Dr. Bob’s Farewell Simmered the Twelve Steps Down to Love and Service — Bill S.

In A.A. we do things together, and I wonder if you'll stand and say with me the A.A. prayer.
O God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Amen.
I merely want to say how much I personally appreciate the tremendous help
that Cleveland A.A.'s, Akron A.A.'s, have been to the committee
that tried to end this conference together.
Cooperation has been marked, and Cleveland A.A., Akron A.A.,
want to welcome those people who have traveled from far places to be with us
and help us express our gratitude.
Thank you.
For 15 years of A.A.
I did nothing other than my dad's death, and I owe him a gift.
One of our co-founders, Dr. Bunch.
My good friends in A.A. and out of A.A.,
I feel I would be very remiss if I didn't take this opportunity
to welcome you here to Cleveland, not only to this meeting,
but those that have already transpired.
I hope very much that they have the presence of so many people,
and the words that you have heard will prove an inspiration to you,
not only to you, but...
And may you be able to impart that inspiration to the boys and girls back home
who are not fortunate enough to be able to come.
In other words, we hope that your visit here has been both enjoyable and profitable.
I get a big thrill looking over a vast sea of faces like this
with a feeling that possibly some small thing that I did a number of years ago
might be able to make this meeting possible.
I also get quite a thrill when I think that we all have the same problem.
We all did the same thing.
We all got the same result in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm
and stick-to-itiveness.
If you will pardon the injection of a personal note at this time,
let me say that I've been in bed for five...
the last seven months.
If my strength hasn't returned as I'd like,
so my nod shall, if necessity be, very brief.
But there are two or three things that flashed into my mind
on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis.
One is the simplicity of our program.
Let's not blouse it all up with Freudian complexes
and things that are interesting to a scientific mind,
but have very little to do with our actual AA work.
Our 12 steps, when simmered down to the last,
resolve themselves into the words love and service.
We understand what love is,
and we understand what service is.
So let's bear those two things in mind.
Let us also remember
to guard that airy member of the tongue.
And if we must use it,
let's use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance.
And one more thing.
None of us would be here today
if somebody hadn't taken time
to explain things to us,
to give us a little pat on the back,
to take us to a meeting or two,
to have done numerous little times,
and possible acts in our past.
So let us never guess the degree of smug complacency,
so that we're not willing to extend our attempt to
that help that has been so beneficial to us
to our less fortunate brother.
Thank you very much.
I'm sure that we here in Cleveland,
and those of us who enjoyed the privilege
of being associated with God,
through all these years,
will appreciate that he spoke from experience,
when he spoke of having the tolerance,
being not only willing but eager
to help the alcoholic.
And I just think
that one of my friends,
the result,
had he had any different
sort of personality.
I know that he might be embarrassed
when I say that he has,
in the last 15 years,
worked with four or five thousand people
that were hospitalized,
in addition to the thousands he'd spoken to,
at meetings and in private conversations,
all of having the time necessary
to do that work.
Any day,
and then the results of
me joining together
are two experiences.
One, doctor,
and the other,
Bill,
whose privileges is
mind,
truth,
and the truth.
Two experiences.
One, doctor,
and the other,
Bill,
whose privileges is
mind,
truth,
and the truth.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
. .
And in the last pages of its text, the book expressed the hope.
Yes, it was more than a hope.
It told of a dream that we then in this fellowship had.
And we expressed our hope and our dream in these words.
First, someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys
will find a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination.
To some extent, this is already true.
Some of us are salesmen and go about.
Little clusters of twos and threes and fives
have sprung up in other communities
through conversation.
We are in contact with our larger center.
Knowing of us who travel, drop in as often as we can.
This practice enables us to lend a hand
at the same time avoiding certain alluring distractions of the road
about which any traveling man can inform him.
Such was our dream.
And it has been given to only a few
to see an impossible dream.
And it has come true, almost in its entirety.
One wonders what could be added to what we have already seen and felt and heard in these
last two or three days.
The song of this assembly is gratitude.
And we thank God for that.
And we thank God for that.
And we thank God for that.
And we rejoice
in our world unity
now spread into some 34 countries
and reflected back upon us here.
We rejoice today is still simple
and more deeply meaningful than ever.
Yes, this is a time for gratitude.
A time for rejoicing.
It may be, too, a time of happy reminiscence.
When we can think back a little upon the days of our births, our childhoods, and our adolescence.
It may be a time when we can think together once more
about those principles upon which we resolved yesterday,
which may bind us together in unity for so long as God shall need us.
First, let's think about these things.
First, let's think about these things.
First, let's think about these things.
The reason why we come to heaven is what help us is that we can windows go,
most testify to god and all of the raptures of mankind that gathers us in evil,
the divine salvation that grows upon us,
to the Father of life's rusty journey through the doors of hell.
