Peeved That Higher Power Seemed a Little Slow on the Trigger – Dr. Bob S.

Well, a good many of you have heard or have read articles written about the inception of A.A. 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 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 our drinking. 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 five months or so, almost incessantly, and still had not created, if you please, a single convert. Not one. As we express it, no one had gelled. But he had worked tirelessly with no thought of saving his own strength or time or anything, but nothing seemed to register. When he came off to Akron on this business mission, which perhaps for the good of all of us turned 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 he better buy those two fists of gin and be a king for a night as he expresses it or not. And his teachings led him to believe that that he possibly might avoid getting into difficulties if he found some alcoholic on home to work. Inspiring 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 group the people with whom he had been affiliated and through his instrumentality, he had acquired sobriety. The good doctor said he wasn't one, but he knew of quite a 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. Yes, they had either just left town or they were just leaving town or they're 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 there's an eyelights on the name Mr. and happened to get our good friend Henrietta. her. But he called up a good Henry and told her what he wanted, and she said, come right now and have lunch with me. So out he 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 calls up Anne and tells her that she has just the thought to be helpful to Bob, that we should come over. And he said, well, I guess we'd better not go with Bay. But Henry is very persistent, very determined individual. He said, oh yes, come on over. I know it'll be helpful for Bob. Well, Henry didn't think it was quite wise for us to come over to Bay, 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 possibly have to be postponed so she stopped in the next day having invited being sunday and mother's day and we said that our aunt 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 extracted the solemn promise from the man on the way over that 15 minutes of this stuff was top. That 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 1115 when we left. Now, you know, or possibly your memories are good enough to carry you back to certain times when you haven'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 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 the 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 Calgar 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 The interesting part of all this, and not all these sort 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 within, in fact, for two years and a half. Now, he, for five months, he had acquired this idea of service, and 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 didn't I did that at least to quite a considerable extent for me But I got tight every night. And I mean that. It turned once in a while, it was 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 of them. And And I fought very faithfully and sincerely, but I still continued to overindulge. But the one thing that they hadn't told me was the one things 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 form of a man whom you all know, at least a great many of you know, are good friends of Akron. Now I knew that this Bill was a Sunday school superintendent. And I also thought that he'd probably forgotten more about the good book every night than I ever knew. And who was I to be trying to to tell him about it. It made me feel somewhat hypocritical. It is quite a job for me to talk to him on that sort of subject. But anyway, we both did and I'm very glad to say the conversation the session fell on fertile ground. Then in October, we had three dumped in our laps almost almost simultaneously. But the point I wanted to bring out was the fact that in my mind the spirit of service is of prime importance, although it has to be backed up with some knowledge of the subject. I know I used to go to the hospital and I'd stand there and talk. I talked many a times to a chap in the bed for five or six hours. I don't know how he ever stood me for five, or six, hours but he did. Probably we'd hidden his clothes or something. But anyway Anyway, it came to my mind that I probably didn't know too much about what I was talking. 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 the good book but read a good deal of good standard literature and possibly something of scientific interest along with it. So I did cultivate this habit of reading and I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have probably averaged to read an hour a day for the last 15 years Now, I don't say that to try to sell you on the idea that you've got to cultivate that habit of eating an hour per 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'd gone that far and if you hadn't, why, you prescribed a few bromides and gave the fellow a good lecture, none of which of course amounted very much. And in early AA days we became quite convinced that the spiritual program was fine, but we could help the Lord out a little with some supplementary diet. So in the early days, Bill 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 in as much as Bill had to have that experience that probably everyone else would share the same. But of course we discovered later that most any dietary restriction had very little to do with the acquisition and maintenance of permanent varieties. We, in our own stories, didn't amount to anything because when we started in on Bill, we had no trout pets, we had no traditions, we had nothing of that kind. 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 us older ones that it was contained, the part 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 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 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 broke too and so we didn't take it too much to heart. But I do think that that was providentially arranged. But anyway we kept on having these meetings and having these discussions and attending the meetings of these these good people with whom we had been associated and did continue to have them with them until, in Akron I'm talking about of course, until about 40 maybe early in 41. Might have been January 41, I don't recall the exact date. When we outgrew the residence of this good friend who would allow us to bang up the plaster and the door jams, the counting chairs up and down there. And he had a 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, have been there ever since. We attempt to have a good meeting, and I think we're 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 had nothing to do with the writing of them. I think probably I had something to