The Difference Between General Service and the Third Legacy – 1967 – Jim M.

Those of you who could not be at this fine meeting, Jim was introduced by Roy Ayers of Oklahoma City. I'm sure. I was especially pleased to be selected to introduce these two speakers this morning because I have known him a good long time and know quite a few things about him. This next dude, I had to spend, let's see, eight meetings. I had to look at him across the table up there at those trustee meetings in New York and listened to his talk to show you the kind of a guy he is. I never did hear him talk but once, and I want to say here that I wasn't one of the ones that recommended him for this thing either because I just heard him this one time up there, and up there they just let you talk so long and boy, you sit down up there in New Jersey. you know. I don't know if he talks like he writes or not. He has written to me quite a few times, and his idea of a short note is two sheets single-spaced on the typewriter written on both sides. That's a short notice, he told me. Now, one time he wrote me a letter about something he was a little bit concerned about, and it was six pages, same thing, single the space, both sides of the sheet, 12 pages in all. If he does talk as he writes, we probably have to have luncheon served here too and call off the other meeting. He's the type of a fellow that up there, he was generally known as an eager beaver. He wanted to get his nose and everything, you know, and he did. And I guess the reason we got along so well, he was, we were sort of diametrically opposite. He's an eager beaver, you known, wanting to work and this and that. Years ago, I found out I was allergic to work and he, I just hated to be associated with him too much, afraid that allergy would crop out on me, you know? Just association. But he has come from California. You heard his dear wife yesterday, and I am happy to give you my very good friend and a trustee from the western district out there who is just going off the board, will officially go off theboard in July, and who has made, in my opinion, one of the best trustees that I have known. I'll give you Jim M. Thank you, Roy, I think. The reason, when you get right down to it, that I had to write six pages for Roy was because it took six pages to get through his head what it normally would take only a half a page to write to somebody else. I didn't sleep much last night. I had a nightmare from the time I went to bed until I got up. And usually you think of a dream or a nightmare when you wake up the next morning you say, I can't remember what was in it or what happened. Well, I do. The people who were in it, I remember very distinctly. All night long there was a parade back and forth in front of me. Clancy, Marguerite, Marge, Earl, Dave. Well I thought if they got through there once that's all right, they could spoil my sleep. But then they started back again And that was Dave, Earl, Marge, Marguerite, Clancy. You try to sleep with those people on the program ahead of you and I can tell you I'm just about half awake this morning. I feel like Jackie Coogan trying to follow Ben Crosby, Dean Martin, and Carol Burnett. Then you heard my wife talk yesterday and you can realize why I always feel, or am reminded of these Rexall one-cent sales. When I go out with Marge, because I always have the feeling that when I ask Marge this is one of these one- cent sales, you know where you buy one item and then for another penny you get two? Well, I always had this feeling that they asked Marge to speak at the conference than for about a penny's worth of extra urging you to get me too. And on top of that, to make it even worse, they had the opportunity to tell what they thought about A.A. and the Twelve Steps and the twelve traditions and their personal story, and they don't even give me a chance to give a rebuttal this morning because they said I couldn't give my story, that I was supposed to talk on service. So I'm kind of in a heck of a mess this morning. I've been waiting a long time to come to Oklahoma to tell you how close Roy and I came to getting into the archives of AA. Now, you people look at Roy, and he's a picture of dignity. I know something about him that you don't. Lucille might, but you don' t. Because we did come close here about four years ago. were asked out to Alan Bachman's Long Island, I guess you'd call it, estate. I'm going to tell it anyway, Roy. And so they said that everybody should go swimming. Well, everybody else on the board chickened out, but not Roy and I. Now, Roy, I don't think, could be accused of using Slenderella. He's not a good example of it. But anyway, we decided that Roy andI were going to go swimming Now, this is kind of a fancy beach out there, and they had a lot of good-looking women in bikinis and some of these fellows from Muscle Beach out there. And here come Roy and I walking down from Alice Fitts. Roy had borrowed a pair of trunks. He had a pair street shoes on. And I don't know whether you know this, but he has a pair of the reddest, reddest socks you ever saw that come clear up to his knees. And there he walked down there. But this was offset by me because I was walking right beside him, a picture of masculine muscle, all 155 pounds of me. You see, I'm the wiry, slender, lean type. Skinny was what I was. And Nell Wayne said that if we could ever have gotten a picture of Roy and I coming down to the beach that day and put it into the archives, that possibly in the future we got too many nominees for trustees. We could just show this picture of what happens to a trustee and probably we wouldn't have nearly as many nominees as we do. But I'm just kidding about Roy. He has meant a great deal to me back on the board in our meetings. He has taught me many things. He has thought me that it is possible to put principles before personalities. I think this is something that Catherine is going to enjoy, finding out that it istossible to put principals before personalities Because Roy and I have sat across the table at the board meeting, and I know that mentally I used a hammer on his head. And I don't know what he was going to use on me, but I can assure you that we were thoroughly in complete and total disagreement. And we told each other so too, right at the Board meeting. But the funny part was that after the Board Meeting was over, Roy andI walked to the front, and Roy said, Let's go have our cup of coffee. and that was as much as the discussion or the argument it ended right there there was no personalities in it whatsoever I suppose maybe I better get started talking as Catherine said she talked a little bit fast I have to talk fast too I wanted to impress a group like this I