Audio
Transcript
Source: 1975 Denver International Convention – 1975 Denver Int Conv, AA and the Clergy with Gordon, Bruce M, James R, Jack B.mp3 File: 1975-denver-international-convention-1975-denver-int-conv-aa-and-the-clergy-with-gordon-bruce-m-james-r-jack-b.mp3 Duration: 01:23:38
============================================================
Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Yolanda Lasso, and I have the privilege of working for your general service office in New York. Now, will you please join me in a moment of silence in gratitude for the AA recoveries of the past 40 years, followed by the serenity prayer. God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I'd like to read to you the tradition on anonymity. There may be some who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Therefore, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or member be identified by full name or picture in published or broadcast reports of our meeting. The assurance of anonymity is essential to our efforts to help other alcoholics, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles are before personalities.
It is my pleasure now to introduce your chairman for this meeting, Gordon Patrick. Thank you, Yolanda. You're all right back there? You know, I had some excellent suggestions of what we'd do about this emergency, including one from a character here from Manitoba, that we clear everyone out except the Protestants. This workshop this afternoon, Alcoholics Anonymous and the Clergy, I have some strong feelings about, because for about 17 years that I've been in this field, one of my recreations was having clergy seminars.
And I used to always have to deal with the problem of sin or sickness, and that was the purpose of the seminars we were involved in, to help clergymen think this thing through in terms of understanding the disease alcoholism, and to learn how to work more effectively with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I used to always look forward to the second day of the seminar, when inevitably the clergy coming there, and at that time, and still it's true, there's a number of clergy who come to these kinds of seminars to get ammunition against demon rum.
And so the second day, the question always rose, yes, this is a sickness, we've heard doctors talk about it, but this is a different kind of a sickness, it's a self-inflicted sickness. And at that time, I always had a psychiatrist come in, and he invariably put the question to the psychiatrist, yes, doctor, it's possibly a sickness, but it's a sickness where the difference is self-inflicted. And I used to admire the psychiatrist who used to sit there sucking his pipe and saying very reflectively, yes, it probably is a difference, however, do you know of any other individual who's been warned by his doctor that he has an illness, and there's certain things he must do, and he persists not doing them?
For example, do you know any person who sometimes works seven days a week, 18 to 20 hours a day, and he's been warned by his doctor that his condition does not permit this sort of thing, that he must have more recreation? And, of course, then you saw some very uncomfortable people, some of them got a little red behind the ears, and some of them shuffled their feet, because this brought the point home, you see, that there's a lot of self-inflicted illnesses.
Then there's another little game I used to enjoy, and that was having a clergy workshop with Alcoholics Anonymous members to deal with this spiritual thing, and I must preface my remarks by saying that over the years in my contacts with those people who have objected to Alcoholics Anonymous, the people who needed the fellowship badly, the one recurring theme that seems to come up is, well, that's fine, but I'm an agnostic, or I don't like religious cranks.
And so I always used to enjoy the spiritual discussion with clergy, and I had yet to have one of these, that there wasn't some AA member who was present to help me, get me in the corner afterwards and say, Gordon, that's all right, but I don't buy this God business. So I tell that story to indicate that, you know, this is one area within the fellowship that I think we have to do some thinking about, and perhaps praying about, and we're fortunate this afternoon in having an outstanding group of individuals on the platform
[00:05:06]
who are going to help us in looking at this dimension of spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, you know, I think I've taken some editorial license here because the title is merely Alcoholics Anonymous and the Clergy. Our first contributor is the Reverend Bruce A. Miles, who was first a minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He's a graduate of the University of Toronto, and he's won some fame in the western Ontario, western part of Canada, and I suspect the Midwest of the United States, as a broadcaster for a daily meditation program that he's been conducting since 1965.
Dr. Miles has written a book on these meditations, and the thing that makes them important for our discussion this afternoon is that he devoted twelve chapters of this book to the twelve steps of AA. He's written numerous articles and has a weekly column on religion in the Winnipeg Free Press. He's serving as a moderator of the Synod of Manitoba in northwestern Ontario, and for the uninitiated, Bruce, I guess this is the equivalent of a bishop in the Episcopalian or perhaps in the Roman Catholic Church, although I may be wrong.
Perhaps I'm using that term too loosely. However, he has a distinguished position within his church. He's been deeply interested in the AA fellowship for a number of years, not only for the obvious reasons as a clergyman, but he sees it as an important recovery program for living. Bruce is married with four children who are in university, the youngest being seventeen. No, I'm sorry, there's Kathy who's fifteen, grade ten.
He has an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba for his work in broadcasting, and typically when I ask about introduction, he says, forget the doctor, I prefer to be called Bruce. So I give you Dr. Bruce Miles. Thank you, Gordon. And I'd like to say one of the first things is that this is the first time that I've ever had anybody thrown out of the place where I was supposed to speak. Usually I've got people standing at the door hoping that some more will come, so that's got to be a first time.
I think it would be well to begin with a confession. We have it also in the Presbyterian Church as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, Father. And a confession is that I have a cheering section here. There's some people over there in this corner, we've got that corner covered. There's a little light over here and a little light there, but we've got a cross section, so that's my confession. And I just hope they cheer when they're supposed to.
I was out for a little walk with my wife this morning, and a fellow was washing a window. And he said, excuse me, are you married? To which I said, yes, been married for 23 years. And then he said, you know, it's really tremendous what AA is doing here in Denver. And then he went on to washing windows. And I stand here then in deep gratitude, not only for what is happening here in Denver, but what is happening around the world.
Deep gratitude for being here personally, but it goes more deeply than that, because I'm grateful for the exposure to the AA program over the past number of years in my life, because my life has been affected very much by it. My understanding of my own personal life, my understanding of other people, and my attempts to live it as a person and as a minister, which I've been trying to do for 22 years.
