Bill W. at the 4th NCC Spring Conference – 1951

Beyond all else, an AA meeting is a time for gratitude, very especially this one. Gratitude for God, who has delivered us from our bondage. gratitude for friends who stayed with us even in our caves and gratitude for this special occasion tonight. For 15 years now you and I have been watching a great building under construction to us it is more than a building it is a temple a cathedral of the spirit in which some 120,000 of us are now entered and know a freedom and a brotherhood and a peace of which we could never have dreamed in yesteryear. It may be best serve our purpose for this evening if figuratively speaking I take each of you by the hand and we go back to the very beginning of this society even entering the cave from which I and my first partner in this work emerged and then we follow an ill-defined trail through the time of our infancy broadening out into a road as this movement became adolescent and now opening out onto a broad highway which men call Alcoholics Anonymous. And as we pass over this route and through 15 years of time, let us pause by the way and observe those times and places in which great decisions and great realizations came to us that have deeply affected our destiny and have brought us where we stand tonight. Of course, the first great realization is one that every single alcoholic in this audience has taken since that day. In my own case, it was the realization of my utter hopelessness And it came to me in full force in the summer of 1934, when I lay in a typical drying-out hospital. There many times, but on this occasion I knew at last that I had no power to go on living under my own resources. And that verdict of mine was amply backed up by the verdict of Madison. Madison had told me, your habit of drinking has now become an obsession, a virtual insanity that condemns you to drink against your will. And this has been accompanied by an increasing bodily sensitivity, ensuring dire results. So, as we say in A.A., I hit bottom on that summer day of 1934. Curiously enough, for those here who don't understand A. A., I might explain that this hitting bottom with us today is the first step toward recovery. Truly enough, this society operates on the divine paradox that strength can come out of weakness. So I hit bottom. But I was not alone in hitting bottom that day. For downstairs, Lois Wilson, my wife, who like many another woman is stuck with her husband, sat downstairs talking to the doctor. That doctor has since become a medical saint to our society. A kindly man, he was trying to explain to her my predicament. And as many another woman before and since had said, why oh why doctor can't he get well? For these last several years he has wished to get well above all else. What's the matter with this terrific willpower? A willpower that he can still exercise respecting other matters. Why does his will fail when it comes to drinks? Why, oh why, doctor, can't he get well? He desperately wanted to get well. Well, we of AA now know why I couldn't get well, as it had been put to me, so it was put to her. Your husband said to good doctor, has had a habit of drinking, now become an obsession. And that obsession condemns him to go on against his will. And that is coupled with this increasing physical sensitivity, an allergy if you like, which ensures, Mrs. Wilson, I am afraid, that he will go mad or die unless you confine him somewhere. When he first appeared in this hospital I thought he might be an exception To the other hundreds who will come my way But I'm afraid that is not going to be so You will have to lock him up somewhere, Mrs. Wilson Else he may go mad or die within a year So I was not the only one who hit bottom Lois hit bottom as many a wife and husband and mother and father and sister out here have been born and must confess that they were powerless over this age-old mysterious melody. Such was the state of affairs in the summer of 1934. Leaving the hospital, fear kept me sober for a while, but by armistice day of that year I was again in the soil. The obsession had me. I sat alone drinking in my kitchen in Brooklyn. Alone drinking there because Lois was out trying to make a living in a department store. All right. Alone there because I dare not go in the streets for fear the police would get me. condemned and dressed against my will. At this juncture, the phone rang. It's an old friend. I hadn't seen him in years. I had cataloged him as hopeless long before. I had heard he was about to be locked up in a state institution. Here he was in New York and quite obviously sober. And I said, oh, Eddie, come over. We'll talk about the good old days. And I thought, of course, he would drink with me for old time's sake. Ah, what a very significant statement to good old days. Do you know why I use that expression? Well, it was because the future that... It was because present then was unbearable and I knew there was to be no future. So he soon appears in the