The Oxford Group and Early AA – Spiritual Maintenance Workshop – Part 5 of 5 – James L.

Hi, everybody. My name is Tali and I am an alcoholic and my sobriety date is April 26 of 1990 And I'm going to be introducing James L from Tallahassee, Florida He's gonna be sharing with us about the history of AA. Take it away James Good to see you. Thank you Tali. Hi everybody. James Lee alcoholic I am from Talahassee. Hi, anybody. I'm from Tlahassee Florida January 3rd 1984 is my sobrietty date and uh i'm very happy to be here thanks paula and mike for asking me to do this uh and tolly thank you for the introduction uh uh mike i think the first thing i should do is share my screen so if you would just unmute yourself for a second let me know if this is being shared i would appreciate it it's white right now yeah that's good okay uh i have a um powerpoint that i'm going to be using so hopefully y'all can see that and uh then we're going to tell the story now just so you know i've given this talk several times but i've never given it online so i have no idea how this is going to go but i'm excited to give it a try so uh yeah so let's do this now uh i'm you know I'm I really love talking about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous mainly because this is just my opinion uh my opinion of the aa history is that that god has has had his finger touching alcoholics anonymous long before aa was formed and um that's what i want to talk about uh today is alcoholics autonomous then the miracle of aa before AA ever was. So what I'm going to do is tell kind of part of the AA story. Now, before I get started, I'm gonna say this facts are important. I'm a throw a few facts in here just because you know, I may get a fact or two wrong. So if I do, I welcome you to reach out to me and let me know. But while facts are important, I think there's something more important about this story. And that's the power behind the facts and that's what i really hope i talk about here is the power of god which is behind the story of alcoholics anonymous all right so you know that uh line in the big book it says the spark that was to flare into the first a group was struck at akron ohio in june 1935 during a talk between a new york stockbroker and akron physician that's in forward to the second edition of the big book and that's basically when bill uh met dr bob and then soon after aa was formed that's actually the end of this story so this story ends at this point in aa history so we're going to talk about what came before bill and bob met and what i want This talk is really about three people who influenced Alcoholics Anonymous, again, from before it was formed. The first is Dr. William D. Silkworth. We all know Dr. Silkforth, right? He wrote The Doctor's Opinion. So he's pretty well known in AA circles. There's Dr. Carl Young. Many of us knew about Dr. Young before he even got sober because he was a pretty famous guy. And, of course, he's in the second chapter of the big book. So most of us know about Dr. Young And then there's a guy named Frank Bookman Who formed the Oxford Group And not many of us knew about it I think some of us probably know a little bit about the Oxford group But maybe not too much So we're going to talk a bit about The Oxford Group Now the first time I gave this talk Just so you know I gave the talk And the title of the talk was Early AA History. And I thought, well, that's really what it is, right? Early AA history. And then I thought man, if there was ever a lame title for a talk, it's early AA history, that just doesn't reach out and grab you, right. So I gave this talk and then I was with my wife Jane and she and I were discussing the talk after I gave it. And I said, you know, the title is really bad. We need to come up with a title. So then we started talking about what this talk is about. It's about these three guys right here. And these three guys came before AA was formed. And these Three Guys were really bright lights in the world of alcoholism and would be these bright lights and the formation of AA. So I thought, you know, there's this spark that was formed, but before the spark came these bright light and I thought they burned like a flame. So up came the title of the talk, The Flames Before the Spark. So now that is a catchy title, I think. Anyway, so that's what we're going to talk about. We're going start with the Oxford Group. It was founded by this guy named Frank Bookman. Now there's a lot of ways to pronounce his name. I'm going to go with the Bookman pronunciation. Some people call it Buckman, Buchman. I'm doing with Bookman anyway. He was a guy who – and by the way, there's a book out there about his life, about Frank's life, and it's called On the Tail of a Comet. It's named that here in the States. Over in Europe, I think it's called – I can't remember what the title is, but here in The States it's call On the Tail of a Comet. And it's a really excellent book. It is available to purchase, but you don't really have to because there's a website, frankbookman.info. If you go there, you can read this book online for free. And anyway, he was a really interesting guy. Oh, before I start talking about him, there's also a documentary that was recently released about Bookman's life. It's called The Man Who Built Peace, which is a pretty stunning title if you think about it. But that was his life's work, is building peace in the world. And there are some AA members who are in this documentary. So it's kind of fun to – and AA is mentioned. So you can watch the film and think about this guy's influence on AA. So here's the start of the story of Frank Bookman's life and life's work. What did it all start with? A resentment. Ah, yes, some of the best actions in AA started with a resentment, right? Anyway, so a quick story about Frank. He was born in Pennsylvania way back in 1878. He became a Lutheran minister, and he was ordained early in the 1900s. And he had a passion of working with kids who had needs, poor kids, kids living on the street. So he convinced six rich friends of his to bankroll a hostel in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, which is kind of near the philadelphia area so he got these six rich guys they built they created this hostel and uh bookman ran the hostel helped all these kids now he was looking around the hostel you know and this was his life life's work and he he wanted uh he wanted it to be good so he was looking right inside you know these kids aren't eating well they need to eat better you know rice and beans every night's not not doing it so he goes to the rich guys who were on the board who were funding this thing and he said hey man uh we need more money and these guys were like no frank you're not getting any more money. And you know I don't know about you but if I went to my board of directors and asked for more money they didn't give it to me I would get a resentment and that is exactly what Frank got. He got a resentment. And this is the kind of resentment I don' t know if any of you have had these kind but they made him physically ill. He was stressed. He was exhausted. He was depressed. Does this – did anybody identify with this? And he got really, really sick. And then he went to the doctor, and the doctor said, Frank, you're exhausted. You're depressed. You need to go on a vacation. So he decided to go On A Vacation to Europe. And luckily he had – his parents had some money, so they sent him over to Europe, And he went to this conference in Keswick, England in 1908 because he heard that this guy F.B. Meyer was going to be there and wanted to go hear him talk. And he said, I think F.D. Meyer is talking right now. So he's walking down the street, and he comes up to this Tithe Barn Chapel, and he was thinking that F.B. Meyer was going to speak, so he goes into this chapel to hear this guy, and it wasn't Meyer talking, it was a woman, and her name was Jessie Penn Lewis, and she's standing up at the lectern and doing what folks often do in churches is testifying, kind of like what we do in AA, right? We tell our story. So she's telling her story, and Frank is sitting in the chapel listening. there's not a lot of people there just a dozen or so he's out there she's speaking and remember now the reason he's there is because he's full