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Source: Austin Council on Alcoholism – Annual Meeting and Silver Key Award (1965, Edited).mp3 File: austin-council-on-alcoholism-annual-meeting-silver-key-award-1965-edited.mp3 Duration: 01:09:32
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This is January the 12th, 1965, a meeting at the Driscoll Hotel, Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholic Information Center here in Austin, Texas. I have a Baptist minister who is giving the address and it's a Silver Key Award. The annual meeting of the Austin Council on Alcoholism will come to order. We want to express our appreciation for such a fine attendance here this evening. And I'm going to ask Reverend James S., the pastor of Tarrytown Methodist Church, to offer our invocation.
Mr. S., may we pray. Let us bow our heads. Father, it's with humility that we ask that we might ever be sensitive to the needs of others. Forgive us, God, if we ever grow in terms of indifference. And if, Father, we ever lack compassion for those who suffer, may we ever be aware of the needs of our fellow man. And when the opportunity comes that we might, in a very real way, share the witness of our faith, in terms of a helping hand, we ask for courage.
Courage not only to lift, but wisdom to say and to think the right thing. We're grateful always, God, for those who are willing to give of their time, for those who are concerned outside of their little personal and intimate relationships. We're grateful for this group and for what it means in the life of this community. We simply ask that as we labor together, we shall labor with a sense of Thy presence and Thy power, which makes us adequate beyond our own abilities.
This we ask in the humble words of this prayer. In my name, amen. I need not tell you that the members of this board look forward to the annual meeting of our council because it gives us an opportunity to share with a broader constituency in the community something of our work, which we carry on through the 12 months of the year, and in our very fine newspaper coverage and radio and television coverage, something of our work to a larger audience in the city.
And it's in that spirit and with that in mind that we welcome you. And as president, I express my appreciation and the expression of the appreciation of the board for your being here. We feel that this will be a profitable time for all of us as we look back over the work of the board for the last year, to listen to our guest speaker, and to honor one who has made a significant contribution to the work of our council and others who have worked as servants to the community that we're all deeply concerned about.
I'm happy to read as a part of our celebration of the annual meeting a wire from Marty M., director of the National Council on Alcoholism. She says, We all here at the National Council on Alcoholism extend heartiest congratulations to the Austin Council on Alcoholism on its anniversary. May you long continue your effective work in this field. Marty M., executive director. I think that as long as I have been on the board, we've looked forward to that shot in the arm, communication from our national office through Marty M.
Our business this evening is rather brief, but we must have a report from the chairman of our nominating committee,
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Mrs. Louise E. We'll call for that report now. Just couldn't be better. Mrs. Burt S., president. Giles G., first vice president. Mr. Gordon B., second vice president. And Mr. R. M. C., secretary treasurer. As to board members, Giles G. is to fill the vacancy for the term 1964 through 1966. Robert M. and Louise E. to fill the vacancy in the term through 1965. And the new members for the term 1965 through 1967 are Dr. Stuart N., Gordon B., Stanley S., Reverend John James S., Lieutenant Colonel Chaplain Benjamin S. at Bergstrom, Mrs. John P., Charles V.
And I submit these for your consideration. The chair would like to ask these people who have been nominated to stand that you might know them, at least see them here. Mrs. Sidney S., better known as Burt S., over here. Mr. Giles G., right back here. Gordon B., I don't believe that Gordon is here. And Mr. C., Bob C. I don't believe that Bob could make our meeting tonight. The board members who are filling vacancies from 1964 through 1966, Mr. G., whom you have met, Chief Bob M., Bob, where are you? Over here.
And you have met Mrs. E. Now, new members serving for the next two years, 1965 through 1967, the nominees, Dr. Stuart N., over here. Mr. B., Mr. Stanley S., back here. Reverend James S., whom, yes, he's still here. He told me he was going to have to leave early. Thank you, Jimmy. Chaplain S. from Bergstrom, right here. Mrs. John P. There's Frankie back there. And Mr. Charles V. I believe that he had another commitment and is not with us.
In acting on the nominations of the committee for the officers, you have heard the nominations. The chair will entertain a motion. Thank you, Roy. I'm sorry, Mr. President, I didn't get up sooner. Roy's been standing ever since the list was read. And I wasn't on the list. I move, Mr. President, that the nomination sees and the report of the nominating committee as presented be elected by acclamation.
That's the entire report, Roy. That includes officers, board members filling vacancies, and new members of the board. You've heard the motion. Is there a second? Discussion? All in favor of the motion will say aye. All opposed, no. And we have our new officers and new board members. Thank you. With the way in which you expedited matters for something much more important as to come later in the program.
