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[00:00:00.100 – 00:00:00.900] Was confusion.

[00:00:00.900 – 00:00:04.400] Complete confusion, that is.

[00:00:04.400 – 00:00:14.400] And not too many people noticed that my slip was showing, and that my speech was faltering as well

[00:00:14.400 – 00:00:23.400] as my step, and that I was leaning on a bottle, which is the requisite for all of us in AA.

[00:00:23.400 – 00:00:27.600] He strove with all his might and main.

[00:00:27.600 – 00:00:35.900] He strove with the loyal, enduring, loving help of his good wife, Lois.

[00:00:35.900 – 00:00:46.300] And he strove with all the human and medical aid he could find, and spiritual

[00:00:46.300 – 00:00:46.800] as well.

[00:00:46.800 – 00:00:57.600] But he met with little success until one day, as Bill will tell you, Ebby

[00:00:57.600 – 00:01:07.700] Thatcher put a candle in his hand, and Bill carried that candle to our co-founder, the

[00:01:07.700 – 00:01:09.300] late and beloved Dr.

[00:01:09.300 – 00:01:10.000] Bob.

[00:01:10.000 – 00:01:20.100] And Bob, in turn, handed the candle and ignited those of the fourteen other AAs in Akron, Ohio.

[00:01:20.100 – 00:01:24.300] That was in the year 1936.

[00:01:24.300 – 00:01:34.900] And the lights multiplied, and they spread to the far ends of the earth, not as a holocaust

[00:01:34.900 – 00:01:44.900] devouring everything in its path, not in sensational newspaper headlines, and not glaring from the

[00:01:44.900 – 00:01:53.000] countless theater marquis of the world, but from one to another.

[00:01:53.000 – 00:02:00.500] The generous light of love from one so afflicted to another so afflicted.

[00:02:00.500 – 00:02:06.000] Not for one people alone, but for all.

[00:02:06.000 – 00:02:07.600] All.

[00:02:07.600 – 00:02:11.200] Every race, every station in life.

[00:02:11.200 – 00:02:18.400] Here, Bill, is your accomplishment.

[00:02:18.400 – 00:02:31.400] And here, Bill, is your fame, glorious in its anonymity and

[00:02:31.400 – 00:02:33.900] bright in its humility.

[00:02:33.900 – 00:02:44.800] And here, Bill, are some of your candles, just a few, returned to greet you on this, your twentieth anniversary.

[00:02:44.800 – 00:03:24.600] This

[00:03:24.600 – 00:03:32.400] meeting fittingly opened with a great and wonderful silence.

[00:03:32.400 – 00:03:42.400] And what we collectively felt and

[00:03:42.400 – 00:03:51.500] thought in that silence is surely quite beyond any expression at all.

[00:03:51.500 – 00:04:01.600] I’m sure as seldom before, we all felt the presence

[00:04:01.600 – 00:04:02.300] of God.

[00:04:02.300 – 00:04:13.800] I am sure that every heart here looked up to Him in thanksgiving for

[00:04:13.800 – 00:04:20.900] His gifts to us, the children of the night.

[00:04:20.900 – 00:04:31.500] We thank Him for freedom from bo-from bondage.

[00:04:31.500 – 00:04:41.700] We thank Him for our deliverance into a fellowship where we have learned that it is better

[00:04:41.700 – 00:04:43.900] to comfort than to be comforted.

[00:04:43.900 – 00:04:48.800] It is better to love than to be loved.

[00:04:48.800 – 00:04:58.800] We thank Him for the opportunity to serve man and

[00:04:58.800 – 00:05:06.400] God such as has seldom been accorded anyone.

[00:05:06.400 – 00:05:17.700] Then, too, there has been a

[00:05:17.700 – 00:05:27.700] very personal note sounded here, and Lois and I know that your coming from so many

[00:05:27.700 – 00:05:36.700] distant places is a mighty token of your affection for us.

[00:05:36.700 – 00:05:46.900] She and I give our thanks to you and to God for all of that.

[00:05:46.900 – 00:05:57.000] It is her anniversary quite as much as mine,

[00:05:57.000 – 00:06:07.500] because I have reached the place where I would die And she had

[00:06:07.500 – 00:06:17.200] reached the place where all her bright hopes and aspirations were at an end.

[00:06:17.200 – 00:06:29.200] And then through this strange paradox, strength rising from weakness, a

[00:06:29.200 – 00:06:39.400] door was opened upon a new way of life, quite beyond our wildest dreams

[00:06:39.400 – 00:06:45.400] in even the balmiest of our days.

[00:06:45.400 – 00:06:52.500] Such are my poor words to express what I have felt here.

[00:06:52.500 – 00:07:02.800] These gifts are as three stories

[00:07:02.800 – 00:07:09.800] which commenced to run even prior to the year thirty-four.

[00:07:09.800 – 00:07:18.800] The gifts and the stories which tell about them are these.

[00:07:18.800 – 00:07:26.600] One is the story of how we learned to break our bondage.

[00:07:26.600 – 00:07:37.000] The next is the story of how we learned to live

[00:07:37.000 – 00:07:42.500] in harmony and unity with each other and with the world about us.

[00:07:42.500 – 00:07:52.500] And the third legacy of AA has to do with how we learned to serve God and man.

[00:07:52.500 – 00:08:02.900] I wish it were possible for me to give you a rundown on all these stories,

[00:08:02.900 – 00:08:12.900] but when I proposed this to the dinner committee, they said, “Bill, tell us that night-before-Christmas yarn.” You know,

[00:08:12.900 – 00:08:16.600] just how did this thing really get started.

[00:08:16.600 – 00:08:26.800] But before I embark on that, I draw attention

[00:08:26.800 – 00:08:36.900] to the fact that practically every alcoholic in this room has had someone, some friend, who stuck with him,

[00:08:36.900 – 00:08:46.400] who stayed with him, who went, went into the cave where he was and never left.

[00:08:46.400 – 00:08:56.700] So I would introduce to you my partner in the cave,

[00:08:56.700 – 00:09:06.700] and my partner since, without whom this society would in

[00:09:06.700 – 00:09:08.600] all probability never have been.

[00:09:08.600 – 00:09:15.000] And Lois would like to say to you her thanks on her anniversary.

[00:09:15.000 – 00:09:36.500] Thank

[00:09:36.500 – 00:09:37.200] you so much.

[00:09:37.200 – 00:09:42.500] This is really, I think, one of the most moving moments of my life.

[00:09:42.500 – 00:09:52.500] And I can’t say anything– I can’t half express what it means to me

[00:09:52.500 – 00:10:00.800] and what being here and seeing so many of you and feeling all your love…

[00:10:00.800 – 00:10:06.600] I hope you feel mine going out to you.

[00:10:06.600 – 00:10:16.800] But I do want to thank you, every last one of you, for all you have done through these twenty years.

[00:10:16.800 – 00:10:27.100] Because this twenty years is not only accomplishment of the first early AAs,

[00:10:27.100 – 00:10:28.800] but of every single one of you.

[00:10:28.800 – 00:10:39.100] Because if you all hadn’t wanted to carry this wonderful thing on, each one

[00:10:39.100 – 00:10:48.800] forging a link in this marvelous chain that is AA, we none of us, I’m sure, would be here tonight.

[00:10:48.800 – 00:10:52.400] And thank you again so very much.

[00:10:52.400 – 00:11:05.300] Over

[00:11:05.300 – 00:11:13.000] the AA grapevine just before dinner, there came a flash, and the flash came out of Knickerbocker Hospital.

[00:11:13.000 – 00:11:23.200] And the flash said, “The ten thousandth drunk, drunk number ten thousand,

[00:11:23.200 – 00:11:46.800] has just passed through this place, and his name is Murphy.” Therefore,

[00:11:46.800 – 00:11:50.900] I can say without fear of contradiction that Mr.

[00:11:50.900 – 00:11:56.900] Murphy is the augury of greater things to come in the destiny of this society.

[00:11:56.900 – 00:12:07.000] And after hearing that word and sitting here

[00:12:07.000 – 00:12:17.000] and looking into your faces and realizing that all of us gathered here Plus all those who have recovered of

[00:12:17.000 – 00:12:21.000] the ten thousand that went through Nick about– Bakker, no doubt six or seven.

