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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – AA AND MINORITIES – RS 06315.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-aa-and-minorities-rs-06315.mp3 Duration: 01:31:50
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We'll get the meeting open and I'll explain. The AA recovers over the past 50 years. Now for the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name or photograph and published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities.
My name is Wayne Parks and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Rogers Group in Rogers, Arkansas, and kind of like Dave, I think it's the best damn group in the world, and if you don't feel that way about yours, I would suggest you get another group. Now what we had this morning is a little different. This workshop called AA and Minorities, how this evolved was we had a regional forum in Hawaii about a year ago, and in it we tried a minorities workshop there, and we had such a ball with that.
We thoroughly enjoyed it, and I happened to be the one that chaired that one, and so thoroughly enjoyed it, we thought we would try it here at the International. So the way that we're going to work this one and the way that we worked that one, this is one that we will, there will be no speaking, we will be discussing among ourselves and come up with our own conclusions, and what I'd like to do so far as any kind of guidelines for us is I'd like to limit whatever you have to say about three to five minutes, and then before I call on you again, give everybody else an opportunity to speak on whatever we decide to come up with, and after everybody has been called on the first time, then we will come back and call on you again.
I think probably the best way to start out on something like this, and and if you would, go to the microphone, because this, we don't have a recording secretary here, we will, it'll all be on tape, so if you would, whatever you have to say, please go to the microphone and speak into it, so that not only can we all hear you, but we will also have a tape of it for the record. So I think probably the best way to start out this morning is, as you saw on the workshop title, is A.A. and minorities, and I think probably the first thing is, what is a minority?
What do you perceive a minority as being in A.A.? Is it little short guys like me? That's a minority. Black? Gay? Female? Big tall guys like I over there? What is a minority in A.A.? Young people? Blind? Deaf? Are there a minority in your group? What are we going to do about it? Do we have minorities? Think of your own group, think of your own area, think of gatherings that you have. How are we treating everybody in A.A.?
The A.A. I belong to doesn't know any minorities, but yet we have them, so everybody tells me, and especially when I get around these little tall boys at about 6'6", you know, I done figured out I'm a minority. Hell, I had to stand on a chair to talk to some of them.
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So I think that, what's your version? What is your definition of a minority? Anybody? Nobody has a definition of what they think a minority is in A.A. particularly? I can see now we're going to talk a bunch, aren't we? Go to the mic, please. I think it's personal. For me, being a minority in A.A., I associate it with being black, and for you, obviously, it's being short. It's whatever makes you feel different within a group of people. I'm mainly concerned, and since I've been in A.A., you know, where I go to meetings, I'm generally the only black one there, and so, of course, that's a concern to me, and I can make it into a problem, a bigger problem than it really is, and I have, and sometimes I still do. I haven't been in the fellowship that long, only 11 months.
I don't really know what to do about it. I gain a lot of insight from listening to other people, and that's what I was hoping to get out of this workshop. Do you feel like a minority because you're female? Where I work, I do, but you see, I feel basically, you know, it all goes back for me to being black. You know, I'm black, and I'm a female, and whatever, so I hadn't even thought in terms of when you were talking about yellow people, blind people, people who can't speak. You know, you only think about how it touches you, and that's all I've thought about in terms of minority. I don't have a real definition. How do you think that affects us in A.A.? I don't understand how you're asking that question. Well, what I'm thinking of, do you feel this within your A.A. group? Oh, certainly not, and I think one of the the smartest things I've done is to speak about it with a whole lot of people, just to talk about how I felt about that, so that I could get the feeling that it wasn't anything strange, and that it's not just me feeling that way. You know, my sponsor is Irish and Italian, and she feels the same thing I do in terms of being a minority. She doesn't feel like she's a minority, but she feels different. It's a feeling of uniqueness. She feels different because she has bad skin, you know, and most people don't have bad skin, but she's got bad skin, so she's different, so I just think it's one of those areas where we feel unique, and it's something that we need to talk about to hash out and get out. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir.
I'm John, an alcoholic from Philadelphia. Hi, John. As I sat and listened to your uh definition of minority, I would like to disagree with you without being disagreeable. I can't see a minority as being short, short white minorities, short black minorities, or I can't see a person crippled as being minority. We consider that as a handicapped person, so I would like to think in terms of setting a definition of, an objective definition of a minority that crosses all lines instead of one who has a handicap, as a young lady mentioned, or a physical condition.
As Americans, we look at minorities as blacks, Afro-Americans, which are Jewish or Hispanics. It just runs along our origin. Now, I look at it as one of the major problems in Alcoholics Anonymous in my travels, and I did quite a bit over the years. I think it's something that we need to work on objectively
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and constructively, because inwardly, I resent when a majority called me and said, I have a person I want you to talk to who is a minority. Okay, I think there's much education we need to work on in that area. And also, as you go back to the boards, I think there should be some things done in the literature of minorities. The last piece of literature I saw that dealt with minorities was what happened to Joe. And I don't look at Joe as being a real minority. You see, and what happened to Joe, he was Spanish. So we can look at him as a minority if you want. But basically, the problem with young lady said, when we go outside of the inner city, you run into Anglican groups, and usually we have one or two there, and it has nothing to do with the handicap, the physical characteristics of the person, or the physical height, short toe.
I mean, when I walk in a room, 6'2", I'm a minority baby brother. I was 5'1". You understand where I'm coming from? So I think if we can clarify the definition of a minority before we get into it, I think that would help give us some direction. That's what I was asking for. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else have a definition? Oh, I'm sure. My name is Ivo Morgan. I am from Conway, Arkansas, and I'm definitely an alcoholic.
Hello, everybody. I'm very grateful to be here, and I honestly believe I was a minority when I came into this Alcoholics Anonymous program. The only person I could look at was Ivo and Ivo's problems. After quite a bit of struggling and trying to work these steps, I'm still learning one day at a time. I don't consider myself a minority. To me, a minority in Alcoholics Anonymous is the person that's just coming in and having the shakes and jittering. He is a minority, and I want to help him get sober and help him get rid of those shakes. This is my personal opinion, and this program gave me the right to be right and the right to be wrong, and if you're in an AA meeting and you feel you're a minority, I'm going to give you the right to be wrong because you are wrong, in my opinion. There's no minorities in AA except the individual that thinks he is.
