got sober in 1946. I was a little boy watching my dad take drunks to meetings. Watching the police in our local community drop them off at our home.
And they would drop us at night. And they would sleep on the front porch occasionally. And we'd get up in the morning to go to school. And there would be a drunk sitting at the table shaking with a cup of coffee. Or my dad and his sponsor would have to leave early on Monday night to go to the court to talk to a judge and say, Judge, please, don't lock this guy up. He's got a family. Let us take him to AA.
He's been going. And he's doing a good job. And the judge would say, Take him, boys. Take him. God bless you. Thank you. And they took him to meetings. And these people would get sober. And there's meetings here tonight. There's people here tonight that are here because the court sent you here. And you got sober. The book hasn't changed. It's more important today for us to make sure that we, as an individual, this is my responsibility now, to carry an accurate message of hope to that person, not to chase them out, but to help them understand.
Now, we can disagree and not be disagreeable. Someone might… Hey, I've been in meetings where people want to share off the topic. They want to share about something that's got nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I can either be an elder statesman or a bleeding deacon. And it's my choice. You know, I sit there and I get fidgety. Oh, they've gone on for four minutes now and they're still talking about their divorce.
What has this got to do with AA? Or I can show a little love and a little tolerance. And after the meeting, take them out and buy them a sandwich and say, I'm glad that you shared. My sponsor suggested that I share about what I was reading in the big book. Are you reading the big book? No? How about you and I get together and we'll meet on Thursday mornings at 10 o'clock at your house or my house. And we'll read the big book together.
And then when we go to the meetings we can talk about that. Would you be willing to do that with me? And if they don't tell me where to go, maybe I'll make a new friend. But all I know is I extended myself. Don't buy into this. I'm telling you, there's more people getting quality sobriety than today than any other time in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's hard to see because there's more people coming in.
And some of those voices that are negative, some of those failures are so glaring that we see those and we want to believe. Yeah, it's just not working. But don't kid yourself. It's working. Look at how many people attended a traditions meeting. Any other questions? No, sorry. My mother-in-law died. Okay. At the end of the day, I've got to do that for my family. The best thing is that my mother-in-law died.
My father-in-law died. My mother-in-law died. All right, thank you. All right, how about one more? Hi, I'm Robin. I'm still an alcoholic. I walked over the bridge today. Sure, go ahead. Out of, I'm going to get some of the details wrong, okay, it's a book about what it means to be a First Nations person in New Zealand, trying to recover from domestic abuse, sexism, colonialism, all sorts of crazy stuff, and it's all, it's a book about reading books, and it's also been made into a movie, okay, and I would like to give it away because it's also all about alcoholism and how it affects everybody, family, death,
[01:45:10]
thank you, Molly, was there, did somebody have a question? Yep. Hi, Chris. Well, you know, I'm grateful that as Alcoholics Anonymous we don't affiliate with any outside enterprise, so we have no affiliation with the court whatsoever. We don't endorse what they do, we don't oppose what they do. What they do is their business, and we have, as Alcoholics Anonymous, have no opinion on it, okay. Now, as a personal AA member, I think it's sad, okay, but you know, we live in a world sometimes where there's sadness, where people do things that I don't understand, you know, but the reality is that an awful lot of people have been sent here through the courts that have successfully gotten sober and have tremendous gratitude for what they've been given, and they're grateful that the court sent them, and there's some people, like you say, that have taken another stand on that, and I'm just glad that as Alcoholics Anonymous we don't have to be part of that culture.
All right. Thank you all very much.