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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – BIG BOOK MARATHON – RS 06327.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-big-book-marathon-rs-06327.mp3 Duration: 01:30:37
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There's definitely… … You're not going to be able to go with? We're going to go have lunch right now. So obviously you won't be able to go. No, I have to cheer this one. OK. I'll see you later. OK. You alright? Thank you. OK. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Welcome once again to the second meeting today of the Big Book Marathon. And while we have the moment of silence before we say the Serenity Prayer, may I ask that you, each one of you, give a little prayer of thanks for the 50 years of gratitude for this beautiful fellowship.
May we have that moment now, please? 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. What is AA? Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Good morning, everyone. And my name is Ruth Kowalski.
And I thank God I'm an alcoholic. And I'm from a small town in northern Ontario right on Georgian Bay called Penetanguishene. And by the time you say it, you're through it. This morning, you're going to hear some real good stuff. I know Dan is going to do one bang-up job on his history and telling you about the big book and about the message that this book has and how it has given us the problem, the solution, and a planned program of action.
Now, it's customary at all of these meetings to read this anonymity tradition. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition on 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, TV, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or indeed any AA member be identified by full name or photograph in 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. Now, I'm not going to make too many comments because I feel that Dan has the information that you're looking for at a meeting of the Big Book Marathon. So without any more from me, I'd like you all to welcome Dan from Louisiana.
Thank you, Ruth. Good morning. My name is Dan Chase, and I'm a very grateful, slowly recovering alcoholic. Because of the fellowship of the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous and because I've been willing to try and seek the God of my understanding through the 12 steps of this program, it hadn't been necessary for me to take a drink today, and I can guarantee you that that's a real big miracle in my life.
If it would take away my nervousness right now, it would be another miracle.
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But I learned a couple of things from Joe and Charlie that is supposed to help me with that, and it hasn't passed, so I think it will today. The first thing was to prepare myself. The first time I ever heard an AA speaker, it was Joe. And of all places, it was at an Al-Anon conference. Joe told me what he did to prepare himself, and he said, I filled myself with God's grace. And I have been for some time not only preparing to talk with you today, but to fill myself with God's grace.
The second thing I learned, I learned from Charlie. He said that he always tells a little story in order to kind of settle himself down a little bit and let some of the butterflies quit fluttering. So I'm going to try to pull one of Charlie's deals and tell a little story. The story I've picked to tell you is about this Indian guy. I know there are probably no Indians up here, but it would be safe in telling this story.
But anyway, this guy just couldn't keep himself straight. He just drank and got drunk and got in all kinds of trouble and caused all kinds of problems. And finally, they got there and filled him on the reservation and they kicked his fanny off the reservation. And he'd been gone for about five or six years and looked up one day and they see this guy coming across the plains toward the encampment there on the reservation and of all things, here comes the guy that they'd kicked out five or six years ago.
And boy, he's riding this big, beautiful Palomino horse and got this big silver saddle on it. He's got this beautiful leather jacket. He's got a big gold Rolex watch on one wrist and Gucci moccasins on his feet. Boy, he rides on up into the middle of camp and the chief is standing there looking up at him and he says, I wish I was here to tell you my story. I'd be a lot more comfortable with that. I probably know a little bit more about it, but I'm not.
What we're here to talk about today, really, is that we're here to talk about a story that belongs to all of us. It belongs to all of us that are members of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because what I want to tell you a little bit about today is about our heritage. I'm going to refer to some notes and you're not going to recognize me as well from this point on because I'm going to have to wear my glasses.
It's really been a beautiful thing for me to have this opportunity to learn more about our heritage. I read a little statement the other day and I don't know of any reason or any way it could have been put any simpler than this little statement I read and I don't know where I read it. Possibly some of you have read this same statement. It talks about studying the past and it says very simply, we study the past to enrich the present and to assure the future.
I don't know about you, but I love to have my present enriched and all the betterment of my present that I can have and I love to have it because it's what I have right now. It's my present. But I don't know of anything else. If someone asked me today what would be my greatest wish I'd have to just tell them real quick mainly as a result of this conference and as a result of last night at the stadium.
God knows I want to assure our future. Our heritage is just like the heritage of anything or anyone else. If we don't talk about our heritage from time to time we may forget it. And if we forget it, we may lose it. There have been a lot of movements particularly there have been a lot of spiritual movements go before us and a lot of these movements have been lost and one of the reasons that I believe they were lost is that first of all they forgot where they were going.
You forgot where they were coming from and if you forget where you're coming from you're going to forget where you're going. And if you do these two things it's very easy to see how a movement could just fold in on itself. So we need to stop once in a while and take a good look at exactly how did our fellowship begin and where did we come from. Today what I'd like to talk to you about is a miracle and that's the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous.
For something to be a miracle it has to be something that is beyond human understanding. And as I look back at our history it's easy for me to see how it absolutely defies
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all human understanding. There were too many things that happened there were too many things that took place and there were too many coincidences for them to be anything other than an absolute miracle. And they say it's something that takes place when God wants to remain anonymous and I believe that. So to talk about our story we need to go back to the summer of 1933 and talk about an old beat up broken down New York City stockbroker named Bill.
You know Bill had risen to the top and he had been very successful. Bill was a self made man like a lot of us that a lot of us could identify with. Bill started off on a farm up in Yankee country and he always said that if he ever got off that damn farm that he'd never come back to it. Bill fought his way off that farm came to New York City Bill attended night school and became a lawyer. And while Bill was in night school attending law school he worked on Wall Street as a runner for stockbrokers.
Bill had a very exciting life and even though he had graduated from law school and went to work as a lawyer Bill always missed the excitement of the day to day work on the stock market. Bill eventually returned to work in the stock market not as a stockbroker but as what I've heard Charlie refer to as a stock promoter. And I don't know what a promoter means to you but that immediately means to me selling fast talk to slow thinking people.
Bill had a great knack for finding companies that weren't doing good and their stocks would fall and they were selling cheap and Bill would round up a group of people and talk them into buying this company out and they would go in and make changes and revamp get the stock back up and while it was back up they'd sell it out. Bill made a lot of money doing this and he helped a lot of other people make a lot of money doing this.
But while Bill was having a lot of success working on Wall Street Bill began to find that he was having a lot of problems with alcohol he finally had so many problems that even a lot of his friends were talking to him about doing something about his drinking and finally his wife Lois had talked to him from time to time and asked him if he couldn't slow down and maybe drink like other people. As we know the stock market crash came in 1929 and Bill went broke.
Now many of Bill's friends were able to rebound and come back and do okay and get back on their feet and get back going but Bill never could. You know I can imagine with this stock market crash and the tragedy that took place for the people that were involved in the stock market during those years this probably really produced some super good drinking time and some real super good drinking excuses for Bill and I would believe that one of the reasons Bill couldn't rebound because you know Bill was a very intelligent person but that Bill's drinking had probably progressed a great deal by this time and Bill was alcoholic by this time and Bill began to realize that he couldn't drink and handle it and many times he was baffled as to why he drank like he did.
Bill would drink himself into drunks and bail out of control and seemingly he would do it at the worst times. He would have a real good deal going and he would have this project where he stood to make a lot of money and two or three days before the deal would be closed Bill would start drinking and he wouldn't show up and of course he would lose the deal. But you know Bill finally came to the conclusion that he just couldn't drink and I think all of us come to this conclusion sooner or later.
You know everyone around us is telling us that we can't drink and that we can't handle our liquor and that we can't control when we begin to drink. Bill finally realized this between the years of 1929 and 1934 that he couldn't handle alcohol so Bill decided to do what so many of us decided to do. He decided that he would just quit drinking. You know he tried drinking and he tried handling it and he tried controlling and he couldn't do it.
