The Game of Truth From the Oxford Group Six Steps – Mitchell K.

Mitchell, but oh there he is. I'd like to bring up Mitchell Kay from Middletown, New York. There's no magic tricks in there. Okay, I am Mitchell Klein, and I am a recovered alcoholic. How is everybody doing today and yesterday? Other than the little... I see everybody's wearing their winter coats. All right. You know, one of the things, you know, talking about the history of AA for me really begins with kind of telling part of my story and how I got interested in the history and what led me to look about the story and read about it and try and understand it to kind of like – it was funny. Bill just asked me, like, you know, how long am I going to be speaking for? And there was a line that my sponsor always gave once they said, you know, like how long are you going tobe speaking – what are you going tobespeaking about and what is it? Well, about two or three hours. And I said, no, no. I can't do that. He could have, but I definitely can't. And I kind of like, you know, I guess I became an alcoholic somewhere between the age of 13 and 14. I had people over at my parents' apartment, and we were having a party, and I kindof broke into their booze supply, and I took a sip. I didn't like it at all. I couldn't stand that it burned. It kindof like made my eyes water. It just wanted to throw up. And I took another sip, and then I took a little larger sip, and probably within about half an hour, 45 minutes, it felt good. No longer burned, no longer made me feel nauseous. I fit in. I was part of the crowd. I told jokes. I did all kinds of other fun stuff, and I was off and running from that point on, and I found alcohol was this wonderful thing. My parents never believed I was an alcoholic, even though that what they did was they took all the alcohol in the house and because they used to have this cabinet and when they had company what happened was is that they took the bottles out and they were all empty and it was kind of embarrassing for their company and them to be served nothing and they wanted to know where it went to and I said it evaporated it's in a closet, it's hot So then they bought more And then the other supply evaporated And then what they did was They took an old toy chest of mine My father took a screwdriver And a whole thing And put a little padlock on it And a clasp And stuck it in his closet And said we're never going to be embarrassed again Being an alcoholic I took a flashlight and a screwdriver and unscrewed the hinges in the back. And they had company, and it evaporated in the toy chest. And then the next time I filled it up with water mixed with tea. So it didn't evaporate, but it tasted real bad. So that was my introduction to alcohol. Around the same time, better living through chemistry. So again, it was beautiful. I fit in. I was able to dance. I was unable to make friends. I was available to make enough money to buy a car. You know, one of the things that – I used to work in the treatment industry, and we helped people put resumes together. And one of things that I used out of my own bag of tricks was that I spent many years as an independent pharmaceutical salesperson. And it looks good on a resume, but it's just – so I just kept going, kept getting – there was like a couple years in my life I still have no recollection of what they were. I would come down and be kind of straight for half a day just to see what that felt like. And that was a high for me because I – but there are years I have no collection of. Then I met the woman who was to be my first wife And we got an apartment in Pelham Parkway in the Bronx And I kept drinking and stuff And we were living there for about a year or so, a year and a half And my car kept getting broken into And we decided to move up to Orange County, New York Where my parents had a summer home And I've been going since I was seven years old So I was very familiar with the area And we were renting a house. Now, one of the prerequisites for renting a house, I had my own silent prerequisite. It was across the street from a bar. So all I had to do, no DWIs. I just had to walk across the street and stagger across the Street back. And that was, you know, it was fine. And it was a beautiful thing. And she started complaining, you know, that I kept losing jobs. none of my bosses that I worked for understood me and we kept getting into arguments and I would say like I only have maybe, I don't know two, three, four drinks a day and she pointed out they were in 16 ounce Burger King glasses but I only had two, three, Four drinks a Day and it got to a point where I was commuting into Manhattan and at 4 o'clock in the morning I was sitting there pulling a bottle out from underneath the seat of my car and drinking and people didn't want to sit next to me and I couldn't figure that out either. So that went on for quite a while and not only the alcohol, I was eating my face and I weighed close to 300 pounds. I was not a nice person. I remember one time we got into an argument and we had these French doors in the house and I just rather than go off and whatever it is, I went and wanted to storm out of the house and put on a big show and pushed open the French doors and I didn't hit the wood. I hit the glass. Fifty-seven stitches later in the ambulance ride to the hospital, the doctor said I should drink some wine because it would be good for part of the healing process and I had this big smile on my face. So I did that and she said, like, what are you doing? And I said, the doctor told me. And if I was drinking at the time when they came out with, you know, alcohol is good for your heart, I would have done that as well. And what happened was is that she went down to Rockland County to another fellowship, Overeaters Anonymous, and I guess that meeting she was going to was being held at a place where there was an AA meeting. And what she did was she kept bringing home pamphlets. and she would say read these and I would say I don't have a problem and I would throw them out and then she would bring home more next week and it got to a point where she took all the magazines and stuff out of the bathroom and just left the pamphlet so at 3.30 in the morning as I'm sitting there there's nothing to read so I read these pamphlets and it was wonderful that you people had a program that could help you with your problem So, you know, it was a great thing. And I told her, thank you. You know, It increases my knowledge and increases my ability to help somebody. If I ever saw somebody who was an alcoholic and needed help, I could tell them all about AA. Sooner or later, I kind of, I guess, got the message. And the way I got the massage was I was down at my parents' apartment in the Bronx. I went for a conference for work down in Manhattan, and I was staying in their apartment. And because of past experience, I couldn't drink in their department. They wouldn't let me. They just didn't understand. So I took a walk, and I passed by a church, and in front of this church there was a little silver and blue circle with a triangle in the middle of it, and somewhere in the fog I recognized that sign and said, oh, that's that AA thing. So I figured let me go in and check it out, you know. My life was falling apart. I kind of staggered through the doors. I was, like I said, close to 300 pounds. I stunk. I was shaking. I just – and, you Know, it was talked about, about greeters and the way they did things back in the old days. It was like I was greeted by – I was the youngest person in the room. I was about 28. and so I was greeted by these older guys and they put their arms around me and they sat me down they held me throughout the meeting I was shaking I didn't really remember much about what the speakers were saying and I also don't know how I ended up on Bedford Park Boulevard which is a little bit of a distance from my parents house but I just walked and so here I was sitting in the meeting and after the meeting they all sat around and they talked to me and they said, you know, do you think you have a problem with alcohol? And I kind of thought about it for a second, and I said, yes, I do. And they kind of asked me to explain why I thought that. Is it because I can't keep a job? My marriage is falling apart. I can'T stop drinking. I drink at 4 in the morning. I drink it, you now, 24-7. I drank only on days ending with Y. it was just a constant thing for me because I was drinking all the time and so they started explaining to me a little bit about this AA thing but I live upstate can I find AA upstate and they laughed they said sure just call up look up in the phone book and then I said yeah but and then they said the only but I've got is the one I sit on and they gave me this advice that