The Secret of AA in Four Words: Find Higher Power or Die – Jay S.

Thank you, everyone. My name is Jay Stennett, and I'm an alcoholic. And God's doing for me what I couldn't do for myself, because it's like 125, and I'm in Indianapolis, and I haven't had anything to drink all day today, which for an alcoholic of my variety is really a remarkable thing. I bring you greetings from my fabulous wife, Adele. Adele has been sober in the fellowship for 18 years, and she sends you her love. And as you can imagine, if one's a historian and goes around giving talks and the like, there's somebody who has to bear the brunt of all of them, and it's her. So we'll get that out up front. What I'd like to do today is to share with you our story and let you know a little bit about the different things that I've found about, what it is that this thing that we call Alcoholics Anonymous is, where it comes from. And Bill Wilson said that if we were going to tell the story of Alcoholics Anonymous, we could start with Noah. Well, I've only got, you know, three hours, so we're not going to start with Noah. What we're going to do is we're going to start with... This was the piece that was read so nicely. Thank you very much for that, Terry. A lot of this information is available in a variety of places, but... The Oxford Group was an evangelical Christian movement, and it was a response to the end of the First World War, the crisis with materialism. Folks were, you know, looking for an answer. They were looking for places to go and things to do, and to find a way to get there. And so, we're going to talk about that. And Bill Wilson said that if we were going to tell the story of Alcoholics Anonymous, we could start with Noah. To find meaning in life. I'm going to talk a little bit first about what it is the group believed, and then we'll go into the story part. And the Oxford Group believed that you could take any problem that you had in your life, and if you ran it by four standards, the four absolutes of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, that you could figure out... whether you should be doing it or not. This is not brain surgery, not brain science. You know what I mean? It's really simple. This came from Robert Speer's dissection of the Sermon on the Mount. He said that if you distilled it down, that Jesus' teaching was honesty, purity, and selfishness and love. And it also is, the group told me that it's really important that you put them in that order, because you can't get to one without the one preceding it. It's kind of like the steps. Now, how did they transmit these four absolutes? One day, there was a woman that Frank was talking to, and she'd made a decision to change her life. And she said, but if you want me to do this evangelism, if you want me to talk about this, you've got to make it simple for me. So he thought about it for a little while, and he said, well, I'm going to do it. He came up with what he called the five C's. The first one was confidence. In other words, you have to have confidence that I had a problem, similar to the problem that you got. And the second was confession. In other words, that hopefully if I told you about that problem and the nature of it, that you would identify and respond. The third was conviction. In other words, yeah, I got what you got, and I don't want it anymore. The fourth was conversion. In other words, that I'm going to do whatever it is that I've got to do not to be like this anymore. And then five was continuance, being that I'm going to pass this on to people. So the Oxford group had all kinds of great books that they put out. One was called, I Was a Pagan by Vic Kitchen. And it's a wonderful book. In fact, there's a guy from here in Indianapolis. His name's Glenn Chestnut. He's got a, or he's not from Indianapolis. He's from South Bend, excuse me. He's got a website called HindsFoot, H-I-N-D-S Foot.org. And he just put out a book about Vic Kitchen. But Vic wrote this book called I Was a Pagan, which we'll talk about during the course of this day. And he wrote a book called I Was a Pagan, which we'll talk about during the course of this day. He was an advertising man. And here's his way of talking about the power. He said, the Oxford group had a power that I did not have. They said, however, that I could have it just as they did, if I would pay the same price, comply with the same conditions, and go through the same series of exceedingly simple steps. Oh, steps! Whoa! Now, if you study the Oxford group, you'll see that it's a very simple process. If you study the Oxford group, what you're going to find out is just about everything it is that we do is from their format. Sponsorship, steps, the format of the meetings. If you go to our conventions, it's just like going to an Oxford group house party. You know, it worked. That's why we took it. So what were the steps? Well, in the Oxford group, the first step was the sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life. That is, to share the life given to God and to use sharing as witness to help others still unchanged to recognize and acknowledge their sins. So in other words, the way that they started out would be how we would call doing a fourth and fifth step. This whole idea of getting you to understand that we've, you know, that we're very, very similar. Sam Shoemaker, who was Bill Wilson's spiritual mentor, said that there was only one sin in life. one sin. And that sin was thinking that I'm different. One of the reasons that I believe that alcoholism is more a disease today than I did when I came to you was that I've heard a lot of fifth steps. And in that, we're all the same. I mean, alcoholic males are so incredibly shallow. I mean, there's really not much that different that we can do. I mean, we're just not that creative. And we all get sick in exactly the same way. Some of us are a little more flamboyant than others. But anyway, so first is sharing. The second is surrender. So first they do a fourth and fifth. And then after we realize what trouble we're really in, then they do what we would call a third step. So the second step is surrender of our life, past, present, and future into God's keeping and direction. Then the third is restitution to all. All whom we have wronged directly or indirectly. Now, I used to say when I'd give this talk, notice that there's a little bit of change between this and the way that things are in our book. But I've also gone back and reread a few things. And Frank was also very good about saying, you know, you've really got to be careful about whether it's going to harm somebody else and getting yourself involved in messes that you really don't need to be. So third was what we'd call our eighth and ninth step. And that's when we're going to be And then their fourth step was listening to, accepting and relying on God's guidance and carrying it