Audio
Transcript
Source: 1965 Toronto International Convention – 1965 Toronto Int, AA and Instituations Panel.mp3 File: 1965-toronto-international-convention-1965-toronto-int-aa-and-instituations-panel.mp3 Duration: 00:44:28
============================================================
Grant Me the Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change, Courage to Change the Things I Can, the Wisdom to Know the Difference. There may be some who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. If so, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or member be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential to our efforts to help other alcoholics, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personality.
Like everything else in Alcoholics Anonymous, that's example. We have got to bring that example into the institution to them and let them see, by the way we're living, that it's going to be more profitable to them to come out and go our way instead of the way of the bar. We alcoholics working in institutions, I guess, are pretty much from the same breed, because Roberta took the new, the middle, and the old, and I made a note while the other speaker was speaking, I wrote down new, middle, and old here too.
So I may bore you by going into the same subject. I hope not. But for the new member going into an institution, it does give him or her a terrific impact. It lets them see, if they haven't already wound up there, where they could wind up. The middle timer, when he starts getting a little lax or she, can go in there and see the terrific amount of help that's still needed in this program. And the old timer, when he starts relaxing, take him to an institutional meeting. And if you want to see him or her revive interest, I think you can find it there.
At Menard we have a peculiar situation. Our meetings are held in the same room with the electric chair. It's wonderful. And when we bring new people in from the outside for their first meeting, we sit them up against the wall and they don't know what's on the other side of that wall. And then after two hours of both inmate and outside members speaking, we take them around the corner and show them through the bars the electric chair that they might have or could yet sit on if they went on with their drinking. And if that won't shake them up, then I don't know what will.
For getting things started, I don't think there should be a penal institution or a mental institution in the whole world today that doesn't have the AA program. And you've heard the slogan, ask the man who has one? If you're living in an area where you're having trouble getting an institutional group going in your institution, go in and talk to the warden, the superintendent, or whatever he's known by or she's known by, and tell them to make five or ten telephone calls to the superintendents or the wardens of the institutions that already have it.
And you won't have to sell a thing. It'll be sold for you by these people who have seen the good that's done. The institutional officials have a much easier job, and they all admit this, with the inmate that goes to the institutional meeting. There's a selfish motive, too. Ninety to ninety-five percent of the people doing time in prisons today will once again come out and live in the free world. They might be your next-door neighbor or mine. They don't have any special tag on them.
I've known millionaires come out of penitentiaries with a chauffeured car out in front and a change of clothing so they can change on the road back so they don't have to wear that prison suit and those prison shoes when they get out of the Cadillac when they get home. And unless you have known that person before they've gone in, unless they've gotten a lot of publicity, they could move next door to you and you wouldn't know who they are.
So it's much nicer to make them a better person in prison than have to do it as a next-door neighbor. Over a ten-year period, there was a survey made, and out of every thousand men or women going out of institutions, without having had the AA program, 750 of them returned on new offenses.
[00:05:18]
Three-quarters of them went back. Of men or women who had had AA inside of an institution, one-sixth, or 166, went back. Now these are approximate figures. I don't know just how good they are or how bad, but they have to be pretty close. As to how to run an institutional group, every area is different. Some areas don't have the privilege of bringing in as many outsiders as they wish. Some are restricted as to when they can have meetings.
We have an area committee in our area. We have a state hospital and a prison in our area. And through this area committee, we have allocated certain days that the group is responsible for. And getting down below the group, there is one individual in each group who we try to lay this responsibility to. They, in turn, will try to have somebody lined up for the next meeting at the institution. They are to get the speakers, to take with them.
And if they can't make it, then it's up to them to turn this job over to somebody else that can. You'll hear pro and con. We're not supposed to get an alcoholic a job. We're not a prisoner a job. We're not supposed to do this. We're not supposed to do that. I think that's a matter of conscience. And I didn't stand up here to brag, but I've taken 430 out. I've had 11 go back. And I got practically every one of them a job.
