The Fellowship and the Program of Action – Big Book Workshop – 2025 – Part 2 of 5 – Charlie P. and Joe M. and John W. and Willie B. – Charlie Parker and Joe M and John W and Willie B

The following will be session number two of the third annual Northern California Big Book Seminar held on Thursday afternoon, September the 22nd in 1988. The subject is The History of the Big Book, The Forwards and the Doctor's Opinion, Roman numeral pages 11 through 30 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The presenters of this session were Charlie Parmley of Maysville, Arkansas and Joe McQueenie of Little Rock, Arkansas. The approximate listening and study time of this recording will be 2 hours and 22 minutes, necessitating the use of two cassette tapes. My name is Charlie Parmin. I'm a very grateful recovering alcoholic because I'm a member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and by the grace of the power that I've found in the 12-step program with Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't found necessary to take a drink for 6,903 days today. One day at a time and for this I'm very grateful. It's sure good to be back out here in Sacramento getting ready to talk about the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. The thing that we love the best. It's always so great to be invited back to somewhere. Always before we were invited to go somewhere. And it's nice to be asked to come back again and meet several good old friends that we made over the years past. And I'm sure this time we're going to make a lot of new friends, people we haven't met before by the time we are through with this weekend. Do you have any idea what the noise is? Somebody's already ripped somebody else today. We always like to say as we start one of these things that we certainly do not consider ourselves to be the gurus of the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't consider ourselves to be the experts in anything at all. We're two old drunks that met years ago, found that we had a mutual interest in the Big Books AlcoholicsAnonymous, and over the years we've tried to study it together and learn primarily for our own purposes. What few things we know about it we do love to share with other people, love to have the opportunity to talk about it, but we most certainly do not speak for AA as a whole and you are free to agree or disagree with anything that we say as you see fit. In fact, we would recommend you pay no attention anything that we say if you can't reconcile it with the big book or other conference approved material. We also love to say at the beginning of one of these that we try to keep these things as informal as we possibly can. We love to laugh, we love to tell jokes, we love to cut up, we believe we are meant to be joyous, happy and free as the big book says. And by keeping these things in formal, I think we can all have a very enjoyable weekend and at the same time learn something about the book too. We know that these sessions become quite long. And the mind is only going to absorb about what the rear end will stand. And there may be times that you feel it necessary to get up and move around a little bit. And if you feel that need, go right ahead and do that. That's not going to bother us at all. There's always going to be coffee in the back of the room. If you feel the need to go get a cup of coffee, don't wait for break period. Go ahead and get a cuppa coffee. Or if you see a need to get a coffee, or if you're feeling the need to go and get rid of a cup o' coffee, for God's sake, go. Hell, don't sit there in pain waiting for break time. Just go at any time. And I think if we all keep that in mind, we can have a good fun weekend and we can see a lot of humor coming out of the big book, Alcoholics Phenomenalists. The guy that put this thing together even though he was a Yankee from back east, he had a dry sense of wit and I think we'll see a whole bunch of that as we go through the book and we'll find many things that are humorous and that we can share together and enjoy ourselves as well as learn. Joe? My name is Joe. I'm a real alcoholic through God's grace and because this program works one day at a time in my life. It hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink since March the 10th of 1962, but if I'm grateful. Now you would say a lot of other people are grateful too. But like Charlie, it's good getting back for another, I get excited I think as anybody else. The news about these is that Charlie and I sat down to begin a big book study. And I always remember, and I try to talk a little bit of something and to put things into perspective, where are we coming from as Charlie said, are we just two alcoholics, two members of Alcoholics Anonymous? I myself, some years ago as I began to work with alcoholics which I still do today, about 20 years ago as I begun this work I found a... I had about six or seven years in the program, maybe. And I felt I needed, I had a desire to learn more about the program and to help other people. And I began to study the big book, looking for really the plan or the scheme or these steps, the inner workings of this program, so that I could better apply that to people. and I began to study the big book and for about a year I studied the book and I remember how confused I was and how mixed up I was and I begin to try to talk with someone about this and I found that no one was really interested it was a shame but I couldn't find no one to talk to nothing about the big books you know I become somewhat of a nuisance around my community because when all the other members see me coming they would run because they know what I want to talk