The Big Book Preface and Foreword – Workshop Mikechase – Big Book Is Alive Workshop – Part 1 of 7 – Local AA Speakers

Who doesn't have a big book tonight? Bring one next week. Hopefully there's somebody sitting next to you that can share one with you. I'm a recovered alcoholic, my name is Mike Chase. I'd like to... Hi! Glad you guys all showed up tonight. This is gonna be an adventure and fun tonight. I am going to introduce my co- facilitator. I met Joe previous to him getting through the book when we were both attending a discussion based meeting and I honestly thought Joe was a heroin addict because he kept sitting in the back of the room nodding off throughout the entire meeting and it wasn't until I actually had a conversation to talk to him that the meeting was just boring him to death and it was just he relapsed a few more times and he finally came back to me Do you want to introduce yourself real quick? Sure, I'm a recovered alcoholic. My name is Joe and i'll take a moment here just to introduce you to uh my co-facilitator um i met him again as you said in the uh in the rounds of the discussion meetings that we're going to and what i noticed is is that he kept introducing himself as mike chase and i thought who is this guy that feels his burning need to give his first name and his last name and be the announcement guy and uh years later i come to find out when he started taking me through the book that his first name is actually mike chase so bad on my part for that but anyway um what we do is we we study the big book of alcoholics anonymous and we reproduce that experience for our students so our spiritual duty is to put newcomers hands in god put newcomer's hands in God's hands as quickly as possible uh we found this to be most effective by trying to do our utmost to make this book come alive and God gives us a lot of leeway in how we operate yeah as a disclaimer we're not experts for it. Just a couple of recovered alcoholics that love the big book. However, we have made our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the history and the facts as we can so that we may transmit only the pure message of God to the next untreated alcoholic. In other words, if you see us reading from the big book, that means that it's coming from what we believe to be the divine solution for alcoholism. If you see us look up and start talking, that means it is an experience, an opinion, or something that we're talking about. So feel free to investigate and study the history. And if what we say up here gets you fired up to learn more about this, then we're certainly doing what we're supposed to do. Absolutely. Some helpful information has already been given in the format for those who may be unaccustomed with workshop-style study. We hope to educate, challenge, and invigorate your current experience with God. We'd like to encourage participation from our audience as much as possible. Tonight we aim to cover the preface and the forwards and the title page. But we'd like to also thank the group for giving us spiritual consent to allow God to move us. So we've got some highlighters, rulers, underliners. This is an opportunity for you guys to take the information that we've garnered through years of reading the big book, going to big book seminars, big book meetings. We think we've gotten some pretty good information that we have been passing on to our family. We basically studied the book in the style of Clarence Snyder, Cleveland, who had some incredible success rates. We just sit down with new guys, get to know them a little bit, and we turn to the title page and we just start reading. But we always start off a little differently than some other groups. Anytime that we're moved to study the big book, we usually go into it with a brief meditation in order to clear our mind and help us set up and get clear of what's been going on during the daytime. So please join us in a two-minute meditation. What that means is we're just going to go silent for two minutes. We'll do some breathing. If you guys want to just concentrate on your posture and breathing, what that's going to do, that's gonna let us get reconnected to God in a stronger position at this point. so when we come back in, we're a little energized and ready to go in. So we're just going to sit and quiet with God for two minutes and we'll meet you on the other side. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you guys want to join us in the lay aside prayer god god help me lay aside everything i think you know about alcoholics anonymous the big book the 12 steps and you i feel so much better absolutely are you ready can you believe we got this many people sit in a room quiet for two minutes that Is there a puppy or a dog in the room or something like that? I think that was a parrot. That was a parent? I heard something going on out there. Who wants to be the dictionary person tonight? We need somebody with a quick finger and a loud voice. Run up here, Zach. Get up here real quick. In case we run across a word or something's mentioned, somebody wants to know what that word is, just raise your hand. You'll interrupt us and we'll stop and we're going to have him tell you what the word is because I came into the room and thinking I knew a lot of stuff, I came into the book thinking I know a lot of words. I did a whole year of college where I made three classes but so I really find it an important occasion to find out what some of these words mean. The way that our style is we sit down with our newcomers, we have a meditation, we jump into prayer and then we give a little idea of what the book is. You know, the book was divinely inspired to be mailed out to anywhere in the world, anywhere in the country and the person reading the book can read the information page by page, word by word. And by the time they get to working with others, they've had a spiritual awakening sufficient to help them also recover from alcoholism and be prepared to start passing that message to somebody else. That's the basis of our family. We take guys who have just come in and out of recovery for years, not been able to get sober. And after 35 days, after highlighting, underlining, spending time with God, having conversation with us, reading the book, they are prepared to pass the message on to somebody other. So hopefully you guys can pick up a little information that we've garnered from the book tonight. Absolutely. So what do you got on page one, Joe? I have a blank page, page zero. It says Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came back after 15 years of sobriety and then a six-year run, my sponsor looked at me and said, you've been around a while. You think you know a lot about Alcoholics Anecdotes Well, let's just pretend you forgot everything. What you know now is the name. So he told me I was stupid, forget everything. It was actually a couple words. I can imagine. Yeah. So let's just imagine that we