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[00:00:21.800 – 00:00:25.400] Beyond all else, an A.A.

[00:00:25.400 – 00:00:28.600] meeting is a time of gratitude.

[00:00:28.600 – 00:00:35.500] Only today, I received a box of flowers.

[00:00:35.500 – 00:00:45.100] It was shipped from Honolulu, but it really came from an A.A.

[00:00:45.100 – 00:00:50.100] who is alone in a distant Pacific outpost.

[00:00:50.100 – 00:01:00.200] You and I know that that was his expression of gratitude

[00:01:00.200 – 00:01:02.900] for his deliverance.

[00:01:02.900 – 00:01:06.300] And yes, it, it was more.

[00:01:06.300 – 00:01:16.700] To him and to us, it was a symbol of our wonderful world communion.

[00:01:16.700 – 00:01:20.800] Yes, an A.A.

[00:01:20.800 – 00:01:31.200] meeting is a time for gratitude, for our deliverance, and for all who have aided us

[00:01:31.200 – 00:01:31.800] in that.

[00:01:31.800 – 00:01:35.700] And we think right away of those near and dear.

[00:01:35.700 – 00:01:45.600] I was happy that you remembered Lois, for she is a symbol of all those who have come after.

[00:01:45.600 – 00:01:56.500] And then there are the many friends, non-alcoholic friends, who have been indispensable in

[00:01:56.500 – 00:01:59.100] the gathering of this society.

[00:01:59.100 – 00:02:06.800] One of them is here tonight, one of the oldest and dearest friends we have, Frank Amos.

[00:02:06.800 – 00:02:10.300] Ah, yes, there are many such.

[00:02:10.300 – 00:02:13.400] An A.A.

[00:02:13.400 – 00:02:20.500] meeting is not only a time of gratitude for great big things and great big principles.

[00:02:20.500 – 00:02:28.400] It is a time for gratitude for other things, perhaps such as this.

[00:02:28.400 – 00:02:38.800] I know everybody here must have been greatly moved by the fact that

[00:02:38.800 – 00:02:49.300] those fellas from the Musicians Union, just having played a grueling assignment this afternoon, came straight from that assignment

[00:02:49.300 – 00:02:58.500] without any supper to create an atmosphere for us in which this meeting could be set.

[00:02:58.500 – 00:03:04.900] Yes, it is a time for gratitude.

[00:03:04.900 – 00:03:15.200] For fifteen years, you and I have watched a great building under construction.

[00:03:15.200 – 00:03:21.000] To us, it is something more than a building.

[00:03:21.000 – 00:03:31.100] It is a temple, a veritable cathedral of the spirit, in which more than a hundred

[00:03:31.100 – 00:03:41.200] thousand of us now stand, knowing a freedom and a brotherhood and

[00:03:41.200 – 00:03:46.600] a sisterhood, the like of which we could have never dreamed in other days.

[00:03:46.600 – 00:03:59.200] Such is our cathedral of the spirit, now approaching completion in its main outline, that

[00:03:59.200 – 00:04:02.200] men call A.A.

[00:04:02.200 – 00:04:12.200] It might well serve our purpose if, figuratively speaking, I now took each of you in

[00:04:12.200 – 00:04:23.100] by the hand and I conduct you back into that cave from which a friend and I emerged

[00:04:23.100 – 00:04:33.600] through a very narrow opening fifteen years ago and walked hesitatingly along

[00:04:33.600 – 00:04:43.700] quite a blind trail, which opened into a winding path that came down through our infancy

[00:04:43.700 – 00:04:54.300] and broadened to a road that led through adolescence and now opens on the broad highway,

[00:04:54.300 – 00:05:00.900] where we are now about to take our destiny by its hand.

[00:05:00.900 – 00:05:11.100] And as we take that journey, let us pause every

[00:05:11.100 – 00:05:22.200] now and then to note those times and places in which there were great hours of realization and

[00:05:22.200 – 00:05:28.900] great hours of decision, which so deeply affected our destiny.

[00:05:28.900 – 00:05:38.900] That will set a background suitable, I hope, for what we are about to do tonight.

[00:05:38.900 – 00:05:49.300] Speaking of hours of realization and decision, your first one respecting A.A.

[00:05:49.300 – 00:05:51.700] was just the same as mine.

[00:05:51.700 – 00:06:01.900] Mine came on a summer day in 1934, when I lay upstairs in a drunk tank on Central

[00:06:01.900 – 00:06:03.000] Park West, New York.

[00:06:03.000 – 00:06:09.500] I’d been there many times before, but this time it was different.

[00:06:09.500 – 00:06:15.700] By now, I was acquainted with the gravity of my malady.

[00:06:15.700 – 00:06:26.100] I knew I was possessed of an obsession that condemned me to go on drinking, a physical sensitivity

[00:06:26.100 – 00:06:30.600] which would ensure madness, yes, death itself.

[00:06:30.600 – 00:06:35.500] I knew I had no power to go on living.

[00:06:35.500 – 00:06:40.900] And such has been the realization of every alcoholic here.

[00:06:40.900 – 00:06:49.700] And it is well expressed in the first step of our program.

[00:06:49.700 – 00:06:58.400] The first step toward freedom being the realization of our own powerlessness.

[00:06:58.400 – 00:07:06.700] Such is the divine power of darkness upon which this society is built.

[00:07:06.700 – 00:07:16.400] Downstairs, another one shared this same hopelessness.

[00:07:16.400 – 00:07:18.400] That was Lois.

[00:07:18.400 – 00:07:22.400] She was talking to the doctor.

[00:07:22.400 – 00:07:33.000] She was asking the doctor the very same questions that you wives and husbands of alcoholics out there

[00:07:33.000 – 00:07:33.700] have asked.

[00:07:33.700 – 00:07:43.800] She was saying, “Bill is a man of great willpower, great persistence, great

[00:07:43.800 – 00:07:44.900] obstinacy.

[00:07:44.900 – 00:07:51.900] For two or three years, Doctor, I’m sure he has wanted to stop above all else.

[00:07:51.900 – 00:07:55.200] What has happened to his willpower?

[00:07:55.200 – 00:08:05.000] Why, oh why, Doctor, can’t he stop?” And the good man came back with the answer we so well know.

[00:08:05.000 – 00:08:15.000] Gentle soul he was, he had to tell Lois that I was indeed

[00:08:15.000 – 00:08:17.600] possessed of a power greater than myself.

[00:08:17.600 – 00:08:24.800] Indeed, I was obsessed by the tyrant barleycorn.

[00:08:24.800 – 00:08:35.700] And she said, as you have said, “Well, how serious is this, Doctor?” And

[00:08:35.700 – 00:08:37.900] the good man, Dr.

[00:08:37.900 – 00:08:47.900] Silkworth, a medical saint if ever there is to be one, hesitatingly

[00:08:47.900 – 00:08:57.000] told her, “I thought Bill might be an exception to most of those who come this way, one of those rare exceptions.

[00:08:57.000 – 00:09:01.000] But now I’m afraid it isn’t going to be so.

[00:09:01.000 – 00:09:03.500] I’m afraid, Mrs.

[00:09:03.500 – 00:09:13.900] Wilson, you will have to lock him up somewhere, else he will lose his mind, and perhaps more,

[00:09:13.900 – 00:09:20.800] his life.” So we alcoholics have no monopoly on hopelessness.

[00:09:20.800 – 00:09:26.300] It certainly has been a shared experience among us.

[00:09:26.300 – 00:09:34.700] Then came a realization to somebody else, and a decision.

[00:09:34.700 – 00:09:44.800] Three months later, a friend, himself an alcoholic, heard of the straits

[00:09:44.800 – 00:09:45.800] in which I was.

[00:09:45.800 – 00:09:55.900] He decided to come and see me, because he had experienced a release from his obsession through spiritual

[00:09:55.900 – 00:09:56.400] means.

[00:09:56.400 – 00:09:59.600] I hadn’t seen him in a good many years.

[00:09:59.600 – 00:10:02.300] I was drinking in the kitchen.

[00:10:04.300 – 00:10:11.300] I had now become a lone drinker, no longer daring to go in the streets or the police would get me.

[00:10:11.300 – 00:10:21.400] The erstwhile great provider of Wall Street time was now being supported by his wife, Lois, working in a department store.

[00:10:21.400 – 00:10:23.700] There was my friend on the phone.

[00:10:23.700 – 00:10:30.200] I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful to talk with old Ebby again?

[00:10:30.200 – 00:10:39.700] We’ll drink and we’ll talk about the good old days.” Ah, how significant that remark, the good old days.

[00:10:39.700 – 00:10:43.500] The only place the mind could go.

[00:10:43.500 – 00:10:52.100] For us, the present was unbearable, and there was to be no future.

[00:10:52.100 – 00:11:02.200] Yes, we’d talk about the good old days, so I mused over my gin while I waited for him, and

[00:11:02.200 – 00:11:03.600] suddenly he’s in the doorway.

[00:11:03.600 – 00:11:08.500] I suspect we drunks are a little psychic.

[00:11:08.500 – 00:11:12.500] I saw right away that something had happened to him.

[00:11:12.500 – 00:11:20.100] Not only was he sober for the first time I had ever known him to be in New York, there was something different.

[00:11:20.100 – 00:11:22.400] He sat down at the table.

[00:11:22.400 – 00:11:25.400] I pushed over my crock of gin.

[00:11:25.400 – 00:11:28.400] I used to drink three bottles a day then.

[00:11:28.400 – 00:11:34.100] Put a little pineapple juice in it so Lois would think they were cocktails, you know.

[00:11:34.100 – 00:11:44.100] On being offered a drink, he said, “No, thanks.” “Oh,” I said,

[00:11:44.100 – 00:11:44.600] “come, Ebby.

[00:11:44.600 – 00:11:45.500] What, what’s got into you?

[00:11:45.500 – 00:11:51.800] On the water wagon?” “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m just not drinking.” Well, I’m really puzzled.

[00:11:51.800 – 00:11:53.000] I say, “Come, come, now.

[00:11:53.000 – 00:12:03.200] What, what’s all this about?” He looked at me with a half smile and he said, “I’ve gotten religion.”

[00:12:03.200 – 00:12:07.800] Ah, what a sad flaw, got religion.

[00:12:07.800 – 00:12:14.200] Well, this was distressing.

[00:12:14.200 – 00:12:18.700] No doubt he had substituted religious insanity for alcoholic insanity.

[00:12:18.700 – 00:12:28.200] But one had to be polite, and I said, “Well, my dear boy, what kind of religion have you got?

[00:12:28.200 – 00:12:33.800] What brand is it?” “Oh,” he said, “I don’t know if you’d really call it religion.

[00:12:33.800 – 00:12:35.700] It’s just plenty of horse sense.

[00:12:35.700 – 00:12:41.600] Group of people sold me on a lot of very simple ideas.

[00:12:41.600 – 00:12:44.300] None of them are new.

[00:12:44.300 – 00:12:54.400] Just why they’ve had such a terrific effect on me, I don’t know, except one of the group himself was a drunk, and here are the ideas.

[00:12:54.400 – 00:12:59.700] I began to get honest with myself as I had never got honest before.