about. And some, you know, a lot of the people were older and had many years in the program. And I began to wonder, well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I better look at what I'm doing. But I continued to study the book. It had very little progress in my study. But as I look back on it now, there was some benefit in it. After about a year or two of this, and I was about to give up, I happened to be asked to introduce the speaker at, of all places, an Al-Anon convention. Charlie and I met at an Al Anon convention, and I was asked to introduce Charlie, and that night, I had never met the guy before, and you know how you hear somebody ask you to be the chairman, you don't know who's going to speak, and you meet the guy half an hour before the meeting starts, and I got up and I always remember how I introduced him I told him I was very disappointed in the speaker I saw where his name was Charlie P and I thought he was going to be Charlie Pratt and this guy wasn't even the right color so he did he made a great talk that night and I know I sure forget the night it was a memorable night in my life it's funny how something can come like that is so significant to your whole life and it completely changed our lives. And we think about it and talk about it now and we know the hotel where it happened actually we had a, we had our state assembly that meets at Little Rock and they met at one other place and now they're back meeting in this same room where we met at after about 20 years 15 years but um we as soon as everybody got through talking to him i i started talking to them got him myself and i pulled my favorite subject was the big book at that time and i knew i was going to run him off but i put it on him anyway and this guy was interested he He was the first person I ever seen that was interested in what I was talking about, about the big book. In fact, he said, you know, I've been studying the book. And he said – and you got some of the ideas. And he says, I'm really interested in this thing. And, of course, you have to understand that although we are both from Arkansas, we live almost – we live 225 miles apart. And we had been there, and we met at a meeting. we became instant friends over the big book and know that we know this was the beginning of the big books study we began to study and we would meet at different conferences and some way or another we would make notes of our individual study and as we got together we would compare our notes and things in the book we began to fit this thing together like a little puzzle piece by piece that was fitted together with our ideas over a period of four years as we would meet. We would meet in hotel rooms during the conferences and sometimes some weekends, I think some of the greatest weekends of my life, and Lubell and I would try to drive to Charlie's farm and we would sit in Charlie's kitchen and sit there for two days and study the big books. Finally, I was the third guy that Charlie met Charlie. His name is Tony and one time week we were together to study and charlie said do you mind if this guy sets in he's interested i said well i thought it was something between he and i personally but i said okay and tony became the first guy that really sent in with us after that that opened the door there was quite a few came in pretty soon we had 15 18 people following us around everywhere we have a big book study when we got to a conference that's the first thing they said said Friday night, we're going to have a study tomorrow. I said, yeah. We would get together in the rooms and do this. Finally, we were invited by a guy named Joe from Lawton, Oklahoma. He was in the room one day. He said, I'd like to have you all do this for my group. We couldn't imagine the group of people wanting to hear this or whatever it is. So we did. We went out to his group and we put it on and it happened to be taped. These are the Lawton tapes and were four tapes made. They came back on a reel, and I got them, and the guy sent them to me, and I just gave them to a taper. And our local taper in Little Rock said, that's pretty good. He said, I believe I will take that reel and put it on four little cassettes to see if some people would like to buy some of them. And we never heard the thing, but we just gave him the tape, and he made these tapes and he called these tapes the big book study because we didn't ever put a name on the thing so that's where the big books study got its name from the tapes and this thing went all over the country and john had began to be invited from time to time to do four or five or six big book studies a year throughout our part of the country texas oklahoma and arkansas on that part of the country. And this was 1977 until 1980. 1978, I believe, a year later, 79, we met Wesley. And Wesley is something, as John said, he's the father of all of this. Wesley had been a great student of the book probably before I even sobered up in Alcoholics Anonymous. And Westley had studied the book for many, many years and worked on the big book. Um, truly, uh, Wes had never been truly able to see the plan of the book as Charlie and I had, although he had studied on the book for many years. We met him in Omaha, Nebraska, and he was up there. We were doing a big book study and he came up there to talk at that night and he was really enthused with our, our big book steady. And in fact, you know, he was quite, it's kind of a turd that night. I remember he walked up to the table and he said, who in the hell of y'all and where in the hell did y' all come from? You know, he said I've been forwarding this book for all these years. How did you do this? And he was he was enthused