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Source: 1980 New Orleans International Convention – 1980 New Orleans Int AA and Media Part 1 of 2 beginning 3 min has echo.mp3 File: 1980-new-orleans-international-convention-1980-new-orleans-int-aa-and-media-part-1-of-2-beginning-3-min-has-echo.mp3 Duration: 00:42:12
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I'm very grateful to be here. In fact, I'm grateful to be anywhere. I'm grateful to be sober. I have to read an announcement regarding our anonymity tradition, and it's perhaps particularly appropriate to read this announcement in this meeting devoted to AA's relationships with the media. There may be some who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. If so, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or member be identified by full name 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 come before personalities. It's my pleasure to introduce Jerry D., General Services Trustee, who will chair the meeting. Thank you. Thank you, John. Is there a light here?
Not so much. Yes, enough so that we can see our speakers. We've had little problems not being familiar with the lighting system in this room. My name is Jerry Danzig. I'm an AA trustee and chairman of the Public Information Committee, and I apologize to you very sincerely for the delay in getting started. We were trying to straighten out a couple of things a little earlier, a few of the little things, and I think we're ready and rolling.
As you can see today, we will not only hear from our speakers, but we will have some videotape and hopefully some audiotape, including the new, at the end of the session, the new television spots that will be released shortly, and the new radio spots that have recently been prepared for what happened, who did what. Can someone touch the lights? I'd like to have lights up here on the lecture. Are those being controlled from the rear there?
We want them up, and then we want to be able to get them down during the television presentation. Can you bring them up again, please? I'm sorry. Our program today comes really in three parts. Our first speaker is a television writer and producer, and has had a very successful public affairs program in the New York City tri-state area. He's going to talk from the point of view of a media creative person, explaining what he did, how he arrived at it, and show some samples of what the result was.
Our second speaker is an AA member, and I will be introducing him shortly. He's going to talk about what they did in one of the states, where they have a very aggressive public relations program, and what they did on television, and he has some samples. Our third speaker will be talking from the point of view of an editor and a writer. He is a non-AA speaker and an editor. He will be talking about how media looks at public information coming from AA.
All right. It's my pleasure to introduce the writer, producer, director of a public affairs program called the Alcoholic Test, if I got it right, which appeared not only once, but was such a success that it was presented again, and Don will tell you more about it on WNBC-TV. The NBC owns and operates a station in New York, and his name is Don Luftig, and here he is. Thank you, and good morning. Did you ever hear of the motion picture films, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back?
Well, you probably have. The first film grossed over $400 million, and the second one will probably do as well. Now, in each film, there's a great deal of talk about the force. May the force sustain you. May the force be with you, say some of the characters in those films.
[00:05:08]
It's science fiction set on other planets at another time, but in reality, we do have a force with us today in our society here on Earth right now, and that force is with us 24 hours a day. It's called television. It's a force watched by more than 160 million Americans during any given week. It's probably the most powerful communications force ever known to mankind. Well, how forceful is it? Well, believe it or not, I've been speaking to you now for just about a minute.
If that minute was purchased for a commercial message during the football Super Bowl right here at the Superdome, it would have cost about $450,000. Worth it? At that price, I would hope so. The sponsor obviously thinks so. He feels that even at that price, television can deliver the message. Well, television is a force that can deliver the message that Alcoholics Anonymous wants to get across to the general public.
That message is that alcoholics are people and that alcoholism can be treated. Well, you know that message. You're here. But how do you let everyone else know? The answer is the force, television. In New York City, I'm a writer, producer, director with WNBC-TV. For the past three years, I've been working on a series called The Test Shows, programs designed to dispel the myths and misconceptions that people have on different topics.
We've done test shows on the heart, stress, love, marriage, divorce, energy, money, first aid, and so on. And the format is to present a series of multiple choice or true or false questions. The questions are written on the screen so that the home audience can read them. They have three or four seconds to select an answer. Then the host, science editor Frank Field, gives a correct answer and introduces an expert to briefly explain why A, B, or C is the right answer.