think it's necessary that as a member of the board that you do to impress a group like this. You've heard of man of distinction? Well, I'm a man of decision. Now, some of you thought when I got up from the table here and went out the door that I had to go to the men's room, and I did. But actually, I went back there because I am a man of decision, and so I'm going to make a decision back there whether I was going to use fast teeth are polygrips. Just in case you didn't believe that, I took the chairman of the conference along with me and he'll tell you that I had my teeth out there and they're solidly locked in now, but they only last so long. But see, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was told that I would be identifying with a group with a common problem. And I like to bring this out because every time I mention fast teeth or loose plates and so on, I look out through the audience, and I can always see people going like this. And this makes me feel right at home because I know that I'm amongst a bunch of people with a common problem, loose plates. And so this makes we feel right as home and certainly at ease. In fact, I feel so comfortable, I think I'm gonna stick my foot in my mouth right off the bat rather than wait about 15 minutes. I was asked to speak this morning for a few minutes, and it takes a lot of guts to do that, to ask me that. Then I talk on the delegates and their response, their relationship to New York and World Service Headquarters. The funny part is they didn't tell me what kind of a delegate I was supposed to talk about or to. I wonder if I'm supposed to talk about the future or potential delegates, and that includes everybody in here. Or am I supposed to be talking about Woody, the current delegate? Or am i supposed to talking about the ex-delegate? Or am supposed to talked about the XX delegate? And you've got one right here. Well this leaves the field wide open for whatever I want to say about service because they didn't identify the delegates. Then he asked me if I would talk about general service. this is going to be a little difficult for me because I don't think that there is such a thing as general service. Now, that ought to get me out of the state of Oklahoma real quick. Evidently, your chairman didn't know that the title of my service talk is normally Let Us Eliminate General Service. That's a good start, isn't it? It's kind of a dirty way to keep everybody here in the room until I get through talking, because the people who have been against it and are not interested in service are going to stay, because then at the end of the meeting they can look around at the people who have tried to give them the message of service and say, Well, I told you so. There isn't no such thing. And the people who worked so hard like Larry and Roy and Woody and all the rest of them, they are going to line up at the end of the table here to punch me in the nose, and it will be a long line. So everybody is going to stay here until I get through talking, whether you like it or not. I suppose I might water this down just a little bit by saying that we may talk a little about the third legacy of service, but not general service. I think that most of you can accept that maybe they are one and the same thing. But maybe there might be a misunderstanding of the difference or the sameness between or among General Service and Third Legacy, because this is a very real thing to me, the Third Legacy of AA. Whether you know it or not, you or your counterpart in AA accepted the Third Legacy of service in 1955 in St. Louis. And there are many people including Bill who are sitting back there wondering when we are going to put it into action and understand and be able to pass it on to the newcomers who are going have the future of AA in their hands. But some place along the line, these words of Third Legacy of Service and General Service got all mixed up, typically alcoholic, and they began to be misinterpreted and they started using words like Third Legacy, General Service, World Service, Local Service Conference, National delegates, GSR, committeemen, and then we wonder why the newcomer gets a little bit confused. They're all the same thing, I grant you that. But it's the funniest thing to me to watch an uninformed committeeman or delegate try to explain something that he doesn't understand and that actually doesn't exist. It's real interesting. And I know it's interesting because I tried to do it, and I found out it's impossible. Kind of funny, too, because in 1955 in St. Louis, when Bill gave us the third legacy of service, it was the very essence of simplicity, and that was the way he meant it to be. It was very believable. It was sehr realistisch. It included everyone in Alcoholics Anonymous, not just the politicians. Have you ever heard that word in general service in Oklahoma, the politicians? Everybody felt real good. You had a real good feeling in St. Louis. It was just like the same spirit that you get once a year at Christmastime. And it seems like after we left St. Lewis, we forgot that spirit the same way that we forget it on the first of January and go back to having to live in the world as Clancy says and we forget about this good feeling we had during the Christmas vacation. Well, that's enough of that. I suppose if you were to ask somebody to come clear from California, put the tag of trustee on them, you could expect that for the time that he's at the podium you would hear a dignified interpretation of our fellowship with a very emotional message. Well, you won't. And if you came here this morning with that in mind, you might just as well leave now. I lost what dignity I might have had the night that I found out I was going to be on the Board of Trustees. Because I can remember that night Marge and I were waiting. I knew that I wasn't going to get it, and I knew the telephone wasn't gonna ring. But she will recall that we gave directions at the house that the first person that got close to that telephone from 2 o'clock in the afternoon was gonna get clobbered. But we weren't interested, you understand that? But I was doing the dishes that night, and the phone rang. The five delegates from California called me up and said, Jim, you're it. Well, Marge and I walked about that far off the ground naturally for about five or ten minutes. You can't help it. I'm sure that Catherine must have done the same thing. And then I went back to my dishes. And all of a sudden the incongruity of this thing struck me, and I turned around to Marge and I looked her right in the eye. And this takes a lot of guts, I can tell you. At least it does for me to look her in the eyes. And I said, Marge, this is completely wrong. You can't