The History of the Big Book – Big Book Workshop – 2025 – Part 1 of 5 – Charlie P,Joe M. – Charlie P,Joe McQ

This will be a 24-tape set of recordings made at the 3rd Annual Northern California Big Book Seminar. The seminar was held at the El Rancho Motel in West Sacramento, California Thursday through Sunday, September 22-25, 1988. The hosts for this 3rd annual seminar were Lynn Yarbrough of Fair Oaks, California, and Tim Martin, the California Northern Interior Area Panel 38 Delegate to the General Service Conference from Rancho Cordova, California. There were four presenters at the Big Book Seminar. Number one, Joe McQueenie of Little Rock, Arkansas, with 26 years of sobriety. Number 2, Charlie Parmley of Maysville, Arkansas, the past Arkansas area delegate to the General Service Conference with over 18 years of sobriety. Number 3, Willie Bingham of Spring, Texas, sober over 31 years. And number 4, John Williams of Pompano Beach, Florida, with over 13 years of sobriety in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book Seminar covers three areas of study. Number one, the big book discussion of the first seven chapters of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, as given by Joe and Charlie. Number two, a study of the Twelve Steps of Recovery, our first legacy, as taken from the AA publication, Twelve StepS and Twelve Traditions, and given by Willie and John. The third portion of the seminar was a discussion on the second legacy, Unity in Our Traditions, and the third legacy, the service structure and concepts, with all four speakers participating. The original recording and these copies were made by Bill and Diana Cross of Ashtree Fellowship Tapes, Located at 4588 North Meridian, Fresno, CA 93726 Phone number 209-229-8244 These tapes were produced in the spirit of AA's 12th step to carry this message and members of the fellowship should bear in mind AA's tradition number 11 regarding anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films in their use of these tapes. The total listening and study time of this entire set of recordings is approximately 23 hours and 24 minutes. The following will be session number one of the third annual Northern California Big Book Seminar held on Thursday afternoon, September 22, 1988. The subject is The History of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous Taken from A.A. Comes of Age and was given by John Williams of Pompano Beach, Florida The approximate listening time of this recording will be 66 minutes Thanks, Len I noticed how quick the word affair brought some responses from you That's about like the way it is in Florida. I'm an alcoholic. My name is John. Hi, everybody. Great to be back to California, the third annual Big Book Seminar, Northern California style. It's just a pleasure. Got here yesterday. The weather here is absolutely beautiful. I don't know whether you can appreciate that or not, but these cool evenings are just wonderful for somebody like me. We don't get below 80 degrees in the evening at home this time of the year. But it's just great to be back, a good-looking Thursday afternoon crowd. I'm a member of the Friday Night Study Group down in Pompano Beach. If any of you are ever in our area, we certainly want you to come by and take a look at us and participate in the meeting with us. I also want to tell you a couple things in preparation. I always like to get warmed up. It's tough to get up here right off the plane, so to speak, and start talking about things. So I'm just going to ease into it, tee up a little bit. But I see Joe's down here laughing. I want to introduce you to at least the ones of us who are here and to tell you a little bit about this seminar. Joe and Charlie are the main thrust of our seminar in which they talk about 12 Steps for Recovery from the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous, and they both came in yesterday afternoon. Charlie's in the back of the room. Charlie, just stand up and let everybody see who you are. That's Charlie from Maysville, Arkansas. And Joe, Joe M., is down on the front. Down here on Amen Row. And I'd also like for you to meet my wife who traveled with me this year and who's come out to California to keep me in line, Shirley. And Willie is probably touching down about right now. Willie B. from Spring, Texas will be in in an hour or so she's a beautiful lady from Texas and you'll all get a chance to meet her today Big Book Seminar I understand you're going to have in excess of 400 again this year very successful right from the very beginning this has been a successful seminar in terms of attendance I wish to acknowledge those of you who are here of course to make the thing work and I wish to also acknowledge all the time, energy and effort of those who brought forth this seminar. I know personally that an awful lot of work is involved in it because I'm involved with the seminar in Pompano Beach where we started doing this kind of a seminar in 1983 with Joe and Charlie and Willie and Jack and Frank and Dave Aronofsky, myself, and my late sponsor Wesley Parrish who conceived of this idea of a big book study. After hearing Joe and Charley at a conference somewhere in the Midwest, and he was absolutely flabbergasted and amazed at the way that they could put forth the information and make it so understandable. And I'm sure that Joe will probably tell you the little story about how he came into their lives when they were into the big book. When we put this together, a few years ago, Wesley began to formulate the idea of a big book seminar and asked me to participate with him. Well, he didn't ask me. I was his pigeon and I was always there with him and he was always bouncing things off of me and I'd put a little pressure on him to have something in South Florida. We didn't have much going on and I've been putting the pressure on them to do something else and so an old friend of his whom he had known at the Fountain Blue who had helped him with the International Convention in 1970 came to work at the Palm Air Hotel and Spa in Pompano and called Wesley up and Wesley went out to see him and Wesley came back and told me, listen John, we have two dates for next year We have the two worst economic dates for that hotel, and they happen to be in October and May. And we're going to do something out there. And then he began to formulate. And then He showed me a sample of the program, the initial deal, in which He says we're gonna start at 1 o'clock, and we're gunna run till about 10 o' clock Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening, and then Friday we're guanna start at 9, 9.30 and do the same thing for 12 hours, and then Saturday the same thang, and then Sunday morning. And I said, well, when are we gunna play golf and tennis and swim and all that stuff? He said, we're not going to do any of that. I said, hell, alcoholics aren't going to sit around for hours listening to somebody jaw about this. He said. I believe they will if we give them enough to chew on. And he began to convert me although I was in resistance. I just was in existence. Because I had never been to a function where we sat around for horas talking about these things. In workshop fashion. But he formulated enough breaks. and the dinner hour and the lunch hour was long enough that we could get up and stretch and have a little time to fellowship. And it turned out to be pretty good. And lo and behold, it works. Shortly after we had ours, a couple of fellows from this part of the country came down to see us and they decided that California might benefit from such a thing and they came out and started working. And three years ago this month we had our first big book seminar somewhere else because we had a lot of competition on Saturday night. Some of you might remember that. We were competing with rock and roll, and rock and role won out. So we changed hotels and been over here. This is our second year. And it's just absolutely great to be here. One of the things we like to do, and you'll hear this weekend, you'll see a lot more than just rock and rolls. You'll hear a lot about history. You'll see things which go into bringing us right here in 1988 to sort of put us in perspective so that we can perhaps appreciate where we came from and appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears that went into allowing us to sit here in this