The Original Manuscript Differences Between New York and Akron – Lee C.

First, my name is Lee, as I mentioned, alcoholic. My sponsor is a guy named Bob D. I think Al and I share a sponsor, and a few probably at the size of this meeting, probably other guys that Bob sponsors. I'm in Santa Maria, California, which is the northernmost part of Santa Barbara County, and my sobriety date is December 10, 1987. So, yeah, just a couple days ago, I celebrated 33 years of sobriety. I've been doing this stuff since about 1996 or 7, and so anyways, let's go with just resources. So Carl B., that's over 1959. Most of these people have passed away. Carl's no longer with us, but Carl lived here in Santa Maria, got sober in 59. Judith, New York archivist, not anymore, but she was for a while. Ernie Kurtz, Bill White. If their full name is up here, it means I met them in something other than Alcoholics Anonymous. They may be in AA, I don't know, but Ernie is somebody you might recognize the name, wrote a book called Not God. Bill White wrote a book called Slaying the Dragon, History of Alcoholism. We have a chapter in there, but he wrote, the whole book is about it. There's a chapter in there on cavemen, cave drawings, drinking and getting wasted, getting drunk. Sue Windows, Dr. Bob's daughter, and a bunch. I mean, I'm going to go fast through this, but I do got to mention Jack Prose. Jack P. got sober August 16, 1947, and at the San Fernando Valley Convention in 1999, he gave me. His first edition, first printing of the big book about Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a story in and of itself. Nancy O. got to mention Nancy. Nancy is a perfect example of the students surpassing the teacher. Nancy and I met on a big book study online, and I used to share about, you know, the people, places and things. One of the other talks I do is the people, places and things mentioned in the first 164 pages. Who's Jim, the car salesman? Who's Fred, the accountant? Who's the guy that killed himself in Bill's house? Stuff like that. And she was interested. And she was an older retired woman, and she took off and just, she started a whole web page on the history of AA, which I'll give you at the end of this thing. David Smitty, Dr. Bob's son, et cetera, et cetera. So let me move forward. Bob R. These guys helped me put this thing over on PowerPoint. This thing used to be on an overhead projector. Those of us old enough to remember elementary school and the teacher would have an overhead projector and pull down. I had my daughter. I was trained. My 10-year-old daughter would come with me when I did these presentations, and she'd pull the slide down knowing the timing. These guys put it on PowerPoint or helped me get better at it. And then the ghosting-length group behind the United States, the alcoholics behind the walls, the United States Penitentiary, Lompoc. I used to work at Lompoc Penitentiary years and years ago, and I used to give these talks every February at the San Fernando Convention, which is down in L.A. And I used to do dress rehearsal with these guys. And they helped me with presentation and whatnot. So the big book, it's written in a stilted, awkward style by a guy that had less than four years' experience in the subject matter. They didn't let that. And draft copies were typed by the secretary of a friend because he didn't have a secretary, didn't have an office. And there's Ruth, a picture of Ruth Hawke. Oh, which some of these photos are stock photos, and some of them you can't get. Some of them were shared with me by other people in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The pre-publication manuscript. The pre-publication manuscript was critiqued and debated by a handful of friends who did not let their lack of knowledge of the subject matter stop them from critiquing and criticizing. Yet it may one day be categorized as some of the most influential documents ever written. There's more than a million copies sold every year. And at this point, I usually pause and ask, who got, how long did it take us to get to the millionth copy? And who received the millionth copy? Obviously, in this form, and I can't. So I will just tell you. The millionth copy of Alcoholics Anonymous was given to me. It was given to a man named Richard Nixon, president at the time. And that was in the mid-60s. So it took us that long to get to a million copies from 1939 to mid-60s. Now we're printing a million copies every year. Translated in over 67 languages. Every time I give this talk, there's somebody that's involved in GSR or New York and whatnot. It might be 68 or 70 by now. But the last I knew, the last one, it was 67. And I was like, oh, I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. But it's responsible for generating the money that was used to retire the startup debt. Because we paid back most of what we had received from early on in the beginning of the movement. And it gave a name to the fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. Before this, we were. And again, this is normally a time when I'd throw it out to the audience and see. But given the format tonight or today. Before we were calling ourselves Alcoholics Anonymous, we were known as the nameless, punctured, drunks in New York and the or the alcoholic squadron of the Oxford group in Akron. And then because of the book, we've changed. And there's more to that story. But we got to be known as Alcoholics Anonymous. It describes a program of alcoholism and describes alcoholism and defines a program of recovery for the disease. It had baffled people of medicine and sociology and religion for a long, long time. Yet the beginnings of this book, Alcoholics Anonymous, were tenuous at best. So, Bill, when was the big book idea first discussed? You guys could hear that, right? Al, give me a thumbs up. You could hear that was Bill. No, no, I couldn't hear that. Tom, you could? Could not. Nobody else? So, didn't nobody heard that? Yes, one trick. No, one trick, Lee, is if you unshare your screen and then reshare it, there should be a checkbox to share computer audio. You might have to check that off. All right, let me let's try that. It's going to take a little time. I'm going to have to because this thing, the whole cool thing about this talk is me and Bill Wilson interacting. So let me get out of here. Let me go back here. How do I wait to hear? Oh, wait, where's my up here? Okay. I go leave. I don't want to do that. I don't stop share right there. Yeah. All right. Now share again. But when I. When I ask, it's going to ask me. I believe there'll be a checkbox to share computer audio when you select what you're going to share on the screen. Or should I do advanced sharing options? Because right now it gives me one participant or multiple participants can share. Let me try advanced. Yeah, no, that's all I'm having. And then one participant. All