We can keep chapter 5 dipped in the presence of your Christ,
bring new things open the door to average realization,
and then radiate the untapped Mother's light towards ourADAS.
I have no more questions now.
One last anywhere.
Do
you hear me?
I've got a bird and sounded an incense in the air.
friends who have been part of this benign conspiracy, which is alcoholism or not. I
think right away of the friend who first came to me with a very simple message. Today, thank
God, still the core of our proceedings. I think of a wife who stood by. I think of Dr.
Francis, the first Protestant clergyman to say that AA is good. I think of Father Dowling
out there in St. Louis, the first Catholic clergyman ever to say it. I think of my own
doctor in town hospital, who when I had my sudden experience said, no, Bill, you are
not crazy. You had better hang on to what you've got.
Those were indeed
the first Protestant clergymen to say that AA is good. I think of Father Dowling out there in St. Louis, who had better hang on to what you've got. Those were indeed
the first Protestant clergymen who said, no, Bill, you are not crazy. You are not crazy.
Thinking about shameful words for Alcoholics Anonymous, suppose that man of science that
said, ah, this is but an illusion, it will soon pass away. What a vital conflagration.
And I think of the first psychiatrist who befriended us and who has since brought us
before his whole field. I think of the editors of the Saturday Post who published the good
news to the world and made us a national institution.
Yes, these men of medicine, these men of religion
Once upon a time we stood in a no man's land between them
We weren't exactly scientific, and some thought we weren't religious enough
Today we find ourselves in a common meeting place
Working together as one
Ah yes, the friends who befriended us
Without whom this movement could never have been
And each of us, of course, thinks of that one who was the very nearest
The husband, the wife, the father, the mother
Who saw it through, who went down into the cave with us
And stayed when all others had gone
I think of Lois
And she and I would like to join in saying a special tribute
To the one who was the mother of the first AA group
Ann Smith
She was the mother to that first group
With all of the attributes of motherhood
Her deep understanding
Her constant attention
To the needs of her children
Are things we old timers shall never forget
God bless and keep her
I am sure she looks down upon us here today
And I think of the one who perhaps is here
And the other who had time
When nine or ten others did not
To bring Smithy and me together
Yet another link
That made this wondrous thing possible
You know, in AA we have what amounts to a rule
That we never praise people
But I think for once we ought to get around that rule
Well
So I'm going to tell you
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
Why
I am so grateful for Smithers. You remember, after working with alcoholics, or rather preaching
at them for six months, I came to Akron, Ohio, and failed miserably in a business venture.
For the first time, I realized that I needed another alcoholic, as much as you could possibly
need me. And Dr. Bob is the man who has fulfilled that need. He and I have been associated together
in all these wonderful years, 15 now gone by. I cannot think or remember a time when
we ever had an angry argument, an angry word between us.
And this is a tribute, indeed, to him, because as many of you know, I have been mad at lots
of us, too. On Tuesday afternoon, Bob and I made our pilgrimage
— and I mean it when I say that — to Henrietta Cowell. And she used an expression that I
think is so fitting. She described Dr. Bob as the rock on which AA was founded. How fitting
that was. How apt. So I bid you, as you leave here, perhaps not to return for another ten
years, but you bear her away with you. And so I bid you, as you leave here, perhaps not
to return for another ten years, but you bear her away with you. So I bid you an image
of those two, the mother of the first AA group and the rock on which it was founded.
You know, people are apt to say nowadays, in genuine concern,
today is very different than it used to be.
It's got to be complicated.
It has become big business.
There are those who would commercialize it.
Well, I'm glad that that concern exists.
For so long as we exhibit that belief, those things will never happen.
And a recent trip to Europe convinced me that our essential message is just as simple
and yet just as mysterious in its working as it always was.
On May 12th, a plane descended on Oslo airfield,
bearing lower than me.
Our contact with that country has been so slight
that we didn't know whether we'd find a dozen AA's
or maybe at the outside, a couple of dozen.
Well, while we were going through customs, we heard a commotion.
We heard a language of what we didn't understand, a syllable.
And Lloyd looked at me and said, yes, there's the drop.
All done now.
All done.
We came out of London, and we could not make out a word from that we'd said.
By a sign language, we were in motion to make up.
We got down to the hotel.
Another dozen turned up.
Among them, a fellow who could speak a little English.
Ah, they couldn't talk English.
But how well in their faces,
they expressed.
Our universal language of love.
That is an experience that we shall never forget.
And then that picture on the phone.
And we found that AA was the three-year-old in this city.
Yet they had taken through their hospitals in that place something like a thousand cases.
That their membership might run in hundreds.
Although because of their extreme anonymity, nobody could say.
Just how many there were.
You see, in Norway, we found that there are two kinds of people.
Because of the tremendous stigma, you have the kind of people who dare come to meetings.
And you have the kind, the vast majority, who dare not.
After a while, we learned that there were six waiters in an Oslo restaurant.
