Identification and Shared Experience – Big Book Study Weekend – Part 2 of 2 – Clancy I.

Hi, my name is Clancy Immersland and I'm an alcoholic. Jack if you and I were sitting in the young people's meeting it had to be a long time ago. I'm on my last legs you're not looking very well either anyway I'm very uh very glad to be here it's been a wonderful weekend I I don't know two speakers that I enjoy but hear more than Polly and Bob and I really Bob really seems to think exactly the way I do so I know he's right and Polly does as much as any girl can be like me I I guess, but I always enjoy her. And today I wasn't here for the day session because I was touring the big gun factory over in whatever town that is, Springfield and Smith & Wesson. And I can tell you all about how they manufacture guns and how they rifle the barrels and Jesus I had to go home and rest a while after a while but I want to thank Seth very much he's a remarkable remarkably good host I want to thank Janine who picked me up at the airport she and her kids that's a couple times I was kind of afraid us getting old and boring but as we sat driving over here and the kids got screaming in the backseat about who's playing with hooves, certainly kept me awake. But I do appreciate it because her mother lives in Las Vegas, Judy, and I have sponsored her for many years and glad to see them all staying sober. Just a couple of things. I'm going to talk off the cuff tonight. Two things that you need not know, but it'll be good to know. You have a little piece of information you wouldn't have ordinarily. In 1939, a woman brought a big book, the first big book to Los Angeles. She was not an alcoholic, but her brother had gotten sober in New York and she was so thrilled. And she brought this book and advertised in the paper, wives, do you have husbands who have drinking problems? There's an answer available. Call this number. And they got called her and she was going to communicate it with them. So she had them come down to meet her at Hotel Cecil downtown Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon in 1939, and these 12 women showed up each with some poor fool in tow. And she said well I've got a room reserved upstairs and we'll go up there and let's get it started. And so she took him up there and she said, now you gentlemen go in there. And they went in there and she gave them the book and said, Now you can discuss what you've got. They said, aren't you going to come in and tell us what to do? She said, I'm not alcoholic. I don't know what to do. So they shut the door and these 12 guys sat around the table just... One guy had a shirt and tie on, a guy named Morty Josephs, who I got to know quite well many years later. And they said, you seem to be somebody wanting to read something out of this book. So we looked on the table of contents and read how it works, that ought to be interesting. So we read that for a while and then they discussed it. And the group died, of course immediately afterwards, there was no group there at all, just a bunch of moles and bad people. But the next year they started up again, some guys there with a little different cast. And they said I'll restart the meeting. He said why don't you read that part Morty wrote last year because that seemed to be kind of comfortable. So they read that and that is where the Chapter 5 reading comes from, from those 12 guys sitting around the table not knowing what to do. See aren't you glad to know that? Now I'll tell you one other fact that will cheer you up too. The next year when they started this group again, they got kind of hung in there. But many of them had been in the First World War. In the First world War they had something they didn't have in most wars. You had a buddy. Everybody had a Buddy so you wouldn't be left behind on the battlefield bleeding. Your buddy would take care of you. And so they had 12 people again in this AA group by accident, and they all had buddies, six sets of buddies. One of them, a milkman who I got to know later, he was a milk man, got drunk, and he called his buddy. And his buddy came over and he said, Morty, we're both drunk, you've got to send somebody over here. they sent over two over buddies and they called up pretty soon said all four of us are drunk can you help us Morty and Morty sent four more guys over and pretty soon there Morty all eight of us are drawn you were to get over here and help us and Mortie said you've just about wiped out a what's the Mississippi You're on your own now. And about six of them got back and two of them died. But that is where the, one of the customs of that AA, they started by reading Chapter 5. Some years later in the mid-1970s there was an old crazy guy in the San Fernando Valley and his name was Bill and he felt that everyone in the age should be anonymous not at the level of press, radio and film but from each other and every time they'd read the traditions he'd whisper along at the end principles before personalities you hear that? I said oh shut up Bill not going to shut up needs to be said and so some young guys one of whom I sponsored is how I knew about it they started mocking Bill. They would join in with him. Principles before personalities, Bill. Is that right? This went on for a while and then some speaker from some other group came over to speak and heard that and thought it was a new spiritual breakthrough that hadn't got to his group yet. So he brought it back to his group so they start saying principles before personalities. Nobody ever knew why. you know. Then for about five or six years there were four groups in the central San Fernando Valley that all chanted Principles Before Personality. You ask them, why are you doing that? I don't know. And we used to call them the Greek Chorus. Go out and speak for the Greek chorus meeting tonight. And then somehow the cork got out of the bottle and pretty soon you start hearing hearing it in Pasadena. Then you start hearing it in Huntington Park. And all of a sudden you hear it at a couple meetings in downtown Los Angeles. And then just, now you hear it here. Tonight they not only join in at the end of Chapter 5 for no reason whatsoever, but they join in the end of traditions. Principles before personalities. And if you're kind of new I just want you to know one thing. It has nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. It is an interruption to the meeting. It makes people feel they're left out or not in any way. You may chant if you wish, but if you do, you're not helping AA, you are just mocking Bill. And he's been dead since 1979. That's all the historical data I have for you at this time. But we've heard a great deal, a great weekend this weekend. And as I said, I missed today's meetings. But I'm getting the tapes and I have an excellent opportunity to hear them because the traffic is so bad in Los Angeles now you just get on the freeway and turn on your tape and listen for an hour. And by that time you're there. And so I will listen to them, today's meeting next week and I will be listening carefully And if I find any errors, they'll call you. That's the least I can do for those newcomers. But what I wanted to tonight, that's, you know, I guess Jack wanted me to come and tell my story but we've heard such a great illustrations of AA and the experience of these two people and the steps and how they work out. And I know there's a lot of new people, I was surprised last night when Bob asked how how many new people were here. And one of the things that used to puzzle me about AA was, I get to know you hear all the facts but you don't know what the hell they all work together. What do they all mean? There was a few years ago there was a speaker, great speaker called Norm Alpi and he always used to talk about his sobriety as a matter of seconds and inches as things just had to work out just right. And