I think he's wrong, and I don't know. It's not coming out like I want to say it, but the person that really needs help, that is having slips, that can't get a hold of the program, I might call him a minority, but I'm not even sure I'd do that. To me, everybody is equal. I love everybody. I think everybody has a different personality, and you have to get to know those personalities. There's people that I disagree with, but I love them. They're not a minority to me. Thank you.
Thank you, Adam. The gentleman that was behind you there. I'm Leroy, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Leroy. I'm from the Black Rap Group, Denver, Colorado. Our group was started about 10 years ago because a few of us were going to different meetings. York Street, a lot of people probably heard of it. The first meeting I ever attended was the York Street Group in Denver, Colorado. 1311 York. A lot of us were going to the meeting. Minorities, not a lot, but quite a few that were having the problem. It ended up that people were pulling us aside and telling us, this is the way you work this, and this is the way you do that. After attending 93 meetings in 93 days at that same place, I started talking to other people, and we decided, by being black and being a minority, they were pulling us to the side to tell us, work the program the way…
Side to tell us work the program the way I say if you want to stay sober we found out that was a bunch of bullshit
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pardon me but I mean uh so we ended up there were four or five of us got together and we formed a group called the Black Rap Group where we had a chance to solve some of the problems that we were facing as being a minority as being black and getting into AA because we found out and we weren't just going to go sit there and play bridge or gamble or whatever we wanted some AA and when the group was formed we were lucky enough to we got a couple sponsors that were white which had that had a lot of sobriety then we found out we were getting people from skid row and we weren't all skid row drunk uh everybody has their own bottom but we got help from all segments of the city and ended up making us a stronger group and right now our group isn't as large as it was when it started but we find people coming back and maybe they didn't slip but they just went to other meetings to seek out different help in different ways and one thing I'll never forget this little gentleman told me he said God taught you to love everybody I didn't mean you have to like them all and uh so we got together we picked a little bit from here a little bit from there and we're a pretty strong little group what do you have in the Denver area now are you participating in other other groups and all the area activities uh are you trying to stay exclusively you know we black we participate in everything we can't stay exclusively black we have uh quite a few people but we wouldn't want to stay exclusively black we have quite a few people that come well we've run into a lot big problem court referrals where Joe Blow from the other end of town the court has sent him to an AA hey you have to go to AA meetings hey I'm going to go where nobody knows me so I'll go over to the side of town where black people are you know we find uh a lot of that and sometimes they'll come in they're drunk we'll throw them out and we don't I don't sign their little card or nobody else in our little group will sign their little card and we let them know hey this is an AA meeting and you're not coming here to disrupt it we've got the cops and we've got everybody coming in you know because they've court referrals they send them in and they disrupt our meeting we just kick them out because we're there to maintain the variety we have what size is your group now right now running steady about 30 about 30 right we meet twice a week and what kind of a mix do you have in it um it's about 80 percent black 20 percent white do you have any indians uh do you have any court referrals i'm just curious uh as to uh how the other group was going and how old is it 10 years 10 years right i'll never forget the guy who was the head of the association instead in the city i heard him say one night to some other person he said no black or no gay group will ever make it he's drunk again we're sober and still operating thank you thank you uh you and then that one in the back hi my name is sylvia and i'm an alcoholic hi sylvia i come from the greenwich village group in new york city um i would really not like to see us spend a great deal of time defining what is a minority i'd like to see us sort of move on and branch out and cover some other areas um for me a minority is that which is obvious wherever you go i am a black woman and whatever meeting i go to whatever country i visit i still remain a minority person you see my color before you hear my voice i consider minorities to be blacks american indians alaskans mexicans and other hispanics which covers a rather large group if you look at the town or the city in which you reside depending upon the composition there may be minorities that are not obvious in other words in the midwest perhaps someone of the jewish faith would be considered
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a minority i think what we need to be addressing is are we allowing minorities not to get the program because we allow them to feel different okay obviously living in a big city such as new york and living choosing to live in greenwich village we are a conglomerate it's a little u.n so that we don't have a problem you could be a purple people leader and if you come to the meeting and you're not drunk and disrupted we will welcome you with loving arms okay that's all i wanted to say thank you selby my name is norman i'm an alcoholic i know i think the creed says in all this is the only requirement is desire to stop drinking and now i can remember the first time i come i didn't care who it was that helped me that's what i look at when i come to alcoholics anonymous suffering alcoholics our main purpose is to try to help the personal care who they are you know that's the key to it all is uh no race color creed uh there's um what 52 countries here people can't speak anything stuff here but we still have communication it is and i think the love and fellowship is the key to it so i don't think there should be any minorities our whole thing is just to help the suffering alcoholic and that's the whole thing about alcoholics uh thank you my name is my name is mike from chicago i'm an alcoholic i wanted to um to kind of highlight something that sylvia was saying about minorities um um and that is that um uh you know a person can walk into a room and you look at them and we immediately start hanging up our our cultural stuff on them you look at a woman and before you realize who that person is you start thinking woman and what that means to you and how you relate to women i hear someone with a southern accent and i immediately start hanging up my stuff on there you know what southerners are like um i come from from the gay minority so that um i can act straight and tell you that i'm straight so nobody has to know but as soon as i say i'm gay um then people start hanging up stuff on me um irregardless of who i am and so i think that's another aspect of minority group is what they see us as what what the culture teaches us and a god love it and it's real spiritual and it's kept me and it's it saved my ass essentially but aa has a lot of cultural stuff in it from america for example um so that you know what what you see happening in america you see happening in aa you know and i can take you to meetings where i'm not all that welcome as an alcoholic because i'm a faggot and you know we all know those kinds of meetings where we whoever we are aren't going to be that welcome um so i you know there's different you know that's one more aspect of minority okay okay we didn't would uh sylvia's definition of of our minorities was this acceptable to everybody if it is and then let's go a step further let's assume that this is basic definition of the minority let's get into the the question of how those of us and he just addressed the meetings in aa how in your particular area your particular group how are we addressing this are we are we really in our groups and the only ones i know are the ones i attend in new euros but are we are we allowing this minority minority i guess problem to exist in our groups how is it in your area what are you doing to address it and then the next thing i'd like to go to from that point would be let's go to the book and what does that book tell us the first i'd like to hear perhaps what we we're doing in our own groups how is it in your area are we uh are we promoting the problem are we addressing the problem but what's going on in your area all right it's him over here and then you after him so my name is jerry johnson i'm from cleveland ohio and i'm more importantly i'm an alcoholic
