Dr. Bob’s Nightmare, the Co-Founder’s Own Story from the Big Book – Dr. B.

Well, those that many of you have heard or have read articles written about the inception of AA, there are probably some who haven't. And from that brief story there are some things to be learned. So even at risk of repetition I would like to relate just exactly what did did happen in those very early days. And I feel there is a lesson to be learned, and one that we must never forget if we wish to maintain paid-up insurance policies against against our drinking. Do you recall a story about Bill, having been...having had some spiritual experience? Having been sold on the idea of attempting to be helpful to others? You undoubtedly recall the fact that he had been working quite hard at it for around five months or so, almost incessantly. And still had not created, if you please, a single convert. Not one. As we expected, no one had gel. But he had worked tirelessly. There was no thought of saving his own strength, or time, or anything. But nothing seemed to register. When he turned out to act on this business mission, which perhaps for the good of all of us turned out out to be quite a flop, although he had the thing licked but didn't know it. He was tempted to drink and he was pacing up and down the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, wondering whether whether he better buy those two fists of gin and be king for a night, as he expresses it or not. And his teachings led him to believe that he possibly might avoid getting into difficulties if he found some alcoholic on whom to work. In spying the name of our good friend Reverend Walters on the bulletin board in the lobby of the Mayflower, he called up the good doctor and asked him the names of some of the groups the people with whom he had been affiliated and through whose instrumentality he had acquired sobriety. The good doctor said he wasn't one, but he knew a glad number, and he gave him quite a little list, I guess about nine or ten of them. So Bill starts to call them up without very much success. They had either just left town or they were just leaving town or they were having a party, or they had a sawtoe or something. Anyway, they came down to the end, or at least very nearly the end. And they were eyelights on the name Mr., and happened to get our good friend Henrietta. But he called up our good Henry and told her what he wanted and she said, come right out and have lunch. So Harvey went and went into his story in considerable detail and she says, I have just the man for you. So she rushes to the farm and fouls up Ann and tells her that she has just the fellow to be helpful put the bar we should come over and he said well I guess we better not go with today but how many of their position very determined individual did I ask tomorrow I know I'll be helpful well well and they didn't think it's quite wise for most day and finally Henry bore in to such an extent that she had to tell her that I was very much in the sack. And, uh, has, in fact, it passed all capabilities for listening to any conversation, and it would just pass if they have to be postponed. So she stopped in the next day, having invited being Sunday and Mother's Day, and we said said that, uh, Ann said we would be over. Well, I don't ever remember feeling much worse. But being very fond of Henry and having said we'd go over, we started over, and I expected this bomb-promised man on the way over that fifteen minutes of this stuff was tough. But but I didn't want to talk to this mug or anybody else, and we'd really make it snappy. Now these are actual facts. We got there at 5 o'clock, and it was 11.15 when we left. Now you know, or possibly remember if they're good enough to carry you back to certain times when you hadn't felt too good, and you can easily visualize the fact that you wouldn't have listened to anybody unless that individual had really had something to tell you. And that's the way I felt about Bill. And I recognized the fact that he did have something, and so I listened those many hours. And, uh, I stopped drinking immediately. Gidley. But very shortly after that, there was a medical meeting in Atlantic City. And I developed a terrific thirst for knowledge. I had to have knowledge. So we would go to I would go through Atlantic City and absorb lots of knowledge. I usually mention the fact that I incidentally had acquired a thirst for scotch, but I didn't mention that. But anyway, I went to Atlantic City and really hung one on, and when I came to, I was in the home of a friend of ours in Father Falls, one of our suburbs, and Bill came over and got me and got me home. Gave me a hooker or two of scotch that night and a bottle of beer the next morning, and that was on the 10th of June of 35, and I have had no alcohol in any form that I know of since. Now, the interesting part of all this, and not all these thought of details, but the condition that we two fellows were in, we had both been associated with the same bunch of people. He in New York and I in Akron. I had been associated with them, in fact, for two years and a half. He for five months. He had acquired this idea idea of service, and that I had not. But I had done an immense amount of reading which they recommended. I had refreshed my memory on the good book, and I'd had an excellent training in that as a youngster. They told me that I should go to their meetings regularly, and I did every week. They said I should affiliate myself with some church, and we did that. And they also said that I should cultivate the habit of prayer. And I did that, at least to quite a considerable extent for me, but I got tight every night. And I mean that. It doesn't work the way it does practically every night, and I couldn't understand what was wrong. I had done all these things that these good people told me to do, every one one of them, and I thought very faithfully and sincerely, but I still continued to open doubts. But the one thing that they hadn't told me was the one thing that Bill had, the instruction to attempt to be helpful to