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Source: 1960 Long Beach International Convention – 1960 Long Beach Bill W., One Mans Story, Friday Night Meeting.mp3 File: 1960-long-beach-international-convention-1960-long-beach-bill-w-one-mans-story-friday-night-meeting.mp3 Duration: 01:23:05
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May I ask you all to join me in a standing ovation to our beloved and distinguished leader and colleague, Bill. It's always a good idea to follow the custom of the country where we are, and this is the West Coast, and I think all AA meetings open something like this. I suspect that there are some, not knowing us folks too well, who suppose that Alcoholics Anonymous is a sort of a modern and praiseworthy fireproofing against whiskey.
And so praise God it is, and we have needed that proofing. But it isn't quite so simple as that. Under the grace of God there has been expelled from us an obsession, a veritable lunacy, that has plagued men and women for time out of mind in an unprecedented way. And we have been liberated from that, we have been freed. But still that is not all. You and I know that we are a people who have pursued the wrong kind of liberty, have looked in the wrong direction for freedom, and now some of the time at least we are looking in the right direction.
Toward the right principles and toward him who presides over us all. Therefore, in its most deeply meaningful sense, AA is a quest for freedom under God. And this freedom, in its myriad forms, has grown amongst us, and I think one of the greatest and deepest satisfactions that any of us can have is to feel that again we are citizens of the world. Not so much that we are lauded by the world, but that we hold the world's respect and genuine affection.
And seldom have few experiences been so affecting as the warm welcome that this great city, its mayor, to several cities thanks. What the mayor's presence means here, what all this careful painstaking labor on our behalf means, is that we are received back as citizens of the world. Worthy of understanding, worthy of respect, and worthy of the less one we needed. So to you, Mr. Mayor, our deepest thanks, for which even my adjectives are not sufficient, and to all of your departments, and to the host committee of AAs around here, and all the myriad of people who have helped them.
One of the themes of this convention is, of course, dedication. We have seen it here in our friends, and among our AAs hosts, to an unprecedented degree. Thank you, sir. Thank you for coming. Leonard Harrison just spoke to you.
[00:05:03]
Someday, not too far away, there will occur an event which is always critical in all societies and governments, wherever it occurs. And that is a transference of service leadership from the originators to whoever is to succeed them. In our case, to be this board of trustees, composed in part of great friends, who are to be not our governors, but our servants and our administrators. Leonard is the oldest in service on that board.
Tomorrow night we'll talk a little more about it. But I'm sure that he communicated something more to you than words. He spoke in the language of the heart, and in Leonard, and successors like him. And in such drunks as we can supply to the outfit, none of them to stay in there too long, you understand. I feel only secure for the future if we as a society do our part. So, may on behalf of you all, I thank Leonard.
Board's past and board's present. I think each one of us is deeply sensible that gratitude is one of the finest emotions that can move the human heart. I think each of us, as he thinks of this occasion, renews his gratitude to almighty God, who has vouchsafed us this miracle, with more evidently in store for uncounted ones. But then each of us commences to think of how this message reached us, and how we were able to live long enough to be there to receive it.
And in the case of each of us, somebody was there, somebody sustained it, somebody tolerated us in our crazy quest for these wrong freedoms. And this was very often the wife, who stayed on and on until the quest had ended in this all but fatal cul-de-sac. This veritable prison in which she, or he if he be a husband, may have lived. So I think it is next in order for me to present you Lois, who like many a woman, stayed on to what seemed a certain end, only to stand here today with me looking at what is just the sunrise of Alcoholics None.
Lois? Thank you very much. And I want to add my thanks to this wonderful hospitality that you have out here in California. It is just the warmest thing, and Bill and I appreciate it so much. And I want to express here, before you all, my gratitude for the great happiness of the past 25 years.
[00:10:05]
And in my gratitude, I include you all, newcomers as well as old-timers, for no one link in AA's chain is more important than another. All carry the message, and all share with each other what they have found in AA. It is this sharing that makes AA such a powerful good. Much of the world, particularly in this atomic age, is hungry for proof of the power of good over evil. You AA's have given us this proof.
You have demonstrated that lives can be changed, no matter how low or sordid they have become. That men and women, through God's grace, can be lifted up and re-motivated to become constructive, useful forces. This has been an inspiration and renewal of faith in many people throughout the world, as well as to the families of AA's. I believe this miracle of changed lives have occurred because the principles of AA coincide with the highest principles we know, with the fundamental laws of the universe.
These principles teach us how to step aside so God can act through us. I'm particularly grateful to AA for showing me personally the way to a better and more useful life. For many years, AA's example has made many of us wives and husbands want to live by the 12 steps ourselves, and to help others who still are frustrated and alone to do likewise. The Avalon family groups are a spontaneous response to this vital need.
