The Slender Threads of Alcoholics Anonymous – Gail L.

Well hello Alcoholics Anonymous. You like your cushy seats? My name's Gail. I'm an alcoholic. You notice we all have the last name, same last name. There's Joe alcoholic, there's Susie alcoholic. We're all one big family this weekend and this is a wonderful family reunion. So I just want to wish everybody happy birthday. And my slides aren't turning so we'll get that straightened out. It was working fine before. You know, lack of power is my dilemma again. So I'll need a little technical help from the boys somewhere. I'll flip it for now and wish you all a happy birthday. I got it, I got it on. Maybe if I turn this on it would help. I like to start out by qualifying. So I'll use my famous picture here. If you've not, if you've not seen this, I'd like to tell you this is Woodstock. It's not. It's Slade, Kentucky. And notice there's a half a gallon of wine to my left, a cigarette in my right hand, a deck of cards in my left hand. And if you look real close it looks like my zipper's down. Yeah, that's definitely a qualifying picture. I have one more picture though that you might relate to. This is a picture of me in a blackout. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. Yeah, um I just celebrated um, forty years of sobriety on Mother's Day weekend. That's... When I came into Akron, Ohio I'm so fortunate. And those of us that live in Akron are so fortunate to have the rich history here. We are. And um, the program was 43 years old. And I just fell in love. I just, um, fell in love. And I think, um, just that we're very, really, very lucky to be here. I think, um, this was the first time I had life experience with a mother's day. And the fact that I was in Akron was, I'm really lucky to not go to Akron because I knew you could relate. I knew you could relate. Yeah, um, I just celebrated 40 years of sobriety on Mother's Day Weekend. And I just fell in love. I just fell in love. And we're so fortunate that this is my 41st Founders Day weekend. I've not missed a one in 41 years. When I first got sober, we didn't have a lot of books. 1978, not a whole lot of books. But I read this biography by Robert Thompson. That's Bill's biographer you're looking at. And I found out about 855 Ardmore. And I said, oh my God, you know I hated Akron. Akron, as you can tell this weekend, is a little bit cloudy. A little bit gloomy sometimes. And I blame that on my drinking. As a matter of fact, you might have read on your program that I now live in the villages. But I come home. It's just that no matter how many times I said the serenity prayer, it just didn't put a dent in the cold winter gray months. So I'm a snowbird. But I'm back in Akron for four months. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that. A little bit more about that. Well, how I got started in, I say I follow breadcrumbs. When you turn your life and your will over after that, you just follow breadcrumbs. And they said to get active. And I was asked to be a hostess for Lois Wilson at Founders Day. Because obviously, the co-founders were gone. But Lois was still living. And yeah, wow. What an assignment. And I didn't even know what a hostess was. I said, well, what's a hostess? What's a co-founder? What am I supposed to do? And she said, well, you're supposed to seat Lois up at the dais and seat her companions somewhere. And I figured that out. And while I was seating her companions, by the way, that was Lois. And one of her companions was this gal with a hat here in the back seat. That happened to be Nell Wynn. And she was a bubbly, beautiful gal. And she came up to me and she said, as soon as I met her, hi, my name's Nell. And I was with Bill for 18 years. And I was with him. And he was writing the 12 and 12 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my eyes, you know how cartoon characters, have you ever seen where their eyes kind of come out and roll and then go back in their head? Well, I felt like that's how I looked. And as I was seating her, there just happened to be an empty seat. So I sat down along with them. And she was going to get me a signed book, Lois remembers. It had just come out. And I was so grateful. I said, oh, Nell, if there's anything I could do for you, just let me know. And she said, Nell, be careful when you say that in Alcoholics Anonymous. She said, yes, there is. I'd like you to start an archives. I didn't know what an archives was. I thought it might be some smelly papers in Washington. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Like I was taught by the old timers, you're supposed to say yes when you're asked to do something in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I did. So let me tell you just a little bit about Nell. She was almost like a Wilson. If you visit Stepping Stones, you'll see her bedroom there. She was a constant companion to Bill. She started out as a receptionist and later became his secretary. Her book, Grateful to Have Been There, came out. You can read a lot of history in that. She was going to call it Life Among the Anonymous. I think that would have been a great title. She opened the GSO archives in the 70s. She was a true friend of AA, not an alcoholic. And she was a companion. She was a companion to Bill and Lois right up to the end with Lois. She just dearly loved Lois as well. So after that, through a series of circumstances, I got involved in the purchase of Dr. Bob's home. Now these are a lot of coincidences. You probably have some in your life as well. And I ended up negotiating the purchase on the home. I held the home for about six months. And then I thought I can put the archives in Dr. Bob's home. Because my last name in French means the cross. Well when Nell asked me to do that, I felt like I was carrying the cross. And now we had a place to put the archives. So I took off. And on my spring break, I'm a recovering school teacher. It's a beautiful picture of Nell here. It looks like she's looking up and talking to Bill when I look at that picture. I took off and went to New York. And I thank you, Greg, for this slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I went to New York. And I went to see how did they do stepping stones so we would learn how we could do 855 Ardmore. And Nell trained me. And while I was staying with her, oh, wait a minute. Let me tell you about this picture first. You can see I'm having a drink with Lois there. And I want you to know I was sober in that picture. I had a couple years of sobriety. But my hair hadn't sobered up yet. And I'm not going to lie. This is kind of an embarrassing picture because I think my zipper's down there. I'm not sure. It's humbling. This is a humbling picture. But it's good. I've got to tell you how good this picture is. I lost it. And this is my 13th year giving this talk here. The same jokes. You're still laughing. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. I lost it. There's a crew of guys here that works with me. And you heard me thank Greg for this slide. It disappeared. And these guys know this talk so well they go, We've got to get that slide back. That's a great slide. So we spent about an hour up in the sound room pulling it down from the cloud. So I thanked Greg for that. So anyway, she takes me into her home. Nell takes care of me. And I'm saying, I want to be an AA archivist. I'm going to put the archives in Dr. Bob's home. She said, you can't be an AA archivist and put the archives in Dr. Bob's home. You see, what belonged to the Smiths belong in the home, and what belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous belongs in Alcoholics Anonymous. They had straightened that all out in New York. Well, I spent the next three days trying to talk her out of our traditions, because AA can't own property. Dr. Bob's house is a foundation. So I left, and I came back, and eventually I left the home at that time and spent about ten years wandering, trying to get people to care about the history, because we didn't really have anything at that time. If you'd have taken a bus past Dr. Bob's house, they'd have thrown beer cans at you. We had nothing. Today we have a lot for you to see. But I went. Ten years later, they asked me to set up. I used to set up at Founders Day, but we have a beautiful archives now in the Intergroup office. So I was there for 15 years. And we put it under structure. It's beautiful. I hope you have a chance to visit that while you're in town. And today, I'm now, the last seven, eight years, I'm on the board of Dr. Bob's home, and I take care of the history, and we've established an archives there. So that's that part of the story. Now here's what you came for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And this slide that I just ... That took me about six weeks in PowerPoint class to put that together. I'm a recovering school teacher so we're going on a field trip. We're going back to Akron. The mid-30s might have looked like this. Dr. Bob's office is downtown. The building is still there. And this is how it might have looked when Bob and Bill walked the streets of Akron. We're a rubber town. We had big, big industrial rubber companies and the big families that went with it. The Cyberlings are the ones that started Goodyear. And then we had the Firestones. And, you know, in this story I'm about to tell you, these are not all AA alcoholic members. These are friends of Alcoholics Anonymous. Let us never forget the friends that helped us get to where we're at. And this guy here, this is Harvey Firestone, a great guy. And he had several sons. This one, Russell, whose nickname was Bud, was a terrible alcoholic. Now this is a family with power, money, and prestige who did everything they could to help their son. And I like to say all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Bud back together again. Money won't buy sobriety. So the family kind of gave up hope. They had sent him away to treatment and done all they could. And here he could not help with the company or anything. His life was a mess. This is when somebody... In this story, there's so many cool characters. This one on the left is Jim Newton, one of my favorites. Those of you that are here from Florida, he's going to start out in Massachusetts as a young luggage salesman chasing pretty girls. And God can use womanizers in this story. He thinks he's on his way to a singles dance, and he follows him into the hotel. But he ends up in an Oxford group meeting. And he becomes a grouper. Now, he ends up in Fort Myers, Florida, because his father lived across the street from Thomas Edison, who lives next door to Henry Ford. And they're friends with Harvey Firestone and Charles Lindbergh. There's a whole group of them. Well, Mr. Firestone likes Jimmy, and he brings him to Akron to grooming for... a big position with the company. So... He's friends with... Oh, I better back that up just for a second. He cares about Bud's drinking, and he's going to introduce him to the Oxford group. So he even went away to treatment with Bud. That's pretty codependent, don't you think? He goes, and they travel by train in those days, and he takes him to Denver, where the Oxford group was. And Bud turns over the flask for some controlled drinking on the way there, and Jimmy helps him control the drinking. But on the way coming back, on train, Sam Shoemaker was on that train. Anybody here know who Sam Shoemaker was? I'll introduce him to you in just a minute. But he's on that train, and he pulls... They pull him into a train car, and he makes a surrender, like they used to, on their knees. They called it soul surgery. Today, we might call it the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when he gets off the train here in Akron, he's not the same guy. Lines on his forehead are all relaxed now. He stops abusing his wife. He becomes productive in the company. And for any of you that know the story about the prodigal son, anybody remember what happens when the son returns home? Does the father butcher a calf and throws a big dinner? That's what Mr. Firestone pretty symbolically did. Frank Buchman is the founder of the Oxford Group. He's going to invite Frank Buchman and a troop of people, because they were like an army for God. They traveled together. So the reports vary from 40 to 60 of them come to Akron. And they're going to throw a big party in downtown Akron. But we're talking about high society. We're talking about almost royalty here. We're talking about the Firestones and the Cyberlings. And diamonds and furs and the fire and the fire and the fire. And the fire and the fire and the fire. And the fire and the fire and the fire. And the fire and the fire and the fire. And the fire and the fire and the fire. And the fire and the fire. And diamonds and furs and society all show up. Pick them up at the train station. The press is covering all of it. He wants to introduce the Oxford Group to Akron. I don't know if you can tell by that, it's not a very good picture, but you can tell it's quite a fancy affair. Now the Mayflower Hotel is newly opened. This is January 18th. It's the year and a half old. And at this time they're going to hold a dinner for 400. And who's going to give testimony to his recovery from alcohol? Bud Firestone. How does this start in Akron? With a drunk's recovery. At that time, Henrietta Cyberling, who you see here on the left, and Ann Smith would have gotten involved. Because for the next 10 days, they're going to hold house parties. They're going to hold meetings here in the morning and at night. They will go out into the pulpits of the churches here in Akron. And as I see it now, it's sort of like the seed of the second birth, which will be in 35, are being planted. Because now we have, when they leave town, the Oxford Group will begin meeting in homes. Dr. Bob's going to join the Oxford Group. These women had a lot of, put a lot of mojo on Bob. Boy, I'll tell you, they manipulated him. But you know, he was down and out. There was a depression going on. His practice is low. Things are not good, you know, with the Smiths. And he's depressed, and there's a depression. And so they talked him into coming into the Oxford Group, and he liked the Oxford Group, much like the joy and the sharing that we do here today in AA. That's very similar to the Oxford