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Source: 1960 Long Beach International Convention – 1960 Long Beach Int Conv, AA speakers from Around the World 1of 2.mp3 File: 1960-long-beach-international-convention-1960-long-beach-int-conv-aa-speakers-from-around-the-world-1of-2.mp3 Duration: 01:13:23
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Thank you very much. And I believe the usual greeting out here is supposed to be, Hi! Well, I must say that it's been a, I'm very proud indeed, considered a very great honor to be chairman of this meeting on AA around the world. Particularly because AA around the world has gotten to be a very important development in this fellowship. I suppose we think, how's that, can you hear that? That better? That the overseas, the AA around the world has gotten to be a tremendous development in this fellowship.
Something that in this country that's accepted, you can travel all over the United States, almost to any town or hamlet, wherever it is, and you can look in the telephone book and you'll find AA's, you will always find somebody to talk to, find somebody who's sympathetic and understands what your problem is. This is not true altogether overseas. They are, there are, they're represented in 60 countries. There are 1106 groups and 17,740 members outside of the United States. Just think of it, that half as many again as there were in the stadium last night, probably more.
This meeting today, we're going to hear from speakers from such widely separated countries as England, Hawaii, Belgium, the West Indies, Puerto Rico, Germany, Salvador, South Africa, and one internationalist. All wonderful people who have come from very far, most of them have come from very far to be with us today, and we extend to them, to all of them, a very heartfelt and heartfelt greeting. My work, my own particular work here takes me a good many places in the world, and I've had the opportunity to talk with individual members and meet with groups, and for me this has been a very rewarding and heartwarming in a hundred ways.
I hope also that it may have brought a little additional sense of the close ties that bind us all in thought and in aim in this wonderful fellowship, the effects of which are going to spread all over the world and nothing can stop it. This problem of excessive drinking is not by any means confined to the North American continent, believe me. As wherever drinking is done, and as far back as history goes, there is evidence of its disastrous effect.
As a matter of fact, if you look back in the book of Genesis, you'll see that Noah had a little bit of trouble at one time, and it was a bit serious, and historically the Suetonius, the Roman historian who was writing about the lives of the Caesars, said that the Emperor Titus had remarked one day after a particularly bad bout with whatever the equivalent of bourbon was in those days, that he had lost a day. Well, we can see how far civilization is biased now, because we refer to it now, I believe, as a lost weekend, or maybe longer.
Drinking, from my own observation, certainly statistically, is not a matter of climate or a matter of race, or is the problem of the northern countries to be any greater than it is, let us say, in southern Europe or the Caribbean or Central America. Generally speaking, in the European countries, the greatest consumption is of wine, which is supposed to indicate moderation. But this apparently is not the case. This is evidenced by the very great concern in France over excessive drinking, which without any question amounts to alcoholism.
The French government not so long ago tried to change the drinking habits of the people to non-alcoholic beverages, milk of all things, certainly without any great success. And today, one sees in France the road safety signs that are linked with this campaign against drunkenness. These signs say, sobriety and security. The same of this recent government-sponsored publicity campaign against alcoholism also has as its slogan, health and sobriety. It doesn't say moderation. It doesn't say, well, you can take one drink or two drinks and drive, or you can limit yourself to this, but it refers specifically to sobriety because it is a problem.
[00:05:06]
World Services of AA has been doing a tremendous job and is already beginning to meet with some real and positive successes as evidenced by the number of groups that have been formed and the number of new members that are coming in to the fellowship every day. Since Bill's visit to England some ten years ago, the movement now has a general service organization in London with groups in England and Ireland and Scotland, and there is also what I think is important abroad, as it is here, that there is increasing public awareness that AA is the only way in which the problem can be dealt with successfully.
From my own experience with AA, I have had some wonderful visits with the AA's from a great many countries. The ones that stand out most in my mind are a long talk that I had at the airport in Maui in Hawaii with a chap whose tragic story ended in complete sobriety, a good job as a newscaster over the local radio station. And all of his news broadcasts, he ended with a serenity prayer, and his great pride was that he was a namesake of Bill's.
I remember breakfast with a wonderful chap in Honolulu when we sat on the terrace of the hotel and talked about AA's, a meeting with a group in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, to which my wife and I were invited and where I had the opportunity of talking for a few minutes to the group. I didn't have very much to say. We talked a little bit about general services, but it was a real joy to have had the opportunity to meet with them and see what was going on there.
Similarly, in Mexico, just recently, I had the opportunity of meeting with the English-speaking group down there. There are about 30, I would say 32, and I talked about the general services a little bit, which is my main interest. And I also met with the secretary of the Spanish group, and the Spanish group down there is growing in leaps and bounds. I talked with a loaner in Switzerland, with members of the group in Paris. I spent an evening with a wonderful old-timer in Rio de Janeiro.