I was very young when I started.
[00:10:00]
I'd like to say that having to do with the spiritual is something that's very tricky, because it works with recovering alcoholics and even practicing alcoholics. Try it sometime. I'd like to tell you a little story that really is kind of amusing, but is kind of unfunny too. The story begins about 11.10 at night in my home when the door suddenly opened. We never lock our doors. Anyway, the door opened, and two dogs came in.
They had only two feet, these guys, and they were bombed out of their minds. There was a third guy with them. He was a taxi driver, and he had his hand out. This was a one-way trip to my house, and I paid the taxi man off. Then the two guys came into the living room. I said, George, what do you want? He said, I'd like to spend the night here. I said, well, that's where I draw the line. I'm sorry, I draw the line.
Then his friend said, have you got a Bible? I said, boy, what's coming now? He said, yes, I happen to have a Bible in the house, so I went and got my Bible. This guy, as I say, was smashed, but he turned right to the story of the lost sheep. He did. He reads it to his buddy. He says, George, you're it. George says, no, no, you are. That was a very fine theological discussion. It ended up down on Main Street when I threw him out of my car, I'm afraid, because I wasn't quite sure just what to do with him.
But the spiritual, all kinds of people looking for it and trying, and I'm mindful of George today, too, by the way, who's a good friend of mine who still hasn't made it yet. And I'm thinking of the hundreds and the thousands of people that haven't made it. They couldn't be here. They couldn't be here because they just couldn't. And there are people that like to be but can't afford it. And I keep thinking of those people, too, even in the midst of all the warmth of the fellowship that certainly I'm aware of at this time, and so are you.
But I have seen, through exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous, miracles. And I've seen men and women coming to a new and a fresh understanding of themselves, of another person, and of God. And in that coming to see and to understand, they started to live. And to me that's a miracle. And I've seen failure at the other side. And I heard this, Bruce, if anyone told me a few years ago that I'd be sitting here talking to you about God, I'd have told them where to go and what they're made of.
But I've seen it and what they're full of. But I've seen the miracle. I've been moved to tears and sometimes to share them. I felt the sorrow, joined in honest laughter, and stood amazed before the presence of God because both of us have acknowledged that it must be the power of God in our lives. Lives restored and hopes renewed. And I stand in gratitude before this phenomenon, before this miracle.
The AA program is a spiritual program. And we know that and you didn't have to come to Denver to find out. Because it's a program that introduces and works with a concept of God, as we understand them, each of us. But it's more than a concept, more than a theological point of view, because it's an experience, a reality. A reality that involves your body and your mind and your soul and your spirit. A friend who is a recovering alcoholic said to me a little time ago, he says, this is kind of the speech that I make to the guys that are new in the program.
And he says this, if you think this program can be understood apart from God as you understand Him, then you may as well get off the train now. Because that's the way it is. That's the way it is. And I said, Bob, you don't do that, do you? That's pretty heavy. Yeah, he says, I tell him. I tell him, we deal with God and He deals with us. And that's the only way that we're going to stay sober and become sober.
By the will of God and the grace of God. Tell him that. I said, well, bless you. Good for you. And he talks it to them. They want to get off the train, they may as well. But it is a spiritual program. We know that. And today I'd like to try to share something of that spiritual part with you. And I'm not a dentist. I'd like to make that very clear. I'm not asking you to open your mouth. Very clear. I'm not asking you to open your mouth and I'm going to shove something down.
[00:15:02]
But all I'm asking you to do is maybe take hold of the handle that I might put in front of you and open the door a bit and see what helps you and that. And I'm going to talk about God, but where do I start? That's very difficult because I'd like to start where you're at, but heck, where are we all at? All different kinds of places. And for many of us, it's a real struggle day by day. This whole understanding of God and what He is and what He's up to and what He wants of us.
So let's not start with Him. Let's start with us. That's a little more familiar, maybe. And let's start with ourselves as people. And so we've got skin and flesh. That's common to all of us. Mazing, blood too. And we could transfer blood. We could trade blood and it might work. So there's something common to all of us. And our skin holds our bones together. And we've got heads. I always haven't used them too good.
But we've got them and we've got some brains that go on inside them. And we've got these things and this is a person. So we've got head and brains and a nervous system because we've got feelings. And those feelings are such a part of us and we operate on those two levels of head and heart. And maybe for people who know more about this than I do, we operate on other levels too, but that's basic to all of us. Head and heart.
And we know about feelings. We've had them hurt enough. And we've had them bruised. And we have them scarred. And sometimes it's hard to get them healed. And we have to struggle with it. And something keeps persisting and grabbing us just when we think the healing is almost done. So that's part of us too. And then we discover something that I think is going on here. You know, I think the people of Denver must be very intrigued with these bunch of alcoholics that are wandering around the downtown streets and seeing each other and saying, Hi! That's got to be beautiful. That's got to be beautiful.
Because all that is doing is renewing something that has been established in the past. I mean, I tried it with somebody I didn't know. She was awfully nice looking and I got kicked. And I maintained I'd see her, but she said, No, I don't know you. Get away from me, you dirty old man. Then my wife came along. Gosh, I wish you'd stay in a hotel room a little longer. Anyway, people. Relating to people. And that's where we're made.
And you know that something that is very important to you is the fellowship in your AA group. The fellowship that we see and feel and are a part of here at this. This great big thing that we have something in common and that we're bound. We've got bonds and I thank God for them. And so man is a relational person. The possibility of relationships. Because as old John Donne said, No man is an island.
And so when our relationships are right, things look pretty good. Things look pretty good. And when they get out of whack, gosh, the whole of life, it's almost like a filter and we begin to see everything and it just isn't quite the way it ought to be. So when our relationships are right, boy, it's a single. But we're a relational creature and we also have a possibility of another kind of relationship.
