The Big Book and Program History – Big Book Workshop – Eufaula, AL – Part 1 of 11 – Jim P.

I figure I'm going to start on time, that's the best way to do it. So why don't we open this meeting like we do a regular AA meeting with a moment of silence. If you see fit, we'll follow it with a serenity prayer. Serenity Prayer? God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And the preamble is, Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contribution. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy and neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. And I'd like to thank you all for being here. I'm an alcoholic. My name's Jim Powers. The flyer says Georgia Jim P., and I think everybody here knows, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway, that the reason they call me Georgia Jim down in Orlando is every time people would come in a meeting during September, October, November, December and January and I wasn't there they would say where's Jim and everybody would go Georgia because I'd been coming up to Randolph County to hunt for about 20 years and so I just picked up the Georgia Jim kind of moniker and I just play with it my sobriety date is February 18, 2002 and that is not because of anything I did that's because of God's grace and mercy in my life um i started doing these little workshops um a number of years ago mainly because my sponsor wants me in service wherever i am and uh i uh i enjoy them and one of the goals that i i'd like to do for the next 10 weeks if it lasts 10 weeks it might be nine weeks it may be 11 weeks um It just depends on how long I talk and how windy I get sometimes, is to have fun. There's no reason to be sober and not have fun, and I also want to learn. I've been called a thumper. I've being called a teacher. I've be called all kinds of things, and I really like to just think of myself as a student of the big book, and the program of recovery is outlined in the big books of Alcoholics Anonymous. With that said, some of the goals are for me to be able to go through what my sponsor taught me to go through, which is the words in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll say this right off the bat. I might refer to it a couple other times. I have nothing against treatment centers. I have never been to a treatment center, so I don't know what goes on in treatment centers I take meetings into treatment centers, but I've never been to one. So I don't know really how to say things like the treatment centers people say things. When I hear in meetings, and you all hear it too, just don't drink and go to meetings, that is not in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. 90 meetings in 90 days. My sponsor went to 90 meetings and 90 days and didn't drink. and on the 91st day he bought a quart of whiskey and for the next 12 1⁄2 years he came in and out of the doors and he never got another 90 days. So those kind of things will pop up and I'll say if it's not in the big book, it's no part of my recovery, okay? It's not the Alcoholics Anonymous program. It's a program that somebody has come up with. It's an opinion somebody has comes up with i uh i love doing these things because every time i do one i learn i'm going to be talking about the history today um and how we got here um i'll be talking we'll be reading directly out of the basic text and i'll explain that in a minute too and i also bring in some of the traditions because i think they're real important that as we're reading through the book together and as we're studying this thing, that when the tradition of singleness of purpose, say, comes up in the book, that we can't be all things to all men, that there was a real reason for that back in the early 30s and there's a real reasoning for it today still. Alcohol is a drug. It's ethyl alcohol. And so I'll get that right out of the way. but I don't know anything about how to treat a pill addiction. I don' t know how to treatment a heroin addiction. I don''t know how treat a crack addiction even though I did all of those things except for crack. I did coke but I know how do treat alcoholism and it's through the book and it''s through doing the action of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. us now there were programs before ours that uh that were great programs that got people sober but they all fell apart and they all fall apart mainly because of the same reason they didn't have a singleness of purpose one of the first ones was um there were six gentlemen sitting in a bar in baltimore maryland um and they said that they just can't keep living this way you know but they just can't keep living this way. And so they got together and they agreed not to drink and signed a pledge that said they weren't going to drink, and they went out and publicly admitted to people that they'd quit drinking, and they signed this pledge saying that they were going to stay off the booze. And that went from those six gentlemen, within a year there was about 1,000. In 1962, I believe, and don't quote me on dates, there were about 300,000 people in the United States that were signing pledges and weren't drinking. Now the Washingtonians got involved in something. They got involved with politics because Abraham Lincoln actually spoke at one of their conventions and he thought it was the greatest thing in the world but they got involved and taken sides in the Civil War about slavery they got involved in politics they got involved in big shot ism as i call it publicity um and the leader of their organization uh who went all over the united states promoting it wound up drunk in public and shortly thereafter the whole thing just started falling apart and within a couple of years it was dissolved there was another one that came about. It was called the Emanuel Society and it was in the late 1800s and it Was a religious based don't drink program and I don't have anything against religion most of you all have heard me say that I didn't get a religious upbringing but I don' t have any problem with religion at all but this is a spiritual program and this is not a chapter on spirituality there's not a section on spirituality the entire program of alcoholics anonymous is based on the spiritual principles that they apply in their life on a daily basis so what we're going to do is we're not i'm not going to bash religion i'm going to bass treatment centers don't even get that thought i think treatment centers have a great need um because it separates me from alcohol it separates me from drugs and i can't learn anything if i'm not separated from whatever the the thing is alcohol is what i'm going to talk about but whatever it is um a lot of people can't do it unless they're separated from it and i was in and out of alcoholics anonymous for three and a half years. Mainly because, A, I wasn't separated from alcohol. The only time I was ever separated from alcohol that I can remember in my life is when I went to jails, juvenile homes or prisons. So I never got the, you know, he's a sick person, let's put him in treatment. I always got the he's criminal, let'S put him In jail. And that was absolutely correct. but I wasn't a bad person I did some very wrong things I did somethings that I consider bad things but until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't know I was a sick person and that I had an ability to get well but I can only do it if I follow certain things there was a guy named Roland Hazard who lived up in up northeast and he was a very wealthy man and was