[00:12:59.700 – 00:13:07.300] I quit this hellish business of living alone, confided my defects to another.

[00:13:07.300 – 00:13:14.800] I made a list of the people I’d harmed, and I visited them to set matters right so far as I could.

[00:13:14.800 – 00:13:24.900] I then was told of a kind of giving new to me, the kind of giving that demands no

[00:13:24.900 – 00:13:35.300] return in terms of economic reward or prestige or anything, the kind of giving that demands no return.

[00:13:35.300 – 00:13:45.400] I was told that if I tried to give of myself of others in such a mood, that I might

[00:13:45.400 – 00:13:55.900] lose my life to find it.” Now he said, “Uh, don’t leave, Bill.” He said, “I know your religious outlook,

[00:13:55.900 – 00:14:06.800] which is zero.” But he said, “In order to make these principles work,” so far as my drinking was concerned, “I

[00:14:06.800 – 00:14:10.000] found that I had to pray to whatever god there was.

[00:14:10.000 – 00:14:20.400] And to my great surprise, when I tried the experiment with an open mind,

[00:14:20.400 – 00:14:30.000] and remember the dying can be open-minded, Bill, when I tried that experiment, there He was.

[00:14:30.000 – 00:14:40.100] Maybe you don’t like that idea.” Oh, well, I thought to myself, “Here, it’s going to be one of these evangelistic

[00:14:40.100 – 00:14:40.500] deals.

[00:14:40.500 – 00:14:45.700] Oh, dear, he’ll pour on the sweetness and light and the pressure pretty soon.

[00:14:45.700 – 00:14:52.400] This is going to be distressing.” But oh, no, my friend was prudent.

[00:14:52.400 – 00:14:60.000] I’ve since learned that prudence is a great theological virtue, and you bet your life it was in my case.

[00:14:60.000 – 00:15:10.000] No, he merely said that he’d come to pay me a visit and pass on l- what he knew, what he had experienced, if I could make any

[00:15:10.000 – 00:15:13.100] use of it, and soon he was gone.

[00:15:13.100 – 00:15:16.900] How wise.

[00:15:16.900 – 00:15:27.000] Well, I found that in no waking hour could I get the memory of my friend’s face

[00:15:27.000 – 00:15:29.800] and what he had said out of my mind.

[00:15:29.800 – 00:15:34.300] Had he said anything new?

[00:15:34.300 – 00:15:35.700] No.

[00:15:35.700 – 00:15:38.700] Principles old as the hills.

[00:15:38.700 – 00:15:41.900] Nothing new in what he said at all.

[00:15:41.900 – 00:15:43.800] I’d heard it all before.

[00:15:43.800 – 00:15:49.500] But he had described a condition that I sensed that he had.

[00:15:49.500 – 00:15:52.800] He said, “You know, I’m not on the water wagon.

[00:15:52.800 – 00:15:57.500] I feel as though my problem had been taken from me.

[00:15:57.500 – 00:16:00.300] I feel all in one piece.

[00:16:00.300 – 00:16:01.700] I feel free.

[00:16:01.700 – 00:16:08.500] I feel released.” And somehow I knew that was so.

[00:16:08.500 – 00:16:18.500] Well, I went on drinking for three or four weeks, and I came to the same conclusion

[00:16:18.500 – 00:16:22.300] that every alcoholic here has since come to.

[00:16:22.300 – 00:16:28.500] And the conclusion was, who are beggars to be choosers?

[00:16:28.500 – 00:16:37.400] And if there is any such position as my friend says, I had better seek him out.

[00:16:37.400 – 00:16:47.400] So I thought to myself, “Well, I can’t have one of these, uh, emotional conversions.” You

[00:16:47.400 – 00:16:48.700] know, I’m a Vermont Yankee.

[00:16:48.700 – 00:16:50.400] They don’t have that sort of thing up there.

[00:16:50.400 – 00:16:55.800] It’s got to be an intellectual, uh, business, you know?

[00:16:55.800 – 00:17:04.100] If I, if I’m drunk when I’m converted, why, uh, it might not be the real thing.

[00:17:04.100 – 00:17:07.700] I better go get thoroughly sobered up and take another good hard look at this deal.

[00:17:07.700 – 00:17:10.800] So I start for the hospital.

[00:17:10.800 – 00:17:15.700] Well, you know how drunks are on the way to their hospital to be dried up for the last time.

[00:17:15.700 – 00:17:18.600] You always get drunk as a monkey, and so did I.

[00:17:18.600 – 00:17:25.000] So I came tottering into the hospital waving a bottle.

[00:17:25.000 – 00:17:32.500] My old friend, the doctor, looked at me rather sadly, for he had had hope in my case.

[00:17:32.500 – 00:17:39.900] And I says, “Doctor, this time I’ve got something.” And he said, “I’m afraid you haven’t, boy.

[00:17:39.900 – 00:17:49.300] You better go upstairs and go to bed.” So to bed I went, and because I had gone to the hospital early, I wasn’t too, too badly off.

[00:17:49.300 – 00:17:55.200] In three days’ time, free now of alcohol and sedative, I was frightfully depressed.

[00:17:55.200 – 00:18:02.100] And behold, my friend stood in the door very early one morning, long way uptown.

[00:18:02.100 – 00:18:08.600] I thought to myself, “He does practice what he preaches.

[00:18:08.600 – 00:18:17.300] He should be looking for work this morning.” Then again, I feared that evangelism a little bit.

[00:18:17.300 – 00:18:17.900] I shrunk.

[00:18:17.900 – 00:18:21.300] But no, my friend is still more prudent.

[00:18:21.300 – 00:18:27.900] He waits for me to ask him what the conditions of that release had been.

[00:18:27.900 – 00:18:32.100] “Oh, yes,” he said, “Oh, well, you get honest with yourself, Bill.

[00:18:32.100 – 00:18:33.900] I mean honest, no fooling.

[00:18:33.900 – 00:18:37.100] You talk it out with somebody else in confidence.

[00:18:37.100 – 00:18:38.700] Confession, if you want to call it.

[00:18:38.700 – 00:18:40.100] I suppose the word will gripe you.

[00:18:40.100 – 00:18:44.100] You make restitution to people you damaged.

[00:18:44.100 – 00:18:49.500] You try to do something for somebody with no gimme to it.

[00:18:49.500 – 00:18:56.600] And you pray as best you can.” And that’s all there was to it in my case.

[00:18:56.600 – 00:19:01.600] Again, he’s gone.

[00:19:01.600 – 00:19:06.200] And my depression deepened.

[00:19:06.200 – 00:19:16.600] And at last, I hit the bottom of the pit, and I suddenly found that I had become

[00:19:16.600 – 00:19:26.600] a child, alone and crying in the dark for a parent who did not seem to be

[00:19:26.600 – 00:19:27.000] there.

[00:19:27.000 – 00:19:36.200] And then I said, “Well, now I will do anything.” Just like that cancer patient.

[00:19:36.200 – 00:19:46.200] “I will do anything for a cure.” And then in no hope at all, really, I cried out, “And if there

[00:19:46.200 – 00:19:55.900] is a God, let Him show Himself.” And then came a realization indeed, the greatest one in my whole life.

[00:19:55.900 – 00:19:59.600] There can never be another like it.

[00:19:59.600 – 00:20:04.300] It seemed to me that that place lit up in a blinding glare.

[00:20:06.800 – 00:20:18.300] I was transported into an ecstasy, and I suddenly realized that I was free and utterly lost in

[00:20:18.300 – 00:20:19.600] this strange state.

[00:20:19.600 – 00:20:29.700] In the mind’s eye, I seemed to be on a mountain and a great wind was blowing, and I perceived at once that it was not of

[00:20:29.700 – 00:20:30.000] air.

[00:20:30.000 – 00:20:38.100] It was a wind of Heaven, a wind of the Spirit, and I was free.

[00:20:38.100 – 00:20:48.200] At length, I find myself on the bed, but now I lie in another world,

[00:20:48.200 – 00:20:52.400] and a great peace settled over me.

[00:20:52.400 – 00:21:03.000] I felt at one with the universe, and I thought to myself, “So this

[00:21:03.000 – 00:21:14.300] is the God of the preachers.” Well, all of you here have

[00:21:14.300 – 00:21:16.300] had that experience.

[00:21:16.300 – 00:21:24.200] Don’t say no, for every AA here has, and so has his family, or most of them.

[00:21:24.200 – 00:21:32.300] That very experience, excepting it wasn’t so fast in most cases.

[00:21:32.300 – 00:21:41.200] What came to me in minutes has come to most of you in weeks or months or in years.

[00:21:41.200 – 00:21:47.500] But it is that awareness that there is One on whom we can depend.

[00:21:47.500 – 00:21:57.500] There is that awareness which has come to all of us, that we are now enabled to do that which we could

[00:21:57.500 – 00:22:00.600] not do before on our own power.

[00:22:00.600 – 00:22:10.600] Such is the awareness of the consciousness of God, which descends on every member

[00:22:10.600 – 00:22:17.400] of this society who stands in our cathedral of the Spirit.

[00:22:17.400 – 00:22:21.900] Sooner or later, it comes, does it not?

[00:22:21.900 – 00:22:33.200] Well, to me, this had come with such mysterious power, yet

[00:22:33.200 – 00:22:35.100] on such utterly simple terms.

[00:22:35.100 – 00:22:45.200] Of course, I thought as you would have thought, “Why, every alcoholic should be able to find an experience like this.” And then I questioned myself and said,

[00:22:45.200 – 00:22:54.700] “Well, why didn’t these truths hit me this way before?” Why, of course, one alcoholic was talking to another.

[00:22:54.700 – 00:22:56.700] He must have struck me deep.

[00:22:56.700 – 00:23:07.100] He must have deflated me way down and made room for the grace of God that was forever blocked by my own raging ego.

[00:23:07.100 – 00:23:17.200] The ability to live in my world, the ability to transmit to me, the ability to

[00:23:17.200 – 00:23:21.100] humble me where no other living one could.

[00:23:21.100 – 00:23:25.100] That was one alcoholic talking to other, to another.

[00:23:25.100 – 00:23:26.600] Maybe that was the clue.

[00:23:26.600 – 00:23:37.300] Well, in my place, you would have started to work frantically with other alcoholics, and I did,

[00:23:37.300 – 00:23:38.700] as many of you have since done.

[00:23:38.700 – 00:23:43.500] Nearly all of you, in fact, as this vast gathering bespeaks.

[00:23:43.500 – 00:23:46.300] I worked with these others.

[00:23:46.300 – 00:23:56.500] I tell them of this sudden experience, which incidentally, folks, down in New York is called by the cynical

[00:23:56.500 – 00:23:57.900] Bill Wilson’s hot flash.

[00:23:57.900 – 00:24:06.200] Well, the drunks in those early days weren’t a damn bit impressed with that hot flash business.

[00:24:06.200 – 00:24:14.400] They all tapped their heads and said, “No.” So I worked, and I worked, and I worked.

[00:24:14.400 – 00:24:17.000] Well, you know what the defect was.

[00:24:17.000 – 00:24:19.100] I had become a preacher.

[00:24:19.100 – 00:24:21.300] I was talking off a moral hilltop.