We thank your action on that and we want to express appreciation to those who have accepted service on the board, officers and board members. Speaking as one who is going off the board this year, I know that you will come to know something of the fine work of giving information about the whole problem of alcoholism and the need for referral service, which our office cares for. And you will come to know something of the problem that does concern many of us here in our own community.
And to tell us a little more about what we have been doing, we thought it would be most appropriate in our meeting here this evening to have a report from our executive director, Mrs. Mildred R. Mildred is relatively new to the council as our executive, but already we have come to appreciate deeply the very fine work
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that she has been doing. We know that this comes because of her background as executive in the San Antonio council. We were lucky to find her and to put her to work here with the Austin council. Mr. D. said he was here looking for recruits for the Waco council. Mrs. R. is not on your list, I can assure you. We can't give her up. Well, it's a great deal of pleasure that I have in presenting to you Mrs. Mildred R.
I want to express my personal appreciation and the appreciation of many of the people of our community for the splendid job that has been done by our board of directors. These people give a great many hours of time and thought and action in the program of alcoholism, and they are one of the finest groups of people I've ever had the privilege of working with or for. I try to get out of making a report at an annual meeting for two reasons.
I don't like to do it in the first place, and in the second place, it is very difficult to prepare an annual report on the achievements and the progress of an agency such as the Council on Alcoholism. It is easy to take off the figures from our records in the office, but the figures do not measure the value nor the scope of our work. Neither do they show what a local council has contributed to nor received from the state and national programs and the related agencies with which we work.
In October of 1964, the National Council on Alcoholism observed its 20th anniversary. Through united effort, we have come a long way from the days when alcoholism was first recognized as a disease in the research laboratories, and we began our first work of carrying the facts to the people of the nation. The ways and means of preventing and controlling the disease apparently still lie in the distant future, but there have been marked steps of progress through these years.
The first big step, of course, came in 1956 with the official recognition of alcoholism as a disease and one of the four major health problems of our nation. The second step came in April of 1964 when Secretary Celebrezzi of the Department of Health, Welfare, and Education announced the appointment of the first Federal Committee on Alcoholism. This committee will be composed of the heads of the secretaries of the divisions of the department, and the chairman of the committee will be Dr. William Stewart, the assistant surgeon general of the department.
Now this step means not only recognition, but action in the area of all of the problems as the resources of the Department of Health, Welfare, and Education are made available for research, treatment, rehabilitation, education, prevention, and control. This step does not mean that the work of the local councils will decrease. In fact, our work should increase, but we will have more effective and adequate guides in developing our local community programs.
A local council is charged with two major responsibilities. First, to develop a program of community education to reach the people of the community with the facts about the disease and to stimulate the forming of resources for treatment and recovery from the disease. The second responsibility is to render service to the alcoholic and their families. As Marty M. often says, our work is divided between the ics and the isms.
Our major emphasis, of course, is to get facts before the public and to keep them there until this disease is fully accepted and brought under control. Your Council on Alcoholism in 1964 presented 71 programs for churches, schools, civic organizations, and special interest groups. Through the splendid cooperation of our local newspapers, radio, and television stations, we have been able to keep the facts before the public by local, state, and national news releases.
Over 7,000 pieces of literature, similar to the ones on the table at the back of the room, have been distributed this past year. 321 books were loaned mostly to high school and university students as resource
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material in their studies on the disease. Under the direction of the Adult Probation Department, volunteer workers continue our educational program each week for those who are in legal trouble through the excessive use of alcohol. And although it is not a part of our local council, it is a part of our community. And I want to mention the Institute on Alcohol Studies that is presented by the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and the University of Texas each summer during the month of July.
This institute is recognized as being amongst the best of this type of school in the nation. Now we do not minimize the needs of the alcoholic nor their family when we place them second on our program. But our purpose is to encourage others to seek knowledge and to develop the use of their skills in helping the alcoholic at the first recognizable signs of the disease. So in this sense, we are the mop-up squad for working with the alcoholic.
We work with those people who know of no other place to turn for help and information. Through the Information Center, we provide educational counseling and referral to the treatment and rehabilitation resources of our community. Last year, we had counseling service with 73 alcoholics, ranging from the ages of 22 through 63, and from the highly skilled professional through the unskilled worker. One hundred and twenty-three families sought help for a family member.
Eleven employers sought help for an alcoholic employee. Thirty-four people of the helping professions sought advice and working with programs and an individual. And 164 interviews for general information not related to an individual. Our quoting figures is always a very cold and impersonal matter. But through the work of your council, these figures represent men and women for whom these services have meant the alleviation of suffering, the salvaging of family relationships, and a return to safe and healthy living for many people.