participants who can share. That's not it. I don't think it's sharing options. I think it's just as you go to share, it takes you to a screen where you choose what you're going to share. And on that screen, there's a checkbox. All right. Let me go here. So I'll go back to still go share screen. All right here. You're talking about. Let's see. Share sound. I got it. Okay. You got it. You called it. So. Go back to here. All right. Now you can see my screen again, right? Yep. Okay. If I go here. I was in the living room of. And I did there in the summer of 35. A little girl called. Let me briefly with it. He went on to find the first day in the world. So there's me. There's Bill Wilson. And there's obviously that's 855. Odd more. Bob Charles. I'll go back to you. So on this late fall afternoon in 1937. Let me and I were talking together in his living room. And sitting there with a gas log. And we began counting notes. How many people had state drive in action in New York. Maybe a few in Cleveland. How many had state drive and for how long. And I saw for the first time that this thing was going to succeed. And that God in his providence and mercy had thrown a new light into the dark caves where we and our kind had been and were still by the millions to us. I never can forget the elation and ecstasy that this thing brought to me. I was so happy. I was so happy. I was at peace as a folk. And then we fell happily together. I'm reflecting. We reflected that, well, a couple of scores of them. Well, that would have taken three long years. There's been a nice amount of data but a long time hasn't taken just to shovel up the insko. Could this hand be closed? The finest message to all those who still didn't know. Not all the drummers in the world could come to Hagman or to New York. So they had a discussion of ways to get the message out. So what were some of the ways discussed to get the message out? Well, most people, of course, know the book, because that's what this talk is about. But there were some other ideas, the subsidized missionaries, old timers, which had three months to six years at the time. So we're going to try. We're on a mission from God. We're going to go carry the message of this program and help people be sober. They're also going to start our own hospital, a chain of profit-making hospitals. So anybody that had done any work in history might have heard some of this stuff. We were being kicked out of and or not paying the bills in the ones we were in. So we were going to start our own hospital. And then also a book we had discussed, you know, because up until then, the message had been word of mouth. So if we got a book, it would not be garbled. We put it down right to get right there in black and white. Here's three pictures, four pictures of the first edition, second edition, third and fourth. And one of the talks I do is on the changes. What happened? What was the process going from the first to the second edition, second to the third and third to the fourth? And what I always like to point out. A lot of people don't know. But if you look on the fourth edition, I guess I can't put on here without. But if you look at the two A's, there's a block A and a leaning forward A. And as I understand it, the block A is meant to represent where we came from, our history and the strength of our basis in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that forward leaning A is to represent the future of Alcoholics Anonymous and where we're heading to. But Bob liked the book idea, but was dubious about the others. Took it to the group of A. The Akron group of 18, the home of T. Henry and Clarice Williams. And a photo. And this is some photos, stock photos that you'll look if you look them up on Google. So the key thing on this is 18. All right. Let's find out why. How did that? Tell us about that, Bill. At this point, they turned the meeting over to me. And being a salesman, I set right to work on them drunk banks. And such that it was a mission I was placed for then. And we touched on the book. And the group conscience consisted of 18 men, good and true. And the good and true men, you could see right away, were damn skeptical about it all. All lost with one voice, they called, let's keep it simple. This is going to bring money into this thing. This is going to create a perpetual flame. We all will be alone. Well, I counted, that's a very good argument. Lots of what you say. But even within gunshot, this very house, alcoholics are dying like flies. And if this thing doesn't move any faster than it has in the last three years, it may be another 10 before it gets to the house they're talking about. How in God's name? Are we going to carry this message to others? We've got to take some kind of chance. We can't keep it so simple as it comes to everything and get complicated. We can't keep it so simple at one time and get it though. So, Bill continued and he exerted himself to the, he says that he exerted himself to the utmost. And he says that the vote barely passed. And he mentioned, and I pointed out, 18. So nine and nine would be a tie. So 10 to eight, I mean, that barely passing. I mean, 11 to seven. I don't, 10 to eight would be nine to nine. I mean, 10 to eight would be, I guess, a close, barely passing. But regardless, it was a close vote. Not everybody said, let's do this stuff. The group told Bill it was going to take a lot of money and that he better get back, excuse me, get back to New York to raise it. And Bill. What are you going to do, White? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Sorry, Bill remembered his brother-in-law, Dr. Leonard Strong. So there's some pictures of Dr. Strong. Bill had married Dr. Leonard's sister, Dorothy. Here's a picture of Dorothy and here's Bill. He seemed to recall that Leonard had a friend who had a tie-in to Rockefeller. He couldn't remember what it was, but there was something that he thought he had a tie-in to Rockefeller. And he did. Dr. Strong made a phone call to Willard Richardson. Who administered the private charities of Rockefeller. So everybody asked Rockefeller for money, right? So Rockefeller set aside a committee of which Richardson was the chairperson. And said, you guys look at these things and decide whether or not I should give him money. And that's who Richardson was. The connection that Dr. Strong had to Willard Richardson is that Dr. Strong had dated his niece in college. That was it. Seconds and inches we talk about. And he'd been married to Bill's sister for some time now. But in college, he had dated this guy's niece. Bill was quite happy because this was the first person with money or access to money that was even interested in listening to him. And they set up a meeting. At the first meeting with Mr. Richardson, we talked about an exciting discovery. A terrific cure for alcoholism. Mr. Richardson invited Bill back for lunch. And