How AA Started — 32nd Dinner, New York, Oct 29, 1966

a great deal of pleasure to introduce to you our celebrant, Bill. Applause Dear friends, We have just heard two moving stories about the cave that is alcoholism. Unlike Lee, I didn’t live in my cave alone. Lois lived with me. But like everyone else’s cave, it was an ever-darkening one. And one evening, in the summer of thirty-two years ago, the darkness became complete. Lois sat downstairs in town’s hospital. Good old Dr. Silkworth was talking to her. And he had to tell her that I had become possessed of an obsession that condemned me to go on drinking and that this meant madness and death. Lying upstairs, I well knew what the sentence was. Now, we both knew. This occasion, according to the menu, is in celebration of my anniversary. And so it is. But in my mind, and I know in yours, it is something which carries far deeper meaning than that. And let us look at some of these meanings as the story of the beginning is recounted. And before the story begins, may I thank all of you for being with us here tonight. It is hard to believe that if we just count the drunks around the room, there is not one half of one percent of our total membership with us. But in spirit, they are all here as we celebrate the vast miracle of regeneration that now encompasses the world, still broadening, and we trust forever deepening. Those of the early days, the very early ones, are becoming fewer and fewer. We are going west. And for those none of us mourns, we are filled with gratitude for the heritage which they have left us, and we know they have gone on to their war. Of course, I am thinking of my sponsor, Abby. I am thinking of Sister Ignatia. I am thinking of Harry Keeble. And two of these, you see, are non-alcoholics who helped so vastly to make this society what it is and may be. And may be. In the very early time, our whole destiny frequently hung on a single act, a single piece of wisdom, a single piece of compassion and of understanding. And this succession of people were in a sense indispensable. Without them, we should not be here at all. And offhand, I think of only two of these that are left. The one I will introduce now and the other in the course of my little tale. Lois wishes to give you her thanks. And I turn it over to her for so long as she’d like. Good evening, everybody. These dinners get better and better and bigger and bigger and more thrilling and more thrilling. And I want to thank you all for your love and devotion to AA and to Bill. And I’m very, very, very grateful for all the wonderful things that have happened to us. To you, with God’s help. Thank you again. I thought I’d tell you just a little bit about Alanon. I know a number of you know about Alanon. But there are, I think, some that really don’t know just what the Alanon Fellowship is. I think maybe some people have the idea that any of the family of alcoholics in AA are Alanon. But of course that isn’t really so. There are many, many relatives, spouses, children of AAs that are in Alanon. But not necessarily all. In fact, Alanon now seems to be composed of more than 50%, I think, of the families of alcoholics who are not ready for AA, who are not in AA. And this is really a, I think, a wonderful development. Because it gives the alcoholic so much better chance to get into AA when his family, particularly his mate, knows about Alanon and is in Alanon and stops putting the pressure on a husband that we all did before we knew about Alanon. Now, this Fellowship of the Families of Alcoholics follows AA in every possible way we can. And the first step, just the way it is in AA, seems to be the door that opens up the rest of the steps. Unless you take the first step, the rest of them are merely words. You can’t really live the rest of the program. Until a member of an alcoholic’s family recognizes the fact that she is powerless over the problem of alcohol in her home, she really can’t go any further. She really can’t go any further. Really go any further. So the first step, just the way it is in AA, is of the very greatest importance. And of course that means there’s so many secondary meanings beyond that thing. It means that you have to take your hands off the alcoholic’s problem. You can do nothing about it. And that you will only confuse and make things worse if you continue the way you have been, trying to manage the alcoholic’s life, which most every mate tries to do, I believe, before they understand this principle. So the other steps are then opened up. And we try to take them just the way AA does. We try to follow all the principles in the same way. We’re really just nothing but copycats. But we really have a terrific potential because for every alcoholic, I believe there are something like five that are said to be affected by his alcoholism. So the limit to what AA is possible to accomplish is really endless. And of course the children are one of the biggest things. The ALANON groups, ALTEEN groups, I beg your pardon, are an offshoot of ALANON for the children of alcoholics, where they can recognize that they themselves have a problem because they have been affected by a drinking parent. And all these things that have happened to ALANON in the last 15 years, we really have had a setup for our fellowship for about 15 years. And from about 50 groups at that time, we now have over 3,000 and are in 28 countries. And to me this is another