Bill W. Learned from the Collapse of the Oxford Group Six Steps – Cliff B.

I'm going to go ahead and read something, Swift's going to do the traditions for us tonight, and I want to go ahead and find the page. Page 561 in the fourth edition. It says, To those now in its fold, Alcoholics Anonymous has made the difference between misery and sobriety, and has often the difference between life and death. AA can, of course, mean just as much to uncounted alcoholics not yet reached. Therefore, no society of men and women ever had a more urgent need for continuous effectiveness and permanent unity. We alcoholics see that we must work together and hang together else most of us will finally die alone. The 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous are we AAs believe the best answer that our experience has yet given to those ever-urgent questions. How can AA best function, and how can AA Best stay whole and survive? And that is what Cliff is here to share with us tonight and hopefully answer those questions for us. Come on up, Cliff. Thank you. And so it is. I thought she was going to go ahead and do it for me, and I just sat back and relaxed. My name's Cliff Bishop, and I'm a real alcoholic. And I screwed up here last week on traditions, and so they decided I better get up here and refresh my memory on what these things are about. And what Sandy read is so very, very important. Until probably not too many years ago, I really hadn't given much thought to the importance of the traditions. When I was in the 60s, they weren't a problem. We didn't have anything going on except a bunch of alcoholics and we'd pick them up, bring them in, sober them up. And there wasn't any outside influence. And then I was gone for about 13 years and when I came back it was a wholly different environment. At the outset I thought it was pretty good change And then as I saw the results of what was happening, I began to realize how important the traditions really were. We'd begun to accept ideas from folks who are outside our fellowship that do not have an understanding of what our program is about. And the people who have taken lunch for that are the old-timers, the people whoever were here when those folks started coming in from those outside sources and bringing in their ideas of don't drink, go to meetings, 90 meetings in 90 days. and I could go down this litany of things that we hear in meetings today that are totally contrary to the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill may have wrote a little thing that I ran into, and I'd love to hang on to it, and I want you to hang onto it too. In years ahead, AA will, of course, make mistakes. Experience has taught us that we need have no fear of doing this, providing that we always remain willing to admit our faults and correct them promptly. Our growth as individuals has depended upon this healthy process of trial and error. So will our growth as a fellowship. Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own fault must surely fall into decay if not into collapse. Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing. Just as each AA must continue to take his moral inventory and act upon it, so must our whole society if we are to survive and if we are to serve usefully and well. That's an AA comes of age page 231. There's so very few finding lasting sobriety and so very fewer groups lasting very long. It's quite obvious that we have failed to become willing to admit our faults and to correct them promptly. Over the years that I've been in AA, I've been involved, since I've back this time, I'm involved in eight groups. One of them happened to be the suburban group, and if you've been around a while, you know that was the first solid group we had in Dallas that wanted Abby Blount to participate in for about nine years. There's no suburban group. The old Horizon group. I can go down the list of these groups that I was in. Eight of them. Four are totally gone. Three are struggling to pay the rent. And this group, because we're hard-nosed about traditions, continues to grow and thrive, and it's the most amazing thing. It's given me a great deal of strength in how right it is to be knowledgeable in the importance of the traditions and to live by them. I look at the tradition sort of like a fence around an AA group. As long as we keep that fence upright, we're okay. But as soon as we let one of those panels of the fence down, then our security is gone. And anything can happen and everything will happen. But Bill started out really recognizing the importance of the tradition when Jack Alexander wrote his article in the Saturday Evening Post in March of 1941. There had been a reasonably slow growth and things were pretty well under control, but all of a sudden we had 8,000 brand new people pouring into our fellowship. And with them came the ideas and egos and arrogance that comes along with so many alcoholics and we all had our ideas about how it ought to be done. And Bill began to recognize that there is a growing problem. And along about that time, somebody informed him about a group that had formed about a century before, the Washington Temperance Society. Six little guys sitting in a bar one night heard about a temperance speaker was going to be down in the corner, and so they decided they'd go down and heckle this sucker. They had about three or four drinks, and they were just really fired up and ready to get on with it. But rather than heckle him, they stood there and listened to him. They were really impressed with what the guy had to say and they walked back to the bar and had a couple more drinks and said, you know what? That old boy's got something. We've got a lot of friends that have a drinking problem. Why don't we show up here next week and let's do this thing again? So it was 3 to 12 and they kept on. Finally, they filled up the bar and the barkeeper said, you guys aren't buying booze anymore. Get the hell out of here. I need the money. And so they moved on elsewhere. within a very short period of time compared to our history. Somewhere around five years, they had grown from those six guys up to well over 100,000 and some people say closer to 500,000. It just sprung up all over the United States. And what they did was they'd get up until their store. One of the real magic things that we've had in Alcoholics Anonymous that we are losing today and have lost is to have a recovered alcoholic stand up in front of a group and tell their story of what they were like, what happened, and what they're like today. And it found out in doing that that people were staying sober. They didn't have a program. They didn' t have any code of conduct. And as a result of that, with all the success that they had experienced, they decided maybe we need to branch out. And so one of the first things they did was they started inviting notables in the community to come in and speak in hopes that would draw more people into the meeting. Abraham Lincoln certainly did not have a drinking problem, but he's one of the guys that they had invited to come and address him. And you can find his talk online if you want to get in and search for it. They also thought since we can find a solution for alcoholism, hell, we can take care of anybody. And oh, they opened the door and as soon, as quick as they grew, they went out of business. In less than ten years, from their beginning to the end, that was it. five years of diluting their efforts, and it became history. Somebody saw Bill going through the agony of trying to figure out what to do about giving us some guidelines. And they told him about the Washingtonians, so Bill went around and found some history and started checking into them and said, you