at the... At the second lunch or the lunch after the first meeting, Willard Richardson, who you've heard of, Frank Amos, who's an advertising man for Rockefeller, A. Leroy Chipman, I've also seen it spelled Chapman, Rockefeller's real estate, and Albert Scott, the chairman of the board of Riverside Church, who plays, and you'll see in just a little while, a significant role in the things that are going to happen here. These four men in different degrees and in different methods. But they all, some of it you'll recognize, is in today's Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a picture of Willard Richardson. And there's a picture of Frank Amos. And a current picture, fairly current picture of Riverside Church. The meeting that was arranged at the luncheon took place in the winter of 1937 at Rockefeller Plaza. Bill and Bob were there. Dr. Silker was there and he spoke of the things that he'd seen take place. And drunk from a beer. Dr. Bill and Bob, who worked from Akron in New York, were there and told their stories. So like, like basically 10 minute speaker meeting. Each one of them got up and told a little bit about what had happened to them, what they were like now. Bill, how did that whole lunch end? They seemed very definitely impressed. So I could see that the moment for the big touch was coming. So I gingerly bought off the topic of the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, the drug tax, no plans, no poverty, no paid people. Just one carrying the good news to the net. Isn't that true? And may it not be that that is where the great power of this society lies. Now, if we stop the doctors, it might not all recalls false character. We want to do all we can. Well, We're gathered for that. But what if he won? Well, then the salesman all gave Mr. Scott the luck. And we said, what? Mr. Scott, they're only 40 of us. It's taken three years. Why, millions, Mr. Scott, for what? Before this thing ever gets sold, unless we have money and a lot of money. So they were worried because Scott got up and said, let's not give him any money. We don't need to give him any money. So Frank Amos, remember I mentioned him a little while ago, he volunteered to look into it. And the group ushered him off to Akron. Now, they're in New York. Why didn't they just take him to the meetings that they had in New York? And the reasons were... That's what Bill says. That's why they took him out to Akron instead of staying in New York. There's also been talk about that. They said in the old days, too, that that since Dr. Bob was a professional doctor, it would be good for them to see how hard up he was. How down on the, you know, things were. They needed money. He needed some money. So and that will come to play in a little bit. After his trip. Frank Amos went back to Willard Richardson with what he considered a modest proposal to give the group how much money. And then this is a point. Let me... And if we were live, it's a lot more fun. But $50,000. All right. Now, stop. Don't get upset yet. Let me finish the story. All right. This is what he started with. All right. $50,000. And I know there's people going, no, that's not... Just let the story play out. All right. That's what he went back and proposed. 50 grand. He said, let's give the group $50,000. These guys, 50 grand. Memories change. Depends on who you talk to. But that's what he said, what they got. Bill and the boys were happy with that. That amount meant that they could have the missionaries. They could have the hospitals. And they could do the book, too. All right. Richardson took the Amos report to Rockefeller. Here's some photos of Rockefeller. What did Mr. Rockefeller say, Bill? How did that go? No. He said, I don't think they want to spoil it with money. You say these two men who are heading into a little draft. I'll put $5,000 in Riverside Church Treasury. You folks can form yourselves into a committee and draw on it as you like. But please don't ask me for any more. So from $50,000 to $5,000 was a big jolt. But that's where, you know, a lot of you have heard about the $5,000. So whenever I bring up that $50,000, people start screaming in the audience. No, no, no. It's the $5,000. So now we're down to the $5,000 that many people have heard of. All right. But from $50,000 to $5,000 meant that they weren't going to be able to do any drunk tanks, no hospitals. They weren't going to be able to do any subsidized missionaries. It's just not enough money. $3,000 of the $5,000 went to pay the mortgage on Dr. Bob's house. And I forgot. I don't think I mentioned. I alluded to it a couple moments ago. And I usually talk about it in the very beginning of these talks. But I want to emphasize that people's memories are different. There's, I mean, that's, of course, knowledge. Everybody knows that. I mean, people remember things differently. And some of this stuff, it really depends on who remembered it first or who, how the person remembered it, I guess, would be the way to put it. And there are certainly some books out there. Snyder, I mean, Jimmy Burwell wrote one of the first books on the history of AA. He's, we'll talk about him a little while. But his memory was very different from what a lot of other people remembered. So the reason I bring all that up is because this $3,000 of the $5,000 went to pay Dr. Bob's mortgage was not, I hate to say gospel, but I mean, there was no any, nobody disputed it. There was never any, but that's, but in the last, I don't know, five years, somebody somewhere started some investigating and thinks that's not in fact the case. So if anybody in the audience. Tonight or today has heard any of that stuff. I acknowledge that with people, different people remember things differently. This is what has always been accepted. The $3,000 or $5,000 went to pay Dr. Bob's mortgage. Gradually, they drew on it at about $30 a week using the 2010 price index, consumer price index. That's about $457. I think I did it more recently and updated it and it was up to about $700. $30 then is about $700 now. Not giving up. Because remember, it went from 50 to five. Bill and the boys met again with their newfound friends. Someone suggested creating a foundation, which led to the Alcoholic Foundation created in 1938. Bill used to joke that they don't know why they called the foundation alcoholic because it wasn't it. We were. I thought it was funny. But that is gradually transferred over to becoming Federal Service Office in New York. The board of directors, Frank Amos. You've heard of him. Willa Richardson. You've heard of him. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. And the key thing he that that he brought to the table besides being an attorney, but he asked for a definition of alcohol and an alcoholic. And, you know, if you know, in the big book, we really don't define if if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Or if you if when you drink, you find you have little control over the amount you take. That's about the best definition of an alcoholic we have in the big book. So we didn't have one, but he wanted a legal definition for an alcoholic. like Dr. Bob Smith, you know, Bob and Bill Ruddell, or it was the first two, two alcoholic trustees on the board. And in 1939, it got adjusted. A couple more people, Leonard Strong. You guys remember him? He's Dr. Bob's son. I mean, Bill's son-in-law. I'm sorry, Bill's brother-in-law. Dr. Bob, you heard Bill and Harry Brick. I've also seen it spelled Bruck with a U. The first board meeting, to the first board meeting, Bill brought a couple of chapters to a book that he was going to propose, the one we had been talking about. Frank Amos also mentioned that he had a friend, a guy named Eugene Exon, who was the religious editor over at Harper's Brothers Publishing. And Bill met with Eugene on the introduction, and he sounded out Bill's ability to complete this book, then offered to give him a $1,500 advance royalty. That's a lot of money back in 1935. 1935. 1938. That's a lot of money. But there were some problems. Bill and the group, especially one member of the group, were very skeptical about it. And one of them is Hank Parkhurst. You know, I hear a lot about Hank in this talk and in one of the other talks. And a lot of people don't even know who Hank is, and he's so instrumental in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous. But the concerns that they had regarding the publishing of the book is that if Harper's was willing to advance $1,500 to Bill, who had never written anything before, it must be worth millions, was the argument. Secondly, if Bill ate up the royalty while writing the book, after the book gets published, it would take a long time to catch up. Because remember, it was an advance. It wasn't free money. They're saying, we'll give it to you now. Then it would take, you know, when they're out of the sales, they'd take their commission and then pay back the amount that was fronted to Bill. So, also, if this should become the main, the main textbook for our group, would we really want someone else in control of it? Because what would they do about inquiries? Because the inside of the left dust jacket would have Harper's, and Harper's address is what would be there. And did we want people there to be the ones to talk? That's where the letters would go to. Is that what we really wanted? I don't know. They didn't think so. And also, a lousy 10% royalty seemed pretty small. And then after lengthy discussion, we decided we'd do the book, the book project ourselves. This is when the book project really took off. And Bill says, don't worry. I had a guy helping me on this thing. We had red hair, 10 times my energy and some of them already lost. Good. Bill is a sucker. Come on with me. We walk into a stationery store. We buy a cat of black stock certificates. We write a card to talk about them. We're a publishing company. Probably not a good company. I'm going to value $25. Totally illegal. That's not how you form a company. That's not the way you do it then. It's not how you do it now. But that's how they did it. They, you know, they went to, they went and bought a bunch of stock certificates and said, here we go. We're in business. And that was Hank Parker's. And as he said, or he said, prior to that part that I cut and pasted into there, he talked about Hank being the undisputed fire behind the writing of the big book of Alcohol Autonomous. Without Hank, we probably would not have a book. Bill, if you go back to 10, 15 slides, when he was talking about subsidized missionaries, and he jokingly said, because I was pretty poor then, what Bill wanted was a subsidized missionaries. He wanted to get, get paid to be doing all that, or get reimbursed at least for doing all the stuff that he was doing. All right. He wasn't all that interested in a book. Hank Parker was the undisputed fire behind the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. So they had works publishing companies, the name they came out with. Why works? And this, again, didn't used to have any controversy. Now it's got a little bit. Faith Without Works is dead. It works. It really does. So the first of many works was all ones that had been put out there. But Faith Without Works is dead is what the generally accepted answer is. Hank Parker's got a third for services rendered, because Hank's going out and selling these. So Hank's going to meetings and selling these stocks. Twenty-five bucks. And I think I'm going to talk about it in a minute. Which 25 back. If 30 bucks back then. Is about 700 now. Twenty-five bucks back then is about 650, maybe six and a quarter now. Bill took a third for services rendered because he's going to write this book. He hasn't done it yet, but he's going to. And then Hank took the rest of the meetings to sell. So think of it now. I mean, let's see what Bill had to say about that. How did that go, Bill? It was just all he loved. What the hell? You made it say you're asking us to buy stock in a book that you ain't written yet? Remember, Bill's got no experience writing books. None. He hasn't done it. So they started. Think of it. Let's say, let's say, you know, Al's going to write a book and I'm coming to your meetings in Virginia and I'm saying, look, I was going to write this book. It's going to be a great book. And when he sells, it's going to make a lot of money. But right now you can buy. You can get awesome. You can get a book for five bucks a pop or twenty five bucks, five bucks a week for five weeks, whatever you want to do. And or but if it's nowadays, let's say it's six and a quarter. So let's say a hundred bucks every week for six weeks and then you can pay the rest off. How many of you are going to do it? Not a whole lot of us are going to be doing it for some stock in some company that for a book that Al's never written before, has never written in a book that's not even written yet. So we met with Rock of Readers Digest and mentioned our connection with Rockefeller. With a guy named Kenneth Payne asked if Reader Digest would be interested in our story in a story about our fellowship. And Bill, how did that meeting with Mr. Payne go? Well, Mr. Payne said, I'm sure the Digest would like it. He said, I'll take it up with the editorial board. And he said, when the time is right and you get all ready to shoot, come on up and we'll put a special feature writer on this thing and we'll tell all about your style. And then Michael Morton said, I'm going to write a book. And I said, well, I'm going to write a book. And he said, well, I'm going to write a book. And I said, well, I'm going to write a book. And he said, well, I'm going to write a book. And I said, well, I'm going to write a book. And Bill said, well, that's a good book. And I said, well, that's a good