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Source: 1965 Toronto International Convention – 1965 Toronto Sponsorship and our Primary Purpose Part 1 of 2.mp3 File: 1965-toronto-international-convention-1965-toronto-sponsorship-and-our-primary-purpose-part-1-of-2.mp3 Duration: 00:55:19
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We're very happy to welcome you to this meeting called Sponsorship and Our Primary Purpose. My name is Juanita New. I'm an alcoholic and privileged. Hi. I am privileged to be a member of your general service staff. Would you all please join me in a moment of silence, and then we will repeat the serenity prayer together. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I'm sure that every person who is recovering from alcoholism and has been for the past 30 years appreciates your prayer. For the benefit of the members of the press, I shall read and explain our anonymity tradition. 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 personalities. Thank you to the members of the press. And now I have an announcement to make. Any of you who are going to the Maple Leaf Gardens tonight for the 8 o'clock meeting, the best way to get there is to take a northbound subway to College Street.
That's for your information. I would like to introduce your chairman for this meeting. His name is Eugene Kay, and he was elected to the General Service Board in April 1963. He has served as Director of AA World Services, Incorporated, since April 1960. He has served on the Finance Committee of the General Service Board for two years and has been an active member of the Manhattan Group of New York City since March 1942.
He served as President of New York Intergroup Association Steering Committee from January 1955 to June 1956. He has cooperated with the Medical Director of a large corporation in the formation of a policy and plan for the rehabilitation of their alcoholic employees. In non-AA life, Gene has been employed in industrial sales with the same company for 43 years, and that's a good record when he was a practicing alcoholic.
We all love him at General Service. Gene Kay. Good morning. One needn't neglect to mention that I am also a notary public. I understand there's an old saying in crime detection circles to the effect that if you wait long enough, the criminal will return to the scene of the crime. I spoke in this very room three or four years ago for the Toronto Intergroup Association. I was pleased when I was asked to chair this particular session on sponsorship.
Sponsorship is important, it's a privilege, and it's also a responsibility.
[00:05:07]
Writing on the general subject of responsibility in the current grapevine, Bill had this to say about sponsorship. These facts point straight to our next responsibility, that of intelligently and lovingly sponsoring each man and woman who comes among us asking help. The care and concern with which we individually and collectively do this can make all the difference. Besides, this is the greatest expression of gratitude that we can give for what we ourselves have received.
Without much doubt, a million alcoholics have approached AA during the last 30 years. We can soberly ask ourselves what became of the 600,000 who did not stay. How good, how much, and how often did we fail all these? As you can see, we have a pretty impressive panel up here, and each one has been assigned a specific subject, a particular phase of sponsorship. So I'm just going to introduce them briefly and put them on.
The first speaker talking on sponsorship of the newcomer is a member of the East Norwalk, Connecticut group, and he's on the editorial board of the grapevine. I'm pleased to present Bill R. Thank you, Gene, and good morning. My name is Bill. I'm an alcoholic, and if I were telling my own story, I could ad-lib to the 48th Highlander's Pipist out-of-town Saturday night. But under the circumstances, I'm using notes.
I have more to say on our primary purpose than I do on sponsorship as regards the newcomer. I was a bit pleased when General Services asked me if I would tell this gathering everything about the newcomer, because in 30 years they hadn't been able to figure it out. So I think you will be pleased to know that I not only found the answer, but I boiled it down to five words. So if you have your pencils poised and your pads ready, the five words are these.
Find them and keep them. And now that we've covered that subject, I'll go on to other things. As Gene said, I am a member of the East Norwalk group, although today it's fashionable to put the East last and to call things Sardis East or Towers East or whatever East. But as soon as we get to calling it Norwalk East, I'm finding a lower-bottom group. There are several Norwalks, East, West, South, and just plain, and we have a population of about 60,000.