and he called us immediately and asked us what he could do. And we thought we didn't know. We didn't avoid doing it. Nobody wasn't doing anything. He said people have got to hear this. So in 1980 he was over the International He was putting on the luncheon, I think it was on Wednesday, at the International Convention. And he asked Charlie and I, could he give away 100 sets of these tapes as door prizes? And we told him, well, we didn't care. We don't have any connection with the tapes or anything like that. Still don't, by the way. But he thought, you'd have to know Wes. I've known Wes. God, he's passed on. And we'll always miss Wes in our life. But Wes was a real cunning and baffling alcoholic. And he knew how, he was sort of like, in a way like Hank Parker's job just talked about. He knew how to get the job done. And he was putting on this luncheon. He had 1,500 people at the luncheon, so he seated all the guests. He knew the order of where everyone was seated. So he gave away 100 sets of these tapes. now these people thought they won them but they didn't win them Wes picked them out I mean he picked out the people he wanted to win them and the way he did it he wanted the tapes to go back all over the world and all over the United States so he picked a person from every major city every state and all overseas and everywhere that were going to be there and they won these tapes and they went back out and then Charlie and I began this really got us in trouble and we were invited to go to many more places over and over as interest became to pick up and then begin the big book seminar of Pompano you know today Charlie and i you know we have had the opportunity to go to many different places to conduct a big book study We've done big book studies in all major cities in most states in the United States and Canada. And we've been in Australia, New Zealand, and next year we're going to England. We have had the opportunity in China, I think, very blessed. Even, you know, we talk about the general service office and other people. but we were probably seeing more of Alcoholics Anonymous than anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I think about even Bill didn't see that much of Alcoholic Anonymous and it's been a tremendous experience and I think it's been a great plan of God through the lives of a whole lot of people in the Big Book study and what we feel like is some way you know that it's an an opportunity to be a part of putting Alcoholics Anonymous back into Alcoholics Anonymous, seeing Alcoholics Anonymous going back to its program. This is great. This is the thrill of our lives. This is what this is all about. Two or three years ago we were doing a big book study down in Pompano Beach and And there was a fellow there from the Bahamas, and he asked us if it would be possible for us to come over there. And they only had a little small group of about 25 or 30 people. Of course, when we go places like this, you all pay our expenses, that's all, but just our expense money. And they really didn't have very much money. So I said what we need to do is work it out next year in conjunction with Pompano Beach. Well, that Pompino Beach pays transportation down here to Florida, and then it won't cost very much to fly from here over to the Bahamas and back, which we did. And the next year we had done our thing at Pompano Beach and then we went on over to The Bahamas. And during the daytime we didn't have much to do, so one day we were strolling down the street doing a little shopping and Joe looked at me and he kind of grinned and he said, Charlie, have you noticed how strange these people are looking at us over here? And I said, yeah, I have. And he said that they're looking at you this time. That had never really crossed my mind before. If we're going to talk about our big book again, we'll do a little bit more on the history of the book, not very much. John did a very fine job of it a while ago as to why the book is here and how come it is in place today. Again, I want you to see these three books. This is the first edition, first printing of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. 5,000 of these were printed in 1939. They have become quite a rarity now. I think it's easy to see why they called it the big books. When you compare it to the size of the book today, the outside measurement is much, much larger. If you compare the thickness of it, you can see that it's a much thicker book. Now being cunning, baffling, powerful alcoholics themselves, they knew that the bigger this book is, the better it's going to sell. So when they printed it, they printed on the cheapest old paper they could find to make it real thick. Then the actual printing inside of it is exactly the same size as it is today, but if you'll notice, the margins on the pages are quite wide, and that makes it an extremely big book. And that's where it got the name, The Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. This one will be up here from time to time all weekend, and if you'd like to see it, please feel free to look at it. Be careful with it. It's getting old, and it's brittle, and if it does come apart, it's going to tear up quite easily. If you'll notice also, the cover was red and the initial Alcoholics Anonymous on the front was in bright gold. This one has been faded out over a period of years. Beautiful book. The cover is what they call the circus jacket, which of course is the red, the yellow, the white, and the black. Can't you just imagine a drunk walking down the street in New York City trying to remain anonymous and hide that damn cover? after they had printed about seven of those they had returned the