Legacy of Service – 2025 AA Service Workshop – Part 8 of 27 – Billy N.

good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic welcome to monday night we are uh wow 56 degrees in florida so we are in a winter winter storm in floridah 56 degrees um anyway um i did want to make an announce i'll open with the serenity prayer um god grant us to serenite to accept the things we cannot change courage to change the things we can the wisdom to know the difference i did want to make a quick announcement because uh there are some people who come from my own area area 15 where i live um and so i was so happy that a couple of weeks ago the delegate did a communication round table about getting feedback about getting communication from the conference in the office and the boards through the delegate to the groups and what works what doesn't work big applause for that um and now the area chair in two weeks or i guess wednesday the 19th is having a communication round table about communications from the area to the group's and the districts and the fellowship as a whole so if you're an area 15 uh please check out their website for that so tonight um we are starting the exhibit now if you have a blue service manual page 95 appendix a aa's legacy of service bill w written 1951 um so this has moved places in the service manual the last couple of years it doesn't matter whether i like that it used to be in the front but i will stress because i accept that it's appendix a now um that it is important as the traditions to be familiar with before somebody goes through the concepts of the service manual um taking someone through the service manual or the concepts without having a foundation in the traditions it just doesn't work now if you happen to tune in whether you're listening live or listening on a recording there's no doubt that some of this information can help you. However, I would say the same thing if Joe and Charlie came out of the grave today and came on Zoom. They never were able to go on Zoom I was just in Joe and Charlie country in Arkansas and Memphis which is Joe and Charlie country as well. Sure seeing them on Zoom would be great but not like sitting down one-on-one with someone going through the big book same with the traditions same with the legacy of service the legacy a service is just such an important document especially in the beginning because it gets rid of one of the biggest urban myths in all of alcoholics anonymous so i'm going to start it says our 12 step carrying the message is the basic service that the aa fellowship gives this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence so it's not talking about alcoholics anonymous existence it's talking about the existence of the service structure therefore a is more than a set of principles it's a society of alcoholics in action we must carry the message else we ourselves can wither and those who have and those haven't been given the truth may die so not only the message given the truths um and that's why i say which someone told me and someone told them if you're spending a lot of time discussing things that service things that aren't about carrying the message they're really not that important and by the way we get confused here about carrying the mess message sometimes because maybe we're debating the area convention or the state Convention or God knows what other stuff we do that I would put under the category of frothy nice but frothy um Sure, some waiter or waitress or woman working behind the front desk might have an alcohol problem and might run into or be woken up to the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous exists. I don't doubt that that happens from time to time. primary purpose of most of those aa events is to reach aaa members it is not a prospect recruiting festival we go to psychiatric centers and prisons to do that that's how unique we are so at most aa events the people that attend already have the message or may be new which obviously they can get set on fire at them so they're great but that's not the principal aim that we're talking about the principle aim we're taking about is the service structure enabling and facilitating groups and members to carry this message to alcoholics who are still suffering that is the principal aim and then it says hence an a service is anything whatever that helps reach the fellow sufferer ranging ranging all the way from the 12-step itself to a 10-cent phone call in a cup of coffee and to aa's general service office for the national and international action the sum of all these services is our third legacy of service so it's an important clarification there general service is not third legacy general service part of the third legacy of service one of many things that are part of that service and then i love the next paragraph because how many times have i had to see or get a phone call or an email or hear somebody say even from a podium that intergroups and central offices are not alcoholics synonymous they're not part of aaa part of aa is a definite phrase you have to be carefully using if you meant part of the general service structure great in a group so not part of the General Service structure or central offices unless it's area 19 chicago where the central office is part of the general service area but it says right here services include meeting places hospital cooperation in a group offices they mean pamphlets books good publicity of almost every description they call for committees delegates trustees and conferences and not to be forgotten they need voluntary money contributions from within the fellowship sure if you don't have money is giving your time one could argue whether that is doing service or giving a contribution or both but i love this paragraph because it reminds us that we need voluntary money contributions to stay alive and we only take them from our own members the next section is vitals vital to aaa's growth it says these services when performed by individuals groups areas or as a whole are utterly vital to our existence in group growth nor can we make aa more simple by abolishing such services we would only be asking for complication