miracle. AA, of course, is the first tremendous miracle. But this recognizing of the families of alcoholics that they need something too is a second miracle. But we couldn’t have done this, all these people all over the world couldn’t have been affected if it hadn’t been for AA. And, well, I just can’t tell you what AA has meant to me and how thrilled I am and how very grateful. Thank you all. Good night. I cannot overemphasize the crucial importance of ALANON to our fellowship. Thank you, Dara, for what you’ve said and all that you have meant through the years. I might add, for the benefit of friends here for the first time, that this is a society within a society. You must have guessed that it is to repair the greatest damages of all, the damages that we alcoholics have done to those nearest and dearest. Now then, AA is not a success story in the usual sense of the word because it is founded squarely upon misery unspeakable. It is founded upon wrecked lives and utter hopelessness. However, we must reflect that misery and hopelessness will not of itself alleviate this strange malady, this odd insanity which has possessed us. And neither will wisdom alone do it. The essential ingredient which must activate the wisdom necessary and raise us out of our caves into a new light and a new freedom is, we know, God’s love and grace. So we have grace and certain precious fragments brought to us by our friends of the wisdom of ages and we have our kinship in this fellowship which has suffered and now stands in freedom. So, as my brief tale unfolds, let us search together for the deeper meanings of this occasion. It is a time for gratitude. It is a time for joy. It is time, too, for humility. We must remember that only a small beginning has been made, that within a few miles of this hall, even, thousands suffer, not having found what we have found. The world over, there are 20 million of us still in the kinship of suffering, but not in the kinship of freedom. So this is a time to dedicate ourselves, as never before, to our responsibility for them, to bring them what we know and feel and believe. The story really begins in the office of a psychiatrist, a profession that we josh too much. It began in the office of Dr. Carl Jung, one of the founding fathers of that art. This was a dear and great man indeed, one of the indispensables to us. We would not have been alive, or few of us, and not as a society at all, unless this had not been a very great and humble man, and unless the grace of God had been with him. An American businessman suffering alcoholism, having run the gamut of cures in this country, exhausted every resource, desperately wanted to get well, seeks him now. Spent a year with Dr. Carl. To his consternation, inside of a month after leaving, full of confidence, he returns, again broken on the wheel, and said, hey, doctor, you were my court of last resort. And the dear old man said, Roland, I thought you might have been, when I first saw you a year ago, one of those who could recover, understanding the deeper main springs of his motivation. Now comes the humility. Now comes the grace. So when the patient said, well, doctor, is there no other resource? Dr. Carl said, yes, there is. I’m now talking not about science. I am speaking to you, Roland, of a spiritual awakening, a conversion experience, if you like. And Roland said, but I’m a church man. I believe in God. Obviously he doesn’t believe in me. Said Dr. Carl, it goes further than this, Roland. I am talking about a transforming experience that can expel your obsession. And one which has, here and there, time out of mind, alcoholics are sober under this benign form of God’s likeness. And Roland said, but where shall I go? What shall I do? And Dr. Carl said, realize your hopelessness and do all that the world can do for you. Immerse yourself in the religion of your own choice and pray that the light may come. And Roland joined the Oxford group of that day. And the light did come. Certainly for some years, a bit pitiful it was in his case, but come it did. And he came back to America. Soon afterward, being at his summer home in Bennington, Vermont, he came across my sponsor, Abby, the one I just mentioned. And Abby had been about to be committed for alcoholic insanity, so-called. The village fathers wanted him locked up because he’d rammed his father’s fine new car into the side of a farmhouse while inside the kitchen. He looked out of the car window to see a woman cowering in the corner, terrified, and Abby had said, how about a cup of coffee? So, now we have the spectacle of one alcoholic talking to another, and one recovered alcoholic talking to another. And Abby was brought to New York, and he was exposed to a few other alcoholics who had recovered in the Oxford group under the guidance of Sam Schumacher, our beloved rector. And then Abby bethought himself of me. And not long before, the sentence had been passed that summer, and we had thought our cave had gone dark forever. So, Abby, thinking of me, called up one day. I was in the kitchen half-stewed. Lois was at work. And even over the phone, I could sense something different about her. Nevertheless, I thought, how wonderful. I’ll get out some more grog. Abby and I will talk about the good old days. Why did I say this? The good old days did have some element of joy. But this was gone. Maybe it could be recaptured. So, he stood at the lower gateway