Audio
Transcript
Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – PERSPECTIVE HOMOSEXUAL GUYS AND GALS IN AA – RS 06314.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-perspective-homosexual-guys-and-gals-in-aa-rs-06314.mp3 Duration: 01:22:01
============================================================
My name is Diane Gatza, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, and welcome to our workshop. Before we get going, I would like to please ask you to join me in a moment of silence in gratitude for the AA recoveries of the past 50 years. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Thank you. Would somebody close? Yeah, one of those. Thank you.
Because there may be some friends here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level, let me please take a moment to read it for you. 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, nor 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. Thank you. I also must read for you the local fire law. In accordance with the municipal bylaw, the security service of the Palais de Congrès de Montreal would like to draw your attention to the evacuation procedures for this hall.
Staircases marked with the word sortie are located at the end of the corridors outside each conference hall. Thank you for your attention. And finally, tapes of this meeting will be available at the tape sales booth in the convention center. All right. Welcome. Good morning. How are you? As I said, my name is Eileen Gatzer and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. And it is my privilege and my pleasure to be the moderator of this convention. Hi.
Would you please help me welcome our first speaker this morning, who is Barry L. from New York. Bonjour mes amis. My name is Barry and I'm an alcoholic. Je m'appelle Barry et je suis alcoolique. I have just exhausted my French vocabulary. And to me, today, that feels like a stinging character defect because I do so love this beautiful city and the marvelous hospitality we have been shown. Isn't it nice to be at another intimate little meeting of just us? It's a double whammy, you know, not only drunks and drunks and drunks and hollandons, but also my tomboy sisters and my sissy brothers.
This is not the way it was when I joined AA in 1945. We weren't in closets. We were sealed in vaults. And I'm going to steal a line from another Barry, Sir J. M. Barry. When you go home, ask your grandmother who he was.
[00:05:15]
He wrote a play called Peter Pan. And I've always wanted to say this line, but never before had the chance. Do you believe in fairies? That's unfair, but I enjoyed it. I want to talk a little bit about our third tradition and the way it got started, instead of talking about my drinking or any of those dull things. I'm going to read first from the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, two or three lines written by Bill and published in 1952. And you will hear this language that I'm going to read in just a few moments in another voice.
And I think the next time you get to read the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, you might hear this in a different way. On the AA calendar, it was the year two. In that time, nothing could be seen but two struggling, nameless groups of alcoholics trying to hold their faces up to the light. A newcomer appeared at one of the groups, knocked on the door, and asked to be let in. He talked frankly with the group's oldest member. He soon proved that his was a desperate case and that, above all, he wanted to get well.
But he asked, Will you let me join your group? Since I am the victim of another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism, you may not want me among you. Or will you? There was a dilemma. What should the group do? A few years ago, a friend of mine called me and said, I just found a tape that might interest you. He collects tapes, Ron. And he said, this is a tape Bill made in 1968 at an open meeting. It was the opening night meeting of the General Service Conference, and there were lots of guests there, so this was at an open meeting.
And he made his talk on all the traditions, and I'm going to play just what he said about tradition three. And about a year or two of the anchoring group, a poor devil came to Dr. Bob in the grievous state. He could qualify as an alcoholic all right. And then he said, Dr. Bob, I've got a real problem to tell you. I don't know if I could join AA because I'm a sex deviant. Well, that had to go out to the group conscience. You know, up to then it was supposed that any society could say who was going to join it. And pretty soon the group conscience began to seize and boil, and it boiled over.
And under no circumstances could we have such a power and such a disgrace among that set of great men. And now, right then our destiny hung on a razor edge over the same tape. In other words, would there be rules that could exclude so-called undesirability? And that caused us in that time, and for quite a time, respecting a single tape, to ponder what is more important, the reputation that we shall have, what people shall think, or is it our character? And who are we, considering our records?
Alcoholism is quite unlovely. Who are we to deny a man this opportunity, any man or woman?
[00:10:03]
And finally, the day of resolution came. And a bunch were sitting in Dr. Bob's living room, arguing what to do. What a fun. Dear old Bob looked around and blandly said, isn't it time, folks, to ask ourselves, what would the master do in a situation like this? Would he turn this man away? And that was the beginning of the age-old tradition that any man who has a drinking problem is a member of AA if he says so, not whether we say so.
Now, I think that the imperative on common welfare has already been stated. Because it takes in even more territory than the confines of our fellowship, it takes in the whole world of alcoholism. Their charter to freedom, to join AA, is assured. Indeed, it was an act in general welfare. There are copies of the transcript of that tape in the International Advisory Council Hospitality Room in case you want one.
