Long-Timers Panel — Unidentified S

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About this recording

Topic: Long-Timers Panel
Speaker: Unidentified S
Date: 2001-09-28

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Source: Unidentified S – Long-Timers Panel – 2001-09-28.mp3 File: unidentified-s-long-timers-panel-2001-09-28.mp3 Duration: 02:06:09

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My name is Judith Santen, and I'm the archivist at the General Service Office. And those of you who know me since 1995, you can see that my hair is getting shorter. Somebody commented that now I'm getting more relaxed and I dare to wear jeans around you. But I got formal. You have to give me credit. I, too, want to thank all areas who participated to welcome us here, archivists. And I want to give credit to Gail.

Would you have thought what you started back in 1995? It's just wonderful to have a chance together every year, and it's wonderful to call many of you friends. And I hope, Corinne, you're going to do it next year. Anyway, I was asked to talk about oral histories and why we collect oral histories. So let's get to serious business. But I am really happy to be here and be part of this celebration. As I was preparing for this workshop, I couldn't help thinking of a quote by a 19th century historian that was Nell Wing's favorite quote.

And Thomas Carlyle said that history is nothing more than a collection of individual biographies. And Nell always thought that this quote fit perfectly to describe A.A.'s history, as it is told through the collection of individual recovery stories. As all journeys start with the first step, our journey of collecting A.A. history begins with collecting the stories that we're going to hear tonight and we keep hearing them. One at a time, that help us put together and understand the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. We set out with a pen and a notepad in one hand and a tape recorder in the other, and start collecting personal stories one after the other.

Our cabinets are slowly filling up with tapes, and the list of people we interviewed grows longer and longer. Well, where do we go with this work? Do we collect those histories for no other reason than having them piled up on our shelves? Although the answer for a question phrased this way is evidently no, it takes a bit more thinking to appropriately answer, what then do we intend to do with hundreds of recordings of personal histories? What will we do with the oral histories that we're going to hear shortly after me tonight? Naturally, we try to use them to fill in the still missing pieces from AA's history.

But oral histories are a delicate business. The personal stories add a rich hue to our history, as the many shades to a single color. Personal stories show an incredible variety in their combination of humor, drama, love, fear, resentment, pride, or calm reflection. Some of us stress drama, fear of failure, and the hardships in making it with the group. Others love to recall the humorous episodes of mix-ups that providentially assisted the growth of a particular group.

And we certainly have plenty of evidence for providential assistance that we simply call higher power. Yet again, others have a special talent for using all these emotions in painting the picture of early days, and we, the listeners, follow them in wonder as their stories unfold in tears and laughter. And then we forget to turn the tape. Oral histories are never simply facts listed in chronological order.

These stories were born in a pain of introspection, reflection, forgetfulness, and maybe even a bit of ego for making certain parts shine brighter than the others. Thus one story only never tells us a history of a group, a region, or an area. Any stool would tip over standing on one leg only. As we anchor our history in the diligently collected oral histories, as our collection grows and the tapes are gradually filling up our cabinet shelves, we also get a better understanding, a firmer, steadier grasp at the canvas of AA's history that stretches over 120 countries by now.

It might surprise you, but AA histories are collected in every part of the world, from Japan to Indonesia, from Nepal to Uruguay, from South Africa to Romania and Welcome, Peter.

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AA archivists are setting out with a pen and a notepad in one hand and a

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tape recorder in the other to capture the spirit of the early days, the hardships and the laughter encountered in the beginning of their group, their area, or their country. We cannot let that history vanish as memory fails. Our history is best mapped out here in the U.S. and Canada, not only because our groups were formed earlier than in the rest of the world, but also because we became aware of the need to capture those histories fairly early on, sometimes in the 1950s.

And since then, we have collected thousands of tapes on our collected shelves, and that's something important to keep in mind. We collect not only for the sake of our own areas, but for each other. As the growth of our archival service is a recent phenomenon in AA, quite a few archivists feel a bit apprehensive about whether they can do a good job in collecting histories. And if you're new to the position, you might feel that you cannot do as well as the early collectors, Bill Wilson, Nell Wing, Ruth Hock, Milton Maxwell, all of whom started to work in the late 1950s and 1960s.

You might find inspiration hearing about the early adventures in history collecting. Today, we take it for granted that we have solid archival collections in a growing number of areas, and it is hard to imagine a fellowship without having those, just as it is hard to imagine the work of the program without having the Big Book or the Twelve and Twelve around. Yet we spent quite a few years without those books, and there were many years when we were careless about preserving AA history.

In the early 1950s, Nell Wing used to regularly go through the office wastebaskets at the end of the day to salvage every carelessly discarded carbon copy of correspondence. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I don't have to do that at the General Service Office. From time to time, we still face the disheartening situation when we see value in a piece of paper that nobody else values. Usually, that's only the beginning of our problem.

Often, we battle the impossible situation by using our best point of arguments to convince someone about the necessity to save a document while meeting their firmly non-committing eyes. The struggle to keep AA's history goes on. Bill Wilson first realized the gaps in our history while he was writing A.A. Comes of Age. Since he couldn't travel to all parts of the country himself or ask Nell Wing to go, as a solution, he used to send out cartloads of blank tapes everywhere, asking the old-timers, whom he gently called graybeards, to self-record their stories.

His enclosed instructions were far from elaborate. As a matter of fact, he was quite laconic, and I'm quoting here: Think it over, make an outline of topics you want to talk about, and go at it, at any length at all. Recording tapes are cheap, so ransack your memory. End of quote. Early members used to grumble about the escaping facts, dates, and the names. Don't worry about the facts, the exact names, the names Bill used to say, and we have been repeating it ever since.

Those we can get from other sources. But tell us the priceless stories, both happy and sad. Include the anecdotes, and do not, under any circumstances, forget about the controversies. These are the gems that make the fabric of A.A. history come alive and attract the newcomers. Using Bill's words again, write a personal account of your impressions, anecdoted as much as possible. A dry statistics require that sort of supplement to create the best interest.

For today's archivists, it is hard to comprehend the magnitude of history-collecting efforts that were set in motion in the mid-1950s. Bill and Nell made repeated efforts to reach out to the old-timers, writing to them again and again, asking for their help in collecting the early stories. In a letter dated November 3, 1955, Nell contacted an old-timer's wife, and she wrote, We here at the General Service Headquarters are most anxious to compile as much historical data as we can for our archives, so that the story of the growth of A.A.

will be as complete and factual as possible. To this end, Bill Wilson suggested that you might be an excellent source for such material, and that you might be willing to recall for us items of historical interest about which you know from personal experience. We know that your husband, John, was instrumental in starting many groups throughout the country, and that you were his close and constant partner in these enterprises.

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Would you therefore, at your convenience, care to write out for us as much as you can remember: what groups John started, how they grew, people who were especially helpful, dates, anecdotes about people or events, community cooperation, group problems, just anything at all you might have stored away in your memory. Would you like to do this? You might find it fun to do, and your story could be so helpful for us.

Incidentally, we would like to have John's own story for our files. This effort will be appreciated by all of us more than I can say, and I guess 50 years later we can say, Her effort is appreciated by most of us. Also, these are pretty much the questions we recommend for new archivists to ask when you collect oral histories. Bill was in frequent communication with the old-timers just as much as Nell was, writing the letters, sending out the tapes, asking people to get in touch with Nell. In 1955, he wrote to Clarence, By all means, try to get some of that history on tapes. See, Clarence got one of those packages of blank tapes.

Or it might be preferable if you roll it down in your spare time. We are trying to pick up as much information as we can from AAs, old-timers, before it's too late. Bill Dotson's story, and you saw his picture this afternoon on the video, for example, which I luckily secured for the book, was taped only months before he would have been completely unable to do anything. Of course, Clarence, this is no gloomy forecast for you, but time does fly.

Bill was equally supportive of outside works of history. He felt really strongly about Milton Maxwell's article on the Washingtonian movement. He felt it was an important and significant contribution to understanding of our own history. I repeat the quote that we use a lot, just to really see how much Bill appreciated historic works coming even from outside our fellowship. He wrote to Milton, I'm extremely glad that such a thoroughgoing study as yours has been made. Here and there, I have noted other attempts, but nothing at all comparable to what you have done. I wish every AA could indelibly burn the history of the Washingtonians into his memory. It is an outstanding example of how and how not we ought to conduct ourselves. In a sense, Alcoholics Anonymous has never had a problem seriously threatening our overall unity. Yet I notice that some AAs are complacent enough to suppose that we never shall.

You have certainly done your bit to rectify that condition. Essentially, we tell our stories to the newcomer. Our service is a form of Twelfth Step service. As we share our stories, we also share our experience, strength, and hope about difficult situations the old-timers had seen, experienced, and pulled through while preserving the unity of our fellowship. As we listen to their stories in tears and laughter, we tell the newcomers, This is where we as fellowship were.

This is what we did, and this is the experience we gained in the midst of events. This is how it worked then. See if it works for you now. There are no rules in AA, only suggestions. AA is a gentle but compelling program grounded in 66 solid years of experience. By the way, about sending those blank tapes out, I would only recommend Bill's method as your last resort. Bill himself was not too successful in getting those tapes back, and I have had similar experiences.