And if you will, use a triangle. Yourself, other people, and both of us have an opportunity of some kind of a relationship with Almighty God. A relational creature. And if I'm going to be in a relationship with my higher power, I'd like to know what his intentions are for me. Just the way some of you girls, if you can remember, you know, when a guy comes up to you, what are his intentions? What's he want to do?
And sometimes we've known. And sometimes we haven't known. There are intentions. And I'd like to sort of think about that word that I discovered in the third step not very long ago. What a clunk! Missed it or something. But I turn my life and my will over to the care of God as I understand Him. And that's so important that my higher power, his intention for me is to care. And I think that that's something that all of us have discovered in the program, isn't it?
What it means to be able to care. And what it means to be cared about. Somebody cares. Those guys, those girls, they care. They care about me. God's intention is to care. And so we have a built-in possibility of a relationship.
[00:20:02]
God wants that relationship. But we have to open the door. He never breaks in. Because the handle is only one. And it's on our side. It's on our side. And we have to open it. He never busts the door down. He never comes down the chimney. He comes in when he's invited. And that invitation comes in many, many forms. And so a God who cares. And then I'd like to try and focus a little more closely. And maybe I'll lose some of you here, but what can we do but tell you where I'm at?
And that's all I'm trying to do, is share with you folks where I'm at. And so when we begin to focus a little more, we see that there's a focus coming in a man. A man plus. And that's Jesus Christ. Now I'd like to just share with you the intention of his coming and what he had in mind. And it's in that good book. That's another very good book. It's not the big book. It's the good book. And it's quite a good book.
There's an awful lot of stuff in there. That's a commercial. And I thank you. That's a good one. I happen to be taking orders. No, no, no. But he invaded the human scene. He came in and became part of the human drama. And in the fourth chapter of Luke, he gets up and he says this, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's chosen me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed.
Wow, that just comes to me and says, zero. Because it sounds as if he were coming to the world of alcoholics. Poor. Anybody's poor that has to become rich through alcohol. Somebody is lacking something when we've got to get geared up by a dependent kind of thing that alcohol is. He came to bring good news that you can be rich some other way, man. To proclaim liberty to the captives. And I can't think of anybody who is more a prisoner, caught hard in the chains of alcoholism than a drunk, than an alcoholic.
And we know that it's a disease and it holds us and it grabs us and that's a prisoner. Case in point, Bob. The scene in his living room. His mother's home. He's the same age as I am. Forty-six. Bob's had it. Big house, double garage, cars, regional manager, four boys, big husky, wife. They live here and he lives here. All that's gone. His mother calls him Bobby. That's her prerogative. She suffered a lot. And she says, Bobby, all you have to do is to decide that you're not going to drink anymore.
And Bob, who was on the recovery program, step one, trying to hold his head together, just trying to hold it so it's not going to pour out all over the floor. Just coming off a fantastic drunk, even for him. And he looks up and he says, Mom, you don't think I drink because I want to. If Bob isn't a prisoner, then I don't know who is. And I welcome all of you who have walked out of jail. I come to bring liberty to those imprisoned.
And so Jesus began his ministry. He had in mind what he'd come for. He moves out among the people. And you know something? He had some special favorite people. Now you're going to say, now that's wrong. That's not the Jesus that I know. I don't read that in the Bible. And I recommend a book by an Anglican clergyman, has nothing to do with alcohol, called Your God is Too Small.
[00:25:00]
Put out by Macmillan and paperback, and I'm not getting a commission. But it does dispel a lot of these ideas. Another point I'd like to make, the Native American Indians and blacks sometimes feel that A.A. imposes some kind of a white man's God on them. But the true tradition of A.A. means that they are fully free to turn their lives over to God as they understand him. The great spirit, or the God of those moving deep south spirituals which have become a part of the sacred music of this nation.
Just a word about the fourth and fifth steps. As a psychologist, I have often remarked on the psychological soundness of admitting our wrongs not only to God and to ourselves, but to another human being. Confession, if you will. I once wrote a treatise on the psychology of confession, my last personality mental health book, using only non-Catholic sources, psychologists and clergymen. And even I was impressed with a number of quotations that I could amass from what I trust were unbiased authors pointing to the psychological advantages of what is really the fifth step.
There's a certain psychological advantage in having to pit it out in Mama's hand. You can tell it to somebody else. I might mention that good research has shown that physiologically it may not be too wise to attempt the fourth and fifth steps too soon after detox. It takes more than three to five days after zero blood alcohol, that is, to get the toxic effects of alcohol entirely out of the system.
Evidence indicates that it's more like 60 to 90 days before one's head really clears. And to expect the alcoholic to go through demanding spiritual exercises during this period is unrealistic in the light of these facts. It might only reinforce his guilt instead of unloading it. He needs to be thoroughly educated in the disease concept so that he realizes that his behavior was alcoholic behavior, that of a sick person rather than that of a moral degenerate.
He must understand that his stinkin' thinkin' was that of a physically ill person, and that his restoration to sanity may be no more psychiatric than the removal of a brain tumor which was causing psychotic symptoms. That's why the second step says that God, not a psychiatrist, can restore us to sanity, because only with the help of a higher power can we stop imbibing the cause of our insane behavior.
The second legacy, the twelve traditions, is aimed at the group rather than the individual and focuses on unity or survival. The most significant feature here is that the great traditions of anonymity and poverty are there to protect humility, the most important virtue in the spiritual life, because pride, ego, is its greatest enemy. Now every psychologist and psychiatrist dreams of finding the key to human nature, the dominant motive, and therefore the source of all neurotic troubles.