In my own experience, during the year 1945, I was taken to have lunch with Bill by three wonderful ladies, three of whom were, who happened to be among the six ink-stained wretches who started the grapevine. And the question that arose at lunch was this. We see a great many people arrive in AA who may be bisexual or homosexual, and they don't seem to stay sober. They arrive and stay just a little while and they disappear. Don't you think it might be a good idea, Bill, for us to have special meetings for these people?
And Bill said, well, it might be the greatest thing in the pipe. They're coming down the pike. How long have you been sober, Barry? And I said, oh, about 11 months, almost a year. And he said, well, now you can stay sober another day or two, can't you? And I said, yes. You have friends, obviously, yes. Well, now, when you've been sober 18 months, I wish you'd come back and talk to me again about this, because I want to think about it.
And let me know what you think after you've been sober 18 months. I forgot to go back and have that conversation because by then there were so many of us, it didn't seem very necessary. I also had the experience that the first year, I was sitting on the desk at our old clubhouse in Manhattan, which was part of one of the chores we could do. We'd take turns sitting at the desk, answering the telephone, and greeting visitors.
And one day, the policeman on the corner sent in to see us a black man. That in itself was unusual. In Manhattan in 1945, we had no black AA members then. We were not to really start having black members until 1946. But the black man came in, and he had long, blonde hair, a la Veronica Lake. He was also a master cosmetician. He was a wonder with a paintbrush on his face. He was absolutely beautiful.
But strapped to his back were all his worldly belongings, and he said he had just been released from prison, and he needed help. He began to tell us what his problems were. Among others, he said he was homosexual, and he was a dope fiend. And he had no place to stay, and he had no money and nothing to eat. What could be done? I asked a number of the older members around at that time what they thought I should do, and they all left.
Not all, I shouldn't say that. One dear old soul, a gal named Fanny, stayed and tried very hard to help. But she couldn't get very far. She didn't really know the answer to this, so I said, I'm going to call the person I know has been sober longest, and I put some coffee down for the man and went outside and called Bill, and told Bill the story. And told Bill the story, and I said, we don't know what in the world to do, he needs all kinds of help, and Bill listened for a few, just was quiet for a few moments, and then he said, did you say this man was a drunk? I said, oh yes, we can all tell that instantly. Bill said, well, I think that's the only question we have any right to ask.
[00:15:22]
I'm sorry to say I don't know what happened to the man, someone else took over the desk later and I never saw him again, but let's hope he made it somewhere. It was my job during the 1973 and 74 General Service Conferences to write to the conference report, and those were the two years in which the question of listing gay and lesbian groups arose. That came about because of pressure from some wonderful people from Southern California.
All kinds of wonderful things come out of Southern California. They wanted to list themselves as gay groups or lesbian groups, and the General Service Office, of course, has a very ticklish job. They really should not do anything very much that hasn't been done before without direction from the General Service Conference, and so they took the question to the General Service Conference. It was debated in 1973 at some hot length, and finally the chairman, getting very smart, said, I think we'll table the question until next year. But that put it on the agenda for next year, so everybody knew it had to come up and be settled the next year.
At the General Service Conference, and if you don't know what the conference is, ask your sponsor. The conference has absolutely no power over any of us, not one bit. It has the power of example, it has the moral authority, but that's all. And the conference does not like to do anything by halves or even by bare majorities. The conference proceeds generally along the lines of almost complete unanimity. So in 1974, the question went back and forth, back and forth for two days and two nights. Much of the agenda was wiped out.
I remember one man saying, well, if you're going to list a sex deviant, I guess next year you'll list rapists. And I heard another person say something about, well, if we're going to get this kind of deviant in AA, what other kind of deviant are you going to want to list? The delegate from one of the northern states, or perhaps from a Canadian province, I'm not sure, was a delightful woman about three feet tall, and she went to one of the middle microphones out here on the floor and pulled it down to her mouth and said, where I come from, alcoholics are considered deviants.
The debate went on, but when the vote finally came that night, only two people voted against listing those groups. It was almost unanimous. I think it was one twenty-nine to two. And after that, something even better happened. Someone arose and offered this resolution. It is the sense of the conference that no AA group anywhere should ever turn away any member at his first meeting. And that took in all of us.
The conference drew a circle bigger in order to include us all. I've also had the fun of getting to write some things for AA. I've been hired to write some things. One of the things I got to write was a book called Living Sober. No, no, you should have seen it before they edited it. One of my favorite sentences was cut out, only because the editor didn't know what it meant. It said something like, cruising along, looking for love in all the wrong places.
But I think you'll find some things between the lines if you look hard enough. And then in 1976, the conference came up with another bit of pressure. We must have separate pamphlets for every kind of minority group. We must have a pamphlet for blacks, we must have a pamphlet for Native Americans, we must have a pamphlet for old people, for young people, for gay people, for lesbians, for everything.
