Responsibility and the Linkage Between the Groups and the Foundation – 1945 – Hellen B.

You are reading me wonderful days. If a newcomer put his foot over the door, the threshold, he was usually mocked by an eager and insistent group of people who wanted more than anything else in the world to give this new person what they had already found, a way to live without the use of alcohol. And more into that, there can be talk of setting up some center place, some local headquarters to handle these AASAs that were growing in number every day. And what a furor that idea caused. You see, in this period of time, out of that original group had grown 13 other groups in the Boston area. And in these 13 other groups were a lot of younger, more progressive AAs. And they felt that there ought to be some systems to this method of handling 12-step calls, of providing speakers, of hospitalization and all the various chores in an AA. And so they wanted to open an office for the old-timers, and God loved them all. I don't speak disrespectfully of any old-timer in this room because what would we have done without them? But anyway, these old parents did yell and shriek. And they said, what's the matter with the way we do things now? What are you going to do, order 9-A-8? Why don't you keep it simple? How are you gonna run an offer? It'll cost $10,000 a year, and we've got $39.72 in the treasury. Well, in case you've forgotten, the locale of all this was in Boston. And one of the things that Boston is famous for, in addition to its culture and its tea parties, is its Irish population and its politicians. You know, we say out in Boston that to be a member of AA, you don't have to be Irish, but it sure helps to get you there after. Well, in this group of the first union from the newer groups, actually there were a few Irishmen and a few politicians. So they got together to figure out how we could bring the two factions together. They came up with a solution. They appointed one of the old-timers as chairman of this central service committee. And did that work? Boy, they cried it down just like a swollen baby that way against the fall. They said, well, goodness, it's alive. These people, these young people recognize our superior knowledge and our Q-related experience, but when you want to buy this gym, why not be all right? We'll go along with it. And so was created the first central service office in New England, and I was behind the deck as its secretary. Lucky me. I had thought that for the first six months or a year at the CEO, not too busy, that I a lot of time on my hands, but that wasn't so at all. Right from the start, it was very active. Many were the people that used to come in there to find out what could be done for a beloved husband or wife or son or daughter. And so indeed were the stories that used to pour across that desk. Very deluded and perplexed were these anxious relatives of alcoholics who tried everything in the world to help their loved ones and met only with failure after failure. Those were really, and I look back on them, wonderful days. We didn't have much money. you remember that $39.78 balance, but we sure did have a lot of fun. Speaking of the money part of it, after we'd been open about a month, the door opened one afternoon and two very nice looking, well dressed men came in. They were strangers. I was there alone, and I thought probably they were visiting farmers. And the thought even crossed my mind, you see, I was pretty young and naive in those days, that maybe these were a couple of trustees from the Alcoholic Foundation who'd come over to look over this wonderful Boston office. So I put my most charming smile of welcome on and went over to greet them, and asked them to come in. One of them said, Madam, I didn't have to do this set of station 16. He flashed his badge at me. Well, that was a bit of a shock. But I still had them come in and sit down. They went on to tell me that they had complained about the office. You see, we hadn't even had enough money to have the name of the outfit printed on the door. And so he said that several other tenants in the building had called up and reported that a very mysterious office had opened at 39th Avenue on a third floor. It was a peculiar sound. one gallon no name on the door all day long very odd looking men going through my house I suppose they thought it was a boogie joint or even worse I don't know at any rate when I went with the two police officers what it was and why the name wasn't on the door. It changed, of course, and I was full of enthusiasm and promised all kinds of cooperation if I ever got a job that was too hard for me to handle. And incidentally, in the years that I worked there, only once did I have trouble with a gun. Here's a young chap who's And we've been in about a year, I guess. On this particular day, he was on his 29th slip in that year. And he came over to the office all week and told him to keep away from it when he was drinking. And he was pretty fresh and belligerent. He was telling what was the matter with A.A. and what a bunch of phonies there were and so forth. And because there were a couple of real new people, brand new in the office, I took this fellow to my small private office and said, you know what, Johnny, you've got to go out. You can't stay here and talk like that. Well, that was just like putting a mash to a cake of dynamite. He really took off then. And he began to curse and swear and say, who the hell did I think I was ordering him around? After all every meeting he went to, he put a dime in the box, and therefore I couldn't even eat unless you put that dime in. So how did I get that way, giving him orders? Well, it amused me, but at the same time it made me kind of mad. However, I didn't have to call the police. Even though they were pretty big, I just took them in and pushed them right out the door. When I got out there, I said, Now don't you ever come back here again when you're in this condition. You came back a week later sober with a claw in your eyes. I mean, they were used to that in Germany. Why did it have to call the cops? I suppose it's because I'm an alcoholic and once a new alcoholic came in, we could establish that common bond that we all had. Well, anyway, this office served a very useful purpose. In the three-and-a-half years that I was there, the number of groups in the New England area grew from the original 13 to 110 when I left there two and a half years ago. And it's purpose always, as your local moving in office is, to be your service and your help to carry the message. In the summer of, when, 1959, I was invited to leave the Boston office and go down to New York to be one of the A.A. Secretaries at the Alcoholic Foundation, your General Service Headquarters. for it. It seemed like a wonderful idea because not only would it bring new blood into the New England office, but was certainly a grand opportunity for me to see how this thing worked throughout the world. I was very lucky, again, when I went down there, because of my past business experience and training, there was a sign to me the job of working with Bill. Certainly, the hours and the days that I spent in his company have been the most helpful and the most interesting of my entire life. During the spring and summer of 1950, our work was devoted almost entirely to the preparation of this Third Legacy Paragraph, with which I'm sure most of you are familiar. The idea for this Third Legacy grew out of the realization by Dr. Bob and Bill that they were perishable. They couldn't last forever. Their friends as the Crestese are almost unknown to the AA movement. In years to come, the trustees could possibly function without guidance from new people, from the movement as a whole. Somebody or something had to take the place of Bob and Bill. A.M. is out of its infancy. It's grown up and adult now. It has the full right and claiming duty to accept the responsibility for its service affairs. Unless the foundation is firmly linked through state and provincial delegates to the movement which it serves, A breakdown was someday to be inevitable. When these old-timers vanished, this isolated foundation couldn't possibly survive one serious mistake or grave controversy. The memory movement has been lucky so far. It's never had to face a grave crisis. But who knows? Maybe someday it will. And if so, how could a remote bunch of trans-PDs handle such an emergency? AIs all over the country would shout, why do the five of these trustees speak for us? How do we know they're right? The result would be a strife and controversy in AA and for our own survival and for the millions who are yet to come Such a thing must have happened. And so came his third legacy, our leader. I'm able to forget when after it had been written and rewritten and re-written and re-written, I used to know this thing by heart, it was finally all set down on paper and sent out to Akron to Dr. Boggs for his final approval. I went to Bill's home about a week later, and Bill and Norris and I were having lunch. The phone rang. Long distance. Akron, Ohio calling Mr. Bill Wilson. It was Dr. Boggs. Bill went to the phone. He came back in about ten minutes, and on his face there was an expression of great peace, of relief. Thank God, he said. Dr. Vaughn has approved the plan. The future of AA is assured. It's safe. Oh, thank God. Next, within a few weeks, we presented the plan to the trustees. They gave their final okay in the green light to go ahead. And two weeks after that cursed meeting, Dr. Bob had a bad spell and died. Those words certainly came back with very deep meaning. Dr. Boggs and Bill are perishable, and quite a miraculous thing that only a few short weeks before he died, Dr.Boggs had taken his last actions to ensure that this thing will carry on. Gives you the shivers almost, doesn't it? Well, we didn't send copies as they said to every group in this country and in Canada. Generally, it met with wholehearted approval. There was some disapproval, and what was it? It was just practically the same as the disapproal that was brought back four years before that in Boston by the old timers. The charges were that AA was becoming