They also represent the endeavors of hundreds of people in our community as we strive to learn together, to understand and work together to provide the ways and the means for the prevention and control of this disease. Thank you, Mildred, for that fine report about our work, concise and to the point and full of information about what the Board has attempted to do these past 12 months. I'm very happy to present at this time the Reverend O.C. R., who is the area missionary for the Austin Baptist Association, who will introduce our speaker for the evening.
Thank you, Dr. L. It is a distinct privilege for me to be called upon to introduce a distinguished minister of the gospel, one of our outstanding Southern Baptist pastors, who has made for himself a name among our own pastors and leaders of our denomination because of his work in the area of alcoholism. Our speaker tonight is pastor of the Highland Baptist Church in Waco and is a native of Mississippi, a graduate of Mississippi College and of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He has completed the resident requirements for his doctor's degree in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and has done advanced studies in the University of Vienna, Austria and at Princeton and Union Seminaries. Early in his ministry, our speaker became interested in the problems of alcoholism and has dedicated himself to a search for an understanding of this problem.
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He has seen in his pastorates to be such a deteriorating and destructive force in so many lives and families. He for many years was active in the work of the alcohol councils as lecturer and seminar director in Alabama, where he served as pastor. He came to Waco in 1961 and since that time has been making an outstanding contribution in this area in our state. He is now the president of the Waco Council on Alcoholism.
I'm happy to present to you tonight Dr. John D., pastor of the Highland Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Dr. D., we're glad to have you. I like Texas and I like you Texans. You are truthful, except on these introductions you kind of exaggerate a little bit, but I guess that's all right as long as I'm the one getting introduced. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to come and talk with you, and I'm impressed.
I don't know whether I'm supposed to be or not. We are kind of struggling to get this thing reactivated in Waco, but you really make a very impressive picture. I hope you can work and accomplish as much as you are attractive in appearance. I don't know whether that's right, I don't know whether it came out right or not, but I had good intentions when I started. I think that report is excellent, Mildred.
I don't know who wrote it, but they did a good job. I found myself driving down here this afternoon, and I'm no authority on alcoholism. I entertained a man. The way this thing got started, and I was just trying to remember, a man from the Alabama Commission on Alcoholism came to visit me one day in my office when I was passing Alabama, and he started through this long spiel about the Council on Alcoholism and the Alabama State Commission on Alcoholism, and I listened because I thought that it was polite, and I listened as long as I could, and finally I said, now look, Bob, let's get this straight.
If an alcoholic wants a counselor, I'm ready and I'm willing, but as far as going out and making speeches is concerned and working with a counselor, I'm not interested in the least. I said, I think enough of this has been done and too much has been done. We need somebody who will work with the alcoholic himself, and we need far fewer speech makers and more counselors and workers, and I've been making speeches ever since.
What I didn't know was I was talking with an alcoholic, and I've been conned into this thing and I just haven't been able to find a stopping place, but I get this panicky feeling when I feel myself on the road going somewhere to make a speech because who knows what alcoholism is, and who knows the answer, and who can give us a good working definition? I can't. I did get interested in this. I was living in Alaska, and I got a call one morning about 3 o'clock.
It was about 40 below, miserably cold, and I rolled out of that bed, and this telephone rang, this little weak, crying woman said, Brother John, said, Virgil just beat me, and he has thrown the kids out in the street, and we're over at a neighbor's house, and some people, he knows these people I'm talking about, and said, I wouldn't care about him, but I think he cut his arm when he broke the glass door when I went through it.
He said he swung at me, and he missed, thank goodness, and nobody else is there with him. Would you please go? So I went, and it was an old Quonset, do you know what a Quonset hut is, you civilized people? Up there in Texas, they live, I mean, Texas, that's the largest state, it's Alaska. They live in them, and he had a glass door, they had a glass door for a kind of storm door, and just as she and the kids went through the door, he swung at her, tried to hit her behind the head, and he missed and his arm went through the door and ripped it open there, and I went in, and he had been pacing up and down the floor across a red-hot floor furnace and dripping this blood, and it smelled like a slaughterhouse, and I walked in, and this was kind of dark, and this odor was coming out, and I said, my goodness, there must
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be an easier way to make a living. But I called him, and he answered, and so he tore up a sheet and wrapped up his arm over his protest and drank a pot of coffee, and he kept walking and talking, and I sat there on the couch and drank the coffee and listened to him, because he was talking, some of you know. And he got through, he stopped, and he looked at me, and he said, preacher, he said, I have been baptized three different times, that I rededicated my life every time they opened the doors of the church, he said, I was practically reared in the Sunday school and the training union and the RAs and the Sunbeams, and he says, I have done every damn thing I've ever been told to do, if you know anything else to do, tell me what to do.
