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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – 1955 St Louis Open Meeting Oscar A., Ole L., Neelie D.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-1955-st-louis-open-meeting-oscar-a-ole-l-neelie-d.mp3 Duration: 00:56:09
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As well as, as well AA, and it's with real pleasure that I introduce Oscar Ansell of Illinois. Thank you. Applause Thank you very much. Am I talking too close to this microphone? I want to say that it's a real thrill to be on this program this morning. It's a real thrill to attend this 20th anniversary convention. I've never seen so many sober drunks in all of my life. I was amused last night, we were all in the main convention hall, and Hank was reading these telegrams from all over the world. Very impressive.
And the last one, he read that very sincere message from President Eisenhower. And a lady behind me said to her husband, my God, I didn't even know he was a member. This morning, my wife asked me if I was nervous. A couple of other friends did at breakfast. And I said, hell no, I'm not nervous. Just help me find Keel Auditorium and I'll be all right. This is an AA open meeting, typical of AA open meetings everywhere. There are thousands of groups around the world today, and I presume that all of them hold open meetings periodically.
I believe that we hold those open meetings not only to welcome our wives and our families into our AA group, perhaps to educate, perhaps to inform. But I think AA open meetings have a larger significance. I couldn't help but think last night as I saw Lois and some of those wives sitting on the stage, some of those very faithful, steadfast people. Where might we all be today if they had lost heart? Where might we be today if they had given up the ghost and not stood by?
And so I believe that in these AA open meetings, it's our way of AA saying thank you to our wives and mates and friends. I've been a member of AA since 1946. I came in after eight or ten years of frightful drinking climaxed by the war. I didn't know for a long while what alcoholism was, except that I knew that I was getting into trouble. I tried to control my drinking, but that wouldn't work. My wife, my family, my close friends tried to help me. My good wife tried everything.
She tried drinking with me. She tried not drinking. She tried scolding, babying, nagging. None of those things would work until I was ready. Well, I got a hold of the AA program comparatively easy, and I went five, five and a half, six years. And then something began to happen in me. I didn't recognize it then, but something began to change in me. And I got back in the old driver's seat. And before long, I was experimenting with a new type of crutch that I believe was far more deadlier than any alcohol I ever drank, and equally a serious problem.
[00:05:07]
I began the use of benzadrine and drugs, and I carried this on, on and off for two years, unable to break the spell. It's a deadly, serious thing. We alcoholics, I know today, cannot take any medication of that sort. We cannot have, take any benzadrine or any barbiturates or any goofballs. None of these things can be left to our control. And I went down in a big heap. How to get off of these things that I knew was wrong, I didn't know. So I resumed drinking and drank on and off for another six months, until, thank God, I came back into AA.
Now, my remarks this morning are intended, shall we say, for a fellow with a little AA mileage, who begins to lose a little interest in the meeting, begins to take his sobriety for granted, begins to get back in the driver's seat, slowly loses interest in the newcomer, begins to believe in these principles and recognize them, but fails to put them into practice. For the old-timer like myself who may be thinking that that 24-hour plan is a mighty good thing for the new man coming in the door and somebody else having trouble, but, well, I've got a little time. That's not causing any trouble.
Well, I believe that that's a very dangerous attitude. Our inventory should catch that mind-distance. I was the big wheel in AA, and I didn't need a little inventory. I was too busy taking others. When it comes to that step five, well, I heard the confessions of a lot of men and a lot of women and a lot of wives, but for me, well, no, I didn't need it. I had too much of an ego, I guess. I believe that I had taken for granted my sobriety, a sobriety that I thought at one time in my life was impossible. Like everyone here, every alcoholic here, I didn't see how a person could live without drinking.
And having been taught that in AA, over a period of time, I began to take that thing for granted. I guess that's just plain insanity. I began to take AA for granted, and before long, I was in real trouble, deep trouble. But thank God for a lot of wonderful AA friends, I got back on the track. And then another problem came along. AA this time was different. A lot of water had passed over the dam. The twelve suggested steps were there, the slogans were there, a few new faces.
But what about this new enthusiasm? What about those old evangelistic days? I went through that like you. Well, I knew I had to have that somehow, if I was going to make the grade. As I looked around me, and down in our neck of the woods, there wasn't very many who had drifted away, had come back with any consistent, constant sobriety, and that kind of worried me a little bit. So I began to work with a few of these newcomers, and through the grace of God, I met three or four men who chose to hang on my arm as they were getting their sobriety.