[00:24:21.300 – 00:24:31.300] For with this experience came a liability, a

[00:24:31.300 – 00:24:33.500] certain spiritual pride, a conceit.

[00:24:33.500 – 00:24:38.300] You know I fancied I was divinely appointed to fix up all the drunks in the world.

[00:24:38.300 – 00:24:41.600] But boy, oh, boy, how the drunks knocked that out of me.

[00:24:41.600 – 00:24:43.600] Not one success in six months.

[00:24:43.600 – 00:24:53.700] About this time, Lois’s relatives began to murmur, “When

[00:24:53.700 – 00:25:03.700] is this guy going to stop being a missionary and go back to work?” So under that gentle prodding, I

[00:25:03.700 – 00:25:13.700] used to go over to Wall Street, where I once had been, and I sat around on chairs in brokerage shops,

[00:25:13.700 – 00:25:16.300] and that made it look to folks like I was working.

[00:25:16.300 – 00:25:20.900] And one day, I’m sitting, uh, beside a stranger.

[00:25:20.900 – 00:25:25.800] We fall into a conversation, and you know how things can snowball in the streets.

[00:25:25.800 – 00:25:31.500] All of a sudden it runs into a deal, and very suddenly I’m in the midst of a proxy rout.

[00:25:31.500 – 00:25:41.700] And all of a sudden I find that I have a controlling interest in a little company, and it looks like they’re going to elect me president of a little company out in Akron,

[00:25:41.700 – 00:25:42.200] Ohio.

[00:25:42.200 – 00:25:48.000] All rolled up in a matter of a few weeks as a result of a conversation with a stranger.

[00:25:48.000 – 00:25:53.900] Oh, on what slender threads this destiny of ours has often hung.

[00:25:53.900 – 00:25:57.600] So I’m in Akron.

[00:25:57.600 – 00:26:00.400] Now I’m going to be elected president of the company.

[00:26:00.400 – 00:26:02.900] Now we’re going to be respectable.

[00:26:02.900 – 00:26:05.600] We’ll hold up our heads in this community.

[00:26:05.600 – 00:26:11.100] And when I get the economic situation fixed up, then maybe I’ll work some more with these drunks.

[00:26:11.100 – 00:26:17.200] And we’ll get Lois out of that damn department store.

[00:26:17.200 – 00:26:21.100] Those were my thoughts.

[00:26:21.100 – 00:26:27.700] This new crowd threw their proxies on the table, but they didn’t have enough, so I wasn’t president.

[00:26:27.700 – 00:26:35.300] They took off in the general r- direction of New York, leaving me broke in a hotel lobby, the Mayflower at Akron.

[00:26:35.300 – 00:26:39.100] Ah, well, you know, you drunks, what happened.

[00:26:39.100 – 00:26:41.900] Waves of anger and self-pity.

[00:26:41.900 – 00:26:47.300] Fierce anger, too, because I suspected th- those proxies had been forged.

[00:26:47.300 – 00:26:55.200] And suddenly I realize I’m in danger of getting drunk, and I panicked.

[00:26:55.200 – 00:26:58.000] And alternately, I was looking in a bar.

[00:26:58.000 – 00:26:59.500] It was a Saturday afternoon.

[00:26:59.500 – 00:27:01.900] That familiar buzz was rising in there.

[00:27:01.900 – 00:27:06.700] I thought maybe I can scrape an acquaintance, drink a glass of ginger ale.

[00:27:06.700 – 00:27:12.900] Oh, there started the old rationalization train, but this time I had been restored to sanity.

[00:27:12.900 – 00:27:18.500] I spotted that, that, that typical train of rationalizations and I said, “Hey, look out.

[00:27:18.500 – 00:27:19.500] You’re going to get drunk.

[00:27:19.500 – 00:27:20.600] You’re going to get drunk.

[00:27:20.600 – 00:27:25.900] What shall I do?” Then came another realization.

[00:27:25.900 – 00:27:31.700] All those other alcoholics, none of them had sobered up.

[00:27:31.700 – 00:27:40.900] But how often had my anger and my tension and my self-pity disappeared when I had tried to work with them, even without success?

[00:27:40.900 – 00:27:47.000] Yes, I could lose my life to find it in the life of another.

[00:27:47.000 – 00:27:56.500] And then I saw that for my own protection, I needed another alcoholic as much as he needed me, and that was a basic realization.

[00:27:56.500 – 00:28:07.000] And I sought one out, and you know that prodigious chain of circumstance, which could have been nothing but providential,

[00:28:07.000 – 00:28:09.900] which brought me face to face with Dr.

[00:28:09.900 – 00:28:19.900] Bob and dear Anne in the living room of a non-alcoholic, one who, of a great crowd of people, the only one who

[00:28:19.900 – 00:28:25.600] seemed to have time enough and who seemed to care enough to bring that meeting about.

[00:28:25.600 – 00:28:28.100] And I told Dr.

[00:28:28.100 – 00:28:38.200] Bob about alcoholism, the malady, of my own experience of drinking, of my release, and

[00:28:38.200 – 00:28:43.900] frankly, of my present peril, and I told him how much I needed him.

[00:28:43.900 – 00:28:51.700] And then I think we had begun to get the essentials of it, for something passed between us.

[00:28:51.700 – 00:28:55.400] I guess something happened.

[00:28:55.400 – 00:29:02.200] I think AA began right there on that June day in 1935.

[00:29:02.200 – 00:29:10.000] For you see, my first friend had tasted these fruits, but briefly.

[00:29:10.000 – 00:29:11.800] His obsession returned.

[00:29:11.800 – 00:29:18.100] He fell by the wayside and has never quite risen yet, though I believe he will.

[00:29:18.100 – 00:29:20.600] So there was Dr.

[00:29:20.600 – 00:29:26.400] Bob, and there was I, in Akron in the summer of 1935.

[00:29:26.400 – 00:29:34.600] Annie Smith, prudent lady that she was, said to me, “Bill, wouldn’t you like to come to our house and live a little while?

[00:29:34.600 – 00:29:38.300] You know, you could keep an eye on Bob, and he could keep an eye on you.

[00:29:38.300 – 00:29:48.500] Maybe you could revive that business deal.” So I went into that house, that

[00:29:48.500 – 00:29:52.500] place which to me is hallowed, and I lived there.

[00:29:52.500 – 00:29:54.100] And soon Dr.

[00:29:54.100 – 00:30:01.800] Bob said to me, “Uh, Bill, uh, just as a matter of self-protection, old bean, uh, don’t you think we’d better be doing some work with drunks?

[00:30:01.800 – 00:30:05.900] Hadn’t we better get a move on?” I said, “That looks all right.

[00:30:05.900 – 00:30:09.400] Uh, let’s do it.” Meanwhile, I’d been fussing around with-

[00:30:09.700 – 00:30:10.300] Lawsuit.

[00:30:10.300 – 00:30:18.300] So he called up the city hospital, where he had been tossed off the staff.

[00:30:18.300 – 00:30:24.600] He calls for the nurse in the receiving ward.

[00:30:24.600 – 00:30:32.200] He tells her that he and a friend from New York thought they had a cure for alcoholism.

[00:30:32.200 – 00:30:39.800] And said the rather exasperated nurse, “Think you got a cure for alcoholism?

[00:30:39.800 – 00:30:50.100] Doctor, why in heaven’s name don’t you try it on yourself?” “Well,” he said, “a part of the cure is working with other drunks, and we’re looking

[00:30:50.100 – 00:30:55.700] for a drunk to work on.” Well, the nurse said, “Well, we got a dandy.

[00:30:55.700 – 00:30:59.300] They just wheeled him in here in the ambulance.

[00:30:59.300 – 00:31:01.500] He’s got the DTs.

[00:31:01.500 – 00:31:11.500] Used to be a well-known attorney here in town, member of the city council, but he’s got so bad that in the last six months he’s been in here four

[00:31:11.500 – 00:31:16.500] times, and he can’t even get out of here and home without getting drunk.

[00:31:16.500 – 00:31:19.900] He’s in a bad way.

[00:31:19.900 – 00:31:20.700] He’s raving.

[00:31:20.700 – 00:31:25.300] He’s blacked the eyes of one of the nurses and knocked her down, and now we’ve got him strapped.

[00:31:25.300 – 00:31:31.800] How would that one suit you, Doctor?” “Well,” Smithie said, “that sounds pretty good, nurse.

[00:31:31.800 – 00:31:41.600] Uh, put him to bed, and here is his medication, and we’ll be around when he gets cleared up a little.” So presently, Dr.

[00:31:41.600 – 00:31:51.900] Bob and I saw a sight that tens of thousands of us have since beheld, and God willing,

[00:31:51.900 – 00:31:55.500] hundreds of thousands of us will still behold.

[00:31:55.500 – 00:31:58.200] You know what it is.

[00:31:58.200 – 00:32:05.000] It is the sight of the man on the bed who does not yet know that he can get well.

[00:32:05.000 – 00:32:08.300] So there was the man on the bed.

[00:32:08.300 – 00:32:18.100] We explained our mission, told him of our drinking experiences, told him what this malady was, told him of our release.

[00:32:18.100 – 00:32:24.600] So the man on the bed said, “How long you been sober?” “Well, Bob been sober a few weeks.

[00:32:24.600 – 00:32:28.200] I’ve been sober a few months.” “Well,” he said, “I was sober as long as that.

[00:32:28.200 – 00:32:34.000] Lots longer than that once, and besides, I’m a worse case than you guys.” Ever hear that, drunks?

[00:32:34.000 – 00:32:38.400] “No, it’s too late for me.

[00:32:38.400 – 00:32:41.900] I guess you guys have been through the wringer, but you’re only in up to your hips.

[00:32:41.900 – 00:32:43.100] I’m in up to my neck.

[00:32:43.100 – 00:32:45.400] I don’t dare go out of this place.

[00:32:45.400 – 00:32:48.500] No, boys, it’s too late for me.

[00:32:48.500 – 00:32:51.700] Don’t talk to me about religion.

[00:32:51.700 – 00:32:57.500] You know, funny thing is,” said the man on the bed, “I’m still a man of faith.

[00:32:57.500 – 00:33:08.000] I used to be a deacon in the church, but I guess God hasn’t any faith in me.” Well,

[00:33:08.000 – 00:33:09.900] we asked could we come back tomorrow.

[00:33:09.900 – 00:33:11.000] “Oh, sure,” he said.

[00:33:11.000 – 00:33:11.600] “Do come.

[00:33:11.600 – 00:33:21.700] You’ll understand.” So on the morrow we came, and we saw a sight which

[00:33:21.700 – 00:33:23.100] all of you have since seen.

[00:33:23.100 – 00:33:26.600] You know about what it was.

[00:33:26.600 – 00:33:30.700] The man’s wife was there, and she was saying to him, “Why, husband, what’s got into you?

[00:33:30.700 – 00:33:35.500] You seem so different.” And he said, “Yes, there they are.

[00:33:35.500 – 00:33:45.500] They are the ones who understand.” And then excitedly he tells how during the night, somehow hope had come to him.

[00:33:45.500 – 00:33:55.900] And then when he abandoned himself to these simple precepts of ours, there was that curious sense of lightness,

[00:33:55.900 – 00:33:58.800] that curious sense of being free.