book. And he said, well, I'll write a book. And you said, I'll write a book. And Bill said, I'll write a book. And I said, well, that's a good book. And so I said, well, I'll write a book. And so I said, well, that's a good book. And Mr. Payne said, well, do you mention the new book in the piece? Oh yeah, I guess Mr. Payne mentioned the new book. So that meant free advertising to 12 million readers. Hank Parker is the one again pushing it, saying, OK, so in this Reader's Digest speech, you'll mention us, you'll mention the book. And he said, yeah, we will. And remember, he said, when you guys are ready to shoot, contact me and we'll get on this. So now with such backing, the shares are a little bit easier to sell. Installment for some, which I talked about. Because remember, now we're saying, look, now I'm coming to meetings and I'm telling you, hey, there's going to be an article in the Wall Street Journal about this book and about this company here. And when that article gets written, these stocks are going to go. So you've got an inside track if you want to buy them now. But now a few more of you would probably buy these $650 stock certificates from me for a book that Al's going to write, even though Al's never written a book before. You know, you might. It might help a little bit. Bill wrote and he dictated to Ruth Hawk. He's the secretary for Hank Parker's over at Honor Dealers. His office was in Newark. Soon had a couple of chapters in the rough, but the alcoholics did not like those chapters. Not at all. So Bill's writing and Bill Wilson might be the founder of our society. But let's see how this went. So. What was that like, Bill? I suddenly discovered that I was in this horrific world full of arguments. I was just the umpire. I finally had to stipulate. Well, boys, over here, you've got the holy rollers and say we need all the good old fashioned stuff in the book. And over here, you tell me we've got to have a psychological. And I never heard anybody and they didn't do much with Dr. In the mission. So I guess you'll have to leave me just to be the umpire. I'll scribble out the rock here and show them here. Let's get the comments in. And so we fought, bled and died our way through one chapter after another. I just love the way he talks. Fought, bled and died our way through one chapter after. You ever been to a business meeting? Well, there you go. They had business meetings like we sometimes do today. Back then, even when they were writing the big book or when Bill was writing the big book. I was writing the big book. I was writing the big book. Also decided to have a case history section, probably from the book Twice Born Men by a guy named Harold Begbie. Twice Born Men is a book that talks about the Christian experiences of men and how they found Jesus. And the second half of it is stories of their stories. The first part tells how they did it. Second part is them writing their stories. And it also has a footnote in the narrative. It's a narrative by Professor William James, a variety of religious experiences, which many of you have heard of or know what we're talking about there. Akron played a vital role. Largely, it was larger and had more case histories. But also we had this guy, Jim Scott, who was a newspaper man. His story was in the first edition of the NewsHawk. He interviewed and edited or rewrote the 18 stories from Akron. And it depends. Some people, he said, some people's memories remember him interviewing. Some people remember him writing them. Some people remember him, we wrote them and submitted them to him for him to edit. But either way, it came out that way. 18 of the original 28 were from Akron, the stories. The 10 stories from New York were a little bit more difficult to produce because Bill and Hank met with a whole lot of editing. I mean, a resistance to their editing. So, again, think of it. If you're going to submit your stories to an editor from the Akron Beacon Journal or any newspaper, you're going to sit. You're going to submit your story to be edited by an editor. It's not so much. OK, yeah, it makes sense. How about you're going to have him submit them to me? I'm an accountant and I'm going to edit your story that you're going to. Well, no. Who do you think you are to edit my story? And that's sort of how they fell. They didn't. No one wanted Bill and Hank to edit their stories. But edit them. They did. Bill says the stories were completed by the latter part of 1939. On a side note of the original 28. How many? How many obtained continuous sobriety? And easily I let everybody guess, but we'll just go forward. 14. 14 of the original 28 stories in the Big Book of Alcohol Anonymous read continuous sobriety. Of the 14 that relapsed, did any regain sobriety? Seven. So there's your percentages. And seven never regained sobriety. So 50% success rate when they first came and 75% total success rate is what they had in the early, early days. Or how they remembered it anyways. So Bill continued to write. And he got to Chapter 5. Up until then, it had been a how many step program? I usually throw it out and we talk about it. It had been a six-step program. Many people knew that or know that. What were the six steps? That catches people sometimes. A six-step program. And I usually, you know, you sometimes see them in a different order. So the order is not like our 12 steps where they're in an order for a reason. These don't necessarily have the same purpose in step. But in their relation to each other. So sometimes you might see them written differently. But complete deflation, dependence and guidance from a higher power, immoral inventory, confession, restitution, and continued work with other alcoholics was a six-step program at that time. Bill says he was lying on his bed feeling sorry for himself. All the woes and turmoils he was going through. And then what happened, Bill? And so this is from his talk in 1954. In Dallas, Texas. And it's Bill telling how he came up with the 12 steps. There's new. There are people who think differently. People who think that this is not. That's not how Bill came up with the 12 steps. And I don't know. I don't argue it. All I can do is this is what Bill says. And he was there. I understand our memories get changed. But here's what happened. What happened next, Bill? Remember, so we have a six-step program. Bill was in his room. And. Well, it was a pad of paper by the bed. And I reached for that. And I said, well, now you've got to break this program up into small pieces so they can't wiggle out. So I started right. Trying to bust it up into little pieces. And when I got the piece, he sat down on that paper. I put numbers on. I was rather agreeably surprised when it came out at 12. Why would he be agreeably surprised that it came out at 12? Well, because remember, we were part of the Oxford group. We had been part of and we used to open our meetings and some men still do in Akron with readings from the Bible. 