So, speaking for all the wives and husbands, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, children and friends of alcoholics, I want to thank you, AA's, not only for the happy homes you have restored to us, but the privilege of following the AA way of life for ourselves. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, can you all hear the speakers clearly? Are we speaking too softly or too loud? Thank you. I was the one who propounded that extremely foolish question, because sound in all its aspects is especially of this region.
Not considering further people for whom we are grateful, people who have been the carriers, the immediate carriers of this message to us. We could not possibly stand in the same relation to anyone else in the world. There is something singular about it. There is in it the very special language of the heart, a very special kind of gratitude. And I'm beginning to talk, as you see, about my own sponsor, Abby.
And here he sits, praise God, in great form and good order. Abby's had his difficulties, and I would venture that considering his obstacles, his demonstration is a whole lot better than my own. It was hard to fireproof him against whiskey, and awfully easy to fireproof me, and I think he deserves the greatest credit for his wonderful comeback. Thank you. For His Wonderful Comeback, The Great Dramatic Moment, If Not The, A Great Dramatic Moment
[00:15:12]
In My Life, Was The Time Half Drunk, When The Telephone Rang, And Ebby Was In The Arc The Next Moment Was When I Saw Him In My Doorway And Sensed That There Was A Subtle Change And Then Came That Vital Exchange Of Communication Over A Kitchen Table And A Great Big Crock Of Gin Which I Was Drinking And He Was Not, Ah Yes, For Me And For Him That Recollection Is Imperishable Because There One Of The First Spots Of Many Was Stuck, Which Was To Kindle This Worldwide Spread Of Alcoholics So, Ebby Come On Up And Have A Go At It Applause Hi Everybody Hi I Know Bill Said Some Nice Things About Me But We Can't Hear A Word Back There It Bounces Right Back But I Know He Did And I'm Grateful To Him You Know I Don't Deserve As Much Credit As I've Given Because I Knew Bill From Way Back Around 1911 I Shouldn't Reveal Already Since We Were About 14, 15 Laughter Somewhere Like That And I Knew Him Down To The Years And When I Got To New York After I Had Been Helped By The Members Of The Oxford Group And Sam Shoemaker Was Sitting Right Over There And Many Others I Went Over To See Bill And Bill Was Just As Ready And Disgusted With His Life As I Was A Couple Of Months Before That When The Boys Came To Me So It Was A Matter Of Circumstances And I Just Happened To Be The Guy That Was On The Spot At The Time I Tell You It's Nice To Be Here This Is My First Visit To The West Coast And I've Been Living In Texas For About 7 Years And I'm Not A Native Texan But When A Texan Can Come Out Here And Say That The Weather Is Good That's Something Laughter And It Certainly Is If This Is A Sample Of It And I'm Grateful That I'm Here Because As Bill Said I've Had Trouble Over The Years I've Been An In And Outer After The Initial Two And A Half Years Of My Sobriety In The Beginning And I Know Seven Years Ago I Doubted Very Much That I Was Going To Get Through That Summer And I Had Little Thought Of Being Out Here Or Having Another Nearly Seven Years Of Sobriety Which I Have Had In Texas Applause And If It Means Anything It Means To Anybody That's Having Trouble Try It Again Get Up And Try It Again You Won't Do It Yourself But You'll Get The Help From A Higher Power I'm Sure Of That Applause And I Haven't Much More To Say Except It's Good And To Meet Sisters In Asia I've Heard Of A Work Over All These Years But This Is My First Time On The Honor Of Meeting Them And Of Course I Haven't Seen This Old Budget Bill Very Often It's Good To Get Back With Him And Lois And My Gratitude To God And To All The People In The Area Thank You Applause Ain't That Great
[00:20:00]
Applause We've Got Out Here One Of The Dearest Friends That This Society Can Ever Have She Wouldn't Admit It She's On The Frail Side By Common Sense Standards She Shouldn't Have Been Here But She Couldn't Help It I'm Referring To Sister Ignatia And I Wish That Every One Of You Could Know Her As Dr. Bob And I And All Those To Whom She Ministered Knew Her You Know In The Whole World On This World Of Ours Of A.A. Individuals, Groups, Societies, Governments And The Like Are Always In The Process Of Choosing Destruction, Mediocrity Or Greatness In Spirit And Action In A.A. We Say That Our Close Step Work Is Carrying The Message To The Other Fellow Or Gal Well This Is Our Move Toward Greatness In Action And Spirit In Our Modest Way Practically Any Act Of A.A. Has Done Some Twelve Step Jobs Maybe A Score Maybe A Hundred But What About A Person Who Has Done Twelve Thousand And I Won't Stop With The Quantity The Quality After All Was The Thing Because This Was Dr. Bob's Partner And This Lady Was Certainly If We Call Dr. Bob The Prince Of All The Twelve Steppers This Is The Princess And I Introduce You To Princess Ignatia Well I Feel That There Is No Credit Coming To Me For This I Feel It Is A Privilege That God Should Pick Out Such A Weak Instrument To Take Part In Such A Great Movement Was Our Little Thought When Dr. Bob First Talked With Me About This It Would Turn Into Such A Wonderful Work Of God It Is Only When We Appear For A Judgment Seek We Know All That Has Transpired And The Souls Have Come In Contact With This Movement Homes Have Been Rehabilitated And The Lives Have Been Completely Changed Only Those Of Us Who Are At The Vantage Point Where We Are Seen Coming And Going And Trying To Follow Through Have Just A Little Idea But In God's Way How Tremendous May God Bless Every One Of You Give You Years Of Happiness Here And An Eternity Of Happiness Hereafter God Bless You Well Ain't That Something Too