And I had a most delightful evening with the group in Buenos Aires, in Argentina. And I've also been in touch with AA's in Cuba and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and certainly not last but not least, Norway and other countries that I've been to. And wherever I find the opportunities to do it, although these conversations that I've had were necessarily brief and they were pretty much academic on my part, they were nevertheless thrilling and inspiring to me, because wherever I went, and whether I was talking with groups or individuals, I found in them all a wonderful sense of peace and happiness and a determination to carry on the work of the Twelve Steps Under the Devil.
The difficulties of the barriers of language and the difficulties of conveying an understanding of the new way of life that brings this wonderful return to sobriety. I just want to say a few words here about the literature end here. You'll be familiar with it probably from what comes out of general services. But there's already been a good deal done in the way of translating AA literature into foreign languages.
A book was recently published in Norwegian, which is a composite of the big book, The Twelve Steps and Traditions and AA Comes of Age. It's been put out in a very beautiful binding, and it is now available to everyone in Norway who needs help in a country where this problem is really quite serious. The AA in the medical profession has been translated into French and German and will soon be available in Spanish. The AA tradition is available in French and Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Other translations will be made as time goes on and as the resources are available.
And there's no question but what these will prove to be the really great vehicles that are going to carry this message into these countries where it is still just getting a start. The main object of this meeting, however, is not to listen to me talk, but to these wonderful people that have come from overseas that will tell you about what's going on in their countries. I'm not an expert on this subject, and so let us hear from them now as they tell us the story of their situations in their own particular countries.
[00:10:11]
So let's start our trip around the world. Can this be turned up a little bit? Can this be turned up a little bit? Maybe I can pull this. How's that? Is that better? Good. The first of our speakers this afternoon is from Balboa in the Canal Zone, Howard T. He is known to his friends as Ted, and he comes to speak to us on his activities there. He has been giving unstintingly of his help in sponsoring Spanish-speaking groups, supplying them with Spanish literature, and lending his encouragement and devotion to anyone who sincerely looks for help with this problem. Howard?
Thank you. Good evening. My name is Howard T., and as he told you, they call me Ted, which is a word that I hope someday will be as energized with Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm in a good spot to do it, but I am an alcoholic. Before I tell you anything of the trials and tribulations that we have had on the Canal Zone, I have one little chore that I'd like to do. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to do it. I don't know when I have known the happiness that I have known the last three days meeting you fine people.
But I have brought with me from the Panama Canal two pieces of wood. It actually is a block and a gavel. Very valuable in several ways. First, it is a native Y-con hardwood, and these two pieces came from an old railroad tie that were put into the railroad by old Johnny Aspinwall between the years of 1850 and 1855. That was a long time ago. It was put in over what we call the Black Swamp, which is the bottom of it, like a tub of lard. They were years and years filling it. They laid the rail, and in the latter part of 1955 they went off one night, leaving six railroad cars, a train, and an engine. They came back the next morning and everything was gone.
In 1945, a friend of mine spotted one end of this long piece of rail sticking out of the water. He's a track foreman. He put a line on it and drug it out, and there was one piece of railroad tie still bolted to that old original French rail. Needless to say, we were elated. Jim brought it in and gave it to me, and I buried it because I knew someday that it would be worth something. Incidentally, one of the other things that makes this so dear to us, the Y-con group was formed in 1945. We have heard the old saying that alcohol is a first-rate preserver. This is proof that the water in that shag is a good one, too, because she laid in it for 95 years. So from here on out, I'm drinking water.
But we've been 15 years drying this block until finally it was fit to make something out of, and I didn't know what to make it out of. It's laying in my locker now for a year. When this convention was advertised, the bells started going round and round, so some of the boys in the group got together. We manufactured this block and this tie, and we'd like to present it to Mr. Underwood with the hopes and the thoughts that it can be passed on from year to year, and it will be used to open the overseas meetings when they are held at these conventions.
Mr. Underwood, I would like to present you with this hammer and gavel on behalf of the Canal Zone group. I accept this gavel on behalf of the Alcoholics Anonymous, on behalf of the General Services, and on behalf of Bill, who I know will be very much touched by it. On behalf of Bill, who I know will be very much touched and be very grateful for this expression of the regard for him, this will be used, I'm sure, in future years of conventions, and I accept it with much pleasure indeed. Thank you, Honor.
[00:15:10]
Well, the Ancon group, we like to think that we are unique. Maybe we are. We have people from all over the world who work for the United States government. We had Army engineers, construction men, boilermakers, pipe cutters, electricians, you name it, we've got it, including an awful load of drunks. By 1945, one of them got sick, he didn't know what else to do. He'd been flown out of San Fernando Hospital, which was in Panama so many times, they wouldn't let him back.
He couldn't get in the hospital on his own, so he wrote to general service headquarters. He got the usual replies. Any man, as Jack has said, that he was so sick and tired of being sick and tired, he'd have done anything those gals told him, and he did. He was the co-founder of our group, started November 11, 1945. In about five weeks, he picked up his first pigeon, who later turned out to be my sponsor, Bob Ebb. He passed away today, God rest his soul, he was a good man. But those two men fought the battle of the bottle by themselves for quite some time until they had a chap come down from New York, and they looked forward with elation to meeting this man from New York.
