Audio
Transcript
Source: AA International Panel – Around the World in 80 Minutes – SENY Convention Panel (1959) with Archival Intr – Date Unknown.mp3 File: aa-international-panel-around-the-world-in-80-minutes-seny-convention-panel-1959-with-archival-intr-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:47:36
============================================================
Hi, Bill. Frank again. A little time has passed since the other side of this tape. This is typical. I didn't get a chance to finish it, and in the meantime, both Holly and I had the virus catch up with us again, so it's been a kind of a sad session. However, your talk on the other side of the tape about taping the old-timers got the wheels going in my head. I'm going to be brief with this so I can put as much as possible in this side of the tape.
But I was talking with Midge this week one day while I was at home here on the phone, and it so happened it was the day that I got a letter from Hazel as a delegate about any old-timers in the area, and I think if you've seen the latest exchange bulletin, they also in that ask if you had any old-timers, the first hundred in AA in your area, try to round them up for Toronto. So I spoke to Midge about when they get a listing of these old-timers, if I can get this list, so that they can be contacted either at Toronto or at their home if they don't make Toronto, find someone in their vicinity to take their story and then get a collection of these tapes, primarily to have them for the archives at General Service offices.
You know, Nell W. is helping Bill, and they're getting as much as they can of the history of AA on paper and on tapes and the old records. And this, to me, would be an invaluable addition. And in the meantime, as kind of an ulterior motive, I suppose, we as organizers of this thing would have copies of all these tapes. So find out anything you can down your way about what old-timers are there. I intend to do the same here.
As I said, there are some of the real old-timers, they're not in the first hundred, but they're pretty close there up around this way. And we'll see if we can't get a pretty comprehensive library of some of these speakers if it's okay with you. Of course, I'm going to go to work on this anyway. But you had mentioned that you have some of these real old boys on tape already, and I thought if we could get a definite listing, we might avoid chasing around the country after a few of them.
But I think this can be worked out. It'll take a little time, but it should be a very rewarding thing. So when you answer, let me know your thoughts and your feelings on the subject, will you? Now I'm going to put on first the tape. It was one of the features of one of our conventions around the world in 80 minutes. It was AA work that's been done in different countries. I'm sure you'll recognize some of the speakers.
Walter O. is one. He used to work our conventions every year. He's out on the coast now, and a real old-timer around New York here, Gundren, who was instrumental in helping the first Bermuda groups get started. Isn't it funny talking here now? His name escapes me, and I know him very well. But anyway, a Scandinavian fellow that helped, or in fact did translate the first translation of the big book into Norwegian is also on this.
So I think you'll probably enjoy it. And then to follow this up, it was part of the same day, Judge M., who has been a wonderful friend of AA's and is now on the board of trustees. So I'll quit now and let you listen to these talks and anything else I can get on this side of the tape. And again, our best to you and our beautists. The weather turned a little mild here now today. It was in the 40s, thank God.
It's been bitter cold for the last week. I hope spring is on the way. At least each day we're another 24 hours closer to Toronto, and God willing, we hope to see you there. My name is Lib S., and I am an alcoholic, a very privileged alcoholic, this 24 hours, to conduct and introduce the speakers on this meeting. I work in your general service headquarters. This year, my past year, my service assignment
[00:05:01]
has been to correspond with groups and members overseas. And that is why I think I was asked to chair this meeting. I moved the seat up on the side, not because I feel that I'm situated differently from the others. I have promised to be the timekeeper. We have eight speakers. Each one has a thrilling story to tell about AA overseas. But because we think that the mind can absorb only that which the feet can endure, we are going to have to ask each one to limit himself to ten minutes.
So I'm there so I can get the word to them when they only have a minute more to speak. Last October, AA in Holland held its tenth anniversary. And this was a very special occasion, for it was an open meeting, inviting the public and many men of the welfare department, the people interested in alcoholism. Many penologists from the prison system in Holland were there and listened to this AA convention.
And it was a grand success from the point of view of the AAs who got together for warm fellowship. And this wonderful sense that we do get of our common destiny when we come and meet together. And also because a tape recording went over with a message from Bill. And this tape was made at your general service office on 44th Street, and it was very special. In fact, we thought it was kind of a step forward for us.
Bill recorded a paragraph in English, and then our beloved Adrian recorded the same paragraph in Dutch. And so as the people sat in that hall, they heard Bill's voice, and then they got a translation in Dutch, paragraph by paragraph. And it was very, very thrilling. Adrian has served here as the delegate from this area. He is known to most of you. He is very well known to the staff members at headquarters because he has worked on Dutch translations, he's worked in corresponding with AA in Holland, and he's actually been over there and visited and helped share our group experience, the experience out of which sprang the traditions.
And he was able to tell them how we did things that worked. And they adopted many, many of these suggestions and ideas that came right from AA here in the New York metropolitan area. And I give you Adrian F.. Good morning, friends. My name is Adrian F.. I am an alcoholic. As you can tell by my accent, I was born and raised in Holland. And although I have lived here for the better part of 35 years, I have clung to the Dutch accent for the simple reason that whenever I get in Dutch, I can always say I meant something else.
I joined AA in 1948. I had a difficult time with the program at first, although I didn't think. In 1952, I had to go abroad on business again. I was very, very scared, and I went to General Service Headquarters to get some information on groups that I knew existed in England and in Ireland. Throughout my AA life, I have had some wonderful breaks. I think the most wonderful one of all was that very day when I was talking to one of the staff members in the office about my trip abroad.
Bill W. came in. And Bill said, You are just the fellow I'm looking for. And Bill told me that he had been in Holland the previous year and had made some contacts and knew that they were trying to start some little groups here and there.
[00:10:00]
So armed with one of the big books, autographed by Bill, and a letter of introduction to the man he had contacted there, who was the head of the Amsterdam Municipal Bureau for Alcoholism, I went to Amsterdam. And they arranged a national convention of AA groups in Holland. There was one group in Amsterdam. There was one in Rotterdam. There was one in The Hague. And that evening, in a small office in the Amsterdam headquarters of the Bureau for Alcoholism, there was a national convention.
There were eight members there. And I was sitting, and that was the whole membership of AA in Holland at the time. I was sitting in back of the little table, and right in front of me was a courtyard of anti-abuse tablets. And their conception of AA at that time was that as long as the boys, there were no girls in the groups at that time, as long as the boys who wanted to have anti-abuse tablets a day and dipped into the communal jar before they went home and put a handful of pills in their pocket, they were members of good standing of alcoholics and alcoholics.
They had tried very feebly to translate the 12 suggested steps, and they were in the midst of a terrific fight because there was an atheist, there was an agnostic, and there were some people who didn't believe in anything but their own church. And they felt that the word God was a terribly dirty word and should not be included in the 12 suggested steps. So they suggested to use the word life. You can imagine eight confused alcoholics living by life alone.
You can imagine the state of their sobriety, and you can see the reason for their continued use of anti-abuse. I made some suggestions in that meeting, and I'm happy to say that gradually those suggestions came through. Those groups have been helped a great deal, more than we can ever estimate, by the girls in the office in New York who are in charge from year to year with foreign correspondents. A number of questions came up in 1952 that they answered and that I tried to answer.
In 1953 and 54 and 55 and 56 it was the same thing. The last time I was down there was in 1957. But the movement grew because they finally saw that they couldn't live by the word life in the 12 suggested steps. They came back to our concept of a God as we understand Him. And that has done wonders for them. Then they had a great deal of trouble with living amongst themselves, the groups, the individual groups.