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And that enthusiasm and their enthusiasm began to pay off. Once again, I reminded myself that I am an alcoholic today. I do that every morning. I don't take AA for granted. I don't take my sobriety for granted. I believe we get a spiritual reprieve in a sense, and as long as I stay close to that program and try to practice these principles in all my affairs, I'll be all right. So naturally, I was thrilled and honored when I got that little letter from New York. In fact, the man, the very fine member of AA, whose place I am taking because he wasn't in the best of health, is none other than George Madden, and I seem seated right down here.
Another old friend of mine. But I'm glad to be here today because this type of meeting inspires me. I hear these speakers, and I'm going to carry away from this thing an awful lot. And I know this morning that from the three fine speakers on our panel, I will gain, and I'm sure you will. Thank you. The first speaker at our open meeting this morning in the Opera House is a very fine gentleman from Dallas. I asked him how he liked to be introduced, and he said, Just call me Olie. Everybody does. Olie's been around this thing for a long while, nine and a half years. He's a member of the first panel. If you'd like to hear how they do it in Texas and see a very good example, just listen to Olie. Olie?
Thank you very much, Oscar. Good morning, everybody. My name is Olin. I'm an alcoholic and not wanting to appear hard-headed, but I have already heard quite a number of stories from alcoholics, and I'm not going to say much about mine. I'll just say that on October the 11th, 1945, the Texas-Oklahoma football game, when my last drunk started, and I had my last drink four months later. I stopped on November 11, 1946. All of the speakers that I have listened to, quite a number of them, have left this impression with me, that so many of their sponsors brought this message of recovery to them from right out of the blue sky.
I recall last night in that beautiful tribute that Bill paid Ebby. Bill didn't ask for any help. Ebby seeked him out. I have heard numerous talks sent here along that same line. My sponsor is sitting out in the audience, and he brought that message to me. He did not wait. He did not wait for me to call on him. I ran into my sponsor on a street corner one day in Dallas in the rain, and he tried to encourage me to go to an A.A. meeting with him and try it out there in that drizzle kitchen.
[00:15:26]
He explained briefly what in a few short weeks it had done for him. Having been on drunks with him for a number of years, I could see that there had been some sort of a change. Now, he left me with these words, if you ever get to where you can't go another foot, call around. Well, it so happens, as most of us do, I reserved that call until about 2-10 a.m. one morning. Never in daylight hours do we get these calls.
But I've always said about him that had I called the fire department at the same time, I believe he would have beaten the fire department there. I just heard Oscar make a remark about enthusiasm. That is the kind of enthusiasm that we definitely had during our younger A.A. days. Some of us get away from it, and it is dangerous. Now, in these talks that I have heard here, and so many of them have had the message brought to them without any encouragement, it reminds me of a long, long time ago, and Bill was talking about this also last night, and when he and Dr. Bob got together 20 years ago on Mother's Day. Now, they must have done quite a bit of talking. They must have burned a lot of midnight oil.
But it's significant to me that the very first thing they felt a need of was another drunk. And those days they were not looking for another drunk that had asked for help. They were looking for another drunk, period. It's true that nothing was formulated, no plan, no steps, no tradition, no big book. But they felt an immediate need for another alcoholic. So they called the hospital, talked to a nurse, and went out to see Bill Dutton. Number three member of Alcoholics Anonymous, now dead about 18 months. But after those first calls, no more drinking for old Bill.
Now, while our big book, and it might be mentioned in one or two of our steps, does indicate and suggest very plainly that the primary purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to carry this message to alcoholics who want it. I have often thought, how are we going to know whether or not that person whom we think to be alcoholic, how are we going to know whether they want it or not unless we say something to them about it, even in a guarded way?
Certainly if the alcoholic is in a hospital, he's sort of at our mercy if we elect to put ourselves out to call on him. Certainly we have him almost in a trap to where he's got to listen to a portion of our story. And if we do a good, honest, sincere job on that first meeting, it has been proven beyond question of doubt to all of us that that alcoholic has maybe a little bit better than a 50-50 chance to recover, as you and I did.
[00:20:29]
And then another significant thing about the various talks I have heard is this, and it should bring us all back to size. If we'll stop and look and think about what we are here in meeting, we are here in meeting commemorating 20 years of service in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we who have appreciated approximately half sobriety in that young 20 years of AA, I have been sober almost half of the life of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And when we consider a little bit further that, in those days, every step they took was uphill. Every nose and finger was pointed downward at them. The stigma in those days just had to be running riot. And if we will compare those days with what they are now and what they were when we came in, it's astonishing. Today, with all of our groups, with all of the favorable publicity that AA has, with the stigma practically removed in every little grassroots community, with a wonderful reputation, we are known as people that don't spend any money, we ask for no money.