He got off the plane and he was 40 feet off the air, or in the air, I should say. He was loaded with pills. The first thing they had to do was sober him up before they could get anything out of him. They did, off and on, kept him sober when they could. He'd get back on the pills. But in the meantime, they prospered. They rocked along, picked up a man here and a man there, and they were meeting in family quarters. Now, down there, we can't own a home. The government furnishes quarters, they give you the garage, they clean the lawn, they haul away the garbage. You brought work to eight hours a day and didn't just pay for it.
So they were meeting in homes that we had rented, or they had rented, rather, from the government. They hung a big green light out underneath the house, anybody who wanted to go to an AA meeting came over the green light. So they progressed. Four years of this. They picked up a shipping maggot. Panama City was worth more money than I'll ever be. He said, well, there's no use, we can't go on this way. So he loaned the group $2,500, which we know today was against the rules and regulations, but they took it. Went over into Panama City and they rented a beautiful chalet.
Oh, it's a beautiful thing yet today. Iceboxes, beds, cupboards, you name it, it had it. In about four weeks, they had it. The poker game started downstairs and the 13th stepping started upstairs. That was all of that. So our Jack and our Bob got their heads together and said, this won't work. They got a hold of their shipping magnet, who was up in what we call the Bushway, up in the interior. They made a trip up there and they told him, we can't have this. Break the lease, earn the rest of the money back, and we in turn will repay you what we have spent, and they moved back on to the zone.
Quite a bit of contracting work going on at that time. One man was just finishing up and he had a shack, and it was. They bought it. We moved in. That was about the time that I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I made my initial call August the 9th, 1949. They were in the process of laying floors, putting in louvers, hanging screens, anything that goes to building a meeting room. We rocked along for months. We begged, borrowed, bummed, stole, and damn little we bought. We didn't have anything to buy it with.
But the group prospered. Every now and then we'd pick up a Spanish-speaking boy and he'd come in for a few meetings, hit this one for a quarter, that one for a half, he was gone. They learned their lessons the hard way, same as they did with the apartment, that you just can't give anything to these people. The harder you make it for them, the better they go. All this time the group was prospering. I went in, I think there was a total of eleven members, which was a big deal at that time. And we had them from one lieutenant colonel down to privates. It wasn't too long after that that the colonels got to the point where they wouldn't speak to the privates. We had one Marine, and he wouldn't talk to anybody.
[00:20:11]
These boys in the service sometimes just don't mix up. We had one old gal about sixty-five years old and she'd stand up there and pump that table and tell the boys, she said, this stuff is an equalizer. We've got to get together. They did, after we had a few transfers, get rid of this one, pick up another one. So we expanded and expanded until in 1956 we had so many members that we couldn't get them into the old shack. We still are registered in the big book as having a meeting place in the shack. That shack today is a fourteen-room house with twelve baths. If you get in a hurry, you just open any door and run. You're perfectly safe.
But we acquired that building through the help of the governor of the Panama Canal, and in order to do that it meant that somebody had to break their anonymity. Well, everybody on his own knew Tet was a drunkard. He used to go down to Panama, get that boil, wander back across Fourth of July Avenue, and that's just one street that separates the canal zone from the Panama. If you get in trouble on the zone, you got to cross the street. If you get in trouble in Panama, you run back across the street. But I'd wander across that street, stand compost office up on the corner with the nice green grass, and there's where I'd pass out. Right in front of God and everybody.
So when it come time to breaking our anonymity and going after this building, I thought, well, it might just as well be me and anybody else. So we went after it. We begged for a place. They had nothing. They had a housing shortage. They finally offered us a barn that would have cost $20,000 to fix up. They offered us another small house that wasn't as big as the one we were trying to get rid of. Finally they came along, up next to the insane asylum, they had a chief nurse's quarters, and said you can have it. $750 a year. Man, we didn't have that kind of money.
So we argued a little bit. The governor of the Panama Canal, he's with us. He sent a little letter down to the quartermaster and he said, let those boys have that building for $100 a year plus maintenance. Needless to say, we took it. We have a home that, if I were to stand here and describe it to you room by room, there'd be a lot of people out here calling me a liar. I know it, but I've been called a liar many a time after telling the story of the shack that we actually have.
Our group has grown until today. We're approximately 45 strong. We have worked with the Latins, the Jamaicans, the Bajans, and I don't know, we can do pretty good until the carnival season comes along and the fiesta day hits. They go off, we ride it, it's up to us to start the group again. But they have taken the nucleus from the old Latin American group and from our English-speaking group, the boys that speak Spanish, they've tied it together, and Thursday night of this week they held their second meeting, and I'm kind of anxious to get back in about three months and see how well they've held them together, what they've done with it.