of resentment he's he's really upset with these uh board members and he just is is at his wits end so he'S sitting out there in the audience and begins to have a spiritual experience because right behind her was a cross you know that's This is in a church. So behind her was a cross, and in his mind's eye, that cross was transformed into the letter I. And he had a spiritual experience, and he wrote about it. I'm going to quote him right now. So here's what he said. I thought of those six men back in Philadelphia who I felt had wronged me. They probably had, but I got so mixed up in the wrong that I was the seventh wrong man. I begin to see myself as God saw me, which was a very different picture than the one I had of myself. I don't know how you explain it. I can only tell you I sat there and realized how my sin, let's call that character defects, my pride, my selfishness, and my ill will had eclipsed me from God. I was the sinner of my own life. Does this sound at all familiar? like uh when i have a resentment i am also wronged in the act of resenting others and that my character defects and my pride and self-selfishness and ill will is what's keeping me from god not what these people have done but my selfishness is keeping me from god uh i was the center of my own life that sounds familiar too and then he says that big eye had to be crossed out, which I kind of like. Get it crossed to an eye. Anyway, I saw my resentments against these men standing out like tombstones in my heart. I asked God to change me and he told me to put things right with them. Does that sound familiar? It produced in me a vibrant feeling as though a strong current of life had suddenly been poured into me and afterwards a day's sense of great spiritual shaking up. And that was his description of the spiritual experience. So he got this information, basically, my troubles are my making. I need to make it right with those I resent in order for me to be free. And that is Alcoholics Anonymous right there. So, he wrote an amend letter to the six board members. Here's an example. So what he did was he knew he needed to make amends to these six board members so he wrote a letter to each of them and here's one of them i'm writing to tell you that i've harbored an unkind feeling towards you a time at times i conquered it but it always came back our views may differ but as brothers we must love i write to ask your forgiveness and to assure that i love you and trust by god's grace i will shall never more speak unkindly or disparagingly of you. And that is a beautiful men's letter. He wrote that, he sent those off to those six men and he got free. And again, 1908. So 31 years, excuse me, 27 years later is when Alcoholics Anonymous formed. So 1908 is when he had this experience. And of course, as you can tell, we do the same thing in AA. Now Bookman had a very interesting life. Here was his philosophy of life in a nutshell. Change a man, change the nation, change the world. So that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to change the world. He want to make the world a place of peace and he thought that if he could affect the life of powerful people and help those people change that they will change their nations and the world would change. And he was with a lot of very interesting people. You probably noticed the guy in this picture is Gandhi, so he hung out with Gandhi and he hung out with a little bit of other people. He hung out a lot with a couple of other folks too and he knew these world leaders and kind of tried to make an effect on their life. He also knew a lot famous people. Here's a picture of him talking with with Mae West about spiritual matters. He also talked with other leaders of the world like activists. This is an activist from India. This man that he is speaking with here is the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. This was after World War II. So he was kind of trying to have an effect on the lives of people who were in power. Now, he also met a very important person called sam shoemaker at least important for the history of aa you guys probably know sam shoemaker right he was um he had a lot of uh influence on early aa members specifically bill wilson and others uh because of his uh involvement with the oxford group and bookman and shoemaker met in 1918 in china so 10 years after uh bookman's experience in england he's beginning to start traveling the world and you know meeting folks and shoemaker heard of this guy he heard of bookman and he knew about him and so what was shoemaker doing in china he was doing missionary work in what is now beijing and he was working with a group of young men and he was trying to have a spiritual impact on their life he wasn't getting anywhere with these young menand he was uh you know he was very frustrated the fact that he wasn t making any impact in their lives and uh i heard the reason why was because he didn't want to be there in the first place we had a resentment of actually being there and these these folks that he was working with knew it i mean you know when somebody has a resentment you can tell and so have no impact whatsoever on them so he says bookman can help me so bookman came through china shoemaker went to meet him and said hey man i need some help and bookman asked a very important question And he says, what's wrong with you? What's blocking you? Why is it? What's what is it about you that you can't get through to these fellows? And I don't know if your sponsor has ever said that to you. I don'T know. Mine has to me. That usually really makes me mad at first. So same with Sam Shoemaker. He didn't like hearing that. So he goes back to his room and he's basically thinking about it. And then he began to realize, you know what? It's right. He's right so he went back to bookman he said you're right i need help bookman worked with him shoemaker had a spiritual experience let go of his resentment and then he was able to work with these uh young men and at that point shoemaker joined the oxford group and because of that you'll see later shoemaker uh had an impact on the lives of these folks and you probably know these names uh evy thatcher roland hazard uh shep cornell uh sieber graves bill wilson so all these men uh were impacted by shoemaker as a result of this meeting with bookman so let's talk a little bit more about the oxford group it was founded in 1921 and it was originally named buchanism and i'm telling you guys right here now uh when i form my own spiritual movement i'm going to call it leism just letting you know but anyway it also is called the first century christian fellowship because it followed the kind of the tenets if you will of first century Christianity and you know a little bit about that you know Christians when they Christianity first formed were persecuted so the only way they could carry the message to one another was one at one one Christian talking to another so it's one person talking to another person is carrying the message of the Oxford group And does that sound familiar to you guys? One drunk talking to another drunk. It was based in Oxford, England, because that's where he was living. And they held what are called house parties. And in 1929, it became known as the Oxford Group. So let me talk a little bit about that. There was a – it was 1929. They really didn't have a name. You know, it was just this group. And they were traveling the world trying to make change in the world. And they ended up in South Africa and they were taking a train in South Africa and he pulled up to a train station. This train porter pulled their bags off the train and made this big mound of their bags on the train platform. And that, that train porter looks at his coworker and he says, Hey, who are these bags for? And the coworker said, Oh, those bags are from, from the group from oxford so that train porter wrote on a sign the oxford group pasted it to the bags and the name stuck so that name came from a uh the oxord group name came from a train porter in south africa anyway a lot of really great books let me tell you a little bit about the oxwood group uh and i'm going to read the kind of the preamble if you will to the oxword group and this comes from a book called what is the ox for groups you can see it there. By the