inheriting a very large corporation and he was just an alcoholic. He was a drunk. And he spent tens of thousands of dollars going to psychiatrists all over the United States and finally, he still couldn't stay sober and finally he went to Switzerland where a man named Carl Jung was studying about spiritual principles and studying about people with addictive problems. I think he wanted to go to Sigmund Freud, and Freud was busy at the time. And so he spent the money to go over to Switzerland and put himself under the care of Dr. Young for a year. And the whole time he was there going through psychotherapy, he stayed sober. And as soon as he left, you know, there's no planes, so he had to make his way back to England to get on a boat. Before he ever got to England, he was drunk. and he went back to Young and we'll pick that up in the early stages of the book and he asked him what's wrong with me why can't I do this and Young told him you're doomed you're an alcoholic of the variety that I've never seen recover unless you're locked up or have somebody guarding you 24 hours a day and he asks him is there no hope And Young had read about some cases where spiritual displacement, displacement of the mind into a spiritual condition had helped people with real alcoholic problems. And so he said, well, I have heard of these things. And so that gave Rowan a little bit of hope that there was something out there. At the same time that he was there, when he came back to the United States, he joined an organization that started in England called the Oxford Group. And the Oxford group was a predecessor of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was started by a guy named Frank Buckman, and he had learned these principles at Oxford University, and they called themselves the Oxford Grup. Now, some of the history is they used to go on missionary trips down to Africa every year, and by train, the students and professors that were carrying this missionary message of good news and hope and love would all have the same train car and on the train car was a sign that said Oxford Group. And I think you can double check me on your history, but that's where their name actually came from. And he brought that back to the United States and it had six, they called them six tenets but it was six steps to the program of recovery and we'll get into that a little later on too. Those six steps were utilized when Bill wrote the 12 steps and contrary to popular belief and some people's opinion our co-founder Bill Wilson was not a stockbroker. He was a stock speculator. So there is a difference. And he was also an attorney, but he never practiced law. But he was just a hopeless, helpless alcoholic like a lot of us were when we came in here. And he wrote the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, the first couple of chapters were his, Bill's story, and there's a solution. And then the next couple of chapters were done by way of group conscience, I'll say that, because there were about 79, it says the first 100, but there were About 79 people actively participating in these Oxford Group meetings when they were writing this book. And he would send a manuscript out to all 79 and they would come back with 79 different opinions on what he should do. And it was driving him crazy. So once he wrote Chapter 5, he told everybody, I'm writing the rest of this book. And so that's what he did. He sent the manuscript around for people to look at, review, but he wasn't going to be second-guessed and he wasn'T going to change. And I don't think he should have because I think in my mind this book is written divinely. I really believe the hand of God is all over the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And like I said, I was not raised in a religion. I did not really have a God at all until I came into the program. And that's the greatest thing in my life today. When Roland came back and he was going to the Oxford Group meetings, there was another guy named Ebi Thatcher. And Ebi Thatcher was a really good friend of Bill Wilson's and a really heavy-duty drunk. and Evie had done things like drive a car into a house, wind up in the kitchen of some woman's house where she was at, roll down the window and say, Ma'am, can I get a cup of coffee? And he did some really absolute crazy things. And the judge told him if you do anything else, I'm just going to lock you up and throw away the key. And he was painting his house and he decided to go down and get a couple of drinks at the bar while the paint dries a little bit and he went down to the bar he got drunk he came back and a bunch of pigeons had pooped all over his brand new paint and it was a good idea to get the gun out in the middle of the city and start shooting at those birds where he was promptly arrested and the judge was just getting ready to throw away the key and put him in prison for years when Roland and a guy named Shep, who was also in the Oxford group, came to the judge and said, put him under the care of us and the Oxford Group and we think we can help him. And they did that. And that was really the first time a 12-step call had been made, what we now call a 12‑step call. Because Ebi did go to the Oxford groups and he did get sober. and I'm going to tell you this right now. I got ADHD. They never diagnosed me with it, but I got it, I'm sure. And every now and then a friend of mine, Charlie P., out in Austin, Texas, when he does these things, he'll say, you know, my mind's getting ready to say something and it'll go off on a bunny trail over there and I'll bring it back around. Charlie never brings it back round And I probably won't either. But if I refer back, it's because my bunny trail went off this direction and I need to bring it back. But those two guys took Ebi to meetings and the Oxford group with their six-step program of action, and that's what it was, action, helped Ebi stay sober. And then one of the things was you have to carry the message to somebody else. And Ebi said, well, I know a friend and I know he's struggling because Bill's been in and out of town's hospital now. I think he started going in at 32 and he was treated, I think, three different times in that sanitarium until Ebby came by the house one day and we'll read about it in the book when Bill says that he saw something in this guy's eyes. Before Ebby even had anything to say Bill had seen something and Evie had a spiritual experience which is the goal of the entire program is to get us to a spiritual experience and to carry the message to others you know, you and I wouldn't be here today if somebody hadn't taken the time to carry the message to us so Evie went and saw Bill, the book will talk about, you know Bill was wanting to have some gin and some pineapple juice with him And Ebi said, I don't drink anymore. I've got religion. And Bill said, well, good for you. There's more booze for me. And he continued to drink and then was admitted back to the sanitarium again. And that's when Ebi came to see him. And when Evi came to seeing him, he brought a book by William James called Varieties of Religious Experience, I believe the name of it is. and Bill was reading that book and he had this this overwhelming experience that for the first 13 years until they wrote the second edition they didn't change anything in the book until the second addition and they really didn't change any of the basic text but they went on to explain in the spiritual appendix that we'll talk about later on that not everybody has a bright, white light