expect a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous to be doing dishes. And Marge looked at me and she says, Jim, dear, and this scares the living daylights out of them, but she starts out that way too because I know what's coming. She says, Jim, dear, if you don't get back to those dishes, that rinse water is going to get awfully, awfully cold. And what dignity I might have had went down the drain with the dishwater at that time and I've never regained it. I can't give you an interpretation of our fellowship and what it really means because my sponsor would never let me interpret the AA program. I think this is one of the internal diseases of Alcoholics Anonymous, is that we're a great bunch of interpreters. The 12 steps say this, but let me interpret for you what they really mean. The 12 traditions say this but let my interpret what they mean. What they really means. And then you hear that guy talk and then the next guy says let me tell you what this guy who interpreted the 12 steps said. And then you listen to the interpretations of the interpretations until pretty soon it becomes so complicated that you don't know what the 12 steps were in the first place. Now, Christianity got in this trap. Personally, I think, and I'm not a reader of the Bible particularly, but I have been told that the message that Christ gave to the world is a very simple one. And then somebody interpreted what Christ said. And then somebody interpreted them. And down through the ages, there have been interpretations of the interpretations of the interpretations. And finally, at least in our church, they're getting back from the interpretations to what Christ really said, and it was rather simple. But you want to remember that this took 2,000 years for us to get back to the simple message that Christ gave to us. Well, alcoholics can't wait that long. And so it's very, very important to me that inasmuch as we have a fairly simple basic interpretation, let's keep it that way and not have to wait for two thousand years. I'm not going to be around then, and I want to stay sober in the meantime. I think that all of the Speakers have identified themselves. Roy said I was Jim M., or Jim Masterson, as your program says. I have heard people say, well, I don't want to divulge my anonymity. My name is Jim M. but my wife's name is Marge Masterson. But this program, if you have it, is the first time I've ever seen it in print! I am supposed to be one of the guardians of the traditions of AA, and one of them, of course, is anonymity. And so I'll just say that I'm Jim M., and I'm from the West Coast. That's for those of you who adhere to the principle, strictly to the Principle of Anonymity. However, I'm ambidextrous, and for those people who don't subscribe strictly to anonymity at the level of a meeting such as this, I'd like to inform you that I am Jim Masterson. I live at 2525 Landwood Way in Carmichael, California. I work for the Department of Motor Vehicles. I have a full set of upper and lower teeth. I owe the CSEA credit union $2,316, I think it is. All payments are up to date. My wife is 47 years old. You can see that I don't normally have her along with me. so maybe I can counteract this by saying that she looks as good in a bathing suit now as she did when she was 25 years old I hope that gets me off the hook and finally we use pink tissue in our bathroom well why not I mean there's no point in my not coming out and telling you these things because if you want to know all you have to do is turn to the person on this side of you or that side of you and they'll tell you a lot more juicy details about me than I can express from up here. Now, I'm told that I couldn't bring this out because there may be newcomers here in the group. And after all, we do guarantee their anonymity. I don't know what, I can't quite figure this out. What's the matter. Do we think the newcomers are stupid? I don't. For some reason, I like to think that these newcomers are pretty smart. I honestly believe that the newcomer wants the truth. I also believe they have the ability to take it. We tell the newcomors not to try to kid these people in Alcoholics Anonymous, but the thing that we forget is that there's two sides to that coin. I think it's about time we wake up and take the pink gauze off the picture of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we try to shove down the newcomer's throat, look at the other side of the coin, and say, let's don't try to kid the newcomers either. They have the ability to take the facts, and they want the truth. Now, I know that some of the old-timers are going to hate me for this. I'm going to include myself as an old-timer. I don't feel that in a group like this there are so many people who have been sober longer than I have, but I don' t exactly consider myself a newcomer either. So you're going to hate my for saying that I have observed that the people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous today, the newcomers, are almost as smart as you and I were when we come in. In fact, I would go even further and say that there are many of them who are just as smart as you and I. I might just as well tell the truth and say that most of them that are coming in today are a heck of a lot smarter than we ever were. And I'll tell you, it keeps us working. At least it does out in our area, and I presume the same thing goes here in Oklahoma. It keeps us them, to keep them confused with a lot of double talk, complicated interpretations and unrealistic pictures of our AA program. It's a lot of work. And then we always rely on the old cliché. We don't know what we are telling them. We don' t tell them that naturally, but when they ask us some simple questions and we can't gives the answer, we always look at them and say, well, don't worry about it because when you're sober as long as I have been, you will understand. And then we wonder why they give us that funny look and walk away. No, I'm afraid that I have to say that we can't guarantee the newcomers, and I don't mind saying it out here as a guardian of the tradition of anonymity, that we cannot guarantee the anonymity of anyone coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. I think the best example of this is a dentist who lives across the street from us. It took him three years to get across the streets. We've used his swimming pool for three years, but finally one night he made it across the street. He says, �Look, Jim, what's this program that you're going to? What time does the meeting start?� And I say, �At eight o'clock.� He says. �All right, I'll pick you up at a quarter to eight.