12 steps, 12 disciples, 12 disciples, 12 steps. It was like perfect. You know, he thought it fits in really well. And they always joke, too. That. Are you? He used to joke about the 12. One. One of the disciples was Judas. Right. A person that really wasn't on the same team. And one of the steps is a Judas step. Which step is that Judas step? It's that one you absolutely believe does not apply to you. That's the Judas step. But Bill, what happens now? Nobody had asked Bill to put this down into little pieces so they can't wiggle out of it. It just he just decided to do it on his own. Six steps were working just fine. Nobody had any complaints. Nobody said, Hey, Bill, why don't you change these six steps? Make it 12. Why don't you do something with them? Let's nobody had said that. He just did it on his own. Took it back to the group and. Meaning and boy, pandemonium broke loose. What do you mean by changing the program? What about this? What about that? This thing is all the Lord has got. We don't like this. You got these guys on their knees. Stand them up. This thing is. A lot of these guys are scared to death of being God. That let that guy out of his head. So we had guys. So first of all, what do you mean by you got these guys on the knees? Stand them up. You originally wrote on humbly on our knees. Ask God to remove these shortcomings. So he took that part out. And what do you mean by changing the program? I mentioned that overloaded with God. You know, there were some of us. There's a couple of people. Fitz Fitzmao was one that wanted this. They wanted God on every page. He wanted this thing to be powerfully religious. And there were others. Jimmy Burwell is the most well-known. But Hank Parkhurst was also who. Didn't. Want. God mentioned at all in this thing. So you got some that wanted to be powerfully religious and others want no God mentioned at all. And. What came out of that argument and discussion and dissension bill. That argument caused the introduction of a phrase which has been a lifesaver by thousands. It was certainly not a my doing. I was on the pious side then. You see, still suffering from this big hot flash in my face. The idea of God as you understand him. Came out of that. Perfectly. Ferocious. Not. Again, I love his wording out of that perfectly ferocious argument. I mean, but God, as you understand him and it's generally credited, as I mentioned earlier, to Jimmy Burwell and Jimmy Burwell ended up living in San Diego, which is where I grew up, you know, and if I had just known, no, I could have gone and interviewed him. Hey, man, in 30 years, I'm going to be in a telling you a little bit more about it. But I didn't know. January 1939, the book was completed. But there were some concerns about medical errors. There were concerns about anything that might offend religious leaders. And so what we did is we had 400 copies of the final draft, multi-list and sent to doctors, preachers, psychiatrists, police. Anybody that had anything to do with drunks is what Bill said is who he tried to send it out to to get their opinion on it. And there were some changes made. I think it's coming up. The Catholic Church. There was some part in there where we had talked about heaven. And what Bill had mentioned, getting you to heaven. And. And the church said, no, man, it's our job to get him to heaven. You get him sober. And he changed it from heaven to utopia. Possible tiles. This is always fun. So the multi-list title drafts were titled Alcoholics Anonymous. And the Akron wanted to call the book The Way Out. New York wanted to call the book Alcoholics Anonymous. It took a group conscience. And which one won? The Way Out. There were more people. There were more of us in Akron. The Akron group was larger. They had more people. They took the group conscience. Akron won. The Way Out is going to be the name of our book. But Hank Park, I'm sorry, Fitz Mayo, A number two in New York. He went down to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. And found out that there were 12 other books called The Way Out. And out of superstition, we did not want to be the 13th book called The Way. Out. So there were some other possibilities. Haven. Dry Frontiers. The Empty Glass was considered. Comes the Dawn was considered. 100 Men was considered. Bill Wilson movement was looked at for a minute. But that one didn't fly. Imagine who wanted that one. So they took a vote. And 100 Men won. Akron wanted to call it 100 Men. New York wanted to call it Alcoholics Anonymous. There are more in Akron than in New York. 100 Men. It is. Why is our book not called 100 Men? Because of Flo Rankin. Flo Rankin was sober. Just long enough to say you can't call it 100 Men. I'm here. You got to call it 100 Men and One Woman. All right. And she died drunk. Fitz Mayo, the guy that I mentioned on the way out, he went down to D.C. And identified her body. But she was sober just long enough. After ice cream and now doing it, though, and then she called up his daughter Beth and said we'll call her exponential gambling. Please believe in this man that our book is not called 100 men. The last stop before publication was the desk at Tom's friend at Hank's Zell was an editor and cars and taught writing at NYU. I mean, that's some serious credentials right there. a teacher at New York University. The manuscript was at that time 600, 800 pages. Tom cut it down to 400. From whence came the name Alcoholics Anonymous? This is not disputed. Generally attributed to a guy named Joe Warden. Joe Warden attended one meeting and suggested the name. He was sitting in the, as the story goes, the guys were thinking about it, well, throwing out all these names. And he said, well, aren't you just a bunch of anonymous alcoholics? Why don't you just call it that, Anonymous Alcoholics? And it kind of stuck, and they flipped it around, and there's our name. Meanwhile, money was low. So we're getting the book together, but money's running low. Approach Charlie Towns at Towns Hospital. Here's a clear photo of that doorway. I love that car. It's such a cool car. And Charlie Towns loaned us $2,500 through the foundation. Then the book went to press, to Cornwall Press. Mr. Blackwell was, the man who ran that. Here's some photos of the Cornwall Press, what it looked like. Estimated 5,000 copies based on the scheduled plug-in Reader's Digest. Remember Kenneth Payne back over in the Kenneth Reader's Digest, and he had talked, we had talked to them, and Hank Parkhurst had said, you'll mention our book, right? And the guy said, yeah. And it was free advertising to 12 million readers, right? Put the printing costs on account, because we didn't have any money to pay Mr. Blackwell, so we told him we'll pay him when these books start selling. Book went to print. We're doing the deal. And went back to Reader's