[00:25:05]
You Know It Would Be Wonderful All Together Sitting If It Was Time To Continue On This Theme Of Gratitude But We Have Only Just Started On It We Are Going To Say What We Think About Our Friends Of Medicine And Religion Some Passed On To Their Wards Sam Shoemaker Sitting Over There Other Folks That Are Here But I Think Now We Have To Get Into The Yarn Thing Because You Know This Is Not An Occasion Really For Solemnity This Is A Time For Joy This Is A Time For Reminiscence This Is A Time For Good Old Fashioned Drunk Yarn And If I Can Possibly Dress Up That Old Story Of Mine With A Few New Trimmings Like The New Turnout Of A Thanksgiving Turkey Well Let's See What We Can Do With It Let's See If We Can Hang The Story On This Theme Just Now Becoming Current In AA Which We Call Communication Communication As We Understand It In AA Is Something More Than Fire Proof And If Something Goes Through And Behind The Fire And Puts It Out Maybe I Could Best Give You The Sequence Of The Several Communications As They Gathered Together Into This Wide Open River Of Power To Folks Of Our Kind Many Of These Communications Were Unusual Some Almost Unique And Long Before I Ever Thought Of Getting Well These Communications Are Beginning And I Think The First Crucial One Was In The Office Of A Doctor I Find The Psychiatrist And Psychologist Say That We Folks Are Kind Of Dreamers And Visionaries But I Do Think We Like Word Pictures And Images So Let Us Think Back Together To The 1930s When That Wonderful Doctor And Truly Great Man Dr. Carl Jung Sat In His Office Talking To A Patient A Drunk Who Had Come From America A Year Before One Called Roland Who Had Exhausted Every Resource That He Knew A Gentle Death We Wanted To Get Well And Roland Had Been With Dr. Jung A Year And He Had Seen A Great Deal Of His Inside Fishworms Of Various Sizes And Dimensions Had Been Lifted Out And He Knew More About Those Hidden Springs And Motivated Them Moreover He Had A Deep Confidence In The Humanity Of Dr. Jung And His Voices So He Left There With A Feeling Of Security But He Is Away Only A Little While And Then That Obsession Wanted The Grimmest Known To Man The Lady Told On Him He Is Drunk He Is Sitting Before Dr. Jung Well He So Chanced For It Was The Will Of Providence That He Not Only Sat In The Presence Of A Great Physician He Sat In The Presence Of A Man Who Is Great In Spirit And Action And To Be Great In Spirit And Action And to be great in spirit and action, that means greatness and humility, let me recount in effect what the conversation was, said Roland to Dr. Carl, you were my court of last resort, tell me, where I stand.
[00:30:21]
Then comes one of the founders of psychiatry, one of the world's leading doctors, and he says very simply, I thought, Roland, when you first came, that you might be one of those occasional, yes, to be frank, rare cases, in which my act might help, might bring you to recovery. But you are not, this I am sure, you are a drunkard. But that's very serious to mention that there is nothing that I know of in my resources that I can do to help you.
Now to put it in AA vernacular, what do you think this did to Roland? Here was the god of science, the court of last resort. We have in AA this technique of helping people to hit bottom, and it requires no imagination on the greater part of this audience to see that Roland hit bottom with one hell of a bang. So the humility of this man, already of the great of the world, to say of myself in this case, I am nothing, how providential.
But he said more that was also important to watch. This was a turning point without which we might not be here at all. He said, Roland, but is there no resource? And the doctor said, yes. But it's very occasional. I am speaking of a transforming spiritual experience. Roland has to say, oh, you mean faith? Gee, I was once an Episcopal veteran, I know faith. Roland said, doctor, well, this is fine, Roland. But I am talking about something that is the ultimate in faith, or is the ultimate in the gift of God. I mean a transforming experience that will solely motivate you as to restore you to insanity by expelling this lunacy.
Maybe you don't like the word, but I'm talking about conversion. I'm talking about spiritual awakening, spiritual experience. Known for centuries in all religions. Sometimes this doesn't, but I can't say why the lightning strikes here or there, now and then. So put yourself in the religious atmosphere of your own choice. Admit that you can't do it. Turn to whatever God you think there is. Well, maybe. I wish you well.