door. Yes, he's sober. I suppose we Alkies have a kind of a psychic sense I had once divined that he had something besides sobriety. I was puzzled. I pushed a pitcher of gin across the table, flavored with a little pineapple juice so Lois would take it for cocktails. The alcoholic still won't understand. He shook his head. I said, what? My friend, you want a water wagon? Oh no, he said, I wouldn't say that. I'm just not drinking now. Well, I'm more puzzled than ever. So I say to him, what has gone into you? And he looked at me simply, smilingly. And he said, I've got religion. Ha! He may as well have hit me in the face with a wet mop. I'm agnostic. I thought religion was something for weak people. Well, one has to be polite in those circumstances. So I say, well, Eddie, my boy, what brand of religion is this you've got? Oh, he said I wouldn't call it religion at all. Speaking of brands, it's just a common thing. I ran across a group of people and they sold me on some very simple, fundamental, age-old ideas. Not a new idea in the last year. And it so happened that one of the fellows who helped sell me these ideas was a drunken self. Well, I said, come on, get to the point. What are they? Oh, he said, it's very simple. In effect, you get honest with yourself about yourself as you have never been before. Then you stop this accursed business of living alone in the cave and you talk out these defects that you have discovered in this inventory with another person in confidence. Then you take stock of the people you've harmed in your drinking career, and you go to them and you make amends. Setting things right while you can. And then you try a new kind of giving. At least new to me, as he says. The kind of given that demands no reward. The kind that demands nothing. The kind or giving that would have no reward by way of economics or prestige. He said, that's why I came over to see you. Thought I'd pass along what had come to me if you're interested. Now he said, don't jump. But he said I found that I couldn't make these principles stick as far as my drinking was concerned until I was willing to ask God as I understood him for help to practice these simple precepts. In other words, I pray to the God of my own understanding Well, you see, there was nothing new in what my friend had said. I had heard all these things before. But somehow, coming from him, they struck me deep. And why? Every alcoholic in this audience knows. One alcoholic was talking to another. He talked to me out of that strange world in which I too live. He had a power to identify himself with me. and to transmit these principles so they struck me deep. Happily, he didn't try evangelism on me. There wasn't any pressure. He didn't announce he'd come to save my soul. He just wanted to let me know the good news about him, thinking maybe it could be useful to me. Those were his attitudes, and soon he was gone. Well, I continued on my one and two and three bottles a day. I went on drinking, but from that moment, I could never be the same. And in no waking hour could I get the vision of my friend across that table out of my mind. And my ears rang day and night with what he had said. Yes, I would go to any length to get over this thing, excepting this God business. And there I balked. until one day I had a realization which has come to every alcoholic here since I thought to myself as a hopeless one as a beggar who am I to be the chooser how I will get well I had better try my friend's formula and if he claims there is a great physician who can give me relief I had rather seek him out even as though I had a cancer. Ah, might this not be a cancer too? A cancer of the emotions and mayhap a cancer of the soul. So I put on my hat, half drunk started for the hospital to look up my old friend the doctor. I thought well now I mustn't have any sudden conversion experience. After all, I'm a Yankee and pretty conservative fella. I'd better sober up thoroughly and, you know, get a good look at this thing. Well, the Alkies and their wives here will understand what happened. Of course, I got very drunk on the way to be cured for the last time. We always do that. I arrived at the hospital in pretty bad shape, waving a bottle and shouting in a maudlin voice that I had found something. No, I said, I have got something. And the doctor looked at me and he said, my boy, I'm afraid you have. You had better go upstairs and go to bed. Well, upstairs I went, and because I had come to the hospital early, three days later found me in pretty good shape. Liquor and sedative withdrawn, I now felt pretty depressed. And I continued to ponder on what my friend had said, but I couldn't quite yet seem to take the step. When suddenly he appears in the door, it's quite early in the morning. I knew he should be looking for a job. I hadn't seen him for many years, you must remember. And here he was, miles uptown at this early hour. And he looked in cheerfully and he said, Why, Bill, when I heard you were up here, I thought