Before the Twelve Steps There Were Six and the First One Was Doing Our Fourth and Fifth Step in Reverse – Jay S.

Would you help me please, Thomas? My name's Jay and I'm an alcoholic. And God's doing for me today what I couldn't do for myself because it's a little before 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and I haven't had anything to drink all day today, which for an alcoholic of my variety is a really cool thing. By way of qualification, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure to meet yet, I came to you on the second day of May in 1912. It was 1979 and although I've found it necessary on a lot of occasions, I haven't taken the front drink, smoked any of that non-habit-forming marijuana, done any of that Peruvian marching powder or any of those other things that I found to be so consoling. So this is an AA spiritual history workshop. What I'm going to do is run through some information and then at the end I'll be open for questions and we can talk a bunch. The Oxford Group. This is from the Lincoln Library, which was a reference book that was found in many homes in the United States in the 30s and 40s. Kind of a precursor to the encyclopedias. The Oxford Group was a semi-religious but informal movement founded by Frank Bookman while an undergraduate at Oxford University in 1921. The name was first applied by the President of the United States to the press of South Africa in 1928. The professed purpose of the movement is to solve personal, national and international problems by bringing men and women everywhere back to basic principles of Christian faith, enhancing all their primary loyalties. Without benefit of organization, membership, subscriptions or definite creed, the movement gained adherence in nearly all countries of the world, particularly in the middle and upper class and was accorded recognition by the heads of many government. Adopting the slogan of moral rearmament in 1938, the leaders of the movement sought by spread of its principles to stem the rising tide of international hostilities. Now the Oxford Group, that's a description of it by people looking from the outside and this is from the inside. This is from a book called What is the Oxford Group? It was written anonymously by, it was the layman with a notebook. And he said, you cannot belong to the Oxford Group. It has no membership list, subscriptions, badge, rules or definite location. It is a name for a group of people who, from every rank, profession and trade, in many countries have surrendered their lives to God and who are endeavoring to lead a spiritual quality of life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Please. Yeah. The Oxford Group is not a religious group. It is a religion. It has no hierarchy, no temples, no endowments. Workers have no salary, no plans, but God's plan, every country is their country. Every man is their brother. Now, every historian has a prejudice. So I want to get mine to you up front before we even get started. Mine is that I am allergic to fundamentalism in any form. And one of the things that I saw, in my AA community as time has gone by, is there were people that were actually acting as if punctuation had spiritual significance. Do you know what the meaning of that comma is? I've seen people use Bibles and other spiritual literature in that fashion. And so one of the things that I like to do is I like to show that we in Alcoholics Anonymous are part of a spiritual continuum. And that this is the movement that we grew out of. Now, Bill Wilson said that if we were to tell the story of Alcoholics Anonymous, we could start with Noah. I don't have quite enough time to do that. So we're going to start with the Oxford Group, which all the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous were members of. Now, you have to remember, this is the United States. It's very much like Iceland, you know, 70 years ago or 75 years ago. It's mostly Anglo. It's mostly Caucasian. Almost everybody's a church member. Most of them in three or four different religions. Or, I mean, three or four different churches. It was not the society that we have today. Now, what was it that the Oxford Group believed? Their main tenets came from a theologian by the name of Robert Spear. Who was at Yale University. Who had a lot of effect on the evangelist movement in the United States and then worldwide through the Young Men's Christian Association, the YMCA. And he distilled the Sermon on the Mount down. He said if you took a look at everything that was in there, that what Christ was actually talking about was honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. That's what he said. And he said, I'm going to tell you what I love. And the Oxford Group believed that you could discern any movement in your life by these four absolutes. Now, were they absolute all the time? No. They're guideposts. They're like stars that we steer by. These are the things that we're growing towards along spiritual lines. And if you go to Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, they still have these on the wall. Because that's the program. That's where it came from. It's these four absolutes. Now, they also, the way that they carried their message one to another was what they called the five C's. First, confidence. In other words, you had to have confidence in me that I used to have this problem. And that I didn't have that problem anymore. And then the second was confession in which you would say, Yeah, I got that problem. I don't want to have it anymore. And then the conviction that I could change. And I could not have that problem anymore. And then the conversion that I'm going to do whatever it is that you've done so that I don't have this problem anymore. And five was continuance. In other words, that I'm going to keep doing whatever it is that you've done so that I can keep getting what you've done. So that I can keep getting what you've done. Now, I mentioned this book to you by Vic Kitchen. This was published in 1932. When Bill Wilson got out of Towns Hospital, he started going to Oxford group meetings. And there was a guy there who was sober and his name was Vic Kitchen. And he wrote a book about his experience called I Was a Pagan. And in it he says, The Oxford group had a power I did not have. They said, however, that I could have it just as they did if I would pay the same price, comply with the same conditions, and go through the same series of exceedingly simple steps. So what were those steps? Well, the first step that the Oxford group had was the sharing. They called it sharing. The sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life given to God. And to use sharing as witness to help others, still unchanged, to recognize and acknowledge their sins. In other words, their first step would be like our fourth and fifth step. But it would be in reverse. In other words, if we were together, one on one, and we had the opportunity to talk. They used to call it having an honest conversation. And I would tell you about what I was like and hopefully you would respond. Because most of the people that came to these Oxford group house parties were folks that were having troubles. Now what were the house parties? The house parties were exactly what we're doing this weekend. There would be people who were brought from out of town generally because, as you all know, a prophet is not a prophet in his own meeting. So you get some clowns from out of town to come in and to talk about what had happened in their lives. And you give them a little more credence, right, because you don't know them. And you don't have all that baggage of knowing exactly who they are. Do you know who they used to? That