And they translated the 12 traditions. And if you ever want to meet a group of people who believe and who work the 12 traditions, it is those groups in Holland who have through bitter experience found that the only way to live with each other as individuals and as groups and as a fellowship is by following the suggestions found in the 12 traditions. Those people believed in the concept of general service headquarters.
It has been their lifeline, much more so than most groups in this country. My hope is that a few words I shall say here today will be conveyed to you at least in thought to your home groups and really gives general service headquarters a boost because all they do and the only thing they're there for is to bring the message to the alcoholic who still does not know. From his feeble group in 1952 of 8 members, AA in Holland has been…
Of eight members, AA in Holland has grown to a membership of over 30 groups and 500 members.
[00:15:07]
They're thriving. They're still fighting. They're still having the difficulties, but they believe in one thing, and that is, stay dry, one time, one day at a time. Thank you very much. Adrian, I think we can hear better if we get behind the backdrop. Nobody on the stage can hear what's being said, and I think all the speakers want to hear the other one. Thank you, dear. You get a bouquet. You see, you did end it in time with me, giving me a couple of minutes to say something about our next speaker.
I think when you get time, if you haven't already, you'll want to go around and see some of the displays of some of the work. You'll see a little sign over on the foreign pamphlets and literature board that says, Soon, The AA Book in Norwegian. This wonderful step forward and real milestone in the history of AA in Norway is largely due to the labor of love of one of our beloved members here, Hart. Hart has worked with us since the beginning of AA in Norway. He and some of the other Norwegian American members in Brooklyn wrote the first letters over there and sponsored by mail the first alcoholics over there.
He helped them come through many of the same problems of finding out whether or not the principles in AA tradition applied to another country. Happily, based on the experience of Holland and Norway, we can say with confidence to AA starting just beginning in other countries overseas that the Drell tradition springs from the actual experience of alcoholics. They suggest the way that alcoholics will get things done both in their groups and their services. The way they conduct themselves and the way they relate themselves to the public, this has been the best principles for alcoholics to do this with comfortable sobriety.
Hart went over in October of last year, and he was over there in Norway. He worked with the publishers. He worked with the central leadership of Norway, which is the service committee for AA in Norway. It's my great privilege to introduce your next speaker, Hart S.. Thank you. Hi, everybody. It's kind of an echo here. I don't know how. Can you hear me good when I stand this way all over? My name is Hart S., but over in Scandinavia, they call me Mr. Hart. They put that Mr. ahead of it. I could speak long and tell you a great deal. Since 1954, I have made three trips to Norway.
In 1954, I took a plane and was over there only three weeks. I really went to see my mother, but I got dragged into the controversy that went on at that time because AA had started in Norway about 1947. They adopted the name Alcoholic Anonymous, Anonyme Alkolikere, as they called it in their language. But in starting out, they wanted to go too fast. Public grants from the municipality and from the state is very easy to get over there. And they wanted to, and they did, build AA from the top instead of starting from the bottom.
[00:20:07]
So they got a lot of money from the state. They opened up big offices. And I guess they even started groups in some towns by bringing a brass band with them. But they made AA Fellowship Group. They got off the track. They had a clinic. They got into all kinds of money affairs. But so they certainly realized after a while that this was wrong. This was in 1954 when I was there. And I happened to just be asked to speak at a few groups. And I mentioned that over here we are self-supporting and various other things that are stated in the traditions.
In 1956, I took a trip again and took part in their national conference. The previous fall, in 55, the National Committee in Norway had decided to decline all contributions and grants from the state. In order to set an example that the groups also should become self-supporting and follow the traditions, the National Committee wrote a letter and said that we have decided to refuse outside help and to follow the traditions as to do in the parent organization in the United States.
Since then, they have had a very fine AA movement. And they're growing and they're learning. Groups that didn't think they could get along without help are now realizing that it's a great blessing to be independent and not to ask for help from the outside. Of course, we have to question Lantabuse over there. It's rather funny. I visited one group where the fellow who more or less took care of me when I visited town, he took me to a hotel. He had a little bottle in his pocket and a bunch of pills. They were Lantabuse pills.
Well, you'll have to take it as they do it. They really understand AA and they're coming along fine. And so the many peculiar things that you see around, you'll have to more or less keep quiet about it. Take, for instance, the Lord's Prayer. I don't think you can, it'll take a long time to make them start or close a meeting with the Lord's Prayer. And I wondered about that a long time because I told them, I said, in America, we consider the Lord's Prayer a universal prayer.
Christ gave it to us for everybody to use. But a very sensible man told me, he said, I think the reason is this, he said, that they feel, even those that do not belong to the church or are very religiously minor, it has been brought into their education, this. That the Lord's Prayer is something very sacred. And the Lord's Prayer should be given only on occasions and at places where there is religious meetings of that kind. And they feel that AA as such is not a place to deliver the Lord's Prayer.
When I got that explanation, of course, I accepted it. We had another funny thing about the AA tour. In the beginning in Norway, of course, when they went off the road, they changed their program. I might say here now that translating the AA steps and our literature into the Scandinavian language and quite a few other non-English languages, that I think the program sounds a little more religious.
[00:25:03]
And it's sort of hard for them to accept it right off the reel. This is illustrated by Sweden and Denmark, where they organized societies that they gave different names. And in Sweden, for instance, they took and worked over the 12 steps and revised them and got what they call the seven points. And in Denmark, they're entirely dependent, although in Denmark they say, well, this is Danish AA. But it is different. And in Denmark and Sweden too, it's a very funny place. I got sick and tired of listening to them say that AA comes from America.
It's not suited to the Swedish or the Danish mentality. I had to answer them on that. I didn't think so, but, you know, I couldn't get into any arguments with them. But getting back to Norway then, they are now following the traditions and doing well. They say they have 80 groups. I don't think they're quite that many. They claim, I think, 3,000 members, but I think it's less than that. But groups are located from the northernmost part. There's a little group up in the town of Kirkenes, which is right across, not very far from Murmansk. And then up at the North Peak, down along in Oslo itself, I think there's 10 or 15 groups.
I have visited all of the southern Norway, and I've also visited Stockholm and Copenhagen and Gothenburg and Malmö. Getting to Sweden then, they have a different society there. It's called Länkarne, the links. They more or less work outside of any traditions, but we do have three very fine groups in Stockholm. And there's a funny thing about the societies in Denmark and Sweden. They're beginning to realize that they're lacking something in what they're trying to put over in their work, and that is the spiritual part.
AA is a spiritual movement, and they realize that. There's something lacking, and that's why I think that eventually many within that society in Sweden will step out and start AA groups, and we're hoping the same thing will happen in Denmark. I may go back this September again. I'm retired, but I thought maybe I'd live over there, but I don't think I can. I'd like to be back here with you folks. After all, I lived in New York for 40 years.
Oh, I might say on my last trip, we are getting the book, the AA book over there. I brought the manuscripts with me. Hank and Liv gave the manuscripts to me, and we're getting the book. It's a funny thing. I could talk again about the translation of AA literature. Do you know that we have a language of our own? Over there is it. They translate it saying this. They say this. I took my last drink in 1950, or they say I've been teetotaller since 1950. I told them, I said, well, we don't say that in English. It doesn't say so in a text. It says I have been sober since 1950.