[00:12:21.000 – 00:12:24.700] But that was six or seven thousand, I would say.

[00:12:24.700 – 00:12:33.900] But that doubtless is perhaps four or five percent of all that has happened in the way of recovery.

[00:12:33.900 – 00:12:45.600] There are lots of our friends here tonight, and there are lots of AAs here tonight who

[00:12:45.600 – 00:12:49.700] really don’t know much about the actual start of AA.

[00:12:49.700 – 00:13:01.700] It can’t be said often enough that no human being invented Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:13:01.700 – 00:13:12.200] God in His providence channeled ideas and inspiration through

[00:13:12.200 – 00:13:19.000] many, many individuals to bring this society to the point where it stands today.

[00:13:19.000 – 00:13:32.200] Friends, non-alcoholics, have been used tremendously and repeatedly in

[00:13:32.200 – 00:13:44.100] the formation of our recovery program, of contributions which have borne on our wholeness and unity, and

[00:13:44.100 – 00:13:51.100] they have, in legions, helped us to serve and carry this message worldwide.

[00:13:51.100 – 00:14:01.300] Tonight, I would just like to talk about the recovery, and I would

[00:14:01.300 – 00:14:12.400] like to talk about four people who, in my estimate, were indispensable channels through

[00:14:12.400 – 00:14:18.800] which the main ideas coursed into us alcoholics.

[00:14:18.800 – 00:14:24.600] Again, we alcoholics invented nothing.

[00:14:24.600 – 00:14:36.000] The story properly begins at Zurich, Switzerland, probably

[00:14:36.000 – 00:14:42.900] in the year nineteen thirty, and a certain American businessman had gone there that we shall call Rowan.

[00:14:42.900 – 00:14:48.500] A man of affairs, a man of prominence, a man of parts.

[00:14:48.500 – 00:14:55.400] Well, he’s probably what nowadays we’d call a Park Avenue stumblebum, you know?

[00:14:55.400 – 00:15:04.300] He had run the usual course we know so well of trying out places, sanitariums.

[00:15:04.300 – 00:15:12.200] So he said, “I will seek out the best man on Earth.

[00:15:12.200 – 00:15:15.600] I’ll go to Carl Jung.” He went there.

[00:15:15.600 – 00:15:17.000] He stayed a year.

[00:15:17.000 – 00:15:19.400] He meant, meant business.

[00:15:19.400 – 00:15:29.700] And at the end of a year, he thought he so well understood himself that he had been really released from his obsession

[00:15:29.700 – 00:15:30.300] to drink.

[00:15:30.300 – 00:15:40.600] To his consternation, he was drunk in a matter of weeks, and trembling, crawled, crawled back

[00:15:40.600 – 00:15:42.600] to Dr.

[00:15:42.600 – 00:15:42.900] Jung.

[00:15:42.900 – 00:15:52.900] And that very great and humble man said to him, “Rowan, when you first

[00:15:52.900 – 00:15:55.900] came, I thought you might be one of those rare ones.

[00:15:55.900 – 00:16:06.500] But I must be frank to tell you that I have s– never seen one single alcoholic

[00:16:06.500 – 00:16:13.200] of your kind and gravity recover under my care.

[00:16:13.200 – 00:16:23.300] I can do nothing for you.” I think that is a humility which a good m-many an alcoholic

[00:16:23.300 – 00:16:26.900] could borrow when talking about psychiatrists, don’t you think?

[00:16:26.900 – 00:16:33.900] Well, our friend from America was shattered.

[00:16:33.900 – 00:16:38.900] The god of science had spoken the word of doom.

[00:16:38.900 – 00:16:47.700] So he went back to the doctor like this.

[00:16:47.700 – 00:16:54.300] He said, “But, Doctor, is there nothing?” “Well,” said Dr.

[00:16:54.300 – 00:17:04.500] Carl Jung, “sometimes alcoholics have religious experiences, conversions, if you like,

[00:17:04.500 – 00:17:07.400] which liberate them.

[00:17:07.400 – 00:17:09.700] It happens here and there.

[00:17:09.700 – 00:17:11.500] It happens now and then.

[00:17:11.500 – 00:17:17.400] We can’t quite say why and how.” “I have it,” said Rowan.

[00:17:17.400 – 00:17:19.600] “I’m a man of faith.

[00:17:19.600 – 00:17:29.300] Used to be a vestryman in the Episcopal Church.” Doctor shook his head, said, “That’s fine, but not fine enough.

[00:17:29.300 – 00:17:39.400] I am talking about the kind of transforming experience that reinvigorates

[00:17:39.400 – 00:17:45.900] and transforms people.” “Where can I find an experience like that?” said Rowan.

[00:17:45.900 – 00:17:52.000] “Well,” the doctor said, “you have to seek it in any religious channel of your own choice.

[00:17:52.000 – 00:17:58.200] If you seek, perhaps you will find.

[00:17:58.200 – 00:18:08.400] No one can say.” So Rowan started his quest, and he met up with the Oxford groups

[00:18:08.400 – 00:18:18.800] of that time, and they were a band of people They were talking

[00:18:18.800 – 00:18:22.900] a very simple and direct way of life.

[00:18:22.900 – 00:18:31.700] They were talking about absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, absolute love.

[00:18:31.700 – 00:18:36.800] They were talking about the guidance of God.

[00:18:36.800 – 00:18:42.400] They weren’t talking much theology.

[00:18:42.400 – 00:18:46.800] They were just talking common denominators of all religions.

[00:18:46.800 – 00:18:58.300] And in this atmosphere, putting all he had into the situation, Roland

[00:18:58.300 – 00:19:05.700] experienced this mysterious and unaccountable departure of his obsession to drink.

[00:19:05.700 – 00:19:16.200] He returned to America, went to his farm at Glastonbury, Vermont, where he was joined by two other alcoholics,

[00:19:16.200 – 00:19:21.200] one by the name of Shep, another by the name of Seabury.

[00:19:21.200 – 00:19:31.400] And one of these fellows knew the chap that we in AA affectionately

[00:19:31.400 – 00:19:38.800] call, call Ebby, my schoolmate up there in Vermont.

[00:19:38.800 – 00:19:47.800] Ebby was up in the old hometown, they heard, and he was raising particular heck.

[00:19:47.800 – 00:19:53.500] The family had gone back to Albany.

[00:19:53.500 – 00:19:56.600] They just summered there at Manchester.

[00:19:56.600 – 00:19:59.600] Ebby had got a hold of Pop’s new car.

[00:19:59.600 – 00:20:05.700] He had run it off the road into the side of a farmhouse.

[00:20:05.700 – 00:20:13.100] The car made a clean, neat entry into the kitchen- -pushing the stove aside, but none of the occupants.

[00:20:13.100 – 00:20:24.000] Whereupon Ebby had stepped out and said, “Folks, how about a cup of coffee?” Well,

[00:20:24.000 – 00:20:34.400] the neighbors up there who loved the boy figured that they had about enough, so they would send him down to Bennington and, uh, before Judge Graves, Seabury’s father, and, uh, get him committed

[00:20:34.400 – 00:20:37.200] to Brattleboro.

[00:20:37.200 – 00:20:42.500] The trio at Glastonbury heard about this.

[00:20:42.500 – 00:20:49.100] They went and fetched Ebby, and here was the transmission line again at work.

[00:20:49.100 – 00:20:57.100] I saw Ebby only recently in Texas, and he recalled the terrific impression that Roland had made on him.

[00:20:57.100 – 00:20:59.600] He said-

[00:20:59.700 – 00:21:05.900] Out of science in Zurich had said you cannot do anything about this alone.

[00:21:05.900 – 00:21:12.400] You have to have some kind of transforming experience.

[00:21:12.400 – 00:21:22.400] And Eddie again recounted to me only months ago how deeply that hit him when another alcoholic gave him the note.

[00:21:22.400 – 00:21:31.700] Meanwhile, I had been approaching every step.

[00:21:31.700 – 00:21:43.700] The end of the long road for Lois and me came up here in Towns Hospital in

[00:21:43.700 – 00:21:47.900] the summer of nineteen hundred and thirty-four.