a lot of folks here in AA today is don't drink and go to meetings. And when your rear end falls off, pick it up, take it to a meeting. And if that doesn't work, go to readings and don't think. Don't drink. And no matter what, don't drinking. And all the other fun stuff. And I really believed that. And so I went home and I told my wife this wonderful revelation that I learned in the Bronx and that I was no longer going to drink ever again. And I started going to meetings I started coming to meetings constantly I several years ago you get these things from the social security administration it tells you like what you earned over the last 600 years I looked at 1975 and I mean I earned $63 that year all I did was go to meetings I went to meetings, you know, morning meetings noon meetings, night meetings, midnight meetings candlelight meetings, meetings in other counties I heard there was a great step meeting in Long Island I drove down I was like, you know, go to meetings I figured if I go to meets this is going to work the only problem with that was that nobody ever told me to read the big book they just told me don't drink, go do meetings it's great and so I was doing everything that I wasdoing back when I was drinking I was lying, cheating, stealing people were cutting me off I was cutting them off I was stealing things from my job. I still wasn't a nice person, and my life was totally falling apart. My wife told me, like, you know, you have to get out. And I didn't want to get up. I was comfortable. And I told her I wasn't drinking, and she told me I liked you better when you were drinking. At least I knew where you were. and so what what happened was is that i started on this like spiritual search and what led to that spiritual search i think i think peter had mentioned something it's amazing we all really have the same stories just some of us use different words i went to my home group which is young people sunday night meeting in warwick new york and a guy walked in the meeting and he said he came home from work he had a lousy day slammed the door kicked the dog yelled at the kids, almost hit his wife, but he didn't take a drink and it's okay. And everybody applauded and I cried. I sat there and I said, there's got to be something more to this recovery. There's gotto be something to this. There's gotta be something that I can do. There's gonna be something more to I didn't take a drink and it's okay. So I went in a search. I did things like call people up. I read every self-help book that's out there, every religious book that's out there. I got in touch with, you know, old-timers. I was part of the A loaner's program through General Service Office where there's meetings by mail. People write to each other. And I picked people who came in in like the 1940s to write to because I wanted to know what it was all about. And I got connected with Nell Wing over at General Service Officer and we hung out together and I was going through some of the archives because I wanted to learn what it was because I finally picked up a big book, and I read it. And I said, what's on the pages in that book is not in the rooms I was Going To. And I went to thousands of meetings all up and down the East Coast. Nobody was saying what was in that Book. And so I just wanted to read what they had. I mean, I read the stories. I kind of thought what they have, but I had no idea. So, and, you know, A Comes of Age was about the only history book that was out there. And so I just, you know, being an alcoholic, I kind of knocked on the door of the archives and said, like, I want to learn. And Nell and I struck up a friendship and she gave me a number of somebody to call because I told her I was on a spiritual search and it was a priest in Havre de Grace, Maryland. and probably if anybody's been to treatment you can lip sync his videos Chalk Talk and all the other ones so I call up Father Martin and I said I think probably one of the most stupid things I've ever said in my life I said you sound just like you do on the tapes there was silence on the other end of the line and then I realized what I had said and I thought no really so he was speaking up in New Jersey right after that and I said I'll go to hear you speak and we'll talk afterwards and he told me to go read Seven Story Mountain Thomas Merton and a couple other books and I'm sitting there in the audience and there's a seat empty in front of me and the thing is like pretty much full and the guy comes out from behind the stage he's wearing a Roman collar he sits down in the seat in front of me and he's talking to a friend of his who's sitting in the row right in front of me and of course I didn't say anything to him I just kind of like cringed and froze, and he finished his talk. And I went – you know, he went backstage, and I sat there, and I said, oops, I blew that opportunity. And so through this loaners program, what happened was is that I got introduced to somebody who was one of the pioneers of AA. And this guy Roger out in Elyria, Ohio had told me if I want to get it right from the horse's mouth I should contact this guy named Clarence Snyder because he was like one of the first you know original hundred members and his sponsor was Dr. Bob and and I should you know and he gave me Clarences address again being a typical alcoholic what I did was why write I called information and I got his phone number and I called up and he wasn't home his wife answered the phone. And then I was very disappointed that he wasn't home for me. He should have been there, he should not have been out doing what he was supposed to be doing. He should have known that I was going to call and I needed help. But luckily five minutes into the conversation she said he's walking in the door and we struck up a conversation and right then and there I heard in his voice the peace, the serenity. I heard the calmness. I heard all the stuff that I wanted in my life. And so we were calling and writing and calling and writing, and then the other thing that happened was is that I wanted him to take me through the steps because we talked about going through the steps, and I figured being an alcoholic, I figured that I was going to go down to Florida and spend a weekend with him and go through the steps and be fixed. And then I called the airline and found out how much it cost to fly down to Florida, and I said I don't want to spend that kind of money. And then they'd have to rent a car, you know. So what I did was I decided to hold a retreat in Middletown, New York. And you guys would pay for him to come up from Florida so I can go through the steps. i mean that's you know and what happened was i think there was about 30 people who came to this retreat at the holiday inn on april 4th 1981 it ended up costing me i don't know because he came up with his wife so i had to pay for the airline tickets together i paid their hotel room i paid their food i think it cost me i know 1500 bucks or something like that. And it would have cost me 300 to fly to Florida. God has got a very weird sense of humor. So I finally cornered him and we went through the steps that weekend. And because I told him my life was falling apart, I was dying. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted what he had. I want to what the people in that book had. I was not going to take no for an answer. And if I had to like follow him home, I would do it. so that's what we did that weekend and it was difficult we got in and what happened was I told them the story of my life and some of the sane and rational things that I had done while drinking like jumping across rooftops running away from the police with no thought of falling down or getting myself hurt and all the other stuff about my marriage and about my life and about how I drank and how I put things in my body that didn't really belong there and I didn't care what it was and so after about an hour or so he looked at me and he said well do you think your life has been unmanageable and I said definitely my life even though I'm not drinking right now is totally unmanangeable do you thing you were powerless over alcohol I said definately he said ok we just did step one and I looked at him and I thought that's not what these people have been telling me it'll last like almost five years you know can't do it that way and then he said well this is your way working it's no you know is he so he asked me like you know if i believed in god and i said well yeah of course um and he said we'll explain what what your belief is and i told him well that is a little bit of buddha and it was a little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That and i whatever god was i made him up to be and when i wanted to do bad things i told god to kind of like look