out in everything we do or say, great or small. Now, here's another thing. God, as I understand him, God, as I understand him, if you listen to talks that Ebi Thatcher gave, he talks about that. This was long before Jim Burwell piped up in the meeting that this was a concept that was used in the Oxford. Group from the gate. They they said that what you needed to do was you needed to start from where you were. And they were familiar with a lot of what they called in those days pagans. And this is from Sam Shoemaker's book, Children of the Second Birth. It's in written in 1927. So they prayed together, opening their minds to as much of God as he understood. Removing first the hindrance of self-will. That. You surrender as much of himself as he could to as much of Christ as he understood. And in the middle or in the beginning, we know only a little. We only know a little bit about ourselves and a little bit about God. But as we go along this process and alcoholics, anonymous, more and more, we we find out about ourselves. Now, the third step. This is a wonderful thing from this book. What is it? An Oxford group is written by a layman with a notebook. A lot of anonymity in the early Oxford group. So what is it? Well, again, this would they call it a surrender. We call it the third step. It's a simple decision put into simple language spoken aloud to God in front of a witness at any time and in any place that we've decided to forget the past in God and to give our future into his keeping. Nothing more need be added and nothing can be taken away. Now, from I was a pagan. Great book. I really recommend you get a copy of it if you can. Here's Vic's prayer. I think it's a lot better than Bill Wilson's. Oh, my God. How can you stay sober saying that? Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Vic's third step. I surrender thee my entire life. Oh, God, I've made a mess of it. Trying to run it myself. You take it the whole thing and run it for me according to your will and plan. Another thing from Vic. I was able to supplement the all important why of life with the still more important how of living. I was able to begin really solving my own problems and for the first time in my experience was given the power to begin helping others. And this is a little fly from this is a page from I was big. This is how I. Really got hooked on this stuff is if you take a look. This is this is called the the Oxford group game. But if you look at it, this book came out a couple of years before the big book. Right. And Vic is sober in New York in the meetings when Bill comes into the group. And the pagination is very much the same. It's two columns instead of three. But see, even the type fonts are exactly the same. Right. And I was wondering, how is it that, you know, these alcoholics in the beginning were hanging out with all these good Christian folks? I mean, it seems like you just run from the room screaming. But here's what Vic has to say about his old life. They played this little game where they talk about what they used to be like and what they're like now. And he says, in my old life, I liked myself. Liquor, tobacco and every other form. Of narcotic and stimulant and any form of self-indulgence. I can be with this guy. Anything that gave me pleasure. Possessions, power, position or applause or pumped up my self-esteem. To be left largely to myself. And my wife, because of the comforting and complimentary way that she treated me. I. I hated most. Poverty. For myself. Prohibition. Work. People who disapproved or tried to interfere with me. And any betrayal of my inner thoughts or emotions. I like this guy. And. And then what was his new life? What was he? What was it in his new life that he liked? Well, first it was God. The time that he spent alone with God. The fellowship of the living Christ. And he hated most sin. Self. Because I is the middle letter of sin. Sins that separate me from God. Sins that separate me from people. Anything that falls short of God's plan for me. And one of the things that's kind of fun. That definition of sin. People are always trying to buttonhole Frank and say, what is the nature of sin? And Frank would say, it's not the same for other people. For every person. For some people, it might be drinking. For some people, it might be smoking. It would be whatever separates you from being useful to God. Or useful to your fellows. And then later on, this is the six step program that the sober alcoholics. Worked after, you know, before the book. Was written. This is the first. You admitted hopelessness. Second, you got honest with yourself. Then a whole nother thing. Getting honest with another. Four made amends. Helped others without demand for payment. And then the sixth was pray to God as you understand him. So that's just a little philosophical background about the Oxford group. Now, one of the things that. That a lot of people ask me. Jay, what is it that I should read? In order to really do this program correctly. To get back to basics. Try the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Okay. Now, every historian has his prejudice. And I'm going to lay mine on you up front. Okay. And mine is, is that all we need to do is do what's in front of us. If you want to read something, how can I read? What should I read? So they'll really have insight into the founders. And they're desperate. So read the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Then pass it on. Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. AA Comes of Age. It's better to know about what we as a movement think we are. Before you go running around trying to retool and retinker it. And really, most of this information is in there. And it's really, it's really done quite well. It's really done very, very well. And then, of course, getting into the language of the heart. Now, we've got folks. We've got folks here that are all. I mean, it's very, very. The kind of people that are in this meeting today are like a Star Trek convention. You know? I mean, you know, we like to think of ourselves, those of us who love history and service and AA. You know, people that are at Unity Day. We're a special kind of alcoholic. We really care. My sponsor, Paul, who's as active as any man on the planet. He says, Jay. We're the Star Trek conventioneers of alcoholics and anonymous. Just remember that, will you? So, anyway, I believe that first and foremost that we don't have to be doing anything to improve what it is that we've got here. We just need to do what's outlined for us. And the other thing about this story is that for me, it's a real nice illustration of how the hand. And of whatever this is worked in our lives. I'm going to use this today and all my talks. I'm going to use a lot of medieval language. I'm going to use words that were used, you know, in this in this country a hundred years ago. And and