Now that's my own, that's the way I do it. I just had a fellow move out of my house so that I could come down here. I didn't trust him too much. He'd only been there two weeks and he did nine years. So we got him an apartment and moved him out before I came down here. But I did trust him all day with my wife while I was gone. And he didn't harm her. In other words, if you kick a dog, he's going to bite you.
If you pet him, he'll lick your cheek. And I think the same thing goes here. The rewards in any other part of AA, I don't think personally, and maybe it's because I'm interested in it, can be so great as the reward from working with these people. Imagine the terrific happiness when one of my pigeons out of an institution came to me and asked me, when one of my pigeons out of an institution came to me and asked me if my wife and I would be bridesmaid and best man at their wedding.
And we were. And then about a year later he came and he was pigeoning and I knew something. He had something on his mind and I was wondering what it was and I asked him. That's the only way I know to find out. And he said, you're a member of a different faith than I am. And we'd like to have you and Dottie stand up for our baby. You can't do it, can you? And I said, who the hell says I can't? And I did and she did.
And that baby is one of the most precious things in the world to us now. I just got, was that the yellow or the red? I just got the red light. But if you want to really get in, if you want to dig into AA and do something good, get into this institutional kick and thanks a lot for listening to me. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. On the subject central offices and intergroups, the next delegate active in the San Francisco central office, from Fairfax, California, Stan W.
Thank you, Gene. My name is Stan Woolsey and I'm a grateful alcoholic. Hi. Hi. I was going to do something up here today that I'm not going to do now. I'm going to change my whole thing because we're running a little behind schedule, I believe.
[00:10:02]
But I'm going to tell you, those that I did tell what I was going to do, I'm going to tell them how to get it afterwards. It's a great honor to be on here with this panel of experts. Of course, you all know the definition of an expert. X is the unknown quality and spurt is a drip under pressure. I screwed that one up, too. About the only thing I can talk about here today is the San Francisco intercounty fellowship central office and the services that we do as far as sponsorship is concerned.
And it has occurred to me possibly that we put too much stress on this word sponsorship. We're a little too concerned about it. Now, let me qualify this. Because I believe if we follow our primary purpose to the best of our ability, from the individual on up to the largest area committees that you can have, we are naturally going to take care of the sponsorship side of this program. The theme of this convention is responsibility.
And I sometimes have thought that possibly we should say we share our experiences, strength, hope, and responsibility. Because if we carry this message, as we should, we don't have to worry about sponsorship. It'll take care of itself. Now, what the San Francisco intercounty fellowship does as far as sponsorship or promotion of the AA program, and it doesn't say that we cannot promote certain things as far as that goes.
We can make them very attractive, and to make them attractive, we do have to promote them a little bit. The San Francisco intercounty fellowship, once each week on a Friday evening, holds a big open AA public meeting, which is publicized in the papers as best as we can. We try to pick very excellent speakers. On occasions, we have prominent speakers, non-alcoholics, judges, et cetera, doctors, psychiatrists, although I can't go for them too much.
I mean, well, you know what I mean. We have a central steering committee that runs the office. We had one and a half paid employees. We just lost our beloved Jack Irving last month. The rest of the help in the office is volunteer. The central office did sponsor, for about three years, a 15-minute radio program every Sunday evening called the Problem Drinker. This originally started out as a 13-week deal.
It was extended at the request of the station, and it ran over three years. We have a large banquet once a year. I know a lot of other intergroups do this, too. We take over the largest hotel in San Francisco. We fill it to capacity. We have committees for teleservice. We have a 24-hour teleservice, like many areas do. I mean, these things are very, very similar in different intergroups. The teleservice committee is set up so that the answering service has the list of who is going to be someplace at a certain time.
They call this party, give them the information, and then it is funneled down to people who are actually on call for this particular time. We sponsor a hospital and institution committee. We also sponsor, we have a picnic once a year. And all of these things with an attempt to hold the newcomer once he has come to us. And it has worked quite successfully in the San Francisco Bay Area. There's no question about that.