I'd drop in and pay you a visit. And I thought to myself, as many of you have since thought, this man practices what he preaches. Then I became a little fearful. Maybe this is the day he turns on the evangelism. Maybe he's going to save me. but now he was prudent and any theologian here can tell you that prudence is a very great virtue and it certainly was now in fact he waited for me to ask him again what was this simple yet mysteriously powerful formula that had affected his release from one of the greatest obsessions that mankind has ever suffered oh he said Well, that's a very simple thing. You get honest with yourself. You talk it out with somebody else. Make a confession. Don't gag on the word now. That's what you do. Examination of conscience, a confession You make amends to people you've harmed At least some of the time You try to help other people Without any gimme to it And you pray to whatever God there is And that's all So far as I'm concerned And when I had done these things He said it seemed to me that the problem was lifted out of me he said i feel released i feel free and i knew in my heart that that was true that he wasn't just suppressing this obsession he was no person on the water wagon when suppression would finally give away and there would be another explosion no it wasn't like that something told me and again he was gone and when he had gone I still continued to rebel a little bit and then I sunk into a depression the blackest I had ever known and I suppose momentarily in the abyss of that depression the last trace of my prideful obstinacy was crushed out so then as a child crying in the dark I said now I'm willing to do anything and then with no faith and no particular hope I did cry out in anguish and if there is a God will he show himself well then was granted me one of those very wonderful and inexplicable experiences it seemed to me that the place lit up in a great white light I was caught into an ecstasy indescribable In the mind's eye, it seemed as though I stood on a mountain. It seemed that a great wind was blowing. And I soon perceived that it was not of air, but a wind of heaven, of the Spirit. And I was free. There aren't any words for those sudden experiences. After a time, of course, I realized I'm still on the bed. but now I lie in another world and a great thief stole over me and it seemed that I was one with the universe and I thought to myself so this is the God of the preacher. Now every alcoholic in this audience has had an experience like that And the only difference between the average experience of the AA and mine is that in most cases, those experiences are strung out over a period of six weeks instead of six minutes, or six months, or a year or two. I fancy that my experience with being compressed into six minutes naturally caused this great emotional upheaval. At any rate, these experiences all have the common faculty of releasing us from this malign obsession and restoring our sanity. And enabling to do that which we couldn't do on our own power. Well, lying there in the great joy for the rest of the day The same idea came to me that would have come to any of you I thought to myself on what simple terms this experience has arrived I didn't even have any faith as a conditioned precedent I was just a child crying out in the dark for whatever God there was and announcing that I was ready to take steps to make way for his grave. And it was just as simple, yet just as mysterious as that. And I thought, as you would have thought, why shouldn't any alcoholic have this experience? And then I continued to ponder, but why haven't they had more of these experiences? And why did I have it after talking to another alcoholic? That was the only difference, wasn't it? One alcoholic talking to an other. Maybe that was it. Maybe we could do for each other what neither padre, nor doctor, nor friend had been able to do. Maybe. So I began frantically working with other alcoholics. There wasn't any success. And you'd be amazed to know why. You see, this sudden experience of mine had brought a sort of a conceit. It had brought with it the idea that everybody else ought to have one just like mine. For the edification of any who were skeptical down here, I might say that down in New York, my experience is referred to by the skeptical as Bill Wilson's hot flash. So I rushed around trying to hot flash every drunk within sight, and they merely tapped their heads and walked away, of course. In other words, I had forgotten to be prudent. Then my doctor began to emphasize upon me that this is a fatal progressive malady again. And then the idea of sickness was brought in. And then it occurred, well, the average alcoholic, in fact, the average citizen of the world today, consciously or unconsciously worships at the shrine of science. So is his god of science, the medical man pronounces this a fatal and a hopeless malady in most cases and that dire verdict is transmitted one alcoholic to another it may strike him