I'll tell you something Alcoholics Anonymous even more so is a matter of seconds and inches. And I just want to talk about it a little bit tonight because I suppose I'm the oldest one here, and I want to talked before I die. But I… Oh, by the way, I'm a member of the Pacific Group in Los Angeles, California. And shh! Now let's get one thing straight. This is the signal for applause. But this is the single for muffled sobs. You know alcohol, Bob last night when he was talking mentioned the book, read from the book about this problem of different kinds of alcoholics and they talk about alcoholics of our type. And they don't really define it, but they are definable certainly. There seems to be two, at least two major forms of alcoholics. There's one form of alcoholic that drinks and gets in trouble, has problems. But if something really happens that threatens their security – they lose a job, they lose the family, they loose something or they get married, something that changes their figure – they can quit! And they quit and never drinking again. I know several people who have done that. There are several people like that who come to AA and then quit and find they don't need AA, and we think how do they do that? And there's another form of alcoholic look exactly the same. They drink and get in trouble, have raised hell. Something happens really threats their security. Somebody lose a job or they lose a family or get married or something happens and they quit. But they always drink again. These are the alcoholics that have puzzled people for 4,000 years of recorded history can't understand why these people do this. They are the people, these other people are the people from whom treatment centers were created. They go there, discover the nature of their problem, they come out and they quit. And this type of alcoholic goes to treatment center and learns the nature of the problem and they quit. But they always drink again and this is the problem that baffled mankind. And even when I...I'll tell you how long it lasted. When I was a little boy, which was a long time ago but not 4,000 years ago, when I was the little boy there still was no answer to the problem. They still didn't know it. The closest thing they had was something called the Keely Cure where they gave you alcohol with drugs in it that made you sick. Have you learned your lesson? Yes, I have. No more from me please. Until you can find bar where they didn't have any important drugs in. Screw you, Oxford Group. And there was no answer at all. In 1930, there was a very wealthy family in New York and he had a son and they were grooming him to take over the company. He was in his 30s but he had one drawback they couldn't deal with. He seemed to get terrible attacks of nerves and we got as attacks of nerves, he would drink alcohol and get drunk and go on drunks. So they knew they had to do something about those nerves or else he's never going to get better. So they wrote to the best doctor in the world. They had the money to do it. And the best Doctor in the World, Dr. Freud refused to take the case, which is the first break we ever got otherwise we'd all be sitting here drunk and I'd say, when I dreamt But I was sober. So they wrote to this guy that used to be his student and now is a doctor in his own right, Dr. Jung. And Dr.Jung said, yes bring him over to my hospital in Zurich. I visited his hospital in Zuerich in January of this year and I gave it a good kick. But they brought him over Zuerch and he put him in the hospital for about a year and worked with him daily to break through the psychic problems that held holding him back. At the end of the year, Roland – which was the kid's name, guy's name – was doing very well. He said, Roland, I think you've got it together now. Go home and I think it will be all right. Oh, thanks Doc. He went home. On the way home he stopped in Paris. Some wealthy friends of his father had a dinner in his honor, and they toasted his new success. And he had just, he joined in, of course. And three days later, he was face down drunk and nobody could understand he had no attack of nerves this time, just got drunk. So they took him back to Dr. Jung and Dr. Young would not let him back in the hospital. Why not, doctor? Roland didn't mean any harm. He just seemed to have something hit him up. The doctor said, I know it is my error. I misdiagnosed his case. I thought he had a deep psychological or psychiatric problem I could help him with, but I realize now he is what is known as a chronic alcoholic. And to the best of my knowledge, there is no effective treatment for that condition in the world today at any price. That's 1931. That isn't all that long ago. And this kind of bad news, and Roland said, what does that mean, doctor? He said, what it means, Roland, is that you must keep yourself confined voluntarily or involuntarily as long as you live. Otherwise, you almost certainly will intermittently drink to excess until you die or go mad. That's kind of bad news to get. He says, is there any other possible solution? He said, in reading the literature, I've noticed a case or two of people who have had involuntary psychiatric or psychological changes. They call them some sort of spiritual experience. He said I would imagine these would be necessary, but I've never seen one and I've ever known any patient who had ever had one. And so Roland thought, Jesus. And he came home. This time he didn't stop in Paris. They just went right to the ship and went home. Now the way in that ship, I guess he did something that we all have to do somewhere along the line, although he didn't know it. He surrendered to the fact that he was hopeless. And he got back in New York and he felt so bad. He knew he couldn't stay sober. He didn't want to keep himself locked up. As he wrote later, I wanted to stay sober as long as I could so my parents would have a pleasant memory of me when I died drunk. and just by coincidence at that time there was a big new fad in New York and the country, the United States called the Oxford movement where that came from in 1900s in Pennsylvania in 1908 or so there was an Lutheran minister in Pennsylvania who came to the conclusion the trouble with Christianity is getting too loose. It's not dedicated like it used to be. People used to be willing to be crucified for their faith. Now we can't even come to church when it's raining. And he started an organization called the First Century Christian Association, and we're going to be dynamic and believe! And he didn't get many members. I don't believe I want to be a crucified reverend. Thanks a lot. And it didn't go anywhere. They got a few mobs hanging around. After the First World War, he went to Europe and tried to talk it up and very little success. But all places, Oxford University, the students there just took it up. What a wonderful idea! Yes! And they just took it over. So much so they changed the name of it to the Oxford Group. He came back in the late 1920s with the Oxford Group now and with the aegis of the Oxford University and a lot of people got involved in it. And what it really worked out to be is, in each city there was the better type of people, groups that the better type of people would meet in one another's homes and discuss how they could enhance their belief in God and so on. It just was a very nice situation. And Roland saw that and someone said you ought to go to that Oxford group. Maybe you can get a spiritual experience by go in there. So we went to the Oxford group hoping to get a spiritual experience. He didn't really get one, but he got involved in it and he stayed sober. And much to the family's surprise, everybody's surprised, he didn't have a drink for three years. He became president of the company, doing very well. And his parents finally said, Roland, you're far exceeding our expectations. Why don't you