don't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the first time going through the book, and we'll have a fun adventure here tonight. First thing, AlcoholicsAnonymous. Turn the page to the title page. You're going to come across some really good information that's going to set the course of how this book is going to go. The story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. What was that? The storyofhowmanythousandsofmenandwomenhaverecoveredfromalcoholism. I always have my people highlight that and underline it because that's the first bit of information that we're giving to people who's got this book. You're living in broken-toe New Mexico. You've been trying to get sober for years unsuccessfully, and you get this book mailed out to you, and you'd get it, and it's like it's recovered from alcohol and what they wanted to do. We're setting this up for some information ahead of us. The book was essentially a 12-step call when you think about it like that. So everybody got that highlighted and underlined? Let's go. The book is next page. We're going to skip over a couple pages to the context. it's broken up, I was told in three sections the first part of the book is going to be broken up as the problem from the preface to Bill's story if you guys want to draw a line or put a notation that first part has always been where we discuss the problem what it is to be an alcoholic we're going to have to figure out if we're alcoholic or non-alcoholic if we need to go on with this program in order to seek a solution we've got to know what it isthat we're suffering from so the perfect definition of the problem is what we move into and that's obviously going to deal with powerlessness which is step one right when the book first came out there was no preface they only had the foreword and right now we've got a few forwards and we've Got the Doctor's Opinion and Bill's Story which is some amazing stuff hopefully we get into The Doctor's Opinions next week or the week afterwards the second part of the book is the solution between there's a solution more about alcoholism and we agnostics I always have my guys draw a little line and put that as a solution base You hear a lot of God talking in Alcoholics Anonymous. You hear about prayer and meditation. This gives us an opportunity to see where that solution came from. Why is ASO God-based? We're going to discover the malady, the obsession of the mind, and how God came into work with AlcoholicsAnonymous. The solution is going to be dealing with the Power, capital P, and that's going to give you a lot more information on step two. Next part, program of action. That's between how it works and working with others. how it works is the opportunity for the first 67, 4200, whoever you're talking to had an opportunity to get together and agree on what this new program was going to be because the guys who wrote this book were not members of Alcoholics Anonymous these guys who broke this book were members of the Oxford group a first century I'm not going to say that The drunk squad of the Oxford groups Yeah, it was an evangelical Christian squad so they were able to take that and tone it down a bit so anyone in any religion, in any walk of life could find an ability to go through the steps comfortably without feeling too pushed aside by preconditions and God. And believe it or not, those three chapters, the program of action, how it works into action and working with others, that's going to be our remaining steps, 3 through 12. And the focus on those chapters is going to Be How to Find That Power. If I'm powerless and I need a power, the focus is goingto be from that point out, how do I find that power? The next part of the book that I classify myself as a gift from God, it's to the wives' chapter, the family afterwards, and to the employers. When the book came out, remember, we didn't have Al-Anon, we didn'T have CODA, we DIDN'T have TINA, we DIDn't have all the things that we have today. So the book was used by the family members and the wives of the alcoholics who were recovering. It was a shared family experience. It wasn't alcoholics and family. Back in the Oxford Group days, they were all sort of mixed together working with each other. So this was an opportunity for the alcoholics to help the family members also recover. The wives would get together, the families would get together while the alcoholists are working with each other. And then we have a vision for you which is a gift from God. You've had this spiritual experience. Let's go out in the world and take this and make this a better place. Use this information we have. Then we've got the story section and the story session is going to be divided into three parts. Each story the teller is going to explain how he conceived of and found his relationship with God. So the emphasis on there is going to be how these people found a solution to that which they were suffering from. And part one is the pioneers. These were the original Oxford group guys. These are the guys who were living the four absolutes. They were living as close to a pure life as they could get, really pushing the boundaries on being a really pure type of lifestyle. I really like those stories because when they wrote these stories, there was no big book. There was no Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Bob and Bill just sort of walked up to these guys and said, hey, we need your story for a book. And they're like, okay, I'll write my story. Matter of fact, they had to prod people. They did not want to do it. So I think the humility that you find in the pioneers of AA is extremely important. And then we've got this part two, They Stopped in Time. That's going to be a group of people who comparatively with the next section that we're going to look at had a higher bottom than people in part three. They had not necessarily lost everything, but they definitely suffered from the illness of alcoholism. And the focus in the story section as well is how to reach more alcoholics. When we come in and we've got these stories, we need identification. And there's a fellowship today of a number of different all walks of life. So we're going to have a difference in what we see here. Who came in here with a job, not homeless, with friends and family that liked them? Raise your hands. Wow, we've Got a Lot of Low Bottoms here tonight. This is good. The next one is going to be the low bottoms. They nearly lost all. These are the people. They like to say that when AA first started, we had really destitute, struggling people trying to get sober, and today we've got people who are just sort of casually getting sober. I take issue with that. I think we have just as many people today struggling to stay sober, and they need the pure message found in the book also. But these were the guys, and these are amazing stories. It's not the program of action. It's Not the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. This book was designed, if you