sanity and they began to print the book in the size you have it today this happens to be a twelfth printing of the first edition same dust jacket and everything else same information but the book of course is much much smaller much much thinner the twelfths printing having basically the same information the first did except for an appendix in the back of it, which we'll get into a little bit later on. Feel free to look at these if you wish to. This is the third printing, same book, only the cover on it, when you take the dust jacket off, it's blue like they are today. The first one was the only one that was red. Then they started making them blue. I think they made the fourth one green, and then all the rest of them have been blue since then. And people say, well, why did they make number four green? I usually say, hell, I don't know. Probably some bookbinder said, Bill, I've got a hell of a lot of this green material I'd like to get rid of. And Bill was making most of the decisions in those days. Feel free to look at these if you wish to. To kind of, again, review the history of it, let's go to the foreword to the second edition for just a moment. And we find a pretty good history of It right here within the book itself. And I want to just briefly run through and recap a little bit of what John had to say as to how come the book is here in the first place. And at the bottom of Roman numeral 15, he said the spark that was declared into the first AA group was struck at Akron, Ohio in June 1935 during a talk between a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. Well we know, of course that's Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. and we know that Bill had carried this message about the disease of alcoholism to Dr. Bob during that particular meeting now six months earlier the broker had been relieved of his drink obsession by sudden spiritual experience following a meeting with an alcoholic friend who had been in contact with the Oxford groups of that day and we known that Bill Wilson had been contact with Ebby Thatcher as John said and Ebi had brought to Bill some information that he had received from the Oxford group. Now, the Oxford groups in that day and still are basically a group of people who were meeting together trying their best to study first century Christianity. They had more or less fallen out themselves with the world's religion and they had gone back to the idea of first century Christianity some basic ideas of how you can live and be peaceful and be happy and be free rather than always being upset and depressed and angry and afraid and etc. Now, Ebi had been in contact with that group and Ebi hadn't been staying sober himself. And he was sober two months before he came to see Bill. We know that Ebi was an old school friend of Bill's, that they had been drinking together some in the past. Bill knew about Ebi and he knew about Ebis drinking. He said he'd also been greatly helped by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism, who is now accounted no less than a medical saint by AA members. And of course this was the Dr. Silkworthy that Bill had met in the summer of 1933, the first time he had to be withdrawn from alcohol. And he learned about his disease, he learned About His Problem, during that initial visit with Dr. silkworth in 1933. and he thought that self-knowledge would keep him sober. We know shortly after he left the hospital in 1933 he got drunk and he drank for another year and he was put back in the town's hospital under Dr. Silkworth in the summer of 1934. And there is where he was pronounced incurable by Dr. silkworth. He left the Hospital in the Summer of 1935 and remained sober for a while on fear. But we also know that he got drunk again starting on Armistice Day, 1934. And Debbie came to see him during this drunk during November of 1934 Bill had known his problem for a long time. He had known for two years about this thing called the disease. He had know about the allergy. He had knew about the obsession of the mind. But since he had no solution, since he have no program of action, he couldn't stay sober even though he knew what his problem was. Now, when Ebi came to see Bill, he brought to him two other pieces of information. He brought to Him the solution, which John said came from Dr. Yoon through Roland H., through Ebi to Bill. The solution was a power greater than human power, or what Bill always referred to as the vital spiritual experience. Ebi also brought to him a practical program of action. A practical program of action from the Oxford groups where you take a few steps, these steps consisting of action, and then as the result of the action you find the vital spiritual experience. So the first time in his life Bill Wilson knew the three things. He knew the problem, he knew the solution, and he knew The Practical Program of Action. We know also that Bill had to be put back in that town's hospital, and he earned part of December. And there, Ebby came to visit with him, and Bill applied that program of action in his life to the best of his ability. And he had what he referred to as a vital spiritual experience, recovered from his disease, to never drink again. Now, in the middle of that paragraph, it said, though he could not accept all the tenets of the Oxford group, He was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed, helpfulness to others, and a necessity of belief in and dependence upon God. Prior to his journey to Akron, the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, that he'd succeeded only in keeping sober himself. And John again mentioned that prior to going to Akroon, And Bill had been trying to work with