Preventing the Garbled Message Through the Big Book — David A.

About This Speaker Tape

1937, Akron. A handful of sober noses in a living room. Bill and Bob looked at the small statistics and realized they had a shot, but the message was a "flickering candle" that could be snuffed out. David A. recounts the gritty scramble to codify the program before the word-of-mouth version became too garbled. It was a circus of "drunk tanks," subsidized missionaries, and Bill’s Wall Street cunning.

The drunks were "wired backwards," with their brains in their rear ends, while Bill chased the Rockefeller crowd for cash. He pitched the rich on a "chain of drunk tanks" and phony stock certificates from the Works Publishing Company. Amidst the chaos of "holy rollers" and skeptics, Bill hammered out the 12 Steps in thirty minutes on a notepad to plug the holes in the old six-step pitch. He fought through "ferocious arguments" to carve out the phrase "Higher Power as we understand Him," ensuring the message wouldn't be distorted by the pious or the proud.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 David A. introduces himself and his sobriety date of April 20, 1967
• 4:30 Discussion on the early oral tradition of the program and the need for literature
• 8:20 The humorous and chaotic nature of early sponsorship and 'drunk tanks'
• 13:15 Bill W.'s efforts to raise money from wealthy New Yorkers and the Rockefeller connection
• 21:40 The creation of the Works Publishing Company and the struggle to sell stock to drunks
• 28:10 The writing of Chapter Five and the transition from a six-step to a twelve-step program
• 32:50 The 'ferocious argument' that resulted in the phrase 'Higher Power as we understood Him'
• 38:45 The failure of the initial book launch and the subsequent rescue by Burt Taylors
• 45:10 The Rockefeller dinner and the final shift toward total self-support