of the house. And again, I could sense something different. He didn’t look like he was on the strain of riding the water wagon. He came in. He sat at the kitchen table. I offered him a drink. And with a little smile, he said, well, I’m not drinking today. And I said, well, what’s the matter? What’s got into you? And I was bitterly disappointed. And many times more disappointed when he blandly announced to me, I’ve got religion. Well, I was trained to be wise in science. And this was a dreadful blow. Politely, as I could, I said, Abby, what brand have you got? Well, knowing that I was an obstinate Yankee, he was prudent. And we are told in Christian theology that that is one of the great virtues. Well, he hadn’t. He simply told his story, as the previous speakers have. Told how Roland had brought him to New York in contact with these wonderful people. How it had been suggested that he admitted that he was late. That he was powerless to go on living on his own resources. That perhaps he ought to get a little more honest with himself. That he ought to take a moral inventory. That he ought to make restitution to people hard. That he ought to try to be of help to others in need without thought or prestige or reward for himself. And then he added rather shyly, he said, you know, I haven’t bought that whole Oxford bill of goods. But I do pray to carry these simple principles out. Well, I was never the same man again. Because he had spoken to me at depth. He had not brought any new ideas. But he was in the kinship of suffering. And now he seemed to be free, released, as he said. And I knew this was something different. So I asked him some more questions. He was very careful not to try to evangelize me. He knew I wouldn’t take it. He just told his story and left. The drinking went on. But in no waking hour could I forget the face of Ebby across that kitchen table. And I thought to myself, what a ghastly dilemma he’s put me into. Here one of my gods of science, in the person of the great Dr. Jung, had said that nothing could be done through his art. And here was dear Dr. Silkworth, who had been obliged to pass on me the same sentence. So I was a condemned man. And it wasn’t just a question of getting honest with myself and making some restitution and trying to be nice to some other people. No, I knew there was more than that. Somehow there had to be faith in some higher power, be it a he, a she, or an it. And this I didn’t have, nor could I conceive of having. But as the drinking went on, the pressure of the dilemma mounted. And finally I found myself on the way to the hospital. I thought, well, I was half drunk when he told me this. I’ll go and sober up and see how it looks. After all, he was sober. And his sobriety had a new quality, not the water wagon business. I’ll go up and have good old Dr. Silkworth clean me up. So I walked up quite ahead of time, so far as DTs were concerned. I came in waving a bottle. And this dear old man looked at me as I shouted, this time I’ve got something. And his face fell because he loved me. In fact, in our annals, he will be known as the little man who loved drunks. In his lifetime, I think he saw some 40,000 of them. And after AA, 15 of these he saw get well, 15,000. So he said, well, Bill, you better go to bed. So I did. Three days later, I was free of sedative or any tapering off juice. And all of a sudden, there he stands in the door. And I thought, well, this is the day he’s going to evangelize. But no, he didn’t. He sat down, said, I heard you were up here. I thought I’d drop by. And he forced me again to ask him to tell that simple story of the kitchen table. And as he told it, the dilemma increased to an agonizing point. I was in reach, inside of almost the other shore. And I could not get across because I couldn’t believe it. And when he was gone, my depression deepened. It was indescribable. I became as nothing. And like a small child crying in the dark, I found myself exclaiming, if there is a God, will he show himself? It was not a challenge this time. It was a plea. And instantly, this place lit up. I was seized in a great ecstasy. In the mind’s eye, it seemed to me I was on a mountaintop, where a great wind was blowing. And I perceived that this was not air. Instead, it was the spiritual essence of God’s grace. And I remember crying, so this is the God of the preacher. And slowly this subsided, and I lay on the bed in perfect peace. Still more, I was in a new dimension of being. Somehow, despite the woes of the world, everything was all right. I felt suffused by the spirit. So I lay there. But little by little, the so-called wisdom of my scientific training came back, and it said to me, listen boy, you’re hallucinating. Better get the doctors. So he came. He was not a great man in medicine. He sure had time for his views then. But he was a great human being. He had understanding. He had compassion. He had the open mind. And he questioned me closely. And I unfolded this story, even holding back on it a little, fearing not to be believed. And at length he said, Bill, you’re not hallucinating. Some great psychic event has occurred. And sometimes this happens to alcoholics. I’ve read about it in the books, but I’ve never seen it. Somehow you are different. You are not the same person you were. Something has been added. Whatever it is, you best hang on to it. So I began to hang on. Under a few more days in the