experience that Bill had. But Bill said the alcoholic prayer that every one of us said. God, if there is a God, show himself. He described it pretty clearly in the book what it is that he found. He never had a drink after that. He devoured that book by William James, which is a difficult read for me. and I'll only say this once because a friend of mine wants me to quit telling everybody that I got a GED from a chain gang. So there are words and there are books that are very difficult for me to read and so I have to study them and this is one of the books that I study. So Ebby's carried the message to Bill. Bill's had this experience. He goes to Dr. Silkworth who was treating him at the time and Dr. silkworth was at town's hospital because this was right after the stock market crash and millions of people lost everything in that stock market crash and Silkworth lost everything and Charlie Towns who owns Towns Hospital offered Dr. Silkworth room and board and $40 a month to come be a doctor at his hospital and at the time what he was studying is he was studied the effects of alcoholism and drug addiction and so he took the job he was treating Bill Well, he wouldn't have any luck with Bill because every time Bill left, he was drunk in a matter of days or weeks and would stay out for long periods of time and then check himself back in. And when Bill had that white-light experience, it'll say it in the book, that he asked the doctor, he said, you know, am I going crazy? Am I hallucinating? And the doctor said, I don't know what's happened to you, but whatever it is, hang on to it because it's so much better than what you had before. And so Bill got out, and he started going to the Oxford Group meetings with Ebby. And then he started to go on out carrying the message like the Oxford group said, that you do certain things, restitution, you take an inventory, you pray to God, and you carry the message to others. And so bill started carrying the messages all over the country, or all over city I should say. But he was going into bars and down to the Bowerys, and he was talking about his white light experience. He was talking About how God had come into my life. During that six-month period, not one of those persons got sober. None of them got sober, and he went back. First, he said something to Lois that he was getting really disappointed and disgusted with this because nobody was getting sober, And Lois was one of the first ones to look at him and said, but Bill, you haven't had a drink in six months. Okay? And when he went to Dr. Silkworth, Dr. silkworth said, you need to hit them with the medical facts and then bring the spiritual context in. You need to talk about the obsession and the compulsion, the allergy of the body and the obsessive mind of an alcoholic. And so that's when Bill went out to Akron, Ohio. He was going out there to do a proxy fight and take over a business out there. He had gotten back to work and gotten some investors. And the proxy fight was going pretty much in his direction. But then somebody recognized him and knew who he was and knew that he was a drunk from New York down there. And so the votes that he thought were going to take him and take this company over dissolved, and he lost the fight. And so everybody else went back to New York. They left Bill alone with $10 in his pocket in the Mayflower Hotel, and Bill was really, really depressed. I mean, he really thought he had one more chance to try to sway him, and so he was going to stay an extra day. and what happened was that he went down to the lobby and he could hear the joy and the laughter in the lounge. He could hear everybody having a drink and it was tempting. You know, for the first time in his six months, it was intimidating and at the other end of the lobby was a telephone booth with a church directory on it and he went to the church directory and there were ten names on there. He called him. He finally got to a Reverend Tunk, who was at the time an Episcopalian preacher, I believe, in Akron, but he was also a member of the Oxford group in Akroon. And he told him, he says, I'm a drunk from New York and I'm out here and I need, I'm A Rum Hound is what he called himself, and I needed to talk to another rummy. Can you put me in touch with him? And he said, I do not have that ability, but I know somebody who does. And so he gave Bill Henriette Seiberling's telephone number. And Henriette was in the Oxford group. She was going to meetings there along with Ann and Dr. Bob Smith. And Dr. Bob had been going to the Oxford Group for two and a half years, but he couldn't stay sober because he wouldn't make restitution. He wouldn't publicly admit, and in the Oxford group you did your fifth step publicly with everybody. And he wouldn't publically admit that he was an alcoholic because he was worried about his business. And his business was proctology. And I'm sorry, but when I think about somebody having the shakes in the morning and working on that part of my body, I want him to have a couple drinks or a sedative or something. And he wound up doing sedatives, and he wound up having to have drinks before he'd work on people. But he would never publicly admit it. And so what happened was Bill called Henrietta, and Henrietta said, I have just the person for you. Let me get a hold of him. And she called Ann, and it was Mother's Day in 1935. Mother's Day, May 27, 1935. And Ann said, yeah, he had brought me home a potted plant, but he's under the kitchen table potted himself right now. So he was too drunk to be able to go over there. And the next day, Bob told Ann in a hangover, you know, I'll go talk to this guy for 15 minutes. I'll give him 15 minutes and that's all. And what happened was they went over there and Bill started telling Bob his story. He started talking about his obsession of the mind and the physical allergy of the body that once he starts to drink, he can't stop. And then he talked about that the only way he could stop was a spiritual awakening. And they wound up talking for about six hours. And Bob later on in one of the books that I carry around, and what I call that is my spiritual toolkit because it's got all my AA books in there but in Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timer Dr.Bob talks about how Bill was the first person to ever talk to him and really know about alcoholism from the side that he was on and so Bob did not get sober then, Bob went to an AMA conference, he quit drinking for a couple of weeks and then and he felt strong enough that he could go to this conference, and it's a medical conference. And so he went there, and the entire time he was there, he was drunk. He was totally drunk. And he didn't know how he got back. His secretary wound up picking him up at the train station drunk and taking him to her house until he sobered up and went home. And he had an operation to do the next day, and he had to do it. and that morning of the operation Bill gave him a couple bottles of beer to settle his nerves and he went and we don't know what happened to the patient there's no historical evidence of the patient dying or walking around whistling when he walks but there there is definitely something happened because when Bob didn't come home after the operation Ann and Bill that were Bill had stayed out at Akron for a while they were really concerned and what Bob was doing is Bob was going all over Akron making amends telling people that he was an alcoholic and how he was going to change his life and so he was already doing what we