kind of stuff. So anyway, so they're sharing. So they would actually do a fourth and fifth step first. After that, their second step was surrender or renounce. Their third step was surrender of our life, past, present, and future into God's keeping and direction. So they do the sharing. Then they do the, what we'd call our third step. Okay, once, oh my God, I'm a mess. Help! Okay. Then their third step was restitution to all whom we have wronged directly or indirectly. Notice there's no wiggle room there at all. And then four, listening to, accepting, relying on God's guidance and carrying it out in everything we do or say, great or small. Now this is, you know, a lot of people say, well, you know, the great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is Jim Burwell and God as you understand God. Well, Samuel Moore Shoemaker, who was Bill Wilson's spiritual advisor, was a spiritual advisor. He was a spiritual advisor. He was one of the big guns in the Oxford group in the United States. His church was basically the clearinghouse for all the books and sent out a lot of the teams to work in different places. And in a book that he wrote in 1927 called Children of the Second Birth, they talked about praying to God as you understand him. So they prayed together, opening their minds to as much of God as he understood, removing first the hindrance of sin, removing the self-will, surrender of much of himself as he could to as much of Christ as he understood. In the beginning, we know only a little. But as time goes by, we learn more and more about ourselves as we work through our steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. And as we learn more and more about ourselves, we learn more and more about this power, whatever that power is. So here's from this What is the Oxford group. Here's a thing now. I say third step. They wouldn't call it a third step, but this is, I think, a wonderful thing. What is it when we're talking about surrender? It is a simple decision put into simple language spoken aloud to God in front of a witness at any time and in any place that we have decided to forget the past in God and to give our future into his keeping. Nothing more need be added. Nothing can be taken away. Okay. And one of the things that I like about this is that it kind of says that maybe over time, even though I've surrendered my life to God, I might pick up a few more problems and I might need to do it again. You know, again, it's not that I'm, you know, am I washed clean? Of course. Or, you know, do I have a new life? Of course I do. But over time, at least over my 27 years, I've tended to pick up a few problems and had to slough them off, too. Okay. Okay. So, Vic's, now this is a great third step prayer. I mean, we all know the third step prayer in the big book. But here's one, again, from I Was a Pagan. Here's Vic's surrender prayer. I surrender thee my entire life, O God. I've made a mess of it trying to run it myself. You take it, the whole thing, and run it for me according to your will and plan. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, back to this thing about sponsorship. I love this. Again, this is Vic Kitchen. I was able to, in our book, Alcoholics Anonymous, they talk about the how and the why of it. This is where this comes from. I was able to supplement the all-important why of life with the still more important how of living. I was able to begin really solving my problems and for the first time in my experience was given the power to begin helping others. Oh, back, please. Now, if you take a look at this, this is from I Was a Pagan. And this is the page that really got me all fired up about this. If you take a look at the way that the typeface of the book is, it's almost exactly the way our fourth step, the third column of the fourth step isn't there. But the whole basic setup of the page is the same. See, what Bill Wilson was, was he was a great synthetic thinker. I'm not saying that he ripped stuff off. That's not it at all. But he took things and he synthesized them in a way that worked specifically for alcoholics. And then this is what they called the Oxford Group game. And you think about, well, these are these first Christian, the first name of the Oxford Group was the First Century Christian Group. You know, and what are all these drunks doing with these good Christian people? I mean, what are they doing there? I mean, doesn't that sound just a little bit odd? But here's how Vic described his old life. In my old life. I have most liked myself, liquor, tobacco, and almost every other stimulant, narcotic, and form of self-indulgence. Anything which gave me pleasure, possessions, position, and applause or pumped up my self-esteem. I most like to be left largely to myself. And I really liked my wife because of the comforting and complimentary way which she treated me. In my old life, I hated most poverty for myself, prohibition, right on, work, people who disapproved or tried to interfere with me, and any betrayal of my inner thoughts or feelings. So you can see now why it is that the guys felt comfortable being with these folks. I mean, because they were relaxed and comfortable. Okay. So that's the four-step program. Now, if you read the book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, in it, Bill talks about the six-step program that the early alcoholics worked. So this is after they've split from the Oxford group. And this is what the early alcoholics worked. This is what they were doing before the 12 steps were written. First, they admitted they were hopeless. Second, they got honest with their self. Third, they got honest with another. Four, made amends. Five, helped others without demand for payment. And six, prayed to God as you understand him. So that's just a little background so that you know about what it was that the Oxford group was when I speak about them. Okay? So, it only looked like... It looked like a chance encounter. This is how AA really started. Now, this is Frank Buchman. He was founder of the Oxford group. His family was German-Swiss. They were Lutherans. They came to the United States in the 1850s. This is a picture of Frank. Frank believed that the reason that God created him ugly is so that he wouldn't be able to do anything. He believed that the reason that God created him ugly is so that he wouldn't be able to do anything. He believed that he wouldn't be threatening to people. Back a little bit. Back, please. Now, Frank... What happened with Frank is that his mother was very religious and he grew up... And he had an experience when he was young that he believed that he would be used. He had this vision... Not a vision. The voice spoke to him and said, You will be used to remake the world. And there's a book called On the Tail of a Comet by Garth Lean that's a biography of Frank. And it's very long, but it's a remarkable, remarkable book. At least to me, it was. Frank was... He was brought up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And he became a Lutheran minister. And somebody accused him of being prideful. And so he's disrespected. And he decided to show them. And he went into the slums of Philadelphia where he founded a hospice for boys. And this kind of hospice was what it was, was a place where people could get... These boys could come together and they could get a safe place to sleep at night. And they could get a meal. And they could get a shower. And they could get some Bible study. And they could get some help in getting a job. And what happened is that... Stay with Frank. Yeah. And what happened is that Frank... The place became so successful that the board of the... The board of the boys' home said, We've got to