at depth and shatter that inflated ego so there is room for some grace so I began to talk less about hot flashes and more about sickness although never abandoning the spiritual core of the idea things looked up a little bit And meanwhile, my first friend, who sadly enough had taken no interest in helping other alcoholics, but was having a vicarious enjoyment out of seeing me do it, was taken drunk himself. A terrible shot. And he never did recover, so it left me to go on alone. Well, about that time there was a realization on the part of some of my relatives. Relatives? Some of Lois' relatives, they began to say. Apparently for quite good reason. When is this fellow, Bill, going to go to work and support his wife? When is he going to quit being a missionary? So under that kind of prodding, I went back over to Wall Street and began to sit around in bookish shops, hoping I'd run across some drunks, of course, and making a shift to get back to work. And one day, after I was sober six months, but during which there had been no success with any alcoholics, I got into a casual conversation with a stranger in the brokerage shop. That mysteriously snowballed into a business venture in which I got insinuated into the middle of a proxy row and it took me out to Akron, Ohio and it looked like suddenly I was going to be made president of a small machine tool company out there. And I thought, oh, how wonderful. Now Lois is going to come out of that damn department store. We can hold up our heads again and we'll make some money as we did of the old days back in the street and then I'll do some work with some drugs. Well, I arrived in Akron life aside lost and so I wasn't president. In fact, my new friends found friends made for New York and left me alone in the hotel with an unpaid bill and then came those waves of self-pity and of resentment burning resentment after all the good I've done that I could be treated this way. You ever hear of that drunk? And I darkly suspected that the process which had defeated me in the contest had been thawed. And I'm walking up and down and it's a Saturday afternoon in the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. I haven't the car fare home. I look in the bar room and the people in there are gathering. It's the weekend. They are filling up and that buzz that we drunks know so well is rising higher and higher and very alluringly. All of a sudden I realize what doubt goes on to get drunk. The first time I had been tempted in all these months or in my case that experience that snaps off the desire as though it was chopped off by the hand. And then I'm panicking and I'm alone and then I remember something else very basic a basic realization. I remember that in trying to help those other alcoholics back in New York, though they had not recovered at all, they had helped me immensely. And when there were hours of anger or self-pity which could not be banished, they would always disappear if I sought out another alcoholic and tried to work with him. I realized that I had been able, to some extent, to lose my life in order to find it. I must lose my wife in the life of another alcoholic. Yes, and here was a primary realization. Now I realized I needed that other alcoholic as much as he needed me. And then came a chain of circumstances which I wish I had time to recite. So many coincidences, as could be providential, surely. But I'm soon facing Dr. Bob Smith, my first partner in this enterprise. He was a doctor in Akron. I'd lost out on the city hospital staff. The house was about to be foreclosed. His wife was a nervous wreck. He had tried spiritual mean. He'd been a shopper in the religious world, but had got nowhere. And we were brought together by a non-alcoholic, one of those rare people who understood the kind of giving that demands no return and who at that particular time cared enough to great idea. Well, this time I looked at the rich alcoholic and I said, Dr. Bob, I need you as much as you could find in me. And then came the simple fact. What alcoholism is, fatal malady, how I had become stricken, I identified myself with him, I told him of my sudden release. And we talked for hours, and I frankly said, I need you as much as you can possibly need me. And by this time, the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous were all present in that conversation. And the spark that was to eventuate in this society of ours was really struck. But I tell you, we two don't realize any sparks were being struck. We were desperate and we were scared. Annie Smith was scared too. She said, well, Bill, why don't you try to revive this burden for you? Stay around that for a few weeks. Come to live in our house. You can keep an eye on Dr. Bob and he on you. So I went to live in that house now become my hallowed place to many of us And soon Dr. Bob said, Bill, I realize we'd better work with other alcoholics if only in self-protection. Don't you think so? And I said, well, you bet your boots. So he called up