There'd be more, but we had a housing shortage some time back. In 1779, Lord Tryon and the Redcoats came through and burned down the town. And if there are any UELs in the audience who think that I hold a grudge against the British for this, I want to tell you that I have written to Her Majesty inviting the troops back and I'll supply the matches. Our urban renewal plan is just a little too slow for an alcoholic.
We have about 25 or 30 members, but attendance is usually higher at our Thursday night closed meetings and it's always higher at our Saturday night open meetings. We believe in both the open meeting with outside speakers as the showcase of AA and the closed meeting with one speaker, either from our own or another group, as the workshop of AA. I think we're in a very good location. Being within 50 miles of New York City, we can draw speakers from hundreds of groups.
So we avoid repetition around our way, which can sometimes be deadly, not for the newcomer,
[00:10:03]
but certainly for the old-timer and the middle-timer. We hold our meetings in the basement of an Episcopal church. We pay the church a fixed monthly amount. We send a monthly check to GSO in New York for an annual total of about $4 per member. Another to Connecticut GSO, still another to Connecticut Intergroup. Last month we made our final payment to a memorial fund, which helps pay the way for indigent alcoholics to a drying out farm in Kent, Connecticut.
We recently increased by 12 copies our subscription to the Grapevine, our group subscription, that is, and we pushed this to the newcomer, the old-timer, the visitor, and the non-alcoholic with commendable lack of prejudice, just as long as they have 35 cents. Now, the decision to raise the Grapevine subscription was made by the group, but the suggestion came from the steering committee, and this is the first of our activities I'd like to mention.
Last December we celebrated our 13th anniversary with the biggest attendance we ever had. Well, you could put it in one corner here, but it was over 200. And one of the reasons, perhaps the prime reason why we were there to celebrate our 13th year, was one man. If ever an AA group had a father, John Izzett in East Norwalk. But he reasoned that it wasn't good either for the group or for himself to have so much responsibility vested in one man year after year.
And so he suggested that a steering committee of two women and three men be appointed, and ever since it started operation early this year it's been trying to live up to its name. I hope to soon see it include some of the three- and four-month newcomer at some of its meetings to help get the newly sober person involved, because I firmly believe that involvement is a turning point or can be a turning point in the successful AA life.
One of the committee's latest moves was to complete a pigeon pick-up list. We circulated five-by-seven cards at several meetings and had people sign up for the days on which they regularly attend meetings. These have been mimeographed and spread around so that all of us know who we can call any given day to help keep a newcomer busy. We get a number of our newcomers through the Fairfield County Council on Alcoholism, but our prime source is our telephone answering service, which is another monthly expense.
One thing I like about the East Norwalk group, and I put down these words before I knew the theme of this meeting was responsibility. One of the things I like is that we don't try to qualify telephone calls. If somebody calls, we go. What if it is a non-alcoholic who calls? Perhaps the alcoholic can't pick up the telephone. There is probably more than one person here who couldn't make his own call.
Maybe he's not ready for AA this time, but isn't our primary purpose to carry the message? He may be the newcomer the next time, or it may be that his wife will find a new lease on life through our very active Al-Anon group, even though the husband does go on drinking. For whatever the call is worth, we make it. And every six months or so, we update our list at the answering service, not only so that we can keep getting new people involved in making 12-step calls, but you see the people at the answering service are civilians, and being mere civilians, they're likely to make human errors, and one of their errors is that when they get to depend on one person, they will call that same person time and time again.
So it develops that the people who work in Norwalk, a couple of dependables, will get all of the incoming calls. The answering service won't stop to… The answering service won't stop to reason that the commuter would be happy to answer a twelve-step call on Saturday or Sunday, and that the old faithful who made four or five calls during the week should get a break.
[00:15:14]
Naturally, we try to get newcomers into the kitchen, and I'm happy to report that a real new pigeon and an old-timer are plugging in the coffee urn together for the next six months. And I'm happy because although I've been asked to speak specifically on the newcomer, I'd like to say that we do as much as we can to keep the old-timer and the middle-timer happy and busy. Another of our activities during the past year was a weekly 40-minute radio program, Ask an Alcoholic.
