Anniversary Dinner, 1967

As Kirsten so poignantly put it, the days of the waste of the locusts are gone, and Jim so simply remarks, there is a God, and there is a grace. On these occasions, it is usually my custom to try to hit, by brief word pictures, the high point, running the length of our history. This time, I think I would like to follow the pattern of our two dear friends who have just spoken. I would like to tell you my own story. First, in terms of the waste of the locusts, and the reasons I now see for this, and then in terms of my belief that I know there is a God, and there is a grace, and why the outcome for me and so many is because of that. Our Chairman, who remarked upon the wonderful friends that AA had from the start, and he might have added, even before AA was even a gleam in the eye among any of us. The thing that characterized all of these friends, who have donated their skills to us, has been this, that in each case where telling contributions were made, all of these men and women were spiritually centered and animated. As a backdrop for my personal tale, I would like to go back and sketch just one historical situation out of which our fellowship sprang. Many of you have heard me tell this story before, how an alcoholic called Roar, a prominent businessman, here in America, progressively getting alcoholic, one treatment, one so-called cure after another, no result, and how finally, as his refuge of last resort, he went to Europe and literally cast himself upon the cure of our great friend, the Dr. Carl Jung. You will recall Dr. Carl as one of the three first pioneers in the art of psychiatry. But the thing that distinguished him from his two earlier colleagues, Jung and Adler, was the fact that he was spiritually animated. Something that was to make all the difference to each and every one of us now here, and will make the difference of all yet to come. The patient Roland, under treatment for a year, felt that the hidden strings of his motivation at depth had been revealed to him. And he truly believed that with this deeper understanding of his psychology at depth, that he was in truth liberated. And he left Dr. Jung happy, confident. And in one month he was back in terrible shape. And he said to the doctor, Dr. Carl, you were my court of last resort. What shall I do now? Was there no other resort? And then that very wise and noble and humble and spiritually animated man, simply said these things. Roland, I truly believe that you were one of those cases that my art might help. And that’s why we worked so long. But I now have to tell you that my art can do nothing for you. You asked if there is any other resource. And I can only say this. Time out of mind, here and there, now and then. People like yourself have got their release into freedom through a spiritual awakening, a spiritual experience, a conversion into life. All but said, Roland, I am a religious man. I was a vestryman in the church. I still have faith in God, but assuredly he has no ground for faith in me. But, said the doctor, I am speaking of something that goes just beyond faith. It is another dimension. This is the dimension of an experience in grace that will alter your motivations and restore you to sanity. So, said the patient, how do I find such an experience? And Jung replied, frankly, I don’t know. You just place yourself in a congenial religious atmosphere and cast yourself upon whatever God you may know. And perhaps the awakening will come. But these awakenings do not come too often. This is the best I can suggest. So Roland did place himself among the Oxford groups of that time, subsequently came to America. And he practiced very simple precepts, precepts which might have been drawn from almost any sound religion. He felt an unaccountable relief from his obsession. And you know how he came to my own sponsor, Abby, who was about to be put away by the town fathers in Vermont. Because he had run his car, his father’s bright new shiny car, through the side of a house, and had calmly stuck his head out the door there in the kitchen and asked the quivering lady for a cup of coffee. Now then, that is the line of succession from Dr. Carl Jung to us, via Roland, via Abby, then to me, then to Dr. Bob. And then, the table being set, the candles began to be lit. Now then, there is a beautiful aftermath to this story. I never realized what a very great man in spiritual dimensions, Carl Jung, was until in 1961. I wrote him a very belated letter of gratitude for the part he had played in originating the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in my letter, I think I dwell very much upon the spiritual awakening as the thing about which all of our activities gravitate and conspire to produce. This was the last year of his life. But nevertheless, he sat down and he wrote me a letter. It looked like he had tapped it out with one finger. It is one of my most cherished possessions. Lois framed it, and it will always be with us. Now let us mark very carefully what this man says in the language of the heart and in profound love and understanding. He said, Dear Mr. Wilson, your letter has been very welcome indeed. But I had no news from Roland anymore and often wondered what had been his fate. Our conversation, which he has adequately reported to you, did have an aspect of which he did not know. The reason that I could not tell him everything was that in those days I had to be exceedingly careful of what I said. I found out that I was misunderstood in every possible way. Thus I was very careful when I talked to Roland. But in the deeper