remember, to be mailed out to some guy who lives in New Mexico who's never seen an alcoholic or an AA mean or another recovered person. It gives them an opportunity to understand what it's like to become recovered and spend time with recovered people. It makes them feel part of something before they can start their own fellowship, which we're going to find out in Bill's story. Next area, preface. I was told that they have prefaces if you have lots of forwards. So I always like to start my guys as if we've just got the first edition of Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm just going to have you guys pass the preface for first. We're just going to jump right into the foreword of the first edition. Remember, when the book came out, there was no mass repeatable solution for alcoholism. You ended up in a psych ward. You ended up getting lobotomies. You ended up being locked away for the rest of your life. You had electrotherapy. You were in and out until you died or were locked up. When Alcoholics Anonymous came up with this book and announced it and gave it to the world. The forward to the first edition, as I like to call it, is sort of the consideration of the 15 minutes of fame or 30 seconds soundbite. This is where the opportunity for Alcoholics Anonymous can say who and what they are and what the program is in a very short, concise way. And also at this stage, it's a book written by that first 4267 group of recovered alcoholics who did this program and got the results from it. So therefore, it is not anything that is written by one or two guys. they had counsel, they sought experience and they went back and forth to see what was eventually going to go down so bear that in mind as we're going through it's a lot difficult to say I don't buy into that if it's more than one person or a group of people who collectively say we absolutely believe this with all our hearts and minds you can't really see this too much but this is the working manuscript that they had when they were putting the book together they had mailed out 300 copies to different alcoholics doctors, lawyers, ministers priests, rabbis and other religious people to try and get a book that was not going to offend anyone so there's a lot of controversy within AA or the first AAs trying to get this thing written right. There's some arguments and some dissent in certain times but they were able to come together at the end with a book that's changed my life and it's an opportunity for me to pass this on. So the forward to the first edition I always like to think that every chapter has a theme or another change. So on the top of my book, I wrote The Introduction to the World. This is Alcoholics Anonymous' opportunity to introduce ourselves to the world. So if you guys want to just listen along as we read. Sure. You want to start with the first? Sounds good. This is the foreword as it appeared in the first printing of the first edition in 1939. We of Alcoholics... Who's the we, Joe? The we is that group of 42 to 67 recovered alcoholics that wrote this book are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. You know, in the rooms today, you don't know what other people are doing to get sober or stay sober. There's a lot of stuff going on these days. But when the book first came out, the we was the original guys who put the book together who agreed that this was going to be the program that they can stand behind and work together on. This program that они нашли в книге был способом, как это выглядело. And it wasn't just a shot in the dark, a casual thing. And these people knew to their heart and core that this was a program that was going to work because they had seen people who were destitute finally getting sober and getting a life beyond their wildest dreams. Now, when the book first came out, the first time it came out you're going to see that it says to show other alcoholics precisely how we were covered is the main purpose of this book. It's squiggly, which is italicized, which I'm sort of old and I really can't even tell the difference anymore between italicize and irregular. but when this book first came out it was like if you're texting somebody, right? You want to scream at them or get their attention, you do uppercase, capitals, the whole thing and the first edition said to show alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. All in capital letters For them, we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic So remember, when this book was published and mailed out and introduced to the world, it was going to the little alcoholic. It was goingto the doctor. It wasgoing to the family member. It wasgoing to the wife. There was this group of people that this book was goingtogething read by. And Bill, in the way they wrote this, he could just laser into the littlealcoholic and he could see what his information is in the wife and the family members. So in this part, you've got these people who have been living with addict alcoholics who don't have a faintest idea why they're acting the waythey are And this gives them an opportunity to understand they're not alone, that this is not a solution or not a problem that just they are experiencing. So read that, Joe. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages of all. They're trying to break that stereotype for us. Absolutely. And that's like when you just said that when this first came out, it was not just for the alcoholic. It's for the family and as we see the other chapters. It gets into everybody in that situation that's around the sufferer. I think currently there's about 112 different 12-step programs, so this program has grown for every problem that we can think of. It is important. So here's – I always like this little paragraph. It's like, you know, why are we anonymous? I remember having meetings and we'd have general service meetings over on the coast and we were told to be really quiet, don't mention AA. We've got all these posters all over the hallways We're not supposed to be talking about AA in the elevator and stuff like that. We want to be really careful of the anonymity. This whole concept of being anonymous is laid out here in this paragraph where that came from. Want to read that, Joe? Sure. It's important that we remain anonymous because we are too few at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication. Did anybody see the movie with Whoopi Goldberg and who's the other guy? ghost. Remember his wife? This guy got killed and he had to go. He's dead and there's a ghost running around. He was trying to get some information to his wife because his best friend is the guy who killed him. And he bumps into Whoopi Goldberg who's this fake psychic, you know, and he starts having this conversation with her and it's like wow, she's freaking out because I'm actually able to talk to a ghost. This is so cool, you know. What happened is, if you remember the movie, that woman couldn't even go to the bathroom. Everywhere she went there was hundreds of ghosts trying to talk to her. So imagine if we had put our names into this book, The Curse of Mankind, Alcoholics Anonymous, and people knew who we were, we wouldn't be able to continue on with their lives. We'd be overwhelmed. We have the opportunity to help people, but we still have to have lives, and they're going to touch on that right now. Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event. We would like it understood that our alcoholic work is an avocation. Avocation, not a vocation. They wanted to keep this a spiritually fit program at that point in time also when speaking publicly or about alcoholism we urge our fellowship to admit his personal name designating himself instead as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous it was a small fledgling community the newspaper started finding out about us popping up in different cities and you know we just love to be famous and you don't need us and you definitely don't want me representing AlcoholicsAnonymous in the press level and you didn't want a lot of other people So we're getting a lot of the foundation for the traditions early on before the traditions were even officially accepted. Very earnestly, we asked the press also to observe this request for otherwise we shall be greatly handicapped. Yeah, we had a lot more respect back in the old days. Anytime you've got a sitcom now and one of the main characters is going to rehab or something, on comes the laugh track. Back in those days, we Had Some Amazing Success rate. Even today, we have success of 100% if you follow the program and the book. The problem is when we don't follow the problem. them. The book is when our success rates tend to fall. Little information for the rest of our world, what Alcoholics Anonymous is. Want to read that? We are not an organization in the conventional sense of the word. There are no fees or dues whatsoever. Back in those days, the 20s, 30s, you belonged to the American, the Irish American club, the Polish American club the Italian American club. Everybody belonged to some organization. Everybody was broken up. This is the first organization that came along that anybody from any of those walks of life could come together and get along. It was a groundbreaking thing with society at that time. Now, I've got this one highlighted. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. The Only Requirement for Membership at That Time is an Honest Desire to Stop Drinking. I have no comment. We are not allied with any particular faith, sect, or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. we simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted so already the emphasis on helping others in the forewords which is in the Roman numerals how cool is that love this paragraph we shall be interested to hear from those who are getting results from this book I got this highlighted and underlined particularly from those who have commenced work with other alcoholics like Joe just said we're not even into the main meat of the book and it's already prepping you guys guess what you get sober, you're going to bring this message to the sick and suffering. Let me jump up to Bill's story real quick. Just bounce right off. That's the cool thing about having a sponsor or a teacher or somebody who's familiar with the book. We can jump into places and do some little foreshadowing. Bill had just come out of his white light experience. He had been a lying, cheating, stealing, low life self-centered, inconsiderate, self-serving guy and through the white light of experience he had become highly connected to God loving care and compassion. And what's the first thing that came to his mind? I'm going back to college or I'm gonna get a really good job no while I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what's been so freely given to me perhaps I could help some of them they in turn might work with others I think it's like 88 times in this book it's gonna say you're gonna sponsor people you're gonna take people through the book you're going to help people you can take people who are dying and bring them to God so God can help them and that thought was immediately following a spiritual experience and a great revolutionary and change of thinking, as you just said. Big for Bill W. to think about other people at that time. Inquiry by scientific, medical and religious societies will be welcomed. Clear-cut information. Who, what we are, what we stand for and what it's about. One and a half pages. It was just like boom. They didn't waste immense words back in those days. 16 years later forward to the second edition. I call this our 16 year update. This first forward to the first edition was the introduction to the world and we set up our pretty high, we introduced ourselves as an organization that had a solution for alcoholism that were really centered on just being good set ourselves up to be very watched by people. So 16 years later when we had our second edition this is the opportunity for us to just say hey look at how good we did or wow we bombed which we didn't. They want to address a few things after it had kind of launched and looked at what was going on and then wrote this down as the update. So 16 years later, we get this forward to the second edition. And there was a lot of talk about Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, it's turned into some religion and it's just called, it says money-making or, you Know, there's a lot of information being spread about us that we had to put on paper and just set straight. Figures given in this forward describe the fellowship as it was in 1955. So since the original forward to this book was written in 1939. A wholesale miracle has taken place. Our earliest printing voiced the hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destinations. Already continues, twos, threes, fives of us have sprung up in other communities. Remember Alcoholics Anonymous started with Dr. Bob and Bill W. in Akron, Ohio. You know, two guys and then three guys and they had meetings in Akran and Cleveland and New York and it It was just really a small organization. Sixteen years have elapsed between our first printing of this book and the presentation in 1955 of our second edition. In that brief space, Alcoholics Anonymous has mushroomed into nearly 6,000 groups. From three to 6,00 groups. That's amazing. Whose membership is far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics. Whenever I'm bringing people through the book, I always have them highlight and underline the stuff that talks about the recovered part. So if you guys want just 150,000 recovered alcoholics, happy, joyous, and free. Passing the message on. If this is our textbook and this message is divine, we should be shooting for what it promises us, which is recovered. Groups can be found in each of the United States and all the provinces of Canada. AA is flourishing communities in