He proved over and over he couldn't do it so he just decided that he'd quit. Well he'd swear off and he'd swear he said I'll never take another drink as long as I live. You know they ought to write a tune to that. Bill had no reason to believe that he couldn't handle the situation because all his life he had been strong and strong willed and a strong person and always been intelligent and been able to learn very well and very easily and been able to handle many situations so naturally he thought that through his willpower that he would be able to handle the situation.
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And Much to His Amazement, He Would Swear Off, And Each Time, He Would Find Himself Drunk Again, And He Simply Couldn't Understand Why He Couldn't Quit, Because of This, Bill's Life Became an Absolute Living Hell, And Most of You Have Read Bill's Story, We Know Bill Went Down to a Point Where He Couldn't Work at All, And Made Very Little Money, And What Little Money Bill Did Make, Had to Go for Alcohol, By the Summer of 1933, Bill's Life Had Gotten Desperately Bad, So It Was During This Summer, That Through Bill's Mother and His Brother-in-Law, Dr. Leonard Strong, Bill Was Placed in a Hospital in New York City, The Town's Hospital, This Was Where Bill Met Dr. Silkworth, Town's Hospital Was Pretty Much a Hole in the Wall, And The Only Reason that Dr. Silkworth Wound Up There, Was That It Was During the Depression, And Jobs Were Hard to Find, During the Depression, Even for Doctors, And We'd Like to Think that the Town's Hospital, Was a Great Establishment for Medical Treatment and Medical Research, But It Really Wasn't, It Was No More Than a Hole in the Wall, We'd Also Like to Think that Dr. Silkworth, Was a Great Research Specialist in the Field of Alcoholism, And Had Dedicated His Life to the Study and Recovery of Alcoholics, And Had Gotten Into This Area, Because of His Love for the Work, But This Just Isn't True Either. He Had Taken This Job at the Town's Hospital, Very Simply, Because He Couldn't Find Another Job, During the Depression. During Bill's First Visit to the Town, And After Dr. Silkworth Had Withdrawn Bill from Alcohol, And Had Him on Some Vitamins, And Had Him Kind of Built Back Up Physically, He Told Bill that he had seen many alcoholic drinkers, And he told Bill that the alcoholic drinkers that he had seen, differed considerably from the so-called normal social drinker. He told him he had noticed that whenever an alcoholic took a drink of alcohol, they seemed to trigger a craving in their body, which makes it virtually impossible for them to determine how much they are going to drink, and how much they are going to drink after they take that first drink. And he told Bill he didn't understand why the craving would occur, but that it only seemed to occur in those people who were alcoholic.
He said typical, non-alcoholic, social drinkers never experience this condition. Whenever you take a drink of alcohol, or whenever a normal drinker takes a drink of alcohol, all they usually want is one or two or maybe three drinks. As a matter of fact, when they drink, two or three drinks gets them a little bit tipsy and slightly out of control, and sometimes nauseated feeling, and as a result they won't want any more to drink.
Dr. Silkworth told Bill that when he saw an alcoholic take a drink of alcohol and sees that craving develop in their system such that they can't control the amount they drink, that he was ready to say to them that this is abnormal. When ten people take a drink or two of alcohol and nine of them can control their drinking but one cannot, he ends up drunk and sick and over and over in trouble, and Dr. Silkworth said he considers that to be abnormal. He told Bill, he said, Bill, if you'll go to the dictionary and look up the word allergy, and if you would find a definition that would say that an allergy is an abnormal reaction to any food, beverage, or other substance, and that since an alcoholic's reaction to alcohol is abnormal, he was ready to say that the alcoholic is allergic to alcohol. Dr. Silkworth told Bill, he said, Bill, I believe you fall in that category, and he said, I believe, Bill, you're allergic to alcohol, and I don't think you'll ever be able to safely drink alcohol as long as you live. Once an allergy has manifested itself and reached a certain point, it almost never gets better, usually worse. He told Bill, he said, Bill, if you want to live happily in this world, it's going to be necessary for you to abstain from alcohol and never take another drink as long as you live.
Well, Bill was relieved to find this out. He was relieved to find out why he couldn't stop drinking when he started and why he lost all control whenever he took a drink. Everybody had been telling him that the reason he drank was that he didn't have willpower or that he just didn't care or that he was an immoral person. I know you've heard that before. But you know, Bill was very relieved to find out what was wrong with him and that he was allergic to alcohol, because he said now that he knew what was wrong with him, he wouldn't have any more trouble with alcohol, that he would be able to handle it, be able to control it.
Dr. Silkworth also told Bill something else. He said, Bill, I need to tell you this, too. He said, you have another part of your disease. He said, Bill, if you're a true alcoholic and your mind has become obsessed with the idea of drinking alcohol, he told Bill that an obsession was simply an idea that overcomes all other ideas. He said, Bill, for many years
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everybody else's idea has been for you not to drink alcohol. He said, the last two or three years of your drinking, your idea has been for you not to drink. But your mind has become so obsessed with the idea of drinking alcohol that from time to time the obsession overcomes all other ideas and your mind tells you that you can drink or that this time it's going to be okay or that this time it's going to be different. And your mind then gives you permission to drink. And you take the first drink and then you trigger the allergy and you can't stop and you wind up sick and drunk and in all kinds of trouble. Well, for the first time in his life Bill felt like he knew what was wrong with him. For the first time he knew why he couldn't safely drink and he also knew why he couldn't keep from taking the first drink. But Bill had gotten better and he had a stay in the hospital and he had gotten dried out. And when Bill left the town's hospital that time, he felt in all confidence that he would be able to go out and never take another drink again. For the first time he understood his condition and he had knowledge that he would need to understand the disease of alcoholism. He felt that self-knowledge would be just the thing to keep him sober and help him not take that first drink of alcohol. For the first time Bill knew what his problem really was. Bill got out of the hospital and things got better.
He went back to work. He got back being productive and making a little money. For the first time in a long while everything was going good. This lasted for several months. All of a sudden one day Bill found himself again sitting at a bar pounding on the bar wondering what in the hell had happened this time. His man had fooled him again and the obsession had returned and he was right back where he had started. Maybe he said to himself, this time it will be different. But whatever it was, his man told him that it would be okay to drink. And he triggered the allergy and again as before he couldn't stop. Bill was at the point in his illness and drinking that he would get drunk and get sick. And the next day he would feel so bad that he couldn't exist without another drink. So he would take another drink, trigger the allergy again, and all he could do was continue to drink and drink and drink.
He had reached the point that left on his own resources he couldn't stop at all. Bill drank for some time and got himself back down in real bad shape. Finally Bill's mother and Lois put him back in the town's hospital. This was his second trip and this was the summer of 1934. And he was back under Dr. Silkworth again. And this time Dr. Silkworth pronounced Bill incurable and he told Bill and Lois that they would have to have Bill locked up or they would have to hire a bodyguard or they would have to go with him all the time so that they could keep him from drinking or that he was going to die during DTs or that he was going to have to be locked up in an insane asylum. Bill said that they didn't really need to tell him this because he already knew it. When Bill left the hospital this time, fear sobered him up for a little while. Bill knew what was wrong with him. He knew if he drank again that he'd wind up sick and drunken and in all kinds of trouble. He knew that there was no way he could control his drinking at all once he started. On Armistice Day in 1934 Bill decided that he would go to Staten Island and play golf at a public golf course because he couldn't afford to play on anything other than a public golf course. He had gotten his golf clubs and gotten on the bus to Staten Island. While he was on the bus, Bill met a man who was going down to Staten Island to the gun range, to the shooting range, to shoot his rifle. In a matter of this trip down there they struck up a conversation and talked about golf and shooting guns, among other things, and Bill finally got into telling the man a little bit of his plight with alcohol. While they were on this bus ride down, their bus ran into another bus and they had to stop and unload and get everybody shifted and try to get another bus down to pick them up. This guy saw this speakeasy and he said, Say, how about let's go in and have a drink? Bill said, Okay. So they did. They went in and this guy ordered a scotch and Bill ordered a ginger ale. They sat there and talked for a while and went back out. The bus had come again so they got on the second bus. They started on back down to the ferry and Bill again told the man more about his problem with alcohol. He explained about the allergy of the body this time and he explained that the first drink triggered this allergy. He told about the obsession of the mind that triggered the first drink, which in turn set off the allergy. When they reached the end
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of the line they got off the bus and there was a restaurant nearby. Bill's friend asked him, How about let's go inside and have something to eat? Bill said, Okay. So they got off the bus and went inside. Each one ordered a sandwich. Bill's friend ordered a scotch again. Bill ordered a ginger ale. While they were sitting there eating a sandwich with Bill drinking a ginger ale, the bartender walked up to their table with two drinks in his hand and he said, Fellas, it's Armistice Day and the drinks are on the house and with no fault whatsoever.
