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Source: 1975 Denver International Convention – 1975 Denver Int.,with Deb P, Marvin S, Eve A, and Al M.mp3 File: 1975-denver-international-convention-1975-denver-intwith-deb-p-marvin-s-eve-a-and-al-m.mp3 Duration: 01:23:38
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Forty years ago, Dr. Bob and Bill lit the first candle, or lit the first ray of help for the alcoholics. They lit that candle and it continued to burn. This evening, sitting back midway in the auditorium, and looking at 18,000 people gathered together to help one another. It's a spiritual program. He also told me that there's eight words that's so necessary for making this program. In the first three steps.
In the first step, we admit it. In the second step, we come to believe. And in the third step, we make a decision. It's that simple. Very simple program. In the first step, if you don't take the first step, there's no need of going on or trying to go on. We accept the first step without any reservation. I know I did. I did after a period of time. I can't say that I did in starting. Like everybody else, we had certain things in our mind, certain things that we thought possible that maybe we could get well enough that we could drink again.
I know I did. I stayed around for a long period of time. As a matter of fact, maybe three years, thinking at all times that maybe it would be possible. But during this time, other people come in, stayed sober, got sick again. And in watching them get sick, I stayed well. I didn't want to hurt anymore. And they gave me the vehicle on which to ride that I didn't have to get sick unless I wanted to. In the second step, we make that decision.
We come to believe. First, we come. And after around about 30 days, we come to a little bit. When you come to, you realize how sick you are. And then you believe that maybe there is some help in this program. And then there's nothing else but you must make a decision. And if you don't do this, you're not going to go any further. Our founding fathers, Dr. Bob and Bill, gave us 12 steps. They didn't give us six.
If they wanted us to have six, they would have given us six. But they gave us 12. And the first three steps, necessary to take this before, necessary to work these, before you can get to the next step, before you can get to the fourth. And I believe you have to take them in the sequence in which they come. Now, in the second step, as I said before, we come to believe. And the last word in that step, I know that word insanity, if you look it up in a dictionary, it has a lot of connotations, but it scares the alcoholic.
It scared me. And I know I had many sessions with my sponsor on the second step because I couldn't quite grasp the fact that I'd always been able to make money. This was ever any problem. Oh, I didn't make as much as I wanted at times, and God was good to me that way because maybe if I'd had all the money I could possibly get, I would have drank myself to death. But the word insanity and the way it was written in there, I didn't like it until I can remember on many occasions of my sponsor quoting things that I had done, that I had told them in my story at this point.
It was far from being sane. Have any of you ever picked up a newspaper and found an ad of where they were selling beer at ten cents off a case? I mean, Piper's beer at that time in cans and bottles was $1.99. And there was a store in Grosse Pointe, I lived about 26 miles away,
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selling it at $1.89.
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And I got in a car with a fifth of booze and drove 26 miles and then proceeded to put 22 cases of beer in a trunk in the back seat and the front seat, driving 26 miles back and getting pretty drunk with the bottle that I was drinking, and then proceeded to hide 26 cases of beer in the kids' clothes closets underneath the bed and the tool shed underneath the porch, removing all the food from the refrigerator and filling it with beer.
We didn't need food. These are sane things, I mean very sane. It reminded me of another incident. I had an accident one night, I was in the right but I was drinking and you're in the wrong. About six kids in a cheering car had hit me and they were thrown out onto the street and I got out of the car and took one look and decided this wasn't any place for me and so I went over and laid down with them.
I was the first one in the ambulance. Do you know what chlorophyll is made out of? It's partially in coffee grounds. You always carry something that you can hide the breath. So, I mean these were the things that my sponsor started bringing up. My wife is back there and she'll verify this. She called me one night at a bar. I've been away for a couple of days and I've been on a little delayed drunk getting home.
She phoned me and asked me to bring home a couple of loaves of bread. I went into the grocery store and Brad, and you can tell how long ago it was, Brad went up from 18 to 20 cents a loaf. I proceeded to read out the grocery man and I mean I gave him a real bad time and I ended up at home that night with 50 pounds of flour and some yeast cakes and God damn it, Brad's too high, you're going to break it from now on.
These were the same normal things that an alcoholic can do and believe that they're right. I got well to a degree. Things were playing along great. I had about four, four and a half months of sobriety and I decided one night, now I went out almost every night, five, six nights a week with my sponsor, he was talking and I got to thinking, well maybe I'm not an alcoholic. I'd been to the workhouse on Sunday and there was a guy there that was celebrating a year of sobriety and he'd been in there 265 times.
Now I only made the workhouse 17 times in six months and now how the hell can I be an alcoholic? He's been in 265 and I've only been in 17 times. Now 17 times is not a record. It's a pretty good average but not a record and I decided well I'm going to go to one more A.E. meeting and if I don't find the answer I'm going to drink. I want to go get a bottle and maybe take off on one. I drove across town, all the way across 8 Mile Road.
I don't know how far it is but it's quite far to Grosse Point. I live near Grand River and 10 Mile Road, 8 Mile, 9 Mile Road. It's quite a long distance along there. I found the church. It was a little late finding the church that the meeting was being held in. Got out. I'm going to be late for the start of the meeting. They always had a little business at the start of it and this chairman was finishing up and I said I'll give you the speaker for the evening and it's Tiny Monson who was my sponsor.
I drove all the way across town to get away from him and he's speaking there that night and after the meeting he came up to me and shook hands and he said I'm glad to see you and I said I need to hear you like I need another hole in my head and I didn't come out here to hear you and I said maybe Tiny, I'm not an alcoholic and he laughed a little bit and he chuckled and he said Mark, and he said how do you feel?
I said I feel great. Now he had brought me orange juice and told me all about Keral Syrup and the things when I was coming out of it. He said how are things coming along financially? Well, I'd made quite a lot of money in this period of time because I'd gone back to work and as I said I was able to sell
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and things were coming along great. As a matter of fact, I straightened out all the small loans. State law in Michigan allowed two, I had seven. I used to go out and make small loans to make payments on the other ones and these are straightening out and he said well, what's your wife think about it? I said she thinks it's great. He said what the hell difference does it make whether you're an alcoholic or not, this program works that well for you.
From that day to this I've never tried to rationalize whether I was an alcoholic or not. Just the thought that you get well and you can stay well, you have that choice. AA gives you a different attitude, a complete different sense of values and all you have to do is say no, you don't have to drink anymore. I had seven years and seven months or seven years and seven days of sobriety. On January the 27th of 1959 I got a call from a doctor.