So Roland did. Found himself in a group Sam was tied up with years ago, to whom we owe much. We'll talk more about that another time. And Jehovah's Bolt did strike him. Not all of a sudden, but he was released. He got sober. There weren't a lot of drunks around the Oxford group at that time. As Sam will say with some amusement, they were under slight disapproval in this period. He had housed some up in an apartment house right next to his church.
And the boys had got sued and they were throwing shoes through the plate glass windows. Anyway, Roland was a recovered alcoholic and having suffered this way, he heard about my school chum up in Vermont, summer residence, had got his father's car out after escapades without number and the big payoff.
[00:35:02]
And the straight road to the booby hatch was opened up by this delightful episode. He takes the car and he runs it off the road at high speed during the night into the side of a farmhouse, into the kitchen. The car goes right through the wall. It pushes a stone this time. A frightened woman is there. And my friend stepped out of the door that was still open and bounced deeply. And he said, Madam, how about a cup of coffee?
This is Abby. This is Abby. So the neighbor says, well, this is it. We're going to bug him right now. Well, at this minute, Roland, summering in the neighborhood, heard about this thing. He got a hold of Abby and he gave him the Oxford Group business. And we have the essence of it. You get honest with yourself, with other people, you make right decisions, you work with other folks. You and I know the story. He gave him that, but he gave him the benefit of one drunk talking to another. And he added still another ingredient to this communication, this verdict of this great man of science, this god of science, about the then awful hopelessness.
Abby is released. Abby thinks of me. Well, what's my story? Here's a quick rundown. I'm born in a little Vermont town. Guess they got 50 houses up there. I was big and gawky like I am now. But this, after a bit, generated me in a fierce desire to be number one in anything that I undertook, no matter what the cost. No legitimate ambitions, no. This is the world of power. So I had to be first in athletics, first in this, first in that, first in the other thing. I get to boarding school. Well, with a good constitution and some other national endowments, I did scoop up quite a lot of perks.
Everything was fine. There was approval. There was security in that approval, also in the fact that my grandfather's allowance was handsome. Everything was here but romance, and then she came along, the minister's daughter. So life is complete. I'm now in a state of great joy, liberation, and freedom. Not necessarily of the wrong kind, but I had the wrong idea about my demand for these things, I guess, right then. This awful will to dominate.
Then I became a cropper. The principal walked in one morning, and with a dreadful impact on us all, a truly shattering on one, me, on me, he said that this gal had died the night before. I have a depression in the last three years. This is not freedom. I'm imprisoned by my own emotions and my lack of control of them. My will to this, that, or the other thing could accept no defeat. So I turned on myself and the question. Dead and ragged, poor me.
Well, by and by life began to brighten, for all she spoke, for some horizons up there. I began to steer, and ever so tenderly, she brought me back to health.
[00:40:12]
We're married. It's World War I. I'm in New Bedford, Massachusetts. All this time, no drinking. Killed too many of the Wilsons. Just the wind rose up. So I'm really down on booze, but here I am in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a cotton town in wartime, and the society folks were entertaining, and I felt awful awkward at these parties. Saw a butler for the first time. I was as scared of him as I was of bankers. And I thought, well, I'll take one of those box cocktails.
And I took one, two, three. And I know, just as you know, that those drinks meant more to me than folks who are drinking for relaxation. Even relaxation is an American language convention. We're drinking for a deeper reason. This began to solve my life problem. Because always, even then, I seemed to be walled off from other people. I couldn't get through this strange barrier, and that dropped with the bank.
It's gone. I'm part of life at last. I belong. I can communicate. So I start a quest for freedom with the bottle to be my elixir of life. Well, turned out to be quite a mistake. World War over, back to New York. Here I am amongst city folks, the old inferiorities, the bottle again. Oh, I was tough on young men, stand the hangovers. But always these episodes, always Louis feeling well. There must be something terribly wrong, me denying it.
I remember one time when I still thought that drinking was, you know, the fault of good men, and we had made some dough in the Wall Street boom. I had bought a Packard about as long as I'm here at that third foot line. It was up in a town near my brother-in-law's place. I was supposed to show up for supper. I got talking with the man at the garage. I forgot about supper. I forgot about Louis. It was kind of a bitter night. We needed more garage to get warm, and we kept warming ourselves.
Finally I realized that I had to start for my brother-in-law's for supper several hours later. I started up the street, and suddenly I realized that it was time to go to bed. And there was a field and a side hill paralleling the street, and I wandered over in it, and I laid down, and it was a wintery night, and I woke up. Gracious, I was fortunate. I got off it, up the hill to the main street, started down the main street, looked down, and my God, I had on my coat and vest and my but no pants, right down the main street of Yosemite, New York.
My brother-in-law and Louis met me at the door. They were saddened, and since I was minus my pants, the unspoken question was, where have you been? Do you know, the very next morning, we found that field, and I was absolved at least from one sin, when my shoes and my pants, shoes side by side, and pants side by side. …shoes side by side and pants carefully folded there in the grass as far as I'm concerned.