Floyd thought he had it when he fastened on libido, sex. But I would say probably the majority of psychologists agree with Alfred Adler of Vienna when he said that not libido but pride, ego, is the more basic motive and the source of even apparently sexual problems. After all, if there's domination, resentment, anxiety, jealousy, hurt feelings, or whatever, between two persons, it's bound to manifest itself in the most intimate and delicate relationship that can exist between two people.
But that doesn't mean their problem is sexual. Clear up the personality clash, the ego problems, and the supposed sexual problems usually take care of themselves. When Satan was doing the selling job on Eve, you might notice that the clincher argument was not the enticement of some big sexual orgasm. The appeal was to the ultimate human motive, ye shall be as gods. Chapter five of the big book again.
We all want to play God to run the whole show. This brings me to what I want to say about the third legacy, service. As AA came of age, it moved from a defensive position of suspiciousness and rivalry to one of openness and cooperation. The enticement of some big sexual orgasm. The appeal was to the ultimate human motive.
[00:30:12]
Ye shall be as gods. Chapter 5 of the Big Book again. We all want to play God to run the whole show. This brings me to what I want to say about the third legacy, service. As AA came of age, it moved from a defensive position of suspiciousness and rivalry to one of openness and cooperation with the professionals who were also concerned with helping the sick alcoholic. Actually, AA from the beginning had this orientation. The founders saw the wisdom of having a lay or non-alcoholic board to maintain a broad, unbiased perspective and to avoid the dangers of seeing problems only from the subjective viewpoint of one's own experience. AA never took the position that only an alcoholic can help an alcoholic or that AA is the only way. In fact, it expressly rejected these positions. I like to point out that one half of the founders of AA belonged to the medical profession. The first AA counselors, were women non-alcoholics. Contrary to the criticism that was once made, AA was not against the medical profession. I call your attention to the fact that the recent revision of that large yellow sheet, AA Guidelines, for those working in the field, is actually a return to the original tradition, namely that members working in the professional field are not denied the right to hold office in AA. Tradition 8 says that alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but it does not say that members cannot be professionals.
But long in the 1950s, Bill W. saw that things were going wrong. In many of his later writings which embody the Third Legacy, he obviously felt impelled to speak out strongly against the arrogance that he saw creeping up within the ranks of AA. He saw that some of the criticisms had foundation. And, lest this seem to be the view of an outsider, I refer you to Bill W.'s views in the April 1963 edition of Grapevine entitled, quote, Our Critics Can Be Our Benefactors, as well as to publications from GSO, Authentic AA Literature, if you will, much of it written by Bill W. himself. Look at such pieces from GSO as Let's Be Friendly With Our Friends.
If you are a professional, AA wants to work with you. The big yellow page I referred to, AA Guidelines for Members Employed in the Alcoholism Field, prints those who wear two hats. A marvelous little leaflet, Understanding Anonymity, that I'm going to get back to in a minute. Alcoholics Anonymous and the Medical Profession, especially two issues of Grapevine, the October 1963 and the September 1974 issues. The pamphlet, Three Talks to Medical Societies, by Bill W. And I would invite you to study especially the wording of a pamphlet from GSO called How AA Members Cooperate with Other Community Efforts to Help Alcoholics, pages 7 and 8. Here we see expressions like, and I am quoting, smugness, arrogance, or a know-it-all attitude. An egotistical luxury we can no more afford than we can afford resentments.
Grown beyond that defensive, dogmatic phase. And a last quote, with no less devotion to AA, but without defensive, dogmatic fanaticism. Now, my dear friends, in spite of the fact that your gracious invitation encouraged me to be as frank and as critical as I would, I would never have
[00:35:02]
the courage to stand in front of you and mouth such expressions if they were not direct quotations from your own authentic literature. And this is why I have emphasized humility as the keystone of the second legacy, and arrogance as the greatest enemy even of your own sobriety. And to those of you who are in the clergy, my friends in AA tell me that these remarks might apply especially to the clergy. Those in AA who have their own special temptations to play God because of their other hat. Although Father Bill P., who works with me in Seattle, tells me that when a clergyman has had about three DWIs, it isn't quite as much of a problem.
In the beginning, when alcoholism carried a bad social stigma and AA was fighting for recognition, it had reason to feel it was the victim of bias and opposition. Now, thank God, AA is respected throughout the alcoholism field as having made the greatest contribution of any single approach. I have made it a practice over the last few years to ask AA's, who are the greatest enemies of AA in the United States? And unanimously, without fail, the answer comes back, hard-nosed members of AA itself. It has few enemies outside, but if there is any danger, it is of destroying itself from within.
I'm going to close by citing three examples, and I am aware that these are exceptions, and I hope very rare. But they are too recent to be obsolete, and although we can thank God that there are maybe three-quarters of a million people who are sober and sane today because of AA, my remarks, I think, have some foundation, or I wouldn't be here. The first, Dick Van Dyke was on a platform at the NIAAA meeting in Washington, D.C., in June 1974, along with Senator Harold Hughes, Mercedes McCambridge, David Binkley, Melvin Laird. And Dick Van Dyke told of a letter he got from an old-timer in Florida, after his television show on alcoholism. Now, before I quote you the sentence that he quoted to us, I remind you of all the AA writings and talks about humility, love, compassion, caring, and the rest. The letter said, You blew your anonymity, you son of a bitch, and I hope you're drunk by the time this reaches you.
In contrast, read the AA leaflet from GSO, Understanding Anonymity, for a nice balance on the subject, including a plea from B.W. for a middle ground that condemns failure to disclose one's identity at times, as an alcoholic and even as a member of AA, just as strongly as it condemns unwarranted disclosure at other times, specifically at the level of press, radio, and television, as an AA. Again, some members of AA confuse confidentiality, which protects the privilege of the client, with anonymity, which is primarily intended to protect the humility of the member himself. Here, I think, we not only have to review our own traditions and principles, and I recommend that little leaflet to careful study, but we might do some reverse 12-step work. I think we, AAs, have an obligation to educate the professionals and supervisors, and so forth, in the correct tradition of AA on anonymity.