[00:21:47.900 – 00:21:58.700] Like Roland’s case, the doctor there, one

[00:21:58.700 – 00:22:08.900] we all now know as Silky, thought that I might be one of those rare ones

[00:22:08.900 – 00:22:09.900] that can recover.

[00:22:09.900 – 00:22:17.500] But here he was in his office on a hot night talking to Lois while I lay upstairs.

[00:22:17.500 – 00:22:20.700] Here came the same sense again.

[00:22:20.700 – 00:22:27.600] Lois is saying to him, “But doctor, he’s a man of tremendous willpower.

[00:22:27.600 – 00:22:29.300] He wants to stop.

[00:22:29.300 – 00:22:39.400] Why can’t he stop?” Then the dear old man was obliged to pass sentence.

[00:22:39.400 – 00:22:43.500] He was kind, but there was none he doubt.

[00:22:43.500 – 00:22:55.000] Said he, “Bill’s habit of drink has now turned into an obsession which

[00:22:55.000 – 00:22:56.600] his will can’t break.

[00:22:56.600 – 00:23:02.400] There is nothing that I can do to educate him out of this.

[00:23:02.400 – 00:23:07.700] There is nothing that any physical treatment can do that I know anything about.

[00:23:07.700 – 00:23:18.800] I am at the end of my resources, too.” So Lois and like Roland said, “Well,

[00:23:18.800 – 00:23:29.300] doctor, what next?” And Silky said, “I’m

[00:23:29.300 – 00:23:41.700] afraid you’ll have to lock him up, else he’ll go mad and die some of these days.” Well,

[00:23:41.700 – 00:23:44.300] I left Towns.

[00:23:44.300 – 00:23:48.300] By this time, I knew what the score was.

[00:23:48.300 – 00:23:57.600] For a while, fear kept me sober, terrific vigilance, fighting this thing all the time.

[00:23:57.600 – 00:24:02.800] Some months went by, something very unusual for me.

[00:24:02.800 – 00:24:07.500] All I was a two bottle man a day, three to get drunk.

[00:24:07.500 – 00:24:10.700] So two or three months of sobriety.

[00:24:10.700 – 00:24:16.500] Then I began to get self-confidence.

[00:24:16.500 – 00:24:21.000] I began to say to myself, “Well, this isn’t too bad.

[00:24:21.000 – 00:24:23.300] I’m beginning to feel better.

[00:24:23.300 – 00:24:26.800] I go over to Wall Street, I make a few dollars.

[00:24:26.800 – 00:24:37.100] Maybe this isn’t so bad.” Then twenty years

[00:24:37.100 – 00:24:47.300] ago, come day after tomorrow, Armistice Day nineteen hundred and thirty-four, I said to Lois

[00:24:47.300 – 00:24:58.000] as she set out to work in the department store where all our support now came from, I said, “Lois, I’d

[00:24:58.000 – 00:25:06.000] like to go over to Staten Island and play a round of golf.” I could see the fear in her eyes, but she said, “Oh, oh, do it.

[00:25:06.000 – 00:25:10.900] You haven’t done that in a long time.” Soon I’m going down the aisle.

[00:25:10.900 – 00:25:15.700] Beside me is a man with a fine target rifle.

[00:25:15.700 – 00:25:17.200] We get talking about shooting.

[00:25:17.200 – 00:25:20.400] All of a sudden, the bus collides with a bus ahead of us.

[00:25:20.400 – 00:25:24.800] Nobody is hurt, but we’re left standing on the pavement waiting for the next bus.

[00:25:24.800 – 00:25:28.400] Said the man to me, “Let’s go in there.

[00:25:28.400 – 00:25:39.300] I think maybe we can get a drink.” I said, “Let’s do.” So we went inside, and

[00:25:39.300 – 00:25:40.500] I ordered ginger ale.

[00:25:40.500 – 00:25:47.100] “What?” he said, “Don’t you drink?” “No,” I said, “I am an alcoholic.

[00:25:47.100 – 00:25:54.900] I am a guy who has an obsession that I’ve just got to break.

[00:25:54.900 – 00:25:56.800] This obsession drives me to drink.

[00:25:56.800 – 00:26:03.200] According to the doctors, I’ve got a physical sensitivity that condemns me to go mad or die if I keep it up.

[00:26:03.200 – 00:26:04.400] That’s how bad I am.

[00:26:04.400 – 00:26:08.600] That’s why I’m drinking ginger ale.” “Okay,” the fellow said, “Please go right on.

[00:26:08.600 – 00:26:14.000] If you don’t mind, though, I’ll have a Scotch and soda.” Another one.

[00:26:14.000 – 00:26:21.500] We get on the bus, and this so well demonstrates this insidious incentive.

[00:26:21.500 – 00:26:27.000] We come to the parting of the ways.

[00:26:27.000 – 00:26:28.200] I’m going to the golf course.

[00:26:28.200 – 00:26:29.500] He’s going to the rifle range.

[00:26:29.500 – 00:26:31.100] We’re in front of another little hotel.

[00:26:31.100 – 00:26:32.200] The bus is stopped.

[00:26:32.200 – 00:26:33.500] It’s noontime.

[00:26:33.500 – 00:26:34.800] Says he, “Let’s go in.

[00:26:34.800 – 00:26:40.800] We’ll get a sandwich.” We sat at the bar.

[00:26:40.800 – 00:26:43.300] He had another drink, a sandwich.

[00:26:43.300 – 00:26:47.500] I get a sandwich, a glass of ginger ale.

[00:26:47.500 – 00:26:57.300] We sit there still talking about shooting, and I remember then how I began to sort of loll dead.

[00:26:57.300 – 00:27:01.100] The place in back of us was filling up.

[00:27:01.100 – 00:27:03.600] With celebrants of Armistice Day.

[00:27:03.600 – 00:27:09.800] And the people they were filling up, too, and that buzz arose that we know so well in the barroom.

[00:27:09.800 – 00:27:16.000] And somehow that was reminiscent of that marvelous Armistice Day in France.

[00:27:16.000 – 00:27:21.500] Ah, what a wonderful release that was.

[00:27:21.500 – 00:27:23.700] The champagne we had in Bordeaux.

[00:27:23.700 – 00:27:27.800] And these thoughts ran as an undercurrent in my mind.

[00:27:27.800 – 00:27:33.900] Along comes the bartender, bright as a button.

[00:27:33.900 – 00:27:44.500] A glass in each hand, he plops one down in front of my friend, he plops another down in front of me, and he says, “Boys, it’s Armistice

[00:27:44.500 – 00:27:44.800] Day.

[00:27:44.800 – 00:27:48.100] Have one on the house.” I said, “Thanks very much,” and got to go.

[00:27:48.100 – 00:27:57.200] My friend looked at me and said he, “Are you completely crazy?

[00:27:57.200 – 00:28:07.300] Do you realize what you told me up the street only an hour ago?” “Oh, yes,” I said, “I guess I am crazy.” And

[00:28:07.300 – 00:28:08.100] I was.

[00:28:08.100 – 00:28:18.300] Lawd found me lying in the alleyway of a hundred and eighty-two Clinton Street where, where we lived the next morning, still dragging the golf

[00:28:18.300 – 00:28:22.700] bag, terrific gash in my scalp where I’d fallen against a steel grate.

[00:28:22.700 – 00:28:27.600] Well, then I was back on.

[00:28:27.600 – 00:28:29.400] What was the use?

[00:28:29.400 – 00:28:33.200] A week later, the telephone rings.

[00:28:33.200 – 00:28:38.600] My friend Ebby, who is on this line of succession from Dr.

[00:28:38.600 – 00:28:44.700] Young to Rowland, is now on the other end of the wire.

[00:28:44.700 – 00:28:49.100] Oh, I thought to myself, this is wonderful.

[00:28:49.100 – 00:28:51.200] We’ll talk about the good old days.

[00:28:51.200 – 00:28:53.500] Why would we talk about the good old days?

[00:28:53.500 – 00:28:58.800] Because the present was practically unbearable, and there wasn’t be, could be any future.

[00:28:58.800 – 00:29:03.200] Yes, we drink up my gin, and we talk about the good old days.

[00:29:03.200 – 00:29:05.100] Soon Ebby is in the door.

[00:29:05.100 – 00:29:11.300] Through my haze, I could somehow sense that he was different.