And as a matter of fact, one of the members of the literature committee of the conference that year said, we also should have a pamphlet for illiterates.
[00:20:05]
Our fellowship is very broad. I never did find out what language he thought we should write. At any rate, they said, now we have to hire somebody to write the pamphlet. And I said, I've been collecting the stories for years. And so we wrote, Do You Think You're Different? And I think that's pretty good. It picks out no single minority, but speaks about several minorities. I think this brings up for me the fact that the third tradition passes on to us an awesome responsibility.
First of all, we must remember the tradition that says AA should not be involved in any controversial matter. And let us face it, sexual orientation in North America is very much a controversial matter. It is not appropriate for AA to become political on that issue, in my opinion. We also have the problem of another tradition, that is the anonymity tradition, because we have two kinds of anonymity to protect.
Certainly, at an ordinary AA meeting, I have no right going outside and telling anybody, guess what movie star showed up at this meeting. I have no right to do that if I respect the traditions. I think I would be betraying the whole fellowship if I did that. I certainly have no right to go to a gay meeting and then go outside and say, guess who turned up at a gay meeting last night. There's a double anonymity there.
And finally, of course, there's that third tradition, and it puzzles me and embarrasses me, because for all I know, the next drunk that walks in the door deserves the same love that I got, and all of you got. And it might be a former Miss America, or it might be a TV evangelist, or it might be a California legislator. I'm not sure I've learned enough about loving yet, but they deserve it just as we got it.
Now, take one more minute to read what I think is an even earlier charter to have this kind of meeting. In the big book on page 12, you'll find a section that begins, despite the living example, I'm not a big book scholar, I don't know a lot about the big book, but I happen to have in my possession the printer's manuscript. It's just in my keeping, not in my possession. And looking through the old manuscript one day, it goes to a archives upon my demise, I happened to find on the flyleaf some unfamiliar writing, a pencil.
And I looked, and these were familiar words, but the handwriting is not familiar, it wasn't Bill's handwriting. And I went back to Nell, our old archivist, and we began to run this down, and she said, that's Hank P.'s writing. That's Hank's writing. Do you know, one time Bill was telling his story, and he told this part of his story, and had forgot to put this in the typed manuscript. And when Hank heard it, Hank was a marvelous promoter, we wouldn't have had the big book if it hadn't been for Hank.
Hank even sold stock in a non-existent company. To get our book going. And bless his heart, he wrote this down and told the printer, told him where to put it in. Now it's written in abbreviations, and very hard to read, but I want you to hear it and think about this. Despite the living example of my friend, this is, incidentally, this is the time that Ebby came to see Bill in Brooklyn Heights. Ebby came to see Bill in Brooklyn Heights.
Bill was quite drunk that morning on gin and on self-pity. And Ebby, his old drunken friend, came to see him sober, which is disgusting. And he said he'd found religion. And Bill said, oh Lord, what kind? What brand? We thought brands, you know. Ebby said, well I don't think there's any particular brand, we just have six ideas from fellows, and they seem to keep me sober. And Bill thought, well that's all very well for him, but what about for me?
And here's what Bill wrote, or said that night, and was written down. Despite the living example of my friend, there remained in me the vestiges of my old prejudice. The word God still aroused a certain antipathy.
[00:25:03]
When the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me, this feeling was intensified. I didn't like the idea. I could go for such a concept as creative intellect, or universal mind, or spirit of nature, but I rejected the thought a bizarre of the heavens, however loving his sway might be. I have since talked to scores of men who felt the same way. My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.
He said, and you will find this in italics, why don't you choose your own conception of God? Bill said that statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountains in whose shadows I had lived and shivered for many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point.
Upon a foundation of complete willingness, I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it? Well, of course I would. I know I'm not the only A-member who from time to time, young or old, new or sober many years, from time to time has a bad day or wakes up in the middle of the night sobbing and doesn't know why. We all have those days. And I wonder if maybe it would be a good idea to ask myself at that time, how big is my conception of God?
Let me ask it this way on behalf of all of us. Is your conception of God powerful enough? Is it forgiving enough? Is it beautiful enough? Is it loving enough? If it has limitations, they're the limitations we put there because it's our own conception. I pray for all of us that that power is big enough. Thank you. Thank you so much, Barry. Well, as you know, we strive for progress, not perfection. Your program reads that we have Edward from Wisconsin, but we do not have Edward from Wisconsin.
We have Edwin from Wisconsin, and would you please welcome him? Thank you. My name is Edwin S., and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. I don't have the ability to entertain. Even with a clown's face on, I look ridiculous. My jokes are wanting. And the moment I hear a good one, I quick run home, write it on a piece of paper, and when I run short of toilet paper, I usually use the wrong damn joke. I'm not going to go on a drunk-a-log because I'm sure that some of yours have been more beautiful than mine.