alcoholics, but none would accept what he had to offer. And one day while back in the town's hospital trying to find working with a new person, he saw Dr. Silkworth. And he asked Dr. silkworth, he said, Doctor, I've been trying help other alcoholics and none seem to want what I have to offer, I must be doing something wrong. And Dr. Sikor said, well, Bill, you're probably trying to cram that great white flash you had up here in the hospital down their throat. And he said, you don't cram anything down the throat of an alcoholic. They'll just puke her right back up every time. He said, what you need to tell them is what I told you. He said every alcoholic I know wants to know two things. Number one, why can't I drink like I used to without getting drunk? And number two, why Can't I quit now that I want to quit? And he says, if you answer those two questions for them, You'll get their interest. And then you can talk to them about spiritual things. He said, explain to them the exact nature of the disease. He said that's what they're interested in. Now prior to this journey to Akron, the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics on the theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, but he succeeded only in keeping sober himself. Now the broker'd gone to Akon on a business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly in fear that he might start drinking again. You know, people like to think that Bill went to Akorn to see Dr. Bob, but that really isn't true. Bill had put one of his deals, and by the way, they call Bill a stockbroker. I'm not sure that's the correct name for him. He was a stock speculator. He was great at getting other people to invest their money in his schemes and end up making money for both of them, and Bill had putting a deal together here. And he was going to go to Akron, and they were going to have a big proxy fight, and they would take over a company in Akron and Bill was going be the president of the company. Typical alcoholic. Hale didn't have 15 cents in his pocket, but he's still going to be the president of this company. And while there, the deal fell through. And Bill standing in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel broke. Not even enough money to pay his hotel bill. And he was sad and he was depressed. His scheme had fallen through. And he didn't like that at all. And he did look through a door into the bar off of the lobby of the mayflower. And the smoke was thick in there all right. and the music was playing and the people were laughing and Bill's mind said, well you can go in there and have a soda and you'll feel better. But as he started to do that for the first time his mind said no you can't do that. If you go in here you're going to get drunk. Now in absolute desperation Bill remembered how back in New York City even though he had never helped anybody that when he had tried to he himself had felt better. So he thought I've got to find me another alcoholic to talk to. That's how come he got a hold of Dr. Tunks, that's how he came in contact with Henrietta and eventually got to Dr. Bob. Now the physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed. Dr. Bobby had been going to the Oxford groups for a couple of years. But he had never been able to apply their steps, their tenets in his life to the depth necessary to recover because he really didn't understand what was wrong with him. Like most alcoholics, he thought it was a weak will Why would he not think that? That's what everybody had told him. He thought maybe it was moral character. That's whatever body had said. He thought may be it was sin. That's why everybody had been telling him all of his life and he really didn't understand the problem. But when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he'd never before been able to muster up. So when Dale told him the problem, Then he began to apply this in his life to a debt that he never had before. He got drunk one more time, but then he sobered up in June of 1935. Now they didn't really know it, but they were to turn out to be the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. During that summer, they repeatedly worked with other people. The first one was a fellow named Bill Dobson. And they went to the Akron City Hospital. They talked to Bill Doobson. And for the first time, and Bill Dotson knew what his problem was too. And he knew what his solution was, and he knew a practical program of action. And Bill Datson got up from that hotel bed two or three days later, told his wife, said, get my clothes, I'm going home. And he went home and he applied the program of action in his life, and he found the power greater than human power, and he recovered also. Now that made three of them in Akron. Now toward the end of that summer, they got another, and another,and another, and finally Bill said, hell, I've got to go back to New York City. He said, Lois is back there by herself working in a department store making $25 a week. I've got to go home and try to make a little money. So when he went home, he left behind him what was to later become that first group of Alcoholics Anonymous. He didn't know it at that time. And when he Went Back to New York City, then the first guy he talked to in New York City, he did the same thing with him that he did with Dr. Bob. He explained to him the exact nature of his illness. And lo and behold, some of them began to sober up in New York City. Now, in 1937, Bill was back in Akron, still on the same business venture, by the way. Not to see Dr. Buck. He was back trying to take over this company and be the president of the company. And while there, he said, I'll go by and see Bob and see