Then the expert uses that answer as a springboard to get other ideas across. About two years ago, I received a memo from a vice president. He said, Don, do a test show on alcoholism. Well, at first I was a little concerned. I thought, what can you say after you say alcoholism is bad, it can destroy your life, it can kill you? Don't do it. I frankly wondered if there was enough material for a half-hour test.
But I had an assignment, a challenge, find out enough about alcoholism to make a program that people would stay tuned to. Use the force to get a message across about alcoholism. Well, how do you start? Well, first you find an expert on the subject. I called Alcoholics Anonymous. I found a lot of experts. I told them what was being planned, and I asked for their advice. I attended one of their board meetings.
I listened, and I learned. I found out some facts. A 12-ounce glass of beer or a 5-ounce glass of wine contains the same half-ounce of alcohol as a shot glass full of 86-proof liquor like whiskey, gin, or vodka. I began to work out questions to ask on the show. Can you ever stop being an alcoholic? Does alcohol affect your sexual responses? Well, that last question was a must. Television's a force, but so is sex.
More questions. How great is the teenage drinking problem? Does black coffee help to sober people? Who gets drunk more easily, men or women? What's the difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic? I quickly discovered that there were a lot of questions that most non-alcoholics didn't think about and probably were confused about. One problem that Alcoholics Anonymous faces with the media is how to get the message and information about alcoholism across and still keep the audience interested.
Well, one answer is entertainment. The next question is, how do you make the subject of alcoholism entertaining? The answer is, not easily. You have to get the viewer involved. You have to change that person in front of the television set
[00:10:03]
from just being a viewer to becoming an active participant. Now, many of you may not care for television game shows, but they're a good example of audience participation. You sit at home and you match your knowledge against the contestant's knowledge. The audience ratings prove that game shows entertain as they inform. The test shows are public affairs game shows. They don't give away any prizes except information.
The subjects are in the public interest. At the beginning of each program we say, we're testing your knowledge on the subject of whatever that subject may be. We tell you it's a test. We challenge you. We say, how smart are you on this particular topic? Question. The number of Americans suffering from alcoholism is A, under one million, B, one to three million, C, three to five million, or D, over five million?
Ladies and gentlemen, you have four seconds to choose the correct answer. The correct answer is D, over five million people. Did you get it right? Another question. Who gets drunk more easily, A, men, or B, women? Again, you have four seconds. The correct answer is B, women. Now after each question, an expert, like a psychiatrist who treats alcoholics, or the director of a rehabilitation center, comes on to add some facts.
Fact. When you combine heavy drinkers and alcoholics, the number of Americans suffering from alcoholism jumps to over ten million people. Fact. More than seven out of every ten Americans drink alcoholic beverages. Fact. If both parents are alcoholics, their children stand a better than 50% chance of also becoming alcoholics. For the second question that we just asked you, the expert explained that women get drunk more easily than men because they have less water in the body, but the alcohol is more easily diluted by a man.
It takes about an hour for your body to absorb one half ounce of alcohol. If you take four or five drinks, you're going to need four or five hours to recover. A cup of coffee won't help you. It'll just make you a wide awake drunk. The attention span of someone watching television is short. So we kept our questions short and the answers short, but we got the message across. On a question about which organs in your body are harmed by alcohol, a psychiatrist explained that all of the body organs are affected and went on to say that alcoholism is a disease associated with the repetitive, compulsive ingestions of a sedative drug.
Any sedative drug, only one of which is alcohol. In such a manner, he said, as to cause interference with some aspect of that person's life, either his interpersonal relationships, job, health, marriage, or what have you. The psychiatrist then said, if a person drinks despite his own definitive best interest, his own long-term best interest, drinks to spite himself, that is alcoholism. Well, that was the message that went out to over a million people.
An alcoholic is a person with a problem. Another definition from a doctor, an alcoholic is anyone who is unable consistently to control the start of drinking or to stop once they've started. Okay, that was the message. A message to an audience that truly didn't want to hear the message. If I may, let me show you a few minutes of the TV show, The Alcoholic Test, and when it's finished, I will tell you one of the biggest problems Alcoholics Anonymous faces with the media.