take a summer vacation and go up to our country home in Vermont where we used to go when you were a little boy. Okay, we should do no big deal. But he arbitrarily selected a two-week period and the only thing that's odd about that is that if he'd have gone two weeks later, we wouldn't be here. If he had gone two weeks earlier, we would not be here, just another of the seconds and inches. He got there and one of his childhood friends came over and said, Oh Roland, I'm so glad to see, I heard you got on the wagon. He said, you know our friend Ebby, he's been drinking terribly. Would you talk to him? He said sure, since I'm here I'll talk to them. So he brought Ebby over and Roland tried to tell him about the Oxford group where you have to try to come to believe in a power greater than yourself that will help you. I don't want to hear that crap, Roland. Come on! Religion is dumb. And a few days later the young man, the first young man came over to see Roland again and said, Ebby's really in bad shape, Roland. Yesterday he drove his car into somebody's house dead drunk, and today they're going to send him to the penitentiary. And I'd like to have you come over and talk to the judge. He's my father, but he won't listen to me. But he might listen to you because he knows you're dead and he knows that you used to drink and you're sober. So Roland says, OK, as long as I'm here. He went over and appeared in court and said You know, Judge, I used to be a drinker but the Oxford Group has helped me a great deal. If you'll release him in my custody, I'll take him to New York and we'll get it straightened out." Judge said, only because it's you Roland, I wouldn't do it for anyone else but I know your father and I know what you've done. Take him out of here. But if he ever comes back to Vermont he's going to the penitentiary. So took him down to New York and stuck him into mission on lower Broadway. He wasn't particularly thrilled with the Oxford group, but it was better than the Vermont Penitentiary by far. And he kind of got involved and did it. After a few months, Roland came by Ebby and said, well Ebby, it's time for you to testify. He said what? It's time you to testify. What the hell does that mean? He said when we are here a while and have found a new belief, we go out into the world and we find someone to tell what we have found, and testify to our belief. And Ebby said, I don't want to do that. That's embarrassing. He said, you want to go back to Vermont? No, I believe I'll testify. So he thought, who can I testify to? Then he happened to remember they had another childhood friend from up there who was a bigger bum than he was out of work. Used to be a big shot, thought he was a big shot. Now he's just a bum living off his wife. Couldn't get a job. You're just a ne'er-do-well. He said, if I can get a hold of this jerk, I can testify to him he won't even remember it the next day. So he called up his friend Bill Wilson, this bum, and said, this is Ebi. I'd like to come over and see you. He said okay, come on over a few days later. Now in our book, Bill writes about how we went to the door and here's Ebi, clean cut and sober looking nice. He says my God, Ebi, you look great. How do you do it? And Ebi said, I found religion. And that ended it for Bill. Oh, come on in. And they sat at the kitchen table. I heard Ebi give the, he only gave one talk ever that I ever heard of. And he gave it at the 1960 International Convention because somehow he had put together seven years. And so Bill was so thrilled he had him talk there. And he talked about that day, he had a slightly memory longer than Bill's. He sitting at the kitchen table trying to tell Bill about the glories of the Oxford youth and Bill just drank as fast as he could. That's really wonderful. Tell me some more about it. And that made Ebby a little pissed off. So we went home. But what Bill doesn't mention in the book. He came back three days later and he had the Oxford group closer with him. Want to talk to Mr. Wilson? And Bill did what most of us would do, I hope, got drunker than ever. Screw you, screw the Oxford Group, get out of here. Later on in November, Bill was thinking, you know, I really was rude to Ebby. That goof was trying to help me. Goofy way to do it, but he was trying to help. I should really say I'm sorry and tell him I appreciate it. I'll go over that mission he's living at. He told me he left his address here and I'll get over there and I said I'm sorry and feel better. So he went over this mission one November morning, got drunk on the way to build up his confidence, got to the mission. Ebi wasn't there. So we gave a short sermon anyway just to help all the others. Then he staggered on down the street, and the next day he was back at the hospital again in bad bad shape. And the doctor, Dr. Silkworth called up his wife and said Mrs. Wilson I'm sorry to tell you this but your husband's here and I don't think he'll live through another one of these. This may be the last one so I just want you to know that we're going to try to help him. I know what to do. And Lois just went into a panic and she called at the mission and said, could you go up and see Bill again? Maybe you can help me. He might die. So I mean a couple of Oxford youth guys went up there and said you know Bill you've got to find a power greater than yourself is what you've gotta do. And Bill says I don't want to hear that religious crap. Get out of here! That was the end of that. And that midnight about dark night Bill woke up in a terrible panic. He knew he was going to die, and there's nothing he could do about it. And he yelled, If there's a God there, show yourself! And as he wrote later, all of a sudden it looked like somebody flipped on the lights. There was light in the room. He didn't see anybody flip the lights, he felt the wind blowing through the closed windows. He said, My God I'm going insane. I'm going insane, I'm having a psychiatric breakdown here. And lay there, he felt strangely good but all this was going on. Then the lights went out, the wind stopped." He said, Oh my God, I hope that doesn't happen again. And he went back to sleep. In the morning he talked to the doctor. The doctor said, Let me tell you what happened. He told him this whole story. He says, You think I'm cracking up, Doc? He said No, I don't think so, Bill. I'm looking at you. I didn't know what happened to you last night. I'm not familiar with that. But whatever happened, hang onto it. You look like a different man. man. And Bill came out of the hospital having had what we believe to be a true psychiatric spiritual experience, and he associated with Ebby and his friends coming from the Oxford group. So we went on and joined the Oxford group. And he felt he had a mission to help people stay sober. I'm going to find drunkards and help them stay sober, help them get a spiritual experience like I got, and we're going to get them sober. So he went to the Oxford Group every day and he lived in Brooklyn. He had a good alcoholic marriage, his wife was working to support him. And he'd go to Oxford Groups every day, these fancy places. He'd always pick up some old street drunk to see if he could save them. And the people in the Oxford group were not exactly overcome with joy at that. I believe you're vomiting on my shoes, sir. But he'd take them home if they had no place to go. He'd just gung-ho. And one morning he got up after six months of this. He just got up and he noticed the guy he brought home the night had left, gone. Apparently he'd taken the coffee pot to sell for wine, and he looked at his wife putting on her little sweater with a patch on the sleeve to go to work in this cheap department store so she could make that way to pay the rent so he could go to the Oxford Group every day. And he had a terrible wave of remorse. He said, Lois I'm so sorry. I thought