sense, what I really thought about was the result of experiences with many men of his kind. Roland’s craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our beings for wholeness, which expressed in mediaeval language means the union with God. But how could one formulate such an insight in a language that is not misunderstood in our days? And then he continued. The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path, a path which leads you to a higher understanding. You may be led to that goal by an act of grace and by personal and honest contact with friends or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism. I am strongly convinced that the evil principle now prevailing in this world leads this unrecognized spiritual need of ours into perdition if it is not counteracted either by real religious insight or by the protective wall of human immunity. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society, cannot resist this power of evil which is aptly called the devil. However, the use of such words arouse so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as he can. These are the reasons why I felt I could not give a full and sufficient explanation to Rowland. But now, much later, I am risking it for you, with you, because I conclude from your very decent and honest letter that you have acquired a point of view above the misleading platitudes one usually hears about alcoholism. You see, alcohol in Latin is called spiritus and you use this same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula, therefore, is spiritus contra spiritum which I think freely translated means the bottle against the divine spirit. Thanking you again for your kind letter, I remain yours sincerely, C.G. Jung. As I said at the outset, the old man was in the final months of his life and he added this most affecting postscript, a quotation from one of the psalms. As the heart panteth after the water book, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. This was the measure of the man who meant everything to us when he was still in embryo. Now let me cut back to my story. My first recollection was lying in a crib and seeing a very high mountain. Apparently already I had got the climbing instinct and I thought to myself, shall I ever climb so high as this? Another recollection at seven years. I am different, I am awkward, I cannot compete with the other boys. A recollection at ten years. Sitting with my sister on what we thought was going to be a picnic. Mother told me that she and father had parted company forever. Sensitive, isolated as I always was. This seemed like a most terrible rejection. We had lived in a small Vermont town. Mother went off to learn to be an osteopath. I came under the care of my grandfather. My next recollection was his encouragement of me to try to excel. So to triumph over my awkwardness and my failure to compete, I decided I would be an athlete. I began to dream tremendous dreams of power. Even then, as with many a small boy, I thought of being the President of the United States. So it went with athletics. So it went in the boarding school. Now these were just not ordinary ambitions. Legitimate aspirations. To be secure in the goodwill of one’s fellows. To make a contribution to life. To be somebody. Oh no, this went far deeper. This was an insensate, utter demand upon myself to win. To triumph. Not to be a part of, but to dominate. Soon this drive began to succeed. I became President of the class. I was pitcher on the ball team. I was surveyed by one of the leagues. I was head of nearly everything in the boarding school. I even took up music when I couldn’t carry a tune to the great amusement of my grandfather. No matter what it was, I had to be on top. Then came a crashing experience. My first encounter with absolute utter and what seemed to me to be final defeat. As I said, I had felt awkward, and I still felt this way about girls. But then I fell in love with the minister’s daughter. My first experience. So my cup was full. Here was romance. Here was security. Here was superiority. And then one morning, the principal got up in the chapel with a very sorrowful face, and he said, I don’t quite know how to say it, but Bertha Bamford died suddenly last night. And the impact of that awful shock lingered for years. My first experience with utter and absolute defeat. What was the reaction? It was an utter collapse. I withdrew into myself. I failed to graduate. There was a depression that seemed to be unendurable. I felt that life was over. You can see this was not a proper reaction for a youth my age. He would have soon been with another companion, but not me. I’m carrying the torch. But that companion did come, and she was lost. And last time, I had to go on again. But again, the same process was repeated. World War broke out. I’m in the military school. And twice I’m in the Army. And there I got a big guilt complex. Why? Because when the choice was given me of the Air Force, the infantry, or the heavy artillery, which was the safer one, I took the artillery. I never got over that until another experience came in the hold of the Lancashire as it entered the Irish Sea. And I was on watch below. And there was a crash, and I was sure the ship was struck. And there was a panic. And I was instructed to shoot if it got bad. And when I found I could do it, all of a sudden another great wave of exultation, even though the damn ship was apparently going down. Well, it wasn’t. It wasn’t hit after all. Next experience. We’re about to go over the Channel. We’re in camps at Winchester, England. One