[00:29:11.300 – 00:29:13.000] Something had happened.

[00:29:13.000 – 00:29:13.600] He came in.

[00:29:13.600 – 00:29:15.700] I pushed the gin over the table.

[00:29:15.700 – 00:29:25.700] “No, not drinking.” “Not drinking, nothing.” “What, Ebby, you on the water wagon?” “No,

[00:29:25.700 – 00:29:27.200] not exactly.

[00:29:27.200 – 00:29:37.300] I’m just not drinking now.” “What’s got into you, Ebby?” “Well,” he said, “I got religion.” Well, that

[00:29:37.300 – 00:29:38.500] was a terrific jolt to me.

[00:29:38.500 – 00:29:40.400] Then I knew for sure he was crazy.

[00:29:40.400 – 00:29:49.000] You see, I’d had one of these dandy modern educations that had taught me that man is God.

[00:29:49.000 – 00:29:52.300] Well, you had to be polite.

[00:29:52.300 – 00:29:56.100] I said, “What brand?” “Oh, well,” he said, “I don’t know.

[00:29:56.100 – 00:29:57.200] You’d call it a religion.

[00:29:57.200 – 00:30:01.800] I ran across a crowd of people.” And then he recounted this experience I’ve just told you.

[00:30:01.800 – 00:30:11.800] And then he began to tell of his contact with this crowd of people, most of them non-alcoholics,

[00:30:11.800 – 00:30:19.800] but here and there, there were some alcoholics, particularly this man, Hazard, Rowland.

[00:30:19.800 – 00:30:30.100] Then he began to tell me, uh, that though he didn’t agree with all of their tenets and some of their methods, of course, alcoholics are great

[00:30:30.100 – 00:30:40.200] people to disagree, but he had abstracted from what they taught certain basics that he, that have released him, he said, from his desire to drink.

[00:30:40.200 – 00:30:41.400] And what were these basics?

[00:30:41.400 – 00:30:48.100] Well, there was the idea of a personal inventory of one’s defects.

[00:30:48.100 – 00:30:52.400] There was the idea of confessing these in confidence to another person.

[00:30:52.400 – 00:30:56.600] There was the idea of making restitution for harms done.

[00:30:56.600 – 00:31:03.300] There was the idea of carrying that message to other people.

[00:31:03.300 – 00:31:13.300] There was the idea of dependence upon and guidance upon God as you

[00:31:13.300 – 00:31:14.100] understood it.

[00:31:14.100 – 00:31:18.800] Those were the essential ideas that he transmitted to me over the kitchen table.

[00:31:18.800 – 00:31:24.100] “Well,” I said, “Ebby, this sounds perfectly sensible, all except the God bit.

[00:31:24.100 – 00:31:29.900] After all, these aren’t any very new ideas either.

[00:31:29.900 – 00:31:40.000] You might have got these most any place.” “Well,” he said, “but the point is I got them, and this is where I got them.” Oh, that

[00:31:40.000 – 00:31:42.800] bunch of ox or group people.

[00:31:42.800 – 00:31:48.700] And I think that Rowland made me ready to receive those ideas.

[00:31:48.700 – 00:31:56.600] If I hadn’t been first approached by alcoholics, I don’t believe those people could have sold me this bill of goods.

[00:31:56.600 – 00:32:01.600] But he said, “I have bought enough of it so that I feel released.

[00:32:01.600 – 00:32:06.100] It seems to me that I’m not any longer fighting booze.

[00:32:06.100 – 00:32:13.100] The obsession has been lifted out of me.” Release, he talked about.

[00:32:13.100 – 00:32:14.000] And then he went away.

[00:32:14.000 – 00:32:17.500] Didn’t press me, didn’t evangelize me, didn’t try to save my soul.

[00:32:17.500 – 00:32:20.400] I went on drinking for a while.

[00:32:20.400 – 00:32:29.000] And in no waking hour could I get the spectacle of that fellow sitting across that kitchen table out of my mind.

[00:32:29.000 – 00:32:35.100] So here we were, one alcoholic talking to another.

[00:32:35.100 – 00:32:39.000] Young had said it’s hopeless.

[00:32:39.000 – 00:32:42.600] Hazard had got transformed.

[00:32:42.600 – 00:32:45.300] He passed it along to Ebby.

[00:32:45.300 – 00:32:51.600] Ebby had been exposed to these people who were practicing what they preached.

[00:32:51.600 – 00:32:56.600] And he, another alcoholic, was talking to me across the kitchen table.

[00:32:56.600 – 00:33:06.900] And then in my background was another god of science who said, “No, science can’t do it for you.”

[00:33:06.900 – 00:33:15.300] So I was being made ready through all these agencies and people for what was about to happen.

[00:33:15.300 – 00:33:21.300] Ebby came another time with his friend Shep.

[00:33:21.300 – 00:33:29.200] I remember going down to Old Calvary Mission, getting there terribly drunk.

[00:33:29.200 – 00:33:32.400] They were about to throw me out.

[00:33:32.400 – 00:33:35.200] I said I was looking for something.

[00:33:35.200 – 00:33:41.100] Ebby said, “How about a plate of beans?” They get me sober enough.

[00:33:41.100 – 00:33:42.200] They take me in.

[00:33:42.200 – 00:33:44.100] I sit with the other penitents.

[00:33:44.100 – 00:33:45.700] I take the walk up the aisle.

[00:33:45.700 – 00:33:55.800] And as I knelt there among those sweaty people, I remember getting a little feeling

[00:33:55.800 – 00:33:57.900] of, of something new and different.

[00:33:57.900 – 00:34:04.000] And then it was gone again, and I went back to drinking, and I went back to fighting this God idea.

[00:34:04.000 – 00:34:10.500] But there was the face of this drunk across that kitchen table, and I knew that he wasn’t on the water wagon.

[00:34:10.500 – 00:34:13.400] Something had removed his obsession to drink.

[00:34:13.400 – 00:34:19.400] So I said, “Well, if there’s any great doctor, I’d better seek him out.

[00:34:19.400 – 00:34:29.800] But first of all, I better get sober.” I go back to Towns Hospital, all month ahead, ahead with the DTs this time, not in too bad shape, determined

[00:34:29.800 – 00:34:34.700] to get sober and have another look at this neat little formula.

[00:34:34.700 – 00:34:38.600] I arrived there, bottle in hand.

[00:34:38.600 – 00:34:42.900] I remember Silky standing in the hall shaking his head.

[00:34:42.900 – 00:34:49.800] I yelled at him, waving a bottle, saying, “This time I got something, doc.” He said, “I’m afraid you have, boy.

[00:34:49.800 – 00:35:00.200] Upstairs to bed.” The poor old man really loved me as

[00:35:00.200 – 00:35:07.600] he loved all of those ten thousand drunks that have gone through Knickerbocker and the other thirty thousand he talked with besides.

[00:35:07.600 – 00:35:11.000] So I go to bed.

[00:35:11.000 – 00:35:15.100] Three days later, my friend shows up in the door.

[00:35:15.100 – 00:35:20.500] I said, “Uh-oh.

[00:35:20.500 – 00:35:23.400] Maybe he’s going to evangelize me.

[00:35:23.400 – 00:35:25.000] Maybe he’s gonna put heat on me.

[00:35:25.000 – 00:35:28.300] Maybe he’s gonna try and save my soul.” Didn’t do any such thing.

[00:35:28.300 – 00:35:33.300] He was full of that great Christian vir– uh, virtue called prudence.

[00:35:33.300 – 00:35:35.000] He knew my prejudices.

[00:35:35.000 – 00:35:37.100] He waited and made me ask.

[00:35:37.100 – 00:35:40.500] “Ebby, what’s that neat little formula?” “Oh, yeah.

[00:35:40.500 – 00:35:42.000] You get honest with yourself.

[00:35:42.000 – 00:35:45.100] You get honest with another person about yourself.

[00:35:45.100 – 00:35:47.700] Internal housecleaning.

[00:35:47.700 – 00:35:50.200] Clean away the debris of the past.

[00:35:50.200 – 00:35:56.900] Help others with no demand for reward and prestige or money.

[00:35:56.900 – 00:36:06.800] Pray to God as you understand Him for guidance to direct your life and expel his obsession.” As simple as that.