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hi jerry i've had the privilege of working with alcoholics for quite a number of years primarily minority alcoholics i have watched our community in cleveland grow from three or four five minority groups black groups to now where it's over 50 and that's been the answer to aa in our community in that we have as a matter of fact the dominant group helped us to put together a black group within our own community and there were very good reasons why one was that we just didn't have the resources to go out into the outlying areas to get what we had to get addressing your question we have that in the big book that we don't we don't deal with controversial issues and one of the things that aa has not done is allow us to yes in fact discuss minority issues discuss sex religion uh politics these things happen but i don't know they happen in the right sort of milieu aa has and i think it's been a way of a defense mechanism they didn't really want to get into it they don't want to really get into it so therefore that's one of the real controversial issues the other thing that i'd like to bring out is is that as i see it and especially in our state politics has gotten involved with the whole process and as much as i would love to respect the idea that we're all equal and that love and and service is all that's required whatever the real world has given us that's what we still are and it's still represented right here in this at this conference as i walk the streets there are some who are really into the program i mean this is my own belief there's someone really into the program and others walk right by and they're all wearing the same tag and that bothers me that disturbs me which says again that i'm not being seen now i'm probably wrong i'm probably a little paranoid about this but i'm not being seen just as i'm not being seen in other areas i don't count and i think that what aa really has to do is maybe get involved with writing on additional chapters that says there are some barriers to equitable service in aa and when i say equity i'm not talking about equal i'm talking about equitable types of situations the other thing that was pointed out to me last night in the masses of 30 000 that we're still a very small portion of any gathering of this type which also says something we're really not promoting the whole idea i mean those were just some of my thoughts but in getting back to what i do and where i work the reason why we are is because there was not and we're only we're the basically the only minority uh situation that's not a affiliated but a orientated and the most the founders of our of our house were recovering alcoholics of over 40 years uh and they felt that there was that need for the recovery process to have a minority piece in it it's not so much getting through the 28 well yes it is there's a problem in getting through the 28 day process and a usually is probably is usually involved in the treatment process and again it's not so much that as it is after the treatment what happens and it certainly if the group does not embrace and if the group does not understand my environment for example where i came from then there's a strong possibility that the wrong type of of uh class may be impressed upon my mind one which i will not fit middle class i'm talking about white middle class one which i will not fit in any kind of way not at that stage maybe later i can identify and move forward but at that point i may need some other types of of thoughts because i may not have had the types of positive experiences necessary to understand what you say when you say things will get better i may have to have some tangibles that says so you have to show me too and that's what my system attempts to do we've got to show in order to get that courage as the serenity parish tells us to accept the things you can't change we're not careful in my community we may accept the fact that i could never become because that I could never become, because we just don't have that type of role model.
Those are just some of my thoughts, but yes, I would love to see something written or something
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put in place that says there are some other barriers, there are some other controversial issues that the AAs as a group have to address, that yes, we still have our biases, yes, we still have our prejudices, and yes, if we're going to get involved with this love and service, then yes, we're going to have to address those issues. Thank you, Jerry. This gentleman here, and then this gentleman over here.
My name is George Dee, and I'm not George. And I'm from Houston, Texas, and I'm totally amazed that this man from Cleveland said you have 50 black groups. So we have only one in the whole Houston area, and Houston is about three times as large as Cleveland, Ohio. So you can see we have a problem. I have to kind of back up a little bit and tell you I came real briefly. I came in the A2, DWI, third DWI program in Houston, Texas, and I had to go to 90 meetings in 90 days.
And with a couple of hurricanes, I ended up having to go to four and five meetings a day to meet my, get my signature, because I was totally, I'm also a physician, and I was petrified that if I got my third DWI and didn't complete my probation, I would get a felony and lose my license. So I would go and meet anywhere I could find it. I didn't care who, what they were, redhead, whitefoot, leftfoot, you know.
I was just there to get my signature. And I went to a meeting at Giller's, I mean, in Pasadena, Texas, about two blocks from Giller's, everybody's heard of Giller's. And in Giller's, I would never go there on a Saturday night, not me. But I went there to an AA meeting, and the same type of people were there, cowboy hats, you know, boots, pickup trucks with the gun in the back. But they were all AA people, and they were all alcoholics.
And about ten of them walked me to the car, come back, you know. In my voyage of finding a meeting anywhere I could, I went to a meeting in Houston, and there were, I practiced at a hospital that's predominantly white-oriented, and I'm usually the only one or two blacks in the meetings. And so I was used to the situation. I also went to the University of Texas Medical School. I used to be in a situation where I was only one or two blacks.
But I went to this AA meeting in Bel Air in Houston, and I was, as usual, it was another black there. But that was earlier in my going to meetings when I was learning the program. And that's the first time I'd ever been around a group of whites I didn't hate, with people at this meeting. To me, it was totally amazing. I talked about this for weeks afterwards. And I found myself totally in a minority feeling when I finally hit a black meeting.
I'd been to about 85 AA meetings, and I finally got to the black group. And I felt ill at ease, because they had a thing toward me as an outsider, you know, our own prejudices. They'd never seen me before. And I found myself more welcome in predominantly white groups than at this all-black group. They never have really accepted me, because I can't get there often enough. My home group is in Texas City, Texas.
And I feel quite at ease there, because I've been going there about two years. And I know the people in the area. But again, it's only one, two, or three blacks. At the Texas City group, they even meet on every Monday night, they call it Blue Monday meeting, in the middle of the black community. The other meetings are held every day further down. In an effort to reach people in the black community.
And when I first started in the program, I had this thing. I was a doctor, and I knew I was going to AA, so I wouldn't go over there, because I'd run into a lot of my black friends, patients.