the city hospital, asked for the nurse on the receiving ward, announced to her that he and a friend from New York had a new killer for alcoholics. At this, the doctor blushed because the nurse at the other end of the phone had said to him, well, doctor, if you have such a girl, why don't you try it yourself? The nurse in the receiving ward went on to say, well, Doctor, we've got a dandy for you. A fellow who was a lawyer around town, formerly as a respected citizen, now gone to pieces, has been in here six times in the last four months. Can't even get from here home without getting drunk again. Yet somehow I believe he wants to get well, but can't. Just now he's arrived, has knocked down one of the nurses. She has black eyes. He has delirium tremens. He's strapped. How would that one suit you? Well, the doc said that sounds very funny. Pull him to bed and give him the following medication And when he clears up, we'll be down Well, not long after Dr. Bob and I looked upon a sight That tens of thousands of us have since been held And God willing, hundreds of thousands Of us shall still see It was the sight of the man on the bed who does not yet know that he can get well. Well, this man on the bed was no optimist. We told him our stories. We told them what alcohol is and why. What is and when in medical terms. He shook his head. He said, no, it's too late for me. You fellas know the rules, But you're a few fellas, you were only in the ringer up to your waist. I'm in up to my neck, it's too late. And please don't talk to me about religion. I used to be a deacon in the church. In fact, I'm still a man of faith, believe it or not. But quite obviously, God has no faith in men. So spoke the first man on the bed. Well, could we come back on tomorrow? Oh, yes, he said. I'd like to talk with you. You're the first people I ever met who knew what you were talking about on this booze bed. On the morrow we came and we saw a sight which so many have since to have. The man on the bed is sitting up now. His wife in the room is saying to him, Why, husband, what has gotten to you? You seem so different. And he pointed to his wife and said, Yes, there they are. These are the ones who understand. And excitedly, he tells how during the dark watches of the night, thinking this thing over, somehow a little hope had come. And then when he had firmly resolved to try our simple pawn shop and had admitted his complete hopelessness, he had been pervaded by a sudden feeling of liberation, of freedom, of relief. It seemed that his old great ways were lifted off him. So hope had changed to confidence, and confidence in him was now at such full time that he said twice, Catch me my clothes. We're going to get up and go out of here. So A.A. No. 3 rose from his bed and walked out of there never to drink again. The realization that the first AA group had been formed had not dawned on us for three years. I stayed on that summer a while in Akron, we three worked with many, many more. Our lot was almost all failure then, but we created sex. And one or two others turned their faces towards the light. Going back to New York in the fall of 35, now more experienced and I hope a little more humble. A group slowly took shape there and very painfully, amidst a great deal of failure, those two little groups at Akron and New York City began to grow. meeting in home parlors. Namely, we called ourselves just a bunch of nuts trying to get along. Well, in 1937, having been at work in Wall Street a little while and having been let out again by the panic of that year, I went west to visit Dr. Bob. Of course, I had phoned him occasionally. We had corresponded. But this was the first opportunity we had for a careful comparison of results. And I shall never forget that late fall afternoon when we sat together in the Smith living room in Akron and we began to say to each other, how many cases have we worked on? How many are safe suburbs? How many slips have there been? What was the statistical picture? Well, statistics are supposed to be cold things. But when the totals were added up, it suddenly burst on Dr. Bob and me got enough time had elapsed on enough cases to really prove something to prove that a chain reaction one alcoholic talking to another was possible and we knew for the first time at the end of three years flying blind that now a new light had begun to shine upon us alcoholics we the children of the night I shall never forget that great and humbling hour of realization as we first began to sense God's grant in all his force but that realization brought with it a tremendous responsibility there were less than two score of us in both towns it had taken three years to accomplish that much how would what we thought he knew be transmitted to the million who didn't know. And Dr. Bob and I reflected that even within gunshot of where we sat on that fall afternoon, men and women were suffering. Men and women died. And families were desolate because they didn't want to die. They didn't