now call the ninth step because there wasn't a program. There were these six guidelines for tenants that they had from the Oxford group, and one of the main ones was you need to be making amends to the people you'd harmed, and he was doing that that day. And he never had a drink for the next 15 years until 1950 when he died. So that's, in a nutshell, how we've really come around to where we are now is one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic, okay? Now, ten days later, they realize that for them to keep this thing, they had to keep doing this. So Dr. Bob is sober ten days, go to Oxford group meetings, working their six steps, and says, we need to go find somebody else. And so they called the hospital in Akron and the nurses said, yeah, we've got a pretty good corker. They called him here. He was an attorney who beat up a couple of nurses in a drunken rage and they had him tied down. And so Bill and Bob went in there and sat down next to him and started talking to Bill Dotson. In most AA rooms when you see pictures of Bill and Bobby you see the picture of the man on the bed. That's AA number three, Bill Datson. And he got sober. and so they realized this thing can work and this thing will work if we let it work Silkworth you know really gave Bill the key he gave him two of the keys he explained the obsession of the mind of the alcoholic the real alcoholic that no matter what we say in the morning no matter what we say after our last drunk, our minds become warped and we can change our mind and decide that it wasn't as bad as it was and go back to drink again. And people do that today with long-term sobriety because they get complacent in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. They stop sponsoring people. They stop going to meetings. They think they can do it on their own. And this is not a program that you can do on your own. I've got to have you all, but most of all I've got to have a God in my life I don't have to be in a meeting every day when I'm in Orlando I'm at a meeting everyday I don' t have to come to a meeting every week over in Ufala but I do because this is the only place I'm going to find people to work with this is only place I'm gong to carry the message me sitting on that 46 acres over in Randolph County isn't going to carry anything you know, I have to get out and I have put an effort into my sobriety every day by working with people i have i have plenty of sponsors that call me every day that gets me out of myself because in the book we're going to find out that alcohol is just a symptom of my problem my problem is selfish self-centeredness and that's still my problem today i'm still a selfish self centered person but the oxford group silkwork knew the problem which was you know the obsession of the mind and then bill knew the solution which was to have a spiritual experience but to get to that spiritual experience he had to have an action you had to some kind of action to get to the solution so you had do something to get to the solution and Bill was the first one to put all three together that he talked about the problem the solution and the action to get to the resolution throughout the book Alcoholics Anonymous Bill is going to explain the problem and then he's going to follow it up with a solution he's gonna explain a problem and he's gunna follow it with a resolution and the solution eventually becomes the same solution to everything and it's a spiritual solution it's having the spiritual contact in your life let's see where we are bunny trail ok by 1937 Bill and Bob had worked with hundreds of alcoholics and Bill Dotson too and in the book it'll say a year and a half after they started there were seven of them or seven more so there wound up being ten people in 1936. In 1937, they had about 40. And at that time, when Bill left Bob and went back to New York, he really didn't know it, but the first group had been formed in Akron. And then Bill went back To New York and he started working with drunks the way he worked with Dr. Bob and Bill Dutson and he starting getting people sober there. And so there became the second group. and the third group kind of panned off of the Akron group a guy named Clarence Snyder was coming over from Cleveland to Akron to go to the Oxford group meetings and a couple of historical notes is that a lot of the guys that were with Clarenced were Catholics and the Catholic priest did not like public confession and so Clarences decided that he was going to start group in cleveland and when he did that um the oxford group members in akron there was a riot i mean they got their bats and their their sticks and they went over there to really whoop ass at cleveland because they didn't think clarence had a right to break off a group on his own because what was happening inside the oxer group is the alcoholics were starting to work with the the alcoholics, not with the normal people that were joining this Christian organization. And it was a Christian organization, and it was based on the teachings of the Bible. Some people say, you know, the big book's written from the Bible, and I'll tell you, if you study history, Bill, you use 13 different books, some books he almost plagiarized word for word, books like Empty Bottles and Dry Way the Liberty Magazine the Oxford Group he used 13 different books in the writing and developing of the program that we have now and what the 40 decided was to share this thing to share this wonderful good news that they had that they found they needed to have hospitals they needed to have paid missionaries and they needed to write a book to spread the word and hardly anybody wanted to get into writing a book but Bill was pretty proficient writer I mean when you read the book Alcoholics Anonymous you see the way he writes is really um he said he tried to write it at an 8th grade level but there are words in there that I don't think 8th graders use and that's why I highly recommend guys I work with to get a dictionary so we can find out exactly what that word is so they're going to write this book and Bill starts dictating it um and he's dictating, he's with a guy who's one of his best friends named Hank Parkhurst up in New York and they get this little lady that transcribes this writing Her name was Ruth Hawk, and she was the first secretary of Alcoholics Anonymous and served there for many, many, Many years. And so they wrote this book, and they call it The Big Book because when they originally wrote it, they wrote it on real thick paper. They had really thick paper, and the book was about that big because they were selling it for $3.50, and in 1939 when it was published, $3 and 50 cents is, I'm going to say like 100 bucks today. So they had to really have something that was worthwhile. And when the book was written and published, it was the original 12-step call. people would hear about it by word of mouth in the beginning that's the only way anybody knew we were a secret society in the begining and so when people would hear about the book by word or mouth they would call or write to New York and they would send them three dollars and fifty cents and New York would send them a copy of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and that was a twelve step call there wasn't sponsorship at the time sponsors at the time were really people who had something that alcoholics don't like to hear a lot they had responsibility because the people that were original sponsors went to the hospital when people were drying out they went there