I had some sort of a mandate from God to help people but apparently I don't. been working every day for six months. Not one person has stayed sober. I've tried everything I know. I tried to talk to them about God, how to talk about finding a spiritual life. They won't stay sober and I'm done doing it. I'm DONE doing it! I'm going to get a job tomorrow if it's just shoveling dirt. And I'm gonna get a job and I'll get you out of that damn department. She'd been a petite society girl when they got married Now she is old before her time, salt and pepper and kind of getting wrinkled a little bit. He felt so sad. What have I done to you, Lois? He said, You know, I would love to do it but I can't do it anymore, nobody stays over. And right there your life and mine hung by a thread about that big. And she turned to him and said something that changed the course of history. I had lunch with her about 40 years ago in Connecticut at the Connecticut State Convention or something. And I said, Lois how did you ever think that answer? God what a great answer. You saved our lives. She said, I don't know it just seemed obvious to me. He said, not one person has stayed sober. And she said, you did. Oh yeah! And you know, that's why old-timers don't have much hair in front. You just go through life with oh yeah, oh yeah. So he decided to give him – but he went down to see Dr. Silkworth at the hospital where he always planned to die eventually. And he said, Doc, I don't know what happened. I tried to help these people. I really had this great spiritual experience here and I can't – I don�t know what to do with it. The doc says, Well, what are you telling them? He says, I'm telling them about my spiritual experience and how they can get a spiritual experience and now they have to find the power greater than themselves. Doctor, that's never going to work. Alcoholics don't or drunkards I guess you call them, drunkards don't run this religion. You didn't. Nobody else does. He said, you know, drunkard are strange people. He told me in fact, they seem to have an invisible shield. You can't see it, but no advice gets through it. Boom! Boom! Boom! I think you've got to do this. Thanks, John. Boom! Boom! He said, I don't know how to get through to them. I don' t know how to get to them and I've never known anybody who does know how to get through to them. But he said, it just seems to me they always say their case is different. In effect, he said why don't you try to tell them that that you used to be a drinker too, that you drank a lot and now you're sober and how you did it. And what you're doing." And Bill said, well that can't help anything. If they know I've been drunk that just makes me less reliable. He said, we'll just try it. Nothing's working so far. He says, I'll try it but it can't work. And so he went home and prepared to try it. But he had a letter at home offering him a job. It was from Wall Street, people he didn't know. He said, Bill we understand you've been staying sober and doing a good job and we have a little project for you. If you can do this, it'll change your life. If not, you're out of luck. We're putting together a proxy battle out in Akron, Ohio for this rubber machine tool company and I want you to go out there period, you know Wall Street well enough to know how to get these proxies. Get them going. And if you could do that, you'd be president of that company and you'll be on easy street." And Bill said, oh my God, that's great. And he told his friends in the Oxford group, told his wife, he was so happy, jumped on a train and went to Akron. And most of us know the story there. The deal blew up in his face. It didn't work out. It wasn't his fault, but he didn't care. And wound up in a May, hot May morning standing in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, Ohio. He looked in his pocket and he had a $10 bill. He could either pay his hotel bill or buy a train ticket back to New York to go back there and have to admit failure one more time. And these guys had told him that they'd hired him that if you blow this one don't bother coming back because we want much. To go back to be a failure again, to go to the Oxford group to help people who don't want to help. And he didn't know what to do. And he wrote later, I stood in that lobby a few years ago, since turned into a senior citizen center or something, but at that time it was still the hotel about 40 years ago. And I was trying to stand there and try to recreate how it must have been for him. I couldn't obviously. But over there, there was a door, and over the door was a curved sign, neon orange, it said cocktails. And he heard the jukebox coming out, music coming out and the chatter and laughter. And yet an idea that I imagine most of us would have perhaps. If I just had a couple drinks I could think of the answer. Just a couple of drinks and it started to go. And those first two steps, my life expectancy and yours diminished tremendously. And out of the corner of his eye as he wrote, I saw later it was there, there were some payphones on the far wall. And he remembered he'd promised his friends in the Oxford group that he would call somebody in the oxford group before he didn't think drastic. So he said I better do this. We went over these telephones. I don't know if you, you know small town hotels they used to have a pay phone stand over the pay phones would be a big sign that had the leading churches with the ministers and their names. So he called up the first name and he said this is Bill Wilson. I'm a rum hound from New York. I got somebody in touch with the Oxford group. Can you help me? The boy said I'm sorry sir. I can't help you. I am trying to write a sermon, please don't bother me," hung up. So we called the next number, no answer, next number no answer. Next number and I said, gee, I'm sorry I can't help you, I didn't know anybody in that organization but I wish you well, I understand they do nice work. And now what would you think, what did I think? I did what I said I would. Just a couple of drinks." As he turned around, he noticed the last name on the list down a few names, a funny name, Walter Tunk. And I guess he thought, well, I wouldn't want to miss being rejected by Walter Tung. So he called Walter Tug, which by an odd coincidence, seconds and inches was the only man in Akron And who could have helped him, perhaps? And he called the man and said, funny you should call, sir. I have a very wealthy parishioner. She's a strong member of the Oxford group and she was telling me just yesterday that the doctor in their Oxford group is a terrible drunkard. He confessed it this week and he cried that he was a drunkard, and they all prayed for him but he can't seem to be able to stop drinking. He said, stay in that phone booth and I'll call her and see if she can maybe get in touch you with this doctor. So he called the lady out in West Akron. She said, Yes, oh that would be nice. I know poor Dr. Smith is feeling so bad. Let me get a hold of him. She called Dr.Smith and the phone rang and rang and ring and rang. She was just hanging up. The boy said, Hello, I'm sorry. I was out in the yard. God, five more seconds we wouldn't have been here. Just so many fun things. And Mrs. Smith said, Yes, I'd like to have him talk to that man. He can't talk to him today because he's laying drunk on the floor. But maybe get him in shape to talk to him tomorrow. So they made a deal where they could bring Dr. Smith out to her mansion in West Akron, and maybe get the guy from New York to come out and talk to him. So she called a minister back, and the minister called Bill back, who was just about to leave the phone booth because he'd heard nothing and thought it's just another bunch of crap. And they made arrangements for them to meet the next day, which turned out to be Mother's Day of 1930. And so Bill went out