Well, I said, that's constructive psychologically, because if I say I had my last drink in 1950, I'll stand and wonder maybe I can take my next drink in 1960. I said there isn't psychological effect there. They had to agree to that. There's not much that I could tell you, but they have fine AA people in Norway, and they have fine people in Sweden, too. And there's a little fellow by the name of Fred who lives up on the west coast of Norway, and I would close with what he said in his last letter to me.
He attended the general conference on the 2nd or 3rd of May this spring in Oslo, and he wrote to me, he said, next year they're going to have the general conference over in Bergen. He said, I don't know how it's going to go. So when Bergen, he said, I don't know how it's going to turn out, because I heard an awful lot that Bergen and Oswald don't get along any too well, but he said, you know how it is, the evil that I hear, I throw that in a trash can with a bottle, and then the other letter, he said that we were all invited to the service in one of the cathedrals, and you know, he says, I couldn't help but comment when we all met before we went into the church,
[00:30:25]
and Barney, he said, I had to tell the boys, gee whiz, he says, isn't this funny, here, we're a bunch of old Albuquerqueers meeting in front of the church, thank you. Thank you, Mark. My next speaker, Walter O.. When you get to Switzerland, don't worry, don't worry about English, everybody talks English, so I have my coffee at a sidewalk cafe, and I will never forget, I wanted to start touring, and the waitress was there, and I said, pardon me, could you tell me where the cathedral is?
And very politely, she led me over here and opened the door, and pointed at the men's room. Actually, at that moment, I needed it more than the cathedral, but I bring that up because it's a matter of communication, I have trouble communicating there. I have trouble communicating there, and I certainly don't have trouble communicating here, because I am with my own kind. I will never forget Lincoln's birthday about two years ago, the Bank of America in Los Angeles published an institutional advertisement of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and I re-read it again, and I thought of how terse it was, and how pithy and succinct, so perfect, and I thought, you couldn't possibly change a comma, change a word, eliminate one, add one, it is perfect, and surely God inspired this.
And I don't know what prompted me there in my morning meditations to count the words, but I did. It has 265 words. Now this was about three months after the Hungarian Revolution, when children on the streets of Budapest had enough courage, that beautiful divine rashness, to attack the Soviet tanks. And they did it for one reason, among the reasons, they may never have heard of Abraham Lincoln, but the light that Lincoln shed in the Gettysburg Address will forever shine down the dark corridors of time, and those kids knew something about the dignity of the human soul, due to the divine inspired message of Lincoln.
And as I said, with 265 words. A few minutes later, I happened to read the 12 steps as part of my morning routine, and something prompted me, knowing they were divinely inspired, when Bill, Bob, and the others put them together, I counted the words in those, and those words total, in case you've never counted them, 215. And surely in the dark corridors of time, and in men's mind, today, yesterday, tomorrow, the luminous quality, the beautiful light in AA will shine, and it's your privilege, and it's my privilege, to carry that light.
We have an obligation, it's a gentle obligation, it's the obligation of love, it isn't an onus that's heavy or burdensome, it's a delightful thing, to carry that light. I'm glad that I have been a participant with you. Just about a year ago now, I was busy arranging my passport. And on the passport, naturally, as you know, I put my name, and my address, and laughing brown eyes, brown hair, radio commentator, and all that sort of thing.
And yet you people gave me, you people gave me and stamped the passport of peace, which is my membership in AA, where I say, I am Walter O., and I'm an alcoholic. It is my privilege to go anywhere with men of good will, such as you represent, and be understood.
[00:35:20]
The shocking, dramatic warmth of this embrace and this reception, I'll get into in just a minute, but it was my privilege about five or six weeks ago to be in Virginia, and a guy named Tom, and Dutch W., a couple of Methodist ministers who were dear friends of mine, were speaking. And I happened to be reading a classic life of Christ at the time, and on page 132, I found this quote, and I thought how Tom and Dutch had incarnated it, were incarnating it, and how each of you does in a different way.
It was speaking of the eloquence of Jesus, and he says it was not eloquence, it was more than that. It was utter truth, uttering itself, convincing by its own transparency, blinding and subduing by the brightness of its light, conquering beyond all possibility of doubt, every good man who heard it. And I heard it in Virginia six weeks ago, and three weeks ago in the Jackson prison in Michigan. I saw Shai get up and incarnate this idea, which you do too.
Now to show you how far this tender, long-reaching embrace goes, I was very busy at the World's Fair in Brussels. NBC had me working very hard, and on the sixth day, I went to my first meeting with a lady you'll all rejoice in meeting next year in California, Hélène C.. You would be proud of her. She's wonderful. And she happens to have been a hostess for Sabina. She is multilingual, she trains the hostesses, she's a very charming, cultured woman, and that afternoon in her apartment on the Grand Place, I happened to tell her some of my Irish drunken stories that you've already heard.
And that night, there was a meeting of seven, and we're looking through the iron curtain of no English, these seven Belgians there, one of them had been a head waiter and lived with George Rapp in 1920. That was our point of contact. But anyway, Hélène in the middle of it says, Walter, tell them that story. I says, what story, Hélène? She says, that one you told me this afternoon. I says, I told you a lot of them. She says, the one about Finnegan the bricklayer. I said, but they don't understand. She says, go ahead, you tell them, then I'll translate.
It was the darndest experience I ever had. I told an Irish story, and she translated it phrase by phrase into French with an Irish accent. It was the dappiest experience ever. So that was Thursday night. Friday night, her husband had taken me to Louvain. I wanted to visit a grave over there. And her husband, who was not an AA, but a very charming guy, kindly offered to drive me to Louvain. And when we came back, he says, Hélène has another meeting, and I didn't understand this. She says, three people. And I got there, and here was Hélène, here was a dark-haired Belgian, and Mirabile Dick, too. Here was a young man, a college professor from California, who had 12 steps, my own son Michael on the coast. And I ran into him there.
Now, they have restrictions, as you know. Hart was just talking about the Lord's Prayer. I was shocked. These are my first meetings, and it shows you how far they've got to go, and we've got to help them. So strong, even now, is the anti-clerical feeling that they will not even say the Lord's Prayer. That's the first thing. They haven't got a good French translation of the Big Book, unfortunately, and they are getting along on short rations. If you talk about missionary work in the Christian church around the world, or if you talk about the Point Four program on the economic level of the United States government helping out those who are starved or undernourished or sick or needful, surely the AAs abroad need some help from us more than usual, more than we have here.
They haven't got the vibrant, vital meetings that you have here. They're pitiful little things by contrast with the vitality you represent. So I went to two there. They haven't got the translation, but they're making it. And this girl, Helene, you'll love when you meet her. Her correspondence is that high from all over the country. In Paris, I was so busy I wasn't able to go to a formal meeting, but I found an outpost of AA and a sergeant attached to headquarters there, swell guy, who insisted I had to see the Marlon Rouge. I think he had it mixed up with Mr. Brando, but I went to the Marlon Rouge.
[00:40:05]
Down in Rome, I met a lovely guy, George N., a sergeant also attached to the government with his wife, Jerry. She happens to be an AA, too. It was delightful a few weeks ago when I was in West Palm Beach to send the regards because that's where he got his AA. And he's carrying it, this lonely outpost, because the Italians don't go for this. And we had a meeting, and even with an advertisement, we had a total of four people, George and Jerry, some woman who was wobbling, and myself. And yet I know that he talked about that desire for the taste of a meeting in the need of tapes and things like that.