and confusion so there you go for every time you run into someone who says i don't care if new york goes away i don t care if the conference goes away we know the growth and the coordination of our service efforts are super super important and then bill has it right there concerning any given service we therefore pose one question is this service really needed if it is then maintain it or fail in our mission to those who need and seek aaa then it says the most vital yet least understood group of services that aa has are those that enable us to function as a whole namely the general service office a world services a grapevine inc and our board of trustees known legally as the general services board of alcoholics anonymous our worldwide unity and much of our growth since early times are directly traceable to this cluster of life-giving activities until 1950 these old services were the sole function of a few old-time aas several non-alcoholic friends dr bob and me for all those years of aa's infancy we old timers had been the self-appointed trustees for alcoholics anonymous so a couple of things just to clarify there um number one not much has changed the most vital yet least understood group of services If you are outside your meeting hall, your structure, wherever you go to meetings, your group, it still is least understood today as it was back then. Still is least misunderstood. And then it talks about in 1950, the Alcoholic Foundation still existing, changing names to the General Service Board. um and up until then you know at the beginning it was five trustees three non-alcoholic two alcoholics so that if the alcoholic strength they could still do business and have a quorum um the next section it says fellowship ready for responsibility and it says at this time we realized that aa had grown up that our fellowship was ready and able to take these responsibilities from us there was also another urgent reason to change since we old-timers couldn't live on forever new trustees would be virtually unknown to the a groups now spread over the whole earth without direct linkage to aa future trustees couldn't possibly function alone and i would ask you again with your groups today i would even ask you at an assembly I would say less than 20 percent could even tell you who your regional trustee is and I would say less than 10 percent could name off a couple of trustees the trustee is just as unknown today as they were then and that's good but we need the link we need the group to the district to the area with the delegate and it goes on to talk about the conference this meant that we had a former conference representing our membership which could meet yearly with our board of trustees in New York, and thus assume direct, I want to just stress that word, direct responsibility for the guardianship of AA tradition and the direction of our principal service affairs. Otherwise, a virtually unknown board of trustees in our too little understood service headquarters operation would someday be bound to face collapse and direct responsibility direction of our principal service affairs when i hear people talk like the general service conference should just be an advisory body it makes me worry a little bit that does not coincide with what created the general service conference or what is in this legacy of service or when i here people get upset when somebody has a question that they maybe think the board did something wrong or the conference did something wrong like yes accept the group conscience there's nothing wrong with taking your responsibility for direct oversight direct guardianship and asking questions and it says on the next paragraph suppose the trustees acting quite on their own would make a serious blunder suppose that when no linkage to aa they tried to act for us in a time of great trouble or crisis with no direct guidance from aa as a whole how could they do this collapse of our top services would be inevitable and if under such conditions our world services did fall apart how could there ever be restructure and there have been decisions made over the history of the board where the board on second thought thought you know what maybe we should ask the fellowship because they didn't get a lot of input and some of those issues wind up blowing up inside the fellowship and it goes on to say the deliberative body known as the conference is made up of an elected area delegates from the united states and canada now numbering 93 together with the trustees the directors of aws and a grapevine and gso and grapevine staff members numbering 40 or more the conference held its first annual meeting in 1951 since then it is met annually in april or may and in new york it has proven itself to be an immense success establishing a record of advisory actions that have served the fellowship well during the intervening years of growth and development so there's no doubt how important that linkage is in the general service conference then it goes on to highlights of aa history it says go back to the beginning one day in 1937 at dr bob's akron home he and i added up the score of over two years of work for the first time we saw that wholesale recovery of alcoholics was possible we then had two small but solid groups in akron and new york plus a sprinkling of members of members elsewhere how could these few recovered ones tell millions of alcoholics throughout the world the great news that was the question the great news and that is the purpose of the service structure forthwith dr bob and i met with 18 of the akron group at the home of t henry williams a steadfast non-alcoholic friend some of the acronym group thought we ought to still stick in the word of mouth process but the majority felt that we needed our own hospitals uh with paid workers and above all a book of for other alcoholics that explain to them our methods and results now i want to stress that statement there because it stresses that we learn and are self-correcting it says but the majority felt we now needed our own hospitals we don't need our own households but in the beginning the majority felt that way so we learn our lessons this would require