Mine were sick moments, moments of praying to what I don't know, and striving to live in the face of near disaster on a daily basis. All that changed some time back when some wonderful, understanding judge said, You are a common drunk, and it's against the laws of the state of Illinois to be a common drunk. In fact, it's recognized insanity. And immediately, he said, we will send you for trial. He said, uh, we will send you for treatment and protect society from you, and I became an inmate of the Sal State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and I thought that was terrible, because I really hadn't had time to, to prepare a crime, so I could perpetuate on those damned stinkers down in Illinois.
[00:30:19]
That's, uh, my concept at that time. But the important thing is that in spite of all that I did, nothing ever worked out. And I don't know if any of you have ever been in an asylum of any kind. There are tremendous jokes about things. But, uh, I met, I think, one of the first examples of what made me think. After I was out of the rubber tank, after 15 days, I met a wonderful old Italian man who said, you name a Mr. Ed? And I said, yes. He said, I'm a look at you a whole day now, and you're not a nuts.
He said, you come and stay with me, and we're the only two sane persons around, and we have a wonderful talk. And, gee, we did have a wonderful talk, because he gave me all of his secret recipes for spaghetti. I still can't make the, make the damn stuff. It's a good thing it comes in a box. But, uh, one morning I was feeling a little bit better, and I come bouncing out of my cell, and, uh, I said, well, Luigi, how's it going?
He said, shhh. I said, what's the matter? He said, this is a day we gotta keep it quiet. We don't want to disturb the kids. I looked around, and I didn't see any children there that had been criminals. And I said, what kid? I don't see any kids. He said, Mr. Ed, you don't understand. I'm a gonna tell you something now that's a very important. And the only reason I'm a tell you is because you're my friend. He said, you see, I'm a Divergent Mary.
And very soon now, I give birth to Jesus Christ. And I don't want you to disturb the kid. I want him to have a good, peaceful day. It looked more, it looked more like he was having triplets. And this would have been a hell of a world with three Christs running around. And an old crone, I kind of walked away, very confused, and an old crone cackled like the Bad Witch of the West. And I went over, and she wags her finger. She says, you got a cigarette? I said, yes.
And I lit it for her. I was a gentleman even at that time. And she rocked back and forth in her rocker and cackled and cackled and cackled. She said, I was just wondering how long it would take you to find out that you've been hanging out with an old fraud. Now, she must have been close to 72 years old, I think, past the productive years of women. She said, you see, that old dago, she said, is not going to be the bearer of good news to the world.
She said, because he's not, I'm the Virgin Mary, and I'm going to give birth to Christ. I was about to request permission to go back to court and sign myself into the loony bin. But what is most important, those days, and that's 35 years ago plus, AA was not a welcome sight in institutions. But a nurse would sneak her brother, and I guess all of her family was alcoholics, so they were all related, and then we would have a meeting.
[00:35:06]
And the only thing that was said at that first meeting were the magic words, how would you like to get out of here? Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, I would have kissed the polar bear's ass at 90 miles an hour. There was a time I could run that fast almost. It's an honest program, so I'll say almost. But the most important thing is they start telling me about this wonderful thing that two men had sat down and talked about.
And I thought it was something really great, and I was a little disappointed to find out all it consisted of was two letters, AA. Well, the more I got into it, and they start talking about what I must do to embrace AA, God and all that stuff, you know, I was a little leery, but I did give out with a promise that I would attend the meeting. And true to their word, they returned me to court and had the commitment, the lifetime commitment as a drunk lifted. And I went to Logan Square to my first meeting, and there was a man who was a very good friend of Bill W.'s and Lois' directly behind me, and his wife had him by the ear, and she said, damn you, you will, and he said, no, I won't. But she dragged him up. The ear was firmly attached, so I couldn't escape. It was a very narrow stairway.
And I literally walked into my first AA meeting ass and first. And I was so nervous, because I don't communicate with people usually too well, I was so nervous that they had not even said the men. They said A, and I was outside down those stairs running through a rainstorm so fast underneath the elevator, not one drop of rain hit me. And exactly 25 minutes after my first AA meeting, I was drunk, talking about those goofballs up there that didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
Because you see, somewhere in the back of my head at the Institute, I thought they were going to, if I would go to the meetings, they were going to teach me how to drink, and how to drink like a gentleman. It wasn't true. They meant what they said. We are going to teach you how to stay away from alcohol and how to turn your life around. I could barely make a right turn or a left turn most of the time, because I was staggering how the hell was I going to make a proper one.