Group. And he swore he'd never go back to church again. And he did. He began reading the Bible several times. He did everything they asked him to do. He went to meetings. He prayed. And in two and a half years, that's why this picture, in two and a half years, he could not get sober. And it was almost all of our principals come out of that Oxford Group. And yet he didn't get sober. There's a lesson in that for us. So this gal coming up here is Delphine Weber. She was concerned because the principal of the Oxford Group, the principal of the Oxford Group, is sharing. And she called up Henrietta Seiberling, and she said to Henrietta, what are we going to do about Dr. Bob? She says, what do you mean? Well, he's got a terrible drinking problem. He's ready to lose his house. And she said, or she did what they did back then. She took it to God in the form of the morning quiet time, which they called guidance. And let me tell you a little bit about that. The Oxford Group people and the early AA members would get up in the morning, and they would, they would say a prayer. They would read from a devotional, usually the Bible. Then they did something that they, it's called two-way prayer. They would pray, but then they would listen. And they would have a pencil and a paper there, and they would write down what they believed God was saying to them. And they did another thing that I think leads to sponsorship. It's called checking. You would check with your partner. They called them partners. You had a partner. You might call them a sponsor. And you'd run it by the four absolutes to see if your guidance was coming from your ego or the Holy Spirit. So what she does is she totally gets guidance and downloads something that we have on TV today called intervention. Only there was no intervention in 35. To me, this is a profound guidance that she knows to call these two folks, T. Henry and Clarice Williams, who live in this beautiful Tudor home, who have been working for the National Rubber Machinery Company for almost a decade. And they've been working for the National Rubber Machinery Company for almost a decade. This poor guy works for National Rubber Machinery Shop. Bill's just come to Akron to take over the company he works for. He gets fired, and now he's going to lose his house because of Bill Wilson. Now, the banks are for closing on homes. And these were good Oxford Group people. And the banks stopped just short of taking that home. It's God's house. So, she planned it. Henrietta Cyberlink planned a meeting. It was called a set-up meeting. It happened on a Monday. And she said, Come prepared to mean business. There's not going to be any pussyfooting around. We're going to share, and we're going to share deeply. That's what they do in an intervention, don't they? So they met at T. Henry's living room. And they all went around the room, and I don't know what they said, but I do know what Dr. Bob said when it came his turn. He looked up at them, and he thanked them. And he said, Now, at the cost of my profession, I am a secret drinker, and I cannot stop. Step one. And they said something else, a prayer that leads to us being here today. They said to him, Would you like us to pray for you? And he said, Yes. And they all got down on their knees in that living room, and they said a prayer for Dr. Bob. T. Henry was still living. He'd show you the spot on the living room floor where that happened. Have you ever noticed in Akron, you go to the Mayflower, they'll say, AA started here. You go to the Gate Lodge, they'll tell you, AA started here. T. Henry would have told you, AA started in his living room. Something about Akron. By the way, the woman I showed you, the Delphine Weber, remember the first lady that calls Henrietta? I gave this talk at the 50th anniversary of King's School. By the way, this prayer was said on a Wednesday at 8 o'clock. That's my home group. My home group meets today, Wednesday. Wednesday at 8 o'clock. And I'll trace that back for you, the mother group. But anyway, I said it for their 50th, and a young man came from the back of the room, and he had tears coming down his face, and he said, Delphine, Delphine Weber, that's my grandmother. I didn't know my grandmother had anything to do with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you may never know what something you're doing today might help your loved one downstream. So, um... So, Bill's gonna come shortly after that prayer is said. Bill's gonna come and stay at the Mayflower Hotel. His deal's gonna fall through. And I have a brand-new slide for you, because some of you have been here so many times, I wanted something new. I'll be like that. Anyway, where the scene takes place, where Bill is tempted to go in the bar, I think I've got a picture of the bar for you. Um, that's the bar. It's called the Parisian Room. If you go into the Mayflower Hotel, please know that area where the elevators are is where the scene took place. To the left would have been the Parisian Room, and right catty corner there, you will find the directory. It is not hanging there today. I'll show you in a minute where it is hanging. Um... And it's where the Hat Check Room used to be. So you get a little confused. Just know it's right in that area where the elevator was. Take about three steps, and you probably were Bill Pace. Oh, here's another little special effects. I like that. So you know through a series of phone calls, he's going to get in touch. That's enough, Bill. That's enough. Um, through a series of phone calls, he's going to get in touch with Henrietta Cyberling. Um, this is a picture of how the locker room looks. And probably the Mayflower would have looked, um, when Bill was there. And you can see that's where the directory and the phone hang now. But you can see clearly it's a Hat Check. And it's through here, when you walk through here, is where you'll find the elevators. And you know that it was Mother's Day weekend when, um, the two men get put together because Henrietta never stopped praying for her friend, Dr. Bob. And, um, one day she called Ann up. She goes, Ann, Ann, I got guidance for Bob. I got guidance for Bob. And he jumped in his car and he ran down to the Gate Lodge. And when he got there, he was expecting something really big. And she said, Bob, just don't touch any alcohol. He was a little disappointed in that. Um, what a great gift God gave to every mother when a son or daughter returns home. And Mother's Day weekend was the day we got that gift. And how many children have been returned to mothers because of that? Very special day for us. That's a little room. Hope all of you have had a chance to visit it. It's tiny. Original wallpaper. It's pretty cool. Well, they, Bill knew after working with other alcoholics that in order to stay sober, you need another alcoholic. He said, you know, he says, I needed Bob more than he needed me. So they got to work on a couple of them. They lost a couple of them. And they finally get a call. This is not Bill Dotson, but it's Bill. There's a painting that represents that call. And they go to City Hospital, and they make a call on Bill Dotson, and it was effective. And on