Our good friend Roberta said California had the most alcoholics. Well, I think we have now, and it's because we have the most people. Our governor is very proud that we finally passed New York. But I know this. Whether you live in the smallest state in the Union, Nevada, or wherever you are, we still have a tremendous job to do to carry this message to the alcoholics who still suffer, and to keep them once we get them to a meeting.
I'll go a little further now. In Northern California, we have what we call the Northern California Council of Alcoholics Anonymous. This was a council that was formed back about 1943 by ten people from five groups in the Sacramento, Oakland, and San Francisco area. It expanded in the early days. It took in Northern California and also Nevada. We also have these various committees. We have an Al-Anon committee that We have an Al-Anon Committee that is affiliated with, there's that word affiliated, with our Northern California Council.
[00:15:07]
We have a Hospital and Institution Committee, which I will say, without question, is second to none in the world as far as AA is concerned. We're bragging again, this is one thing we Californians do pretty well. One of these things that this Hospital and Institution Committee does, there is one committee that has been going to Folsom Prison where the first AA group was held, the first AA meeting was ever held was inside the walls of a prison, at the request of then-Warden Clinton Duffy.
There is one committee over there, and I happen to mention this one because I know it, it's called the Four Horsemen. It's a little different approach to the normal prison meeting in that the four people that go to this particular meeting have selected subjects. They are given subjects, just as we are here today, to talk on about the program, and you don't get any drunkologues at this particular meeting.
This meeting grew out of a desire of one of the inmate sponsors of the Folsom group, and it was so successful, it actually, it seems that there are more inmates attend this particular meeting than they do the other meetings. We also sponsor a publication the Northern California Council does, which we call the Good News, and it is known as the only real AA newspaper in the world. That's what Rollin, who is sitting out there, calls it.
It's a very good publication. Now I'm going to tell you, I mentioned that we lost our secretary, Jack Irving. This so happened that, oh, the council also has three conferences a year throughout the different areas in California, the small rural areas. Santa Rosa, we had our last one in June. At that conference, we had a dinner during one of the functions in which we invited all the public officials to as guests of the council, and this is carrying the message, and this is sponsorship, as I was saying.
But Jack Irving, I had asked him to speak. I'm secretary of the Northern California Council. That's where the plug comes in right there. We had asked Jack to speak at our Northern California Council meeting on the responsibilities of a group secretary. Jack died just two weeks before the conference, and as the gal who assists him walked in the office the next morning, she found on his desk the text of his talk he was going to give.
It's one of the greatest things that I have ever read. Now if you will come up sometime, or don't all come at once because we haven't got room for you, up to room 4127, the Northern California Council has a hospitality room up there. Roland will be up there, and he has a few issues of our July good news, which has this talk reproduced in. And if he does run out of those, if you will leave your name, we will have more prepared and see that they are sent to you wherever you are, and this will be without any cost to you.
Roland, the council, will put the bill on that. Don't worry about that, because the good news account is a separate account. So again, what I can say about intergroups, you who know intergroups, our problems are all the same. But again, our main principal purpose is to carry this message, and if we do that, sponsorship takes care of itself. Thank you very much. Thank you, Stan. You know, I really believe now that we're going to make this.
Twelve speakers, two hours, a miracle. Speaking on the connection of sponsorship and the General Service Office, the current delegate from Florida, Walter T. My name is Walter Thompson, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. The twelve steps of AA are suggested, but I believe that the extent of a man's sobriety, his degree of happiness, and the peace of mind he finds in this wonderful fellowship are determined to a large degree by how much he works at applying these twelve suggested steps to our everyday life.
As individual AAs, we can do much to help spread the AA message of hope to the alcoholic who still suffers. We can also, as individuals, do much to help the groups become active and self-supporting.
[00:20:01]
If we could somehow inject into all the groups the same spirit that we try to surround a newcomer in AA with, the sense of belonging, the well-known fact that no man is an island unto himself, that he is no longer alone, that others understand and want to help by sharing their love, compassion, and experience, I wish that by some magic formula we could inject into all AA groups the knowledge and feeling that no group is an island unto itself, and that AA groups, the same as AAs, must share their AA understanding and experiences, that AA groups, as well as individuals, can learn from each other's mistakes as well as their successes.