But what was important, I was a geographical drunk, and the city of Chicago started closing in on me, and I thought, well, I will now go to the city of brotherly love, for more reasons than one. I'd heard some tremendous stories about that city, something like Benjamin Franklin lived there, trod the streets, and George Washington had a still, and I was wondering if it was still operating. But at any rate, when I came to Philadelphia, I went to a meeting in desperation, because between Chicago and Philadelphia, I didn't know there were so many spots along the way in which I could keep up my courage.
There must have been at least 20,000 of them, and I think I stopped in 19. Coming into Philadelphia and into the meetings there was a revelation. That's where I first learned about sponsorship. Those days in Philadelphia, they used to appoint you two temporary sponsors and say, these wonderful gentlemen will see that you get to 40 meetings within the next 40 days.
[00:40:08]
And immediately they each took an arm and took me to the back of the room, sat me down, and I had to go through that meeting, which I didn't understand too much of. I was so nervous, just trying to figure out, could I get to some place before closing time so I could have a drink? My tonsils were bleeding. They took me home. They were very nice. And they said, we will be back tomorrow night. Now, I was a little ashamed. Here were two gorillas, and they both looked like gorillas. I thought they were part of Murder Incorporated.
Sure enough, true to their word, the next night, pounding on the door were these two gorillas, and I thought, oh my God, what are the neighbors going to think? They took me to a meeting, and they did that for several times. But one night, coming home from work, I walked through the subway, and just a half a square away, the subway came up, and there was a state-owned liquor store. Typical to the true nature of an alcoholic, I had had such a wonderful day that I felt that I needed a reward.
I got up the stairs to the subway, went past the state-owned liquor store, and you never saw such a fast U-turn in all your life. I went in, and I said, I'll have a bottle. I said, no, I'll have five bottles of Muscatel. That should have told me something at that time. And besides, it was only 89 cents a fifth. No top-shelf stuff for me. Too rich for my blood. I didn't want to break out in hives. I went up to, in Philadelphia they have a fancy word for it, a garret in my house, and I hid behind some trunks, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Those gorillas would never find me. I heard the knocking on the door, and the wonderful bitch who lived underneath, uh, on top of me, she said, oh, I know he's home, I think I heard him going up the stairs to the garret. And lo and behold, I had packed everything around me. I had just a nice little cubicle. Too bad I hadn't found one of those vault doors you were talking about. But what they did was very nice. They said, well, hello, Ed.
Very congenial, you know. They said, well, hello, Ed. Fancy meeting you here. And they produced a piece, a piece hell, a mile of window sash, and promptly tied me up. And to this day, I still carry the scars. They dragged me down the four flights of stairs, bump, bump, bump, and every, you know how there's three little, everybody has three little stoops in Philadelphia. I don't know if it's the Amish or the Quakers or what, nobody has four, three.
Four would have killed me. Four stairs down on the sidewalk, threw me in the back of a car, and said, we're going to a meeting. Now, I had four and a half bottles of muscatel left, and they brought me to the meeting, and they, those guys had some brains, they were working. There was enough sash cord left to tie me in a chair. The only thing they didn't do was put a dunce cap on me, and they turned me to face a corner.
And they went on laughing and enjoying themselves and joking. …and enjoying themselves and joking, and I thought they were talking about me and I cried through the whole damn meeting. Poor me.
[00:45:01]
They're making fun of me. They're doing this and they're doing that. After the meeting, without slicing a leg off, they cut the ropes and they said, if you're a good boy, in the next twenty-four hours, we'll turn you around tomorrow and you can join us. Things started to click. It's strange, really it is, it's really strange how the mind works. Sometimes you need a rope to start it like an outboard motor.
About a month later, they used to close the bars at midnight, promptly at midnight, threw everyone out in the street whether they could stand or not, and everybody would hedge for the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, all steering on the wrong side of the road, and everyone would go to Atlantic City so they could continue their libation. And I went down to Atlantic City that night, I don't know how I got there, I think I had one eye closed or both eyes closed, whatever, I got there in one piece.
And I walked into the jockey club elated that I had eluded these mugs, these terrorists. And I walked up there and I told the barmaid, I'll have a… I couldn't get rum out. We'll have three cokes, thank you, and here were those goons. And I turned around in amazement and they said to me with big smiles on their face, Ed, we're your sponsors, we love you. What a hell of a kind of love. But I did thrive, I did survive, and I got a job and I went up and down the East Coast.
I had offices in New York, Boston, all the way up into Maine. And while in Boston, I was attending a meeting, and there were four other people who looked as different as I, but we still stuck out like a sore thumb. And we got a little sick and tired about the fairies, the faggots, the queers invading our meetings. So we would go over onto Myrtle Street in back of the State House and we would hold a little meeting of our own.