I actually tried it with Tex Brown, if you remember him. He passed away since. Old-timers might feel, and that's what Tex was telling me, that it cannot even begin a story without having a listening audience around and having a guiding question or two. It is understandable what's the use of sharing an anecdote without hearing the audience's laughter, or telling about the twists and turns of difficult times if nobody is following the unfolding story. The smile of wisdom on the face of our old-timers was earned through many years of experience, and talk about some of those experiences. They had seen beer served at some AA meetings because a particular group didn't think that that was alcohol.

As Ruth Hawk, the collector of that particular story, cheerfully remarked, the beer itself soon took care of that misconception. We had seen slot machines set up in meeting places that were to take care of the group's debt, while the federal agents took care of that problem. The emotions were often at the breaking point in the early days. With the words of an early-timer, we had what Bill Wilson called the dry bender incorporated, and that was— called The Dry Bender Incorporated, and that was the real dandy.

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It is only through hearing the stories of growth and errors that we can appreciate Bill's words in Tradition One on anvils of experience that the structure of our society was hammered out. By faith and by work, we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience. They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which God willing shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.

Our traditions were developed on this vast collection of shared experiences, and without having the collection of oral histories, we wouldn't have the evidence for that. Thus, these personal stories, the stories we're going to hear today, are amongst the most valuable possessions that connect us to our roots and provide us the reality of hard-earned experiences, sustain us with life energy, and carry us to the future, just as we use Frank's quote on the flyer of this program.

As Bill said in Tradition Two, nearly every old-timer in our society has gone through this process, that is, various local controversies in some degree. Happily, most of them survive and live to become elder statesmen. They become the real and permanent leadership of AA. Theirs is the quiet opinion, the sure knowledge, and the humble example that resolve a crisis. When sorely perplexed, the group inevitably turns to them for advice.

They become the voice of group conscience. In fact, these are the true voice of Alcoholics Anonymous. Please help me welcome our old-timers, and let's hear their stories tonight. Thank you. I forgot to do the end of the workshop today. My name is Kathy Smith, and I'm an alcoholic. Everybody who is at the workshop this morning, whose first time it was to come to an archives conference, could you come up front?

I got something for you, a little present. I want first-timers who are at the conference, who are at the conference, come on up. Not gonna get you. I'm Tom. I am an alcoholic. Beer drinker. And when I first came today, my introduction, they said I couldn't be an alcoholic. He just drinks beer. You know, I love that. That's music to my ears. But I am an alcoholic. I live on a farm. Country boy. You don't find many country boys in AA, farmers.

You've heard the old saying, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy. And that's true in my case. But that's not true with my wife. She was a city girl. And you know something? I took the city right out of her. But I became a hopeless, helpless alcoholic. I live in Greenville. I'm a Buckeye. Do you know what a Buckeye is? Holly polished nut with practically no significant value.

That's me. Hopeless, helpless alcoholic, but a beer drinker. I'll share this. I was—what was—you don't hear it much anymore, what you call a cold turkey call. Cold turkey. I didn't ask for AA. I was shoved in here by my wife and my sister, public health nurse. She saw her brother killing himself drinking, contacted AA for me, for me, picked me up and took me to my meeting. But I didn't ask for AA. But I'd like to bring this point out.

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Soon be 50 years, a little—well, November the 6th. Fifty years of sobriety. And that first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Richmond, Indiana, I sobered up in the Indiana, Richmond. That first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended, I realized there was something here. I want. And on the curb after the meeting, waiting on my wife, sitting on a curb, I prayed to my God that there was something here I will always want. And as of today, that is being true.

I'm still praying, and I'm still—I would like to close in making this, these points. I believe you fine people in Alcoholics Anonymous, we've 10,000 over United States, 10,000. But I firmly believe this and convinced you people here in Alcoholics Anonymous are among the most richly blessed people of the world. And for your information, I want to thank you, each and every one of you, for helping me. Let me share it in this manner, and then I'll shut up.

The people who helped me obtain my sobriety are all gone, deceased. God bless them. But here all you wonderful people are helping me maintain my sobriety. It's in the Big Book. I'm not a bookworm, but in the Big Book, without help it's too much for me. And I hope and pray to my God I will be eternally grateful for you people, all of you, helping me maintain my sobriety. And I, as an alcoholic, that is the most precious gift.

The gift of sobriety is the most precious I'll ever receive on this earth. Thank you, and God bless you. We'll next introduce a member of our Area 64 group, who was very instrumental in even bringing us into existence and putting us on the path of preserving our history and, as Bill said, in that way carrying the message. Miss Kitty Lou A. All right. And if there was a man here named Frog, God love him, he's dead, he would shout out from back there somewhere, Stand up!

He ain't here in person, he's here in spirit. I'm Kitty Lou, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, miracles. We got some miracles out there. See your hands. All right. Yeah. I don't know who I'm talking to. My sobriety date is June the 3rd, 1966, so I'm 35, and I'm 74 years old, and I'm retired, and I got a little dog that keeps my heart pumping all the time. I wake up every morning and say, Hey, Hannah, we made another night.

I am really particularly, particularly, particularly… Pleased and happy to be here. I didn't know this thing was been going on six years, for crying out loud. You think people talk around AA, but I guess they don't. I don't know. But I feel like that I am a first generation AA because I came into AA when Bill Wilson was still living. And I feel like I'm a second generation because I came into Memphis AA when, after the first 100 did their job on us, did everything they could for us.

And coming into the group that I came into was kind of the remainder of what was left of a lot of the 100, because we started out at 152 and a half Madison, downtown, upstairs, of course.

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And so I had the benefit and the opportunity to know the old-timers, the ones that were here first, and to hear their stories. And there was one little man in particular. His name was Galen, and he wasn't much bigger than me, and so I thought, well, that's pretty good. I'll whoop up on him if he gets out of line, because they told me to stay away from the men, and I thought they were crazy, but anyway, it's always kind of been a passion with me.

But he was a protector. He was my protector. He knew everybody was in AA. We only had 13 groups in Memphis at that time, and— So he just about knew everybody. Well, we all did, you know. We all got together on Saturday night usually, and everybody knew everybody around AA. And so he would protect the women in particular. And I might be talking to somebody, just up a storm, and before I know it, he's got me moved across the room.

And I said, What'd you do that for? That's rude. He said, He's a stalker. You don't need to talk to him. Said he ain't been around here for two or three weeks. We don't know enough about him. And he did everybody, all the women that way. And he was just, you know, he wasn't outstanding in looks, so it was protecting that he was doing. But I just had so much of that, and I had so much, so many stories shared with me about the funny things.

Their first Christmas in Memphis, they couldn't afford anything, so they had red and green Jell-O. I thought, now that's marvelous, somebody to think that up, you know. And they just had one card table to have it on, you know, so everybody had to kind of stand up, meet your Jell-O. But I guess I got the best advice that anybody could have ever given me early in AA. And my little first piece of service work, well, I was supposed to get the food together for our Christmas party at Paramount Group.

And I was going around with pad and pencil. I was just real—boy, I wanted this thing had to be perfect. And I was, What are you gonna bring? What are you gonna bring? What are you gonna bring? And I was writing it all down, and of course half of them didn't bring what they said they were gonna do. And so somebody, I have no idea who, just turned around and looked at me and said, Well, who do you think you are, some queen bee here giving all the directions?

Oh, Lord. Oh, I just wilted. I just cried. I just… And I went to this other man that I trusted, and his name was John. And I said, John, what have I done? What have I done? I told him. He said, Oh, kid, he said, do anything. I don't care what it is. Do anything in AA. Raise an eyebrow wrong, anything. Just do something wrong in AA. Do anything. Doesn't matter what's wrong or right. And he said, Somebody will criticize you.

You know, you're ahead of the game if you're already ready for it, so you just don't pay any attention to it and go on about your business. That's the best piece of advice I ever got. And so I kind of set out to do that. Service was just kind of born into me when I was born into AA, I guess. I don't know. I just, I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous from the first meeting. Of course, I had a day or two that I thought, I'll get drunk and they can't ask me to do nothing. You know, I was one of the first women, one of the few women, not first, few women that had a car when I came in.

And Lord, we'd just run ragged on any drunk woman. We'd going all over town, dragging her to meetings and everything. And I got mad about that. I said, Doesn't somebody else do something? So I met somebody that was an expert in service, and he said, Are you expecting some kind of thanks or something? He said, What you're getting is pretty good sobriety. You're not grateful for that? Well, felt like a little peanut then again.

And, but I've been able to serve in a lot of… to serve in a lot of different positions. And another thing that I found out for sure is

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that no matter what we do in AA, and we get together for these wonderful kind of weekends and conventions and assemblies, and we get together and have those friendly discussions, and if AA gets something out of it, that's just kind of a side issue. But what happens to us is that we get to work on our defects of character at a deeper level. I'm telling you, Charlie always talks about getting the feathers off your legs, and I've had many a feather trimmed, I tell you, by him and anybody else, you know.