how he's doing. That's how come them to be together in the summer of 1937. That's when they sat down and decided we're going to have to do something about this information. That if we continue to pass it on, word of mouth, one to another, it will eventually become garbled and become absolutely useless. So the purpose of the meeting was to decide how best to retain this information and how bestto pass it on to other people. That's when they made the decision to do the three things, to build the hospitals, and oh, there were going to be some hospitals now. They were going ot have at least four levels in them. And one of them is where they're going to withdraw you from alcohol. Then after a period of time, they're going to run you through a training program and train you how to stay sober. Yeah. Then they're gonna run you through a job training program to train you with new skills where you can make a living. And we always laugh about that. I don't know any alcoholic that needs to be retrained in anything. Hell, most of us have got four or five skills already. You've got to have if you're a practicing alcoholic. And the fourth floor was to be a live-in, work-out arrangement. It was going to be quite a deal. And of course they were going to hire a select group of people and train them in this knowledge and send them out across the world as missionaries to carry this great message everywhere there might possibly be an alcoholic. Thank God those two things never did come true. The only thing that really came out of that meeting was the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. And in that meeting, they decided that what we better do is write a book and that this book will be the collective knowledge, experience, and wisdom of the first 40 people who were the 40 people sober in 1937. And they said, Bill, we want you to write this book. But they said、Bill, this is not to be your book. This is to be the Collective Knowledge, Experience, and Wisdom of all of us. And they say、When we get through with it, It will have our message, it will have our information contained in it in the same exact sequence that we had to learn it. They said first the book will give the problem, then the book will give the solution and then the books will give a practical program of action. So the book was, the decision was made in 1937. Bill actually started on the book in 1938. The book was completed in 1939. now in Roman numeral 17 we have a little paragraph dealing with that particular time Roman numerel 17 now time for struggling roots it was now time that the struggling roots thought to place their message of unique experience before the world this determination bore fruit in the spring of 1939 by the publishing of this volume. This book was published in 1939. The membership had reached 100 men and women. The fledgling society which had been named was now to be called Alcoholics Anonymous from the title of this book. As Jordan said earlier, you know, these first 100 people didn't have a name. They were first Oxford Group members. They saw themselves as members of the Oxford Group. This became somewhat of a problem because some of the drunks didn't like the Oxford group's program, some of The Absolute Things was too strong for some of the alcoholics. Some of the alcoholists didn't like the religious expressions and the religious things connected with the Oxford groups and just as well some of the Oxford groups didn't think much of the I mean, they didn't like to hear us cuss and tell dirty jokes and throw cigarette butts on the floor, build coffee. So they began to disassociate themselves with the Oxford groups, and they became a nameless group of people. Now, these 40 people were nameless, and by that time there were 100. And then they got into discussion of what to name this book. As John went over it, they finally decided to name the book Alcoholics Anonymous. As we can piece him back through all this, we can never get down to the truth, which we never will. We think that this might have originated in the Cleveland group, which had a small group that started at that time. The people from Cleveland who said that they were, someone up there said we were alcoholics and we would like to remain anonymous. And this word, this sort of thing was a thing that stuck. So they named the book when it was finished, Alcoholics Anonymous. Now once the book was named AlcoholicsAnonymous, then the 100 people at that time took the name off the book and called their little group AlcoholicsAnalymous. so we got a name of our fellowship came from our book and today you know when we say what is Alcoholics Anonymous it's very peculiar that we say AlcoholicsAnonymous is a fellowship of men and women and that might be true but number one the first Alcoholics Анonymous was this book we are the second we got our name from this book So we are the second-hand Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, there wasn't any problem. In 1939, quite naturally, the program in this book was the program of the first 100 people. So that meant in 1939 the people in the fellowship, AlcoholicsAnonymous, practiced the program in the book, Alcoholic Anonymous, they were simultaneously the same thing because this is their program that made the book. Now, as we will read, the book is unchanged. The big book Alcoholics Anonymous has never been changed. But the program in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous went through a lot of change. People tend to change. New things come in. We add stuff to the program. we bring new stuff into fellowship don't drink and go to 90 meetings all of the things we say and to where in some parts of the country you