considerable money millions perhaps we didn't know that millions would have ruined us as even more than no money at all so the akron meeting commissioned me to get to new york and raise funds arrived home i found the new york group in full agreement with this idea several of us went to work at once and i love that comment you know we didnít know that millions would have ruined us because i always say a is a strange place not enough money challenging too much money a disaster there's never you're gonna meet a group of people who like to uh spend money when we have extra money more than alcoholics and it goes on in the next thing to aa's early money problems Through my brother-in-law, Dr. L.V. Strong, Leonard Strong Jr., my only remaining friend and confidant of the worst of my drinking time, we made a contact with Willard Richardson, a friend and longtime associate of the Rockefeller family. Mr. Richardson promptly took fire and interested a group of his own friends. In the winter of 1937, a meeting was called at the office of John D. Rockefeller. present were mr richardson and the group dr william d silkworth alcoholics from akron in new york dr bob and i after a long discussion we convinced our new friends that we urges urgently needed money and we needed a lot of it one of them frank amos made a trip to akron early 1938 to investigate the group there he returned with a very optimistic report of which mr richardson quickly laid before john d rockefeller jr though much impressed mr rockefeller declined to give us any large sum for fear of professionalizing a.d a.a he did however donate five thousand dollars that was used to keep dr bob and me during going during 1938 that money was eventually paid back we were still a long way from hospitals missionaries books and big money this looked mighty tough at the time but it was probably one of the best breaks that they ever had i often think there's a meeting it might still be there a group it's called sober fun and promises on friday night in red bank new jersey i used to go there when i lived there every once in a while it wasn't my home group but i used to go their own anniversary night a lot and i always loved the chairperson because he would always make a special announcement he would say for all the families here tonight i know this is going to shock you but for the first time in your life you're having something to do with your alcoholic relative and we want no money from you i know that's very odd for you because you've been supporting them for years or decades but we don't want your money and thank god rockefeller knew better thank god he knew that we had to be responsible for our own fellowship the next section is on aa as its own publisher it says then frank amos remembered his old-time friend eugene xman religious editor at harper's the book publishers he sent me to harper and i showed mr xman two chapters of our proposed book To my delight, Mr. X-Men was impressed. He suggested that Harper's might advance me $1,500 in royalties to finish the job. Broke as we were, that $1.500 looked like a pile of money. nevertheless our enthusiasm for this proposal quickly won with the book finished we would be 1 500 in debt to harpers and if as we hoped aa then got a lot of publicity how could we possibly hire the help to answer the inquiries maybe thousands that would flood in then he says there was another problem too a serious one if our aa book became the basic text for alcoholics anonymous its ownership would then be in other hands it was evident that our society ought to own and publish its own literature no publisher however good ought to own our best asset and this is gets real sketchy here folks so the two of us bought a bank a pad of blank stock certificates and wrote on them works publishing par value 25 my frank hank p and i then offered shares in a new book company to alcoholics and their friends in new york they just laughed at us who would buy stock they said in a book not yet written somehow these timid buyers had to be persuaded so he went to readers digest and told them the managing editor of the story of our budding society in its proposed book he liked the notion very much and promised that in the spring of 1939 that we when we thought the book would be ready the reader's digest would print a piece about aa mentioning the new book of course then he says this was the sales argument we needed with a plug like that the proposed volume would sell by the car loads how could we miss the new york alcoholics and their friends promptly changed their minds about works publishing stock they began to buy it mostly on installments ruth hawk our non-alcoholic secretary typed away as i slowly dictated the chapters of the text for the new book fierce argument over these drafts and what would and i want to repeat that word fierce argument it's nothing new in alcoholics anonymous that we get a little passionate when we debate or disagree should we be agreeable yes should we stop with the ugly name calling and raising our voices or clapping when somebody says something we agree with that we should have a special section in the service manual that just calls for decorum at assemblies no clapping if your candidate that you like gets elected no clapping of something that you're really in favor of that we just have dignity and respect for the process says when the book project neared completion we visited the managing editor of the reader's digest and asked for the promised article he gave us a blank look scarcely scarcely remembering who we were then the blow fell he told how months before he had put out our proposition to that editorial board and how it had been turned down flat with profuse apologies he admitted he'd played he'd plum forgot to let us know anything about it this was a crusher and then i love this one meanwhile we had optimistically ordered 5 000 copies of the book largely on a shoestring worthless stock a shoe string the printer too had relied on reader's digest soon there would be five thousand books in his warehouse and no customers for them the book finally appeared in 1939 we got the new york times to do a review and dr harry