Audio
Transcript
Source: 1965 Toronto International Convention – 1965 Toronto Sponsorship and our Primary Purpose Part 2 of 2.mp3 File: 1965-toronto-international-convention-1965-toronto-sponsorship-and-our-primary-purpose-part-2-of-2.mp3 Duration: 01:07:30
============================================================
Next on the subject of informing non-AAs through speaking in media, the next delegate, Chairman of the Saskatchewan Public Information Committee, from Regina, Mack See. Hi everybody. My name is Mack and I'm an alcoholic. I think that maybe our delegate or some of the committee from Saskatchewan picked this subject for me to work on my conscience because in a little bit of research that I did, I certainly came up with, maybe not through information, but a very guilty conscience.
I had the opportunity to be on the Public Information Committee as its chairman and did absolutely nothing about it. And I think probably this is maybe something that we can neglect very easily because there are other jobs that need to be done that we enjoy doing and we don't know much about this public information and so we let it slide. But one thing I found out was what an exciting opportunity it really is because the percentage of people that arrive in Alcoholics Anonymous through the help of non-AAs is very large. I don't know what the exact percentage is, I guess there isn't an exact one, but certainly it's in excess of 50%. So what an opportunity we have to help the suffering alcoholic by informing those outside of AA.
Many of us that have had experience with public meetings feel that most of the audience is made up of AAs in a way and that public meetings don't do too much. But in our public information kit, our pick kit, I find that they suggest that we select our audience, that we invite those to the public meetings who we want to get to. And maybe this is something that certainly in our area we could do. If we want to get the doctors and those people, ministers who would be of help, we have to invite them.
And I know that this is something in many cases we don't do. One of the things that was mentioned this morning that has worked successfully in our area is the program Ask an Alcoholic. The fellow who started it is sitting in the audience, he should be the guy that's up here telling you about it. When this was started, I think we ran it six months, we were fortunate in that the station that ran the program, the radio station, had on staff a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and he was one of the announcing staff as well, acted as moderator.
This program was very successful. There were a number of people that got sober through the program. We know of at least four that came in in the first short while, but we don't know what the end result will be because of the large number of people in our area who now know more about Alcoholics Anonymous. Television is a media that is very willing to do anything they can in the way of service to Alcoholics Anonymous.
One of the reasons being, I think, that there are a large number of alcoholics that are working in the media. And this might sound humorous, but it's not really because when you have people that are trained in an industry that's relatively new, at least in our country, these people are hard to replace. And when you lose a fellow who's had 12, 15 years' experience through alcoholism, it's a real serious problem.
And I know that in our station, our management are very concerned about it and are willing to do anything they can. At the present time, we're running all the information that came out prior to the conference. We're using the news releases, and believe me, these kits come out from our general service office that are complete. All the information is there. The spots are written. The slides are provided.
It's just a matter of asking somebody to put them on. Newspapers, too, will do everything they can.
[00:05:00]
I think that possibly the editorial kit has not been used too much. One thing that is really terrific about our public information committee at our general service office is the complete kit that's available to cover every media, and everything is written and tailor-made, ready to use. One thing, one media, I think, that is very important, and maybe not thought of too often, is the media called word of mouth.
Yesterday, we happened to be sitting in a cafe, and we were talking, and the waitress asked us if we were here for the conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. She had a boyfriend who has a drinking problem. I guess I'm here as a result of the media of word of mouth. And the guy I used to talk to is sitting right here, too. And he told me about his troubles. And I knew him, and knew what had done for him.
And I think many of us, we try to be a little too anonymous with people who we can help. I've had the experience of living in a block, and I got a call from our church one time, from the minister, asking me to go on a 12-step call, and it happened to be to a neighbor that lived, there was just one house between us. And I had never gone to this fellow before, and talked to him, and got to know him, and let him know that I had found a way to live without having to take a drink.
And this word of mouth is a tremendous media. I think that this is something we can all do. Don't wait for the public information committee in your area to get active. Each one of us can get active ourselves, and we each can take this responsibility and find one area for service in carrying this message to the non-alcoholic. Thanks very much. Thank you, Mike. The next subject is institutional alcoholics.
Speaking for the women, we have the secretary of the New York Institutional Committee, from Jamaica, New York, Roberta H. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am an alcoholic, and my name is Roberta Hunter. And you have this I love. I wish New York City would do it. It makes me feel so good to hear you say hi. I have had the privilege and the honor of being asked to speak today on the institutional women. And first, I want to apologize to my predecessor, John, because I'll sure as hayes start talking about the men.
I'm not dead. In New York City, we are the biggest. We don't have the largest number of alcoholics, California basis. But in a very small area of about 70 miles, this committee handles 52 institutions with 76 meetings a week. And in accordance with the traditions of AA, we have a rotation plan. I've had the privilege again of saying, for the last 15 months, I have been secretary of this institution committee.
And because for the first time in many years, the news is shaking like crazy, I brought my own hearing section of about 20 of our workers. And I'm very happy to say that.
[00:10:03]
At the head of our committee is a chairman. He has just completed his term of office on July 1st and has done an exceptionally good job because it is a very thankless job. And anybody with an institution work knows I speak the truth. And in the rotation plan, I have had the privilege of rotating to the chairman. It only means one thing, double mileage on my car, double mileage on my husband's pocketbook.
But it means double mileage for my sobriety. The theme of the conference is sobriety, is responsibility. I take this responsibility very seriously because a number of years ago, Bill took the big book to Rocklin and handed it to a fellow. And from that one book by Bill, other people cared enough to come into an institution. And although there's a man here today that I threw out of my home because he had the nerves to imply that I had a drinking problem.