And I sat there, and you know, I didn't know a thing to tell him to do. And he said, well, answer me, do you know anything, and I said, no, I don't. He said, then for God's sake, get me a drink, my stomach's burning up. Now, I would like to apologize in the beginning, if there are any Baptist pastors here, you have my deepest apology, but this is an open meeting. So I went downtown to another friend of mine who owned a liquor store, knocked on his door about five o'clock in the morning in the alley, and said, Ike, I've got to have a fifth of whiskey.
Can you imagine how embarrassing that was? So one of the reasons I'm in this is because I don't want to knock on any more doors at five o'clock in the morning to buy whiskey, especially when it's not even for me. But I took it back up there to him, and I gave him a drink, and then pretty soon he was asleep. But it was a lot easier for him to go to sleep than it was me. In fact, I've slept a lot less since then.
And I said to this one whom I choose to call God, if there is anything that can be learned about this person who is addicted to alcohol, let me learn it. And this, I think, was the beginning of the pilgrimage, and it was not by choice, it was by compulsion. And so I want to talk to you, and I'm going to be through by nine o'clock, or close to it as I can make it, so you'll know we're not going to be here for an extended period.
I want to talk to you about persons, not a disease. Because one of the reasons we are afflicted with this problem is we have depersonalized human beings for so long that we've lost our faces. We've lost our own personal identity. And alcoholism is a result of a person who has lost himself. I want to say generally about alcoholism three or four things, and I want to say this. I'm a pastor. I'm not an authority on alcoholism, and everything I'll have to say to you will be from a pastor's viewpoint, so you take this and you add it to what you already know, if it's worth adding to your present body of knowledge.
But nothing I say is absolute, final, or above challenge, and I would like to submit this for you to consider alongside what you've already learned about the problem. One big thing about this person, not alcoholic. One of the reasons we're in this mess now is we have worked too long between the ick and the ism. And there's never any man who's just an alcoholic. He is a man. There's never any man who's just a bum, who's just a homosexual, who's just a preacher, who's just a doctor.
It's always a man first. And when you describe his vocation or his moral or spiritual or physical condition, you haven't even started until you recognize him as man. And if you are of the same persuasion that most of us would probably be, you would have to say made in the image of God. I want to talk to you about persons. This person who is addicted to alcohol has an overwhelming sense of guilt that he cannot handle.
He learned somewhere early in life to be guilty, but he never was allowed the privilege of forgiveness. And lots of these came up in so-called, quote, Christian homes. And this is one characteristic of the man who has this addiction. He's guilty. He's guilty for everything. He learned it all his life. And he comes to the point where he's guilty if he plays golf, he should be working, if he's working, he should be playing golf, if he's at home with the children, he should be working on the job, if he's on the job, he should be at home playing with the children, if he goes early, he should have waited until late, if he goes late, some, do you know what I'm talking about? Go ahead, just say it, thank you, some of you do. Yeah, I know, me too.
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But this alcoholic person becomes so enmeshed in his own unforgivable guilt that his living becomes intolerable. And when you are talking to someone about this problem or working with it, you can never overlook the fact that he of all persons on earth is most guilty. And I care not how much compassion or sympathy or understanding you impart, he will say to you, you don't know what guilt is. This is the first thing that we need to remember in working with this person. And the second thing is this, he has a crippling sense of personal inadequacy, an inferiority complex, this is a popular term, I know it's not good, I use it intentionally, it's a part of every healthy personality.
If you don't feel inferior in some ways, boy, you're a sick cookie, there's something wrong with you. But this man doesn't just have a healthy feeling of inferiority in the presence of other people, he's inferior to everybody, all the time, in every situation. He just doesn't come up to anybody's standards. Now I mean inwardly, not outwardly. Outwardly, this guy owns the world. And he is not afraid of anybody, particularly when he's got a couple of healthy ones under his belt.
And he can talk louder and longer and stronger than anybody, but inside, there's a little crying child seeking shelter. And he is crippled by his own personal inadequacy in every single situation. The third thing is this, in terms of my relationship with these men and what they've taught me, and I think Carl Menninger is the man who put this in a reputable light in those who are working in the field.
He has a terrific amount of hostility and is repressed, is turned inward. This man does not allow himself the luxury of expressing his inward hostilities. He can never get angry, he can't get mad. And this hostility turned inward, you know, causes depression and he gets depressed along with his guilt, along with his feelings of inferiority. And you've just about crippled this person psychically. He can't do anything at this point. And most people, they can get mad and they can throw things, or cuss, or go out and play golf, or blow off steam.