emerson fosdick supplied us with another really good one but nothing happened i want to repeat that nothing happened the book simply didn't sell we were up we were in debt up to our ears the sheriff had appeared at the newark office where we had been working and the landlord sold the brooklyn house where lois and i lived she and i were dumped into the street and then on to charity of aa friends so we talk about like everything was great after we left the gatehouse in akron or everything was Great when the book was published it was a complete disaster there is no other way to put it into words he says how we got through the summer of 1939 i'll never know i'll never quite know hank p had to get a job the faithful roop accepted shares in the defunct book company is pay one a friend supplied us with his summer camp another with a car bill and lois homeless dr bob paying his mortgage with the money that rockefeller lent us things were tough And then it says, AA makes news. That's the next section. The first break came in 1939, Liberty Magazine, then headed by our great friend-to-be, Fulton Ousler, carried an article, Alcoholics and God, written by Morris Markey. There was an instant response. About 800 letters from alcoholics and their families poured in. Just think about that. It wasn't the book. It wasn' t the book review. It wasn't anyone else. It was good old public information. We take it for so granted today. 800 letters poured in. We answered everyone, including a leaflet about the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Slowly, the book began to sell. Then the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a series of pieces about alcoholics anonymous at once cleveland groups mushroomed from a score into many hundreds of members more books sold thus we instantly squeezed our way through the perilous year people always say how come cleveland you know people say that oh you know cleveland it was like new york akron and then cleveland blew up well again public information again this article in the cleveland plane dealer it said we hadn't heard a thing from mr rockfeller since early 1938 but in 1940 he put on a dramatic reappearance his friend mr richards game came to a trustee meeting smiling broadway broadly mr rock fella said he wanted to give alcoholics anonymous at dinner so here is the confusion that always happens in aa history i have the time magazine right here february 19th 1940 original copy people always confuse the original meeting with mr rockefeller with the dinner that's where the confusion comes now i love this article because if i could find it quickly it's funny today i was doing a seventh tradition workshop for the trustees in iran and i had this book out um but if you go to page 56 in that time magazine in the section under medicine it says alcoholics anonymous right there alcoholics anonymous and on the other side the article continues with a picture of mr rockstar what i really love about it is the other half of the page is an ad for martel cognac brandy which that's not even legal today to have cigarette ads and booze ads but right next to it martel cognac and brandy amazing and it says last week one of the best known teetotalers in the u.s john d rockefeller had 60 people to dinner no cocktails were served for several of mr rockefeller's guests who are members of alcoholics anonymous a widespread publicity shy group of one-time guzzlers who have cured themselves. Psychiatrists now generally consider alcoholism a disease, specifically a psychoneurosis. Alcoholics generally drink not just because they like liquor, but to escape from something, a fixation, inferiority feelings, intolerable domestic situation, social or economic maladjustment. They may suffer the torments of the damned even while drinking themselves into stupor and especially in the brief period between waking up with a remorseful clattering hangover and getting down the first drink of the day psychiatrists try to help them by discovering the hidden reason for drinking and showing how it can be removed but cynics and sanatoriums watching a sober man walk out the door full of good intentions often bet on how many days or weeks will elapse before he is back about five years ago a traveling salesman named bill after repeated alcoholic relapses was pronounced hopeless by his doctors bill was an agnostic but someone asked him if he couldn't believe that there was some higher power bigger than himself call it god or whatever he liked that would help him not to drink the idea was thought though bill was always trying to let himself down he might be more reluctant to let god down bill tried it found that he had no trouble resisting the desire to drink he was cured he told his discovery to others and the cure spread these reformed drunkards call themselves alcoholics anonymous now number about 400 in towns all over the u.s i love this they do their missionary work we go away from that word missionary now but we didn't write this article um what's amazing is when you think about john d rockefeller that's like saying warren buffett held a dinner for alcoholics anonymous that's not the case that's what it's saying today it's absolutely amazing and that it made time magazine it says the dinner came off early in february at new york's union league club which is still there today, the Union League Club. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick spoke praise of us and so did Dr. Foster Kennedy, the eminent neurologist. Then Dr. Bob and I briefed the audience on AA. Some of the Akron and New York alcoholics scattered among them, notables at the table responded to questions. The gathering showed a rising warmth and interest. This was it we the what our money problems were solved if you read alan on literature history literature this is where experience strength and hope comes from not from aa although al-anon wasn't invented yet but some of the alcoholics that went there that night asked what should we tell these people and lois is the one who said share your experience strength and hope that's where that came from and started um it says nelson rockefeller then rose to his feet to speak for his father who was ill his father was very glad he said that those at dinner had seen promising beginning of the new society when mr rockefeller had finished a whole billion dollars worth of capitalists got up walked out leaving not a nickel behind them next day john rockefeller wrote to all those who attended the dinner and even to those who had not again he reiterated his complete confidence in high interest then at the very interest of his letter he found a casual remark that he was giving alcoholics anonymous one thousand dollars we eventually paid that back but not the millions that they were looking for um it says at risk of personal ridicule he had stood up before the whole world to put in a plug for a tiny society of struggling alcoholics for these unknowns he'd gone out way on a limb while sparing of his money he had given freely of himself then and there john d rockefeller jr saved us from the perils of prop property management and professionalism he couldn't have done more that's the greatest gift he gave us making us self-responsible it's interesting um nelson rockefeller later went on to be vice president of the united states ikepa invited him to come he could not make it but in the ikepah archives is a great letter from nelson Rockefeller saying he couldn't attend but how proud he was of alcoholics anonymous the next page on 99 it says a's grove aa grows to 2 000 members it says as a result of the 1940 membership jumped sharply to about 2 000 at year's end dr bob and i began to receive 30 a week out of the dinner contributions this eased us greatly lois and i went on to live in a tiny room in a number one and at AA's number one clubhouse on West 24th Street in Manhattan. Best of all, increased book sales that made a national headquarters possible. We moved from Newark, New Jersey, where the AA book had been written to Vesey Street, just north of Wall Street District of New York. You can go to William Street in Newark to that building. The number is escaping my mind right now. But there is a plaque on that building that that is where the original AA office was. that that's where hank and bill and ruth worked on the big book so it's another stop on the aa history tour if you're ever going through there um and then he says the first office was on bessie street just north of the wall street district of new york we took a modern a modest two-room office right opposite the church street annex post office there the famous box 658 was ready So that's the box before Box 459 was ready and waiting to receive thousands of frantic inquiries that would presently come into it. At this point, Ruth, though non-alcoholic, became AA's first national secretary, and I turned into a sort of headquarters handyman. So sometimes we say Bobby B was the first national secretary. That is not true. She was the national secretary but Ruth was the first one. Through the whole of 1940, book sales were the sole support of the struggling office. Every cent of these earnings went to pay for AA work done there. All requests for help were answered with warm personal letters. When Alcoholics Anonymous or their family showed continued interest, we kept on writing, aided by such letters in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. New AA groups begin to take form. So that's really where all the service office started. And then it says beginning of group services. More importantly, we had a list of prospects in many cities and towns in the United States and Canada. We turn those lists over to AA traveling businessmen. Members have already established groups with these couriers we've corresponded constantly and they started still more groups his name is forgetting me which is tragic um but this is how ireland got aa uh what's his name uh colin i'm forgetting his last name connor connor i'll leave his last name for his family disclosed if they want to um but he went to ire land on a business trip that's how ireland got the first aaa in europe somebody on a business trip um then came an unexpected activity because the newborn groups saw only a little of their traveling sponsors they turned to the new york help with their innumerable troubles by mail we relayed experience of the older centers onto them a little later as we shall see this became a major service meanwhile some of the stockholders in the book company began to get restive all the book profits they complained were going for a work in the office when if ever were they going to get their money back so you see this worthless stock certificates we also saw the book alcoholics anonymous should now become the property of aa as a whole at that moment it was owned one-third by the 49 subscribers one-thirds by my friend hank p and the remainder by me that's who it says own the big book originally as a first step we had the book company works publishing audited and legally incorporated hankp and i donated our shares of it into the alcoholic foundation as our board of trustees was then called this was the stock that we had taken for services rendered but the 49 other nine subscribers had put in real money they would have to be paid in cash where on earth would we get it the help we needed turned up in the person of a leroy chapman a friend and associate of john d rockefeller he had recently been made a trustee of the foundation he persuaded mr rockefeller two of his sons and two of the dinner guests to lend the foundation eight thousand dollars so now he is five thousand then one thousand now another eight thousand dollar loan this promptly paid off two thousand five hundred in debtness to charles b towns settled some incidental debts and permitted the reacquisition of the re-acquisitions of the outstanding stock two years later the book alcoholics anonymous had done so well that we were able to pay off the whole rockefeller loan so that's really the story of where the money came and went um another thing to be uh there is a royalty deal there is a royalty agreement if you've never seen it and you want it you can email me um yes bill and hank gave their shares but then uh at that time it was called a publishing inc did give bill w a royalty deal where