And that that we do get a hold of, we furnish it ourselves and are apologetic even about that. But don't forget what has gone ahead of you and me for us. My God, today, with all of the facilities at our hands, with everything made so easy for us, with everything possible done for us, we bellyache, we backbite, we criticize. And we find it hard on a lot of occasions to get along with our fellow alcoholics.
When we compare that with what an effort it was for those first members of AA to get number three members, number four, number five, and fifteen, thirty in a couple of years, four hard years of working uphill for you and me to get a hundred members. And still, while it isn't necessary for each of us to love the other member of AA, I have always found with me that even though I don't like you, even though I might not want you in my home or to take you to dinner, there comes a time in our association that I begin to respect your effort for sobriety. And in almost every instance, if I may mind to, I can learn to like you and respect you and call you a friend.
[00:25:05]
If I put out that effort, when, said yesterday, if we are honest, if we keep open-minded, and if we are willing. That's three great words in AA. The fundamental teachings of AA have not changed when I would thank God for that. And I thank that Dr. Bob Seale, that in the convention in Cleveland several years ago, when almost his last words were a prayer that it forever be kept simple. I'm quite sure that these steps will never be changed. And I'm quite sure that the twelve traditions have been cut down to size. They're understandable. And not enough of us give them the attention that they're deserving of.
When we stop to think that even though we're celebrating twenty years of Alcoholics Anonymous, it has been much less than that since our twelve steps were written. They were written over in Brooklyn, that's Joe's hometown, in 1937. Thirty-eight, I think it was, and the book was written in 1939. We can remember, some of us, not me very much about it, when the Saturday Evening Post article came out in 1941.
Very, very few members. Deluge of inquiries overnight. Husbands, wives, parents, sweethearts, what can we do about our alcoholics? There was a small group of broke people, banded together and doing their damnedest to help each other, always seeking out another groom. They had no steps to go by, mind you, when they got those first hundred. They were working more in the dark than you and I are today. But they got this thing going for you and me. The steps we accepted, the traditions we accepted.
We got our big book, and a lot of us are prone to say, sufficient for me. A lot of us say after a year or two of sobriety, I have my feet back on the ground. I have my sense of values back, and I believe that I can take care of it from here on in. And we become like. We do not accept the responsibility that is ours. The responsibility of each of us to carry this message to other alcoholics. And I'll add here who won it. But let's not overlook too many opportunities to carry the message to alcoholics, maybe as a surprise.
And it was brought to so many people here. I've heard them say so. It was a surprise to me that day in Dallas when Al said something to me about it. I've surprised several people in hospitals and in jails by saying something to them about it. It's a wonderful feeling to feel like that we have just a little part in anybody's sobriety. There's no finer feeling on the face of this earth than to have received a call and to have been on the verge of turning that call down, and then finally let that conscience talk you into saying, I'll be there.
[00:30:23]
Too often we want to know what the condition of the alcoholic is. How long have you been drinking? Are you too drunk to talk now? Could I see you tomorrow? Too often we are looking for an excuse to either get out of it completely or to let somebody else do it. I don't know what your individual story would be. I don't know whether somebody surprised you with an AA visit or not. But if they did, you will never on this earth forget it. It's quite true that a lot of us go to AA and ask for help, particularly where there's a club room. I think we'll find that to be true.
In Dallas we are fortunate in having six club rooms. We have 24 groups. As Dick Breen said yesterday afternoon, I am a club room man. I have had to have a little club room, regardless of how humble it was. I have always needed a little place where I could go and call tall. A little place where I could go and find that understanding that I needed so bad. A little place that I could go and feel at home and at ease.
Because all of us have been misunderstood so long. Nobody could understand what we meant when we said we had to have one more drink. But here we walk into a group of people that knows just exactly what we are talking about, what we are thinking about, and how we feel. And here for the first time, we get to where we can let our hair down. We get to where we are placed in a position of even wanting to tell the truth. We get to where we become willing to accept the guidance of some sort of a higher power.
It is made so simple for us because there is no regimentation in it. There is no place in there where there is a must. You must do this. You have got to do that. They leave their gates so wide open to God. It is so simple for you and me who have either strayed away from their God or who have never had him at all. They make it so simple to get into that groove. So easy for us to understand that thing that we all need so much.
Most of us need it daily in our sobriety. A lot of us in the beginning needed it for the hour almost. And it is here for all of us. The rankest unbelievers on earth have come into AA and have learned to depend upon that thing that they call God. We have heard him referred to so many times. There is a man upstairs. Some have said, Bridge. Some have said, Partner. But each of us in our own way have accepted him, have found him, and can use him.