somebody else. So we immediately started to look around for prospects, and it wasn't long before one appeared in the the form of a man whom you all know. I forget many of you know our good friend, Mr. Hackham. Now, I knew that this Bill was a Sunday school superintendent. And I also thought that he probably forgot more about the good book every night than I ever knew. And who was was I to be trying to tell him about it. And it made me feel somewhat hypocritical. It was quite a job for me to talk to him on that sort of subject. But anyway, we both did and And I'm very glad to say the conversation fell on settled ground. Then in October, we had three dumps in our laps almost simultaneously. But the point I wanted to bring out was the fact that But in my mind, the spirit of service is of prime importance, although it has to be backed up with some knowledge of the subject. And I used to go to the hospital and I'd stand there and talk. I talked many a time to a chap in the bedroom for five or six hours. I don't know how he ever stood me for five or six hour, but he did. Probably with hidden his clothes or something. But anyway, it came to my mind that I probably didn't know too much about what I was talking. it. Therefore, we being stewards of what we have, and that includes our time, I was not giving a good account of my stewardship of time. If it took me six hours to say something to this man that I could have said in an hour, we'll say, if I'd known what I was talking about. I suddenly was not a very efficient individual. And incidentally, I'm somewhat allergic to work anyway. So I felt that I should continue to increase my familiarity not only with a good book, but read a good deal of good standard literature and possibly something of scientific interest along with it. So I did tolerate this habit of reading and I think that...I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have probably averaged to read an hour a day for the last fifteen years. Now, I don't say that to try to tell you on on the idea that you've got to cultivate that habit of reading an hour a day, because there are plenty of people in fine AAs that don't read very much. You see, back in those days we were groping in the dark entirely. We did not know much about it. We knew practically nothing of alcoholism. I, a physician, knew nothing about it to speak of. Oh, I'd read about it but there wasn't anything worth reading in any of the textbooks and usually the information about it consisted on some queer treatment for DTs if you had gone that far and if you hadn't why you prescribed a few bromides and gave the fellow a good lecture none of which cost or amounted very much. And in early AA days we became quite convinced that the spiritual program was fine, but that we could help the Lord out a little with some supplementary diet. So in the early days, Phil having a lot of stomach trouble had stumbled across the fact that he got along much better on sauerkraut and cold tomatoes. And so we thought that inasmuch as Bill had to have that experience, that probably everyone else would share the same. But it took me to discover later that the multi-dietary restriction had very little to do with the acquisition and maintenance of tonnage variety. We, in our own stories in the mountains and things speak of, when we started in on Bill, we had no 12 steps, we have no traditions, we had nothing at that time. But we were convinced that the answer to our problem was in the good book. And it became somewhat evident, we thought, to some of of older ones that it contained the fact that we found absolutely essential to a rather limited section of the Good Book. In other words, the Sermon on the Mount, the 15th chapter of Corinthians and the book of James. I think we got those ideas pretty firmly implanted in our minds very early. And we had in those days, our membership got to five and seven and ten and still small, why we used to have daily meetings in somebody's house. It was probably providentially arranged that all this happened at a time when everybody was broke. And awfully broke, too. It is probably much easier for us to be successful when broke than it would have been to have been successful if we'd had a good checking account of peace. But I know that we were. We were, every one of us, just so painfully broken. Well, it wasn't a pleasant thought. But nothing could be done about it, and everybody else was brought to, and so we didn't take it too much to heart. But I do think that that was providential hearing. But anyway, we kept on having these meetings and having these discussions and and attending the meetings of these good people with whom we had been associated, and did continue to have them with them until, in Ackerman I'm talking about, of course, until about 40, maybe early in 41. I think in January of 41, I don't recall it to that date, When we outgrew the relevance of this good friend who had allowed us to bang up the plaster and the door jams, the carton chairs up and down there in the other very beautiful home. We had outgrown that and so we stepped out and in a short time acquired the rental of the auditorium in the King School and we have, we I mean, I'm talking about the group that I attend personally has been there ever since. We attempt to have a good meeting and I think we are usually successful. But it wasn't until 1939 that the teachings and efforts and studies that had been going on were crystallized in the form of the 12 steps. I didn't write the 12 steps, they have nothing to do with the writing of them. I think probably I had something to do was with them indirectly because after this June 10th episode Bill came to live at at our house and stayed for about three months. And there was hardly a night in that three months that we didn't sit up till 2 or 3 o'clock discussing these things. And it would be hard for me to conceive that something wasn't said during those nightly discussions around our our kitchen table that influenced the actual writing of this tall set. Much more handy to have in that form, of course. We