And this presumes studying something like that little leaflet to consolidate our own understanding of the tradition ourselves. Next, I mention briefly an article by Wayne Guth of Minnesota entitled The Death of a Philosophy, which caricatures science and professionals as synonymous with greed, pills, arrogance, atheism, record-keeping which violates anonymity, and not caring. Well, besides being an insult to all scientists and professionals who do care, it's just plain factually incorrect. Lastly, I want to just mention a very clever satire entitled Professor Winkley's School for Counselors, which appeared in the AA grapevine for June of this year. Now, when I first ran into Professor Winkley, I was delighted,
[00:40:03]
and I laughed myself sick some time ago when there was one called Just One and You're Hooked in which Professor Winkley is engaged and trapped in the grantsmanship game. And it was particularly appropriate to me because I struggled for 23 years with my course without any help and then eventually got an NIAAA grant, and I knew what he meant. I laughed my head off. So I think I have a sense of humor. And incidentally, if anybody doesn't know this tongue-in-cheek parody of the Twelve Steps that Hazelden put out, it's a riot.
I'll read you the first one just so you get the bit of it. I decided I could handle alcohol if other people would just quit trying to run my life. I firmly believe there is no power greater than myself and so forth and so forth. So, as I say, we have to keep our sense of humor. Professionals should laugh at themselves. But unfortunately, I'm afraid from listening to AAs around the country that it isn't merely my personal touchiness that sees in this particular satire, much as I enjoy good satire, much truth in it, a certain anti-professionalism that I think needs to be watched. Now, first of all, let me agree with R. Z. of San Diego, and he may be here, not only that it's enjoyable satire, but also that there sometimes are kooky therapies and pseudo-scientific jargon and offensive use of four-letter words. And if you'll pardon my mentioning it, as President of the National Association of State Psychology Licensing Boards, I witnessed grave concern among top professional psychologists across the country about these very abuses. So I certainly don't disagree with that. But on the other hand, this article's implied sweeping generalization to all of us trainers is not only, I think, somewhat illogical and unfair, but its implications are contrary to the third legacy literature that I have just cited, as well as to the expressed opinions of many top flight AAs around the country as I hear them in national meetings. It's not good AA to take the position, I am an alcoholic and therefore I know all about alcoholism and I can't possibly learn anything from one who is not. It isn't even common sense. And my point in this meeting, which is focusing on spiritual aspects, it is not a very good example of that humility which is the foundation of the spiritual life and is supposed to be the goal of all AA members. I'm afraid that Alfred Adler of Vienna was right about ego. Today the word is cooperation, openness, willingness to learn from all who can contribute to helping the suffering alcoholic. These are the marks of a comfortable, humble, grateful sobriety. Let me close with this footnote. It behooves you to align yourselves with those dedicated professionals, many of those professionals to whom incidentally many of you owe your very lives in ways that you don't even recognize, or perhaps will not admit, rather than clinging to some fancied opposition to them. If there is a battle looming on the alcohol horizon, it's between those who talk about conditioning alcoholics to drink in moderation and those of us who believe that this approach is literally killing alcoholics by feeding their denial. And it is to your advantage that some of us professionals identify themselves as drinkers, because part of the strategy of these conditioning advocates is to put all who oppose them into the category of the prohibitionistic blue-nose and to revive the emotionalism of the old wet versus dry controversy. I foil this attempt by identifying myself both as a professional psychologist and a moderate drinker, a wet, if you will, so that they can't put me in the box of total abstinence. My position is strictly in accord with the AA tradition and we'd better stick together. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Jim. Will you stand and have another stretch before our next speaker? Okay, don't breathe too much of that oxygen, would you sit down please?
[00:45:06]
Our next speaker reminds me that we neglected to make our usual annunciation of an AA tradition with regard to anonymity, and I'd like to do that now. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level, and perhaps it's time we read this right now in light of what Jim said. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always to maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or indeed any AA member be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meeting. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities. Our next speaker, Jack B. from Detroit, is one of the reasons why this room is overcrowded, and I didn't realize this, you know, until he mentioned there's a few people here from Detroit, and then when Bruce mentioned his clack, I conceded our problem, so you can blame him a wee bit for this. But our next speaker, Jack B. from Detroit, is going to talk about AA and the clergy.
My name is Jack Boland, and I'm an alcoholic, and Bruce's clack just left. Will my clack stand up? Twenty-two years ago, the Fourth of July, in Elmwood Park in Roanoke, Virginia, I sat for a short time under a giant oak tree watching some squirrels. And it was either the night before, or the night before that, or the night before that, I couldn't, I can't really recall. The police department of that city had been trying to get my attention on a high-speed chase throughout the city. The sheriff's department from the two adjoining counties had warrants out for me, and there was no place for me to go. I had been every place that I knew to go, to look for a solution. And I was that prodigal that Bruce told you a portion of the story about a moment ago, but so are many of you. So have you been that prodigal. And where I was that day in that park reminds me of a line that's in the story of the prodigal, this Jewish boy that wasn't even eating with the pigs. Remember, the story goes that he had to eat what the pigs left. Now, friends, when that happens to a Jew, he has really hit the bottom. And that's the idea of that great story. To me, the story of the prodigal are the two sons, really, the one that stayed home. It's the most beautiful and complete story that I think that we can find in any literature. And that boy that had it all, or at least he had it all in his head, and he knew exactly how to manage his
[00:50:03]
life. He knew how to run his affairs. He knew what he was going to do with the things he had to work with. And one day he came to himself in that pig pen. And that's where I was that day in that city park. And the line goes like this, and no man gave him anything. No man. What he was looking for was not to be found at the human level. It was not to be found in anything that existed of man. I didn't know the story of the prodigal at that time except as I was experiencing it, there was nowhere else left for me to go. And that was one of those moments of surrendering. I surrendered. Inside, I just quit. I stopped running. I stopped lying. I just quit. And something began to happen. It was not happening in my intellect. It was not happening in my awareness. I was not aware that things were shaping up to my advantage, but they were. In that invisible world that I later came to experience and to have some understanding of, something began to take place. That was July the 4th.