the other way and he did um and that was my understanding of god and it was exactly you know what i wanted him to be so what happened with that was is that he told me that you know that was a god of my making not a god or my understanding and he asked me whether i thought that there was a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity and i said definitely because my way doesn't work and he said fine you just did step two and this went on i mean we did step three and it was it was interesting nice jewish boy from the bronx getting on his knees and you know saying jesus please you know and all this other good stuff and it's just because that's what clarence did and clarenced if you know you want what i have you do what i did and that's it and anytime i said excuse me can we talk about this he said well you know if you don't want what I have, then go find somebody else who has what you want. And open the door to the room and I did not want to walk out that door. So it was an interesting weekend. And my life totally changed after that. It, you know, I mean things got worse at times and things got better and things got worst, but I got better. And then I started really delving into it and talking with Clarence about the history and about what it was back in those days you know that that that really worked and i got a copy of a first edition and i was reading the stories in there and i that even really turned me on even more and i spent more and more time with with nell down in the archives and and reading stuff and and you know what i'm going to say is kind of like it's pretty much my opinion and what i've learned over a whole bunch of years in studying the history um and things change all the time and new research comes out and new things happen and certain things that were facts five, ten years ago are not facts today. I can remember several years back there was this wonderful research done up at Providence, Rhode Island and at Brown University and we did a symposium on AA and it was like 25 of us there who were doing this thing and somebody had gone to the Historical Society of Providence and found out that Roland Hazard wasn't treated by Dr. Young because the records show that he was not in Switzerland at that particular time. He was somewhere else. Except recent information has come out saying, no, he wasn't in Switzerland at the time, but he was a year earlier. So therefore this wonderful revelation that he wasnít treated is totally untrue, but he Was treated and therefore had a different time period. So historical revelations change. and I've been studying the history for I don't know 27 years whatever it is reading everything I could you know finding old timers traveling all over the country to find old timERS and people who came in the early days people came in the 40s and whatever and I had the opportunity back in 81 or 82 I forgot my memory is gone to go to Lois's house Lois and Bill's house Stepping Stones in Westchester, and they had a long-termers day. Anybody who came in before 1950. And since I was driving Clarence, they let me stay. And I had, I think it was seven years at the time, so I was 82. And I'm sitting there like a kid in a candy shop because all these people, you know, who were talking about interesting stuff about identifying themselves as high-amory covered alcoholic because they all went around the room and since there's about 140 of them, they only had a couple of minutes each to speak. That was the shortest talk Clarence ever gave. And so they all identified themselves pretty much as recovered alcoholics and that was the first time I'd heard that. I mean, other than from ClarenCE because I thought ClarenCe was a strange guy. He was very controversial and neither you loved him or hated him. So I loved him and everybody else I talked to at meetings didn't like it and I got, I don't know, death threats and yelled at and kicked out of meetings from all these loving AA people. So I sat there and I was talking to these folks and just really gathering up a wealth of information. And then when Clarence was diagnosed with cancer, he had asked me this. I still have yet to figure out how to write his story in the history of AA in Cleveland out of like the hundreds or thousands of people he had sponsored over since 1938 here's this character he asks to do this i don't know what he saw in me and whatever because i other than like college paper i'd never written anything you know um so i said sure you know i'll do it you know make my sponsor a promise make him proud of me and i started writing this thing and it's like oh my god you know I mean I could probably write fiction a lot easier than I can write non-fiction because it's got to be true. And then I couldn't just write everything that he said because I had to back it up because I knew that somebody was going to say like, that's not true. So I went around again interviewing people, reading stuff, going to archives, talking to people and the stuff that I learned that AA I thought was like this program that they sat down, these old guys sat down and they wrote this thing and it was a wonderful book. And it was like these people had like hundreds of years of sobriety behind them. And I realized that a bunch of day one dingbats wrote that book. Bill had what? Just over four years. Bob had about four years, everybody else had somewhere between I think the average is about a year and a half. Of all the people who wrote that book, there was like nobody there with more than little over four years. And today here at meetings You know, you don't get your brains out of hock until after five years. We wouldn't have had that book if people in AA today were back then. I don't think we would have had AA today if people around today were back then, and so I said, like, this is, you know, you can recover. I went through the steps in a weekend. Nobody bought that one, you Know, and it was great. It was easy. He was simple. He explained it to me so simply that an idiot like me can understand it. And so I was reading books, and we were talking about the columns, the fourth step, and I came across this book. I've read just about every Oxford Group book that there is out there because most of them are where the big book came from. And in this book called I Was a Pagan by Victor Kitchen, it has what the Oxford group called the game of truth The whole change in direction of my life can best perhaps be illustrated through a version of the game of truth taught me by a member of the Oxford Group You write down five things you honestly like most in life and you write down five things you most hate Then if any changes come into your life you write them down again and show the comparison between your old life and the new life so in this thing there's pretty much two columns it says in my old life I most liked myself, liquor, tobacco, almost any other stimulant, narcotic form of self-indulgence and in my new life I most like God, time alone with God the fellowship of the living Jesus Christ the stimulation of the Holy Spirit I hated most poverty for myself prohibition, work and today I hate most sin myself because I is the middle letter of sin and sins that separate me from God and I'm saying this is the columns this is The Fourth Step this is you know the original idea where this came from The Game of Truth and then I kept on reading other books I was reading The Common Sense of Drinking Richard Peabody and I read a story about a guy who had problems in business and he said he's going to have to stop drinking and he didn't drink for 25 years and then when he retired he got drunk and he died and I'm saying wait a minute I've read this story somewhere before and it's in the book and then there was something in there about half measures or you know will avail you nothing and reading Shoemaker and finding more of AA and Shoemaker and then reading what is the Oxford group which I like totally loved because again it's just about AA, it's you cannot belong to the Oxford group. It has no membership list, subscriptions, badges rules, definite location. It's a name for a group of people who from every rank profession and trade in many countries have surrendered their lives to God and who are endeavoring to lead a spiritual quality of life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit I mean that you know makes sense the four activities of the Oxford Group is the sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life given to God and to use sharing as witness to help others still unchanged to recognize and acknowledge their sins surrender our life past present and future into God's keeping and direction restitution to all whom we have wronged directly or indirectly and listening to accepting relying on God's guidance