know what, what they're doing in debt is what we're doing now, so we need to find out how to correct these things. And if you'd like to see the thinking process that Bill went through in coming up with our traditions, get a copy of The Language of the Heart. Now in it are quite a number of articles that he wrote for the grapevine. And going through those and reading them, you can kind of see the evolution of these things as he went through and took a look at the experience of the groups that were successful and the groups who were failing. What he came up with mainly are those who are failing what they did wrong that put them out of business. And so when we look at these traditions, we see there are things we should not do in a group. And along the way, he realized that we've got to get these things in such a fashion that they'll be accepted by the fellowship as a whole. It's sort of interesting if you're familiar with the Grapevine preamble. We see some of the traditions in there, but the thing that sort of blew me away was the number of traditions that were in place in the foreword to the first edition. Now I'm not going through that tonight. you can do it for yourself. We already had some pretty good ideas at the time the big book was printed as to what we could and could not get by with. But if we stop and think about it, out of this one guy and the observations that he made, we came up with three sets of principles that are vital. The 12 steps are vital to the ability to survive alcoholism. There must. If we're going to survive, we must find a way to change the way we think and the way we feel. And that's precisely what our steps do. If our group is going to survive, we've got to come up with a set of ideas that we can agree on. And we'll get into tradition one in a moment. But the traditions are the things we should not do. The steps are life-giving principles. The traditions are life saving principles. And then we came up with the 12 concepts. How do we propagate this thing around the world? How do we go about spreading the message of Alcoholics Anonymous? And so the 12 concepts and other set of principles were developed to accomplish that. Excuse me. But from the Washingtonians, they ultimately wound up with the Oxford Group. Some people know the story there. Abbie brought the story to Bill, and Abbie had found his solution by going to the Oxford group and took Bill down there and introduced him. And Bill got involved, and Lois got involved in the Oscar group. But they didn't quite fit because the Oscar Group wanted to take on anybody and everybody that had a problem. And Bill says our problem is different and unique. We've got to focus on that. And so they found no favor in the Oxford group, and all of them were sort of invited to leave. Probably a good thing they did. But Bill stopped and took a look at the Washingtonians with no program and no code of conduct. And they looked at the opera group after that thing went down the tube because while they had a wonderful program, which is the basis of our recovery, they had no code of conduct. And as a result of that, the founders of that thing in a radio address, a national radio address back early before World War II made the opera groups sound like they were supporting the Nazis. And that was not well received and all of a sudden they were down the tubes. Today the opera Group is known as the Moral Rearmament Movement and they're still acting, but they have taken a little different attitude about this. But with Jack Alexander coming in with all these newcomers, it's time to start taking action to come up with some guidelines. And Bill, really, he just drove everybody nuts with these darn things. He realized the importance. The big book was out. The traditions didn't go into the big book until the second edition. But he came up with this idea Tradition 1 Our common welfare should come first Personal recovery depends upon our unity We're backing the traditions And I'd like to take a look at some of these In the long form Because there's more information in the long forum And the spiritual content Of the 12 traditions are better seen In the longer form But the long poem says Each member of AA has been a small part Of a great whole AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence, our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward. And then Bill made a statement. Implicit in our traditions is a confession that our fellowship has its sins. We admit that we have our own character defects in our society, that defects continually threaten our survival. Our traditions are a guide to better ways of working and living. They are to group survival and harmony what our 12 steps are to each member's sobriety and peace of mind. That's how important they are. If the steps are what we must depend on for it to survive alcoholism, the traditions are what we must rely on so our group will survive, grow, and be effective. And the fact that so many groups have elected to ignore those things is why we see so many of them going to failure. Just simply, no weak sponsorship. We're not insisting that the people coming to us are going to get into the program and start taking the steps and recovering. And we will believe that the people out there making a living off of us know more about our business than we do, so we parrot what they tell us and dilute the effectiveness of our work with the newcomer. But Bill said the most cherished quality we have in our fellowship is one thing, unity. Can we all agree on a set of principles that will assure our future? Now if anybody here thinks you can get by without a group, get on back out there and see how much fun you can have. How successful were you without a group? How successful were you in staying sober before you found a group of alcoholic sons? And then we have to look back from the group to the individual. If we don't have individuals who support the group, what's going to happen to the group? So it's a deal where we are totally dependent upon each other. And we've got to sit down and take a look at what has worked so successfully for all these years. I do remember our traditions were adopted unanimously at the first international conference in Cleveland in 1950. And if you want to change any traditions, you're going to have to come up with three-fourths majority of our fellowship to change one word in our traditions. And while you may have an awful lot of support out there when it comes down to payday and a recognition of the importance of these things, you're gonna find an awful lot of people turn around and say, I don't believe I want to do that. Watch what's happening. If you've been around any period of time, you've seen exactly what I've talked about. groups that were successful with a large membership. Today, they are no longer here, or you can find them all in one small room. Anybody recognize that? There's a reality of where we are. So unity is one of the real important things. One of the things that tears up unity and one ofthe things I am concerned about, and I will say this group is more serious and more adhering to the traditions than any group I've ever been associated with in doubt. But sometimes as a group grows we start forming little cliques and in forming those little cliques we start taking shots at other little cliquees and we start criticizing people who are not doing things the way we think they ought to be done and then that leads to gossip. For a long time and we had something hanging on our bulletin board that said, Gossip kills. And it does. We're very sensitive people and when you start talking about us we probably are going to leave. We came in here for help. And the thing we all must recognize is