And let me add, I'm very brazen. I threw him out twice. And because I have a thick skin and a hard head, all Irish, all woman, and all alcoholic, I had to go inside to attend my first AA meeting. And people cared enough to come into me. And because of those people caring, I have the privilege of standing here today sober. Responsibility for our women in the Manhattan, in the New York City area is not like what I would like for it to be.
But I've heard several suggestions that I'm going to take back and the other people with me, and maybe we will get something better going. Our committee has a chairman, the secretary, broken up into seven areas with an area chairman, an area alternate, then a chairman and alternate for each institution. And then the most important guy and gal, what we call a G.I.R., Group Institutional Representative.
Everything begins and ends with the group and so does the committee. We get a call or a letter that a girl is coming out of an institution on such and such a time. With this, we go to our G.I.R. in our group and tell them. And this G.I.R. not only sponsors the girl, but is a friend. And wasn't it a friend that all of you and I needed when we came into this organization? Whether you have been confined to an institution or not, hadn't you drank up the majority of them?
So our group institutional representative is a friend. And we show them that this is one place. There is no stigma. But there is this one place that we have one interest in only. What are you doing today about your alcoholic problem? And as a friend, they can be helped over this terrible hurdle of rehabilitation from inside
[00:15:09]
to out. Going to meetings, showing them the little telephone book and how to use it, before they take the drink, not after. In the institution, we can only do one thing, institutional work. We can carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous inside, and we can take literature. We promise nothing else but sobriety. But we do promise that we will show you how to strengthen the spine and how to say the word no to the first drink.
On the panel here, my friends spoke of the newcomer, the middle-timer, and the old-timer. And I'm a rebel, don't like any of the three words, but can't think of a better one, either. In institutional work, I have the answer for the newcomer, the middle-timer, and the old-timer. I said I, when I use the word I, I speak for every institutional worker. For the newcomer, take him to the meetings, let him see what can happen.
But because of this wonderful program of Alcoholics Anonymous, does not have to happen. For the middle-timer, when that complacency shed it in, a chairman of an institution where he can say, thank God for AA, because I can walk out and in. And for the old-timer, the gentleman Ed spoke about in his experience, I'm on bended knee for experience from all of the old-timers. Because experience is what we need in the institutional work for the women.
I knew I'd have to have about six of these damn lights. In New York, I want to make one point that I'm very proud of. Our deceased commissioner, Weinberg, before passing on, wrote a letter requesting that each institution in the state of New York start an AA program. This means, although AA is 30 years old, institutional work is a baby. And I consider my own opinion that it is indeed the responsibility for the institutional woman of each and every one of us who has maintained his sobriety today through Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thank you. And for the men on the subject of institutional alcoholics, a sponsor of the Menard, Illinois,
[00:20:00]
Prison Group, from Belleville, Illinois, John H. Thank you, Gene. My name is Johnny, and I'm an alcoholic. For the person who doesn't think that a bad man can turn good the same as a good man can turn bad, prison work is no place for them. For the individual who thinks that alcoholism is strictly a physical illness, not a mental illness, then prison work is not the place for them. The greatest joke that you can tell in a penitentiary today is to go in there as a new speaker and say, you guys have got it pretty soft because you can't get a drink in here.
I'll guarantee you'll get a big laugh, and I'll also guarantee you there isn't an institution in the United States where they can't get a drink. So they can't go on as a sane drunk, that's for sure. The fact that the physical part of it is partially relieved leaves us just one thing to work on, and that's the mental part of it. We can, in our time with these men and women while they're in the institution, try to adjust their minds so that they're not thinking of the day they get out to go on a big drunk, but thinking of that day as going out to an AA meeting.
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 a 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,
[00:25:03]
with the inmate that goes to the institutional meetings. 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 their 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.
That's 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, 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 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 fissioning, 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? Says I Can. And I did, and she did. And that baby's one of the most precious things in the
[00:30:03]
world are 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. 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 Willsie, and I'm a grateful alcoholic. 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. 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. Ex is the unknown quality, and drip, 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. 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 through 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, strengths, 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, 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
[00:35:00]
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 alcoholic who still suffers 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 is affiliated with, there's that word affiliated, with our Northern California Council. 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 that 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 into 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. Rollin 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 names, 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. Rollin, 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,
[00:40:01]
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 Tee.
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 the 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.
If we could somehow inject into all the groups the same spirit that we try to surround the 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 experience 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 six hundred 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 and 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. 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
[00:45:06]
Service Office. I am 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 in 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 groups and give our GSRs 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 groups' 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, it is 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, Gene, and hello, friends. My name is Joe, and I'm a recovering alcoholic. I think 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
[00:50:02]
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 the three samples will apply to any area. The first group I could 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 that the GSR is good. 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, and 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 whole-heartedly and with the greatest deal of enthusiasm. They always have a GSR who is given the opportunity to attend 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
[00:55:00]
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 the whole group 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 middleman 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, with the leadership of the experienced members, I think could bring us into more joyous service, more joyous unity and happy recovery. Thanks. 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 sedative pamphlet, Dr. Donald Impe. One thing about being the last speaker, you've got a sort of more intimate group. I'm to make some suggestions for the future. By the way, my name is Dr.
Donald Impe, and I'm an alcoholic. 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. 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 it. 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 of the cases. carefully disguised by the medical profession in order to spare the family the anguish of
[01:00:01]
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.
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 bar stools 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 bar stool. If the time ever comes that they want to come and talk to me on the subject of getting off the bar stool, 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 who, in the South, who was talking to an entomologist.
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. This is a perfectly legitimate thing. It was two people talking about something and just not quite being able to communicate. 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 of our experience, 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 the little book under his arm. It's the chance remark that is made, and 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,
[01:05:07]
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 damned if I'd been 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? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.