and they took them home they bought them a new set of clothes they might have loaned them some money they took him to Oxford group meetings And then after the book was written, they had a bunch of different names that they wanted. Dryaway, Empty Bottles, The Way Out. And that really became one of the favorites. And also because Cleveland had started their group and they started it and they named it Alcoholics Anonymous because they were anonymous alcoholics. And that's why it was such a secret society. So Bill called somebody at the Library of Congress or sent somebody there, and he said, I want to find out how many copies are copyrighted of a book called The Way Out and how many are copies of a books called Alcoholics Anonymous. And it came back there were 24 books called The way out and there were none called Alcoholic Anonymous and that really what it is we took the book's name from a group that had already started and Clarence was instrumental in Central Florida started a lot of meetings down there when he moved down there from Cleveland he and Bill didn't get along I'll just tell you that in the history you can see that ClarenCE was Dr. Bob's sponsee and he did not get along with Bill he thought Bill was arrogant He thought Bill was money hungry, and there was a little bit of financial incentive in Bill because he thought that we ought to make some money off this thing. So there were some times where there were Some Clashes Between Clarence and Bill. One of them came 13 years later when Bill wrote the 12 and 12, And it was really when he started in 1944, I think, started publishing articles that were directly relations to what he was seeing happening in the groups that were forming around the United States. He was watching us, me, get sober and want to take over the world. I want to be on the front page of the paper. I want things my way. I want do things my away. And so that's when Bill started writing the 12 Traditions, which saved Alcoholics Anonymous from ourselves. Because we would have driven this thing right into the ground had we not. There are multiple cases where people thought it was a great idea to do this, and it wound up being the most unbelievable death sentence to everybody had it gone through. So that's just a little history that Clarence didn't like the traditions. Clarence never adhered to the traditions because he got sober before the traditions were written and there was just a little animosity between the two of them. All right, so what that does is that gets us kind of around to where we are. And where we're at right now is we have a textbook. Now, I use my fourth edition when I'm teaching because that's the one I wrote all in. I came in on the third edition and on the cover page of the third addition it had a circle and a triangle and you still see them all the time but what happened between the time the first edition and the second edition and the third Edition were printed between the third issue and the fourth edition and GSO dropped the copyright trademark on the circle and triangle. And it was explained to me by a very wise man that that triangle was like a three-legged stool. You had recovery on one side of it, you had service on one part of it. You had service and you had unity on one site of it and if you took away any one of those three then that three-legged stool was going to fall and that the circle represented the whole of Alcoholics Anonymous. But what we're going to do is we're going to open up our book. And I think everybody has probably heard this, the very first page in the book of Alcoholic Anonymous in the fourth edition is blank. And I was told by my sponsor that the reason it's blank is because that's everything I know about Alcoholics Anonymous. Right there on that page. That's everything I know. And now he said, now let's start reading the book. And so we go to the very first page. Big bold letters. Alcoholics Anonymous The story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. Now if you've got a highlighter, highlight the word recovered. Because I'm going to use that word a number of times it's in the book five or six times it might be more I ought to go back through and count again but there's a reason that they are saying that they recovered they have recovered from what we're going to find out was a hopeless state of mind and body and it's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous is the story of these thousands of men and women who recovered. Now, there were 40 people when they first started writing the book. There were about 79, Bill says, the first 100, whether he exaggerated or not. I have a guy who's now one of the trustees named Chet P., and he likes to tell me, and I love it when he says it, he says, Jim, if you weren't there, you don't know. So whether there were 79 or 100, it doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is, what did they write? They wrote their experiences down in paper to share with other people. All right? Now, the next page, you know, it's going to be the table of contents. And we're going to go through those. Everything in here is just like the steps up on the wall. It's put in there in place in order for a reason. All right. The Steps on the Wall are really what you would call, and I'll find the word when it comes back from the Bunning Trail, but they're really just a condensed version of what the steps really are. The steps are in this book, but to get to the steps, you've got to start with the preface. So we're going to start there. This book is broken up into three different things. One, it's the forwards and the preface. And then it's going to get into the basic text. And we'll talk about that in a minute. And then the third part of it is what they added in 1955, which were the appendices in the back. The spiritual appendix, the traditions, the Lasker Award, what religion thinks about Alcoholics Anonymous, what the medical field, that's the third Part. The stories that are in the Back of the Book, people always say that's the entertainment section i agree that's the entertainment session uh i think dr bob nightmare should have been but i you know what am i going to do i'm going to change the book no i'm not going to change the books back there is a story in the back of the book and they change in each edition each time they come out with a new edition they have new stories in the background so some of the stories from the first edition were not at the second edition some of the people that were in the stories in the first edition were not sober when the second edition came out. And so their stories were moved and stories of sobriety were put in there. But it'll go, when we get a little further into the book, it'll goes through that they hope that these stories aren't seemingly upsetting to anybody because these are the people's stories on how they found a way out which we'll find out where that comes in the book and also how they found the way out every one of them ends with them finding a spiritual experience alright so we're going to go to the preface and that's XI in my book alright and I'm just going to read through some stuff real quick this is the fourth edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous the first edition appeared in April 1939 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 1,150,500 copies. The third edition, which came out after the press in 1976, made it to almost 20 million copies, 19,550,000. Now, it says right here, and this really is important to me. If it's important to me, I'm going to highlight it and I'm going to talk about it. And one of the bunny trails is coming back to me. Three things you're going to hear me say a lot because I believe that these are three of the most important things and they're the words willingness, rigorous honesty and surrender. I will use those an awful lot during my talk because there's an awful lot of willingness, rigorous honesty, and surrender has got to be there. Alright, the second paragraph says, and get your highlighters out, because this book has become the basic text, alright, stop right there, basic text. What is a text? A textbook is something that teaches. That's right. It's one person's writing for another person to learn from. So it's a textbook. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is a textbook and I'm taught by my sponsor who was taught by his that a textbook is to be studied and referred back to. It's not a novel. I'm not going to cry at the end of Dr. Bob Nightmare and put it on the shelf and never look at it again. I read this book over and over and I want you to know that anytime that you have the ability to go to a big book workshop, go to one don't let this be the only one you've ever been to and you like I go to them all the time Joe and Charlie are both dead but they started and they were the preeminent two alcoholics that started this thing and most of the people that do big book workshops follow their guidance California Rob and a guy named Vic L down in Orlando I've studied under them Katie and Charlie Parker out of Texas I've studies under them and I continue to study. I continue on to study the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alright, it's a basic text for our society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery. There exists strong sentiment against any radical changes being made to it. Alright? So underline recovery and any radical change. There is such a strong sentiment. Now he is writing this as a preface to the fourth edition. Alright? So, he is writing this. They are writing this, the people that are writing the book. Bill's dead when the third edition comes out. He died in 1971 or 1970. But when this came out, it had already been proven that nobody wanted to change the first 164 pages and the doctor's opinion because that is where the text is. That is where The AA Program of Recovery is. If it's not The AA program of recovery, it's somebody's opinion, which means it came out of someplace else. It might be a treatment center. It might быть jail. It mightbe something else. But if it's not in this big book, I don't follow it. There are other books written, and there are other great books out there. But for my recovery, the basic text is where I've got to be and it's where I'm going to stay. Therefore, the first portion of the volume, the first 164 pages of Dr. Spitting, describing the AA recovery program. Okay. AA recovery programme. All right? has been largely left untouched in the course of revisions made to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. The section called The Doctor's Opinion has been kept intact just as it was originally written in 1939 by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, our society's great medical benefactor. Then it talks about in the 2d edition they added the appendices, the 12 traditions, the directions for getting in touch with AA, but they also talk about the chief change in the second edition was the personal stories which expanded to reflect the fellowship's growth Bill's story, Dr. Bob's nightmare and other personal histories from the first edition those were retained intact, three were edited one was retitled and some others were changed ok in the third edition part 1 Pioneers of AA was left unchanged nine of the stories in part two they stopped in time were carried over from the second edition eight new stories were added in part three they lost nearly all eight stories were retained five new ones are added okay we're talking about the back we're not talking about the front the fourth edition then included the 12 concepts for world service a lot of people think there's just 12 steps and 12 traditions there's 12 concepts of world service and Bill at the time of his test was working on the 12 warranties of world service. But right now, we've got 36 steps to carry this thing completely out. I don't go any further than the 12 and 12. Okay? If you want to get further involved, then you need to know about the 12 concepts. All right? And it talks about how they revised it. All changes at the bottom of the page, all changes made over the years in the big book, and it says AA's members fond name for this volume, have had the same purpose to represent the current membership of Alcoholics Anonymous more accurately and thereby to reach more alcoholics. That's what they were trying to do the entire time, is they were tying to reach alcoholics with what worked for the first 40, which worked for 100, and then thousands, and millions. If you have a drinking problem, And we hope that you may pause in reading one of the 42 personal stories and think, yes, that happened to me or more important. Yes, I felt like that. Or most important, yes I believe this program can work for me too. If you come in here with a closed mind and you don't think this program will work, it probably won't. If you're coming here with an open mind and a desperate mind. It talks about the only people who get this program are the ones that are desperate like a dying man. I don't know if that's the only people who did it. I know those people stay with it longer than anybody else. The people that come in that are drowning, that are dying that can't stop drinking no matter what unless they're locked up. and in my case even when I was locked up I found a way to get alcohol let's see we'll just what am I going to try to do now I want to get to the doctor's opinion why don't we take a ten minute break have a cigarette cup of coffee or something like that anybody who disagrees with me don't leave here with a disagreement okay come up to see me after the break or come up to see me after the meeting if you disagree with what I'm saying, okay? Because I don't want you leaving here with a resentment or a disagreement. If you leave here because you want to leave here, go ahead. It's not going to hurt my feeling. I'll teach this to one or I'll teaching it to a thousand. But don't leave here by saying that guy is full of crap and I'm not even going to tell him why he's full of craps, you know? At least come up and tell me why and give me a chance to show you in the book how I can defend it. All right, let's take a 10-minute break and then we'll come back and we'll go through the forwards to the first four editions. All right, we're going to crank back up here. And a couple of things on the break brought bunny trails back around. I love those bunny trails Charlie talks about. One of them was we were talking about the Bible outside and when they didn't have the big book written yet you will see pictures of the old timers when they were leading meetings they were using the Bible because they were coming from the Oxford group before they wrote the big book, they were using the Bible. And if you ever get a chance to visit Dr. Bob's house, it's called A House Full of Miracles, up in Akron, there's a glass case in the living room where the Bible is opened up to the page that says faith without works is dead. And so, yes, the Bible plays into this book, but more than that, I truly believe that the hand