the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries, South Africa, South America. Read. Mexico, Alaska, Australia, and Hawaii. All told, promising beginnings have been made in some 50 foreign countries and U.S. possessions. Some are now taking shape in Asia. Many of our friends encourage us by saying this is but a beginning and only an augury of a much larger future ahead. Augury, what does that word mean? Let's see how fast he is back there. It's amazing. Augury. God, he's fast. Signed. Something that indicates future happiness. Yeah. We had 150,000 recovered alcoholics and the country was small. And they said, this is nothing. You just wait. It's going to grow, which it has. The spark that was to flare into the first AA group was struck at Akron, Ohio in June 1935. Can we stop there? Sure. The spark there was to flair into the first AA Group was struck in Akron Ohio in June 19 35. That's June 10th sometime around there. That's when Dr. Bob took his last drink. when I meet somebody at a meeting or somebody comes to my house and we start reading the big book there's two alcoholics there's the recovered alcoholic and there's a non-alcoholic and it's sort of two people that eventually click and by the time we get into the fifth step after reading it's a relationship that's been divinely inspired by God Mother's Day 1935 that's the day that Dr. Bob went to go meet Bill W at the courthouse or the guardhouse And he had told his wife, Ann, give this guy 15 minutes. I don't need some slick guy from New York telling me how to quit drinking. They sat down for dinner. Bob was shaking. Bill W. said, hey, let's just go talk for a minute. Took him into this little room. Mind you, he had called his wife. Give me 15 minutes with this New York guy. They sat there for six hours. He talked drunk to a drunk. He talked about the problem of what an alcoholic is. And he talked about a solution. This is a guy who had no solution, and then Bill W. brought him the solution. Six hours talking. I don't know. I think that's pretty important. I think That's When Alcoholics Anonymous was really, first time, really struck. So the book says in Akron, Ohio, in June 1935, during a talk between a New York stockbroker. Bill W.? Bill W., and an Akron physician, Dr. Bob. Six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his drink obsession by a sudden spiritual experience following a meeting with an alcoholic friend whose ebby tea who had been in contact with the Oxford groups of that day. He had also greatly helped by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism who is now accounted no less than a medical saint by AA members and whose story of the early days of our society appears on the next pages. From this doctor, the broker had learned the grave nature of alcoholism. Green underlined. He got the definite example of the problem. He finally realized what he was suffering from. Though he could not accept all the tenets of the Oxford groups, he was convinced of the need for moral inventory. Slow down with that first of all. Okay. Though he couldn't accept all of the tenents of the Oxford group, Bill was not from a very religious spiritual upbringing. So when Ebi Thatcher brought him this information of a solution, which Bill had been struggling trying to stop drinking for years, Ebi Thacher shows up looking like just clean clut and looking great. And Bill's sitting there in this tank top not doing very good. He's talking about this religious experience, and Bill was not happy with this. He was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personal defects, restitution of those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of belief in dependence on God. He thought that stuff was important. There's all the other stuff that was going along with the Oxford group at that time. He was not wanting to be an evangelical Christian. He thought the idea of getting a God-inspired would help, but he just wasn't ready to go that other route. What he got from the doctor was the disease concept. The spirituality came a little bit later, but he got the information alcoholism might be this allergy, this weird reaction his body has. and that finally made sense to him. And then when he brought that to Dr. Bob, Dr. Bobs was like, yeah. Because Dr. Bobby was a good member of the Oxford group. He was going through a lot of meetings with him and his wife Ann and he'd have a great meeting. He'd go home, you know, maybe have a little drink to celebrate, you know? And next thing you know he's drinking and he didn't understand the whole disease concept. So when Bill brought in that information so we got Bill with some information we got Dr. Bop who was a spiritual giant compared to Bill at that time. That's when it started to kick in high gear. And we see how all components come together at the same time, and that's going to get very relevant when we look at the next people who get the message. The alcoholic reaching out and helping the other alcoholic. God, and the disease concept, don't pick up that first drink. But how do I not pick up the first drink? We'll figure that out a little later, won't we? Prior to his journey to Akron, the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics. Yellow, underline, on a theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, but he had only succeeded in keeping sober himself. He didn't have the program of Alcoholics Anonymous He was trying to recreate what Ebby had done to him in the hospital And he was really foggy He was going on the Oxford group Which he really wasn't all that into The Oxford group at the time But he didn't Have a solution to pass on We hear a lot of people saying Today in AlcoholicsAnonymous My sponsees aren't staying sober But at least I'm staying sober I don't think that's acceptable in this day and age We have a solution that people can use today Bill W. didn't have the solution in the book at this time, but he did get that information. It's like, hey, I get out of myself and I try to bring help to others and I try to give people to God. I'm staying sober. The broker had gone to Akron on a business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly in fear that he might start drinking again. So Bill W was a member of the Oxford group. He's in Akron, his business. He had gone there to get rich again, to get his life back, get his wife Lovis out of the department store and get his life together and it collapses on him and he's really freaking out. Now, he was a member of the Oxford group so he could have gone to an Oxford group done some praying and raised his hand and said listen, I've got to talk. I've Got this really bad problem in my life. My job's collapsed. My wife is going to be leaving me soon if I don't. But he realized what in order for him to do to get sober was to track down and it took him a lot of work to even track Dr. Bob down. He had to track down somebody else because he knew that the only way for him to stay sober was