organized, that this is a scheme for Bill Wilson to make a lot of money. That one I always loved, because actually in this conference plan, every group in the country is invited to send a representative down to New York who can go over every financial record, every penny cash slip that's ever been signed from the day the foundation opened its doors on Hill right now. but yes, they thought it was a thing for him to make money from. Another complaint was that it was the political movement to ensure that this great hierarchy of headquarters would be maintained and that too was a ridiculous charge because what the plan does actually is to ensure a constant rotation in the EA ensuring by everyone of the responsibility And loudest of all was the cry, why not keep AA simple? Oh sure, we want to keep it simple. But there can be such a thing as oversimplification. For instance, we receive at headquarters every Monday morning about 300 between 300 and 400 letters. Now it would be much simpler not to answer those letters. Every month we send out eight tons, eight tons of literature and books. Would it be simpler not to do that? Every week we deal with a score of important public relations matters that affect any name as a whole. It would be simpler to do nothing about them. We get hundreds of personal appeals for help. Well, wouldn't it be easier to throw them in the wastebasket? Translations of literature are needed for the foreign groups, and they need help and guidance on every subject. What we could say will let them figure it out themselves. We had to. My brother. Groups in isolated areas that don't have a central office like you have here in Louisville need to correspond with someone who knows group problems, who's had experience with them. Well, we could ignore their please fail too and tell them to figure it out themselves. Now he and some other services, we have a list of approximately 16 services that we give to you, each thing costs as a foundation about $100,000 annually. To some, this seems to be a very large amount of money. And it's quite true that AA could be kept poor if we didn't ask for any money. It would be simpler, but only for the time being. If these things were not done, AA wouldn't remain simple. Neither the fathers who are yet to come nor those of us who are already here will get the help and guidance and direction that we need. Another charge was that the conference means politics. But first, take a look at your own group, your own little groups right here in Kentucky. Suppose that no one was charged with doing the chores. Suppose there was no secretary, no treasurer, no chairman. Suppose that nobody looked after the hospital or anything. Suppose there wasn't any orderly method of sponsorship. Suppose all these things were left to change. As a group, you soon fail to function. Well, suppose no one was involved. Where would you be? So each one of you in your own group has to have a little money, a few politics, and a little organization. Isn't that so? Well then, how can AA as a whole expect to operate on any different principles? Suppose that you people sitting there didn't know personally the secretary or the treasurer or the chairman of your group. Suppose that all that you knew about them was that once in a while by mail you got a request for some money from them. Suppose that they just reappointed themselves as secretary, treasuer and chairman year after year. How long would you people continue to support them either morally or financially, not very long without any linkage, without any direct knowledge of these people. But that's the way the foundation has been operating for years, without a general service conference and with this one exception. During all of these years, the Foundation has had a linkage between if and you people who pay the bills. That linkage was Dr. Bogg and Bill. Dr. Bob has already gone Bill, God forbid could go any day and then what would happen? These vital services there that are responsible for at least half of AA's membership and certainly its unity will collapse. And that is why the General Service Conference came into being. That's why Dr. Boggs and Bill bequeathed to us the third legacy. That's what we're going to gather together today at Louisville. And that's why Jamar Moon, a representative I hope from every group in Kentucky, will need to choose a state committee to provide a direct contact and linkage to us in New York. And from that committee will be chosen a delegate to the General Service Conference to be held next April. I feel very sure that luck, as I have spoken of it in these few words, won't have too much pot in the hat moves tomorrow. There were 37 assemblies held last year throughout this country and Canada. And in every single instance, the committees chosen and the delegates elected were wonderful, conscientious, capable people, and I'm sure that luck has nothing to do with their choices. I'm convinced, as I'm sure you are, that a kind and loving God is watching over this movement and will continue to watch over it just as he's watched over you and me. Thanks.