Bill W. at the 1st International Convention – 1950

12 years ago, this fellowship commenced with a pair of books. The book we know today is Alcoholics Enough. And in the last pages of its text, the book expressed a hope. Yes, it was more than a hope, it told of the dreams that we then in this fellowship had. And we express our hopes and our dreams in these words. Someday, we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a fellowship of alcoholics anonymous at his destination. To some extent, this is already true. Some of us are salesmen and go about, Little clusters of twos and threes and fives have spun up in other communities through contact with our larger centers. Those of us who travel drop in as often as we can. This practice enables us to lend a hand, at the same time avoiding certain alluring distractions of the road about which any traveling man can inform him. Such was our dream, and it has been given to only a few to see an impossible dream come true almost in its entirety. one wonders what could be added to what we have already seen and felt and heard in these last two or three days. The song of this assembly is gratitude, and we rejoice in our world unity, now spread into some 34 countries and reflected back while us here. We rejoin today is still simpler and more deeply meaningful than ever. Yes, this is a time for gratitude, a time for rejoicing. It may be, too, a time of happy reminiscence, when we can think back a little upon the days of our birth, our childhood, and our adolescence. It might be a time when we can together once more about those principles upon which we resolved yesterday, which may bind us together in unity for so long as God shall lead us. First, let's think about the things for which we are grateful. Of course, we are thankful and find no words to express it. to the Father of life, who presides over us all. So he's asked for his great response and has made this salvation possible. And right away, one begins to think of friends who have been part of this benign, conspiring conspiracy which is outlawed from us. I think right away of the friend that first came to me with a very simple message. Today, thank God, still the core about to see. I think of a wife who stood by. I think of Dr. Crosby, the first Protestant clergyman to say that AA is good. I think that Father Downing out there in St. Louis, the fourth Catholic clergyman ever to say it. I think of my own doctor in town, Thompson, who, when I had my sudden experience, said, No, Bill, you are not crazy. You'd better hang on to what you've got. So it were indeed faithful words for alcoholic synonymous. Suppose that man of science had said, Ah, this is but an illusion. It will soon pass away. What a vital contribution. And I think it was a French economist who befriended us and who has since brought us before his whole field. I think of the evidence of the talented folks who published the good news to the world and made us a national institution. Yes, these men of medicine. These men of religion. Once upon a time we stood in a no man's land between them. We weren't exactly scientific and some thought we weren't religious enough. Today, we find ourselves in a common meeting place, working together as one. I am the plaintiff of the plaintiffs, without whom this moment could never have been. think of us, of course. Think of that one who was the very nearest, the husband, the wife, the father, the mother, who saw it through, who went down into the cave with us and stayed when all others had gone. I think of Lois, and she and I would like to join in saying a second sentence to the one who was the mother of the first day April, Ann Smith. She was Father, to that first group, with all of the impotence of motherhood, her deep understanding, her constant attention for the needs of her children are things we old-timers shall never forget. God bless and keep happy. I am sure she looks down upon us here today. And I think of the one who perhaps was here, Henrietta, who had time when nine or ten others did not to bring Smithy and me together. Yes, another link that made this wondrous thing possible. But, you know, it ain't seem we have what amounts to a rule that we never praise people. But I think for once we ought to get around that rule. So I'm going to tell you why I am so grateful for Smith. You remember, after working with alcoholics, or rather preaching at them for six months, I came to Anson, Ohio and failed miserably in a business venture. For the first time I realized that I needed another alcoholic as much as he could possibly need me. And Dr. Bob is the man who filled that need. He and I have been associated together in all these wonderful years, 15 now gone by. I cannot think or remember a time When we ever had an angry argument, angry words between us, I've been to distribute in these with him because as many of you know, I have been mad at lots of other people. On Tuesday afternoon, Bob and I made our pilgrimage, and I mean it when I say that, to Henrietta Town. And she used an expression which I think