We have a terrific amount of hostility around my house. I've got four boys and a strong-willed wife. And we had quite a few problems come up and talk to the friend of mine, he said, buy a punching bag. So we've got a punching bag up in our garage now, and sometimes you have to stop one of the boys and say, hey, wait, go to that punching bag. But the only thing is, it's next door to my study, preacher. And I've got a couple of healthy-sized boys, and sometimes when they get mad enough, that wall just vibrates and my books just crawl off the shelf.
But the wife and I have the agreement, better the books falling and the bag popping than heads being knocked around. But you see, the person who is addicted to alcohol, he can't do this. He doesn't have the right to get mad. He is a nothing and a nobody, so if you walk over him, this is what he deserves to himself inside. I was helped a great deal in understanding this. I was going to seminary after five years in the Army and some unpleasant experiences in the South Pacific during the war, came back and right fresh from murdering people by the day to go into the business of preaching the love and the mercy and the goodness and kindness of Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine what conflicts I had? Well, I ended up in the hospital with a beautiful [unclear]. Doctor, [unclear], all this stuff, you know, Rolaids, Tums. But none of it was enough, so I ended up in the hospital and I talked to the doctor and he said, you need to talk to the psychiatrist. And I said, well, I always thought this, but now somebody told me to my face. And so I talked to this man and he talked to me and he said, John, you need to learn to get rid of this hostility that you have inside you. And I said, what hostility?
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And we talked about acceptable ways of getting rid of it, you know, and finally he said, one thing would help you would be you should learn to cuss. And I said, man, I can't cuss. That's an occupational hazard. I'm a preacher. I lose my job. He said, well, I mean within limits. So he said, I would suggest that you learn to say damn and hell. And I quit this years ago, you know. So I went home and I told my wife, I said, hey, babe, you know what that doctor said? She said, no, what? And I told her, she said, okay. Got the kids off to school and she said, let's try it.
You really have to know my wife. So it worked pretty good, you know. And you know, I haven't had an ulcer since. It's a lot cheaper. We roll eggs and tums occasionally, but not on a regular steady diet. Now, I'm not, don't go home and say that Baptist preacher said I ought to cuss. You don't cuss people, you know, having enough trouble. Let it out another way. I don't want to quote scripture. I get enough opportunities to preach, really.
I didn't come down here to preach, but there's a passage of scripture that we largely overlook. It says, be angry, but don't make it an occasion for sin. And don't let it stay inside you and brew. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. And we're living in a culture with a distorted concept of the human personality that allows us the freedom and privilege to love and laugh, but frowns on anger. Why? You know, and we're kind of warped, you know. It's all right to smile, it's all right to love people, but there's no place for the healthy opposite of these.
And so, this might help you also, and there's no extra charge for that. It also might keep you out of that bar, friend. These things, an overwhelming sense of guilt, a crippling sense of personal inadequacy, and the inability to express one's hostility and the repression, as the Menninger brothers have so well pointed out, which sometimes is characteristic of the drinking person. I want to say this too. The person addicted to alcohol, and that's all I can do to keep from saying the alcoholic, this person is the loneliest person in Austin, I think, except for preachers.
Or maybe his wife is lonely, or maybe her husband. But you think this is a good time, Joe? Listen, he lives in a personal, private, posted hell. Now, this generally, about the man with the problem, and all of your pleading, preaching, and praying, will help this man just about as much as your pleading, preaching, and praying will help the man with cancer. He doesn't need your sermons, and he doesn't need your tears. And that is not the way. He needs professional help, and he needs help from the persons who understand what he is faced with, instead of the one who is dealing with what he's drinking.
Now, here's where I'm really beginning to be sold on this council business. Here's where the community comes into play. And I'm not going to impress you with any statistics, and I'm going to refrain from name-dropping. But let's say roughly, there are 5 million alcoholics in the United States, say roughly 600,000 are getting help from all the combined agencies. There are more than 4 million persons, diseased, sick, paralyzed, that are not getting help anywhere, and this is why we are here. We are here because we care.
And let me tell you quickly, this thing is catching on. Our nation is beginning to care. You buy the last issue of Look Magazine, and there's a whole page there. Have any of you seen that? I don't like the heading. It says a $2 billion disease. Well, to heck with what it's costing our nation in terms of dollars. I care about the people that it's costing us. But you see, and this is an insurance company, and I don't even remember the name of it, but it's a good point for a commercial, if any of you are with it. But anyway, the article is good, and there's concern which is coming to life throughout all of our nation, and not only ours, but other places around the world.