and carrying it out in everything we do or say great or small and this book was written in 1933 so you know all the stuff that's in that book was really not written by a bunch of day one dingbats it was written by a whole bunch of folks in spiritual movements that have been around for a long, long time reading about the Emanuel movement reading about The Washingtonians and how some of the rules of The Washingtonian just like screaming out our traditions and what they did and they got involved in politics and they get involved in money and all the stuff about getting celebrities and all kinds of people to be part of the Washingtonians and how that led to the ruin of the Washingtonians NAA tried to get all the parts of the Emanuel movement and the Oxford group and the Washingtonian's that didn't work and put them as guidelines in the traditions and in the steps and in way the program is practiced so that we wouldn't make the same mistakes and I find it fascinating that it was just not something that just came up out of thin air because all these guys read all these books one of the things that years ago when I first started collecting a lot of this stuff it was pretty easy to get the books today because now everybody wants them their prices are ridiculously high and a book I can get for $10 15, 20 years ago. I would pay $300 for it today, and so it's difficult. So the history, I find, is really important because I think Frank Mauser, one of the archivists at AA once mentioned, it was a Carl Sandburg quote, and I'll paraphrase it, was that whenever a civilization, a society declines or perishes, there's always one condition present, and that condition is they forgot where they came from. And today I'm finding in AA, and I love weekends like this and Fellowship of the Spirit and listening to the little pockets of enthusiasm and the little packets of people saying something's got to work better than what we've got. And something does work better Than What We Got. It's called Alcoholics Anonymous. And here's where I kind of go into my soapbox as far as that goes. For me, what I'm seeing is what has kind of taken AA away from its history and away from where we came from and away from who we were was a desire to be all things to all people, not offend anybody, not scare anybody away, not make anybody walk out of the room or cry or offend anybody. And it became Burger King, have it your way. One of the things that Henrietta Seiberling, the woman who introduced Bill and Bob, had said, because Bob and Bill both went to her and said, we've been hearing all this stuff. People don't like all this talk about God and they don't like all this talk about, you know, higher power. And is it, should we take it out? Should we kind of like slow it down a little bit? And what she said made a whole lot of sense and they kind of, like, forgot about that train of thought. And what She said is alcoholics have been pleasing themselves their whole lives and we're here to please God. And that, to me, makes a lot of sens. And, yeah, I get in trouble at meetings sometimes because, you now, especially a lot of the hardcore meetings and, you know, if it's not in the first 164 pages, I don't want to hear about it. And then I bring in a book like what is the Oxford group? And I start quoting and they said, that sounds like the big book, but it's none. I said, that's where the big buck came from. And they said can you please leave? And I tell them, I said you know it's not just the 164 page. It's not just not drinking. And there was another thing I found out was it wasn't for me just not drinking because I didn't drink for five years and almost five years and I was totally miserable. My life was miserable. Everything about me was miserable I went to an anniversary meeting one day and the guy was speaking and he said he had 12 years of sobriety in him in the worst 12 years of his life and I called as why don't you just go drink? So, I mean, one of the things I recommend to people is if you can study the history and read the history. There's tons of great history books out there. The Oxford Group is amazing and depending on points of view I mean if you want to read a strictly Christian point of view Dick B has got like 20 some odd books on the spiritual roots, the biblical roots of AA. Mel B has Got Several Books on History of AA Ernie Kurtz is, I mean, I love his stuff Spirituality of Imperfection It was one of my most favorite books, even though it's really not the history of AA, but it's one of the most amazing books I've ever read as far as acceptance and the fact that we make mistakes and we screw up. And I make mistakes in school. I screw up all the time. And there's stuff out there. And again, one of The Other Things I Hear, because I know some people are going to go back to their meetings after this weekend and it's like you're all on fire and it'S like a wonderful thing. And do you know what I heard this weekend? and they're going to look at you like you've got three heads and, you know, and kind of like pretty soon seats next to you at the table are going to like be empty and nobody's going to talk to you and that type of thing because you only allow them to read conference-approved literature. Because I get in trouble bringing anything that's not conference-approved in a room. And what I also bring when I go So, it's a little article, which is box 459. I think that's something published by General Services of Alcoholics Anonymous, which talks about what any AA member reads is no business of GSO or of the conference, naturally. But when you see the emblem shown at the top of the article, You can be sure that the material has been tediously slow and sometimes torturous screenings. It may be even more important that all conference-approved AA material is exhibited clearly separate from other publications. It says that, you know, GSO does not oppose any other literature. AA does not impose any other literature. And when people tell you that only conference-approved literature, you know, you can tell them that AA says, unless they've changed it, which is possible. I've seen them do that, change things. You know, it's okay, you knows, as long as it's recognized, especially for the newcomer who may get a little confused about certain things. because I've read some really strange things about sitting under a pyramid and an amethyst crystal kind of floating over your head, and if you do that for 18 hours a day, you will never drink again. I mean, some stuff is a little out there, and that maybe should be at a different table than conference-approved literature. But there's a lot of great stuff out there. and I find in my travels there's a lot of people who really aren't interested in AA history and how that really, because it's just like who cares what they did back then I get yelled at all the time I do a lot online stuff and people say I really don't care what the old timers did because as long as I don't pick up a drink I'm going to be sober and I say you're angry you're this, you're that It's like that may not be officially not sober, but it's definitely not sober-like behavior. And people don't want to know about the history. But the thing is that unless you know where we came from, you really don't know where we're going. And one of the great resurgences that I keep seeing is that little pockets like this come up and people talk about, you're studying the book, which is something, again, that that nobody, when I first came around, did. Yes, people told me to read the 12 and 12. Until somebody pointed out to me, you know, in the big book, if you look in the front where it says list all the literature, it tells you what the 12and12 is. It is an interpretive commentary written by a co-founder. Now, anybody in this room can write an interpretative commentary. As a matter of fact, A whole bunch of folks down in Akron, Ohio, including Dr. Bob, wrote an interpretive commentary and Dr. Bob helped edit it and add to it and subtract to it and change it. It's called The Little Red Book. That was an interpretative commentary and it was very popular. Except some people in New York found out they weren't making any money on it and so the 12 and 12 came out. that I think pretty much is like the history of the 12 and 12 is because there was a book out there that was a commentary, an orthodox interpretation of the steps that worked and people really loved so it's a commentary it's not the program the program is in there and people also talk about and I read a lot of stuff online about AA being a cult I do agree that some members do exhibit some cult-like behavior because there are some strange people. You know, I mean, some of the meetings I've been to were very cult-like. I remember once when I had about 25 