[00:36:06.800 – 00:36:08.900] Nothing more, nothing less.

[00:36:08.900 – 00:36:11.800] And soon he was gone.

[00:36:11.800 – 00:36:15.900] And still I rebelled.

[00:36:15.900 – 00:36:26.200] And suddenly, I suppose, and momentarily, certainly,

[00:36:26.200 – 00:36:35.200] this terrific ego of mine just collapsed, and I dropped into a terrific depression.

[00:36:35.200 – 00:36:42.600] And in the agony of that depression, I cried out.

[00:36:42.600 – 00:36:53.200] I said, “Now, I am prepared to do anything, anything, anything at all to get what Ebby described.

[00:36:53.200 – 00:36:56.500] Like a cancer patient, if there’s any great physician.

[00:36:56.500 – 00:37:05.400] If there is any God, let Him show Himself.” And then the place went electric in a great white light.

[00:37:05.400 – 00:37:11.500] I was seized with an ecstasy, which is in nobody’s power to describe.

[00:37:11.500 – 00:37:15.300] In the mind’s eye, it seemed as though I was on a mountain.

[00:37:15.300 – 00:37:16.600] A great wind is blowing.

[00:37:16.600 – 00:37:22.300] I think this is not air.

[00:37:22.300 – 00:37:23.800] This, this is of spirit.

[00:37:23.800 – 00:37:24.700] I’m free.

[00:37:24.700 – 00:37:34.900] Then the ecstasy subsides, and I find that I’m in another world, a world in which everything is all

[00:37:34.900 – 00:37:37.300] right, no matter how wrong it seems to be.

[00:37:37.300 – 00:37:40.000] The assurance was complete.

[00:37:40.000 – 00:37:50.200] There was a sensation that I was surrounded by and suffused with a presence, and I thought to myself, “So this is the God of the preachers.”

[00:37:50.200 – 00:38:00.500] Such was the gift that I received that day, and such were the sources

[00:38:00.500 – 00:38:03.100] through which it had come.

[00:38:03.100 – 00:38:14.000] Well, pretty soon, another source comes walking into that hospital

[00:38:14.000 – 00:38:15.300] in the shape of a book.

[00:38:15.300 – 00:38:21.000] And it was called Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

[00:38:21.000 – 00:38:24.500] I think it was then in circulation among the Oxford Group.

[00:38:24.500 – 00:38:28.100] And I remember how avidly I went through those pages.

[00:38:28.100 – 00:38:34.300] Kind of a learned document, a little over my head, but out of it stood these common denominators.

[00:38:34.300 – 00:38:44.000] The people who get these transforming experiences the more readily are those who utterly surrender and give up.

[00:38:44.000 – 00:38:47.900] Then the transformation sets in.

[00:38:47.900 – 00:38:51.100] Oh, sometimes in a blaze such as mine does– did.

[00:38:51.100 – 00:38:53.000] That doesn’t make any difference.

[00:38:53.000 – 00:39:03.100] May take weeks, may take months, but it is a transforming experiences– experience that apparently arises out of some terrific col-collapse

[00:39:03.100 – 00:39:03.700] of depth.

[00:39:03.700 – 00:39:07.500] That much stood out of those pages.

[00:39:07.500 – 00:39:11.700] And then I realized how I had been conditioned for this.

[00:39:11.700 – 00:39:14.900] The God of science, Dr.

[00:39:14.900 – 00:39:16.200] Young, Dr.

[00:39:16.200 – 00:39:17.900] Selworth said, “No.

[00:39:17.900 – 00:39:23.500] You can’t do it on your own resource, and you can’t do it on the resources of science.

[00:39:23.500 – 00:39:27.200] Of yourself, you are literally nothing.

[00:39:27.200 – 00:39:31.100] It isn’t a question of God’s help, and you’ll do it.

[00:39:31.100 – 00:39:41.100] You can’t do anything.” And when we got to that point of complete defeat, when those cases in the book did, then the transformation would set in,

[00:39:41.100 – 00:39:51.300] and would so change and re-motivate the people affected that it couldn’t be accounted for by any association

[00:39:51.300 – 00:39:55.900] or program or discipline or what have you.

[00:39:55.900 – 00:39:57.900] It began to be clear what had happened.

[00:39:57.900 – 00:40:06.300] So I get down to the Oxford Group, and we have here tonight another friend.

[00:40:06.300 – 00:40:16.300] Earl was a channel for the inspiration that Roland got, and Ebby got, and

[00:40:16.300 – 00:40:17.300] I got.

[00:40:17.300 – 00:40:27.800] It was from him, and his living example, and the principles that he taught, that we have drawn the essential

[00:40:27.800 – 00:40:31.400] elements of our recovery program in AA.

[00:40:31.400 – 00:40:39.800] In other words, the scientists deflated Ebby and me, and Roland, and made us ready.

[00:40:39.800 – 00:40:48.800] Here was the fellow who channeled in the truths which we were then able to buy.

[00:40:48.800 – 00:40:58.600] And that fellow is a great soul, and this society will forever be in his debt.

[00:40:58.600 – 00:41:08.800] He was mightily used as a channel for us, as he has been mightily used in this country and all over the world.

[00:41:08.800 – 00:41:13.300] So it’s about time, folks, that you knew Sam Shoemaker better.

[00:41:13.300 – 00:41:23.300] I’m going to ask him to get up here and reminisce a couple of minutes about his first impressions of us drunks as we were trying to get well down

[00:41:23.300 – 00:41:24.400] around his church.

[00:41:24.400 – 00:41:46.500] I

[00:41:46.500 – 00:41:56.600] feel, good friends, that there is something inappropriate and a little bit obtrusive about anybody saying anything after Bill tonight, and I wouldn’t do it but at

[00:41:56.600 – 00:41:57.400] his behest.

[00:41:59.400 – 00:42:05.800] When I knew this occasion was coming to pass, I wanted to come from Pittsburgh.

[00:42:05.800 – 00:42:09.500] I wouldn’t have been anywhere else in the world tonight if I could get here.

[00:42:09.500 – 00:42:12.900] I love Bill, and I love Lois.

[00:42:12.900 – 00:42:17.500] Lois didn’t look like she does tonight in those days.

[00:42:17.500 – 00:42:21.700] She looked twenty years older, not twenty years younger.

[00:42:21.700 – 00:42:32.800] Although she has added that silver touch on the top, which is so becoming, and

[00:42:32.800 – 00:42:35.700] about which I’m a little more aware than I was in those days.

[00:42:35.700 – 00:42:36.900] I require it myself.

[00:42:36.900 – 00:42:43.000] It was an immense privilege to watch this thing take place.

[00:42:43.000 – 00:42:53.100] And one of the joys and privileges of my life has been the very minor

[00:42:53.100 – 00:42:59.600] share that, uh, we had down at Calvary Church in its beginnings.

[00:42:59.600 – 00:43:09.800] We weren’t sure whether Bill was going off on a kind of aberration, uh, leaving

[00:43:09.800 – 00:43:18.700] the rest of us in the old group, and, uh, he’d went off on a kind of a toot just to work with his own alcoholic friends.

[00:43:18.700 – 00:43:26.800] Thank God, Bill stayed with it and left us alone with our misgivings about it.

[00:43:26.800 – 00:43:36.900] When I think of the days of– and weeks, and I guess years almost, of pretty nearly solitary

[00:43:36.900 – 00:43:47.000] pioneering that he and a very few others had to do, I am profoundly grateful that he just kept on with the thing that he felt he was being led and

[00:43:47.000 – 00:43:47.900] called to do.

[00:43:47.900 – 00:43:56.400] I remember that incident about Ebby and breaking in through the lady’s house and asking for a cup of coffee.

[00:43:56.400 – 00:44:01.400] As I recall it, she wanted to have him arrested for trespassing, not for tearing her house down.

[00:44:01.400 – 00:44:11.400] We little knew in those days what was in the

[00:44:11.400 – 00:44:16.600] wind and what God would make out of these beginnings.

[00:44:16.600 – 00:44:23.400] Tenuous, difficult, in a way groping because this was real pioneering.

[00:44:23.400 – 00:44:26.200] Nobody else had dealt with this thing.