is so fitting. She described Dr. Bob as the was. On what, on which AA was found. How fitting that was. How apt. So I bid you as you leave here, perhaps not to return for another ten years, but you bear away with you an image of those two, the mother of the first AA group and the rock on which it was found. You know, people have to say nowadays in genuine concern that AA is very different than it used to be. It's got to be complicated. It has become big business. There are those who would commercialize it. Well, I'm glad that that concern exists. For so long as we exhibit those things will never happen. And a recent search for Europe convinced me that our essential message is just as simple, and yet just as mysterious in its working as it always was. On May 12th, a plane descended on our Royal Airfield down in Lawrence, Maine to Norwood. Our contact with that country had been so slight that we didn't know whether we'd find a dozen AAs or maybe at the outside a couple of dozens. Well, while we were going through the customs, we heard a commotion. We heard a language of what we didn't understand, a syllable, and Lawrence looked at me and said, Yes, sir, it's a drop. It's all done now! And we came out among them, and we could not make out a word when that was said. sign language believer and motioned to a car. We got down to the hotel. Another dozen turned up, among them a fellow who could speak a little English. Ah, they couldn't talk English, but how well in their thinking they expressed our universal language of love. That is an that we shall never forget. And then that picture unfolded, and we found an area that was three years old in this city, yet they had taken through their hospitals in that place something like a thousand cases, that their membership might run in hundreds. Although Although because of their extreme anonymity, nobody could say just how many there were. You see, in Norway we found that there are two kinds of people. Because of the tremendous stigma, you have the kind of people who dare come to meetings and you have a kind, the vast majority, who dare not. After a while we learned that there were six waiters in an odd number of restaurants. None of whom knew that the other was in AA, yet they'd all been sober. He took them over one year. And you'd be back. And the bold ones formed themselves into little squads of one and two and three and visited these people every other day. I actually found they'd taken over a German barrack. They had a chum room. We found that the finest psychiatrist in Oslo had set his stamp of approval upon these Norwegians, and then we learned to our great joy that he was a man of deep religious conviction. One of the finest lawyers and judges in Oslos had already associated himself in a benign way with the enterprise. And then we journeyed to Persia, and to Christian stuff, and it's the fun, and found there flourishing hanging fruits. And how did this all happen? Very simply, very movingly, and very miraculously, as it always has happened. Five years ago, at Greenwich, Connecticut, a Norwegian-American who had been drunk for 20 years showed up by contact with that proof. He commenced to write to the old country, telling the family what has happened and sending along a little money, which he could ill-spare as an earnest of it. Presently he's got a letter back saying that his brother was in this same terrible situation. What could be done about it? Well, the man, C. Greenwich, talked it over with his wife, and following the classic pattern, they decided they would sell all they had in the world, namely a very small restaurant, And with the cash they would buy a round trip to Oslo to see if they could help that buck. So like Lawrence and me, three years before, they came down at Oslo airport. Some of the families were not the Alkermoliks. We're there to meet them. And that was all. With great vigor and enthusiasm, they laid our message before this suffering drum. It turned out he was a type setter on one of the papers. Why, he said, I am no alcoholic. Where have we heard that before? He said, oh, I don't know why there are any salvation visits like this. Where have you heard that from? And he wouldn't have any salvation. Well, they visited him out in his home, a 25-cent bench, out on the fjord. I'm surprised the Norwegians brought that great German battleship. But to no avail. So then the man named Manson Rennick said, well there is going to be an AA group at this time. So he set out and he visited all his friends. And they pleased him for his enterprise, but they gave him no job to work on. Apparently they didn't know any. And he visited his doctor, and there was no result. So the man who had sold all he had felt it was now time to turn around and go home and start over. At that very moment, his recalcitrant brother tasted a drop that was a honey. the winged angel and the moth, as in David's day. And in the agony of his hangover, the president called to his brother, the man from Granite, and he said, Tell me once more about this thing, the anonymous