[00:33:58.800 – 00:34:02.100] And something more than hope came.

[00:34:02.100 – 00:34:12.100] His hope had now grown into a mighty assurance, so that the man on the bed said, “Please,

[00:34:12.100 – 00:34:14.400] wife, fetch my clothes.

[00:34:14.400 – 00:34:20.300] We are going to get up and get out of here.” And A.A.

[00:34:20.300 – 00:34:30.100] number three rose from his bed on that summer day in June 1935, and he hasn’t had a drink since.

[00:34:30.100 – 00:34:37.400] And then there were two or three of us gathered together, you see, in that town who had an answer.

[00:34:37.400 – 00:34:43.500] And then, as since, the promise of the Good Book has been fulfilled.

[00:34:43.500 – 00:34:47.800] That was the beginning of the first A.A.

[00:34:47.800 – 00:34:56.500] group, though three years were to elapse before we realized that that had been the case.

[00:34:56.500 – 00:35:04.800] Chastened and more humble now, and more experienced, I returned to New York, and a little group took shape there.

[00:35:04.800 – 00:35:05.400] Dr.

[00:35:05.400 – 00:35:07.200] Bob continued work in Akron.

[00:35:07.200 – 00:35:12.500] Briefly, I got back into Wall Street, but that collapsed again.

[00:35:12.500 – 00:35:14.700] Three years had passed.

[00:35:14.700 – 00:35:18.500] It’s now the summer or the fall of 1937.

[00:35:18.500 – 00:35:21.700] And I’m in Akron again.

[00:35:21.700 – 00:35:22.900] Wall Street has folded up.

[00:35:22.900 – 00:35:24.000] I’m out of a job.

[00:35:24.000 – 00:35:25.600] Dr.

[00:35:25.600 – 00:35:29.000] Bob and I are talking again in the old living room there.

[00:35:29.000 – 00:35:33.800] And this time we’re comparing notes.

[00:35:33.800 – 00:35:37.000] How many cases had he worked on?

[00:35:37.000 – 00:35:38.600] How many cases had I worked on?

[00:35:38.600 – 00:35:39.600] Oh, hundreds.

[00:35:39.600 – 00:35:46.600] But more importantly, how many had been sober, and for how long?

[00:35:46.600 – 00:35:49.900] And we cast up the list.

[00:35:49.900 – 00:36:00.100] And when we cast up the list, it suddenly burst upon us that enough time had elapsed

[00:36:00.100 – 00:36:01.200] on enough cases.

[00:36:01.200 – 00:36:04.500] So at length something was proved.

[00:36:04.500 – 00:36:10.700] Aye, chain reaction might start, one alcoholic talking to another.

[00:36:10.700 – 00:36:13.800] Enough time elapsed on enough cases.

[00:36:13.800 – 00:36:15.200] Yes, that was it.

[00:36:15.200 – 00:36:24.700] And he and I clearly saw that new light which had begun to shine upon us children of the night.

[00:36:24.700 – 00:36:29.100] Ah, what an hour of realization that was.

[00:36:29.100 – 00:36:32.000] I wish you could have shared it with us.

[00:36:32.000 – 00:36:38.900] But that realization brought a vast responsibility.

[00:36:38.900 – 00:36:43.700] There were only a couple of score of us in both towns.

[00:36:43.700 – 00:36:49.200] The amount of failure had been immense, the amount of labor great.

[00:36:49.200 – 00:36:57.900] How were we 40 people going to tell the million alcoholics in America who yet didn’t know?

[00:36:57.900 – 00:37:05.500] Those who were still lying on these beds and might never know in time.

[00:37:05.500 – 00:37:08.300] How are we to transmit this thing?

[00:37:08.300 – 00:37:15.300] Well, by this time, you know I’m an optimist, and I often get drunk on other things than gin.

[00:37:15.300 – 00:37:25.400] And by this time, I had blown this up into my imagination so that even though we had but 40 cases, I’d begin to talk, “Well, now, Bob, you know, this may be the beginning of one of the

[00:37:25.400 – 00:37:33.100] greatest medical and one of the greatest social and one of the greatest religious developments of all time.” I begun to talk like a circus barker already.

[00:37:33.100 – 00:37:38.100] “Well, Smithy,” he said, “now slow down.” You know, he’s more conservative.

[00:37:38.100 – 00:37:42.800] “Yes, but we must have some way of transmitting this.

[00:37:42.800 – 00:37:44.300] The hospitals don’t like us.

[00:37:44.300 – 00:37:50.100] Why don’t I go out now, I’m a, you know, a promoter, and we’ll finance a string of these drunk tanks.

[00:37:50.100 – 00:37:52.500] Kind of a chain of drunk hospitals, see?

[00:37:52.500 – 00:38:02.900] And then it’s, nobody but old-timers can put this thing over, so we gotta go to the old-timers, get some dough from some place, and put them out as missionaries.

[00:38:02.900 – 00:38:04.400] You know, there you go.

[00:38:04.400 – 00:38:07.900] They aren’t all going to come to Akron or New York, all these million drunks.

[00:38:07.900 – 00:38:10.900] We gotta get out those missionaries and gotta get out those hospitals.

[00:38:10.900 – 00:38:16.300] But above all, we’ve got to have a book.

[00:38:16.300 – 00:38:25.100] We’ve got to put it on paper what’s happened to us, what these principles are.

[00:38:25.100 – 00:38:29.100] And there have got to be testimonials in that book, case histories.

[00:38:29.100 – 00:38:34.600] At least we owe that much to the million who don’t know.

[00:38:34.600 – 00:38:42.000] And if we don’t do this, the message may get garbled and we may bust up into schisms and all sorts of trouble.

[00:38:42.000 – 00:38:52.000] Unless we have some kind of a standard book, the press may come in on us and ridicule us

[00:38:52.000 – 00:39:02.100] and call us a cult, and that would cost lives among the million who don’t yet know.” Yes, we’d have to have hospitals, we’d have to have missionaries, we’d have to have

[00:39:02.100 – 00:39:02.700] a book.

[00:39:02.700 – 00:39:12.300] And I told you last night about that historic meeting a few days later in a parlor in Akron.

[00:39:12.300 – 00:39:16.000] The Akron alcoholics were there.

[00:39:16.000 – 00:39:17.400] Smithy was there.

[00:39:17.400 – 00:39:18.700] I was there.

[00:39:18.700 – 00:39:22.200] And we urged these things upon those drunks.

[00:39:22.200 – 00:39:26.000] And I told you how those drunks broke up into three sections.

[00:39:26.000 – 00:39:32.200] There was the orthodox section who said, “Look, this’ll put us into business.

[00:39:32.200 – 00:39:35.600] This’ll put us into property management.

[00:39:35.600 – 00:39:38.300] This’ll create a professional class.

[00:39:38.300 – 00:39:40.300] You can’t do this to us.

[00:39:40.300 – 00:39:46.800] And as for a book, we got along all right without a book.

[00:39:46.800 – 00:39:50.700] If we have a book, we’ll quarrel what we put in it.

[00:39:50.700 – 00:39:53.800] Maybe it won’t be right anyway.

[00:39:53.800 – 00:39:59.800] And we’ll quarrel what about the money about that book and who’s going to publish it.

[00:39:59.800 – 00:40:07.800] No, the strength of this thing is one drunk talking to another in those parlors.” So said the orthodox section of that day.

[00:40:07.800 – 00:40:11.400] And then the promoters, well, you already know what they said.

[00:40:11.400 – 00:40:12.700] Just go-

[00:40:13.000 – 00:40:15.100] Have books, gotta have hospitals, gotta have it.

[00:40:15.100 – 00:40:25.100] And the indifferent people, the people in the middle who really decided the thing, said, “Well, we don’t want to be bothered with any of this.

[00:40:25.100 – 00:40:37.000] But if Smithy and Bill think we gotta have some dough, we think Bill had better go back to New York where there’s a lot of it and get it up.” So

[00:40:37.000 – 00:40:45.300] the indifferent plus the promoters outvoted the orthodox people of that time.

[00:40:45.300 – 00:40:53.500] But as later events showed us, the orthodox people were not all wrong.

[00:40:53.500 – 00:40:56.100] And I told you last night how Mr.

[00:40:56.100 – 00:41:06.000] Rockefeller, by giving of hi- of himself, but not of his money, saved this movement from professionalism and property ownership.

[00:41:06.000 – 00:41:16.300] But as you know, we did come up with a book, the one from which the reading was done tonight, the core

[00:41:16.300 – 00:41:19.700] of which are those 12 principles.

[00:41:19.700 – 00:41:27.000] The early worth of– word of mouth program laid down in 12 concrete steps.

[00:41:27.000 – 00:41:38.400] Happily, those steps have been accepted by the world of medicine and by the world of religion, and

[00:41:38.400 – 00:41:43.200] almost, you might say, by the world in general since that day.

[00:41:43.200 – 00:41:53.500] But when that book, that tiny chip, was launched on the world tide of alcoholism, none

[00:41:53.500 – 00:41:55.100] could then foresee what happened.

[00:41:55.100 – 00:41:59.700] And you remember times were very tough, and the printer almost got the book.

[00:41:59.700 – 00:42:01.200] The sheriff moved in.

[00:42:01.200 – 00:42:03.200] We lost our house.

[00:42:03.200 – 00:42:04.300] Mr.

[00:42:04.300 – 00:42:06.200] Rockefeller gave us no money.

[00:42:06.200 – 00:42:08.200] We didn’t hear from him for three years.

[00:42:08.200 – 00:42:15.700] And then things began to unfold, and Liberty Magazine published a piece, and some inquiries came in.

[00:42:15.700 – 00:42:17.600] We started to distribute them.

[00:42:17.600 – 00:42:26.500] The fall of 1939, a man came up to me only today and said, “I came in on that Liberty piece.” And you remember how in 1940, Mr.

[00:42:26.500 – 00:42:28.900] Rockefeller gave the dinner to all the rich men?

[00:42:28.900 – 00:42:35.300] We had about $5 billion in capital and bankers in the room, and we figured the time for the big touch was here.

[00:42:35.300 – 00:42:36.400] The money was coming in.

[00:42:36.400 – 00:42:38.200] Nothing of the sort happened.

[00:42:38.200 – 00:42:42.400] He gave of himself, but not of his money once more.

[00:42:42.400 – 00:42:53.800] But he stood up and publicly staked his reputation and placed his confidence on 800 anonymous drunks.

[00:42:53.800 – 00:42:55.500] What a vital contribution.

[00:42:55.500 – 00:42:59.900] What a realization and a decision on his part.

[00:42:59.900 – 00:43:04.100] How easily he could have unwitted- willingly ruined us.

[00:43:04.100 – 00:43:14.900] Oh, yes, there have been many great realizations and many great decisions taken on this road which leads to our destiny,

[00:43:14.900 – 00:43:17.500] and they haven’t all been taken by us.

[00:43:17.500 – 00:43:18.500] That was one of them.

[00:43:18.500 – 00:43:23.400] And damn few have been taken by me, too, I’ll tell you that.

[00:43:23.400 – 00:43:27.200] I’m gonna knock this inspired leadership idea right out of you in a minute.