They said Bill reached up, got the glass, turned it up and drank it. Bill's friend looked at him in amazement. He said, My God, man, you must be crazy. He said, After what you just told me about yourself, about your drinking all during this last hour that we've been riding together and you take a drink and drink it down? He says, You must be crazy as hell. Bill looked at him and said, Yes, I really am. Bill had started his allergy again and he couldn't stop drinking. The phenomenon of craving had developed. The days went by and Bill got sicker and sicker and as time went by, Bill got a call from an old friend named Ebby. Ebby wanted to come over and visit. Bill told him, Come on, we'll visit and we'll talk. Ebby came over to visit Bill and Bill was really glad to see Ebby coming because Ebby was one of his old drinking buddies and he knew they were going to be able to sit around and have a few drinks and talk about the old times. When Ebby came in, Bill was sitting at the kitchen table with a big crock in front of him and this crock was full of pineapple juice and gin. Ebby came in and Bill said, He just stood there looking fresh skinned and glowing. Bill was surprised at how good Ebby looked. It had been years since he had seen Ebby in this good of condition. Bill said he didn't know exactly what it was that was so different. But Bill remarked that there was something inexplicably different about Ebby. He told Ebby, Come on in, Ebby, let's have a drink. Ebby walked over and sat down. He said, No, thank you, Bill, I'm not drinking today. Bill said, Come, come, Ebby, what's the matter that you're not drinking today? Ebby said, Well, to tell you the truth, Bill, I've gotten religion. Bill thought to himself, Uh-huh. He said, You know, last summer you were a mental drunk crackpot. He said, Now, I guess this summer you're a religious nut. Bill was thinking, But it wouldn't make him any difference. Hell, it would just be more for him to drink while Ebby sat there and babbled on. So he didn't say any more about that. But Bill knew that there was something different about Ebby. And also Bill knew something else about Ebby. He knew that Ebby had come up not too long before for a court commitment for alcoholic insanity. And Ebby had gone before this judge for commitment for insanity.
And two men had appeared there with Ebby to talk to the judge and ask the judge to release Ebby in their custody. They told the judge that they believed that they had found a way to help Ebby with his alcohol problem, and that if he would release Ebby to them, they didn't believe that he would have to commit Ebby now or in the future. Now, judges are no different then than they are now. They didn't like to commit people for alcohol problems.
The institutions are full of people now. We don't have enough beds to go around now. So the judge bought it. He released Ebby to these two guys. And these two guys took Ebby to a meeting at a group of people called the Oxford Group. In the Oxford Group, Ebby learned two or three simple ideas. One thing he learned was that if he wanted to overcome a problem greater than he was, that he would have to have the help of a power greater than he was.
He also found out that if he wanted the help of a power, that all he had to do was be willing to believe that that power existed, and really all he had to do was just be willing to believe, period. He also learned that if he would believe and then if he took certain action on his belief, that it could come into being and that you could overcome whatever your problem was through the aid of this power greater than yourself. Those were the principles that the Oxford Group had at that time.
There was a fellow named Roland H., and Roland was the one who had sent these two guys to see about Ebby. Roland had told Ebby about the time he had gone to see Dr. Jung in Switzerland, the time Dr. Jung was the greatest psychiatrist in the whole world. Dr. Jung had treated him for alcoholism. Roland came back to the United States, and Roland couldn't stay sober, and so he had gone back to Switzerland for further treatment. Dr. Jung this time pronounced Roland incurable. He asked Dr. Jung, he said, but are there no exceptions to this thing that you're talking about? The doctor told him, he said, well, that there And the doctor told him, he says, well, that there were, but there were very few exceptions, and that only in rare, rare occasions, he had seen alcoholics of this type have what Dr. Jung called a vital spiritual experience.
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And he said, during this time, their personalities seemed to change, and their old ideas and their old ways of living are cast aside and replaced with a new set of ideas, and they're able to stay sober. But he told Roland he didn't have much hope that this would happen to him. And he feared that Roland would die, an alcoholic. Well, Roland went back to the United States this time, and sometime after getting back to the United States, Roland became associated with the Oxford Group.
And through this association with the Oxford Group, Roland had had this vital spiritual experience and was able to quit drinking. Roland had sent these two men to see about Ebby, and they had told Ebby about Roland and told him what Roland had told them. So Ebby knew two things that Bill didn't know. Bill knew what the problem was. Bill got the problem from Dr. Silkworth, but he didn't know what to do about it.
Ebby knew what the solution to the problem was, a vital spiritual experience, or through the aid of a power greater than he was. Ebby also knew this little five- or six-step program or concept of action that the members of the Oxford Group used in order to overcome whatever their problem was, such as some of them had problems with overeating, and some with gambling, and some with beating their wives, and some had problems with alcoholism.
Of course, Ebby had come to visit with Bill, and Bill expressed some interest in wanting to know a little bit more about this program. Ebby asked him if he wanted to know more about it, and Bill told him, yes, that he did. So Ebby explained all this to Bill, and now sitting at Bill's table with Bill half-drunk, drinking pineapple juice and gin, Bill knew these three things. First of all, he knew what the problem was.
He knew he was allergic to alcohol, and he knew he had an obsession of the mind, and he got that from Dr. Silkworth. Second, he knew what the solution to the problem was, a vital spiritual experience that he had gotten from Ebby through Rowland, who had gotten it from Dr. Young. And thirdly, he also knew the plan of action that would bring about this vital spiritual experience, and he had gotten that from Ebby, who had gotten it from the Oxford Group.
For the first time, Bill Wilson was probably the first human being to really see and understand all three of these things, what the problem was, what the solution was, and how to go about finding the solution. Ebby left that day and told Bill he'd be back. Ebby didn't try to cram any of this down Bill's throat. By now Bill was caught up in the obsession and the allergy and the phenomenon of craving again anyway, so Ebby left him alone.
Bill, though he was caught up in his active alcoholism again, he kept going back to the program of action that Ebby had told him about. He kept trying to do a little bit of something about that and along that line, but he just couldn't do anything because he was just simply too drunk, and he just couldn't stop drinking. He even began to go down and visit some of the Oxford Groups. One of the times that he was going down to visit one of the Oxford Groups, he was on his way down to the Salvation Army Center where they met, and on the way down he just couldn't go without drinking.
So he stopped in at this little neighborhood bar and began to drink, to have a few drinks, and he met another drunk in there and he began talking to him. We all know how to talk to drunks. He was explaining to this drunk what they were going to do, what he was going down there to this Oxford Group meeting to do. The drunk told him, he says, I think I'll just go down there with you. So by the time they got down there, they were both pretty potted and they got in on the meeting.