had the ideas pretty much basically, but not in terse and tangible form. We got them, as I said, as a result of our study and therefore We must have had them, because we have learned from experience that they are very important in maintaining the body and the way you want to do it. But all of them have been marked in the exact same written form as you know them now. But that was the way that things started off in Akron, and as we could do it, we began to get offshoots. The first one was in Cleveland, and I don't remember the next one, but anyway they all started in Africa not too long after that, and I've been continuing ever since. It was a great source of satisfaction to me to feel that I may have played some part in speaking in my two-bit world towards getting this thing started. I like to think that I have done that. Maybe I'm taking too much for granted. it, I don't know. But I feel that I will simply use this charge of agency. I feel that I'm no different from any of you fellows or girls, except that I was a little more fortunate that I got this message 13 and a half years ago, and some of you had to wait a little later. In fact, I got a little teased at my father because he was a little slow on the trigger, because I thought I would have been ready to receive it quite a while before he got around. And that irritates me no end, but after all, maybe he knows better than I. But I felt sure that I would have been glad to have anything presented that would have workedable and produced the variety which I thought, at least, that I wanted to better. I used to even doubt that at times. I would go to my good friend Henry and say, Say, Henry, do you think that I want to stop drinking liquor? Henry being very charitable calls it, yes, Bob, I'm sure you want to start. And I would say, well, I can't conceive of any living human who really wanted to do something as badly as I think I want him to do it who could be so total a failure. But anyway, I think I'm just one of these wander-wander guys. You say, no, Bob, I don't think you are. We just haven't found the way to work it yet. But anyway that was the way I felt about it. And the fact that my memory of the body has been maintained continuously for thirty and a half years doesn't allow me to think that I'm necessarily any farther away from my next drink than any of you people here. I'm still very human, and I still think a double of scotch would taste awful good. And if it didn't produce the best of results, I might do it. I don't know. I will love God. But I have no reason to think that it would taste any differently. I have no legitimate reason to believe that the results would be any different. They were always the same. They are always the same in that I always wound up back as a dear old April somewhere. way. And I have no precedent or anything to make it feel legitimate for me to believe that the results today would be any different than they were 14 and 20 and 25 and 30 years ago, and I did the same thing. I just don't want to pay that bill, because that's a big It always was, and I think it would be even louder today. Because of what has gone on in the last 15 years, and naturally being a bit out of practice, I don't believe I've really laughed very long, long, and I'm having an upright time. And I just don't want to bump myself off even bloody with the pleasures of the outdoors. Well, I'm not going to do it. And I'm never going to go as long as I do the things that I'm supposed to do. And And I know what those things are. So if I should ever get hurt, I certainly never would have anyone to blame for it. It would be done perhaps not with malice or forethought, but it certainly would be down the road as a result at least of extreme carelessness and indifference. I said I was quite human, and I get the thinking every once in a while, well, here's this next guy, he's a very smart individual. He's got this look of attrition like with a tail. Fooled it, downgraded it, hadn't had a drink for 13 years. Thought they could knock off a couple No one would be the wiser. Now, I tell you, I'm not trying to be funny at all because those thoughts actually enter my mind. And I know just the minute they do exactly what has happened. You see there in Akron we have the extreme good fortune as many of you people know of having a very nice hospital set up at St. Thomas Hospital. It was a ward that theoretically accommodates seven, but it's just as viciously as it is. She takes it a little bit and we usually, she usually has about two or three more popped around somewhere. And I almost invariably, I find that I haven't been paying quite so much attention to the boy in the ward as I should. it. Just to share that idea that I could probably, probably polish off a couple, enters my mind. I think about the boys in the war. You've been giving them the semi-brush-off here for a few days. You'd better get back on the job, big boy, before you get into trouble. And and I've had a right back and am much more attentive than I have been, and it's very appreciating the time that I got this funny idea. But I get it, and I get in every once in a while, and I'll probably continue to get it as long or whenever I get jealous about that one thing. You know, back in those early days about which I spoke, before we had the 12 steps, we did have some other things besides the actual biblical book that I was. I was getting to thinking more of Smith than I was of Ward, otherwise I wouldn't have been ejected. and I wasn't being especially loving. When these fellows would come there, indicating their desire for help, and I was just a little too busy to give them any or at least very much of my time. So I ought to be bothered with the birds. Ten cents to get rid of them, why that's easy. easy. You could even stand two bits. But not because you love the car, but to be relieved that the nuisance of it is hanging on your coat sleeve or what have you. Now I'm selfish, there's no law indicated in the transaction at all. But I think that the thing that really time is really giving a service of yourself