day I’m in town. I wandered into old Winchester Field. And there were very rough, tough-looking doughboys, hats off. I thought about the Channel crossing. Again, there was this sinking sensation. But very briefly, just for a moment, I was caught up. There was something about the place. There was a grace there. Again, this is all obliterated. The water comes and goes. I come back to New York. I find myself in Wall Street. So I shifted my goal from the presidency of the United States to the presidency of the United States Steel Corporation. And the drive for prestige, glory, money, power was on. But during the war, I had taken that first drink. This was in New Bedford. How well I can remember is the fact. How very sure I am that it meant more to me than a mere relaxation. Because it lowered, indeed it took down, that strange barrier isolating me from my fellowship, I could communicate in what I thought was the language of the heart. Of course, I was merely bragging of my ambition. And so the boom mounted. And then the bust came. And as you see, the economy of the United States is a boom and bust phenomenon. And I turned into such an economy myself. I was soon busted. The big slide was on. The drinking increased. And now I did not drink to stimulate my grandiosity. I drank to cover up my depression. And then there was a great opportunity, even in the bottom of the depression. By this time, the protectorate of Lois became almost complete. She was actually supporting me. Here was a chance out. My new associates knew of my drinking proclivities. And they gave me a share in the syndicate, a generous one. For no money at all, I merely contributed services. But the contract stipulated that it would immediately end if I took so much as one drink. Well, yes, like I said, great store by contract. I honestly thought that when I signed my name to that document, that the drinking troubles were a thing of the past. And yet, inside of three months, I am drunk again. And by this time, this meant one, often two, and three bottles of bathtub gin a day. And by then I had begun to make those trips to the hospital. And by then I had met another spiritually animated man, Dr. Silkworth. Unlike Carl Jung, he was in an obscure position. But he was spiritually centered, he had to be. He declared to all comers, after twenty years of almost absolute defeat in trying to help alcoholics, that he did love alcoholics. And everyone who came that way, to him, felt it. And a few did recover. And just like Rowland in Jung’s case, he thought I’d be one. And then the day came when it was clear that I wouldn’t be, that I couldn’t be. By this time he had defined alcoholism as a sickness of the soul, a sickness of the emotions, coupled to a sickness of the body, which he loosely described as an allergy. These views of his are now to be seen in a foreword to the book Alcoholics Anonymous, called The Doctor’s Opinion. And this was to be incorporated into the synthesis that is AA. But again, like Jung, he was obliged to say to me, and to Lloyd, on a fateful day in the summer of 1934, I am afraid that Bill will have to be committed. There is nothing that I can do for him or anything else that I know. Words of great humility from a professional. So that was the sense. I was scared into sobriety for a few months. Then came the day, Lloyd had to work, it was a holiday, but I went to Staten Island to play golf. Unaccountably I was taken drunk again. It was Armistice Day. I had stopped in a saloon for a sandwich. I was fully informed about alcoholism, the obsession that condemns us to drink, and the physical deformity that sensitizes us so we shall surely die or go mad if we do. Yes, I knew this formula. Where was the formula when the bartender came along and planked a glass down in front of me and said, It’s Armistice Day. Have one on the house. This clear inability to recall the penalty wasn’t there. I picked up the glass and took it. Then I realized what I had done, what I thought. And you well know what I thought. I thought, well, I’ve taken one, so I might as well have a few more. The next morning, Lois found me in the area way at 182 Clinton Street, where we were barely hanging on. The bank rented us the house for $20 a month because Lois’ parents had left the mortgage so big that the house couldn’t be sold. So there I was. Indeed, this was the end of the line. So I settled down to scraping up gin money, and around the clock I sat in the kitchen, uneven laid in bed with the gin bottles. One afternoon, the telephone rang. Eddie was on the wire. I had long classified him as a hopeless alcoholic, but everyone in New York obviously sober. My immediate thought, let’s get Eddie over. We’ll have a few drinks. We will talk about the good old days. Ah, a more significant thought that one. We would talk about the joys of the past. We would forget the present. We would not remember in our cups that the future was unbearable. So Eddie came, and I was half tanked and looked out through the grating as I opened the door, and immediately I sensed about him something that was different. He came in and sat across the table from me. I pushed over a glass of gin spiked with a lot of pineapple juice, or vice versa. And he shook his head and grinned. I said, what do you mean, Eddie? You’re not drinking? Well, he said, not for today. Well, we started to visit a little, and of course I’m extremely curious. I said, tell me about this no drinking business. So he told me. He said, I’ve got religion. Like Jim said. He didn’t spell it out. I know there is a God and I’ve got grace. Well, I had