room this September day in 1988. It wasn't easy. And as you know the history of this fellowship and see how close we came at times to not even being here. And if you see how the divine hand of God seems to have been working throughout it all and see How We Came Together, it's absolutely amazing. so we thought that in the beginning we would perhaps talk about the history of the big book because we're going to be talking about the big book most for the next three and a half days it's worth knowing a little bit about where it came from also on Friday night we're gonna talk more about history in terms of how the traditions evolved the evolution why they became necessary what we did to bring about a need for those things And then Saturday night, we're going to talk a little bit about the third legacy of our program, showing a littlebit about structure, how we fit in, what we're responsible for, and that's everything, and how we can serve our fellowship. Now, before I get started, I want to just tell you that on the front table down here are some dust jacket covers that fit on your book. They look just like this. These are replicas of the... This is a real anonymous cover, wouldn't you say? But this is what they had in the first edition. This was the dust jacket for the first few printings of the first edition of the big book. Replicas thereof are sitting down here on this table. If you would like a copy of one to put around your book and they fit around the present day book, although they were originally made for the big books, they're here if you want to donate a dollar or two. The donations are going to the Wilson Foundation, is it, Charlie? Okay, one of them. I think the donations are gone to the Nelson Foundation or Dr. Bob's home. It makes no difference. If you want one, they're here. Okay, big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, we say a lot of times in AA that we began June 10, 1935, in which that was the morning that Dr. Bob had his last beer or two before he performed an operation at the hospital in Akron, Ohio. But I'm sure that on that day when Bob finally showed up that night after having disappeared all day, that they didn't shake each other's hands and say, congratulations, you are the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It just didn't happen that way. Because the seed of Alcoholic Anonymous was sown a few years before that. And we will touch over the weekend on alcoholism and its effect on our country from early, early days back to the revolutionary days. But from our perspective and point of view, let's see where the big book came from in terms of those things closely connected to it. There was a guy by the name of Roland Hazard who was a wealthy New Englander who was an alcoholic. and about 1930 or 31 there was no such thing as Alcoholics Anonymous or a program of recovery but Roland had a lot of money and he went to Switzerland and he was under the counseling of Carl Jung for one full year Dr. Jung counseled with Roland and got into some psychology with him and Roland thought that Dr. Young had discovered and uncovered the trigger mechanisms that always made Roland drink. And he, after a year's time, that's pretty good therapy time, he decided to come back to this country and he didn't think he'd ever have another problem with drinking. As soon as he got back over here, he was back into the bottle in no time. And he was absolutely disillusioned and didn't know what to do, so he went back to see Dr. Yang. And Dr. Young said, son, there's just no hope for you. You're either going to have to be locked up, you're going to die, you're gonna go mad, go insane, just no way out. And Rowland says, well, isn't there any hope? And then Dr. Jung gave Rowland an answer, which ultimately turns out to be the answer to alcoholism. We didn't know it at that time, but Dr. Jung says to Rowland, he says, well, every now and then men and women have been having what I call a vital spiritual experience. And he says, I've been trying to bring forth something like that with you, but I just haven't had any luck. And he went on to explain the spiritual experience which is found in our big book on page 27 as a huge emotional displacement and rearrangement whereby we get rid of the old attitudes, ideas, and belief systems which once were our guiding force and we pick up a new set of attitudes and ideas and beliefs which become our guiding force and bring forth a personality change sufficient to recover. Roland listened to that and thought that he wouldn't have any problem because he was a pretty devout religious person and Dr. Young says that really doesn't have anything to do with it. But Roland Hazard came to this country and got involved in something that was going on at that time called the Oxford Groups and Roland was to never drink again. As far as we are able to tell, he got involved in the Oxford groups and stayed sober for the rest of his life. He also brought with him a couple of his friends into the Oxford Groups, a couple of which had a friend by the name of Abbie Thatcher. Now, Abbie had, his story is pretty documented, pretty well documented in our book, A.A. Comes of Age, and Pass It On. He was having tremendous problems staying sober. And as we know, Abvie was an old school friend of Bill's. Well, Ebby had been getting into so much trouble, he had been told that if he got drunk one more time and got in trouble, he was going to go to the hoose cow. Just no doubt about it. Well, he was. As a matter of fact, the story in Pass It On has to do with the fact that the family home had just been painted, and it was freshly painted, and Ebby got drunk and noticed that some pigeons were out doing some things to his new paint job he didn't like, got a shotgun out and started shooting at them. Well, the law didn't take too kindly to that. They drug him down in the court and were about to pass a sentence on him when a couple of fellows that were friends of Roland's interceded for Ebi and got the judge to release Ebi to their custody. They got Ebi involved in the Oxford groups, and they sent Ebi off to New York City where he got with Dr. Sam Shoemaker and stayed at the Calvary Mission there in New York City. This must have been early summer of 1934. While he was there, he heard about an old boyhood friend of his by the name of Bill W. who was having some problems, staying sober. Had made a lot of money on Wall Street, but had lost it all. Couldn't stay sober. So Roland or Abby began to think about Bill and called Bill up one day in the fall of 1935 and Bill was glad to hear from Abby because Lois had been giving Bill a lot of grief about his drinking, and he figured that if he had an old boyhood friend to come over like Ebby that he'd have a perfect excuse to drink. I mean, I used to love that too when some of my old friends called me up and said, Come on over. And you know what? My wife couldn't get on to me so much about my drinking because that's what we did when we got together to talk about old times. But Ebby shows up on Bill's stoop and knocks on the door, opens the door what does he say come on in let's have a drink and abby says i don't drink anymore i got religion well of course i'm sure that that brought the hair up on the back of bill's neck as he describes it uh that uh number one that abby didn't drink any more and that number two he'd gotten religion which bill wasn't too uptight about but he invited him in and abbie began to tell him a little bit what about what was going on with the oxford groups and he gave him six propositions or six precepts or six steps which he had been using in order to bring about his sobriety. Well, Bill began to think about that. He didn't get sober right away, but eventually he gets in Towns Hospital, 1934, December. He's going down for the last time. He has two or three bottles of beer on the way down. Had enough, I think he had enough, he didn't have any money, but he could charge about a six-pack and he drank it on the way down to the hospital, desperate. He gets down to that hospital, Dr. Silkworth, who who had been treating Bill and had seen Bill two or three times that year for alcoholism, spotted Bill and sent him to bed. And while in bed, Bill began to... I think Bill had overheard a conversation that the doctor had had with Lois about his desperate situation, that Bill was to die. He had acute