and that almost invariably, not always, but almost invariable requires some effort and some time of your own. Hey, it isn't a matter of putting a little quiet money in the dish. That helps and talks to that indicator too. But that isn't giving much, that is for the average individual during days like this, when most people get along at least fairly well. That type of giving I don't believe would ever keep anyone sober or anywhere near it. The giving of his own effort and strength and time is quite a different matter. And I think that's what is meant by, and what was meant by what Bill learned in New York that I didn't get in Athens. The matter goes forward, absolutely, Colin. the only odds that we had in the early days, I think they still hold good. And I still think that they can be extremely helpful. I have found at times that questions arise eyes and I want to do the right thing, but the answers are not obvious. You don't know what the right thinking is. But almost always if you check into it carefully by the optics of absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, and whatever your decision is checks sets up pretty well with those four, your answer can't be very far out of the way. It's however you do that, as I have done at times, and still am not too satisfied with the answer. I usually consult some friend whose judgment perhaps I think in this particular case It would be very much better in months than mine. But usually you can direct yourself without bothering your friends about your own personal decisions in overcoming the first step. I can't quite get honest enough to admit that John Dyson really has bested us. Not at absolute charity, is somewhat like it, the purity of ideas and purity of motives and what have you. And selfishness includes those things that I've just been talking about, not the rhyme of the two britches about actually giving of yourself. And as you well know, the absolute love is probably a big word incorporating all three with a little bit more along with it. I think that that is a very difficult thing to have, absolute love. I don't think any of us will ever get it, but that doesn't mean that we can't try to get it. It is extremely difficult for me and I feel that I never have been very successful at it. It's very difficult for me to love my father. I didn't dislike him, but I didn' t love him unless there was some special reason. He was just... I was just indifferent toward him. I wouldn't do him any harm. I would be willing to give him a little lift if it didn't require too much effort. I never was injured before, but to love him, I just couldn't do it for a long time. And I think that I overcame it to some extent when I was forced to do it Because I was either going to love this head or not, to attempt to be helpful to him. Or I would stop at just thanking him. You could say, well, Lars, you were just... that's just a manifestation of selfishness. Which is quite correct. I was selfish to the extent of not wanting Smith hurt. So to keep from getting smelt hurt, I would attempt to go through the motions of being tested for this other form. You can debate it any way you want to, but the fact remains that for the average individual absolute love is a thing that he will never acquire. I suspect there are few people who do. I think maybe I know some that come pretty close to it. But I think I could count them on the fingers of one hand. I don't say that in a discouraging manner, because I have some wonderful friends I don't think we do anything well, uh, very much in this world unless we practice it. And I don' t believe we do AA work too well unless we practise it. These fellows that win big world records in athletic events are people who, who win titles in the boxing arena, are people that practice it. They've been practicing it for years, even though they may necessarily be endowed with a lot of physical ability and skill. They still have to practice, and we have to practice to do a good job in their age. And there are a number of things that we should practice. We should practice acquiring the spirit of service. We which isn't always easily done, especially for the person who has always been very materialistically minded. And those are the standards of society today beyond all doubt in pure adventure. You have a million bucks and your neighbor has 900 grand, you're a much better man than your neighbor to the extent of $100,000 and so forth and so on. I'm not there. But I think that it can be acquired. It can be acquired slowly. I don't believe...I think that is something that has to be cultivated that was not easy for me. I just assumed it's difficult for others. Another thing that is difficult for me, and I probably don't do too well yet, and that is the matter of power. We are in time to have closed minds. They're pretty tightly closed, son. And that's one one reason that some people find our spiritual teachings difficult. They don't want to find out too much about it, for various personal reasons. One reason is the fear of being considered a covenant, just for illustration. But anyway, in the matter of tolerance toward the other individual's ideas. It's quite important that we do acquire it. I think I've acquired it... I have much more of it than I did have, although not enough to hurt me any yet. I was up to make at least a rather caustic remark about it, which I've done many times, much to my regret. And later on I found that the man knew much more about it than I, and I had been instantly must let go of what is good for you. Another thing with which most of us are not overly blessed, and that is the feeling of humility. I don't mean the humility in the sense that they can enjoy a heap at all. I don' t mean the store-mat variety. I don''t think we are necessarily called on to be shoved around and stepped on by anyone when we have a right to stand up for our hearts' rights. life. I'm talking about the attitude of each and every one who has said, I am the Father. Christ said of myself, I'm nothing. My strength cometh from my Father in heaven. And if he