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And I finally went there for the first time for my birthday. And I was over this thing of, I didn't care who knew I was going to AA at this time. But I was shocked when I walked in, there were over 100 people there. And guess what? This is the middle of the black community. Three blacks. It's totally amazing, you know. And my thing is that AA is not reaching the people in the black community in the Houston, Texas area.
We have a total epidemic of alcoholism and drug abuse in that area. The black man problem down there is not prejudice, racism, etc., but alcoholism. They have the saying that slavery didn't get the black man down, segregation didn't get the black man down, but alcoholism is going to get him down. And I know of no other method to fight this thing but Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't know how Alcoholics Anonymous can attack this problem, but it is not reaching the black community in Houston, Texas.
I mean, when I talk about this one black group, we have an average of 20 or 30 people at that meeting. And we have a thousand AA meetings in Houston every week. So, I don't know, maybe the man from Cleveland can tell me, how in the world do you get 50 black groups meeting in AA? I'm relatively new in the program, two years of practice. In fact, the editor of the local black weekly paper has approached me about writing a weekly article on alcoholism.
I don't know how to do that and really be able to get across to certain persons. We have 140 black doctors in Houston. I'm the only black doctor that goes to AA. And as you know, there are many black alcoholic doctors. So, with a big problem in my area as to how this can get across to people in the black community about AA, maybe someone here can tell me, especially the man from Cleveland. Thank you very much, this gentleman here at his hand up next.
Good morning, my name is Robert and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic and addict. Hi everybody, I'm from New York. My home group is Potpourri and my other home group is Gramercy. And one of the groups is younger than the other group in age and I feel more comfortable there. And that's really the only reason is age. But with respect to your question of what people in my area of New York are doing for black people or minorities in the program, we have a lot of black groups, at least a lot of groups that are in black neighborhoods.
So I imagine that they're predominantly black. I've spoken at one or two and they were predominantly black. And we have Spanish speaking groups as well. So that the Hispanic community, which is large in New York, is being helped in a way that people who don't have the English need help as well. So that's being faced by autonomous groups that hold their meetings in Spanish. With respect to my own experience in the program of just under two years, I remember when I was still very much coming out of a fog that was complicated by drugs.
I went to someone at Gramercy, the first home group that I got in the place where I went to my first meeting and said to the person who was chairing the interim sponsorship program, I need a sponsor. So the next day I met her at another meeting and she introduced me to this guy, Tom, an Irishman. And he became one of my interim sponsors. And then the next week I told her, Tom isn't available immediately right now, I need an interim sponsor.
And she introduced me to this black guy whom I haven't seen in a long time. So I don't know, because I haven't gone to that other meeting, primarily.
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Actually it wasn't the next week, it was the next night. So I think the way that she handled it very, just sort of matter-of-factly, was that she thought, well maybe I felt uncomfortable with Tom as an Irishman. So she introduced me to another person who happened to be black. And I would assume that she would have introduced me to an Italian the next day, for example, if that hadn't worked out. And I think that's a very fluid way of handling it.
But I don't want to make it sound like I think it's a problem not to be considered. Otherwise I wouldn't be at this particular workshop. I do think it's important, and at times I've had the feeling that Jerry mentioned that walking around here, I have my badge on and I should be spoken to and I should speak to. And sometimes it's like I'm not speaking to. And sometimes it's maybe that someone is from a place where they just don't see blacks like we see blacks in New York, like we see blacks in Cleveland and in Chicago and other major metropolitan areas.
And maybe they're just so nervous. And maybe it's something that I'm putting out as well. I don't know, and I don't suppose it really matters that much. I do know that last night when I was coming home from the big thing and in the subway, people were speaking to me because they could see that I was tired. You know? When people feel that you need to be spoken to, in my experience, you're spoken to.
To the extent that to approach it from another point of view, I don't want to take up much more time, I don't think that it's reasonable for me to totally adhere to the idealistic point of view that my color, my ethnic background does not play some kind of role in my alcoholism because a lot of the excuses that I gave myself for drinking were directly related to alcoholism. Were directly related I mean, directly related to color.
They were all directly related to alcoholism. And directly related to minority experiences or experiences which I perceived as being minority experiences. Therefore, I'm really grateful to be in New York getting sober because I can go around and share what's bothering me with different people of whatever ethnic background and until I find the person who can respond to the problem that's bothering me, I just keep going.
Now that's a hard way to go about it. I sort of prefer the hard way. Maybe if I were living up in Harlem that certain things would take less time you know because there would be similarities maybe more similarities based upon race than there are by living in the grammar theory I don't know. I think it can all happen if we're patient for personalities because, and it's my personality too, you know it's not just their personality or your personality it's my personality too and the important issue is that I deal with my alcoholism Just as a postscript I don't really see what point there would be to putting out a whole series of specialized literature for minorities I don't even see that it's necessary to have the literature for young people and for women but that's kind of I'm sorry Sylvia I know because we're all drunks and my feeling is that once we start breaking it up and giving special attention to one group then perforce we must give that special attention to every group. We must have pamphlets We must have pamphlets for lesbians because lesbians don't consider themselves gays, you know, and it just goes on and on and on and really what are we here for? We're here because we're drunks Thank you Thank you. Let's see this gentleman here I believe was next then these two, then we'll go here and then we'll go over on this side My name is Eric and I'm from Philadelphia and I thoroughly enjoyed the comments from all these struggling alcoholics one way or the other and that's the way I felt when I first was introduced to this program and a previous speaker, John from Philadelphia happens to be my sponsor and a very good one because he introduced me 90 meetings in 90 days me 90 meetings in 90 days and around Philadelphia there are a profusion of groups white, gay, all black and what have the Hispanic groups so I managed to go
[00:45:09]