basically it all came from, you know, like the King James Bible. So the the words are medieval. But just keep your mind open to the concept. You know, when I talk about sin. The word. Sin actually comes from from a Greek term that had to do with missing the mark. It's the sound of an arrow missing a target. You know. And when I talk about God, remember, I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. And if I use the word Jesus or Christ, I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. But what I'm trying to do is convey what it was that gave and animated the the the experience of these people. That gave us this program that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. So it only. It only looked like a chance encounter. And I'll do questions later. But but otherwise I'll get. We'll never get done. This is Frank Bookman. As I said, you've got to pick where you're going to start. I'm going to start in Keswick, England, a hundred years ago in 1908. When Frank Bookman was a Lutheran minister, was in a crisis, personal crisis. He had. Been working in the slums of Philadelphia with boys. He'd opened a hospital, the Lutheran Hospice for Boys. And it was a place where they opened the doors up. They had some cots. They fed the kids. They cleaned them up. They helped them try and maybe get a job and gave them Christian education. And he figured he was his family was in the hotel business. And so he brought those skills to the park. He had a party. And. So he knew that the way to get people. Kind of in a group conscience was around the table. So we made sure that there was a lot of food for everybody. Well, the place got really successful. Lots and lots of guys showing up. Lots and lots of stuff going on. And. The guys who are on the board say. You got. You got to do something. We're going to have to cut the amount of food that we give the boys. Because we're not being self-supporting. And. Frank was very, very angry at this. He said, if we do that, we're not going to get anything done. And he quit in a huff. And he had worked himself to the bone. He he got some money from his father and he went on a trip around Europe. And this resentment would not leave him. He thought about these guys and what they'd done to his work and what they'd done to these kids. And how unfair it was. And and, you know, he was going around doing good things and trying to be a good guy. But there just wasn't any spiritual power that was being transmitted. Here he is. He's supposed to be a priest and he's not able to have an honest conversation where anything gets transmitted. So he ends up going up to Keswick to where there was a famous conference every year. And he was going up there to run into F.B. Meyer. Who was supposed to be there speaking. And he thought maybe Meyer could give him some insights as to how he could be more effective. And Meyer didn't show up. And he's despondent. And he goes into this little prayer prayer group. And it was being led by a woman by the name of Jesse Penn Lewis. And Jesse would always preach on the cross of Christ. And while while she was talking, Frank had this overwhelming experience. And he had this vision of the cross collapsing into an eye. And he goes, I'm the other wrong person here. They may have been wrong, but I'm the seventh wrong man. And I have to make that right. And when he left, he went out and he wrote some quick letters of apology and he sent them off. And the minute he set them off, he had a complete change. And he realized that the reason that he was not able to transmit a message of depth and weight. Was that he was blocked off by resentment. And so that afternoon he happened to be or that evening he was talking to a guy. And this guy made a decision for Jesus. And he goes, oh, that's what it was. So from Keswick, Frank's the most interesting person I've never heard about. He was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Once for his work trying to stop the outbreak of the Second World War. Later. for his work after. He was decorated by the governments of France, Germany, Greece, Japan, and the Philippines for his work after the Second World War. He founded the Oxford Group in 1921. In 1938, they changed the name to Moral Rearmament. And in 2000, the name was changed to Initiatives of Change. And my dad used to tell me, you can tell a lot about somebody by about their friends, but you can tell even more of them by their enemies. And this guy was equally vilified by hawks and doves, laborers and management, liberals and conservatives, communists, fascists, they all thought he was an agent for the other side. So Frank, when he came back from Keswick, he went to a YMCA conference and he said, I want the toughest job you got. And they sent him to Penn State University. A godlike job. A godless campus in backwater America. Awash in alcohol and student strife. Penn State's football team in those days was known for showing up to the matches drunk. And Frank got there. And any time that you're being taught evangelism or you're being taught revolutionary movements, one of the things that you're, any of you who were put in the, grew up in the SDS, you're taught about the key man strategy, the key person strategy. And that whenever you go into a town or a social situation, that what you need to do is you need to figure out who it is that if they change, they'll affect the most people. And that's the person or those are the people that you expend your energy on. And generally they'd say you pick three. And so when Frank came to Penn State, he picked three. One was, a dean of students. Another was, a guy by the name of William Gilliland. And the third was this guy, Blair Buck. Blair was the big man on campus. Handsome. He was as handsome as Frank was ugly. Frank said that God created him ugly so that he would not threaten people. And so he starts to get together with Blair Buck. And one of the, one of the things that Frank said is, is that you, you know, you don't just hit him up front. What you try and do is get to know the person first before you make your approach. And so Blair said that he was a Confucianist. Well, Frank had spent some time in China and knew a little bit about Confucianism. And so they were able to talk about it. And Frank said, well, you know, what it is that I believe that life should be about is being helpful to others. And he said, so let's pick somebody. You pick somebody and we'll see, uh, if your Confucianism will help this person. And so they picked this guy that was a notorious chicken thief that had a bunch of, had a bunch of, uh, family and they, uh, and Blair did everything for him, man. He gave the guy money, put the kid in school, did all this stuff. And the eldest son and the old man ended up getting arrested. So Frank says, well, I guess this experiment didn't work real well. He said, uh, let's pick somebody