change things. We're going to have to cut back the food we're giving the kids. And Frank said, No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. You can't get to them if their bellies are empty. He said, There's a reason we give them pancakes. It's on Sunday morning. So they'll get up and come to church. You know, Frank was real... He was brought up... His father and mother had a little hotel along the railroad. And so hospitality was always a big part of him. In fact, the group Initiatives of Change, they say that one of the things that we're to do is that we're supposed to practice radical hospitality. And Frank... So Frank got ticked off. And he left in a huff. And he'd worked himself into exhaustion. He went off to Europe. And he was just resentful at these people. And he spent a year traveling around. And he's a minister, right? And so his whole gig is supposedly trying to help people, you know, make a decision for Christ. And over a whole year, he doesn't have anything at all happen along those lines. And he ends up in Keswick. He's a kingler. And he's listening to a woman who is a Salvation Army preacher talk about the cross of Christ. And as he's listening to her talk, he has this idea of the cross collapsing into an eye. And he goes, oh, my gosh. I was the seventh wrong man. It wasn't all them. So he goes home and he writes a letter of apology to each of these people. And he sends it. And he sends it off. And that evening, he took a walk with a young man. And he described the feeling of having all this weight lifted off him. And this young man says, I want that. And he made a decision for Christ that day. And so Frank has this idea that in order for me to be a channel of spiritual power, I have to be clean. And so that's why we have that thing of the Catholic. And he says, next year will be the 100th anniversary of this experience of this man. And I'm going to be part of a group that goes there. And then we're going up to Visby where he declared moral rearmament. And then we'll end up in Coe in Switzerland. Now, Frank Bookman is the most interesting cat I never heard of. I studied post-war European history in university. And he was nominated. He was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Once before the war for his efforts to stop the Second World War. And then after the Second World War for his efforts in helping bring nations together. He was decorated by the governments of France, Germany, Greece, Japan, and the Philippines for his work after the Second World War. He founded the Oxford Group at Oxford University in 1921. He changed the name of it to Moral Rearmament. Moral Rearmament. So we say that he initiated Moral Rearmament in 1938. And the reason that he did this is he had this inspiration that all the nations of the world were rearming. And that the only way to keep the nonsense that had happened in the First World War from happening again was for the world to morally rearm. And then he was, my father taught me when I was young. He taught me a lot of interesting things like it's not adultery if it's outside the area code. Font of wisdom and knowledge. I come by my alcoholism honestly. But he said you can tell a lot about a man by his friends. But you can tell even more about a man by his enemies. And this guy, Frank Bookman, was hated by everybody. He was equally vilified by hawks and doves. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. By labor. The fascists called him a communist. The communists called him a fascist. Just everybody. So a fascinating person. Now this is Frank and he's with a gentleman by the name of Blair Buck. Frank, when he came back from Keswick, he went to the YMCA. And there he was directed. He was sent to be the chaplain at the most godless university. In the United States. Penn State University. A place awash in alcohol and student unrest. And Frank showed up there and he took a look around. Now one of the knocks on the Oxford group and on Frank was that he was only interested supposedly in the well-to-do. And in the powerful. But in the young men's Christian organization, in any spiritual evangelical movement, or if you're involved in any kind of revolutionary movement, the first things you're taught is what's called the key man strategy. In other words, you come into any town or any area and you take a look around you and you find who are the people that if they come over to my side are going to touch the most people. And so the Oxford group was very big on what they called strategy. I mean they really thought about where they were going. And what they were doing. And so please stay. So Frank, when he comes in he thinks of, takes a look at Penn State and he thinks of three people. One's the dean of men at the university. Because he's an agnostic. He's not involved at anything. The second is this guy, Blair Buck. Blair Buck was as handsome as Frank was ugly. He was this incredibly energetic, good looking guy. And every time he came in, he was like, oh, I'm going to be a part of this. And he was like, oh, I'm going to be a part of this. And he was like, oh, I'm going to be a part of this. And he was like, oh, I'm going to be a part of this. And he was like, oh, I'm going to be a part of this. And everybody liked him. And then the third guy was a guy by the name of William Gilliland. Now, so Frank approaches Blair. And they start to become friendly. And Blair was from this family in Virginia. And they both liked horses. And so their friendship kind of formed on that. And they went along. And at one point Frank says to Blair, hey. I'm a Christian. What are you? And he says, well, I'm a Confucianist. He says, great. He says, one of the things that I like about being a Christian is that we like to try. I believe that what I do is that I'm helpful to people. How about you? He says, yeah, being helpful is good. So he says, let's pick somebody. And you try and help them with your Confucianism. So Blair says, great. And they picked this gentleman, a guy that I like to call alcoholic number one, William Gilliland, Bill Pickles. And Blair comes up with this thing. And after about three months, there doesn't seem to be much movement. And Frank says, well, do you think there's been anything? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. He says, no, there really hasn't. So Frank says, well, why don't we try it my way for a while? Blair says, cool. He says, let's try. We, in Christianity, we pray for people. So what I'd like to do is I'd like, let's pray for this guy. So Blair comes up with this prayer. Is that the next one? Is it there? Okay. Blair comes up with this prayer. And the prayer is, oh, God, if there be a God, please help Bill Pickles and all the little pickles. Because Bill was living in this house that was all trashed and had lots of kids and all that. See, Bill happened to be the bootlegger that controlled the booze for the entire university. And so they started praying this prayer. And one of the things that I like about this is that the Oxford group, and I think my personal opinion is, is that in Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the things that we've lost is this thing about, we're not asking you to believe anything. But what we do ask you to do is make an honest experiment. That's all. And that I believe that this prayer is the linchpin to everything. Because it says, oh, God, if there be a God. So you don't have to believe anything. You can even come in doubt. You can even pray in doubt. And what happened is that one day Bill had said loudly, publicly, repeatedly from the time that Frank had come to Penn State that he would rather stick a knife in Frank than breathe the same air. Not exactly of an approach. Not