do with them indirectly because after this June 10th episode, Bill came to live 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'd be hard for me to conceive that something wasn't said during those nightly discussions around our kitchen table that influenced the actual writing of the 12 steps they're 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 get them, as I said, as a result of our study and therefore out of the good books. We must have had them because we have learned from experience that they are very important in maintaining sobriety and we were maintaining That's why we had them, but not in exactly the written form that you know them now. But that is the way that things started off in Akron. And as we grew, I thought we began to get offshoots. The first one was in Cleveland and I don't remember the next one, but anyway they were started in Akron not too long after that and have been continuing ever since. It is a great source of satisfaction to me to feel that I may have played some part in kicking in my two bits worth toward getting this thing started. I like to think that I have done that maybe I'm taking too much for granted, I don't know. But I feel that I was simply used as God's agent. I feel like I'm no different from any of you fellas 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 until a little later. in fact I got a little peeved that I haven't been followed because he was a little slow on the trail because I thought I would have been ready to receive it quite a while before he got around to send it and that irritated me no end but after all maybe he knows better than I but I felt sure that I would have been glad to have any Anything presented that would have been worthable and produced the sobriety, 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, Henry, do you think that I want to stop drinking with you? Henry being very charitable, so I said, yes, Bob, I'm sure you want it back. 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 to do it who could be so total a failure. you. That anyway, I think I'm just one of these want-a-want-a guys. He said, no, Mom, I think you want to just happen to have found the way to work it yet. But anyway, that was the way I felt about it. And the fact that my sobriety has been maintained continuously your slave for 30 and a half years, it 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 as dark would take off a good. And if it didn't produce disastrous results, I might do it. I don't know. I really like that. But I have no reason to think that it would make any difference. I have not legitimate reasons to believe that the results would be any different. They were always the same, they were always the same in that I always wound up back as a dear old eight ball 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 when I did the same thing. I just don't want to pay that bill, because that's a big still. It always was and I think it would be even larger today because with what has gone on in the last 15 years, I'm naturally being a bit out of practice. I don't believe that really lasts very long and I'm having an awful lot of fun and I just don't want to bump myself off even with the pleasures of the alcohol route. Well, I'm not going to do it. And I'm never going to do as long as I do the things that I'm supposed to do. And I know what those things are. So if I should ever get hired, 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 with 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, Well, he's a smart guy. He's a fairly smart individual. He's got this liquor situation right by the tail. Proved it, demonstrated it, and had a drink for 15 years. Probably could knock off a couple, and 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 a great many of you people know, of having a very nice hospital set up at St. Thomas Hospital. There's a ward that theoretically accommodates seven, but it's just ridiculous. It is stretched a little bit and she usually has about two or three more parked around somewhere. And I almost invariably, I find that I haven't been paying quite so much attention to the boys in the ward as I should. Just to ensure that idea that I could probably polish off a couple entered my mind, I think uh-uh about the boys from the ward. 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 I got it right back and am much more attentive than I have been in the days preceding the time that I got this funny idea. But I get it and I get every once in a while and I'll probably continue to get it as long or whenever I get callous about that one thing. You know, back in those early days about which I spoke, before we had the 12th death, we did have some other things, besides the actual biblical birth of the Lord. I was getting to thinking more of Smith than I was of Ward, otherwise I wouldn't have neglected him. and I wasn't being especially loving when these fellows had 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 bird. Ten cents to get rid of him, why that's easy. You could even stand two birds. But not because you love the power that just to be relieved of the nuisance of his hanging on your coat sleeve or what have you. No unselfishness, no love indicated in the transaction at all. It isn't a matter of putting a little quiet money in the dish that helps and possibly that's indicated too but that isn't giving much that is for the average individual in 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, but 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 Akron. The matter of those four absolute recolumns, the only yardsticks 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 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 up pretty well with those four, your answer can't be very far out of the way. If 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 would be very much better than mine but usually you can do it yourself without bothering your friends about their own personal decisions uh in overcoming the first step can't quite get honest enough to admit that uh john ballycon really has bested us a matter of absolute purity is somewhat like it, the purity of ideas and purity of motives and what have you. Non-selfishness includes those things that I've just been talking about, not the dime or the two bits to the bump but 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 was extremely difficult for me and I feel that I never have been very successful at it. It's very difficult for you to love me It's difficult for him to love my fellow man. 