alcoholism. There was no chance of his recovery. There was not hope for him, that he'd have to get a bodyguard to stay with him all the time or he would just finally go mad and die. And Bill overheard that. He was in a desperate situation when he, in that bed, either that evening or the next day, Bill has his famous thunderbolt experience in that hospital where he cries out, if there's a God, let him show himself. And something happened to Bill. Bill described it as a vital spiritual experience in which he felt like he was on a mountaintop and he was being swept clean with a white wind and a white light. and he was in a sort of fog the next day when Ebi comes to see him. And Ebi gives Bill a copy of a book. The copy of the book is called William James Varieties of Religious Experiences. Now, Ebi hadn't read the book but it had been recommended to him by some of the Oxford people there at Sam Shoemaker's mission but he thought maybe Bill might enjoy it And so Bill began to look at the book, and he found it to be tough to read. But he tried to read it, and then when he finally realized that what he was reading about was means in ways that other people that William James had written about had had the same thing. They were either religious experiences or conversion experiences, no matter what you wanted to call them. They were transformation things. And Bill began to feel pretty good about the fact that he'd had a medical doctor describe his alcoholism to him, and Dr. Silkworth had done that. You see, Dr. Young had given us an answer. Dr. silkworth gave us a description of the problem when he said we had an allergy and an obsession, and eventually Bill's going to get himself immersed into a program, a planned program of action called the Oxford Groups where he's going be able to put these things into effect. And what I'm trying to say to you is that these are the three elements of Alcoholics Anonymous and where they came from. Dr. Young gave us the answer, Dr. Silkworth gave us a description, and the Oxford groups were going to give us a planned program of action. Well, when Bill was reading William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, he began to realize that a Harvard professor, and this is what William James was, and sometimes known as the father of American psychology, was validating and verifying what had happened to Bill, and it made it okay. That he wasn't, in fact, hallucinating. That, in effect, he was not going crazy. But, in affect, what he had had is what other people had had in the past. And William James was validating his experience. And as Bill began to read, he noticed some common denominators that he had had, as well as those that William James is describing. The common denominator were that, number one, in each of those persons who had had this so-called religious experience or vital spiritual experience, there had been some calamity in their life. They were absolutely, utterly desperate. They had lost all hope, all their own human resources and anybody else's resources that failed completely in their life. And then the second common denominator was an admission of defeat. And I guess this is what Bill was feeling when he was laying in that bed, absolutely hopeless. He had heard the doctor described Delois, his condition. It was absolutely hopeless. And so I guess Bill, in his plea to God, as he understood God at that time, he was actually admitting his own defeat. There was no hope for him. And then that would be the third common denominator was once you realize that you're defeated, you ask for help. And this transformation experience that Bill went through in that hospital was being verified and validated by William James. He also described some of them as being like thunderbolt experiences. Bill had had that. Paul had had that on the road to Damascus. But he said that most were sort of like, I'm sure, the kind that you and I have had here, the sort of gradual educational variety in which we over a period of time realized that since we've taken a certain position on something something's happened and we're not the same. And it's brought us into a new state of consciousness. and opened up a way for the release of my alcoholism. So this is what happened to Bill, and he and Lois got immersed into the Oxford groups at that time when he got out of that hospital about December 18, 1934. He and LoIS began to go to the Calvary mission, and Bill described it as like manna from heaven. I'm sure that Lois and Bill were experiencing what a lot of us experience when we first come into Alcoholics Anonymous with a sense of relief, warmth, and camaraderie, and companionship, etc. And so he and Lois began to go to Oxford group meetings on a regular basis and Bill began to go around New York trying to get some converts to believe in, to get into AA or AA, I'll use that word although it wasn't AA at the time he tried to for six months get somebody to listen to him. He was going around New Yorke City trying to get drunks off the bar and off the street, and what Bill was doing was hitting them with his vital spiritual experience that he had had in that hospital, and the drunks thought he was crazy, and they couldn't wait to get out of his area and go have a drink. I guess he must have been talking with Dr. Silkworth about his problem that he hadn't been able to get anybody in the fold like Evie had gotten him, and Dr. Silkworth probably told him something to the effect, he said, Bill, what you've got to do is let these folks know that you know what you're talking about. He said, you're going out there and telling them about this vital spiritual experience you had in the hospital. He said they don't know what the hell you're taking on. What are you talking about? He said you've gotta let them know that you knew about the obsession and the allergy to the body and get their attention and then you can hit them with a spiritual bit and so, well, Bill had an opportunity to go to Akron, Ohio on a business deal. He was going out to become a chief executive officer of some company, I'm sure he thought. And he got out there in May of 1935 and the deal fell through. He didn't become chief executive officer of anything and it was a pretty desperate situation on a Sunday in Mother's Day of 1936 when he was wandering around the Mayflower Hotel with ten bucks in his pocket. Down the end of the hallway he heard the tinkle of glasses and probably a little light music and probably he could smell the drift of Chanel No. 5 coming out that way. And he began perhaps to become tempted and he decided what he needed to do was to find himself another drunk to talk to, not so much for the other person but for himself. He knew that he needed a drink. And then the hotel lobby was a directory in which they had several names on it and the last name on the list which he tried and which he finally got an answer was Reverend Tunks, who was a friend of Alcoholics Anonymous ultimately. And he said, well, he didn't know anybody, but he knew somebody who might. And he turned Bill on to Henrietta Seiberling of the rubber tire family. Bill calls up, and she says, sure enough, she's got somebody he can talk to. Now you've got to understand a little bit about the Oxford groups at that time. Henrietta was a very good member of the Oxford groups, and she had been attending meetings. The Oxford movement at that time was a Very Popular Movement, just thousands and thousands of groups and people belonging to it, and She was one of them. Part of their method of being an Oxford group member was that they would often pray for guidance. They would spend an hour or two in prayer and meditation each day. Then they would pray for Guidance, and then they'd write down what they thought they were hearing in terms of guidance. And Henrietta thought that when Bill rang her up that afternoon that this was a specific answer to her prayer, that she had been praying for Dr. Bob for some time. He had been attending some Oxford Group meetings there in Akron and she had Been Praying for His Release from Alcoholism and hadn't received it yet. So when Bill finally called her that Sunday afternoon, she thought it was an answer to Her Prayer. So that's why she was so anxious to have him come over there, this stranger from New York City. Oh, yes, sir, no doubt about it. You're my answer to my prayer. Get your fanny over here