to quite a few meetings I was struggling with the whole idea of alcohol and I remember I came in the program near was near Christmas and I went to a meeting in a section of the city Chestnut Hill which is a very exclusive waspish kind of section and they were bemoaning the fact that they had just lost someone a lover or something they found in the program which you know I found out they had nothing no bearing on the program whatsoever they were crying in effect with two loaves of bread in the arm and I could not identify with them and I went to a black group that had similar experiences of going to jail and laughing about that principle and this is great it has no color it's a piece and she used the hatchet on me but this is Philadelphia and they're not enlightened for all the all the kind of things you might hear all these beautiful people here 60,000 or whatever there are some unenlightened people and I think somewhere along the line it has to be it maybe as I saw a sticker says okay not to drink maybe we I need a sticker says okay to be black and not to drink somewhere like that but the thing is too that all the groups have a purpose because I recall seeing one of the groups visited in the suburbs of the city it was always this black person in that one group and that black person chose to be there she was trying to remain anonymous by being in the suburbs you know hiding your Joe Lewis said to Billy Conn you can run but you can't hide you know you're still a drunk whether you're in the suburbs of white people or you're still a drunk whether you can sit by the court down to a black neighborhood you know you are still a drunk and how you recover depends on you know what you can gain from it but some are another interesting thing I noticed too in the scheduling the what do you call it the guide to the AA meetings in Philadelphia to try you know Tri-County or whatever meetings I noticed there's a paucity and I know it is not to get into religion at all but we noticed that the places where the meetings are held held in Lutheran, Catholic, Episcopalian, etc. I didn't see I see very few Baptist churches at all very few and this has to somewhere along the line you know you know AA is a spiritual thing I know we aren't secular but we are spiritual somewhere along the line we got to realize too that hey you can't hide all these drunks in the church and like you say it is rampant it's endemic it's the pandemic and it's a problem in the black community but somewhere the black community is rather than going to a big conference like this having white folks solve our problem maybe somewhere along the line we have to disseminate the information in the black community that hey there's no real stigma to doing this you know or going to AA you know another interesting thing too is that I always use this analogy in the school system it is all right for white folks to have nervous breakdowns and go to rehab and they come back and they welcome but a black folk have a nervous breakdown and they figure that you're malingering you know you're trying to get slick you're trying to you're trying to get out of something and somewhere along the line this stigma has to be removed or you know how it's going to be removed but somewhere along the line we have to be able to fess up and say okay we got a problem and somebody and some of us aren't doing a very good job about it trying to solve it and the other thing too someone said about disagreeing with all this tonnage of literature you know it's all right to be gay and all right to be a recovering day and recovering alcohol maybe there might be an over-accented maybe it might be because we have three what do you call it three six nine we got all these esoteric groups we got lawyers hiding from
[00:50:02]
lawyers we got doctors hiding from doctors we got games hiding from from the general public and we got I can see the need for language groups in effect but you know all these groups should be able to cross one another some kind of way and not too much accent it's okay it's all right to be gay but it's all right not to be drunk and being a drunk and gay doesn't have a damn thing to do with you know the problem and such and being black and drunk doesn't have a damn thing to do with either but there are certain cultural factors which do play a part the other thing too is maybe we need to have as I said before it may be we need to have a more conspicuous image of some black that has recovered you know let's not I mean I know AA isn't based on seniority one way or the other but when we look at a podium and we see all the people have been around since Bill W and black folks at that time understand couldn't get in so maybe we need to make a special distance station and stick a few up there anybody let them know that we did have some black drunk around at that time and maybe they haven't been and maybe they haven't been as recovered as long but at least they do recover and I just wanted to share that with you thank you you are prejudiced against short people and before I get into what I really want to talk about well this is what I really want to talk about I really have a criticism to make of this conference not yet because I'm not talking about my theme I've been upset at this conference that there hasn't been meetings for a certain minority of non-smokers which I am and I I have been I've had to leave meetings here because there's smoke in the room and I think at our next conference World Conference we ought to set aside meetings for non-smokers so from that minority point of view I really want to express that loudly nice question on this the non-smoking section all over and when you have 200 people in the room and I had a lung operation several years ago and I don't want to be run out of AA I've been in here 24 years and it's too important to me my name is Corinne and I'm an alcoholic now on to the AA business the real stuff I've been in AA 24 years as I said and I have belonged to groups all over the city of New York I have belonged to predominantly black groups and predominantly white groups and AA is the same all over except for the fact that so many minorities showed up today so many particularly black indicates that we have something in common that we have common needs and we don't often talk about them and I think they have to be expressed because there is an epidemic in the black community George you talked about one group down in Texas and it seems to me that we have a job of reaching out to do and maybe this is a job the General Service can perform or help us to perform there is a malaise in the black community it's one where it's youth are 50% unemployed the unemployment among blacks is double that of the majority population in this country and you do find a hopelessness a killing of the spirit and any group that feels that you're going to find a high incidence of drug addiction and alcoholism I understand that it's
[00:55:01]
epidemic of proportions among the Native Americans as well and the Eskimos and the black Americans in the United States Eric I'm a school principal and it's amazing when the children are registered in my school how many of them are living with grandparents because their parents are lost generations they're lost to drugs and alcoholism now I feel there has to be a lot of outreach into the black community and by the way many of the the hurts that I felt that propelled me into drinking had a lot to do with racism and this is a lot of things we don't talk about in AA. Gays talk about their experiences of being gays well there's a lot of things that happened to me that were painful and hurt and because I couldn't deal with all those feelings you know I drank I drank because of that and a lot of other things I couldn't deal with but certainly my being black is not a small part of my experience but a big part of it particularly black in you know the United States of America so I feel we have a lot to deal with and I think that what I would like to see since this is an international conference I would like to see the general service board of AA take a more take more of a role in the kinds of activities that we have through our committees working with the professional community the public information committee all these committees that we have down at general service and reaching the minority community are getting together the ministers in minority communities promoting AA bringing the information into the community seeing commercials and ads that are directed toward minority people there's so much I think that can be done in reaching out bringing the message and creating the kind of messages that would appeal to minority people working through your sororities working through your professional organizations working through your unions and in bringing that information forth it is epidemic we really have to do something I don't think that I think it's mandatory that we act and we act immediately to see that we bring the message to black Americans all over this country so that I mean I just can't imagine with the huge city that you come from that there's only one group of alcoholics anonymous serving a population where I know it's epidemic and I don't think that's isolated I think it's all over and I think that we have a we're charged I'm glad we're having this meeting today because I think that's our charge today to really see if we can do something on a national level through all our working committees and the general service office to bring the message to the suffering minority person I'm Howard a very grateful and a very diseased alcoholic I'm very very grateful and happy to be participating in this 50th anniversary of AA I think it's a most significant event it's a historic event and it means a great deal to me because I come from a long line of alcoholics and I think I'm at least a third generation alcoholic so that the vicious descending spiral has been transformed into a benign Transformed into a benign ascending spiral for my family, because my oldest daughter is now in the program, and I talked to my granddaughter, and she said she knows she's from an alcoholic family, and if she sees any problems looming in that direction, which I'm sure she will, she's going to get to AA fast.
