How AA Actually Worked Before Meetings Replaced the Steps – Clarence S.
About This Speaker Tape
Clarence S. speaks at a Florida conference in 1975, billed as a meeting of reminiscence about the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous. A chronic alcoholic who came to a fellowship that did not yet exist, Clarence got sober in February 1938 under the sponsorship of Dr. Bob in Akron, Ohio.
He describes being thrown out of his own home, making his way to Yonkers on Italian families' wine, and eventually being sent to Akron on a one-way bus ticket with Dr. Bob's name in his hand. He tells the terrifying story of his first meeting with Dr.
Bob — the doctor told him everything about himself before he said a word, then mentioned putting him in a place where nobody could get at him, and Clarence bolted down seven flights of stairs convinced he had met the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. He describes the early Oxford Group meetings, how the men visited him in the hospital and told him they had the answer but never said what it was, and how a flannel-mouthed Irishman goaded him into getting sober by telling him he did not have guts enough and had a chin like Andy Gump. Clarence challenges the modern notion that AA is a program of attraction, calling it a terrific sales job.
He tells hilarious stories about sponsoring Catherine — a woman serving a life sentence at Warrensville on the installment plan — including the spaghetti incident at the Italian restaurant and the incident at 82nd and Euclid that landed them both in jail. A raw, funny, historically invaluable account of AA's Cleveland origins.
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