July 4th, there's another date that comes up. In your big book, under his story, there's an editorial comment that says, on July 4th, he leaves City Hospital a free man to never drink again. And that's when group number one began. So the next time you see fire in the sky for the 4th of July, remember it's our Independence Day too. Now they wouldn't have taken him the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous because the big book hadn't been written yet. They would have taken him four words. Honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Dr. Bob said those were the only yardsticks that we had to measure behavior until the 12 steps came out. And it worked pretty well. But there's four questions that go with those four words. Is what I'm about to think, say, or do right or wrong, true or false, ugly or beautiful, and how does it affect the other guy? For those of you that are at King's School Wednesday night, all five of the Hicken brothers mentioned those four words because we still study them today in this area. So we enter the flying blind period. You see, what happened after Bill D gets sober? And we have a group. More came in. Small group, slow start. But they formed a subgroup within this group. And they had a name for it. It was called the Alcoholics Squad. Only the alcoholics couldn't sit still for the guidance. They were jonesing. So Dr. Bob would take them into the upper room, and he was a prince of 12-steppers. He could get the surrenders. And so then they would come back down. So for the next four and a half years, we will meet in this home, and that's where group number one comes from, Wednesday at 8 o'clock. In April of 39, the big book gets published. In May, Cleveland breaks away, but we don't leave this home until the end of the year, like around December of 39. In January, we move into King's School, and that's where we meet. So I hope when you come back, try to come in on a Wednesday. We have a great kickoff party for Founders Day there, Wednesday at 8 o'clock. So let's take a trip now to New York, where the other stage is. That's Calvary Church. Around this area is where all the New York AA activity will occur. Sam Shoemaker is the head of that church. It's also the headquarters of the Oxford Group. Now there's a mission around the corner there. The mission is where Ebby's going to be. And you know the call that Ebby's going to make to Bill, and this is the kitchen table that's at Stepping Stones. The story's in your big book there. And Bill's going to end up in Townes Hospital. Now, why is it Townes? He has a spiritual experience. And out of that spiritual experience, he was like in the Oxford Group, but he sees how his experience can benefit others, after the white light. And all he wants to do now is work with alcoholics. Looks to me like singleness of purpose might have come out of that. And then he comes back to his group, which I'm going to show you here in a minute. And I've interviewed some of the members of that group, and they said that when Bill would come in, he'd about knock you over looking for another alcoholic. The Oxford Group didn't like that too much. They wanted to be all things to all people. This is Bill and Lois's room. This is the group that met on Thursday night at Calvary Church. In 1937, the Oxford Group was a little fed up with Bill, just wanting to work with alcoholics. So they gave Bill and Lois the cold shoulder. And they left, and they'll begin holding meetings at Clinton Street. They don't have a name either. They're called the Drunk Squad, or a nameless bunch of drugs. So at the time the big book's being written, you have a group here in Akron called the Alcoholics Squad, and you have a group there called the Drunk Squad. Not sure what that is. There we go. Akron, 1937, Bill comes back to Akron. He's on a business trip. One minute he's a millionaire, the next minute he's broke. He's up, he's down. He's making some kind of comeback. And he's going to stop off and see the Smiths. You know, he spent the whole summer into the fall in 35 there. So he's pretty good friends. He lived in the Smith home. And I have a... By this time, I have to go back, because I want you to see that. Let's see, yeah. At this time, they are going to count noses. How many are sober? It's something they all did back in the day. They always wrote down their sober dates, and they were keeping track. They did not know what they had. We are still in the Oxford group. We're flying blind. They haven't realized yet that something's going on. So, Ebby drinks. Can you imagine how hard that must have been? Lots and lots of failures, including Ebby. Yeah, okay, I photoshopped this. I needed a picture of the three of them, okay? And that date should have said 37. But they're counting, the three of them are counting noses. And they came up with the number 40. And I don't know why that was such a great number for them, but I can tell you in their words, that they had this moment of Ebby. They had this moment of ecstasy. Because what they realized that a light had come into the dark world of the alcoholic. Something occurred. It's like they knew they had something at that moment. And the next thing they did is they bowed their heads in thanksgiving and prayer. And the next thing that happened, if you know Bill Wilson, well, he'd been working on Wall Street. My God, there's a chain of drug stores. We need a chain of hospitals. Hey, and we need some missionaries to go with that. And we better get some literature. So, Bob and Bill, they were, you know, Smitty said it best. If it was up to Dr. Bob, AA would have never left Akron. If it was up to Bill Wilson, he'd have franchised it. Two Vermonters, thank God, they both got along. And I think they didn't always agree, but they agreed to disagree agreeably. Which is a great example for us. Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy this little clip here of the two of them. You can see they're pretty happy in their sobriety. And you might notice that Dr. Bob's got quite a crazy tie. He was known for crazy ties and Argyle socks. And I don't know what the two men are saying. But I imagine that Bob might be saying, Keep it simple, Bill, and don't louse this thing up. And in a minute, you're going to see the mother of AA, Ann Smith. And you'll see that she's very shy, and she doesn't want to be in the picture at all. But there she is. Look, get me out of here. Get that... Sweetheart. Okay. So, they've just... So, they go back to the home that this all started with. Because they have about 18, 19 guys sober. Actually, I think 19. And they're going to take it to a vote, because they've discovered this group conscience. Well, let me show you how that went. Okay, back in the living room there. Bill's going to pitch it. Here's what he's going to say. He's going to say, Chain of hospitals, same stuff. Paid missionaries. And he says, Literature to keep the message from getting garbled. You know that... Here's how the message was carried before. You all played the telephone game, right? You know how that goes. All right. The people from Akron were very conservative here, you know. The man of Galilee had