[00:43:27.200 – 00:43:37.600] Anyhow, you know the big payoff came when

[00:43:37.600 – 00:43:47.900] Jack Alexander’s piece appeared in that Saturday Post, and thousands upon thousands of inquiries from frantic drunks and their wives and relatives

[00:43:47.900 – 00:43:49.900] poured in on that little New York office.

[00:43:49.900 – 00:43:59.500] And that announced to the world that this thing was on the level and that the Saturday Post was saying so, as much as if to say, “This is good, folks.

[00:43:59.500 – 00:44:02.700] Come and get it.” And how they did come and get it.

[00:44:02.700 – 00:44:04.400] Ah, you can remember.

[00:44:04.400 – 00:44:08.000] You remember that old-timers’ dinner we had only yesterday?

[00:44:08.000 – 00:44:13.200] All of the people there who came into the Los Angeles group at the time of the Post article.

[00:44:13.200 – 00:44:19.000] Well, right then and there, of course, we now see in retrospect that A.A.

[00:44:19.000 – 00:44:26.600] had come out of its infancy and had begun to enter its next phase, the phase of adolescence.

[00:44:26.600 – 00:44:37.000] Well, with us, adolescence was especially fearsome, exciting, and perilous

[00:44:37.000 – 00:44:37.500] time.

[00:44:37.500 – 00:44:46.500] You see, it had been proved that the individual could stay all in one piece by these principles and by working with others.

[00:44:46.500 – 00:44:49.200] But now the test was, could these A.A.

[00:44:49.200 – 00:44:52.800] groups so rapidly forming stay in one piece?

[00:44:52.800 – 00:45:03.300] And we made the rather frightening discovery that just because drunks get sober, they don’t necessarily

[00:45:03.300 – 00:45:05.400] get very good or very moral.

[00:45:05.400 – 00:45:08.300] They could still act like hell, and I don’t mean maybe.

[00:45:08.300 – 00:45:10.600] They could be mean.

[00:45:10.600 – 00:45:11.900] They could be vindictive.

[00:45:11.900 – 00:45:13.400] They could gossip like the devil.

[00:45:13.400 – 00:45:19.100] They could strive for power and prestige, and they could push and shove each other around.

[00:45:19.100 – 00:45:28.200] Oh, yes, it was a wonderful society, and there was great joy in it, but that there, there was, though, there mighty currents of dissolution were in there, too.

[00:45:28.200 – 00:45:36.600] And as these groups began to form all over the country with such rapidity, we were beset with terrific problems.

[00:45:36.600 – 00:45:42.400] And they began to write us in New York about these problems.

[00:45:42.400 – 00:45:45.100] What was the experience in those two or three older groups?

[00:45:45.100 – 00:45:48.200] And what problems they were.

[00:45:48.200 – 00:45:49.500] Well, you remember them.

[00:45:49.500 – 00:45:56.100] My Lord, I remember one of the first ones, uh, in New York where, where the people were getting out of the insane asylums.

[00:45:56.100 – 00:46:00.900] There was a cult in New York called the Cult of the Pure Alcoholic.

[00:46:00.900 – 00:46:03.100] Nothing the matter with them except they drink.

[00:46:03.100 – 00:46:08.700] So when we began to take people out of the nut factories, we were scared to death.

[00:46:08.700 – 00:46:12.300] We said, “Well, what would be sandbagged?

[00:46:12.300 – 00:46:14.700] What will people think of this A.A.

[00:46:14.700 – 00:46:24.300] with lunatics coming in out of the asylum?” Today, a half of the board of trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation are ex-asylum inmates.

[00:46:24.300 – 00:46:25.200] Figure that one out.

[00:46:25.200 – 00:46:27.700] So we lost that fear.

[00:46:27.700 – 00:46:33.700] Then there were queer people coming in now and then.

[00:46:33.700 – 00:46:43.800] “Oh,” we said, “our reputation, my God.” “Oh, we, we can’t have, uh, we can’t have people with

[00:46:43.800 – 00:46:54.300] other ailments.” Well, you know and I know that some of those people have become our most respected

[00:46:54.300 – 00:46:55.700] and wonderful members.

[00:46:55.700 – 00:47:03.900] You and I look back with horror that we might have pushed them out into oblivion.

[00:47:03.900 – 00:47:08.300] Oh, we no longer have those fears.

[00:47:08.300 – 00:47:18.300] Then came the panhandlers, and then came the prestige seekers, and then came the politicians, and then came those quarrels over property when we got into

[00:47:18.300 – 00:47:19.300] the club business.

[00:47:19.300 – 00:47:23.300] Oh, yes, the club business, a brand-new set of problems.

[00:47:23.300 – 00:47:25.600] Boy meets girl in club.

[00:47:25.600 – 00:47:26.500] What next?

[00:47:26.500 – 00:47:27.300] Oh.

[00:47:27.300 – 00:47:32.400] Appeared the big bad wolf and the Little Red Riding Hood.

[00:47:32.400 – 00:47:34.600] Dissolution was near at hand, we thought.

[00:47:34.600 – 00:47:44.700] And as in old time, the rock throwers threw the rocks, and the women fell,

[00:47:44.700 – 00:47:46.000] I guess, sometimes.

[00:47:46.000 – 00:47:49.900] But they all got up again, didn’t they?

[00:47:49.900 – 00:47:57.900] Ah, those were the days, the wonderful, fearsome days of our adolescence.

[00:47:57.900 – 00:48:08.000] And on those hot anvils of experience, we beat out the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:48:08.000 – 00:48:18.300] We egocentrics began to say, “Yes, the common welfare c- must come first.

[00:48:18.300 – 00:48:28.400] Unless we can hang together as groups and as a movement, there will be little survival for any of us and none for the million

[00:48:28.400 – 00:48:29.200] yet to come.

[00:48:29.200 – 00:48:39.300] The common welfare has to come first.” And then in late years, we began to talk about something called the group conscience, and when the word

[00:48:39.300 – 00:48:44.500] was first mentioned, we old-timers said, “The hell you say, the group conscience.

[00:48:44.500 – 00:48:46.500] They haven’t got any conscience.

[00:48:46.500 – 00:48:50.900] Look at the way they’ve cut us up after what we’ve, all the good we’ve done for them.

[00:48:50.900 – 00:48:55.700] All the good we’ve done for them, and look at how ungrateful these people are.

[00:48:55.700 – 00:49:01.500] Group conscience, what do you mean?” Ah, today we know better.

[00:49:01.500 – 00:49:12.100] We know that when you get a, a, a great crowd of people clustered around these principles, that

[00:49:12.100 – 00:49:19.800] they do have a conscience which is often much wiser about their own welfare than any inspired leadership.

[00:49:19.800 – 00:49:25.200] Oh, how well I remember my first experience with the group conscience.

[00:49:25.200 – 00:49:28.900] Times were pretty hard at Clinton Street, Brooklyn.

[00:49:28.900 – 00:49:30.200] The house was full of drunks.

[00:49:30.200 – 00:49:32.200] They were stewed most of the time.

[00:49:32.200 – 00:49:34.900] Lois was working in the damn department store.

[00:49:34.900 – 00:49:45.100] And one day, I was up at old Charlie Townes, who owned the drunk tank where I’d originally dried out.

[00:49:45.100 – 00:49:47.600] Charlie called me in his office.

[00:49:47.600 – 00:49:58.200] He said, “Look, Bill,” he said, “I want to talk to you.” He said, “Old Doc Silkworth always had faith in this thing of yours.” He said, “I didn’t,” but he said, “Now I do.”

[00:49:58.200 – 00:50:08.300] He said, “I know you only got 40, 50 members around here, but someday, my boy, we’re going to fill Madison Square Garden with those drunks.” I said, “Doc, I

[00:50:08.300 – 00:50:16.000] used to think so, but I think you’re a little imaginative.” “No,” he said, “I believe that.” Now he said, “Look, Bill-

[00:50:16.100 – 00:50:18.900] So these other drunks are getting jobs.

[00:50:18.900 – 00:50:21.900] You’re passing them up over their head.

[00:50:21.900 – 00:50:23.100] They’re going back to work.

[00:50:23.100 – 00:50:26.600] Drunks may be pretty crazy, but none of them are stupid.

[00:50:26.600 – 00:50:28.900] They can certainly earn money if they can stay sober.

[00:50:28.900 – 00:50:32.400] And you two people, you and Lois, you’re starving to death.

[00:50:32.400 – 00:50:35.100] And as for the Rockefellers, what have they done?

[00:50:35.100 – 00:50:45.100] Now look, Bill, why don’t you come in here and let me give you an office here and make your headquarters here, and then you could get on my staff

[00:50:45.100 – 00:50:46.600] as a kind of a lay therapist.

[00:50:46.600 – 00:50:48.100] Call it anything you like.

[00:50:48.100 – 00:50:51.000] It would be perfectly ethical.

[00:50:51.000 – 00:50:55.900] You know I haven’t tried to take any advantage of the fact that you got well in this place.

[00:50:55.900 – 00:50:59.000] We haven’t tried to capitalize on the fact that Dr.

[00:50:59.000 – 00:51:03.500] Silkworth’s idea of sickness was a vital contribution to your society.

[00:51:03.500 – 00:51:07.400] Why don’t you come in here and I’ll put you on a darn good drawing account.

[00:51:07.400 – 00:51:09.000] I’ll do more.

[00:51:09.000 – 00:51:19.000] Years ago, in 1929, in the days of the stricken stockbrokers when they all had bankrolls, this place used to make several thousand dollars

[00:51:19.000 – 00:51:19.700] a month, Bill.

[00:51:19.700 – 00:51:23.400] Today, we’re just about breaking even.

[00:51:23.400 – 00:51:24.600] Times are hard.

[00:51:24.600 – 00:51:28.500] A partner of mine pulled out and took some of the business with him.

[00:51:28.500 – 00:51:38.700] But Bill, if you’ll come in here and make a perfectly ethical hookup with me, I’ll give you a third interest

[00:51:38.700 – 00:51:39.700] in this place.

[00:51:39.700 – 00:51:50.400] I must confess that I was terribly tempted, but

[00:51:50.400 – 00:51:54.700] the temptation passed into a conviction that Charlie Towns was right.

[00:51:54.700 – 00:52:03.100] And as I went home, I fell prey to our familiar ill.

[00:52:03.100 – 00:52:09.300] I fell prey to a rationalization, a particularly good one, because I got it right out of the Bible.

[00:52:09.300 – 00:52:20.900] I thought to myself, “Yes, Bill, the laborer is worthy of his hire.” So I arrived home and Lois,

[00:52:20.900 – 00:52:26.900] after an all-day stand in that department store, was home cooking supper for the drunks around the house.

[00:52:26.900 – 00:52:28.400] None of them were getting well either.

[00:52:28.400 – 00:52:31.100] It was only the ones outside the house that got well.

[00:52:31.100 – 00:52:36.600] And I said, “Well, dear, we’re going to eat.

[00:52:36.600 – 00:52:46.200] Going to make this tie-up with Charlie Towns.” Well, she didn’t seem too enthusiastic, uh, which did seem kind of nice.

[00:52:46.200 – 00:52:53.500] That night, there’s that meeting in the parlor, and the drunks come in from around the neighborhood.