This brought in some newcomers. I was a little shy about getting this underway single-handed, thinking people might ask who I thought I was. But if any of you in this audience have held back for the same reason, let me assure you there was no such reaction. Suggestions for getting such a program underway in your own town have been mimeographed by the PIC and are available in Room B or at the PIC workshop.
Putting together even so loosely knit a program as Ask an Alcoholic is time-consuming. But I should add that you're rewarded, or more than rewarded, for every minute you put into it. We ran the program with a moderator and three speakers, plus three people on the telephones to answer incoming questions. Instructions for the people on the telephones were typed in triplicates so that even newcomers, fresh newcomers, could handle the phones during the programs.
And they were just as enthused about their part in it as any of the panel members who were on the air. We've had quite a bit of success with that. Another action we are taking, again at the instigation of the steering committee, is to revert to the type of outgoing meeting that employs a leader and three speakers, the third speaker preferably to be someone who has just passed his third month of sobriety.
We have a reputation for being a warm, friendly group, but it's my belief that a reputation like that is like the notorious New Haven Railroad that runs through our town. It's easier to build than to maintain. And we think we're going to take a big step toward maintaining it if we use our PIDGEN pickup list to get new members to four, five, six, seven meetings a week. And then if we go beyond that to see that he gets out to speak shortly after he passes his third month of sobriety.
In East Norwalk, we phone, we chauffeur, we answer telephone inquiries, and we look for new things to do. And if that sounds like a neat, smug wrap-up, let me assure you that we have a long way to go. There are alcoholic wards in other towns. We don't have one in Norwalk. There are honor courts in other cities. We don't have one in East Norwalk. And just a few months ago, an alcoholic died of convulsions in our local jail just as surely as he would have 30 years ago before East Norwalk knew of AA.
But you came here to hear about positive things, not negative. And I hope the few positive examples of our work in East Norwalk you'll find helpful in adapting to your own group. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. The next speaker, talking on the subject of the middle timer, a past delegate from Georgia, from Atlanta, Clarence R. You know, I was looking up while our speaker from Connecticut was speaking. I was looking up on the ceiling, and there's a couple of bowls up there.
I thought that was real appropriate for this distinguished panel. I'm Clarence Robbins, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Scharling Group in Atlanta, Georgia. We've got an old boy in Atlanta that says he, every time he speaks, he says he's a summer replacement, that when anybody doesn't show up, they ask him to talk. You'll notice on your program I'm not on there. The fellow didn't show up, so I'm a summer replacement.
[00:20:02]
Besides that, I've got a subject called middle timers, and frankly, I don't know what it is. So for about six or seven minutes, we'll just converse along here. A lot's been written in the last few years in The Great Vines and different publications about our newcomers. A lot's been written in the last few years in our publications in The Great Vines about the old timers, what we can do to keep the old timers active, keep them coming to meetings, and what we can do about keeping their interest up.
And, of course, you just heard a few minutes ago what we can do for the newcomers. But I think the new problem that is coming into existence today is the middle timers. Again, whatever that is. It seems that after a person comes in and has received the royal treatment as a newcomer and has gone through the mill, so to speak, that all of a sudden he finds himself in a dilemma because nobody asks him to talk anymore.
He's been secretary. He's been intergroup representative. He's been treasurer. Couldn't steal any money. He's been on just about everything that the group asked for or is allowed to have. And he finds himself, as I said, in a dilemma and not knowing exactly what to do. So really I think this is probably more of a problem than we have with the old timer. Because the old timer does receive a certain amount of, if I'm privileged to use the word, prestige.