exactly of an approachable guy. But one day Blair and Frank are walking down the street and Bill comes out of an alley in front of him. And Frank realizes that either I'm going to approach this man or I'm going to lose all credibility with Blair. Now Frank had this great big nose. So he got up really close to Bill. He figured so that if he hit him, he wouldn't break his nose too badly. And he said, Bill, we've been praying for you. And Bill snapped around and looked at Frank. And the story is that all the fight went out of him. And he looked up and he said, you see that church up there on the hill? He said, my mother helped build that. And I've got a nickel from when I was a little kid that's under the cornerstone. And what had happened is his mother had committed suicide and wasn't able to be buried there at the church. And so he'd had a justifiable resentment. He'd been against religion ever since. And he'd lived this life of desolation. He didn't say that at the moment. But they started talking. They became friendly. And Bill loved to bet on the horses. And so they go along and become friendly. And at one point, they invite Frank had given Bill his beaver hat, which was the best possession that he had. And they were. They were going up to Toronto to a temperance, a young men's Christian temperance movement. And they invited Bill to go along. And Bill went because he thought maybe he could get a coat out of the deal. And while they were up there. Bill, this guy who's the bootlegger, that's the, you know, I don't know that he was an alcoholic, but he was a chronic drinker. He and Frank are sharing a room. He and Frank are going to bed. Frank says, hey, we can't go to bed. We haven't prayed. He goes, I've even forgotten how to say the Lord's Prayer. Frank says it with him. And his obsession to drink left. And he became part of this Oxford group. And he went when they came back down to Pennsylvania to the college station. People were pissed. The man had gone over to the other side. They would. They walked up. They'd pour booze on him. They'd put it in his. He never took another drink the rest of his life. And he went around the world helping Frank carry this message. Frank helped him while they were on that trip to write an amends letter to his wife. And they was able to start a new life. When they started at Penn State, there were 10 Bible studies that had about 200 people. Now, when the connection goes over to the other side. In fact, the. Football team at Penn State was known for showing up to their games drunk. And that when within a year. They had like over three quarters of the men at the college were involved in Bible study. And they were going through these steps that I went through a little while ago about doing the sharing. And then making amends and doing all this stuff. And all of a sudden, people from all over the world are coming to find out what had happened at Penn State University. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Where is he? Now, another one of the important people in this story is Samuel Moore Shoemaker. Sam Shoemaker was a close associate of Frank Bookman's. Could you go back there? I'm sorry. He was the most prolific Oxford group. I don't know. This one. The most prolific Oxford group. Oxford group. Remember now. He's the head of a big Episcopal church, or Anglican church, as you'd know it, in New York. And I was always wondering, how does this guy have enough time to write all these books? Well, he wasn't writing the books. What they were doing was they were taking his sermons and putting them together and publishing them. He was the rector of Calvary Church, New York. He was the founder of the Calvary Mission. Bill Wilson referred to him as a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he was the founder of the Calvary Mission. He was a confessor and spiritual mentor to Roland Hazard, Shep Cornell, Sebra Gerebs, Bill Wilson. And he was an amazing guy. Sam was another guy from Virginia, from a good family, good-looking, talented guy. And he decided to enter the priesthood, and he ends up going to China. And he's in China. And he's not... He's not having any success. He'd been given this Bible study to run, and it wasn't going real well. He was having a tough time. Number one, he didn't like the Chinese. He didn't like China. The word God and pig were really close, so if he mispronounced it, it was, you know, completely off the board. And he started out with this great group of young men, and by... He's been there for like three months, and he's down to like 12 guys. So Sam Shoemaker is there in Peking, and Bookman comes through. And he's talking about these four absolutes. He's talking about that if you're going to have an experience, you've got to be clean yourself. If you're going to transmit any power, that you've got to be clean yourself. And so Sam listens to all this guy. I mean, he's from Virginia, and this guy's from Pennsylvania. You know, and he's a Lutheran. Oh, my God. You know, how can he have anything really to share with me? So what he does is he goes over to Frank after they're done, and he says, Hey, Frank, I need you to help me out. I want you to come to my Bible study, because I know that there's one key guy. There's this guy, and if you get him, I know that everything will go fine, and, you know, it'll be wonderful. So will you come help me? And Frank looked at him, and he said, What's wrong with you that you're not able to carry a message? Well, Sam got a little upset, and he went home in a huff. But he couldn't sleep that night, and he thought of all the places that he hadn't completely given himself to God. And that night, he decided to make a surrender. He got together with Frank the next day. He called this the night of his second birth. And then he went back to his Bible study, and he said, Hey, guys, I'm sorry. I hate China. I hate China. I hate China. I hate you guys. I'm really sorry. I want to get better at it. Will you help me to do that? And what happened is that from that, the whole thing turned around, and it became this powerful group. So, now, here's a picture of Frank Bookman and Bunny Austin and Sam Shoemaker. And Mrs. Edison at an Oxford group rally in Los Angeles. And this is Calvary Church. Now, after his experience and when his term in China was over, Sam became Frank's kind of right-hand guy. And they went around the world going to different missionary groups and sharing these Oxford group steps and really helping a lot of people. And Sam became known as one of the great life changers. Now, he has never had his own church. But in New York at this time, they're losing a bunch of people. So, they want something vibrant brought in. A lot of folks are moving to the suburbs. So, Sam gets called to have this really great job at Calvary Church. And you can see here that there's this big building on the side, and this was part of the church property. And this was a church. Right? housing area, apartments, where Oxford Group people from all over the world would come and stay. Here's a picture of the Thursday night meeting at the Calvary Church in 1932. Same thing here, some lame guy up here speaking, people sitting there, and people telling their stories. There's a great picture of Sam. Now, after Sam had been there for a while, they decided that they needed to do a little outreach work. So the church owned some property down in the Bowery, and they founded the Calvary Mission. And what this place was, was a place that guys that were on the streets could be brought in, they could be given a place to have a plate of beans and some coffee, they could take a shower, they could get cleaned up, they could go to some Oxford Group