I went on to Geneva, and Liv had given me the name of Alex V.. So I got to Geneva about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and I looked up in the phone book, Alex V., and it says, fonctionnaire. Well, that was a little beyond my tawdry education. But I wired him and then hopped the boat out front to look at the lake and got back at 8.30 and thought, I will dine with a fonctionnaire. So anyway, I walked across the lobby, and of course, you people all wear the same look. You can always be picked out. In any crowd, you can pick out the man of prayer because he's wearing a very loud smile. He and God have a secret that the rest of us aren't in on. He's doing certain work, and he and God know it.
And this guy walked towards me, and here in a Swiss hotel, I knew this was my son, Alex V.. And we got outside, and I said, Alex, what in the hell is a fonctionnaire? Well, he explained to me that he was a translator who came from Scotland and was with the League of Nations there in the 20s, and he's still there. Well, he had been in the program some years, and as we walked around, I am hungry. I'm almost starved. It's about quarter to nine. And for a guy who's been in this since the 20s, and I want to play host, it seems awfully strange that he can't. Finally, he broke down and admitted that when he got my wire, he quickly got on the phone and called a rump meeting. And would I go out in the bush on the other side of the lake, which I did.
He said, we can meet there. And we came in, and of course, you'll love the idea of this. We met in a bar room. We met in a bar room. We closed the door for those poor earth people in there who were drinking. And then we sat down in here, and they asked me various questions that got a little bit bewildering, because the chairman of the group was the owner of the bar, and I am trying to answer questions.
One guy is a doctor, disbarred or thrown out of the medical association, now a milkman. And there were five of them, and they're asking questions because I've got a pointed head and come from 44th Street. I know all the answers. But they really threw me a blockbuster when one guy, the chairman, through Alex V.'s translating, said, Mr. O., should I sell my saloon here to stay on AA? And I said, well, I'll be honest with you. I never read anything about that in the big book. I can't give you the answer. So that's the obligation to you people. I don't know when I'll be abroad again, but it was pleasant to carry your message. It was pleasant to feel the need.
It was pleasant to be able to answer a few questions, not definitively or not greatly, but I had some information that these hungry people wanted. And I was glad that the gentle hand of God had reached down and said, you will carry the light wallers. And I'm glad that you're carrying it and that I'm carrying it and we'll all carry it. And we have so much to be thankful for, including our being here today. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Paulette. My next speaker needs no introduction to most of you here. She has served in her group and in her group with humor and love. And she has carried the message to her homeland. And my next speaker is Gudrun, and she's going to tell us about AA in Iceland. Thank you, Liv. Powering a man like Walter is rather hard because I looked at smiles around the room and I thought, oh my, what an audience of Irishmen. I'm sorry to say that we're having another Icelander here today, but I will try to tell you as much as I can about the little group in Reykjavik.
In 1948, I went home to Reykjavik. In 1948, I went home to Reykjavik, Iceland, to bury my mother, and I had been sober in AA for 18 months, the most gratifying 18 months of my life, because I had always promised my mother that no matter where I was in this world, I would go home, and I would bury her like a queen, that she was.
[00:45:17]
And with the help of AA and 18 months of sobriety, I was able to carry out my duty. My daughter and I flew over there in a hurry, and I accomplished my mission, and it was done with the dignity that we in AA learn. It was done with a heavy heart, because my mother was blind and I hadn't seen her for 15 years. During the war years, I was unable to get there, and I had wanted desperately to go home, but I couldn't.
And then I know, in my further moments, that perhaps it was as well, because my mother didn't know that I had become an alcoholic. Twice during the war, the government had invited me to go to Iceland, and twice I had to say no. I had done a terrific job, they claimed, down at the waterfront, and they wanted to show me something in return, and I had graciously said no, and now again I know it was because I was an alcoholic.
So many things happened, but there I was going, and there I had done what I had promised. As soon as I had buried my mother, there was very little need for me but to settle a small estate, and I had intended to go back with my daughter. We had allowed ourselves six weeks' vacation in Iceland. But almost immediately, I felt the need of talking to another alcoholic, and I found one. And through that one, I found another.
And through a dear friend who ran the old people's home in Iceland, I was allowed a small office to have a meeting, and because my group Lennox Hill meets on Thursday night, I thought I would be in tune in Iceland and I would have my meetings on Thursday night. But perhaps there would be a little vibration between the two countries. And my group didn't grow much, but there were six people. But next door in another room in this old people's home was a doctor who was giving people treatment for alcohol.
He was giving the high bottoms, the lawyers and the judges and the doctors, anti-abuse treatments. And I said to the doctor, now these are the people that I ought to talk to because they're admitting to alcoholism as long as they're taking anti-abuse. And he said, good room. Would you think that these people that I am treating would be wanting to go into a room with these types that you are talking to?
I said, the types I am talking to are the sick alcoholics that cannot afford the price that you are charging for the anti-abuse. But eventually they will all meet. Three years later this doctor came to America and said, I wish I had listened to you because I am carrying the load of those who have sobered up on anti-abuse and they are not talking to one another and seeking help as your alcoholics are.
My group stood still. I corresponded. I sent literature. I did as much as I could. But very few people would come to the floor. The newspaper had given this movement terrific publicity and I thought at least the public knows that there is not any stigma to being an alcoholic. They talked about alcoholism as a disease. There was no more reference to bums and derelicts. This was a disease and they gave me a beautiful copy.
Or gave it, might I say, a beautiful copy. In the early 50s a young man got sober up here in the Hudson Valley and he went over there. This young man is a promoter and he promoted this thing so beautifully I have never seen anything like it. The heart spoke of getting the government to respond to help. He was on a government payroll. He was on this payroll. He was on another payroll. He was holding lectures in movie houses.
He was going to the north coast and had to get there in spite of a snowstorm because he had sold all the tickets. And I happened to later on ask him the tickets for what. And he has said to the AA meeting. And I said, you didn't sell tickets to an AA meeting. No, he said, I went there to educate the people. And this went on and the poor lamb, he did promote himself out of the country. But he had at least brought this again out in the public's eye.
And in among those people that he had interested was a man I had many times spoken to who had been sober 10 years on his own.
[00:50:06]
And therefore felt he did not need AA. I will refer to this man as Jay. Jay, he was a former politician and he was a terrific man of mine. He was a wonderful, wonderful person. When I went to Iceland in 1946, 56, with my husband David, immediately I made my AA contacts. And they were happy that I was coming and they were going to give us an evening. They had then admitted to some 300 alcoholics in AA.
The room that they met in only held about 60, crowded with 70. I believe there were 70, perhaps 75 people there. And there was a dais. And Mr. Jay and two other members who were leaders all this while after this young man promoted himself out of the island, Mr. Jay held forth and he spoke for 55 minutes. And then he introduced me after he had not mentioned one single word about his alcoholism. But he theorized and he philosophized.
And I could see that these people were rather tired because he had been the only speaker for a couple of years. And then he spoke about how the Romans drunk. And finally he introduced me as having been the woman who had brought the original word to Iceland. And I got off with gusto and looked at the time. It was 5 minutes to 10. You know what they say about sitting at 10 o'clock in New York. And I still think as New Yorkers do.
And I passed the ball up in six minutes time. And my husband had also been asked to say something about the family group. And both of us felt rather low about this because we felt why keep these people who look so tired. But I got off with a bit of gusto and introduced myself as Gudrun alcoholic. And I said, I don't know how the Romans drunk. I wasn't there. I don't even know if Nero was drunk when he was fiddling.