Let's see that tape now, please. In private industry, approximately one out of five, ten, twenty adult males is an alcoholic. The answer is C, one out of twenty. Dr. William Connick, President of the New York City Affiliate of the National Council on Alcoholism and Deputy Medical Director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, says, Dr. William Connick, President of the New York City Affiliate of the National Council on Alcoholism and Deputy Medical Director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, comments, It's important because the alcoholism recovery programs in industry are very successful.
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They're one of our most successful programs and give recovery rates up to about 70%. If an employee is unsuccessful or not rehabilitated in an industrial program and loses his job, the recovery rates are much lower, down around 15%. Dr. Koenig pointed out that the reason industry programs do so well is that they offer help and at the same time they make the alcoholic realize that if the offer isn't taken, then the job may also be lost.
And job loss will mean a dramatic, frightening change of lifestyle. Now we mentioned to Dr. Koenig that people of all ages are deeply concerned that if they are heavy, sociable drinkers, they fear they might become alcoholics. How long does it take in most cases to become an alcoholic? Well, in most cases it takes 15 or 20 years of heavy drinking before a person becomes an alcoholic. But at any stage, alcoholism is a treatable disease.
And successful treatment depends on recognition by the people that surround the alcoholic that this is the problem and their willingness to take steps to help that individual. In many cases, it obviously doesn't take that long. Because according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, there are approximately 250,000, 450,000, 650,000 alcoholics between the ages of 12 and 17. The answer is C, over 650,000.
Dr. James McGowan is a psychiatrist and director of alcoholism services at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center of New York. Alcohol being a drug and one of the drugs that is readily available, teenagers very often seek this out. If a teenager does abuse alcohol, he or she should find help from someone experienced in dealing with teenage problems. I hesitate to use the word alcoholic with a teenager.
I think that it's important for the teenager to find help for problems with the idea that the alcohol is one at that point that he may be experiencing. Our next question. If you once become an alcoholic, you can never stop being an alcoholic. True or false? The answer is true. According to sources at Alcoholics Anonymous, not drinking for months or even years never qualifies an alcoholic to drink normally or socially.
Dr. Gitlow confirms the answer. I agree. I don't think that any alcoholic patient can safely return to the use of alcohol. Almost all of my patients can start drinking again and can drink for a day, some for months, some for perhaps a year, perhaps even longer. But sooner or later, there will be the loss of control. And at that time, there'll be catastrophic circumstances. If the alcoholic is willing to accept that occasional catastrophe, then he can safely go back to drinking.
But that will certainly occur at one point in the future if he continues to take alcohol. The average male alcoholic who seeks treatment is 20 to 30 years old, 30 to 40 years old, 40 to 50. The answer is C, in his early 40s. The average alcoholic has a job, a home, and a family. Contrary to public belief, less than 5% of alcoholics are found on skid row. We asked Dr. Stanley Gitlow about the reported rise of alcoholism among senior citizens.
This poses an enormous problem right now. For one reason, very little alcohol is tolerated by the older person. Perhaps one of the reasons why we see the patient initially in his 40s is related to the fact that about 40 years of age, one begins to note a change in the tolerance to alcohol. It takes less alcohol to do worse injury to you than never took before. And that is probably related to aging of the brain.
The older you get, the less alcohol it takes to interfere with your function. And hence, it is not unusual to see people start substance of drinking at 60 years of age and be quite out of hand and quite alcoholic by 62. We asked two of our doctors how alcohol affects sexual response. Dr. McGowan answers first, then Dr. Bissell. Well, Shakespeare said it increases the desire but decreases the performance.
And alcohol is a drug which does increase a person's interest
[00:20:04]
and may help them to release them from some of their inhibitions early. But obviously if a person's in a blackout, he or she is not enjoying sex. It's a well-known fact that alcohol, when used by men over an extended period of time in excessive amounts, causes impotence. It affects the woman's judgment about what she's going to do sexually so that she may be more promiscuous than she ordinarily would be and feel pretty dreadful about it afterwards.