[00:44:26.200 – 00:44:34.100] Nobody else had seriously tried to apply faith in this whole situation.

[00:44:34.100 – 00:44:44.500] I still will always say to Bill and to the AA family that, uh, our main contribution was making some mistakes

[00:44:44.500 – 00:44:47.100] that if we hadn’t made them first, somebody was gonna have to make afterwards.

[00:44:47.100 – 00:44:50.700] I always had a kind of a liking for sinners.

[00:44:50.700 – 00:44:56.000] I always kind of liked people that were in mischief better than I liked stuffy church people.

[00:44:56.000 – 00:44:56.700] I still do.

[00:44:56.700 – 00:45:00.600] They’re more fun to fool with.

[00:45:00.600 – 00:45:11.100] And I got a pious notion when we had not long built Calvary House down at sixty-one Gramercy Park that

[00:45:11.100 – 00:45:15.100] it would be an excellent addition if we took on about half a dozen gentlemen drunks.

[00:45:15.100 – 00:45:21.800] I had an old boy of a friend of mine up here who was a good candidate, and there were many others.

[00:45:21.800 – 00:45:26.800] And I thought they’d help each other, and they did help each other, but they helped each other down and not up.

[00:45:26.800 – 00:45:36.800] And when one Sunday morning, I went to my church, and through the central stained glass window over the altar, I found an alarm clock that had been hurled through

[00:45:36.800 – 00:45:40.100] the window the night before from the parish house that stood just behind it.

[00:45:40.100 – 00:45:43.600] I became aware that we weren’t doing such an awful good job with my gentleman drunk friends.

[00:45:43.600 – 00:45:50.300] And I still think that our mistakes were one of the best contributions that we made to AA.

[00:45:50.300 – 00:46:00.700] But I’m grateful for those years because with old Harry Hadley down at Calvary Mission and with our own blunders at sixty-one Gramercy Park,

[00:46:00.700 – 00:46:03.500] uh, I think Bill and some others learned how not to do it.

[00:46:03.500 – 00:46:11.300] Concerning Roland, it was an astonishing thing to see.

[00:46:11.300 – 00:46:18.600] I knew Roland well, and the change in that man’s life was a fabulous spectacle.

[00:46:18.600 – 00:46:28.700] If you go down inside the front door of old Calvary Church at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-first Street and turn to the right, you will find a very small stained glass window

[00:46:28.700 – 00:46:32.900] inside that vestibule in memory of Roland Hazard.

[00:46:32.900 – 00:46:37.700] When that fellow died, he was again a vestryman of that particular Episcopal church.

[00:46:37.700 – 00:46:47.900] God had kept that fellow right through, uh, until his end in an amazing kind of victory, and I am grateful for the part that

[00:46:47.900 – 00:46:50.700] he had in this amazing development.

[00:46:50.700 – 00:46:59.400] Bill says that the element of honesty has been terribly important in this development.

[00:46:59.400 – 00:47:06.800] Concerning those absolutes, I believe absolutes are a good thing to go for.

[00:47:06.800 – 00:47:10.200] I think they’re a very bad thing to think you’ve ever reached.

[00:47:10.200 – 00:47:20.300] I heard about a Carthusian monk a while ago who was speaking about some other monastic orders, and he said, “Of course, the Franciscans

[00:47:20.300 – 00:47:41.100] are rather ahead of us in piety and the Dominicans are way ahead of us in intellectual development, but for humility, we’re tops.” Now,

[00:47:41.100 – 00:47:46.800] look out for thinking that you’re absolutely honest or absolutely pure or absolutely loving or absolutely unselfish.

[00:47:46.800 – 00:47:52.300] It’s a great thing to go for as long as you don’t think you have gotten there.

[00:47:52.300 – 00:48:02.400] I knew an old colored preacher once who said, “If you think you is where you grind, you ain’t never gonna get there.” I

[00:48:02.400 – 00:48:12.600] work in Pittsburgh with a wonderful bishop named Austin Pardue, and he says that this matter of honesty, facing yourself, is the beginning of all Christian conversion.

[00:48:12.600 – 00:48:14.600] Yourself in the light of Christ.

[00:48:14.600 – 00:48:15.400] I believe he’s right.

[00:48:15.400 – 00:48:24.800] He also says that he thinks we had better pray to God to be merciful enough not to show us all of ourselves at one time.

[00:48:24.800 – 00:48:28.600] We would probably die from shock.

[00:48:28.600 – 00:48:39.200] We get these things step by step as we’re able to face them, but they are part of what

[00:48:39.200 – 00:48:44.000] makes this or any other movement that has the Spirit of God in it effective.

[00:48:44.000 – 00:48:54.400] I’m wondering when the churches and the rest of the world are gonna learn from this thing, that

[00:48:54.400 – 00:48:56.600] these 12 steps are not just good for alcoholics.

[00:48:56.600 – 00:49:01.100] They’re good for all sinners, starting with us.

[00:49:01.100 – 00:49:03.900] I haven’t reminisced very much.

[00:49:03.900 – 00:49:05.800] Bill’s better at this reminiscence than I am.

[00:49:05.800 – 00:49:13.300] I’ve been writing down every word he said that I could remember, ’cause I wanted to remember the exact story of precisely how it happened, and his memory’s a lot better than mine on that.

[00:49:13.300 – 00:49:23.800] But I do want to say to him what he has meant to

[00:49:23.800 – 00:49:34.900] those hundreds and thousands, tens of thousands of people, I suppose, outside the ranks of actual alcoholics, who have learned from AA a little bit better how

[00:49:34.900 – 00:49:42.600] to live and how to go after some of these absolutes, and also to remember that we have not reached them.

[00:49:42.600 – 00:49:45.400] This is a great night.

[00:49:45.400 – 00:49:51.100] I hope it’s a great step forward in this tremendous movement.

[00:49:51.100 – 00:49:52.500] I’ll say one thing and I’ll sit down.

[00:49:52.500 – 00:50:02.500] It was right here in this room, as I recall it, where we came for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting a few years ago, and Austin McCormick, the Commissioner of Correction in New

[00:50:02.500 – 00:50:04.500] York, was here and was a speaker at that time.

[00:50:04.500 – 00:50:06.700] And I remember his words.

[00:50:06.700 – 00:50:16.900] He said, “This may yet prove to be one of the great movements of all time.” I think the succeeding years have borne him out,

[00:50:16.900 – 00:50:22.500] and I believe the years that are ahead of us are gonna bear him out still more.

[00:50:22.500 – 00:50:32.600] Bill, it’s all right to listen to the kind of things these people

[00:50:32.600 – 00:50:35.700] have been saying to you if you don’t inhale.

[00:50:35.700 – 00:50:49.300] But

[00:50:49.300 – 00:50:50.400] let me just say one thing.

[00:50:50.400 – 00:50:52.400] You never can love any guy too much.

[00:50:52.400 – 00:50:56.200] You never can tell him too often that you love him.

[00:50:56.200 – 00:50:58.000] You can’t trust him too much.

[00:50:58.000 – 00:51:07.100] You can’t give any too great thanks to God for him if he’s putting his life out in interest for God to use, as Bill and Lois, God bless them, have done.

[00:51:07.100 – 00:51:21.300] I

[00:51:21.300 – 00:51:31.400] hope that the proof now goes on apace that nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous, and that we are the

[00:51:31.400 – 00:51:41.600] beneficiaries of a benign conspiracy of God to set us free, working through

[00:51:41.600 – 00:51:45.400] many willing minds and hearts and hands.

[00:51:45.400 – 00:51:55.500] Now, when I arrived down there in the Oxford Groups, I think I caused Sam and his dear friends almost

[00:51:55.500 – 00:51:58.500] as much trouble as the guys with the alarm clock.

[00:51:58.500 – 00:52:02.400] Because I had this very fixed idea.

[00:52:02.400 – 00:52:08.400] Maybe it was partly inspiration, but I fancy there was a good deal of conceit in it.

[00:52:08.400 – 00:52:16.200] I was soon heard to say, “I am going to sober up all the drunks in the world.” And we set out apace to do it.

[00:52:16.200 – 00:52:19.400] The house over Clinton Street was filled with drunks.