There were five of us. I'm sure we weren't the only ones in Boston. And I'm sure the way people walk around Boston, it isn't all refinement. We talked about it for weeks. But you know how decisive alcoholics are? The only thing that they can make up their mind to is when they do need a drink. No brain cells wasted there. We talked about things and we finally decided that we would talk to Bill Wilson. I had met Bill in New York at a meeting several times. In fact, I sat next to him. I'll tell you how my mind wasn't working.
I sat next to the man in a meeting for several weeks before I realized, before it finally clicked, he said, Ed, my name is Bill. I said, thank you. And the second time he said his name was Bill and I was wondering whether he spelled it in capital letters or W-M or whatever. I didn't know. You see, I didn't have any brains that were really working. I thought they were working. But one time I realized who he was and he was Bill Wilson and he was what everybody says.
He was a very kind, a very thoughtful, a very understanding man. We decided in Boston that we would form a meeting for gays and that was a word that wasn't even in the dictionary then. And I had mentioned that I had met Bill Wilson months before that. So they decided we would go down to this workshop or whatever it was down in New York
[00:50:03]
and we would talk to Bill and ask him if we couldn't have a meeting. We couldn't decide. We were like a group conference. We weighed the pros and cons and the pot boiled over and they decided finally we would draw the short straw and that would be the person responsible for getting Bill's permission. Do I have to tell you who drew the short straw? We went down there and the entire thing was just about over and Bill was leaving and they didn't even say you or anything. They pushed me out in front of them and they said ask, Ed, ask.
I introduced myself to Bill and he said yes, I remember you. I said well Bill, we in Boston have decided that we want a special meeting and we would like to get your opinion on it. He said special meeting? What do you mean a special meeting? Well, we want a special meeting. There are women's groups and there are women's groups and he said what kind of a special meeting are you talking about, Ed? The word homo- sexuality became the longest language in any dictionary and it took me at least eight and a quarter minutes to spit it out.
Bill Wilson said to me and he said it very, very implicitly. He said special meeting homo-sexuality I don't care what meeting you have so long as you gentlemen bear in mind that you are first of all alcoholics and that is what you're going to the meeting for. At first we were very elated and we got back to Boston and we were all involved with plans. This was going to be the biggest meeting. We were probably going to have to rent a conservatory and have the Boston Philharmonic play and everything else.
It was going to be a resounding success. Show me a queen that doesn't resound and I'll show you something that's dead. But instead, right across from Myrtle Street very conveniently there was a hotel and it was called the Stag Hotel and that's what it was. On our off days when I used to go out to visit Skip and Buzz we would pass the Sunday afternoon by peeking in the windows from their apartment. Well we talked to the manager and he said well yes I have a little room here in front.
That first meeting I don't know what really happened but everyone's neck was out of whack the next day because through the glass door we could see every man that passed into the Stag Hotel. And I don't know what step it was that we were talking about that night when my neck broke. But from the very first that I know of, it was over thirty-three years ago, that was the first gay meeting held in Boston.
And it was a very important meeting to me because it had the blessing of what I considered the ultimate word in this fellowship of the Alcoholics Anonymous. I've since found out that the ultimate word in Alcoholics Anonymous is truth, honesty, love, and above all the happiness, the sobriety brings us all. We're not bubbling with joy, any of us. Yes, even I wake up at the start once in a while. I don't know if a boogeyman is coming into my
[00:55:01]
window or a trick really needs me. But I do know it has gotten better. It has gotten better. There are more tricks than boogeymans. And what I mean by that really is being able to reach out, being responsible. I can be there when I'm needed and today they don't have to tie me in a chair. I willingly go to meetings. I willingly sponsor people. I'm saying I do this and I do that. But had it not been for this fellowship, had it not been for the thousands of people that have touched my life, I could not say that I have celebrated thirty-five plus years of sobriety.
That is an accomplishment and it is a great accomplishment. AA accomplished it. AA formed me. AA taught me to think. And what is best of all, AA taught me how to love. Without AA, God knows where I'd be. Maybe in New Orleans looking again at which garbage can had more of a bottom in and using that one to crawl into so I wouldn't get too wet at night. What is important is I can go to meetings. I want to go to meetings.
I do go to meetings. And I meet the best people in the world. Honest, decent, recovering alcoholics. Thank you. Thank you very much, Edwin. And now from West Germany, would you please help me welcome Wilkommen Ferdinand B. Good morning, everybody. My name is Ferdinand. I'm an alcoholic. I belong to the group Darmstadt of Alcoholics Anonymous and Darmstadt is near Frankfurt. I get the loving invitation to be from the General Service Office to be one of the speakers in this meeting as it is now known worldwide that I'm an alcoholic and that I'm gay.