[01:00:16]
And all of that, of course, has to do with the minorities question, because I come from a group that sociologists and anthropologists define as a long-standing tri-racial isolate group that consists primarily of Native Americans, fugitive slaves, and deserters from the Hessians and the British Army and the American Army during the revolutionary period that settled in Rockland County, New York. And so we were a band of minorities among minorities, because we deviated from the tradition of being part of the segregated society and not falling into either camp.
We belonged to all of the camps. And that has always made the question of minorities a very sensitive issue for me. In fact, when I became a sociologist, I found it almost inevitable that I should develop expertise in the field of race relations. And that doesn't give me any special weighted vote in this discussion, and I don't presume to speak with any authority acquired by the fact that I have some expertise in the area.
But I do think that it's very clear that the placing of this question on the agenda of the meeting indicates that there's a new sensitivity in AA to the minorities question. And I think the proposals that have been made by Corrine and George and others that the general service organization should give some attention to this in a demonstrative way that would indicate that a new course of action is being taken in view of the fact that there are specific circumstances that have arisen in the minority communities in which the question of alcoholism is of major concern. And I think one of the demonstrations is not only the issuance of publications and that sort of thing, and the development of well-organized and well-thought-out outreach programs to deal with the pandemic quality of this question. And while we don't approach these questions from a partisan political viewpoint, and we don't take a stand on controversial issues, the fact is that I think alcoholism has become a political question in the black community, as a number of our participants have stated. And I don't think that that should in any way put us in an avoidance position, because it does happen to be related to politics.
I think that AA has to move into it with both feet. I remember that the first AA meeting I attended in Kingston, New York, I heard it, and that's a redneck community with a number of members of the Ku Klux Klan belonging to AA. And that sort of bowled me over. And I heard the one black who was in that meeting over a long period of time get up in the meeting and say that AA had done more for him than NAACP. And I said to myself, this nigger's really up here townin'.
But it dawned on me, from the point of view of the service that AA is performing, that in many respects it is hitting something more fundamental than NAACP, without being political.
[01:05:07]
And I think that this sensitivity and consciousness should be manifested in the board of trustees and general service organizations. I sort of, being sensitive to these questions and as a sociologist, seeing how things are displayed in the performance of an organization or any institution with which I'm associated, looked up at the leading speakers and the dignitaries on the dais, and I did not see that sensitivity reflected on the dais or in the selection of speakers.
And that's what I mean when I say that AA has to take a new look at the situation. Now I not only belong to AA and I not only belong to the NAACP, but I also belong to the CP for a period of time. And that's 50 years ago I left it. I don't feel required to explain that I left it, but I don't want to be prejudiced in what I'm saying. But 50 years ago, you could not go to a CP meeting without seeing a black up there. For whatever reasons he was there, there was a sensitivity to the issue.
And it sort of focused the attention of the nation on the fact that the radicals were sort of paying some attention to this black question. Maybe we better pay some attention to it. And I think that we should get over the kind of sensitivity which is expressed by many liberals of living in a colorblind world, which gets anxious when somebody says black. Black, you know, black itself has a kind of abrasive quality, just saying a word.
So, you know, some people say colors and other people and your people and this kind of thing. And I think that since our program is one that's founded on honesty and truth, that we should not be delicate or over sensitive about that, but grab the bull by the horns and move out on this issue. Because I think that we have an emergency situation in the black community as well as the Native Americans. Thank you.
Hi, everybody. I'm Tom, powerless over alcohol, and I'm from Miami. Hi, Tom. And I'm coming from a city in transition. Maybe you read about it and hear about it on TV. And for a while I considered myself a minority there. But now the minorities have been eliminated and we're all together. I don't know how many ethnic groups and we're all together there. It's a multicultural thing what's in Miami, in the city itself.
Suburbs are sort of divided and people who can't hack all this newness coming in with the immigration and so forth have left. What I'm saying for myself personally, the second time around when I took my fourth step, a friend suggested that I look into my own prejudices and bigotry. I said, me? I ain't got a problem. But I did. First one came up with the Jews, secondly with the Cubans, and the third were the gays.
It was hard to address. But it was there, if I was going to be honest, in my fourth step. And I don't think that is emphasized enough in what I've seen in all the fourth step literature that has come out. It helped me tremendously. In working in our own group too, in the club I belong to, the retaking of the fourth step. As the group is observing the needs for the here and now, is reaching out. Are we involved, etc.
That's a hard thing our group had to face. We walked away from it. There was denial. I sort of suspect there's an awful lot of that too in different groups. Because that's a hard thing. We think we've got a sure thing going and we're all closely together. The group I belong to in Miami, that was shattered because of the influx. Blacks coming in. Spanish speaking people, gays. Some of the rednecks left.
Some of the rednecks left. Some stayed.
[01:10:00]
We have an awful big influx of people during the winter time coming from the north and down there, which is a beautiful complement. All that's blending together. I don't think the Miami Yantra group has been able to address this question. About reaching out into the black community. I think we should be responsible ourselves. I should be responsible in the intergroup meeting if I feel this way to stand up and say, hey, what's going on?
And I think I have to do that myself. I'm speaking for myself personally. I feel possibly that New York could come along with suggestions to the public relations committee. Are we being fair, seeing this problem in the black community? Are we aggressive enough in addressing this problem? Getting the media, get this out. We got packets, press packets and so forth. Is there a group who will accept blacks?
I don't think a black group would stand on its own starting off if it evolves from that. If you find six or seven groups, I'm speaking in our own area, who would welcome blacks. And I could easily refer them to that. And let that come out afterwards. I think it has to start with sensitivity in the metropolitan areas where they've got an established intergroup. Is the intergroup aware of this? What's being done? Is there a willingness?
Maybe you might get one or two, but it would be a lot of indifference. We don't see it. We've got other things. But let's see if we can get one or two there. With a little seed. Bob and Bill got together 50 years ago, two people. If we can find one person who can take that back to the metropolitan area and talk to the person responsible for public relations or getting news out. I'm asking you, Wayne, I don't know.