we had all the gossip and criticism that any person ever deserved before we ever came in hier. Right or wrong? You bet we have. What do we need when we come in here for help? Support? Encouragement? You bet. Any newcomer comes into this group I want people to go up and put their arm around them and let them know we want you here. We love you. You're important to us. Because without you, we're not going to make it. Do you ever think about being the last person that ever came to Alcoholics Anonymous? Think about that. It'll drive you nuts. Now, make sure that we welcome the newcomer and make certain that they are offered a sponsor who knows what this thing's about and give them an opportunity. In doing that, we're now going to have to worry about the gossip and the criticism and a little chirping that goes on in the group. We have it in our group. I want the sponsors to get serious about it and start putting an end to it because one of the most selfish things a person in AA can do is to talk down about another person. Why are you doing it? To elevate your own position in front of whoever you're gossiping with. That's selfish. To put another person's future at risk to make you look good. That's selfless. Don't do it. And if I catch you doing it, I'm going to spank you, I promise you. Some of you would love it, but you wouldn't, did you? But the traditions aren't rules, they're just things that we recognize are vital to our existence. Make sure that you are knowledgeable of what they are and if you don't know, ask somebody who does. Tradition two, such a very, very important tradition. The long form says for our group purpose, there's but one ultimate authority, hyphen. A loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. And then Bill learned something. As people were moved into positions of servitude, either intra-group or inter-group, egos started flaring a little bit. And so we had to add one thing to the short form of tradition too. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, hyphen, a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are betrothed servants. They do not govern. Now that's where I screwed up the other day. I came up with an idea that I thought would solve the group's problems. And it was pointed out to me. I don't run this group. I'm a member of this group, so shut up and let's put it in front of the group. And at the end of the meeting, we're going to do that. It has to do with our birthday party next Saturday night, not any beyond that. that for the first time in our 18-year history, we have a whole bunch of people who want to celebrate their birthday. Twelve one-year people celebrating. Boy, I don't want to miss that and I know they don't and their families are going to want to be here and be proud so we want to do what we can to make sure this comes off so everybody feels good at the end of that meeting. But that's why I'm up here tonight. They said you screwed up so get up there and pay your dues. Now, Alcoholics Anonymous has one rule. What is it? No rules. We have no rules whatsoever. Everybody can come in and do what they please. You can come here and take a step, survive. You can go in and not take a steps, go die. We don't care. That's your deal. You can to come in adhere to the traditions or you can come and ignore the traditions. But if you do, you're going to be run out because you're gonna be snubbed. If you are leading to the destruction of our group, you're threatening our sobriety and we're not going to be very patient with that. Make sense? There we go. But nobody runs a group. What runs a Group is exactly what we're going to have here after lunch. Informed Group Conferences. Those whose email address I've had have been given the ideas that have been passed on as to what we'll do next Saturday night. It's always best to have these ideas presented to the group, have time to think about them, pray about them discuss them and then the next meeting maybe it's time to make a move on them, to vote. Maybe not. But whatever we do is always to be for one purpose. What's that? The welfare of the newcomer. The very next newcomer comes to us, we're here to make sure that they have the best opportunity possible to survive. That's what an AA group's about and we'll get into that in a moment. We'll get through it in an hour tonight as much as I'm going to try. Tradition three, Bill had a rough time with this one. Long form, our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. Any two or three is all it takes to start a group. Isn't that neat? Well, how did we start? How did Alcoholics Anonymous start? Two different. Bill and Dr. Bob, and from there here we are today. So don't get hung up on the idea I've got to have a whole bunch of people to have a group, not necessary. But when we get into what we're about here, Bill went through the agony of trying to figure out really what should be the price of admission. At first, he said you've got to be an alcoholic. Well, alcoholics don't know they're alcoholics until an alcoholic explains what alcoholism is. Does that make sense to anybody? Until we have somebody who understands alcoholism describe that to us so we can diagnose ourselves, we don't have a prayer of recovery. And so he said, well, I guess we'd better open the door or anybody's got a drinking problem, come on in and we'll help you determine whether or not you are an alcoholic or if you're just a hard drinker. If you're a hard drunker, go out there and have all the fun you can stand. But if you are a real alcoholic, get in here because you are who we are here for. But it doesn't say and anything, does it? The only requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is what? A desire to stop what? And what? Nothing. And I hear people say, I'm an alcoholic and an addict and I want to go up to them and say, what kind of an addict are you? It wouldn't make sense. We've got over 200 anonymous fellowships out there using our 12 steps and 12 traditions for their particular purpose. Are you a heroin addict? Are you coke addict? Are you sex addict? Do you eat food? I mean, what the hell is your addiction? Alcoholism and addiction are two totally different things. So we don't need to know that you're an unidentified thing. An alcoholic is very clearly defined, isn't it? Ain't no doubt about what an alcoholic is. There are people who when they start drinking can never get enough. They come off of that one and all the misery it produces and say I'll never do it again and by God in a minute they were doing it again. That's who Alcoholics Anonymous is for and we'll get into that in a moment. I think this is one of the real confusing things. I'm an alcoholic and a diabetic. Now who the hell cares? Well, think about it. Why am I here? Because of my diabetic? Let's take a test. How many in here are diabetic? Get your hands up. Let's see. I want to present a message in what I'm just saying. If Michael and I decide we're going to talk about our diabetes, are the rest of you being served? Is that a pretty damn selfish thing for me to do? Am I making a point? If you're an alcoholic, that's all we need to know. Just be an alcoholic and shut up. That'll do it. And, no, I'm not going through that one. Let me read something to you that kind of got this thing, really started putting it into focus after the dual problem. Oh my God. But they have this polyaddiction. One came in, he was cross-addicted, and the old man leaned over to him and said, fellow, we don't talk about religion and alcoholics no more. The Clancy's group came up with an idea that started the ball rolling for us to get back on track. What the Pacific group came out with is an introduction. We welcome those attending their first meeting here, and we would like to read a brief statement of policy. As we know, many people are coming to AA today with a dual addiction to alcohol and other drugs. These newcomers are truly welcome here as members of our fellowship provided their primary problem is to alcohol, something they alone can honestly determine. We ask only that when discussing their problem, they confine themselves to those related to their alcoholism. We also welcome those whose primary addiction is other than alcohol. We are certainly sympathetic to your problem, and we ask you not to participate in our discussions lest our AA meeting be diverted from our primary purpose. We also suggest you make contact, if you have not already done so, with another anonymous organization. Our local central office has phone numbers for many of these. In any case, we sincerely hope that what you learn here may be helpful to your recovery. And finally, as well, for all of us to remember at all times the word of Bill Dove, one of the co-founders of AA. Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is the sole purpose of any AlcoholicsAnonymous group. Now how that came, the General Service Conference came up with a blue card, the primary purpose card. Is everybody familiar with that? On one side it tells you what an open meeting is. On the other side it tell you what a closed meeting is and if you're not aware of the importance of those, let us know and we'll see that we have some copies up here for anybody who'd like to get them. I didn't bring them tonight, and I should have. A little bit later on, another piece of literature was published. It's called the Alcoholics Anonymous Information Bulletin F2. And it gets into this problem. But Dr. Vincent Cole, a pioneer of the methadone treatment for heroin addicts and for several years a trustee of the General Service Board of AA, made the following statement. The source of strength in AA is its singleness of mindedness. The mission of AA is to help alcoholics. AA limits what it is demanding of itself and its associates, and its success lies in its limited target. We believe that the process is successful, and one line guarantees success for another would be very serious mistakes. Consequently, we welcome the opportunity to share AA experience with those who would like to develop 12-step 12th edition programs for the non-alcoholic addict by using AA methods. That's a guy that lived in the world of heroin. He was an AA trustee. He recognized the importance of our singleness of purpose, and I honor the guy for that. Now, do we have to stop drinking before we can come to AA? Do we need to come in here dry? Anybody here ever heard of Dr. Paul? Acceptance is the solution to all my problems. You need to read the rest of the story. He embarrassed the hell out of me because I hadn't. He said, haven't you read my story? And I said, no, I haven't. He embarrassed and he said, well, why don't you do it? And I got back home and I found he got his acceptance by putting the 12 steps to work on anything that seemed to be a problem. It's in his story. I don't read them anymore before I open my mouth. You know Dr. Paul's story? Well, you know that he came to Alcoholics Anonymous for nine solid months drunk in a skunk. But he had a desire to stop drinking. And finally, after nine months, he was able to have his last drink and became one of the real icons of AlcoholicsAnonymous. He resisted that story for the very reason that a lot of people used it. That he's an addict, so it's okay for me to be an addict and member of Alcoholic Anonymous. If you have a fourth edition, you'll know that the title of his story has been changed pretty well. I'm not going to get into that one either. Tradition four, each group should be an autonomous except matters affecting other groups or a as a whole. This is the one that gives each group the opportunity to develop a personality of its own based on the informed group conscience of that group. Each group has its own way of doing business. And I am so very, very thankful that tradition four gives us this opportunity I don't know if you've noticed, we just made 18 years the day before yesterday. There are no window shades up here with a 12 steps or 12 predictions. We don't have any of the slogans on the board, any of them models. None of that's hanging around the wall. At the outset, we said if you want to know what they are, go where they are. They're in the big list. And that's why we have those not displayed. One thing we wanted to make certain in the founding of this group was that we knew what we were going to do and that was going to be focus on the content of a book titled Alcoholics Anonymous. The basic text for Alcoholics Announcement. Somebody came up with the idea if we want to do that, why don't we open with the first paragraph of the foreword to the first edition. The introduction to the big book. Now why don'T we close our meetings with the information on page 186? Open it with the beginning, close with the end, and in between study what's in between. And that made a lot of sense to me and I don't know if anybody's given thought to it. but the thought went into our formation of this group to make sure that we understood we're not here to focus on a fellowship. We're here to focus upon the program. A great bind for a long time was a very useful piece of literature. It said we're going to share our experience, strength, and hope with each other so that we may solve our alcoholic problems and help others to recover from alcoholism. And then we got into this little deal of experience, strength, and hope. We see that in the second edition. What is it now we share in our meetings? Our experience, strength, and hope? No, we don't. We share our experience. Very, very few people in meetings today have much strength or any hope. Now I'm not putting them down. I'm just saying this is the reality of our fellowship today. Most people today are relying on meetings in the fellowship to find a solution for alcoholism. Now, if they're hard drinkers, that's going to work like a charm. But if they are real alcoholics, they're doomed. And what has happened going, the big book is full of experience and knowledge. That's what it's got. And they translated that into our experience, strength, and hope which has diluted our meetings to the point where the confused newcomer comes in and hears more of this stuff and more confused. And whether you recognize it or not, Alcoholics Anonymous for the last 15 years This has been on a downhill skid. Our success rate is going down the toilet because we refuse to face up to our responsibility as newcomers and say, if you're in here and you want to quit drinking, we've got a way and we're going to get started now. If you don't want to get start it now, you better get out there and finish the job so when you come back you will be ready to move on. This is the deadliest disease known to mankind and I always wonder why is it we are so lackadaisical about our responsibility as a newcomer? Think about it. I just found out I had cancer. And the doctor's a loving soul, and he said, I'll tell you what, you keep coming back here for the next 90 days and we're going to talk about your cancer. You going back to that sucker? Does alcoholism kill more people than cancer? Do you see my point? I hope you'll accept the challenge of seeing that we get ourselves back down to what Alcoholics Anonymous is about, and we'll get into that in just a moment. It's said that Tradition 4 has given us the opportunity to focus on the one thing we feel is vital To the success of a newcomer The opportunity to learn what the folks did back in the 30s That we now have 66 years of time-tested experience proving success Nothing can touch it And if you do it exactly the way it's in the big book, it will not fail Absolutely promised But it gives us the ability to decide when to have meetings what kind of meetings and how long they'll be and so on and so forth. We took advantage of Tradition 4 to get us exactly where we are today. And that is to be focused on the one thing that I needed more than anything on earth. What the hell do you have to do to be happy living with the deadliest disease known to mankind? And that's what we want. Tradition 5. Long form, each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose, hyphen. that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who is still suffering. Short form, each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholics who are still suffering The 12 steps, the 12 traditions and the 12 concepts focus on this one tradition Why is any AA group in existence? Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is the sole purpose of an AA group Why don't we do that? Why don'T we focus on the thing That is necessary to survive alcoholism I could get into an awful lot of discussion About this But you know as well as I do When it comes to drinking There are four kinds of people There are the ones that really don't drink They may have one once in a great while Then there are those who drink socially You know they can take it or leave it It's no big deal If they're drinking, I'll have a couple. If not, who cares? Then we've got the hard drinker. And then the big book talks about it in chapter 2. The hard drinkers are somebody who drinks to escape. If you ever get a hold of one and sit down and do a fifth step, it becomes very clear very quickly. They drink when things are not to their liking. They drink to hide, to escape, change their environment, change the situation, and get them out of that one, and they don't drink. Or they may have a cup. Unfortunately, Alcoholics Anonymous is inundated with a lot of hard drinkers. And they don' t need what I need, and if you' re a real alcoholic, they don''t need what you need. They can sit around in fellowship and get by just fine. 90 minutes to 90 days is their thing. It sounds like a real cool idea. Doesn' t have a damn thing to do with recovery from alcoholism. if you're a real alcoholic though we've only got one path we can follow now that doesn't mean we have the only way to get that job done but we're going to have to have a complete change in the way we think and the way we feel our meetings ought to focus on exactly what do we have to do now some folks in this church right here are alcoholics and they're living a happy life they're not coming to Alcoholics Anonymous they found their solution there Salvation Army has been turning out sober alcoholics since 1865 We were founded in 1935 So we don't have the only solution But the one thing we do have And the one things that is essential for us to remember When talking with somebody who has been failing at sobriety We have something that will not fail This group is here to do one thing for you newcomer And that is to let you know exactly what the problem is Exactly what our solution is precisely what we have to do to get from that problem to this solution. And we have more people sitting in our meetings who are qualified to sponsor than we do people who are looking for sponsors. That absolutely blows my mind. Because of all the groups I've ever been in, you ask those who have had a spiritual experience and willing to sponsor to stand up and be recognized, it would be a very small number. In this place, you've got to look through the crowd to find out where the people are still sitting. We are a spiritual entity. This group is a spiritual entity. How do we know? The content of a group is totally dependent on the quality of sobriety of its members. And you've got to have a spiritual event take place in your life to be able to sponsor people. And the vast majority of our members are qualified, highly qualified, to take the responsibility for a newcomer's life in their hands and feel confident they're going to offer them an opportunity to survive. Tremendous responsibility and sponsorship. I am assuming the responsibility for another person's life. That's a hell of a responsibility. And today all too often, and I was guilty of it before I met Joe, don't drink, go to meetings. I'll just lead you along the path. I don't have a clue where any one of them are that I sponsored in before I meet Joe. But I've killed off more than my share of alcoholics. I certainly will not kill off any more. Tradition six. Well, if you'd like to, one of the things I ran into that really got me turned on was an article by a guy named Bob Bacon. Bob was a delegate for the northeast section of Ohio. That includes Akron. He was a delicate for that area in 1976. Bob got up in front of a group and said, We are failing the newcomer. We are no longer telling them about the Big Book. We're not telling them the necessity of the 12 steps or the 12 traditions. And if you would like to see that, check our website. It's a leading article on that page. When I read that, I began to recognize that what I was witnessing in the groups that I was attending that had been so large and now were downsizing just almost monthly was the fact that we were doing precisely in the 80s what he warned of in the 70s. We ignored a warning from somebody who knew. One of the things Some folks decide they're going to get into And when they get into sponsorship We're going do a little bit A little bit of a banker And we're going be a little lawyer And we'll be a marriage counselor If you have your book Please turn to page 45 I want to help you see one thing We all need to understand first paragraph on page 45 says lack of power that was our dilemma we had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves obviously but where and how are we to find this power that is exactly what this book is about its main object is to enable you to find the power greater than yourself which will do what help solve your problem show you how no will solve your problem. The beautiful thing about being a person who has total confidence in our program and sponsoring people is we don't have to come up with any decision except you do the steps and He'll do the deal. Have you got a problem? You do what you're supposed to and He will take care of your problem Make sense? Has anybody tried it? Has it failed anybody in here? Most amazing thing on earth When Joe pointed that out to me, I thought that's one of those platitudes, one of Those Sunday School Deals that they talk about but nobody can do. And finally it just got dumb enough to try it, and I'll swear I haven't had a problem in over 20 years. Tradition 6 is just an exclamation on Tradition 5. We're not going to get into business. We're nicht going zu starten auf dem Land. Wir werden nicht anfangen, etwas zu tun, das uns von unserer primären Beziehung entlöten wird. Tradition 7. Each group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. But Bill made it a little bit more clear in the long form. The AA groups themselves ought to fully support by voluntary contributions of their own members. This may be something our group conscience might want to take a look at sometime down the road. We think that each group should soon achieve this ideal. That any public solicitation of funds using the name VA is highly dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, hospitals or any sorts or of contributions carrying any obligation whatever is unwise. Then too we view with much concern these AA treasuries which continue beyond prudent reserve to accumulate funds for no stated purpose. Experience has often