I think it is important for me that I use this that I say it says I'm first alcoholic and secondly I'm gay. Altogether, the sum of both things and of much other things is this Ferdinand as you see him here as an altogether happy and healthy and grateful man who thinks God is today sober not so long as those men who spoke before me but just 12 years. When I waked up this morning after unfortunately only some hours of sleep they asked me what to wear to stay here and I put on a shirt.
I used to stay here, and I put on a shirt I bought two weeks ago in Provincetown, and on this shirt is written, I am what I am.
[01:00:03]
But I thought it is not honest to wear this shirt, because I am not what I was when I bought this shirt. And then two weeks happened, and a lot of things happened, because I had the chance to be in a lot of meetings in Provincetown, and it was really important for me. It was a good preparation for this convention, and also what happened since I am here. I arrived Sunday, and I have been in meetings every day since I am here, and I have had a lot of meetings since the convention started.
It is a temptation, and normally it would be a need for me to speak about what happened the last few weeks since I have started from home. Whenever I come to the United States, it is my seventh time that I am here in America, and my first time in Canada. Since I am in the program, once I was in America in my drinking time, but all the other times I was here in AA function, in AA services, for conventions or things like this.
And whenever I come here, it is as if I come home. It is my motherland. It is the motherland of the spiritual idea that changed my life. And so I am in a strange situation. When I go home next Monday, I go home and I leave home in the same moment. But let me return to my topic. I have to report what happened in my country, in AA, and especially the historical development of gay AA in my country or in West Europe.
As the two other speakers in this meeting are Americans, I think it is my subject and my topic to report on the development and the situation of homosexuals in AA in Europe and especially in West Germany. As introduction, let me say my opinion that alcoholics and animals are part of human society, that all what happened outside of our fellowship is reflected in it as in a mirror. That means, I mean, that the position of gay men and women inside and outside of AA is not real different. If there are resentments and prejudices in the outside, we will be met the same thing in AA.
Our fellowship is unfortunately not an island of tolerance and well-understanding. Let me give another aspect on this introduction before speaking about the topic. You have to be aware that Europe, that even my country, is not one point. You can't compare the situation of gays in Athens and in London, in Spain or in Sweden, or in a small city in my country with the situation in Hamburg or in other big cities.
We have to remember also that AA in Europe started in different times and grew up in different ways. AA in Great Britain, for example, is very popular and more established as in Italy, for example. So when I come to the topic, I can nearly nothing do than report the situation and the development of homosexual men and women in AA in West Germany. And just like all AA growing, the gay AA development in my country is a personal story of one man. Even our tradition learn us to put principles higher than persons.
[01:05:06]
Historical reviews on AA beginning and AA growing up is always a part of life stories of some people. It isn't necessary to mention here the names of Bill and Dr. Bob. All what happened and what changed in position of gays in AA in West Germany is closed, joined with and wouldn't be possible without a man whose name is Edgar. I have the permission to mention his name, to speak in his name and I have even to be honest and to say that the most of information I give here and that I needed to report here, he gave to me.
Edgar is a man who lives in West Berlin. The real begin of gay AA activities in Germany happened in April 1979. This had been an annual AA convention of German speaking Europe. Events like this change every year in another city. In 1979 it was in Wiesbaden, what is a city not so far from Frankfurt. When Edgar speak about this event, he said it had been his second surrender. There were about 5,000 people together in the big hall when Edgar stand on the stage and he said for the first time in public, my name is Edgar, I am an alcoholic and I am a homosexual man.
Edgar invited other gays to the first official German speaking gay AA meeting for the same evening. About 20 men and women came together and I was one of them. Unofficially, there had been gay meetings since some years before besides annual conventions. For example, I remember that by mouse to mouse information, some gay AA's met a year before in a coffee shop besides the convention in Karlsruhe. All this is not really different from the development of gay AA worldwide. Ten years before in Denver, the gay AA hadn't been in the official printed program and it was 1980 in New Orleans and as it is now in Montreal.
But let me return in my country and to my topic. AA in West Germany is 32 years old. The first meeting was in 1953 in Munich. Independent from each other and without knowledge from each other, during the 50 years there had been founded groups in several parts of the country. For example in Karlsruhe, in Dusseldorf, in Hamburg and a little bit later in Berlin. There had been real small AA bases until the beginning of the 60s. In the years between 1960 and 1963, the growing up of AA began.
I will report that we have now about more than 1500 groups all over the country. There are in most big cities also English speaking meetings. For those who will come one day to Europe, it is important to know that there are a lot of English speaking meetings also. Edgar, this man from Berlin, gets sober anyone in the 60s. Since the beginning of the 70s he tried to get in the list of groups and meetings what is printed every year.