None of whom knew that the other was in AA, yet they'd all been sober each of them over one year.
And you'd be sad.
And the old ones, they didn't know what they were talking about.
They didn't know what they were talking about.
They didn't know what they were talking about.
They formed themselves into little squads of one and two and three.
And visited these people every other day.
I actually found they'd taken over a German barracks.
They had a club room.
We found that the finance psychiatrist in Oslo had set his stamp of approval upon these Norwegians.
And then we learned to our great joy that he was a man of deep religious conviction.
One of the finest lawyers and judges in Oslo.
Had already associated himself, in a benign way, with the enterprise.
And then we journeyed to Bergen.
And to Christensen.
And to Stavanger.
And found there flourishing AA groups.
And how did this all happen?
Very simply.
Very movingly.
And very miraculously.
As it always has happened.
Five years ago, at Greenwich, Connecticut,
a Norwegian-American who had been drunk for 20 years
sobered up by contact with that group.
He commenced to write to the old country,
telling the family what had happened.
And sending along a little money,
which he could ill-spare,
as an artist of it.
Finally, he got a letter back,
saying that his brother
was in this same terrible situation.
What could be done about it?
Well,
the man from Greenwich
talked it over with his wife.
And following the classic pattern,
they decided they would sell all they had in the world.
Namely, a very small restaurant.
And with the cash, they would buy a round trip to Oslo
to see if they could help that party.
So, like Lois and me, three years before,
they came down at Oslo Airport.
Some of the families, but not the alcoholics,
were there to meet them.
And that was all.
With great vigor and enthusiasm,
they laid our message before this suffering drunk.
It turned out he was a typesetter on one of the papers.
Why, he said, I am no alcoholic.
Where have we heard that before?
He said, I'll have no part in any salvation business like this.
Where have we heard that before?
And he wouldn't have any salvation.
Well, they visited him out in his home.
They played five cents a den
out on the fjord,
opposite where the Norwegians
sunk that great German battleship.
But to no avail.
So then the man from Greenwich said,
Well, there is going to be an AA group at this time.
So he sent out and he visited all his clergymen.
And they praised him for his enterprise,
but they gave him no jobs to work on.
Apparently they didn't know any.
And he visited some doctors.
And there was no result.
So the man who had sold all he had
felt it was now time to turn around and go home
and start over.
At that very moment,
his recalcitrant brother
pitched a drop that was a honey.
It was Duane Dane to end them all,
as indeed it did.
And in the agony of his hangover,
the predator called to his brother,
the man from Greenwich,
and he said, Say,
tell me once more
about this thing,
the anonymous alcoholic.
And the man from Greenwich said,
Well, it's very wonderful,
but it's very simple.
I just admitted
that I could no longer control my drinking,
that it controlled me.
I got honest with myself
as I have never got honest before.
I quit this business of living alone
and talked myself out to somebody else.
I went to the people who I admired
and I made amends.
And then he said,
You know, I was not a person of any faith,
but I have come to believe in a power greater than I,
a power which has indeed worked a miracle in me,
for I was hopeless.
And then he said,
I was taught of a new kind of giving,
the kind of giving that demands no reward.
One alcoholic helping another.
And that is why, my brother,
I have come to Norway to see you.
And that was the entire message
of the man who had come from Greenwich,
July 12.
The man who had sold all he had in the world to us.
Before he left,
he took a little pamphlet,
printed, of course, in English,
by the White Plains Group,
and he made a long-hand translation in Norwegian,
which he had done forgotten,
forgotten.
And he left that translation
with the printer.
And that was the beginning of AA and Onslaught.
The printer hadn't had a drink to this day.
The printer inserted ads in the Oslo paper
saying he was a recovered alcoholic
who wished to help others without cost to them.
The ads ran for weeks.
Because of the stigma, nobody responded.
And finally, as he was about to give up,
he got one reply.
It came from a florist
who and his wife ran a little sidewalk shop,
the kind you see in Argy.
The florist was a grim case in feet.
He heard the story.
He read this translation of the Twelve Steps.
He went to work on other alcoholics,
and he had not had a drink to this day.
And they put more ads in the paper.
And they grew very, very slow.
And then they came in contact
with this doctor,
where we find these wonderful friends I don't know,
who, though a psychiatrist,
was, as I said,
a man of deep religious conviction,
who instantly saw the implications
of what went on.
And that's how AA got to Onslaught.
Does that sound like big business?
Does that sound like over-organization?
Isn't that utterly simple?
The answer is serious,
and it's working indeed.
Yes.
And I think if we will look around us
anywhere in AA
where new people are receiving this message,
they will see the same thing reenacted.
And, of course,
all the Irishmen here
will want to know how it got to Ireland.
In much the same fashion,
one time,
a little over three years ago,
an Irish-American in Philadelphia,
whose bankroll was better,
decided that he and his wife would take a vacation.