Now as I said, this was a spiritual program and my sponsor taught me to sincerely ask God each morning for a day of sobriety and that morning I'd ask him for the day of sobriety. At five o'clock that afternoon I was at the doctor's office and the doctor said, My, your son Tom has acute leukemia. He has from three to six weeks to live Being an alcoholic or having alcoholic tendencies, I decided that the only answer was booze.
The liquor store, the office was at 63rd and Lindale and the liquor store was at 66th and Lindale, three blocks and I had a new car and I took off for the liquor store. At 65th there was a stoplight and the car stalled. I didn't get it started. I ended up in a gas station across the street and at an 80 member's house about three blocks away. How I got there, God only knows. And as I said, I like to believe.
I have the greatest belief in the world that God answered my prayer that morning. I didn't get the case of booze. Tom fooled the doctor. He lived seven months. He died on Labor Day that year. He was quite an athlete. He had lived all that summer. He had 153 blood transfusions, I think if I'm right. He died, as I said, on Labor Day, 12 days after the Legion tournament in Bismarck, North Dakota. He played baseball that entire year.
He got a hit his last time at bat. During the time that he was dying, he taught me how to live. He taught me how to live. He gave me a spiritual understanding of a God, of my God. And I got five minutes more and this takes 15 minutes to tell. But anyway, he gave me an understanding. One of the things that he said to me was, Dad, if you've read all of your A.E. literature, A.E. teaches you how to live and you won't be scared to die.
And I believe that I'm going someplace better than where I am. I'm going to read you a letter that I just recently received and we received one of these each year. After he died, the kids in his class started a scholarship fund. And each year since that time, they've given the outstanding athlete in the high school a scholarship that's free of all others. At the end of each part in the year, the head coaches select an outstanding senior athlete for the school year.
The outstanding individual is presented with a Tom Spooner Memorial Award, a plaque, and so on and so forth. Ward, a plaque, so on and so forth. It's engraved and placed in the American Legion Post 435, which is the largest post in the legion. But again, he did more for me in his short life, he did more for a lot of kids in his short life. I believe that this, as I said, is a spiritual program.
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I can't do it, you can't do it, but God can if you let him. You heard today, and you heard all during this conference, that you are responsible. You are responsible because you are sober, because they were responsible. In 1965, at Toronto, we become responsible for, and as our brother's keepers. I'd like to close with this, and as I said it was a spiritual program, I'd like to close with this saying, that if you use it, as I've used it in the last 23 years, it will give you a big assist.
Don't ever be afraid to get on your knees, if you want to get on your feet. I'm going to give you a few minutes. One of the secret fears that I have, in a situation such as this, is to experience a situation when my mind goes blank. And so I looked up a few things about forgetfulness, and I'm going to pass them along to you. I think you will get a kick at least out of them. The first is Korsakoff's psychosis.
A mental disease often caused by chronic alcoholism and characterized by loss of memory and development of an aberrant system for justifying untruths. And my definition of my memory is, my memory is what I forget with. And then the last one, there are three symptoms of old age. The first is forgetfulness, that I've forgotten what the other two are. We will now hear from Eve. Thank you, Deb. Hi, everybody. My name is Eve Anderson, and I am an alcoholic from Port Huron, Michigan. Beautiful Blue Water District. Y'all come and see us sometime.
I'm a very happy, a very grateful alcoholic. I'm grateful that I became an alcoholic because, you know, I shudder when I think that I might have had to go through my whole life being the kind of person I was before I ever picked up my first drink and never knowing what was wrong with me. At least now I do have a chance to change. Because, you see, my life didn't become unmanageable because I drank. I drank because my life already was unmanageable.
I was shy. I was full of fears. I was afraid of people, mostly. I think I was always running all my life. I was always looking for something and I didn't know what. I didn't seem to fit anywhere. I didn't really belong anywhere. I couldn't make friends. I was always convinced that nobody liked me. And this was not surprising. It didn't surprise me a bit that nobody liked me because I didn't like anybody else either.
And I wasn't likable, so why should they like me? But, you know, there's something about… I'm sure that I had the alcoholic personality from the day I was born. And there's something about people like me. Heaven forbid that you should destroy the image. Never let anybody know that you're afraid. And so when I was the most frightened, I was likely to be the most cocky.
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By the time I got to AA, I had covered up for myself so much I didn't know who or what I was. It's taken me a long time to straighten this out. And there are times when I'm not quite sure that I'm well yet. But I've learned to accept myself. And this is a beautiful thing. I can live with me now. I'm comfortable with me. And this is important. I didn't drink too many years. It didn't take my first drink until after I was married and I was in AA by the time I was 35. And they said, she'll never make it. She's too young.
Now I see them coming 15, 16, 17 years old. Isn't this wonderful? But I discovered alcohol. I don't know why exactly. I mean, I can't remember. Well, yes, I do remember. My husband and I went to a dance. And for some reason, we hadn't been drinkers up until this point, for some reason we fortified ourselves before we went to this dance. And during the dance, some kind friend invited us out for some slow gin.
And we were totally unfamiliar with any kind of booze. And you know slow gin, it goes down like pop. So I think we overdid it a little bit. The next morning, I don't know how many of you know who I am. My husband is sitting over here. He's Andy. Judging by the handshakes and the kisses and the screams when people see him, I'm sure everybody at this conference knows him. But in any case, the next morning, we wake up. Andy says, how'd we get home? I said, we got home just fine. How did we get there?
So the first time we drank, we both blacked out. Well, after this, naturally, you assume that this is the way drinking is. And I didn't know really what a blackout was until I got to AA. And I made an amazing discovery too that night. All of a sudden I fit. I belonged. I could talk with people. I could carry on a conversation and be comfortable. And this was the greatest thing in the world. I didn't drink every day at first or even every week. I did drink on every social occasion because I found out that it oiled the social wheels. And I found out that I had a better time when I drank.
Eventually, I discovered that I couldn't drink as much as I wanted to and still remain a lady. And so I began dropping out of all the social things. I was musical. And my education was musical. And at one point, with this good old alcoholic thinking that I mentioned I already had, I said I was going to be the world's greatest opera star. Failing that, I was going to be the first woman president of the United States. And I didn't have the qualifications for either one.