I gave them everything that I could before I left. The only thing I know that I could have helped them more if I'd have been there. But I'm up here doing myself a world of good. I see I've got the white light, the red light, the green light means go, but that means stop. I want to say again that it's been a tremendous pleasure for me to stand here and talk to you folks. You don't know what it means to me. This meeting that you have here on the West Coast, I don't know, it kind of runs up and down my spine, I don't know when to quit, but it's time for me to quit, so I thank you.
I just have a note here to request that there be no smoking. The signs are up and it's against the regulations, so if you please wouldn't smoke in the auditorium. The next speaker is Tom G. of England. Tom is from the city of Manchester and is a devoted and active member of AA. As I mentioned in the beginning, AA has made very big strides in the last few years in England and this is due to men like Tom who are giving so unsparingly of themselves. Tom?
[00:25:07]
Hi everybody, and thank you Ann for announcing this no smoking, because I'm on the stage and I can't smoke, and I can't even nip out for a shortie. I've had it. Anyway, I'm very glad to be here today. I think that this is a wonderful convention, and this convention is made up by people… You'd like it a bit louder? Well… You see, when we talk into this mic, we can't hear anything. We just get a straight back from it, but I'll try and give you plenty that your ears will keep learning.
Now to me, and to what I've seen of AA in this country, there is very little difference. You've heard it said many times that alcohol is a great leveler, and the lean thing it is. There's no difference between alcoholic American, Canadian, or British. We all can hit the pavement just as hard as each other. And the road to recovery is very similar. We in England have been going about 14 years, and that's not very long. It takes a long time before those first few people can carry the message to people like myself.
I came into AA on the 24th of July, 1954. I mention that because I had a little bit of cheating. I had to have a few more drinks before finally I was prepared to accept the first step. And the last drink, or sedatives, or sedation, or any other word you like, occurred on the 24th of July. And from then, your life becomes to get managed by the 12 steps, the acceptance of a higher power, and the development in AA.
One of the great things I learned from an American visitor was his description, what have you got for the other fellow? And I think that is something worth taking away. If we continue to try and help others, and we're sincere and honest, we are bound to keep sober. I don't intend to bore you with figures. You can get all those for $1.50, and you can study them over. But there's plenty of development to take place in our country.
And it's only by gathering such as this today that help along the message of AA. I happen to know that one of our leading newspapers had advance information of this convention, and wrote a featured article in one of our evening papers. And those are the sort of things that we need to develop AA. I'm very happy to be here today, because it has fulfilled three of my ambitions. One was to meet Bill, the founder of AA.
The other was to meet Sister Ignatia. And the third one was to have a few words with Father Fowler. All these things have been accomplished, and I will be able to go back to my country and to tell them what a wonderful fellowship exists in your country. I thank you and wish you all every success for the future. Applause
[00:30:06]
Helene W., formerly of Brussels, who has been more responsible than anyone else for the growth of AA in Belgium. She made herself available to visiting AA's during the World's Fair in Brussels and has given of herself wholeheartedly to this fellowship. She is presently living in California and has just married an AA, a fellow AA whom she met in Germany while she was stationed there. Helene. Applause Hello, my friends. My name is Helene. I'm an alcoholic.
Laughter So you've got to leave me here today. I'm scared to death. But these two last days have been the most wonderful days in my life. Four years ago, I was lying in my bed, shaking. Well, you know what I mean. And my good old doctor came to me and said, Helene, this is the end. And spoken with my folks, I heard he told them there is nothing more I can do. Let her drink and let her die. I hope it won't take longer.
I was agnostic. But I closed my eyes and for the first time in my life, I said, God, they will be done. Something happened to me. The very same day, I think, I went, I sat in a theater. And it was a movie of Lillian Ross, I'll Cry Tomorrow. I was mixed up. I did not understand a word, but I got the message. It took me two weeks to find in Brussels a little AA group. I was a first year. For seven weeks, I did not understand anything except one thing.
I didn't drink. I put all my faith in my spouse. And it was my higher power. And unfortunately, I had a terrible bad sleep. Not a little one, a really bad one. So my higher power was in pretty bad shape. I was absolutely lost. And I was in touch with Dick, see, from Pennsylvania. And I wrote to him, you know, with alcoholic tears, saying, Dick, I'm your spouser. And Dick answered me, I am your spouser, so no more problems.
But I was still lost, you know. The group included me, my first baby, and the big book in English. My knowledge of English at this time were limited to, do you speak English, how are you, very well, thank you. Well, it's not very useful to understand what a bridge is, what a walkway is, and who is going to drive on a car. And I was ready to give up when something nice again happened to me. So we telephoned with, and I heard a kind, gentle voice saying, my name is Lou, I'm coming from New Zealand.
How are you? I said, Lou, could you come immediately to my place? He said, I can phone, I'm coming right now. Lou arrived home, and I said, Lou, this is terrible. My spouser is drinking. And Lou looked at me and said, so what? He gave me a few suggestions. And my first baby and I put a letter in the newspaper. We got some letters, but things like, how much for the pills? How long have I to stay sober?