years, went to this meeting and I said, you know, what do I have to do to join the meeting? And they told me I had to get a sponsor from that meeting. I had go through the steps with that sponsor. I had make a commitment to come there three times a week and I had it go to all their speaking engagements. I said I've got 25 years sober and like I really got a sponsor. I don't need one of your sponsors. They said, well, you can't join the group. I said, traditions state that AA is open to all who wish to recover. And they told me to get out. They told me it was a closed meeting. And I said but closed meeting means it's only open to alcoholics. They said no, it's closed meeting to us and you get out Yes, there is some cult-like behavior going on in AA And I think some of the stuff about only conference approved and only this and only that and some of The Other Strange Things that have gone on, it is kind of cultish. And that's okay. You know what? I look at my life and where I probably would have been today or not really not been today. And as I've heard people say, brainwashed, and my brain definitely needed washing. and it's the most liberal cult there is because I've been to meetings where you've got Christians talking about Christian stuff and you've Got Wiccans talking about Wiccan stuff and you got Muslims talking about Muslim stuff and you have Got Jacks meetings where people are talking about the Torah and you name it, it's there it's out there depending on what part of the country you're in and what country you're in, if it's a cult, it's like really the most accepting cult in the world because no matter where you go, it's all going to be different. Except they're really saying the same thing. And I think one of the things that on my searches with the history is that, and just as a little aside with this display was, One of the reasons I tracked down all these photographs was I was reading the stories. I didn't know who these people were, and I'm a very visual person, and I think in pictures, and, you know, I read words on a page, and it's nice, but I wanted to see what Archie looked like. I wantedto see what Bill D. looked like, and I saw them, and their stories came alive. You know, I mean, I love Joe and Charlie but you know what? The big book came alive to me when I saw pictures of who they were. I get totally excited with this stuff. It's absolutely amazing how beautiful and the people that I've met over the years some of the nicest people are in AA. I'm sure you guys know that. Some of the most terrible people are in AAA. it's like everything else in life. You can walk down the street and meet nice people, you can walk downstairs and meet terrible people. Just because we've recovered from alcoholism doesn't mean we become nice. If somebody is truly recovered, they become nice, I'll let you in on a secret. The ones who are nice, they may say they're recovered. I'm not going to walk into me and say I'm six foot four, I got blonde hair and blue eyes. just by looking at me you know that's not real I could walk into a meeting and say I'm recovered and peel out in the parking lot after I've lifted your purse I mean you know I'm not recovered so it's for me it's how I live and what goes on and I think Pete had mentioned something about honesty and selfishness love and purity earlier which are the four absolutes coming out of the Oxford group and most people don't know about that stuff unless you're from Ohio if you're form Ohio you know about the four absolutes because most of this stuff still has the four absolutes on it and what I do for myself is I check my motives on a daily basis on those four things knowing full well that I will never reach absolute anything because absolute means perfect and I will never be perfect nor do I want to be perfect because if I become perfect it gets very boring. I've never met anybody who was perfect. Well, I have. They're all dead and they were dead when I met them and they can't do no wrong so they're perfect. They can't make mistakes. They're just dead. So what I do is I try and check my motives on these four things I'll read you some of the basic stuff on them and see if it kind of like resounds a little bit with you as it has with me. And again, you don't have to do these perfectly. These are things you just check about, you know, things you do. And over and over we must ask ourselves, is it true or is it false? This comes under honesty. For honesty is the eternal search for truth. It is by far the most difficult of the four absolutes. For anyone, especially for us in this fellowship, The problem drinker develops genuine artistry and deceit. Too many, and we plead guilty, simply turn over a new leaf and relax. This is wrong. The real virtue in honesty lies in the persistent, dedicated striving for it. There is no relaxed twilight zone. It is either full speed ahead constantly or it is not honesty we seek. And the unrelenting pursuit of truth will set you free, even if you don't quite catch up to it. We need not choose or pursue falsity. All we need to do is relax our pursuit of the truth, and falsity will find us. Under unselfishness, our unselflishness must include not merely that which we do for others, but that which we do für ourselves. I once heard an old-timer say that this was a 100% selfish program in one respect, namely that we had to maintain our own sobriety and its quality before we could possibly help others in a maximum degree. Yet we know that we must give of ourselves to others in order to maintain our own sobriety In a spirit of complete selfishness with no thought of reward You know, this is not a selfish program It's a self-caring program It's selfish to the point of being, you know, maximum service to God and our fellow human beings Under love Good question to ask ourselves on love might be Is it ugly or is it beautiful? We are the experts on ugliness I cop to that we have really been there we're not experts on beauty but we have tasted a little and we are hungry for more love is beauty coming from the depths of fear, physical agony mental torture and spiritual starvation we feel completely unloved impregnated with self-pity, poisoned by resentment and devoured by a prideful ego which alcohol has brought to complete blindness we receive understanding and love from strangers and we make progress as we in turn give it to new strangers Purity, people say, hey, purity, I'm definitely not pure. You know, I don't like ivory soap, 99 of 44, 100% nothing. But purity pretty much is quality of both mind and heart. Perhaps we should say the soul of man as far as the mind is concerned is a simple case of answering the question, is it right or is it wrong? In purity, as in honesty, the virtue lies in awe-striving, like seeking the truth and giving all to the constant pursuit will make us free, even though we may never catch up to it. Such pursuit is thrilling and challenging journey. The journey is just as important as the destination, however slow it may seem. And one of my favorite lines comes from a song, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And I remember when I staggered into the rooms of AA, I had nothing left to lose, I was pretty much dead. My doctor told me I was pretty much dead, and if I kept going, I would be dead. I didn't want that. And so, you know, the thing is people talk about, you know, it was brought up also the question from the podium about the word recovered. And the book talks about recovered and the old timers talked about their recovered. And the example I love to give is that if I go out in the snow in a pair of jockey shorts and catch pneumonia and I go to a doctor and he gives me medication and I recover from pneumonia, it doesn't mean if I go on my jockey shorts, I won't get pneumonia again. Doesn't mean cured either. However, kind of does mean cured. But it's a different type of thing. People say like, you know, like, well, being recovered means you can drink. I mean, that's pretty much the primary answer I get from most people is that you can drank. And what I what I believe is that and this is going to raise some eyebrows but let me finish the statement and I'll explain it. I can drink. The problem is God has removed all desire to drink so therefore I don't want to drink. Whether or not I can if I say I can't do something I'm going to want to do it. I can drinking if I want to but I don' t want to. Big Book talks about you know God has either removed your husband's liquor problem or he has not. What is our man willing to do to stop drinking forever? You know, we don't stay away from a drink one day at a time. This is, we live one day At a time So I truly believe that one does and can recover And again, going to a doctor if I'm sick I don't ask for antibiotics that take four years to work You know I mean I used to take antibiotics that I had to take like four a day for ten days I go there and ask for a Z-Pack now which is like one a day for five days so I can recover quicker because I don't want to be sick for ten days I don'T WANT TO BE SICK IN MY ALCOHOLISM FOR TEN DAYS TEN WEEKS TEN YEARS I WANTTO GET BETTER AND I WANNA GO ON AND IWANT TO CARRY THE MESSAGE AND Iwantto pass it on AND ALSO CARRY THE MESSAGE NOT A MESTAGE AND THE Message IS YOU CAN GET WELL AND THEMESSAGES THAT YOU CAN live a different life again one of my favorite Bill Wilson quotes I'm not that big on Bill Wilson quotes is that paraphrasing AA is a sort of kindergarten it is something we go through to a better way of life and wider usefulness and to me that was what it's all about it's not about being addicted to the rooms of AA it's now it's about being I've met people who are like if I don't go to a meeting tonight I'm going to get drunk how long are you sober? 