House and ever, I did join the things that I would normally have enjoyed doing if I had not been so terribly self-conscious. I joined music study club. We lived in a small town at that time. And many civic clubs, lots of church organizations. All the things that I thought were proper, that I thought the public would expect a young mother to do. The young matron, you understand. And I found that if I had a drink or two before I took in any of these events, that I could do all right.
But you know what happens with the progression of alcoholism. Pretty soon, a drink or two before I went weren't enough anymore. Then it was three or four. Then it was the bottle in the glove compartment of the car. So that if the meeting lasted too long or whatever, I could run back to the car for reinforcements. I discovered I couldn't even so much as go to a Girl Scout meeting without a drink or without having the bottle in the car. And I began to drop out of all these things, one after the other, because now the drinking was a more important part of my life than these other events.
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The last thing that I dropped out of was my church choir. And I left that finally when the congregation began to take kind of a dim view of my having to be helped up into the choir loft on Sunday morning. And then began the worst year that I ever want to remember. And I don't want to forget it either. Sometimes, you know, things get so good that you get a little complacent. I don't want to forget that last year.
My husband had taken to hiding the bottle on me. His excuse was that the doctors had told him that I was dying. And he didn't want to be responsible for this, of course. So he'd hide the bottle when he went to work in the morning. And I said that, and I still maintain that the reason he hid the bottle was that so there'd be something left for him when he got home from work. He became quite proficient in this hiding bit. He'd go around the house and he'd rattle cupboard doors and open closets and upstairs and downstairs, although I never did go upstairs.
The bathroom was upstairs. I never bothered to take a bath. I wasn't going anywhere anymore, so why did I need a bath? And then after he was on his way to work, I'd be out of bed hunting for that bottle. One morning, I heard him go to the coal bin. I was, the minute he left for work, I was out of bed, nightgown and bare feet, down in the coal bin. I dug around a little bit with my hands, but you know this is a terribly messy procedure. And I didn't find the bottle, so I took the coal shovel. And the coal was all piled like in one corner of the bin. I moved all that coal from one side of the bin to the other. I didn't find the bottle and I didn't dare let him know to what lengths I would go to hunt for it. So I shoveled it all back again.
I estimated later that there were approximately two tons of coal in that bin. Two tons over and two tons back is four tons of coal, no matter how you look at it, restores to sanity. And I didn't get into trouble because I didn't drink in public, but I went to a lot of hospitals, or I went to one hospital a lot of times. We didn't have treatment centers in those days and I'm mighty grateful for that now. I did it the hard way and I'm glad. I could always find a doctor to operate on me for something.
And one morning, my last trip to the hospital before I ate, I had been operated in the morning and I was not supposed to be up. They didn't get you right up in those days like they do now. And I wasn't even supposed to be awake, but I don't know what happens to you people. But I guess I'm kind of typical among alcoholics that sedation does not what it's expected to do for me. It has no effect on me whatsoever or I go right off my rocker. And this day it was doing nothing whatsoever.
And all day they came running with sleeping pills and hypo's and goodness knows what all. And evening came and he came in to see me and he had the answer, he had a bottle in his pocket. I finished off that pint of Imperial before he left. It was a very small hospital and there was one nurse on night duty. All the visitors left and everything quieted down. They got the patients ready for the night and I was lying there minding my own business. My room happened to be next to the maternity ward. And I was lying there looking out the window and my shade was up.
And under the street light I saw a procession of little red men coming. And it was an endless procession. I could see it way down the street. And they were the cutest little guys you ever saw. They were about your tall. They were all dressed in red with little red pointed caps and they all were carrying lighted torches. And I thought my gosh they're going to set fire to the hospital. Now I'm a good joe like most alcoholics are.
Now I'm a good Joe like most alcoholics are, and I had to get into the maternity ward to warn those new mamas to get their babies out of there, which I proceeded to do.
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This is a small town and they all knew me. They had no reason to think that I was lying to them. They didn't question me. They start out of bed and down the hall, a procession of their own, the nursery was way down at the other end of the hall, to get their babies. Well, somehow or other the nurse got this straightened out and got me back in bed. I had a very bad night that night, and I, you know, I can still see those little guys.
I never did actually encounter them again in that same way, although my husband tells me that for a long time up until I ate, once in a while at night, when we'd settle down in what we used to call the Anderson Bar, Grill, and Bedroom, because we ate, drank, and slept all in the same room. We had eight rooms, but we used this one. I would be lying down, either passed out or sleeping, and he would be finishing up his drinking. I'd rise up in bed and I'd point to the door and I'd say, Oh, oh, oh, oh, here they come, and he'd say, Who's coming? And I'd say, Those little red men. And he'd walk over to the door and he'd say, Now look, fellas, she's tired. She wants to go to sleep now. So why don't you just go away and leave her alone and come back some other time?
And he'd close the door and I'd lie down and go back to sleep. He could always fix these little things for me. I depended on him completely. Well, the day arrived, of course, when I called AA. The miracles began to happen and they haven't stopped yet. That really was the happiest day of my life. It took me a long time, believe me, to get over all these hang-ups that I had, and I wish I could stand here tonight and tell you that I have overcome every one of them. I haven't, but I like myself a whole lot better.
I told you about this being so terribly self-conscious. I carried this with me for a long time. It took me a long time to get rid of that because I knew everybody was pointing at me. I knew everybody was looking at me. I knew everybody was talking about me. If there were a hundred people in a room and two people were out in the corner talking, they were talking about me. You better believe they were talking about me. And I couldn't walk down an aisle like this because I could just envision eyes turning and following me right down the aisle. Everything I did, I was so self-conscious.
And one time, you know, it occurred to me, I began listening around these tables and everybody tells the same stories. We identify with each other. And I began to think, now we're all so very much alike, aren't we? Are these people just as self-conscious as I am? And I'll bet a lot of them are. So I began to listen harder. And they are. And they are. And so I came up with my own little theory on this. If I think that everybody is looking at me, and you think that everybody's looking at you, who is everybody looking at?
I was the only woman in my area for a long time. A few came and went, but the only one handy, the one that stays over. And you know what happened. I had the privilege of making all the coffee and of making all the lunches and of doing all the dishes. And this went on week after week, month after month. And I got a little bit disgusted about this. You know, I began to identify after a while with these people. And it wasn't so difficult for me to talk to them.
And at first, this coffee and dishwashing and everything was a really great break for me. Because it gave me something to do with my hands. It kept me busy, but it made me a part of the group. And so I didn't feel so self-conscious. But after a while, I get to know these people, and I too want to be a part of, I want to be a part of all these little meetings that go on after the meetings, the little discussions. And it's beginning to bug me that I'm always doing KP. And I was really complaining one night.