But I can tell you people how I fiddled when I drunk. And all of them came to life. And it was the most spontaneous thing I have ever seen because every face came with me. I said I was an alcoholic. I commenced in five, six minutes to tell them how I drunk and how I had gotten out of it. And then my David took a couple of minutes to explain what he was trying to do in the family group. I knew that this thing was standing still.
It was standing still because lack of spiritual growth. It was standing still because in the same words that they were thinking AA, who had suffered also through the temperance society, and in the same breath they would thank them for having tried. And then the Icelanders, as some of you or my friends might have noted, are different people. The Icelanders are great people on believing in anything rather than God.
Some of them believed in praying through their parents. And I'd say how good were your parents when they were on this earth that they would be a stepping stone between you and God. One mother was a decent woman. And they would give very little time to the thought of God. But they believed. I could never understand how they could have a hospital and a good one when they did not believe that this was truly a disease, but that their diseased families and members and friends were drinking through them in spirit.
They believed in spiritualism to a great extent. And this Mr. J would get up and talk about the people. He knew the people who were drinking through him. And I said, J, for heaven's sake, if you die, the group will get drunk because they will say Mr. J is drinking through me. It is hard to explain this, but I got the feel of it, and American people wouldn't, because in a little island it is easy to believe in spiritualism.
I think that there's a child, perhaps I saw a ghost or two. But I know that whatever ghost might have been drinking through me, as I tried to explain to them, it stopped when I stopped pouring. And so it went. We left the island. I made the point of every Wednesday night being at the hospital where they had a meeting, and every Friday night leaving town because they had a meeting Friday night in Reykjavik.
And I thought no matter what else I do, I will show them I'm there. So we left, and I left rather heavy-hearted because I had a feeling
[00:55:03]
there was so little that we could have done. We were allowed at each meeting to say a few words, but there was so little I couldn't commune. About a year ago, I felt this tremendous desire to go back. There was no reason for me to go back. Most of my people are dead. Some of the ones that are alive come over here to see me and visit in America a great deal, and there was really no true reason for it.
And I said, David, I don't really want to leave you, but I feel I have to go back. And he said, well, you know, Gudrun, I have always made a vow I would never stop you if you want to do something for AA. And I took a passage to Iceland just a year ago, and again I come into this room of dead bodies, and again Mr. J is holding forth. And I didn't think I could stand it because it looked so hopeless, and I again asked God to help me.
Where would there be an opening? The younger man would tell me about a dictatorship. The movement couldn't grow. A few young men who had taken me to meetings when they came here. I take every Icelander to a meeting to carry a message about the American groups, whether they're alcoholics or not. This young man would say, this is terrible, and we can't go on like this. And I said, all right, you be strong.
You start a small meeting on the east side or on the west side, and have closed meetings, and get some of these people that you talk about in being numbers of 300. Get them started here, there. Oh, I wouldn't hurt Mr. J. After all, he's been our leader so long. Well, nothing, nothing was accomplished. The last week, I was just there a month, the last week, and I said, God, what am I here for? How do I reach these people?
How can I bring this to life? And suddenly the inspiration came through the women. There are half a dozen women in this room through the women. I spoke to a very beautiful former actress who was a lovely speaker or a lovely person to talk to, and she seemed to be seeking something in the spiritual line. And I said, Aileen, could you gather a few women at your house or come to my house tomorrow afternoon for coffee?
Something that we could start, where we could start and talk about AA and a woman's group. And Aileen did have 16 women the following day at her home. At her home, I tried to explain to these 16 women that they must never tell me the other person's inventory. They must preach and practice sympathy and understanding because this was disease. I noticed everyone wanted to gossip about the other fella as goes with small places.
I tried to tell them all that I had learned, that I felt in the nearness of God, that God was with me every inch of the way, otherwise I couldn't be sober. They seemed to understand me. We started a group. We formed it so that there would be a leader who they would have to rotate every six months. There would be a treasurer and a secretary, and they would have to rotate, and they would have to move as they grew.
They must never grow but 50 to 50. When I finished, I finished with the Lord's Prayer. I first finished with the Serenity Prayer, and then we finished with the Lord's Prayer. And as I was finishing up, Aileen brought the Bible, and she said, Good room, will you see if you can find a word for us to live from, from the Bible? And I turned the page, and the page read this. The first epistle of Peter, verses 3 to 8, 8 to 13.
Lastly, you must all be united. You must have sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility. Never paying back evil for evil. Never reviling when you were reviled. But on the contrary, blessings. For this is your blessing. Blessings. For this is your vocation to bless and to inherit blessings. He who would enjoy life and enjoy good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. Let him stand wrong and do right. Let him seek peace, making peace his aim. For the eyes of the Lord are on the upright and his ears are open to the Christ.
[01:00:17]
But the face of the Lord is set against wrongdoers. Every meeting, these women read this message from the Bible, and a young man from California, an Icelander, went back this summer, or this spring, and he came back and he said, Gudrun, the true A.A. that lives in the heart of people lives in the heart of this small woman's group, and they are going to be the ones to keep A.A. alive in Iceland. Thank you.
Thank you, Gudrun. That was inspirational. My next speaker is going to tell us something about his contact with A.A. in Japan, but before I ask him to come here, I thought maybe you would like to know that the first Far East convention was held in Tokyo the end of May. The Tokyo group invited all of the A.A.s in Japan and, as a matter of fact, in the northern Pacific to join, and they had 50 people, 30 of the members and the others, their wives and families, and they had a very inspiring day and shared A.A. experience, and now I'm going to ask Gene to tell us about his visit to A.A. in Japan.
Thank you, Liv. Good morning, friends. I'm Gene M., and I'm an alcoholic, and when I looked at the program and saw myself participating amongst distinguished members of the clergy and the arts and the sciences, I got a little bright. And then I wondered what distinction I had, and when I looked back at the record, I remembered that before I came to A.A. in 1950, my wife had conferred on me the title of bum of the year.
But after a warm-up of three months of about 90 nightly meetings, I was ready to leave for an assignment in Tokyo. And I was, by the nighttime board of sponsors, they told me, stay away from it. It's an alcoholic's paradise. And I think it was Goodwin here who insisted that I go over to General Service and see if they didn't have the name of a contact in Japan. When I went over there, I was surprised to find that there was one contact, and strange as it may seem, that contact was on the base for which my orders were cut.
I met the chap the morning after my arrival. He asked me where I was on the telephone. I told him, and he said, stay there, I'll be down to pick you up. And he picked me out of about eight or ten people that were standing around reading the bulletin board, and he said, are you Gene? And I said, yes. And he said, I'm Gene too. He said, what do you find so interesting? And I said, the price of liquor. They had posted there, Seagram's Vigo, Canadian Club, I.W. Harper, there are brands like that for $1.55 a pot.
He said, you know, I don't know much about this. Whatever I got out of AA, I got through the big book. But he said, I've had some letters from people back in New York, and from what they tell me, he said, although the program is anonymous, when a guy like you comes out here, it's not too secretive. And from what I read, you wouldn't be interested in this $1.55 a pot. And he said, if you're ever going to get drunk, come and see me. I run the officer's club on the base, and I can get it for your wholesale.