Because I didn't know that people could stand and call you wrong and love you at the same time. It was just so confusing. But I don't know. I think, I'm sure most of us feel like in here, we're certainly alive today because AA came into our life, or we came into AA's life, however we got there. And I've had such a wonderful, marvelous opportunity to travel around the country and go to groups here and there and just experience funny things.

I guess one of the funniest things… some names and telephone numbers and Casper, Wyoming. And I went to this house, and I knocked. The screen was about out of it, and here comes this drunk to the door. I mean, he was so drunk. And I said, Is AA around here anywhere? And he said, They better not be. Okay, I got two minutes, so I want to… But, you know, you love things like that. And I was talking over in Arkansas one time out in a park or someplace, I don't know. We were in a building, and this little dog had walked up to the door and was just standing there, just taking everything in.

And whatever I said was something funny, and everybody laughed, and that dog just jumped and ran away. I said, Well, laughter pulls us in and runs us off one way or the other. But, you know, we could all, we could all state the experiences in the times that we've had in AA to bring us right here to this point, at this very minute, just right here. And I'm through. Bye. Thank you, Miss Kitty. Really appreciate you taking the time and making the effort to be here and help us.

The next gentleman I'd like to introduce is Barry Ward. Wild. Wildberry. And, uh, trying. But so I understand he served as delegate on Round 40, and I'd like to introduce him at this time. Good evening, I'm Barry. I'm a grateful alcoholic. And I'm just a sober alcoholic tonight. That's what I like. I like to be one of the gang, and we got a big gang, and I love them all. You know, you taught me how to love in Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I got here, I was an absolute taker, played cards, and did the 13th stepping, and the whole damn routine.

But, you know, back in those days, if you went to my wife and told her

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that I stepped out on her, she'd say, Yeah, he does that sometimes. But today, if you went to her and told her that, she'd say, Maybe you ought to do your own inventory. She says, He's done a good job of his, and he don't do things like that. That's what she tells me. You know, that makes me feel pretty good when my own wife, who's—we've been married for 54 years, and that's because of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I want to thank you all, because I believe it's the whole world of AA that makes one person sober. I believe that God speaks through all of us to the one of us, and one of us through all of us. And I think that unity is a great thing in our country. And that's where AA came from, was the United States. I don't, I don't know. You know, I have two daughters, and I lost a son-in-law. He crashed in an F-106. He has a son now who goes to college in Pullman, Washington. He's pretty high up in his scholastic rating, and I'm very proud of him.

Both my daughters are college educated. My son, he's a logger, and he drinks Lucky Lager. Kind of like his old dad. And I got a prayer for him too. I pray that he finds us someday. He's a good guy too. You know, it's a funny thing. The best people in the world are the people that got up there and kicked their heels out a little bit and did their thing and come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe it kind of, we get around it out when we get sober and get well. We understand what the world's all about, and we got something to give somebody who needs help because we've been there.

And the best thing we can give anybody is a comparison in life, and that I've done what they've done just a little bit. I feel sorry for the people in the back. They don't, they don't get to hear all this. I can see they're waving back there. They want to hear. And I wish I could talk that loud. You know, I used to be a master sergeant. I can talk that loud, but I don't think you want to hear it because I got to… I quit living like that too. And I was in Fort Ord, California, and I was attacking CO in Fort Ord, California.

Anybody can remember what those people did, and they still do it, I guess. But we had a different tone during World War II. It was a little higher and a little louder. And anyway, I'm just glad to be a sober alcoholic and with the people I love the most in this world, and the people who give me the most love that I've ever received in my whole life. And I receive that from fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous every day of my life.

They call me, they write to me, and I sponsor I don't know how many people. I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it. And some of them are a long ways off, and some of them have thirty-some years of sobriety, and some of them have just a few days. And I'm grateful to have all the gifts. You know, God blessed us with a gift, and the gift of sobriety. He gave us a present, and we live in the present, and that's the most valuable part of this program, is just to live 24 hours a day and get the most out of it. Thank you.

I'd next like to introduce another gentleman from Area 64. He's our oldest living past delegate, and he's known quite, quite well for a love affair that he's had in doing corrections work for a long, long time. I give you Chuck A. I'm Chuck, and I'm alcoholic. I'm here to light and sober, the grace of God, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and my continuous association with others who have this illness.

And one of my first sponsors, that's what he said, and I always remembered that. And when I came in, I heard a phrase that said AA was all inclusive, not exclusive. And thank God that they didn't ask me for my, have my financial statement, or when I was married, or where I lived. They just wanted to know if I wanted help. And I had the opportunity today to talk with a friend of mine who lives in Louisville. He was the second man I met in Alcoholics Anonymous.

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He was about 25 years old at that time. My sobriety date is June the 1st, 1968. That's when I put a dime in a telephone and called Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm reminded of the first tradition says personal recovery depends upon AA unity. And that group had enough money to have a telephone. They had enough money to somebody to answer the phone. They had a 12-step call list, and they had somebody willing to make a 12-step call.

That man who made the 12-step call on me was John Y. He died over in Sadieville, Kentucky, last year, still sober. He brought me the message, and he's the one that gave me hope. He shared his experience, strength, and hope with me. And then I went up to this club at 4701/2 Union Street in Nashville, and it was 52 steps. But right at the top of the steps, it had a sign, Only 12 more steps to go. And my friend Chris…

This J.A. who lives here in Louisville came over today and we did a lot of reminiscing. And that was my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I got introduced to something else also, because the Tennessee State Penitentiary. I was an inmate. But they had AA there. And they brought the message to those who couldn't come out and get it. And the first people I met was Joe M., who was a delegate.

And then we had some social functions, and they brought in Tom M., who was a Southeast Regional Trustee. And then we had another social function, and they brought in Bert D., who was the founder of Harbor House in Memphis. And when I got out, this man told—Joe told me, he said, Chuck, get involved. And Joe finally died, and he didn't have time to tell me to stay not get involved. And I got involved in what was at that time called the Institutional Committee.

And later on the conference split the institution into corrections and treatment facilities. And I became the chairman of the Institutional Committee. And then I stayed active, and then I kept on being active, and I was one of those GSRs and a DCM, and then I became alternate delegate. And then I became delegate. And somewhere along the line, I read in the service manual, it said, Give the alternate delegate something to do.

And they hadn't—previous to that, I… Did you have some? Yeah, you had something there, yeah. Anyway, and I appointed the alternate delegate at that time. I asked him to be literature chairperson, and he was a retired—well, he was a judge. He used these big words like repository, not that other word now. And we started collecting the history of AA in Tennessee, and it sort of became that the alternate delegate was the—took care of the archives. And my friend Kenny Lou here kept them and carried them around in the car for me for a long time. My friend Larry A.

back there, he kept them, and he was always complaining about keeping them under his bed at home. And, you know, things slowly evolved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we kept on—the alternate delegate taking care of us collecting—and it was getting bigger. And then one time we stored them in the War Memorial Building in Nashville, and somewhere along the line we talked about getting an office for Area 64, and it kept evolving.

And then we—guess what we did? We formed the Archives Committee. And the Archives Committee has grown and grown, and you'll see our display back there, and you'll see our home for the archives. It just shows what you can do and what the unity of AA can do whenever you have something that needs to be done in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we are, and we are preserving our past so that those who come after us will see what we have done and what Alcoholics Anonymous.

What we have done and what Alcoholics Anonymous has done. And some of them ask me why I still go to meetings, sort of like Tom

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there. I go because I want to keep the doors open for those who come and maybe have to go back out, and for those who come and say, Well, this is not for me. And I talked about, you know, I'm a survivor, and I was thinking about something happened on September 11th. There wasn't too many survivors. But somebody brought the message of Alcoholics Anonymous to me one time, and I feel like that I have an obligation and a duty to still carry that message to Alcoholics Anonymous and for those who still suffer.

And I found in this program by love and understanding and empathy and the caring for my fellow man. And this is what it's all about to me, is us gathering together and sharing our experience, strength, and hope. And from this group here this weekend, there will be more archives, there'll be more collected, and there'll be more people knowledgeable about the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous and what we all stand for.

Thank you. Thank you, Jack. I'd next like to introduce the gentleman from Mobile, Alabama, Eric K. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Eric Coco, and I am an alcoholic. And I live in Mobile, Alabama, but where I arrived, excuse me, from Hawaii in 1993. I left Canada and came to the United States in 1960, and I got my citizenship, and I went to the South Pacific, and I spent—well, I like to say I was stranded out there in the islands, between Hawaii and the rest of the South Pacific islands for 27 years.

And finally I escaped, and I came to Mobile, Alabama. I was a product of the World War II, like my buddy over here, the Wild Barry, and we acquired some habits. And I was too young to join the Navy. I'm a Canadian, and we were at war for two years before you guys even knew it was going to go on. And I have a—I don't tell this joke anymore because I was threatened with my life by a Hawaiian. I said, You have no— I said, You have no idea what it cost us to have you to bomb Pearl Harbor so you would come and help us.