really know what we... How were we to transmit this? Well, you know, I had a kind of Wall Street background I'm a company with salesmen and a promoter. Of course, my imagination began to spin. And like a businessman, I began to think in business terms. I reflected, well, the hospitals don't want us, so why don't we finance a big string of hospitals, a string of drug banks? Maybe I could sell soccer then. And at that moment, we supposed that only the old-timers, you see, the elder statesman could really work on new people. So our older people would, of course, have to be financed so that I could go to other centers to start groups. And then didn't we need some kind of a book, some kind as a record of our experiences and a text describing what the method was? Didn't we owe at least that much There's a million who didn't know. Certainly those millions weren't going to come on to Akron and New York to get wealth. We owed them that much. And moreover, if we didn't put this message on paper, wouldn't it get garbled? Wouldn't it be distorted? If we had no written record of what we were, wouldn't the press soon be ridiculing us? Maybe they'd call us a cop when we weren't a college cop. And ridicule can be costly in life. Yes, we surely have to have a book. So that evening, Dr. Bob got together the drunks at Akron, those staying sober and a few who were almost sober, in one of the living rooms there, allowing to a non-alcoholic. We met there because he had a bigger one. And that little meeting of a score of us took a decision that has deeply affected the destiny of this society. Dr. Bob is more conservative than I he's often placed a healthy restraint on some of my exuberance but this time he certainly agreed that something ought to be done so we presented these ideas to that little meeting about calling shouldn't we have our own hospital shouldn't some people be subsidized and shouldn't we have a book those were the questions and I was exuberant and already, though we had but 40 drunks sober, already I was talking about one of the greatest medical and spiritual and, you know, this and that developments of all time. I was talkin' like a circus boxer, I guess. Well, you now, that meeting broke up into three characteristic sections. It broke up in what you might call the conservative or orthodox section. It said, look, if you put people on the payroll, you make a professional flag, and that'll kill it as dead as it smells. If you get us into stock-selling schemes and hot rules, that'll ruin us. We can't stand that kind of stuff. Why even ruin us if we have a book? We'll quarrel what is to go into the book and who is to get us posted. So said the Orthodox section of that day. And events, as events turned out, they were partly right. But thank God, only partly. Then over on the other side were the promoters like me who thought the sky was the limit. And in the middle there were the indifferent ones. And the indifferent one said, oh well, if Smithy and Bill think we'd better have them both in the hospital and few missionaries, it's all right with us, but don't bother us with it. No, we don't want to be bothered. Well, it was the votes of the indifferent, plus the votes of the promoter section who outvoted by a narrow majority the Orthodox people who didn't want to do anything. And the decision of that little meeting was, provided the group in New York agrees, was that I was to return to that metropolis where there is supposed to be a lot of money and if I thought we need money, I could go get it. Well, I felt very confident that we could get money. My lord, couldn't you get money for a terrific development like this with all these medical and social and religious implications? Great inroads soon to be made on the fourth largest medical problem in North America? Why, of course you could get more than that. So I approached a few people with money, and I observed what we have since observed, that among men of that money, there is a remarkable coolness on the subject of drunkenness. They find it as if it's not enough. Well, I said, now, let's try the Rockefeller Foundation. I mean old John Day, he's interested in booze or the absence of booze at least. He's interested in medicine, he'S interested in religion. Why shouldn't that foundation have to be interesting. Well, I made a kind of a feeble approach and soon found out that the times were hard, you know, another depression was on, and they felt kind of hurried up at the Rockefeller Foundation. Morrill really pointed out that while this development was very interesting, we still had only 40 memories, and we couldn't quite put it in any proper pigeonhole. You know, it wasn't exactly religious, and it wasn'T exactly medical. It was something like That character used to run around in Barnum & Bailey Circus called Nip, what if? AA would like that, then. So I'm beginning to be disconsolate. When I get disconsolate, I have these imaginary psychosomatic ulcer attacks. So having one of these imaginary ulcer