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And I'm going around the table picking up ashtrays and cups, and I was muttering away, what's the matter with you guys? Can't you help me a little bit? I need a little help around here. I don't have to do all of this all the time, do I? One of the old boys in there looked up at me and he says, and just who the hell do you think you are? Well, I went home pretty mad that night, you know. But I got to thinking about it. Just who did I think I was? For the first time in my life, I was a part of something. I belonged here. These were my people. They were allowing me the privilege of serving my group. And I was complaining about it.
And that, believe me, is the last time I have ever complained about dishes or making coffee or emptying ashtrays or giving talks or making 12-step calls or anything else that I can do in this scholarship. And as long as God gives me breath and the strength to do it, believe me, I'll keep doing it. Because for this, I am responsible. And it begins with me. I spent the first year of my AA taking my husband's inventory, and I found out that didn't work so very well. He just did not work this program the way I thought he ought to.
But finally, it dawns on you, there's only one person you can change, and that's yourself. I had a very bad habit of not being able to listen to people. And this, of course, was the self-consciousness, the self-centeredness. I couldn't listen to you because I was so wrapped up in myself and this one little tiny bundle of me that no way could I pay any attention to what you were saying. And I would watch you. I wouldn't be rude and interrupt you. And I could make all the right responses.
I could stand there and listen and say, uh-huh. Oh, really? Well, you don't say. I never hear a word you said. Because I was so busy waiting for you to shut up so that I could jump into the conversation and tell you all about my problems, my troubles, my kids, my home, my job, my anything. I was not interested in yours. And this was one of my biggest problems. I was not interested in other people. I have taught myself to listen.
Really, I don't know how to even explain it to you, the wonderful feeling that I can get now when I can put my own problems out of my mind, knowing that I don't have to repeat my problems, knowing that somehow, with God's help, they are going to get solved. Because while they're busy getting solved back here, I'm busy over here trying to help somebody else. And it works. It works beautifully. I don't know exactly what it is that God has in mind for me. I often hear people say that God works through other people. He does. For me, He does. But He comes to me in so many other ways.
I don't know what His will for me is, but I do know that He has given me twelve beautiful steps to work with. And I do know that when I need answers, the answers are in those steps. I know that we have literature that's superior to any other literature anywhere that I know of. The answers are in those. The answers are, to me, in a beautiful piece of music. In my yard, I wish you all could see it. It's like a park. It is just beautiful. God's been very good to me. I have flowers that nobody in my neighborhood has. And people stop going by, just stop and look at it.
God comes to me there. God comes to me in solitude. He comes to me in my newfound ability to be by myself without having to run from my own thoughts. To be able to be comfortable with me within myself. He's there. He's in the trees. He's in the sunshine, in the sunrise, and the sunset.
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I get up every morning and I always say, good morning, God. It's so much nicer than saying, good God morning. And one of the things I do first is go to a window and look out at this yard of mine. And sometimes I say, good morning, yard, too. And it's a beautiful day. And even if it isn't, I know we need the rain or we need whatever else is coming. And once in a while I think about this friend of ours who said the other day that he looks out and he says, gee, it's a beautiful morning. The sun is shining. Everything is lovely out there. I wonder who's going to louse it up for me.
That's the attitude I used to have. Who's going to louse it up for me? Somebody always did me dirt. Nothing was ever my fault. I know God doesn't want this. I have a little theory about the 12th step. I think that all 12th step work begins at home. I think that if we were to practice the same principles in our homes, the same patience and the same open-mindedness, the same granting the other guy the right to his own opinion, that we'd practice around A.A. tables, we'd have happier homes.
But you know, it's an odd fact about human nature that we show our worst side to the people we love the most and our best side to strangers who don't care at all. I've caught myself many times getting up in the morning and spoiling the day for my whole family just by my attitude toward things. Just because I'm a little unhappy with myself this morning or things aren't going well, I send everybody off and off.
And then I can walk into my place of work. Well, I don't work anymore, but this used to happen. Walk into my place of employment and say, well, good morning, Mr. So-and-so. Isn't it a beautiful day? And how are you today? He doesn't care. Spoil things for the people you love. Coming home at night the same way. Andy and I have done this many times, and I'm not proud of it. We're both tired. I'm in at night. One says something to the other one. The other one says, ah, shut up.
And we say, well, if I can't be myself at home, where can I? Is this being yourself? I don't like to think this is myself. Those people at home have suffered more for me than they have any right to have suffered. They don't deserve this. They deserve the very best that I have to give them. I'd like to close with a saying that is very dear to my heart. I hope you like it, too. What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. And it's my prayer that I might so live that what I become will be an acceptable gift to God as I understand Him. Thank you all for investing in my sobriety.
Thank you, Eve. The next speaker, Al. Well, hurry up now, anybody. We'll stay with the diehards now, I guess. My name is Al. I'm from the Boston area. I'm a member of the Everett Group and the Marlin Suburban Group, and I'm delighted to be in Denver. And I hope that this late hour and this pressure you've had all day won't unnerve you. I want you all to be relaxed. In our group in Everett, we had a rule of thumb one time that you had to be sober three months before you could speak. We had a guy there who struck records.
We had a guy there whose track record was extremely poor. He'd stay sober two weeks, he'd stay sober three weeks, but he never could quite attain this goal of three months. But he finally did. Well, of course, this gave us great elation, and we decided that in this honor we would make him chairman. So he was the chair of his first group, and everybody arrived, and he got up in front, and he had a big, you know,
[00:45:21]
big cowbell, he had a big gavel, you know, banging and running the things. And after the first speaker had finished, I came in, and he sat in the back of the hall, and he sat next to a guy named Dan Healy, the rest of the soul is dead now, who was rather a volatile Irishman. And the guy said to Healy, he said, who's up there, isn't that Joe so-and-so? And Healy said, yeah, what about it? He said, well, next door to the meeting place was a bar room called the Shirley Club. He said, well, I was in the Shirley Club with him an hour ago, he said, having a drink with him. And Healy says, you must be mistaken. The guy says, look, I know him, and he said, I know where I was. So following the second speaker, there came a pause, they had the collection. So Healy went up, he said to this guy, look. He said, were you next door in the Shirley Club? The guy said, yeah. An hour ago, he said, yeah.