there in the streetcar, and Dr. Bob went out in his car, but he was too hungover to drive. His 16-year-old son drove and his daughter sat next to him, Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the back. His son, nobody ever heard of him, but I know at the 1980 International Convention, the last meeting where Johnny Harris talks as a matter of fact, the leader said we have a very great experience tonight. We have Dr. Bob's son here. Nobody ever knew he had a son. And we just cheered and he came out. There's nothing you can do. But he later on became a very active member of Al-Anon. Good punishment for him. But anyway, I'm just joking. But he talked a lot and he and I became pretty good friends. And I remember He always enjoyed talking about that trip out there when he was bringing his dad out to meet Bill Wilson. He didn't know who the hell they were, some goof from New York. And he said his father in the back seat, all he talked about, all the others, he said it was his wife. Ann! Look, today's Mother's Day and I know I've spoiled it for you and I ruined everything but I'll give this guy ten minutes because I said, I'm so sorry I spoiled your Mother's But I'm not going to listen to another damn sermon about my drinking. I'm so sick of people talking to me about drinking, I won't listen to it. I'll give them ten minutes and that's all I'm going to tell you." And they got out there and these two guys met and they had a bite to eat with the people. Then they went into a side room for their ten minutes. And we're in there four hours. And came out in the doctor who went to his wife and said, Ann, I can't believe it. That man is the first man I ever met who seems to know how I feel, and what a few drinks does for me. All the people giving me lectures have no idea." He said, Bill, that's remarkable, he says, could you stay with us a couple of weeks maybe or two or three weeks and talk some more? And Bill thought, hmmm, I have nowhere to get out of town. Yes I can. So they stayed and they talked for two weeks about the Oxford Group every day, the spiritual values they could reach and the connections with the power greater themselves that would transform their lives. At the end of two weeks Dr. Bob was just feeling tip-top, boy I'm feeling so good. This weekend in Atlantic City is the International Convention of the American Medical Association. I was there last year and I was so drunk they ridiculed me and laughed at me. He said, I want to go this year and show them what we found, Bill. Stay here with my wife and kids, and I'll be back Tuesday morning. Away he went. Everybody, oh, that's great. Tuesday morning, phone rang. Mrs. Smith answered. She says, Mrs. Smith, this is the doctor's office nurse. I'm so sorry, but they carried the doctor off the train this morning so drunk he couldn't walk. And the station agent knew that I worked for him, so he had me come down here on the cab driver and now I've got him on the floor of his office. and I'm so sorry because we had such hopes he was doing so well." And our lives almost ended that morning. Mrs. Smith said, okay, we'll come down and get him. She and Bill went down and got this drunken crying…God there's very few things in the world more disgusting than a crying drunk. I'm sorry. Now you're sorry. Boom! I mean some people would do that. I would not understand them. They got him home and put him to bed, shut up! Thursday morning he sat up, what day is it? He said, Thursday morning Bob. He said my God, I've got to do a cancer surgery today. Look at my hand, I can't hold a knife, my God what can I do? They'll take my license, I put it off twice already. What can I do?" So they got him up and bathed him. His new friend Bill got him a couple of beers to steady his hand, and away he went to the hospital to do the surgery. He said, "'I'll be home about two o'clock.' Okay Bob." Two o' clock came, no Bob. Three o' Clock, no bob. Four o'Clock, nobob. Five o' Clock, everybody goes, son of a bitch is drunk again. And the door opened 6 o'clock and he burst through the door, cold sober. He said, boy do I feel great! He said where have you been Bob? He said while I was doing that surgery it suddenly struck me. You know the Oxford group wants you to make amends for the people you've hurt and I never thought it would apply to a doctor because we don't intend to hurt anybody but I realized there were a number of people I hurt and Iím a human being before Iím a doctor. So I've been all afternoon, all over Akron making amends to people and I feel wonderful. And that was June 10th, 1935 which we considered to be our birthday. Of course it wasn't our birthday then, just two drunken old fools got sober. But they realized one thing, sitting and talking about religion had not kept Dr. Bob sober had kept Bill sober while he was trying to help people. What kept him sober was trying to help them. So they thought, we've got to find some old drunk to talk to about this baby. And the doctor had a friend in the hospital where he was almost persona non grata because of his drinking. But he had a nun up there, Sister Ignatia who was a nurse. At that time people couldn't get in the hospitals for being drunkards or alcoholics. If you had have a physical problem, it's gastroenteritis or example of something like that. And he called the nun and said, Sister is there anybody up there that's really a drunkard? She said, Well yes, we do have a man like that." Let me tell you a little sidelight about Sister Ignatia. I heard her speak at the 1960 International Convention when I heard Ebby speak. And I can't remember exactly if this is exactly correct, but as I remember it, after the meeting I went up and thanked her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that. I said, Is it all right to kiss a nun? I think she said, As long as you don't get in the habit. Fifty years ago, what the hell do I remember, you know? She said, yes, we have this man up here, Bill D., and he was a lawyer in Louisville. And he moves here to get away from his drinking. Of course, his drinking has increased terribly. She said let me talk to his wife and see if I can set up a meeting. And I heard Bill D. talk 35 years ago about that experience. He said, I'll take you to that bed in Akron, Ohio. My wife came in and said two men want to talk to me about drinking. And I said, absolutely not. I'm sick of all the lectures I've heard. I don't want to hear another one. I don' t want to hear any more about it. I didn't want argue about it, no! But my wife's a rather strong woman. So I talked to those two fellas and they did talk to me about drinking once. They're drinking and how they felt and what it did for them and what happened when they tried to quit i never heard anybody tell my story like that i thought it must be a miracle and i was so impressed i stuck with them fellas i've been with him ever since he became number three in the chain then they worked around akron of course what they were doing they're going to the oxford group every day but you're trying to find drunkards on the street who'd they could help and uh They didn't get very many people, obviously, because it's not a big thrill to say, you want to get sober with Jesus? No. Just a little sidebar that may amuse you. They found a young guy named Ernie who was 29. They said, well, you can't be an alcoholic. You're only 29 but you drink like hell so you can come come with us," and he went around. And this young man fell in love with Dr. Bob's daughter and brought us, although we didn't know it, brought us our first relationship. I don't know a word that sends a shiver down a sponsor's spine like that word. I want to talk to you about my new relationship. Oh Jesus! You have to have an aha machine on your desk and just put the phone on it. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I mean, I've gotten those calls. Some are really dreadful. Oh, I know that I thought the girl I told you about the other day, but God, today when I saw Deirdre walking out of detox, I just knew. But they really fell in love, and they got married. Now isn't that nice? That happened in my family. My youngest daughter Susan fell in with a guy I sponsored who was five years sober, and they get married. And I was against it. But I have a group of daughters all of whom know much more about life than I do, obviously. So I was overruled. I'll tell you the absolute epitome of mixed emotions. It's watching your daughter go down the aisle to marry a man whose fifth step you've heard. You can't really say anything, but you can give hints. Let me know if he ever brings a sheep home. But they got married, and they said, Ernie, now you're a new husband. We don't want you going to these damn meetings all the time and running up the streets working drunks. You stay home and take care of your wife. That's what you should do. Take care of her. Take care or your wife and take of your home, and we'll get in touch. And everybody was disappointed when he got drunk and turned her against AA for 50 years. And they didn't realize just he couldn't stay home and stay sober, no matter how wonderful the work was. But little by little, they got a few people. Then Bill went back to New York, got a little group there. And they had a hard time because Alcoholics Anonymous just seemed to be kind of a cultish thing. And what they realized, God, we got all these sick people. They're really dealing with a lot of low-bottom drunks we can't get them in the hospital they're dying on our hands why don't we build an alcoholic hospital where just alcoholics come from all over the country and we'll save them but how are we going to get the money to do that well we can write a book and describe our experiences so Bill sat down and attempted to write a books he wrote a couple chapters and submitted them they said ok that looks alright keep going and he wrote this book which which the two folks have been discussing so well this weekend, Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't know if you've seen that there's a big red book now, what's it called? About all the corrections and what's is called Bob? Huh? I can't hear you. The manuscript. The book that started it off? other answers? We'll have a vote. Everybody who wants to know. But anyway, if you get a chance to see it, it's about this big and it has the whole book as was originally printed and all the corrections they've gone in and changed phrases and changed thoughts. It's just amazing watching that book turn into from kind of a rough thing to the thing we know today. But anyway, he wrote this book and they didn't want to print it so they sold stock to each other. And the book was printed and Bill – they sent a postcard to every doctor on the East Coast. Doctors at least now there's an answer. And they waited for the flood of postcards and one came in, said no. They realized that wasn't going to work at least they had a book now they could talk about. And Lois, Lois had a relative, a distant relative who worked for the Rockefellers. They kind of worked out a deal where maybe we get these guys to give a talk to the Rockefeller's and show the wonderful work they were doing and Dr. Bob won't have his house foreclosed and Bill will be able to pay his rent and keep going. So they set up this dinner which became very famous in eight years later. And young, young Rockefeller had a group of wealthy people and he talked to him. He told Bill later, he said that was really remarkable. You people are doing a wonderful job. We were all very impressed. We think that giving you money would spoil it, which they didn't think but they have. And probably if you look back and think absolutely right at the time and actually what a lot of people don't know is that Mr. Rockefeller himself slipped him 10 grand so Dr. Bob could pay off his house and Bill could pay up his bills and they could keep going but no money came there then in 1939 there's a little magazine called Liberty Magazine they wrote an article about Alcoholics Anonymous except they made it sound like a religion which not only didn't do any good but really made some people quit and by 1940 they were fairly well-known, but not cult, some odd cult. And in Philadelphia, the Saturday Evening Post, their leading writer who specialized in showing, disclosing corruption was assigned… he had just got done with an award winning series of stories on the corrupt Philadelphia labor unions in the harbor. His next assignment, work your way to this Alcoholics Anonymous thing and blow the whistle on these clowns." He said, okay. And away he went, and he went to St. Louis, went to Chicago, went all over cities, Akron. And he was astonished. He called up the editor and said, Jesus, Bill, they're doing what they say they're doing. No one's making any money. They're really trying to help people. The guy said, Write it anyway. So he did and in March of 1939, 1941 in the Saturday Post in the first week of the month was a big article on readers of Alcoholics Anonymous and it took the nation by storm. It's the funny thing if you ever get a chance to see it, they got artwork in there, I mean photographs of the members but they all got their face kind of blacked out. And some people today think that's why we remain anonymous. We have a better reason, we prefer spiritual surrender. But at that time they were just trying to protect him. They didn't want to be known as alcoholics. But it took the nation by storm because so many people had alcoholics in their family and they never could find anything at work. And so they just buried New York with this series of letters. And Bill sent them all a copy of the book he had plenty of us in, and some little letter on how they can start a meeting, and pretty soon there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings all over the country. And by 1942 AA was a booming business. By 1943 Bill noticed he started getting letters saying, Bill our group has died, don't send us any more letters. And by the end of the year more and more were coming from all over the country. 1944 started to get to be a big bunch. By the end of 1944, Bill realized one thing. AA has been a nice thing, but it's dying. It's almost over. It was dying. So he started the grapevine. He thought that'd help in a big tabloid size and they'll read one another's stories. That'll keep them enthused. But it didn't. It helped a little, In early 1945, as A was dying, a doctor in North Carolina wrote an article for The Grapevine and sent it to Bill. He said, you ought to read this, Bill. These people are just like us. And Bill read this story about a group that had started in Baltimore in 1840, just 100 years earlier. One guy – there were six of them – one had just got out of jail and he went back to his friends and said, You know, that chaplain down there says he knows how I feel. He doesn't know how I feel. You guys know how i feel and you're drunk as big as I am, but maybe we could help each other not drink." So they drew up a constitution, elected five officers and one non-officer, and they decided to name themselves after George Washington because he was the first of his kind. So they called themselves the Washingtonians. their way in Philadelphia. You idiots, Baltimore, you know, you idiots, you can't stay sober yourself. You're going to help each other stay sober? But they did. When one felt like drinking, he'd get to the other five guys and then get together and drink coffee. And they got a few more members. They got some guys come down from Philadelphia and they went back, started one in Philadelphia, started on Washington. At the end of the year, they had almost 45 people staying sober, drunkards. Never had had that kind of record anywhere in the world. And