effects, I went up to my brother-in-law, who was a doctor, and instead of talking about my ulcers, I was still very resentful at the Rex for not sticking in. He said, well, why don't you go in here and talk to Shirley Wynn? Charlie was Shirley Winn, the former health commissioner. Nice guy. He said he might give us some ideas. So soon I'm talking to Dr. Wynn, and a nice chap he was. I'm very interested. And he conceded that something really important might have started. And as I saw the need of money, so did he. I said, why yes, Mr. Wilson, you need reasonable money for things like this. He said, why don't you try the Rockefeller Foundation? Oh, well, he said, I understand. They wouldn't quite get the picture over there. He said I have the right idea for you, Mr. Wilson. Why don't you see Mr. John D. Rockefeller personally? He would understand. Well, I said, I think that's an excellent idea, Dr. Wynn. I don't wish to be facetious, but perhaps you could also introduce me to the Prince of Wales. You might help. So, just how do you meet Mr. Rockefellar on a mission of this kind? Well, he said, I wouldn't know. Well, on what a slender chain of events our destinies sometimes end. And here a chain of event started by my brother-in-law, the doctor, scratching his head. and he began to reminisce and he said well when I was back in Texas I used to know a girl and I believed she had a number and I think his name was Richard and it seems to me that he was identified with the rock color cherries and a great friend of the family he was then an old man I don't know whether he's alive today and I don' t know whether he would remember me So, said my brother-in-law Do you think I'd better call up John D. Rock So it's private offices and see if there is a second man Well, I said It doesn't seem like a long chance But why don't you He rang up Mr. John B.'s office Asked for Mr. Willard S. Richardson Who has turned out to be One of the greatest non-alcoholic friends That we shall ever have And the old man's voice came on the wire and said to my brother-in-law, why, Leonard, where have you been all these years? I'd love to see you. My brother-In-Law is a man of very few words, quite unlike me. And he said, I have a relative who thinks something can be done about alcoholics. They have fought each other for quite a while. May we come over and talk to you, Mr. Richards? And the old man said, yes, and we want Platt plumped into Rockefeller Center up to floor 56, cousin. Mr. Rockefeller's pilot offices and right into Mr. Rockefeller pilot offices and we were some talking to one of the best friends that he has in the world how do you figure that well naturally I thought all that money comes for over I really had was getting close the old gentleman listened to the story with commanding interest he said Mr. Wilson how would you like to have lunch with me next week have lunch with Mr. Rockefeller best friend when you're looking for money you bet I would so here is more of his story He presently said, well, there's a group of us around here I think would be interested. There's Mr. Scott up here, chairman of the Riverside Church, and Mr. Dippin. He looks after Mr. Ratzeller's real estate. Sounds all right. And a number of others. He said, supposing I get a gathering of our friends and have a meeting with some of you alcoholics. So a meeting was arranged, another historic meeting. And it took place in the late winter of 1937. and in the presence of Mr. Richardson and some of his friends Smithy came in from Akron bringing a couple of drunks some of the New York drunks were there and where do you think we met? Well, we met in Mr. John D. Rockefeller's private boardroom and I was soon informed that I myself was sitting in a chair that Mr. Rockefeler had been warming only half an hour before and I said, boy, we're getting close now So, for once we got for a little nonplussed in such highfalutin' company. But soon they were telling our stories. Stories of drinking, stories of recovery, stories of helping others. And obviously these gentlemen were much implied. So finally, Mr. Scott, sitting at the end of the table, an old friend of Mr. Rockefeller's, said to us alcoholics, well, what can we do for you? Well, I thought to myself, the great moment had come, but I must be careful. So, in becoming reluctant, I brought up the subject of money. We needed money for a book, we needed money per missionaries, and we needed the money for husbands. Well, they lent Blitzen. At length Mr. Scott said, but aren't you afraid that money might spoil this thing? Isn't the core of your procedure just simply a matter of goodwill? He said, this looks to me very much like first century Christianity. I doubt if you have all this need of property and money. Are you sure you need it? Well, it was quite a day at the cold water. All of the salesmen started working on them fast then. We soon brought these gentlemen around to the view that at least we needed a book and at least they might need a couple