Finally, my first baby wrote his own story in a little Paris newspaper. And we got a letter, and we went together on our 12-step call, and we found a man in the kitchen, drinking in a bowl, and he said, it's not for me, it's for my mother. I said, fine, where is your mother? She said, in the next room. I found the mother drunk, of course, and she said, it's not for me, it's for my daughter. We found the daughter around the corner in the cafe, and she said, it's not for me, it's for my brother.
I said, just a minute. Seemed to be a pretty large family. She says, yes, fine, but we all drink, what a family. But three months later, they were all in the egg.
[00:35:02]
Well, I think my time is nearly over. I want to tell you this. If I'm sober today, it's because of you. You probably never realize how much, and I especially think of my friends who are here tonight, Pat G. from Arizona, and so many others. You have helped me to stay sober through your letters. You know, my sponsor, for instance. It may be strange for you that somebody may help somebody else on a cross on the ocean.
Well, I used to write some 12-page letters to Dick, and his answer is just this. That was the first one, and my second big mistake. After a few months, I used to say, you know, in the United States, they do this and they do that, and the United States, and so on and so forth. And after a few months, one of my friends jumped on his feet and he told me, which I translate by you and your American people, the hell with them.
I said, is that so? The hell with them? Well, now the hell with you, and I quit. Believe me or not, they kept going without me. Isn't it something? So I've learned in AA, when you have a problem, just face it and do something about it. Well, that's what I've done as far as my alcoholism is concerned. And about my second problem, my Americanism problem. Mr. Anderson, I am now the wife of an American.
I thank you, and God bless you forever. Thank you. Captain Jack S. was the founder of the internationalist group known as the Seaman's Group. He came to AA in the United States, and then when he was ordered to the Far East, maintained his sobriety with the aid of the Big Book and through correspondence with G.S.O. Soon he started to carry the message to other seamen, maintaining contact with them through letters, and when this became more than one man could deal with, he turned it over to the General Service Office.
Regular bulletins have since gone to this group, which now numbers approximately 230, and Captain Jack carries the message of AA overseas to wherever he travels. Jack. Hi, everybody. I'm Jack, and I would like to bring you greetings from the 230 members of the internationalist group and two women who today sail under ten flags. It was not always thus, however. About 13 years ago, I checked in at the New York office.
Full of enthusiasm, I had my orders to go to the Far East. In fact, I volunteered. It's the last volunteering I'll ever do because I didn't get back in nearly nine years. I didn't know what to do. I was scared. Probably not as scared as I am right now. But there were two girls in the office at the time, Charlotte and Bobby. And Charlotte said to me, when I first came in, letters helped me. And she guaranteed me a letter a week.
Bobby, just before I left, said, you can go anywhere in the world and stay sober. I had AA. I wasn't sure that I had AA. I'd had about a year of sobriety. But I put the message in the sea bag. I got all the letters I had.
[00:40:01]
I had three or four books that I'd won in raffles and never won one since. But I couldn't miss a raffle. I couldn't miss a raffle. Somebody must have known they were going places. But I started out with San Francisco. And it was the time when the clubhouse was over the old Bush Terminal there. And I went to meetings there. In fact, the day before I sailed, probably somewhere about when you'll see a picture down below.
It's very dear to me. And I went to that booth at Middle Street. Down the wine alley. The whole bottom down there. But I remember looking at the faces of those men as they recited the Lord's Prayer that night. And I thought to myself, if they can make it, maybe I can. The next day I'd sailed from the old Elkhartman for the Far East. I had a crew of colors, Egyptians, all nationalities. We were under the Panamanian flag.
One of the old days on a sailing ship when you could sign on and sign off everybody if you didn't have to go to a consulate. But during that voyage to Shanghai, we ran into a terrific storm. The steam engine gave way. And although I didn't see all my life, I didn't know whether I was going to make it or not. That was my spiritual experience because I gave my life, my ship, my will, over to God. But in that particular storm, and since that time, about 13 years ago, I've never had a desire to take a drink.
So I started a little group out there, God, the Book, and I. If any of you people were here this morning, you would know what I'm talking about. There's no groups, there's no contacts. You're right down to the bottom. You've got to put your trust in God in whom I believe this program is based. I could tell you a lot of experiences with my remains in Shanghai, 1,800 tons more of cargo than St. Louis was water.
The experiences I had ashore, I'd asked for contacts, the American consul, the agents. Some had heard of A.I., some had never heard of it. I could tell you my experiences in Hong Kong. I was sick in bed with a flu. Christmas Eve, I felt put in a row. There was a party going on downstairs, and I was speaking English. I didn't dare open my mouth because I'm afraid they're not for me to drink, and I didn't want to.
I could tell you stories with God, when I danced all night, New Year's Eve, we had a wonderful time, a little Dutch girl from Balaton. I enjoyed it. I didn't drink. Later on, I was there, I met Frank F., who was my first contact in the Far East, and whom I'd written to for a long time. And so this continued on. I peddled my message. As I told A.I., my pamphlets on attacking an important one for two or three days, all the way from the Persian Gulf to Durban, Borneo, the Malaise, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta.