way, what is The Oxford Group? It's written by the greatest author name ever. It's the layman with a notebook. I love that. Anyway, so here's what The Oxford Group book says. It says you cannot belong. And by the way listen to this and see if this sounds a little bit familiar. You cannot belong to The Oxford Group. It has no membership list, subscriptions, badge, rules, or definite location. It is a name for a group of people who from every rank, profession, and trade in many countries have surrendered their lives to god and who are endeavoring to lead a spiritual quality of life under the guidance of the holy spirit the oxford group is not a religion it has no hierarchy no temples no endowments that workers have no salaries no plans but god's plan every country is their country every man their brother so there's uh a couple other books i don't have a picture of here. This might be my favorite Oxford group book title. It's called Soul Surgery, which is great. There's also another book called I Was a Pagan and another called For Sinners Only. Those are books that were written for me, I guess. But anyway, so let me talk a little bit about some details of the Oxford group. And I'm going to talk about these because I want you to So see if you can see the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in these principles of the Oxford Group. Now, some of us have heard this term probably, the six steps of the Oxford Group, but the Oxford Group did not have any steps. So these six steps were kind of an encapsulation of the Oxford Group principles that were worked in Akron specifically, well, mainly in Akran, but they didn't really have steps. They had what were called four practical activities. So let's see if we can find the 12 steps in these activities. And by the way, this is from what is the Oxford group again. The first one is the sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian. Of course, this was a Christian fellowship, the Oxford Group. So Christian terms are used, but with another Christian life given to God and to use sharing as witness to help others still unchanged to recognize and acknowledge their sins. so or care we'll call those character defects of course that's steps four five and twelve number two surrender of our life past present and future in the god's keeping and directions step two and three restitution to all who have this is number three restribution to all we have harmed excuse me to all wironged directly or indirectly that's step eight nine and then uh the fourth principle practical activity is listening to accepting relying on god's guidance and carry it out in everything we do or say, great or small, which is steps 10 through 12. So if you think about it, the only steps really that are missing here are six and seven, and of course, step one, which ist specific to alcoholics. But otherwise, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous can be found in these four practical activities. They also have these four procedures, and this is from a really good book called Not God by Ernest Kurtz. Some of y'all probably read it. I highly recommend it. It's a great history of AA. And here are the five procedures. One is to give in to God. Two is to listen to God's directions. Three is to check guidance. And before I go on, this is really an Oxford group thing. So once surrender to God happened, like, you know, in our step three, what oxford groupers would do is they would take time and ask god for directions listen to those directions check what they received with their sponsor guidance prayer partner whatever you want to call it and then follow those directions and at the end of the day they would ask themselves did i follow god's directions in this day and so i like to say these Oxford groupers asked God for direction and then took it. Also, the fourth is restitution and amends. Of course, that's our steps eight and nine. And then sharing for witness and confession, which we would call carrying a message. Now there are Oxford group steps and I kind of air quote the steps because there were no steps of the Oxford group. However, in the big book, in the story, he sold himself short. This is the fourth edition, page 263. And this story is by Earl Treat. And Earl Treat is very important to me personally because he was a guy who started AA in Chicago. I lived there for 27, 28 years. He got sober in Chicago by driving to Akron to work with Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob was his sponsor. Now we're talking about in the late 1930s, early 40s, traveling from Chicago to Akron was not easy. So he would go and he would spend time with Dr. Bob and come home. And in his story, by the way, I'll just throw this out. The first meeting in the Chicago area was held in Evanston, Illinois, where I lived many, many years. But anyway, uh he would go and in his story page 263 talks about going to akron to be with dr bob to work the six steps that they had back the end of the oxford group and by the way he and dr bob worked these steps in an afternoon so number one step number one complete deflation as i'm going through these see if you can see the 12 steps out of these six steps first complete deflation two dependence and guidance from a higher power three moral inventory four confession five restitution or also known as amends and six continue work with other alcoholics so we see uh complete deflation step one dependence and guide and step three moral inventory for confession five restitution eight continue to work with other alcoholics steps 12 step 12 so he went to um akron and worked with dr bob and worked these steps in an afternoon and that's how they did it back then by the way and i illustrate that by thinking about this you know i i've read somewhere that dr bob helped or uh directly helped 5 000 alcoholics i don't know if you've heard this 5,000 alcoholics and he was sober uh from the day he got sober to the day he died for about 15 years you think okay he was sober 15 years how many days are in 15 years it turns out there's about 5,600 days in 15 ears and in 5, 600 days he directly worked with 5, 000 alcoholics and you know he couldn't do that by sitting down an hour a day reading the big book so what they would do is they would come visit he'd work the steps with them in the afternoon and off they would go back home to carry the message and that's how it worked back then in Akron now there's a quote out of the second edition of the big book and um it says this though he bill wilson could not accept all the tenants of the oxford groups there are some tenants that build in like i'll talk about those in a minute he was convinced of the need for moral inventory which is in this list of course confession of personality defects restitution of those harm helpfulness to others and the necessity and belief in the dependence upon god so that sentence in the second edition encapsulates the six steps of the oxford group now the thing bill didn't like about the oxord group is the four absolutes the way i've heard it as bill says i don't like four absoluts because alcoholics aren't absolutely anything except maybe jerks i was uh but you want you want me to be absolutely honest forget about it you know i'm 36 years sober and i sometimes lie when telling the truth be better thing to do i don't know if anyone identifies with that but anyway so he didn't like the these tenets of the oxford groups but he liked these other ones that you may never heard of so a lot of us have heard before absolutes there's something called the five c's the first one is what's called confidence and the idea here is that the person must have confidence in you and know that you'll keep their secrets. And in the book, it basically uses that word confidence several times. Here's one. You can secure their confidence when others fail. That's right out of the big book or about us generally winning the entire confidence of another alcoholics in a few hours. So that idea of confidence was very important. Bill grabbed it right from the Oxford group. The next C is confession. Of course, that steps four and five. then there's conviction this is understanding the negative power of one's character defects and the need to be free of them so the newcomer must be convinced that the sponsor or the one carrying the message has the conviction that the power that their character defects will kill them and that's exactly the case for alcoholics you know my self-centeredness if i don't uh treat it i don'T TREAT MY ALCOHOLICS ALCOHOISM IS GOING TO KILL ME AND THERE'S A PARTS OF THE BOOK TO talk about that but the next is conversion this is surrendering to god and the spiritual awakening of course this is all throughout uh the the book including um having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps so that's what we're going for is this conversion experience we don't call it conversion we call it spiritual awakening and then finally continuance and continuance is the fifth c and this is daily surrender daily prayer daily inventory daily confession daily restitution, daily carrying the message, and daily service others. This means we do this every day. Of course, this is steps 10 through 12, and this is summarized really well in the book. I'm going to read this. This is on page 84. You're probably familiar with it. It says, continue. There's that continuance, right? Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly. If we've harmed anyone, then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help with, which of course is steps four through nine and 12 daily all the time. All right. So let me move here to this part of the story about this guy named James Newton. He had something to do with Akron, uh, with the Oxford group coming to Akron Ohio. This is very important part of our story, our AA story. And that's a picture of him. This has all covered in this book called Uncommon Friends. I highly recommend it. This guy had an incredibly interesting life. The subtitle, you may not be able to read it. I'll read it to you. It says Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Correll and Charles Lindbergh. So Newton hung out with some pretty important people back in the day. So let me tell the story. Here's what happened uh in 1922 newton was 20 years old and he's walking down the street in massachusetts and he was doing it as a 20 year old what 20 year olds young men have done since probably the beginning of time and that is he's wanting to go and meet women you know so he's working down the streets he sees a couple of women this is how i understand the story he sees couple of women and he follows them and they uh he they walk through a door now this isn't the actual door they walkthrough but it's just to draw your attention to the fact that newton followed these women through this door you're not going to believe it they went to an oxford group house party so because he was uh you know uh looking for a good time he walks into an oxord group house party. What are the chances of that? Moreover, this house party, they're doing their thing and he has a conversion experience. He has a spiritual experience at this and he joins the Oxford group. Now you tell me that that's not a miracle. Some guy walking down the street goes through a door. He doesn't know where he's going. He ends up at a house party. Has a spiritual experience. Joins the Oxford group." He then moved to Fort Myers, Florida later with his dad. and uh his dad had this idea and this was in the late 20s let's buy some land and uh build some houses make tons of money great except soon after they bought uh the great the stock market crash october 29 happened and they basically became worthless but they're sitting there in fort myers florida and they had this land and right across the street was a guy named thomas edison you heard of him thomas edison guy who like uh invented things so edison right across the street from uh um from newton now edison really liked uh newton he says to newton hey man i want to hire you i want you to run these parties that i have so every quarter or so every three months um edison would throw these big parties to kind of roll out the inventions that he and his crew were coming up with. And he hired Newton to do the rollouts for them, for him. And so what that means is Newton was putting these things together and he was inviting all these really powerful people like politicians and movie stars and really powerful people. And of the people that he met during this time was a guy named Henry Ford. You heard of him from Detroit? And another guy named Harvey Firestone, and you probably have heard of Firestone. He's this tire guy, and, you know, we're kind of the center of the universe for tires back in the 20s and 30s, Akron, Ohio. So anyway, Firestone—Harvey Firestone really liked Newton, offered him a job, moved him to Akron. So he kind of wanted to groom Newton to run his company, so Harvey Fireestone moved him up to Akroon. Now, one of the things that Firestone asked Newton to do was work with his son, Bud, Bud Firestone. Now, Bud firestone was a really bad alcoholic. Russell Firestone was his name. By the way, that's Harvey Firestone and that's his son Bud. Bud was a bad alcoholic and Newton was basically his babysitter, if you will. So he would kind of watch Bud and every now and then take him to a farm asylum to dry out. and he was always just baffled by the fact that bud would go to one of these asylums dry out and then on the way back home slip away and go grab a bottle of whiskey so that's you know it sounds alcoholic to me anyway uh newton said to uh bud firestone he said bud listen man i got an idea let's you and i go to denver together and the reason they wanted to go to Denver was because there was going to be this Episcopal convention, and Newton knew that this guy named Sam Shoemaker – here's that name again – was going to be there. So Bud Firestone and James Newton got on a train, went to Denver, and then on the way back, they're on the same train as Sam Shoemaker. So Newton drags Bud back to sam uh sam shoemaker works with bud firestone and bud fire stone has a spiritual experience and uh because of the spiritual experience uh as i mentioned that he met sam shoemaker because of his father harvey firestone was was very uh moved by it because here's what happened bud firestone got off and so bud fire stone meets sam shoemaker works with sam shoemaker has a spiritual experience essentially gets sober and then the train pulls into akron bud walks off the train harvey sees bud and he looks at him and he goes there's something different and here's what um newton wrote about that he says i'll never forget the look of wonder that came over harvey firestone's face the father could scarcely believe what he saw a son come back to life he'd come to believe the situation with bud was hopeless something he couldn't control so here was the father seeing his son and i can imagine he looked in his eyes and immediately knew something had changed you know how that is you see a newcomer come to aa and you see the change in their eyes before you see it anywhere else and that's exactly what harvey saw and harvey like what happened and bud said dad i got involved these oxford group people and uh i'm sober and Harvey Firestone was really grateful, and he decided, you know what? I'm bringing the Oxford Group to Akron. So that's exactly what he did. So the Oxford group came to Akroon, Ohio. There was a team of 60 Oxford groupers that came for a 10-day campaign. This is January 1933. Think about this, January 1933, house parties were held at Mayflower Hotel. You guys probably heard of the Mayflower. I remember when Bill was pacing the lobby of the hotel, wanting to go take a drink. Same hotel. So the Oxford Group held house parties at the Mayflower Hotel, where two years later, Bill would eventually get in contact with one of the Oxford group members, Henrietta Seiberlin. That comes later. Anyway, more than 1,800 people attended. Think about this. This is 1933, Akron, Ohio. 1,800 people attended these house parties. And I often say this is before television, this is before Twitter, anything like that. So 1, 800 people came. Members included Clarice and T. Henry Williams. T. Henry was a guy who he came up with an invention, something to do with making tires, got some money, paid off his house and said, you know what? This is God's house. So he opened the house to Oxford groupers. So a lot of Oxford Group meetings were held in the Williams House. And, of course, Henrietta Seiberling, we know who she is. She