warned us that nothing could so surely destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes over property, money and authority. If we haven't got any money then we don't have anything to argue about do we? Corporate poverty is one of the greatest blessings that Alcoholics Anonymous has ever known. Of course, we sometimes carry it too far because we've got places like the General Service Office that need support. The money they get comes out of the sales of the big books and our contributions, and that's the only source they have. But every group has got to start out with their own needs. You've got to have a meeting place, cost money. You've got to have a copy pot. You've Got to Have a Copy. You've Gotta Have Chairs, Books, Literature. You Need a Telephone Contact. These Are All Essential. These Come Out of the Phones That Are Collected. And To Tell You They Always Amaze Me, Two Things Amaze me. One Is Almost Every Week and Sometimes More Than Once A Week We Get A Solicitation From One Of Those Wonderful Organizations for doing such wonderful work. You know what I'm talking about? The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society. I mean, we can go on down the list. When's the last time you got a solicitation from Alcoholics Anonymous? Now think about it. You couldn't live without somebody else's money before you finally got ready to come in here, couldn't you? Biggest moochers on God's earth. And all of a sudden we turn around and say, you want to give us some money? No thank you. We are self-supporting through our own contribution. You've lost your damn mind. No, we have come to understand how important it is that we support our own group. And one of the other things that bothers me is the fact that so many people who couldn't afford, well, let's just put it this way. Before they came to AA, they had to beg, borrow, and steal enough money to be able to get their booze and whatever they had left. They had to have, right? Come to Alcoholics Anonymous and we give them an opportunity to learn how to live sober or keep a job and earn a decent income, and the basket comes by, the hat comes by. The pot comes by whatever the group is using to collect money and they pass it right on to the next person. I don't know, but that tells me one thing. The person who is refusing to support their group is not serious about sobriety. If they were for this group, any group you're going to, if it weren't for the group and the support they offer and the opportunity they give you to stay and live sober and be a functional member of society and you're not supporting that, I really question whether or not you deserve to be in your sobriety. Some folks say you're too damn hard about this. No, once you commit yourself to be supported financially, you are becoming a part of that group. If you're freeloading, that's all you're doing. You're putting your sobrietty in jeopardy. An observation I made. We also need to make sure that we have enough to support our intergroup. If we have confidence in them, we need to support our General Service Office and if we have competence in the intergroup committees between here and the General Service Committee in New York, we need to support them too. That is a matter for the informed group content to decide. Tradition 8 Long form Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional but we define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics reprise or hire. But we may employ alcoholics where they are going to perform these services for which I might otherwise have to engage non-alcoholics. Such special services may be well recompensed, but our usual 12-step work is never to be paid for. Boy, what a shock that was to an awful lot of folks back in the 60s when the treatment community became a real blooming thing and everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous got that glisten in their eye and said, oh man, this is what I've always wanted to be. An alcoholic counselor, and here is my chance. I bought into that, and thank God my sponsor wouldn't let me finish it up. Short form. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. You suppose the work that goes on in New York is important? Where would we be if we didn't have an administrative organization that looked after our needs out here? Where are we going to get big books? where are we going to get answers to some of our questions? Where are we gonna get the kind of support that people need around the world? Is that an important consideration? Yes, it is. And in a sense, it's such a very important position to hold. We pay people in New York very, very well. They're high paid and they are expected to fulfill their responsibility. We have a group here in Dallas that employs two people, Jim and Janice. Their job is only one thing, to see that that office opens in the morning and closes in the evening, that the supplies are there that we might need, to see the telephones are there so you and I as volunteers can answer those phones. They do no 12-step work. All 12-stepp work is done by people like you and me, volunteers, and that's as it should be. Same thing back in New York. Somebody looking for 12-step help in Newark, there are volunteers in the General Service Office who take care of that. And one of the things that kind of blew me away is the fact that as of today, we have over 40 translations of the big book. Our big book is translated into 40 different languages. Every one of those translations has been done on a voluntary basis by an alcoholic who is fluent in that particular language. That's a heck of a deal. But we do need to make sure that we've got competent people doing the kind of work that has to be done. Where would we be if all of a sudden we couldn't find big books anywhere? We'd be in trouble. We'd been in real trouble. Some of the other things may or may not be that important, but the one thing we cannot afford to be without is the support and the basic text. The others may or might not be necessary. That's up to you for debate. Last time I looked at this, it was translated into 26 languages. It's now over 40 languages. This thing is growing. So, one thing somebody told me and I find this hard to believe but I did it to start with although I've gotten where I don't have a problem with it anymore. I understand now there are people in our fellowship who will be happy to hear your four-step if you want to pay them for the time. Does that bother you? I'll buy those suckers a drink real quick. Tradition 9, and I'm not going to get into it, it has to do with all the committee organizations. And the only ones we need to be concerned with here are number one, our steering committee, which serves but it does not govern, although sometimes they forget that like Cliff Bishop did this time. And need to being reminded that the ones in between, the entry group, are very necessary. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. The group is Alcoholic Anonymous All the committees are there to serve one purpose. They're to serve the group, and the group is to serve the newcomer. This is the bottom line of this thing. We are not subservient to any committee. They are all subservent to us, although unfortunately over recent years we have been very irresponsible in the people we have put in certain positions. And if you get into intergroup service, you become aware of exactly what I'm talking about. People in intergroup services who are trying to shoot down our singleness of purpose, who are trying to dilute our primary purpose, who are destroying the integrity of the program within the fellowship. The program, you can't destroy it. The program is as solid as it can be. It's spiritual principles that exist throughout the world. So they cannot be destroyed. But the integrityof our program withinthefellowship is being diluted to the point on up the ladder to where our newcomers are being denied. And they're even selling some of those suckers back in New York that this may not be a bad idea. If you read Doc 459, if you've seen some of the stuff that's coming out of the grapevine, you begin to recognize there are people who have lost sight of our primary purpose. Tradition 10, long form, no AA group or member should ever and in such a way as to implicate AA express any opinion on outside controversial issues, particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or secretarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous Groups oppose no one concerning such matters. They can express no views whatever. In short form, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues Hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy Well it would be so easy for us to get involved in this thing You know, start supporting something I remember back in the 60's we had a guy named Tom Schiff Some of you may have heard Tom Schifff as minister of Lovers Lane Methodist Church When it was on Lovers Line Tom was a tremendous friend of Alcoholics Anonymous. He never hesitated to send them to us, but the thing he was willing to do was sit and hear our fist at it. And he was a tremendously asset to AlcoholicsAnonymous. They were folks that wanted to endorse the Lever's Lane Methodist Church. It made sense. We're blessed to have one of our favorite treatment communities think that we've got the best opportunity in this part of the country for a newcomer coming out of treatment to have a chance to survive. And they send people to us. And we respect it and love it and are so very, very thankful for that attitude. But we don't endorse them. We don't enforce Maggie's House. We don'T endorse the 24-Hour Club. We don' t endorse anything. We're not in the business of supporting anything or anybody on no affiliation. We've got one job and one job only, and that's back in Tradition 5 to make sure that the next newcomer who shows up here is going to be given an opportunity to learn how to survive alcoholism. Anything outside of what's in the big book. To keep this thing as simple as we can. Tradition 10 is very simple. If it's not in the Big Book, it's got no place in a meeting of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. You want to argue with me? You ain't going anywhere here. This is what we are here for. This is our basic text. And until we've mastered the basic text, do we have any business getting involved in anything else? Stop and think about it. The 12 steps are the basis of recovery. And what did Bill say in the 12 and 12 in the foreword? He was the principal author of the big book that sold off to the 12 in 12, wasn't he? His statement is the big books The big book was and still is the basic text for alcoholics anonymous. Now anybody that has an understanding of education knows that the first thing you focus on is the basic text of whatever subject it might be. And once you've got that well in hand, then branch out. But until you've had a spiritual awakening or a spiritual experience as a result of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Second books are not suggested. Tradition 11, our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think AA ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as AA members ought not to be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There's never need to praise ourselves. Do you feel it better to let our friends recommend us? Short form, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. I'm sorry. Two types of anonymity. One is practical, and this is what we're talking about right here. We've got no business. I mean, we were as public as could be out there drinking. Was anybody anonymous when they were drinking? I mean, if you're pretty good at it, the damn smell of it is going to get you. No, we weren't anonymous out there. But boy, we wanted to be. I don't know of an alcoholic yet that wanted to run around and advertise. Man, I've got it up here. Yeah. Too hot for travel. I want to stop and drink. Thanks, honey. Water, that is. It's been so amazing how many people we have seen publicly recognized who like to make it known to the world that I am an alcoholic and I'm an alcoholic nonce. And you know what's happened with every single one of them? You know? They got drunk. Every blessed one of the ones that placed themselves above the welfare of the fellowship itself. One I like to use, and some of you may remember We had a wonderful basketball player in Dallas on the Maverick team. And a guy named Skip Bayless decided he was going to make a real project out of this guy. And Skip wrote article after article about this young man. He talked about his association with Alcoholics Anonymous. He even mentioned the guy's sponsor in his news article. And he received an awful lot of letters from people in AA saying, Debbie, you know you're creating problems for us. you are putting this guy in a place of jeopardy. I don't know if you know who I'm talking about, and I'm not going to mention it, but if you do, you know the poor guy was in the wrong place to begin with. He wasn't an alcoholic. It was a cocaine addict. And he couldn't whip it in Alcoholics Anonymous and finally he's shipped overseas somewhere and we haven't heard from him in a long time. But was damage done by that? I think so. I kind of get tickled about it when I start to think about it. That was in the Dallas Times-Herald. Has anybody seen a copy of the Dallas Time-Heralds latest? You know where Skip Bayless is? Some of you do. He's up in Chicago the last time we heard, and he's not writing about Alcoholics Anonymous anymore. We don't need to advertise. We need to demonstrate. And one of the old sayings is I may be the only copy of The Big Book that anybody will ever see. One of the things we have in our fellowship is that we're anonymous to ourselves. An old boy over in one of the groups I went to over 30 years of sobriety, I didn't know his last name until he died and his obituary was in the paper. That seems pretty silly, doesn't it? Dr. Bob had an attitude about this and I'm going to read it to you so if you're one of those who feel you're supposed to hide yourself in our fellowship, Dr. Bobs is going to spank you and here it is. We need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and see today's TV and film. Dr. Bob, co-founder of AA, commented on Tradition 11 as follows. Since our tradition on anonymity designates the exact level where the line should be held, it must be obvious to anyone who can read and understand the English language Dr. Babcliffe didn't say that one, but I'd love to that to maintain anonymity at the other level is definitely a violation of this tradition. The AA who hides his identity from his fellow AA by using only a given name violates the tradition just as much as the AA who permits his name to appear in the press in connection with matters pertaining to AA. The former is maintaining his anonymity above the level of press, radio and film. The latter is maintaining its anonymity below the level of press radio and field. Whereas the tradition states we should maintain our anonymity at the level or press radio on film. I think you'll recognize when you hear anybody in our group behind the podium or identify themselves, they are Cliff Bishop, Myers Riemer, Darrell V. Squibb. We are not hiding from anybody. There's a guy sitting in here tonight, Jeff, he's here tonight. Had I not identified myself as Cliff Bishop down at Salvation Army when I was doing the big book down