try to pass this message on to another alcoholic talk to another drunk try and help another drunk instead of just like sharing his problems at a meeting of such as he crosses the threshold what is it with alcoholics and thresholds that's going to become a theme for us um he suddenly realized that in order to save himself he must carry his message to another alcoholic that alcoholic turned out to be the akron physician what was his message joe bill's bill's message was his struggles with the bottle and where it brought him to seek help. And the Oxford Group solution that he had come across. He wasn't really doing all that good at it because he didn't have it written down. He was just trying to play it off his mind or remember what somebody else had done for him. So we're going to talk about Dr. Bob now. Mind you, Dr. Robb was a member of the Oxford group. He'd been trying a lot, and the Oxford groups were very fundamentalist, Christian-based. this physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to solve his alcoholic dilemma but failed he'd go to these Oxford groups and pray and they'd have this talking a lot of stuff that was going on there it wasn't keeping him sober because I don't think anybody ever suggested to him don't pick up the first drink they didn't understand the allergy at that time highlight this but when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and its hopelessness The physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never been able to muster. A 12-step call is supposed to bring somebody hope, and they get that hope from connecting with the alcoholic who's bringing it, hearing a solution, and seeing this actually working in somebody else. With a willingness, he had ever before been able muster just from hearing the definition of the problem. That had a severe impact in his rigor to pursue this. He sobered never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. That was a lot of lunches, I bet. I can imagine. Actually, they didn't call me every day. They didn't say meet me every night. It was a three- or four-day thing that Dr. Bob would do. He'd get to know the guys. We'll hear about that a little later on. But it was get people connected to God as quickly as possible and get those people helping other people as quickly as possible. That was this original program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it says here that Dr. Bob brought 5,000 people to God on that basis, you know? This seems to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no non-alcoholic could. Pay attention. Highlighters and underliners. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery. We're going to hear that over and over again. And in order to pass the message on of Alcoholics Anonymous, we personally feel it's very important to know the program that's in the book, to understand the problem and the solution in the book. That's why we study the book that's what we young we love the book and that's why in our family use the book hence my favorite word and the language is getting pretty flowery around this it's using words like strenuous work vital permanent it's really trying to hit home something here so permanent recovery. We're still in the Roman numerals, right? Yeah. We haven't even gotten to the solution yet, and he's like giving us, right, good information here. Has everybody read this? Has anybody not read this, read of this, red of that? Only one person has ever read this before? Two? Good. We've got some honest people here. Hence, the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in the ward of Akron City Hospital. Their very first case, a desperate one, pay attention to this one, recovered immediately and became AA number three. If you guys want to write a name off the site, that's Bill D. He's the guy on the bed. Bill, Dr. Bob talking to the guy in the bed This was a guy who had just been a violent alcoholic when he would go He had a great career going and then it hit him and he just had locked himself up He was going to lock himself up for the rest of his life and they came and brought him a solution and he changed his mind. He got hope He never had another drink. This work at Akron continued through the summer of 1935. There were many failures, but there was an occasional heartening success. So they've done all the work. There's no reason for us to experiment on Alcoholics Anonymous. The program's in the book. They had some success and they had some failures. They were able to put the combined experience together to create this book. When the broker returned to New York in the fall of 1935, the first AA group had actually been formed, though no one realized it at the time. Remember the Akron group were a bunch of hottie-tottie, richy guys that had lost purpose in life and they found that by discovering Christ through the Oxford group that they could have a better life we stumbled upon it accidentally by Roland Hazard being in Europe and they weren't too happy with the alcoholic squads we'd end up in people's houses and we'd bring the drunks in as Clarence would say the first house he went to the first thing he noticed was all the little things that he could put in his pocket of course he didn't steal anything he says but you know they weren't too happy with us too much most of the time a second small group promptly took shape at New York to be followed in 1937 with the start of a third at Cleveland yeah we love the Cleveland group because that's where Clarence Snyder is from he was a sponsee of Dr. Bob there's a little problem with that Cleveland and Catholics and Akron and Protestants so Clarences is the guy who started using the book to bring people to God you know he tried repeating what Dr. Bob was doing with no success. And they just sat down like we do. Start on page zero, read the book, follow directions and get the desired results. Clarence would eventually become the father of big book sponsorship. Besides these, there were scattered alcoholics who had picked up the basic ideas in Akron or New York who were trying to form groups in other cities. Key word, trying to formed groups in another city. They didn't have the book. They did not have the actual specific directions laid out. They are going back home trying to recreate what Bob did Bill did, and they weren't having some success. They were having some success but not success. There was a lot of phone calls back and forth but it was flying blind. They didn't have consistent program again. They had sort of fallen through the cracks. As soon as you left Cleveland or Akron, there was nobody watching over you and you could do what you want. Chinese whispers. By late 1937, the number of members having substantial sobriety time. Now how much is that? That's six months. And we're talking happy, joyous, and free. If you've ever met anybody who's been through the book who's sponsoring people with four, five, six months and you see that little glow in their eyes