14 years something's wrong here. You know, it's fear-based. My recovery is not based on fear. If anybody's read the so-called promises, I mean, other than the first one about we recovered from alcoholism, it says we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. You know? The fear of this will leave us. The fear that will leave you. The fear will leave me. The fear or that will lead me. It's about the release of fear. And if I'm afraid that I'm going to pick up a drink if I don't go to a meeting, what if I am stuck somewhere where there are no meetings? What am I going to do? I'm not going there. I mean, I do great by myself in prayer if there's no meetings, or I'm stuck somewhere, or if I can't drive somewhere, or if my internet is down and I'm in a blackout and I can' t use the phone, whatever it is, you know what? I get on my knees and I pray and it's a wonderful meeting. Because wherever two or more are gathered for recovery, It's a meeting. And the same way Clarence never changed sponsors, I never changed sponsor. We used to go around the room saying, like, do you have a home group and do you have a sponsor? And I'd say, yes, I have a Home Group. I have an sponsor, and he's dead. People didn't like that because unless I have any. I have sponsors. I have people that I relate to and talk to in the fellowship. And I have Clarence, and just the way he never got another sponsor or whatever. ClarenCE is my sponsor, and I talk to him all the time. And he talks to me, and God talks to Me through all of you. And all of them and all the people who came before Me talk to Me through people like you who come to weekends like this and who go on and get on fire and carry the message and learn what it really is all about in there. Because that's what it's all about. It's in that book. The directions are in that book. In the multi-leth, in the pre-publication copy, it talks about rarely we've seen a person fail who's thoroughly followed our directions. It also says if you're not convinced to this point either re-read the book or throw it away. It says that no further authentication is necessary and why are we coming out with hundreds more books for further authentication? This is authentication. This works. I mean, I work in the mental health field and we're talking about evidence-based practices. This is an evidence- based practice. It works. What doesn't work is being all things to all people, have it your way, being open to every idea possible. Whatever you want, you can have it. And people kind of want this thing. Sister Ignatia always talked about like saying, you know, when she gave the little Sacred Heart medallion and she said, like, if you ever think of picking up a drink, return this to me. Very few were returned. And somebody once took her to a window and said, that bar across the street, all those people in there need AA. And she said AA is not for people who need it. It's for people that want it. if you truly want it and if you really want to turn your life and you truly are motivated as a clinical word have the desire you can have it you can recover you can never pick up a drink again the rest of your life you can be happy, joyous and free you can do everything your heart desires as long as that's what God wants for you I found out years ago that God did not want me to have a Rolls Royce it's a funny story behind that because I always prayed for one and I was living in Maybrook, New York and I woke up one morning and I looked out the window and there's a Rolls Royce sitting in my driveway and I thank you God and I walked outside the guy standing there I thought it was my chauffeur and he said I broke down is it okay if I like can we push it back to you know the back of your driveway until I get somebody to come tow it I was heartbroken and I yelled at God and I said you tease me and like I said God's got a very weird sense of humor and he goes ha ha gotcha you know I used to have a t-shirt that said God is weird look at a giraffe I mean God is great God is good platypus you know I mean come on but the whole thing is that yes you will have everything that your heart desires if we seek his will for us and the power to carry that out. And that's what it comes down to. And I think I have some time left, I guess, maybe. So I guess I don't know. Maybe entertain some questions because you know I can give you a whole bunch of stuff that you may not want to hear and I personally prefer like giving people stuff what they want to here because for me that's the best present to get is something that I want I've gotten so much stuff over the years that I really didn't want and I re-gifted it except a couple years later I found out that I gifted it back to the same person who gave it to me, so that's embarrassing So, I mean I'm willing to entertain any questions coming from the floor Thank you four absolutes are absolute on honesty and selfishness love and purity as a matter of fact this little pamphlet I read from is still available from Alcoholics Anonymous Cleveland Ohio from Cleveland Central Office and Akron and Chicago school of the four absolutes if one you know get like a Chicago literature list they got tons of great stuff I mean they print their own stuff and Cleveland has some great stuff Akron's got some great staff there's some stuff that's out there that's amazing when I was chairing a group I just ordered tons of stuff from all over the country and people came just to get the literature they left because they didn't like what we were saying but they wanted the literature all right hi mitch my name is danny i'm an alcoholic hi danny hi thank you so much um you say that you went through the 12 steps of clarence in a weekend okay good so and then clarenced claims i know like in dr bob and the good old timers he claims he had a 93 success rate and his thing did clarency ever advocate going through the steps more than once. Clarence's thing was that this is again, wait until I finish the statement. You do the first nine, you live in the last three. The only time you do the First Nine again, they're on two occasions. First occasion is if you resign and resume, which means you pick up a drink. Second occasion is when you're taking somebody else through the work. So the more you work with newcomers, the more you go through the steps over and over and over so it's not just 10, 11, 12 this is what I'm living the rest of my life if you're taking a newcomer through the steps you're doing one through nine you're dealing with them and you'redoing it all over again because you do it when you do it with a newcomor so it sounds like do the first nine live the last three but a lot of people seem to forget about the fact that we're supposed to be working with newcomers and we're suppose to be taking people through the step so you're constantly doing them just really quickly thanks again for everything very quickly one of the things I was taught like with AA history and the importance of AA history and how important that is Bill has a tape or a CD it's a founders day from Cleveland and this guy Larry B his sober date is 1943 he's sharing in Cleveland and he comes up to the podium and says my name is Larry I'm a recovered alcoholic all the alcoholics are still out there drinking this makes it real simple thanks a lot Mitch I've met Larry a couple times great guy when I was out there in 88 I was interviewing a lot of the old timers and Larry and a whole bunch of the other folks who came in in the 40s they're all amazing people I used to go to a Cleveland Eastside meeting and it was just sitting there the average sobriety in the room was 30 years and I was just blown away constantly Hi, I'm Beverly and I'm an alcoholic I'm just kind of interested in what you said about you have a sponsor and he's dead I know common