there for a number of years, might not be here tonight if we don't know that. But the day came when he was drunk enough that he said, I need help. See if you can find Cliff Bishop in the telephone directory his daughter did. And he's here tonight. He's been around a good long while. He's not the only one. But those are some of the blessings I have. What have I got to be ashamed of? I'm not going to let anybody out there know that I am an Alcoholics Anonymous at the public level. But why should I hide myself from you? Why should I hid myself from the people in Salvation Army, the 24-Hour Club, or Homer's Down, or Maggie's house or any place else? Why should I deny them? Well, hell, go find Cliff being the Dallas telephone director and then you'll understand. Okay? Tradition 12. Long form and finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities, that we ought to practice a genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us, that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all. Short form anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principle before personalities. Place principle before personality. Who's more important, the group or the individual? The group. And so if we have somebody that is really not... Well, let's just say we've got a drunk come in here tonight. Walks in through the door and he's drunk as a skunk and he just, he's got a lot on his mind and he wants to sit here and take up our meeting time. Are we going to let him? What do we do? Well, if you've been around any period of time, what you're going to do is go up and grab the guy's hand, put your arm around him and say, let's go out here and talk a little bit. I want to visit with you. Make sense? How about somebody comes in here and takes advantage of the newcomer? Should we tolerate that? You see, I think when we stop and really give serious thought to the responsibility and the seriousness of what we're about, if they came to us for one thing, to learn how to live sober, do we owe them the very best possibility? We sure do. And if we have somebody taking advantage of them or putting them down or just gossiping criticism, and I'm really, really strong on that because I've seen too many people come to us and have to find out that somebody had a little thing to say about them and it hurt their feelings and so they went somewhere else. It seems to me the spiritual anonymity of alcoholics anonymous is the amount of humility and meekness that we can accept in realizing how very, very blessed we are to have been given the opportunity to survive alcoholism. I don't think most people have a clue of how many people are never given the opportunity to come to Alcoholics Nightly. Clarence Snyder had something that I loved. I ran into it just not too long ago. But I hung on to it. Why is he doing this for me, Clarencedidely? There have been millions and millions of alcoholics staggered across the face of this earth. They've lived and they've died in alcoholism. They've died and they have carried down and disgraced families, friends, and associates with them. They have caused carnage in this world. And they have died hopelessly. It's been tragic. Out of all these millions of people, therefore, why? You tell me just why. Just a few of us are given this opportunity. Why are we chosen for this? Why am I chosen for it? Why do I get this chance? Why do you get this change when thousands and thousands and millions and millions of other people never had this chance and there are probably millions around who never will or never shall. Ask yourself this sometime and it might put a new value on your membership here. Do you realize the reality of that? How many people are suffering from alcoholism and they don't even know what's wrong with them and they never will unless you and I sit down in front of them and say, hey, baby, I understand. I've been where you are. I'd like to help you if you'll let me. To help them understand why their life is so miserable. and then we bring them in here. They finally find it somehow or other. And we disgrace our program by saying don't go to meetings, just keep coming back, you'll be okay 90 meetings in 90 days. Don't hurry into taking the steps. Does that bother you? Does it? God, I hope so. The tradition, well, is something that I look at every time and I think about it every time we close a meeting. many, many groups close with one song. They close with the Lord's Prayer. It seems to me that the Lord'S Prayer epitomizes what Tradition 12 is all about. We're going to start off saying our Father, not my Father or your Father in Alcoholics Anonymous there are no big ones, there are not little ones they're all exactly at the same level. We've been reduced to zero and we share exactly the same position. There are no bosses, there are no supervisors, there's nobody that can tell anybody what to do except your sponsor. And if you don't want to, he'll fire you and go get somebody else. So when it comes down to what we're really about, I think as we close with the Lord's Prayer, we really identify the spiritual content of tradition 12. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. This is His kingdom. This is really His whole ballgame. He has given us this opportunity. And as old Bob White said, if he's a king and we are his children, then the ladies are princesses and the guys are princes. What a heritage that is to realize where we've been in this world. It's His power. We come down calling someone else totally powerless. We come in here and start doing these simple things that nobody in their right mind would ever do. Of course, we're not in their Right Mind. We do them and then we get in their Wrong Mind. But in doing so, we're given the power. The power we never could have grabbed a hold of is given to us. As we go through the process of living these steps, all of a sudden we begin to recognize that person I knew I could be, that personI wanted to be, that personi tried so hard to be and failed at all the time is the person I'm becoming. And when we start becoming that person, that person with that set of values that we valued so highly, We start getting where we like who we are. I like being Cliff Bishop today. It amazes me. But I love being who I am, and the only person I'd trade with that I know of is a guy named Joe McQueen. He's still got what I want. And it's His glory, not ours. We can take no credit for anything except our willingness to come in here and become a student and practitioner of the program that has been given us 66 years ago. Now if you haven't got a sponsor that's kicking you in the butt and saying, I want you to get on with this thing. I want You to survive. I want YOU to find out how good life is. Don't leave here tonight without Him because we've got Him. Everybody's qualified to sponsor stand-up. Where the hell are we going to go? See my point? Yep, we're a spiritual entity. And Dr. Bob's very last words to Bill Wilson were, remember, Willie, let's not laugh at this thing up. Let's keep it simple. I pray you will do the same thing. If it ain't in the big book, we do not need to hear about it in a meeting of alcoholics and nonics. Is that too difficult? You're going to get a lot of resistance. A lot of people are going to take shots at you. But you may wind up feeling as happy about being who you are as I am me today. A hell of a deal. And I don't know if anybody told me they really love you today, but I do. You are my life. I tried it with you and it worked. I tried it without you and it became a drunken bum so I'm back and I want to study and whether you like me or not doesn't make a damn bit of difference you're stuck with me and I'll be here see you next meeting thank you