else. Uh, so they picked this guy, William Gilliland. I like to call him alcoholic number one. Mr. Gilliland was actually known as Bill Pickles and he lived on Heinz Hill. And, uh, Bill was the, uh, was the, um, janitor at Penn State and he was also the bootlegger. And he was the one that, you know, that, that brought all the booze in and all that stuff. When he first heard of Frank coming to Penn State, Bill said that he would rather stick a knife in him than to breathe the same air. And, uh, just a little bit of a, and so Blair and, uh, so Blair and Frank are talking about, uh, about this guy, uh, Bill Pickle. And, uh, Frank says, okay, now we've tried the Confucianism. Now I'm a Christian, so what we believe in is praying for somebody. So, what we want to do is we're going to pray for this guy. And I want you to come up with a prayer. Blair said, okay. And this is Blair's prayer. Oh God, if there be a God, please help Bill Pickle and all the little pickles. I believe that this is absolute genius. And that from what the Oxford group always taught, and if you read our early literature, you know what people were always talking about was don't worry about faith. Don't worry about believing in anything. Just try it. And this is as feel. I mean, the Alcoholics Anonymous, uh, I believe comes from this prayer. Oh God, if there be a God, it doesn't even matter, but just try it and see what happens. So they say this prayer. I say it a couple of times. And a few weeks later, they're walking down the street. Now the alley outcomes bill and they're behind him. And Frank knows that if he doesn't approach Bill Blair is not going to believe in him. So Frank's got this big beat nose and he didn't want to get it broken again. So he, got up real close to Bill and he put his hand on him so he couldn't swing real, real hard. And, uh, and he said, uh, we've been praying for you. And Bill turned around and looked at him and he was completely disarmed. And he said, uh, well, my mom helped build that church up there. And Bill's story was, is that his mother had committed suicide and she wasn't able to be buried in the churchyard. And, and he had a good justifiable resentment. Anyway, so they befriend this guy and the three of them start talking about horses. They all liked horses and this and that and another thing. And, and, uh, somebody had given Frank Bookman this, uh, beaver hat. Oh, and by the way, most people say they always call him Frank Buckman. First thing, when I started interviewing people in the ox in moral rearmament, I said, so what about Frank Buckman? And they said, no, no, no, his name's Bookman. So if you're going to talk about him, say his name, right. So what's his name? Thank you. Um, anyway, so Frank had been given this really beautiful beaver hat and, uh, Bill said he liked it. And so Frank gave him the hat and then he heard, Bill heard that Frank and Blair were going up to a, uh, to a rally, a young men's Christian association rally up in Toronto. And he figured that maybe if you went along with him, he might get a coat given to him to match his hat. Again, motives, meaningless. Um, so he, he says that he'd go if somebody had come up with the money and the Dean at the school heard about this and he came up with the money. And so they get on the train and they go up and a couple times Bill's going to get off to get a drink and he can't for one reason or another. And he doesn't drink until he gets to Toronto. And then he finds out that they're staying in a temperance hotel. Uh, and he's horrified. You know, I mean, his line was, how could any place make money if it didn't sell booze? Obviously there's something else going on with these people. And, uh, but anyway, he doesn't drink that day and he's rooming with Frank and it goes, they're turning in and they're, they get into bed and Frank says, Oh, we forgot to say our prayers. And Bill says, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And Bill says, well, I don't really remember any. And so they get down on their knees and they pray together. And, uh, Bill pickle never took another drink. The next day he goes to this rally and there was a, uh, there was a, uh, a black man that was up. Given the talk and this big convention, uh, and, uh, after the, after the deal, Bill gets, gets Frank aside. He said, how did you tell him what to say? Cause this man had gotten up and told his story. He was convicted and he got, uh, he got, uh, Frank to write an amends letter for him to his wife. And this man went around the world talking about the transformation that happened to him from doing this. These steps. This is a little picture of everybody all cleaned up when Frank, uh, when Frank got to, uh, Penn state university, there were only about 35 or 40 people involved in Bible study. What Frank did is he started, he called his work at Penn state, the laboratory, and they worked coming up with a way whereby people could get honest with him. People could get honest about themselves and they could drop the things that were bothering them and they could go out and make amends and they could open themselves to start to get guidance about how to live their lives on a daily basis. And, uh, after a couple of years, like 50% and later on, like 70% of the men in that college were going to Bible study and evangelists from all over the world came to find out what the heck is going on here. And it was this thing of working some steps. People got very threatened there because, I mean, you can imagine in a men's college, there's only a few problems that they're going to have. You know, they used to call it impurity. My wife has another word or two for it, but that's another story. But anyway, the impurity and, um, and also there was, uh, Frank always was in conflict with homosexuals because he believed that, uh, that it was a sin and that, uh, that it was really important that people not live in that fashion. And, you know, at that time and in that place, it was a completely different understanding than maybe that we have today. But throughout his career, he was always attacked by people that were of that persuasion and, uh, and he attacked back. So, um, so, uh, but at that time he never expressed that reason once in his life. Hmm. Well, actually, if I was at that time, I was thinking he was just a commentator in the second black and whiteんだ blog, there was a 이날 시간. So he was, uh, he was like just some guy in a military uniform and explained how it was a government committee that was killed and how theiscoiksi in positives, uh, adding but regarding hiatus. In another note, successful preacher would have the time to write all these books. And what they were actually were they were collections of his sermons, but his sermons were all on point with the steps of the group. Here's a picture of Sam and Frank at a rally in 1939 in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl for moral rearmament. They had 30,000 people show up. They turned 10,000 away. Here's a picture of Calvary Church. It's still there. You know, if you ever get a chance to go to New York, make sure that you go. And you can go and sit there in silence and meditate where they did all that stuff. It's really fun. Oh, excuse me. I'm supposed to be moving around here. So here's a picture that's a real treasure that I found. It's a picture of a threesome. Thursday night, Oxford group meeting. Speakers are speaking. Listeners are listening. You know, they're passing the basket. They're doing the stuff. And this is in the Calvary Church. Here's a picture of a better picture of Sam. Sam was known as the most dynamic life changer of the bunch. If you had a tough case, he was the one that you that you threw him to. Here's a picture of Calvary Mission. After a while, after Frank had been on the phone, he was on the phone. He was on the phone for a little while. He decided that this nice dynamic church needed to be doing some outreach. So they took a piece of property they had and they made it a mission where men could come and get a place to sleep and get something to eat and hopefully clean up and get some Bible instruction. Maybe they find a job. When he started the mission, he was looking for somebody to run it. And he was able to get a man. He was a evangelist all over the world. The temperance evangelist by the name of Harry Hadley, Jr., who was a second generation alcoholic and drug addict. This is Jim Newton. Jim Newton is if it isn't for Jim Newton, I'm not here. And Jim Newton is one of those people that you really don't hear a lot about. He wrote a book called Uncommon Friends. Anybody ever see the movie The Music Man or the musical? Jim was that kind of guy. He was kind of like Harold Hill. I mean, he'd go and he was selling luggage. And isn't this Louis Vuitton wonderful? And he'd get your deposit and he'd boogie with the money and never quite get the product back to you. And he did a lot of stuff like that. He one time lived for a year just playing cards on the train. And one day he's in Tarrytown, New York, and he sees some beautiful women walking across the lobby. And he figures they're going to a dance. And he says, I'm going to a dance. And he slides in and he ends up in an Oxford Group house party. And he listens to the speakers and he gets convicted. And after he gets done, he goes up to Frank and says, what do I do? And Frank sent him down to work with Sam Shoemaker. He went down there, went through the process with Sam. And then he goes down to Florida to work in the family real estate business. Jim's father had come. He came up with this idea that if he bought the property in between the Edison and the Ford estate, and he was developing it so that people could go and live, you know, with the great ones. And while they were developing it, they were they had some questions about different things. And Jim went and talked to Mrs. Edison and he became friends with her. And they really they really kind of adopted Jim. I mean, he stayed with him a lot. And I would go. I would go over once, twice a day and spend time. This book, Uncommon Friends, that Jim wrote is about his his friendships with Alex Carell, Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Charles Lindbergh. And just just a few folks. And and it's it's a wonderful book about about this time in our country's life. Anyway, Jim, the Edison's like Jim so much. They decide to ask him to help. One of the things that happened every year was Mr. Edison's birthday party was a huge social event. And all the big politicians and all the big industrials, anybody that could connive their way into would come down to Florida and go to this party. And Jim was put in charge of running it. And while he was doing this, Mr. Firestone was watching him and was amazed at his ability to handle people. And his and his intuitive way of. Doing things. And he invited Jim to come to work for him in Akron to become his personal assistant, to train him maybe to become the a. Maybe one day president of the Firestone Company. And so Jim went to Akron. And when Jim got to Akron, he found out that one of the reasons the old man needed somebody is, is that the sons that he had had a few problems. Now, this is Russell Firestone, also known as Bud. And Bud's one of these guys. Family's got all the money in the world. But when he drinks. It ends up being kind of public knowledge. Family doesn't like that. They try everything, everything. They send him all kinds of places, all kinds of drying out spots. Finally, after a couple of years of Jim watching this, he goes, look, did Mr. Firestone. He says, let me go with Russell to this drying out place in New York. I'll go through the program with him. And then when he comes out, I'll know what it is he's supposed to do. I'll be available to him. You know, Codependents Anonymous hadn't been created yet. Or the Al-Anon family groups. But anyway, you know, Mr. Firestone said, you know, you're my right hand guy. All right, go. So they go and, you know, they go through all the stuff. Make your own bed, clean your own clothes. You know, all those really important things that you get in rehab. And when they check out, the best deal that Jim can cut is hold them the bottle. Because Russell starts drinking immediately. And they're on their way back to Akron. And Jim intuitively knows that he's going to be in trouble. So he goes, he knows that his friend, Sam Shoemaker, is in Denver. At an Episcopal business. Episcopal Bishop's Conference. And that there's a lot of the groupers are there. So they take the train to Denver. And then they get on a train with Sam going back towards New York. Sam and Russell get together. They go through this four-step process. You know, they go through the first two steps. And Russell's drinking vanishes. Everybody's so stunned. They take him. They go up to a little Oxford group ashram in New York. And he stays for there for four weeks. And at the end of four weeks, the old man comes up. Jim goes back to Akron. The old man and the doctor come. And you know when really bad alcoholics get sober? How all the pain comes out of their face? And Mr. Firestone, when he showed up there, he said, you know, here's my boy. The family physician said it was a modern medical miracle. We looked welcome. And we took him to a person they love in New York どうしたら fully Fraud? We were going to fight every now and then such a place that would keep women home. He just told me. He said, no, we wouldn't do that. And I said, well, if I didn't want it in Raptors, do you need to bring people like this back? The bell rang. When again, they had the occasionally have stories. and thinking and going, you know, if I just had enough money. Well, Firestone had all the money. And then here's Roland Hazard. Roland