He has been around a long time. Most of the groups does recognize him. And he is able to get up and have a meeting without having to do too much preparation. Whereas the middle timer, he's just there. Nobody ever asks him to do anything. And I'll tell you, I guess I do know what a middle timer is because I'm one. I have served in just about every capacity that I could politic for, except trustee, and I'll tell you, I'm working on that.
I started a little group in Atlanta about ten years ago. There were only three of us, and one decided that he wasn't an alcoholic anymore. And the other one just kind of disappeared. So I was secretary and a group representative, treasurer. I did most of the speaking and all of the chairmaning. And I did all the handshaking. And then all of a sudden some other new one started coming in, and like darn fools, stayed sober and started getting me out of my jobs.
I couldn't handle them. One guy said one time, how long are you going to be secretary? And I said, as long as I can hold on to it. And they called a group election and took the whole deal over, and I wound up with nothing. Now I pick up ass trades. I really think we should have a little bit more dignified job for the middle timer than picking up ass trades. But to be a little bit more serious, if I can, I think that possibly the answer to the middle timer's dilemma is to maybe reelect him again later on, after he has served his time as secretary and other group responsibilities.
Also to let him maybe sell a grapevine. You know, we have a grapevine representative in our group who we think is a responsible person who sees that the grapevine is distributed and money is collected and that everybody has an opportunity to read it. Possibly the middle timer could take care of the chairmanship for a month or two months. Possibly when nobody doesn't show up, they can let him talk.
[00:25:02]
Or he could serve on any of the other committees that he has at one time served before. You know, in my group, for some reason or another, they have a steering committee there now, and they have allowed me to be an ex-officio member. And I don't get to say anything at the meetings. I just get to go and sit there, and they vote on these subjects, and I don't get to vote either. So why I'm there, I don't know, but I get a big kick out of it because they do give me a little honor in being able to attend.
So the main subject I'd like to get across this morning is think about the middle timer. Shake hands with him every once in a while. Ask him to talk every once in a while. And ask him to serve on a committee every now and then so that he can shake hands with the newcomer and the old timer and won't just feel like he's in the middle. Thank you. Thank you, Clarence. I'm from the South myself, south of Ireland.
The next subject is the old timer, naturally. And our speaker has been an active member for 25 years, which makes him an old timer for me. He's from Boston, Massachusetts, and his name is Ed Dee. Hi. I don't know where the old timer fits after Clarence gets through, but I think it might be well to define our terms. Old timer means a lot of things to a lot of people, and to some people it has a pretty odious connotation.
However, in a program that's timeless in every respect, except day to day, there can be no seniority. The only possible significance old timer can have is that he has had more opportunity to serve because he was brought into contact with the group sooner. It certainly does not imply that a lifetime has per se brought maturity. I think some of the areas that I would like to bring into focus are, one, how can the group assist in filling the old timer's needs?
And secondly, are we sharing his emotional experiences? And thirdly, do we keep him informed on our new literature? And what are his needs? Well, very shortly after our introduction to the group, we became aware that a 24-hour basis was the daily need of the alcoholic. We determined very shortly that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, and that every day had to be the first day for us. Well, it's pretty important that we do more than say this.
We've got to put our money where our mouth is. I think it's a two-way communication problem between the old timer and the group. Working this life-giving program a day at a time does not necessarily mean, regardless of the number of days, that you have become invulnerable to your character defects. Certainly you have become more aware of them, but it's normal to lapse. And let's hope the old timer is normal.
A lot of people don't believe it, but he is. And it's kind of lonesome to be perfect. Everyone in the group needs understanding, and no one has the right to put an older member on a pedestal nor to allow him to get on one. There is just as strong a reason for an old timer to ask himself what can he do for the group as to have the group ask what they can do for the old timer. Certainly he's had a lot of jobs, and now he's found that other people should take care of them.
And now he's found that other people should take over these jobs. And what job does he wind up with?