the second year they got a couple guys who at that time you know there was no entertainment in the world but traveling speakers would get crowds and talk about various things. They got a couple of these speakers to talk about the Oxford group when they got sober. I mean the Washingtonians. And they started getting members. And near the end of the second year they had over, they had meetings all over. And they sent out a letter to every chapter they could find near the end of their second year and said, you know we're having our second anniversary coming up. We're going to chose George Washington's birthday February 22nd as our anniversary although it really was early March. He said, but what we'd like to have you do is your community have someone come in and see one of your meetings. They just think we're a silly cult or something, and we're not. We are helping people survive. So just get somebody in your community, not a big shot, but somebody who's up and coming who maybe can help us. So all over the country on February 22nd, 1842 they brought in people. In Springfield, Illinois they brought a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. If you ever read a book of Lincoln speeches, it was a long speech, a lot of just usual nonsense, but at the end he says, as I look around and see you gentlemen, I work with you gentlemen. I know that you're kindly men, but I don't understand your thirst. But now you're beating that thirst and I so appreciate it." And it continued to grow. By 1845 they had, they estimated 100,000 sober drunkards. Doesn't that sound impressive? AA after five years using phones and radio and television didn't even have 1,000. And the leaders got together in 1845 and apparently They thought, you know, we do a very good job of helping drunkards, but there's all sorts of people with all sorts of problems that need help. Maybe people who take narcotics who aren't alcoholics, not cocaine and heroin like today, but stuff they had then, opium. And maybe we help people, maybe we can help getting in Texas in the Union, getting rid of that damn Mexicans. And maybe we can help people who have problems of different kinds, mental problems we could help. Because we're sensitive and we can really help people. So in 1845, the whole Washingtonians got on the alert. Go help somebody. Not necessarily a drunkard, help somebody that has problems. And by 1848, the drunkards of the Washingtonians were extinct and nearly every one of them died drunk on the street. And I had a book home a few years ago written by one of the few survivors in 1861. I had it until I let a newcomer use it. But he talked about we were doing so well and things were going so well but all of a sudden people didn't have time to help the drunkard. wanted to help strange people. And little by little we all got drunk, and they became extinct and so extinct that Bill Wilson in 1945 had never heard of them nor had anybody else that he could find. He went to the library and found some books on them and thought, my God! And the reasons they collapsed were just like the letters he was getting in from people around the country fighting over prestige, fighting over who's in charge, fighting over who's going to be in charge of the money, all sorts of things. My God, we're like them and we're going to become extinct. In early 1945, late 1945 he sat down and in a last gasp effort to save AA, he used what he was reading in The Washingtonians and what he's seeing in these letters and wrote the traditions long after AA was founded to save AA if you could help it. And Alcoholics Anonymous at that time had one problem that they have now, which is hard to deal with. It's full of alcoholics. We don't want any of your damn laws! We want love goddammit! Yeah and so a lot of people didn't want to do, didn't like the traditions. So Bill got in his motorcycle put his wife in the sidecar and for a long time just traveled the East Coast trying to tell people these are not rules, these are ways to save us. Yeah yeah well we don't want them. And so he realized somehow we have to communicate this. So he said, he and Bob got along well together and they and he wrote he said we should have one meeting just one meeting and get some AAs from wherever from Los Angeles and from Chicago and from all these towns and maybe we could get people to understand what the traditions mean. And And so they said, okay, they sent their followers, okay find us a place to meet. And the people in Akron who always basically distrusted New York people as big city highbinders said, we'll go to a meeting. We won't go to New York. And the People of New York not to be outdone in spirituality and a little suspicious of these shit-kickers in Akran said, We'll go a meeting, we won't to Akron. When Bill and Dr. Bob got together, Cleveland, okay, so in July of 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio the first large meeting of alcoholics who were sober in America was held. And I had the tapes for that weekend. The quality of the tapes is pretty bad but the content is remarkable. They were still afraid of being called a cult, so they had a lot of outside non-alcoholic speakers from the government, the warden of Sing Sing and the wardens from California, different people. And Dr. Bill Wilson gave a talk on Friday night trying to exhort them. But Bill, Dr. Bob was dying of cancer at that time, so he said, Bob, you probably don't want to speak. You can't, you know, you're very ill. He said, no I've got to speak, he said. I've been sober 15 years. That's the second longest in the whole world. I want to speak. And so on that day, apparently his son on one side and his friend on the other, this tall, gaunt man dying of cancer, brought up to the podium and he gave a talk which many people conceived to be the Gettysburg Address of Alcoholics Anonymous. It didn't start out that way. It started with just kind of mundane things. He said, well, I wantto welcome you all to Cleveland. I hope you'll go back and tell the boys and girls in your group that we're all doing the same thing. We all put in the same things. We get the reactions of what we get from AA." He said, I want to apologize for my health. I've been in bed most of the past few months. My health hasn't returned the way I hoped it would. He said But as I look away at this vast cloud, I'm glad that some small thing I did 15 years ago helped bring this about. And then, you know, just ho-hum, normal stuff. But then he said, but I do want to call your attention to two or three things that I think are important. And they were important because he was always a better 12-stepper than Bill was. He got those people in Akron going and kept them all over Akron. And he knew he was dying, so almost like a deathbed, not a confession, but a death bed admonition, if you wish, or a deathbed communication. He said, I'd like to call your attention to two or three things that may be of interest. He said first, let us remember to keep our program simple. Let's not louse it all up with Freudian complexes which may be OF INTEREST TO THE SCIENTIFIC MIND, but has nothing to do with our work here. Our work here, when reduced to the last, consists of love and service. And we all know what love is, and we all know what service is." And secondly he said, let us try very hard to control that erring member, the tongue, and try to use you with kindness and understanding. And there isn't a person in this room or any room like it who doesn't know exactly what he's talking about. We're all very wonderful when things are going our way. is the answer. But let's say we thwart us or cross us. One of the funny things I know about Alcoholics Anonymous, I never met an alcoholic who came here willingly. I mean, we were all driven here under the lash one way or another. I'm not an alcoholic. I just have a little drink. So we fight the