he did receive income on sales of the big book for the rest of his life um sometimes people say bill w became rich off the big books that would not be true what would be true is lois became very wealthy off the Big Book if you look at big book sales up until the time bill died in 1971 not a lot if you look at big book sales between 1971 and when lois died yeah and you know that's an interesting transition because um i don't need to go into the history of where bill and lois lived but you can visit stepping stones bill had the money to buy a small piece of property there then he bought a couple of acres as the lots became available next to it um but lois tried to leave the royalties and the property and the house to the general service board of alcoholics anonymous and they turned it down they turned it down because AA doesn't own property and too much property and prestige there they also would not take the royalty agreement back because that now belonged to an individual worse now it belonged to a person belonging to an individual who's not in AA Lois Lois then went to Al-Anon and offered to give stepping stones to al-anon the alan on board of trustees refused just like a that's why today we have the stepping stones foundation lois had the stepping stones foundation created a non-aa entity that their sole purpose is to take care of the house that one of the co-founders lived in like the non-a entity that owns dr bob's house dr boab's home incorporated their purpose is to take care of dr bob's house and to pass on that history um top of 100 is jack alexander looks at aa and um the spring of 1941 brought us a 10 strike the saturday evening post decided to do a piece about alcoholics anonymous it assigned one of its star writers jack alexander the job having just done an article on the new jersey rackets jack's approach us is somewhat tongue-in-cheek cheek but he soon became an aa convert even though he wasn't an alcoholic working early and late he spent the whole month with us dr bob and i and the elders of the early groups of new york akron cleveland philadelphia in chicago spent uncounted hours with him when he could feel a in the very marrow of his bones he proceeded to write the piece that rocked drunks and their families all over the nation it was the lead story in the saturday evening post of march 1st 1941 then came the diluge frantic appeals from alcoholics and their family six thousand of them think of those numbers the world wasn't as big as it is today six thousand from that article hit the new york office at first we point at random thought of mass letters laughing and crying by turns how could this heartbreaking male be answered it was a cinch that ruth and i could never do it alone form letters wouldn't be enough remember that if you're involved in a service form letters wouldn't be enough um let's see every single one must have an understanding personal reply maybe the a groups themselves would help though we'd never ask anything of them before this was surely their business if it was anybody's an enormous 12-step job how to be done we had started the year 1941 with 2 000 members but we finished with 8 000 6 000 member growth in 1941 this was the measure of the great impact of the saturday evening post piece but this was only the beginning of an uncounted thousands of pleas of help from alcohol from individuals and growing groups all over the world which have continued to flow into the general office general service office to this day this phenomenal expansion brought another problem a very important one the national spotlight now being on us we had to deal begin dealing with the public on a large scale public ill will could stunt our growth even bring it to a standstill but enthusiastic public confidence could swell our ranks to members we'd only dreamed of before the post piece had proved this finding the right answers to all our public relations puzzles had been a long process after much trial and error sometimes punctuated by painful mistakes that's what a comes of age is a book of painful mistakes the attitudes and practices that would work best for us emerged the important ones can today be seen in our aa traditions 100 anonymity at the level of public at the public level no use of the aaa name for the benefit of other causes however worthy no endorsement or alliances one single purpose for alcoholics anonymous no professionalism public relations by the principle of attraction rather than promotion these were some of the hard learned lessons that's basically a description of what the book a comes of age is about the next section is titled service to the whole of aa thus far in our story we have seen the foundation the a book the development of pamphlet literature the answered mass of pleas for help the satisfied need of groups for counsel on their problems the beginning of our wonderful relations with the public all becoming part of a growing service to the whole world of aa at last our society really began to function as a whole but the 1941-1945 period brought still more developments of significance the vesey street office was moved to lexington avenue new york city just opposite grand central station that's where the box 459 address comes from the moment we located there we would besiege with visitors who for the first time began to see alcoholics anonymous as a vision for the whole globe since aa was growing so vast gso had to grow more alcoholic staff members were engaged as they divided the work between them departments begin to be created today's office has a good many group foreign and public relations a conference office management packing mailing accounting stenographic and special services to loners principles and hospitals when i started as a non-trustee director on the a world services board in 2009 there was still one person left in the mail room who worked there when bill w was there he retired while i was a director it was chiefly from our correspondence and from our mounting public relations activity that the basic ideas for our traditions came in late 1945 a good aa friend suggested that all of this massive experience might be codified into a set of