and they're just annoyingly happy and joyful. That's what we're talking about. We're not talking about that guy who's plunging up to get his 90-day chip and he's in the AA jail and I hate AA and I can't drink and stuff like that. These guys were connected to God. They were living by the four absolutes and their purpose and mission in life was to bring the message to other people who were dying. Some people today sort of think that they'll look at a fanatical. These big book people are just a little too fanatica you know, just God will take their time, let it happen naturally. It wasn't that way and it's not that way today. You know, people are out there dying and we have a solution and these guys knew that. We take this book for granted this day in modern society. I was like, this was new stuff and they were actually seeing that it happened. We've actually gotten very cold and jaded by this, you know. But big book, I love this book and I see what this book can do. You follow directions in this book, amazing things happen. So what we draw from that is around forward number two, the fellowship used to resemble the program and we're going to see some percentages and things like that that were going on at that time the number of members having substantial sobriety time behind them was sufficient to convince the membership that a new light had entered the dark world of the alcoholic they had a solution that was working we needed to get it down on paper and we needed it to get out there because this was something that the world needed it wasn't something to keep them busy this was a solution to people who are dying. There was basically men at this time, and there was a lot of ideas of what to call the book, and you know, 167 men, 100 men, but there's this gal named Florence, she finally came in, she got sober, they had to come up with some different names. It was now time for the struggling groups thought to bring their message and unique experience to the world. I got this highlighted. This determination bore fruit in the spring of 1939 by the publication of this volume. This book was the program, this was the directions, this was what we were going to follow and this is what we're all supposed to be sharing about this is the common solution they talk about and there's a solution the information found in this book The membership had then reached about 100 men and women the fledgling society which had been nameless now began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous from the title of its own book so the fellowship was actually named after the program the flying blind period ended and AA entered a new phase of its pioneering time I love this part If anybody's ever seen new people get sober and get a bunch of these new little guys that are hanging around here who just recently discovered God and are trying to get sober, they get that adolescent phase where they think their sponsor is an idiot and they think that AA is just sort of slow and we need to go change the world. I'm so glad they're on fire like that, but it's sort of fun to get them. So we're going to see what – imagine there was no general service to tell us what to do. There's all these meetings all over the place. As a matter of fact, Bill W. had heard about all these different rules going up to become members in other meetings around the country. so he had written a letter to all the AA groups and said here do me a favor could you guys please send me all your rules for membership he got back and he compiled all these rules he had and looked at them he could not become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous he did not meet many of these things so that's when we really needed to start coming up with some traditions which we're going to pick up in just a couple pages With the appearance of the new book a great deal began to happen Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick the noted clergyman reviewed it with approval In the fall of 1939, Fulton Ousler, then editor of Liberty, printed a piece in his magazine called Alcoholics and God. I love that, Alcoholics in God. I think that would be just a great name for a meeting. Just right to the point. This brought a rush of 800 frantic inquiries into the little New York office. Now Bill was not one to just throw words out. Every word that Bill used was thought out and used for a purpose. Frantic. Come on, you guys. there is no AA, there's no Florida House, there's not a recovery place. You just went and drank yourself to death or you locked yourself up in the insane and all of a sudden the information that my husband who was an alcoholic oh my God I've got to get this book. So it was you could have trumpets scream it from the rooftops God will get you sober Alcoholics Anonymous this was important information. Each inquiry was painstakingly answered. Pamphlets and books were sent out. Businessmen traveling out of existing groups were referred to these prospective newcomers. New groups started up, and it was found, to the astonishment of everyone, that AA's message could be transmitted in the mail as well as by word of mouth. The book was working. These people were reading the book, getting sober in the book. And then picking up some clearance and reading the books with other alcoholics, getting connected to God. There's communications with General Service in New York, telephone calls, emails, telegrams going back and forth. But Bill was pretty much the only guy working in the general service office. He had a couple of gals and some people, but Dr. Bob was back in Cleveland, Akron, bringing people to God, and then Bill's in New York trying to get this fledgling society up on its feet and bring this message to other people. So he was well. He had lots of stuff going on. The problem with that is Dr. Bobby had the leisure ability to be at home and work with newcomers and keep growing with God, and Bill was busy running Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's not a good thing to be. By the end of 1939, it was estimated that 800 alcoholics were on their way to recovery. Remember, Dr. Bob and Bill W., two guys. Imagine if you two just discovered Alcoholics Anonymous and all of a sudden this room had it, you know? In the spring of 1949, John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave a dinner for many of his friends to which he invited A members to tell their story. The reason we did that, Bill W. was going to need some money. He was the idea that we were going to open up some hospitals. We had to come up with some stuff. He was going make this thing a big organization. And a lot of conversation in the filing. God just said, no, I'm not giving you guys any money. Rockefeller said, actually, Rockefeller gave him some money so Dr. Bob could pay off his house and have a little living expense. Bill W. got some money from just so that they could have opportunity to work on this fledgling Society of Alcoholics Anonymous. They