Believe me, I know how hard it is to interest many AAs in service work. I also know how great the rewards can be. I well remember Dr. Bob saying in Cleveland in 1950, our twelve steps, when simmered down to the very last, resolve themselves into the words love and service. We understand what love is and we understand what service is, so let's bear those two things in mind. I picture the General Service Office as the hub of a gigantic wheel with spokes spreading out in all directions worldwide.
In this wheel there is a spoke reaching out and connecting every group directly to the General Service Office. And this spoke reaching out to each group is a line of communication that carries your problems, hopes, and experiences to the GSO and brings back to your group the information that has been compiled from thousands of groups' actual experiences over the years. None of us in a lifetime of sobriety could ever carry the message of AA to all the alcoholics who still suffer, and neither could our groups.
So we must have GSO. Here they do the many things that we as individuals could never do. They prepare all our literature, our big book, the grapevine, and our world directory. GSO is the only home group that nearly 600 AAs have. The girls on the staff answer thousands of letters from AA groups everywhere, in prisons, hospitals, armed services. Not only in this country, but all over the world. I hope that this year's conference in deciding to send all mail pertaining to GS work direct to the GSR in each group will help the GSR to better assume his responsibilities.
It would be wonderful if each group would allot a few minutes at the beginning of a meeting once a month to their GSR. Remember, your GSR is your connecting spoke to the General Service Office. Keep the lines of communication open. Help your GSR to realize that his job of service to his group is important, not only to the group, but also to the General Service Office. I'm sure that all of us recognize and accept the knowledge that all groups should be self-supporting.
Isn't it also as easily recognized that each of us gives to his group to keep it self-supporting? We and the group also owe the same debt of gratitude to the General Service Office to keep it self-supporting. Let's all go back to our group and give our GSR a pat on the back. If your group doesn't have a GSR, see to it that one is elected. And then see to it that your GSR has a few minutes at a meeting once a month.
When we can lose ourselves in service to others, true service begins. And General Service work can truly be AA, active appreciation. Make your monthly GSR meetings not only a monthly meeting for AA business, but allow some time for fun and fellowship. In Florida, every November during Gratitude Month, the GSRs each in their own district set up a special gratitude dinner. The groups donate the food and the tickets are sold at a price agreed upon.
All proceeds are then given to the General Service Office in appreciation of our sobriety. It should be understood, however, that these proceeds which are sent to GSO in no way affect the group's responsibility for their own monthly contributions. In AA, like in so many other endeavors, after all the speeches are made, all the slaps on the back are passed around,
[00:25:07]
it's still in the grassroots of AA that the work must be done. The responsibility of the group's success in AA, the responsibility of keeping the lines of communication open to GSO, are each individual's. Many is the time I have asked myself, am I grateful enough to AA for my sobriety? Am I grateful enough not only for my sobriety, but for the many blessings that I have received through this new way of life?
Am I grateful enough that I am willing to accept the responsibilities that are entailed in maintaining this program of AA, not only for the alcoholic who still suffers, but also for future generations as well? Am I grateful enough that I can accept this responsibility of service to AA with love, with understanding, with humility, with compassion, and still consider it a wonderful privilege? With God's help and guidance, this then is our responsibility.
This is the way to show our gratitude, through service in our own groups and through our gifts to GSO, to see that this fellowship remains strong and ready for all who may need it, regardless of race, creed, or color. Thank you. Thank you, Walter. The next on the subject of the General Service Conference, a very active ex-delegate from West Vancouver, British Columbia, Joe W. Thank you, Jean, and hello, friends.
My name is Joe, and I'm a recovering alcoholic. My assignment to connect sponsorship, which we think of as the new or prospective member, with the General Service Conference, which is pretty well at the top of the ladder, might seem a little bit like out in left field, but I think we can make that connection. I'd like to put it on a basis of group responsibility, and before a group can know their responsibility and accept it, they must have some leadership.