Digest, Kenneth Payne. Now, what'd you do then, Bill? So we go up to the Reader's Digest, we walk in on Mr. Kenneth Payne, and we said, Mr. Payne, we're all ready to shoot. And Mr. Payne said, shoot what? Oh, yes, he said, I remember you, Mr. Pundit and Mr. Willis. You were the gentleman up here last fall. He said, I told you that I thought the Reader's Digest would be interested in this new work and in this book. But he said, right after you were here, I consulted our editorial board, and to my great surprise, they didn't like the idea at all, and I forgot to tell you. What? Bill and Hank were shocked. They had been counting. They'd been selling. Hank had been going to meetings talking about... There's an article in the Reader's Digest that was going to come out, and it was what helped him sell stock. We had a bunch of drunks with $5,000 in it, because they'd been buying those stocks from Hank. Charlie Towns was owing $2,500. Remember, he loaned us $2,500. The printer, Mr. Blackholmes, was owing another $2,500, and we had $500 left in the bank. So what happened next, Bill? Well, this fellow Morgan Ryan, a good-looking Irishman. He was taking the book's public capital committee on publication. Has been, in earlier time, a good ad man. He said, I know Gabriel Heeter. And Gabriel Heeter is putting on these three-minute hot plug programs on the radio. He said, I'll get an interview with Gabriel Heeter. Maybe he'll interview me on the radio about all this. The arrangements were made for the interview of Morgan Ryan. And then, he was invited by Gabriel Heeter to talk about, which was promoting at that time, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. His radio show was called We the People. And then, all of a sudden, we had a big show. We thought, well, supposedly, this Irishman got drunk before here. Interview him. So, what do I want to see here? And, lo and behold, here, what interview? And then, we got still horse game. So, we landed a role in the downtown athletic club. And we put Morgan in there with a day and night guard for 10 days. That was the original watch. I don't know how familiar you guys are with the Pacific Group. But the Pacific Group has a watch at midnight. Before somebody's birthday, everybody stays up until midnight, until that person's birthday. And then, drink our coffee and go home. And so, there was the original. That was the original watch way back then, 1939, to make sure this guy stayed sober long enough to at least do the interview with Heeter. In the meantime, what happened next, Bill? Well, there should be, you know, a follow-up on a big thing like this Heeter interview. There will be 100 all over the country, national network. And now, he said, I think, folks, that the big market for this book are the doctors, the physicians. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Here's a copy of a picture of what the postal cards look like. We the people program, April 25th. All you got to do is sign it, put your name and address, mail it back in. After the interview, anxious to check the P.O. box and here's what P.O. boxes in the old days used to look like. Nowadays they don't, but they used to have glass so you could see if you had any mail in them or not. They waited for a few days and you could see through the window that there weren't many orders when they got there, but Hank figured that there were so many of them they couldn't get them all into that little P.O. box. They figured they had big bags waiting for them behind the counter. How'd that go, Bill? So we go to the clerk and he brings us out 12 larger postal cards. Ten of them completely illegible, written by Dr. Ducky's monkey. And we had exactly two orders for the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And we were absolutely and utterly stony-po. The sheriff then moved in on the office. Paul, Mr. Blackwell, wondered what to do for money and felt like taking the book over. And at that very opportune moment, the house in which Lois and I lived was foreclosed and we and our furniture was set out and sold. And that was the date of the book Alcoholics Anonymous in the summer of 1939. So tenuous at best, I said in the beginning of this talk. Tenuous at best. The things did not go smooth. Then the groups began calling for the money. Remember, Hank had been coming to meetings selling the stock and we were buying it. So now it's me. Remember, we take it to today's world. I'm coming to your meetings. I'm selling these 600 pounds. I'm selling these $150 stock certificates to you on this book that Al's going to write. And now it's not looking like Al's going to be writing it. It's like the article did not come out like I had promised you in the Wall Street Journal. And you start worrying and saying, I want my money back. And that's what was happening. The people, we were saying, give me our money back. Bill began shopping around for publicity, which led to a promise from Liberty magazine. And that did come through. But we still needed money now. So Bill approached a guy named Bill. Burt Taylor. He said, I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. He was a new guy, a newcomer. He owned a fashionable clothing business on Fifth Avenue. And how'd that go, Bill? I went to Burt one day and I said, Burt, there is a promise of an article at Liberty magazine. I just got it today. But it won't come out until next September. It's going to be called Alcoholics and Guns. It'll be printed by Liberty magazine's Fulton Adler, the then editor. And Burt, he said, I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. I want my money back. And Burt, when that piece is printed, why, these books will go out in carload lots. We need a thousand dollars real bad to get it through the tunnel. But Burt was broke too. But he knew a guy. He knew William Cochran who owned the Cochran School of Art down in Washington DC. Burt said, Mr. Cochran, our fellowship has just come out with a magnificent new textbook. Sure, sure, for alcoholism, for the drug world. It's just that we've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. We've got to make it happen. Mr. Cochran, it's something that we think that every public library in America should have. And Mr. Cochran, the retail price of the book is $250. But Mr. Cochran, if you just buy a couple of thousand of those books and put them in the large library, of course, we would sell for that purpose at a considerable discount. Mr. Cochran said no, not interested. Burt said, well, Mr. Cochran, some publicity has come out about, will come out next week. I don't know if it's going to be a big deal. I don't know if it's going to be a big deal. I don't know if it's going to be a big deal. I don't know if it's going to be a big deal. Hattie said, we don't have all about this new book, Alcoholics Anonymous but, ah, in the mean time, the books are moving rather slow and we