[00:45:03]
Even then, without knowing it, I was condemned to obsession, to lunacy, and to death without knowing it. I praise God on the increasing communication of our society that potentials like me are now coming to a younger folks just getting nicked, where it begins to hurt, but already fatally, unless they take the steps. Let me take you quickly into the climax, you know it. Boom and bust in Wall Street, try to get a toehold, nobody has me.
Lois and I become alone. We drift down into the cul-de-sac, and comes a day in the hospital when dear old Dr. Silkworth, who like Dr. Jung, had thought I might be one of those rare ones. I really wanted this guy. Was obliged to tell Lois an even greater flair than Dr. Jung had told Rowland. I'm sorry, Lois, but he's going to be like all the rest. I thought he might be an exception. I'm sorry, you know, this candidate of his drinking has become an obsession.
And this obsession condemns him to go on against any resource I know. And something ails him, let's call it an allergy. And if he does go on, this means he gets brain damage. And presently he will be, maybe within a year. So, Lois, like Rowland, said to Dr. Silkworth, well, what next? And that very gentle soul, who had walked the last mile up to this point with some 20,000 drunks that he'd failed with, knew that the time had come to walk the last mile with Lois and me.
And he said, if you will keep him alive and in his right mind, he said, well, sir, I'm afraid you'll have to lock him up. Brain damage isn't far away. In fact, I've often had reasons to suspect there was some hangover from that. So that's the sentence. Coming out of that place, knowing this sentence myself, a sentence pronounced by this man who, like Dr. Jung to Rowland, was able to transmit to me not cold statistical facts.
No cliches about allergy and obsession. I believed what he said because I knew he loved me. My confidence in him was utter even though he couldn't help me. It was just language of the heart again. And I knew. And they didn't lock me up. They let me loose. I stayed sober a month or two. A month or two, near a miracle for me. In the toilet again in November. Then comes that day when the telephone rings.
Abby is in the door. Here's the kitchen table. Have a drink, Abby. Oh. What? Not drinking? Oh, no, I'm not drinking today. Water wagon? No, I'm just not drinking. What's got into you, Abby? I got religion. So I said, now, Abby, you know he was a good friend. You had to be polite. I hope I wasn't patronizing, but I said, Abby, what brand is this you have? Well, I said, I wouldn't call it brand. I picked up some ideas from a religious, rather evangelical group.
Probably from your point of view, but believe me, it saved my skin along with the drunk that was in there. And they sold me on the idea that I couldn't manage my own life. That wasn't too hard, this stage of the game. They thought I ought to get honest with myself as I had never been before. They thought I should communicate this to somebody. Stop living alone. That I should make restitution. That I should try to help others without the usual demands or reward.
[00:50:03]
And that I ought to pray to whatever God there was. And Abby didn't try to crowd me, evangelize me. She just left me to mull this over. I had lived in this dark world where he had been and was now out. He wasn't just on the water wagon at that time. He was really released. I kept drinking just the same in order to think deeper about it. But the vision of Abby's face and the ring and impact of those words would not leave me at all.
Why? We know. Because he had bound me to it in the cause of common suffering, common understanding, and liberating therapy. And I couldn't get away. Well, I thought, I'm a Yankee. I can't go into this conversion business. God help me. Evangelism. No, no, no, no. I'll go up to the hospital and get sobered up. I'll see if there isn't some real clear, logical, intellectual way to get at this. But I really better be about it.
So I showed up at the hospital very drunk. We always get drunk on the way, you know, to be cured for the last time. Called Dr. Silkworth, shook his head. I said, boy, I got something big, Doc. He said, I guess you have. Go upstairs, go to bed. Three days later, I wasn't in bad shape this time. Oh, I'm sober all right. But boy, am I depressed. Because now I'm caught in this awful clamp that so many newcomers to AA complain about.
They say, damn you people, you have sold us on the idea that we're alcoholics. And you've also sold us on the idea that we have to buy this higher power to do much about it. And this we can't buy. So I was depressed. I had one of these fine modern educations, you know. Said that man was God. Well, I didn't exactly think I was myself, but I had hoped to be on the way there. So I'm very depressed. Abby shows up in the morning, I guess it was about 11 o'clock of the third day.
There he stands in the door. I got thinking about this evangelical group, and I begun to be a little suspicious. I said, this bird knows me, and he took it easy the first time. He's going to pour it on heavy. Oh, no. Abby is shrewd. And spiritual shrewdness is prudence. He didn't want you, and he had it. So he just came up and casually said, well, Bill, I heard you landed up here and thought I'd drop by.
And how you getting along? He waited, and I asked him, what's that nifty little set of cliches by which you get over the grog business, Abby? Oh, oh, you get honest with yourself. You never were before. You're talking out to somebody, you make restitution. Work with other people. Pray to whatever God there is. That's it. Then small talk about this and that. Abby's gone. This time I am really in the clans.