and talk to Dr. Bob. I'll call him on the phone. And so she calls up, and as I say, it's Mother's Day, and Annie gets on the telephone, and she said that, well, she'd like to come over, but it seemed that it might be a little impossible. It was Mother's day, and Dr. Bobs had brought her a potted plant, and Dr., Bob was under the dining room table, and he was potted himself. So, couldn't make it that day, but she promised that they would come over the next day. And the next Day, Dr. Bob agreed to go, saying to Annie that he would give this guy from New York 15 minutes of his time and then he'd have to go on about his business. Well, of course, when he finally met Dr. Bill and Bob got together the next date, Bill began to talk to Dr. Rob about the allergy of the body, the obsession of the mind, and then he began to hit on the spiritual and Dr. Bob said this was the first man he'd ever met that knew what he was talking about when it came to alcoholism. Now here we have a New York stockbroker talking to a physician able to give him an explanation or a definition of his problem in terms of an allergy and an obsession and Dr., Bob bought it because Dr., Rob was 100 times more spiritual and religious than Bill ever thought about being. So guess what? This is May. Bob gets sober a little bit. He has a convention to go to in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He'd always gone. Of course, I imagine he had always gotten drunk. And Andy was afraid to let him go, but Bill says, well, you've got to let him go. You know, you can't hide him from booze forever. So he went off to Atlantic City and he got drunk. And they poured him on his nurse's front porch when he got back home. And on June the 10th, 1935, Dr. Bob has a scheduled operation. And that morning he has his last bottle or two of beer to calm his nerves so he can go in and perform that operation. Bill leaves him in the parking lot, and he goes on home. Well, Dr. Bob doesn't show up that day until late that evening. When he comes home that night, he has been out all day after, I think he had told Bill the day before that morning that he was going to go through with it. Bill says, what are you going to do? What are you doing to go with it? He thought he was talking about the operation, but it was the recovery process that Bill had been talking to him about. And so he came home, and they were relieved to find he was still sober. and what he'd been doing was making amends and restitutions in Akron all day. Bill stays with him for two or three months, and then in the fall of 1937, Bill is again visiting Akron, Ohio. He'd gone to Cleveland on another business venture that had fallen through, and so he goes by to see Dr. Bob. This is where the story of the big book really comes into play. In the fall OF 1937 Bill and Bob began to take an inventory of as Bill is visiting Dr. Bob at Akron, and they suddenly discovered that there's about 40 people sober using the method, the word-of-mouth method that was working at that time, using those six steps that Evie had given Bill that they had gotten from the Oxford Movement. And they began to realize that what they had could no longer be kept secret, that they knew that there were millions of alcoholics out there that needed what they have. But how in the world would they ever get to them? And they began to formulate some ideas in their own mind about how that could happen. They thought that perhaps they needed some missionaries to go here, there, and everywhere and tell them about the recovery process. And they knew for sure that hospitals didn't want anything to do with drunks, and so they might have to build a chain of hospitals to treat drunks. And from the hospital income, they could subsidize the missionaries. And above all, he said we need to put our method down in the form of literature. Why? Because if they didn't, the message that they knew was working might become garbled and twisted. And guess what? At the time, Bill had been sober about two and a half years, or Bill had Been Sober About Three Years, and Dr. Bob had been Sober about Two and a Half Years. and uh and thinking about these things dr bob liked the literature idea but he wasn't too sure about the other two and he said well we perhaps ought to bring this before the akron group and see what they think about it and so a meeting was called at clarice and henry williams uh home in in akron ohio two more non-alcoholics but good good oxford people who let their home be used as a place for meetings they had a meeting and they put forth these propositions to these 18 members that were there and they right away turned thumbs down on everything. They began to say, listen, we don't have any money to pay missionaries. I mean, we're all broke. And how are we going to get money? And hospitals are a racket. And missionaries might spoil that man-to-man approach that seemed to have been working with the first 40. Hospitals were a racket and who needs books and literature? After all, the 12 apostles didn't have any literature. This was their way of thinking. And so they begin to argue and thumbs down et cetera, et cetera. And then they began to take a vote on it. Well, this Akron bunch knew, I'm sure, that if there was any money to be raised, it wasn't going to be done in Akron. So they passed all three of those propositions in terms of letting Bill go back to New York City to raise the money so that they could have missionaries build a hospital and have some literature printed. So, they gave Bill his blessings and off to New York he comes. Gets to Newark and that bunch that was there at that time, they were all they loved the big ideas that Bill came back with. The missionaries and the hospitals, I mean, they were excited about that kind of stuff and they couldn't wait to get into business. And so they began to scrape up some list of people who had money and they beganto go around New York City and knocking on doors and trying to raise some money to do these magnanimous things. Well, lo and behold, they didn't get one nickel. And as a matter of fact, folks who had moneys says, look, we think that TB and cancer and the March of Dimes are more worthy of our charitable contributions. And he said, after all, you drunks brought it on yourself. Why should we give you any money? And that kind of hacked Bill off. He didn't like that proposition, and so he got a little miffed. And in such an attitude, he went to see his brother-in-law, who was his confidant, and he had gone to him many times. And to Dr. Leonard Strong, whose picture is over here on my right, your left, who, as a matter of fact, is a point of interest and still alive today. He's in a home in New York. He went to see Dr. Strong and to him he delivered his angry remarks about how short-sighted the rich people were for after all he had a program that he knew was going to sweep the world and Dr. strong listened to him with compassion I'm sure and he finally says you know I used to know a guy who had something to do with the Rockefeller monies the Rockefella Foundation his name is Willard Richardson if he's still alive He probably might remember me. I'll call him up. So he calls Willard Richardson up, or he calls the Rockefeller Center up, and sure enough, Willard Richardson is still there, and he remembers Dr. Strong. And Dr. strong tells him of the success Bill's having in sobering up the alcoholics and the program that seems to be working. Would Mr. Richardson be interested? And he said, Of course I would. So an arrangement was made that the next day they had lunch together. Bill meets with Mr. Richardson and tells him of his success at the program that's working, and Mr. Richardson is vitally interested. And he suggests another meeting to be held a week later, a luncheon meeting. And they meet again, and Bill continues to tell him about what's going on, and Mr., Richardson suggests still a third meeting, which he'd like to bring Frank Amos and two or three of the other folks who had something to do with the Rockefeller Foundation and Albert Scott, who was chairman of the Riverside Trust Fund, Frank Amos, who is an advertising executive. All these were Rockefeller people. And he wanted Bill to bring some, he wanted him to bring Dr. Silkworth and some alcoholics there in New York, plus Dr. Bob and a couple of alcoholics from the Akron area. And the meeting was set