need, ah, say, $1,000 to tie this over. And, ah, would you loan the works publishing company $1,000? Well, said Mr. Cochran, what did this balance sheet look like, this works publishing company. And, as we learned what the works publishing looked like, Mr. Cochran said no thanks. Well, Mr. Cochran, we're going to say yes. Okay. And, next week, the $1,000 is going to be, ah, what? So, yeah, we really didn't have any financial statements. And Bert said, well, now, Mr. Cochran, you know me. Would you loan the money to me on the credit on my business? Why, certainly, Mr. Cochran said, send down your note, Mr. Taylor. So Bert talked the business, but a year or two later, it was a gold book anyway. He saved the book Alcoholics Anonymous, $30,000 over a choice. We lasted until the Liberty article came in. So after the article, we received about 800 inquiries, and we squeezed, Bill continues in that talk, and he says we squeezed through 1939. And so, you know, seconds and inches again. $1,000 lasted until that. And that article, as obviously here, it did come out. It was printed. But who was watching all this time? In February 1940, Mr. Richardson came to a Carthage meeting, and he said, I have great news. Mr. Rockefeller, who we hadn't heard from since 1937, we were told had been watching all the time with amazement. More or less, Mr. Rockefeller would like to give this fellowship a dinner, to which he would invite his friends to see the beginning of this new and promising start. And here's a copy of the invitation. So Harry Emerson Foswick, who was there, who spoke highly of the fellowship. Foster Kennedy spoke on the medical aspects. Clarence Snyder, Morgan Ryan, and Paul Stanley were there. Bill told his story. Another picture, I think. Yeah, here's another photo of Harry Foswick. Riverside Church played a big role. Well, the bankers had come probably as a sort of a command performance, and they were a little suspicious that perhaps it was another salvation deal. But they warmed up. I want to be influential. Mr. John. Mr. Ryan, the hero of the hero episode, Phil Silver. For example, this table was asked by a distinguished banker, why, Mr. Ryan, we presume that you are the banking person. Mr. Ryan said, not at all, sir. I'm just a great guy on the side. So we cleaned up. We look good, man. And so, you know, in this case, Ryan Morgan's in a business suit like all the rest. And they did not know, you know, they hadn't known, where we had come from. How did Rockefeller dinner go? But so glad that so many of his friends can see the beginning of this great and wonderful thing. Something that Rockefeller said that has affected his life more than almost anything that has crossed him. Thank you. Yeah, it's a tender slug that was. And sudden. Now, but but gentlemen, this is the work that proceeds on Goodwill. It requires no money. Well, over a two billion dollars, I don't want that. So we were there to get money. And that's what we wanted. We were hoping to get lots and lots and lots of money. And now they. and the son says we don't don't give him any money but after the dinner rockefeller bought 400 books at a dollar a piece and then donated a thousand dollars so if you look at that it's fourteen hundred dollars divided by 400 books so the actual price was three dollars and fifty cents that's what we were charging 350 for the books so that thousand dollars the reason he donated it so he could write it off on his taxes writing it off to a charity others from the dinner donated as well a total of about three thousand dollars which were split between dr bob and bill um we solicited that dinner dinner list for the next five years or so receiving about three thousand dollars a year after the rockefeller dinner and the subsequent press the books began to sell we paid ruth and hired another girl remember ruth hawk the secretary that was typing up the big book we had paid her originally in stock certificates we didn't have any money we paid her in stock certificates which did eventually prove worth a while for her but at the time um but we paid her hired another girl and then bill after five years of solicitation we were able to say to mr rockefeller we don't need any more money the book income is helping to support our office the groups are contributing to fill in the loyalties are taking care of dr bonnison bill wilson so we're just started books concludes thanks great so now we have to look at similar stories portland with vous and ben quier living in chile america just had to step on a damn i don't know if this person ringing in his video sup ha ha we'll first get to holly's act he's the new resentment police attorney and i went to get a little bit of what was happening i'm with you uncert 뭐 60 minutes of his day, hard nose. He wasn't there. He had just completed a major story exposing the New Jersey rackets. So he was, he had some courage. He wasn't there thinking he was coming. He was coming in to uncover and discover some fraud is what they expected. They thought that we were the, this AA group would just want people to give money, but really wasn't doing that. And in the end, what he found out is that we were for real. He prided himself on his cynicism. So again, if you think of him as 60 minutes of his day, that's what he was. He did the article and all those things came out and we started getting a whole lot of book sale. The forward to the first edition says we have alcoholics anonymous for more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. And based on the recovery in the world today in the United States, in Santa Maria, where I am in Virginia, where you are in all in between the United States and all over the world, it seems to have been successful. And with that, I mentioned Nancy. This is the book she started was called AA History Buffs, but it got zoom bombed, so to speak, or whatever. It got overtaken. So if you're interested in AA in history, AA History Lovers at Yahoo Groups, it is a moderated group. You can't just post in it. You can't just go there and post. And a lot of times nowadays, if you go and post a question in there, the moderator, when he has time, he'll get back to you and he'll tell you, oh, Nancy died. Nancy passed away. Probably 10 years ago. So he'll give the moderator tell you that's that question has already been answered. Go to post number and he'll tell you where to go. You know, I think that we've had this history lovers group for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, a long time. So if you're interested, there you go. And there's my contact information. If you turn off my big book, the song is Big Book Pussy type by Doug R. He has my notes on route. And he's free. And Carver Duck. And I'm not sure. That turns off all that. And yeah, that's it for me. I can take questions or whatever you want or whatever is moderating. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.