no press agents, newspaper pamphlets, or books. Keep it simple, Bill. Bill says, You can keep it so simple, you'll have anarchy. He said, There are alcoholics dying within gunshot of this home. Bill Wilson never stopped caring about the alcoholics we weren't reaching. And he was caring about them then. So, they took it to a vote. One vote over. They send Bill back to... We were broke. It was a depression going on. There are people standing in food lines. You're going to need some cash. You better go back to New York and raise it. So, Bill goes back to the Big Apple, and he's got a partner there, and they're running around, and they're trying to get money, but they're not too successful. You know, people would rather give money... What, 40 drunk, sober? No big deal. That's no big deal. We'd rather give money to the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. So, Bill started getting depressed. Do you know about Bill's depressions? He had lots of them. And he's moaning, and he's got one of those imaginary ulcers, and thank God his sister Dorothy had married a doctor. And it happened to be Dr. Leonard Strong. That's Dorothy there on the right. And, boy, Bill used this guy up. This guy paid for every visit at Towns Hospital. This guy later becomes a trustee. Bill was down to... Before he went into Towns, he was just down, no friends, just his mother and this guy. So, he runs off to the doctor, and he's whining about how the rich won't give him any money. And you know what whining is, don't you? That's anger coming through a very small hole. I know because I'm a recovering whiner as well. But something happens. Now, imagine Bill's down and out, no money, and he's got this ulcer. And he says, Hey, I think I know somebody who once was related to the Rockefellers. And he says, I'll connect you. So, he calls this girl, and he gets Bill an appointment with Willard Strong. Now, Willard Richardson. Willard Richardson just happens to be Bill. And he just happens to be Mr. Rockefeller's best friend and spiritual advisor. Hmm. And the next thing you know, Bill's on his way up to the Rockefeller office. And I think it's the 56th floor or something. And Bill gives a line that I think goes with this whole story, and I hope your life's too. And he says in Fort Worth, On what slender threads our destiny does lie. This is a slender thread story, if there ever was one. Leroy Chipman was part of that group that was in there, and they meet in the boardroom of the Rockefeller. Now, J.D. was not there. I don't think Bill Wilson ever met J.D. But he was with all the other Rockefeller men. Let's see who was there. On the Rockefeller side was Albert Scott Richardson. Leonard, the brother-in-law, is there. Silkworth is there. Frank Amos and Chipman, the alcoholics, were Bill, Bob, Hank, Fitz, Ned, and Dick S. And there's, can you imagine, they're barely sober. I mean, this is not long-term sobriety, right? They're sitting in the Rockefeller boardroom, and they're fidgeting, and they go, they didn't know what to do. They're just looking at each other. And finally one of them said, well, let's just do what we always do. Why don't we just tell our story? And they started telling their stories, and this guy, Frank Amos, jumps up, and he says, why, this is first century Christianity. And then, they say, gentlemen, up to this point, this has been the work of goodwill only. No plan, no property, no paid people, just one carrying the good news to the next. Hmm. Isn't that true? And may it not be that this is where the great power of this society lies. Well, Frank Amos is from Ohio. He says, I'll go check Dr. Bob out. I'll go back to Ohio on his own dime. He comes here. And if you want to read about what he found, it's in Dr. Bob and the Good Old-Timers. But he was pretty impressed, and he's going to ask for $50,000. He's going to ask, mortgage Dr. Bob's house, put in a rehabilitation place, put Dr. Smith in charge, subsidize a few people, charter state, start a chain of hospitals, and get busy on that book. Well, goes from Richardson, to JD, and here's what's said. Somehow I'm strangely stirred by all this. This interests me immensely. But isn't money going to ruin this thing? I'm terribly afraid that it would. And yet, I'm so strangely stirred by it all. Feels like higher power to me, stirring him up. Well, that's not what they wanted to hear. But he said, I want to hear what goes on, and please don't bother me for any more money. No, I won't be the one to spoil this thing with money. They didn't stop there, though. They're hungry, and they want money. So, the $50,000 gets shrunk down to $5,000. They pay $3,000. They pay off Dr. Bob's house. And the $2,000 goes into the Riverside Church, where this is a, Fosdick is the Rockefeller pastor there. And, by the way, he writes the first big book review in the New York Times. And we read a lot of his books, too. Then they get this young attorney from the Rockefeller side, and they're going to start our foundation. It's called the Alcoholic Foundation. It started in 38. And they said, well, what is the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic? We're still talking about this today. That's where you get your Class A and Class B. And they said, well, what is the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic? Well, they're saying Class B trustees. The Class A's can drink and the Class B's can't. The guys that were on there, there's Leonard again. Strong, he's on it. Richardson's on it. Chipman's on it. Amos is on it. Dr. Bob is on it. Bill R. and Harry B. are on it. Bill's off on an advisory board to the side of it. Now, I've got to introduce you to Hank. This is the first guy out of town, and Bill's his sponsor, and Bill's working with him. Hank was a red-haired, tall, broad-shouldered former athlete with a salesman's drive and enthusiasm. He had at least one new idea a minute and plenty of energy. He's been fired from Sohail, and he wants to get back at them. He's a big-time executive, and he lost his job because of alcohol. So he starts a company called Honors Dealers. Now, Honors Dealers is selling car products. And I guess he wanted to compete with Sohail. And they're going to start writing the book in this building. And then they end up at this building here, the office that will go down in history. This is the office at 17 William Street in New Jersey where the big book was written. And sadly, that building has been torn down. However, they know the importance of that location. In fact, I was just up in New Jersey for the dedication of this plaque. If you ever get to New Jersey and 17 William Street, you're going to see a plaque to the left of the building. And it's a plaque that says, I'm going to be a part of the history of the United States. And it's on the left of the door at the Calumet building that reads, It was on this site in 1938 in the sixth floor office of Honor Dealers. The pioneers of a fledgling fellowship wrote the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And from this title, a worldwide society would take its name. Alcoholics Anonymous has since helped millions of men and women recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body known as alcoholism. They hired this secretary. This is Ruth Hawk. And she plays an important part in our story because, by God, they didn't have any money to pay her. She basically worked for free. Here she is sitting at the table with Bill in a picture I took out of Pass It On. And under the caption, that picture said she didn't know what she was getting herself into. You see, she said, I didn't see a lot of car products being sold. There was either somebody passed out or somebody down on their knees making a surrender. They came up with this idea of selling stock certificates to promote the book. It would cost $25, but they weren't worth any money. They didn't have any money. They sold them anyway. They ripped her off one of these a week as her weekly ration. I first gave the talk that you're hearing tonight. When the General Service Office asked me to speak in Toronto at the International. And when I came to this slide, I said, little did Ruth know. I think I have another. This is the typewriter. I never want to see another one of those again. I went to college on one of those. Demon. Little, when I came to this slide, little did she know that the book she was typing would one day save her daughter's life. Her daughter was my roommate in Toronto, and I had her stand up with 30 years in Chicago. She was just from Chicago with 30 years of sobriety. I'll tell Lori you said so. If you want to see, visit the typewriter, I believe it's on display at the General Service Office. Now, I got to tell you about Hank. It was Hank's idea to write the book. Hank wrote the outline. And I've studied these notes. I don't have time to tell you all of it. I do in another talk on the four forwards. But I wanted to add some new slides because some of you have been to this thing so many times. I wanted to throw you something new. So I wanted to show you some of the notes on this. This is the title page. This is Hank's ideas. And Bill pretty much followed them. And you will find that Bill followed these to the letter in the book. Why the book? He's going to answer that. Questions and answers. Sales, promotion, and possibilities. You'll find out in the prospectus in a few moments. And suggestions for chapter one. And how to do the mail order. It's interesting. They were talking about getting a cure for alcoholism back then. And observations. Well, where did some of this come from? Some of the books that influenced them obviously was William James Varieties of Religious Experiences. And this book here, What is the Oxford Group? Now that's the main Oxford Group text. When Nell asked me to do this, I had nothing. We started with nothing. And I thought, well, I better get out there and go through some old bookstores or do something. So I happened to be down at the Gate Lodge for a harvest festival. And there was a tent behind the Gate Lodge with old books. So I went in. This would have been 1984. And I said, Do you have any old AA books? And they said, No. I said, Well, do you have any spiritual books? And they said, Yes. And there was a few there. My hand went across a little blue book that said, What is the Oxford Group book? I wasn't even sure if we were the movement or what we were. And I opened that book up and I got my answer. It said, R. H. Smith. 855 Ardmore. His book. Please Return. I paid. I tried to get him down to a quarter. A little bargain addicted. They made me pay 35 cents for that book. I returned it to Dr. Bob's house. You'll see it to the left of the fireplace. But the truth is, I didn't find that book. That book found me. I heard an amen. Common Sense of Drinking by Richard Peabody. How about this one? Anybody know about this one? Sermon on the Mount. Let's shout out to Emmet Fox. Very important book. For Sinners Only by A.J. Russell. And I'd like to just take a moment to thank Ebby. I happen to know that the biography was written before How It Works. So if you read Phil's biography in your big book and you number it, you just might come up with 12 steps. So between Clinton Street and that kitchen table and Towns Hospital and that visit from Ebby, Ebby, in his own words, not in Bill's how he wrote it, pretty much gives Bill the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. So we owe a great debt to Ebby. The most perfect 12 step call. He only had about two months of sobriety. I don't know how he knew to do that. Bill's going to ask Ann if she will write a chapter in the book. Did you notice how Ann just wanted to be in the background? She didn't want to write that chapter. Lois got a little miffed. I think she worked it out later in Al-Anon. And we all know who wrote that chapter, don't we? Yeah, Bill did. Well, one of the first things he wrote was There is a Solution. Along with his biography and an introduction. And he's going to take these three documents to this guy, Eugene Exman, who's Bill Harper's religious editor. He gets a break. I mean, they didn't have any breaks going. And he gets a break to go to this guy. And this guy looks at what Bill's written. He said, Bill, this is pretty good. Can you write some more? And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can. He said, well, I'd like to give you an advance on that book. Well, Bill's hungry. And Bill's going to tell you about that in a minute. In case you don't know, I've been known to bring Bill back from the dead. And when he's about to appear here, I kind of want you to know ahead of time that it came from a talk he gave right here at Founders Day. Might have been down at the Mayflower. I'm not sure. But it was 1965. And when I was working on a reel-to-reel of the talk, I'd been asked to do this. And I heard Bill talking about the book in a far better way than I could. And I said, well, you'll find out in just a minute. So anyway. Bill's all excited about this because he's finally got a job. And so like I said, instead of me telling you about it, why don't we invite Bill back. Bill. Now then. Okay. See? Can't wait. As a graphic illustration of how pain and fear. . . And all of our worst motives. Can't eventuate under God's grace for the best. I would like to, in a hop, skip and jump fashion. Tell you about the preparation of the AA book. Well, Bill, in a hop and skip and jump fashion, I've been trying to tell them about this money deal that you were looking at. What did you decide to do with that advance? A few of us stood for the proposition, well, this would be bad because control of our literature would be in other hands. And some of us, in a more self-serving way, and this definitely included me, we felt that the book might make some profits and some royalties out of which its creators could eat. Yeah. And I told them you guys were pretty hungry. So, what did you decide to do? I mean, this is a pretty big adventure for you. How'd you go about it? Some of us in New York considered the possibility of publishing this book ourselves. Okay. If you're going to publish it, you've not done anything like this before. How would you even begin to get the word out? So then, we went up to the Reader's Digest. . . We told them about our budding movement, and I guess we brandished