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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – Unknown Speaker – HELPING THE YOUNG ALCOHOLIC – RS 01092.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-unknown-speaker-helping-the-young-alcoholic-rs-01092.mp3 Duration: 00:29:14
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I think of along that line is our Lake Forest College in Chicago, or it's in Lake Forest outside of Chicago. One of our AA's went out there and talked to the young men that are students, and he had two classes of an hour and a half each, one following the other. And his subject, of course, was alcoholism and AA. And the reaction that he received was so tremendous out there that they were going to make it a regular yearly talk to the students.
However, they had a change in staff out there and so forth, and it has stopped. But the boys all came up to him after he finished and mentioned how helpful it was for them to have that information for their parents. They were listening on that basis, and also I think that that will come back to them in later years when they may need it themselves. I think that on a college level, it would be a tremendous thing.
I think below that, it would be very hard to get an attentive listening audience. Yes? Lady makes a very good point that any education that we have, if one of it seeps in, for instance, that she read Jack Alexander's article in the Saturday Evening Post, and although she didn't come into AA or write down anything else, some of that information got back in the back part of her brain there and stayed there until 1946 when she came to AA and the information was there and she needed it.
Before we go any further, I'd like to ask Joe or Susan over here on this formal education on alcoholism in the school, if they have what they care to add to that question. Well, I think any education at all that we can pick up on AA, I don't believe that it will hurt the AA program, because I like to feel that the alcoholic, most of us are, we want to be shown the way to prove it. And just as the lady said, sometimes when we read something that won't make any sense to us, but when we really need the help, it will.
And as far as the question goes, I don't feel that they can hurt us. I feel that any publicity we get, it certainly will be of help. Thank you, Joe. Just one second before we go on to the next one. Susan, did you have anything that you cared to add to that? No, I just wish to tell you that I shared your passion for abnormal psychology. It was so nice to find people stranger than I. We'll discuss that later, Susan.
Let me just say something on informal education. How many of you people out here, and as I say, we have all ages in our group here today, have children who are in the high school years, who have seen the difference that AA has made to a daddy or their mother, and how much different are her or his playmates, how much more knowledge that they have about actual alcoholism from the results of your life.
I think I've noticed that at home, and I wonder have any of you noticed that in your communities where you have served as a public education really through your son or daughter? Well, it's happened other places, too. A question from the lady in the back.
[00:05:11]
Where are you from? Kentucky? Well, if you're standing in that corner back there after the meeting is over, I'm sure there are a lot of people here that are going to want to know about that program. Well, Elaine is talking about a group, to get it on the record here, that operates in high schools, and the education of a young person about alcoholism, not only from the angle of what can they do about their mother and father as an alcoholic or their uncle, much well, but also if they themselves are developing into alcoholics.
Yes, sir. Good. Well, the gentleman from South Carolina points out the fact that in South Carolina now they have, at their recent assembly, they passed a law whereby alcoholism is to be taught in the high schools and in the colleges, which is quite an advanced step, I would say. And he also asked the question, which I'm going to ask Joe first here, of what do we think about the idea that a young person or one near the age of a young person should go on the 12-step call when a young person calls for help and an alcoholic cannot, Joe?
What I'd like to say, I know for a fact that in the New York Intergroup Office, when a telephone call comes in there, one of the first questions asked is the party's name and their age. You put their address and you look up in the directory and you try and figure out, I know in New York we do this, but what about a person sitting at the age of the person asking for help? And it starts off a lot more.
And if you send me the 12-step around 50 years old, the first thing he does is get a resentment a little bit and I'll try and help him out. And then if you send the guy 60 years old trying to help a young guy, he gets a resentment right there, he says, well, at that age, what the hell, he should stop drinking. He might just as well be dead or something. So I think it's a good idea. Susan, what do you think about that?