alcoholic. And the man form Granite says, as well. It's very wonderful, but it's very simple. I just admitted that I could no longer control my drinking, that it controlled me. I got honest with myself as I haven't ever got honest before. I quit this business of living alone and talked myself out to somebody else. I went to the people who I'd harmed, and I made amends. And then he said, you know I was not a person of any faith? Well, I have come to believe in a power greater than God, a power which had indeed worked a miracle in me, for I was hopeless. And then he said, I was taught of a new kind of giving, the kind of given that demands no reward. One coming up. And that is why, my brother, I have come to Norway to see you." That was the entire message of the man who had come from Granix to Oslo, the man who had sold all he had in the world to us. Before he left, he took a little pamphlet, printed of course in English by the White Plains Group, and he made a longhand translation into Norwegian, which he had done forgot. Forget. And he left that translation with the President. And that was the beginning of AA in Oslo. The Plitter hasn't had a drink to this day, because Plitter inserted ads in the Oslo paper saying he was a recovered alcoholic who wished to help others without fraud today. He had planned for weeks because of the stigma nobody responded. And finally as he was about to give up he got one reply. It came from a florist, though and his wife ran a little sidewalk shop. It's kind you see an audience. The florist was a gun case indeed. He heard the story. He read this translation of the 12 steps. He went to work on other alcoholics, and he has not had a drink to this day. And they put more ads in the paper. And they grew very, very slow. And then I came in contact with this doctor. Where did he find these wonderful friends? I don't know. Whose author conference was, as I said, a man of deep religious conviction who instantly saw the implications of what went on. And that's how AA got to Oslo. Does that sound like big business? Does that sounds like over-organization? Isn't that honestly simple? Yes, Mr. Serrius, and it's working indeed. Yes. And I think if we will look around us anywhere in A.A., where new people are receiving this message, they will see the same thing reenacted. And of course all the islanders from here will want to know how it got to Ireland. In much the same fashion, one time a little over three years ago, an Irish American in Philadelphia whose bankroll was buzzed decided that he and his wife would take a vacation. vacations. They grew up in Dublin, revisited the old land. But he's been in Dublin no time. When he began to forget about the vacations, why, he said, there's no AA group in Ireland. They've got to have one. Again, he looked up a doctor. Maybe we're down the psychiatrist, but this was another one. And this man was also a man of deep religious conviction, I saw the point. And he told this doctor the story. The doctor had charge of a large hospital once endowed by the writer Swift for people who were ailing mentally and they took some alcohol. And left this simple message and a pamphlet with just one man. And when Lois and I came to Dublin, we found 300 members in South Ireland. We found groups at court. We found groups that limerick. In fact, let me tell you, Ireland, the bad group at court is within sight of Barney Fassett. And so it came to London. A Canadian metallurgist brought it there. Ah, yes, Lois and I saw Alcoholics Anonymous transcending every single barrier of race, creed, tradition, and language. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Comparable with the day when she and I discovered that I could be free. Comparable was that day when Slippy and I sat in his living room after three years and counted us them up. And there were 40 who had been sober. and we realized that a new light had come into this dark world of alcoholism. Yes, it was an experience like that. I have to say this is a time for gratitude. Gratitude for all these things. Me. Let's look back once more briefly Upon the time of our birth, I don't need to qualify as an alcoholic. I won't worry for those who already know about it, and with a flesh account of that sudden experience which released me. But I would like to bring you again. Let us replace together. What happened over here in Anchorage? Fifteen years ago, last June, I had come here, as I said, on a business trip which I hoped would repair a poison and bring Royce out of that department store where he was still supporting me. I had been working with alcoholics, or rather I had preaching at alcoholics rather piously I suspect, and quite likely nothing happened. When I suddenly find myself in need, and desperate need indeed, and there are many in this audience who have since felt it, I was alone down at the Mayflower Hotel walking up and down that lobby. It was Saturday afternoon. My business deal had fallen through. I was discouraged. I was full self-pity. And suddenly I panicked in fear of getting drunk, and then