and was held on December 1937. So this is not too long after Bill and Bob meet and decide to go for the big ideas. And here we are sitting around in the RCA building with a bunch of the Rockefeller cronies, and they figured, well, this is not such a bad deal after all. And so they began to tell their story. They suggested that each alcoholic tell his story as he usually did at one of those Oxford meetings, which they shared what they used to be like, what happened to them, their conversion, and what they were like today. And I think it was Mr. Scott who chaired the meeting that evening exclaimed why this sounds exactly like first century christianity what can we do to help well when they did that i'm sure bill's antenna went right up and he jumped right in and began tell him that they had a need for missionaries paid missionaries they needed hospitals and they needed to some money to write books and put the literature to put it down in black and white and then lo and behold this rockefeller bunch began to ask some of the same questions that he had heard in Akron. Won't paid workers spoil a man-to-man approach? And won't the business of hospitals be a fatal diversion? And Bill considered that they had, or said that they Had considered such actions, but they knew that to do nothing at all would be just as dangerous as to do what they were thinking about. And it began to make some since, and they also began to convince this bunch of non-alcoholics that they did need some money. They needed some, but they didn't know how much, and they decided that they would make an investigation of our society to determine how much money they were to ask Mr. Rockefeller for. So Frank Amos was the man chosen to make an investigation of us. He went to Akron, Ohio. He made some inquiries about Dr. Bob and some of the other members there. He found a residence which could be converted into a hospital, and he came back, and he gave his glowing report to Mr. Richardson, and Mr. Richardson took it in to Mr., Rockefeller, and Mr., Richardson added his own glowing report of what he knew and heard about AA or AA as it was at that time, and they had made a recommendation of $50,000 to start. $50.000 would pay one or two missionaries or subsidize a couple people to carry the message, and it would also provide the means to buy this home in Akron and convert it into a hospital for which Dr. Bob could superintend. The main reason, although they didn't tell Dr. Rob that, was that Dr. Robert was about to lose his home, lack of mortgage money. You see, Dr. Paul was a proctologist, and his practice had not been revived. They were awful glad in Akroon, Ohio, to find out that he was sober and wished him luck, but none of them wanted to go under the knife with him as a proctologist. So he was having a tough time of it, reviving his practice. And so if they built the hospital, he would be there to superintend it and perhaps make a little money. Okay, they take the report to Mr. Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller looks at it, adds his own remarks about what a fine outfit AA was, but he says, I'm afraid that money will spoil this thing. And Mr. Rockefeller began to give his reasons, the same reasons they'd heard in Akron, the same reason they'd hear at that meeting in December of 1937. And lo and behold, Mr. Rockefeller was guided then and there to save us from ourselves. We can just only imagine what might have happened if he'd have said, oh, it sounds good here's $50,000, maybe take $100,000. Well, I can guarantee you we wouldn't be sitting in this room today based on what I know about us and money. so uh he said i'm afraid the money will spoil this thing and he refused to give aa any money or gave to give our society any money and then at that time mr richardson reminded him of the desperate plight of bill and dr bob and uh and mentioned that dr bob was about to lose his home mr rockefeller says okay here's what i'll do i'll put five thousand dollars in the riverside church and a trust fund for these two guys, and as soon as that's gone, don't ever, ever ask me for any more money. Well, that sounded like bad news. It turned out to be good news for us. And with that $5,000, Dr. Bob was able to catch his mortgage up, and they began to draw $30 a week from the balance until such time as it ran out. Well, they began zu know that there were some other rich alcoholics or rich people in New York City, perhaps they would not be quite as short-sighted as Mr. Rockefeller was, and they kept on trying to develop a list of people that they could ask for some money. And then they knew that if they were to get any self-respecting non-alcoholic would probably want to feel comfortable about who he was giving his money to, so they set up this foundation so that if anybody decided to give him any, They could deduct it from their tax return, and they would feel a sense of well-being that their monies might be well spent. And so they set up the foundation, which ultimately turns out to be our general service structure eventually. And they had five trustees initially, three non-alcoholics and two alcoholics. They always wanted at that time a majority of the board of trustees to be non- Alcoholics so that the non-Alcoholics would trust us. Of course, we have since changed that, 21 trustees of which 14 are alcoholics and the other seven are non-alcoholics. We'll get into that a little bit Saturday night. Well, lo and behold, one of the two alcoholic trustees that they elected was a New Yorker who got drunk shortly thereafter. But they had already made arrangements to ask the handle of that. If you got drunk, you were out. And so they elected another trustee, another alcoholic trustee and they got down to business. well sometime in april of 1938 bill begins to work on what now becomes the big book he wrote his story and the chapter there is a solution these two chapters were used as paraphernalia to try to raise money this is what they would give somebody and say look read this and consider giving us some money so that we can do some good things and uh and thus it was used to try to raise money. Well, they would, the foundation met about once a month to talk about where they were going and to look at an empty treasure because they couldn't get anybody to contribute any money to them. And finally, Frank Amos pops up with a notion that he has a good friend by the name of Eugene Exman, who's the religious editor down at Harper's Magazine. I want you to go down and see him, Bill, and show him what you've written. And so Bill does go down after the appointment is made. He goes down and shows Mr. X-Men what he has written, the first two chapters, and Mr.X-Men scans it over and he says, can you write a whole book in this style? Bill says, yeah, I think so. And he says how long do you think it will take? About 10 months. He says, good. He says if it will help you at all, I'll give you $1,500 in advanced royalties. And that sounded like good news. And so Bill leaves there to go back to tell Frank Amos the success he'd had with Eugene Exman. Now, Bill begins to wonder or to ponder the idea of what the future of AA might be if an outfit like Harper's Magazine owned their book. And he says, and I'm going to quote, suppose our book will someday become the basic text for the fellowship. Its principal asset would be owned by an outside publisher. Bill wondered if the Fellowship should own its own book. Then he thought of the $1,500 in advance royalties. When the book was done, he thought about it in another way. When the book was down, he would still owe Harper's that sum of money and a good many books would have to be sold just to get even. And he supposed what if a large number of people began to need help and cry for help? How would they be able to answer it and how would they afford somebody to do the correspondence? And so he began to wonder about this. But he did not share that at the time with the Board of Trustees, but Frank Amos was glad to hear about his success with the Harpers, and they thought that was the deal, and they felt that that's what they ought to do. And Bill kept his misgivings to himself. And when he did finally raise it, the Board Of Trustees didn't hear him when he started talking about the fellowship owning its own literature. And so nothing was happening until a fellow by the name of Hank Parkhurst