On July the 9th, I had asked, had called a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, the only one that I knew, to call and receive help. He said, where are you? And I said, I'm parked about a half a block from your place of business, down the street. I'm parked in a car. I didn't tell him that the car was not mine and they were looking for it. And I told him that I needed help, how desperately I needed help. And he said, I'll be there in about thirty minutes. And I went back to the car and sat and waited an hour and two hours and all that I had was a bottle of vodka. It was a hot July day, the 9th of July that year. And I was afraid to go back to the telephone, afraid that to walk away from the car, afraid that he would come and think that I had left. And I waited and waited and waited and finally I went back again and said, will you please come? And he said, I'll be there in a half hour. I went back and waited. The first time I called him was about noon that day. And I waited until 7.30. That's a long time for a drunk. I waited until the vodka was gone.
And I waited longer than that. And finally, when in the deepest part of my heart I knew that that member of Alcoholics Anonymous wasn't coming, I left. And that was all right. That was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me in my life because sitting there that day, I vowed that if I ever got sober, if I could, if I could, and until then I could not because I had been trying with everything that was in me to find the solution to my life. And if I could get sober, if anyone ever called me, I was going to be there.
Through the grace of God, my sobriety began the next day, July 10, 1953. And in the years that had followed, I have not had a drink of any alcoholic beverage or a sedating or tranquilizing drug. And that's through God's grace, not through any ability or capacity that I had. I proved to myself that my life was unmanageable as far as alcohol was concerned and that my life was unmanageable, period. No one else could have proven that to me.
I had to experience it, and I did. So when I was ready to step into this fellowship, I did not come in on the basis of an intellectual conversation that I had with another human being. I came in because I had been there and did not like where that was. I was an atheist. My first weeks in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, God, as I understood
[00:55:02]
him, was that there wasn't one. And there is a pretty sound basis for that. That was all that was required. God, as you understand him, there isn't one. That's how I understood him. And I was dry, and I was dry, and I was dry. I stole a key to the clubhouse. You had to be sober six months before they gave you a key. And each day I would steal into that clubhouse in the hot summer days, and there was no air conditioning in it. I was afraid to open the windows because someone might know that I was there. And that clubhouse was the only place of security that existed for me, a security that for a moment I would not have to go out into the world and face my life, face the conditions, the situations that were there, because I had long since lost the ability to function successfully drunk or sober. And I would sit in that clubhouse, and the thoughts of fear that filled my mind and the emotions of apprehension and remorse and regret and anger and self-pity, and I mean deep, deep anger toward the world because of what had happened in my life. And I was dry and going to every meeting that I could possibly find. And in a short period of time, I came to know, in AA, that physical sobriety, while it was the most precious gift, was not enough. There had to be more than that, because in my physical sobriety, without emotional sobriety that our Big Book and 12 and 12 refer to, I was not finding the solutions, the answers that I needed in order to live within myself and live within the world.
In August of that year, after I was dry, I think was the day that I came to myself. It was a Thursday. I was parked alone on a side street in a second-hand automobile that belonged to the second-hand used car dealership that I worked for. I had a job selling second-hand cars. And if you are a drunk who is dry and is afraid of people, you've got a real problem if you are trying to sell automobiles. Every time someone came on the lot, I walked around behind the shed, hoping that I wouldn't have to speak to them. Are you getting the idea that I was not doing too well? In August, one day, far more desperate than I had ever been when I was drunk, because I didn't have anything to turn to. That August afternoon, I, an atheist, prayed. And I looked up the street and down the street to make certain that no one would catch me doing this dastardly thing. And my heart was racing and pounding.
I knew that there wasn't a God, but it was embarrassing to me to have to act like it. But I had tried everything else. I had tried so many things before I had come into the program, and I tried the program, and I was not finding in the program that which made it possible for me to live. And so I began to pray, except I didn't call it praying. I didn't call it anything. If I had been forced to couch what I was doing in words, I probably would not have done it. But I did it. And my first thought was, God, I don't believe you exist. And that was a very good start, because it was honest. It was honest. And then the words began to come. And it wasn't the words it was a feeling. A feeling that I wish I could recapture at this moment in speaking to you. A feeling of such intensity that I had never had. It was a feeling of wishing that there was a responsive intelligence somewhere in the universe that could understand me and know my needs and for me.
Satisfactory and I Was No Longer Suggesting What's Satisfactory Was.
[01:00:00]
And My Next Statement Was, God You Know That I Need Help, That If You Don't Exist I'm Lost, There's No Place For Me to Go, I Must Have Help. And As I Spoke Those Words, I Was Startled Because Suddenly I Realized That I Was Not Asking for Help Like Lay It on Me, Some Money, Always Help to Me Had Been an External Thing, Something That You Did for Me, You Did It for Me, Or It Came in the Mail Like a Check or a Promotion with the Company, And I Realized That I Didn't Need a Better Job, I Needed a Worse Job, I Couldn't Handle the One That I Had.
Don't Give Me Anything Better, God, If You Exist, Until You Fix Me. Aha, For the First Time in My Life, I Had Admitted Verbally and Consciously That There Was Something Wrong With Me and I Was Asking a Power, a Universal Power to Restore Me to a Condition That I Couldn't Even Conceive of, But Intuitively I Knew Existed. And Peace Began to Happen to Me. Change Me was My Thought and Possibly My Words, It was My Intent.