[01:05:11]
But he brought me over to the following Monday night to a Japanese club, the Sano Kaikan, where they had just engaged the place for weekly meetings. They had a scattered attendance. I understand there were some nights that they had only the secretary there who came in and read the big book by himself. But the night that I arrived there, they had three brand new pigeons right out of the hospital. And it seemed that from that point on, the group grew. We had help. First, if anybody is going overseas, and they do get in touch with general service conferences, they won't be alone. They'll be busy. They'll give them plenty of work to do.
And our good friend Ann, who was the foreign secretary, kept me rather busy there. But in addition to that, I took it on myself, and we weren't getting too much cooperation from the chaplains, to go see the chief of chaplains. He's a pretty well-known character now. It's General Finick. And after he became general, the church made him a monsignor. And he said, gee, and I don't know how he could tell it, but he said, you must come from Brooklyn.
And he said, we've got a guy from the Brooklyn diocese just come into Tokyo. You've got to meet him. And he arranged for me to go to lunch with him that day. And believe me, Father Joe sent me plenty of work and sent plenty of prospects into the Tokyo group. As the group grew, we ran an advertisement in the Nippon Times, an English-language newspaper, just asking anybody who had a problem with alcohol to call a certain number.
And outside of crank calls, we didn't get too much response, until one day we got a call from a girl who identified herself as the sister of a Turk who was over in the up sanitary. The fellow had read the ad three or four months before that, cut it out, and sent her home to his desk to get the clipping and call the number. He was the second non-military or non-American member of the group. The other fellow was a chap who had written into the box number, and Ann sent me his name, and I contacted him. He was an Australian.
But Aggie is the guy that, to me, represents AA in Japan. He was a Turk who was born, not born there, but he was taken there as a child, and he was educated there, and he could read and write Japanese rather well. He lived AA like nobody I've ever known before or since. And after he was in about a year, he asked me to have dinner with him one night, and during the dinner, he said, you know, I've been going with this girl, and I think I'd like to marry her. Is it all right with AA?
I don't know what I told him, what have you got to lose or some such, but this was quite an involved process. He had to have her citizenship registered with the Turkish government. Then he decided that in the 28 years or so that he had been in the Far East, he had gathered a lot of drinking companions and old friends, and he said, Gene, the only friends I have in the Far East are the members of the Tokyo group that I've come to know in the last year.
[01:10:11]
And he said, I don't want drinking companions at my wedding. I want friends. Do you think the members of the group will come? I said, they'd be very happy to if you ask them. Then there came a place or a question of a place to have the wedding, and we couldn't find a hall, and we couldn't get an open night in the club rooms that we had. And I said, Aggie, suppose we cancel out a meeting and you take our night there.
And he said, no, an AA meeting is more important than my wedding. But the next suggestion was made that he could be married at the meeting. At this, he jumped, and Aggie was married at the regular Monday night meeting of the Tokyo group, Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I don't know what brought about the large attendance. It was a little bit larger than the conference that Lib spoke about. We happened to have a lot of boys in on R&R who had been in contact with us by mail, some of them from Okinawa, some of them from Korea, and some of them from up in the north end of Hokkaido.
We had a total of 57 people at the wedding. And other than the bride and the bridesmaid, the secretary of the Turkish location who had to witness the ceremony, and the Muslim cleric who chanted the marriage ceremony, the others were all members of AA. They were made up of people from the five continents of the world. And there was Protestant and Catholic and Jew and agnostic and atheist and Muslim and Buddhist and Shinto and anything you can think of.
And those 53 people were attending that meeting and that wedding, living in a contented and happy society that I think for the first time explained to me the difference between religion and spirituality. They had it because I think each of us were giving of the best that was in us to the other. And that night I knew that AA was working in Japan and that if it worked there it would work any place in the world with the assistance of the wonderful secretarial staff that we have at the General Service Office. Thank you.
My next speaker is from South Africa. Some of you have heard him. I've never had that privilege and I'm really looking forward to hearing about AA in South Africa from Ian. My name is Ian C. and I'm an alcoholic. I started my drinking in my little hometown, East London, out in South Africa about 20 years ago. Then I sort of took a cook's tour of the world, getting progressively sicker and sicker as an alcoholic, but insidiously not knowing it. In fact, in other words, the more alcoholic I got, the less I would accept that as being my problem.
And I'd play up on all those other projections that we always hear about at meetings like terrific depressions, shock of the war years, and so on. Well, in 1948, I got out of the RAF after flying over in England for the first time. I got out of the RAF after flying over in England for six years, and it had been six years of drinking that, as an alcoholic, it wouldn't stand out because everybody else was drinking.
[01:15:00]
By the time I got back to South Africa again, I was in a hopeless state of chaos that didn't seem to sort itself out until I'd have another bout of drinking. Then I planned, out of several ideas, to come back to America, which I visited in 1939. And I left South Africa a confirmed bachelor for life, but the first thing I did when I got over here was got married on April the 1st, and my wife and I had a little daughter, and as marriage progressed, so my alcoholism progressed, because it was the only thing I could go to when I got a lucid, clear thought in my mind.
I'd realized the awful state I was in. I'd think I must sit down with a drink, and that would be the beginning of another cycle that eventually entered into hospitalization and DTs, and eventually, as a last desperate effort, my wife took me back. Once more, I end up back in the little town of East London, on the coast of South Africa. Well, I'd hit my bottom then. My wife gave up the ghost. She had to come back here and look after the child in Englewood, New Jersey, and at the same time, she divorced me.
Meanwhile, I went on from bad to worse, if that was possible, and a friend came around one day who knew nothing about AA, except that a prominent businessman in my hometown had joined this American thing called AA, and I was having a sort of DTs and talking about a fellow over here who, during the five years I was in America, tried to get me an AA. I was mumbling about Alcoholics Anonymous. He took me around to this fellow, and the fellow took one look at me, offered me a drink, and when I started talking about all these projections, these depressions, the terrible way life had treated me, he brushed it all aside by telling me simply that I was sick with alcoholism, and that started me in AA.
I still don't know how I stopped drinking, but I joined a little group in our town which consisted of eight members. I remember driving home with my sponsor one night, and he was terribly excited. He said, gee, what a terrific meeting we had tonight. We had twelve members, and it did seem big. It had started several years before. It was held in a mission in the seaport, and the way it started was pretty hectic.
Apparently a few fellows had read this big book. They realized they had this problem of alcoholism when they read the book, but they didn't know how to go about handing a meeting. They'd come to this little place of meeting, and look around, and one would say, well, we haven't got enough members. Let's go get some of the other boys. So they'd go around to one of the old haunts, one of the local bars, and the fellows would say, well, have one drink, and then we'll come along with you.
And that would be the end of AA in East London for another six weeks. From what I can figure out, AA was sort of muddling around out there in this sort of state until Marty M. came out there. This is just how I heard it. And he apparently sort of gave the sort of train of thought to what this group meeting of people with a similar problem meant, something similar to how AA sort of got a boost when the Jack Alexander article came out over here.
Well, I had 11 months in South Africa in AA, going to a meeting once a week. I heard the exact same things there that I hear here, that you're sick with alcohol, all you've got to bother about is 24 hours at a time. And as I got better and better, I got this feeling of wanting to mix around with old friends. I went from East London to Port Elizabeth. I got the awful fright of being in a strange town, wondering what to do, and I still hadn't tagged on to the fact that I mustn't have that first drink, but instead of having it, I went and sat in a church for a while, and then I suddenly remembered I had the name of an AA person, a stranger to me, in Port Elizabeth.