Are you a representative in the public relations committee for this particular issue? No. My particular committees are finance nominating. And I'm also on the AWS board. And also on the international convention and regional forum committee. But we also run three or four committees. Is there a committee? I specifically asked for this workshop. Because of a concern of mine. And I head a minorities workshop in Hawaii.
And it was so successful. From the standpoint of what I think we learned on the board as well as I as an individual. That Sarah, who is in charge of the convention, is setting it up and everything. I asked for this particular workshop. Because I think there's some things that need to be addressed. And by getting all of this on tape and listening to all of you, perhaps we can. But you know, there's one thing.
Now, I keep hearing general service should do this and general service should do that. I think you missed one point here. We represent you. You tell us what to do. We don't tell you what to do. So if you want something as a group or as individuals, you need to let us know. Because we're there to serve whatever needs that you feel we should serve. So, you know, these things, whatever comes up today, just remember that we work for you.
And all you've got to do is pick up the phone, drop us a letter, and you can do that individually or as a group. You don't have to go through anybody. So just keep that in mind. But are you intending at the end of this seminar here to have some sort of a consensus to refer back to? Yes, this is all on tape. And we will certainly be looking at it. Well, I asked the group to wish me well in trying to carry the message.
And I'm sure it will fall on fertile ground. I can't set a timetable. But I'm sure that what each one of us can do will be something to improve what we have at this present time, wherever we may be in O2. Wherever we may be, you know, and we might get rejection. I know I'm going to get some flack, but that's all right. You know, that was part of my own growth in year seven, you know, that I found out I was an approval junkie.
And when finally that dropped, gee, I was free. But thanks to the program, it helped me to get that far.
[01:15:07]
Okay. Thank you. Gentlemen. I'll go down this side and come back this. My name is Dick Price. I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. I'm from Fort Pierce, Florida at the moment. A number of years ago I lived in Dallas, Texas. A number of years ago I lived in Dallas, Texas. You can't hear me through this damn thing? Oh, I guess I'm very soft spoken. When I was in Dallas, I'd moved down from New Jersey.
I'd lived in Philadelphia in some eastern town. I, you know, I rose to the top all of a sudden and I didn't plan this. And by that I mean I became chairman of Dallas Intergroup. I don't know how I got that with all the rednecks there, but I did. Yes, I know how I got it. I had 23 years of sobriety at the time. My time in the program got me elected, and it wasn't because I was smarter than anyone else.
Once I tried to address the minority problem when I was chairman of Dallas Intergroup, and the whole issue got shunned to the side. There, basically, I was interested in the Hispanics who were coming into the community. There were a lot of native Hispanics. There were a lot of Hispanics, of course, coming in from Mexico. And you know, no one really wanted to talk about it. They really didn't. We were, we did not have a black or Hispanic on our board.
So I went ahead and did what I could in other areas. But I don't think that our AA communities are any different than the communities at large. And I think if we're really going to serve minority peoples, the minority peoples themselves are going to have to somehow take hold. I've known plenty of people that I'm sure that the black community would call Oreos in AA, you know. And they move very freely through all the meetings.
Most of them, mostly, they're professional people. But somehow, I think, you know, the black community has very strong church and religious ties. And I keep wondering why we don't get to these black preachers, why we don't get to these black churches. And when I say we, I mean AA, but I mean black AAs. I've gone through that in Florida. Since I've moved to Florida, we've tried to start an AA group in our black community.
And we had two black people who were willing to do it. And mostly what happened was we had these two black people who were willing to do it, black members of AA, and us white folks. And, you know, and we all went down to the black community. And it didn't work. I mean, it finally failed after a year, you know. And the trouble is we've got to get somehow into the black and other minority communities.
We've got to get to the power structure. We've got to get to the black preachers. We've got to get to the black merchants. We've got to get to the black professionals, you know. They have to do their part. You know, a number of years after I'd been in this program, I've now been in 25 years, I struggled. I never had any trouble not drinking, but I had a lot of trouble with me. And I seemed to be different.
And what I finally decided was that I had to learn how to accept myself as I am. I did that. I think I did that. I struggled with that. And once that I could accept me as I am, I could accept the rest of you the way that you are, you know, with all your faults, with all your flaws, with your good points. And I think that's what AA is about. You know, the one thing that I know about Alcoholics Anonymous after 25 years, the one thing that I really know is that if I don't drink, I ain't going to get drunk.
That's what I really know. After that, it starts getting a little hazy. We all have different opinions. We all go different ways. Of course there's a problem in our minority communities. There also are these same problems in the majority communities, you know. Drinking is drinking, and it's going to drive you to hell. And if I hadn't come here 25 years ago, I think I would have been dead, dead, dead a long time ago.
[01:20:00]
Not because of any prejudice that I may have, but because drinking, you know, it's a great leveler. It's what brings us all down to the same level. We must continue to do what we can on an individual basis. I have no trouble at all holding out my hand on an individual basis. But I've decided I can't, after my experience in Dallas, that I sure as hell can't save the Hispanics. I've decided, after my experience in Florida, I can't save the blacks.
Unfortunately, our program is for people who want it, not for those who need it, you know. And God, you know, we've got to work with those of us who are here. And those of us who are here have got to hold out our hand to suffering alcoholics, regardless of their race or their color or anything like that. But to me, it helps if the more you're like someone else, I think the more good that you can do.
If you speak their language, so speak, you can do it. Thank you. I took too long. Thank you. We've got about ten minutes left. And if you don't mind, I'd like to address what you might think we can do to at least start in a direction to address these problems. Let's see how many hands we've got up. Oh, boy. We'll take this gentleman here, then we'll go over here and try and keep it real brief. They make me get out of here at 11, or I'd let this thing go on.
Okay, my name is Jerry. I'm an alcoholic. From the Greenwich Village group and Living Now group in New York City. At the 1980 convention in New Orleans, there was a workshop on gays in or out of AA, which I felt should not have been held. But I went to the meeting as a gay person. And I was so grateful that I did go because in New York City, we have such a homogenizing of the groups. You have white, black, gay, Spanish, and what have you.