I couldn't find a soul. I talked with people. Until about eight months later, I did read one book in Melbourne, Australia. It was a great time. I had two children. It was a great time. It was a great time. I tell you, until I had the meeting with the champion of the Tasmanians, I didn't like it. I thought she was going to beat me up. That was the only meeting I had in fourteen months. But I came back sober.
I had a woman in Madras. She died. Later on, I talked to her in Singapore, telling her the elements of the worst drunk in Singapore. She was a wife of a merchant. It was a great time. She couldn't say it. So as literature went round and round the world, and even today, I've never found a soul who has helped except that it brought me back sober at the end of that time.
[00:45:07]
You people often wonder if I've seen the negatives. I wouldn't make it out there. It isn't too hard. We have a strong faith in God. The grapevine and the girls at the temple service, I give them credit because I couldn't carry it on. They've been wonderful friends of ours. The grapevine has simply just come up to the airmail stands, sent all over the world to me. And my wife has stepped through me all these times.
At the very beginning, I prayed and hoped that someday this thing might spread in our hands to the principal shipping companies in this country and the flag, as I said before, of ten foreign countries. And in this atomic age, I trust that these men will still go forward and carry the message to the foreign countries who still doubt us. Mary Jane of England is now an old-timer there where she has been very active in the Wolverhampton group. Here again is a member of the Fellowship from England who is contributing so much to the work that is being done.
My name is Mary Janes. I come from Wolverhampton in the middle of England. When I first made my rather scared approach to AA in London, the only path I could see in front of me was led straight into hospitals, mental places, or what have you. I certainly would never have believed that California lay on my path at that time some nine years ago. Still, that's what my letter to AA in London triggered after me. It's a most wonderful experience to me to be here and to see American AA at close quarters in its own home.
And to see and hear the pioneers speaking, who I have heard of, of course, since I joined. And to see how far AA has come in this unbelievable short time of 25 years. I'm also most delighted and grateful to have the opportunity of saying thank you for many years of happiness and sobriety that I never expected to have. I now have a full life and am able to regain my self-respect and enter into the activities. Before I joined AA, I had become a very isolated person, taking no interest in outside activities.
My drinking was secret and I was very much cut off from contact with the outside world. It took me about 10 years to reach my rock bottom after I graduated from the social drinking phase. And then, by that time, I knew that I pretty well had it because I got to the stage when I was rarely sober day or night. About this time, World War II came along, which made it very difficult for a secret drinker like myself, who'd worked out a plan of acquiring and disposing of bottles.
It all went wrong because I got pushed around and drink was difficult to get. And so, for a time, I was more or less sobered up for a year or two.
[00:50:09]
But I soon made up for this after the war, when liquor became easily available again. And I went down here rapidly until, at the end of four or five more years, I was desperate and quite helpless. I had one silly habit, which I think brought me to my knees earlier than I might have reached. I used to go to parties well lit up with drink and then try to drink in a sober, social manner. But very often I was in a blackout and I had a habit of inviting my friends to come and call and have meals and so on during the next few days.
And it became very difficult to keep my drinking secret when they arrived on the doorstep expecting to have a dinner and I entirely unprepared. That, I think, did a lot to bring me to AA because it was too difficult to explain. I'd only got to do that a few times and the secret had gone. I was fortunate in having read the article on AA in the Reader's Digest and I was most impressed because by this time I was looking for help.
It didn't work at once. I had a long fight with myself before I got in contact with AA in London. At that time there was no group in the Midlands where I lived, that is the middle of England. There was some further north and some in the south, but no groups in my part of the world and I had to at first go to London to make contact. In the next six months gradually a few other people in the district applied to AA and six to nine months later the first group in the Midlands was started.
That is now some eight or nine years ago and from that group about eight or nine more groups around have started. None of our groups are big like some of yours, but we are spreading out into districts where previously there were no groups. My own group is in Wolverhampton. We have about ten members and we meet weekly. Contacts come to us very slowly and if this convention has convinced me of anything, it has shown me the need to get out and about and get AA better known amongst the people who can send us, the alcoholic who does not yet know about us.
Thank you. So now we are going to hear from Henry B., who comes to us from Bermuda where he is stationed with the U.S. Air Force. He came into the fellowship about five years ago in Virginia and now has been active in building up three groups, among which he is doing some wonderful work over the past years. He visits the prisons every other Sunday and makes himself available to everybody in his territory that needs help. Henry?
Hi friends. My name is Henry B. and I am an alcoholic. I've been thinking, I've had three days to think this over and I've been trying to think what I'm going to say and I don't know.