They go over to Dublin,
revisit the old land.
But he's been in Dublin no time,
when he began to forget about the vacation.
Why?
Because there's no AA group in Ireland.
They'd better have one.
Again, he looks up a doctor.
Maybe we're down on the psychiatrist,
but this was another one.
And this man was also a man of deep religious conviction,
and saw the point.
And he told this doctor the story.
And the doctor had charge of a large hospital,
once endowed by the writer Swift,
for people who were ailing mentally.
And they took some alcohol.
And he left this simple message
and the pamphlet with just one name.
And when Lois and I came to Dublin,
we found 300 members in South Ireland.
We found groups at Cork.
We found groups at Limerick.
In fact, let me tell you, Irish,
that that group at Cork is within sight of Barney Castle.
And so it came to London.
A Canadian metallurgist brought it there.
Ah, yes.
Lois and I saw Alcoholics Anonymous
transcending every single barrier
of race,
creed,
tradition,
and language.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience.
Comparable with the day when she and I discovered that I could be free.
Comparable with that day when Smithy and I sat in his living room
after three years
and counted them up.
And there were 40 who had been sober.
And we realized that a new light
had come into this dark world of alcoholism.
The answer to it was an experience, Lois and I.
Ah, yes, indeed, this is a time for gratitude.
Gratitude for all these things we need.
Let's look back once more briefly
upon the time of our birth.
I don't need to qualify as an alcoholic.
I won't worry those who already know about it
with a fresh account of that sudden experience which released me.
But I would like to bring you again
and let us replace together
what happened over here in Anchorage
15 years ago
last year.
I have come here, as I said, on a business trip
which I hoped would repair our fortunes
and bring Lois out of that department store
where she was still supporting me.
I have been working with alcoholics
or rather I have been preaching at alcoholics
rather piously, I suspect.
And, quite rightly, nothing has happened.
But I could only find myself in need
and desperate need indeed.
And there are many in this audience
who have since fell asleep.
I was alone down in the Mayflower Hotel
walking up and down that lobby.
It was Saturday afternoon.
My business deal had fallen through.
I was dispirited.
I was full of self-pity.
And suddenly I panicked in fear of getting drunk.
And then came the thought,
oh, how much I need another alcoholic.
And I remember seeing the church directory
out at one end of the lobby and I went to it.
And sort of absentmindedly drew my finger
down the list of names there.
And the finger stopped
at a man who has since proved himself
a great friend of our society,
Dr. Walter Thomas.
He turned out to be an assistable compadre.
I called up the good man and said,
well, I'm an alcoholic from New York
who is looking for a drunk to work on.
He seemed a little dumbfounded at that.
A very unusual request.
Quite naturally he felt that one alcoholic at a time,
might be enough.
And he gave me a list of people.
Some of them connected with the old Oxford group.
To whom we owe so much,
both as to what and what not to do.
And he said some of these people may be able to,
you know,
find an alcoholic for you to work on.
I think I had a list of about ten.
And I began calling.
It was on a Saturday afternoon.
Quite naturally.
These people said,
well, I'll see you in church tomorrow.
I'm sorry.
We've got a holiday.
Others were out.
Others didn't seem to take in my need at all.
And finally I came to the very end of that list.
And by then I was getting very blue indeed.
And the name there was Marietta.
Her last name is a well-known name
in the rubber industry.
Oh, I guess that good lady was walking.
That good lady wouldn't want to see an alcoholic
on a Saturday afternoon
looking for another alcoholic to work upon her.
Oh, no, I can't fault her.
And then something said,
well,
it's better.
And I called.
And her delightful southern voice came down over the wire.
And I told her of my need.
And she said,
I think I understand.
Won't you come right up?
Of all those people,
she was the only one who had time
to look after my needs.
And when I arrived there,
we talked a bit.
And she said,
I think I know just the man.
Well-known doctor here in town,
but he's in terrible shape now.
Tried medicine,
tried religion as best as he could.
I'm sure he wants to get well.
Supposing I call up his wife, Ann.
And I said,
please do.
It chanced that it was Mother's Day.
So Henrietta explained to Ann
that here was a man from New York
who thought he could help alcoholics
and who probably needed some help himself.
Wouldn't she and Bob like to drive over?
I don't know just how Ann put it to Henrietta,
but somehow it was this,
that it was Mother's Day,
and the good doctor had just come in
with a great big potted plant,
and he asked.
He had placed the potted plant on the table
as a tribute,
but had gone upstairs
and was so potted
that he himself could not drive.
Nothing, darling, Henrietta,
but would you come tomorrow?
Oh, yes.
How I would.
And that afternoon,
the door opened,
and in walked
Smithy and Ann.
I tell you,
none of us felt like pounders that day,
and I ardently wish
that we can soon get over the feeling
now there is.
But this time,
I knew I needed him
as much as he needed me.