comes in the story later. That's who Bill eventually gets connected with in Akron. And she introduces Bill to Dr. Bob and, of course, Dr. Bob and Ann Smith. Now, the thing is, the Oxford Group came to Akron in January 1933. Bill finally showed up in Akran in May of 1935. Dr. Bob was a member of the Oxford group for over two years. He was a God-fearing guy. He believed in God. He had faith in God, but he could not get sober. So he had the answer, which was the program to work, but he didn't know what the problem was until he met Bill. But anyway, he was a member of the Oxford group for two years before he and Bill met. Now, before I move on with the story, I need to talk about the controversy with Frank Bookman, and this really needs to be told. All right. So Frank Bookman was on a train in August 25th of 1936. Now let's put this in the timeline of Alcoholics Anonymous. AlcoholicsAnonymous formed on June 11th, June 10th, excuse me, 1935. So 14 and a half months later, after the formation of AA, Bookman gave an interview on a train. And this was published in the New York World-Telegram. These quotes, by the way, are from the book On the Tail of a Comet. Here's one quote. This is what Frank Bookman was supposed to have said. He said, I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler who built a front line of defense against the Antichrist of communism. Now, think about this, 1936, Bookman is quoted as speaking well of Adolf Hitler, and we know that soon after or during this time Hitler was rising to power and wanted to take over the world and doing some pretty awful things. And Bookman's now quoted as saying something positive about Hitler, so as you can imagine bookman was labeled a nazi sympathizer another quote my barber in london told me hitler saved europe from communism that's how he felt of course i don't condone everything the nazis do so anyway uh this gets in the paper and now by the way uh he didn't say these things but you know how it is if it's in the newspaper if it'S ON THE INTERNET IT HAPPENED RIGHT SO HERE IT IS IN THE NEWSPAPER HE GETS LABELED A NAZI SYMPATHIZER NOW THERE WAS A GUY NAMED GARRETT STERLY HE WAS on the train he was in the room when the uh uh interview happened here's what he said if the article was so out of key with the interview he said that germany needed a new christian spirit yeah one had to face the fact that hitler would have been a bulwark against communism there and you could at least thank heaven for that it was a throwaway line no eulogy of hitler at all now so in other words he said some passing comment uh the journalist um you know decided to make a big deal out of it, you know, worded it in a way that Frank didn't say. And all of a sudden, Frank is a Nazi sympathizer, even though he didn't Say that at all. And now, the author of the article later said this. So this is the guy who wrote the article for the paper they got published. Here's what he said. My memory of our talk is that he was not endorsing nor condemning Hitler. Oh, great. Thanks for telling us now that it's been published and everyone in the world thinks that uh bookman is a nazi sympathizer so it's too late uh bookmen is uh is labeled that now the incorrect legend is that bookman said thank god for hitler bookman was a guy who is like okay well you can believe that about me if you want i'm not going to talk about it he was encouraged people were saying come on man come out and condemn hitler get this behind you. He would not do it. He never denounced anyone in public. He took the high road. He said, I, this is not true, but I don't care. I'm not going to go there. And he never spoke about it. Now, as a result, here's Bill Wilson. Now put yourself in Bill Wilson's place. It's August 36th. The guy whose program or whose movement, the Oxford group was basically was the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous program, right? So AA program was built from the Oxford group. The leader of the Oxford Group is now a Nazi sympathizer. So Bill was presented with a really difficult choice. He had to back away from the Oxford Group. He had too. And this was for the survival of Alcoholic Anonymous. I'm sure it was a very tough choice for him, but that's what he did. It was the right choice too, I think, in my opinion. So The Oxford Group is never mentioned in the first edition. It is mentioned in The Second Edition, which was published, I believe, in 1955. And by that time, the world knew that Bookman was not a Nazi sympathizer. That was all like ancient history by that time. So The Oxford Group, not in the first edition, but is in the second edition. And of course uh in the fourth and second edition that talks about the alcoholic friend who'd been in contact with the Oxford groups of that day and then of course he also said that though he could not accept all the tenants of the Oxford group so it's mentioned in the second edition so in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous Bookman didn't get the credit he deserved for the contribution that the Oxford Group made to AlcoholicsAnonymous and I'll say today 2020 This is my opinion, a little soapboxy here. I still think Bookman does not get the credit he deserves for Alcoholics Anonymous. The program of AlcoholicsAnonymous was derived directly from the Oxford Group, and Bill says that. So the question is, whatever happened to the Oxford group? Does it still exist? In 1938, the Oxford groups took on a different name. Remember, Bookman never named the Oxford groupe. That was named by that train porter. so he looked around the world he saw the world was arming re-arming for war so there was a a rearmament that was happening and he looked Around the World he said we don't need to rearm for war what we need is moral rearmment so he named his group Moral Rearmament in 1938 and that name lasted until 2001 he said this the nations must rearm morally moral recovery is essentially the forerunner of economic recovery, et cetera. So he believed that the world needs to recover or to rearm morally. Then in 2001, the name changed to something called Initiatives of Change. And you can go read about it. Go to IOFC.org. Click on that history tab. You can read about Bookman. You Can Read About Alcoholics Anonymous, too. it's pretty cool. All right, Bookman got recognized in 1950. He was awarded the highest French order of civil merit. So by this time, of course, the Nazi sympathizer bit was well behind him. As a matter of fact, in the Republic of Germany, he got that order of merit, which is a very high honor from Germany. And he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize not once but twice can you believe that 1951 and 52 his his work was again he wanted to bring peace to the world and that was his his uh main uh life's work and he was recognized in 51 and 52 now note about aa in the oxford group this comes from uh the um aa comes of age bill says this certain of the former Oxford Group attitudes and applications had proven unsuited to AA's purpose. This, I think, are the four absolutes and some other tenets. But he says this. Now, this is Bill talking. But the important thing is this. The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of harms done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Group and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America and nowhere else. So the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, so says Bill, came from the Oxford Group. Now, a note about Bookman. Their family house was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and this is where he lived. I was in Allenton a few years ago, and I said, I'm going to go visit. So I went to 117 North 11th Street. That's a picture of the house from the street. It's like a row house. And I walked up and I saw this kind of look of the front. And you can't really probably can't see it, but see that white sign on the glass door? It says, please ring doorbell. And then there's that plaque and the plaque reads this, uh, the Frank Bookman house family home of Dr. Frank N.D. Bookman, initiator of moral rearmament property of the Lehigh County historical society. I read that and I said, Oh man, this is the property of The Historical Society. I'm going to get to, to, uh. Tour the house. This is going to be great. And