I'm still fighting the idea of God. And I suppose in my particular case, the last vestige of my prideful obstinacy at great depth was squeezed out. And like a little child, completely lost in the dark, I exclaimed, if there is a God, will he show himself? And then came the gift. The same one you have, but to me sudden. The place lit up. It seemed like I was on a mountain. A great wind is blowing. I sense this is spirit, not air.
Then a moment of enormous ecstasy when I thought, I'm a free man. Then comes peace as I lie on the bed.
[00:55:02]
And I say this is the God of the priesthood. Then I'm scared after a bit. Maybe I have grown bugs after all. The doctor comes in. Well, no criticism of the profession, but I think that after hearing a yarn like this, that many doctors would have handed me a goofball and said, Bill, think nothing of it, you'll feel better tomorrow. But how providential is one then? He listened carefully. He said, no, I don't think you're crazy.
Actually, I can sense somehow that there's a difference in you. Some great psychic event has occurred. I've read about these things in the book. I've never seen it, but I really think you've got something here and you better hold on. So I've been holding on and so have a lot of the rest of us for a while now. So I started out working with drunks. You know, chain reaction. And with this sudden experience, there was a certain amount of paranoia.
You know, the old bondiocracy stuff, fix all the drunks in the world. They don't fix worth a hoot. And I lecture and I preach and I get sore and nothing happens. One day I'm up at Doc's and I said, Doc, they get nowhere with these drunks fast. And well, he said, maybe you got the cart before the horse. Maybe you're trying to get them too good by Thursday. And if they're going to get that good by Thursday or even ten years from Thursday, you got to give them a little more incentive, Bill.
Just talk into these people the medical hopelessness of this thing. Quoting authorities on this. And after you identify with them by telling their yarn and they come in to say, this is me, this is me, then give them the medical business of death. The next scene in our little drama is out in, or let me put it, our unfolding drama. He's out in Akron. Business deal. Some folks said I better go back to work.
I like being a missionary better and was always allergic to work. But here I was. The deal falls through. And for the first time I'm out of sight of any drunks or any religious group. And I'm alone in a hotel. And I haven't got the fare home. And here was the first temptation and just about the last I ever had to drink. And indeed God had restored me to sanity because I could see the temptation for what it was.
I wasn't one of those guys that was scared of the first drink. I just took it. I wasn't one of those guys that was scared of the first drink. I just took it. This time I'm scared. And this time we get another kind of communication. We've been edging up toward this. But this time I realized that I needed another drunk quite as much as he could need me. So where was one? I called up one of the local preachers, a drunk from New York, wanted a drunk to work on him.
And he said, well, gee, separately you're tough numbers, but put together I don't know. I talked some more. He gave me a list of nine people. I called them up at the end of the list. There's one non-alcoholic gal, dear Henrietta Scheibling, who cared enough, who understood enough. Said, come out here. I think I've got just the man for you to talk to. I came out. There she stood in the door. She invited me in.
We chatted a minute. She said, there's a doctor in this town. Dr. Bob. With a sharp disease. He's lost his standing as a surgeon. Everybody's a nervous wreck. He's wanted to stop for years. Doesn't seem to know how. Shall I call up? Well, it's Mother's Day. Henrietta calls up. Dear Annie Smith comes on the line. Henrietta says there's a man here from New York. Maybe he's got a cure for alcoholism. And…
And he said, well, gee, that's fine. It's Mother's Day. Bob has brought me a potted plant, but he's so potted on the table, under the table, he can't get out. Next day, I overcame
[01:00:05]
Dr. Bob. And this time, there was a new quality in our communication. And this quality was that of complete mutuality. This time, no preaching. Each needed the other. And another great spark passed. And I went to Dr. Bob's house to live. Ann was one of those prudent people. She thought I might keep an eye on the old boy. And after one little episode, he said to me, Bill, we just better get to work hard. We've sunk. So he called up the city hospital. The head nurse said we got a dandy lawyer around here. Been in there six times, four months. Can't get home even without getting drunk. Knocked down one of the nurses. We got him strapped. He's got the DCs. How will I one do you? Bob says, this is wonderful. Put him in a room and give him some goofballs and we'll be down when he's better. So we get down and here was the first visit in the hospital. And this boy looked at Dr. old Bill, A number three to B. And old Bill said after listening to us, well, you're the first guys that I ever talked to that had any idea what this was all about. So as I had poured it into Dr. Bob about the medical hopelessness of this thing, once we made the identification, we poured it into Bill. And that lowered him down a few notches further. With this lowering process, well, he was like a meatball. He didn't seem to bounce. Bill said it's too late for me. Oh yeah, I got faith, but God's not faith in me. We said, would you like us to come back, Bill? He said, you bet I would. I don't believe it'll help, but I don't feel quite so much alone. The next morning we came in and again, the unique and mysterious communication. I had been at work during the night. Bill said to his wife, these are the fellas that know the score. Wife, get me my clothes and we are going to get up and get out of here. And the first AA group was born at Akron in the summer of 1935. And I stayed with Dr. Bob during a good part of that summer. And it was awful slow going, but it began to move. And a picture of that little living room with Ann sitting in the corner reading out of James, his face without work is dead. Of all of our prospects, drunks and sober, coming in every morning or every few hours. Of that old coffee pot you see in AA come today. These are the memories. And I think that it is appropriate now for us to pause for a silence in gratitude for Dr. Bob and Ann and what they were about to be and to do. And after a little meditation about that, I would like to read to you a short resolution, which I hope is in the language of the heart, that I composed for adoption of our board of trustees when Dr. Bob died. And we sent it to young Bob and Sue. Shall we bow our heads just a second?