go into a meeting and you don't know where yet you know you don' t know what kind of meeting this is and I think you know that this is what we are going to really look at and what these big book studies are all about this weekend We're not going to be talking about the program in the Fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous. We're going to talk about the Program in the Big Book, Alcoholic Anonymous I think it's very exciting to me and I do it in my group And I think you know we can go back to our groups wherever they are In this country or in this part of the country And we can listen And we see where our group is and compare it to the program in the book. How far have we gotten away from the program? And when this program was used in the groups, our groups were... The group out by Anonymous was very, very effective in helping people when they used the program in the program. In the book, if we go to Roman numeral page 20, it tells us at the top of the page at public acceptance of AA grew by leaps and bounds. For this, there were two principal reasons. The large number of recoveries and reunited homes. These made their impressions everywhere. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. That's quite easy to say back in the beginning when the book program and the fellowship program were the same. A minimum of 75% of the people who came to AA and really tried the program recovered from their disease. I wonder what that recovery rate is today. I don't believe it's 75%. I don'T believe it'S 50%. It may not even be 25%. And we're beginning to hear facts and figures that say maybe 10% of us that come to AA manage to end up staying sober and recovering from our disease. And I don't believe drunks today are that much different than they were in 1939. And I think the reason our recovery rate is so low today, they don't know what to really try. You know, people come into the door today in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and they never really hear about the big book AlcoholicsAnonymous. and never really hear about how do you work the 12 steps. What we usually do in many meetings today, we've become a group therapy session. And we sit around the meeting and we discuss the problems and we discussed the problems and we talked about sexual dysfunction for a whole hour. And we never talk about how do you get rid of sexual dysfunction. We sat in a meeting today and we talked about the dysfunctional family and we never talked about how to get rid off that thing. Now, the big book talks about those things. It just uses different terms. You know, we've got two pages in the big books devoted to sex. And if we use it and follow its suggestions, chances are sexual dysfunction would probably disappear. We've got a whole chapter in the big book called The Family Afterwards. And if we would read it and pay attention to it and use it, probably the dysfunctional family would disappear also. Today we sit around and talk about chemical dependency and dual addiction. Well, Bill talks about bathtub gin on high-powered Saturdays. Same damn thing, you know, it's just a different term. And I think our real problem in AA today is we've gotten so far away from the basic AA program that we've really lost ourselves in many cases. Now, the old-timer tends to blame that on the newcomer. And he said, oh, they come out of those treatment centers and they don't know any of that and we can't communicate with them at all. Oh, they're sent here by a judge and they really don't want to stay sober. Well, hell, we've always come out of treatment centers. Bill came out in one. How many of us were sent here by the judge 20 years ago? That's how Abbie got here. Abbie was just about to be committed to the state insane asylum, you know, for alcoholism. So we've always been forced into AA. I don't know of anybody that came here because we wanted to. I don'T know if anybody took a drink when they were 14 and jumped up and down and shouted with joy and said, man, I can hardly wait to be a member of AA when I'm 40. I just don't believe that drunks today are any different than they were back in the 1930s. I think what the old-timer is doing today is rather than deal with a new term, rather than deal with the great influx of people coming in today. Hey, the old-timers are beginning to say I can't identify with them so I'm going to stay home. And when we do we old-times are abdicating our responsibility for our job is to stand there and say look this is Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 steps is a program of recovery. And if we apply it in our life we can get rid of all of those problems. Now let's look at the steps and let's see how we work them. Bill says in Problems Other Than Alcohol that the sole purpose of an AA meeting is the practice and teaching of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, period. And if we would do that today, then I'm sure our recovery rate would increase again. I feel sorry for newcomers today because nobody's really helping them see what it is that they need to do and how to work the steps and how to apply them in their lives, if we could do that, I think we can go back to 75% recovery also. And that's our responsibility. It's not the responsibility of the newcomer to know what to do. You know, they don't know what zu do. And when the old-timer stays home and we've turned AA over to the sickest of the sicketh, the new people come in directly in, out of treatment centers, from the courts, and et cetera. I think one of the most ridiculous things in the world today is this. for 50 years, over 50 years. AA has been begging the judges, the treatment centers, the ministers.