As drunks will do, they tried to take the meeting over and they nearly got their butts thrown out of there. About that time, Ebby came along and Ebby got them out of the meeting and took them on back in the kitchen there at the Salvation Army Center and fed them up on a little food and some coffee and talked to them a little bit and kind of got them settled down. Ebby said that Bill went back out to that meeting and made one of the damnedest talks he'd ever heard.
Well, as time went by, of course, Bill got sicker and sicker and he wasn't able to get off the juice, and finally he was headed back to the town's hospital for his third trip. He was headed back to be there under Dr. Silkworth. This was in the early part of December in 1934. While at the hospital, getting built up a little bit better physically, in a little bit better shape, Ebby came to visit Bill at the hospital.
While Ebby was there visiting Bill and Bill was a little bit dried out and in a little bit better shape, they began to talk about the Oxford group movement again. They began to talk about these principles or these steps or these things that helped find that solution for Ebby.
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They began to take a look at this six-step plan program of action. During this stay that Bill had there, Bill got into looking at what these things had to say. One of the things that this program of action said was that it was necessary that you surrender completely. Another thing it says is that you inventory yourself and that you confess your shortcomings. Another one was to be willing to make restitution for harms done, and on and on.
Bill took a look at these things. As we also know, Bill mentioned about getting on his knees and praying and asking God if there be a God. Let me see. Bill experienced this bolt of lightning type spiritual experience that I'm sure other people have experienced. I did not, but Bill did. He said he felt as though a clean wind had blown all the way through him. He said he felt as though he was on top of this mountain and the wind was blowing through and through.
He said he felt that the room had been filled with a blinding flash of light. He felt as though his old ideas of living had been cast aside and replaced with a new set. Today we can't stand here and say just exactly what did happen to Bill Wilson. But what we can say is this, that Bill left the hospital in 1934. Bill didn't die until 1971, and it was never, ever again necessary for him to take another drink of alcohol as long as he lived.
Something surely phenomenal had taken place in the hospital that day. Bill thought he was going crazy. He screamed for the nurse to call for Dr. Silkworth to come in there, and Dr. Silkworth came in. He checked Bill's heart and he checked his blood pressure. And he told Bill he didn't find anything wrong with him. He said he didn't think Bill was going crazy. He said, I don't know what's happened to you, but whatever it is, you better hold on to it, because, as I said, it's better than anything else you've ever had.
Now let's make this clear. In order for Bill or you or me or anyone else to effect a recovery from the disease of alcoholism, we know that three things had to take place in Bill's life. First, he had to find out what was wrong with him. He found that out from Dr. Silkworth, that he had a physical allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind. But it just wasn't enough. He still had to know something else.
And he found out the solution from a psychiatrist in Switzerland that was passed to him through Roland H., through two more guys, to Ebby, and finally to Bill, that the solution was a spiritual awakening or a personality change sufficient enough to relieve Bill's alcoholism. And he experienced that. But he needed a third thing, and that was a planned program of action that he got from the Oxford groups that he put into action in his life there in the hospital.
And he used these concepts and took this action that was called for to the best of his ability, and Bill underwent a personality change sufficient to relieve his alcoholism. One of the things he also learned from the Oxford group was this. He learned that if he had gotten something from this program, that the only way he could hold on to it would be by taking these concepts and sharing them with other people who needed the same help that he needed, and that if he didn't do this, that it wouldn't do him any good.
He wouldn't be able to hold on to it. And while laying in his hospital thinking about all of this and thinking about that particular part of the Oxford group movement, he said he felt that he'd be able to go out, and that maybe this was the answer to alcoholism, and that he could take this information out, and that one day maybe he would be able to help hundreds and hundreds of people. Well, if he'd have just seen that stadium last night, he'd have known it was bigger than that.
Bill worked with a good number of down-and-outers in the Bowery and was having no success at all. One day he went back to see Dr. Silkworth, and he told him that he wasn't having any success, and Dr. Silkworth told him, he says, Bill, why don't you quit trying to cram this spiritual experience down the throat of other people and start telling them about the problem? And Bill bought that. He told him, he says, tell them about the mental obsession, and tell them about the allergy, and tell them about the hopeless condition of mind and body, and said maybe afterwards that they would accept hearing about your spiritual experience and your spiritual solution.
Well, about this time, of course, Bill had gotten out of the hospital now and was doing well and was in recovery, and he'd gone back to work and was doing real well. You know, Lois talked about this last night. She mentioned about Bill that his first trip out after getting out of the hospital and getting back into good shape and going back to work was the trip to Akron. And Bill was going to make this trip to Akron because he'd put together a stock deal that required him to go there and get these stock certificates signed by these stockholders and bring them back to New York in order to complete the deal.
[00:40:01]
And that's what he was supposed to be there to do. But while he was in Akron, this business deal fell through and people wouldn't sign their stock certificates over to Bill. Something happened. And he could see all this money that he planned to make from this deal going out the door. Now, this was the end of May in 1935, and Bill hadn't had a drink since 1934. Bill went back to the Mayflower Hotel there in Akron and was standing in the lobby.
He felt low and he felt bad and he felt depressed. This was the worst that he had felt since he sobered up back in December. Bill could see through the door into a bar there in the hotel, and he could see people in there laughing and carrying on and having a good time, and he could hear the music. And he thought to himself, he said, if I could just go in that bar and sit down and order a soft drink, I'd feel a hell of a lot better.
And he said to himself, he said, I just want some companionship so I'll feel a little better. Because he felt kind of bad. He just knew that that big deal was going to come off, and it didn't. He didn't even have enough money in his pocket to pay his hotel bill. As Bill started toward the door, the thought crossed his mind that he couldn't do that. That if he went inside, he would surely drink, and if he took a drink, he would get drunk, and he'd get back into trouble on the merry-go-round again.
In desperation, Bill tried to think what he could do. He remembered that back in New York, when he felt so bad, that he'd find a drunk to talk to, and every time he did this, he'd get to feeling better himself. And you know, he hadn't talked to anybody into sobering up yet, but it's been keeping him sober, and it's been keeping him feeling better about himself. He thought, if I could just talk to a drunk, that even if I didn't help him, I'd surely get to feeling better himself.
And he saw this church directory on the wall, and he decided he'd pick up the phone and call one of these churches and see if he could find someone, a minister or someone, to talk to there and help him locate this drunk to talk with, so he did. He called, and he got a minister on the phone, and he talked to this minister, and he explained to him why he was calling. He told him what his problem was and who he was looking for, and he told him why he was doing what he was doing.
And the minister told him, he says, Well, Bill, I don't know anyone personally that you can talk to, but I do know this lady named Henrietta Samberling, and she's been working with a group of people here in Akron, and they've been trying to help some alcoholics in their group. And he told Bill he thought that maybe she could help him locate somebody. He also gave Bill a list of names of other people that he might call, and he didn't get any help from Henrietta.
Bill took the list, and he called everybody on the list except Henrietta, and he didn't get any response, didn't get any help. So finally he called Henrietta last, and Henrietta was so glad to hear from Bill. She wasn't really all that surprised to hear from him, because she told Bill she'd been going to the Oxford groups. You know, Bill had been going to the Oxford groups, and Bill had gotten some help at the Oxford groups.
And one of the groups she was going to had this surgeon that they had desperately been trying to find some help for who had a real bad drinking problem. They had been working with this guy, Dr. Bob Smith, and had been praying for guidance for what to do about him and his problem. As a matter of fact, Henrietta had talked with Dr. Bob just recently, and she had told him that she had been praying for him many nights and that as a result of her prayers for him that she had had this dream or she had had this discovery that had come to her during this dream that it was very important that Dr. Bob never take another drink of whiskey as long as he lived.