hospital. And again comes my friend, bearing a message from another great man. Then, long in his grave, it was William James. And here was a copy of Varieties of Religious Experiences. In some respects it was hard reading. In others, it was utterly transparent. It became clear that most of these transforming experiences were founded smack on the seemingly unsure foundation of calamity. A controlling situation in the life of a person. Something he could not get over, around, or under, on his own resources. And then there was the appeal to the higher power, or to God, in any terms you like. It might have come from an atheist looking out a window in despair, regarding a tree, and saying, Tree, you can respond to the law of your own nature, but I cannot. Oh God of nature. This wasn’t necessarily followed by a sudden illumination such as mine. But something would enter the man. His motivation, as the psychologists say, was suddenly altered. His liabilities were transmitted into golden assets. These experiences might be sudden. They might take many forms. James even said there was an educational variety. But they were all characterized by calamity. They were all characterized by a transformation. All out of proportion to any association, discipline, faith, belief, or whatever. Truly, these were gifts of God. Given, for the most part, to those the most sorely stricken. So why should I have received this? Well, I began to think that perhaps part of the reason was my identity with Ebenezer. And now I had a double identity. Not only in his suffering, but in our common relief. So one drunk had talked to another. And a vision came of a sort of chain reaction in which we might use science to pronounce upon each other this same sentence of hopelessness that I had received via Jung and Silkworth. You can’t do it on your own unaided resources. There must be a healthy dependence on something far greater. And perhaps a chain reaction would start. So I began frantically working with drugs. Well, just because you had one of these experiences doesn’t transform you overnight. And my old ego came back. And presently I found myself preaching to people. I found myself saying, you should have one of these things just like mine. Here’s how you do it. And my tale in those days was so weird that they stuck their fingers in the ears and ran freaking. Some were sobered up for two or three months only to flop dismally. At about this time it was suggested by friends and some relatives that you better get Lois out of that department store. And what about a job? Couldn’t the missionary business be left to someone else? So I began to be a hanger-on in Wall Street. Scraped the connection. That led me to Akron, Ohio. Possible control of a small company there. Good big proxy fight. Boy, it seemed like those were the old Wall Street days. Abandoned the drugs, but I thought I’d get rich first. Well, I got out there and things turned out very badly. More calamity, if you like. Oh, what a healthy thing this can be. Until again. I’m near to despair. I’m alone in the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. And for the first time in six months, the thought of a drink came back. And I walked up and down the barroom at one end. At the other end of the lobby, a church director. And as I paced back and forth, I found myself looking absently at it. And then the thought came, well maybe some of these Oxford groupers are around here. I’ll call up this preacher. Name was Walter Tonks. It was odd. Maybe that would be good. So I called him. I explained that I was the drunk from New York who needed another drunk to work on. Well, the good man had seen lots of drunks evidently, and you know, one at a time seemed to be enough. But nevertheless, he did catch on. God bless him. And he gave me a list of people. And I telephoned them. And they would see me in church Sunday. Or they were just going out of town. And I came to the end of a list of several names. And at the bottom of the list was one, Henrietta Seiberling. I said, good grief, I can’t call her. I remember meeting Frank Seiberling one time on a business deal. And I can’t imagine going out to see that dear old lady on a Saturday afternoon, even if she would have me, to ask her what about another drunk to work on. No, you can’t do this. I went back and looked in the bar again. Mind scraping an acquaintance in there. I’m so lonesome in the lobby. Something said you’d better call her. So I went upstairs and called. And a delightful southern voice came on the wire. I explained to her. And she understood at once. She wasn’t a drunk, she said. But she had had some experience in suffering. And being relieved of it. Wouldn’t I come right out? What words those were for alcoholics or not. She went out to the Seiberling estate where she lived in the gatehouse. And she was the daughter-in-law. And she said, come in. And I talked more. And she glowed. And she said, I know a doctor in this town. Lots of us in the groups have been trying to help him. The Oxford group. We know he wants to stop. His wife is a semi-invalid. The kids are going to the devil. Wouldn’t you like me to call up? So she called up Ann Smith. She said, Ann, there’s a man here from New York who can have a cure for alcoholism. Says he needs somebody to work with. Can’t you get Bob to come over? And Ann said, well, I’m afraid not today, Henrietta. You know he’s a sentimental old dear. It’s