Dr. Bob in memoriam. Alcoholics Anonymous herein records its timeless gratitude for the life and works of Dr. Robert Holbrook Hess, a co-founder. Known in a section as Dr. Bob, he recovered from alcoholism on June 10, 1935. In that year, he helped to form the first Alcoholics Anonymous group. This first beacon he and his good wife Ann so well tended that its light at length traversed the world.
[01:05:27]
By the day of his departure from us, November 16, 1950, he had spiritually and medically helped countless fellow sufferers. Dr. Bob was the humility that declined all honor, the integrity that brooks no compromise. His was a devotion to man and to God, which in bright example will shine always. The world's fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous presents this testament of gratitude to the heirs of Dr. Bob and Ann.
I for one think they know what we are thinking and what we are saying. May God will it so. I never had a hard word with Dr. Bob and I fought with everybody else nearly in this movement. This is the greatest tribute I could take. Let us pass quickly on with the story of communication. Long about after a couple of years of government, a little group starts in New York, one starts in Cleveland. Oh, but it's so painful. It's so slow.
We heard enough communication. Still enough drunk sober to make enough evidence to impress the rest. People turning away and saying, I'm not like that. We thought that it would be a very slow business. There had to be somehow a better communication inside than outside. We had to have more customers. We had to get our story into writing. Otherwise it could become terribly dark. So we began to think in terms of a group of people that could help us, which came to be that board of trustees who began to think in terms of that book Alcoholics Anonymous.
We couldn't raise a cent anywhere for this book even though we were already hooked up with Mr. Rockefeller. He very wisely said money will spoil this thing and he pretty much stuck to it. But he did give it to himself and I'll make that point. So we began the preparation of the book. Being a Wall Street operator, I thought right away that stock selling was good. My partner at that time, another gent by the name of Hank, who certainly wasn't suffering from any bust appendix, really got out peddling them shares.
We manufactured the shares in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. We just didn't care to stock certificates. Writing out at Works Publishing Company, H. Parker's president, and we sold them to drunks for 25 bucks a share in a book not yet written. Now I say the promotion job, that's tough. Now then, the question was who was to write the book and I still had, you know, that itching to be a number one man, although I'd never written anything in my life. So I commenced and we labored on through four or five chapters and each one was a fiercest kind of argument.
Out in Akron they kind of went along with it, but boy those New York drunks clobbered me from every side. The thing had come to a practical standstill and the book hadn't yet said what it was about, you know. It was kind of getting up to the point and after all, what was the point? And we'd said what alcoholism was and into action and more of the agnostic, but when were we coming to grips with this thing? And I was awful weary of the rouse, but that situation looked better because I had been appointed the umpire.
That if I would listen carefully, that I finally could take a decision about it. So one night it looked like the book had had a backbone and these half dozen word-of-mouth steps, you know, the ones we'd just been talking about, I figured if you blew them up any more that this reader dropped out at the distance that we couldn't get with the scruff of the neck.
[01:10:18]
If you made a more thorough job he couldn't wiggle out so easy. So I started breaking the six steps up into smaller pieces and at the end of time I found there were twelve and I said, well that's a good, significant, kind of an apostolic number. And these were the twelve steps, which later found favor with our great friends of religion and they were supposed to parallel the Ignatian exercises. I know one time I told the story of the production of the book and our several motives, good and bad, and one drunk came up afterwards shaking his fist and he said, I did not believe that this great spiritual book could be produced in any such way as this. I am going out of here to get drunk. And he did. But he came back.
So we had a book and we printed 5,000 of them and the money all ran out and the Reader's Digest said they were going to print a piece and they didn't print the piece. The printer let us have 5,000 for $500, which was fairly much on the cuff. So what were we going to do with all these books? And just then the landlord came along and this, to that, Lois and me and what were we going to do? So folks kind of took us in and by and by something terrific in communication happened in Cleveland.