[00:52:53.500 – 00:52:57.000] There weren’t– wasn’t a very big meeting, a score of us there.

[00:52:57.000 – 00:53:00.500] And excitedly, I told them of this new opportunity.

[00:53:00.500 – 00:53:07.200] And as I talked, I saw their faces fall.

[00:53:07.200 – 00:53:11.400] And when I had finished, there was a dead silence.

[00:53:11.400 – 00:53:20.500] And finally, one of them spoke, and I now know that he spoke for the group conscience.

[00:53:20.500 – 00:53:24.300] He said, “Bill, we know you and Lois are having a tough time.

[00:53:24.300 – 00:53:34.300] Maybe we can give you a lift.” But he said, “Don’t you know that if you tie this thing up to that particular

[00:53:34.300 – 00:53:43.100] hospital, that every hospital in the country will laugh because Charlie Towns is selling God?” The old atheist.

[00:53:43.100 – 00:53:49.800] “Don’t you know, Bill, if you put yourself in that position that you’ll become a professional?

[00:53:49.800 – 00:53:59.800] Bill, you can’t do this thing to us,” said the group

[00:53:59.800 – 00:54:00.400] conscience.

[00:54:00.400 – 00:54:10.400] “No, you can’t do this thing to us.” So I listened to the group conscience for

[00:54:10.400 – 00:54:15.000] the first time, and I knew that it was right.

[00:54:15.000 – 00:54:20.100] And luckily, I had the grace to obey it.

[00:54:20.100 – 00:54:28.200] And at that moment, it flashed over to m- me, you have never been a teacher of this society.

[00:54:28.200 – 00:54:29.400] You have been its pupil.

[00:54:29.400 – 00:54:40.900] And ever since, I have been tr- I have tried to be a pupil of the experience of this society

[00:54:40.900 – 00:54:51.300] and to listen and listen to the conscience of this movement when I fear I am tempted.

[00:54:51.300 – 00:54:57.600] So much for the inspired leadership stuff.

[00:54:57.600 – 00:54:58.600] The bunk, ain’t it, huh?

[00:54:58.600 – 00:55:04.500] Well, the rest of the tradition develops.

[00:55:04.500 – 00:55:07.900] You know, we thought we needed all this money.

[00:55:07.900 – 00:55:10.500] Today, the tradition says we don’t take any contributions.

[00:55:10.500 – 00:55:11.900] We pay our own bills.

[00:55:11.900 – 00:55:15.800] I don’t mind confessing we have a hell of a time paying our own bills.

[00:55:15.800 – 00:55:24.200] Of course, this society will earn a cool six hundred million dollars as a result of the combined earning power.

[00:55:24.200 – 00:55:31.800] Drunks are individually very generous, but collectively, I’m afraid we are as tight as the bark on a tree.

[00:55:31.800 – 00:55:41.700] You know, there’s a funny story about that.

[00:55:41.700 – 00:55:44.700] The joke is on me, too, not on you.

[00:55:44.700 – 00:55:54.800] When we first asked for money to keep that central office open to answer all those Saturday Post inquiries, of course, the drunks were slow on the uptake, and they didn’t

[00:55:54.800 – 00:55:56.400] send in a half enough.

[00:55:56.400 – 00:56:02.000] We thought a dollar a year apiece would do the job and, oh, I don’t know, we got twenty-five cents a year apiece.

[00:56:02.000 – 00:56:05.900] And it looked like we’d have to throw those inquiries in the wastebaskets.

[00:56:05.900 – 00:56:06.200] I don’t know.

[00:56:06.200 – 00:56:09.000] I just couldn’t hire the help to answer them.

[00:56:09.000 – 00:56:18.000] I was raging up and down the office and all of a sudden, an old friend of mine, a slip E, uh, one of the Clinton Street failures, stood in the door, weaving slightly.

[00:56:18.000 – 00:56:21.600] And I knew right away we was in for a touch.

[00:56:21.600 – 00:56:31.200] Nevertheless, uh, I took him inside my little cubicle and I said, “Hi, my friend.” I said, “Gosh, it’s terrible the way these drunks are.

[00:56:31.200 – 00:56:40.400] Stingy guys.” He said, “Well, what about a few bucks?” I said, “Sure.” And I stuck my hand in my pocket and I handed him a $5 bill.

[00:56:40.400 – 00:56:46.400] Well, at that time, my income was $30 a week from that Rockefeller dinner money, you know, and that was all.

[00:56:46.400 – 00:56:51.100] In other words, I handed him $5 to drink with that Lois needed for groceries.

[00:56:51.100 – 00:56:53.700] Why did I do that?

[00:56:53.700 – 00:57:00.900] To prove to myself how very generous I was, and by happy contrast with the other drunks, how stingy they were, you see.

[00:57:00.900 – 00:57:03.600] That very night, I went up to the club.

[00:57:03.600 – 00:57:05.900] The club was struggling along.

[00:57:05.900 – 00:57:07.900] The landlord was restless.

[00:57:07.900 – 00:57:11.800] The treasurer very bashfully brought up the sub- subject of money.

[00:57:11.800 – 00:57:14.000] Treasurers were very bashful in those days.

[00:57:14.000 – 00:57:24.000] And he said, he said, “Boys, now at th- this intermission, we’re going to pass the hat, and can’t you do a little something more?” And I’m sitting on the stairs in the intermission

[00:57:24.000 – 00:57:25.700] trying to save some drunken soul.

[00:57:25.700 – 00:57:27.400] You know, I was always working at that.

[00:57:27.400 – 00:57:34.500] The hat came along by me, and I reached in my pocket and I got a hold of a coin and pulled it out.

[00:57:34.500 – 00:57:38.000] I absentmindedly look at it and saw it was 50 cents.

[00:57:38.000 – 00:57:42.900] And I reached in the pocket and I got another coin and I put it in the hat.

[00:57:42.900 – 00:57:44.300] And folks, what do you think it was?

[00:57:44.300 – 00:57:45.300] It was a dime.

[00:57:45.300 – 00:57:55.400] And then I woke up with a start and I said, “So you’re the guy who was panning all these drunks because they didn’t

[00:57:55.400 – 00:58:05.900] send a buck a year, and you’re the guy who gave $5 to this bum to drink on.” Ah, yes, when your alms could be seen,

[00:58:05.900 – 00:58:09.400] they were very generous at Lois’s expense.

[00:58:09.400 – 00:58:19.500] But when you had to put it in the hat, and it was a collective responsibility, and there wasn’t any romant in that

[00:58:19.500 – 00:58:27.800] random heat– romance in that heat and light stuff, then you turned just as tight as any of them, didn’t you?

[00:58:27.800 – 00:58:28.800] Good lesson, that one.

[00:58:28.800 – 00:58:30.400] I’m passing it along.

[00:58:30.400 – 00:58:40.500] Some of you may be here who say these are a very rebellious

[00:58:40.500 – 00:58:40.800] people.

[00:58:40.800 – 00:58:41.400] They’re right.

[00:58:41.400 – 00:58:44.100] But we do obey principle.

[00:58:44.100 – 00:58:49.900] We must if we would survive as individuals and if we would survive as groups.

[00:58:49.900 – 00:58:56.300] So it was your experience and my experience that has generated these A.A.

[00:58:56.300 – 00:58:57.200] traditions.

[00:58:57.200 – 00:59:05.700] They are not laws, but they are a mighty force now being confirmed in our hearts and by our experience.

[00:59:05.700 – 00:59:17.300] And they had come so far along last summer that at our Cleveland convention, the first international one, 7,000

[00:59:17.300 – 00:59:24.000] of us said, “Yes, this is the platform on which we wish to stand.

[00:59:24.000 – 00:59:28.100] This is the point at which we have grown up.

[00:59:28.100 – 00:59:33.800] We have taken our destiny by the hand.” And Dr.

[00:59:33.800 – 00:59:36.000] Bob was there for the last time.

[00:59:36.000 – 00:59:46.200] And we did that, and declared that this movement had grown up, had come of age.

[00:59:46.200 – 00:59:58.000] Such is my little account of our infancy and of our adolescence.

[00:59:58.000 – 00:60:02.000] At the outset of this meeting, we said, “Every A.A.

[00:60:02.000 – 00:60:12.400] meeting is a time for gratitude.” Now, primarily, I think we A.A.s express our gratitude by

[00:60:12.400 – 00:60:17.100] seeing that this message is carried to those who don’t yet know, if they want it.

[00:60:17.100 – 00:60:19.100] Therefore-

[00:60:19.400 – 00:60:29.000] Means by which in the future this movement is going to carry its message to those who don’t know and to impart it to those coming in its door.

[00:60:29.000 – 00:60:34.700] In gratitude, we are going to provide whatever means that takes, aren’t we?

[00:60:34.700 – 00:60:47.700] So

[00:60:47.700 – 00:60:56.800] that brings into the foreground of our thinking now the final phase of this discussion, which has to do with the subject of something we call services.

[00:60:56.800 – 00:61:03.200] These services, until recent years, have hardly been respectable.

[00:61:03.200 – 00:61:07.100] They were supposed to be kind of a necessary evil.

[00:61:07.100 – 00:61:11.900] The pious looked on them with considerable scorn, some of them.

[00:61:11.900 – 00:61:17.000] But when you stop to think about it, A.A.

[00:61:17.000 – 00:61:20.000] has to be something more than recovery.

[00:61:20.000 – 00:61:21.900] It has to be something more than unity.

[00:61:21.900 – 00:61:23.100] If A.A.

[00:61:23.100 – 00:61:25.500] is anything, it is a program of action.

[00:61:25.500 – 00:61:27.600] It has to function.

[00:61:27.600 – 00:61:33.200] The drunk has to do something about those principles.

[00:61:33.200 – 00:61:35.800] His group has to do something about tradition.

[00:61:35.800 – 00:61:40.800] The area has to function as an area.

[00:61:40.800 – 00:61:44.000] We see the need for central service.

[00:61:44.000 – 00:61:45.800] The movement has to function as a whole.

[00:61:45.800 – 00:61:46.900] What makes it function?

[00:61:46.900 – 00:61:48.300] Services.

[00:61:48.300 – 00:61:58.700] I suppose the first great service ever performed to our movement was performed by my doctor, a man of medicine, when he sobered me up repeatedly

[00:61:58.700 – 00:62:02.900] and finally told me that this thing was a disease.

[00:62:02.900 – 00:62:11.300] A great service and a great tradition of service now growing among our friends of medicine to us of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:62:11.300 – 00:62:21.600] Another service, by all odds the most expensive one we have, and for aught I know, the most important

[00:62:21.600 – 00:62:22.000] one.

[00:62:22.000 – 00:62:24.900] But what about our wives?

[00:62:24.900 – 00:62:35.200] I can remember the times, the first times, that Lois Wilson and Annie Smith baked cakes

[00:62:35.200 – 00:62:45.200] and brewed coffee for those drunks out there in the living room, when this thing was still flying blind and no man knew who would

[00:62:45.200 – 00:62:47.000] be drunk next.

[00:62:47.000 – 00:62:50.300] Coffee and cake for the drunks in the living room.

[00:62:50.300 – 00:62:53.700] A service that helped A.A.

