Primary Purpose and Human Authority – The Twelve Traditions – Part 2 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

Hell, I'm a member of AA on whether it be in the newspaper or anything else. But what if you get drunk again? How many are you going to kill? Tell me if anybody in this room has got for absolutely sure that sober right this second can guarantee me or anybody else that 40 years from now there's still going to be sober. Well, this is what we're guaranteeing to people out yonder. this is exactly what we're doing when we do that we don't know we don' t know but at least we're telling the truth when we say I'm sober today and I have been etc. etc. so long you know and it's human ego not to get out here and somebody say well how long have you been sober well I've been around the program 18 years and then some wise monk said when did you have your last drink Oh, four days ago Now you get on television Start talking like that What is the credibility to a drunk out there Now most drunks don't watch Them kind of programs A drunk is drinking at home He ain't watching as the world turns You know, he ain't reading the watchtower If he's watching television It's when he comes to And got them test patterns on you know just like i didn't file a pay income tax for 18 years and i'd ride around my wife and be in the car and i'm sober and that that fellow would come on for hr block talk about your income i'd switch to another channel she'd punch it back yeah and same way with drunken you know he you know and you know here he didn't want anybody up there telling his story and so that now comes a final level of obedience we obey these because we really want to for ourselves it's not a question whether right or wrong we conform because we genuinely want to conform and such is our process of growth and unity and in function and such as evidence of god's grace and love among us and you say well how now many people wonder how a can function under such seeming anarchy. Other societies have to have law and force and sanctions and the punishment administered by authorized people. Happily for us, we found that we need no human authority, whatever. In AA, we've got two authorities which are far more effective. One heals and one kills. There's God or Father who just simply says, here's my will, use it. And here's alcohol and says if you don't use God's will, I'll kill you. That's it. One heals and one kills. And sometimes it does kill. And so when all the chips are down, we conform to God's will or we perish. And at this level, the death sentence hangs over the AA member, the AA group, the AA as a whole. So there's authority enough, love enough, and punishment enough, all without any human being grabbing the handles of power such as AA's backdrop and backstop against dissolution and its final guarantee of survival under any and all conditions. Because I'll tell you why. For us it's to do or to die. In this deal, as a recovering alcoholic, we either live the steps and face the consequences or don't live the step and face consequences. As an AA group, we either live the tradition and face the consequences or we don't live it and face a consequence. Doesn't make any difference. Either way around, we're going to have to face the consequence. Here comes a goodie, Tradition 5. Each group has but one primary purpose, carry this mess to the alcoholic who still suffers. You know, every newcomer learns the hard way and some of us, I mean, every new comer and some of us, blessedly, learn the hard way rather, that this business of staying sober has to have top priority. If we fail at that, we'll never succeed at anything else. And so the fifth tradition just simply reminds each group that unless a group makes its primary purpose that of every alcoholic who comes to AA, the freedom to stay sober, then we are flirting with people's lives. very often unthinking enthusiasm puts a group off the main track one group for example offered expanded a programs that include helping newcomers to find jobs i've been in a lot of a groups and look on their bulletin board and you can't find when they're meeting because they got signs up there firewood for sale babysitting wanting cars wash garage sale bake sale raffles and this and that and that yeah and somebody's going to show a film on alcoholism and etc and etc. And you say, well, when do you meet? Oh, wait a minute, I have to ask somebody, you know. Now, Tradition 5 doesn't frown on the individual AA who tells another about the job, but a good job of when the group turns itself into an employment agency. The newcomer may get confused about his primary purpose. Now AA's function is to help an alcoholic gets sober and then that alcoholic can get himself on a payroll or he can get a job or he can quit it whatever he wants to. That's really not AA's responsibility. It is not AA'S responsibility nor is it AA's concern if you want to work. All we want to do is what do you want to do about living sober? And then one can go on from there. Now using discretion, a member may lend a few dollars needed for a meal or a room or even having a broke alcoholic to be a temporary guests in your home. You've never lived until you've had one of them temporary guests in your home and they stay for a year, you know. God, I remember I had one of them in there. And you know, and good God almighty and one