had to say that, how about you and me? But did you say it? Did I say it?" No. That's exactly what we didn't think. We were in time to say, well, look at those little boys. Pretty good, huh? That type of attitude. But there's no humility. No sense of having received anything to the grace of our Heavenly Father. So if I accomplished something, either in area activity or socially or in my profession. I don't believe I have any right to get cocky about it. It's only through God's grace that I did it. I can feel very thankful that I was privileged to do it, to have the recognition which I may have for some activity. But basically it was only through his kindness. And if my strength does come from him and these things come as a result of his kindness, who am I to get coffee about it? I should have a very, very humble attitude toward the source of my strength. And I should would also never cease to be grateful for whatever blessings come my way. And I have been blessed, and I've been blessed in very large measure. You know, it doesn't make much difference whether a person is drinking or whether they're sober as far as their ultimate that aim is concerned. Whether they're drinking liquor or whether they're not, they're still after the same thing and that's happiness and peace of mind. I harp about that a great deal because that's what we're all after and we're after all the time. We want those two things. We like happiness and we want peace of minds. The trouble with us fellows was that we thought we could demand that the world give us happiness in just the particular way way in which we wanted to get it, which happened to be by the Outlaw Route. And we weren't overly successful. But when we take time to find out and familiarize ourselves with and put into practice some of the spiritual love which it is necessary to follow to acquire ask those things, then we find that we get them. And I think I've had them in very large measure. Those two things, happiness and peace of mind. And I feel most extremely fortunate, and I feel very grateful and thankful that my father has seen fit that I enjoy them. They're there, anybody can get them who wishes to, but there do seem to be some rules of the game that we have to follow. But they're here and open and free to everyone who wishes take advantage of them. And by taking advantage of of them means their familiarity, their familiarization with them and putting them into practice and incorporating them in our own thinking and action. And we're bound and determined to get certain results if we do. As I said it is a very great source of pleasure and gratitude to me, to feel that maybe I kicked in my two bits left toward starting this. But as I said also, I feel that I was simply used as God's agent. The question might arise, well, we know what A.D.'s done in the last 30 years, but how about it from here on? Where do we go from here. Our membership, I think it's conservatively estimated, is present around 70,000. Whether there will be an increase from here on? Well, that'll depend on every remember the age. It is possible for us to do so, or not, as we elect. If we abide shy of what the politicos call entangling alliances, if we avoid getting messed up with controversial issues, such as religious and political issues, wet-and-dry problems, and so forth, just with no unity for our central office. If we remember the simplicity of our program, if we continue bring you to remember that our job is to get trouble and to save trouble and to help our less fortunate brother in doing the same thing, I doubt very much if we shall have any trouble. And we shall continue to draw and drive and stop them. And I hope we all draw those little things in mind. Maybe there should be some additions to the list, but that roughly covered it fairly well. And I hope none of us will ever forget what I just said about helping our less fortunate brothers. We'll now give you a little of the First International Conference at Cleveland, Ohio, 1950. This was July the 28th to 30th, 1950, and this is where Dr. Bob gave his last talk. One of our co-fathers, Dr. Clark. My good friends in AA and out of AA, 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 may you be able to impart that inspiration to the boys and girls back home who are not fortunate enough to be able come. In other words, we hope that your living here has been both enjoyable and profitable. possible. I get a big thrill looking over at that sea of faces like this, with the feeling that possibly some small thing that I did a number of years ago led us into a small part in making this meeting possible. I also get quite a thrill when I think that we all have the same problems. We all did in the same thing. We all get the same results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness. If you'll pardon me in section of a social note at this time, let me say that I've been as bad verified as the last seven months, and my strength hasn't concerned as I've liked so much of necessity, very pleased. But there are two or three things that flash into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis. One is the simplicity of our program. Let's not blast it all up with Freudian complexes and and things that are interesting to the scientific mind but have very little to do with our actual A.A. work. I told Smith when he came on down to the Atlantic, we're talking ourselves into the word love and truth. We understand what love is and we understand what truth is. So let's have those two things in mind. Let us also remember to guard that area number of the town, and if we must use it, let's use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance. And one more thing, none of this would be here today day or 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. Well, to have done numerous little times and fought for facts in our behalf. So let us never guess the degree of smug complacency so that we're not going to extend in our attempt to lose that help that has been so beneficial to us, to our less fortunate souls. Thank you very much.