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And councils like yours are giving birth to this concern, and people in Austin, Texas, who tonight are not in a group anywhere, but who are standing at one end of a bar or drinking at home alone, are going to be helped as a result of your attendance here tonight in the years and days ahead. Because we care about persons, and when the council begins to work, and the telephone rings, and there's this hesitant, quiet, shy voice saying, I have a friend who has a drinking problem.
And the end of this is that this woman who was the friend finds herself in an Al-Anon meeting, or in an AA meeting, or talking with her physician, or on referral to a counselor, or on referral to a psychiatrist, or attending a group therapy session, or talking with her minister, or finding herself participating in some group activities where acceptance is imparted and received, and she is brought out of that realm of loneliness, and I don't mean just by putting her in a crowd, because some of the loneliest people in the world are in crowds, aren't we?
But by giving to her the forgiveness, by allowing her to be herself, by accepting her as she is, and accepting him as he is, and letting him be an alcoholic. I don't know how many of you go to AA meetings, but you should go, by all means go. I have been going for quite a few years, and I don't go to help them, I go to get help. We've got an agreement, I'm not an alcoholic. I think I've really missed a lot, because I've got all the symptoms, but I've never had any of the pleasures. But we go, and we've got a little agreement. I said to them, I forgive them for being a bunch of damn alcoholics if they forgive me for being a damn preacher, and they said, that's the bargain.
You know, in the South, we grew up learning that, you know, this is old stuff, but they said damn Yankee was one word. I didn't know until I started going to the AA meetings that damn Baptist preacher was one word. But it is, and I think it's pretty large and limited to the Baptist. And in one meeting, one man got up and said, men, if you ever want help, don't ever go to a Baptist. Go to an Episcopalian, go to a Catholic, go to a Presbyterian, but don't go to a Baptist, you know.
And I sat there, and of course I know there are no Baptists here, not many in Austin, but I sat there, and inside I died a little bit, because he said, they'll preach to you, pray for you, and put you back out in the street. What do you do when somebody comes to you asking for help? Now, this council is the marshalling point for all of the resources of help that a community can offer, and you, through this information center, and you through your own personal interest and efforts and work, whether you ever actually come in contact with a man suffering from the addiction or not, it doesn't matter.
When you impart acceptance to any person, and when you are a big enough man, and this is becoming an increasing problem, that you can take off that mask that you wear and be yourself in the presence of another self, and allow this man to be himself. You're fighting alcoholism, mental illness, and a lot of other things too, but I'm talking specifically about alcoholism. The time is rapidly approaching when the churches are recognizing this, and we're coming to the point where the church, instead of being a hiding place, is becoming a meeting place, because we've been hiding in these churches for a long time, but we've been smoked out by our own feeling of personal inadequacy, and I'm glad the smoke's rising.
I hope the dogs don't catch us before we can get up a tree. If you ever hunted possums, I don't know whether you hunt possums in Texas or not, but this is what we're doing now. We're coming to the point where we're recognizing that these are persons with problems.
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That the significant thing is not that this is an alcoholic and that he drinks. The significant thing is that this is a human personality, he is a human being for whom life has become so fearful that he must escape into a world of fantasy and reality has become his deadly enemy. One of the first things we work on with this alcoholic is to get him to the point where we say, reality is your friend. But this is hard for a lot of us to accept this.
You see, really, I'm not talking just about the man who's addicted to alcohol. I'm talking about you and I'm talking about me. And I think maybe alcoholism might be just a matter of degree and the line that marks the heavy drinker from the person addicted to alcohol. It's a very vague and indefinite thing, it's hard to find. One thing that caused me quite a bit of alarm, this came out last year, I believe, in the Quarterly Journal, said that 50 percent, this is a rather extensive survey, that 50 percent of the persons who are drinking now were drinking for individual reasons rather than social reasons.
We always lay this on the social pressures. Everybody's drinking, you know, and the social pressure of our everyday living causes us to drink. But now, and this is reliable, 50 percent of persons drink because they have personal reasons for drinking. You see, we are depersonalizing individuals in our society and culture. And we go around a faceless, nameless, valueless group. One of the most interesting books that's come out recently is a book titled The Lonely Crowd.
And this man has experienced this to an extreme degree in his life and he cannot live in the presence of other people. Now, in my own efforts to help him and in your own efforts to help him personally, through your counsel, through your community agencies, and in the attitudes that you reflect generally toward persons, there's a certain therapeutic, curative, helpful, healing relationship into which we enter.
And it has significance for that man. It also has significance for you. If you are a doctor, for God's sake, learn what alcoholism is as far as the work of the American Medical Association is concerned and let's treat it as a disease rather than as a moral problem. And I'd like to say here in defense of the ministers that we're no more moralistic about this than the medical profession. And I say this in all kinds.