been raised pretty much as an agnostic. I deserted congregational Sunday school at about 11 because, number one, I couldn’t play ball on Sundays and go to Sunday school. Number two, the most onerous of all requirements, I was expected to sign, it’s the temperance pledge. So that was the end of my religious education. Then I’d gone in for science. I said, Abby, would you mind telling me, as politely as I could, what brand of religion you’ve got? And very good-naturedly, he said, well, I wouldn’t call it exactly a brand. It’s pretty old vintage stuff. You’ve heard it before. But, you know, I fell in with a bunch of these Oxford groups. It’s non-denominational. Each guy has his own theology. Mine’s pretty simple. But, you know, the fellow who brought me into this was an alcoholic. And he had been released from his obsession of drinking through the group. And then Abby proceeded to give me my first information about what Carl Jung had said. And then Abby said, you know, oh, he said, this program’s pretty simple. He said, you know, you get honest with yourself. You quit living alone so you get honest with people around you. You make restitution for those you have harmed. You try the kind of giving that demands no reward, either in approval or prestige or indeed money. And then you pray to whatever God you think there is. Or if you think there isn’t any, then you ask help from a higher power, if there is one, just as an experiment. Well, certainly there was nothing so new about this. Or was there? Yes, there was something new because these ancient life-saving principles were this time being transmitted into me at great depth because we were both dwellers in this strange world of alcoholism. And he also began to talk about his release, the feeling that he wasn’t booze-fighting anymore, that when he fell into the company of Roland and a couple of other drunks in the Oxford group at that time, and he began to be willing to be honest and to make some restitution and be helpful to people and so on, now this feeling of being released had come. Ah, this explained then the quality of our first surprise, which I had sensed when he came in the door. Now then, these words hit me at great depth because in no waking hour afterwards, for a week or two, could the vision of Ebbie released be erased from my mind. And then I began to be very resentful. Here was Dr. Selfworth who had defined alcoholism, the obsession that condemns you to drink against your will and interest, even under the structure, the bodily sensitivity that guarantees madness and death. And here came you, the Ahazard, and Ebbie confirming this. So my God, science, has declared me to be hopeless. And so here came Ebbie with hope. Oh yes, it wouldn’t be too hard to get on it, perhaps. It wouldn’t be too bad to make restitution. One would pay almost any price. But I couldn’t buy the Godsend. I just couldn’t do it. So I felt terribly trapped. I felt even worse than though he’d never come. But then, as the days of drinking wore on, I said, but this thing I have to find. But I’m Yankee. We folks mustn’t have any of this emotional religious stuff. I wouldn’t really dare try this without going up and seeing good old Dr. Selfworth and letting him sober me up so that I can think it over. So up I went. I entered the hospital waving a bottle. That has kind of put me on top at the minute. So I shouted in a loud voice, Doc, I got something this time. And he looked at me very sadly and said, I’m afraid you have. Bill, you should go upstairs and get to bed. Now I have come to the hospital way ahead of the DTs. In only two or three days, I was out of all sedation and so on. But the more that consciousness came back to me, the worse I felt. And the depression deepened and deepened. And the dilemma, which I have just posed, closed its jaws on me unbearably. And one morning, Ebby turned up, unexpectedly, on his mouth. My first thought, gee, I’m so glad he’s come. Then another reassurance, well, he certainly practices what he preaches. Really, why should he come up here to see me at this time of day when he should be working? So Ebby was a man of prudence. He said nothing about his recovery. Again, we just talked about old times. And he put me in a way where I had to ask him to repeat once more what he said over that kitchen table. Well, he said, you know, you get honest with yourself, you make yourself survey, you talk it out with the other guy, you quit living alone, you begin to get straight with the world around by making restitutions, and you ask whatever higher power there is, even if it’s just an experiment, to help you do these things, that you may find the grace to be released from alcoholism. Quite simple, quite matter-of-fact, and always lightly said with a smile, this is it. This was prudence. No pressure, no evangelism. So he finally took his leave, and now the jaws of the dilemma really crushed. And I hit an all-time box. And I can only suppose that the last specimen of my prideful optimism, or any part of the belief that there was a single thing I could do for myself alone, was for the moment rubbed out. And I found myself as a child, utterly alone, in complete darkness. And I cried out as a child, expecting little. Indeed, expecting nothing. And I simply said, if there is a God, will he show himself? And then I was granted one of these instantaneous illuminations, the sort of thing that really defies description. I was seized with great joy and ecstasy beyond any possibility of question. In the mind’s eye, it seemed to me I stood on a mountain. I was taken there. I hadn’t planned