I believe the responsibility for the leadership must lie with the older and experienced members. To take the very broad aspect of sponsorship at the group level in relation to world service, let us remember that every group that makes its contribution to the General Service Office is in point of fact assisting the General Service Conference. That group, the funds that go in, are assisting in sponsoring new groups throughout the world, in sponsoring loaners, in doing the work at the worldwide level that we as individuals or in our own groups cannot handle.
That is the broader aspect. To bring it a little bit closer to home, and I would like to suggest that each one of us try to put our group into one of the three slots. We say that the new member is the most important member in any group, and without the new member and proper sponsorship, we wouldn't last very long. But I would also like to suggest that a very important member, a key member, is the General Service Representative, the often maligned GSR, because it is the GSR that is the direct link between the group and the General Service Conference.
Again, it is the leadership and the guidance of the group which makes the GSR job either well done or not done. I have three samples of groups, and I'm sure of groups, and I'm sure the three samples will apply to any area.
[00:30:01]
The first group I can think of is a group which pays no attention to responsibility at the worldwide level. They sometimes, rather haphazardly, make a contribution to general service office, but their more experienced members really don't approve of the general service conference. They do allow that the literature maybe is a good thing, so that their GSR is literally discouraged from taking any active part.
They deny their new members the information about AA on the larger worldwide level. They would discourage service in that direction. I know of this group. The other next group is the middle of the line group. They make their contributions regularly to general service, and in that way they accept their responsibility. They, shall we say, tolerate the broader aspect. They always have a GSR. The GSR is usually also serving on the area assembly committee.
Some of the members will attend the area assemblies. Some of the members will take part. But I cannot say that there is the enthusiastic response that we would like. Now the other type of meeting group, and I think we can all fit ourselves into one or other. The other type of group, and this is a case of by their work shall you know them, because it is a men's clothes group. So therefore I must judge by observation by what results they obtain by talking to their members.
And they enter into their responsibilities wholeheartedly and with the greatest deal of enthusiasm. They always have a GSR who is given active time at the group meetings. Usually their GSR serves also on the area assembly executive. They make their sharing contribution happily, cheerfully to general service office and thus assist in worldwide sponsorship. They attend the meetings in the area or in the close districts en masse.
The whole bunch of them all are there. They will come up to us and they will say, I have a new man. I have a new member. And they are bringing that new member to the assembly or to a sharing session. So that from the very beginning their new members are sponsored with a joyous knowledge of world service. They are given the information on the third legacy of service, just as they are given the information on the first and second legacies of recovery and unity.
So that the members in that particular group, and that is the group I think we would all like to belong to. Unfortunately, as I say, it's a men's clothes group. But they participate fully and enthusiastically. I think it is in the enthusiasm or lack of it that we as individuals are possibly not accepting our full responsibility for helping the newcomer or the middle man or the old timer in the joy of service.
AA is carrying the message, staying sober, to help the still suffering alcoholic. There are many ways of doing it. Sponsorship in the fullest aspect, at the group level, with the group responsibility,
[00:35:01]
with the leadership of the experienced members, I think could bring us into more joyous service, more joyous unity and happy recovery. Thank you. APPLAUSE Thank you, Joe. Our final speaker, the subject Suggestions for the Future, an active member from Montreal, a doctor who treats alcoholics, a man who, with other doctors, helped us tremendously on the preparation of the revised sedatives pamphlet, Dr. Donald M.
APPLAUSE One thing about being the last speaker, you've got a sort of more intimate group. LAUGHTER I'm to make some suggestions for the future. By the way, my name is Dr. Donald Mackay, and I'm an alcoholic. LAUGHTER The general trend of this meeting was sponsorship and our primary purpose. Well, our primary purpose is to stay sober, because if we fail to do that, then there's no point in anything else.
We've lost right off the track altogether. I have discovered in my AA life that there are two worlds. There's the world of drinking and the world of non-drinking. And it seems to me that it's quite impossible for us ever to connect these up together. If you want to drink and talk, you can do this quite well. If you're willing to pay for it, there's all kinds of bartenders that will take your money and listen to you.