And the guy said, who's up there, isn't that Joe so-and-so? And Healy said, yeah, what about it? He said, well, next door to the meeting place was a bar room called the Shirley Club. He said, well, I was in the Shirley Club with him an hour ago, he said, having a drink with him. And Healy says, you must be mistaken. The guy says, look, I know him, and he said, I know where I was. So following the second speaker, there came a pause, they had the collection. So Healy went up, he said to this guy, look. He said, were you next door in the Shirley Club? The guy said, yeah. An hour ago, he said, yeah. He said, you ever drink? The guy said, yeah. He said, what do you mean by doing that? The guy said, you didn't think I was going to stand in front of all you bastards without a drink, did you?
So I don't want anybody here to get nervous. I drifted into drinking very easily. I'm a newspaper man, and I'm Irish. And the Irish have a God-given right to drink. And when I was drinking, the radio, and that's how long ago it was, the radio and the movies depicted newspaper men as real swingers, you know. And they were, you know, running around with press cards in their hat, and they were drinking and crowds and chasing women and everything else. And I didn't want to destroy the image of my profession. So I started to drink. Now, I went to work on the night staff of my paper. There was 15 of us. Now, 14 of these guys drank. Now, one guy didn't drink. He was an old Shakespearean actor. He was kind of too mean to drink.
But every night before he went home, he used to gargle his throat. Well, as young as I was, I didn't like people that didn't drink. So I dumped out the gargle, and I filled it with straight alcohol. And when he gargled that night, you could hear him all over the newspaper, all up in Boston Common and everywhere else. As I say, as young as I was, I didn't like people that didn't drink. Now, these other 14 guys, the AA prevents me from taking their inventory, and I can't tell you they were alcoholics, but they were enthusiastic drunks, the whole 14 of them. And, of course, I'm looking at them, you know, and they're graduates of Harvard and BC and all these other places, and they're in a profession I love. And they're drinking and raising hell, and everything's going out the window.
And I said to myself, if I get like these guys, I'll stop. But what happened was that I finally became the Peck's bad boy. I passed them all. That is, those that survived, because a lot of these guys died in this process. And we had a thing called the Game of Dawn Club. We worked till two, and we drank till dawn. And two guys going home one night, they missed a curb in the road, and they hit a pole, they're dead, have a big rake, everybody feels sorry, but nobody mentions the booze. They were unlucky, that's all. Another guy goes home, Beacon Hill, falls against a gas jet in the property, he's dead as a mackerel on the floor in the morning, everybody feels sorry, have a big rake, nobody mentions the booze, he was unlucky.
It was the way it was. I never paid much attention to people dying from booze. I had a friend of mine, he had cirrhosis of the liver, and I helped him die. Because we got him in the hospital, and he was a secretary, former secretary of Curely, and I was a hotshot newspaper man, and they got all the doctors, and they worked on him, and three months they got him, and they were quite pleased with, turned him on.
When we were leaving, the superintendent said to me, he said, you know, he said, if Frank drinks again, he's gonna sign his death warrant. I said, don't worry about him, doctor, I said, we'll take care of that. And he said to me, how much do you drink? Well, I wasn't gonna tell him how much I drank, so I said, well, I take about a half pint a day. He said, you're next. I said, no, no, no, not me, doctor.
So anyway, this guy got up, went up in the red hat, and he sobbed for about two, three weeks. He says to me, he says, you know, he says he gets high, he'd like a little beer. I said, that's all right, but in moderation, in moderation. So we started on the beer in moderation. After a couple weeks, he said to me, the beer fills me up to here. He said, it's kind of tough. I said, I'd like to have a drink now and then. I said, in moderation.
[00:50:20]
Well, to make a long story short, he's dead in two months. We had another big wake, and everybody felt sorry. Well, he was unlucky. He was unlucky. Didn't register to me at all. Didn't nothing register to me. Well, you probably say to yourself, well, the guy's a village idiot, you know, all this stuff going on, he's paying no attention. Well, it really wasn't. I worked my way through college, I worked my way through law school, and I went ahead in the newspaper business. I covered every major criminal case in the East.
But stories began to drift back to my paper about things I said and things I did, and they thought I carried the reputation of the paper with me, and they didn't like what they heard. And they put me in the office to keep an eye on me. By this time, I'm a full-fledged alcoholic. They don't know it, I don't know it, and of course, the balloon went up. They even promoted me. Not big promotions, but they gave me minor promotions on the theory that I would straighten out and fly right. But each time they gave me a promotion, I tipped over the apple cart. So they didn't know what to do. Now, the whole point of this thing is, all of this is going on, and everybody's going frantic. My family's going frantic, my bosses are going frantic, my brother, they think.
But I'm not going frantic. So it's a waste of time as far as they're concerned. I should have known I was an alcoholic somehow. Well, in 1931, I got married. Now, that's not because I was an alcoholic. That's simply because my wife thought it was a good idea. But in 1935, she divorced me on the grounds of gross and confirmed habits of intoxication. That's what Massachusetts law says a drunk is. And I figured she was crazy, and the judge was crazy, and anyway, you don't get that drunk in four years. And they marry her for better or for worse, don't they? And why don't she stand by the sinking ship if she thinks it's sinking? It didn't bother me in the least.
Well, I married Wade. In the paper, I took a pyramid cover suspension. Two days, four days, eight days. And of course, I was a daily drinker. Now, a daily drinker was a terrible threat to his bosses because he keeps them off balance. You know, some days you're drunk, some days you're half drunk, some days you're coasting, see? And they never know. They never know. And that's the way it was going. As I say, I'm not paying any attention. Well, I guess everybody except the guys, you wouldn't know where the Red Hat Tavern is, but it's on Howard Street in Boston. It's opposite the Old Howard, which was our famous burlesque house. And everybody in Boston that I associated with, I guess, thought I was an alcoholic or drunk or something, except these guys in the red hat.
This was a terrific place because 50% of the people that drank there didn't work. So if you worked, you're in the upper brackets. And this gave you a spirit of confidence, you know. During the day, if things went bad, you could go up to the hat and you could tell them all about it. And they'd say, well, why don't you go to New York and become managing editor of the Times? Or why don't you go to Chicago and become managing editor of the Tribune, see? And we'd all have a drink and the problem was settled.