� He says, however, there is one question I want to ask as a professional man. Isn't there a chance that my anonymity might be divulged and my fellow workers will find out that I'm in AA? And I say, There sure is. He thought about it a little bit, and he said, Well, I might just as well go anyway. I said, You might just so well, because this is a calculated risk you are going to have to take if you come to Alcoholics Anonymous. When I talk to a newcomer, this is exactly what I tell them. They say, isn't somebody going to say that I might be in Alcoholics Anonymous? And I say, this is very, very possible. We in AA will do everything we can to respect your anonymity. But it's a calculated risk you're going to have to take if you want what we've got. And the funny part about this dentist now, he's been sober about a year and a half, and now he goes along with his fellow doctors and he gets real mad because they won't ask him why he don't drink so that he can tell them that he's an alcoholic or not. Now I realize this has nothing to do with the subject I'm supposed to talk on and I may never get to that as far as that goes I'm just going to talk until my time runs out and then quit. But the only reason I bring this out is because Roy or somebody else might not have warned you that I am not known for my tact and my diplomacy. You know what tact is? That's the ability a person has who, when they get real mad at somebody and want to tell them where to go, does such a beautiful job of it that the fellow looks forward to the trip. And I don't happen to have that qualification. If I tell somebody where to go, there is no doubt about the ultimate intended destination. I'm not particularly proud of this reputation, but this is the way that it was given to me, and this is the only way that I can pass it on. Somebody up in Oregon asked what kind of a guy is this speaker that we have got coming up, and a friend of mine thought a little bit, and he says, well, he says, I suppose I could express it best. Jim is the kind of person who if you were to walk up to him and ask him what he honestly thinks of you, the darn fool will tell you. And this is very true, and the only answer that I have to that they don't want to know, don't ask. I won't volunteer it. I was told early in AA by my sponsor that I could say anything that I wanted to as long as I didn't volunteer. This is the most stupid thing I have ever seen for somebody to walk up to somebody else and ask them their opinion on a particular issue involved, and if the guy doesn't, in his answer, say the things that the original asker wanted her to say, they get mad at him for popping off. Well, the only reason I bring this out, and I want it clarified, because I want you all to know that whatever I do say in the few minutes that I have left, I didn't volunteer to come to Oklahoma. I was invited. I also know that I'm going to be misquoted, misinterpreted, quoted out of context, and this is perfectly all right. People have been doing this to me for years. When I leave, they don't sleep for many nights. I don't lose a wink of sleep, I can assure you. So if you don't agree with me, don't let it worry you a bit because I am known as the Dr. Cain of Alcoholics Anonymous. And Dr. Kaine wasn't all bad and I think even Plancy would agree with that because I had a co-partner in the suggestion that we give Dr. Kane a medal for his contribution to Alcoholics Anonymous. And do you know the one who agreed with me? Bill W. Dr. Cain probably done more for Alcoholics Anonymous a couple years ago than anybody has done in the last ten years. He made us take a darn good, honest look at ourselves. Now I don't say that I agree with his article. don't get that impression at all. There's much of it that I don't. But I think many of us saw ourselves in Dr. Kane's article, and I think that probably your reaction is about the same as mine. I got real mad. Nobody can tear a part like that. And boy, I went on for a couple days, and all of a sudden my face started to get red because I could pick myself out in exactly what he was saying in his article. And I think there were a lot of people all over the United States. If this weren't true, you say we're not interested in a Dr. Keynes of Alcoholics Anonymous who criticized our fellowship, then why is it? And I think this thing probably was true in Oklahoma. It wasn't California. Why is it then if he didn't have anything to say that people drove all over town to the next city in case the local newsstand was out to get a copy of Harper's Magazine? And yet you couldn't get those same people to walk across the room to buy a 15-cent sponsorship pamphlet. He must have had something that you and I wanted, and evidently it might be a good look at ourselves. And so I'm not particularly ashamed of being called a Dr. Kane of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been warned that I'm a little bit too blunt. I've had a lot of advice in my time in AA. In the beginning, I was warned for being too outspoken and too blunt. I was worn because I went overboard for Alcoholics Anonymous. Many people in the beginning they said, Jim, you're getting a little too much AA. I'm still worn to this day after 16 years and by many of these same people. These people are much smarter than I am. And so I should listen to them because maybe I am going overboard. And they warn me again. every time that they come off of a drunk, they warn me that I'm getting too much AA. But I'm real happy to be here. It also gives me the opportunity to meet Catherine, and I must say that she is a much more attractive representative as a trustee than you had previously. i have built up resentment however i have long said that we should have a lady regional trustee on the board and they get one and i don't know whether they're trying to tell me something or not but they get on after i retire and i resent this very much but i can assure you that she's in for a four-year spiritual experience i have a personal reason for being happy to be here also though, because this is my last official act, if you want to call it. It's not an official act, but official participation as a member of the Board of Trustees. Because right after this conference is over, Marge and I are going to retire, if we can call it that, and put AA in its proper place. My family has been very patient for 16 years, waiting for Pop to get it out of his system, paying the debt that he felt that he owed to AA for what has been given to them. They've been very patient and we're looking forward to getting back to the Little League and the church activities. Incidentally, I'm one of the coaches on the Little League, and we are eight and one now. We have won eight and lost one. And the funny part, I might as well come out and bring this right out in the