[00:62:53.700 – 00:62:54.400] to function.

[00:62:54.400 – 00:62:56.100] And then A.A.

[00:62:56.100 – 00:63:01.700] got too big for those living rooms, and the days of utter simplicity were over.

[00:63:01.700 – 00:63:04.600] We had to move out at a hall.

[00:63:04.600 – 00:63:11.400] We didn’t want to mix money with A.A., but the landlords didn’t care anything about that.

[00:63:11.400 – 00:63:12.500] They wanted rent.

[00:63:12.500 – 00:63:15.800] So somebody had to pass a hat.

[00:63:15.800 – 00:63:20.300] And at first it was somebody, it was anybody.

[00:63:20.300 – 00:63:24.600] The old-timers picked him out, and they paid the rent.

[00:63:24.600 – 00:63:28.600] But by and by, that somebody was elected.

[00:63:28.600 – 00:63:29.700] He became a treasurer.

[00:63:29.700 – 00:63:31.800] And then there was a chairman.

[00:63:31.800 – 00:63:36.800] He was the founder for a while, but by and by they’d push him off or he’d walk off.

[00:63:36.800 – 00:63:39.100] If he walked off, he was an elder statesman.

[00:63:39.100 – 00:63:41.600] If he was pushed off, he became a bleeding deacon.

[00:63:41.600 – 00:63:49.300] And the group began to have a little rotating committee that looked after the chores of the group.

[00:63:49.300 – 00:63:55.500] And in a big area like this, you found there were a few chores that had to be done centrally.

[00:63:55.500 – 00:64:00.000] Somebody had to answer the telephone when Alcoholics Anonymous was called.

[00:64:00.000 – 00:64:04.200] Somebody had to interview people who wanted to find out about us.

[00:64:04.200 – 00:64:06.700] Somebody had to make hospital arrangements.

[00:64:06.700 – 00:64:08.600] Somebody had to arrange meetings like this.

[00:64:08.600 – 00:64:12.000] Somebody had to arrange your dinners, this, that, and the other thing.

[00:64:12.000 – 00:64:15.300] Chores to be done for the area that couldn’t be done for any group.

[00:64:15.300 – 00:64:18.500] So the idea of central service began to grow.

[00:64:18.500 – 00:64:21.200] And you had to hire a secretary or two.

[00:64:21.200 – 00:64:24.000] Oh, God, we groaned awfully about that, but we did it.

[00:64:24.000 – 00:64:29.700] And we’re deeply realizing that those few chores must be done and well done.

[00:64:29.700 – 00:64:39.700] So years ago, in anticipation of a need that this

[00:64:39.700 – 00:64:48.200] movement might have to have certain things done for the whole, you remember how I told you last night that we formed the Alcoholic Foundation.

[00:64:48.200 – 00:64:53.700] Nothing but an incorporated committee of our first non-alcoholic friends and a few of us.

[00:64:53.700 – 00:64:57.500] And how at first the thing raised no money.

[00:64:57.500 – 00:65:04.100] In fact, it never raised much money except $3,000 a year for five years, and then we began to pay our own bills.

[00:65:04.100 – 00:65:12.000] And how the title to the book Alcoholics Anonymous was handed to those foundation trustees.

[00:65:12.000 – 00:65:15.900] And how then the management of our little office down there was handed to them.

[00:65:15.900 – 00:65:22.900] How you groups began to send in a little money to pay the bills in the office, still handled by this board of trustees.

[00:65:22.900 – 00:65:32.900] Then we found out that no particular group or alcoholic should feel authorized to rush to a microphone or a newspaper

[00:65:32.900 – 00:65:37.600] or a magazine of national circulation and put out propaganda about A.A.

[00:65:37.600 – 00:65:42.300] Our overall public relations got to be a problem.

[00:65:42.300 – 00:65:44.900] Gee whiz, I remember the first problem we had.

[00:65:44.900 – 00:65:53.200] There was a drunk down around Jacksonville, and he’d got one of these shouting religious experiences kind of mixed up with the A.A.

[00:65:53.200 – 00:65:53.700] stuff.

[00:65:53.700 – 00:65:55.200] Sobered him all right.

[00:65:55.200 – 00:66:01.900] And he prepared 13 lectures about Alcoholics Anonymous in which he figured very prominently.

[00:66:01.900 – 00:66:07.500] And he put them out on the Jacksonville radio, and as a result of that, some drunks showed up and a group started.

[00:66:07.500 – 00:66:17.800] Well, very much heartened by this, he being the promoter type like me, you know, he goes to one of the life insurance companies and said we should tell this whole message

[00:66:17.800 – 00:66:20.100] to America as a public health service.

[00:66:20.100 – 00:66:24.200] Well, actually, from the A point of view, the message really stunk.

[00:66:24.200 – 00:66:27.600] I mean, if the groups had ever heard it, they would have gone berserk.

[00:66:27.600 – 00:66:29.900] A lot of drunks would have been turned away.

[00:66:29.900 – 00:66:32.200] The guy meant well, but the stuff was awful.

[00:66:32.200 – 00:66:42.200] Well, he wrote up to the New York office and said, “I just made a contract with the Mutual Broadcasting Company and Gulf Life Insurance Company to put on my 13 lectures, and here

[00:66:42.200 – 00:66:47.000] are the lectures.” Boy, we read them there in the office and our hair stood right on end.

[00:66:47.000 – 00:66:56.500] Did this mean that any drunk could rush to a microphone any place, any time on a big national hookup?

[00:66:56.500 – 00:66:58.800] This stuff was junk.

[00:66:58.800 – 00:67:01.500] It would be awful.

[00:67:01.500 – 00:67:02.700] What could we do?

[00:67:02.700 – 00:67:05.100] So I remonstrated with him.

[00:67:05.100 – 00:67:06.300] I tried to be gentle.

[00:67:06.300 – 00:67:08.800] I tried to be prudent.

[00:67:08.800 – 00:67:19.000] But this guy was a promoter, and prudence ended when he wrote me and said, “You, Bill,

[00:67:19.000 – 00:67:22.600] and your board of trustees can go plumb to hell.

[00:67:22.600 – 00:67:29.900] I owe this message to America.” Well, that posed the issue.

[00:67:29.900 – 00:67:32.400] Didn’t we have any control of those things at all?

[00:67:32.400 – 00:67:35.100] Were we going to be as simple as that?

[00:67:35.100 – 00:67:45.100] So I wrote him back and assured him that he had a right of free speech, but I feared that the groups might exercise their free speech,

[00:67:45.100 – 00:67:55.100] and when they told his sponsor what kind of a thing, uh, how, what they thought about his program, the Gulf Life Insurance Company and the Mutual

[00:67:55.100 – 00:67:59.200] Broad-casting Company would get very ill indeed.

[00:67:59.200 – 00:68:09.200] So we didn’t have that particular program, but at that point, I wrote the groups of that day and said, “Won’t you entrust your general public relations to those trustees down

[00:68:09.200 – 00:68:11.000] there, and let, let us look after it?

[00:68:11.000 – 00:68:21.300] You look after your local public relations, but these big pieces, this broadcasting, this radio business, this magazine business, can’t we centralize

[00:68:21.300 – 00:68:22.400] that?” And you did.

[00:68:22.400 – 00:68:26.600] You authorized those trustees in New York to do those jobs for you.

[00:68:26.600 – 00:68:32.400] Let me show you how meaningful those jobs can be.

[00:68:32.400 – 00:68:39.500] Only a year ago this time, we received a script of a movie being prepared by one of the big companies here.

[00:68:39.500 – 00:68:41.800] A lot of nice folks in that company.

[00:68:41.800 – 00:68:44.100] They treated us fine one time earlier.

[00:68:44.100 – 00:68:47.900] Well, this was a kind of a sophisticated script.

[00:68:47.900 – 00:68:53.800] They meant all right as far as we were concerned, but it really didn’t represent AA correctly.

[00:68:53.800 – 00:68:56.700] From our point of view, it was miles off the line.

[00:68:56.700 – 00:69:05.700] Well, now, you people wouldn’t have any idea of the trouble that your office down there and that board of trustees went to with respect to that script.

[00:69:05.700 – 00:69:09.100] An immense amount of correspondence back and forth.

[00:69:09.100 – 00:69:13.100] AAs here in the movie business helped us out.

[00:69:13.100 – 00:69:18.800] We made an appeal to, uh, the, uh, what used to be the Hays Office.

[00:69:18.800 – 00:69:20.500] We had attorneys in it.

[00:69:20.500 – 00:69:22.700] We had one of the best agents in the business.

[00:69:22.700 – 00:69:31.900] And finally, the company obligingly changed the title and warped the thing around so that it doesn’t look anywhere near so bad.

[00:69:31.900 – 00:69:41.300] Now, that was a long labor, completely unseen to you, but those are the kind of things that have made all the difference in the world.

[00:69:41.300 – 00:69:51.700] For example, if you picked up Fortune magazine, wh- the last February number, you’ll find that that issue was devoted to

[00:69:51.700 – 00:70:00.500] the whole American scene: politics, religion, a description of the sections, the history, capital, labor, economics.

[00:70:00.500 – 00:70:04.500] It was a panoramic picture of America as it is today.

[00:70:04.500 – 00:70:14.800] And of all the societies that Fortune might have picked out to cite as a typical and unique American institution, who

[00:70:14.800 – 00:70:18.900] should Fortune magazine pick but Alcoholics Anonymous?

[00:70:18.900 – 00:70:22.300] And if you’ll get that February copy of Fortune-

[00:70:23.100 – 00:70:26.900] You’ll find in there one of the finest accounts of this society ever written.

[00:70:26.900 – 00:70:30.700] Well, why was it a fine account?

[00:70:30.700 – 00:70:37.400] It was a fine account because in the first place, one of the editors of Fortune, himself an A.A., wrote it.

[00:70:37.400 – 00:70:38.700] That’s one reason it’s good.

[00:70:38.700 – 00:70:49.300] And

[00:70:49.300 – 00:70:53.900] I don’t want his name printed in the press in this connection, but I’ll give you a clue who it was.

[00:70:53.900 – 00:70:58.800] He’s a fellow a couple years ago wrote the bestseller put in the movies here under the name of Mr.

[00:70:58.800 – 00:71:00.700] Blandings Builds His Dream House.

[00:71:00.700 – 00:71:01.700] Do you get the pitch?

[00:71:01.700 – 00:71:10.800] And my friend Eric comes over to the office and says, “Look, folks, uh, sure, I, I know something about A.A., all right.

[00:71:10.800 – 00:71:15.800] It saved my skin.” I used to think Mr.

[00:71:15.800 – 00:71:18.200] Lewis didn’t know I was a rummy, but he did.

[00:71:18.200 – 00:71:21.600] He’s asked me to do this job now.

[00:71:21.600 – 00:71:22.900] He knows I’ve been sober.

[00:71:22.900 – 00:71:26.400] But I need some help.

[00:71:26.400 – 00:71:31.300] Well, naturally, we turn the, uh, office inside out for Eric.

[00:71:31.300 – 00:71:41.500] Boy, we pull in files, we give him panoramic pictures of A.A., and he’s the first writer who has emphasized our tradition as something

[00:71:41.500 – 00:71:51.700] very unique, also something quite American, so that the public has begun to be aware of this singular tradition of ours

[00:71:51.700 – 00:71:54.100] and that wonderful piece.