came the thought, oh, how much I need another alcoholic. And I remembered seeing a church directory out at one end of the lobby, and I went to it, and sort of action-mindedly drew my finger down the list of names there. And fingers stopped at a man who has since proved himself a great friend of our society, Dr. Walter Tump, he turned out to be an assistant for Padre. I called up the good man and said, well, I'm an alcoholic from New York who is looking for a drug to work on. He seemed a little dumbfounded at the headache. Very unusual request. Quite naturally, he felt that one alcoholic at a time might be enough. And he gave me a list of people. Some of them connected with the old Oxford group, to whom we owe so much, both as to what and what not to do. And he said, some of these people may be able to, you know, find an alcoholic for you to work on. I think I handled this with about 10. And I began to call them. It was on a Saturday afternoon. Quite naturally, these people said, well, I'll be in church tomorrow, I'm sorry, it's been a holiday. Others were out. Others didn't seem to take in my need at all. And finally I came to the very end of that list. And by then I was getting very blue indeed. Her last name is a well-known name in the rubber industry. Oh, I said that good lady wouldn't want to see an alcoholic on a Saturday afternoon, looking for another alcoholic to work upon her. Oh no, I can't call her. And then something says, well, it's better. And I called, and a delightful southern voice came down over the wire. And I told her of my name, and she said, I think I understand. Won't you come right up? Of all those people, she was the only one who had time to look after my name. And when I arrived there, we talked a bit, and she said, I think I know just the man. Well, no doctor here in town, but he's in terrible shape now. Find medicine, find religion, as best you could. I'm sure he wants to get well. Supposing I call up his wife and I say, yes, please do. It chanced that it was Mother's Day. So Henrietta explained to Ann that here was a man from New York who thought he could help alcoholics and would probably need some help himself when she and Bob liked to jump over. I don't know just how Ann put it to Henrietta, but somehow it was this, that it went Mother's day and the good doctor had just come in with a great big pot of plants He had placed the potter's plant on a table, but had gone upstairs and was so tired that he himself could not drive. Nothing daunted Henry as to what would come tomorrow. Oh yes, how I'd work! And that afternoon the door opened, and in walked Smithy and Ash. I tell you none of us felt like clowners that day, and I ardently wish that we can soon get over the feeling nowadays. But this time I knew I needed him as much as he needed me. needed me. He had an awful hangover, and he thought he could only stay five minutes. He was very thirsty. Ah, but we talked for hours. And there, I suppose, for the first time, we became worthy of grace of God, and despite that was to be alcoholic and ominous, struck. Learning then of my business difficulty and my hope of reviving it, and I think with the idea of keeping a weather eye on the old boy back here, Ann said, Why don't you come over to the house and live a while? So when I got over there, it wasn't long before Smithy looked at me rather quizzically and he said, Don't you think it's about time we did some work on this rock? just as a matter of self-protection. Well, maybe you've got something there, I said. He said, I'll call up the Franklin City Hospital. I'll talk to the head nurse down in the receiving. And soon he was telling her that we're along with a man from New York. He thought they had a new cure for alcoholism. He blushed a little and I think learned the nurse said to him, well, doctor, why don't you try it yourself? And anyway, he said, yes, John Dandy just came in here, found a lawyer around town. He was once upon a time a member of the city council, all falling apart, been drunk six times in the last four months. He can't even leave here and get home without getting sued again. Just now he's dropped to D.C. He's put the nurses around, but he's pulled a pile of iron and strapped down. Now how was that one doing? So the next day, or the day thereafter, Dr. Bob looked outside. Tens of thousands of us had been seen. And, God willing, hundreds of thousands of us will still see. It is the sight of the alcoholic on that bed who does not know that he can get well. So we made our parents before the man on the bed. We told him of the nature of his malady, medically speaking. We also told him the nature of his malady, spiritually speaking, and he repeated this very simple self-same formula, whose transport to Oswald I just described. Just like that, nothing more. But the man on the bed took his hat and said, No, I'm just fine gone. He said, You fellas know what you're talking about. He said you've been through the mill all right, but you're not so bad as I am. I don't dare go out of here. I was drunk every time I went out