In fact, that's one of the special problems of alcoholism in women. Another and rather obvious effect that it has is that since alcohol is an anesthetic, it's bound to diminish the real sexual enjoyment and real participation in a relationship that the woman has. Now does black coffee help to sober up people? Who gets drunk more easily, men or women? Why? How safe is it for a pregnant woman to drink alcoholic beverages?
Now those questions, some answers, some comments by our doctors, a drunk driving test, and more in just a moment. Okay, thank you. That was just a small part of the program. Getting back to one of the biggest problems that Alcoholics Anonymous must face in regard to getting their message across on television is to recognize that the audience out there doesn't give a damn about their message unless they, the audience, are personally involved with someone who has an alcoholic problem.
Yes, that involves over 10 million people, but how many of the other 212 million people want to hear about it? They have other problems, like drugs, heart problems, cancer, cerebral palsy. Alcoholism is but one of many illnesses competing to be understood by those people who are not directly involved. It isn't easy to get television time for a brief public service announcement. It's very difficult to get a half an hour to tell your story in any shape, manner, or form.
Newspapers and magazines can add additional pages if the stories or the advertising warrants it. Television can't. Television's pages are hours, minutes, and seconds, and there are only 24 hours in a day, and you can't add or subtract from it. And in those hours, the competition is incredible. The test show is just one format that happened to work. We know it did because the ratings told us so. Was it effective? The answer is yes, it was effective.
How do we know? The answer is not just in the ratings. We made it effective by putting telephone numbers on the screen at the end of the program. We put on the number for Alcoholics Anonymous. We put on the telephone number for Al-Anon. We put on the telephone number for Alateen. We gave the people who were watching the show a way to get help. They didn't have to write in. They didn't have to wait until the next day to visit someone.
They didn't have to do anything except pick up the telephone and ask for help. By cooperating with the local AA group, by setting up people who were waiting to talk to whoever called in, we gave a solution. The telephone lines were tied up for hours after the program. The nicest thing that the AA people said to me afterwards was, You saved some lives today. Thank you. I've never forgotten that. I thank them for giving me the opportunity.
Television is a force. It is a friendly force. Yes, your message is competing with many others. But when you get the opportunity to use it, use it to the utmost. You can get that audience out there to know that alcoholics are people and that alcoholism can be treated and that people are waiting to help them. WNBC-TV in New York City, as a public service, has now played the alcoholic test each year at Christmas time.
They plan to do the same thing this year. They like to feel, as I do, that we may have used that force to save somebody's life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Don. We're particularly grateful to you for being here at this convention and for a very effective and very interesting presentation. Our next speaker is an AA member,
[00:25:01]
and he has all kinds of credentials. He went right through the ranks, DSR, DCM, Intergroup Chairman, Delegate, State Chairman, and he's here to show you what they did in the state of New Mexico, which is one of the states that has been particularly effective and aggressive in its use of public information in relation to media. And here is Larry Kay. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Larry, and I am a very, very grateful alcoholic from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a member of the Metropolitan Group that meets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I bring you greetings and salutations to all you beautiful and wonderful people here at this convention. It is indeed an honor and a pleasure to be here this morning. You have seen the professional people, how they work, and I am definitely not here to compete with them, I'll tell you.
In the time allotted me, I would like to encapsulate, highlight, some of the ideas and methods that my PI chairman used to carry the message in New Mexico. I must add that this person was never involved in service and knew nothing about public information work as far as AA was concerned. I must also add that I chose this lady not just because she was available, but she had other qualifications. As area chairman, I wanted PI to be a lot better than it had ever been in years prior.
Public information in New Mexico was at a low ebb. I knew what I wanted, but any time that I discussed it with the people, I was met with negative attitudes. It just won't work. We have never done it that way before. You're reaching for the moon. Hell, Larry, why don't you just do away with PI and forget it? Sound familiar? Well, anyway, I went ahead with my ideas. I chose Pat for two reasons. Number one, she was personal secretary to the president of an advertising agency, and hopefully she of all people would understand what I wanted in PI.