open too. The only games that they lost was when the manager wasn't there and I was the coach. But we're looking forward to living what we call a balanced life with vacations. Our family hasn't had a vacation for five years. I'm looking forward playing golf. We're looking forward to many things, because this is the reason that I came to AA. I think this is the reason Marge has been as active and as interested in Al-Anon and AA as she has then, because we had a reason to do it. We wanted to get back to a balanced way of living. And come July 1st, we're going to have that opportunity, and at that time I look forward to becoming an elder statesman. Well, don't laugh. I mean, an elder statementsman is just simply a bleeding deacon that ran out of blood. And believe me, I qualify. However, the family is not the subject of what I'm supposed to say here this morning and I'm way behind time here and I know that Roy is getting all itchy here, but it's a little bit hard for me not to bring my family into any talk, whether it's the service talk or whether it was my personal talk because they've been very much a part of it all. Mike, our boy in college who's not particularly ashamed of his dad anymore. At one time he was and now he's not ashamed at all to tell the kids at college that his dad has been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for many years and at one time was a drunk and is now an alcoholic, a sober one. Marcia, our 13-year-old daughter, and I hope we live through her. The only reason I bring these things out is that Marge and I can qualify that we have been subjected to every trial of any AA family as it could be. Marcy is the one who four years ago thought it was very unfair of Alcoholics Anonymous, after all her daddy had done for AA, to ask him to sit on a board for the next four years. And then we have Mark. When he was eight years old, he gave Bill W., our founder, what Bill says is the best definition of booze he has ever heard. We were sitting at the table one night and Mark asked, we have a lot of conversation about many things, and one night the word booze was used and Mark said, what booze was. Marge tried to explain, I tried to explain, Mike tried to explain but nothing satisfied her. And finally Mark in between slurps ah he says sissy he says booze is anything that you get out of a bottle it's junkable. So I would much rather talk about Marge and Al-Anon and my family for the few minutes that i have left here but i'm not i won't say that marge caused me to become an alcoholic but she certainly is a he certainly was a part of it she helped it along i won t say that march got me sober got me on board of trustees or anything like that but i can assure you that she was very much a part o f it we'll soon have been married 24 years so there's a reasonable expectation about on board the trustees or any thing like that but i can assure you that she was very much a part of it we'll soon have been married 24 years so there's a reasonable expectation that will continue to stay together i know that one of the girls back in california said marge after what you have gone through after she had heard what a hell that i put mars through she says there must have been an undying love a deep emotional contact with this man to go through this and stay with him through all of it and Marge thought as she'd known and he does very slowly and she says well I can assure you it wasn't love we just couldn't afford to get a divorce poverty is a blessing to many alcoholic families in fact I think that poverty has kept more families together than love ever did in AA. I don't want to neglect mentioning Al-Anon either, because I happen to be, as Marge said, a devotee of Al-A-Nan. I have said it many times that the Al- Anon program, emerging as it is into a fellowship, has had the greatest impact on Alcoholics Anonymous since the first step, and I firmly believe it. I know that this meeting is supposed to be devoted to Third Legacy. What do you think Al-Anon is? This is a part of the Third Legacy of service. What do think the talk that Dave gave Friday night is, or Earl, or Marge, or Margarethe, or Clancy? This is all a part the Third legacy of service, however if you had advertised ahead of time that this was going to be a general service or third legacy meeting that they were talking. I wonder if you would have had quite as good a crowd as you did. You would have been conspicuous by your absence. But instead of that, we call it an AA conference and everybody comes and they hear the story of third legacy and you've been hearing it up till now. This is all, the third legacy of service and you didn't even know what you were listening to. Maybe this is our problem. We don't understand what the third legacy of service is. We try to separate it. You've got the conference over here, and you've got general service here, and you got Allen on there, andyou've got central offices over here and you' ve got H&I over here. Everybody's competing with each other. And it's no wonder it gets a little bit confused. Maybe we'd better come back to a simple umbrella-type explanation of the Third Legacy, but I think that Al-Anon is very, very much a part of the third legacy of service that was given to us by Bill and St. Louis. The only trouble is that most of the members of AA haven't found that out yet. But I think we'd better wake up and find out or pretty soon we're going to find that the tail is wagging the dog. I'll sum up my feelings about why I feel it's important that we understand and cooperate and work with Al-Anon. As Marge said yesterday, she and I would be the first two in line to argue against the amalgamation or the bringing together of the two fellowships into one. This we very definitely do not want. But for my money, the Al-Ans can best be described as cunning, baffling, and powerful. And one thing I have found out, particularly in the last four years, I think. I'd rather have that power and that cunning on my side rather than against me, I can assure you of that. I know that some of the old-timers get up and say, well, they don't know what alcoholism really is. Well, naturally, they do not know what a good, solid hangover is, but do not tell me that an Al-Anon does not know what alcoholicism is. The only difference between they and me is the fact that the Al-Anon went through the same identical hell that I did except that they had to face it sober and we went out and got drunk and we could run away from it. But by the same token, we don't know the hell that they went through either. So I think it's about time that we get together under the umbrella of service because this is what I think that Bill meant and I'm sure that Lois backed them up in