And I went to this seminar and discovered that gay alcoholics outside of the metropolitan areas do have difficulty entering their fellowships because of being homosexual. I went to that convention. I've been to several conventions since then. I look upon the diet, and I do not see blacks sitting on the diet. I think that what the black people have done, what we have done in AA, is try to homogenize, try to be part of AA as a whole, and not segregate ourselves into a black caucus, or as you call it.
And as a result, we're losing out. The gay community got together at that convention. They spoke, and there were gay meetings in all of the metropolitan areas. The women who were definitely a minority in AA got together, and at this convention, there were AA meetings for women. And in the city, you have alcoholic women. But the black person feels, or at least I feel that we feel, that we should not become racist, and therefore insist upon a black meeting at the convention.
So sit down and find out what the hell is it we are doing that we are not being represented on a GSO or a greater level. I know there are one or two blacks in the GSO service. I know Helen T. and things of that nature. But I do not see black people in the, let's call it the hierarchy of AA. I just do not see them. I believe, I know that in New York City, we have grupos, we have many Spanish-speaking meetings, but in intergroup, we have one little desk for the Spanish-speaking person to answer the phone.
We have many, many black groups within New York City, but within the general service, in the running of the, assimilating of the information that's coming in, something happens as we have these conventions, as we have people who put out the literature and set these things up. I think that what we need to do, or at least I need to do as a black person, is to petition for when we have the next international convention, if not certainly as many conventions prior to that,
[01:25:00]
is to have a meeting that says not just minorities, there are many minorities, and I think what Sylvia says is true, it's what you perceive yourself to be. But we have gay meetings at this convention. I'm going to go to one as soon as I leave here. We have meetings for women. We have meetings for many different things. We do not have a black meeting. We're in the United States of America, and that is where I live, and there is definitely a problem.
My father comes from Cuba, and I have a thousand relatives in Miami, and I'm sure that we are part of the situation this man is speaking of. We have a situation in New York City. I think we must, as black people, get together, and at the next convention, Northeast, New York, whatever, and we had damn sure better have a black meeting, and anyone can come who would like to, and I think we had better talk about black things.
At that podium yesterday with all those people up there, and it's true we were not allowed into the fellowship when Bill W. first came in. There were two black men sitting up there. I saw no one else, and they did not speak. Through all the meetings that I've gone to in the last several days, there are no black people. I think we have to stop pretending that there is not a racial issue. I don't want to become controversial within a hay in that fence, but we need to have some black meetings within these conventions, and let us go there, hash it out, black, white, and indifferent, and then I think a lot of things will ease up.
Not everyone lives in New York City. Excuse me, not every gay, not every black, not every woman, not every Jew lives in New York City. There are many, many alcoholics outside of New York City, and those alcoholics need some entrance into this great fellowship, and I just think that something happens once you leave your individual community within the cities within AA, and it becomes lily white, it becomes a particular type of white, and so I think even the white community has something to look at that happens within our fellowship as it gets into the greater services.
I don't know what it is, but I know that I as a black person am responsible. I am active in the gay community, and I've missed the point about being so very active on an international level in the black community, so that's something that I'm going to have to do, and thank you. Thank you. This gentleman back here with the paper in his hand, he's been trying to speak all morning here. And you know, I just want to say that being black in Alcohol Anonymous has never been a problem to me.
One of the reasons why, and I'm the founder of two groups in New York, I'm the founder of the 2230 Fellowship Group of Alcohol Anonymous, there we have six leaves a week, and we have, we let AA do it, Alcohol Anonymous, cut all the barriers by invoking the Basil tradition to carry the message. I hear people saying what general service should do, what intergroups should do, and I hear the teachers and I hear the doctors and I hear people saying this, you know, but I found one thing that's in my, as blacks, a lot of when we become sober, and I've been sober about 15 years in Alcohol Anonymous on a group level, that we sometimes fear away and don't invoke that fifth tradition.
We do not, a lot of us get sober, and after they get sober, we go on to different things. I have a lot of things about gay groups and about this group and about that group. I've been out, I've sponsored, in fact, my sponsor Bill J. Philadelphia, Ray Lowe, and I have, I'm now in public information, my last public information speaking with the kids from 14 to 15, there's about 1,500 kids, I go into the schools, into the public schools, and in this group we have been now, we have a big book meeting, we have a what's on your mind meeting, where we're in that, and there we have a white chairman, we have a Spanish guy who come there, and then a what's on your mind meeting on a Friday afternoon, a Saturday afternoon, they talk what's on their mind, and then we have a, On a Saturday afternoon they talk what's on their mind, and then we send them to the Beginners Meeting, to the Big Book Meeting, and Alcohol Anonymous, always serves the problem, solves the problem, AA solves the problem, regardless of what we are, and we are in the heart of the black, where I'm on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, I'm quite sure anybody from New York know where Bed-Stuy area is, and I'm from Bed-Stuy, believe me when I tell you, that there are meetings, and right today there are meetings there,
[01:30:12]
between 50 and 60 people there, coming to the meetings, so what I'm really trying to say, and I don't want to take up much time, because I have two degrees, which is hot and cold, even though I have worked in the field of alcoholism, which I quit, I never spoke of that even in my sponsorship, and allow me to speak of treatment centers, and all this stuff, when I worked there, we have a problem with these N.A.s, N.A.s, cross addicted people coming into AA, and we deal with Alcohol Anonymous, cunning, baffling, and powerful, and I started a group in the VA hospital too, where I thought, I'm going to have the same problem, but what we did, we allowed Alcohol Anonymous, because it's in the book, it's N.A., and I believe, collectively, that if any of us, black, Mexican, or whatever you may be, if we go back to basics, and we basically look at what our followers left for us to do, a lot of these things, because now I can see that we're going on, we've got to start this type of group, I can understand the lady there with the cigarette smoking, that she has a great idea, we have that problem with cross addicted people, coming to Alcohol Anonymous, so one of the things that I think that can be done, go back to what you're supposed to do, and invoke that fifth tradition, and you will get rid of all of these problems that we're beginning to have, because it's going to take time for me, as a black man, to take your seat, and one of these days, if I stay sober, my type of sobriety will put me where you are, and I believe that.