I couldn't agree with you less. No, I think it's, well, I do think there's something to be said in approximating ages for sponsor and new member, but actually I think it's more a matter of how you feel about your sponsor. Now, some people would prefer to have an older sponsor on whom they can lead, I mean, as an experienced person. Other people would feel that older people don't have the same problems they do and they don't understand and would rather have someone their own age.
I think it's simply an individual matter. This is, I think, everything else about it. And I also don't think, I also think that a sponsor should not be immutable like the laws of the means and services.
[00:10:02]
If you start out with one particular person, a person who's, after all, assigned to you, and you get the basis from him or her, you don't actually, suppose you don't click, you don't hit it off with that particular person, and you find another person in the group whom you like better and who seems to understand you better. Well, if there's nothing personal about it, I think you should definitely change to that person who will make it easier for you to keep on being sober.
That's the way I feel about it, anyway. The man in the red shirt out there, the fatty panda, the one with the Boston red shirt on, is this. He said, shouldn't there, he's being from Boston, they have a young people group there, and he was saying, shouldn't the young people's group well, the first part of the question being, shouldn't they have some older alcoholic who more or less be alcoholic or alcoholic, more or less be guiding light for the group who had more experiences in AA, and the second part, I believe, of his question was that he had found in the young people's group that there was more emphasis on the social side and not enough AA.
This is yours. Well, our group is, of course, very young. It's less than three months old, and we had a discussion meeting on what our primary purpose would be, whether it would be a discussion group or purely social and so forth. Well, in our area, there is an awful lot of activity. I myself am in three groups, and we decided that because we all had our own neighborhood group, which we couldn't give up, none of us wanted to or intended to, that we would make the primary purpose of the Chicago group social.
Now, we are, as I say, very young, and we may change that later on. At our dinner meeting, we have two speakers. We do want the old-timers to come and talk to us, but it's kind of tradition in Chicago that you treat the speakers or speakers, and for financial reasons, we are drawing our speakers from our young people's group. We will, at a later date, have the old-timers come and talk to us because we know how vital they are.
I see the young people in AA know that there are financial worries or problems in AA. The sailors back there, please. Bob makes a very strong point to the case of a young alcoholic talking to the prospective young member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The man with the paper in his hand, please. He does not have a young member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He wants to know what is the best method or method to get to the young alcoholic and prospective member.
I think Bob offered a sensible solution there. The TV says that. I think that gets to the young person as well as the older person. However, I would like myself to answer because, once again, it touches on the point I was trying to make earlier that if you have no young member in your group, in your small-town group, and you have some younger alcoholics or one comes along and thinks perhaps he's a candidate for AA, in your mind, remember, get your age difference.
You will be the one that will throw the block in there on that, not the younger one. Bring out the fact that what drinking has done to you, what it did to you mentally, emotionally, what the obsession is like, why you did the things that you did. And I can assure you, as Joe pointed out, as young as he was, when he hit his bottom, he hit a real bottom. He hit a 21-1. And the young person will be able to line himself up with you and your drinking.
Don't let the idea of age come in there because then that will make a difference. Let the young person have the feeling that here we're dealing with a problem that is for everybody. As we say, it's a disease. It doesn't just strike the rich or the poor or the grocery man or the baker. It strikes all of us. And here is the disease. These are the symptoms. And here is the only known way we have of dealing with it now.
And as we're talking about it, when we talk about a disease, let's not have professors of 50 years of age. At least, let's not have professors of 50 years of age who maybe take a cocktail before dinner twice a week, talk about it, and let you and your group go out to your high school or local place, and I bet the high school students would love it, if you were the next drunk, came down there and told them about the disease of alcoholism, and then brother, they'd hear from the first hand.
[00:15:21]
Is there anybody else here? Joe, did you want to add something on that? I'd say, in answer to his question, I think the older member can help the younger alcoholic also, by remembering little bits of the story of some of the younger speakers that you hear. Go ahead in that process, that alcoholic seeking help, tell them about the younger members that you heard speak. Then offer that challenge, try the challenge by offering to take them, to meet younger AA members.
Thanks Joe, we've got a lot of hands up now, and I can't remember who all has put them up in what order, but I'm going to ask the man here in the yellow shirt. The young man points out that the particular thing that brought him into AA was not the amount of alcohol that he drank, but once again we get back to the fact of what kind of a disease it is, and if you've got it, and what to do about it. All right, lady.
Another question here, and I think this could be put into the category of what socially is left for the young alcoholic that comes to Alcoholics Anonymous, that problem. Now, I had a member come in, AA, down in West Palm Beach, that was a whiskey salesman. He said, I'm going to have to give up my job if I come into this organization. Of course I, the first three and a half years I was in AA, I was in 30 taverns a day, I'm in the beer business.
It's only about an excuse, but we've all heard the older members say, I would like to join right now, but we've got a bunch of cocktail parties coming up, and I've got to show up at those, and not only that, but we're going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and if I don't drink champagne on my 25th wedding anniversary, well, it just wouldn't be a wedding anniversary. Now, the excuses, I believe, are the same.
I just went through a college reunion two years ago, and I'll guarantee you, drinking is wide open there. And I had a wonderful time. I had a really wonderful time. All my classmates knew I was an alcoholic. I didn't tell them they knew anything. And nobody urged me to do anything, and I stayed up until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and sang with them, and let me tell you, good shuffleboard will improve if you sober.
So, in the background, gentlemen, I think our plan here is that we have young people's groups coming into bigger cities, and of course, we who are from smaller groups, we don't have the sufficient numbers to, shall we say, specialize. And I sure don't want to see anybody sitting around feeling that they are doomed to sitting around with a bunch of old AAs until they die. In fact, I don't want to see anybody, an AA, just sitting around.
After all, when we can't come into this thing, whether we're 21 years old or whether we're 61 years old, it gives us our capabilities and our ability to go back out into life and to fit in our particular niche in life and to do what we couldn't do before. Well, there's nothing more than just lead our daily life. Yes, sir, the gentleman in the center. Oh, yes, and a great deal better. I don't think anybody who has relationships with his real friends finds that they want him to keep on drinking.
He has a mistaken idea often that unless he does drink or unless he does drink, he'll be considered a deadhead and no fun and that sort of thing. An alcoholic is a nuisance, not only to himself, but to his friends. And I have found that I'm far more welcome at social gatherings now than I ever was when I was drinking. I could start a lot of them, but I couldn't finish them. And I think that you may, it is true, lose a group who are interested in you only as a party starter or an excuse for a party.
Possibly that's true, but you don't need those people anyway. But the people who really know you, who like you and are interested in you are only too glad to see you doing what you should have done years before.
[00:20:03]
And it's so much more enjoyable to go out and to be able to remember the evening instead of worrying about what did I do the night before and how will I make it through the night. That's been my experience at any rate. That question was, can a young alcoholic return to regular social life? And I purposely left the question out because if you go back and think over what Susan said, the answer could have been made by anyone, any age, I believe, to that question.
A very good answer to the question from the discussion with the lady from Phoenix in that if the boy feels that he's all alone and that there's nothing in AA for him for his particular age, why doesn't he go out and do 12-step work and get some guys back in his age, which I think could spend a couple of meetings on that discussion. Gentleman there right in the center. Question is, is there actually an age barrier in most AA groups or is it a figment of the imagination and if it is there, how best to tear it down?
I think you all by now know how I feel about it, so I'm going to ask this. I don't think there is an age barrier at all. Our group and my own neighborhood group covers the span from 30 to all about 60, I guess, and I feel no difference for the ones that are within two years of my age and I do those that are 30 years older. My own sponsor is about 30 years older than I am. I just can't even start to measure what I've gotten from talking to him and learning how he follows AA.