generally simply stated principles that could offer tested solutions to the all of a's problems of living and working together and a relating of our society to the world outside i want to point in right there what it has in common with the big book if you go to any big book study whatever they always say the steps are written in the past tense we're not saying what will happen to you we're telling you what happened to us here it says the traditions are the same it says a friend suggested that all this mass experience be codified into a set of generally simply stated aa principles that offer tested solutions meaning in the past what already worked that's what the traditions were it said if we took if we become sure enough of where we stood on such matters as membership group autonomy singleness of purpose non-endorsement of other companies professionalism public controversy then such a code of principles could be written such a traditional code could not of course ever become rule or law but it could act as a guide for our trustees for headquarters people and most especially for aa groups with bad growing pains well we all know today those bad growing pains haven't gone away they keep going maybe bigger and more complicated being at the center of things we of the headquarters would have to do the job aided by my helpers there i set to work the traditions of alcoholics anonymous that resulted were first published in the so-called long form in the grapevine 1946 then i wrote some more pieces explaining traditions in detail these later came out and later issues of the grapevine you can go to the grapefine digital archive put in the word tradition or traditions and the first 12 articles that will be come up will be the essays each tradition was an essay so obviously there were 12 of them and then it says the traditions took persuasion the first reception of the 12 traditions was interesting and amusing the reaction was mixed to say the least only groups in dire trouble took them seriously from some quarters there was a violent reaction especially from groups that had long lists of protective rules and regulations there was much indifference several of our intellectual members cried loudly that the traditions reflected nothing more than the sum of my own hopes and fears for alcoholics anonymous and it says therefore i began to travel bill started to travel and talk about the traditions people that were first were politely attentive though it must be confessed that some did go to sleep during my early harangues but after a while i got letters containing sentiments like bill we'd love to have you come and speak do tell us where you used to hide your bottles and all about that big hot flash spiritual experience of yours but for heaven's take please don't talk any more about those blasted traditions sometimes i'll tell that story and people like is that made up no it's it's in the legacy of service it's right there in our literature time presently changed all that only five years later seven thousand several thousand aa members meeting at the 1950 cleveland convention declared that aaa's 12 traditions constituted the platform and puts on which our fellowship because best function and hold together in unity for all time to come so it makes clear hold together in unity from all time coming i just got word i'm so excited we'll see if it happens And in 2005, there was a convention held in St. Louis. It was the 50-year celebration of AA coming of age because that happened in St., Louis in the Keele Auditorium when Bill on behalf of him and Bob turned AA over to the groups. Well, I just got word that there is a group of people working in um cleveland right now they want to have a conference to celebrate the first international convention in cleveland and the ratification of the traditions and how important that day in aa was and i wish them the best and if they have it i will register for sure and do my best to be there so i think i'm going to end there on page 101 we will finish the rest of legacy of service next week but i will go to uh questions please send them in via chat okay one question is it true that bill w's family received royalties complicated question lois obviously was bill's heir all you have to do is google bill w last will and testament there's plenty of aa history sites that have it the royalty agreement as well um bill was allowed to pass on once his royalties in the big book they were not allowed to be passed on after that so obviously lois received the majority there was some other family members that received some of the share of the royalties of the big book it's very interesting while i was serving as a director there was one heir left still receiving her 150th of the royalties or whatever living in a senior living facility in florida she lived to like 104 every quarter as per the agreement she would get her royalty check and every quarter and of course because you know generations change but every quarter she sent in a handwritten thank you note to a world services um i see a question came in so let's see can you describe how the number of area delegates increases Sure. I don't have my file on that exactly in front of me, but we have 93 areas today. If you want an original service manual, please send me an email and I'll send you the original areas but as aaa populations grew some states that started as one state one delegate states became two or three delegate states some areas themselves needed to divide there is a process there is an actual application that you have to fill out as an area if you want to create a new delegate area the last time that happened was in 1999 that would be um area 93 which used to be part of area 5 in california that's the last time that happened before that area 92 um and whatever area washington is but the state of washington was one area now today it is to eastern and western washington the process is detailed out in that form the area has to submit it to the conference secretary where it then goes to the conference policy. My brain is escaping me, not the agenda committee, but you'll look it up, starts with policy. But they get to weigh on