as I mentioned, there was a sign on the door. It said, please ring doorbell. And if you say please, and you're very polite, I'm going to do it. So I rang the doorbell and this woman answers the door. She says, what do you want? And I said, I's here to tour the house. I can see it's property of the Lehigh County Historical Society. She said, not anymore. This is my house. So she was a very nice lady. But I'm just saying, if you ever go to the Bookman family house, don't ring doorbell just admire it from the street uh bookman died uh and was this is an obituary from i think this was the guardian in uh uk at a uh the the world recognized him upon his death now i had read uh that bookman was buried in allentown pennsylvania and but it didn't i didn't know where i couldn't find anywhere online where uh bookman was buried but all i knew was from the the the tale of a comic book it says he's born he's buried in allentown pennsylvania so i said okay i'm gonna find this so i started calling all of the cemeteries in allantown by the way a lot of them spent a lot time on the phone finally reached somebody and i said hey uh is frank bookman buried there and he said oh you mean the got the moral rearmament guy and i I said, that's him. So he directed me to his grave. And it's at Fairview Cemetery, Allentown, Pennsylvania. I want to show you this picture. This is a picture I took of the Bookman grave. Now, this is his family grave. And you see that flag? The headstone just to the left of the flag is Frank Bookman's headstone. Well, the first thing that I noticed when I came upon this grave here in AllentOWN is you can look at it. It's overgrown. It's unkempt. very different from the graves of dr bob and bill and uh silkworth and others so if you go to their graves man those things are pristine they're taken care of not this one so i was really surprised by the fact that it was unkept and then i walked up to bookman's grave it's hard this is on the top of it it's harder to read but it reads this frank indy bookman 1878 to 1961 initiator of moral rearmament. And then I looked at the front of the grave and you can see there's some etching in there, right? It was really hard to read. I still can't read it. So I picked out a word here and there and I started Googling really hard and I found where this text comes from. It's a poem and I'm going to read it to you. Here's the poem. He lives in all the past he lives nor to the last of seeing him again i will despair in dreams i see him now and on his angel brow i see it written thou shalt see me there and this is a poem by a guy named john pierpont the title of poem is my child now john pierpoint's interesting because he was the father of a guy named james lord pierpon who wrote jingle bells uh fun fact and john pier point was also the maternal grandfather of J. Pierpont Morgan, better known as J.P. Morgan. So there you go. So anyway, that's Bookman. Again, Fairview Cemetery, Allentown, Pennsylvania. I highly recommend you go pay your respects to Bookman AA would not be here without this man. And when you enter Fairview cemetery, you take the first left, it kind of bears to the right and And right as it bears to the right, there it is on your right. So check it out. All right. That was Bookman. Let's talk about Carl Jung real quick. Many of us know about Jung because he was a prominent psychiatrist that treated Roland Hazard. He was a protege of Sigmund Freud. He split with Freud and kind of became his own thought, if you will. And he treated Roland Hansard. Oh, by the way, this is something that I found on the Internet. And, you know, if you find it on the Internet, it's true. Young is quoted as everything that irritates us about others can lead to an understanding of ourselves. And that, of course, I learned from my last fourth and fifth step. Anyway, he was a protege of Sigmund Freud. He split with Freud. And Young treats a guy named Roland Hazard. And this is talked about in the big book in Chapter 2. We know that from Chapter 2, Young treats Hazard for a year. The latest thought is that this occurred in 1926, so long before AA was formed. But I'm not sure that's 100%, but I think that's the latest thinking, 1926. And that's Hazard right there. so we know uh that hazard went to uh switzerland to be treated by young who's hazard was really bad alcoholic uh young treated him says hey man you're cured young hazard says thanks dr young see ya and he starts heading back home on the way to the boat back to the states uh he is in paris somebody offers him a drink he's an alcoholic took the drink got really drunk goes back to young and says hey man you you said i was cured and young says you know what does he say we know what he says you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic i've never seen one case recover where the state of mind existed to the extent it does in you and then he gave roland hazard the solution to alcoholism that we in alcoholics anonymous practice and that's this here and there Once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me, these occurrences are phenomena. He basically said to Roland Hazard, if you want to recover from alcoholism, you need a vital spiritual experience. Hazard said, well, I'm a God-fearing man. And Young said, that's not enough, man. Faith is not enough. You have to do work. So Hazard says, hey, what should I do? how do i get one of these things and young says i don't know so uh but you better get one so back to the states goes hazard and guess what he gets involved the Oxford group he works the program or the principles of the Oxford Group he gets sober fast forward to 1961 Bill Wilson wrote to Carl Young uh and it was good thing that he wrote to him in 61 because Young died in 62 uh Wilson said to young in this letter he says so do you dr young we have a owe this tremendous benefaction and of course a benefaction is a is a gift as you will now clearly see this astonishing chain of events actually started long ago in your consulting room was directly found upon your own humility and deep perception and then uh of course that's from the language of the heart which is a great book uh of bill's grapevine writings and uh plugging the grapevine um this weekend so go get grapevines anyway uh young responded and he wrote back to uh bill and he said his hazards craving from out for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness expressed in medieval language the union with god so basically what uh young told bill was this i've always known that the real problem of the alcoholic is their thirst for wholenesse for unity with god and others and i often and i identify with this thirst every time i drank i was looking for that thirst so i always say this uh i didn't drink because i was thirsty i drank because i was extra thirsty i wanted that to be whole to be the to be with to be in union with others and then young said the helpful formula therefore is spiritus contra spiritum and that means spirit against spirit and his point was this and this is true for me i'm going to tell i'm talking first person as an alcoholic i was searching for god when i drank i didn't know that but i'm searching for that spirit i'm gonna call that spirit with a capital s and what's interesting is as an alcoholic i look for the spirit in that bottle it isn't interesting that alcohol is also known as spirits so i was looking for the Spirit of God with a capitalist and the bottle of spirits with the lowercase s so as i've heard in aa uh that's exactly what i've heard i've looked for that Spirit with a Capital S all right so let's go on to the last uh person we'll talk about is silkworth that's a picture of dr silkworth uh we know a bit about him he was um a doctor and back in 1930 he was a neurosurgeon or neurological doctor and while in med school he he interned at bellevue hospital and uh worked with alcoholics and fell in love with alcoholists discovered a passion for working with alcohols then in 1930 he accepted a position at Towns Hospital. Why in 1930? Well, he was a neurosurgeon or neurological doctor. And he was heavily invested in the stock market, which crashed in October of 29. And then he was out of work. So he had no money, no job. He needed to get a job. So he accepted the position at town's hospital, which was