He had an awful hangover.
He thought he could only stay five minutes.
He was very thirsty.
Ah, but we talked for hours.
And there, I suppose,
for the first time,
we became worthy
of grace of God
and the spark
that was to be alcoholic
when I was struck.
Learning, then,
of my business difficulty
and my hope of reviving it,
and I think with the idea
of keeping a weather eye
on the old boy back here,
Ann said,
Why don't you come over to the house
and live a while?
So when I got over there,
it was long before Smithy
looked at me rather quizzically,
and he said,
Don't you think it's about time
we did some work on some drugs,
just as a matter of self-protection?
Well, maybe you've got something there,
I said.
Said, I'll call up
the Akron City Hospital.
I'll talk to the head nurse
down in the receiving room.
And soon he was telling her
that along with a man
from New York,
he thought they had a new cure
for alcoholism.
He blushed a little,
and I since learned
the nurse said,
Well, doctor,
why don't you try it yourself?
At any rate,
she said,
Yes, it's out of the dandy.
Just came in here.
Found the lawyer around town.
He was, once upon a time,
a member of the city council.
All fallen apart.
Been drunk six times
in the last four months.
He can't even leave here
and get home
without getting sued again.
Just now,
he's got the DTs.
He's pushed the nurses around.
But he's full of paraldehyde
and scrapped down.
Now, how would that one do you?
So the next day,
or the day thereafter,
Dr. Bob looked out of sight.
He looked at me
and said,
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
What's the matter?
Why don't we get with him.
I asked him
how do the others
go to bed.
He knew
that these
ры
do burn
the
most
resurface
throughout the
city.
Through
of his malady, spiritually. And he repeated the very simple self-saying poem, whose transport
to Oslo I just described. Just like that, nothing more. But the man on the bench shook
his head and said, no, I'm too far gone. He said, you fellas know what you're talking
about. He said, you've been through the mill all right, but you're not so bad as I am.
I don't dare to want to get you. I was drunk every time I went out of here on the way home.
I'm afraid it's too late for the life of me. And he said, you know, I'm a man who has faith
in God, but very obviously God doesn't have faith in me. Well, he said, sir, may we come
back tomorrow? Oh, yes, he said, I'd like to talk with you some more, although I don't
think it's much use.
Well, on the morrow we came again. As we entered the room, the man's wife was sitting
at the foot of his bed, looking at him and saying, why not? How are you ashamed? What
is God in you? And he turned to us and he said, there they are. They are the people
who understand. And then he went on to relate how during the night his wife was sitting
and his hopelessness had changed to hope. How perhaps he, too, might be released from
his trouble. And then as he resolved to practice our simple precepts and abandon himself to
God, something more than hope came, which had now swelled into a mighty assurance. So
the man on the bed sat up, and he said, please fetch me my hand.
So he said, we are going to get up and go out of here. So AA number three rose from
his bed, and he walked out of there, and he hadn't had a drink since this day.
So that was the first full film.
So a tiny flame started to burn, now bright deep, shedding its light throughout the world,
reaching ever-distant beachheads.
Indeed, we must explain what happened, God's law.
Now then, what are our adolescence?
What are the lessons of that?
And where do we find ourselves today?
And what might the future hold in store for us?
So well do I remember the day in Smithy's living room when we knew that this day would work.
And we said to ourselves, we must call a meeting here in Akron to see what we shall do.
It has taken three years of hard work to produce four-day recovery.
Within gunshot of us, men and women had died.
How shall we let them know?
Well, I being a businessman, a promoter, immediately began to think in terms of big money and big organizations.
And I said to myself, well, don't we need hospitals?
If these hospitals don't like drugs, we should have our own chain of drugs.
And they can produce all the money we need.
Look at the money these dry-outs are going to make.
And then since it has taken such a long time to bring about these few recoveries,
shouldn't each of us get something done and become missionaries temporarily
and go out to other cities and start these centers?
And then Smithy and I reflected, well, certainly we ought to make a record of this,
some kind of a pamphlet or a book,
in which we could set down our experience and how this thing has worked so far.
Well, I'll never forget that evening when fateful decisions were taken in T. Henry Williams' living room.
T. Henry was no drunk, but what a friend he was.
There must have been some eighteen of us present.
I went on enthusiastically about these great plans.
And I saw the faces of my fellow sportsmen.
And they began to say to me,
Bill, if we bring money into this thing, it's going to spoil it.
If we hire people to do these things, it's going to perfect more.
And as for books, well, who's going to write books?
And what we quarrel about that?
Well, there was great force in what those people said,
and there is still great force to it.
They held up a warning paper.
Well, I say to them, you're too little geese.
You know I'm a pretty good salesman.
I began to argue, and Smithy supported me.
He said, but we have to do something.
We at least have to.
Otherwise our message will get gobbled, will get distorted.