He has been good to all of us, and I, for one, used to be afraid of him. I had learned way back in my younger church days, because the preacher stood up in the pulpit and kept hammering the fear of God. He indelibled on me that it was a vengeful God. And in my drinking days, which started quite early and lasted for 26 years, I got plumb away.
[00:35:09]
And my way back could have been made much easier had I not had that feeling that it was a vengeful God that I was dealing with. But they explained that to me pretty quick, and it wasn't too hard for me to understand. Those experiences, they found out the hard way for you and me in AA. Those early-day guys and gals are the ones that we owe our life to. They have set this thing up for you and me. And Bill, this is his second occasion, to my knowledge, that he's tried to turn the reins of AA back to AA members. He's making an effort now to get out of the driver's seat, so to speak.
Bill is not like you and me. He can't plan just for today. He's got to look way out there in front. And he's still planning for 1965, in his thinking. You and I, one day at a time, but not for Bill. And in his new round, let's try to make it a little easier for him. We can. He's got a hell of a job. He's trying to get out of that seat and give it to us. He says, where of age are we? Are we proud of what we as individual members of Alcoholics Anonymous are doing and have done? Have we carried our load? Have we done our part concerning these twelve traditions which are so important for our unity?
It's been often said that if we ever disintegrate, if we ever fold up, if we ever go to pasture, it'll be from within. Nobody is going to tear our simple program down from outside. Can't you see, can't you feel the necessity for closer harmony, better unified, clean, honest, willing thinking? Can't each of us, when we go home from this great convention, carry one little message of friendliness to everybody in their group?
Can't they let down those bars of resentment? Can't they be happier with one another? Can't we get back the way they had to do it in the old age? And can't we be thankful that we do have to get back? I've enjoyed being here so much. I've enjoyed saying these few words. May God be with all of you and help you. And when you do get home, please hit that knee and say, God, let me do my part. That our group will once again be in harmony and try to carry this message of recovery and unity to all alcoholics. Thank you very much.
Holy, that was fun. We thank you very much. A number of you may be wondering what this light business is up here. And just for fun, you know, this gave me an idea a few moments ago. This is a speaker's traffic light. This is going to give you some ideas. You see that little light there? Well, that's a warning. You have a few minutes to go and the stop is red. Got the red on. Everybody's got the idea.
Well, you know, I was just thinking, we have, unlike myself, some long-winded speakers in our Springfield group and some of the groups around our part of the country.
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And I just got to thinking, if I could be seated back in one of our meetings with this little box, couldn't I have a hell of a lot of fun? And you know, I further got to thinking that if every one of us had one of these things, it would be just about the nicest thing that has happened to AA since Bill Wilson. Now, it is my pleasure at this part of the program and my privilege to introduce a very fine lady from the South, from Decatur, not Illinois, but from Decatur, Georgia.
Neely has been a very good member of AA for a long time, 12 years. And the good members down there loved her and respected her so much that they sent her to New York to serve on the second panel. Neely? Thank you, Oscar. My name is Neely Daniel and I am an alcoholic, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous of the Atlanta, Georgia group. I didn't know there was another Atlanta until recently when I visited Texas. And when I said I was from Atlanta, I had to say Georgia because it was Atlanta, Texas. Texas has everything, I think.
When Marion wrote me and asked me if I would take a part in this program, I wrote back and asked her how many speakers we would have and how long we would have talked. And she said there would be a chairman and three speakers, that I would be the ham of the sandwich. How little did she realize what kind of ham the sandwich was going to have. When I left home in my late teens, a little South Georgia town, to go to Atlanta to teach school, my mother thought that a young girl so inexperienced would surely come to some bad end going to the large city.
I feel sure that would have been true had not I found Alcoholics Anonymous. But soon after I married, I began drinking. It was during the prohibition days and I learned to drink home brewed. After I learned to drink it, I liked it and I could never get enough. I guess I would probably have gotten into trouble at the beginning except it was just not enough to be had. For a number of years, I drank beer and no noticeable bad results found me.
But when I did start drinking whiskey and gin, well then my troubles really did begin. That was when things of value in life took secondary place in my drinking came first. When my health was very bad, in the summer of 1940, I went to the mountains away from my family to spend the summer. I drank every day that summer, sometimes a little bit and sometimes too much. Because I felt so bad, I had to drink in order to feel better. When I came back home in September to begin teaching again, I found that I could not teach. I was in no condition to teach.
Instead of facing the situation and doing something about it, I just went to bed, and I stayed in bed, and I rolled, and I tossed, and I tumbled, and I drank when my friends would bring me something to drink, and when I could get it from other sources.