gets in the picture. About this time, Hank is a protege of Dr. Silkworth. He'd been sober a couple of years, had been a frequent visitor of Towns Hospital before sobriety, and he was a former executive with Exxon Oil Company. Bill described me as having red hair and an eye there every minute, just a bundle of energy. And every now and then we get one of those in AA. We probably all have one in our area. sometimes in your district and sometimes even in your all have one in our area sometimes in your district and sometimes even in your group but Henry told Bill and convinced Bill he says Bill that board of trustees ain't raising no money for you and they ain't going to he says I think if we'll put this book on a business like basis that we will be able to raise the money we need And he says, what we need to do is to form a stock company and a publishing company and sell stocks right here to our own members. He said, hell, they'll buy them. And Bill admitted that he had been toying with such an idea, but he didn't have quite as much nerve as Henry had. And so they began to talk about the idea and formulated the idea. Henry begins to go around to the members of the existing AA group in New York City, browbeating and cajoling and backing them up against the wall, trying to sell them shares of stock. And these alcoholics were saying, you've got one heck of a nerve trying to sale me shares in a book you haven't even written yet. And, of course, they knew that they would have to do a good job of selling in order to make them alcoholics part with the money. So in the meantime, Henry's coming up with this prospectus They had already gone down to Cornwall Press and found out that you could publish a book for about 10% of its retail cost. And if they sold this book for $3.50, it cost about a half a buck to get it printed. He said they'd make a carload of money. And so he fixed up his prospectus showing how much profit they'd Make on 100 books, 100,000 books, on a quarter of a million books, on 500,000 bucks, and he said it was just tremendous what they were going to do. And Bill knew that they had two problems. They hadn't formed a corporation yet, and they didn't have any stocks. Well, Henry didn't waste any time going down to a bookstore and buying a pad of blank stock certificates. Across the top he writes Works Publishing Incorporated. Down at the bottom, Henry Parkhurst President. And I'm sure he said to Bill, what's next? But even with all that, he's still trying to browbeat these New York drunks into parting with some money and buying stocks, $25. per share and you know lo and behold it didn't sell one share to anybody and uh so henry comes up with another idea he says i bet you that if we if if we can find somebody that will do some publicity for us we'll probably be able to sell some of these things he says what we need to do is go down to see the reader's digest and see if they'd be willing to print a an article about us and this book we're about to write and he says if they'll do that chances are of these alcoholics will part with that money, so what are we waiting for? Let's go. So they go down to Reader's Digest and they talk with Henry Payne or Kenneth Payne who was the managing editor of the Reader Digest. They found themselves sitting in his office and they were telling him then about their society and about the book that they were in the process of publishing and they mentioned the Rockefeller connection, you know, dropping a few names here and there and Kenneth Payne listens and he says, gosh, it sounds just like the kind of stuff that we're interested in. He says, when your book is done next year and just before you get it done, let me know and I'll put a feature writer on it and we will do an article. But he says... But before I really commit to that, I've got to check this up with my other managing editors but he says it sounds like something we'd like but I'll check with them and you understand, don't you? And of course, they didn't hear that. Bill and Henry are out on their way back to New York City. And when they go back to New York city and tell these drunks there that Reader's Digest is going to do an article about them and their book, well, these guys began to part with the money. And as a matter of fact, some of them, they made it easy for them. They could buy, they could buy a stock $5 down, $5 a month until it was paid for. And they began to get some subscription to the stock and old Charlie Towns even chipped in with a bunch of money and they ultimately raised $5,000. And what they had done was that they had this company with 600 chairs. 200 chairs could be purchased by the alcoholics as they existed at that day, and 200 chairs would go to Henry Parkhurst, and 200 shares would go Bill W. And so this is how the 600 chairs were to be distributed. And just to mullify the trustees, they said, well, the author's royalties, which they thought might go to Bill, would then be sent into the board of trustees and they could use that to do whatever they wanted to. that kept them happy. Well, they began to do some selling and they began to do writing. Bill was beginning at that time to write the big book. Ruth Hock, a pioneer in AA who was Henry Parker's secretary in a fledging business called Honors Dealers in New Jersey, was doing the typing as Bill dictated each chapter. He was working from a rough copy of chapters. He didn't really have any guideline except the chapters, and he began to pound out these chapters. And the first four chapters of the book really got him awling. As Bill was writing them and dictating them, he would take them back to the group, and in New York they just chewed them up and spit them out, just right and left. However, Dr. Bob was reporting from Akron that they seemed to be pretty acceptable to him. But in New York City, they were just having a hell of a time. Can you imagine us trying to write a book together? All of us having our own input about it. I can just, I just know the trouble this guy was having. And Bill was just getting a little disgusted with the book. Getting a little dejected. A little depressed. And he had written the first four chapters and as I say, they had really received a mauling. And then he got to that point in the book where he knew he was going to have to put the backbone of the book, chapter 5. It had been bothering him for some time. And Bill wasn't an author and he knew it. But he knew that he'd done enough window dressing and that it was necessary for him at this time to state how this program worked. And so it was in December of 1938 as he got to this point of the book and he was at home laying in bed, hand in hand, pencil. He said he wrote best while he was laying down. He was, as I say, disgusted, secretly worrying about what he had to do and he began to think back at the chain of events which had occurred since Abby came to see him and Abby gave him those six steps and he became to know that the six steps that Abby had given him perhaps needed to be busted down a little bit further because he'd had enough experience in those two and a half, three, four years to knowthat we alcoholics didn't need much to rationalize ourselves out of anything and that perhaps he needed to break those steps down into smaller chunks of truth. And he began to ponder the six steps that Ebi had given him, which were we admitted that we were lit, that we Were powerless over alcohol. Two, that We made a moral inventory of our defects, our sins. Three, We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence. Four, We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking. Five, We tried to help other alcoholics with no thought of reward in money or prestige. And six, we pray to whatever God we thought there was for the power to practice these precepts. And this was the basis of the word-of-mouth program that was operating at that time. And as I say, Bill sort of felt that they needed to be broken down into smaller chunks. By that time, the New York contingency had broken away from the Oxford groups. And the Midwest was soon breaking away from them. They were practicing a lot of the Oxford concepts such as absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love. And so Bill began to wonder. And what I think is interesting about what Bill did that evening was he prayed for guidance before he wrote. And he began