And they're pretty sympathetic and pretty good at doing this. If you want to not drink and talk, you can do this to a fellow member of AA. But if you're a good member of AA, you'll have nothing to do with the fellow who's drinking and who wants to talk, because you're wasting his time and he's wasting yours. There's been quite a lot of talk about what happened to the other 600,000. Well, I'll tell you what happened to most of them. They died.
And a very interesting thing about their death is the fact that the word alcohol did not show up on the death certificate in any one case. They died of a variety of syndromes, carefully disguised by the medical profession in order to spare the family the anguish of knowing that they had a lush in the family. This may or may not be a good thing. But it's interesting that back in 1908, there was an alienist.
This is the group of doctors that preceded the present-day psychiatrists. There was an alienist in Austria by the name of Forel, who treated addicts in an institution. And in the little village near where his institution was, there was an ex-lush who was a cobbler. And Dr. Forel made the observation that his alcoholic patients, who went down and talked to this cobbler, seemed to do very much better than the ones who didn't.
Somehow, the cobbler had discovered that he couldn't take a drink. And this was the information that he passed on. And because he'd made this discovery, he was able somehow to produce this curiously tenuous connection, which exists between the alcoholic and the other alcoholic, that makes us suddenly realize that we're on the same wavelength, that we're on the beam together, and that we're making sense.
I know just as well as you do that there are lots of people sitting on barstools all over this man's town. And I couldn't care less. I'm terribly sorry for them, because I was right along with them for a long time, and I'd hate like hell to go back there. But I know that I can't do anything by going and dragging them off the barstool. And if the time ever comes that they want to come and talk to me on the subject of getting off the barstool, I want them to know that I'll listen to them very sympathetically.
But we have to understand that there is an essential basic need for communication in this business. It reminds me of the story of the farmer in the South who was talking to an entomologist.
[00:40:03]
And the entomologist said to him, what do you do about the weevils in your corn? And the farmer said, we pick them out and drink it just the same. Now this is a perfectly legitimate thing. It was two people talking about something and just not quite being able to communicate. Now if the entomologist had been a lush, he'd have got on fine with the farmer. And if the farmer had known anything about entomology, he'd have probably got on fine with the other fellow.
But it so happened that their tracks didn't converge and consequently they sort of lost the thread of the conversation. This is essentially what sponsorship is. We have, as a result of our AA experience, gained a certain type of knowledge, a certain type of ability to listen in a sympathetic and empathetic way to the person who may be seeking help. We have also, I think if we're experienced, learned that it is no use to try to thrust this knowledge down the throat of anybody.
We can be available. As individuals, there's an awful lot of us. Look around this room. Do we seize every opportunity that presents itself to answer, cry, decry for help, which comes very often in a disguised way? The twelve-step call is not necessarily the one where the fellow sets off with a little book under his arm. It's the chance remark that is made. You have to be all the time on the beam and aware of the fact that this is a very, very ubiquitous disease.
Alcohol is still the most readily available, legally acceptable, tranquilizing substance in the world. People have been lushing it up since prehistoric days. And I have a vague suspicion that they're going to continue to do so for a little while yet, in spite of anything that you or I may do. But somewhere along the line, we are going to be able to bring this curious knowledge that we have, which is a somewhat unformed and nebulous knowledge, and put it at the disposal of scientific research workers, so that just as the entomologist couldn't talk to the farmer, it might be difficult, perhaps, for some of the AA members to talk to some doctors on the subject of, we'll say, alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver.
I can do this. There's got to be catalysts between groups of people. And if you find that there is somewhere within your area a person who is in any way showing the slightest inclination to wish to discuss the possibility of a great friend of mine, who I think is having difficulty, call on your own experience. Remember with gratitude what this thing has done for you, because you wouldn't be here now if it hadn't done it for you.
And neither would I. I think I'd be dead. At least, if I wasn't dead, I'd be damn sight better dead. And keep the ear open and the words short and to the point. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to chair this meeting on the important subject of sponsorship. I want to thank the panelists, and I want to thank you. You've been a wonderful audience. Will those of you who care to join me in the Lord's Prayer?