St. Louis in 1955. And so out in our group, and incidentally I'd like to clarify something here if Marguerite doesn't mind here. Out in our groups, MarguERITE sobered up in the group that Marge and I go to. She neglected to bring that out yesterday and I asked her if it was all right being that everybody thought she gave such a tremendous talk yesterday I asked her if it would be all right if I were to tell you people where she got her first solid sobriety and took her last drink. It was in our group at Group 3 on Thursday night. Marguerite will probably have her chance for rebuttal in the lobby afterward. But out in California, at least in our Group and Group 3 in Sacramento, we have the divided type of AA and Al-Anon. We have the open, or let's say closed, Al-Anon meeting. We have a closed AA meeting and then we have an open discussion meeting with AAs and Al Anons all together. Because in Sacramento, at least we go on this premise, that if this is a family problem, If this is a family problem, then we better understand the wife and consider them this way. And we do. We consider in Sacramento in Group 3 that the wife, strangely enough, is a member of the family. She is also a human being. We have some of our best meetings. The only criticism we have is from some of the old-timers who find out that the alcoholic newcomers would rather listen to some of the Al-Anons talk about the first steps than they would at the old times. I'm particularly glad that I'm talking on Sunday morning here, because normally Marge would be at church and the kids would be, and sometimes me too. People have asked me, why do you go to church, Jim? And I guess the only way that I can explain it is that I feel good in church. It's just like getting in, when you come home tired at night from a hot work day and you get in the bathtub and you've got a nice hot bath and you just kind of lay back and relax and you haven't got a worry in the world and nothing bothers you. This is the way that I see it in church We've got to minister. The only trouble is that we have a minister who keeps giving AA talks. And it's a good thing that he is retiring, or he has retired, because sometime on Sunday morning I'm going to embarrass everybody in the Presbyterian Church there in Carmichael. At the end when he says, and God bless you all, and sits down after his sermon, I'm gonna stand up and give him a standing ovation. But I have found out one thing that I would like to pass on to those of you who haven't been around at church lately, and you might not know this, but I have find out in the last four five years. Strangely enough, God spends almost as much time in church as he does in an AA meeting. But one of the sermons that our minister gave here not too long ago gave me the key to what few words I want to say here because I know that I don't have too much more time. said he had a dream and he said in his dream he had died and he was standing in line waiting to get up to this evaluation desk where you present your qualifications whether you're going to go up or what are you going to do down and while i was standing and lying there he realized what he had not done what he could have done if he had wanted to if he let out the left off the ego and the self uh the selfishness what he could have accomplished what he would have accomplished in his life and he would have had a much better chance of going up than down and when he got up to the desk he knew that his qualifications were going to be more indicative of him going down than up and that's when he woke up and i can remember and i think marge can too when dr. Parker stood up there in the pulpit and he said oh god how I prayed because I had a chance to do the things that I haven't done and I thought maybe this is what I have been going through I've been having nightmares actually they're not nightmares about our fellowship now you can call it whatever you want you can call a pessimism you can call it being critical I don't care what it is but it's bothered me because I've had a nightmare and it's with my eyes wide open fully in the daytime it seems to me that a right now is at a turning point I may be wrong I may be dead wrong but it seems to me that it's time that you and I woke up some place along the line since Bill gave us the third legacy of service in 1955 we went to sleep and you and i have been riding the coattails of a reputation that was made for us before he ever came into Alcoholics Anonymous and those first 15 or 20 years and I think it's about time that we wake up and take a good look at ourselves and start making our own reputation or we may not have the opportunity to wake up it may be too late i think that we better get back together again and when i heard dr parker give this story about his dream i realized that this was the uneasy feeling that i've been getting for quite some time and maybe this is where the dr kane part of my reputation comes in because as i go around to different areas i don't have to go to different areas i can go right in my own group and i see the many people who just take aaa for granted see the money people who evidently feel that aa is government subsidized the many ppl who feel that there's a philanthropic organization that's going to run a a for us now and always has and in the future they've forgotten the price that was paid so that you and i could come here on sunday morning in oklahoma and have a wonderful conference like this i get bothered when i see so many people and maybe this is not true in okla home and if this is so forget about it eliminate oklahom and i'm talking about the other states I see so many people involved in trying to solve the problem of alcoholism that they don't have time to talk to a drunk. I've seen people who have tried to make alcoholism so blameless and so socially acceptable, that sometimes I have a feeling that it's almost becoming a status symbol. This is my year for AA and alcoholism. There are far too many of our members. I'm afraid you fall into this category. And I don't think it's their fault. I think maybe it's our fault because we haven't told them where they fit in, the AA. And it worries me to know how many people have not read the big book. How few people have read AA comes of age. And to try to find somebody who has read the 12 concepts written by Bill, and this is the best thing I think that Bill has ever written. Now, maybe these things are of no concern to you at all, but they are to me. Oh, I could go on about the things that worry me about our fellowship today. Maybe, as I say, these things don't worry you, but they do me because in 1990 there's going to be a lot of alcoholics around and I'm concerned about their entry into alcoholic