Second, I had seen her chair an intergroup meeting about six months prior, and I decided right then and there that this lady was indeed a live wire. With that, I asked her to read A. A. Comes of Age, the service manual, and Traditions Illustrated, and asked that she become thoroughly familiar with the traditions, because to me this was of the utmost importance. I have packets here for those of you that are interested after the meeting, and I would like to explain to you the items in these packets.
The first sheet on the left side is a synopsis of the things we did for a period of 15 months beginning in December of 1977 when television spots previously were ordered from GSO. These were put into cassettes and distributed to the two Mexico TV stations in time for the Christmas airing, much like the ones you just saw on television. Then in January, Pat began a PI newsletter. A sample is also enclosed in these packets.
The newsletter, however, turned out to be quite a chore. At the assemblies, Pat would beg, plead for input from the districts, groups, and individuals, but would receive virtually nothing. It's much like banging your head against the wall. But Pat continued, very religiously every month, the PI newsletter. Pat's thought behind this newsletter was that we could all share throughout the area public information successes.
What had worked for one group hopefully would work for another, at the same time giving recognition to the group or the individuals for efforts and rewards for their hard work. Next in February, we held an open to the public meeting and was it successful? That's hard to answer. The audience appeared to be familiar faces, and yet when we read the questions that were asked, And yet, when we read the questions that were asked, there had to be many there who knew little or nothing of Alcoholics Anonymous.
[00:30:03]
We handed out these papers to each one who came. Our feeling was that people would be far freer in writing out their questions than they would be if they had to stand up and ask them. Later, we followed with a Spanish open to the public meeting, and it was also held in Albuquerque. Co-sponsored by groups from Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The feeling of this meeting was very similar to the ones that we had, the ones we held prior, the one we held in February.
We do know, however, that this Spanish open to the public meeting was successful. Two people attended this meeting as a joke. One year later, these two people came in as a direct result of attending this open to the public meeting. No other contact or anybody had talked to them until they decided that they were alcoholic and needed help. I'm happy to say that they're sober to this day. In Albuquerque, we have one public service television station, which is KNME, and they have certainly been good to us.
We've had two TV shows, or had three TV shows altogether, and it's called Inside New Mexico. And the producer, which you will see here on the screen, is Gary Dahl, has been the moderator. Before I show you a small segment of the first show, let me tell you a little bit about Gary. He's 26 years old, has never been drunk, not even once. And he cannot understand how anyone could drink, be sick, and never drink again.
So when he acts incredulous and asks questions, they're totally sincere. He simply doesn't understand. His tremendously industry is tremendously interested and makes a super moderator. This show was simply a panel show. It was question and answer type, along with one Al-Anon and two AA's. I selected just one four and a half segment of the one half hour show to let you see how the people were silhouetted, and believe me, this was no easy job for the TV people to handle.
So if you're ready to show and tell, here is a part of that first segment of the TV show. For you, but is there a point where you don't have to go to AA anymore? I mean, what, 17 years is a long time. After 18 or 20, or… No, Gary, what we learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is that alcoholism is an incurable illness. That once you cross this invisible line into alcoholism, there is no turning back the clock.
Regardless of how long a person stays without drinking, he might remain dry for 10 years, 15, 20, 30 years, that once he takes that first drink, he relates back to where he started at the beginning. The illness is progressive, and it doesn't make any difference how long a person has been without drink. Once he starts drinking again, the compulsion for more is set off, and the craving for more is set off to the point to where you end up maybe in worse shape than you were before.
So in order to stay well, and keep the condition arrested, and being aware of where you are and why you need to be without drinking alcohol, then the AA means help you, because you're sharing, you're being aware of why you're there, and also you're relating to just living one day at a time. You try to bring the focus on what you are doing today to arrest your condition of alcoholism, and this is where the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is so beautiful.
Thank you. Our next project was a radio panel. It was a one-hour show where the following discussion were… It was a one-hour show where following discussion with a moderator about alcoholism, the public was able to phone in questions and ask them of one of our panelists. We had asked the radio people prior to the day of the show if we ought to plant people to phone in and was told that it was never necessary.