Haven't alcoholics to a great distance got a right to know what has happened here?
So the conclusion of the meeting was that if I thought we needed money,
I'd better go back to New York and raise it where there was supposed to be plenty.
And having very big ideas and full of enthusiasm,
I got home and immediately betrothed myself to the Rockefeller Foundation.
I figured there'd be plenty of souls there.
But the Rockefeller Foundation wasn't interested.
They said there was a depression on.
They felt a little hard up.
Besides, this new movement I described of 40 people,
didn't seem to have any special classification.
It wasn't exactly religious.
It wasn't exactly medical.
It wasn't exactly scientific.
It wasn't exactly educational.
It really didn't fit in any category.
Well, I felt terribly cast down.
Made some other approaches for money for hospitals and missionaries and books.
Nothing happened.
Until one day I happened to stand in the office of my...
brother-in-law, who's a doctor.
He'd heard these complaints of mine before.
He said, uh,
why don't you step in and talk to Dr. Shirley Wynn,
who shares an office nearby.
Used to be the commissioner of health here in New York.
He would understand what you're talking about.
So I talked to him.
Found myself to him talking to Shirley Wynn.
And he said, yes, Jim.
He said, I have a feeling this has great promise.
And like yourselves, I feel that this means a tremendous lot of money.
Or will in time.
Now he said, how about the Rockefeller Foundation?
And I said, no.
No, he said, I've got a better one.
He said, oh, it's the foundation.
They really wouldn't understand this thing.
He said, the man who would really understand
is John D. Rockefeller himself.
Well, I said, doctor, that's fine.
But what about an introduction?
Maybe you could give me an introduction to the Prince of Wales.
How shall we reach John D. Rockefeller?
And just then...
My brother-in-law spoke up.
And he said, when I was a young fella going to school,
I used to know a girl.
And that girl had an uncle.
And I think he was somehow connected with the Rockefeller charity.
I don't even know if he's alive.
I don't know that he would even remember my name.
But suppose I call up Mr. John D. Rockefeller's office
and see if there is such a man around.
So he made a simple call on the phone
to Mr. John D.'s personal office.
The voice of Mr. W.S. Richard,
one of the greatest friends this society will ever have,
came on the wire.
He said to my brother-in-law,
where have you been?
Leonard, all these years.
I'm so glad to hear from you.
Unlike me, my brother-in-law is a man of very few words.
So he said quite abruptly,
Well, Mr. Richardson, I have a relative here
who thinks he can do something for alcoholics.
We'd like to tell you this story.
May we come over?
And said the old man,
Why, surely.
He said, walk right over.
So we soon find ourselves going up 56 stories,
walked into Mr. John D.'s private office,
and there sat dear old man Richardson.
He listened attentively
to the story,
about three years old.
He said, yes.
He said, I'm deeply interested.
I have some friends around here
who I think might be interested.
Can't we have a meeting?
Oh, what a sigh of relief I breathe.
I said, my Lord,
now the big money is really in sight.
And the old man said to me,
he said, I'll be glad to tell Junior about this,
meaning Mr. John D. Junior.
He said, won't you have lunch with me?
Well, I felt that for a promoter,
I was really doing very well.
So I had lunch with him.
In the fall of 1937,
there was a little meeting.
Some of the alcoholics from Akron came.
I think it was one from Cleveland.
Some of the New Yorkers.
And Mr. Richardson
and several of Mr. Rottenfeller's friends and associates
met in John D.'s personal boardroom.
And I thought to myself,
now folks, our money probably grows.
Well, each of us told our story.
That's all there was to it.
The same simple story.
And then Mr. Scott,
chairman at the Riverside Church,
spoke up and he said,
well, what is your need?
And with becoming reluctant,
I let him know that it's mine.
And he said, but aren't you afraid
that you will professionalize this thing?
Isn't this purely a work of goodwill?
We admitted that it was,
but we said also,
we certainly have to have
at least a book of some kind.
We have to have at least a little money.
And the salesman said to these gentlemen
that we ought to have some money.
And one of them came out to Akron,
where Smithy was a little harder up at the moment,
and where the first groups had started,
and where there was a typical community situation.
He came out to Akron and went over A.A.
with a fine tooth comb.
Of course, we still didn't have the name A.A.
He came back and he made a report to Mr. Rockefeller
that we ought to have $50,000 right at once,
just as a start.
Open a rest home in Akron.
We'd put Smithy in as a doctor.
That would be just a pilot plan,
a model for the others.
And naturally, there'd be plenty of money
for book publishing,
and we might probably get a few missionaries.
Well, as I have often observed,
A.A. has many, many founders.
Time after time,
the finger of Providence has laid its hand
on a person who has altered the whole course of this movement.
And just now, the hands of Providence
were touching Mr. John D. Rockefeller.
He looked at that report,
and he said to his friend Dick,
Dick, aren't you afraid this money will spoil this?