[00:55:02]
I know I do get quite nervous, so bear with me. I understand I'm supposed to represent an island, Bermuda. I've only been there twenty months. They're doing a pretty good job of their own. First I want to say, I want to thank each and every one of you here for the privilege of my being here. If I had not been here for you, I would not have been here today. I've got a short while over five years in this great fraternity. I stole the word of one of my friends who just came in a while ago.
And I, excuse me. The Bermuda groups, we have three regular ones. There's one, the English speaking group on Cedar Avenue every Wednesday night at 8.30. There's another one at Trinity Hall on Sunday night at 8.30. There's one at Kenley Air Force Base on Thursday night at 8.30. Although, we don't have alcoholics in the Air Force, I have been told. But it seems like they crop up quite often. We have about eight or ten military personnel that do attend this meeting. We have a lot of in and outs in the military because they rotate quite often.
We have one little prison group there that's, we hold a meeting every other week. And it's quite a bunch of young boys in minor offenses that's in there. And you'd be surprised how eager they are to come out and listen. And ask intelligent questions about alcoholics and Alcoholics Anonymous. So that is a great incentive to anyone that's desire. My life is involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, which will have to be as long as I live.
Being in the military service, I couldn't miss this plug. Being a bachelor and sleeping in the barracks where I cannot be away, I have to be associated with liquor and beer and drinking and drugs. So I also had to accept that part of this program also. I could not hide from whiskey. Now I find out I don't have to hide from whiskey. I never say that I can't drink. I say I don't have to drink. I think it's a great privilege now not to have to drink.
So, quite a, I guess you might call it almost an international groups on this island because they're from every section of the world. Some of them. We have them from Australia, some from the States, a lot of them. A lot of them that are residents of the island now. A lot of them from England, some from all over the world. And they do a lot of good work. Their work is not exactly like ours, but it serves a purpose. We have approximately, I guess, an all over about 45 or 50 regular tenants throughout the three groups that overlap, as you know. I make them all, most of them.
Once in a while I miss. It's real bad weather, which it didn't bother me when it was drunk. I took off in a typhoon an open hour to go to the village to get liquor. So, that was kind of a detriment. It's a detriment, though, whenever we get sober. I would like to close this now by saying another thing I borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a dear friend of mine, Ian Bermuda. He always closes his meetings by saying, if there's anyone here who is looking for sobriety, may please God you find it.
May please God you find it. And if there's anyone here who has sobriety, may please God you keep it. And remember, my friends, it is easier to stay sober than it is to get sober. I thank you.
[01:00:18]
Millie G., formerly of Frankfurt, Germany, served as secretary of the Frankfurt Intergroup for several years while her husband was stationed there. A wonderful person with a great dedication to AA. Millie? Hi, everybody. Big A's, Millie. Big A's. Nearly six years ago I left for Germany after having two years of unsuccessful AA around the Bay Area. I believe a great many of my sponsors, because I had many that spent much time with me, were probably very glad to see me go.
I arrived in Frankfurt and I did a little research for about three months on German beer, which is about 20% alcohol, very potent, and when I began to hear little train whistles going by, I thought perhaps it was time for me to turn back to AA. I heard over the armed forces radio that there was a group. I called someone, they came, and my first meeting was in a gas house downtown, which is a beer hall to you, and as much as I was suffering, I noticed that some of them were drinking what looked like champagne.
And they were drinking champagne glasses, and I wondered, well, my, this is funny. However, I learned later that it wasn't champagne, that it was apple juice. The next, very shortly after that, the Frankfurt Chapel was obtained and we had all our meetings there. Now, I was sober for maybe three months after sitting on my hands and I thought, well, I've got to get into this or I'm not going to stay sober. I had to give, and I think right away I was going to sober up all of Germany.
I found out that the German attitude toward alcoholism was perhaps the same as it was here 20 years ago or 25 years ago when Bob and Dr. Bob first started. The problem is very, very great. We do not have enough literature so far. We did get AA, the 44 questions and answers, and this is AA translated, and somehow in the shuffle it hasn't been printed yet. I had one little German baby whom I first visited in the, what they call the nerve center, and the nerve center is a lockup.
And after they go to the nerve center, if they don't improve, they go to a place which is, let me say an asylum to you, but it's more of a concentration camp. Of course, if they don't improve, it is not unusual for them to be committed to the lie. There is a great deal of work to be done in Germany. The nucleus of AA is around Munich right now. They have five members, and I had the opportunity to talk to one of them one time while I was over there.
The world service in Germany is in great, very great need. Another thing we have over there, Emily, bless her heart, started the American AA several years before I came, and this little girl over here, Ada, was very active over there too. I didn't know her at that time. The European Roundup is held over Labor Day weekend every year. It's in Wiesbaden, Germany, and the last one I attended, there were delegates from England, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and all over, except I don't believe we had any from Germany that year.
Our fellowship among the Americans was very, very close. We had many people coming from 50 to 100 miles to Frankfurt for a meeting on Saturday nights without thinking anything about it. We would go 50 to 100 miles to visit without any great concern about it. I know one time 20 Canadians came down from near Dusseldorf and cramped up my stairs, the neighbors looking and eyeing, wondering what was going on, and then we all went to the meeting and six came back and stayed all night.