Let me tell you, there's a Christian doctor in this church where I'm pastor and when I call him and say, alcoholism, he is thirst to help. And we have a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who's been ordained a deacon after he stood up before the whole church and said, I'm an alcoholic. The church turned right around. I thought I was going to get fired. The church turned right around and ordained him a deacon.
And when we have 12-step calls to make, I go with Tommy. I just sit there. He does the work. Now, but let me say this. There's help available. We're learning more every day about the disease. I think in a few years we will have made tremendous stride and tremendous progress. But if we had the cure today in our hands, it would still rest upon people like you to take the message of hope to the communities where you live and where you work.
I am proud to be able to stand here and look at the group who's going to make Austin a better and a happier place for persons to live. And in this process, you will find more meaning and richness yourself. Now, this is not your motive. This is not the reason. This is a result. You'll find more yourself, as far as personal reward is concerned, I think, than in any other single field of endeavor. Thank you for sharing your time with me.
Thank you, Mr. D. And the applause of those in attendance here attests to their appreciation
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for this very, very fine address to us. We hope that you will come our way again. And we feel a kinship with the Waco Council because of your visit with us. And now we turn to that part of the program in which we want to honor those who as professionals or as volunteers have made a special contribution to work with the probationers here in Travis County, many of whom got into trouble or have been bothered by the whole matter of alcoholism.
And this is the first year that the Council has taken this opportunity to honor these volunteers and these professionals with a certificate of recognition for the very fine work that they have done. We feel that they have done a special service, and the Board felt that the time had come to pay special honor to them. Therefore, it is with a great deal of pleasure that we present to these people, and as I call their names, I trust that they will come forward to receive this award.
Our expression of appreciation to you for the many hours that you have put in on your own time serving the community in a larger capacity, working with those who are in need. This, by the way, was, if I may reveal this, was a suggestion of Mrs. R. Something new was added, something that we probably felt instinctively we ought to be doing, but she put feet on the idea, and hence these awards tonight.
The men who are in professional work with the probationers in Travis County, we will honor first Mr. Giles G., Chief Probation Officer. Thank you, sir. Mr. T.J. G. Thank you, sir. Mr. William M. Mr. Roger R. And then let me call on the volunteers who have participated, put in a good many hours. Let me just read their names, and will they come forward as I call them? Somewhat in a group, I'm sure. Mr. Stanley S., is he here?
All right, sir. Mr. Robert W. Mr. Cecil K. Thank you, Mr. S., I appreciate it. Thank you, Cecil. Mr. Warren M. Mr. Wright S. Mr. William K. I appreciate your help. Mr. Harvey O. Mr. Allen R. Is this Mr. Billy R.? This is really Billy R. Yes, sir, good to see you. Mr. R. And then our two ladies, Mrs. Billy R. and Mrs. Hazel L. Will they come forward? One who has done a great deal of volunteer service at the Information Center.
We want to pay tribute and recognize the things that she has contributed to our work, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Will she come forward? Is she here? Please give these people a hand.
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Some of you may have thought that as these men from the probation department and these volunteers, as they came in late, that there might have been trouble at the courthouse. They were on the project tonight, and they asked for the special privilege of coming in late to participate in the program. They were carrying on while we were meeting here. Again, thank you to all of you for the very fine contribution you have made.
And then, as you know, the highest honor which the Austin Council can present is our annual Silver Key Award. We are very, very pleased to honor the man who will receive that award this evening. Of course, the committee that considers the award comes up with a number of names. But this man's name stood high on the list, and we honor ourselves even as we honor him in making the Silver Key Award tonight to Mr. Roy G.
Mr. G., if you will come forward, sir. I wish you'd come up here, I'm sorry. So I'm going to place it here. I think you can hear. Well, I'll hold it up here. Let me read this tribute to Mr. G. Whereas the Austin Council on Alcoholism wishes to pay tribute to a distinguished man and to recognize his service to his community, and whereas Mr. Roy G. is a man who has shown great concern and interest with people and their problems and has given freely and faithfully of his time and talents in this community during the past 17 years, whereas through his deep understanding and belief in the constructive and legal approach as a part of the solution of the problem of alcoholism, did participate in drafting and attaining passage of the present law which provides care and treatment of alcoholics in our state hospitals, and whereas through his interest and informed viewpoint, he has made a tremendous contribution to education on alcoholism by his activities on various speakers' bureaus and committees and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Austin Council on Alcoholism. Be it resolved that the Austin Council on Alcoholism present the Silver Key Award in behalf of the people of Austin to Mr. Roy G. in expressing appreciation for his unselfish devotion to the betterment of his community and his state through his love, faith, and deep understanding and his exemplary life. Signed, Robert E. L., President, Mildred E. R., Executive Director. Now to let you know that there is a Silver Key. We forgot it last year. I think Dean H. received it after it was over. But here it is. We hope you are aware of that with pride on what you have done here, Mr. G.