[00:52:19.400 – 00:52:29.100] We visited the Calvary Mission, up at Towns Hospital, anywhere we could lay hands on them, and nothing whatever happened for six months.

[00:52:29.100 – 00:52:39.200] At that time, people began to murmur, “Why doesn’t this guy go to work?” In fact, I think

[00:52:39.200 – 00:52:46.000] some of my friends got guidance from God that I should go back to work, and it was eminently practical guidance.

[00:52:46.000 – 00:52:53.000] So I began to sit around Wall Street brokerage houses like MacArthur waiting for something to turn up, and it did.

[00:52:53.000 – 00:53:03.400] And suddenly I’m in the midst of a little proxy row that took me out to Akron, Ohio, and, and there’s a great milling around, and through some, uh,

[00:53:03.400 – 00:53:10.500] quickly found friends I hope to get control, listen to the word, of a small company.

[00:53:10.500 – 00:53:13.300] And then, of course, that would supply me the living.

[00:53:13.300 – 00:53:15.600] In my spare time, maybe we’d fix some drunks.

[00:53:15.600 – 00:53:16.800] We get to Akron.

[00:53:16.800 – 00:53:19.400] The deal blows up in my face.

[00:53:19.400 – 00:53:23.700] My friend is deprived and disgust.

[00:53:23.700 – 00:53:30.500] I’m in the Mayflower Hotel with $10 in my pocket, not enough for a fare home.

[00:53:30.500 – 00:53:39.100] For the first time since that experience in Towns Hospital, I began to be afraid.

[00:53:39.100 – 00:53:43.200] I found myself walking up and down in the Mayflower lobby.

[00:53:43.200 – 00:53:45.100] It was Saturday afternoon.

[00:53:45.100 – 00:53:46.900] The ballroom was filling up.

[00:53:46.900 – 00:53:54.100] Then I eased down to the other end of the corridor, and there stood a church directory.

[00:53:54.100 – 00:53:57.800] And absently I kept looking at it.

[00:53:57.800 – 00:54:01.300] Then suddenly I was seized with a real panic.

[00:54:01.300 – 00:54:10.100] I said to myself, “Look, my friend, you’re in a fair way to get drunk.” Then I’d walk up and down again.

[00:54:10.100 – 00:54:13.300] Well, why not go in the bar room and order a bottle of ginger ale?

[00:54:13.300 – 00:54:14.600] You might strike up an acquaintance.

[00:54:14.600 – 00:54:16.500] Pretty lonely there.

[00:54:16.500 – 00:54:27.000] And then it occurred to me, it was– it, in fact, it was borne in upon me for the first time that even though

[00:54:27.000 – 00:54:33.800] the effort I had made with other alcoholics had apparently brought nothing to them, it had brought a great deal to me.

[00:54:33.800 – 00:54:43.300] So then I say, “Oh, not teacher, not preacher, not evangelist.

[00:54:43.300 – 00:54:52.300] No, I need another alcoholic so that I can forget my troubles by talking to him.

[00:54:52.300 – 00:55:02.400] I need him as much as he needs me.” And I stopped again before the church directory, ran my fingers down

[00:55:02.400 – 00:55:04.600] the list of churches and preachers.

[00:55:04.600 – 00:55:07.000] It stopped at the name of Walter Thomas.

[00:55:07.000 – 00:55:11.900] Turned out to be the Episcopal preacher in town.

[00:55:11.900 – 00:55:16.900] I called up, and I said, “I’m an alcoholic from New York.

[00:55:16.900 – 00:55:18.300] I’m in a bad way.

[00:55:18.300 – 00:55:20.400] I’m not drunk, but I may get that way.

[00:55:20.400 – 00:55:25.100] I gotta have another drunk to work on.” Well, this was something of a shock to the good man.

[00:55:25.100 – 00:55:30.400] Uh, drunks one by one, uh, were bad enough, but not by twos and threes.

[00:55:30.400 – 00:55:33.300] However, he caught on.

[00:55:33.300 – 00:55:34.300] He was very nice.

[00:55:34.300 – 00:55:36.500] He gave me a list of some Oxford Group people.

[00:55:36.500 – 00:55:43.500] Well, the Oxford Group at that stage in Akron had kind of broken up into some factions.

[00:55:43.500 – 00:55:47.200] Nevertheless, one chap was very helpful.

[00:55:47.200 – 00:55:50.300] I finally got a list of maybe ten people.

[00:55:50.300 – 00:55:52.100] I began to call them up.

[00:55:52.100 – 00:55:54.800] Well, as I say, it was a Saturday afternoon.

[00:55:54.800 – 00:55:55.900] People were going away.

[00:55:55.900 – 00:55:56.900] They couldn’t be found.

[00:55:56.900 – 00:55:58.700] See you in church Sunday.

[00:55:58.700 – 00:56:02.800] Until I, and I finally exhausted the whole list.

[00:56:02.800 – 00:56:11.300] At the end of the list stood the name of Sadie, and I said, “Uh-oh, must be the wife of that rubber magnate.

[00:56:11.300 – 00:56:21.400] What would she want with a drunk from New York on a Saturday afternoon looking for a drunk to work on?” I even went

[00:56:21.400 – 00:56:27.600] downstairs and looked in the bar again, and something said to me, “You better go up there and make that call.” So I did.

[00:56:27.600 – 00:56:31.200] A lovely southern voice came over the wire.

[00:56:31.200 – 00:56:33.600] I quickly told her my story.

[00:56:33.600 – 00:56:36.600] She said, “I’m no alcoholic, but I think I understand.

[00:56:36.600 – 00:56:43.300] Will you come right straight out here?” Another friend who had time and who cared enough.

[00:56:43.300 – 00:56:45.700] I told her the story.

[00:56:45.700 – 00:56:47.500] She told me about Dr.

[00:56:47.500 – 00:56:57.500] Bob, how he’d fallen apart in that town as a surgeon, how he’d tried the groups, how he had read religious literature, how he’d

[00:56:57.500 – 00:57:01.800] tried church attendance, how he’d been treated medically.

[00:57:01.800 – 00:57:03.400] She knew he wanted to stop.

[00:57:03.400 – 00:57:04.500] Why couldn’t he stop?

[00:57:04.500 – 00:57:09.600] She called the Smiths’ house.

[00:57:09.600 – 00:57:11.400] Anne answered.

[00:57:11.400 – 00:57:18.700] And Anne said, “Well, this sounds interesting, Henrietta, but I don’t think we can come over today.

[00:57:18.700 – 00:57:27.700] You see, it’s Mother’s Day, and Bob is a sentimental man, and he has just come home with a great big potted plant from me.

[00:57:27.700 – 00:57:32.700] And he has set the plant upon the table, but he is so potted he is on floral.

[00:57:32.700 – 00:57:42.800] So I don’t think we can go over today.” “Well,” said Henrietta brightly, “won’t you come over tomorrow?” So next

[00:57:42.800 – 00:57:47.800] mor– uh, next afternoon at five o’clock, Dr.

[00:57:47.800 – 00:57:50.500] Bob and Anne walked in the door of Henrietta’s house.

[00:57:50.500 – 00:57:52.900] She discreetly ushered Dr.

[00:57:52.900 – 00:57:56.200] Bob and me into her library.

[00:57:56.200 – 00:57:57.800] Dr.

[00:57:57.800 – 00:58:02.300] Bob said, “I can’t stay but a few minutes.” I said, “I know just how you feel.

[00:58:02.300 – 00:58:02.700] You’re shaky.

[00:58:02.700 – 00:58:10.000] You probably want a drink.” The upshot was that we talked for four or five hours.

[00:58:10.000 – 00:58:20.100] And as his story in the book Alcoholics Anonymous will show, and as his recording made at Detroit not long before

[00:58:20.100 – 00:58:30.200] he died further demonstrates, the impression I made upon him was not directly of any spiritual

[00:58:30.200 – 00:58:31.300] character at all.

[00:58:31.300 – 00:58:42.100] He says over and over, “This is the first man that I ever met up with who knew what he was talking about concerning alcoholism out of his own experience

[00:58:42.100 – 00:58:52.500] and out of the mouths of scientists.” In other words, I took Sethe’s advice, and I poured

[00:58:52.500 – 00:58:59.600] the death sentence into him as hard as I could, so far as his being able to get over it by himself.