Hazard's from an industrialist in the old Northeastern family. The family money comes from selling blankets to the Union Army. They just got a little dough. And he's just an embarrassment. You know, everybody loves him. He's good looking. He's charismatic. But he gets a couple pops in him and it's embarrassing. And he's had this problem and that problem. And there's this new stuff called psychology. And it so happened that one of Roland's cousins had had a lot of success being with a guy in Switzerland by the name of Carl Jung. So the family packs him over to visit Jung and he has some time with Jung and leaves. And then he goes back and sees him again. And he's. And things are looking really, really good. And then he's coming home and he's in France and. Somebody asked him the wrong question. I believe it was. Would you like some wine with dinner, sir? And he's pie. He's, you know, he comes back like eight days later. He shows up and he's just he's baffled and he's and he can't can't figure out what's going on. And the doctor. Says, oh, I'm so sorry. I thought you were a manic depressive. And that's what I've been trying to, you know, trying to bring about with you. But you're alcoholic. I can't help you. There's nothing I can do for you. I mean. Come on. I got all the money in the world. Fix me. Show me someone that can fix me. He says, can't do it. There's nothing. Nothing. Except here and there. Once in a while. Somebody. Is struck by. Some spiritual experience, some religious experience. So what you ought to do is put yourself close to a religious movement. Maybe you'll get hit by lightning. It's about that. That's about what the odds are. But you're you're toast. And so he goes back to New York and he's and he's. And. And. And. And we don't know whether he started with this in Switzerland at the time. There was this evangelical movement called the Oxford group that was very, very big in Switzerland. But at some point, Roland comes, comes back to the United States. In 1934, in gratitude for what had happened with his son. Harvey Firestone gets together with the industrialists. And. In Akron. He says, we want the city and all of our workers to experience the same wonderful thing that has happened in my family. And so they write a check. They they make a deal with the Mayflower Hotel and they bring the Oxford group. They invite Frank Bookman and a team to come out and to to spend a week. And they spent 10 days. And what happened is, is that they would they take over the hotel. They have big meetings where the big speakers. Speak. And then on Sundays, they'd go out to the pulpits and they'd talk instead of a sermon. There'd be an Oxford group person talking about the their personal regeneration. And this is a this is a great little picture because it's got up in the top right. That's that's Bud Firestone. And then his father. And then the next guy there is Walter Tonks. The Reverend Walter Tonks, who was the Firestone family preacher. From St. James Church there in Akron. So here's a picture of Bill and Abby. His friend, Abby Thatcher. Roland has come back. He's gone to. He's gone to. I'm sorry. He's he's gone. Back to the family church and the family church was Calvary Church in New York. Which is. Is run by a guy by the name of Sam Shoemaker. And he starts going to meetings. And he's drinking and going to meetings. He's not changing. And I got it. I got it. There's a wonderful talk. And I don't know if the the taper here has it. But but there's a collection of talks of Sam Shoemaker that are around. And there's one that he gave in in North Carolina. And he talks about Roland drinking. And he the way he describes it is he's coming to the group and he's not changing. And he's on a business trip from New York to Detroit on a train reading Vic Kitchens. I was a pagan. And he has an experience. Turns his life over. Roland stops drinking. This is big news. Roland comes back. Starts being very active with the group. And. And he's up. He's up in Manchester hanging out of the family. The family house. And he hears about one of his friends, Abby Thatcher, who and Abby's having a tough time. So he and several graves go over and talk to Abby and tell him that he ought to, you know, come and be part of the group. And Abby chases him out. And OK. So Abby's still there and he's an embarrassment to the family. He almost started a fire, you know, and bad, bad stuff. And then they they bring him. And. To the judge. The reason he was in front of the judge is he he crashed his car into a house. He drove it into the kitchen. And the woman who was there making dinner was just horrified. She was almost pinned up against the wall. And Abby opens the door and he gets out and he says, excuse me, could you make me some coffee, please? And this woman said that she didn't go after him for what he did to her house. It was his impertinence. That. Really upset her. So he comes back in front of the judge. The judge says, look, you're an embarrassment. You're awful. If you come back in front of me again. About drinking. I'm going to have you locked away for a year as a chronic inebriate. Isn't that a nice thing to be called? And so Abby's Abby's not drinking. He goes home and we all know what you do when you don't drink. Right. You get a project. And he starts painting the house. Now, he only paints up about six feet because he can't quite get on the ladder yet. And because it's a little shaky. And so he's painting the house and he's and and and he's walking up and down into the basement. He sees that he's got a case of beer. Now, he knows that I don't drink anymore. I don't drink anymore. But, you know, if somebody comes by, they're going to think, you know, that maybe I should have something to drink with them. And I really don't want to do that. So I better get rid of this beer. And so he starts to drink and work. And these pigeons had been messing up his work. And so he started thinking and he got it, got a chair out and he got a shotgun and he got a couple of beers and he's starting to shoot at the defending pigeons. Now, even in a resort town, this is frowned upon. And and so they go and arrest him. And so judge the judge is going to have him on Monday. He's in the tank. He's going to be on the ground for the for the weekend. Now, the judge's last name was Graves. His son, Sebra. Is an Oxford group member who had a drinking problem, who's hanging out with his buddy, Roland Hazard. Now, they'd already gone and talked to every once. But he calls him up. He says, I got him again. We're going to have to lock him up. And so Monday morning, Sebra and Roland show up and Roland says, judge, because you don't want to can't have the son. You do it. Judge. Tell you what? You know that I had a problem. Yes. I haven't had anything to drink in like six months. And I think that I can help my friend, Edwin. And then he says the magic