So as I say, another thing that should have been a clue to me was I lived in a $4 a week room in the west end of Boston. Now, this disturbed a lot of people, but I felt I had a bed and I had a bureau and I had a hat rack and a washstand. And I didn't see what the hell else you needed. I couldn't understand what all the screaming was about. And this place I lived, we'll call it a rooming house for want of a better description. It had alcoholics and it had narcotics. There were all kinds of people. And it was about two blocks from the Old Holland. Now, the ballasting only went from one to eleven. This joint went right around the clock, see?
And after I sobered up, I found out it was the biggest narcotics drop in the city of Boston. But I knew there was a lot of movement at night there, but I was too busy drinking to be an investigative reporter about this thing. So as I say, everybody's getting upset about this thing. And, uh, I don't know how much time I got now. I forgot, but that's all right. Anyway, I was on a drunk. I use this word advisedly, see? It was one of those years, like when the stock market is jiggling, you'd be up and you'd be down. But I was with about three or four of my buddies. And we were at it for about three or four days.
[00:55:02]
Well, anyway, I woke up in the Scotty Square of Boston in a flea bag hotel. Now, the Scotty Square is known to sailors all the world over. But a few years ago, they tore it down, they built a government center. And now all the sinners and all the drinkers, they drink in a joint which is aptly called a combat zone in Boston. But at that time, the Scotty Square was the scene of the action. And I woke up in this flea bag hotel, and the room was covered with blood. Now, I woke up in many strange places under many strange circumstances. So this fact didn't bother me. But the blood did. I had busted a blood vessel, and I didn't know that. And these clowns gave me some stale beer that had been there during this episode, and they nearly killed me.
I lay there, and I couldn't drink water, and they had all kinds of remedies. At that time, somebody had decided that frappe creme de menthe was the answer. Now, this stuff is tough going down, and it's worse coming up. That's all I can tell you about it. But I lay there in my bed of pain, and I thought to myself, this is a desperate situation. Why don't you do something? Now, I was more desperate than I knew. I had been suspended in absentia. My paper couldn't find me to suspend me, and they suspended me by word of mouth, thinking that one of these other guys would stumble across me.
But I thought of AA, you see, because in 1941, my sister, who's a schoolteacher, she thought I was a drunk. She got the Jack Alexander article in the Saturday Evening Post, and she gave it to me. Now, my only recollection of that article is that there was an illustration or a picture showing two guys going in this bar room to see two guys who were sleeping in the bar. Now, I thought these guys were do-gooders. I didn't think the two guys should have been asleep in the bar. I thought they should have been in a booth. But other than that, I figured it was none of these guys' business, see? So I threw it away.
So early in 1946, my sister, who still thought I was a drunk, went into 39th and Avenue, the AA office, and she got the literature, and she brought it home, and I threw that away, too. Because I didn't think I was a drunk. I knew what a drunk was. I could go to the Red Hat, and there was a derelict on the right of me and a derelict on the left of me. And I was a working drunk. So I just wouldn't pay any attention, and I'm thinking, well, what'll I do, what'll I do? And I thought, well, maybe I should join AA. And the only thing I knew was they stopped you from drinking. And I didn't want to stop drinking, because I figured if you didn't drink, what did you do? You mean stay home and count your toes. I didn't want to live like that, see?
And I said to myself, well, during the period of time I was drinking, I had a boss, and he was a reformed drunk. It was one of the worst periods of my existence. I didn't like reformers. And I figured these people were wacky, too. Not people that hit you overhead with an ax, but a lunatic fringe. And if my paper found out I was connected with them, I would never write again. And I felt, too, because this place that I hung out in, they had missions up there, and when things were tough, you'd get up and get a bowl of soup and think for yourself and whatnot. And I figured that anything, anything that stopped you from drinking and showed you this new life had to have a religious motif. And I figured this thing is some sort of a come-to-Jesus movement. And I wanted to be saved, but I figured there's no particular panic about it. You know, time will take care of those things.
So there I am in my bed of pain, and all this stuff is floating through my mind. Fortunately, the active alcoholic thinks he's a smart guy. And I said, you're a smart guy. And I said, you go to free meetings, you find out what these people do, you apply it to your life, you resume your drinking, you won't have so much trouble, and that's the answer. That's how I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, you might say, well, that's a bad way, you know, but it isn't, because a lot depends upon what happens to you. Now, if when I had come here, the glory of this program had been unfolded to me, maybe like Wilson on the hospital bed where the cool wind went across his brow or something like that, but the first meeting I went to, a guy got up. He was 18 times in the Bridgewater State Farm for Drunks in Massachusetts.
He was 16 times there, he was 14 times here, and I hadn't even been out of Scotty Square, and I figured, I figured this poor devil, he needs this sort of thing. The second meeting I went to, there was a guy up in the chair, he was an amateur, Bob Hope, he was giving one-liners and people were laughing. Bob Hope, he was giving one-liners and people were rolling in the aisles, and I didn't see anything particularly funny about it.
I thought the guy wanted to make an ass out of himself, that's his own business, but it doesn't concern me.
[01:00:01]
So anyway, at the third meeting, I was on my way out, standing in the back with two guys. One had gone, don't worry about ringing that bell. Two guys had gone to school with me. One guy says to the other, he says, I know that guy. The guy says, speaks to me, he looks mad. Well, I was, I was mad at the world, I was mad at everything, waste of time and effort and everything else. And the guy says to me, how are you?
Well, I hadn't met anybody, I didn't want to meet anybody, because I wasn't going to be around more than three meetings, and I didn't want anybody keeping any book on me. I said to the guy, I'm not an alcoholic. I said, I got a little trouble in the office, and I'm working my way out of it, I'm going to be all right. He said, will you go to a meeting with me? I said, yes, and I left. He beat me to the punch, he called my house, he talked to my sister before he even got home.
And the next day, I'm telling him how I can't meet him, and she tapped me on the shoulder, she said, I'll drive you. I was hooked. Now, over in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a huge apartment dwelling, called the Washington Elm. 250 apartment, something like that, wasn't one of the new. And there was a nigger B-V-A guy who lived there, and he was going to dry up the world. And he went around on this project, and he told all the women they were holding temperance rallies that night, they could bring anybody they thought were alcoholic, and they all brought their husbands.
Had a big crowd, big crowd. Put me up in front of the chair, I gave him a bidet, never saw it before, never saw it since. Hope to God I never see it again. But at the finish of the meeting, he said to me, what do you think? I said, look, I told you, I'm not an alcoholic. I said, I got a little trouble in the office. Now I'm in the back, working my way out of it. He said, look, say, you won't be fooling around here unless you got some kind of trouble with drinking.