Change Me, Because Unless I Am Changed, I Cannot Live My Life. Change Me. Seven or Eight Minutes Elapsed and the Word Stopped and the Feeling Began to Reside and Nothing Happened. It was Thursday, Sunday morning, early, like about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, driving back from a poker game in the next county. Doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? And in that game I had lost not only every dollar I had, the paycheck for the week, but I had written some hot checks, depressed, also depressed, hopeless, hopeless.
And suddenly, that quickly, something happened to me that changed my life. I had an experience. I experienced in me and around me a presence that was so fantastic that I'm not even going to try to put that experience into words, except to say that inside myself I heard, not in sound, but as though in thought, the statement, Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear. And instantly I was unafraid. My first conscious contact with God, I would remember this way, that the words that I heard or the experience that was indicated to me became an actual experience in my life.
I did not know how afraid I had been until I felt the love that cast out that fear. And suddenly God was to me exactly what our big book and our program has said from the first page and says through the last page, God is experienceable, providing you fulfill the conditions of that experience. And without knowing it, on Thursday, later I went back and looked, I had fulfilled as a living experience in my own mind the first of the twelve steps.
I was not admitting my powerlessness. I was experiencing it. I was stating it, but I was coming from the state of being powerless without any thought that I could ever, ever possibly manage my life again under any circumstances. And I had come to believe, or rather to hope, that a power greater than myself could restore me. I knew not to what, but could restore me. And I humbly ask God, if you do exist, to manage my life, whatever is required.
And the fourth step, in that moment, in those moments, I saw my life, at least in part, and one of the key things I saw was this, that everything that had happened to me had been self-inflicted. I was suddenly free to release the people that had done those things to me. You know those people, the ones that did it to you? You bet. The ones that put you there. I saw who put me there. Oh, did I see it clearly.
And it was all right. And there was more, but time does not permit going into it, except that this was my introduction
[01:05:01]
into the real program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not that program that you've heard from lecterns where people say, all that this program promises you is sobriety, meaning physical sobriety. That's not the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for me. It's not the one that I read in our literature. There's another program. I picked up that big book and read, Quite as important is the idea that spiritual principles will solve all of your problems.
Friends, I can't tell you what that meant to me, because I had a life that was filled with problems. There was not one area in my life that was intact. I had to start from, not from the beginning, but from the wreckage of the past. And here was given to me a way of life that not only provided the physical sobriety, but the tools, the actual, literal tools. And it promised me that if I would do these things, then these other things would happen, and it became a tangible way of life.
And in the weeks and months that followed, I took these two big books, the twelve and the twelve had just come out in the spring of 1953, and I read that like you would read a book of instructions. And sometimes in the morning and sometimes several times a day, I would go to these books to see what I was supposed to do next with my life. I found a way. And after that, I came to discover from some of the earlier members, and then I got into the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, and found out that originally our program was not to be called Alcoholics Anonymous.
That book was not destined to be called that when it was being written. It was to be called The Way Out. The Way Out. And those members of the Oxford movement who were changing that literature and writing this book did not yet know that they were members of Alcoholics Anonymous. There wasn't any such thing, and this program of recovery, this way that they had, had not been given to them by drunks, but by others.
And later I discovered that the thing that we call The Way, a system that provides a way for any individual to step into his spiritual identity, has been given to the race human again and again and again throughout history. Our program is not unique. We have made a unique application of a set of spiritual laws that have been given to man in varying form since the history of the human race. And that, to me, does not take away from our program, but only adds a fantastic dimension to what we really have.
Back in Detroit, in my church, and as you know I'm a minister, I would not be standing here and that is a miracle in itself. Two weeks ago on Wednesdays at our Wednesday evening class, we call it, I started a study of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. We can only get a few over four hundred people in that church. And the first night that we did the study of the steps, we had to turn people away.
Not members of Alcoholics Anonymous, but normal people, if there be such a thing. Who would want to find out more about this fantastic thing that you and I have? This way that will lift them into another dimension of themselves and will give them the ability to function and to cope. We don't have something that's just for drunks. What we have is for people. This is a spiritual program and it's not an intellectual program.
It has to be lived. Spiritual principles cannot be learned. They must be practiced. So we can learn about them, but that does not count until they are demonstrated in one's own living experience. We've got a system that requires that we take it out into our daily affairs and change something in our lives and then we know something about the program. Not until then. It must be demonstrated. It must become a living experience in the life of an individual.
And when that happens, a fantastic power begins to take place.
[01:10:04]
Something happens. An attraction happens. And one who does that becomes very attractive to other people. In a short time, that person has what other people want. It's a beautiful thing to behold. I'd like to speak briefly to our spiritual principle of anonymity. Humility expressed by anonymity is a very important part of our recovery and of our spiritual growth, and we know that. Humility as expressed by anonymity.
In earlier years, when our Founders became concerned about the arrogance and the possible misuse of this program, they were right in so doing. But it is quite possible that in attempting to not get into the ditch on the right-hand side, we have fallen into the ditch on the left-hand side of the road. You see, fear of pride. This is what our Founders were concerned about, pride, that ego pride that we drunks know so well.
And fear can hide behind our anonymity, and this becomes a process that is self-defeating because it becomes that same old wolf of pride hiding in the clothing of Little Red Riding Hood. You know, we think we're practicing a spiritual principle when we're hiding our anonymity. You see, this kind of anonymity, the fear of someone knowing who I am, is not spiritual at all. And it's not on this principle that the success of our fellowship was founded.
You see, one of the major errors that this fear of identity promotes is the idea that alcoholism is a stigma. And I want to tell you that it is not a stigma. It is not a stigma. The idea that you have a disease that is a stigma, now, that's a stigma. If you've got the idea that you have a stigma, and if you transfer that idea to some new member coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, that to me is a serious mistake, because it simply isn't true.