words will take him to New York. Get him out of here. Get him out. So. So he takes him and he takes him home for a couple of weeks. And within like three days, one of the things in the Oxford group was that the person that was in the Oxford group was the person that was in the Oxford group. And the person that was closest to the change was the one that did the talking at the meetings. Wasn't the old timer. It was one that was closest to the flame because they've got the experience. Fresh. And so who's going around talking those first couple of weeks at all these different meetings? It's Abby. And Abby ends up going down to after a couple of weeks, they go and deposit him down in Sam Shoemaker's place. This Oxford group mission, the Calvary mission. And he's there for a month. And after he's there for a month, he's doing all the stuff. He's going out helping. He's talking. And and he's doing his quiet time. And he remembers a buddy of his. Bill Wilson. Who's really got a problem. And Bill has been in and out of this place called Towns Hospital. I don't know if you can see this, but this is an ad for towns. It says the Charles B. Towns treatment for drug addicts, alcoholic and neurasthetics. You used to be able not to be put in for like smoke and crack. And drinking too much. They just said you had a case of the jitters. The nerves. The nerves. Yeah. Anyway, Charlie Towns got this established. He actually had helped clean up a couple of mob guys that were strung out on on morphine. And it was such a great idea that he got a little bankroll behind him and started this this drying out spot. And you had to pay up front. And Bill has ended up in here. A couple. A couple of times. And he's been ministered to by. By Dr. Silkworth. Dr. Silkworth has said to him, you know, you're hopeless. There isn't anything we can do for you. I'm told Lois. This guy is you're going to just have to lock him up. There's nothing to be done for him. And comes. You know, he comes home. Abby comes and talks to him. He throws Abby out. It's not in our book. But, you know, there's a reason why we have literature. There's as Bill sees it. And there's Lois remembers. And for, you know, just literary purposes and the like that the Abby visit, two of them are collapsed into one. But but anyway. And but Abby comes back a second time and he has the conversation with. Bill, where he says, you know, I've got religion. I'm a member of the Oxford group. And Bill's just horrified, you know, and. But he can't get it out of his mind. You can't get it out of his mind. And. And then he figures. I'm a smart guy. I'm an insurance investigator. I'll go down. I'll go down to the mission. I'll go down to these silly meetings. And I'll figure. Out what it is they're doing. And then I'll go home and I'll do it by myself. I won't have to go to those meetings and do all that stuff. And so he cleans himself up a little bit. He gets a little money from Lois. He goes down to. He's going down to the mission. It's a it's a Saturday. He gets on the wrong train. He's walking down towards the mission. He's thirsty. He's he starts to look in bars for people he knows. Doesn't see anybody he knows. Who finally lands in a bar and starts drinking a little beer. Because. You know, you know, like I know that beer is not drinking. Right. I mean, it's just what you do in between. And. And he and he gets this guy, Alex. Who was a thin a fisherman. He goes, oh, yes, exactly. And so they, you know, you got to have somebody that goes with you when you're going down to the mission. Right. They get there and they're kind of boiled as an owl. And Tex Francisco's work in the hands. He was a big guy and he'd been a drunk. And he's. Not drinking anymore. And here's two drunks and they're trying to get in. And Bill said one time he said, I was about to get my customary beating. When Abby shows up and says, oh, no, I'll sponsor him. And he brings him in and he gets him some beans and some coffee. And they they go into the to the meeting. And, you know, it's a it's a revival. It's an Oxford group meeting. It's it's just the meetings that, you know. And and then they get to the point that there's, you know, that it's an open mic and they're not Mike. But, you know, anybody can come up and talk. And while Abby's turned around, Bill gets up and makes a rush for the podium. And he gets up there and he starts talking about alcoholism and his friend and this and that and another thing. And and then the altar call comes and he goes down and he and he and he makes a surrender. And and and then he goes home. And and the next morning he wakes up and he's just a little depressed. How am I ever going to show my face on Wall Street again? When I've been down at the mission jumping for Jesus. Can't you see it? Yes, I'd like you to invest this money. Oh, aren't you? Didn't you do that version of Kumbaya last week? And so he's just he's just. But he figures, OK, I got I got it. I got to get cleaned up so I can think this way. My way through it. So he goes down to towns again, comes in with a bottle of beer, says Silkworth. I know what's up. I've got the answer. Silkworth says, get upstairs. He gets up there. He starts he starts cleaning up. He starts getting more and more depressed because he knows that, you know, he's really finished now. And he comes back by again and he asks him, well, what about this stuff? And he gives him the four the four steps again and and and says, you know, you can use any conception of God that you want and leaves. And, you know, Bill gets more and more depressed. And in the depression, he calls out if there be a God, will he show himself to me? And has this experience. And thank God for us. That what happened is, is that when Silkworth came in and Bill said, have I gone crazy? He said, no, no, no, no, no. Whatever it is you got, hold on to it. You're a lot better off than you were just a little while ago. I don't know what it is, but this is good. Stick with it. And then Ebi comes back and Bill tells him about it. And Ebi comes back again and he brings Bill a copy of the book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Now, how many of you have read The Varieties or tried to? OK. And people say, oh, well, it's just a really, really hard book to read. Well, it's not a book. It's a collection of lectures, number one. But if you want to know why it is that it got Bill right up, I mean, you know, this guy is just gotten done shaking it out. How could he read it? But if you read it like he read it, because in there is the story of a conversion of an alcoholic. And the alcoholic was Samuel H. Hadley, Harry Hadley's father, the guy who's running the mission. And and in the book, it says, Although up to that moment, my soul had been filmed with indescribable gloom. I felt the glorious feeling of the noonday sunshine into my heart. I felt I was a free man. From