Sure enough, the phone rang off the hook. More people listened to daytime radio shows than I ever dreamed of, so it was a good medium to carry on in public information. In November of 1978, we had our second TV show. This time the format was a mini AA meeting, and again, I'd like to take the time to show you a segment of it. It opened with the chairperson, who was Pat, doing the usual opening, serenity prayer, preamble, and reading the usual portion of the fifth chapter of the big book.
[00:35:00]
Then Louie gave a synopsis of his story. Following, we sat down and chatted with the moderator, again the same person, Gary. This is where the segment I have with today, that I have with me today, picks up. I think our two TV shows have been highly successful. Following the first one, very much like the New York script we just saw, central office received more phone calls in one week than they usually do in two months.
Go ahead and fill that. For that, we'll try something else. Our last project was to get a holiday message on the radio, and I wrote two 30-second spots and had them done in English and in Spanish. Nineteen dubs or copies were made and mailed out with an accompanying letter mailed to them to all the major stations throughout New Mexico. Then when I played the tape at our December assembly, one of the GSRs asked for a copy of the script.
I gave it to him. He took it to the radio station in the Gallup area and then translated it into Navajo. I'd like at this time to play those various spots for you. The time is upon us. We may not have been found for many, but if you have a drinking problem, it can be a time of fear, embarrassment, resentment, distress. Why not call Alcoholics Anonymous before the problem arises? New Mexico has 180 AA groups to help you.
Enjoy the holiday season with your family as a sober, happy person. AA can show you how. Call Central Office in Albuquerque, 881-1900. They'll direct you to a group near your home. That's 881-1900. If you or one of your loved ones has a drinking problem, you probably wish the holiday season would just go away. What can go away is alcoholism. Yes, alcoholism can be arrested through the Alcoholics Anonymous program.
Why not contact AA today? Learn how you can enjoy the holidays with your family as a happy, sober person. There are 180 AA groups in New Mexico. Call Central Office in Albuquerque today to find a group near you. 881-1900. That's 881-1900. If you or one of your loved ones has a drinking problem, you probably wish the holiday season would just go away. What can go away is alcoholism. Yes, alcoholism can be arrested through the Alcoholics Anonymous program.
Why not contact AA today? Learn how you can enjoy the holidays with your family as a happy, sober person. There are 180 AA groups in New Mexico. Call Central Office in Albuquerque today to find a group near you. That's 881-1900. That's 881-1900. Call 881-1900 today. One more. That's right. That's right. 99-81. Orgo 5-509 West Aztec. The Gallup AA group meets each night at 730. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981.
722-9981. 709 West Aztec. The Gallup AA group meets each night at 730. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. 722-9981. That's not great. See what can be done if we just get after it. There wasn't anything professional about going on out and asking the TV stations. All we did was we were a little persistent. We asked them and continued to ask them.
[00:40:01]
And the results were fantastic. Central Office, to this day, every time that we go ahead and announce or even run some of these 30-minute segments on Channel 5, which is a public information station, the results are still as staggering as they were the first time that we ran them. Okay, we will try to run that other segment, and it won't take but about six minutes. I'll turn you back the clock. Irregardless of how long a person stays without drinking, he might remain dry for 10 years, 15, 20, 30 years, but once he takes a…
I invite you to come back to the next convention. We will have found the spot by that time. These things happen, as you know, and we always seem to come out well somehow in AA. If we do find this, we will put it at the end of the program. And I want to thank you, Larry, for a very interesting and helpful presentation. Our third speaker is a non-alcoholic. He is a guest, and we are indebted to him for making the trip here and talking to us.
He's multifaceted. He's president of his own firm, which is called President of Health Communications, which produces educational material. He's also editor of the U.S. Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. This is a newspaper for people in the drug and alcohol field, and he's taking the other side of the coin. He's going to talk from the point of view, having been a reporter and now an editor, of AA approaching media and the relations between the two.
And here is Gary Seidler.