First notice we could do this in quantity. About 20 drunks over there, hardly dry behind the ears, a handful of experienced ones only that had picked it up in Anchorage, were suddenly confronted by a whole series of articles run in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and they were written by a gentleman who had an inside view of the drinking problem, a first-hand experience. I don't think he became a member, but let us say he was a fellow traveler. He really could talk the lingo. And he wrote this series of pieces and the Plain Dealer got behind this and said, folks, this is good, come and get it.
These 20 people were obliged to take on hundreds and hundreds of calls in a matter of a month or two. And all of a sudden the thing bloomed. And you'd take a guy into a hospital and he'd go in there, he'd come out jittery, you'd take him to visit another guy, and then he was a full-blown sponsor. And they fought like the very devil, but they kept on sobering up and the batting average went right along up, one we thought that only we elder deacons could administer the potion.
This proved that we could communicate in size and it proved something else, that understanding friends in press and probably later in radio and in all means of communication could speak for us in such a language that it would reach into the drunk and to his family and the general public to produce such a message. To produce such a result. The very next spring along came John Dee whose friends and helpers set up the Still Empty Alcoholic Foundation. The foundation was both alcoholic and empty.
And all of a sudden dear old Mr. Richardson, I guess his first member who brought it together, John Dee's friend, came into a trustees meeting and he said, gentlemen I have great news. I just had a talk with Junior and Junior has been watching the progress of this outfit with great satisfaction. And he wants to throw a dinner for Alcoholics Anonymous and here's a list of the guests. Here's a list of 400 he'd like to send invitations to.
Invitation to, and when he puts the list in front of us drunks, we looked at it and said, my God, this is worth about five billion dollars, and we thought we needed a lot of dough. So on comes the dinner, and John D. Jr. can't be there, he really was sick of bed that night,
[01:15:04]
and he sent over Nelson, so well known nationally now, and we imported some drunks from Akron, and they had some distinguished folks there, some under command, too. They were thinking this was a prohibition deal. One of the boys at the table, we had a drunk planted at each table of the notables, and one of them turned to one of our, one of the bankers turned to one of our boys and said, well, I presume, Mr. Ryan, that you're in the bank and busy.
Mr. Ryan, the drunk, said, no, I'm just out of Greystone Socks. This kind of warmed things up and it started to thaw, and it looked like a prospect for squeezing some dough out of this thing, you know, to get us off the hook and get some paid missionaries in a hospital chain. These things we needed so badly. Then up got Nelson Rockefeller speaking for his father, and he said, my father wanted your good friends to see this very promising beginning of what may be a great new thing in the world.
But this is a work of goodwill. My father thinks money will spoil it. He just wanted to let you know. And at least $1 billion worth of millionaires got up and walked out, and he didn't leave a thin dime behind. This Mr. Rockefeller released on the press wire, the first figure of that kind to stand up in public, where this small, trembling society is the only evidence, this person to trust us, supposing three of us had turned up their stool, and said to the world, I believe in this.
That was the critical vital communication. Then came the big one. Wonderful Jack Alexander. Great newspaper reporter. Served his time on the New Yorker. Moved over to the Saturday Post. Mr. Curtis Bach, the owner down there, had seen in our little Philadelphia group a couple of people get sober. He'd gone to the rest of the board to summarize the editor. Why don't you do a piece about this society?
I believe in it. I've seen it. So Jack was assigned, and Jack had just been doing the Jersey Rackets. So he came over and laughingly said afterward, his tongue was certainly in his cheek. And on the face of it, it just wouldn't scan. Jack was and is a very deeply spiritual, I may add, a very religious guy without ostentation. And he crossed the communication with his hair. I think he was seized with the desire to do all he could and the best he could, and that was a whole lot.
He trailed us and one of our committees around for one solid month before he tapped the typewriter at home. And then he tapped out that piece. Oh, it looked a little slangy in parts. But all it was done in the language of the heart. And when that hit the drums, and their families, and the citizens of our country in March 1941, the impact was terrific. We had found that we could communicate to our friends the best they could understand, and speak a little of our language.
And Jack could speak a lot. And the drums poured in from all directions. And we were flabbergasted.
[01:20:02]
But as you remember, the A book published two years earlier said, in the last chapter of the text, the vision for you, is our hope in future years that the traveler may avoid the temptations of the road when he reaches his destination by finding an alcoholic synonymous group. And already twos and threes and fives of us are springing up here today, one of these places being right here in L.A. So the twos and threes and fives have sprung up, ready to take the impact of this avalanche.
And we absorb it. Therefore, our survival formula, our whiskey fireproofing, our release from obsession, and the beginning of our march on the road to freedom under God as a society has begun on this 25th anniversary marks a wonderful culmination, which, however, can only be a beginning. So may we, in God's time, continue to be worthy of his grace in our quest for freedom. May we be worthy of public respect and confidence.
And may out of this passing stream our brothers and sisters suffering, numbering 25 million throughout the world, may we find means to communicate with them what you and I see and feel here in the presence of each other, our friends, and the Father of Light, who presides over us all. Thank you.