He said, now, if you got some kind of trouble with drinking, he said, you could be an alcoholic. He said, if you're an alcoholic, there's nothing in front of you, John, but death and sanity and trouble. He said, as long as you're in the mood, why don't you get sober and stay sober and go to six or eight meetings. If you decide you're not an alcoholic, you go your way, we go ours, there's no harm done.
He said, if you decide you're an alcoholic, you got another choice. You can come with us, you can go your own way. We won't put any rope around your neck. So, Jesus, I get out of the place, and I got a buck in my pocket, I'm out of my territory. It was dry that day because I was afraid of the temperance rally myself. And I says, well, I'll go home. I went home. I got up the next day, I twisted my arm, and I went to a meeting that night.
I went to 18 meetings in three weeks. And I was awful sick. I had rump cramps in my legs, I had cold sweats. I thought I was going to die. And I wondered why I was torturing myself. A lot of people I didn't know, didn't care about, and I would never see again. I knew I was going to drink. I didn't know it was Friday or Saturday or Monday, but I knew I was going to drink. It was over my whole history.
So, I'd go to the meetings, and, jeez, they'd be there, they'd be laughing at you, up with joy and talking, patting each other on the back. And I said to myself, I think that I'm a guinea pig in this thing. I think these people are drinking on the side and keeping me sober, see? Because I couldn't figure out how you could be sober and be happy. I figured if you didn't drink, you were like those Prohibition posters.
You're the guy in the black suit and the black frock coat and the black hat in the Southwest. And I didn't want to be like that. Well, anyway, I went to the 18 meetings in three weeks, and I knew one thing and one thing only. I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I was the type of person that couldn't drink in safety. That many people in this world could drink, but I wasn't one of them. My brother is. He takes one drink or two drinks, he wants no more.
Disgusting type of drinker, but that's what he is, see? I was an all-or-nothing guy, see? So I said to myself, well, maybe some of us threw the booze. God forbid I should say there was all of us threw the booze. Some of us threw the booze. And I could see a pattern of trouble with cops, with policemen, with society. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Now the question was, what was I going to do? Well, as I told you, I watched these people with great suspicion.
Some said they were sober three months. Some said they were sober six months. A couple said they were sober a year. I didn't quite believe them, but I figured what the hell would go wrong with the gag anyway. I said to myself, well, I'll give it the old college try. So I went to 90 meetings in three months. I don't say that's the way you should do it. I'm telling you what I did. At the end of that time, I knew two things and two things only.
I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I couldn't drink in safety. I knew there was an answer. I knew there were the 12 steps of AA, a program of recovery, which I could apply to my life. And behind me stood AA. Behind me stood the AA people. So I said, well, here I am. That was in October 1946. I haven't had a drink or a substitute since. I don't want to tell you that life was a bed of roses since.
[01:05:00]
Of course it isn't. You have your share of tragedies, reversals, and troubles. But it doesn't make that much difference. AA teaches you to stand on your own two feet and face them. I think there's, well, you know, I was glad that the other two speakers spoke a great deal of the spiritual part of the program and of God. Because my approach to Alcoholics Anonymous, to be certain about it, it was cold-blooded.
I'm well aware of the power of God, and I'm well aware of the power of God played in my recovery. But at that particular time, spiritual concepts or ideas meant nothing to me, and my approach was perfectly cold-blooded. I don't care whether you use it or not, but I said, I covered a murder one time. This woman killed her husband with cyanide or potassium. And when I thought of liquor, I used to think that there was one of those little capsules that she put in for her husband when he went to bed that night.
And that's the way I regarded alcohol. You might think it's a bad way, but it pulled me through. And I think there's two great powers at work. I remember I spoke one night in Maine, and I didn't speak too much, but I don't think I mentioned God. And a guy got up after me. He was a lawyer. He was rather, I suppose I shouldn't take his inventory, he was a rather pompous individual. And he said that he was disturbed because the previous speaker had crossed over the spiritual part of the program.
And, you know, and he told how he was flying from New York to Boston. He was up in the airplane, you know, and there above him was the moon and the stars and everything else. Below him, the lights twinkling and how the plane was aligned. And the more he spoke, the madder I got, see. And of course, he said, you know, I had to get rid of your resemblance. So when it was over, I grabbed him and I said, look, I want to tell you something.
He said, you were wondering in that airplane who held up the moon and the stars and everything else, weren't you? He said, yeah. I said, well, I was drunk, I did. I never heard any more from him. But I think there's two great powers at work. I think there's the power of group therapy such as you and I see here night after night. I think there's the power of God, either as you know him or come to understand him.
And you let those two powers work for you. When you do a little work yourself, everything comes out all right. Thank you very much. Applause. What an act to follow. As I said before, my name is Deb. I'm an alcoholic. And I learned early in my battle with booze, especially when I was broke, that carrying a portable typewriter into a strange bar and making like a reporter usually created the setting for fabricated stories, which in turn called for a round or two of drinks from my new bosom buddies.
Seldom was I satisfied to be just me. I would create a story, create the character, and move in. The Mission Park Zookeeper was a case in point. I was working as a meat cutter in a Hollywood, California supermarket. I was due off work at 9 p.m. I got drunk by 7 from sampling the contents of various barrels of wine in the delicatessen department. And I developed alcoholic amnesia. The following day was my day off, and my hangover was filled with guilt.
I couldn't remember much of what I had or had not done after 7 the previous evening, so I bought a quart of sherry wine to ease the pain and somehow ended up at the zoo just in time for the Lion Tamers Wild Animal Act. Even then, I couldn't be content with being just Deb. I went around behind the animal cage, introduced myself to the trainer, and told him I was a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News and was on assignment to learn just why there weren't more spectators at these wild animal shows.
I was carrying an inexpensive camera, hardly the kind a reporter on assignment would use, and I suggested I take his picture standing beside a lion to be published with the story. He handed me a small stick about a foot in length. Hit him if he gets frisky. He swung open the gate. We went inside. I took his picture standing by the male lion with the big head. Then he took my picture, stick and all, standing beside the same lion.
[01:10:00]
The lion roared, and the end result was blurred. Another time I went through San Quentin Prison in California as an honored guest, and this time supposedly covering a series of food riots for a newspaper. I was, well, I hope the city editor who arranged this trip didn't get fired for his effort, and I hope he found AA. I mention these incidents so you will know that it was perfectly natural that I become versed in the five W's and the H.