Aren't you afraid of professionalizing this?
He said, I'll put a little bit,
a few dollars in the Riverside Church treasury
that you can draw on,
to help these two men out.
But he said, don't come back and ask me for any more.
He said, we mustn't spoil this thing with money.
Ah, what a slender thread our destinies have.
Mr. Rockefeller has since said, has told me,
that from the beginning, this work engaged his every interest.
Nothing more affecting has ever cost his life.
And he who has made a life work of giving away money,
that he should say for once,
this time,
I won't give.
I realized suddenly the heart of him at that particular moment,
that for it to be a single issues,
is that such a small
among our friends,
sitting out here,
down. In subscription money, we finally got the job done. A periodical of national circulation
published the piece, and then came this month. So, at the end of four years, when the book
had just appeared, the book itself was bankrupt. Every one of us was broke. A.A. was very,
very poor. And thank God that was so. We had a hard struggle through 1939. In that
year, however, the plane dealer in this town caused A.A. by its good tidings to grow so
fast here, they proved that we could become large. We could become strong. We could recover
in numbers. That was the great news that year. In 1940, Mr. Rockefeller, who we hadn't heard
before, said,
suddenly said, I'd like to give a dinner to tell my friends about this Alcoholics Anonymous
book. Again, we thought, our money troubles are over. Mr. Richardson brought into a trustee's
meeting the list of the guests. I made a quick calculation, and I said, gee, these guys will
end up to about two billion dollars. What do you want? But again, Mr. Rockefeller said,
no. Mr. Rockefeller gave them himself. And when the dinner was over, his son, Nelson,
speaking on his behalf, got up, and he said, my father, who was ill tonight, wants me to
say that this is one of the most affecting things that ever cost my life. But fortunately,
gentlemen, said Nelson Rockefeller, this is not an old movement that needs money. And
the two billion dollars got up and walked right out of the room.
Ah, so our destiny had been affected through men. Then the next year, you know, the Saturday
Post published, and our great growth began. In the days since, we have had a joyful but
strenuous experience of learning to live and work together, to relate ourselves wisely,
to money, questions of prestige, questions of power, to the world outside. Out of this
experience, we have been evolving the tradition of alcoholic dynamics. Oh, what great changes
since our first idea. Our very, very first tradition today says the common welfare comes
first in all matters touching our unity.
For without unity, there can be little or no recovery.
We say in AA, in the second tradition, that no human being is to be an authority over
us. Our only authority is to be found in a loving God expressing himself through our
group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, and they do not govern. Our membership
хорошes. The religious principle remains unhappily
established. It ends, cease, and cease!
It is very important that you know the grants for which we have CDUI led the State of Ohio's
Foundation of healers. If you want an idea for the revive science, I think it is special
for rapidement seeing.
Then I have theab traffic the road with that we adopt rather than republic driving on highway
destroy and conserving an international chicken free eye route to the rest of the world.
That's when we realise the true meaning of community, not so young age.
The way they had been pushed to stay with a post was they are one way or the other.
suffering alcoholism is a member so long as they stay there.
What a great reversal experience that's brought forth.
Typically, it's very much like drugs, as you have seen.
We used to think that we ought to have a lot of money, and that that should be somebody
else's money.
And today, we realize that as a society, our earning power is good.
Our expenses are triple.
Of course we'll pay our own bills.
For once, we shall be givers to the community, and not takers.
There was a time when I used to try with the idea of running alcoholics around us from
down in New York.
It was a very pleasant thought.
Until I learned better.
But today, every AA group can manage its affairs as it likes.
Provided they don't seriously interfere with the general welfare of others.
Oh, how different that all is.
Even our original foundation was trying to educate and to research.
To do all sorts of things, I remember, except lobby for prohibition.
But now that's all changed.
We know that.
We know that.
We know that this society of ours has but one single purpose, and that is to carry the
message face-to-face to the other alcoholics.
We cannot lend, finance, endorse other projects.
We know we must stick to that sole aim for which God seems to have appointed.
Oh, how time to change.
Now and then, too, we are concerned.
We are confused about this matter of our services.
People are saying, hey, it's getting to be organized.
It's getting to be big business.
Lots of quarreling about money.
Yes, there is a lot of quarreling about money, but why such a thing?
Here in the city of Cleveland, maybe 4,000 alcoholics and their families living within
10 miles of this hall.
The big business consists...
In passing a hat in meeting places to pay the heat and light of the meeting.
The big expense, which runs all the time, is that of two workers in a little bit of an
office.
No.
That is very important business, but it is not big business.
Down in New York, here is a movement of 100,000 people.
We have exactly five alcoholics employed.
Not as missionaries, either.
Just as Hesterker is doing, if I might say, a wonderfully good job in helping to propagate
this thing, to guard its public relations, to issue its limit.
Out in the back room, we've got another dozen people who've shipped books, who keep track
of the accounts, who type the letters.