Mother’s Day. He’s brought me a potted plant. And the plant’s on the table, but he’s hungry. He can’t come today. But the next day they did come. And I can still see in sharp and wonderful recollection that couple standing in Henrietta’s door. And Bob was shaking badly. And he said, I can’t stay more than five minutes. I’ve got to make a call. Henrietta, with prudence and wisdom, ushered us into her little library. And Bob and I talked for hours. And this is the first time that I hadn’t talked down to drunks. I poured it on how Silkworth had said this is an obsession that condemns us to drink, an allergy that harms us so that we shall presently be mad or die. And if you read his story in the AA book, you will see that that was the deflationary tool. That precipitated all of the teaching he’d had. And that was a great deal of religious teaching. And Henrietta was one of the teachers. I merely came along and pulled the plug. And to play it safe, invited me over to their house. But before we go any further, I want you to meet Henrietta, our dear friend who cared enough. Thank you. That’s how she was in on the early days. And she’s never stopped helping since. So I went to Dr. Bob’s house. And soon Dr. Bob said they’ve got to go to a medical convention in Atlantic City. And Anne stood behind him and said no, no, no. In my ardor too, I told Bob he had to live with alcoholism, so I had two big crocs right up on the sideboard. You know, something to work against, not on. So off he went to Atlantic City and we didn’t hear from him for five days. All of a sudden he’s back, terrible shape, dumped on the platform, 4 o’clock in the morning. His nurse goes down, she calls up, brings him back to Ardmore Avenue. And he’s in terrible shape. And Anne said, you know, he’s got to do an operation in three days. One that he started. He has to finish it. So we commenced to taper Dr. Bob down. And I slept in the room with him. And on the morning of the day of the operation, he looked across at me, just after daylight, still agonized, and said, Bill, I’m going through with it. Well, I said, of course you are. The operation will be a success. Oh, he said, I don’t know about the operation, but one should try. Now, I mean, I’m going through with the spiritual side. So we loaded him a car, wheeled him up in front of the city hospital. He drank a bottle of beer in the car. I popped one goofball in his mouth, and then he went and did the operation. And he came out, and he took us home, and he said, now I have to do some errands. We were scared to death. Oh, ye old little face. After a long time, he came back. He had been making restitution already to the people he had harmed. A few days later, he said to me, Bill, we’d better be working on other alcoholics, hadn’t we, even in our own protection. I’ll call the city hospital where I used to operate. I chucked off the staff. He got a hold of a nurse in emergency that he knew. She said there was a guy here from New York who had a great booze cure, and we’d like to try it out. The nurse said, I hope you try it yourself, doctor. Well, she said, I got a dandy, been here five times in four months, six times I guess it was. Bob said, put him in a room. Here’s what you give him. We’ll be down in the morning. So we came in the morning and looked upon this chap on the bed, and he was a very sorry sight. And we told him the story. And he shook his head with infinite sadness and said, no, I’m too far gone. This isn’t for me. Besides, I’m a religious man. It’s nice of you to come. And as we turned to go, he said, but you’ll come back and see me again, won’t you? So we came on the morrow, and it was a very different sight. His wife, also named Henrietta, was in the room. He said, dear, here are the fellows who were talking to me. They are the people that know. For the first time, this makes sense. I’m going to try it. I thought it over during the night. If they can do it, maybe under God’s grace, I too can do it. Let’s have my clothes. I’m going home. He went out into a political campaign. He was taunted for his alcoholism, but never had a drink until the day he died. And that was old Bill Dyson. And that is where and how the first AA group took shape. The ultimate how, of course, we still don’t know. For this has to do with the mystery of God’s grace, which no man understands. So I came home. A little group started in New York. People from Cleveland began to come to Bob’s meeting in Akron. A while later, he meets Ignatius. And between 1940 and 1950, those two ministered to 5,000 alcoholics. After Bob’s death, she to 10 more in Cleveland. 10,000 more. So that is the story of the early days. How our destiny is hung on the love, the understanding, the dedication of our friends, of our wives, of our husbands. Now then, I think the great wonder of AA is that the foreign people, though we still are, so long scarred by this malady, even after we are sober, that one thing after another has turned out well. The AA book itself was an example of this. Dr. Bob sobered in 35, and four years later, after terrible travail, we came out with this book. And in that activity, we saw people at their very worst, except for drinking. And we also saw them at their most magnificent best, under God’s grace. I can remember, and I was on the worst side of the equation, maybe the good, I hope so. I can remember we had four chapters done after romance arguments. And one night