I go down to the fair for lunch and we have a big AA luncheon down there and I am, as a rule, the youngest person there. I feel no difference with anybody in that room. I think this barrier has been built up in the minds of some, but I don't think it exists at all. We're all alcoholics and age doesn't enter into the picture in the slightest. I hope we will remember that. If we take nothing else from St. Louis besides the ashtrays in the hotel, let's remember that idea.
Let's get it out of our minds and our imaginations and our conversations in Alcoholics Anonymous, the difference in chronological age. Let's get back to good old alcoholism. The lady in the blue dress here. The blue dress suggests that whereas a lot of people won't read all this lengthy material on alcoholism, especially when they're actively drinking, but these questions and answers to prove to yourself that you're an alcoholic or you have a disease of alcoholism about drinking are a very effective and fast method.
Is that right? This gentleman in the front row here. I have to ask you a question. Ask you a question? What do you mean? In other words, the reason I'm asking you that back again. Your question was that let's consider the young alcoholic in regard to alcoholism rather than chronological age. And the reason I ask that right back is this. As I said earlier, I have known young alcoholics who have been drinking actively and daily for 12 to 14 years, and yet I know older chronological alcoholics who only drank for four years and came in AA and hit their bottom.
Is that what you… Good. The question came back and answered right. The gentleman in the yellow shirt there in that fourth row back. He's been trying to ask a question. What was the answer? Well, that's what… Have you got an answer? My answer was don't get into it. Are you going to… Let me ask this question. Are you going to set up and change the meaning of young to young in drinking experience?
[00:25:03]
Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to skip because it's going over into another subject. That would go into another subject. The one here is the chronological age young alcoholic. Is there a difference in that sort of thing? Now the gentleman. Very interesting comment on… And coming from a young person, that's the… Yes, sir. I think by under 20 in here. Twenty-six. Anybody under 25 in here? Twenty-four.
Anybody under 24? Well, the youngest one in this room is 24, but I know in AA there are younger members than that. Yes, sir. My answer is 28. As somebody says on Saturday night, the old clock on the wall or something. So we're going… I know whether we're young or old, we might need lunch. We're going to limit this to just two more questions and then close the meeting. Now the gentleman in the white shirt back there is pointing to the gentleman in the blue shirt.
Yes, sir. Okay. The young lady is drunk in Birmingham. Do you know what they do in Birmingham, Michigan and Alabama? The gentleman? The gentleman from Birmingham, England, commenting on the fact that AA is younger as an organization in England at this point and therefore hasn't as many young people in AA as we have here in America, but that they still have the young drunks over there. But isn't it a wonderful feeling to be able to look at least, for instance, and see what Bill and Dr. Bob and them, when they were in the position, they didn't have another country to look ahead for and see what happened, the trials and tribulations ahead, and that it will come about and that you can profit from the mistakes and I hope that young drunks over there get in there.
I know if I had to drink that warm ale all the time, I think I'd have gotten in a lot sooner. The gentleman in the back of the room has the last question and I'm afraid we'd better leave. Wonderful. I hate with all those hands out there that are up to call this to a halt, but you know we are bound by the physical limitations of time. I am happy that we did get as far as we did on this problem of the young alcoholics and I hope that you have gotten something out of it that you can take back to your home group.
You've been a wonderful audience. Gosh, I couldn't have asked for more or prayed for more. And I would like to, before I close, I would like to say whether you are young or old, I hope you feel the way I do, the way a speaker who came to Florida said a few years ago, I'm not what I want to be, nor am I what I pray to be, but by the grace of God and AA, I'm not what I used to be. Thank you. Thank you, Frank.
Let me say to any of you that didn't get your questions answered, I'm sure that this panel here would be glad to have you join them for lunch that you can get right here in the auditorium. You don't have to leave. The next group of meetings start at 2 o'clock, two hours from now. Let's get acquainted a little better, get a look at the new big book, and we'll see you at the next group of meetings at 2 o'clock.
We stand adjourned.