a drying out place for rich alcoholics in New York at Central Park West and 89th Street. This is a picture, it looks like back in the 50s of the building where Townes Hospital is. This ist a picture of it now. Wait a second. Who's that guy in that picture? I don't know how that got in this PowerPoint. Anyway, so that's what it looks Like now. It's basically condos and at 89th and Central Park west. That means those condos. Very, very expensive, but that's where it is now. So Bill's thoughts about Silkworth when he died. So Silkworth worked at Towns Hospital until his death, March 22nd, 1951. And this is what Bill wrote in The Grapevine. Again, go by grapevines. Here is what he wrote. He, Silkworth, never tired of drunks and their problems. A frail man, he never complained of fatigue. During most of his career, he made only a bare living. He never sought distinction. His work was his reward. In his last years, he ignored a heart condition and died on the job among us drunks with his boots on. I think that is a beautiful statement about Silkworth. Now, why are we talking about Dr. Silkworth? We know this doctor. He's the one that wrote The Doctor's Opinion. And the question is, why did he get to write the doctor's opinion? Because he's the one that treated Bill at Towns Hospital. So Bill was treated by Dr. Silkworth. Silkorth, we're going to talk about in a minute, told Bill about what his problem was. And that's why he was tasked with writing his opinion in the big book. now silkworth has a grave site too and you'll notice uh silkworth's grave there's all these coins on the top you see that that's what folks do they go visit them in long branch new jersey put their coin on top no such coins on last time i was there on bookman's grave in allentown pennsylvania but anyway so let's talk about the puzzle pieces that are going to fall into place and that's in this guy's mind now those of us uh know this story so i'm going to tell it kind of quick but bill wilson a bad drunk uh now before bill got sober roland hazard who had been treated by young remember so young treated hazard told hazard about the solution to alcoholism a vital spiritual experience he 12-step evie thatcher i need to talk about this story so roland hazard was a member of the oxford group and he had a family home in vermont which happened to be the same place where evie's family had a evie thatcher's family has a family home evie went to his family home to kind of get it um that's evie thatcher by the way try to get it ready to uh for the summer and many know this story he's painting the house birds come along he starts shooting at the birds you know blowing holes in the side of his house they don't like that much in vermont so he got arrested he went before a judge named judge grace this judge was going to commit ebby uh for alcoholic insanity that's what they did with people like us back in the day you're an alcoholic there's nothing we can do for you you're going away to a hospital he's about to be committed now there happened to be in town at that time uh a couple of guys one guy roland hazard and another guy uh um chef cornell and um uh sieber graves you see i got a picture of siever i don't anyway uh siever graves happened to be the son of judge graves can you believe that so uh roland hazard's friend sieber caves uh talks to judge graves so roland goes in front of judge graves and says give me abby i'll take him to new york i'll take him out of vermont the judge says get him out of here. If he ever comes back, he's going away. So Hazard dragged Ebi to New York, got him involved in the Oxford group. Ebi Thatcher got sober. Now Bill enters town's hospital. His brother-in-law, a rich doctor, paid his hospital bill, which was pretty expensive back in the day. That's Leonard Strong, his brother-In-Law. And this is his hospital Bill from one of his visits. And basically they had to pay cash money, which today is about four grand or so. That was a lot of money during the great depression and silkworth treats bill so in bill's story he talks about silkworth and he says this best of all i met a kind doctor that's dr silkworth who explained those certainly selfish and foolish have been seriously ill bodily mentally so dr silk was shared with bill his that is the doctor's opinion and the doctor'S opinion is twofold as we know there's a mental obsession and a physical allergy to alcoholism of course there's the third component which is a spiritual malady that comes later in the book but in the doctor's opinion. He talks about this physical allergy and Bill had never heard such a thing. So that day he learned about the problem. We're going to call this part one. So Bill gets the problem. Then Ebi 12 steps Bill. So here's what happens. Ebi gets involved in the Oxford group and gets sober and he gets sober. And he's working the tenants of the Oxford room. And he's told, look, Ebi, one tenant of the Oscar group is you carry this message to other people. Ebby didn't want to do it. And they said, you got to do it. So this is kind of the way I would imagine it happened. He looked around thinking, who can I carry this message to that's going to kick me out of this house? Oh, I know Bill Wilson. He's a bad drunk. He's not going to be interested. So he calls Bill and it says and Ebby visits Bill. And of course, we know from the big book that Ebby told Bill of a simple religious idea that is the solution of alcoholism. and what's the solution a vital spiritual experience that's the simple religious idea so he said to bill you want to get sober you need a spiritual experience and he also told bill of a practical program of action and that practical program of action was the principles of the oxford group so what ebby shared with bill that day was the solution to alcoholism and how to get the solution to alcoholism and i keep in mind that ebby was two months sober and i often say this to folks who are new in aa who don't want to do any service work who don'T want to go help alcoholics uh who want to wait till they get some sobriety time if ebmy had waited to get some sobriety behind him get a year sober or something before he started doing step work you and i would not be sober today i don't think so he was two weeks old and he was sober and he carried the message to bill So Bill that day learned of the vital spiritual salute, of the spiritual solution. We're going to call that part two in the program of action. We're gonna call that Part Three. Now this is the table that was at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn. This is the Table that Bill and Ebi sat at when Ebi carried this important information to Bill. This table is now at Stepping Stones in New York, just north of New York City. And this Stepping Stones is where Bill and Lois lived in the later years of their life. I highly recommend you visit, you guys. This is an amazing place. You walk into this building, and the energy is incredible. And they let you sit at this chair. And here's a picture of me sitting at the table with my beautiful wife, Jane. And it's a very powerful experience to sit at the table. Because I was sitting there and I was thinking to myself, this is unbelievable. I am sitting at the cable. I'm sitting at The Table where the message of the solution of Alcoholics Anonymous was carried to Bill Wilson. It was a very power thing. I was getting kind of choked up and Jane looked at me and said, honey, do you have something in your eye? I said, no, I'm fine. fine. Anyway, so the solution started with Carl Jung. Carl Jung had this idea. Alcoholics need vital spiritual experience to get sober. He gave that to Roland Hazard. Roland Hazerd took that information and got sober.He carried that message to Ebby Thatcher, keeping him from the asylum. And that eventually ended up with Bill. So let me talk real quick about what happened with Bill Wilson. Bill meets with Abby, and he begins to attend the Oxford group meetings at the Calvary Church. This is in New York. This was the center of the Oxford Group in the United States, and it was run by Sam Shoemaker. So Sam Shoemaker worked with Roland Hazard, worked with Abby Thatcher, worked with Seba Graves, worked for Shep Cornell, worked with bill wilson and uh so december 34 bill enters town's hospital for the third