AA fellowship thinking is that men with the men women with the women and that everybody should have a sponsor and right now I don't have, let's say, a female sponsor. My sponsor right now is a man. So I just wanted to know historically how the program views sponsorship and why don't you have a sponsor? Historically how it viewed sponsorship was, well, Dr. Bob was always against from the beginning women coming into AA because one of the first women who came into AA at King School Group caused a ruckus because nobody concentrated on the meeting. it was like all about her and can I get you a cup of coffee can I give you a chair and then it became even weirder but Clarence sponsored women again I would prefer men with the men and women with the women and I've sponsored several women there were countries I want what you have nobody around here has got it and I said I will do it on one condition you're the one that got it after I give it to you and you give it to other women and then the next one you take through the work they're with you and then by the time a short period of time has gone by you've got a half a dozen women out there that people can choose from so again if my motives are correct nothing's going to happen and again it's a matter of discernment it's not like If somebody says, can you be my sponsor? I always ask them why. Oh, because you've got 30-something years. He said, so what? What does that mean? He's having a drink in 30- something years. Who cares? What do I got? What do you want? The big book says if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, what do I have? Well, you've Got 30-Something Years. Stop that. What do i have? Come to meetings with me. Follow me around. talk to me, spend time with me, and then ask. And as far as why don't I have a sponsor? I do have a sponsored, but he's dead. I don't find, you know, what I truly believe all a sponsor is, is a guide through the steps. The original term sponsor came from the fact that people were sponsored into meetings. You couldn't go to an AA meeting. You had to go, at least in the beginning, go to a hospital, get detoxed. You were assigned a sponsor. That sponsor was responsible for you to make sure you're visiting. I mean, I have all the hospital rules for some of the clinics that they use in Cleveland. The sponsor had to say so about who would visit, when they would visit. What they could bring. the sponsor responsible was taking you to your first meeting taking you through at least the first three steps before you went to the first meeting so you were sponsored into AA you just couldn't walk in a room because I mean people today walk in and you're right there's a lot of people in AA who aren't alcoholics nowhere near alcoholics it just doesn't make any sense sometimes again, it's like it's a numbers game people want lots and lots of numbers I would rather have a meeting with 10 people who, like, really want recovery and are willing to do the work and carry it to the newcomer who is sick and suffering than have a meet-up with 100 people who don't get it. And, you know, again, I don't need a guide through the steps. I do need a fellowship around me. I do needs a support system. I do friends. I do people I can bounce stuff off of. I do to sit there and tell me, like you know you're out of your mind. You know what's happening? What's going on? You know, what are you doing? How come you're wearing the same jeans four days in a row? You know. I need that. You know I need people to like call me on my stuff. But I don't need a guy through the steps. Except if I decide one day to say like to heck with it and I can take my will back and my power back and give up on God which I'm not going to do and resign or resume. which is not in the cards because I have no interest because I've had a million excuses but never a good enough reason Thanks Hi sir, how are you? My name is Lance, I'm a real alcoholic I was just wondering I'm curious about my own family history What's your experience with the 24th Street Clubhouse and the Al-Anon Family Group The old clubhouse was really nice It was funny Bill and I had gone down to meet with a guy whose father used to attend the old clubhouse as a child. And he used to kind of play there, and Lois would kind of like hang out with him, whatever it is. It was a really nice time. I mean, Bill lived there for a while. Again, it's funny. It was probably one of the last clubhouses in New York because I can go to just about any state, any country, and there's going to be a clubhouse, there's gonna be a place, There's going to be a building. There's got to be a storefront except somehow or other New York doesn't have those things. Or basically my second and third question to you is, my friend, what was basically like the membership in 1958 with Al-Anon family group? Would you know anything of that? I'm not sure about the membership in Al-Alan and the family groups. I know back in the beginning AA was open to alcoholics and their families so out of the hundred people who were mentioned in the book probably at least 30 or 40 of them were spouses or significant others there were only about 40 or 50 alcoholics and the rest of the people who were counted were not as a matter of fact in the first edition Marie B. was a story about a wife pretty much it was the first Al-Anon story ever written and Ann Smith used to have little things around the kitchen table and whatever so it was a big thing back in the early days where families were involved. And again, what's become sad with the open meetings and the closed meetings and you're not allowed here. One of the early founders of Dewey Spees from Cleveland moved out to San Mateo, California and he died several years back and his wife had been attending meetings with him since the early 40s. And after he died, they wouldn't let her back in the meeting. And she just was totally devastated. We talked on the phone constantly And she just, she's like, why don't they want me back in the meeting? Because she's not an alcoholic. One last question. So the Towns Hospital in New York City, I know this is Alcoholics Anonymous. What was basically the ratio to a, I Know That There Was A Lot Of People That Were Treated For Morphine Addiction And Were Basically Gassed Through The First World War That Became, They're Definitely Addicts. What was the ratio between alcoholics and the people that were, I should say the United States government became addicts. uh made addicts um what was the debate the basic the differentials in in in uh what's the thing in patients i'm not sure i i you know i'm really that familiar with with towns records but i also know that there are a lot of people in aa who were involved with well i mean dr bob Bill was a pill head. Lots of folks used pills and goofballs and everything else. I mean, so there was always a large percentage of people in AA who were also addicts. Back in Lexington, Kentucky at the federal penitentiary, they started in 1946, I believe it was, an Addicts Anonymous meeting. And with the help of Bill and, as a matter of fact, some of the early grapevines, They mentioned that they supported these folks. So there's always been addicts in AA. But my center question is basically was for a lot of the sick and suffering people, I guess they were on the top floors, that were gassed. Were they working a 12-step program with them also? I'm sure Silkworth did a lot OF stuff he used. I mean, the system was pretty much the same. will work for addicts a lot of times was that. But I think what, from my readings on some of the early stuff, is that I think the medical model was more used for people who were addicted to other substances, and AA and alcohol, you know, the 12 steps are used more with people with alcoholism. I mean, one of the great history books on the history of the recovery industry is a book called Slaying the Dragon by Bill White, and I found that to be a total wealth of information about the history of recovery, including all the cures and the narcotic stuff in Synanon and everybody else. Is there any kind of archives that I could find out on a reference to the town's hospital? Do you know of anything, Bill? Nothing that I know. I mean, there are some materials that Dr. Silkworth's family has with letters and things like that. But now record, I mean, I know somebody had found the record of Bill's discharge dates and all this other stuff and how long he stayed there. But I'm not sure where those records might be. Okay. Thank you, sir. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, John. My sponsor is dead too. And personally, I find it hard to act in a certain way when I think about my sponsor. I don't know. I have a question. Clarence, toward the end of his life, you're surrendering to Jesus. Was this always the way he did that? I mean, I've seen his third-step prayers is very, very Christian-based. Was it that way in the 40s, or was this a different – because it seems like he shifted over time. Well, ClarenCE was always a Christian. I mean, some of his early letters. As a matter of fact, one of his first letters that he wrote to Hank Parkhurst back in probably late May of 39 was saying that there's not too much stress on the spiritual and the religious stuff at the meetings. So there was a shift. And this is where I kind of like break with a lot of the later Clarence people where they don't talk to me and I'm not like, I'm a persona non grata in lots of circles. I mean, GSO, Clarence's folks. A lot of the change came after he married Grace. I put on several retreats with ClarenCE in New York, Middletown, Peekskill, a few other places and there were AA retreats. The Christian stuff came after the retreats People talked about what they wanted to talk about. I mean, if a speaker wanted to talk about their relationship with Jesus, that's fine. As part of their story, their experience, strength and hope. But the prayer and praise and all the other stuff came after the retreat was officially over because there's no longer an AA function. Right. After Clarence passed on, again, I get in trouble with this. They started taking people through the steps in groups and whole rooms full, which they never did when I knew ClarenCE when he was alive. It was always one-on-one because Clarence, you know, worked with one person, maybe two people on a weekend, if that. Now it's the entire room and the whole thing is to save souls. And, you Know, that's them, you knows, bless them for it. It's a great thing, you Knows, but the thing is I find, for me, what I got, what I learned and who I got it from is different than what it is today. And I try and stick true to what I've got. Was he in the 40s having people surrender to Jesus specifically, or was that later? That was later. One of his sponsees, Irv Meyerson, who was a Venetian blind salesperson who started AA in West Virginia, Atlanta, Georgia, and several other states, was Jewish. Several letters from Irv that I had from Irk DeClarence talks about celebrating the Jewish holidays and doing this. mentioning Yiddish words and explaining to Clarence what they were. And so there was no reference to any of that other stuff in there. And, again, I think most of that came with – I mean one of the things, again with the Oxford group and with – it was like it was Jesus and it didn't matter what denomination. It didn't mater whether you're a Catholic Jesus or Protestant Jesus or Russian Orthodox Jesus. It was still Jesus. That was the God as we understand him kind of a thing. It was like he was the same person but depending on what denomination you were It didn't matter. But I think the earlier Clarence stuff, where he was taking people to the steps, it was more of this is who you are, this is what you did. And if you're Jewish, that was it. That was it? Five minutes? Okay. Just one quick question. He formed a beginner's meeting early on in Cleveland. Did they take the steps there or was it just merely a method of presentation? It was an indoctrination of taking the steps from some of the old-timers came in. And it was the Crawford Road Men's Group, and they started the beginners' meetings, and people from D.C. and all the other places, you know, that's where a lot of the beginners meetings came from were those. But they didn't take it – did they take the steps? Well, what happened was is that they were getting like hundreds and hundreds of people coming in, and they didn'T have enough sponsors. So what they did was in a group, you Know, two or three old-timers came and did the classes. Hi. My name's Lauren. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Lauren. And I want to thank you for coming and sharing the history. It was very interesting. My question is, in my experience, I've been here about a year, and I've worked the steps now two times. I'm almost through with my amends the second time, and I'm feeling that I haven't done a thorough enough job, and I feel that I need to start over but part of me listening to you, you said before that we work the steps once and then we continue my question is basically in our book it says that after we do step 10 we continue to grow in understanding and effectiveness and I have several people that their experience has been they continue to work the sets and where I'm at right now if I start working with others, is this stuff going to go away? Or is this something I need to start working the steps again? I'm constantly making amends. I mean, people come into my life that I haven't seen in years. And all of a sudden it's like I'm walking down the street and it's, Mitchell, I owe you money. It just totally escaped my mind. And all OF a sudden, I mean I had that once somebody drove up, they were visiting their sister down the block from where I lived. And it was like, hey, I owed you some money. I'll give you a check, cash it in two weeks. it's constantly it's a never ending process because there's stuff that I did out there that I have no recollection of because I was either totally out of it or whatever it is and I'm reminded constantly of it and the fact that you don't think you've done a thorough enough job it's never ending so there's never a thorough job nobody ever completes it people say the only step that you do perfectly is step one please I don't do any step perfectly because it's impossible. You can't do anything perfectly. And I'm always doing that stuff. And the thing is, for me, and one of the things Clarence told me was that any time I had a problem with any step after three, he said, how come you didn't do three? I said, what do you mean? I did three. He said, well, then you shouldn't be having a problem with six. Because if I made a decision to turn my life from my will over the care of God, then I have no business having a program with anything. It'll happen. It'll come. You know, why reinvent the wheel? Just keep working it. When you have fear and resentment come up and you do a four-column inventory, who do you go to to share that then? Go with... I mean, there's not that much anymore in life that I'm really afraid of. I mean sometimes I panic for two minutes and I just... I mean most of this stuff, I pray and I also talk about it with people I know and trust I mean, there are certain people in AA that I trust my life with and out of AA, people who are like friends and people I love and care about who I can just trust them with anything and share when I'm going out of my mind. And so it's like, again, I've done the steps. I do them all the time when I am working with somebody else. And when anything comes up, I have means. AA has given me a means to live my life. Thanks. Hi, my name is Frank. I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Frank. And I just wanted to know, do you have a relationship with Wally P.? Have you spoken? Wally's an old friend. I haven't spoken to him recently. As a matter of fact, I helped Wally with his research on Back to Basics with the old beginner's classes. Wally and I go back years ago when I went to Southwest Archives Convention with him and a whole bunch of other places. And did you find the Back to basics program really effective for newcomers? I don't know. I mean, I haven't been to any of them. I don' t know. I mean I've seen some of his stuff on his website but I know the beginners classes in Cleveland were. So if he's using, you know, I mean I've got some of the first graphs of Wally's book and he was using it but I understand a lot of that's been changed. You know what? Anything going back to the basics works. If it's back to that, it works. No matter what you call it. You know, whether it's one from column A, two from column B, it doesn't matter. But if it comes from there, it works. Unfortunately, where I'm from, the local people say it's not AA, so we can't call ourselves a group. They want to shut it down. I think – I forgot who it was. It was Chris or Pete talked about how like the primary purpose of an AA group is to teach the steps. And I think Back to Basics is about teaching the steps no matter what you call it. Yeah, it may not be AA because it's not officially following the traditions and all this other stuff. But you know what? I don't care whether it's AA, rational recovery, smart recovery, any other kind of recovery. If somebody gets well, that's the point. I don'T CARE WHETHER THEY FIND IT THROUGH A CHURCH, THRU A KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL, WHETHERE THEY FINE IT ON A STREET CORNER OR ANYWHERE. IF SOMEBODY RECOVERS AND GETS WELL AND GET'S THEIR LIVES TOGETHER AND HAS FAMILIES...