that. and make a recommendation or take no action eastern washington western washington the conference committee made a recommendation to the conference floor and it was passed 1999 the conference committee took no action the flora floor action was made by the area five uh delegate who just rotated out believe it or not as trustee at large that would be marita At that time, she was Marita H. Marita H made that motion and the conference approved it as a floor action. But you should, you know, you can ask your delegate to get you that current application and what the procedure is. what year and month was time magazine okay february 19th edition 1940 was in a group a part of the chicago area from the formation of area 19 can you talk about the benefits of having it part of an area so the Chicago office much to the chagrin of many other people was technically the first AA office even though it might not have been called one if you read a story in the big book i'm trying to think of that lady's name is it sonia i want to say anyway her story is in the big book um it's a crazy wicked aa story there was a crazy self-described i'm not calling her crazy but she was a crazy bad alcoholic she came from a super rich family and she was divorced which i'm not judging her i'm just telling you back then uh she got sent to akron because they heard about alcoholics anonymous uh the women of akron threw her out of akran that is the true story uh they told the men a members you need to get her out of here um she then had a legendary trip on the train filled with soldiers returning from the war where she drank the whole way back um she was a wild child but she got sober again and since she had money and her family had buildings they opened up an office it's not irma it's um hold on it'll it'll come to me um so that office but since the area was created area 19 the office became part of the area now the question was the benefits of it so i have the experience of oh somebody just told me um thank you for looking it up when i couldn't sylvia sylvania k since she is i'll give a little advisory action plug here since i am not her family her family can break around anonymity at the public level not me um and somebody said they didn't need to look it up which is awesome that is awesome um anyway uh i got sober in new york and moved to chicago for work i was used to in a group being separate from general service so when i first got there i thought it was crazy i thought it was insane um i left there believing it's the biggest mistake we ever made in aa i spoke with a couple of other past trustees on a panel a couple years ago and in other parts of the world in a group is part of the general service structure i'm not saying turn back the clock but what a benefit it was to have the central office reporting to the area finance committee and it all won no arguing over whose committee does what all contributions coming to one place i'm a big fan of that structure as i understand it tradition to introduce group conscience into how group decisions ought to be made concept one introduced an informed group conscience and an overwhelming majority usually two-thirds of the vote before 12 concepts how did groups define group conscience simple majority um i would tell you that it was the election process that first became uh the three legacy procedure and then advise reactions with two thirds per the conference charter um the informed group conscience that talked about in concept one is then later talked about the a group pamphlet um but all information we have is that majority ruled early on in alcoholics anonymous groups is it true bill had the trustees give some shares to a female friend of he and lois uh it's true that bill in his will gave out shares to family members and people that were important to him and lois why didn't bob have shares in the big book good question bill was credited as the primary writer there is actually some good a good old history um george who passed away loved this story um the smith family big book as some of you may know the smuth family sold a bunch of the early smith archives to brown university they sit in brown university's archives that was their decision it was their property the original coffee pot if you want to see it you got to make an appointment to go to brown university archives the smith family offered the original big book belonging to dr bob and ann smith to the general service board george was at a regional forum where somebody asked a question said i heard that the general service board paid ten thousand dollars for the smith family big book and at his first regional forum as general manager george said no way we don't pay for archives whoever told you that they just made up a story and so when george got back to the staff meeting the following wednesday he reported to the staff that he got a crazy question about that the general service board had bought the smith family book for ten thousand dollars and he told them there was no way that was true and a staff member named joni m great staff member joni um from texas who went on to work at the general service office and she said george honey you had that halfway true they didn't pay 10 000 they paid 20. now the general services board decided at that time that since the smith family had received no book revenue at all that they were going to purchase that book it's the last archive that we ever purchased and the first one um but no the smyth family or dr bob did not was not in the royalty agreement that belonged to bill i would rather not go into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories the history is what it is some people agree with it some people disagree with it um you know it's just our history the beauty of aa should be that good bad indifferent we should just learn from it always so that's it next week we will take up where we left off tonight in the legacy of service um uh but thanks everyone for being here really appreciate it have a great night we will close with the responsibility statement i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help. I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you.