[00:30:01]
He winds up with the job that the other fella didn't fill. He can uniquely handle one job. He can, at a meeting, spot the newcomer, the timid one that's standing in the back, that wonders how he got there, that wishes he knew how to get out gracefully, and find a hole in the ground to sink into. He can get him into conversation. He can introduce him to other people. He can find out if he's a member of the group or some group.
He can get him a sponsor if he hasn't one, or do the job himself. He can help him to get a job in the group. And he can help with this job to point up the timeless quality of this therapy. I think, above all, it's the group's responsibility to recognize that the old-timer must be used and must be helped by being able to share. And they can ask him to do some of these outside jobs, like protecting the landlord, making arrangements to do things for outside groups, even handling the problems of the older members with other problems than sobriety.
But above all, I think the group must recognize maturity and not seniority. I think they must de-emphasize the distinction of time and stress the old-timer's need for the fulfillment that he first received when first he tried to share. And in this matter of sharing, the old-timer is again, I think, well qualified, because after his first few months, he became very much aware of the growing pains of adult thinking.
He was forced to find out that maturity did not come painlessly, and that he had to do some difficult things. He found that he could not run away from problems, that he had to face them, and that he had to resolve an answer that was for him, for that moment, the correct answer. I think it is one of his opportunities to share, to tell the newer member of this opportunity, to tell him that he will not automatically acquire maturity, not give him his personal program because progress depends on personal effort, and to deny him this effort would be contributing to his delinquency.
I think the group can use this older member by utilizing this experience, by constantly pointing up to the newer people that maturity will not come painlessly, but come it must or there are problems out there on the horizon. And while they can point this up, unless the older member has shown a willingness and a need, this cycle cannot be completed. So again, I say it is a two-way street. In this last matter of literature, I think we AA sometimes forget that the world evolves, but it has in the last 30 years.
We no longer use ships to cross the ocean. We no longer use prop planes to fly from coast to coast. We get there. We no longer relegate alcoholics to insane asylums. We rehabilitate them. So too have our tools of information changed. We have upgraded our literature to help we receive from experience and from medicine and from psychiatry and from religion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The old-timer who is active has used as an effective tool.
The old-timer who has been away from the group can be contacted by the group, mailing a piece of this literature and even asking him for his reaction to it. Carrying the message to another alcoholic is not confined to a new member. I think I'd like to sum up by saying that to me sponsorship must be implemented by enthusiasm.
[00:35:09]
It is my personal belief that indifference is the greatest sin on the social calendar. The people who say the right things, believe in the right things, but they never do anything about it. They just stand for the right things. They never get in and shove them along. If you are an alcoholic, you should be a member of a group. If you're a member of a group, you should buy their problems, whether you're a newcomer or an old-timer.
If you believe that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, you need today what you needed the first day you came in, it's up to you to get it. It's up to the group to help you. Happy sobriety. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Next on the subject of literature and its connection with sponsorship, a next delegate from Ohio, a member of the Conference Literature Committee, George M. My name is George Mills, and I'm an alcoholic and a member of the Edge Lake Group in Lakewood, Ohio, which is the next western suburb of Cleveland.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics. Truly carrying the message is our primary purpose. And had it not been, where would many of us have been today? I shudder personally at the thought. Would we have been a fellowship of men and women worldwide in scope? And what, perhaps as much as any one thing, has made it possible? The answer, of course, is communication of the message by the written word, or literature, the topic of this segment of the panel discussion.
Literature in its broadest term and definition is the written word. Letters, for example, and in the infancy of this society, it was the letters of help and hope emanating from the small office in lower New York that communicated the message of recovery. And these letters were to be the forerunners of much of our literature as we know it today. Literature is also communication of the humanities of man, of commiseration, of compassion, of charity, and of mercy.
These things are as timeless as is the disease of alcoholism timeless. And what we have, we ought to use. For beyond the desire to give that which was given to us and the willingness to be an instrument to do so, the one great tool of sponsorship, which is carrying the message, has been literature. From the early letters there eventually evolved the book Alcoholics Anonymous, to which, in speaking of it a few weeks ago at Founders Day in Akron, Bill referred to it, and I quote, a great venture in change, and that it has been.