term. Finally begrudgingly, I'm an alcoholic, yeah, that's right. But later on, if you really want to put the kiss of death on somebody, you say, I don't even think that son of a bitch is alcoholic. The curse. Oh yes I am. Yes I am, I promise. But we have to learn to watch our tongues because we all gossip and talk badly about people we disapprove of. And I guess it's human but it's very difficult to overcome. And lastly he said, none of us would be here if someone hadn't taken the time to explain things to us, to give us a pat on the back when we needed it, to maybe take us to a few meetings. Let us never reach that stage of smug complacency where we are too busy to help our fellow man who still suffers in the blackness of alcoholic despair. And he sat down and was dead shortly thereafter. But then those three things, those tenets were as viable today as they were in 1935 or 1950. And in fact when you go to the World Service Office in New York, they're painted on the wall. That speech is painted on the wall very short and very succinct. And later on at that same convention we had six young guys each who took two traditions in the long form which which is the way they were originally presented. And you knew people didn't know what the long form is. In the back of the book, there's a short form and a long form. The long form was how they're originally written. They were abbreviated later for, so it'd be a little more workable, a little bit more usable. But he took two versions of the longform. He took two traditions and gave an explanation. I don't know who they were, but their tails are just wagging. They're very excited. and Bill got up after they got done. He said, you've now heard the traditions read. And yeah, I guess he didn't think he could ever win an election or win a vote. So we've heard the tradition's read, seeing no objections, they're accepted. And they were accepted and they saved AA. And the value of that I think is to remember sometimes in meetings, the reading of the 12 Traditions become just an exercise see if newcomers can pronounce autonomous the guy tonight didn't make it but it's a the other they certainly are things we have to defend and that's why we have the singleness of purpose because Bill Wilson and dr. Bob proved that in the early days identification is how we help one another not by some good word if advice did it there'd be no need for a if kindly people helping us would but it's getting through that wall, getting to identification. And that is why we have identification in AA. And it's the most important, without that we have nothing. I know that in 1950s in Los Angeles there was a guy named Jim Willis and he was an alcoholic, but he also had a terrible gambling problem. And he started bringing his gambling friends to AA to see if they could get some wisdom. We don't want to hear that drunken crap, we're not juicers. So he wrote to New York and became the first one to ever get permission to use the 12 steps outside of AA and he founded Gamblers Anonymous. And a couple years later some people in North Hollywood who were trying vainly to help their narcotic addict friends got permission to used the 12 Steps and formed Narcotics Anonymous, then some people on the West Side, Marina del Rey, upper class people got permission to use for cocaine anonymous and a woman in the middle Wilshire district got permission use it for overeaters anonymous. And they are the four major non AA groups in the world and they aren't quite successful. The most successful of them all of course is the Gamblers Anonymous. You go into a Gambler's Anonymous meeting and There's a picture of Bob, Jim Willis on the wall and the interesting thing about Jim was I knew him fairly well And he is such a nice man He was really a good man and he uh He got so busy with his formed GA that he didn't have time to go to A anymore He really just gone to GA started meetings So he always felt very bad when he got drunk and died But as they say in GA he never gambled again Which is what they're concerned about And I never really understood the difference. Seth and I were talking about it today briefly. I was new, I didn't know anything. I had no front teeth. I weighed about 130 pounds. I looked like some great ghost. And I was talking at the club one day, and I was enthusiastic. I was staying sober for the first time after 10 years of slipping. I gave a great talk on obsessions. Not the recovery from them, but just the obsessions because I'm an authority on them. And afterwards a woman came up and said that's wonderful. I never heard anybody describe the obsessions before. I'm sure we all have them. Could you come over and talk to my group of overeaters anonymous on Sunday at Olympic Boulevard at our Savior's Church? I said sure. Give something shoot for. I didn't even have a, I wouldn't even cast a shadow sideways. So I went over there and I roomed about eight rather plump women home. And I gave them a wonderful talk about obsessions. I know they identified you. And when I got done, I said, well, I've helped them. And then they had a little sharing session. I couldn't believe my ears. This woman over here. She had a boy in military school at Long Beach, just had his 10th birthday that week. She sent her husband down to get him and bring him back to have a little party. She had nice birthday cake. She took a piece to see if it was all right. Had another piece, just one more. By the time they got back, the whole cake was gone. And she felt so sad and so sorry. And I didn't say anything because I'm a nice guy but I wanted to say, Why did you just have a piece of cake and forget it, for Christ's sake? What's wrong with you? Now, woman over here talking about ice cream. She loved ice cream, couldn't wait till she got up in the morning to get the ice cream from her husband to go to work, to go out and get some ice cream It empowered her somehow. She ate a lot of it, didn't know how to even get down to the containers. I didn't say anything because I'm a nice guy. I wanted to say, no wonder you're fat, for God's sake. I didn' t want you to be fat eating like that. But my favorite was the woman over there over here, a woman over here who drank I mean ate and ate until she couldn't eat anymore then put her finger down her throat and threw it up then ate some more oh Jesus I didn't say anything because I'm a nice guy I wanted to say don't bother shaking hands after the meeting slimy finger I can see doing that for drinking I've done that a lot got it started in the afternoon sun's still up and I'm drunk but for eating The only difference was I didn't identify, so it just became information. That's why we have to remember this in AA. We had a lot of seconds and inches that get us to this point. So we can sit here this weekend and hear great speakers like this or next weekend hear speakers wherever we go, that we forget what a remarkable feat of magic Alcoholics Anonymous itself that any one of us are we can be missing and a will continue to flourish but this is a remarkable thing and that's why we have to fight sit maintain those traditions I have two great-grandsons one of them is either an incipient alcoholic or the spot spawned of the devil I'm not sure which he's only three I can't make it out yet. But I always look for a 666 on the back of his neck. But when that little shit grows up and gets to be an alcoholic, I hope, when he comes to these doors I hope he hears 12 steps and 12 traditions and identification that will save his life. Not some gobbledygook from some treatment center counselor who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. So it's really… I hope it'll help you enhance just a little bit when we hear again these two fine people talk tomorrow morning. And think about how lucky we are just to be sitting here, safe and sane and sober. God bless us all. Thank you. Thank you.