And there had been a strong opposition against. The majority in the fellowship and in the board of justice didn't allow that Edgar's name with phone number and post box address was listed in this directory. There were three gay members in the board of justice. It happened that it was Edgar, me and the third one from Dusseldorf.
[01:10:02]
Since 1975, Edgar's name was and is in the list of the German groups and meetings. That's this list I have here. That's all German speaking groups of West Germany and the lands around with German speaking Austria and German speaking Switzerland. And there is listed all gay activities on one page. Edgar said in his report he gave to me, since then a lot of help calls reached me from all over the country. I answered by writing letters. Since then I have regular correspondence with some of the gay people who need help.
But what Edgar did not and what he does actually for helping, he built up a network of consulting lists by changing names. And we have now a list with more than 120 names and we handle it very secret in respect of the tradition of anonymity. Edgar found out a special system to be as near as possible on this tradition. If for example somebody who is living in my home city calls for help, he gets an answer that someone will contact him.
And Edgar asked me if I am willing to help this friend who asked him for help. Then I go there, I call and visit and begin the 12 steps work. That is what I have to report on the network of helping lists. What about gay groups in West Germany? Edgar tried to start one in West Berlin where he lives in 1976. He wrote me in his letter, 12 months every Friday night I sat alone in the meeting room and waited. Even I knew that there was some gay A.A. members in regular groups. For a long time no one of them had the courage to come to the gay meeting.
And there was new problems. The same difficulty as we had to list Edgar's name in the group list, we had to list later our groups. Especially in Berlin they have this problem until today. There was a strong opposition. The majority in Berlin said it is not necessary for any kind of specification. We are all A.A. and all the arguments that we know from all over the world. At this point now we have meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays. And each gay alcoholic who is unable to burst upon his sexual anonymity in a regular meeting is invited to share his hope, his thanks and his experience with us.
And it is important that we are primarily alcoholics sharing alcoholic problems and that we are coming together because we are alcoholic. The meetings in Berlin and the other gay meetings in the country are normally closed A.A. meetings. That means that they are open for each alcoholic. In Berlin and in Frankfurt, for example, the gay A.A. meetings are open meetings once in a month for the participation of our friends and lovers and partners.
Since the real beginning of gay A.A. activities besides the convention in Wiesbaden in 1979, I mentioned in Wiesbaden in 1979, I already reported gay AA groups and began their activities. It was the real beginning in Berlin and at the same time grew up groups in Bremen, Hamburg,
[01:15:05]
Frankfurt and a little later in Munich. Let me finally report a little of my own experience in this matter. I lived near Frankfurt and we began also in 1979. It was a great time. We had been about a dozen, sometimes 20 persons, women and men. The first two years we had no meeting room. We met once in a month, always in private houses and we turned around from Frankfurt to Karlsruhe, to Gießen, in all these cities where we lived.
And it was really a great time for me to share in this kind also. You get closer together with friends when you met them in their own houses. Now the Frankfurt groups had their meeting each Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m. Hetger reported in Berlin they have for each meeting about 40 people, a quarter of them straight people. In Frankfurt, for example, we are each Saturday between 15 and 20 gay people and normally we are alone, no straight people visit us.
Finally I had to say that I reported only the situation in my country. I know that there are gay AA groups in London. I heard from two gay AA groups in London and I heard there is a gay meeting also in Paris. But I wish finally to assure all of us that when we are anywhere in the world where we cannot find gay AA meetings, we are welcome as gay people in each other meeting also as I know between during the time.
And we need not phone or not anything other to contact the power greater than ourselves to ask God as we understand him for help. And I thank God that he helped me to be sober today and to speak to you. I wish to beg your pardon for my poor English. Normally, as they said, I was the last speaker and I was really the last and the least because I speak so bad English. I wish finally to say something.
I wish to congratulate you because you have a real good word for homosexuals. You say gay. We have no word in Germany like that. I looked in my small dictionary and gay, there is a lot of other words for gay, merry, cheerful, happy, bright, lively, vivid, all this. But in Germany, we have also a bad word that people said he is schwul. That is not so nice like I said. So let's be gay, let's be happy and let's accept this as it is given us by God and it is given us as a duty.
And we are responsible for each other also as we are both, as we are alcoholics and gay. And I am very happy to be in a big family like this. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ferdinand.
[01:20:00]
We have a saying that I perhaps shouldn't use since we are all equal in this beloved fellowship, but sometimes we do save the best for last. I won't say that because we had three fabulous speakers. Shall we give them a hand? And before we close, I would like to share and say that it's our AA birthday and I really am privileged to be here with you. I think that maybe we can celebrate and give ourselves a hand.
What do you say? We're just about out of time and I really think that it's the better part of valor not to pick on maybe two or three speakers out of 1,600, so instead we have a good way of closing for anyone who cares to join. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Keep coming back.