[00:45:13]
I did this for a month, and then I agreed to go to a hospital. I did not know that my family had decided that they would commit me if I did not agree to go. I went to Asheville, North Carolina, and stayed four months in Highland Hospital. I got built up physically, and even when I left the hospital, I told the doctors they needn't worry about me, that I could take it or leave it alone. But now since I was well, there wouldn't be any problem to me.
But I came home from Asheville and started drinking again. John, my husband, my present husband and the only one I've ever had, stopped drinking when he saw what it was doing to me. And when I came home from Asheville and started drinking again, he was really crushed, and he couldn't understand it, and neither could I. I continued to teach for several more years, but finally the struggle became too great.
It was just not worth it. I had wanted to stop a year or two before I did, but from the advice of the doctor, I kept on because he realized what would happen when I did stop. And that did happen. I went into supplesion. I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to see anybody. I just wanted to be left alone with my bottle. I remember on a September afternoon, it was a Sunday afternoon in 1943, I was suffering a terrific hangover. It was Sunday and I didn't have anything to drink, and John was at home and I couldn't go get anything to drink.
When I heard someone at the front door say, men do not usually call on the women, and the women do not call on the men, but since we are here, won't you come out and talk to us? Olin was speaking to you about something like this. One of these men who answered John's calls, thinking that he was the one that wanted help, was our beloved Sam Daltrey, who was one of the founders of the Atlanta Group of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I went into the living room, and as confused as I was, as Sam told his story, I felt that at last I was understood, that he had certainly felt like I was feeling him, or he couldn't talk like he was talking. His story interested me, and I realized that there were others that liked how I was. Sam advised that I go to a hospital and then come into Alcoholics Anonymous, which I did. But we learn so many things through experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, and you know and I know that I couldn't come in and stay sober because John wanted me to stay sober.
I thought that I was just a little bit different, that under certain circumstances and certain conditions, now that I knew what this was all about, that I could drink successfully, and I tried it. No circumstance or no condition would let me drink without getting drunk. But as my life dropped, I realized without a shadow of a doubt that I was an alcoholic, that my life was unmanageable. I had been going to AA. I had been hearing the speakers. I had been listening to the program, and some of it had rubbed off on me. So since I had accepted this fact and admitted it, I had to make the decision what I wanted to do about it.
[00:50:18]
And I made the greatest decision, I think, in my whole life when I decided that I did want sobriety more than I wanted to drink. And I had been told, and I knew, that if I asked God for help, that I would receive help. And I did. And I became willing to turn my will and my life over to him as I understood him because I had not been able to do this my way. I also made the decision that I would not worry about whether I would ever drink again because that had thrown me several times, that I would do like they told me to do and wait this program one day at a time.
I finally slept that night, and when I woke up the next morning, I had the most wonderful feeling that that day I would not take a drink. And you know I've had that feeling every morning since. So I really came into Alcoholics Anonymous. Being the timid person that I am, I sat in the back, but I did listen. And I did apply what I heard to myself. Then I gradually began to ask questions, not publicly, but go to fellow members that I thought could help me. And I spent hours and hours and hours in the clubroom. And I found that this program would work for me. It would work each 24 hours that I wanted it to work.
I took an inventory, and it was hard to take. For all my life I had crammed things down inside of me, and there they had lain and smoldered, and they had to come out now. And I found many things that I had to work on. But with the help of God, I did begin working on them. And I know the feeling of relief that comes when we make amends for our wrongs. And I know the clean and honest feeling that I had when I admitted to myself, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
And I found that this program could work for me. It could help me with my problems, my problems that were big and my problems that were small. But as I took the inventory, continued to take the inventory, and used the prayer and the meditation, that I got an answer. And when I feel that I'm not as serene as I should be, I do not have the peace of mind that I would like to have, I know how to get it.
I have found in this program just what to do to recover that. I found, find, that this program opens avenues for me that if I travel, enrich my life. And if I do too, as I so often do, I have the guide to lead me back to the right way, the twelve steps of alcoholic phenomena. I do hope that through indifference that I will never lose interest in this program. For if I do, it will be because of something that has happened inside of me that I do not want to happen, and not with the program itself.
I hope that I will be eternally grateful for that which has been given to me, thankful that I have so much. And if I am able to help by any word, act, or deed another alcoholic who is still suffering, then I am doubly blessed.
[00:55:16]
And all of this brings me into closer fellowship and closer companionship with you wonderful AAs. And it makes me want to say that when my summons come to join that innumerable caravan, that I will meet those AAs who have gone before me, and I will be there to greet the ones who come after me in that greatest fellowship of all. Thank you. Applause Thank you very much, Neely.