of God came down and just got into Bill's soul, got into his spirit and got into all the rest of them who got sober and stayed sober. And they stayed sober because they did things like what we're doing right now. We're studying. I've got a question if that's okay. Yeah. And say just save it until we get to the chapter where you did agnostic, okay? Okay. If you want to, that's fine with me. Right. Because I can... And I agree with you how fervent you are about having God in your life and how important he was and coming to build in Dr. Bob's soul and mind and everything else and being part of this book, I haven't experienced a sponsee yet that's agnostic or atheist. Do you have a problem with that? Do I have a problema with it? Not at all. Because I'm just listening to you so far. Not at All. Because I know today that absolutely in my life there is a God. There is a god. and it will tell you in the book that we should keep that God personal. Now, if people want to blurt out they're God's Buddha or Allah or Jesus, I don't have a problem. Because I knew an Indian guy in the program that was just an amazing speaker because he talked about the God of the wind. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There are some great speakers who are American Indians that use the Great Spirit. And we'll talk about it. What it is, is you can't do it on your own. And we'll learn that even no human power could relieve us of that obsession, that it has to come from a power greater than ourself. And that's in Chapter 2 of the Gnostic, and we'll get to that. All right. So I'm on XIII, which is forward to the first edition. And it says, Now, right there, we. we is those first 100 that wrote this book they're sharing with us what happened to them so it says we of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered there's that word recovered again okay from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics alright to show other alcoholists not to tell other alcohols to show other alcoholis precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book ok so this book has one main purpose it's to show other alcoholics how this first 100 recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body and I'm going to say it right now so I don't forget about it later on recovered if you'll look it up simply means to get well the book will tell us later on that we are never cured of alcoholism that what we have is a daily reprieve based on our spiritual condition and that's later on in the book but recovered simply means to get wel now I'm sick coming into Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know it until I put the drink down and I start working the program and I learn that I've been sick for 30 years and so I want to get whel So I want to get recovered, but I'm never going to be cured. And a lot of people in a lot OF rooms get the hair up on the back of the neck when somebody introduces themselves as a recovered alcoholic. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I got well. I am not in a hopeless state of mind and body anymore. I am an alcoholic. I will always have alcoholism. I will never be cured, okay? I have a program that I don't have to drink and I don' t have to hurt anybody. And that's what the main purpose is of this book, precisely how they recovered. For them, we hope these pages prove so convincing that no further altercation would be necessary. We think this account of our experience will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. Now, I'd highlight the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. And the advantages for All were non-alcoholic wives, before Al-Anon ever came around, non- alcoholic husbands of alcoholic wives could get this book sent to them, read it, and understand better what they were dealing with. You know, I'm dealing with this drunk. Well, right there it tells me you're dealing with a sick person. And not just a sick persona. An alcoholic is a very sick persona, okay? And I think we'll all agree with that. And at the time it says it's important that we remain anonymous because we're too few at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication. And that's what they were hoping is that they'd publish this book and that they would be overwhelmed. Well, I can tell you from history's sake, they sent out this book to every medical doctor in the United States with a card in there saying, please send this card back with how many orders you want. And they waited. They waited there on pins and needles for like three or four days before they went down to their post office box, which is called Box 453, which is something GSO puts out right now. And they were just thinking it was going to be filled with envelopes. And they had like ten cards. And eight of the cards back from the doctor were written in drunken handwriting and two of them were, are you out of your mind? Who do you think you are? And so there was an extreme disappointment when they first pushed this book. this book took a while to catch on and I'll tell you how it caught on in a couple minutes being mostly business or professional folks we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event if they had to handle all the personal appeals that they were thinking were coming they couldn't keep doing their jobs we would like it understood that our alcoholic work is an avocation so an avication is not a vocation An avocation is a job. An avocation is something you do in addition to your regular work, okay? And we'll learn more about how we live this program and not just work it and then stop. When writing or speaking publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our fellowship to admit his personal name, designating himself instead as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So that right there in the very first forward, they're trying to stay anonymous. they're trying to keep it a secret society and you know the only way you're going to learn about it is word of mouth until we get some press and we don't get pressed for a little while and they also ask the press to observe their requests for otherwise you shall be greatly handicapped um somewhere in there might be the 12 and 12. if you want me to raise my hand or and keep my mouth shut or something comes up and I just ask you. Well, keep your mouth shut. But go ahead in 12 and 12 what? Because I will reference that. This is one of the few times that the press really honored a request for this and at the same time held them in a great way. But that was after the 12 and 12 got written. And that's 13 years later. And I'll tell you the biggest violator of the anonymity was Bill Wilson. um gso has two portfolios not one in 1942 and 1943 and they're from a clipping service that went to every newspaper in the united states it clipped out everything that bill wilson was on the front page of a paper talking about bill wilSON's magic cure bill wilсон's 12-step bill wilSON this and he was the one that realized that he was violating the tradition that should be in place and that's why when he wrote those traditions he never spoke publicly again as far as in front of non-alcoholics he never gave his last name the reason i give my last name when i speak at an alcoholic synonymous meeting is because what dr bob says and dr bob and the good old timers it's a direct violation of the anonymity clause to not give your last name in an AA meeting as it is to give it in the press radio public. He felt, and I agree, that if I'm in an AAA meeting, that you