synonymous. but my nightmare or dream if you want to call it always ends up the same way because i look ahead to 1990s the same way as somebody back in 1935 and 1936 looked ahead to 1967 or 1951 when i come into aa they looked ahead and planned and worried about me and about you if you just come into alcoholics anonymous and so it seems to me if I am grateful for what I have been given these 16 years it's about time that I look ahead to 1990 and I do and I see the headlines of the paper I think Clancy jumped the gun last night but I'll steal it again the headlines out of the other paper are alcoholism is the number one killer in 1990 and the experts have said that as long as there are people who need an escape. As long as there are people with pensions who need a socially acceptable escape, we'll always have alcoholics and we'll always have alcoholicism. And then on the back page of this same paper, I read about a possible new approach. And this is kind of a strange new approach to the problem of alcoholism because these people who are in this new approach admit that it's not for everybody. They admit that they're basically interested in the people who have already passed that point of no return. It was all started, this article says, in 1990 by, strangely enough, by a man and a woman who sat down at a table over a cup of coffee. And they found out by talking with each other they both stayed sober. And then brought in another couple and the four of them got together over a cup of coffee and lo and behold all four of us stayed sober and he was this method all over the United States and now there are quite a few hundred in 1990 spread all over the united states they said that they had very strange beliefs because they realized their limitations they realized that they couldn't solve the problems alcoholism that this was not their therefore they weren't expert enough at it. And somebody asked them, well, how are you going to solve the problem of alcoholism? And one of them said, we're going to solve the problems of alcoholism one drunk at a time. And that's what they based their program on. They said that this group of people have no name. They're just a bunch of anonymous drunks. Certainly science calls them alcoholics, but they don't particularly care what they're called. They can't drink and their lives were a mess. And they found by getting together and exchanging their hopes and experiences, they stayed sober. It's quite a simple approach to it, isn't it? They realized also how much can be done if it's not necessary that credit be given. And so they're willing to remain anonymous. And then this article finishes, the one in 1990, by saying that they sent a very learned man out to interview this bunch of people and he went to 10 people in this particular group and he got 10 different answers about what they had what have they got he said you people are really confused you don't know what you got and about that time a young girl come out of the corner and says yes doc that's right we don't know what we've got but whatever it is we've got it works and we're going to be satisfied with that for quite some time and this learned man didn't leave then he stuck around and he watched these people work he watched them sober up alcoholics one drunk at a time and in his report to the editor is in this nightmare he says it seems to me that these few people have taken the very best of medicine and psychiatry, the very best of all known religions since the beginning of time. They've taken the very best in philosophy and education and research, and they've consolidated it all into twelve very simple sentences. He says they call them the twelve steps of their program, and he says they try to live by them. was about all that there was to the article except a PS he says I hope they never get intelligent I wonder if this is where we fell down and then somebody recalls that there wasn't society something like this it was started back in 1934 35 and this was true everybody agrees that it was and they said sometime in the 1960s early 1970s they started to get intelligent they became experts what happened to them and they said actually I suppose you could interpret it this way they get carried away with their own publicity they became experts they forgot the individual they became more interested in the problem of alcoholism than they did in the alcoholic himself they were so busy telling other people how good they were and what a terrific job they had done that they didn't have time to go out and do the things that gave them the reputation in the first place they became just another agency in the field of alcoholism they became an organization instead of a fellowship as a result of it pretty soon nobody knew that there was an alcoholic phenomenon So maybe it's about time that we wake up and realize what could happen, because it's not too late. There are always those who will give a very simple answer to this. They say, Jim, you're a worrywart. Don't worry, because God has always taken care of AA. God is taking care of AAA today, and he always will. well I got news for you in my opinion and I think I'm backed up by many other people who were here long before I came that God has never taken care of Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics have always taken care of Alcoholic Anonymous they always have they're doing it today and if AlcoholicsAnonymous is to survive Alcoholics are going to make it survive God certainly has been around to determine the results of what you and I do. That's true. And to that extent, we owe A.A. and Al-Anon to God's help because he has made the results come out the way that they should. But if anybody feels that the future of A.I. is guaranteed, I would suggest that you think again. If you have any ideas of turning over the problems of A., or in your personal life to God and sit back. I would suggest that when you sit down, you dust off a little spot off to the right because the minute that you sit done, God's going to sit down right beside you and he's been here longer than you have and he'll wait you out. But someplace along the line, after Bill gave us this third legacy of service, we lost contact with each other we lost the art of a communication some way we've been going about 14 or 15 different ways but I wonder if we couldn't at this time take another good look at what bill gave to us in 1955 the third legacy of service it was a very simple message AA gave to us or that Bill gave to us at that time very simple when he stepped off the stage in st. Louis in 1955 he said it's all yours and he made it so believable and so simple the story of third legacy it included everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous as I said in the beginning he very simply said this that for some 20 years the local groups the local members the grassroots have been doing a wonderful job but because they have done such a wonderful job at the local level they found it necessary that services be provided for them at a world level or United States level that they couldn't take care of for themselves and so these These people created, and this is what you did do, you created the services in New York which are the general services of Alcoholics Anonymous located in New York. This was just common sense. We had to have somebody at our World Service headquarters to take care of the problems of AA all over the world and all over the United States and the reason that we had the conference in 1955 was for the basic purpose of the transference from the communication that had been provided for us by Bill and the old other old-timers up to that point from them to you because they realized that a a had gotten too big that it was no longer possible for Bob, Dr. Bill and the other old-timers to act as the voice of AA to find out what the group conscience was at the grassroots level. And so Bill said what would be more common sense than to bring in a delegate, a representative from each state in the Union and each state or area if you want to call them that in the union and have them get together and have them act as the voice of a a and speak for your state he says this conference is going to act as the voice AA because there had to be a communication link between our world services in the local areas it was just as simple as that those same conditions are true today but I think the typically alcoholic we've tried to confuse them. By nature, we've tried to complicate a very simple thing. All of us are in this third legacy of service together. I think it's about time that, and out in Oklahoma and California and all over the world, that we call a truce and take another look at the third legacy of service. Because all of us have a responsibility for the future of AA, and doesn't make any difference what kind of activity you're involved in you have a responsibility for the future of AA regardless of whether you want to accept it or whether you don't if you don want to except that it doesn't make a bit of difference because some other poor son of a gun will pay your way and you can reap the benefits from Alcoholics Anonymous I know that it's so easy to end up a talk like this by using the responsibility pledge by saying whenever anyone anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of AA to always be there but I'm afraid that too many times today when that hand reaches out the person will say yes I want to hand of A to B but that doesn't happen to be in my category I happen to be in general service I happen to be an H and I I happen in the local group activities I want these people in 1990 they have the same opportunity that I had when I come into a aid when I asked for the hand of help it was always there when it was there without any qualifications whatsoever and I think if we all will do one thing if we would listen to our delegate to find out or the ex-delegate or the XX delegate if we will read everything that we can about service whether it means a third legacy manual whether it means a big book whether it means they comes of age at concepts all of our literature we have a responsibility to become informed about the third legacy of a aid because you and I accepted it in 1955 these are they only three legacies that we have to work with unless somebody has come up with the fourth legacy since the last board meeting and I don't think that they have I've heard that there was a different breed of a aide that will be around in 1990 and so it's not necessary Jim that you become so alarmed about our misunderstanding of the third legacy of service I disagree with this completely I think in 1990 and the reason I am as I said the reason that I am interested in the people in 1990 is because the people are 1940 and 1935 were interested in me and they didn't even know that i was coming to aaa i think that the alcoholic who comes in in 1990 is going to be just as lonely he's going to begin just as he or she is going to be death as lonely and just as afraid just as humiliated and just as embarrassed and just is remorseful and just sorry for the lost opportunities in many lives that he or she has destroyed i think that that alcoholic in 1990 when he goes into the bathroom and after he gets rid of what he had he's going to have that same taste in his mouth that you and i had when we come into aa and i don't think they're going to be a darn bit different than you and I were when we came into aa i want to make sure that they have the hand of AA available to them without qualifications. You and I, and I speak for most of us, have had AA handed to us on a silver platter simply because somebody else was willing to pay the price so that it would be here. I want that hand to be there in 1990. If I can't get anything across this morning other than that if we can make ourselves aware of the responsibility that all of us collectively accepted from Bill in 1955 if I can get that across there this will be enough for coming here now I have been very fortunate to then given many opportunities by God and I'm not a Bible bible thumper that god has been very good to me we do go to church as i said in the beginning we enjoy it i have no criticism against the church except the minister has all the fun he gets to give the talk and a we twist it around and we become the ministers and give the sermon and so I'll end up my part of this program I know that we're running way over time by saying that I'm very grateful to have been given the opportunity to come out here and speak for March 2 and participate in your conference I thank you very much for letting me be the minister and preach the sermon this morning, you have been a wonderful congregation Thank you Well, we are a little bit over time, but I just want to say a word. Catherine we thank you for being here and I'm sure I could speak for all the AAs in the Southwest region that we you have our best wishes and our prayers during the next four years in your tenure of office I just want to say one thing to Jim he he made such a beautiful picture of this balanced life that they're gonna get into and while I hate to burst any beautiful bubbles I must say that you're whistling in the dark because anyone with his dedication is is not going to live a balanced life in AA. I think I'll ask Jack to lead us in in the Lord's Prayer, if you will. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us And we do this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.