to write. And his pen just sort of floated across the paper. In about 30 minutes, he stopped and began to review what he had written. And he liked what he Had written. he had changed those six steps to twelve steps as he numbered them found out he had twelve steps he didn't know why but they made sense to him they somehow or another reminded him of the twelve apostles and so he left them intact about that time he's visited by by Howard C who was an alcoholic there in New York City and with him he had a fresh drunk and Bill began to read to him and showed him what he had written and Howard just went to the moon on that deal he said what do you mean You've got too much God in here. You know Howard, can you imagine the alcoholic who'd come into the... He came to see Bill and when he came in the door he thought he had six steps and all of a sudden he found out he had twelve. Just think about how we would react to that. And this is how Howard reacted, you know. Who do you think you are? You've Got Too Much God In These Steps and you'll scare people away. What do you mean getting them drunks down on their knees? And who wants to have all their shortcomings removed anyway, for God's sake? And Bill just jumped to the defense of every word he'd written. And, of course, you could see that Bill was getting a little mad and he began to say such things as, well, maybe this does sound pretty good after all. As a matter of fact, it didn't quieten down until Lois came in and said, look, guys, how about a cup of coffee and be quiet for a while? Such as it was. And when Bill began to report to the New York bunch about what he had written and it began to be discussed at their meetings, we find the influence of our writing as he began to describe the remaining steps steps 3 through 12 began to find that we have three factions who are influenced who are in our book we have the radicals and the liberals and the conservatives now all these three factions had a great deal to do with our book and they all had input this is why our book is so valuable it just wasn't one person's interpretation of how to recover but it was the input from all those alcoholics that existed and we had We had a Dukes mixture at that time, just like we've got today. We had the conservatives. Now, the conservative bunch were led by Fritz Mayo, whose picture may be around here. He was the son of a Maryland minister. And Fritz thought that the book ought to be written in Christian doctrine and it should be biblical in terms. And we could use a lot of these and the vows and Bible quotations, et cetera. And so that was one contingent that was trying to influence the writing of the book. And the other, the bunch that made up the most of them were called the liberals. They were the people who said, look, we're not too opposed to spirituality, but theology we can't agree on. So we don't mind a spiritual book, but not one of religion. And he says those folks who have tried religion as a means of recovery, you know, it speaks for itself. Those folks who've gone to the mission, they just don't seem to stay very long. He says, we'RE not trying to criticize, we'Re just telling you the facts. And so that was the middle-of-the-road contention. And then we had the radicals. This was the Henry Parkhurst and the Jimmy Burwells, the atheists who did not want any mention of God in the book at all. And they wanted a psychological book written in which they could lure the alcoholic into the fellowship and he could do whatever he wanted to about God. And so all those three factions influenced Bill and his writing. And we can see the three factions as they are in our book. They all had their day in court. and all had their influence on the writing of our big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And, of course, Bill was caught in the arguing of all, you know, the three factions. They were always arguing. Can you imagine those three factions getting together trying to decide something? Well, Bill is about ready to throw the book out and leave and he says we're just not going to go anywhere unless we get some sort of an agreement. And so the three fractions finally agreed that Bill would be the sole judge of what went in the book And that was the only way they got anyplace. Otherwise, folks, we may not be sitting here today. Now, Dr. Bob liked the steps as they were being evolved, and he said so. As they began to, the book got underway, and as it began to get down to the tail end of the book, they beganto wonder, what about maybe we made some errors in this book? Maybe we've offended religion or maybe we've offended medicine. And so they decided they would put together 400 mimeograph copies of the book, send it out to anybody who might be interested in it and to see if there's any criticism or any errors in those areas. And while they were waiting for the books to come back or any critique of the books, the after-meeting form of entertainment in those days was what to call themselves. They hadn't decided yet on the title not only of the book but of course they didn't know what to call themselves they were calling themselves a nameless bunch of drunks there had been some correspondence between Bill and the Rockefeller connection in which he had mentioned the word Alcoholics Anonymous and also on the copy of the mimeograph copies had been stamped a loan copy plus Alcoholics Anonymous to protect their copyright well as I say the after meeting form of entertainment was to try to determine what the hell to call himself and they were thinking about such book titles as 100 Men and then, of course, a woman came in and just messed that all up. The empty glass, the dry way, the dry life, the dry frontier, the way out, which happens to be one of the most popular titles at that time and the BW movement. That was Bill's idea. And, of coarse, when somebody reminded him of what a shameless piece of egotism that was, he said, Just kidding, just kidding. because he knew if it was the BW movement, he could sign as author. Well, Bill took the opportunity at that time to write to his friend Fritz who was in Maryland and ask him to go to the Library of Congress to check on two book titles, one called Alcoholics Anonymous and the other which was the most popular, The Way Out. So the next day or day after Bill, Fritz sends Bill a telegram in which he says there are no books there titled AlcoholicsAnonymous and there are 12 books titled The Way Up. And Bill says, we're not going to be the 13th way out. And so folks agreed, and that's how, in fact, we got our name. The copies of the mimeographed copies, Alcoholics Anonymous became the title of our book, and thus the name of our fellowship derives from that. So that's How We Got Our Name. Okay, they began to get some responses back, and a couple psychologists said, you've got too many musts in there, You've got to make suggestions, etc., etc. And shortly before the book went to print, there was a meeting in Henry's office in which they were still arguing about the God business and getting alcoholics down on their knees. And we don't know who's credited with the compromise or who suggested the exact wording, but the lead-in for the Twelve Traditions was changed to sound like suggestions instead of directions. And by the word God, the words as you understand him were inserted and the words on your knees were taken out of Step 7. And so such were the contributions of our atheist friend Henry and Jimmy Burwell and that bunch. And we look back on it and we don't know how many alcoholics we have in our fellowship who are here because we didn't make any strong demands and they were allowed to make their own determination about these things. And so our atheists did make contributions to us. Okay, getting close to book time, and Bill and Henry had forgotten about the Reader's Digest thing and they said, boy, we've got to get back down there and talk to this guy and tell him we're ready to go. And so Bill and Harry go down to see Kenneth Payne again just as the book is about to be printed and Henry says well we're ready to shoot and Kenneth Payne says shoot what and he says don't you remember we were here to see you a few months ago we're the fellas in that Alcoholics Anonymous Society and we have this book we're about ready to publish and you were going to do a piece on us and the guy says oh yeah I remember you