need to know who I am. You need to know how to find me. And really the situation came about because somebody came down from Cleveland because they heard that there was a Dr. Bob in trouble in Akron, and they were trying to find this Dr. Bob to do a 12-step call on him and it was Bob Smith. It was Dr. Rob. And he realized that, you know, if you're in an AA meeting, there's nothing wrong with using your last name. He encouraged it. If you're out in the public, it is not encouraged. And so when I speak and I do this down in Florida and I've been blessed to be asked to do that but I've been involved with the Public Information committee. I've been involved in jails and institutions. If I go talk before a group of say judges or something like that my name is Jim P. I do not break it. And if I talk before a group of alcoholics where it's a large group say at a state convention or something like that, I will say something like my name is Jim Powers. I'm a recovered alcoholic and if there's anybody here from the press, radio or film I'd appreciate it if you respect our tradition of anonymity and do not publish my last name at all. This recently happened over in Albany where two treatment centers got together to honor a man who had 32 years of sobriety and they put it on the front page of the Albany Herald that this man has saved millions of lives through carrying the message of The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and it violated about four different traditions. Now, the man was only quoted once that they used his full name, they used this picture but when he was quoted at the very end of the article he said, I didn't get anybody sober. I don't keep anybody sober, it's all God. And that was the only quote from him but these other people, the treatment centers just violated the traditions all to hell by doing that. It's very nice to give the man a plaque. Don't get me wrong. But to put it on the front page of a newspaper, they just threw the 12th tradition into the wind. And I don't believe they should have done that, but I don' t get to say anything about it. On the end of this forward, it says there are no fees or dues whatsoever. The only requirement... Now, there's going to be requirements in this book. You know, it's a suggested program. My sponsor says it's suggested that you don't drink and do what it says in the book. And there's going to be a couple requirements. You've heard people say there's no must in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's goingto be like 77 musts in this book. And there is even going to a demand, okay? There's gonna be a demand of me and of you. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. Now, they dropped that when they did the Twelve Traditions. They dropped the word honest. Okay? Why would you think they dropped the Word Honest? How many alcoholics coming in to Alcoholics Anonymous or reading this book for the first time are going to be honest? None. None. We don't know anything about honesty when we get here. We're drunks. Okay? So, we're 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 and they should be interested to hear from those who are getting results from this book particularly from those who have commenced work with other alcoholics which is the whole goal of this book is to get me sober to keep me sober to get my living a life beyond my wildest dreams but to carry the message to somebody else because when I stop carrying the message, I've stopped practicing Alcoholics Anonymous and then I started practicing Jim's Recovery Program. And Jim's recovery program, I'll tell you later on, will get you drunk if you follow Jim's Recovering Program. All right? All right, forward to the second edition. It's going to talk about how they jumped right there our earliest training voice to hope that every alcoholic journeys will find the fellowship of the Alcoholics Anonymous at its destination. Already continues the early text, twos and threes and fives have sprung up in other communities. People were going from Akron, from New York, and from Cleveland, and they were carrying the book around with them. And so they were starting little groups of twos and threes in different communities all over. And what they're hoping is that you find the fellowship, but the fellowship won't keep you sober. You know, there is fellowship recovery and there's the AA program of recovery. And they are two different things. The program of discovery is what gets me sober, keeps me sober and keeps me doing what I'm doing. The fellowship is a byproduct. But without the fellowship, I would have never gotten here. I would never have gotten a chance to get sober. Okay, so the fellowship is very important. And that's the unity on the triangle. You know, the fellowship is extremely important. But I can't stay sober on just not drinking and going to meetings. I'll kill myself if I don't drink and go to meetings and don't do anything else. And it happens to a lot of people. It talks about in 1955 when the second edition was printed that Alcoholics Anonymous had nearly 6,000 groups whose members had far above 150,000 recovered alcoholics. Okay, there's the fourth time it's been used. And then there were groups going all over the United States. They went to Canada and then it started going all over the world. I'm thinking right now if I have my most recent statistics right that there are about 165,000 Alcoholics Anonymous groups worldwide and there are a little over 2 million members in recovery or recovered in Alcoholics Anonymous, active right now worldwide. Now this book has got to be something if that's where it all started from. I mean, it's got to быть something. So in the 16 years, you know, between the first and the second, it had jumped to that many and the same book is now available in 2013 and there's millions. The first, down at the bottom of the page, the spark that was to flare into the first AA group was struck in Akron when the stockbroker, which really was the stock speculator, Bill Wilson, and an Akron physician, Dr. Bob, had a talk. And it says six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his drink obsession by a sudden spiritual experience following the meeting with an alcoholic friend who had been in contact with the Oxford group that day. He had also been greatly helped by the late Dr. William E. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism, and he's now accounted no less as a medical saint by AA members in whose story of the early days of our society appears in the next pages. From this doctor, the broker had learned the grave nature of alcoholism. That's step one, the grave nature. The reason I like doing the history is, and I think I might have said is that if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it, right? If we don'T learn from mystery, we're doomED to repeat IT. That word doomED is not a good word for me. If I don'T leARN from Alcoholics Anonymous, I'M doomED TO REPEAT WHAT I DID WHEN I GOT IN HERE, which was just keep going in and out, in and OUT. Though he COULD NOT accept all the tenets of the Oxford Group, he was convinced of the need for a moral inventory convention of personal defects restitution of those he harmed helpfulness to others and the necessity of belief in and dependence upon God he's talking about Bill here prior to his journey to Akron the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic but he had succeeded with only keeping himself sober he'd gone to Akran on a business venture we talked about that it collapsed