[01:05:16]
We had big picture white glass windows and the neighbors used to wonder when I was going to hang out in the red light. I don't want you to think that since I've been sober that I haven't had trouble. I had a little difficulty when I came back to the States. I had a very serious illness before I left Germany. Whether it was indirectly due to the drink, I do not know, but a psychiatrist was called in.
I was psychoanalyzed in three weeks. I was supposed to have been well, and I guess I was. Three weeks later, the psychiatrist was behind the green door saying, I'm a lunatic, and he spent three months in the laughing academy. I am very, very grateful to God in his wisdom who gave Bill and Dr. Bob the inspiration to help all of us, and since this is a selfish program, me especially, and I am very grateful to be here, to have been chosen to represent Germany, and I hope if ever you have a chance to go to Germany that you will visit and do what you can to help them over there because they need much help, and if it hadn't been for General Services, we would have been lost, and always remember the girls in General Service. Thank you.
Good afternoon, pals, friends, and relations of AA, and my very dear friends of AA. It is a great pleasure today to be here because I can pay a bet, a debt, sorry, excuse my horrible English. I hope you can understand. Back to the people that have been so kind to me since I have been here. As there are quite a few of my friends here, they know me, I know what I do. First things first, my name is Jimmy, and I'm known as Trawler Jim because I have found since I've been in AA these years that there are so many Jimmy's that my name was becoming indistinct, and I had to make some variation on it.
I go to sea in a trawler, which is now my choice of life. As the Chairman did mention before, that was my first letter to any members of Trusts of Water with any knowledge of the wars anybody has seen in a trawler. The movement in Fleetwood is only very small because as sailors, as you know what sailors are, they are hard to get hold of. Not only by men, but by women as well. The particular day came after some years of sobriety that I decided that the job that I was doing wasn't fitting for me. I'm being a sailor that had been discarded and put in mothballs because my drinking habits and John Barleycorn got in the way, I was asked to retire from active service.
But the opportunity arose for me to go to a meeting where there were one or two members very interested in our movement. And one of them knew that I had ants in my pants so he said how about it. So I went up to three of these fishermen that were drinking at the time the same things that I've had drunk before. Alcohol, wood alcohol, the lot, the issue. A sailor always does that. No stopping them. Anyway, I decided that with the help of my friend who is unable to be here with the fact that he is a doctor and he has far more things to do in regards to keeping the alcoholics in England quiet, he couldn't come. But he sends you his regards.
It's been important to my luck to come and report to you kind people what we do. We in the Swishport have a very very hard job as we all have when we first started the group and I appreciate any other members that have started them having gone through the mill stream myself. I had to live with these sailors, as a sober sailor myself, for about 15 to 20 days in the dams of a valley of death as I call it. But that wasn't good enough. They just looked at me and said well you're just rather for acting yourself not for us.
[01:10:05]
So the eventual day came that I made the decision that I had to go back to stay in a trawler which I'd never done, only to my knowledge from about 14 years of age, one trip that was enough because the alcohol was too much for me. I was drinking in those days. But the time came when I had to sail aboard this trawler called the Tiffany. And the crew would start to come aboard about half past two in the afternoon and the pubs closing about three. My introduction to this trawler that goes to the North Sea and Iceland was a very quick and rather striking one because of the 21 members of the crew there was only one sober and that was me.
I had to take this berth because it was the termination of the membership to the IA in Fleetwood. I went as a cook. I hadn't cooked in about 30 years. They didn't know that though. And the first thing that met me was that, are you the cook? Yes, sure I am. I hope you're a good one because if you're not I will decide you'll go. So after two days at sea with the buoy thing under the weather they all came out of their potholes and said, who are you? I said I'm Jimmy the Alky, don't you know me? You want to fight me now? No word, no answers.
After one trip, two trips came and it took principally about 18 months ago I got my first bailie. He hadn't been tried for 43 years. I don't know where his required napkins came from but I had to do something about it. And he came to me as I went to my sponsor some years ago, please help me, I want to stop to drink. And it was the least of my suspicions of this man. He never looked an alcoholic to me. Of course maybe I know his name, I never even look alcoholic, I don't know.
But he had been sober now for 16 months and there are another 6 to go with him and I'm the 8th. The most significant part about this we have in Fleetwood is that we have no foundation for sure. We do all our meetings at sea with radio communication. With the help of Tom and other people in Blackpool these boys managed to get to a meeting 70 or 80 miles away when they get home. But I think after you've heard me speak for the last 10 minutes you'll know that they don't need very much encouragement when they do get home because they're only in for 24 hours, 48 hours and they're away again.
But we are still alive, very much alive and I do hope the next time that I can come to America for the first time in 30 years that I should be able to bring one group of fishermen that sail the seven and eight seas, bring more than we need to sail there to see you all. You've been very kind and I wish you well. Thank you.