Is that big business?
Or a fellowship of 100,000 people?
No.
Not big business, but very important business.
We realize, then, that these services, organized as they are, do not represent an organization
of the AA movement.
They are merely a few chores which have to be done in order to keep our record straight
with the world outside, to issue our literature, and to facilitate good twice-a-day work.
That's all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Such a good, good 12-step work.
Services of that kind are mostly carried on for the benefit of the many of you who still
don't know.
We think we owe them that much.
So our services are organized to that extent, but you and I know that Alcoholics Anonymous
will never be organized.
Now, there's another tradition we have which starts with controversies.
In AA, there's a major issue.
you'll find lots of controversy.
Sometimes, to put it mildly,
we act like hell.
We can be very cruel sometimes.
We can be very thoughtful.
Sometimes we gossip maliciously.
Sometimes we quarrel violently
over our small business with.
Oh, yes.
This is no perfect society.
We have many senses.
But from the very beginning,
as though by some deep and sure instinct,
this society has known that it can never quarrel
over the issues of politics,
sectarian religion,
alcohol reform,
and the like.
I have never heard in A.A.
a man say,
a better religious or political argument.
As we get larger,
and the forces which terrify this modern world
come in upon us,
we shall have to be ever more
on the guard against these things.
But to these real threats,
I am confident we shall never succumb.
It's not a matter of relating ourselves
to the world outside.
No alcoholics are the greatest promoters in the world.
And yet, isn't it a remarkable fact
that out of all of us salesmen,
you can't find five people
in the whole society of Alcoholics Anonymous
who get their names and pictures printed
in the newspapers nowadays.
We realize that we must place principles
before personalities.
We see anonymity as a token
of our goodwill.
We see humility as a token of our humility.
As the greatest protection that we have.
I must confess that I myself,
once upon a time,
disagreed with every single one of these traditions,
to some extent or other.
I have violated them, nearly all.
At times,
at other times, I have been tempted to violate them.
And then the group�onks and says over to me
and says, no Bill...
The group would say you can't do this thing to us.
What you propose is good perhaps,
but it is not good enough.
Aren't you the fellow who has forever said
sometimes the good is the enemy of the best?
I think one of the great things that's happened in AA is our changed attitude towards public.
In the first place, though some might think this is a success story, it really isn't.
We deeply realize that this is not our success, this is God's success.
We see a new use for trouble and problems.
This whole meeting, to be sure, has been a time of great joy.
All around us we have heard stories, marvels in their beauty.
One success is followed upon another, economic and whatnot.
But life in AA isn't always like that.
At the table last night,
where I'm happy to sit,
I guess we drew by lots,
replaced the set of something sort of a good idea,
a man sat there and in no self-pity at all
told how his wife was suffering
that strange, dire disease, multiple sclerosis,
a creeping paralysis,
and how in our simple principle,
she had found a new relief.
And how now she was getting somewhat on her feet.
Another told how when his son was killed in action,
he had gone at once to an AA meeting,
feeling that that's where he belonged.
And in the midst of our joy,
this assembly has had one great sorrow.
One of our members,
a great worker in Iowa,
made the journey here to see Alcoholics Anonymous come of age.
And the day that we confirmed the tradition,
he passed on,
of a heart attack,
here in Cleveland, Polk County.
And coming out of the tradition meeting,
I met his widow,
there she was,
at an AA meeting.
And she looked at me,
and she smiled just a little,
and she said,
you know,
I think he'd want this one.
You know,
we are coming to regard trouble
in a very different light.
When it comes,
we say to ourselves,
how can we accept this?
How can we deal with this?
For if God gives us the grace,
to demonstrate,
then this trouble may be a lesson for us.
I'm sure all of us are deeply affected by this lay,
this drape there.
Here in America, some of us think lays are rather silly.
But this one wasn't.
It is its token
of their participation
in what is perhaps a very historic moment.
Set from an island in the distant Pacific,
a token of affection,
of appreciation,
set by those who will never come
to any AA convention,
or even any AA meeting off their island,
for that lay was sent to us
by the alcoholic lepers
of a colony in the area of Hawaii.
Ah yes,
God has been great,
and good to us.
May we always be worthy
of his trust.
And someday,
the need for our society may pass.
And when it has met that need,
and if we are worthy of it,
I hope God may look down upon us and say,
Well done.
Good and faithful servant.
Perhaps there is no better way
at this time of parting
for me to conclude
than to read to you
the last brief paragraph
written in Alcoholics Anonymous
twelve years ago.
Abandon yourself to God
as you understand God.
Admit your faults to him
and to your fellows.
Clear away the wreckage of your past.
Give freely of what you find
and join us.
We shall be with you
in the fellowship of the Spirit,
and you will surely meet some of us
as you trudge the road of happy destiny.
May God bless you and keep you.
Until then.