Who, what, where, when, why, and how. Put your answers to these questions in the first paragraph of your newspaper story I told my audience, and even if the first paragraph is all that survives the editor's blue pencil, the important facts will remain. And possibly if I put the same who, what, where, when, why, and how here at the beginning of this talk, it will also help resist the poor memory sit-down strike.
Mine. You see, I do not suffer, as I said before, from a poor memory of my life. I do suffer from a poor memory of what I said last and what I plan to say next. And that trick of mine can be worse than an editor's blue pencil any day of the week. So here we go. Who and what. My name is Deb. Among other things, I'm an alcoholic. An active, practicing alcoholic I was until I found AA. Where? Where an alcoholic? Anyplace.
I couldn't run away from myself. When? All my life, I guess. I don't believe I could ever drink normally. And why? Uh-oh, why am I an alcoholic? I'm just lucky, I guess. And one of the reasons I'm lucky is because God didn't make me the only alcoholic on earth, and what a lonely thought that is. Instead, he gave me the AA program, and he gave me you folks to love and be loved, and love has little value until it is given away.
And finally, the H. How did I become an alcoholic? And my answer, who knows? It may have been zero defects on the assembly line. To my question, how did I find AA? The answer lies in the grace of God. Our allotted time this morning defeats any effort for my swinging merrily into a long and blow-by-blow drunk-a-log. Instead, will you walk with me briefly down my road less than five years after the zoo and San Quentin happenings?
And of this period I have written, alcoholism is a lonely disease, and I cried in my loneliness, why, why, why? Alcoholism is a fearful disease, and I was afraid. I tried to run away from memories of yesterday that would not return and tomorrows which I feared, but there was no running away from the shadow on my soul, and forgetfulness through drink deserted me. Alcohol no longer eased the pain. The landlady said, you drink too much, you'll have to move.
A black judge looked at me as I stood with my head wrapped in cloth to soak up the blood, and the judge said, it looks to me like you've been punished enough. And some other words which I did not understand except the part, don't come back. But before long another judge said another sentence, and another judge another, and the progressive disease of alcoholism is an insidious and patient adversary.
The tempo increased, geographical cures, get away from drinking friends, change jobs again, Hollywood to San Francisco to Vallejo to Lakeport, then back to Southern California, and Long Beach and San Pedro and Gardena, and finally with my wife and two-year-old boy. With my wife and two-year-old boy, back to the home of my youth, Ogden, Utah, in an attempt to recapture yesterday filled with at least a bit of happiness, but memories fail to live again.
[01:15:02]
I asked the question, how can I stop drinking? I asked churchmen and bartenders and doctors and even a college professor. I believe some tried to establish communication with me. None succeeded. At that time, there were no AA groups in Utah or surrounding states. In October 1944, Reader's Digest published a story about Alcoholics Anonymous. The title, Maybe I Can Do It Too, didn't mean much, and the AA story was read to me.
AA could help others. Maybe AA could help me. The story gave Post Office Box 459, Grand Central Annex, New York, as a lifeline, and two days later, I sent a telegram, charged, of course, please send someone to help me. Back came an answer, contact Post Office Box 1862, Salt Lake City, for alcoholic assistance, and my first reaction was, damn, now everybody will know I'm a drunk. I sent the telegram to this Post Office Box, charged, of course, and that evening the phone rang, and it was Olin, my sponsor-to-be. He has gone now.
At that time, I had been painting a few signs on Ogden Skid Row. It was my job to get to Salt Lake City to meet Olin the following evening. He asked me to come sober and round-trip Bamberger Interurban and Streetcar Fair, call for three dollars, which I didn't have, and I wrestled some sign work the following morning. I had faced the shaking problem before, but this morning it was worse. Metering brush in right hand, grasped right wrist with left hand, pressed both elbows against the body, but shaken I still did.
I promoted a couple of beers and somehow got the job done, and that evening I met with Olin and Donna at their apartment in Salt Lake City, and the miracle of sobriety began to unfold. The date was November 2, 1944. A two-time loser, Olin had found AA program in the Oregon State Penitentiary at Salem, and upon his recent release had traveled to Salt Lake with his wife, rented the Post Office Box to protect AA anonymity, and registered with AA in New York.
Since that day, when I discovered AA, I've had many exciting and some very unexpected learning experiences. After many years in AA, I learned I was allergic to more than alcohol, no matter what the source of procurement. I got hooked. That experience and the experience of others has convinced me that alcoholics in general may be allergic to certain drugs. I was lucky, and God was extra kind. Another time I was elected to a public office in my town. In office I was honest and I told the truth, and you can imagine the result of what happened in that experience.
And down through the years, experiences in sponsorship were and are exciting and important. I still believe the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions are the foundation of the AA program, and many of you are no doubt familiar with the Washingtonian story. During the middle of the 1800s, this group of abstainers grew from six drunks to more than 400,000 sober men and women, and within ten years destroyed themselves and dropped out of sight.
The Washingtonians had six steps. 1. Alkies helping each other. 2. Weekly meetings. 3. Sharing experiences. 4. Availability of members at all times. 5. Reliance upon a higher power. And 6. Total abstention from alcohol.
[01:20:03]
Although it is obvious that this program was incomplete and possessed only limited opportunity for personality change as compared with AA's Twelve Steps, it did provide the tools for at least short-lived sobriety for thousands of drunks, but it failed to provide the standards at all that were comparable to AA's Twelve Steps. During the early days of the AA program, especially prior to the adoption of our Twelve Traditions, AA did suffer some of the same symptoms that destroyed the Washingtonians. The fact we survived those hazards is one of AA's many miracles, but it is still a 24-hour day.
Researching and writing the Washingtonian piece and other grapevine stories have been important experiences in my life. As with sharing with our AA archives in New York, we can learn from our experiences, and to keep it, we must give it away. Time calls for a conclusion, and in 1946, a crest of respect and gratitude was kindled by DeWitt Wallace, editor of Reader's Digest, and under date of December 5, 1946, he wrote me this letter.
We appreciate your writing us. You leave us with a deep feeling of humility that we could have given you the initial impulse to begin the fight for recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous, to our mind, is one of the finest organizations in the country, based on the realistic assumption that those who have experienced the disintegrating effects of alcoholism can best help people similarly affected. It proceeds on the principle that mental and spiritual health are only maintained by continually helping others, and he signed his best wishes to you and Utah AA, cordially, DeWitt Wallace.
Love and respect are beautiful and so are you. If you all rise, we will close with a word of 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. Amen.