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 would injure him at all. But to love him, I just couldn't do it for a long time. And I think that I overcame it to some extent tent when I was forced to do it. Because I was either going to love this bird or not to attempt to be helpful to him, or I would probably get trapped in it. You could say, well, Lodge, 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 getting Smith hurt, I would attempt to go through the motions of being helpless of this other fellow. You can debate it any way you want to, but the fact still remains for the average individual, absolute love is a thing that he will never acquire. I suspect there are a few people who do. I think maybe I know some that come pretty close to it. that I think I could count them on the fingers of one hand. I don't say that in a disparaging manner, because I have some wonderful friends, but I'm talking about it in its final aspects, particularly as it applies to AA's. I don't think we do anything well 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 break world records in athletic events people who who win titles in the boxing arena are people who 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 practise to do a good job in AA. And there are a number of things that we should practise practice, we should practice, as I say, acquiring the spirit of service. We should attempt to acquire some faith, which isn't always easily done, especially for the person who's always been very materialistically minded. And those are the standards of society today beyond beyond all doubt and peradventure. 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 ad nauseum. But I think that it can be acquired. It can be be acquired slowly. I don't believe, I think that is something that has to be cultivated also. That was not easy for me. I just assume it's difficult for others. Another thing that was difficult for me and I probably don't do too well yet, and that is the matter of power. We're all inclined to have closed minds. They're pretty tightly closed. And that's 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 feminist, just for illustration. But anyway, the matter of tolerance toward the other individual's ideas, is, 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. Because if somebody crossed me, why, I would have 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'd been infinitely better off if I'd just kept my big mouth shut. 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 of Dickens, Uriah, Heath at all. I don't mean the gourmet variety. I don t think we're necessarily called on to be shoved around and kept down by anyone, and we have a right to stand up for our rights. I'm talking about the attitude of each and every one of us toward our Heavenly Father. Christ said, of myself I am 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 say. We were inclined to say, well, look us over boys, pretty good, huh? That type of attitude. But there's no humility, no sense of having received anything to the great that I have in the past. So if I accomplish something, either in AA activity or socially or in my profession, Well, 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 received 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 cocky about it? I should have a very, very humble attitude toward the source of my strength. And I should 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. In our way, it doesn't make much difference whether a person is drinking or whether they're sober as far as their ultimate aim is concerned. Whether they're drinking liquor or whether we are 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 all after all the time. We want those two things, we want happiness and we want peace of mind. The trouble with us fellows was that we thought we could demand that the world give us happiness in just the particular way in which we wanted to get it which happened to be by the alcohol 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 is necessary to borrow to acquire those things then we find that we get them and I think I've had them in a 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 our Heavenly 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 to take advantage of them. And by taking advantage of it means their familiarity, their familiarization with them and putting them in practice and incorporating them in our own thinking and actions. 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-bit book toward the starting line. But as I said also, I feel that I was simply used as God's agent. The question might arise, well, we know what he's done in the last 13 years, Yes, but how about it from here on? Where do we go from here? Our membership, I think, is conservatively estimated at present around 70,000. Will there be any increase from hereon? Well, that'll depend on every member of AA. It is possible for us to do so or not. up as we elect. If we fight shy of what the politicals call entangling alliances, if we avoid getting messed up with controversial issues such as religious and political issues, the wet and dry problems and so forth, if there's no unity to our central office, if we remember the simplicity of our program, if we continue to remember that our job is is to get sober and to stay sober and to help our less fortunate brother in doing the same thing. I doubt very much that we shall have any trouble and we shall continue to grow and thrive and prosper. And I hope we all bear those little things in mind. Maybe there shall be some additions to the list, but that roughly covers it fairly well. and I hope none of us will ever forget what I just said about helping our less fortunate brother. We'll now give you a little of the First International Conference conference at Cleveland, Ohio, 1950. This was July the 28th to 30th, 1950, and this is where Dr. Bob gave his last talk. And I will introduce one of our co-founders, Dr. Miles. My good friends in A.A. and out of A.I., 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 for you, but may you be able to impart that inspiration to the boys and girls back home who are not fortunate enough not be able to count. 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 the feeling that possibly some small thing that I did a number of years ago played a small and a small part in making 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 results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness. If you'll pardon the injection of a personal note at this time, let me say that I've been in bed five of the last seven months and my strength hasn't returned as I'd like so my remarks of necessity be very brief. 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 louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind but have very little to do with our actual AA work. Our 12 steps books, 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 guide that airy number of the tongue, and if we must use it, let's use it with kindness and consideration and power. And one more thing, none of us would be here today if somebody hadn't taken time to explain things to us, to give 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 behalf. So let us never guess the degree of smart complacency so that we're not willing to extend or attempt to that help that has been so beneficial to us to our left part in this province. Thank you very much.