it. And then the great thought burst upon me, Bill, you’re a free man. This is the God of the preacher. And then I was filled with the consciousness of a person. And still on the bed, naturally, a great peace stole over me. And I was with it, I don’t know how long. But then the dark side put in an appearance. And it said to me, perhaps, Bill, you are hallucinating. You’d better call in the doctor. So the doctor came. And haulingly, I told him of this experience. And then came great words for Alcoholics Anonymous. The little man had listened, the nods looking at me so benignly with those blue eyes of his. And at length he said, Bill, no. He said, you’re not crazy. I have read about this sort of thing in the books, but I have never seen one firsthand. I don’t know what it is you have, Bill, but what it is, it must be some great psychic event. You had better hang on to it. It’s so much better than what had you only an hour ago. So I commenced to hang on. And then I knew there was a God. And I knew there was a grace. And through all my sister’s attention, I have continued to feel, if I may presume to say so, that I do know these things. Then, of course, being trained as an analyst of sorts, I began to ask myself, why did this happen to me? And why has it so seldom happened to drunks before? Why shouldn’t this be the heritage of any drunk? And while wondering, the next day again appears Ebby. And he had in his hands a message from another great man, William James. And the message came to me in a book called Varieties of Religious Experience. And I read the thing avidly, cover to cover. And naturally I found experiences corresponding with my own. I found experiences, however, that were very gradual. I found experiences that occurred outside of any religious association. But they all, nearly all of them, had these common denominations. These experiences capable of transforming motivation. Over and above any explanation by an association, a discipline, a faith, or what have you. These gifts of grace, whether they came in a rush or very gradually, were all founded on a basis of hope. The recipients were people who in some controlling area of life found themselves in a situation that could not be got over, around, or under. Their defeat had been absolute. And so was mine. And then I wondered about that defeat. And I realized what a part my god of science, as personified by Carl Jung and Dr. Silkworth had played in it, of transmitting to me the very bad news that the chance of recovering on your own unaided resources, or merely by medication, or by simple faith, was just about nil. How this information was retransmitted to me by Ebbing as it had come from Jung. This was deflation at death. This had made the way, had made me ready for the gifts that came. Now actually, although this is the great experience of my life, I do not think it’s in any way superior, or in a sense, in its essentials, very different at all than the experiences that all AA’s have. The transforming experience. The spiritual awakening. They’re all of this same, I think, divine peace. So, with this had come the possibility of a chain reaction. Because I realized that nothing had happened until the messages had been transmitted to me, probably at great depth, by another alcoholic. So therefore, the thought of one alcoholic talking to another, just as Oxford group people were talking to each other. But in our special language of the heart, maybe that was the transmission belt. So I began to work among alcoholics. I went to a few Oxford group meetings, to the missions. Dr. Silkworth let me work with people in the hospital, at risk of his reputation. And lo and behold, nothing happened. Because some of my old rondeosity had come back, I had thought my experience was something very special. The old ego began to balloon again. I was actually heard to say that I was destined to fix all of the drugs in the world, quite largely. Naturally, nothing happened. Until, again, the deflation came. It came on that day, when in the Mayflower Hotel, I was first tempted to take a drink. When I first realized that even in trying to help other alcoholics, I had been preserving myself, and maintaining that original gift. Now, if it was to be maintained, I must find another alcoholic. So when Smithy and I sat down for the first time face-to-face, this was a very different attitude. I said, Bob, I am speaking because I need you as much as you could possibly need me. I’m in danger of slipping back down the drain. So here is the story. Here is the nature of the illness, as explained by Dr. Sokol. One drunk talking to another, disinformation sunk in deep with Smithy. After one slip, he sobered, never to drink again. In all the years to come. But it took Bob six years before he lost the obsession to drink. Unlike me, where it was instantaneous. And what a great benefaction that was to us as AA. Because it drove him to work with other alcoholics as the only sure protection that he had. And this was reinforced by his love of trying to help his fellow human beings. Indeed, that’s why he has become a physician in the first place. So this is my story. I’m the beginning of our story. I would like to conclude with another great figure whose words come to us down through the centuries. His name is Francis. Said he, Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. And where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted. To understand than to be understood. To love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. And it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Applause