two yeah you came in here right and I told you that it sounded like something we would be interested in but he says and I tell you that I'd have to check it out with my managing editors and you know lo and behold when I went to tell them about it they didn't like the idea at all they thought it would be a little too controversial medically and religiously speaking so they turned thumbs down on it he said i forgot to let you guys know it well they felt a sense of dejection which i can appreciate as they left kenneth payne's office and drove back to new york wondering how they were going to be facing their peers when they got back especially those that they had so much trouble getting any money out of and they would you know they were just sure they were gonna be jeered and say we told you so and you know we knew it wasn't gonna work and so and so forth but lo and behold they got back in that bunch of new york wasn't too bad after all they said where is your faith something will turn up and they tried to get some publicity and they didn't get much and they couldn't get mucho publicity and uh there was this alcoholic who was who was in new yorg city and his name was morgan and uh he came up with an idea he had been a radio advertising executive before his debacle with alcohol and uh being put away and he says i know gabriel heater uh and he said i'm going to go down and talk to him and he says if he remembers me he'll probably he might be willing to do a piece on us so it goes down to see gabriel here who had a radio show called uh we the people it consisted of a three minute interviews and uh when morgan came back and reported he said the the alcoholics the idea sounded great to him and he says he was going to interview me and then he's going to put in a plug for our book. Great, great news. And when Henry heard this he says another idea is coming up. He says what we need to do is contact all the physicians east of the Mississippi River. We need to send them a postcard encouraging them to listen to We the People on such and such a date and to send in an order for the book A Sure Cure for Alcoholism. But they didn't have any money. Well, Henry managed that to another con game. He got somebody to sign a promissory note that he got his $400 or $500, whatever was necessary to send out all those postcards and he did. And then he began to remember, well Morgan just got out of the asylum and they had about nine days to wait for this radio program to go and so what were they going to do with Morgan in the meantime? They knew the possibility existed very strongly that he'd get drunk. So Henry says, what we've got to do is lock that boy up. they found somebody who had a membership in the downtown athletic club in New York City and they persuaded Morgan to go down to the athletic club that he'd have to be put away for nine days and they put a guard on the door so that he couldn't get out and get drunk. Well, you've got to imagine how good a salesman Henry was to put that one over. And they did lock him up in the room and kept a guard around the clock and finally it got down to the time of the radio show And all of those who were sober and interested in Alcoholics Anonymous sat by their radios that evening as Gabriel Heater came on and interviewed Morgan. Done a great job. If you want to read the transcript of it, it's in the book Pass It On. And then he did put in a plug for the big book. Well, Henry and Ruth and Bill just absolutely held themselves in a chair for three days before they went down to the post office to get the orders for the books that they, you know, all the postcards he'd sent out. And they were just going to go down there but they said, well, let's give them time. Three days, they waited 72 hours and then each one of them go down with a suitcase in each hand to pick up all these postcards. Well, they get down there and they look in that little box. You know how them mailboxes are. Got a little glass in front of them. They look in there and there's a couple, three postcards that they can see. And, of course, Bill's heart dropped. But Henry says, no problem. He says, they're probably in the bags in the back of the room, I'll call the mail clerk out. Calls the mail clerk out and says we're here for our postcards and the mail clerks ultimately says well this is it. Twelve responses. Another $400 down the drain. Of the twelve responses they sold two books. Disheartening. Of course I'm sure them suitcases weighed more going back than they did coming over. But they were desperate. They didn't have any publicity at the time and they didn't know what to do. The Reader's Digest deal fell through. The Gabriel Heater radio show didn't provide the necessary publicity that they needed to get the book out to the public and they weren't making any money and they were being able to pay off the stock subscribers so things are going pretty desperate as a matter of fact one of the one of those things that occurred during that period of time was that Henry Parkhurst who was a great contributor to our book got on a dry drunk and eventually got drunk and it was during that time that I don't know exactly what took place but uh but he was persuaded to give up his 200 shares of stock and uh and the small office furniture that he had the rift seemed to have started when they wanted to move the office from where he wanted it to to a box closer to new york city and he didn't want ruth to go and he Didn't Want His Office To Go And So That Precipitated The Dry Drunk Which Led to his drinking. And then he got desperate for some money and they bought the stock off of him and his furniture. Well, the thing that really began to turn the corner for us was that Charlie Towns knew a writer by the name of Morris Markey who was a feature writer for the Liberty Magazine. And the Liberty magazine did an article on us called Alcoholics and God and they got 800 inquiries out of that article and began to sell some books and began to strike up correspondence with groups as they began all across this country as a result of that article. They were beginning to sell books at the agreed price of $3.50. I didn't tell you about the furor they had on trying to determine how much money they charged for that book, but $3 and 50 cents was the agreed price. From that article, they began to get some publicity and began the correspondence which ultimately led to a story which we'll get into Friday night on the evolution of the traditions which began with the writing of the Saturday Evening Post by Jack Alexander in which our population in 1941 sprang from 2,000 to 8,000 almost overnight basically as a result of this article. Alcoholics Anonymous was on the march beginning to sell some books and we were beginning to find ourselves all across this country. so that concludes the story of how the book came into being and leads us up to the Saturday evening post which we will begin to talk about as I say tomorrow night as we lead into the traditions so having heard all that as I said the story comes from A.A. Comes of Age and it's also documented in Pasadena I suggest strongly that you read the story and as you see how we evolve and how that book came to being it becomes a precious instrument I happen to have a copy of Charlie's book This is a copy. I mean, it's not a copy, this is one of the original 5,000 books that they couldn't get rid of. Now you can't find one, but they couldn'T get rid of them at one time. And the reason that it's called The Big Book is that when they decided to have it published at Cornwall Press, they wanted the alcoholic for $3.50 to think he was getting his money's worth. So they said, write it on the thickest paper you can. And such is The Big Books. And that's how it got its name because that's the size of the book compared to it today. and that's why we call it today affectionately the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous so with that I'm going to close take a short break Charlie and Joe will be back and we'll begin to discuss that big book thank you this concludes session number one of the third annual Northern California Big Book Seminar as presented by John Williams of Pompano Beach, Florida Please go to tape number two for Joe McQueenie and Charlie Parmley's discussion of the history of the big book, the forwards, and the doctor's opinion from the Big Book of Alcoholics.