night there's a knock at the door and I open it up and, you know, police are police. I don't care if they got long hair and wearing boots and jeans or they got a burr cut and smoking a pipe and wearing white socks and hush puppies they all they're all the same they got emotion out comes their hand and how it comes their picture and their badge and they're called I believe they're born that way you know and there was two of them one night and they said are you so-and-so I said yeah and one of them said we got a paper here to search your house I said what for we understand you're harboring a thief I said well there was somebody here but he'd gone and I told him I'd met him down at the 24-hour club and then he didn't have a place to stay and all this and all that. And well, we got a search and I said, well, he did leave two boxes. And so they went in there and he opened up the boxes and my God, there were transistor radios in there. And one looked at me and he said, are you a fence? I said what's that? He said somebody that's getting their stuff and reselling it, stolen merchandise. And I said he said well you're going to have to come down and meet us. And So I get in the squad car with him and I go down there and I'm laughing all the way and I'll tell you why. And we get down there and these two detectives take this box and they get somebody to sign and take the property room and then they take me over to the night desk sergeant and they tell him this and that and then he leaves. The desk sergeants looks up at me and he says, Sponsor, when are you going to learn? And, you know, and I told him what the deal was, you know. But a group as a whole is not a friendly finance company or a welfare agency or a divorce-getting agency or marriage-in-agency or jail-getten-in or jail getting out in agency, you know, or housing bureau. Even acting on our own as individual members of AA, an AA layman certainly shouldn't award himself an honorary or herself an honorary medical degree and hand out diagnosis and prescriptions and amateur analysis of other people's neurosis and sickness now because this exact personal failing is so common in aa the a group should instill in every one of its members and particularly the a a group and all of its dealings should be extra careful to emphasize that the group is not invading the medical field, the psychiatric field, the social worker field. Through the personal experiences of our members, we are only qualified to carry one message, how an alcoholic can recover in AA. And I'm going to share with you a personal experience. It's not the first time in AA that it's happened. It happens all the time. It's happening right now in an AA meeting somewhere in this world. there's a beautiful gal and she was 23 24 years of age when this happened but from the time that she was 10 and a half 11 years ofage she became a street urchin and she developed into a mature physical and beautiful gap. But she started on alcohol and street drugs, and she'd ended up in jail for abusing and selling and you name it. At the time she was 18 years of age, she'd been in so much trouble, her family totally disowned her. And she was living here and there in one of live-ins and live-out deals, staying strung out and drunk all the time. One night she had one of them sports cars that'll do 120 standing still with one of them fiberglass bodies. She was strung out and she was out in the country just way up in a tree somewhere. She was driving about 120 miles an hour. She missed a curb and hit a huge oak tree hit on and naturally the front of the car collapsed through her through the windshield when she came through the top of her skull hit the trunk of the tree and just crushed it through some miracle she did not die and she spent many many weeks and many many months in intensive care and later on but with a lot of traumatic injuries to the brain and through some very skillful surgery, and through God's grace, she didn't die physically. But all for practical purposes, many, many thought she was just a vegetable, and when she did, her recall mechanism was practically gone, and she had halting speech, and she couldn't think, and her memory, it was a mess. And well, their family said they disowned her, they didn't know how to do it, so they had to get a court committed, and they put her in the insane asylum and committed her to be there for the totally insane for the rest of her life. And when she was admitted to the insane asylum, and a lot of times we ridicule civilians. We ridicule psychiatrists. We ridicue physicians, and we blame them for our dilemma. They got me hooked. They did this to me. It's an utterly amazing thing. I ain't ever heard one say, I didn't enjoy it. That's the reason why I went back to get hooked. Okay. So there was a Cuban refugee who was a psychiatrist somewhere along the line he had had a lot of experience working with alcoholics someplace somewhere and after reading her case history he's suspicioned that she was an alcoholic and that if she was there was a place where she could get well or better and that was over at the alcoholic recovery unit in the state hospital right there on the ground and so as she began to His suspicion now confirmed into belief. And he knew that if she was ever going to get any better, that his medical science and art could not give it to her. Psychiatry couldn't give it zu her. Shock treatments and that kind of therapy couldn't do it zu er. But there was one place that had the medicine for her malady, and that was them AAs, and the medicine was love. caring and sharing and loving that's where the power of our society lies folks one drunk talking to another we care about each other and share about each other because we're a common bond of experience because you can't give away something you don't possess and so when she got a little bit better they moved over to alcohol recovery and God she just started blooming just like a rose and when the gals from the outside groups would come in and bring the program, and they'd talk with her, and they brought her pantyhose, and they brought our makeup, and they brought a hair dryer, and they taught her how to put makeup on again. She couldn't even recall how to do that, and fixed her hair, and got everything, and clothes, and she kept saying, if I ever get out of here, can I be a member of AA? And they said, well, if you want to. And finally, she was allowed to go out one weekend, and they took her to AA meetings everywhere, and God, she enjoyed herself so much. And finally the day came that, you know, that they said she was well enough if she wanted to go out in the outside world as long as she had a sponsor and as long she had a place to live. Well, they brought her into one of the gals' house for about three weeks and then they found a little job for her to do there in the apartment to make a few dollars and then они нашли маленький гараж для ее и она начали идти в группы и все люди любили ее и это была ее семья And she was just growing and blooming. And then the night came when she sat in one of them closed AA discussion meetings to where everybody in there is an expert. And the topic for our discussion that night was, are you really sober if you're also taking medication? Well, it got around to her, and because of her traumatic brain surgery, for the rest of her life she was on Dylantin and a mild dose of phenobarbital, which is the standard medical prescription and treatment for seizures of that nature and convulsions. And it got around to her, and she got to talking about how she's on Dilantin and Phenobarbital, and right there and then three members sitting in that group jumped her up and says, You're not sober, you're taking dope, and you've got to throw it away and you're going to have a new sobriety day and not knowing any better and thinking that she'd be kicked out of AA and she had no family. And she went into the secretary's office and asked for her sobriety card, scratched out her original sobriete date, put down a new one, went home and threw all of her prescribed medication, which she was not abusing, down the toilet and flushed them down. And three and a half weeks later she had a seizure and a convulsion of the kind that Gatorade and honey won't stop, salt water sipping won't start, and she died. Her sponsor called me, and she says, I called her parents, and they said, what are we going to do? And they said we have no daughter. She called me and I was her male sponsor, and I said we'll have a funeral. I don't know about up here, but we have a group of us that we have a few lots scattered around for our less fortunate brothers and sisters. Even someone went back there then she said who are we going to have pallbearers I said I know three and I called up them three members of AA and asked them if they'd be pallbearer and coming back from the services they rode with me and the one that had been sober five years he said to me where do we go wrong and I said the AA group and the AA members and all of our dealings should be extra careful to emphasize that we are not invading the medical field only through the personal experiences of our members are we qualified to carry one message how an alcoholic can recover in AA and I said gentlemen we've got a lot of doctors in AA but we haven't got one physician we'll let the physician do the healing we ain't gonna kill folks now that's a common practice in AA, believe it or not. That's not isolated. It happens all the time. That's what I meant a while ago that we're great about talking about saving lives but we don't ever talk about the ones we kill. You know? We certainly haven't. Now if we share our own personal experiences that's one of the reasons why if I have the privilege to call on a wet drunk on a 12-step call and I still go on them I don't tell them to drink I don' t tell them to not drink I don''t tell them to go to AA I don ''t tell him not to go I just tell them my story. period that's all I'm qualified to tell them nothing else that's the only experience that I can share with because you see a wet drinking drunk when you tell him you say look, look can't you see what's happening to you if he could see what's happenin' to him he'd see can't ya hear what they're sayin' about ya if he can hear it here it's that stuff you're drinkin' it's killin' ya let me have it and you grab it and take it away from him and that drinking drunk will give you the most logical answer you'll ever hear in your life. And he says, no, it's not killing me, but take it away from me, it'll kill me. I have to have it to live, I have it have to sleep, I have have it eat, I... You may not have ever heard that in there, or have you? Well, you better listen to it sometime, I'll tell you. We're talking about old-timey A, we're talking abut the kind of stuff that's been responsible for lives living sober. Whether we like it or not. Whether we... And I didn't like to hear those things when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. But I've seen some very, very sad things happen in AA along with the joyous things in AA. And, you know, it's so easy. It's just like you walk into a drinking bar right now with a bunch of drunks in there and you walk up to them and you say, how are you doing? Fine. Fine. We don't like talking about those challenges. We don' t like talking About Until They Override Us. And so, you know, as a result of it, when, you know, the temptation in AA as far as education, the public and everything else is stronger at the time this tradition was written because public ignorance about alcoholism as an illness was more widespread than it is now. And since then, other agencies have sprung up to assume the job of educating the general public on alcoholism. Now, education and educating the public on alcoholism is not A.A.'s purpose. No. Only what A.I. can and will do for an alcoholic if that alcoholic is willing to let it happen to them. Now, because these agencies such as the National Council on Alcoholism, all the state agencies on alcoholism, mental health and retardation and alcohol and drug abuse and et cetera we can go right down the line are also trying to help the active alcoholic. They are our friends. And so Tradition 6 now establishes the boundaries of this relationship and allow us to work our side of the street and them to work their side ofthe street and ain't nobody getting run over jaywalking in the middle. And then we can walk and each of us do what we've got to do. The reason that the National Council on Alcoholism was started, It was started by the thinking of Bill Wilson and several others to do the things that AA had no business doing, period. And so Tradition 6, an AA group ought never endorse financial NDA named any related facility or outside enterprise unless problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. Now, the related facility may be an outside group combating alcoholism or an enterprise that AA's want to start. And it was the latter that most confronted our young fellowship. And you know what? Today it still confronts our fellowship, particularly with all the grant money, with all these monies that are available today. Not so bad now, but back when the huge Javits bill came in, AA's all over the world were leaving and going into the drunk business. And you'd go into the group and say, I ain't seen you in a long time. Oh, David. David, I'm a seven. I said, what's a seven? Well, I work for the government. That's the pay scale. Oh. And I said what are you doing? He said, David, all my life, all I've ever wanted to be was an alcoholism counselor. I said well it took you 20 years to admit that you're an alcoholic. And how long are you sober now? Eight months. And all your life, that's all you've ever want to be is an alcoholist counselor, you know. Well, thank God agencies found out that just because drunks made a few 12-step calls and sponsored a few that that was not the qualification to be an alcoholism counselor. And they started an education process to be accredited, etc., etc., and etc. Some have made it. Now, it emptied out, and a lot of them went out. Some of them got drunk, and they ain't ever come back. And some of them Got drunk, came back, and some are still sober. and uh and in a's early days outside agencies were pretty scarce and so some a members thought that the a should cover the whole alcoholism field well our old alcoholic foundation uh which was incorporated it was incorporated to do everything in the field of alcoholism everything in this god's world it could heal drunks it could unheal them they could throw them out of a it could do everything in the world and but that was changed and years ago uh some super promoters in aa built an all-purpose center including the section for drying out treatment you know but what happened lawsuits got involved and it got into the newspapers and uh and a lot of problems going on and they'd have meetings groups got involved in it you know and one group in particular decided it it was renting a building and and and it had vacancies down to the next three or four stores, and they had a meeting one night, see, about taking it over. And then they were going to have a rehabilitation house in there for the drunks, and then they Were going to make furniture, and they're going to sell flowers on the corner like the flower folks do, and make money for the deal. And Then they got to arguing about how you're going sober them up. Or you can use phenibarbital and suppositories, or what are you going to do with them? Are you going bring them off, let them walk and shake out a drug, or bring them off on bay rum and wine? And they got to arguing and God had got kind of bad and this actually happened. And the door opened up and a little drunk stuck in and one of them said, who are you? He said, I'm an alcoholic and I want to get sober. Is this where you are? He says, well go over there and get you some coffee. We've got an important business meeting going on and when we get through with our business meeting then we'll tend to you. And that's what we mean by diverting away from the primary purpose of the group. And as a result of now that ambitious center they never got off the ground. Some individual members have found us a very successful uh nowadays you know my god they ever got they got every kind of a house you want they got a three-quarter house halfway house quarter house seven and three-eighths house two millimeter house they got them all the way down to just house you know and um and they are run by a's and pat denied by other members or prospective members but money and property are involved and so therefore it's been proven wise by our own experience to keep the operation of the facility completely separate from that of a group a name is like the 12 step four step first step out of the name now towards outside agencies dealing with alcoholism a policy is very simple cooperation but not affiliation and a group cooperates for example if it wants to buy the vote of its members nothing is binding in a you can't force a group to do anything a group don't even have to turn its money in it can deal with it whatever it wants to it has to live with only the consciousness of his own being honest and oh alcohol loves actively dishonest drunks that are sober they just sit there licking chops yeah i'm gonna give me another one tonight you know and it does and as a result of it so you know uh cooperation but not affiliation now group cooperates by welcoming referrals from treatment facilities are from modality the thing that that i don't understand about treatment facilities i wish somebody if you got them in this area go back tell them this they when they reach there now you go to 90 meetings 90 days 60 but why don't they say you not only go to meetings but stay in a stay in it's the only hope you got out there and so you know we welcome them from court committed you know and from institutions a group can vote on whether it wants them in there or not believe it or not yeah all right they want up to participate come to an open meet sit there sure can but in one area money for a rehabilitation house was solicited at a meeting implying affiliation and another area of the country a was listed among beneficiaries United Fund Drive you say well somebody good will be sure did now a members employed by outside agencies we used to call them two hatters wear two hats but tradition six causes against any such member against wearing both hats at once. It's impossible for a drunk to wear two hats at the same time because we ain't got but one head. Now on the job he or she may be an alcoholism counselor, but he or he is not an AA counselor. There's no such thing as an AA Counselor, AA doctor, AA lawyer, AA housewife, AA bum, AA banker. we ain't got one kind of a that's they remember it doesn't say whether you what sex or what color or what preference or whatever it is and it sure helps if he sold I thought we ain t got one condom that's an amen that meetings you know at meeting on the job as I said at meetings here she is just a not an alcoholism expert so today and we understand the paradox that the more age sticks to his primary purpose the greater will be its healthful influence everywhere and you know we're all perfectionist and after failing at perfection we'd gone to the other extreme and we settled for the bottle and the blackout and then providence through alcoholics anonymous had brought us within reach of our highest expectations so it became good reason with this kind of thinking why shouldn't we share a way of life with everyone and it makes sense doesn't so in the early days they tried hospitals they all folded because you cannot put an a group into business too many busy bodies mess up the formula then a groups had well in a it's almost impossible there a group Bennett coach if you got 30 members you got thirty dictators yeah then a group had to try to education and when they began to publicly drumbeat the merits of this or that brand people to start getting confused and they said well did a fix drunks or was it an educational project was it spiritual was it medical was it a reform movement so in utter confusion is discussed a found itself getting married to all kinds of enterprise some good some not so good then some a group started hounding a legislatures for legal reforms in this business committing drugs to prisons and silence and those days it made good reading but little else then I became mired into politics and even a inside a we as I said before about it imperative to take the name off of clubs and twelve-step houses and so the experience as a result of our experiences in playing a deep-rooted conviction that in no circumstances could aa endorse any related enterprise no matter how good because we of a cannot be all things for all people nor should we try and then of course many of you read a becomes of age about the member who thought about taking a public relations job with one of the large distilling companies to educate the public why alcoholics should not consume alcohol everybody knows why an alcoholic should not consume alcohol except the alcoholic everybody knows it but that liquor association wanted that member to use his full name and all his advertising and he was to be described as its director of publicity and as a member of alcoholics anonymous now there couldn't be the slightest objection if such an association hired an aa member solely because of his public relations ability and his knowledge of alcoholism but that was only that was not told story for in this case he not only was the is an a member to break his anonymity at the public level he was to link the a name to that particular educational project and also that distiller in the minds of millions now i won't tell you the kind of alcoholic i am if i was drinking and that monkey got on there with his full face and he said i'm a member of aa and i'm working for this buzzard liquor company i'll tell you what i did he's sober my mind says hey baby david baby you can drink that buzzard liqueur and you ain't going to be no alcoholic. Maybe I'm the only alcoholic in this room who thinks that way. I'm the kind that you tell me don't walk on the grass, I walk on the grass. You tell me it's wet paint, don't touch, I touch it. Here's the one I love. Don't take food or drink out of the dining room. Oh, I love it. It's just like these signs in here no smoke but before the meeting they ought to reverse them you know what i mean yeah yeah no smoking really and it's just that that is an absolute it's a demand for an alcoholic to violate it you put absolutely no smoking in there and this place would be full of smoke but if you put please refrain from smoking you know no smoking we're pretty good about it now and so as a result of it that particular memory came to the centers in question realized that hey faith is one and it had to come first and he suddenly certainly didn't want to be the guy to land a big time trouble and this we certainly did we were talking about this a while ago before we got started against this concerning endorsements our friends said it all we was never before that we could lend the aa name to any cause other than our own tradition seven every egg oh here's a good every group ought to be self-supporting declining outside contributions now we have to be practical a group can hardly hold its regular meetings on a street corner an empty basket will not pay the rent or fill a coffee pot and as soon as we become active in a group we learn how many other expenses are involved in making meetings reasonably effective then our horizons broaden what about that intergroup our central office many of us called to ask for help phone companies do not give free service god they're so thankful we're sober not calling south pole and asking for a penguin bootlegger or calling russia somewhere you know beyond our own local locality we learned about the aa general service office and the work it does uh for groups worldwide eight activity ought to be self-supporting at all levels and in every case if it isn't responsibility comes right back to us our individual members because we are a a we own alcoholics enough it is ours and it doesn't belong to anybody else and we express the results of alcoholic the recovery program and our unity and our services to the world in which we all live and so sometimes when we're new our contributions rattle you know you don't see this much in any groups anymore they don't they hardly pass uh with a collection of coffee can because it's kind of embarrassing you know uh you drop in and you put a quarter to go plunk you know and everybody it's usually the tightest one in the group anyway and uh and because uh but you know and they rustle rather than rattle and the fancy groups you know they they got i guess they either borrowed them or bought them from churches you know then plates with the felt in the middle that high class but if you ever watch one of them they got a teller at each end of the row to be sure that the collection gets to the back and one of the funniest things it's funny it really is funny there's a large group here and i happen to be in the meeting in new york and it's a big meeting You must have had about 350 in there, and they have the secretary's break. And that's when they take up the collection because of an hour-and-a-half meeting. And right as they got through the collection, here come four fellows with stockings on their hat, and they grabbed the take, and out they went to the back door. They robbed the group, you know, right there. Yeah, you see? You know, in the old days, you used to say if you got one, put one in. If you need one, take one. They quit doing that when more money disappeared and got put in, you knows. and as a result of it you know they but the first members weren't as fixed they were busted to them they felt that they needed some outside help uh more than the modest gifts was coming in and their plans required some big shot ideas of philanthropy but as one of the greatest friends that alcoholics anonymous ever had and he gave us the greatest piece of experience that a could possibly ever be given given to us for nothing but john d rockefeller jr and early a fred who said i'm afraid money will spoil this thing and i'm not going to be the one that's going to spoil it and a few aas had already reached the same conclusion gradually bernardi became the majority and experience showed that our own members ourselves when we are informed what it is needed for we could provide enough to finance aaa's proper aid so it's as simple as application tradition seven is easily understood when we hear about an a group being started with funds from federal grant but then we come to the borderline cases groups that put on a raffle for the benefit of their central office and invite the public ah it's nothing wrong you don't put on the raffle as long as our members participate but when you go out on the street and sell them to everybody and their brother to buy tickets or have a weekly bingo party and invite the public to participate or have it dance and go out and sell tickets and invite everybody to come in you know now these projects would be routine for other societies but for us such actions just simply mean that we got our hand out again asking non-members for money you know there was a group in one part of the country that they went out and they farmed a group and uh and and they had about five members and the group didn't grow it just stayed five members then they got one and they got six but it didn't grew but they were real you know they went out like any good thinking drunk does they didn't go buy 10 chairs they bought 50 and they're sitting there in these in this room with 50 chairs and nobody and they went out and bought uh 50 big books to sell they just knew that everything's gonna be fine and but they forgot one thing you know you can ask god something and as long as you sit there it ain't gonna happen you know he said now get up and do it and so they decided well they need to get people in here so they decided to play bingo on saturday night and it would start at at 9 30 and the meeting was eight to nine well word got out and they started coming out there and that little old meeting why the next thing you know they're coming in at 8 30 to get a bingo seat and finally they moved the bingo back to seven o'clock and but the bengo games got big and they were giving away cash prize and their group started not the group the bongo game they knocked out a wall and they had bunch of people in there and invited their neighbors and grandma and everybody to show up and god they were doing real good it got big and the heck man i'll tell you there was something else and they decided well this bingo's so good why don't we have another bingo night let's have it on tuesday night somebody said what about the meeting say what the heck with the meeting then bingos is paying a rent so so anyway uh and they got real then they moved to another place where they could accommodate about 500 people and then they had to have somebody to take care so they built a little room and got a one-legged drunk in there clean up the place put the bingo cards out get the balls ready and get the proper change and everything and so he was cleaning up the place one day and in trunk big limousine and three well-dressed men walked in there and said are you you the manager here he said yeah he's got nice place here he says can i help you gentlemen yeah do you have any insurance what are you kind of insurance well you know fire insurance explosive insurance you know what are you talking about yeah you need that kind of stuff and then one lady looked at it and he said this is a we are a spiritual entity and god will protect us and he says is that your answer yeah well about three weeks the roof blew off well you know drunks we ain't stupid sensitive but not stupid and one's good two's better so they went out got a bigger place and the bingo games got bigger oh they had two token a meetings a week and then next thing you know they had three more visitors and so uh the question was the same you have insurance and you know those folks are they're different they don't make 12-step calls on people like we do you know and they said you know you know be ashamed that this place should calamity happen and there are women and children in here you know the drunks and i said get out god will provide so they left that yeah actually yeah and then the roof in the back wall blew up so the drugs one stood two is better three stories they went out and had a lot of money so they bought a piece of property and they built a concrete slab floor for this building with reinforced steel you could land one of them 747 airplanes on that thing and they got a butler steel building and dynamite proof and dropped the ceiling and bingo games got up as high as 1200 people got huge amounts of cash money and they were coming in and had three more visitors and he gave them the same answer well the next time that thing blew it blew concrete slab reinforced steel floor delta building bingo balls and cards all the way into new mexico well i got a phone call from our general service office and one of the secretaries and they had the news media up there not only television but radio from every one of the networks wanting to know what in the devil is going on this was broadcast already on the morning show on the noon show at the six o'clock news in the morning and they want to know is what's all this gambling and dynamiting well you see what happened anytime you use dynamite or explosive you got the treasury boys on you my friend you bet you that's a secret service and they're real nosy about things like that and they wanted to know whether when they call me i said i don't know why you call me this is the third time well they saw the errors of their way and they went and started another group and started working with drunks and the group just crawling and guess what they had a business meeting last summer and they decided to start the bingo again so that's what we talk about you ain't got sanity and sobriety forever Yeah. And, you know, often, of course, we don't have to ask. AA is now high on the worthy list of our members. Oh, yeah. AA politely turns down many unsolicited requests, particularly that we do not take from non-alcoholics, period. Our conference team voted a limit of $500 that you give a year to our general service office. why are you lying five hundred dollars a year and you will and it has to be given in the year in which die and it can't be perpetuated now you can give a hundred thousand dollars hey anytime you want to just get your hundred thousand one dollar bills go to a lot of meets you know money may pose another problem if a group treasury grows too fat beyond understandable reserve but there's a simple solution that strengthens our unity and advances our purpose give the excess a activities and services so when our trustees declared the principle that a must always stay poor for the principle of corporate poverty was firmly and finally embedded in a tradition now when newspapers and the other media news media got hold of those fact there was an immediate and profound reaction to people who are familiar with endless drives for charitable funds aa presented a strange or refreshing thing approving editorials both abroad and in this country generated the confidence and a new wave of confidence and respect in the integrity of alcoholic phenomenon because they pointed out that the irresponsible had become responsible by making financial independence part of its tradition. Self-supporting alcoholics, who ever heard of it? That's one of the greatest things that's happened to us is the fact in what Rockefeller told us. And that in plain this corporate poverty, you know, it takes very little money to stay sober. We don't need a lot of money. Because when we get into money, then we get to arguing about what to do with it. and ever drunk is a financial expert you know what an expert is don't you that's a drip under pressure an expert about everything they get to argue they're fighting over it best thing to do is empty out give her away do whatever you want to with whatever the group wants to vote but always remember this be willing face consequence that's all so that's not punitive in nature is tradition aid alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional but our service centers may employ a special worker well spiritual as it is a remains very much of this world they tradition like the seven focuses on that both or five letter word it's not mentioned in any of its own money how many has had to explain to some cynical prospect no I'm not a social worker I do not get paid for talking with you or sitting with you while you check out a drunk we do this because it's part of our work part of us staying sober however this doesn't mean of course that the idea of turning professional has never entered any a's mind now in the lean years our co-founder bill wilson he thought that he could become uh he because of his experience he would become a lay therapist to earn money and helping alcoholics and so he went to the he went to the the drunks and said colonel towns wants me to work there as a deal and and they looked at bill said well you're the head horse here you are you're telling us what not to do it you're going to turn around and do it and so bill got a nudge from the group conscience at that time that he could never hang out a sign reading bill wilson aa faith healer ten dollars an hour And so it became clear to the early members of AA that no member of AA should ever ask or accept paying for carrying a message to somebody else. That's the AA message about our own personal experience, person-to-person of faith. You say, well, what about those who are members of AE who work in treatment facilities or who work for agencies? They are working there as a job. Now they're there because they're sober. but if they're just sitting there telling their story to them folks and they ain't doing the job that's a business see the difference between treatment and aa is two a is recovery and treatment treatment now we do treat alcoholics in a you know how we treat them real good but you see in the bottom line in aa is is not money no treatment facility can operate without paying its bills it's got to get money someplace somewhere and they've got a unlimited market out in that world because they're uncovering them more every day and there are some that are not satisfied this has nothing to do with AA but AAs get involved in them and drag it into meetings and drag them into groups and ask them to come and share and all this and all that and some treatment facilities can't cut the mustard just treating drunks and and other addicted people they're treating stop smoking weight reduction and a lot of other things you know and then some a member say well it's all in the same you know and I was sitting in a tree facility not long ago and one of these down now you go to AA don't let them give you any good hey David here alcohol was a chemical of his choice and you go your valium was the chemical your choice over you and I said wait a minute I never went to the whiskey store and said sell me a half a gallon of chemicals you can call it whatever name you want to call it I'll call it what name I call it and you ain't no more authority than I am about it but let's just set the Garrett the deal straight that's all now why don't you tell this