This big Hawaiian said, You like I break your face? So I don't tell that anymore, except at places like this where I know my friends would—you love me for that, even though it's kind of crude. I was in the Merchant Marine then. They wouldn't take me in the Navy because I wasn't old enough. And as soon as I was, I joined the Navy because in the Merchant Marine, I found it to be very dangerous. The ships were being sunk and all that, so.

And besides, a cute little girl in Montreal pushed me away and said, Get away from me, you damn draft dodger. I had my sailor's wool cap on and my bell-bottom pants, but then I realized I was 17, so I went and joined the Navy. And in the tradition of the sea, I learned how to be a sailor. Some of the boys sent the money home to save. Some of them had families. And I was a traditional sailor, the drunken sailor.

I spent part of my money on wine and women and part of my money on whiskey and rum, and the rest I spent foolishly, like on socks and underwear and razor blades and toothpaste. But you take a drunken sailor. I had met a young lady who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and that brought me ashore. And it's kind of a tradition following there. You take a drunken sailor who becomes an alcoholic and you put him ashore, he lasts about two years and he goes down the dumper from wherever he thought he was going to make his life to be. Two years later, she left me, and

[00:50:00]

I was ushered into AA. This was on a Saturday afternoon at three o'clock before I went to work. I had my two beers, and the next day I was ushered into AA by a man who was to become my sponsor. He was one of Bill's salesmen. And this is not—you don't read about it too much—how Bill thought about them. We know that salesmen traveled the country and all that, but when one of them got sober in the old days, my sponsor told me, Bill would call up the company that the guy he worked for and said, Hey, I got Joe so-and-so sober.

Could you like to get him back to work? He said, We sure would. He can outsell any ten of our other salesmen as long as he's sober. Is he going to stay sober? Bill says, I'll guarantee it. We've cured him. And so, you know, Bill had a way about… Convincing people about things that weren't often quite the real thing. And I have a manuscript in my possession telling about the actual true history of how the Big Book was written, and it was sent to me by Laurie Lukens, the daughter of Ruth Hock.

And it was transcribed from a tape, very painstakingly by a fellow in Florida, word for word from a tape, 28 pages, so that was a lot of work. So I have a copy of that, and I'm going to make some copies. And then now when I came to Hawaii from Alabama, of course I went to AA and met some fellas, and I had 40 years of sobriety then. And my group in Hawaii, the world-famous Waikiki Men's Stag, sent me a medallion with my name on it, so I had made a tie slide out of it, you know, a scarf slide out of it.

Well, they hauled me around trying to make me famous, and they brought me up to the assembly. And that particular meeting, the wonderful and lovable Frank R. archivist was the speaker, and he heard somebody mention about—heard my name anyway, Coco—and he come over and he said, I know who you are. You're Coco. You're that guy from Hawaii, and you were at a meeting in the King School group where Bill was the speaker, and it never was recorded.

I said, I don't think it was, no. He said, You're telling all kinds of things about, you know, that meeting. And he said—and we were kind of joking, he kind of joked about it—and I said, You old guys kind of forget things, you know, so start writing things down while your memory is still functional. So since then I've been trying to write things down, and I wrote about my sponsor then had taken me to meet Bill.

I was one of the youngest people around, and so he took me to meet Bill at the King School meeting, and— I couldn't get close to him, so we took off and went to the original Aired Club, because Kelly knew where he was going. I had talked to Bill on the telephone. I used to get to talk to him once in a while. And then I got to meet him personally, and that was the most awesome experience in my life at the time.

Being one of the youngest ones around, I was sort of ignored at the meetings because Kelly told me that. That's my sponsor, George Kelly. He said, They don't think you're going to stick around very long. Younger people only stay about one or two meetings. You don't see them again. Well, I stuck around, but it was for a reason. I was hoping maybe I might get my family back. It wasn't for me to get sober.

I did not have the capacity to be honest with myself. Thank you. And so, as the way it happened, he did all these things for me. I got interested in the Big Book and the Twelve Steps, and I had spiritual experiences kind of all the way through, like Bill says that Dr. Bob had. He said, You've already had yours, because Bob complained that, he said, I've never had my spiritual experience. I've read the Bible over three times from cover to cover, and I can't find anywhere where I've had one. Bill laughed at him.

He said, Bob, you've already had it long ago. So when Kelly told me that, I felt better because I worried about it. I wondered how long I'm going to last. And I managed to survive. And I spent over 20 years in the South Pacific, and all I had was my Big Book. I almost became one of them, you know, a Big Book convert. You know, I'd come back to California and buy a white robe and stand on the street corner. There were quite a few of them like that.

[00:55:01]

But I'd like to leave you with something I'm going to use that Bill—you know, he used to shake hands and say, Pass it on. If you have a copy of the first edition, The Feminine Victory, read it. It's in the last line: Pass it on. Cunning, baffling, powerful. He found that in Dr. James's Variety of Religious Experiences. You'd have to read the whole book; it's that thick to find it. And I would like to leave you with what my favorite is.

He found an Asian expression that translates to, Thank you for your life. And I want to do that tonight. Thank you for your life, because your being here and all the people like you have given me a life of sober living for over 48 years. God bless you. I love you all. You know, I've dreaded doing this ever since I was asked, and I really don't want to blast them with what I got under this shirt. But when you're talking good things, sharing good information, and you're talking from the heart, how do you gong somebody?

I don't know. I'd next like to introduce Mr. Fred Aubrey from Area 23 up in Bloomington. And, you know, I thought everybody were… was on the house committee. He's the first man I've seen that was just here for the workshop. Come on up, Fred. My name is Fred Albright. I'm an alcoholic. I'm sober today by the grace of God and you fine people. The reason I'm here is because I'm not all there. Kenny asked me to do this, and I'd never done anything like this before. I never heard of the archives or paid much attention to it, and so it made me a little nervous, but I said yes, because most all the time when anybody asks me to do anything in AA, I try to do that.

But getting here was very difficult for me. I just didn't get up one morning and say, Well, I think I'll go out and become an alcoholic. I had to work at it. And I wasn't just a beer drinker. I started out that way. By the time I got here, I was drinking about anything I could get my hands on. And when I got that part-time bartender's job, that was the beginning of the end. And just a few months later, I made the full decision that I didn't have a drinking problem, and that was the finishing of the end there. I was 12-step, though, when I was 19 years old, and I was locked up in an institution too, penal institution up here in Putnamville, Indiana.

Had a year up there, and a fellow that carried the message to me asked me what I was in there for, and I told him. And he said, I noticed he was going—they'd holler AA every Thursday night in the library, and there he'd go. So I kind of got acquainted with him. I was kind of inquisitive about this because I thought I couldn't figure out what was the matter with me. And he got to talking to me, and he finally, I told him some of the problems I'd had and what was got me in there, and he said, How would you like to go to one of those AA meetings with me?

I said, No, I don't think I really need to go. I don't think I'm an alcoholic. And he brought me some of this literature. I looked this literature over, and I looked at it real good, and I said, You know, in all honesty, I think this is one of the finest things I've ever seen. It's good, it's honest, and I'm sure glad you got it. And he said again, he said, Fred, how would you like to go to one of these AA meetings with me? I said, Hell, I'm only 19 years old.

I don't have this problem. Well, little did I know how well that man carried the message to me, and I didn't even realize it till after I was in the program for years. From the time I got out of that institution and when I went and started back to drinking, that was in the back of my mind, and I was worried. I worried about it. And that's when I said, when I made the decision I wasn't an alcoholic, I was worried up to that time.

I was 26 years old when I came in, and I really worried about it. And when I got here, that's what's helped me got here. I just quit worrying about it and decided I wasn't an alcoholic and asked for it, and I really started drinking. But I'd like to go back now to when it was when I came in. I called a fellow that talked to me six months prior. He said, Fred, sounds like you're worried about your drinking.

I said, No, I'm not worried. I can quit any time I want to. That statement, I can quit any time I want to, and that famous statement. That statement I quit any time I want to, and that famous statement that when the cops pulled me over, I only had two, and that'd like to kill me before I got here. But anyway, when they come to get me on that first night, on this

[01:00:00]

part when I was part-time in a job, part-time, when they swung the door open and said, Come on, Fred, we've been waiting on you. There's three of those guys that I'd served, sold them the booze. They couldn't get a drink to their glass. They was using the high pint. And I looked at them, and I thought, My God, these guys look good. And I knew they were alcoholics. And I always said if I got that bad, I'd quit, you know, if I got bad as them. And I looked at them, I couldn't believe really what I was looking at. And there I was sick, hungover, boy, I mean I was sick.

Nothing like that as the hottest July the first I could ever, ever remember. And I sat on my hands all the way to the meetings, and all them guys would talk about is what they used to drink, how they used to drink, and all the trouble it caused them. And I thought, My God, all I want to do is forget about this for a while. I was trying to get that drink off my mind. So, but before I went to that first meeting, I kept calling this guy that ended up being my sponsor, and he said, I talked to him, I told him, I says, You know, I'm in trouble and I need a lot of help.