For from it has followed the many invaluable pieces of literature, by all of which, and through all of which, we have communicated and grown to the society we know it today, 30 years later. I think we are all in agreement that we ought to use it. But do we share it as we should?
[00:40:03]
Do we share it as we should? Or do we share all of it? I would like to, if you will, or with me, become provincial for a moment or two, forgetting that we are in attendance at this international convention, by placing ourselves mentally in our accustomed location at our home group, in our home group meetings. And then let us ponder the questions of whether, as individuals or as a group, we are making maximum use of literature, the fine and readily available tool of carrying the message, sponsorship.
In other words, let's take our group inventory and suggestions as to better and greater use of this means of communicating. Mr. Chairman of the meeting, so called, I recognize a voice over here in the corner who observes that rarely has he set out on a 12-step call that he didn't make a quick review of the pamphlet, the questions and answers on sponsorship, nor fail to take along a copy of the big book.
Another member on the other side of the room has said that in his early visit with the alcoholic and the family of the alcoholic, he has found A.A. 44 questions and answers of immeasurable assistance in communicating the fellowship and the purposes of Alcoholics Anonymous. A little timer suggests that why don't we study and devote each of our cottage meetings to a study and discussion of one conference-approved pamphlet, a booklet.
Cottage meetings, of course, is a term that grew out from the home meetings in the kitchens or dining rooms or wherever it might be in individual members' homes, the meetings that are held every two weeks or once a month, and enclosed meetings for the newcomers and whoever the members of the group that want to attend. And a voice in the back of the room inquires, How long has it been since we last mailed a plain hand-dressed envelope by first-class mail in which was enclosed a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous, a helpful ally in coping with alcoholics?
These two are town's medical representatives. Or, for that matter, a copy of A.A. in the medical profession and the new sedative stimulants and the alcoholics. Along the same lines, another member speaks out, You know, there are a number of new clergymen in the area. Wouldn't it be well to see that a clergyman asked about Alcoholics Anonymous reaches each of them? Most of these men, you know, are very, very grateful to have an A.A. member as a resource for his service.
And still another voice is heard remarking that one of the fine things this group has done is no less than quarterly to complete replenishment of its literature supply and sharing of the remainder of the preceding supply with institutional and shut-in groups. Another man, another member, a man who had been sober a great many years, who got his A.A. while in an institution and has devoted almost all of his sober life and sponsorship and 12-step work to institutions, has remarked how grateful the chaplain and the social worker in the penal institution is for the guidelines and the suggestions of the recently revised and enlarged prison manual, a tool of sponsorship in another direction.
And speaking of institution remarks, another, that idea of the Area General Service Committee providing an up-front Service Committee of providing an upfront kitty for the loose change offering with which to purchase grapevine subscriptions for the various area hospitals. That was in prisons and so
[00:45:05]
forth. This is a way to carry the message. These are but a few samplings of what can be done and what is being done to provide leadership, which is sponsorship, through literature and carrying the message, our primary purpose. If we should do this, and as individuals and as a group, I think we can be qualified to be called a friend. A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away. Thank you.
Thank you, George. Next on the subject, professional and alcoholism agencies. The next delegate, director of the NCAA office in Elmira, New York, Ed McKenna. Thank you, Gene. I don't know why, Juanita, you have all the buttons. You've got a watch here. I don't know if I'm supposed to watch the watch or just carry on. I think that the time has come in the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm quite nude. I have no notes.