[00:71:54.100 – 00:71:58.100] In other words, a lot of people took a lot of pains.

[00:71:58.100 – 00:72:01.900] We spent some of your money long distance telephoning to Eric’s home in Florida.

[00:72:01.900 – 00:72:05.700] We had long conversations with some of the people in Fortune.

[00:72:05.700 – 00:72:08.100] Manuscripts were passed back and forth.

[00:72:08.100 – 00:72:15.500] Fortune at first thought they only wanted 1,000 words, and before they through, they added up to something around 7,000 words.

[00:72:15.500 – 00:72:16.200] You better read it.

[00:72:16.200 – 00:72:18.300] But that piece just didn’t happen.

[00:72:18.300 – 00:72:28.300] Now, those chores have been done for you by some of us old-timers down in New York, plus those good secretaries and the

[00:72:28.300 – 00:72:29.400] Grapevine editors.

[00:72:29.400 – 00:72:38.000] For years, I’ve invested almost the last 10 years of my life in doing that sort of service for the whole of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:72:38.000 – 00:72:47.100] So now you have a situation where those friends of ours, that board of trustees, now control your money.

[00:72:47.100 – 00:72:56.900] They control your literature, your book, the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and that standard pamphlet literature.

[00:72:56.900 – 00:73:05.300] They look after your office of information and mediation and of propagation to distant lands.

[00:73:05.300 – 00:73:12.900] They control your principal monthly journal, the A.A.

[00:73:12.900 – 00:73:23.600] Grapevine, a mirror of this movement’s current thought, getting more and more influential, 22,000 circulation

[00:73:23.600 – 00:73:23.900] now.

[00:73:23.900 – 00:73:33.900] A very potent thing indeed, on whose magic carpet you can travel from place to place in the mind’s eye and

[00:73:33.900 – 00:73:38.500] where our current experience is coo- is gathered.

[00:73:38.500 – 00:73:47.900] Your newspaper, your public relations, your things, all under the control of a board of trustees that you fellows don’t know from Adam.

[00:73:47.900 – 00:73:53.400] Ever stop to think about that?

[00:73:53.400 – 00:74:01.300] Well, I started thinking about it five years ago, and I got profoundly concerned.

[00:74:01.300 – 00:74:11.300] Because at that remote distance, I realized that when some of us old-timers had gone, who had been the link

[00:74:11.300 – 00:74:19.700] between those services and you, with that link broken, that place could fall down flat the first time that a serious mistake was made.

[00:74:19.700 – 00:74:23.900] Those services could disappear, and you couldn’t reinstate them.

[00:74:23.900 – 00:74:30.500] Some fine morning you’d wake up and say, “Why didn’t Smithy and Bill tell us?

[00:74:30.500 – 00:74:33.500] Why did they leave things in this shape?

[00:74:33.500 – 00:74:37.900] Why didn’t they give us access to our own policy and our own business?

[00:74:37.900 – 00:74:47.300] Why didn’t they give us charge of our main link to the world and to the million who don’t know?

[00:74:47.300 – 00:74:57.300] Why didn’t they do this?” So of course, the great puzzle was: how could it

[00:74:57.300 – 00:74:57.800] be done?

[00:74:57.800 – 00:75:08.400] Knowing of our usual little business meetings and peanut politics operations, you could hardly conceive

[00:75:08.400 – 00:75:13.800] that delegates could be picked to go down there and sit with those trustees.

[00:75:13.800 – 00:75:20.300] A fine state of affairs to set this foundation on the base of 30 political rows a year.

[00:75:20.300 – 00:75:21.400] No, that wouldn’t do.

[00:75:21.400 – 00:75:31.500] Somehow, we would have to find a means of elevating our usual business and political operations into the area of

[00:75:31.500 – 00:75:36.600] statesmanship, and a couple hundred of us saw the proof of it this afternoon.

[00:75:36.600 – 00:75:37.600] It can be done.

[00:75:37.600 – 00:75:47.800] Sixty links can be forged to take the place of Smithy and me to these services so vital to our future.

[00:75:47.800 – 00:75:53.000] I know you’re going to do it, and I thank God.

[00:75:53.000 – 00:76:03.700] So leading to this step, before Smithy died, a pamphlet was prepared called

[00:76:03.700 – 00:76:13.900] The Third Legacy, meaning the legacy of service, with the aim to elevate service into the same

[00:76:13.900 – 00:76:24.000] level of respectability and participation as recovery and tradition, because service means recovery for the million who don’t know.

[00:76:24.000 – 00:76:26.300] Service means that we can function.

[00:76:26.300 – 00:76:36.900] And in the pamphlet, we laid out a means by which this might be done

[00:76:36.900 – 00:76:38.100] on a trial basis.

[00:76:38.100 – 00:76:46.300] And Smithy and I prepared this in the form of a legacy.

[00:76:46.300 – 00:76:56.300] And in conclusion, I’m going to read you the first paragraph of that pamphlet, which because the foundation’s a little hard up, we

[00:76:56.300 – 00:76:57.500] couldn’t send everybody.

[00:76:57.500 – 00:77:00.100] It has not yet been widely circulated.

[00:77:00.100 – 00:77:04.400] And here, my friends, is your legacy.

[00:77:04.400 – 00:77:06.100] It goes like this.

[00:77:06.100 – 00:77:16.500] We, who are the older members of A.A., bequeath to you who are younger these

[00:77:16.500 – 00:77:26.500] three legacies: the Twelve Steps of recovery, the Twelve Traditions, and now the general

[00:77:26.500 – 00:77:28.300] services of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:77:28.300 – 00:77:32.600] Two of these legacies have long been in your keeping.

[00:77:32.600 – 00:77:35.600] By the Twelve Steps, we have recovered.

[00:77:35.600 – 00:77:40.500] By the Twelve Traditions, we are achieving a fine unity.

[00:77:40.500 – 00:77:46.100] Being someday perishable, Dr.

[00:77:46.100 – 00:77:54.900] Bob and I now wish to deliver the members of Alcoholics Anonymous their third legacy.

[00:77:54.900 – 00:78:00.100] Since 1938, we and our friends have been holding it in trust.

[00:78:00.100 – 00:78:07.400] This legacy is the general headquarters services of A.A., the Foundation, the A.A.

[00:78:07.400 – 00:78:11.900] book, the Grapevine, and your general office.

[00:78:11.900 – 00:78:20.700] These are the principal services which have enabled our society to function and to grow.

[00:78:20.700 – 00:78:25.100] Acting on behalf of all, Dr.

[00:78:25.100 – 00:78:34.600] Bob and I ask that you, the members of A.A., assume guidance of these services and guard them well.

[00:78:34.600 – 00:78:44.700] The future growth, perhaps the very survival of Alcoholics Anonymous, may one day depend

[00:78:44.700 – 00:78:53.100] on how prudently these arms of service are administered in the years to come.

[00:78:53.100 – 00:78:59.900] Such, my friends, is your legacy of service.

[00:78:59.900 – 00:79:10.000] So now, as you see, our cathedral of the spirit is approaching completion

[00:79:10.000 – 00:79:12.000] in its general outline.

[00:79:12.000 – 00:79:18.700] Can you not see with me written large on its great floor our Twelve Steps of recovery?

[00:79:18.700 – 00:79:27.300] Have we not seen its side walls and arching roof go up, now buttressed by the A.A.

[00:79:27.300 – 00:79:36.500] traditions, which we trust will hold us in unity so long as God may need us?

[00:79:36.500 – 00:79:46.700] And do we not now perceive that the spire is being affixed upon our cathedral, and

[00:79:46.700 – 00:79:55.200] that the name of this spire shall be service, a beacon to the million who don’t yet know?

[00:79:55.200 – 00:80:03.200] And may its shining and symbolic finger always point straight upward toward God.

[00:76:24.000 – 00:76:26.300] Service means that we can function.

[00:76:26.300 – 00:76:36.900] And in the pamphlet, we laid out a means by which this might be done

[00:76:36.900 – 00:76:38.100] on a trial basis.

[00:76:38.100 – 00:76:46.300] And Smithy and I prepared this in the form of a legacy.

[00:76:46.300 – 00:76:56.300] And in conclusion, I’m going to read you the first paragraph of that pamphlet, which because the foundation’s a little hard up, we

[00:76:56.300 – 00:76:57.500] couldn’t send everybody.

[00:76:57.500 – 00:77:00.100] It has not yet been widely circulated.

[00:77:00.100 – 00:77:04.400] And here, my friends, is your legacy.

[00:77:04.400 – 00:77:06.100] It goes like this.

[00:77:06.100 – 00:77:16.500] We, who are the older members of A.A., bequeath to you who are younger these

[00:77:16.500 – 00:77:26.500] three legacies: the Twelve Steps of recovery, the Twelve Traditions, and now the general

[00:77:26.500 – 00:77:28.300] services of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:77:28.300 – 00:77:32.600] Two of these legacies have long been in your keeping.

[00:77:32.600 – 00:77:35.600] By the Twelve Steps, we have recovered.

[00:77:35.600 – 00:77:40.500] By the Twelve Traditions, we are achieving a fine unity.

[00:77:40.500 – 00:77:46.100] Being someday perishable, Dr.

[00:77:46.100 – 00:77:54.900] Bob and I now wish to deliver the members of Alcoholics Anonymous their third legacy.

[00:77:54.900 – 00:78:00.100] Since 1938, we and our friends have been holding it in trust.

[00:78:00.100 – 00:78:07.400] This legacy is the general headquarters services of A.A., the Foundation, the A.A.

[00:78:07.400 – 00:78:11.900] book, the Grapevine, and your general office.

[00:78:11.900 – 00:78:20.700] These are the principal services which have enabled our society to function and to grow.

[00:78:20.700 – 00:78:25.100] Acting on behalf of all, Dr.

[00:78:25.100 – 00:78:34.600] Bob and I ask that you, the members of A.A., assume guidance of these services and guard them well.

[00:78:34.600 – 00:78:44.700] The future growth, perhaps the very survival of Alcoholics Anonymous, may one day depend

[00:78:44.700 – 00:78:53.100] on how prudently these arms of service are administered in the years to come.

[00:78:53.100 – 00:78:59.900] Such, my friends, is your legacy of service.

[00:78:59.900 – 00:79:10.000] So now, as you see, our cathedral of the spirit is approaching completion

[00:79:10.000 – 00:79:12.000] in its general outline.

[00:79:12.000 – 00:79:18.700] Can you not see with me written large on its great floor our Twelve Steps of recovery?

[00:79:18.700 – 00:79:27.300] Have we not seen its side walls and arching roof go up, now buttressed by the A.A.

[00:79:27.300 – 00:79:36.500] traditions, which we trust will hold us in unity so long as God may need us?

[00:79:36.500 – 00:79:46.700] And do we not now perceive that the spire is being affixed upon our cathedral, and

[00:79:46.700 – 00:79:55.200] that the name of this spire shall be service, a beacon to the million who don’t yet know?

[00:79:55.200 – 00:80:03.200] And may its shining and symbolic finger always point straight upward toward God.

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