And the only thing he could say that made me madder than hell, he said, Oh, are you sick, boy? Just like that, you know, he started calling me boy. I carried the name of boy in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for about six months. I was 26, and there's nobody young in—I came from Greencastle, Indiana, where I'm originally from, but in that area, the west side of Indianapolis and the south side, there's no young people. I looked around my second meeting that I went to was in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in the judge's chamber.

When I got up there, they had two rows of rocking chairs, that one down this wall, one down that long big high black— Black rockers. All them old people were sitting in them and they was just rocking, you know. I said, My God, what have I gotten myself into here? And second thought, I thought, Boy, these people need this program. They're ready to go on. They got one foot in the grave already. And that's the way I came in and thinking about it, being an awful sick and having a hard time contacting them.

But the guy that ended up being my sponsor was the guy that talked to me six months prior to that. They'd got their heads together and they was waiting on me. He's the one that said, Oh, are you sick, boy? And, you know, that didn't go good with me. I was mad. And I had to know how long this guy had been sober. And the only thing he said to me, and it didn't make any sense to me, he said, Well, boy, I'm sober today and that's all that really matters.

And I thought, Oh, hell. So I was very persistent on that and found out, and he finally told me, he said, I've been sober eight years by the grace of God. And boy, you could have knocked me over. I could not imagine such a thing, that anybody could be sober that long a time. Thank you. I'm going to raise this a little bit. My name is Judith Santen, and I'm the archivist at the General Service Office. And those of you who know me since 1995, you can see that my hair is getting shorter. Somebody commented that now I'm getting more relaxed and I dare to wear jeans around you.

But I got formal. You have to give me credit. I, too, want to thank four areas who participated to welcome us here, archivists. And I want to give credit to Gail. Would you have thought what you started back in 1995? It's just wonderful to have a chance to gather every year, and it's wonderful to call many of you friends. And I hope, Corinne, you're going to do it next year. Anyway, I was asked to talk about oral histories and why we collect oral histories.

So let's get to serious business. But I am really happy to be here and be part of this celebration. As I was preparing for this workshop, I couldn't help thinking of a quote by a 19th century historian that was Nell Wing's favorite quote.

[01:05:03]

Our cabinets are slowly filling up with tapes, and the list of people we interviewed grows longer and longer. Well, where do we go with this work? Do we collect those histories for no other reason than having them piled up on our shelves? Although the answer for a question phrased this way is evidently no, it takes a bit more thinking to appropriately answer: what then do we intend to do with hundreds of recordings of personal histories?

What will we do with the oral histories that we're going to hear shortly after me tonight? Naturally, we try to use them to fill in the still missing pieces from AA's history. But oral histories are a delicate business. The personal stories add a rich hue to our history, as the many shades to a single color. Personal stories show an incredible variety in their combination of humor, drama, love, fear, resentment, pride, or calm reflection.

Some of us stress drama, fear of failure, and the hardships in making it with the group. Others love to recall the humorous episodes of mix-ups that providentially assisted the growth of a particular group. And we certainly have plenty of evidence for providential assistance that we simply call higher power. Yet again, others have a special talent for using all these emotions in painting the picture of early days, and we, the listeners, follow them in wonder as their stories unfold in tears and laughter. And then we forget to turn the tape.

Oral histories are never simply facts listed in chronological order. These stories were born in the pain of introspection, reflection, forgetfulness, and maybe even a bit of ego for making certain parts shine brighter than the others. Thus, one story only never tells us a history of a group, a region, or an area, any stool would tip over standing on one leg only. As we anchor our history in the diligently collected oral histories, as our collection grows and the tapes are gradually filling up our cabinet shelves, we also get a better understanding, a firmer, steadier grasp at the canvas of AA's history that stretches over 120 countries by now. It might surprise you, but AA histories are collected in every part of the world, from Japan to Indonesia, from Nepal to Uruguay, from South Africa to Romania and Wacompeter. AA archivists are setting out with a pen and a notepad in one hand and a tape recorder in the other to capture the spirit of the early days, the hardships and the laughter encountered in the beginning of their group, their area, or their country.

We cannot let that history vanish as memory fails. Our history is best mapped out here in the U.S. and Canada, not only because our groups were formed earlier than in the rest of the world, but also because we became aware of the need to capture those histories fairly early on, sometimes in the 1950s. And since then, we have collected thousands of tapes on our collected shelves, and that's something important to keep in mind. We collect not only for the sake of our own areas, but for each other. As the growth of our archival service is a recent phenomenon in AA, quite a few archivists feel a bit apprehensive about whether they can do a good job in collecting histories.

And if you're new to the position, you might feel that you cannot do as well as the early collectors, Bill Wilson, Nell Wing, Ruth Hock, Milton Maxwell, all of whom started to work in the late 1950s and 1960s. You might find inspiration hearing about the early adventures in history collecting. Today, we take it for granted that we have solid archival collections in a growing number of areas, and it is hard to imagine a fellowship without having those.

Just as it is hard to imagine the work of the program without having the Big Book or the Twelve and Twelve around.

[01:10:01]

Yet we spent quite a few years without those books, and there were many years when we were careless about preserving AA history. In the early 1950s, Nell Wing used to regularly go through the office wastebaskets at the end of the day to salvage every carelessly discarded carbon copy of correspondence. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I don't have to do that at the General Service Office. From time to time, we still face the disheartening situation when we see value in a piece of paper that nobody else values.

Usually, that's only the beginning of our problem. Often, we battle the impossible situation by using our best point of arguments to convince someone about the necessity to save a document while meeting their firmly non-committing eyes. The struggle to keep AA's history goes on. Bill Wilson first realized the gaps in our history while he was writing AA Comes of Age. Since he couldn't travel to all parts of the country himself or ask Nell Wing to go, as a solution, he used to send out carloads of blank tapes everywhere, asking the old-timers, whom he gently called graybeards, to self-record their stories.

His enclosed instructions were far from elaborate. As a matter of fact, he was quite laconic, and I'm quoting here, Think it over, make an outline of topics you want to talk about, and go at it at any length at all. Recording tapes are cheap, so ransack your memory. End of quote. Early members used to grumble about the escaping facts, dates, and the names. Don't worry about the facts, the exact names, the names Bill used to say, and we have been repeating it ever since.

Those we can get from other sources. But tell us the priceless stories, both happy and sad. Include the anecdotes, and do not, under any circumstances, forget about the controversies. These are the gems that make the fabric of AA history come alive and attract the newcomers. Using Bill's words again, write a personal account of your impressions, anecdoted as much as possible. A dry statistics require that sort of supplement to create the best interest. For today's archivists, it is hard to comprehend the magnitude of history-collecting efforts that were set in motion in the mid-1950s.

Bill and Nell made repeated efforts to reach out to the old-timers, writing to them again and again, asking for their help in collecting the early stories. In a letter dated November 3, 1955, Nell contacted an old-timer's wife, and she wrote, We here at the General Service Headquarters are most anxious to compile as much historical data as we can for our archives, so that the story of the growth of AA will be as complete and factual as possible.

To this end, Bill Wilson suggested that you might be an excellent source for such material, and that you might be willing to recall for us items of historical interest about which you know from personal experience. We know that your husband John was instrumental in starting many groups throughout the country, and that you were his close and constant partner in these enterprises. Would you therefore, at your convenience, care to write out for us as much as you can remember: what groups John started, how they grew, people who were especially helpful, dates, anecdotes about people or events, community cooperation, group problems, just anything at all you might have stored away in your memory.

Would you like to do this? You might find it fun to do, and your story could be so helpful for us. Incidentally, we would like to have John's own story for our files. This effort will be appreciated by all of us, more than I can say, and I guess 50 years later we can say her effort is appreciated by most of us. Also, these are pretty much the questions we recommend for new archivists to ask when you collect oral histories. Bill was in frequent communication with the old-timers, just as much as Nell was, writing the letters, sending out the tapes, asking people to get in touch with Nell. In 1955, he wrote to Clarence, By all means, try to get some of that history on tapes. See, Clarence got one of those packages of blank tapes.

Or it might be preferable if you wrote it down in your spare time. We are trying to pick up as much information as we can from AAs, old-timers, before it's too late. Bill Dotson's story, and you saw his picture this afternoon on the video, for example, which I luckily secured for the book, was taped only months before. The keyword for the book was taped only months before he would have been completely unable to do anything. Of course, Clarence, this is no gloomy forecast for you, but time does fly. Bill was equally

[01:15:00]

supportive of outside works of history. He felt really strongly about Milton Maxwell's article on the Washingtonian movement. He felt it was an important and significant contribution to understanding of our own history. I repeat the quote that we use a lot just to really see how much Bill appreciated historic works coming even from outside our fellowship. He wrote to Milton, I'm extremely glad that such a thoroughgoing study as yours has been made. Here and there I have noted other attempts, but nothing at all comparable to what you have done. I wish every AA could indelibly burn the history of the Washingtonians into his memory. It is an outstanding example of how and how not we ought to conduct ourselves. In a sense, Alcoholics Anonymous has never had a problem seriously threatening our overall unity. Yet I notice that some AAs are complacent enough to suppose that we never shall.