of there on the way home. I'm afraid it's too late for the life of me. And he said, you know, I'm a man who has faith in God, but very obviously God hasn't any faith in me. Well, we said to him, may we come back tomorrow? Oh, yes, he said I'd like to talk with you tomorrow, although I don't think it's much use. Well, on a morrow we came again. As we entered the room, the man's wife was sitting at the foot of his bed looking at him and saying, how you were changed. What is God in you? And he turned to Washington and said, there they are. They are the people who understand. And then he went on to relate how during the night his hopelessness had changed to hope. How perhaps he too might be released from his cross. And then as he resolved to practice our simple precepts and abandon himself to God, something more than hope came, which had now swelled into a mighty assurance. So the man on the bed sat up, and he said, Please fetch me my clothes. We're going to get up and go out of there. So area number three rose from its bed and he walked out of there and he hasn't had a drink to this day. So then was the first full storm. So a tiny flame started to burn, now a blank beam, shedding its light throughout the world, ever distanced these heads. Indeed, we might explain what that God brought. Now then, what of our adolescence? What are the lessons of that? And where do we find And where do we find ourselves today? And what might this future hold in store for us? So well do I remember the day in Smithing's living room when we knew that this thing was worse. And we said to ourselves, We must call a meeting here in Akron and see what we can do. three years of hard work to produce 40 recoveries. Within gunshot of us, men and women are dying. How shall we let them know? Well, I being a businessman, a promoter, immediately began to think in terms of big money and big organizations. And I said to myself, well, don't we need we need hospitals. These hospitals don't like drugs. We should have our own chain of hospitals, and they can produce all the money we need. Look at the money these dry outyards make. And then since it has taken such a long time to bring about these few recoveries, shouldn't each of us get subsidized and become missionaries temporarily, and go out to other cities and stop these thefts. And then Smitty and I reflected, well, certainly we ought to make a record of this, some kind of a pamphlet or book in which we could set down our experience and how this thing has worked so far. Well, I'll never forget that evening when faithful decisions were taken in C. Henry Williams' living room. C. Henry was no drunk, but what a friendly wife. There must have been some aching on his presence. I went on enthusiastically about these great plans, and I saw the faces of my fellows at fault. And they began to say to me, Bill, if we bring money into this thing, it's not as important. If we hire people to do this thing, it's going to perfect more. Can't ask for a book? Well, who's going to write books and what we quarrel about then? Well, there was great force in what those people said, and there is still great force to it. They held up a warning thing. Well, I say to the two little beans, you know I'm a pretty good salesman. I began to argue. The message reported me. He said, but we have to do something. We at least have to say it. Otherwise our message will get gobbled. It will get distorted. Haven't alfaholics at a great distance got a right to know what has happened here? So the conclusion of the meeting was that if I thought we needed money, I'd start the back of New York and raise it where there was supposed to be plenty. And having very big ideas and full enthusiasm, I got home and immediately besought myself with the Rockefeller Foundation. I figured there'd be plenty to throw there. But the Rockefellers Foundation wasn't interested. They said there was a depression on, they felt a little fired up. Besides, this new movement I described of forty people didn't seem to have any special plans of occasion. It wasn't exactly religious, it wasn't exactly a medical, it wasn't exactly scientific, it wasn't exactly educational. It really didn't fit in any capital. Well, money for hospitals and missionaries and books. Nothing happened. Until one day, I happened to stand in the office of my brother-in-law who was a doctor. He'd heard these complaints of mine before. He said, uh, why don't you step in and talk to Dr. Shirley Wynn? She has an office nearby and used to be the commissioner of health here in New York. He would understand understand what you're talking about." So I talked to him. I found myself doing talking with Shirley Wynn, and he said yes to me. He said, I have a feeling this has great power. And like yourself, I feel that this means there is tremendous amount of money or will with time. Now he said, how about the Rockefeller Foundation? And I said, no, no. He he said, I've got a better one. He said, oh, it's the foundation. They really wouldn't understand this thing. He says, the man who would really