In almost twenty-two years of sobriety, I have never seen one human being, one person, man or woman, suffer because of their identity with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not one. And let me tell you something else I've never seen, an anonymous drunk. So let's don't build a heritage and a tradition that becomes a hell of fear and shame for the generation of alcoholics that is to follow us. We have nothing to fear.
Our nation loves us, loves what we're doing. And certainly at the level of radio and television, movies and the press, we maintain our anonymity. But do you know something? In twenty-two years, I've never had any problem at the level of the radio, television, movies or the press, especially the movies. No, we don't have, we have nothing to fear. And that principle, remember this, the spiritual principle is based on the idea that when we have this unfolding experience, we carry the message of it, the experience of it, the power of it, the love of it, the feeling of it, the motivation of it, and you can't help it when you have it.
When you have what happens to you in this fellowship, you are driven to go out and help other people with it. But credit goes to God. All credit goes to the power. We take no credit ourselves. That's the tradition. All credit goes to God. It's funny how lifelong friends who live across the street from each other and they're Bill and John Smith and Jones, when they come to an AA meeting. When they come to an AA meeting, even a closed meeting, they're Bill and Jack and don't breathe a word of who I am. Let's don't fall into that trap. I had a letter, the letter that asked me to speak here, had a card enclosed, and it was a card that was to be returned
[01:15:07]
to Box 459 Grand Central Station, New York, New York. And there was an enclosure with the card that said, if mailing this card will disturb your anonymity, then enclose the card in an envelope and mail it. How ridiculous can you get? It reminds me of the television commercial on a certain kind of hair coloring that said, only her hairdresser knows, only my postman will know. Everybody on earth that knows me knows that I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm here because I'm an alcoholic. And I'm so glad, I am so fantastically glad to be here, and I've made all of the internationals since St. Louis, but to be here and see people that I haven't seen for years. Before coming into this room, I sat and had a twenty-minute conversation with a man I have not seen for five years. I am his original sponsor back in Roanoke, Virginia. We talked about those days when this man could not function at the level of life. He could not keep himself. He could not be trusted to go to the corner and back. And the morning that I began to work with him, he had all of his possessions in a paper bag, and his possessions were a razor and an air syringe. Today he's a trustee of our foundation and holds a high position in one of the departments of the state of North Carolina. And before he moved from Virginia to North Carolina, he was quite concerned about his anonymity when he went there to take that job. And I suggested very strongly to him that he go and speak to the people and tell them who he was and what he was doing with his life, where he was going with his life. And he did. And it has been a beautiful thing to experience. Just a few minutes before that, on the way upstairs, I met a man who came up and he told me who he was and that I remembered him. I remembered a conversation in Dallas, Texas, ten years ago. One afternoon, this man was a doctor who was no longer active in his profession. Alcohol and drugs. And as I sat speaking to him that afternoon, there was an intensity in me that I can recall that was almost as great as the intensity that I had the day that I described to you when I was praying.
It was that very same thing, and you've had it many times for someone that you've been working with. Something inside you deeper than yourself speaks to that person and it says, You can do it. You can do it. It is here. It is for you. And I knew that this man had a destiny. And he told me today of the impact. He said his life changed. He said something happened to him. He came to believe that something greater than himself could restore him that day. And today he is restored to his profession, has gone on in his work as a psychiatrist in the state of California, is the medical direction for a very large hospital there, has established a program for alcoholic rehabilitation in that hospital, and is instrumental in similar programs throughout that large metropolitan area. And could care less who knows he's a drunk. This is a miracle that we have, and there are moments when you do not reveal your anonymity, but it is not because you care. It's a matter of good taste, good judgment. You see, on this Fourth of July, you and I who have been released from the prison of alcoholism, and we have been, if we've been given such a gift, then something is required of us, I think, and it's a principle. That's gratitude, the continued recognition that a power greater than myself, the God that I understand and am experiencing because God is experienceable, has not only given me this fantastic freedom and of service—service,
[01:20:11]
but more is to come. This morning before I was out of bed, I took step one with great intensity, feeling that this day I cannot manage my life, but God I don't have to, because I am coming to believe right now in the framework of this hour that you are with me and that everything I do today will be directed by you. And I turn my will and my life, my mind, my body, all that I am over to your care and your keeping. Gosh, that feels good just to think about it. Many times this day I have seen in my life, in ways tangible to me, that I've been at the right place at the right time to experience what I needed to experience. I think, for a former atheist, that's pretty fantastic.
We have a spiritual program that promises us many things. Read those things on page eighty-three and eighty-four, eighty-two, eighty-three, and eighty-four of your big book. I won't read them to you. They're there. It tells me that if I do this, then these marvelous things will happen. And in these years it has been that way. It's so beautiful to be here with you and with our friends who share our common interest with the solution.
You see, you and I are not here in St. Louis because we have a problem. Did you think we were all here that our common denominator is our alcoholism? It is not. That's not what brought us here. We have the solution. The solution is our common denominator. Yes, we have the problem, but having the problem is not enough. Knowing the language of the problem, knowing the symptoms of the problem, being self-informed about the problem is not enough.
The solution is required, and the solution is this fantastic program of recovery that promises many things. And you are a living example of that promise to me. God is experienceable. I have experienced God today in the lives of some of you. I have experienced God for almost twenty-two years in this life that is inside of me. I wish I could tell you how grateful I am, how glad I am to be a part of this fellowship and of this unfolding, this beautiful thing that has been given to the world. I believe that synonymous is the greatest thing that has happened in the twentieth century. I believe in keeping it beautiful. I believe in keeping it spiritual. I believe in keeping it within the framework of this big book and living from it. Thank you for having me here.