I actually tried it with Tex Brown, if you remember him. He passed away since. Old-timers might feel, and that's what Tex was telling me, that they cannot even begin a story without having a listening audience around and having a guiding question or two. It is understandable. What's the use of sharing an anecdote without hearing the audience's laughter, or telling about the twists and turns of difficult times if nobody is following the unfolding story?

The smile of wisdom on the face of our old-timers was earned through many years of experience, and talk about some of those experiences. They had seen beer served at some AA meetings because the particular group didn't think that that was alcohol. As Ruth Hawk, the collector of that particular story, cheerfully remarked, the beer itself soon took care of that misconception. We had seen slot machines set up in meeting places that were to take care of the group's debt, while the federal agents took care of that problem. The emotions were often at the breaking point in the early days.

With the words of an early timer, we had what Bill Wilson called the dry bender incorporated, and that was a real dandy. It is only through hearing the stories of growth and errors that we can appreciate Bill's words in Tradition One on annuals of experience. The structure of our society was hammered out. By faith and by work, we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience. They live today in the 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which, God willing, shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.

As Bill said in Tradition Two, nearly every old-timer in our society has gone through this process, that is, various local controversies, in some degree. Happily, most of them survive and live to become elder statesmen. They become the real and permanent leadership of AA. Theirs is the quiet opinion, the sure knowledge, and the humble example that resolve a crisis. When sorely perplexed, the group inevitably turns to them for advice.

They become the voice of group conscience. In fact, these are the true voice of Alcoholics Anonymous. Please help me welcome our old-timers and let's hear their stories tonight.

[01:20:01]

Thank you. I forgot to do at the end of the workshop today. My name is Kathy Smith, and I'm an alcoholic. And everybody who was at the workshop this morning, whose first time it was to come to an archives conference… Could you come up front? I got something for you, a little present. I want first-timers who are at the conference, who are at the conference, come on up. Not gonna get you. I'm Tom I, I'm an alcoholic. Beer drinker.

And when I first came to my introduction, they said I couldn't be an alcoholic. He just drinks beer. You know, I love that. That's music to my ears. But I am an alcoholic. I live on a farm. Country boy. You don't find many country boys in AA, farmers. You've heard the old saying, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy. And that's true in my case. But that's not true with my wife.

She was a city girl. And you know something? I took the city right out of her. But I became a hopeless, helpless alcoholic. I live in Greenville. I'm a Buckeye. Do you know what a Buckeye is? Holly polished nut with no practical, no significant value. That's me. Hopeless, helpless alcoholic by drink, by the beer drinker. I'll share this. I was—what was—you don't hear it much anymore, what you call a cold turkey call.

Cold turkey. I didn't ask for AA. I was shoved in here by my wife and my sister, public health nurse. She saw her brother killing himself drinking, contacted AA for me, for me, picked me up and took me to my meeting. But I didn't ask for AA. But I'd like to bring this point out. Soon be 50 years, little—well, November the 6th, 50 years of sobriety. And that first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Richmond, Indiana, I sobered up in Indiana, Richmond.

That first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I attended, I realized there was something here I wanted. And on the curb after the meeting, waiting on my wife, sitting on a curb. I prayed to my God that there was something here I will always want. And as of today, that is being true. I'm still praying, and I'm still… I would like to close in making this, these points. I believe you find people in Alcoholics My Experience.

We've 10,000 over United States, 10,000. But I firmly believe this and convinced you people here in Alcoholics Anonymous are among the most richly blessed people of the world. And now, and for your information, I want to thank you, each and every one of you, for helping me. Let me share it in this manner, then I'll shut up.

[01:25:01]

The people who helped me obtain my sobriety are all gone, deceased. God bless them. But here, all you wonderful people are helping me maintain my sobriety. It's in the Big Book. I'm not a bookworm, but in the Big Book, without help it's too much for me. And I hope and pray to my God I will be eternally grateful for you people, all of you, helping me maintain my sobriety. And I, as an alcoholic, that is the most precious gift.

The gift of sobriety is the most precious I'll ever receive on this earth. Thank you. God bless you. We'll next introduce a member of our Area 64 group, who was very instrumental in even bringing us into existence and putting us on the path of preserving our history and, as Bill said, in that way carrying the message, Miss Kitty Loue. And if there was a man here named Frog, God love him, he's dead, he would shout out from back there somewhere, Stand up!

He ain't here in person, he's here in spirit. I'm Kitty Lou, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, miracles. We got some miracles out there. I want to see your hands. All right. Yeah. I don't know who I'm talking to. My sobriety date is June the 3rd, 1966, so I'm 35, and I'm 74 years old, and I'm retired, and I got a little dog that keeps my heart pumping all the time. I wake up every morning and say, Hey, Hannah, we made another night.

I am really particularly, particularly, particularly pleased and happy to be here. I didn't know this thing was been going on six years, for crying out loud. You think people talk around AA, but I guess they don't. I don't know. But I feel like that I am a first generation AA because I came into AA when Bill Wilson was still living. And I feel like I'm a second generation because I came into Memphis AA when, after the first 100 did their job on us, did everything they could for us. And coming into the group that I came into was kind of the remainder of what was left of a lot of the 100, because we started out at 152 and a half Madison downtown, upstairs, of course.

And so I had the benefit and the opportunity to know the old-timers, the ones that were here first, and to hear their stories. And there was one little man in particular. His name was Galen, and he wasn't much bigger than me, and so I thought, well, that's pretty good. I can whoop up on him if he gets out of line, because they told me to stay away from the men, and I thought they were crazy. But anyway, it's always kind of been a passion with me.

But he was a protector. He was my protector. He knew everybody was in AA. We only had 13 groups in Memphis at that time, and so he just about knew everybody. Well, we all did. You know, we all got together on Saturday night usually, and everybody knew everybody around AA. So he would protect the women in particular. And I might be talking to somebody just up a storm, and before I know it, he's got me moved across the room.

And I said, What'd you do that for? That's rude. He said, He's a stalker. You don't need to talk to him. He said, He's a stopper. You don't need to talk to him. Said, He ain't been around here but two or three weeks. We don't know enough about him. And he did everybody, all the women that way. And he was just, you know, he wasn't outstanding in looks, so it was protecting

[01:30:00]

that he was doing. But I just had so much of that, and I had so much, so many stories shared with me about the funny things. Their first Christmas in Memphis, they couldn't afford anything, so they had red and green Jell-O. I thought, now that's marvelous, somebody to think that up, you know. And they just had one card table to have it on, you know, so everybody had to kind of stand up, meet your Jell-O. But I guess I got the best advice that anybody could have ever given to me early in AA.

And my little first piece of service work, while I was supposed to get the food together for our Christmas party at Paramount Group, and I was going around with pad and pencil. I was just real—boy, I wanted this thing had to be perfect. And I was, What are you going to bring? What are you going to bring? What are you going to bring? And I was writing it all down. And of course half of them didn't bring what they said they were going to.

And so somebody, I have no idea who, just turned around and looked at me and said, Well, who do you think you are, some queen bee here giving all the directions? Oh, Lord. Oh, I just wilted. I just cried. I just— And I went to this other man that I trusted, and his name was John. And I said, John, what have I done? What have I done? I told him. He said, Oh, kid. He said, Do anything. I don't care what it is.

Do anything in AA. Raise an eyebrow wrong, anything. Just do something wrong in AA. Do anything. Doesn't matter what's wrong or right. And he says, Somebody will criticize you, and you know you're ahead of the game if you're already ready for it, so you just don't pay any attention to it and go on about your business. That's the best piece of advice I ever got. And so I kind of set out to do that. Service was just kind of born into me when I was born into AA, I guess. I don't know.

I just, I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous from the first meeting. Of course, I had a day or two that I thought, I'll get drunk and they can't ask me to do nothing. You know, I was one of the first women, one of the few women, not first, few women that had a car when I came in. And Lord, we'd just run ragged on any drunk woman. We'd going all over town, dragging her to meetings and everything.

And I got mad about that. I said, Doesn't somebody else do something? So I met somebody that was an expert in service, and he said, Are you expecting some kind of thanks or something? He said, What you're getting is pretty good sobriety. You're not grateful for that? Well, felt like a little peanut then again. And, but I've been able to serve in a lot of different positions. And another thing that I found out for sure.

is that no matter what we do in AA, and we get together for these wonderful kind of weekends and conventions and assemblies, and we get together and have those friendly discussions, and if AA gets something out of it, that's just kind of a side issue. But what happens to us is that we get to work on our defects of character at a deeper level. I'm telling you, Charlie always talks about getting the feathers off your legs, and I've had many a feather trimmed, I tell you, by him and anybody else, because I didn't know that people could stand and call you wrong and love you at the same time. It was just so confusing.