understand is John D. Rockefeller himself. Well, I said, doctor, that's fine, but what about an introduction? Maybe you could give me an introduction to the Prince of Wales. How do we reach John D., Rockefeller? And just then, my brother-in-law spoke up and he said, When I was a young fellow going to school, I used to know a girl. And that girl had an uncle, and I think he was somehow connected with the Rockefeller charity. I don't even know if he was alive. I don' t know if they would even remember my name. But suppose I call up Mr. John D. Rockefeller's office and see if there is such a man around. So he made a simple call on the phone to Mr. John Deese's personal office. The voice of Mr. W.S. Richardson, one of the greatest friends that society will ever have, came on the line. He said to my brother-in-law, Where is it you've been? Leonard, all these years. I'm so glad to hear it. Unlike me, my brother in law is a man of very few words. So he said quite abruptly, Richard and I have a relative here who thinks he can do something for alcoholics. We'd like to tell you this story. May we come over? And said the old man, why surely, said walked right over. So we soon find ourselves going up 56 stories, walked into Mr. John D.'s private office, and there it says, dear old man Richard. He listened attentively to the story about She said, I'm deeply interested. I have some friends around here who I think might be interested. Can't we have a meeting? Oh, what a sign of relief I'm raised, I said. My Lord, now the big money is really in sight. And the old man said to me, he said, I'll be glad to tell Junior about this. Meaning Mr. John Dee Jr.? He said, won't you have lunch with me? I said, why not? He said. Well, I don't know. I don' t know. I don t know what he's talking about. said, my Lord, now the big money is really in his pocket. And the old man said to me, he said, I'll be glad to tell Junior about this, meaning Mr. John D. Junior. He said, won't you have lunch with me? Well, I felt that from over, I was really doing very well. So I had lunch with him. In the fall of 1937, there was a little meeting. Some of the alcoholic commanders came, I think there was one from Cleveland, some of the New Yorkers. And Mr. Richardson and several of Mr. Rockefeller's friends and associates met in John D.'s personal boardroom. And I thought to myself, now folks, our money troubles are over. Well each of us told our story. That's all there was to it. The same simple story. And then Mr. Scott, chairman at the Riverside Church, spoke up and he said, Well what is your media? And with becoming reluctant I let him know that it was mine. And he said but aren't you afraid that you will professionalize this thing? Isn't this purely a work of goodwill? We admitted that it was wise, but we said also we certainly have to have at least a book of some kind. We had to have, at least, a little money. And the single thing, ladies and gentlemen, is that we ought to have some money. And one of them came out to Akron where Smithy was a little hardener up at the moment and where the first group had started and where there was a typical community situation. He came out to Akron and went over A.A. with a fine tooth comb, because we still didn't have the name there yet. He came back and he made a report to Mr. Rockefeller that we ought to have $50,000 right at once, just at the start. Open a rat's home in Akron. We put Smithy in as a doctor. That will explain it. A model for the others. And naturally, there'd be plenty of money for book publishing, And we might probably get a few missionaries. Well, as I have often observed, AA has many, many founders. Time after time, the figure of Providence has laid his hand on a person who has altered the whole course of this world. And just now, the hands of Providence were touching Mr. John D. Roscoe. He looked at that report and he said to his friend Dick, Dick, aren't you afraid that the money will spoil it? Aren't you crazy for financial arguments? He said, I'll put a little bit, a few dollars in the Riverside Church Treasury that you can draw on to help these two men out. But he said, don't come back and ask me for any more. He said we mustn't spoil this thing. We must. Ah, on what a splendor is treasure kept in the... hell. Mr. Rockefeller at this visit has told me that from the beginning this work engaged his every interest. Nothing more affecting has ever caused his life. And he who has made a life worth of giving away money, that he should say for once, this time I won't give. Well, out of lack of us alcoholics to raise our own money to publish a book. Stories with it very nicely. Stories of soup from here. Stories in New York. Amount of friends chipping in small amounts. In subscription money, we finally got the job done. A periodical of national circulation published a piece and then changed its mark. So at the end of four years, when the book of justice appeared, The book itself would say, but every one of us was broke. A.A. was very, very poor, and thank God that was so. We had a