So I went and saw her, and I got that sudden realisation of how something had just pulled
[01:20:02]
me away from that first drink. The same thing happened when I went down to Cape Town. The same thing happened when I got to Durban. I remember this one day, I was supposed to go and have tea with somebody, I got that awful feeling that I should have a drink before I go and see them, because I'll make an utter fool of myself, but I had an address of a stranger that I'd been given in Cape Town for Durban now, and I phoned up a fellow I'd never met before, and I went to him, and, I mean, a complete stranger, and we British are sort of formal, but I just poured my heart out to this fellow.
And what I'm trying to get at is, as I've sat here and thought about it, that there's no difference in this AA anywhere in the world. We need have no fear of where we are, even if we're in a place without a group. When I got onto a ship to eventually come back here, I must have had the honest desire to lay off that first drink, because I sort of have a meeting with myself where I'd get talking to the ship's crew, trying to find out if there were any AA members, and when I eventually go to bed, say, I'd find that I'd been talking AA.
I had absolutely no plans of coming back to America. I had a divorced wife here, and a daughter, and nothing bothered me at AA meetings except when other fellows would talk about, oh, I sent the wife some money for the first time today, or I saw my daughter for the first time, and that'd make me wince. But I didn't say, well, that's going to make me do something about it. And all of a sudden, one day, out of the blue, I just said to my father, I'm coming back to America.
So after 11 months of AA in South Africa, I came back here three years ago, and it was quite a shock. The first week here, I was in an absolute dry drunk. I went to a meeting on a Tuesday night, and I wasn't used to seeing a group as big as this. I was used to just eight members, so I got absolutely terrified, and for the next three days, I just wanted to get out of America and go back, and then I suddenly remembered that my sponsor had said, gee, in New York, I bet there's a meeting every night.
And I looked up a book, and I found a meeting at 42nd Street, and I went there, and I had this awful feeling about, you see, in South Africa, I'd been able to talk about divorce and being away from my daughter as though it was some other, in an abstract way. And now I was right back, I had the problem right in front of me. And what I'm trying to get at now is over these last three years since being back here, the only thing that's sorted me out has been through going to meetings.
Every problem that I've had in terms of that, in terms of getting a job, I'm not talking about the materialistic aspects of it, I'm just talking about the sort of strength that I've got underneath to make me follow the right course, and the more complicated my human perception has sort of seemed to have made a problem, I've come to an AA meeting and invariably, the simpler the answer is. But I just want to stress the point that it is quite something to have known Americans before I was an alcoholic, but to have had this new experience of discovering this warmth of friendship amongst people that I have had the privilege of experiencing through being a very sick fellow in South Africa who was given up for lost, and joining a thing called Alcoholics Anonymous, which is, I'll keep repeating, but it's the same, it's in the air everywhere, and it's absolutely no different wherever you go except for our accents, maybe.
Thank you. Indeed, you're right, Ian, it's no different wherever you go, and that's the thing that we hear in letter and from visitors all the time. Perhaps the greatest courier of the AA message have been our men aboard ship, that wonderful group of internationalists, as they call themselves, the seamen, the AA seamen who go to different ports around the world. I always have a little mental picture of them arriving with a book or a pamphlet tucked under their arms, setting out to contact AA, and quite a few of these seamen come in to see us as they go in between runs, and your next speaker is one of these, who has been in to see us often between his run from New York to South Africa, and we're going to hear Joe's story.
I just will let you in on a little secret, he just is back from his last run down there, and he married a lovely girl named Sobe, who will be with him here, we hope, soon.
[01:25:02]
But Joe R. will tell you what he found in AA and the friendships he found in South Africa and in AA. My name is Joe R., and I am an alcoholic. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, but the AA knowledge vanishes at discontent and restlessness, that life is unintelligible and unmanageable. This year, we have regained the will to live. When the will is in charge, we are no longer our emotions.
We have reached a place of peace. Here, too, I found that old memories lose the power to torment. We ran into a very peculiar situation in South Africa. That's a government law against the mixing of the races. And again, we ran into another problem, the caste system among the people themselves. Back in 1958, I wrote the convention secretary in Port Elizabeth, seeking permission to attend the South African AA convention.
And I received this reply, we are very happy to tell you that the laws here do not apply to you and your friends attending the AA convention in this city. We've been cleared by the chief magistrate, and at that convention, an Indian, an Arab, and myself, we were invited. Men sat at that convention as brothers, and they learned that discrimination had more than one meaning. They learned to discriminate against the use, the useless, the true, the false, the important, the non-important.
They also learned that the life of a good Christian is the same as that of a good Hindu, a good Mohammedan, a good man of any religion. We were driving over the same bridges, and all shining the same eagles. AA had opened another door. And I want to thank, thank one of the people, the General Service, that did so much in opening the doors and the hearts of the people of South Africa. Up among, around the tail of the province of Motel, my two partners and I, we became known as the Three Zulus.
This person became known as the Boat Zulu. Zulu lip signing. Thank you. That could only happen in AA. I want to thank Walter for sending a lot of good listening out that way. Last February, I took one of his recorded tapes out that was copied in Cape Town and sent out to other parts of the Union. The people out there, they're pulling and praying for Walter, Michael, and Dennis. If you ever get out that way, I'm sure that you'll find the Molotov out there too.
Thank you, Walter. It was back in 1956, I made my first trip out to South Africa, and I contacted AA before leaving New York. In Durban, I was met by two AAs of that city, and they had planned to carry the message. And they had planned to carry the message among the Zulu people. Upon arrival, I was picked up aboard a ship, and that night, the AA caravan was on the move to a Zulu compound up in Lamontsville.
[01:30:08]
A gentleman from the South African Broadcasting Company, a Zulu, explained to the people that we were not missionaries, that we had nothing to sell, but had come in the name of AA to offer our help against the disease, alcoholism, that had brought so much misery, suffering, and hardship to the Zulu tribes. The crowd warmed up, the response was overwhelming. Well, we were in. And I believed that AA penetrated the curtain that night, but I don't believe that another organization on the face of the earth could have penetrated with trust and confidence.
And I sat in a small church in Lamontsville that night, and I watched hatreds meld away and suspicions dissolve, and I believed that I saw the brotherhood of men at its finest. And after the meeting, I heard the Zulu say that if all Europeans were alcoholics, Africa would be a much better place to live. Since that time, I've seen groups come into being from Cape Town to Mombasa, McKinney, Colorado, Omaha. I've seen some of the Zulu works, some of the AA works translated into the Zulu language, besides clinics and hospitals along the way.
I once heard Bill, co-founder of AA, say that AA is a living monument. I've seen that monument in a good many places. I never expected to see it in Zulu land. Thanks for listening. Thank you, Joe. I cherish my membership in the Zulu group. They sent me a wire when they heard I was speaking down in Baltimore last year, and so our fellowship abroad is known with our fellowship here. We share this with each other. It takes all of us, each one of us, and it's very, very dear to my heart.
When I first came into AA, my sponsor was named Breen, and I heard at the beginning that you don't have to be Irish, but it helps. And we are going to hear now from a speaker I don't have to introduce to many of you, who has been in AA in Ireland, who has corresponded and has helped carry the message, Huey. Thank you. My name is Huey. I'm an alcoholic. I've been a steady drinker for about, a daily drinker, rather, for about 23 years, but by the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous, I have been sober for a little over nine years.