meetings, and then they could hopefully go out and get a job. And when Sam was looking for somebody to run the place, the person that came to work for him was Harry Hadley Jr. Harry Hadley Jr. had been a very bad alcoholic and drug addict. His father was a bad alcoholic and drug addict who had had a spiritual experience at Jerry McCauley's mission down on Water Street. And the old man had gone around the world, you know, being a prohibition and a temperance preacher. And then after his father died, he'd wanted his son to, you know, get cleaned up. The son wasn't able to. After dad died, the son had an experience and carried on the family's work and was going all over the world, and he was tired. And so he came to work for Sam running the Calvary mission. So there's a sober alcoholic running this Calvary mission. This is Jim Newton. Now, is anybody here bipolar? Okay. Bisexual? In America, I say bi-coastal, you know, people that live in New York and Los Angeles. Because if your mind can work on two tracks, this story is a lot. It's a lot easier than if it's just on one. Okay? Because we're going to start talking about Ohio, and we're going to start talking about New York. Now, this is Jim Newton. This is another one of these really powerful people. Without this man, I don't believe I'm sober. Jim Newton was a flim-flam man. He was a con artist. He would go into town selling stuff and then, you know, get the deposit. And leave and never bring the product. There was an old American show called The Music Man. And in it, the guy comes and he sells band instruments. Anyway, that's the kind of person that Jim Newton was. Anyway, he ended up at one of these Oxford Group house parties. And when he's there, he listens to people talk. He identifies with their sharing. He goes up to Frank Bookman. He says, Frank, will you help me? He goes up to Frank Bookman. He says, Frank, will you help me? Frank sends him a message. He sends him to Sam Shoemaker. He goes down to New York. He works the steps with Sam. Then he goes home. And in those days, his family moved down to Florida. And his father was a land speculator. And his father had bought the piece of land that was between the Fords and the Edisons. And in those days, I know this doesn't happen in Reykjavik, but land value tends to go up if there's rich people there. People want to be next to them and just kind of bask in the glory of it all. And so anyway, Jim's down there and he's helping his old man. And when he's getting to the details of the development, he started going over and asking Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Mr. and Mrs. Edison whether or not they felt that this would be a violation. They didn't want to upset the neighbors. And they fell in love with him. And Jim was, you know, he was very charismatic. Anyway, in those days, Mr. Edison's birthday party in the United States was one of these events where all the politicians and all the industrialists came because they wanted to find out what it was that Edison was working on. And he would always, like, give a preview of what it is that we're working on because he'd done so much to change our lives, you know, with electricity and the movie and all this other stuff. So. You can see the old kinescopes that they used to show in the movie houses of Edison's birthday party, you know, and there they all are. And anyway, they asked Jim if he'd run the party because this Oxford Group guy seemed to be able to handle all these big egos. And one of the people that he met was Mr. Firestone. Mr. Firestone liked Jim so much he invited him to come to Akron to become his personal friend. And he did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He was grooming him to run the company. And Jim was a really talented and amazing man. There's a biography that he wrote called Uncommon Friends that is about his relationship with Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alex Carell, and Charles Lindbergh. Please. Now, Firestone, Newton comes up to Akron and he goes to work for Mr. Firestone. Mr. Firestone has some kids. And one of the kids is a guy that they call Bud. And Bud just had a little bit of a drinking problem. He's one of these guys that when you read about him, you know, it's on Saturday in the little Crime Stoppers part of the paper, you know, well, let's see what he did this weekend. You know, anyway, he was a horrible alcoholic, kept getting into all these scrapes. When he's sober, everybody loves him. So Newton's there for a while. And after a couple of weeks, he's there again. And it's just a great story, you know? And I've seen him. couple years he goes, God, this is really a problem. And he has an idea. He has some information. He has some guidance. And his guidance is, he goes to Mr. Firestone and he says, let me go with Bud on his next dryout and, you know, I'll find out what it is that he's doing. And then when he comes back, I can help him. So the old man says, we've tried everything else. Let's go along. So they go off to this dryout farm in New York. And I'm sure it's just like what you got here in Reykjavik. You have to make your own bed, get lots of physical exercise, you know, get some food in you and all that stuff. And the treatment worked so well that when it was time for them to leave 30 days later, the best deal that Jim could cut with Bud was that he'd hold the bottle. He started drinking again immediately. And they're on the train back. Jim's really upset. He doesn't know what to do. He's going, I'm really in trouble. The old man's going to be pissed. And then he remembers that his friend, Sam Shoemaker, is at a bishop's conference in Denver. So they take the train to Denver. And they get on a train with Sam and they're going towards New York. And on that train, Sam, who was known as one of the great life changers or the great soul surgeons, he gets with Bud Firestone. And the two of them talk. They make a decision. And Bud's drinking obsession leaves. And they're so stunned, they just send him off to an Oxford group place in New York. Jim goes back to work. And a few months later, Mr. Firestone and the family doctor go to visit the son. And when they got there, the doctor said, this is a modern medical miracle. You know when really bad alcoholics get sober and all the pain goes out of their face? And it was that prodigal experience. They had a walk. The son made amends to his father. And they came home. So that's Akron. Now, it just so happens, at about the same time, on the East Coast, there's another guy with a lot of money. Did you ever feel like if you just had enough money? You wouldn't have a drug and alcohol problem? Right? I used all of my money, all of your money, all of her money, her retirement. Oh, and can I borrow your car? And it still doesn't work. Anyway, this guy, Roland Hazard, comes from a family whose fortune came from selling blankets to the Union Army in the Civil War. A lot of money. Burlington, Northern, later they became the Allied Chemical Company. They've got lots. Anyway, he's the same guy. Beautiful. I mean, I'd do him, for Christ's sake. I mean, charismatic, wonderful guy, except when he's drinking. And bad to his wife, bad to the family. You know, they had it with him. Anyway, they've tried everything. And then one of his cousins has been going to Zurich, Switzerland, and has been involved with Dr. Carl Jung. And so Roland ends up going to Dr. Jung. Dr. Carl Jung, a doctor in Switzerland. He's a doctor in Switzerland. He's a doctor in Germany. He goes back and forth with Jung a few times. And he gets sober. He's not drinking. And then he shows back up after drinking again. He was in Paris. Somebody asked him the wrong question. Would you