hard struggle through 1939. In that year, however, the cream dealer in this town caused A.M. by his good tidings to grow so fast here they proved that we could become large. we could become strong. We could recover in numbers. That was the great deal of that year. In 1940, Mr. Rockefeller, who we hadn't heard from since 37, suddenly said, I'd like to give a dinner to tell my friends about this Alcoholics Anonymous book. Again, we thought our money troubles are over. Mr. Richardson bought into a trustee meeting the list of the guests. I made a quick calculation, and I said, Gee, these guys will end up to about two billion dollars. What do you want? But again, Mr. Rosenthaler gave them his salary. And when the dinner was over, his son Nelson, speaking on his behalf, got up and he said, My father, who was ill tonight, wants me to say that this is one of the most affecting things that ever crossed my life. But fortunately, gentlemen, said Nelson Rockefeller, this is not a loan movement that needs money. And the $2 billion got up and walked right out of the door. Ah, so our destiny has been affected through meth. Then the next thing you know, the Saturday Post published, and our great ghost began. In the days since, we have had a joyful but strenuous experience of learning to live and work together, to relate ourselves wisely to money, questions of questions, questions of power to the world outside. Out of this experience we have been involved in this tradition of alcoholics anonymous. Oh what great changes our first ideas. Our very first position today says that common welfare comes first in all matters touching our unity, for without unity there can be little or no recovery. We say in any area, in the second position, that no human being has to be an authority over us. Our only authority is to be found in a loving God expressing himself through our good conscience. Our leaders are but fussy servants, and they do not govern. On membership, what a tremendous turnabout. In the early days we had membership rules which were leisure. We feared all sorts of situations and people. We were constantly talking about the pure alcohol, whatever that is. But now it's all changed. The doors are wide open. We want to be all-inclusive, never exclusive. So today, a man or a woman suffering alcoholism is a member so long as they stay there. What a great reversal experience that Bush was. Typically, it's very much like Bush at your seat. We used to think that we We ought to have a lot of money, and the best could be somebody else's money. Today we realize that in society our earning power is good. Our expenses are special. Of course we'll pay our own bills. For once, we shall be givers to the community and not takers. There was a time when I used to toil with the idea of running alcoholics on hours from down in New York. It was a very pleasant thought until I learned about it. But today every AA group can manage its affairs as it likes, provided they don't seriously interfere with the general welfare of others. Oh, how different that all is. Even our original foundation would try to educate and to restart. To do all sorts of things, I remember, except lobby for full business. But now that's all changed, we know that this society of honor has but one single purpose, And that is to carry the message face-to-face with the other outlaws. We cannot land in finance, endorse other projects. We know we must stick to that sole aim for which God seems to have appointed. Oh, how fine it can be! People are saying, hey, it's getting to be organized. It's getting to be big business. Lots of quarreling about money. Yes, there is a lot of quarrel about money but why such a thing? Here in the city of Cleveland maybe 4,000 alcoholics and their within ten miles of this hall. The big business consists in passing a hand in mean places to pay the heat and light of the means. The Big Expanse, which runs all the time, is that a true luxury in a little bit of an office? No. That is very important business, but it fix it. Down in New York, here is a movement of 100,000. We have exactly five alcoholics employed down there. Not as mercenaries either. Judge or secretary is doing, if I might say, a wonderfully good job in helping to propagate this thing to guard its public relations. to reach to its limits. Out in the back room we've got another dozen people who ship books, who keep track of the accounts, who type the letters. Is that big business for a fellowship of 100,000 people? No. Not big business, but very important business. We realize then that these services, organized as they are, do not represent an organization of the AA movement. There are merely a few chores which have to be done in order to keep our weapons straight with the world outside, to issue our literature, and to facilitate good 12-step work. Services at that time were mostly carried on for the benefit of the men who still don't know. We think we owe them that much. So our services are organized to that extent, but you and I know that Alcoholics Anonymous will never be