I just found out, incidentally, that this meeting is being taped this morning, so I have to stay as close as possible to the truth. In addition to that, there are quite a few members from the Dyckman group of Alcoholics Anonymous here today, and those fellows simply blackjack you, you know, if you get a little bit out of line. However, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous was brought to Ireland approximately 11 years ago by an American who had been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in this country for a few years.
He found himself over in Dublin, Ireland, and after he had been there for some time, his wife noticed that he was getting a little bit nervous and she didn't like the symptoms, so she suggested to him that he try doing in Ireland what he had been doing in the United States.
[01:35:14]
So he made trips around all the various hospitals there, but nobody paid much attention to him. They thought he was perhaps some sort of a holy roller or some sort of a crackpot. However, he did get to one hospital, and the doctor there said, well, he says, we have a guy here, he's a hopeless alcoholic, and he said, if you think you can do anything with him, he said, why, go ahead. So he did. He tried it, and sure enough, it worked.
Now, that first alcoholic established the first group in Dublin, and his first patient, or first successful member, was a North of Ireland man, God help us, by the name of Peter. Now, Peter established the first group in Belfast. Now, the first Irish alcoholic who established the first group in Dublin afterwards went to London and started one there. An Irish girl became connected with that group, and she started another group in France.
And so, you see, from that simple beginning, AA, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, spread practically all through Europe. Now, I landed there by the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous just a year ago last summer. And having been quite some time in Alcoholics Anonymous and seeing what could very well happen to fellows who stay away from meetings, I made it my business to get there to a meeting as soon as possible.
So I landed there on a Monday afternoon, and I was up at the AA headquarters in Belfast bright and early Tuesday morning. I was very pleasantly surprised by what I found there. I found that these fellows have an entire building, consists of three floors, and I was welcomed with open arms. As a matter of fact, I was put to work immediately. However, the first floor there, they call it the day room, it's open from 10 o'clock in the morning till 1 or 2 o'clock the next morning.
And they have tea and crackers there all day long. And all day long, someone is there. Fellows, if they go to work a little bit late, they stop in there before they go to work. Fellows stop in there in their lunch hour, and of course there's always somebody there in the evening. And on the second floor of this building is where they hold their meetings. And it's very nicely decorated. I was very much impressed by the seats they had there.
I think they must be the most comfortable seats that I've ever sat on. They looked as though they had been appropriated from a few stray buses around the city somewhere. But I didn't, my conscience didn't bother me along those lines. I felt very comfortable indeed. And they have a large illuminated copy of the Serenity Prayer there. They told me it was made by a man 75 years old. I've never seen a nicer one yet.
The colors are very brilliant and very arresting. It certainly draws your attention to it. And they also have framed pictures there of the co-founder of AA, Bill and Lois. And also a very nice framed picture of Dr. Silkworth. And of course the American who first brought AA to Ireland. And by the way, I have found out that that is one of the very few places where Americans are always welcome, you know.
They don't always like Americans in a lot of places, except when they're spending the money. I noticed that when one speaker said that if it had not been for an American, they would not be sober. So as I said, they put me to work right away. And I had many opportunities of visiting the hospitals there. And it seems to me from what I could see that they are probably a little more advanced over there in the matter of hospitalization than we are here.
Because the doctors are a little more cooperative with them. And they of course have a form of socialized medicine over there. And if any alcoholic is hospitalized for alcoholism by the doctors, why, it is entirely free.
[01:40:10]
They do use anti-abuse in a minor degree, but not too often. And they also use what they call the aversion cure. It is a horrible sort of a thing, but who wants to argue with the doctor? It seems to be successful over there. The hospitals over there, the new ones particularly, they're not built straight up like they are in the United States. They seem to keep them on ground level. They are all glass enclosed with draperies all inside that they pull back and forth as they need it.
And they're nicely dressed up with various colored mats in the hospitals. And it adds a little cheerfulness to the place itself. Now in these mental hospitals, the men and women are not segregated. The men are on one side and the women are on the other. And the only barricade between the two is a large passage which they use as a common room. And during the day they have radios and televisions there and the men and women mix.
And there doesn't seem to be any restriction on it. And the officials there I found to be very partial to members of Alcoholics Anonymous when we did go there. They made things very nice for us. They got chairs, nice trays, and allowed us to speak to anyone that we felt like. And the hospitals did seem to work very, very well. In recent, last year then, these fellows chose the order of progress that became interested in prisons work.
Well, I have been at it too long and I haven't heard too much of what has happened since. But I am quite confident though with the perseverance that these fellows put into anything they do whatsoever that they will be very successful. They also, in Belfast, they have meetings every night of the week. And they have an Al-Anon meeting on Saturday nights. And they also have an afternoon meeting on Sundays.
So for any visitor or any tourist that goes there, you see the conveniences are all there. Meetings every night. In fact, there is a contact there all the time. And then, in Derry, they have quite a large group in Derry. The secretary of the Derry group, actually, Lexie, a typical North of Ireland man he is. He always counts his money in front of a mirror. And he was the spark plug, actually, in getting the first Irish convention underway.
They have quite a large group there. They must have, in the Derry group, in the meetings at least, they very often have about 40 people. And then, in the Dublin groups, they have about five meetings a week. They have four during the week. And they also have an afternoon meeting on Sunday afternoon. The facilities in Dublin, of course, are not quite as good. I'm not picking it now. I don't think that.
They're not quite as good as they are in Belfast. But they are good enough. The secretary there is very good and takes visiting alcoholics all around. And there's a little restaurant not far away where they go for tea. They don't have tea or coffee or anything like that in the meeting place. They have to go outside. In 1958, there were about 40 at the present time. It was my good fortune, when I was over there, to be in on the preliminary meetings regarding the first all-Ireland convention.
Up to that point, nobody had been able to get together on anything. You know how it is. The people of Belfast, just because they built, you know, they think they know how to do everything. The Cork people, who think they know it all, and the Dublin people. No, No, All in the Dublin people left him and the carry man, of course, stays outside of everything. He knows nothing outside the Kerry border, and when you inject an American into the middle of all this, then your lab will have chaos entirely.
But we did have a few preliminary meetings in my home. My mother, who was 86 years old, enjoyed it very much. She was listening in. So the result was that a year ago, last April, they held their first all-out convention, and it was very successful.
[01:45:12]
And last April had their second annual convention, which was more successful yet. They decided overnight to hold it in Athlone in Ireland, which is the center of Ireland. They went down there and they booked up all the hotels in Athlone. They didn't leave one empty, not even an empty room. But the big part of the success of this last convention was not the number of people who were there, but the fact that many people from outlying groups who didn't know the other group existed were able to get together here and make arrangements for future meetings.
It also ended up by the establishment of one extra group in Athlone. So that brings the total number of groups in Ireland, I think, now to about 18. And it was a pleasure for me to be there. I was inspired not only by their humility, but their aggressiveness. You see, the paradox of AEA exists in everything. Here we have humility on one side and aggressiveness on the other, and that's what inspired me. And I hope that 24 hours of the time I will always be like those fellows and girls that I met over there. Thank you.
Thank you, Huey. I'm sure that you, like I, have been sitting here feeling AEA, feeling AEA in many different lands with different customs, but essentially the same, a common problem, a common purpose, and a common destiny. And I think and hope that you also see something that is very clear to me, and that is that your General Service Office is merely the communication center for this, that AEA as a whole, or AEA worldwide, is really alcoholics in action.
It rests in the hearts of each one of us wherever we are. Thank you.