[00:58:59.600 – 00:59:07.700] The spark that was to be Alcoholics Anonymous was probably struck then and there.

[00:59:07.700 – 00:59:09.100] I went to live with Dr.

[00:59:09.100 – 00:59:09.700] Bob.

[00:59:09.700 – 00:59:12.500] Anne thought it would be a little safer.

[00:59:12.500 – 00:59:17.300] My business continued somehow in Akron for a while.

[00:59:17.300 – 00:59:19.100] I stayed there during that summer.

[00:59:19.100 – 00:59:22.600] And pretty soon, Dr.

[00:59:22.600 – 00:59:28.800] Bob was saying to me, “Bill, we better get to work.

[00:59:28.800 – 00:59:36.600] We better find some drunks.” So he called the city hospital, got a hold of the head nurse down there.

[00:59:36.600 – 00:59:41.700] Said there was a man from New York with a cure for alcoholism.

[00:59:41.700 – 00:59:50.800] The nurse said, “Doctor, have you tried it yourself?” He persisted.

[00:59:50.800 – 00:59:52.700] She said, “We’ve got just the man for it.

[00:59:52.700 – 00:59:54.000] Just came in here.

[00:59:54.000 – 00:59:55.400] Used to be a city councilman.

[00:59:55.400 – 00:59:56.900] Well-known lawyer about town.

[00:59:56.900 – 00:60:00.700] Couldn’t get home from here the last six times.

[00:60:00.700 – 00:60:03.100] Been in there six times in four months.

[00:60:03.100 – 00:60:06.400] Couldn’t even get home sober.

[00:60:06.400 – 00:60:08.500] We’ve got him strapped down.

[00:60:08.500 – 00:60:11.800] He blacked the eyes of one nurse before we did it.

[00:60:11.800 – 00:60:18.600] How would that one suit you?” The doc said, “Well, pull him to bed.” Here’s the medication.

[00:60:18.600 – 00:60:21.100] We’ll be down as soon as he cleared up.

[00:60:21.100 – 00:60:23.300] And presently, Dr.

[00:60:23.300 – 00:60:33.400] Bob and I looked at the first man on the bed, and that was Bill Dodson, who passed out of our sighting hearing only a few

[00:60:33.400 – 00:60:36.800] weeks ago, who never relapsed since.

[00:60:36.800 – 00:60:38.200] He kept the faith.

[00:60:38.200 – 00:60:46.100] Then in Akron, the city on the hill, three candles were lit, and it stayed lit.

[00:60:46.100 – 00:60:51.400] How many people then contributed?

[00:60:51.400 – 00:60:54.000] Vital contributions.

[00:60:54.000 – 00:60:54.900] Dr.

[00:60:54.900 – 00:61:03.800] Young, good old Silky, William James, Sam Shoemaker.

[00:61:03.800 – 00:61:08.600] Who then invented Alcoholics Anonymous?

[00:61:08.600 – 00:61:13.800] Well, it was God Almighty.

[00:61:13.800 – 00:61:24.000] Such is the story of how we alcoholics learn

[00:61:24.000 – 00:61:25.900] to be free of our obsession.

[00:61:25.900 – 00:61:36.200] May God grant that this AA trinity of recovery,

[00:61:36.200 – 00:61:46.200] of unity, and of service be a story which shall continue so long into the future

[00:61:46.200 – 00:61:48.400] as God may need us.

[00:61:48.400 – 00:62:16.000] In

[00:62:16.000 – 00:62:18.400] traditional conclusion, I will ask Dr.

[00:62:18.400 – 00:62:21.100] Shoemaker to lead us in the Lord’s Prayer.

[00:62:21.100 – 00:62:26.500] Let’s close in the usual way.

[00:62:26.500 – 00:62:32.900] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

[00:62:32.900 – 00:62:38.600] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[00:62:38.600 – 00:62:47.000] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

[00:62:47.000 – 00:62:51.800] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[00:62:51.800 – 00:62:57.300] For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

[00:62:57.300 – 00:62:58.400] Amen.

[00:58:42.100 – 00:58:52.500] and out of the mouths of scientists.” In other words, I took Sethe’s advice, and I poured

[00:58:52.500 – 00:58:59.600] the death sentence into him as hard as I could, so far as his being able to get over it by himself.

[00:58:59.600 – 00:59:07.700] The spark that was to be Alcoholics Anonymous was probably struck then and there.

[00:59:07.700 – 00:59:09.100] I went to live with Dr.

[00:59:09.100 – 00:59:09.700] Bob.

[00:59:09.700 – 00:59:12.500] Anne thought it would be a little safer.

[00:59:12.500 – 00:59:17.300] My business continued somehow in Akron for a while.

[00:59:17.300 – 00:59:19.100] I stayed there during that summer.

[00:59:19.100 – 00:59:22.600] And pretty soon, Dr.

[00:59:22.600 – 00:59:28.800] Bob was saying to me, “Bill, we better get to work.

[00:59:28.800 – 00:59:36.600] We better find some drunks.” So he called the city hospital, got a hold of the head nurse down there.

[00:59:36.600 – 00:59:41.700] Said there was a man from New York with a cure for alcoholism.

[00:59:41.700 – 00:59:50.800] The nurse said, “Doctor, have you tried it yourself?” He persisted.

[00:59:50.800 – 00:59:52.700] She said, “We’ve got just the man for it.

[00:59:52.700 – 00:59:54.000] Just came in here.

[00:59:54.000 – 00:59:55.400] Used to be a city councilman.

[00:59:55.400 – 00:59:56.900] Well-known lawyer about town.

[00:59:56.900 – 00:60:00.700] Couldn’t get home from here the last six times.

[00:60:00.700 – 00:60:03.100] Been in there six times in four months.

[00:60:03.100 – 00:60:06.400] Couldn’t even get home sober.

[00:60:06.400 – 00:60:08.500] We’ve got him strapped down.

[00:60:08.500 – 00:60:11.800] He blacked the eyes of one nurse before we did it.

[00:60:11.800 – 00:60:18.600] How would that one suit you?” The doc said, “Well, pull him to bed.” Here’s the medication.

[00:60:18.600 – 00:60:21.100] We’ll be down as soon as he cleared up.

[00:60:21.100 – 00:60:23.300] And presently, Dr.

[00:60:23.300 – 00:60:33.400] Bob and I looked at the first man on the bed, and that was Bill Dodson, who passed out of our sighting hearing only a few

[00:60:33.400 – 00:60:36.800] weeks ago, who never relapsed since.

[00:60:36.800 – 00:60:38.200] He kept the faith.

[00:60:38.200 – 00:60:46.100] Then in Akron, the city on the hill, three candles were lit, and it stayed lit.

[00:60:46.100 – 00:60:51.400] How many people then contributed?

[00:60:51.400 – 00:60:54.000] Vital contributions.

[00:60:54.000 – 00:60:54.900] Dr.

[00:60:54.900 – 00:61:03.800] Young, good old Silky, William James, Sam Shoemaker.

[00:61:03.800 – 00:61:08.600] Who then invented Alcoholics Anonymous?

[00:61:08.600 – 00:61:13.800] Well, it was God Almighty.

[00:61:13.800 – 00:61:24.000] Such is the story of how we alcoholics learn

[00:61:24.000 – 00:61:25.900] to be free of our obsession.

[00:61:25.900 – 00:61:36.200] May God grant that this AA trinity of recovery,

[00:61:36.200 – 00:61:46.200] of unity, and of service be a story which shall continue so long into the future

[00:61:46.200 – 00:61:48.400] as God may need us.

[00:61:48.400 – 00:62:16.000] In

[00:62:16.000 – 00:62:18.400] traditional conclusion, I will ask Dr.

[00:62:18.400 – 00:62:21.100] Shoemaker to lead us in the Lord’s Prayer.

[00:62:21.100 – 00:62:26.500] Let’s close in the usual way.

[00:62:26.500 – 00:62:32.900] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

[00:62:32.900 – 00:62:38.600] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[00:62:38.600 – 00:62:47.000] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

[00:62:47.000 – 00:62:51.800] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[00:62:51.800 – 00:62:57.300] For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

[00:62:57.300 – 00:62:58.400] Amen.

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