But I don't know. I think it's—I'm sure most of us feel like in here, we're certainly alive today because AA came into our life, or we came into AA's life, however we got there. And I've had such a wonderful, marvelous opportunity to travel around the country and go to groups here and there and just experience funny things. I guess one of the funniest—some

[01:35:34]

names and telephone numbers and Casper, Wyoming. And I went to this house, and I knocked. The screen was about out of it, and here comes this drunk to the door. I mean, he was so drunk. And I said, Is AA around here anywhere? And he said, They better not be. Okay, I got two minutes, so I want to… But, you know, you love things like that. And I was talking over in Arkansas one time out in a park or someplace, I don't know, we were in a building, and this little dog had walked up to the door and was just standing there, just taking everything in.

And whatever I said was something funny, and everybody laughed, and that dog just jumped and ran away. I said, Well, laughter pulls us in and runs us off one way or the other. But, you know, we could all, we could all state the experiences in the times that we've had in AA to bring us right here to this point, at this very minute, just right here. And I'm through, bye. Thank you, Miss Kitty. Really appreciate you taking the time and making the effort to be here and help us.

The next gentleman I'd like to introduce is Barry Ward. Wow. Wildberry. And trying. But so I understand he serves as delegate on Panel 40, and I'd like to introduce him at this time. Good evening, I'm Barry. I'm a grateful alcoholic. Hey, Barry. And I'm just a sober alcoholic tonight. That's what I like. I like to be one of the gang, and we've got a big gang, and I love them all. You know, you taught me how to love in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And when I got here, I was an absolute taker, played cards and did the 13th stepping and the whole damn routine. But, you know, back in those days, if you went to my wife and told her I stepped on her, she'd say, Yeah, he does that sometimes. But today, if you went to her and told her that, she'd say, Maybe you ought to do your own inventory. She says, He's done a good job of his, and he don't do things like that. That's what she tells him, you know.

That makes me feel pretty good when my own wife, who—we've been married for 54 years, and that's because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to thank you all, because I believe it's the whole world of AA that makes one person sober. I believe that God speaks through all of us to the one of us, and one of us to all of us. And I think that unity is a great thing in our country. And that's where AA came from, was the United States.

I don't, I don't know. You know, I have two daughters, and I lost a son-in-law. He crashed in an F-106. He has a son now who goes to college in Pullman, Washington. He's pretty high up in his scholastic rating, and I'm very proud of him. Both my daughters are college educated. My son, he's a logger, and he drinks Lucky Lager. Kind of like his old dad. And I got a prayer for him too. I pray that he finds us someday.

[01:40:01]

He's a good guy too. You know, it's a funny thing. The best people in the world are the people that got up there and kicked their heels out a little bit and did their thing and come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe it kind of, we get around it out when we get sober and get well. We understand what the world's all about, and we got something to give somebody who needs help because we've been there.

And the best thing we can give anybody is a comparison in life, and that I've done what they've done just a little bit. I feel sorry for the people in the back. They don't, they don't get to hear all this. I can see they're waving back there. They want to hear. And I wish I could talk that loud. You know, I used to be a master sergeant, and I can talk that loud, but I don't think you want to hear it because I got a…

I quit living like that too. And I was in Fort Ord, California, and I was attacking CO in Fort Ord, California. Anybody can remember what those people did, and they still do it, I guess. But we had a different tone during World War II. It was a little higher and a little louder. And anyway, I'm just glad to be a sober alcoholic and with the people I love the most in this world, and the people who give me the most love that I've ever received in my whole life.

And I receive that from fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous every day of my life. They call me, they write to me. I sponsor I don't know how many people. I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it. And some of them are a long ways off, and some of them have thirty-some years of sobriety, and some of them have just a few days. And I'm grateful to have all the gifts. You know, God blessed us with a gift, and the gift of sobriety.

He gave us a present, and we live in the present, and that's the most valuable part of this program, is just to live 24 hours a day and get the most out of it. Thank you. I'd next like to introduce another gentleman from Area 64. He's our oldest living past delegate, and he's known quite, quite well for a love affair that he's had in doing corrections work for a long, long time. I give you Chuck A.

I'm Chuck, an alcoholic. I'm here to [unclear] the grace of God, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and my continuous association with others who have this illness. And one of my first sponsors, that's what he said, and I always remember that. And when I came in, I heard a phrase that said AA was all-inclusive, not exclusive. And thank God that they didn't ask me for my, have my financial statement, or when I was married, or where I lived.

They just wanted to know if I wanted help. And I had the opportunity today to talk with a friend of mine who lives in Louisville. He was the second man I met in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was about 25 years old at that time. Much to my surprise, it was June the 1st, 1968. That's when I put a dime in a telephone and called Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm reminded of the first tradition says, personal recovery depends upon AA unity. And that group had enough money to have a telephone.

They had enough money to somebody to answer the phone. They had a 12-step call list, and they had somebody willing to make a 12-step call. That man who made the 12-step call on me was John Y. He died over in Sadieville, Kentucky, last year, still sober. He brought me the message, and he's the one that gave me hope. He shared his experience, strength, and hope with me. And then I went up to this club at 470 Half Union Street in Nashville, and it was 52 steps. But right at the top of the steps, it had a sign, Only 12 more steps to go.

And my friend Chris J., who lives here in— Louisville came over today and we did a lot of reminiscing. Came over today and we did a lot of reminiscing. And that was my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I got introduced to something else also, because the Tennessee State Penitentiary. I was an inmate. But they had AA there, and they

[01:45:00]

brought the message to those who couldn't come out and get it. And the first people I met was Joe M., who was a delegate. And then we had some social functions, and they brought in Tom M., who was a Southeast Regional Trustee. And then we had another social function, and they brought in Bert D., who was the founder of Harbor House in Memphis. And when I got out, this man told—Joe told me, he said, Chuck, get involved.

And Joe finally died, and he didn't have time to tell me to stay not get involved. And I got involved in what was at that time called the Institutional Committee. And later on, the conference split the institution into correction and treatment facilities, and I became the chairman of the Institutional Committee. And then I stayed active, and then I kept on being active, and I was one of those GSRs and a DCM, and then I became alternate delegate.

And then I became delegate. And somewhere along the line, I read in the service manual, it said, Give the alternate delegate something to do. And they hadn't—previous to that, I—did you have something? Yeah, you had something to do, yeah. And when, and I appointed the alternate delegate at that time. I asked him to be literature chairperson, and he was a retired—well, he was a judge. He used these big words like repository, not that other word now. And we started collecting the history of AA in Tennessee, and it sort of became that the alternate delegate was the custodian of the archives. And my friend Kenny Lou here kept them and carried them around in the car for me for a long time.

My friend Larry A. back there, he kept them, and he was always complaining about keeping them under his bed at home. And, you know, things slowly evolved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we kept on—the alternate delegate's taking care of us collecting, and it was getting bigger. And then one time we stored them in the War Memorial Building in Nashville. And somewhere along the line, we talked about getting an office for Area 64, and it kept evolving.

And then we—guess what we did? We formed the Archives Committee. And the Archives Committee has grown and grown, and you'll see our display back there, and you'll see our home for the archives. It's just, it shows what you can do and what the unity of AA can do whenever you have something that needs to be done in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we are preserving our past so that those who come after us will see what we have done and what Alcoholics Anonymous has done.

And some of them ask me why I still go to meetings. Sort of like Tom there. I go because I want to keep the doors open for those who come and maybe have to go back out, and for those who come and say, Well, this is not for me. And I talked about, you know, I'm a survivor, and I was thinking about something happened on September 11th. There weren't too many survivors. But somebody brought the message to Alcoholics Anonymous to me one time, and I feel like that I have an obligation and a duty to still carry that message to Alcoholics Anonymous and for those who still suffer.

And I found in this program about love and understanding and empathy and the caring for my fellow man. And this is what it's all about to me, is us gathering together and sharing our experience, strength, and hope. And from this group here this weekend, there will be more archives, there'll be more collected, and there'll be more people knowledgeable about the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous and what we all stand for.

Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I'd next like to introduce a gentleman from Mobile, Alabama, Eric K.

[01:50:02]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Eric Coco, and I am an alcoholic. And I live in Mobile, Alabama, but where I arrived, excuse me, from Hawaii in 1993, I left Canada and came to the United States in 1960, and I got my citizenship, and I went to the South Pacific, and I spent—well, I'd like to say I was stranded out there on the islands, and between Hawaii and the rest of the South Pacific islands for 27 years, and finally I escaped and I came to Mobile, Alabama.

I was a product of the World War II, like my buddy over here, the Wild Barry, and we acquired some habits. And I was too young to join the Navy. I'm a Canadian, and we were at war for two years before you guys even knew what was going on. And I have a—I don't tell this joke anymore because I was threatened with my life by a Hawaiian. I said, You have no— I said, You have no idea what it cost us to have you to Pearl Harbor so you would come and help us.

This big Hawaiian said, You like, I break your face. So I don't tell that anymore, except at places like this where I know my friends, you love me for that, even though it's kind of crude. I was in the Merchant Marine then. They wouldn't take me in the Navy because I wasn't old enough. And as soon as I was, I joined the Navy because in the Merchant Marine, I found it to be very dangerous. The ships were being sunk and all that, so.