of these subsidies. Of course, I was thinking very much of Smith and me at that time. We were pretty hard up. The upshot of this meeting is that one of these gentlemen at his own expense went out to Akron probably early in 1938 looked over Dr. Bob's situation and the Akron group after all, that was the first group and it was in a typical community and we, you know, pushed him over in that direction because the mortgage on Smith's house was just going to be foreclosed for sure. He came back with a glowing report in which he thought that we ought to have $50,000 immediately, that a rent home should be acquired or rented in Akron, that Dr. Smith should be put in charge, that each of us should be paid for the rent, that we should be on a subsidy, and that, of course, there ought to be money available so that I would be free to write and we could publish a book. Oh, boy, that was great news. Well, then Mr. Richardson Mr. Rockefeller's closest friend in this group took this report to Mr. Roger Fowler He called him Junior, by the way And then somebody else a non-alcoholic had a great realization and took a decision that saved this movement from professionalism and property involved. After he read this report, he looked at his old friend Dick and said, Junior, Dick, aren't you afraid that we'll spoil this thing by money? He said, this is a thing of great promise, I believe. Somehow I'm deeply affected by this report and what you tell me. Nothing quite like it has ever occurred that I know anything about. Yes, he said, to help these two men a little bit. We'll put a small sum in the Riverside Church and you can withdraw it and help them for a short time, but he said, really, Dick, I don't want to finance this thing. I might spoil it. So the upshot of it was that Smithy and I would put on a very small dole of a few dollars a week and the bulk of the money went to raise the mortgage on Smith's house so that was saved and that's all that happened. Well, it was quite a blow to us Lois was still in that damn department store And our house was about to be foreclosed Nevertheless, these friends maintained their interest And soon we salesmen worked them over again And we convinced them that at least we needed a book And further subsidies We were thinking of the few months ahead In which Mr. Rockefeller's money would run out So they suggested, I think, that we form a foundation. And we did that. In the spring of 1938, we formed something called the Alcoholic Foundation, which was nothing but an incorporated committee of some of those gentlemen. Alcoholic foundation, which was Nothing but an Incorporated Committee of Some of Those Gentlemen and a Few of Us Drunks. And the idea of this foundation was that we would again approach the rich who could now put their money in there and, of course, get fine income tax deductions and all that kind of business. And these people actually furnished it. Us alcoholics in New York City with a whole lot of letters to a whole Lotta Rich People to see if we couldn't get some money in that foundation to at least publish a book. And all during the summer of 1938, we solicited the rich, even with those recommendations, and praise God, we didn't get one damn cent. Well, that looked pretty tough. Meanwhile, I had prepared what are now the first two chapters of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, they were a part of our prospectus in soliciting the rich. Here are a couple sample chapters of it. This is the book to be. Well, this foundation board then began to have meetings, which were largely commiseration meetings in which we deplored the absence of money and... At one of these meetings in the summer of 38, one of our new friends said, Bill, I believe that Harper's would be interested in this book project. Why don't you take those two chapters down there? Well, we took the two chapters down. Harper's was instantly interested. Harper's said, well, I'll give you, we'll give an advance royalty of $1,500. Well, that sounded fine until we realized that this movement ought to own that book if it was ever finished. And so the upshot of it was that we got up a subscription among the alcoholics themselves, and the New York alcoholics and a few of their friends began to pay in as little as $5 a month for five months at a time. And that created a dribble of money that kept a couple of us going and enabled us to hire a synographer and open a little office. And finally, by 1939, the book Alcoholics Anonymous was brought out. and it was brought out under a promise some months earlier by the Reader's Digest that they might run a piece about us so that we assured the drunks they would all get their money back. Of course, the minute the Digest put out the piece it would peddle enough of these books even if the book was lousy. So on the strength of that, we had actually raised from alcoholics and their friends around New York the sum of about $5,000 on a book not yet written. That was some promotion. Thanks for watching!