time he works the steps with ebby with two days of sobriety and we know what it says in bill's story he works The Steps basically two days sober he works his steps has a spiritual experience and then um having had this spiritual experience he then decides to go work with other people pretty amazing decision so he dedicates his life uh to work with others and i think to myself this if i had been sitting in a hospital and i worked some program and i have a spiritual experience would i have decided to turn my attention to working with others i don't know if i would have done that so thank god that bill did so he and his wife enthusiastically worked with others so again would i have done the same i don' t know so let's talk about the origins of alcoholics anonymous it It started with this doctor who, through working with alcoholics, formed an opinion. And the opinion is that the problem of the alcoholic is a physical allergy and obsession of the mind. And that, of course, came from Dr. Silkworth. The solution to the problem, the vital spiritual experience, came From Carl Jung, a psychiatrist in Zurich, Switzerland. And then the program of action, which gets the alcoholic from the problem to the solution, came from this Lutheran minister from Pennsylvania named Frank Bookman. And I want to point something out here. These three men whose ideas form Alcoholics Anonymous were non-alcoholic. These were not alcoholics. But what happened was, is these three ideas formed in the mind of one man who was an alcoholic, Bill Wilson. And that day when he's sitting at that table with Ebi telling him about the solution and the program, at that time, that moment, Bill had these three pieces together. and he decided to work the steps of the program of action which brought him from the problem to the solution. He had a spiritual experience and then Bill, again not sure I would have done this, decided what he would do is share that with the world and he wrote a book called Alcoholics Anonymous with the help of the others who were new in AA. So the origins of AA come from non-alcoholics informed in the mind of an alcoholic named bill wilson i got a last bit here i'm going to go ahead and do this oh let me real quick talk about the spark we know this story pretty well bill wilSON travels to akron ohio goes to the mayflower hotel uh paces the hotel decides instead of taking a drink he'd make some phone calls he gets in contact with a guy named Reverend Walter Tunks. Walter Tumps says, I know somebody who might be of help. Gets Bill in contact with Henrietta Seiberling. Henrietta seiberling says, yeah, I know an alcoholic you can work with Dr. Bob. And then at Henrietta's house, Dr. Bob and Bill meet. And that is the spark that happened, which formed the first group of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that was Mother's Day weekend, 1935. So I'm going to do a real quick summary here, and then I'm done. So bear with me. I was thinking when I was putting this thing together, how can I kind of visually make this point? And the point is this, and I kindof started to talk with this. I believe God had his finger in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous long before Bill and Bob met, which was the spark in Akron, Ohio. Much happened. so i kind of put this together to try to emphasize this story and it's a bit of a summary of what we just talked about and i'll go through it real quick so 1878 in pennsylvania a guy named frank bookman was born 1907 he for he creates a hostel in uh out in philadelphia puts it together with These six rich guys' money, these six guys didn't want to do what Bookman wanted them to. So Bookman copped a seriously huge resentment, so huge that his doctor said, go on a vacation. So he goes to Keswick, England. At Keswick he wants to meet up with a guy but ends up hearing a talk from somebody who he didn't even know and he had a spiritual experience. And this experience again is that cross turned into an eye and he realized that he was the problem, not these six guys decides to make amends gets free fast forward 1918 in china uh this guy bookman is traveling and he meets up with sam shoemaker near beijing and uh sam shoemaker full of resentment works with bookman has a spiritual experience joins the oxford group 1921, and the Oxford Group is formed, and it wasn't, you know, again, the name came from a elsewhere, not from Bookman, but that's where the Oxford group formed before it was really the Oxford groups. Fast forward to 1922, this young kid in Massachusetts named James Newton walking down the street uh following a couple women uh walks into an oxford group meeting unbeknownst to him a miracle of miracles he has a spiritual experience and joins the oxford group 1926 newton moves down to uh fort myers florida with his dad and uh he ends up meeting uh thomas edison and a guy named harvey firestone firestone likes newton so much he moves him up to Akron, Ohio. He's going to groom him to run his business, but he also introduces him to his son Bud, and Bud's a real alcoholic, so Newton starts working with Bud. Also 1926, Carl Young begins treating this guy named Roland Hazard, and of course through the treatment, Roland gets the solution to alcoholism, which is the vital spiritual experience. That all happened in 1926. We're going to start moving quick now. 1929, down in South Africa, the Oxford Group was traveling on a train, and a train porter essentially named the Oxford group the Oxford Group, and that happened in 1929. 1930, in Manhattan, Dr. Silkworth begins working at Towns Hospital. You know, he lost all his money and his job, and he started working with drunks on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. 1931, Newton drags Bud Firestone to Denver on a train. On the way back from Denver, Firestone meets Sam Shoemaker. Sam Shoemaker works at Firestone. He has a spiritual experience. Back to Akron they go. Harvey Firestone is so overwhelmingly grateful, he decides to bring the Oxford Group to Akram, And that happens around 1933. So in Akron, Ohio, Harvey Firestone brings the Oxford group. I don't know if Frank came specifically, but 60 members of the Oxford Group came and members of the town included Dr. Bob and Henrietta Seiberling. Also in 1933, Bill began to get treatment at town's hospital he meets this guy dr silkworth silkworth tells him of the problem of alcoholism so 1933 bill gets the problem we have a session of the mind and a physical allergy 1934 in vermont uh roland hazard goes to vermont to rescue a guy named uh ebby thatcher he grabs his friend sieber graves they go before the judge graves judge graves releases ebony to uh hazards care and he takes him back to new york and about this time 1934 in december ebby thatcher then uh visits bill tells him about the solution and about the program of action and then doctor and then bill and uh shortly thereafter has his uh begins to attend the oxford group meetings goes to uh town's hospital for the last time and gets sober in december 1934 so this is a bill going to the hospital forthe last time of course uh silkworth treated bill and this guy abby thatcher visited him helped bill work the steps two days sober bill has a spiritual experience and uh he gets sober and then in 1935 hill's traveling to akron ohio his business venture fails he meets a woman named henrietta cyberling who introduces him to dr bob smith and this is mother's day 1935 and that was the spark that led to the first meeting of alcoholics anonymous So this summary lets you know that so much reminds me, I should say, that so Much Happened Before Bill Met Bob that directly led to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. And to me, God has been involved in AA long before AA once. We are so lucky. And of course, then in 1939, the early members wrote a book called AlcoholicsAnonymous. and now that book is translated into many different uh um languages and by the way you see those books those are my books you can see them right over my left shoulder you see them up there i'm a really a book geek and i've got a bunch of uh translations of the big book alcoholics anonymous and that is the end of this talk i really appreciate your attention and i am done thanks everybody love y'all Thank you, James, so much. That was just.