organized. Now there's another tradition we have which does with controversy. In any age, you'll find lots of controversy. Sometimes, to put it mildly, we act like hell. We can be very cruel sometimes. We can very thoughtful, thoughtless. Sometimes we gossip maliciously. sometimes we quarrel violently over a small business. Oh, yes, this is no perfect society. We have many centers. But from the very beginning, as told by some deep and sure instincts, this society has known that it can never quarrel over the issues of politics, sectarian religion, alcohol reform and the like. I have never heard in AA a bitter religious or political As we get larger and the forces which terrify this modern world come in upon us, we shall have to be ever more on the guard against these things. But through these real threats I am confident we shall never succumb. It's not a matter of relating ourselves to the world outside. No alcoholics are the greatest promoters in the world. And yet isn't it a remarkable fact that out of all of us salesmen, you can't find five people in the whole society of Alcoholics Anonymous who get their names and pictures printed in the newspapers nowadays? We realize that we must place principles before personalities. We see anonymity as a token of our group's humility, as the greatest protection that we have. I must suspect that I myself once upon a time disagreed with every single one of these positions to some extent or other. I have violated them, nearly all. At times, at other times I have attempted to violate them and then the group constant has spoken to me The man said, no, Bill. The group would say, you can't do this, claims the wife. What you propose is good, perhaps, but it is not good enough. Aren't you the fellow who has forever said, sometimes the good is the enemy of the best? I think one of the great things that's happened in AA is our change that'll do for us both. In the first place, though some might think this is a success story, it really isn't. We deeply realize that this is not our success. This is God's success. We see a new youth, or troubled prophet. This whole meeting, to be sure, has been a time of great joy. All around us, we have heard stories of martyrs and abusers. One success is followed upon another. Economic importance. But life in IA isn't always like that. At the table last night, where I happened to sit, I guess we drew by luck, but it was a good idea. A man sat there and in no self-pity at all told how his wife was suffering from that strange kind of disease multiple sclerosis, a creeping paralysis. And how in our simple principle she had found a new relief. And how now she was getting somewhat on her feet. Another told how when his son was killed in an accident, he had drawn at once to an A&E feeling that that's where he belongs. And in the midst of our joy, this assembly has had one great story. One of our members, a great worker in Iowa, made the journey here to see Alcoholics Anonymous some days. And the day that we confirmed his position, he of a heart attack here in the Cleveland Hotel. Now, coming out of the traditional meeting, I met his widow. There she was at an AA meeting. And she looked at me and she smiled just a little And she said, you know, I think he'd want it that way. Now, we are coming to regard trouble in a very different light. Quite a time as we say to ourselves, how can we accept this? How can we deal with this? For if God gives us the grace to demonstrate, then this trouble may be a lesson for us. I'm sure all of us are deeply affected by this lay that Drake said. Here in America some of us think lays are rather silly. But this one was. It is a token of their participation in what is perhaps a very historic moment. Sent from an island in the distance of Scripture, a token of affection, of appreciation sent by those who will never come to any AA or even an E.A. meeting off their island, for that land was sent to us by the alcoholic lepers of a colony near Hawaii. Ah yes, God has been great and good for us. May we all wish to be worthy of his trust. And some days the need for our society may pass, and when it has met that need, and if we are worthy of it, I hope God may look down upon us and say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Perhaps there is no better way, at this time of parting, for me to conclude than to read to you the last brief paragraph written in Alcoholics Anonymous twelve years ago. Abandon yourselves to God as you understand us. Admit your faults to him and to yourselves. Clear away the wreckage of yourself. Give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit And you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy death. May God bless you and shoot you until then. God's name is God, the life of the devil, and the honor of the dead. To the one who makes a difference in the lives of the living, and to the one that is the best, and to you who are the best in the world, may we all have a good day today, a good life today, a good time today, and a good night. God bless you. Thanks for watching!