And besides, a cute little girl in Montreal pushed me away and said, Get away from you damn draft dodger. I had my sailor's wool cap on and my bell-bottom pants. But then I realized I was 17, so I went and joined the Navy. And in the tradition of the sea, I learned how to be a sailor. Some of the boys sent their money home to save. Some of them had families. And I was a traditional sailor, the drunken sailor.

He lasts about two years, and he goes down the dumper from wherever he thought he was going to make his life to be. Two years later, she left me, and I was ushered into AA. This was on a Saturday afternoon at three o'clock before I went to work. I had my two beers, and the next day I was ushered into AA by the man who was to become my sponsor. He was one of Bill's salesmen. And this is not—you don't read about it too much—how Bill thought about them.

We know that salesmen traveled the country and all that, but when one of them got sober in the old days, my sponsor told me, Bill would call up the company that the guy he worked for and said, Hey, I got Joe so-and-so sober. Could you like to get him back to work? He said, We sure would. He can outsell any ten of our other salesmen as long as he's sober. Is he going to stay sober? Bill says, I'll guarantee it. We've cured him.

And so, you know, Bill had a way about… I heard convincing people about things that weren't often quite the real thing. And I have a manuscript in my possession telling about the actual true history of how the Big Book was written, and it was sent to me by Laurie Lukens, the daughter of Ruth Hock. And it was transcribed from a tape, very painstakingly by a fellow in Florida, word for word from a tape, 28 pages.

So that was a lot of work. So I have a copy of that, and I'm going to make some copies. And then when I came to Hawaii from Alabama, of course, I went to AA and met some fellas, and I

[01:55:04]

had 40 years of sobriety then. And my group in Hawaii, the world-famous Waikiki Men's Stag, sent me a medallion with my name on it. So I had made a tie slide out of it, you know, a scarf slide out of it. Well, they hauled me around trying to make me famous, and they brought me up to the assembly. And that particular meeting, the wonderful and lovable Frank R. Archivist was the speaker, and he heard somebody mention about—heard my name anyway, Coco—and he come over and he said, I know who you are.

You're Coco. You're that guy from Hawaii, and you were at a meeting in the King School group where Bill was the speaker, and it never was recorded. I said, I don't think it was, no. He said, You're telling all kinds of things about, you know, that meeting. And he said, and we were kind of joking, he kind of joked about it, and I said, You old guys kind of forget things, you know, so start writing things down while your memory is still functional. So since then I've been trying to write things down, and I wrote about my sponsor then had taken me to meet Bill.

I was one of the youngest people around, and so he took me to meet Bill at the King School meeting, and— I couldn't get close to him, so we took off and went to the Original Aird Club, because Kelly knew where he was going. I had talked to Bill on the telephone. I used to get to talk to him once in a while. And then I got to meet him personally, and that was the most awesome experience in my life at the time.

Being one of the youngest ones around, I was sort of ignored at the meetings because Kelly told me that. That's my sponsor, George Kelly. He said, They don't think you're going to stick around very long. Younger people only stay about one or two meetings. You don't want to see them again. Well, I stuck around, but it was for a reason. I was hoping maybe I might get my family back. It wasn't for me to get sober.

I did not have the capacity to be honest with myself. Thank you. And so, as the way it happened, he did all these things for me. I got interested in the Big Book and the Twelve Steps, and I had spiritual experiences kind of all the way through, like Bill said that Dr. Bob had. He said, You've already had yours, because Bob complained that, he said, I've never had my spiritual experience. I've read the Bible over three times from cover to cover, and I can't find anywhere where I've had one.

Bill laughed at him. He said, Bob, you've already had it long ago. So when Kelly told me that, I felt better because I worried about it. I wondered how long I'm going to last. And I managed to survive. And I spent over 20 years in the South Pacific, and all I had was my Big Book. I almost became one of them, you know, a Big Book convert. You know, I'd come back to California and buy a white robe and stand on the street corner. There were quite a few of them like that.

But I'd like to leave you with something I'm going to use at Bill. You know, he found—he used to shake hands and say, Pass it on. If you have a copy of the first edition, The Feminine Victory, read it. It's in the last line, Pass it on. Cunning, baffling, powerful. He found that in Dr. James's Variety of Religious Experiences. You have to read the whole book. It's that thick to find it. And I would like to leave you with what my favorite is. He found an Asian expression that translates to, Thank you for your life.

And I want to do that tonight. Thank you for your life, because your being here and all the people like you have given me a life of sober living for over 48 years. God bless you. I love you all. You know, I've dreaded doing this ever since I was asked, and I really don't want to blast them with what I got under this shirt. But when you're talking good things, sharing good information. Good things, sharing good information, and you're talking from the heart.

How do you gong somebody? I don't know. I'd next like to introduce Mr. Fred Aubrey from Area 23 up in Bloomington. And, you know, I thought everybody from Indiana was on the host committee.

[02:00:04]

He's the first man I've seen that was just here for the workshop. Come on up, Fred. My name is Fred Aubrey, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm sober today by the grace of God, and you fine people. The reason I'm here is because I'm not all there. Kenny asked me to do this, and I'd never done anything like this before. I never heard of the archives or paid much attention to it, and so it made me a little nervous, but I said yes, because most all the time when anybody asks me to do anything in AA, I try to do that.

And he said, I noticed he was going to Al-Anon every Thursday night in the library, and there he'd go. So I kind of got acquainted with him. I was kind of inquisitive about this because I thought I couldn't figure out what was the matter with me. And he got to talking to me, and he finally, I told him some of the problems I'd had and what was got me in there, and he said, How would you like to go one of those AA meetings with me?

I said, No, I don't think I really need to go. I don't think I'm an alcoholic. And he brought me some of this literature. I looked this literature over, and I looked at it real good, and I said, You know, in all honesty, I think this is one of the finest things I've ever seen. It's good, it's honest, and I'm sure glad you got it. And he said again, he said, Fred, how would you like to go one of these AA meetings with me? I said, Hell, I'm only 19 years old.

I don't have this problem. Well, little did I know how well that man carried the message to me, and I didn't even realize it till after I was in the program for years. From the time I got out of that institution and when I went started back to drinking, that was in the back of my mind, and I was worried. I worried about it. And that's when I said, when I made the decision I wasn't an alcoholic, I was worried up to that time.

I was 26 years old when I came in, and I really worried about it. And when I got here, that's what's helped me got here. I just quit worrying about it and decided I wasn't an alcoholic, and that's when I really started drinking. But I'd like to go back now to when it was when I came in. I called the fellow that talked to me six months prior. He said, Fred, sounds like you're worried about your drinking.

I said, No, I'm not worried. I can quit any time I want to. That statement, I can quit any time I want to, and that famous statement that when the cops pulled me over, I only had two. I'd like to kill me before I got here. But anyway, when they come to get me on that first night, on this part, when I was part-time in the job, part-time, when they swung the door open and said, Come on, Fred, we've been waiting on you. There's three of those guys that I'd sold them the booze. They couldn't get a drink to their glass.

They was using the half pint. And I looked at them and I thought, My God, these guys look good. And I knew they were alcoholics. And I always said if I got that bad, I'd quit, you know, if I got bad as them. And I looked at them, I couldn't believe really what I was looking at. And there I was sick, hungover, boy, and I mean I was sick. That's the meanest I was the hottest July the first I could ever remember.

And I sat on my hands all the way to the meetings, and all them guys would talk about is what they used to drink, how they used to drink, and all the trouble it caused them. And I thought, My God, all I want to do is forget about this for a while. I was trying to get that drink off my mind. So, but before I went to that first meeting, I kept calling this guy. It ended up being my sponsor. And he said, I talked to him, I told him, I says, You know, I'm in trouble and I need a lot of help. And the only thing he could say that made me madder than hell, he said, Oh, are you sick, boy? Just like that, you know.

He started calling me boy. I carried the name of boy in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for about six months. I was 26, and there's nobody young, and I came from Greencastle, Indiana, where I'm originally from. But in that area, the west side of Indianapolis and the south side, there's no young people. I looked around my second meeting that I went to was in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in the judge's chamber. When I got up there, there were two rows of rocking chairs, and one down this wall, one down that wall, and big high black…

[02:05:02]

Black rockers, all them old people were sitting in them, and they was just rocking, you know. I said, My God, what have I got myself into here? And second thought, I thought, Boy, these people need this program. They're ready to go on. They ain't got one foot in the grave already. And that's the way I came in, and thinking about it, but being awful sick and having a hard time contacting them. But the guy that ended up being my sponsor was the guy that talked to me such much prior to that.

They'd got their heads together, and they was waiting on me. He's the one that said, Oh, are you sick, boy? And, you know, that didn't go good with me. I was mad, and I had to know how long this guy had been sober. And the only thing he said to me, and it didn't make any sense to me, he said, Well, boy, I'm sober today, and that's all that really matters. And I thought, Oh, hell. So I was very persistent on that and finding out, and he finally told me, he said, I've been sober eight years by the grace of God.

And boy, you could have knocked me over. I could not imagine such a thing, that anybody could be sober that long a time.