that moment till this, I have never wanted a drink of whiskey nor seen enough money to make me take one. So it's not like Bill's reading this. Thing about this educational thing, he's here. There's a story just like yours. And not only that, the guy who used to run the mission, it's his dad. This isn't something separate. It's something immediate. It's something here. And there's another picture of Harry. Now, while all this is going on back in Akron, there's some work that's been happening since the since the Oxford group came through. And there's a story that's been happening since the since the Oxford group came through. And there's a story that's been happening since the since the Oxford group came through. There are regular Oxford group meetings. And one of the meetings was the West Hills group at the house of T. Henry and Claris Williams. And folks that are there are folks that were at this this revival meeting, this Oxford group house party in Akron. There's Henrietta Cyberling, who's got trouble in her marriage. There's the Williams. And then there's this woman, Anne, who's got this real problem. She's got a husband who's a proctologist that shakes a lot. Not real good for the practice. And they're going they're going to meetings. They're going to these meetings all the time. And Henrietta was given the job of she was like Anne's sponsor and they would talk all the time. And Bob's getting worse and worse. And then Henrietta got it from another person that Bob's really going sideways. And, you know, there's there's. Little trouble here. And so they they start praying for Bob. And Henrietta gets the job in April. She's going to get to chair the meetings for the month. She gets to select the topics. So for the second meeting in April, she says, when everybody comes next time, I want you to come and be prepared to share something costly. Something costly to your pride. And so everybody comes. And they they share about whatever it was, you know, pad their expense account, kicking the cat, whatever, whatever it happened to be. And they get done. And just like every other meeting, Bob has not said anything. And T. Henry says, now we have all shared something costly, Bob. Don't you want to say anything? And Bob says. Well, OK. This is going to probably cost me my job. But. Cost me my practice. But I'm a closet drinker. No one knows. And I can't stop. And T. Henry says, do you want our help? And he says, yes. And so they all get down on their knees and they pray that Bob might be relieved. He just gets worse. And keeps calling. And. Now, in the Oxford group, if you want to know about getting guidance, all you have to do is read our 11th step in our book, Alcoholics Anonymous. But there's one component that's not in there that they would write down. There what what comes across their heart each day. And so they're they're writing it down. Henrietta is writing down her guidance. And she gets she gets to the point where she's thinking about Bob. And what comes across her heart is Bob should not drink anything. And don't worry. I will send someone. So she gets up and she calls. She calls up and she says, I got to talk to Bob. The sponsors on the phone. Hi, Henry. Bob, I've gotten guidance. You're not supposed to drink anything. Oh, thanks. And. Hung up the phone. Now, at this stand. In time, of course, what's going on? There's an Oxford group guy. He's in the hotel. Mayflower Park Hotel. He's looking. He's things have fallen apart. He's not going to get the presidency of the job. You know, he's not going to get the job. He's going to have to go home a failure. Everybody else is left. He's got ten dollars. In Akron in those days, if you had ten dollars, you could live like a king. He. Here's the glasses tinkling. The girls are giggling. Starts walking towards the bar to just have a ginger ale. He goes, not sitting right. Goes, hits the directory. Starts looking for somebody. Now, Lois talks about the fact that he always liked strange names and he liked the name Tunks because it was strange. Well, Tunks, not only is he said a strange name, but he's also an Episcopal minister. Sam Shoemaker is an Episcopal minister. Tunks also is the Oxford group contact. In. Akron. And he knows what happened to Russell Firestone. And he. So Bill calls up and he says, I'm a rum hound from New York. And Tunks says, well, you know, I'd like to help you, but two drunks together. I'm not sure about. And, you know, I can't. Even if I knew what the drunk was, I couldn't. I couldn't. But here's some names. And he gives him these Oxford group people's names. And Bill starts calling. And finally, he gets to Henrietta. Great stories. He got up. He didn't want to call Cyberly. Because he used to be in a club with Cyberling in New York. And he thinks it's old man's, the old man's wife. And it's not. But he thinks that. He's walking across the lobby. And the little voice goes, no, make the call. So he turns back and he makes the call. And he gets to Henrietta. And Henrietta says, get out here immediately. And Bill said it was the hardest interview he'd ever been on. He said he had to prove that he wasn't a drunk. That he was a drunk. He was used to proving that he wasn't when he talked to people. And he convinces Henrietta that he's got the papers. He's got the qualification. She goes and she picks up the phone and she calls Ann. She says, Ann, he's here. The one who was foretold to me. Get Bob over here now. Unfortunately, Bob is passed out under the piano. And he's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not here. He's not going anywhere in that condition. But the next day, hungover, guilty, having to go over to the sponsor's house to talk to somebody that's supposed to be able to help me. He's getting driven over there by his son, Smitty. And if you haven't heard the tape, Smitty says, yeah, I was driving the old man over there and he said, if I ever wanted to drive the car, I'd have to drive the car again. He said, I'm going to give this clown 15 minutes. And if I'm not out of there, I want you to come in and say there's been a train wreck and get me the hell out of there. Say there's emergency surgery that needs to be performed and I need to go. You want to drive, kid? Yeah, I want to drive. 15 minutes max. You got it, Dad. And he goes in and what happens? Bill looks at him and says, you look like you need a drink. And they get shown off into the library together and they talk. And they talk for six hours. And Bill, of course, needs Bob. Bob doesn't need him. And they've both been going to Oxford group meetings. Bob's been drinking and going. They spoke the same language. They're from the same neighborhood. And so what happened? Dr. Bob stopped drinking. Their prayers were answered. And so I like to say that that's how Alcoholics Anonymous really started. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye.