The Doctor Who Was in the Rockefeller Office with Bill W. – Gail L.

You love this crowd? I love them. I love all of them. Thank you. I'm back! I demand alcoholic thoughts they commit and keep up the hard work and they choose the speakers. Every one but this one. This one you choose. This one's for you. Okay, so I want to know how many have heard this talk before? So as you can see, it's a cult following. How many have never heard this talked before? Okay, wait a minute. I'm getting a lot of male attention here and I love it. Okay. Well, while we're waiting to get me wired up, as if I'm not wired up enough, I want to read to you what's on your program that came from the Akron AA archives. We preserved it and we've been able to pass it on to you this weekend. And this talk is going to be about Bill Wilson. I've been known to bring him back from the dead. So on behalf of Bill, let's just say Happy birthday, Akron. And now that's not even moving. Happy birthday Alcoholics Anonymous. You know I give this talk all over the world but there's no audience that carries this up as high as you do than when you bring your gratitude on Founders Day weekend and filled with the medicine. You guys have no idea how much energy you bring to this. It's a celebration of God's love for the alcoholic. Are we good? Okay, okay. I have to give him a chance to get back up to the control booth there. So dear friends of Akron, this was written by Bill on June 16th of 1964. Please know that in spirit I join with you In everlasting gratitude for all that began In your city on a hill On June 10th, 1935 A beginning that has become AA as we know it today In bright memory I see Bob and Ann and all those early ones Who by God's grace Kept the faith So setting the example that has been so well followed worldwide in all the years since. Lois joins me in the prayer that this may be the most fruitful gathering that you have yet seen in Affectionville. I believe this is a fruitful gathering blessed by those who have gone before us. And hopefully, I'll be wired here soon. Are you blinking that light because it's okay for me to go? All right. Okay. Okay, now, let's get started on me qualifying. Do you know that the grapevine wanted this for a centerfold? Let me explain this picture to you. It was just a couple years before I got sober. Slade, Kentucky. I wish it was Woodstock. Yes, I have a cigarette in one hand, a half a gallon of wine, a deck of cards, and if you look real closely, my zipper's down. Once a hippie, always a hippy. That's what I say. And this one, this should be flipping. There it is. Oh no, that's not it. That it I know y'all kind of scratching your head you should relate to this this is a picture of me in a blackout all right now we're going the wrong direction I'm not even sure what we're doing to be honest with you I'm gonna go back to the computer I'm not sure why we're going to go past that we're gonna go to this yes that's what I want if you go down the Florida State Convention you can have your picture taken with Bob and Bill and there's my rescue date 513 of 1978 I I just celebrated 45 years. And this is my 46th Founders Day. I'm from Akron, so I get to be with you once a year and take this all in. So there's 46 Founders' Day of gratitude in me. All right, so how did I get here? Well, told me to just say yes to Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came into AA, here I am standing on a three-tiered stage. By the way, all you guys up in the nosebleed section, hello! If your nose starts to bleed, please call 911. We'll get you some help, okay? Okay, so I came in and I was afraid to say my own name. In fact, if you put me on Jeopardy, I used to say the other two contestants would, if you asked me my name, the other 2 contestants would have pressed the buzzer first. But along the way, I've been asked to do things in Alcoholics Anonymous and I've said yes, and that's why I'm here today. I was on the intergroup office. I was asked to be there. I said yes. And then I was ask to host Lois Wilson at Founders Day in 1984. She, you know, co-founders, this is what it was for, Bob and Bill and Lois and Ann at one time. We're all here, and now we were down to just Lois. But Lois came with some companions, and I said, what am I supposed to do? Well, you're supposed to take care of her companions and seat Lois, so in the back seat is Nell Wing. How many know who Nell wing is? Oh, you do? Okay, good. All right, so Nellwing happened to be like a Wilson. She was bill's secretary and kind of gal friday and bill asked her to start the first archives and she became our first archivist so when i was seating her i sat down next to her and i said oh no if there's ever anything i can do for you just ask unless you mean it don't say that in alcoholics anonymous she said yes Gail there is I would like you to start an archives and I had no idea what that was but I said yes just a little bit more about now forget it I think we're going to the house all right yeah, that's it. Goodbye now. Okay. 1984, I got involved in the purchase of Dr. Bob's house and I called her up and I said, well, we have the house now. I said would you train me to be an archivist? I flew to New York. She took me into her home. She trained me. She took me out to see Lois so that I could tell how they did the co-founder's home in Bill and Lois' home as well. By the way, there really was 12 steps leading up to the house. We didn't just put that in for you tourists. That's just a picture of Nell who I just love dearly and miss. So here's just a little quick video of the trip I took to Stepping Stones to see how they did Stepping Stones and in a minute you're going to see me with Lois There's Nell. I'm having a drink with Lois. Yes, I am sober in that picture. But my hair hasn't sobered up yet, okay? It's so embarrassing to show you that picture and it looks like my zipper might be down. Whoa. Get back. I don't know. I'm having a little trouble with this thing. I don' t know why. There's something up here. I remember having trouble last year. All right, so forget it. I don''t know what we were going to do. But please appreciate this. This was six weeks in a PowerPoint class for one slide. Okay? And that's what we've come here for. So I'm going to go over here. all right downtown Akron that's where Dr. Bob's office was and that's what Bob and Bill were a lot of the time and you know we're a rubber town we're rubber town so here you're looking at a cyberling card here and here's Firestone Tire and Rubber Company through God's grace these big industrialists played a very big part in our yearly days you're working here at Harvey Firestone. And to the right of Harvey is his son, Russell, whose nickname was Bud. Now some of you haven't heard this story, but I want to tell you without Bud, you're not sitting here sober today. Bud, they have so much money and the father tried to do everything he could to help his son get better from alcoholism. But money won't buy sobriety. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put bud together again but god had a plan you see there was a harvey firestone was friends with thomas edison in fort myers florida and so all you floridians you play a part in this story too There's a lot of Florida people here, I know. And so Harvey Firestone would go down and visit his friend, and right next door was Henry Ford. And so all these men became great friends. Well, see this guy up here in the right-hand corner? He was once a young luggage salesman chasing pretty girls in Boston, Massachusetts. And he followed them into a hotel, thinking he was on his way to a singles dance. But he followed him right into an Oxford group meeting. And he became an Oxford grouper. Harvey took a liking to him, said I'd like to have you come to Akron, I'm going to give you in a big position in the company. So the Oxford group that was in him came to Akran. and he met the Firestone family and Bud, and he said, look, I want to help you. He said, the Oxford group is meeting in Denver, and I'd like you to come. So Bud gave him the flask of what he was drinking that day, and they got on a train because they traveled by train, and they had controlled drinking on the way, and on theway coming back, you'll never guess who was on that train unless you've heard this talk five times, Don't tell. Sam Shoemaker was on that train. Now you're going to meet Sam Shoemaker in a few slides, but Sam Shoemarker pulled him into a train car. Back then it was called soul surgery. Today we call it the 12 steps. And he got down on his knees because that's how they did it. and he's made a surrender. When he got off that train in Akron, he didn't look like the same guy. The lines on his forehead were gone. He started treating his wife a whole lot better. He became a good standing member in the company, and daddy was pretty happy about that. So daddy decided to invite the Oxford group to Akron and introduce them to Akrons Society. Now this is high society introducing to maybe about 6,000 people in downtown Akron. Now high society wore diamonds and furs and you can see from that newspaper clipping how fancy they all were for this thing and this is Frank Buchman. Frank Buchmann's the founder of the Oxford group. Now they traveled like an army for God so about 40 of them came in and they threw what's called a house party A couple house parties, actually. There's another picture from the Times Press. So you're looking at the Mayflower Hotel, but this wasn't 35. This would be January of 33. The hotel was only a year and a half old. It had opened during the Depression. Money had been set aside. And they're going to have a dinner for 400 people. Sort of like the prodigal son story. The father is so grateful for his son's recovery. And who do you think stands up and gives testimony? But Bud Firestone. That's why AA started in Akron. It starts with a drunk's recovery, then they're going to hold meetings for the next 10 days in the morning and at night. They even had some meetings for women. They went out of the pulpits of the churches and they spoke. And when they left, Oxford Group began meeting in homes here. and there you see Henrietta and Ann Smith. See, Dr. Bob in those first initial days when it was in the Mayflower Hotel was not a part of it, but Henrietta and Ann were, and they were always putting a little mojo on Dr. Rob. Let me tell you. You know, they got him into the Oxford group and he really liked it. He thought they, you know, they're very similar to our meetings today. All right, so Dr. Bob did everything they said. He went to meetings. He read the Bible. He even went back to church, something he said he would never do. We had all the principles that we have today except for one, and that one is key. We can learn from our history just how important identification is, because there was no identification in the Oxford group. So he didn't understand why he wasn't getting sober doing all the praying he was doing and following and going to meetings and doing everything that you would think would have worked. It didn't. He kept drinking for another two and a half years. He thought he might just be a want-to-want-to be. You're looking at a woman here that you might not recognize either her name was Delphine Weber she was a member of the Oxford group and she became concerned about Bob and Ann they weren't sharing and sharing was an important thing that not only do we do today it was a very important thing from the Oxford Group as well so she is going to call up Henrietta cyberlink and she is going say what are we gonna do about dr. Bob Henrietta says when you mean what are we going to do? She said, he's got a terrible drinking problem. His life's a mess. They're ready to foreclose on his home. Everything is, his practice is about down. So she did what they did. What you're seeing is, can you turn off that light please? I'm not sure why that's on. Okay. Thank you. So, um, so she goes into what they did, what the Oxford group did. It's morning meditation, a morning guidance, they called it, to listen to God's word for them. You don't hear about that as much as we used to hear it all the time in AA. That was the most important part of the day, more important than meetings. They would get up in the morning. They would read a little bit from the Bible or the upper room if there's any Methodists in the house. That booklet from the Methodists came out in the spring of 35, just when we need it. They dropped it off in all the homes. That was our first meditation book. Then they would sit, and they would listen, and they Would write down with pencil and paper what God said to them. But there's another thing they did. I love it when the head's not, so thanks for that. I think partnership might have come from this. Everybody in the Oxford group had a partner, and you didn't go it alone. I think a 24-hour book says that. They had a Partner. They would call up, and you would be asked, How is your guidance? they would run it by the four absolutes to see if that guidance was coming from the Holy Spirit or your ego and that may be a forerunner to sponsorship so she gets perfect guidance she downloads intervention there was no intervention then you couldn't turn on your TV in 1935 and watch intervention there was not such thing you're looking at who I consider our spiritual grandparents T. Henry and Clarice Williams she calls them up and she says can we use your home for a special meeting for Dr. Bob and Ann this is coming out of her guidance they said yes she called another meeting like they do in intervention it was called a set up meeting she held that meeting on a Monday and she said Come prepared to mean business. There's not going to be any pussyfooting around. We're going to share, and we're going to share deeply. And they planned it, but they held that meeting Wednesday at 8 o'clock. Hold that thought. Wednesday, 8 o'. In the home, in this living room, and they all went around the room, and they shared something costly to themselves. And it came Dr. Bob's turn, and he looked up at them, and he thanked them. And then he said, now at the risk of my profession, there is something that I need to share with you. I am a secret drinker, and I cannot stop. Step one. Another important thing happens in that living room. they say Bob would you like us to pray for you and he said yes and they all got on their knees here and said a prayer for Dr. Bob what do you think happens next I'll help you out Bill just several weeks later ends up at the Mayflower Hotel after that intervention henriette is going to continue to pray for dr bob every day in her morning quiet time that god will intervene for dr bobb so bill comes to the mayflower hotel and right through that corridor there is where this is going take place in front of those beautiful elevators there's three bars in the hotel bill's going to take two steps off the elevator there'll be a bar on his left and the directory will be directly catty corner in front of him. There's the bar it's the Parisian room. Here's the directory where he will stumble upon Reverend Tunks' name and he will call him and you know what he's going to put in the phone? Everybody know what to put it in the phone? Put a nickel in the phone. So we're here on a nickel and a prayer. And that call, well, there's going to be 10 calls. The last call is Norm Shepard and he gives him Henrietta Seiberling's name. Okay. So I always think about this right now. This is a slender thread story. You'll hear more about the threads. Imagine if one of those people had picked up the phone and been able to help Bill. We need him to get to Henrietta, don't we? Thank God they couldn't help him. The last guy says, it's Mother's Day weekend, I'm leaving to go out of town, and he gives him Henrietta's number. But there's something I want you to know, a story you don't often hear. When he got Henrietta his number, he didn't want to call her. He goes, I can't call her, she's probably the president of Goodyear's wife. So he walks away from the phone. Oh no, Bill, don't do that, don' t do that. but he must have been on guidance because he said, I heard a voice say to me you better call that lady and he turned around I believe he went back up to his room and that's where he placed the call do you see how close we came wasn't just the tinkling of the glasses it wasn't just all the people that couldn't help Bill when he got to Henrietta he almost walked away from Henrietta thank God he's a listener too so they meet the next day, Bob's drunk you all know that story not going to tell that but the next day they're going to meet in the little tiny room of that gate lodge and that's where according to the forwards of the big book that's when the spark gets struck and if you've not been to the gate lodge in the last couple years, wow they redid it and made it just like it was when Bill and Henrietta met and Bob So there's the living room. No, it may not be the living room. It may be the... Oh, that's the room they met in. Same wallpaper, same floor. It's got a lot of the same flavor. Piano. Her piano's back. She was raised at Vassar to marry at Vanderbilt, so she was quite a proper lady. So you can imagine what it was like for her to get that phone call. Can you imagine this? It's high society, proper, proper back then, real proper. Hi, I'm a rum hound from New York. I'm not a member of the Oxford group and I'm looking for another alcoholic. She'd been praying for Bob every day and she thinks, Ma, not from heaven. You come over here right now. I've got just the man for you. It was an answer to a prayer. she puts him up at the portage country club that is the wealthiest country club in akron i've only been there twice but bill down and out ends up there for two weeks probably played a little golf i don't know then he moves into the smith home so now we have two men sober and we're looking for a third guy And they bring in this guy, Eddie, Eddie R. Eddie R is a trip man. Eddie R is going down the drain pipe going up to Lake Erie, going to jump in and calls up Bob and Bill and asks if he wants to come up and join him and witness the event. Here's a this is from The Grapevine. Do you see Bob and Phil chasing him? The caption is, this guy could keep a hundred people sober. He was always running away. One day he even tried to kill Ann with a butcher knife. And they really had to let him go. And you know what we learned from that? You don't wet nurse a drunk. They didn't know how to give it away. He was a guinea pig. So at Dr. Bob's funeral, Bill is standing there and Smitty, Dr. Bob's son, comes up to Bill and does one of these. And I'm sorry that wasn't supposed to shift like that. Oh well. So, and says, isn't that, isn'T that Eddie over there? And sure enough, Eddie showed up sober years later at Dr. Bob's funeral with over a year of sobriety. Yeah, that's more to the story. He died with 17 years of sobriety in Youngstown, Ohio. So we moved on to another guinea pig. He never liked to be called a guinea Pig either, by the way, you're looking here at a 12 step call on Bill D by an author's rendition of that. And in your big book, it says on July 4th of 1935, well, it doesn't say that in the book, but that's the day it happened. Bill is going to leave City Hospital a free man to never drink again and that is when group number one began group number one today is King's School so they didn't take him a big book they took him the four absolutes honesty, purity unselfishness and love but let me give you the four questions these were the only yardsticks we had we didn't have twelve steps but we had four questions that went with them is what I'm about to think say or do right or wrong true or false ugly or beautiful and how does it affect the other guy both of us in the Akron Cleveland area still hold those dear and we often talk about them in our 12 and 4s where we do the 12 steps and the four absolutes. Just a real quick picture here of Bill D., who became number three, and Bill used to say about him, he kept the faith. Thank God, because Abby's going to drink, but he kept his faith. So what happens is a small group's going to form in this home here. This is T. Henry's home, same living room, but they have trouble sitting still for the guidance. They're jonesing. They can't do the meditation. It's a small subgroup of the Oxford group. So Dr. Bob takes them into the upper room. He was the prince of 12 steppers. He gets the surrenders and then they come back and they socialize. But by the way, Ann Smith was working with the wives. Let's not forget her good work. She is the mother of AA. Thank you. Thank you for that. So, that's called a flying blind period. And we do this for four and a half years. We're not AA. We have no literature. We are using their literature. In fact, guess what? There was a literature table there. So we were using their literatures. So that's why we that's still pretty precious stuff and so here's the same living room where they were meeting well shortly in in april of 39 our book gets published by may cleveland's going to break away by later in that year closer to december of 1940 we're going to move into king school King's School so the alcoholic squad moves into Dr. Bob's house then moves into King's School and that's where we meet to this day, it's my home group Wednesday at 8 o'clock but it's your mother group it's AA's first group that is still meeting at 8 o' clock today when that prayer was said that's a cool thing that's an amazing that's cool prayer we're going to leave Akron now we're moving on, buckle up here we go, Calvary Church there's Sam Shoemaker the guy that was on the train the guy Bill asked to write the 12 steps but he declined a great friend of A.A.'s so we know that Ebi's going to make a I don't know, there's so many different stories about this call Ebi is going to take but you're looking at the kitchen table where Ebi and Bill sat down and Bill could not believe Ebby was sober. He carried the message just by being sober. Bill didn't want religion, but he sure wanted sobriety. And after he saw that, he couldn't get over it. And he decides to go down to the mission that was right around the corner where Calvary Church is, right aroundthe corner with these other buildings. It's no longer there today. I wish it was, but it's gone. And he goes down there and he's looking for Ebby, but he drank all day. so by the time he gets there he's drunk as a skunk and he decides he's going to make an altar call and they tried to grab him and pull him back but they couldn't he made it to the altar and he made a surrender there I don't know I think God might have taken him at his word because after that he was in town's hospital for the fourth time and that's when he's going to have that white light experience after that he's gonna join the Oxford group that's at Calvary Church which is right around the corner with the mission as well and now I'm going to take you in to Lois and Bill's Oxford group meeting. It was a Thursday meeting, you can see how proper they all were but you know Bill had that lightning experience and along with that he sees how his experience can benefit others and he sets out with singleness of purpose he doesn't want to be all things to all people. I've talked to people that come into the Oxford group with Bill and they told me that he'd about knock you over looking for another alcoholic. So the Oxford group didn't like that. So they started giving Bill and Lois the cold shoulder and kind of made them feel uncomfortable, kind of pushed them out of the group. So they left in 1937 and they started meeting at Clinton Street. Now you're going to have another squad. You've got the alcoholic squad in Akron In 1937, you get the Drunk Squad in New York. So you have two groups. This is where your consciousness is going to come from the writing of the big book. The experience is coming out of these two groups We're going back to Akron because Bill's coming back to Akron in 1937. He's going to go to Dr. Bob's house and they were doing something in those days They didn't quite know what they had they're sitting around the living room and they're counting noses how many people are sober because they didn't know what they had a lot of failures, a lot of people drank including Ebby in 1937 can you imagine how heartbreaking that must have been so the three of them were counting nosies, quit laughing I had to photoshop Bill in that picture I needed a picture of three of them. I heard somebody out there laughing, and it really was 37, not 47. And they come up with 40 people sober. Now, I've got to tell you, I can't explain that moment, but it seemed like a moment of ecstasy. They somehow, all three of whom knew that a light had come into the dark world of the alcoholic. With all the failures that they had, when they came up with that number 40, they were elated. We've got something here. and then the next thing they did was they bowed their head in thanksgiving now if you know bill he didn't last long in that serene state he started thinking about hospitals missionaries and literature they decided to go back because he'd been working on wall street where lots was going on so the one thing really cool about the co-founders they didn't always agree but they agreed to disagree thank god would we even be here today if they had fought their way through this whole thing no they they led by example so i kind of want to show you a picture of their friendship and how much they seem to well cameras have just come out so we're really lucky to even have this and uh who knows what they're saying probably keep it simple bill don't lost this thing up. Check out Dr. Bob's wild ties. Now, you can't see his argyle socks, but you could tell he was quite a character. A lot of fun. And you can see that they're both pretty happy in their sobriety and their friendship. And in a minute, you're going to see the mother of AA, Ann Smith. And she just wants to get the camera, get away from that. She just wanted to stay in the background, as you know. Check out Bob's ears. He must have been a good listener. I think he was a good listener. God bless her. She used to say, if I don't love you, what's wrong with me? I know. Okay, we're going to move on because we're gone back to T. Henry's house where he's going to have a sales pitch here. We got Bill going to talk to the guys that are sober in the house, and this is an interesting conversation here. He's going to say he wants a chain of hospitals, paid missionaries, literature to keep the message from being garbled, kind of like telephone, you know? The man of gallery, they're saying the man of glory had no press agents, newspapers, pamphlets, or books. Keep it simple, Bill. Doesn't that sound like northeast Akron yeah Ohio yep so Bill says you could keep it so simple you're going to have anarchy there's alcoholics dying within gunshot of this house here he never stopped caring about those we weren't reaching ever ever that was Bill's mission so we take it to a vote and we're going to send Bill back to New York to raise the money we don't have any money in Akron there's a depression going on so he goes back to the big apple and he's going to pitch the rich and there and he and hank his buddy who i'm going to introduce you to in a minute we're going all over the place trying to get money to fund this project but nobody's too interested in 40 people sober we'd rather give our money to the red cross or the salvation army so Bill's depressed his little project is not getting up off the ground and he's subject to imaginary ulcers and he boning and and going and he decides he's going to go see Leonard Strong Leonard Strong for those of you that don't know is a doctor. So he became the family doctor. He paid for all Bill's trips to towns, paid for a couple golf sessions, and he was always helping Bill because he married Dorothy. That's Bill's sister. So, he goes and sees Leonard. I can't tell you, we're not here without Leonard. He's whining to Leonard, and you know what I think whining is? It's just anger coming through a small hole. I'm pretty good at it, actually. I practiced it for many years. So he starts whining about nobody's giving him money and Leonard knows somebody who is connected to the Rockefellers and the next thing you know in our story, Bill is going to be on his way from this miserable condition he's in to meet Willard Richardson. Who's Willard Richardson? Rockefeller's best front and religious advisor. And now Bill is invited up to the Rockefeller offices, all the way up. I think it's the 56th floor. I love this story. One minute Bill's down, next minute he's in the Portage Country Club, next minute He's down next minute. He's in The Rockefeller office. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. And they make a plan for years later to show up in the offices. J.D., he never met him, but all the Rockefeller guys are there. Let's see who was there. We have some alcoholics mixing in with them. We Have Bill W. Well, let's start with the Rockefeller people first. Albert Scott, Willard Richardson, Leonard's there, Silkworth is there, Amos is there and Leroy Chipman. The alcoholics, Bill was there, Dr. Bob was there. Hank's there. Fitz is there, Ned's there and Dick S. from this area was there as well now they don't know what to do they're alcoholics and they're only a year and couple months sober this is 1937 there's hardly anybody sober but a few guys and they are not that sober and they were in the Rockefeller office can you picture that? how would you feel? so they start looking at each other and theyre like what do we do? And one of them just said, why don't we just tell our stories? And that's what they did. They just simply told their stories. When Albert Scott jumps up and says, whoa, wow, this is first century Christianity. Now watch what happens next. Gentlemen, up to this point, this has been the work of goodwill only, no plan, no property, no paid people, just one carrying the good news to the next. isn't that true and may it not and may it not be that that is where the great power of this society lies can you imagine the wisdom coming out at this point that changes our whole course so he decides Frank Amos is from Ohio he's going to come and he's going to investigate what's going on in Akron and he comes and he checks us out and he sees Dr. Bob's a pretty good doctor when he's sober and he starts he's going to make this recommendation back at the office so he goes back and he decides now some of this is no longer true because some rascal of a historian has dug up new information I'm going to go with the old information to give you the gist of the story but if you read a couple more history books and you find out I'm wrong. Have at it, okay? He comes back. Dr. Bob's ready to lose his home, so we know they're going to try to buy back the mortgage on the home. We know they were going to try to build some rehabilitation places, put Dr. Smith in charge, subsidize a few people, and start a chain of hospitals and get busy on the book. That's true. It's the $50,000 I'm not sure of. That was old literature, I think. Conference approved though. I don't know. So anyway, the information goes across the desk there and this is what JD says. Somehow I am strangely stirred by it all. This interests me immensely but isn't money going to ruin this thing? I'm terribly afraid that it would. And yet I'm so strangely stirred by it all. Does anybody here besides me think a higher power is kind of messing with this story a little bit? Strangely stirred, really? Sounds like God to me. But he wants to hear what goes on. But please don't bother me for any more money. No, I won't be the one to ruin this thing with money. Thank you, Mr. Rockefeller. We didn't like to hear that at first, because we're hungry and we're broke. And the money gets shrunk down. Again, these figures may not be correct, but you get the idea. The money gets shrunk down to about $5,000, $3,000 to pay off Dr. Bob's house, $2,000 left, and they're going to put it in the Rockefeller Church. Now what's important about the Rockefeler Church is the fact that but both co-founders are going to pull from it there. But this man you're looking at here, Fosdick, is going to write the first big book review in the New York Times. We also read a lot of his books. So I threw him in. Now we're going to go back to the Rockefellers. We're goingto grab this young attorney, John Wood, and we'regoing to start the foundation. It's called the Alcoholic Foundation. It started in 1938. and we had to figure out what's the difference between an and a, no just kidding what is the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic that's where you get your class A and class B trustees and we're going to put Leonard back on as secretary we're gonna put Mr. Richardson on there Leroy Chipman, Frank Amos, Dr. Bob is on it Bill R and Harry are on it but Bill and Hank are off on an advisory capacity Let's meet Hank. It's time. Some of you have read a new book that's out that's kind of bringing out a whole lot more about Hank P. You're looking at Hank P here. He was a red-haired, tall, broad-shouldered former athlete with a salesman's drive and enthusiasm. He had at least one new idea, a minute, and plenty of energy. Let me show you some of his ideas. Well, one of them was he'd been fired from SoHiles, so he had started honors dealers. and he had hired Bill and Jimmy B to be salesmen for this company and that's where some of the writing of the big book started but most of it took place at 17 Williams Street. By the way, New Jersey is the home of the Big Book. That's right. Guys, hold on to that history and I'll keep telling it. 17 Williams street was where the big book was dictated and written, a big part of it and here you see Hank's notes and I think Bill pretty much followed it from what I can tell I don't have time to take you through every word of it, it's fascinating you can certainly find this information is available and here we have the lovely Ruth Hawk. They hire her as a secretary they don't have any money to pay her, they're broke let me tell you what they paid her with. By the way she was a really good secretary, she typed that manuscript many, many times which I'm going to tell you about. And passed it on. There was a picture of her with Bill and underneath the picture said she didn't know what she was getting herself into. She never saw any car products being sold. Somebody was either passed out or down on their knees making a surrender. No wonder it eventually went under pretty quick. So what they paid her with was these worthless stock certificates. they ripped her off one a week they were worth nothing they only went down to the stationery store and wrote that up thank God for Ruth by the way she typed it on that typewriter that you can see at the general service office and she received the 5 millionth copy of the big book in Montreal for our 50th anniversary I knew her daughter very well and when I first gave this talk was in Toronto in 2005 at the International it's the first time I did this my roommate was Lori and when it came to this part about her mom I said, now remember Ruth's not getting paid little did she know that the book she was typing would one day save her daughter's life and Lori stood up with over 30 years of sobriety from Chicago applause yeah one more quick story for you remember delphine weber the woman i showed you that called henrietta and said what are we going to do about dr bob i told that story for the 50th anniversary of king's school and a gentleman from the back of the room came up to me with tears running down his face and he said delphene delphime weber that's my grandmother I didn't know my grandmother had anything to do with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. You may not know, something you're doing is holding the door open and helping somebody downstream of you. Just keep those two stories. So that's a typewriter, but by the way, that thing drove me to drink in college. so they tore down the building in new jersey at 17 williams street but please if you're in new jersey and you want to visit look for this plaque because it's on the side of the new building and it says it was on the site in 1938 in the sixth floor office of honor dealers the pioneers of a fledgling fellowship wrote the book alcoholics anonymous and from this title a worldwide society would take its name. Alcoholics Anonymous has since helped millions of men and women recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body known as alcoholism. Thank you, New Jersey, for keeping the faith. Thank You. So where did the big book come from? What influenced Bill? Well, we know William James was one of those guys that Bill read that while he was still at Towns. And both Dr. Bob and Bill recommended that. Okay, I got a little story. It's one of your favorites, I know. See this book? When Nell asked me to be an archivist, Akron didn't take care of anything. We didn't think it was important. We were too busy helping the still-suffering alcoholic. We were 12th step, and we weren't taking care of history at all. And the interesting thing is is that I had nothing to start with so I was at the gate lodge and we were having a high festival so there was a tent it wasn't an AA thing it was a tent behind the gate large and it had old books in it so I'm scrounging around to try to start an archives get something to you know something and so I said do you have any old AA books and they said no and I said well do you have any spiritual books? And they said, yes. And my hand went across a little blue book and it said, what is the Oxford group? And I opened it up because I wasn't even sure then. I only had about five years of sobriety. And it said, R. H. Smith, 855 Ardmore. His book, please return. I say the book found me. I did return it. You'll see it at Dr. Bob's house to the left of the fireplace. The book found me. One more quick story. Do you know they wanted 35 cents for that book and I tried to get them down to a quarter? It's true. Okay, Common Sense of Drinking by Richard Peabody. This book is still with us, The Sermon on the Mount. Both co-founders would have had this on their required reading list. For Sinners Only by A.J. Russell as well. And at this point, I want to thank Ebi Thatcher. Here's why. I know the sequence of the writing of the book. One of the first things that got written was Bill's biography, which is in the book, I found all 12 steps that Ebi brought him between Clinton Street and Towns Hospital if you look at my big book they're all numbered so I challenge you to read that and see if we don't owe Ebi I know Bill wrote them later and he did a beautiful job but I really believe that the best 12 step call Ebi ever made is in the biography on Bill so check that out so thank you Ebi now he's going to ask Anne to write a story and write something in the big book and she's goingto decline we're told that Lois got a little resentment about that maybe she worked it out in Al-Anon I don't know and we know who wrote chapter to the wives but at this time we're talking about three documents introduction to the bigbook, Bill's biography and there is a solution he's got three pieces but they don't know what to do when they get a tip and it's for to meet with eugene x-men who happens to be the religious editor of harper's now bill has never written a lot and he's bringing him these three pieces and eugene looks at he said bill this is really good can you write more he goes yeah yeah i can He says, well, we want to give you a $1,500 advance to write the book. Please don't forget that there's a depression going on. These people are truly hungry, and there's no money, and now he's getting a $ 1,500 advanced. So this is about the time that I believe Bill would like to come and help me tell the story. let's see if he's willing to do that there he is thank you Bill thanks for showing up we're at Founders Day by the way this is the 88th anniversary of something you and Bob started thank you look Bill look what God has wrought by the day by the bay I'm telling him about the writing of the big book would you be willing to why should I do it if you're showing up Go ahead, Bill. Now then, as a graphic illustration of how pain and fear and all of our worst motives can eventuate under God's grace for the best, I would like to, in a hop, skip, and jump fashion, tell you about the preparation of the AA book. Okay, Bill, but, you know, I was just at the part with Eugene Exman and you two were talking about maybe taking on that advance for money. What happened with that? A few of us stood for the proposition well, this would be bad because control of our literature would be in other hands. And some of us, in a more self-serving way, and this definitely included me, we felt that the book might make some profits and some royalties out of which its creators could eat. I told them how hungry you were. Well, what did you decide to do? Some of us in New York considered the possibility of publishing this book ourselves. well okay if you publish it yourself and you haven't done any writing or anything weren't you kind of scared or did you have some fears about that and if so what were they so then we went up to the Reader's Digest and told them about our budding movement and I guess we brandished mr. Rockefeller his name pretty liberally you know as a close friend he wasn't giving us any money but he liked us well did that go over okay the digest said well fine when will your book come out by now it's the fall of 38 all we said about next spring they said this is just the kind of story that we'd like we will do a piece we'll put a feature writer on this well okay so obviously you've got to get the word out, but did you have those fears I was talking about? Who would publish such a book? Oh, there they are. Okay. Who could assemble such a book? What should go in it? Supposing it turned out badly. Oh, that wouldn't be good. These indeed for us were great and most natural fears. Well, what did you and Hank decide to do? And then a plan came into being. It was thought there ought to be a text. It was taught these ought to backed up by stories. And this text was in the first edition two-thirds of the stories came from Akron. for Akron that's for all those boys that contributed to that first edition okay well Bill how are you going to fund this so down east we began to peddle stock in what turned out to be the AA book but we're a peddling stock to drunks $25 a the share. The purpose is what? To feed Wilson and the gal who helped do the book and the promoter and the collector of the money. I told him you were hungry, Bill. I know it. So why did you call it works? The title was chosen because there would be a lot more work, you know, after this. So then Hank came up with the idea of the prospectus. Can you explain that to us? So in the prospectus, we totted up what the profits would be. Oh, I think we started in with something like 100,000 books. You know, the first few carloads, and I think we got as high as a million copies. Well, of course, if they only cost $0.35 and you sold them for $3.50, it would be, frankly, a great rise in that $25 stock. It might go to $1,000 a share. We didn't put all this on paper, but it was a part of the promotion. And I know you being a salesman really pitched it. How did you pitch it to the groups? We would sell these 35-cent books for the sum of $3.50. We didn't indicate any other expenses, but that seemed quite a margin of profit to the prospective stock buyer. And we pointed out that they couldn't possibly miss because after all the digest piece with millions of circulation in which they definitely would mention the new book would simply move these volumes out in carloads. Wow, Bill. Sum that up. While this job was being done. In other words, people were asked to buy stock in a book that hadn't yet been written. I think this is the world's record for sheer audacity. So do we, Bill, so do we. Well, what happened when people got wind of this? Well, this was heard out in this country that this ex-Wall Street swindler was contriving one of the greatest rackets known to demand men. I know, but then the people that were in the groups got a little upset too. Well, when this motivation began to be suspected and became apparent, quite a violent opposition rose up well what did you do so then we had only begun our troubles then the book had to be written so did you start writing well I wrote another sample chapter and tried that on them no stock purchases oh I'm sorry to hear that Bill the trustees must have been losing their minds and the trustees were