like wine with your dinner? He said yes. Off to the races again. And he's off to the races for a while. He comes back to the doctor. He says, Doc, you know, what's up? And Jung says, So what's up? And he says, I'm not drinking. I'm just drinking. And he says, I'm sorry. I can't help people like you. And he goes, what? I got all the money. You can't tell me you can't help me. He says, no, I can't help you. He says, the very best you can do is align yourself with a spiritual movement. There's something that happens sometimes. It's a mystery to me. But sometimes people get struck by a religious movement. And I think that's a very good thing. And I think that's a very good thing. And I think that's a very good thing. And I think that's a very good thing. And I think that's a very good thing. And I think that's a very good thing. Now, Jung knew about the Oxford Group. Some of his students were involved in it. Whether or not he said go to the Oxford Group, we don't know. But he ends up back in New York. And where does Roland end up but at the, do you have a picture? He ends up at Calvary Church. And yeah, he ends up at Calvary Church. And there he's doing his job. And he's doing his job. He starts going to these Oxford Group meetings. So he's drinking and going to meetings. And he's thinking that this is a really good idea. And then one day, he gets a copy of Vic Kitchen's book, I Was a Pagan. And he's on the train from New York to Detroit. And he identifies. And he surrenders. And he quit drinking. And he became a member of the Oxford Group. This got out of sequence somehow. And it's not her fault. It's mine. So let's go back to the soul surgeons. Okay, so we got Bud Firestone. He's sober in the Oxford group in Akron. We got Roland Hazard and a bunch of his cronies, and they're sober in the Oxford group in New York. Now, Mr. Firestone is so excited about what's happened in his family that he does what many people did, which is that they would invite the Oxford group to come to their town and put on one of these house parties. And then what would happen is that Sunday, they'd have the meeting over the weekend at a hotel, and they'd have big speaker meetings, and then they'd have smaller meetings where, like, the compulsive overeaters or the compulsive sex addicts or the alcoholics or the drug addicts would get together and talk in small closed groups, men or women, men's work for men, women's work. men's work for women, old Oxford group line. And then at the speaker meetings, they'd do things like they'd have a coal miner from Wales get up and talk, and then they'd have some princess from Greece get up and talk, and then they'd have some maid from the United States and some industrialist. So they'd show that, you know, all different kinds of people, when they'd had these problems, when they worked these steps, they would have this experience. So Mr. Firestone gets together with a couple of his cronies, they bankroll a house party, and they bring the Oxford group, some heavy hitters, to Akron where they have this experience. And at that house party that weekend, there's a bunch of different people. There's a disaffected daughter-in-law of a rubber company. There's a proctologist that shakes a lot and his wife, Bob and his wife. Bob and his wife. Bob and Ann Smith. There's T. Henry and Clarice Williams. There's a lot of folks in Akron that respond to this message, and they start to have meetings there in Akron. Now here's a picture of Bill and his sponsor, Ebby. Ebby's another one of these guys that comes from a family with a lot of dough. And the family's had it with him. He can't even live in Albany with them anymore. He's exiled to the summer house in Manchester. And while he's there, he's having a few drinks and getting in trouble here and there. And then one day, he drives his car into a house, and he gets out of the car, and he asked the horrified woman who was in there cooking if she'd please give him a cup of coffee. She got a little angry. So they thought, well, I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to go to the store. They throw him in jail. And the judge says, listen, you were just in here a while ago. You caused a fire. And in those days, you know, fires were horrible things. And thank God you didn't burn anybody but yourself. He said, now you've done this. If I ever see you back in my court again, I'm going to have you committed for a year to the mental institution as a chronic inebriate. Get out of here. So. So. And he goes home. Well, I'm not drinking now. I'll do something around the house. And so he decides to paint the house. Now he's withdrawing so badly that he can't get up on a ladder. So he's only going up about this high. He's going around the house. And as he's doing this, Manchester's a resort community. And so he's going around the house. And as he's doing this, Manchester's a resort community. And so he's going around. And he's going up and down the stairs. And he notices that there's a case of beer. Now he sees the case of beer. This is about the third day. And he's looking at the case of beer. And he goes, well, you know, I don't drink anymore. And I got this beer here. And if one of my friends come by and they see the beer, they're probably going to want me to drink it with them. Since I don't drink, I'll just drink this beer. I'll get it out. There won't be any problems. So he starts drinking the beer. And he's like, well, I'm going to drink this beer. And he's like, well, I'm going to drink this beer. Now, as it would happen, there were some pigeons around the house who had been messing up this wonderful painting that he was doing. And he had a little justified resentment. So he got a lawn chair and his shotgun and the beer that he was drinking so nobody would have to ask him about drinking anymore. And he starts shooting at the pigeons. Even in resort communities, this is frowned upon. They come by and they pinch him and they take him back to the jail. They come by and they pinch him and they take him back to the jail. Now, while he's in jail, it just so happens that the judge that he's been before, Now, while he's in jail, it just so happens that the judge that he's been before, his last name is Graves. And his son is a good friend with Roland Hazard. And the Hazards have a house in Manchester. And Roland and Sebra and a bunch of the boys have been hanging out with their wives, having an Oxford group time in Manchester. And in fact, they've even been by to talk to him. And in fact, they've even been by to talk to him. And in fact, they've even been by to talk to him. So Judge Graves sends a message to his son, Hey, we got your buddy. And we're going to have to send him to the mental institution for a year. And we're going to have to send him to the mental institution for a year. Well, the Oxford group boys get together, Well, the Oxford group boys get together, Well, the Oxford group boys get together, show up Monday morning at court, and they say, and Roland gets up and he says, Judge, you remember me? Judge goes, yeah. He says, I am not drinking. I haven't had anything to drink in six months. Give him to us. Then they say the magic word, we'll take him to New York. Judge is real happy about that. We'll take him to New York, and we'll try and show him what happened with us. And so they get Ebi. He doesn't have to go to the nut ward, and they take him to New York. And where do they take him? They take him to Calvary Mission. They take him to the Oxford Group Center there that's run by Harry Hadley, Jr. That's Sam Shoemaker's there at meetings. He meets Sam. They start talking. He listens to the sharing. He makes a surrender. And his drinking obsession leaves. This is