Dr. Bob didn't know how to respond to that. He asked her, he said, well, what does this mean? What does this mean? She said she didn't know except that somehow he had to quit drinking or that he would surely die. Later on, Henrietta said she always felt that as a result of that prayer and that dream that God was going to send somebody into Dr. Bob's life to intervene. Apparently she was a person with very strong faith and very strong beliefs.
So when Bill called her, she told Bill that she was kind of expecting someone to call, and she didn't know who it would be, but that she knew someone would come to give Dr. Bob help. Well, Henrietta was thrilled that Bob had called, so she told him about this surgeon that was dying from alcoholism and was losing his practice and his family and desperately needed help. And she told Bill that she would make a phone call and see if she couldn't set up a meeting between the two of them.
And sure enough, Henrietta called and talked to Dr. Bob's wife, Ann, and Ann answered the phone, and Henrietta told her what she wanted to do. Ann told her, she said, well, we can't do that. She said, we can't come over right now. Henrietta asked her, she said, well, why can't you come over right now? Well, finally Ann told her, she said, that Bob was… Finally, Ann told her, she said that Bob was a little bit potted under the table.
In other words, he was drunk and passed out.
[00:45:01]
But what she did tell her was that if she could set this meeting up for the next day, she'd see to it that Bob got there. And you know, I can kind of imagine that situation, you know, he got drunk and passed out, and caused all kind of problems, and by the way, here it is, Mother's Day, and, you know, you screwed up that bad, the next day, if wife has somewhere for you to go, and they talked for hours and hours.
One of the most amazing things about all this was that Bob already knew. Bob already knew the solution. Bob had been going to Oxford group longer than Bill had been going. He already knew the solution, and he already knew what it was that he had to do in order to get this solution to his problem. He knew those two things. He knew that he would have to have this spiritual experience in order to overcome this desire to drink.
He knew what the planned program of action was that would help him do this. What he didn't know was what was wrong with him. He didn't know the problem. And Bill and Bob sat down and talked for hours and hours, and Bill explained to Dr. Bob what his problem was, and what his illness actually was. This has to be one of the real miracles that took place along the way to our program. For whoever believed that an egotistical medical doctor such as Bob would sit and listen to a New York stockbroker diagnose his illness, much less sit for hours and hours and talk to him about it on their first meeting, Dr. Bob bought the idea, and as a result, he now knew these three things.
He knew the problem. He knew that it was an obsession of the mind, followed by a physical allergy. Bill brought that information to him, and he bought it, lock, stock, and barrel. It made sense to him. He knew the solution was a power greater than himself that helped him overcome the desire to drink alcohol. And he knew this little six-step planned program of action that could help him to have this personality change that was necessary to overcome the disease of alcoholism.
So Bob began to try and apply this program to his life, and he sobered up almost instantly. He was doing real good. But time came for Bob to attend a medical convention. This hadn't been too long into his short-lived sobriety. Bill, by the way, was staying in Akron and still living there with Bob and Ann. And Ann knew that this medical convention was coming up, and she told Bill, she said, Bill, we need to talk him out of going.
She said, we can't let him go. She said, if he goes, he's going to get drunk. And if he gets drunk, he's going to be right back where he was. And Bill told her, he says, well, Ann, I agree with you, but Bob's got to learn to live in this world and this life, and he's got to learn to live just like anyone else lives in it. And if that's going to be the case, well, then we're just going to have to try and see.
We're going to have to find out. And sure enough, Bob went to the medical convention, and sure enough, he got drunk. Bob was gone for several days. And finally, Ann got a telephone call from this nurse, and she told Ann, Bill, to come over there at her house and get Bob. She said that he was there, he was drunk, and he was sick, and raising all kinds of hell, and she wanted them to come get him. And they did.
They came over there to pick him up. And one other thing she told them, she said, you know, tomorrow Bob has to perform surgery at the hospital. And she said, there's nobody that can take his place and perform this particular surgery. Bob was a specialist. Dr. Bob was a specialist. He was a proctologist. I know you know what a proctologist is. That's a guy that works on rear ends. But anyway, they took Bob on home, kept him up a while, feeding him, coffee, walking him, talking to him, trying to see if they could get him sober for the next day.
Anyway, by the time the next day came, he was at least sober enough to ride down to the hospital with Bill driving. And so they headed that way and went on down to the hospital. On the way down there, Bob told Bill, he says, you know, I'm nervous, and I'm sick, and I'm shaking. And he said, there's just no way. There's no way I can perform this surgery. I just can't do it. When they got to the hospital, Bill reached back in the back seat of the car and pulled out a bottle of beer that was sitting back there.
And he gave it, he opened it and gave it to Bob. He said, here. He said, drink this and you'll be okay. That bottle of beer was the last drink of alcohol that Dr. Bob was to ever take. He drank the beer. He went upstairs. He performed the surgery. After the surgery was over, though, he disappeared. They didn't know where he'd gone. And Bill Nann was sitting around talking about it, and Bill told Ann, he says, oh, screwed up again.
He gave him that bottle of beer and said, surely that has set off his allergy again, and he's probably somewhere drunk. Bill Nann waited for Bob to come home, and finally, late that evening, he showed up and he wasn't drunk.
[00:50:02]
Bill asked him, he said, where in the hell have you been? He says, boy, he says, I've been going up and down the streets making my amends. He says, you know, I really want to stay sober this time, and he says, I'm willing to do whatever it takes, because, he says, this time I want to stay sober. Well, we don't know exactly what happened to Dr. Bob, but we do know this. That this was in 1935, and that Dr. Bob didn't die until 1950, and it was never necessary for him to take another drink of alcohol as long as he lived, because he knew these three things.
He not only knew these three things, he was willing to act on these three things. He was willing to take the planned program of action and put it into actual use in his life. Now, he may have been one of the only people that did it in one day, and I'm sure he didn't do it all that day, but he must have done a great deal of it, because of what he knew and what he wanted to do. And you know, I think one of the real sad things in our programs today, and I know that this is true for me, is that we know what our program is.
We know what our problem is. And we spend all of our time sitting in the meetings talking about it, and we don't ever get out and get into the action of doing something about it. Now, this is what's sad. I think it's also probably a great part of why we see such a much smaller percentage of people staying in this program today than the 75% recovery factor that happened in the early days. In the early days, they hadn't built up quite all of this bullshit yet that goes on in an awful lot of our programs.
Thank you. Bob knew, like Bill did, that they would have to share what they had in order for them to keep it themselves, and that they would have to share it with people that had the same problem they had. Because you know, both of them now had been active in the Oxford Movement, and they had learned this from the Oxford Movement. So Bob called down at the hospital, and he talked to a little nurse.
And by the way, this nurse was Sister Ignatius, that all of us have heard so much about. And he wanted to know, was there a drunk down there that they could talk to? And she told him, she said, it sure as hell is. There's one up here that's blacked the eyes, both eyes of a nurse, and said, we've had to strap him down in his bed. So Bob told her, said, well, don't let him get away. He said, we'll be right down there.
And they did. They came to the hospital, came to the hospital that day, and went up and visited with this guy. And what they did, and by the way, we see this depicted in this picture, the man on the bed many times around our central offices and around our meetings and in some of the literature that we have. And that's where this picture came from. And what they did was, they went in and shared with this man what had happened to them.
Now, they didn't go in there preaching a lot of religion. They might have hinted on that a time or two, and they could see this guy kind of getting tight. But they told him the three things that they thought he needed to know, the three things that they needed to know. They told him about the problem, they told him about the solution, and they told him about the planned program of action. They left.
They stayed a little while with him that day, and they talked, and they left. They told him, they said, but we'll be back. Well, the next day, this guy's wife had come to the hospital to see him, and he told his wife, he says, get my clothes as I'm going home. She says, well, wait a minute. You haven't been here that long. Do you really think you're ready to go home? He told her about these two men that had come to see him, and he told her what they had told him that they had done, and that they had sobered up, and he told her, he says, I'm going to go home and do what they did.
He says, I know now how I can get sober. About that time, Bill and Bob came in, and he introduced them, and he told his wife, he says, these are the two men that came to see me. He said, these are the two men that told me about what they had done and how I could stay sober. This guy's name was Bill Dodson, Bill D. Bill left the hospital, and he never took another drink as long as he lived, because he knew those three things, and he got actively involved with them, and he applied those three things to his life, and he never took another drink as long as he lived.
Finally, Bill had to go home to New York and try to get his life put back together and to try to get things going. Unbeknowings to him, though, when he left Akron, he had gone off and left what was to become the first group of Alcoholics Anonymous. They were then called the Drunk Squad of the Oxford Groups, because they were continuing to go to the Oxford Groups and to use this movement as their way of, their program, their way of staying sober.
And they were still using this six-step plan program of action,
[00:55:02]
because up to this point, this was all they had. Bill got back to New York, and he began working with drunks on the basis that Dr. Silkworth had told him, about explaining to them about the problem first. On the basis of this, finally, one sobered up, and then two sobered up, and then three. And unbeknowings to Bill, they were putting together the second group of Alcoholics Anonymous. While this was going on, there was a group up in Cleveland that decided that they needed to go down to Akron.
They had heard about this doctor down there, and they had heard about these drunks that were sobering up down there, and they wanted to go down and see what was happening, and see if they were really sobering up like they had heard they were. And they got down there, and sure enough, they found out these three things. After finding out these three things, they took these three things back to Cleveland, and one of them sobered up, another one sobered up, and finally, they were putting together the third group of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Well, a couple of years passed, and Bill and Dr. Bob got back together in 1937, and they sat down and counted heads, and they finally realized that with this information and with this program of action, there were 40 people now staying sober in these three groups. This was probably the first time that they really were convinced that they had something going that was absolutely working, and that it was not only working, it was working with a good number of people, and it had worked over a pretty good period of time.
Here were 40 people who were all following this same pattern, this same program of action, and all 40 of them had found the same solution. They were all sober, getting along well in life, and for the first time, each of them realized that it was a miracle. They thought that maybe they had really latched on to something that really did work, and that maybe it would work for any alcoholic who would try it.
Bill and Bob finally decided that what they should do is they needed to try to get as many of the 40 together as they could and have a meeting, and they decided they'd have a meeting in Akron, and that later they would have a meeting in New York. My understanding at the meeting in Akron, there were about 18 people that they were able to get together. They discussed a lot of things. Such things came up as the possibility of making a film, the possibility of newspaper advertisements, magazine articles, but finally what came up that made sense to everybody was that what they had here was a very fragile bit of information, and that if they were to let this information continue to be passed down by word of mouth from one to the other and from one town to the other, that too many changes could take place, and it could become distorted, and possibly even destroyed, and it's handing down.
They said, what we really need to do is write a book. When they met in New York, the same basic things came out, the only difference in New York, they brought it to a big vote, and they really voted to do three things. They voted to build hospitals, they voted to have paid missionaries, and they voted to write the book. And like you've heard before, if you haven't, you'll hear now, thank God, at least the one thing, and thank God the only thing that came out of this was the writing of the big book.
In the discussion, they were all looking at one another, wondering who could write the book. And of course, they all looked at Bill. They said, Bill, you know more about this than any of us, you've been sober longer than any of us, and what we really need to do is write this book, and we want you to do it. Bill had been sober approximately three years at this time. Can you imagine? Can you imagine three years and write this book?
And you know, they told him, they said, Bill, we don't want this to be your book. They said, we want you to write it, but we want this to be a book about all of us. We want this to be a book with the collective knowledge and experience and wisdom of all 40 of us. And what we want you to do is write the book, and as you get chapters written, we'll all get together and review, and we'll add to, and we'll delete from, and that this book will be a book that all of us together can agree on.
And that's what worked out. They said, when we're through, we'll have a book that will belong to all of us, and it will be the story of all of us. Bill began to write the book in May of 1938, and he followed the pattern of writing that was the same one that he followed whenever he recovered, whenever Bob recovered, and whenever Bill Dee recovered. He wrote the book along the exact pattern that all 40 of these people had used to recover from the disease of alcoholism.
to Recover from the Disease of Alcoholism. He wrote it based on the problem, based on the solution, and based on the planned program of action. This is the three phases that you
[01:00:00]
will see the first seven chapters of our book go through. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it starts with the doctor's opinion. It starts with the exact nature of the illness. It explains the hopeless condition of man and body. It tells us what our problem really is. In Bill's story in Chapter 1, we see the story of a person who has suffered that illness. We see the perfect example of what we'd see if we'd go on a twelve-step call. When we got out there, we don't try to tell a drunk what he has to do. We tell him about our own selves. We tell him about our disease. We tell him about what we've found, and we tell him what we had to do in order to find that solution, and then we let him make up his own mind in what he will do and what he will believe. Bill's story does exactly that. It tells us about the disease. It shows us the solution, and it tells us exactly what we have to do if we're to find that solution. Bill's story and the doctor's opinion shows us exactly what the disease actually is and what it's all about. We don't think it's by accident that Chapters 2, 3, and 4 talk about the spiritual experience. We don't think it's by accident that Chapter 2 says that there is a solution. We don't think that it's by accident that in the appendix, in the back of the book, that there's an explanation of the term spiritual experience or spiritual awakening, and that it tells us that it's a personality change sufficient for us to recover from alcoholism. In Chapters 2, 3, and 4, it shows us the solution. In Chapter 3, it shows us more about alcoholism. It shows us what will happen if we don't find the solution. And in Chapter 4, it shows us we agnostics, and it gives us a solution that even we can live with, even though we don't know what to believe or even if we believe. We don't think it's by accident that Chapter 5 is entitled How It Works, because Chapter 5 is the beginning of the action necessary to find the solution.
And in Chapter 5, we begin with Step 3, and as we work through Steps 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, the way we think, the way we feel, and our old motives begin to change. As we continue through Steps 8 and 9, the way we think, the way we feel, and our old motives continue to change. And what happens is that we actually undergo a personality change from Steps 3 through 9 sufficient enough to recover from the disease of alcoholism. Now, the reason I know that that's true is if you'll look immediately after Step 9 on page 83 and 84, there's a whole list of promises. And if you would carefully read that list of promises, you would see that our personalities had begun to change and that we have recovered from the disease of alcoholism. But then we take a look at Steps 10, 11, and 12. We go further into action, and we go more into working with others, and we see how even though we have received the personality change experienced in Step 9, that it can be even better, because Bill talks twice in our book, twice, he talks about this fourth dimension of living that we never ever dreamed existed. As we practice 10, and as we practice 11, and as we practice 12, and as we work with people, the spiritual experience that we found at the end of Step 9 becomes refined, and it becomes better and better. And the personality change becomes refined, and it goes deeper and deeper. We find ourselves with a degree of courage that we never had before that becomes stronger and stronger. We find ourselves with a degree of patience and tolerance and goodwill toward all men that we never had before. We find ourselves actually believing in a kind and loving God that can solve our problem. We find ourselves living on a plane that we didn't know existed. You see, 1, 2, and 3 straightens you up in the first dimension, which is the spirit. 4, 5, 6, and 7 straightens you up in the second dimension, which is your mind. And 8 and 9 straightens you up in the third dimension, which is your relationship with other people in the world around you. And 10, 11, and 12 puts you into a fourth dimension of existence that we never dreamed existed.
We don't think that this could all have possibly been brought about by human beings. We know that God works through people with people. God never has come down and sat down beside me and said, ìDan, this is what I really want you to do.î He just hadn't done that
[01:05:05]
because God works with people through people. I'm positive that God picked out Bill. I'm positive that he put Dr. Silkworth in his life. And I'm positive that he placed Dr. Jung, that he picked Dr. Jung. And I'm also positive that he used the Oxford groups. Now think about this. The very three people that we curse today, the medical doctors, those crazy psychiatrists, and those damn preachers and religious nuts that really don't know anything about our problems, we believe, the very three things that we had to know, that Bill had to know, that Dr. Bob had to know, that Bill D. had to know, and that all of the first 40 had to know, came to us from a medical doctor, from a psychiatrist, and from a bunch of religious nuts called the Oxford group. Is AA a miracle? I believe it is. In 1939, when our book was published, AA had no name. They were still known as the drunk squads of the Oxford groups. But in 1939, after our book was published, the Fellowship began to call themselves, after the name of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And in those early days, the Fellowship, which had grown up around the book, and the book, had the same program. But you know, I sometimes wonder about today. I see a lot of different programs within the program today. I see a lot of different things going on that don't really look like this program that I finally, thank God, finally learned about in our big book. Some of the things are good, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of wholesome things. But then, you know, how much of our real program do we actually have our lives revolving around in our road to try to find and reach recovery? I don't know. You know, we're not the only Fellowship that experiences these problems either. We see a lot of our churches and Sunday schools, and we know the program that they have, and we know the book that their programs are supposed to have come out of. And you know, a lot of times, some of their programs don't look too much like their book either, and we see some of the problems that they have there. And we're in danger of having the same thing happen to us, by the way. We need to look at our heritage, and we need to see and to remember where we came from. We need to see what the original people had to know in order to recover from the disease, and what they had to do.
And we need to practice that in our lives, and then we will have a message to carry to the person who still suffers from the disease. And that message will have depth that he can understand, and can explain to him what he is, and what he needs to do, and how he can go about doing it. If we could all do that, our fellowship would not only grow in numbers, as we've done tremendously, but we would also grow in qualities. You know, this is really not a program of just getting sober. It's not a program of just getting sober. We talked about that earlier. Hell, if all you want to do is just get sober, go out here on the street and slap the hell out of some cop, you'll get sober. It's just that simple. You'll get sober. But our program is not a program of just getting sober. It's a lot more than that. You know, I owe a great debt of gratitude to both Charlie and Joe. I'm going to close in just a minute and see if we don't have some comments or some questions. But I'd like to share with you just a few minutes about myself. Five years ago, we had this great international convention about 75 or 80 miles from my home, and I wasn't there. I didn't care anything about being there. I'd been hanging around AA for about six or seven months.
I had gotten better. My mind had straightened out. I could think clearly. And I didn't see any need for going down to New Orleans and sitting in a big Superdome stadium with a bunch of 20 or 25,000 drunks. I didn't see any need for that. I didn't see any need for learning or reading too much in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, because hell, I had already gotten straight. You know, my mind was already better. I was doing better. And I didn't go. I didn't care anything about going. I didn't go. A few months later, I
[01:10:00]
was just like Bill. The obsession hit. You know, I didn't know anything about the obsession. I didn't know anything about the physical allergy. I didn't know anything about the solution and the planned program of action. I'd been hanging around for six or seven months, but I still didn't know anything. I'd been through a very sophisticated and very expensive treatment program. And it was not their fault. I'm sure they tried to bring this information to me. I'd gone to a lot of meetings, and I'm sure someone tried to bring this information to me. And I had a sponsor, because they told me you're supposed to get one. After about two months, I fired him in an open meeting one night.
So this tells you a little bit about me and my first introduction to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I don't know, maybe I wouldn't have listened anyway. But finally, in about June of 1981, and I came back, my sobriety date is February the 1st, at an Al-Anon conference, not an AA conference, at an Al-Anon conference, I heard an AA speaker. And that AA speaker was Joe McWaney from Little Rock. And I don't know what all he said, but I can tell you this. The first thing that I remember hearing him say is that AA is not a stop-drinking program. It's a program of how to start living. And boy, he caught my attention, because hell, I thought the whole thing was about how to stop drinking. And it's not. It's about how to start living, and learning, and being able to function, and being able to get along in the world with other people, and being able to go back home to my family, and being able to readjust, and to help them to adjust to me, and to adjust to a new way of living and a new way of life, if they're willing, if they want to. And if they don't, that's okay too. That I can. That I can. And I took that information from Joe, and I bought that tape.
And while I was there, the guy told me, he said, say, by the way, they got another set of tapes that this guy's on. If you like him, he said, it's called the Big Book Study tapes. I didn't know what a Big Book Study was. I didn't know too damn much what the Big Book was. But I bought that set of tapes. And I started listening to them. And I started hearing them tell about this problem being this allergy and this obsession. And I heard them tell about the solution to the problem and break the book down. You know, they explained this to me in a way that I could understand it, because they had the knowledge themselves.
They were willing to take the time and to study and to learn, so that they had this message to carry. They got their house in order. So that when they wanted to know what they could do to help the drunk who still suffered, that the message came to them. They had the message. And thank God I exposed myself to this learning and that I accepted it, because I had gotten in real bad trouble my last time out. And you know, this is all that we're trying to bring you here in these programs that we're having down here this weekend, is that we've got to go back to our groups, go back to our big books, get ourselves a acquainted with what is in this big book that Bill and Dr. Bob in the first 40 and the first 100 recovered by doing and by using and by applying to their lives. And we need to get this knowledge as a part of us, not only so that we can stay recovered, sure so we can stay recovered, but so that we can fulfill the second part of our primary purpose, that we can help the drunk who still suffers. And I hear a lot of people say, and I've said it too, oh I can carry this message or that message or the other message. That's not the message it's talking about. And it's talking about carrying the message, it's talking about one single message, the message of recovery that's brought to us in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I would challenge you to go back to your groups, go back home, get involved in your big book. If you don't have a big book study, start one. Get the set of tapes, that's all you need. It's not that hard to learn, but it's hard to learn by yourself.
Now I have a good background in education. I have degrees from two universities and finished all my coursework for a doctorate from another. And I'm a retired teacher in public school systems. Hell, I couldn't read the big book and understand it by myself. I couldn't read the Big Book and understand it by myself. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, not by myself. I had to have it explained to me in such a way that I could understand it.
I'm beginning to understand it.
[01:15:01]
You know, I'm the baby in this group. There are eight people presenting this program down here. I didn't know why Charlie called me. My wife told me. She said they needed a bad example. Well that's not exactly what she said, but she said they needed an example that, you know, was, that maybe you could relate to, you know. I'm young in this program. God knows I'm young. But, you know, I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be because I've been told that.
I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing at the very moment I'm supposed to be doing that. And I believe that because I've been taught that. And I have become teachable enough that I've accepted that. And I'll do whatever I'm asked to do. And I'll close by saying thank you. Thank you very much, Dan. I'm sure you will all agree that was one powerful message. Are there any questions from the floor or comments?
Would you please pick one of the mics on the floor? There are two mics down the middle aisle. I'm Gary. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Dan, for doing your homework, for doing the research and gathering up those anecdotes. They were interesting and informative. The line, there's a line I appreciate very much in the book, and it's, no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.
And that has saved my bacon a few times. It takes one year to do the book in a study group, meeting once a week. You can go through the entire text and the stories in one year. And it's been my privilege to lead three such groups and a terrific learning and a valuable experience to be with a group of people on a weekly basis and to learn our program. As a true measure of your sobriety, you can ask yourself this question.