very dubious they had no money at the time so we were able to face them down and say well we'll separately incorporate this and sure enough by an appeal to the loyalty of the stockholders to the cause but also by an appeal to the pocketbook the base of nature the money began to dribble in twenty five dollars par bet now you can get started on the writing of the book tell us about that however we were eating a few of us on the stockholders money and little by little the chapters were evolved and we thrashed them around in the AA meetings and we carefully checked them with Dr. Bob as they went along and And meanwhile, he had great pains and difficulty, got stories largely from this town. You're looking at a picture of Jim Scott, one of those guys who gets sober just in the nick of time. Ten minutes? Holy smokes. Okay. Woo! Okay, gotta go quick now. Forget Jim Scott but he did help edit those stories. Stories got passed back and forth. In short, here was AA at its worst. But under God's grace, coming up with something better. Maybe history will say the best. And so the work went on and I remember one night we got through the first four chapters which were window dressing and I was having an imaginary ulcer attack and it looked like, well, things were very gloomy. The stockholders were kind of, you know, falling down or the meal ticket was getting in danger and I wasn't sure what to do. And I was very resentful and I realized lying in bed there in Brooklyn Clinton Street that the book had to say what it was all about at some place. so I began to write and out came the out came the 12 steps, sorry about that I'm in a hurry now these are the 6 steps he wrote admitted hopeless, get honest with self, get honest with another, made amends, help others without demand, pray to God as you understand him, those were the 6, he thought they were an alcoholic could fall through those cracks so he expanded them to 12 what did you think of that Bill? well when they appeared there was a terrific uproar and as a result of the uproAR again the constructive came out I had had a great spiritual experience so that I had used God all the way through those 12 steps well what did the atheist think of that. Our atheist and agnostic contingent said, drunks don't buy that. They're scared to death of being God-bitten. This ought to be a psychological book. Yeah, but there was all those religious people. What did they think? On the other hand, the religious people said that it should be a strictly Christian book, theologically speaking. So one had to sort of average these point of views. Well, you know, at about that point, you felt more like an umpire. But you finally stopped and said, God, as you understand him. And you called that a 10 strike. There we go. Okay, so did you have God's help? Sure, we must have had God's health. We never could have produced it ourselves. Would you be willing to sum up this part of the writing of the big book? So this is the unholy way in which God nevertheless graced us in the days when AA was very young. Okay, so we're going to go into the... Well, finally the great day of publication approach. We had pre-publication copies of the book made, circulated around for criticism, and with the last of our money, almost the last, we persuaded the printer that this was such a terrific venture that he certainly ought to accept a 10% down payment for 5,000 books which were going out for the carload so we paid him $500 for 5 thousand books sounds crazy so when you sent out the manuscript you were waiting to get some replies and you were told to get a doctor's opinion. We're going to quickly look at the manuscript, what a mess it was. So many people changed everything around, put we in it, crossed out the Y and Y-O-U-R to make it our. Then you took this manuscript up to Cornwall and then you had to typeset it again. And you can see, folks, what of mess it is. What a mess that was. And know what to call it. You're goingto call it 100 Men Corporation. Then you're goingtocallit100menand1woman because Florence Rankin got sober at the last minute. Bill W. Movement, Alcoholics Squad, Nameless Bunch of Drunks, Dry Frontiers, Empty Glass, The Way Out, which is what Akron wanted. And then Anonymous Alcoholics. Somebody was mumbling at a meeting and then he reversed it and said Alcoholics Anonymous. What did you think of that, Bill? We'd been calling ourselves out there a nameless bunch of drunks and from that the anonymity idea had come in. In fact, the book title, as voted by Akron, New York, and a few Clevelanders, was chosen as The Way Out, but in the Library of Congress we found that there were 12 books by the name of The Way out, so for heaven's sake we couldn't make a 13th, so it became Alcoholics Anonymous. Then we went up to the Digest and said, now what about this piece? We're all ready to shoot. And the editor whom we had talked vaguely remembered us, and he said, shoot what? Oh my God, that was bad news. What did you do? Well, we reminded our friend that a piece was due, and we said, gee, Mr. Wilson, he said we... You know, after you were here, I went to the rest of the staff here very sure that this would be a great piece, but they didn't think so and I forgot to tell you oh Bill no you've got 5,000 books in warehouses you owe all this money for those stock certificates what happens next? so we had 5, 000 books in the warehouse there were 100 AA members there were about 30 stockholders and they each got a book there were about 30 guys who put stories in the books and they each got a book and that was 60 books so we only had 40 books to sell the rest if they'd buy it oh good lord Bill, not only that your whole personal life fell apart talk about that well at that time things folded up in a big way we were about to be evicted from our house in Clinton Street stuff go into storage the book was bankrupt and we made one last great gasp effort what was that bill a drunk came along by the name of morgan who had been in the ad business and he said you know i know gabriel heater you know the guy who puts on those wonderful sob talks and he said, I think Gabriel would put this on the air. So we scared up a few dollars more and to get ready for Gabriel we decided... Something's pretty funny, don't you think? What is so funny, Bill? Well, we picked out a hard class of people to advertise to in those days. We picked out all of the physicians east of the Mississippi River, all of them. And to each one, we sent a postal card which said, listen to Gabriel Heater as he talks about the new society of Alcoholics Anonymous. and buy the book Alcoholics Anonymous, a cure for alcoholism. You're going to find out in a minute why that's so funny. So what do you do next? Well, one great trouble with Ryan was that he wouldn't sober up and he was supposed to be interviewed on the air. My God, our last cent was in this thing and all these proposal cards. So what did you do with Ryan? So just as a precaution, one of our friends who was a member of the Down Athletic Club said, well now, you can have my room over there. I don't use it much. Why doesn't somebody live with Morgan in there the week before, you know, to just stay with him and be sure he gets to eat her all right? Do you believe that? That was pre-Alanon. Okay, so how'd that work? So the great day came. The postal cards was out. In Akron, New York, Cleveland, the ears were to the radio. We visioned the books going out in carloads, orders