I just stand here. It will come out the way it comes out. I think the time has come when we should take a look at ourselves, find out precisely what it is that we're talking about, why we're talking, what we intend to do about it. You've heard and I've heard from time to time that the doctor doesn't know anything about alcoholism, the psychiatrist doesn't know anything about alcoholism, the hospital doesn't know anything about alcoholism, that we in Alcoholics Anonymous are the only individuals who know anything about alcoholism. Also at the very same time, since 1944 when the National Council on Alcoholism came into being, there's been sort of a force turning against any educational program, so people won't know. They don't think this is fair. We find an alcoholic in the acute phase of alcoholism, who do we turn to? We turn very quickly to the doctor. We place them in the hospital. We treat them.
We do everything that we possibly can to get them well. And when we get them well, we say that we in Alcoholics Anonymous have helped the individual to recovery. There's no question in my mind at all that when Alcoholics Anonymous helps every alcoholic that contacts it recover. But there is equally no question in my mind that what there are places for other resources to play a great part. We're dealing with a health problem, a very serious health problem.
Up to this point there's been a great deal of levity in this program. Perhaps there should be. But from time to time we should take a good look at what it is that we're dealing with and who it is that we're dealing with. We're dealing with ourselves and we're dealing with other people. When the NCA came into being in 1944, it bridged that gap that was so badly needed, that brought the alcoholic from where he was or where she was to where he needed to be or where she needed to be. There was a great deal of stigma, a great deal of fear, a great deal of hostility, and there still is today, but not to the same degree at all. A great deal of educational work is being done, more needs to be done.
It doesn't fall within the purview of Alcoholics Anonymous, not at all. But we've heard cliche after cliche that we will cooperate but we will not affiliate. Is this going to be meaningless?
[00:50:09]
Is it going to be hollow? Back in St. Louis we declared loud and clear that we had come of age, and have we really? And where do we go from here? When we deal with sick people, we deal with the resources that deal with sick people. We deal with doctors. We deal with psychiatrists. We deal with hospitals. We deal with every conceivable type of a resource that is geared to help the individual recovery, no matter what the ailment might happen to be. I think that we in Alcoholics Anonymous should recognize this. There's a great part and a great place for us. Certainly in 1935, when our society was born, at that time nobody knew and nobody cared very much about the individual who had alcoholism. He was considered or she was considered to be an outcase from society, a person who wasn't wanted, a person who was a derelict, a person who was spineless, and a person who wouldn't use their willpower.
This thing has been changed. It's been changed greatly. It needs to be changed more. We sit here, if we're lucky, or we stand if we're unlucky, and we talk, and we listen. And what do we do about it? When we go back to our respective groups, let's talk about it. Let's do something about what we've heard here. Let's think in terms of alcoholism as an illness. Let's think in terms of the individual who hasn't had the same opportunity that has been God given to us. Let's think in terms of them. And you know and I know it's only through the grace of God and the instrumentality of the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous that we're here right now. When we feel and we know that of all the resources in this hemisphere or in the world has touched only one-tenth, ten percent, of all the sick alcoholics, we haven't gone very far. Not very far at all. There are individuals today sitting on barstools somewhere who are crying their eyes out, who would give anything to be here. We say they haven't hit their bottom. Where is their bottom? I say this, if we follow the principles of the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous, if we find an individual who is unable to control his drinking, then we have a responsibility to let that individual know that certain things can and should be done. This, you're flashing that too quick, this rule should be doubled.
This convention should be doubled. When we know that we have five million alcoholics and we have something less than 300,000 or around 300,000 who are sober, as Bill said, a hundred or one million had contacted us, where did the 600,000 go? Where did they go? Let's ask ourselves. We're sitting here now in all our glory, in classrooms, eating fine, having a good time. It wasn't always like this. And we can remember back, if you're anything like me, we can remember back to a time when we would give anything to help us get sober. Today we have the resources. Let's not in our meeting halls decry these individuals who are giving of their time. Let's not at any time decry any individual who is trying in any capacity to help a sick alcoholic get well. We are met together for that very specific purpose, to help a sick alcoholic get well.
[00:55:06]
Thank you.