And I give you this from an old timer out of Vancouver, British Columbia, who's now passed on, Ross O'Brien. Ross said, you want to know how sober you are? He says, just find out, are you fun at home? Thank you. The microphone at the back, please. Hi, my name's Ed. I'm from London, Ontario. I just love what Danny said there. I was up in the other session too, but I forgot what I was going to say. But just as Danny says, it's up to us to get off our ass and get the word around.
Get it back to where it was with the first 100 members. If you want to know how to do that, just grab your big book and three or four of your friends and start a little meeting by yourselves. People get nosy. They get envious. What the hell are they doing? You'll get some live ones and then you've got your group going. That's all you've got to do. Thanks, Ruth. Thanks, Ed. I'm Charlie, I'm an alcoholic from Los Angeles.
Dale, that was a wonderful talk. I've been to a few of these book marathons and that was really wonderful. These are the meetings I've gotten the most out of while I've been here. I've gone to a lot of other workshops, but it's been the book studies that have really changed the way I see my understanding of the program. I've been sober a little over three and a half years and what I've learned in the last couple of days is that I didn't understand the process of the book and how important it is to see it in sections.
For me, I read the book, but I pick out little parts that are my favorite little parts and I read them over and over again. Also what I got out of it was the need to talk about the problem when you meet a new person who's still drinking or using drugs. The problem is the most important thing for me to help the person understand. So often when I've done a 12-step call or tried to work with somebody, I go in and share my experience and don't identify the problem.
To me, the message that I'm authorized to carry is to identify the problem, talk about the planned program of recovery, and share my experience of a spiritual awakening, whatever that may be, and to really start to understand this program in those three areas.
[01:20:07]
You were really very clear today in discussing that and you can see you really did a lot of research on your presentation. I'm grateful to be here and that's what I want to take home to my groups in California. Thank you very much. Thank you. My name is Tom Dolan and I'm here from Bridgeview, Illinois, through the Grace of God and the program of Alcoholics and Alchemists. The young man just said he was around three and a half years and Dan said he'd been around five and through the help I got this year, I'll have 13, but I don't believe in quantity or variety.
I believe in quality. I found, I came here and I'm a big book freak because in 1972, I hope, I was in my last mental institution, totally unable to think clearly and it was a state mental hospital and there was a fellow in there with me who'd had a seizure and left the slack ward and came back with a big book and approximately six months later, I was able to get my head together enough to take a rehab program.
I was at a stage where after 25 years of marriage, my wife had divorced me and I was totally alone. I noticed since I came here that life is infinitely better. The big book calls this a design for living and I believe that. I don't work the steps or do the steps. I try my best to live the steps. For those of you who are not around too long, whenever I believe that I know what's in the big book, I go back and study it and I get surprised.
This program works like that and I want to say I love you all and thank you. My name is James and I'm an alcoholic. I've been in this program sober for about three years and everything I know about this program I learned from someone else. I learned from my friend Keith from the Unionville group that we treat this disease in steps four through nine and that we can stay sober by not drinking and going to meetings.
But to change ourselves, we have to go through four through nine. I learned from another guy, my friend Bob M. of the St. Jamestown group. He said, someone must have been talking about taking it easy. We were in a big book discussion group and he said, well, there's an awful lot of people out there. An awful lot of sick people who are waiting for us to get better so we can help them. It's up to us to work the steps in order that we can carry the message of the 12 steps.
Carry this message to this message is in the 12 steps and it's important to me, and I haven't worked all the 12 steps myself, but it's something that is becoming more clear to me that I should. This book here, it says this chip of a book is launched in the world tide of alcoholism. I had a friend of mine who I drank with. I was living in the same rooming house with him. I didn't recover financially immediately, but paying $33 a week, cockroaches and so on.
And I was sober and he wasn't. And he wouldn't come to a meeting and he insisted his problem wasn't booze, it was something else and if he could just get straightened around, he could. He had this problem. And the thing I did was I gave him my copy of the big book and he celebrated two years of sobriety recently because as soon as he read that big book, he knew what was in this program and he wanted it and he knew he could find it at meetings.
And that isn't me working. I just gave him the big book, which I had and I hadn't read too much, but I gave it to him and he read it right through. I bought all the books I could get my hands on when I started in this program because I figured if I could learn this program through reading it in a book, I could learn it because I always read books and I read them over and over again, books I like, and I read the big book once and then I left it alone until my friend that got sober a year after me started taking me to a big book discussion meeting, something like this.
That big book has a lot of answers in it and all I have to do is keep looking for them. Thank you. Thank you.
[01:25:00]
My name is Dave Johnson and I'm an alcoholic. I'm very grateful to be sober today and I'm a member of the Southside Group in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and I'm very grateful for the people that brought me into Alcoholics Anonymous. The door was open when I came and I was incapable because of the disease of alcoholism of understanding and reading the big book when I came in, but they had a big book study group and they set me in a small room and allowed me to listen and by association the fog lifted and I was able to start reading the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and through that book I have found sobriety, God as I understand him, and life and I'm very grateful for that.
Thank you. Thank you. My name is Kevin, an alcoholic from the Boston area. Hi Kevin. And I remember when I first got sober about a year and a half ago, one of the first meetings I went to was a big book meeting and I remember just being in the room saying, oh this is stupid, you know a bunch of grown people sitting around reading out of a book and I hadn't done that since Dick and Jane in the second grade, but as I was there that night it occurred to me that in the second grade I was learning how to read, I was learning or supposedly trying to learn how to survive in this world and that's exactly what again I was doing when I was reading out of the big book with a group of people and as many times as I've read the big book by myself, I've never gotten as much out of it as I have in a room full of people listening to other people read it and it's an experience that if you haven't tried it I highly recommend, thank you.
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone, my name is Romaine Margolis and I'm definitely an alcoholic. And Diane, thank you so much for sharing, you had an awful lot of good to say. I'm a bit nervous as I usually am and there were just a few things I wanted to say. I've been hearing so much about us old timers. I'm what you might call an old timer. I have 27 years of continuous sobriety in this fellowship and all I had to do to earn this was put down one drink one day at a time.
I'm one of those that hit the bottom and went all the way to the bottom. I was bankrupt physically, mentally, and spiritually. And if there is anyone in these rooms that is struggling or debating in their mind whether they are or they're not, I'm one of those that had to keep it very simple from the beginning. I was a very simple person, a very confused, very mixed up person. And I say to anyone that's in these rooms that, you know, just keep it simple.
It works, it works just beautiful. The program never fails, only the individual. And Diane, you said something about different programs starting in here and I guess this is not the time or the place to discuss it all, but I just wanted to say to anybody that it does work and it works beautiful and you just have to keep it simple. And thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Rich. I'm an alcoholic and an addict.
Hi, Rich. I'm from Hartford, Connecticut. Through the grace of God in this program on the 12th of this month, I'll be sober two years. You know, I'm overwhelmed by this whole thing that's going on. You know, I have never cried since I've been in this program. I haven't cried in years and I'm crying now. And it's because of you people I'm able to open up around the people in this program because they understand where I came from.
And one thing that I want to say to you that I learned in Matt Talbot retreat, I'm a member of a Matt Talbot group, and they have a saying that went around in the last retreat. They have a saying that went around in the last retreat that I was on. It was, don't drink, go to meetings, and read the big book, sucker. You know? And the one thing that I liked that Dan said was, you know, I could read this book.
I've been to a big book meeting. It was my favorite meeting for the first year that I was in the program.
[01:30:01]
I made coffee at that meeting for ten months. And the one thing that I got from what you said was, I could read that book a million times over, but until I get up off my ass and do something that that big book tells me to do, you know, I'm not going to recover fully in this program. I think it's essential, at least for my own recovery, that I get out to the institutions, the jails, the hospitals, the detox units, the places where people are suffering, the places where people need this program.