flooding in. Biggest profit of all in direct mail, no commissions. And sure enough, heater pulled out the tremolo stop Ryan was sober and boy we were made well tell us about that post office we gave a post office box old 458 in New York I think it was where we had a one room office little Ruthie Hawk who helped me with the book bless her soul my promoter friend Hank Parkhurst and I just couldn't wait to get over to see what was coming into that box. It's told that you held yourself back for three days and you came with suitcases. Tell me what you saw when you came. Hank was an incorrigible optimist. He said, well, they couldn't put them all in the box. He said they got several mail bags full out there. So, the clerk came with the cards. Hank said ain't there any more? We took them over to the desk and we counted them and there were 12. And ten of them were from doctors, obviously stewed themselves, who lambasted the hell out of us. And we had exactly two orders for the book Alcoholics Anonymous. You felt that, didn't you? Yeah. Bill, can you sum up that for us please? For us, almost more than any other society, pain has been the touchstone of our spiritual progress. So we can say thank God that we have suffered such pain, that such a spectacle as this has been brought into view and being. Bill, oh Bill, thank you so much. Say hello to Dr. Bob for us. What makes this so special and why I think you're really here is to hear your voice of your co-founder again who gave this talk that I cut up so I could play Oprah to Bill but it was in 1965 that Bill actually spoke those words here at Founders Day. I know, wow, it thrills me to know that I could bring the voice back for him to speak to you today and I'm going to close quickly I think I'm gonna be going over a little bit because of that bad start we had there's no way I can get it all in with that start but I will finish as quickly as I can. So check out what we call the big book today Now, imagine the stigma that was on alcoholism back then coming into the program and taking that big book with that circus jacket under your arm and walking down the street and staying anonymous. What were they thinking? Another book jacket cover they were going to use. I do want to read this to you. This comes off the very first big book that is currently at Stepping Stones. This is Bill's book. Note, this was the very first AA book off the press. We used thick paper to make the alcoholic think they were getting their money's worth. Now I'm going to ask you, have you gotten your money's work? Have you gotten any of that money's word out of that book? One more great story. These stories are so good. Bertha Taylor's got this beautiful tailoring shop on Fifth Avenue. and because Reader's Digest is canceled, they're homeless. They're hungry. Things are bad. The big books are in warehouses. This thing is dead in the water. No publicity. You don't have that many people sober, but you need to get the word out. They find out that they might be able to get an article in Liberty Magazine, but they can't hold on. So they go to Bert, and they ask him for money, but he doesn't have it. But he does make a reference to a Mr. Cochran, and they asked Mr. Cochran, well, will you lend us money? We'll sell you books at a discount and you can put them in libraries. He said, let me see your financial books. And we sent it to him and he said, I don't think so. We were like $10,000 in debt or something. Nope. And so Bertha Taylor said, Mr. Corcoran, will YOU loan me the money? Bertha Taylor hocked his business to get us to our first article. Yes, don't forget some of the sacrifices. Alcoholics and God by Morris Markey, a couple hundred people came in. That did not save us. It wasn't until this article. Well, actually, let me tell you real quickly, Rockefeller Dinner 1940, Harry Emerson Fosdick's there, Dr. Kennedy's there, all these people are there because, I mean, anybody that's sending me, You know, I'm trying to think of the big money. There was just every banker, all that. Notice that Morgan Ryan's name's there? That's that Irishman that was on that Gabriel Heater show and he cleaned up really good. They had an alcoholic at every table. And one of those guys looked at him and said, in what institution are you with? And he said, I don't know. I'm not really with an institution, but I just got out of one not too long ago. Well, Nelson presided over that meeting for his father because his father was sick. He said money's going to ruin this thing and they said a couple billion dollars walked out of the room at that point. They did get some money, 400 books were sent out at a dollar apiece, the big reds, pamphlets and personally signed letters from JD who lent us his name. At that time we were the scum of the earth. We were not the society that we are today, so we owe a big debt to the Rockefellers. But along comes, yes, we really do. We were lucky to have them on our first board. Now Jack Alexander thinks we're a racket. He gets the job to write about us in the Saturday Evening Post. He came to Akron, he went to other big cities, and he came to bust us. We get a tradition out of this. It's by attraction we promote. he came to Akron he saw that Dr. Bob and the King School group and all that and he became pretty impressed and he wrote an article that was published in the Saturday Evening Post some of you may have seen this little gal here and 6,000 inquiries came in and put Alcoholics Anonymous on the map and got those big books out of warehouses yeah that really saved us we then paid mr rockefeller back uh these are some of the checks got a little office there on vesey street and here's my closing well there's two more slides but this is kind of the closing slide this this thing moved me this picture Bill and Lois are homeless they're living in cars they're anywhere they can find a bed they end up at the 24th street clubhouse and then they finally get a home so you know this is a hard story you heard how hungry they were he says it several times can you imagine you know don't quit before the miracle that's what I get out of this story do not quit before the miracle no matter how dark it is keep your face towards the light because here you see that couple and he said this in Fort Worth when he's going up the elevator he says on what slender threads our destiny does lie. Again in Fort Worth he'll say it transcended the mountain and the sea and is even at this moment lighting candles in dark caverns and on distant beaches. I can't imagine what that couple must have felt like seeing those big books after I just told you that story being sent out now globally all over the world. So now what I'd like you to do is just pause for a minute, put that pause in and sit back because I'm going to go through a cast of characters that were in this story and please don't come up to me and say why didn't I mention Roland Hazard? He's not in this storey. I mentioned him in other stories but I'm gonna mention the ones that were in this storys so sit back but I am gonna challenge you. remove one name remove one person and I think the whole story falls apart and we're not sitting here at this beautiful celebration of Founders Day so here we go Bert T Ebi Bill W Lois W Jack Alexander Mr. Cochran Henrietta Cyberling T. Henry and his wife Clarice Williams John D. Rockefeller Frank Amos Albert Scott Willard Richardson Leonard Strong Eddie R Dr. Silkworth Ruth Hawk Hank P Bill D