did not give us the big bucks that Bill wanted. He wanted to open hospitals and have AA all over the place. And the guy said, No, money will ruin this thing. Let's just keep this thing connected to God and keep it small. Bill was a little disappointed. The Cleveland guys, the Akron guys loved it Because they just loved the God thing so much News of this got on the world wires Inquiries poured in again And many people went to the bookstores To get the book Alcoholics Anonymous If you ever send a newcomer to Barnes & Noble To pick up the big book You're going to have them be very embarrassed When they go up to the cashier and say I'm here to buy the big one How big is the book? If we turn to the preface Real briefly Which is before the first forward It gives us some dates and statistics here. This is the fourth edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The first edition appeared in April 1939, and in the following 16 years, more than 300,000 copies went into circulation. The second edition, published in 1955, reached a total of more than 1,150,000 copies. The third edition, which came off press in 1976, achieved a circulation of approximately 19,550,000 in all formats. In other words, there is success. This book is flying off the bookshelves. When they were trying to get the book first published, they weren't able to come up with the money from the Rockefellers. They're trying to get all these rich guys to come and invest in drunks. Nobody wants to invest in the drunks, you know? So Bill and Hank decided to go down to the, I guess it's like an office depot today, and made up a bunch of these little stock certificates and started selling them of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, $25 owned stocks and works publishing. They couldn't even afford the $25 so they set up a payment plan for the alcoholics. They finally got enough money to get this book out there and they ordered 2,000 books and they sold 100. And they went to all the alcoholists. They really weren't selling. So when we got the press from Fulton, Osler and Liberty what really skyrocketed AlcoholicsAnonymous Does anybody know what 60 minutes is? 48 hours, 20, 20 Those type of things Geraldo Rivera Jack Alexander was the investigative reporter Of the time back in those days He went in and discovered corruption in Congress He went into He went and discovered the child sweatshops And the sweatshops in England And Chinatown So anytime this guy wrote an article It was like throwing somebody under the bus This is going on And he was really a cool investigative reporter He had heard about Alcoholics Anonymous He wasn't too happy about us taking advantage of these poor families and children, you know, making money off their sick problem as it is. So he went in to shoot us down, to show the world that Alcoholics Anonymous was a scam. He signed, got involved with us, met the guys. He became our greatest friend. He saw that Alcoholic Anonymous Was truly a gift from God, that these guys were definitely on a mission to help save lives and make the world a better place. So he had gone in there hoping to write this article That's just going to slam us He went in there and fell in love with us And he became our greatest friend He helped Bill write a lot of books As a matter of fact So when people saw the book Or in the Saturday Evening Post Which is basically the combination of CNN, MSNBC, Fox The Saturday Evenin' Post Everybody read it It was in doctors offices, dentists offices Stores, barbers, everybody read this And it said Alcoholics Anonymous what's that guy's name Jack Alexander and they read it up and next thing you know they find out that he's given us the thumbs up as a matter of fact he's giving us a double thumbs up and a smile and a snap he loved Alcoholics Anonymous and he just could not help writing you guys go thank God for the internet right Google Jack Alexander AlcoholicsAnonymous it's amazing the stuff that we can find out about AlcoholicsAnenomous the news and information but he gave us the kick in the pants that Alcoholics Anenomious needed read Back to the forward to the second edition, page XVIII. By March 1941, the membership had shot up to 2,000. Then Jack Alexander wrote a feature article in the Saturday Evening Post and placed such a compelling picture of AA before the general public that alcoholics in need of help really deluged us. What's delugED? Remember Hurricane Sandy? Remember the subways with the water and the pumps from 1940s 1940s that weren't able to keep up with that, the subways were deluged. Alcoholics are not. Remember Bill W. had a couple of gals. He had a couple of guys working on New York City. The next thing you know they're just overwhelmed with requests for information and books and a couple de pamphlets. Back then General Service didn't even have pamphelets. Most pamphets were just handmade things that every group had. As a matter of fact it wasn't until the 1950s that General Service started putting out pamphlet after pamphelet. Up to that page was basically the big book, God and one alcoholic working with another. And then we had the little red book occasionally in the Bible. Any luck undiluted? Flooded, overwhelmed, swamped, overwhelmed. Sounds fun to me. So imagine what it was like. One day they're just sort of sitting around drinking coffee, talking AA stuff, and next thing you know, they've got bags of mail coming in they've gotta get onto. It was an exciting, fierce time for Alcoholics Anonymous' hip high gear groups restart everywhere. By the close of 1941, AA numbered 8,000 members. The mushrooming process was in full swing. AA had become a national institution. Our society, I like this part, imagine, who's been to a business meeting? Yeah, imagine business meetings without traditions. Our society then entered a fearsome and exciting adolescent period. The test it faced was this, Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together? Yes. Would there be quarrels over membership? Yes. Leadership and money? Oh, yeah. Would there have been strivings for power and prestige? Would there had been schisms that would split AA apart? Soon AA was beset by every problem on every side and every group. But out of this frightening and first disrupting experience, the conviction grew that AAs had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our fellowship or pass off the scene. Let's just wrap this up here. We've got just a couple minutes. We've Got Some Great Information here. We've GOT The Introduction To The World. Remember, before the book, there was nothing. It was just send your way, lock us up, electroshock therapy, lobotomies. A lot of closet alcoholics I bet back in those days. And then how monumental was it to see a recovered alcoholic in the wave of everything led before that? Anything else? We were told to stop at this time. So check back next week. We're going to jump into some finish up the forward to the second. Thanks. Thank you.