Mr. President and officers and members of this Council and ladies and gentlemen, I feel a little bit like the well-known politician who had a heart attack and who thought he was going to die. So did a lot of other people. They asked him at the hospital, I said, Senator, if you die, do you have any particular mortuary that you would like for us to call? And he said, no, I don't believe I'd bother. He says, I'll probably just go direct. Believe it or not, this comes partly as a surprise. I knew that from all of the maneuvers that had gone on to get me here tonight that there was something. But I didn't know for sure until some of my
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friends here congratulated me when I came in tonight. It, of course, is with a great deal of humility and gratitude that I receive and accept this token. I know and have known, I think, all those who have received this tribute in the past. It's been my good fortune to be associated with a great many people over the past 17 years who have made an effort, who have contributed, and who have done a great deal, not only just to carry a message that there is recovery, but to go about proving it. I could reminisce a great deal about the early efforts of people here in Austin and people in this state, for that matter, in attempting to get recognition of the alcoholic and in attempting to bring about some sort of treatment and some sort of effort at his rehabilitation. It was in 1951 that some of us were appointed on a committee by Governor Shivers to bring back a recommendation to him as to what could be done on the state level about the alcoholic and about the rehabilitation and the treatments of such people. For over a hundred years this state had never mentioned in its laws an alcoholic. We've had dissection in the statutes all the time entitled lunatics and drunkards. In 1951 some of us prepared a bill and had it presented to the legislature, which for the first time in this state dealt with the problem of alcoholism. It was a simple thing. The only thing that that bill did was to allow an alcoholic to be admitted to a state hospital as an alcoholic. Prior to that time any treatment that had come by way of admission to hospitals had been to a person of unsound mind. But just 15 years ago we didn't know how the legislature would take this thing, and into that bill was written just this simple statement, that any person suffering from the disease of alcoholism may be admitted to a state hospital. And there for the first time in 115 years this state had said alcoholism is a disease. Of course in 1953 the Commission on Alcoholism was created, and most of us know that from that time on a great deal of effort has been made to bring education to those both who suffer and those who are interested and those who can give assistance.
I think that the significant thing tonight is not that I have been honored, and I think that it is not significant that those in the past have been honored as persons. The significant thing tonight is this, and let's break this whole thing down just to simple language. And what this says is that we, some citizens, some responsible and some respected and respectable and influential people, have seen fit to pay tribute to someone who has given of his time and his effort to help drunks. Now that would have been out of place 20 or 25 years ago. You didn't pay tribute particularly
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to those who helped drunks. But it is with pride that I can say, I like to say at any rate, that I have been a part of, in a small way, of this effort to bring to the people, to bring to the public, to bring to those who suffer and again those who can help, something that may be lasting. We've talked tonight about help, we've talked about rehabilitation, we've talked about aid and assistance and understanding of the alcoholic.
It is my fervent hope that the day will come when we'll need less rehabilitation, we'll need less help, we'll need less assistance, less aid to the active alcoholic, because I believe and I hope to help toward prevention. I think that by education, by understanding, by effort, by dedication, that that is possible, prevention. And I want to repeat what Dr. D. has said, that it is people like you, people who are willing to give a recognition to something which for so long was hidden behind a curtain of ignorance, people who are willing to give their time and their effort, because someday I know that by the dissemination of information and by an awful lot of hard work, we can, to a large extent, prevent rather than try to cure.
Thank you. I feel honored and I feel humbled. You know what they say about successful men, that there's a woman behind helping, and I would like to present at this time Mrs. G. Will you stand please, ma'am? We're delighted that you are with us. Before declaring the meeting adjourned, I would like to present our lovely new lady president of the board, Mrs. Burt S. Burt, will you come up here? You're taking over now. I got the files with me.
Thank you very much. The Austin Council on Alcoholism has been particularly fortunate in its leadership under the presidency of Judge Herman J. and Dr. Robert L. It has grown in scope. It's been helped by a wonderful board of directors and a fine executive, Mrs. R. I hope that I shall be worthy of my predecessors and that together we can work to help not the alcoholic, but the person with needs. Thank you.
They say behind every successful woman there is a man pushing. I don't know whether there's any other business that should come before us or not. If there isn't, we thank you again for your presence, and we hope that we will see you again next year at our annual meeting. But call the office if you feel that you need help or that somebody else needs help. Will you do that? Sometimes I've got a friend may mean the person who's on the phone. Isn't that right, Brother John? Thank you again and good night.