I lay in bed in Clinton Street, and I was very sore at all the drunks. They weren’t getting up to doze, so we couldn’t eat. And yet this thing had to be done. And I was stuck in the writing, and there were four chapters finished after furious debates. And I said, well, I’ve got to put down what the book really is going to say. And then I thought of my teaching via EBI, and of the word amount program that had sprung up, about six steps. So I said, well, let’s have some more steps, so they can’t wiggle out between. And I started writing, and they added up to 12. And I said, well, this looks better. And then a couple of friends came in, and they tore the steps all apart. And some people said there wasn’t enough God in them, and some said there shouldn’t be any. You should spring it on them after they get here. And so forth and so on. And before we were through, the stockholders were sending in five bucks a month. They sold shares of the unpublished book to the local drunks. Five dollars a month, ten bucks a month to keep things going. Then there was a slight embezzlement of funds. Well, I would really like to tell you about this book. And finally, with the last 500 we could lay hold of, we went up to the Reader’s Digest that promised a piece. And we said, boys, we’re all ready to shoot. And the editor that had talked to us a month before said, shoot what? Oh, yes, you were the fellows in the Alcohol Society. We were going to do this piece and mention your new book. But we changed our mind after discussions that we forgot to tell you. And the collapse was very great. We lost the house. The editor, dear man, almost took the book, but withheld. We went into a terrific promotion piece. One of the drunks got on the radio with Gabriel Heater. We put out a shower of 20,000 postal cards to all the doctors east of the Mississippi River saying, buy the book Alcoholics Anonymous, short for Cure for Alcoholism, 350. Listen to Heater. We locked the guy up so he wouldn’t get drunk. He appeared on Heater’s program. The market in AA had gone because all the people who wrote stories had got a free book, and all those who had bought stock, they got a free book. But now we could see the books going out in carloads. And we went down to the post office after waiting a few days. We looked in the box, and you could see a few postal cards in there. And my friend who had helped me sell Hank Parker, always the optimist, said, my God, they couldn’t get them in the box bill. There must be mailbags full. So we went to the window. Heater handed us an even dozen postal cards. Ten of them were from doctors drunk, so much so they couldn’t write. And we had two orders for the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And yet we had said in the book, in the final chapter of the text, having learned some humility by this time, we modestly said, our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it to follow its suggestions. Many, we are sure, will rise to their feet and march on. They will approach still other sick ones. And fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet, havens for those who must find a way out. Someone has likened Alcoholics Anonymous to a cathedral of infinite dimensions, an edifice, if you like, of the spirit. And on its great floor now stand 11,000 of us in our group, and we number several hundreds of thousands. And we are in peace with each other and with the world. And the side walls of this cathedral are buttressed by the 12 traditions of AA, the basis of living and working together, of functioning, of relating ourselves to the stricken world that now surrounds us. And the spire, the beckoning spire, symbolizes service, and its beacon shines up. And upon this the sun never sets. May God prosper our society, and may it continue to be worthy of his grace. And may our edifice of the spirit ever broaden and deepen in its inclusion of our brothers and sisters who still suffer alcoholism. Applause Bill, I know I speak for everyone here when I say thank you for everything. Now I want to remind you that there’s dancing immediately following this meeting across the hall in the Royal Ballroom. And there are several entrances. There’s the one directly opposite here and another entrance down at the right so we won’t all jam up at one place. I’d like too to remind you, or tell you, that there are tapes available of this meeting, and you can see Frank down front here if you’re interested in getting one. And to close tonight’s meeting, we have a man with us who heard about A.A. and was impressed enough to personally help get a group started in his church. Truly a friend of A.A.’s, Reverend Callahan. Applause Would you please stand for the closing prayer. Let us pray. O Lord our God, in whom we live and move and have our very being, and from whom we are very restless until we find our peace and sobriety in thee, we stand in silence to give thee thanks. We praise thy name, O God, for Bill and for Lois, for these two who in the words of Dr. Sam have become intoxicated with the power of a living and resurrected God. Continue to be with us and strengthen us, O God, that we may live one day at a time, and grant us also the petition of Bill’s heart. O God, may we prosper in the days to come, and may we be blessed by the grace of God forever. In the name of the one who has taught us when we pray together to say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.