Towns Hospital. Towns Hospital was, this is the Charles B. Towns Hospital for drug addicts, alcoholic, and neurasthetics. When you read the big book, they talk about people having a bad case of the jitters, a nervous condition. That's what the neurasthetics is. They aren't quite as bad as the alcoholics and the drug addicts, but you're pretty fucking shaky, and this is what it is. Anyway, Charlie Towns made his reputation by taking a couple guys who were members of the mob in New York who were drug addicts and getting them clean. So if it works for the mob, the society people start sending them, too. Anyway, Bill Wilson starts showing up at this hospital. His brother-in-law starts writing checks to get him in there to help. He's got a little bit of a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. He's got a job. Bill's had. And Bill's been there a couple of times, and Ebi has started to really do this Oxford Group stuff, and one of the things he's doing is he's listening for guidance. And his sponsor, Roland, keeps saying, you've got to work with others. You've got to work with others. And they've got the guys coming in here, but one day, Ebi's got a couple of months sober, and he's got a job. And he thinks about his buddy, Bill Wilson. Who Roland knew? They had all been running partners together and gone off to Cuba and flying airplanes and being weird. And they'd heard that Bill was in really, really bad shape. So Ebi says, I've received guidance from God. Bill Wilson. And his sponsor says, God. Go get him. And so Ebi goes down to, no. I'm sorry. Back a couple. So anyway, Ebi goes down, and he talks to Bill, and Bill throws him. It's not in the big book, but it's in all the other stories. Like, there's a reason that the book, the Al-Anon book, is called Lois Remembers, because she did. You know? Everybody else in the story is either way buzzed out on religion or shit-faced. So, and in Lois Remembers, they talk about that Ebi made one pass, and Bill threw him out before the pineapple and gin incident a couple days later. But, so Ebi comes by, and he talks to him about, hey, this is what's going on. And, you know, clearly it worked. And Ebi hadn't had anything to drink for two months. Two months. And he asked Bill if he wanted what he had. And Bill said, yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I want what you got. Sure. No problem. Get out of here. And so Bill's a big thinker, and so he gets rid of Ebi, and he starts drinking and thinking. And before he'd become a stock speculator, what Bill was, he was an insurance investigator. So he gets the idea. I'll go down to this Oxford Group place, this Calvary mission, and I'll see what they're doing, and I'll figure it out, and I'll go home and do it by myself. And so here it is. It's the end of November, and he goes toddling down, beginning of December, and he goes toddling down to the mission. And on the way, he gets... He gets kind of lost, and he starts stopping in saloons. Now, he's not going to drink, mind you. He's just going to look for somebody that he might know that might be in the bar. And he doesn't meet anybody, so he decides to sit in a bar and wait for somebody he might know. Then he has a beer, and then he meets Alex the Finn. Got to have a Finnish guy involved in any drug story, right? There's always the Finn. So Alex the Finn goes with him, and they go, and they start weaving their way down, and they get down to Calvary. Calvary Mission. And they're both boiled as an owl. And they text Francisco's work in the door at Calvary Mission, and as Bill said, he said, I was about to get my accustomed beading, because they were too drunk to get in, supposedly, when Ebby sees him and goes, no, no, I'll sponsor him, and he brings him in and gets him some beans and gets him some coffee, and then he gets him into the meeting. And they're in the meeting, Alex and Bill, and Ebby, and they're doing the sharing and all that stuff. And have you ever been in the meeting with a guy who's still drunk, and he wants to share? So Bill's a big guy, and Ebby made one of those mistakes that you only make once. If you're sitting in a pew, the sober guy is always on the outside of the pew, but Bill's on the outside of the pew because he's got long legs, and he gets up and he takes off. He's down to give witness. And he gets up there, and he starts talking. And he starts talking about Ebby, and he starts talking about this and that. And they make the call, and Bill gives his life to Jesus. And he wakes up the next morning, and he's absolutely horrified. He said, I was jumping for Jesus and singing old camp songs. And he's like, how am I ever going to show my face on Wall Street again? They're going to be saying, oh, yeah, Bill, we'll be happy to be involved in this venture with you. Would you like to sing a little kumbaya for us? So he's just horribly, horribly depressed, and he doesn't know what to do. And he gets the shot to go back to town's hospital again. And he goes back to town's hospital. And Ebby shows up again. And Bill says, what's going on? You know, it was a blizzard day, and here this guy is going out. I mean, it's awful out, and here this guy is. He says, tell me again about these four steps. And so Ebby told him about the four steps. And Bill says, well, you know, and Ebby said to him, you know, I really thought you had it, buddy. I really thought you had it. And Bill said, well, obviously I didn't. And Ebby leaves, and his depression gets worse. And in that depression, Bill calls out, and he says, you know, if there is a God, show him to me. And he has the experience. And, you know, and he calls Dr. Silkworth in, and he says, Silky, what's going on? Have I lost my mind? And Silkworth says, no. Have I lost my mind? And Silkworth looks at him, and he says, I don't know what happened, but whatever it is, hold on to it. You're a lot better than you were just a little while ago, okay? So let's just stay with it. And this is the miracle. The medical man says, this is good. Not, nurse, more meds. And then the next day, Ebby comes back. Bill tells him what happened. Ebby says, wonderful, man. That happens all the time. This stuff happens all the time in the Oxford group. We're familiar with this stuff. And he says, you know what? I'm going to bring you a book. And the next day, he comes back, and he brings him a book. And the book he brought him was William James, The Variety of Religious Experience. Now, you hear a lot of people in AA say, oh, it's just an awful, difficult to read, you know, and all that. And it's an elegant book. And you know that he didn't start at the beginning. Have you ever met any? The alcoholic that reads the prefaces or the forward without a sponsor saying, this is what you've got to read? No. He goes straight to the conversion experiences. And in the conversion experiences, there's stories of alcoholics that have been liberated from their drinking problem, the same stuff that Jung had talked to Roland Hazard about. And in it, one of them is this experience by a guy by the name of S.H. Hadley. And it says, although up to that moment, my soul had been filled with indiscretions, inscribable gloom, I felt the glorious feeling of the noonday sunshine into my heart. I felt I was a free man. And from that moment till this, I'd never wanted a drink of whiskey, nor seen enough money to make me take one. And, you know, why is it that Ebi brought him this book? The reason he brought him the book is, is S.H. Hadley was Harry's dad. That was Harry Hadley's father, and Harry Hadley was Harry's father's experience that was in that book. This wasn't some musty philosophical tome. It's, oh, you had that? My buddy's dad had that. Here. At the same time, in Akron, at the Williams house, there's the West Hills group of the Oxford group going on. And they got all kinds of great stuff going on there. And, you know, I'm not saying that they're not great, but one of the things that was happening was, is that there was this woman, Henrietta Seiberling, who in the month of April, what would happen at this meeting, it was a weekly meeting, format was the same as ours, basically. What happened is the leader would be picked for a month. They would pick a series of Bible readings, you know, and they would say what the topic was for the next week. Anyway, Ann Smith, Dr. Bob's wife, was a star. She was a staunch member of this group, and Dr. Bob had to go almost every week, whether he wanted to or not. And her sponsor was a woman by the name of Henrietta Seiberling. Henrietta is running the meetings in April. And she's been trying to help Ann for a couple years now. They've been going to these silly meetings. And, you know, Ann's being able to survive this, and Henrietta's being able to survive her marriage problem. But, you know, Bob's not, Bob's getting worse. I mean, more sedatives, more alcohol. It's horrible. He's awful with the kids. Henrietta, what are we going to do? Bob had never spoken at the meeting. And so Henrietta says, okay, next week we're going to have a meeting, and I want everybody to come prepared to share something costly. And by costly, she meant that you're going to tell the truth about something you did not want to tell the truth about. And Henrietta was kind of one of the spiritual, glues in this thing. And so everybody shows up at the meeting, and they start going around, and they're talking maybe about beating their kids or padding their expense account, maybe talking about infidelity, who knows. But they went around the room, and they shared costly stuff. And everybody goes around the room, and Bob doesn't share. And T. Henry, whose house it was, looked across the room, and he said, Bob, don't you have anything to say? And Dr. Bob said, I don't have anything to say. And Bob says, this is probably going to cost me my practice, and I hope that it will not leave this room, but I'm a closet drinker, and I can't stop. And T. Henry looks at him, and he says, do you want our help? Bob says, yeah. And so they got down on their knees, and they prayed. And Bob tweet, and then T. Henry набWhall said, you know, congratulations. You're a well-ễed person. You're a well-earned person. but they're doing this guidance stuff, and if you want to know what the Oxford Group guidance stuff, I've got a little website. I'll give you a card for it. It's this thing about asking for direction. But what the Oxford group suggests is you always write it down, that the weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory. And so one morning, just after this, Henry's doing her guidance, and what comes to her is, you don't have to worry. I'll send someone. And then after that is, tell Bob he's not supposed to drink anything at all. So Henry gets on the phone. She calls him up. Bob, Bob, I've got guidance for you. I mean, if your wife's sponsor calls. What is it? You're not supposed to drink anything. Oh, great news. I think I'll have a few more high-powered sedatives to be able to take this. So he keeps drinking. But she goes back to the meeting. She says, gang, we don't have to worry anymore. I've gotten guidance, and God's going to send someone. So what happens? Bill Wilson's got six months sober. He's been in Oxford group meetings three times a week. He's come to Akron. There's a real good chance that his friend Sam Shoemaker, the guy he worked the steps with, has said, my buddy Walter Tonks, who happens to be the Oxford group member in the Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio, who's the Firestone's personal chaplain, this might be somebody you might want to call. Of course, Bill doesn't. He just goes off to work and all that stuff. But he gets in a jam, and he's thirsty. The business deal's falling apart. He's walking back and forth. He said he had 10. He had 10 bucks in his pocket, and in Akron you could be king for a weekend with $10. And he's walking back and forth, and he's listening to the bar, and the girls are giggling, and the glasses are tinkling, and he realizes that he's going to drink. Now, he'd had a conversation with Silkworth, where Silkworth said, quit preaching to him, Bill. What you do is hit him with the medical facts. Then come with the spiritual stuff. But first, let him know that alcoholism is a progressive fatal illness. It's biological in nature. The other thing is that Bill had been pulling people off the bar stools because he was going to save people. But now he's in trouble, and he needs an alcoholic. And so what he does is he calls Tonks from the church directory, and he gets a dollar, and he busts it apart, and he starts dropping nickels and making phone calls and taking them to the bar. And he gets a dollar, and he starts dropping nickels, and making phone calls. and Tunks gives him ten names. They're all Oxford Group people, but it's Mother's Day weekend. It's Saturday, and everybody's, you know, out doing stuff. And finally he gets to the end of the list, and it's Cyberling. Now, at one time, Bill Wilson had been a very, very well-known guy in New York. His stock speculations had made a lot of people a lot of money. And one of those people was a guy by the name of Cyberling. And they were a member of a club together, and he thinks that this Henrietta is Mr. Cyberling's wife. And he goes, I'm not calling her. Oh, hi, it's Bill from the club, and I'm a hopeless alcoholic. Know any drunks? I don't think so. And he goes walking back across the hotel lobby when the miracle happens. And the little voice that he'd been taught to listen to in his guidance said, not a good idea. Go back and make the call. And he does. And he does. And he gets to Henrietta. And Henrietta, when she gets a call from this guy, and he goes, I'm a rum hound from New York. Do you know any drunks? She doesn't go, well, in some Christian kindness, well, I'll see what I can do. No, she goes, of course you are. Of course you are. And she says, get over here right now. And she gets on the telephone, and she calls Ann up, and she says, he's here. The one who was for. And she says, get over here right now. And he goes, you are told to me. Get Bob over here right now. He's asleep under the piano. It's not going to happen. So Bill's in desperate shape. He ends up at this coach house. And Henrietta interviews him, and he said it was the first time he ever had to convince somebody that he was an alcoholic. And he tells her the whole story. She gets him to a place where he can spend the night. He comes back the next day. Dr. Bob, you know, he comes to, and Ann's going, my sponsor called, and you were asleep. You know. He says, okay, I'll do anything. It's Mother's Day. We'll go make the call. He said, I'll give him 15 minutes. And on the way over, Smitty, his son, if you've ever had the chance of listening to one of the talks, I don't know if we've got it on the XA or not, but he's driving over there, and the old man said, now listen, after 15 minutes, if you ever want to be able to drive this car again, you walk into the house, and you say there's been a train wreck, and emergency proctology needs to be administered, and get me the heck away from this guy, or it'll be your ass. And he walked in. And Bill looks at him. And watches him shake for a minute or two, and he says, you look like you need a drink. Would you like to go over here and have a little talk? And that's the way that we made it here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.