Mr. Rockefeller's name pretty liberally, you know, as a close friend. He wasn't giving us any money, but he liked us. Well, that's good. Well, that's good. Well, what did they do? Did they go for that pitch? The Digest said, well, fine. When will your book come out? By now, it's the fall of 38. Oh, we set about next spring. They said, this is just the kind of story. That we'd like. We will do a piece. We'll put a feature writer on this. Wow. Well, that's really good. But, you know, since you've never done anything like this, what were some of your concerns of how to approach it? And then a plan came into being. It was thought there ought to be a text. It was thought these ought to be backed up by stories. And this text was. In the first edition, two-thirds of the stories came from Akron. Yeah, we're in Akron right now, too. And I have a picture there of Hank and the outline of the book. So what did you do next? So down east, we began to peddle stock in what turned out to be the AA book. But we were peddling stock to do the book. And we were peddling stock to drunks, $25 a share. The purpose was what? To feed Wilson and the gal who helped do the book and the promoter and the collector of the money. I know you were hungry, but what I want to ask you is this. Why did you call it Works Publishing? The title was chosen because there would be a lot more works, you know, after this. And then Hank and mainly Hank, from what I can tell from the notes, you guys put together a prospectus as to how you're going to go about selling these stock certificates. And you were going to get one-third of the stock, and Hank was going to get one-third of the stock. And then you went to anybody that would listen to you and tried to get the rest of the stock sold. Tell me how you went about that. So in the prospectus, we totted up what the profits would be. Oh, I think we started in with something like 100,000 books. You know, the first few carloads. And I think we got as high as a million copies. Well, of course, if they only cost 35 cents and you sold them for 350, it would be, frankly, a great rise in that $25 stock. Might go to a thousand bucks a share. We didn't put all this on paper. Of course. Part of the promotion. Part of the promotion. I see that. And then you tried to get the early AA members and you pitched it to them. How'd that go? We would sell these 35-cent books for the sum of 350. We didn't indicate any other expenses, but that seemed quite a margin of profit to the prospective stock buyer. Oh. And we pointed out that they couldn't possibly miss the market. And we pointed out that they couldn't possibly miss the market. Because, after all, the digest piece with millions of circulation, in which they definitely would mention the new book, would simply move these volumes out in carloads. Carloads. Carloads, mind you. While this job was being done. In other words, people were asked to buy stock in a book that hadn't yet been written. In other words, people were asked to buy stock in a book that hadn't yet been written. I think this is a world record for share audacity. I think this is a world record for share audacity. I think this is a world record for share audacity. So, when word got out, what was the response? Well, this was heard out in this country that this ex-Wall Street swindler was contriving one of the greatest rackets known as the Mined Man. And what was the reaction with the AA members around? Well, when this motivation朋友 Well, when this motivation began to be suspected and became apparent, quite a violent opposition rose up. Whoa, what did you do with the opposition? So then we had only begun our troubles. Then the book had to be written. Well, tell us about that. Well, I wrote another sample chapter. And tried that on them. No stock purchases. Oh, really? Well, the trustees must have been worried about that time. And the trustees were very dubious. They had no money at the time, so we were able to face them down and say, well, we'll separately incorporate this. And sure enough, by an appeal to the loyalty of the state, the stockholders to the cause, but also by an appeal to the pocketbook, the baser nature, the money began to dribble in. $25 par bet. Well, that's great. Now can you get started on the writing of the book? However, we were reading, a few of us, on the stockholders' money. And little by little, the chapters were evolved. And we thrashed them around in the AA meeting, and we carefully checked them with Dr. Bob as they went along. And meanwhile, he had great pains and difficulty, got stories, largely from this town. Yeah, and those guys sat around that dining room table. They were so reluctant to write those stories. Thank God Jim Scott got sober in the nick of time and helped them edit them. Well, what we're really interested in is the night that you wrote down the 12 steps. And I know you were really, really depressed. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I know also that what you were doing, Bill, is you were sending the chapters, you would write them, and you would send them back and forth, and they would go around that table and read them and comment on that. So when you came to the 12 steps... In short, here was AA at its worst, but under God's grace, coming up with something better. So maybe history will say the best. And so the work went on, and I remember one night we got through the first four chapters, which were window dressing, and I was having an imaginary ulcer attack, and it looked like, well, things were very gloomy. The stockholders were kind of, you know, falling down. The meal ticket was getting in danger, and I was very resentful. And I realized, lying in bed there in Brooklyn, Clinton Street, that the book had to say what it was all about at some place. So I began to write, and out came the 12 steps. That's the bed at Clinton Street. Well, originally, Bill, there were six, and those were not six steps from the Oxford Group, but you kind of pulled together some Oxford Group material and made it into six steps. But then you looked at that, and you had number six, and you looked at the text, and you thought, man, an alcoholic could fall through the cracks. And so when you widened them into 12, and you counted it up, you thought that was a pretty special number. And then you wanted, of course, to share it with the guys at Clinton Street. What was the response there? Well, one night appeared there was a terrific uproar, and as a result of the uproar, again, the constructive came out. I had had a great spiritual experience, so that I had used God all the way through those 12 steps. Uh-oh. There were a lot of atheists and agnostics in that group. What did they say when they all that? And you'd had that spiritual experience, so you put it in. Well, did they have a response to that? Our atheist and agnostic contingent said, Drunks don't go by that. They're scared to death of being God-bitten. This ought to be a psychological book. Yeah, but you had a lot of religious people in that group, too. So what was their response to that? On the other hand, the religious people said that it should be a strictly Christian book, theologically speaking. So one had to sort of average these point of views. I think at about that point, Bill, you said you felt more like an umpire than a writer. And through that whole debate, you ended up with God, as you understand, and I believe you called that a 10 strike. Do you think you had God's help? Sure, we must have had God's help. We never could have produced it ourselves. And now because of that 10 strike, people from all over the world with all different faiths can come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. But that's not... Can you sum up this story? So this is the unholy way in which we are. God, nevertheless, graced us in the days when AA was very young. I agree with that, Bill, but that's not the end of the story. The book has to get published. And that's a whole other story. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, finally the great day, our publication approached. We had pre-publication copies of the book made, circulated around for criticism. And with the last of our... money, almost the last, we persuaded the printer that this was such a terrific venture that he certainly ought to accept a 10% down payment for 5,000 books, which were going out for the carload, this first installment. So we paid him $500 for 5,000 books. Oh, you're such a salesman, Bill, really. And you're looking at the manuscript copy here, 400 of those were printed up and sent out. They wanted to know what the clergy, what doctors, just any opinions. And you were supposed to write in it and send it back. That then became the working copy that we've been talking about so much lately. And through that process, they got some advice that they should get a doctor's opinion. That's how Dr. Silkworth's opinion got in there. And you're looking at a copy of it. Many of us have seen the copy now, Bill, because they've got a tabletop book where we can all study this document that was a freaking mess by the time you were ready to take it to Cornwall. And in fact, it was such a mess that poor Ruth did not want to type this up again. She had typed it up several times. They were near the deadline. And you can see all the changes where the Y-O-U-R, the Y is crossed out, becomes our. And you can see the we that's put in there. And some of the great notes we can all study today. I love this. Thy will be done. We don't rush God. That's what it says on the left-hand side. That's great. So like I said, it was such a mess that Ruth Hawk, the secretary, Dorothy Snyder, Clarence's wife, and Hank and Bill all went to Cornwall and took this up and helped typeset it up there. What do you think about that? Well. Well, it was such a good experience. So what to call it? They had no name. We had no name. The original name was 100 Men Corporation. And then somebody came along and screwed that up. Her name was Florence Rankine. She says Thank you, Florence. Thank you. 100 men and you called one woman. Yeah. How about the Bill W. movement? Imagine that. I already told you about the alcoholic squad. I also told you about a nameless bunch of drunks that really does play into our name. Dry frontiers, empty glass. They did this. This was a game they played in AA as to what to call the program. And I've been told that some guy named Joe W. got out of the nuthouse just in time to make his contribution. And he was kind of mumbling in the corner, anonymous alcoholics, anonymous alcoholics. And he switched it. And he said, alcoholics anonymous. And that's what stuck. Bill, what did you think of that name? We'd been calling ourselves out there a nameless bunch of drunks. And from that, the anonymity idea had come in. And I said, well, In fact, the book title, as voted by Akron, New York, and a few Clevelanders, was chosen as The Way Out. But in the Library of Congress, we'd found that there were 12 books by the name of The Way Out. So for heaven's sake, we couldn't make a 13th, so it became Alcoholics Anonymous. It was Akron that wanted the name Way Out. Now imagine you came to Founders Day and all the t-shirts said The Way Outers, huh? You're looking at Big Red here. This is a Big Red book. And I'll tell you a little bit about... Then we went up to the Digest and said, now what about this piece? We're all ready to shoot. And the editor whom we had talked vaguely remembered us. And he said, shoot what? Oh no. Oh no, Bill. You're in debt. Everything's riding on this article. Well, what did you do? Well, we reminded our friend that a piece was due. And he said, gee, Mr. Dix, you're in debt. And I said, Mr. Wilson, you know, after you were here, I went to the rest of the staff here very sure that this would be a great piece. But they didn't think so, and I forgot to tell you. Yeah, we're feeling it now, Bill. We feel what that must have been like. Wow. Well, what happened next? So we had 5,000 books in the warehouse. There were a few books in the warehouse that were not in the warehouse. And we had to go back and look at them. And we had to go back and look at them. There were 100 AA members. There were about 30 stockholders, and they each got a book. There were about 30 guys who put stories in the books, and they each got a book, and that was 60 books. So we only had 40 books to sell the rest if they had bought it. Wow. And I know things really went downhill from there. Wow. And I know things really went downhill from there. Well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Well, at that time, things folded up in a big way. things folded up in a big way. We were about to be evicted from our house We were about to be evicted from our house in Clinton Street. Stuff go into storage. The book was bankrupt, and we made one last great gasp effort. and we made one last great gasp effort. What was that? A drunk came along by the name of Morgan, who had been in the ad business, and he said, you know, I know Gabriel Heater. You know, the guy who puts on those wonderful sob talks. And he said, I think Gabriel would put this on the air. Wow. So we scared up a few dollars more. And to get ready for Gabriel, And to get ready for Gabriel, we decided... Okay. What's so funny, Bill? Well, we picked out a hard-to-read book for a hard class of people to advertise to in those days. We picked out all of the physicians east of the Mississippi River. All of them. And to each one, we sent a postal card And to each one, we sent a postal card which said, Listen to Gabriel Heater as he talks about the new society of Alcoholics Anonymous the new society of Alcoholics Anonymous and buy the book Alcoholics Anonymous a cure for alcoholism. I think I know why you're laughing. Wasn't there a problem with Morgan Ryan that's supposed to go on the Heater show? with Morgan Ryan that's supposed to go on the Heater show? Well, one great trouble with Ryan was that he wouldn't sober up and he was supposed to be interviewed on the air. and he was supposed to be interviewed on the air. My God, our last cent was in this thing and all these postal cards. and all these postal cards. Oh my God. Well, what did you decide to do with Ryan? So, just as a precaution, one of our friends who was a member of the Down Athletic Club said, well now, you can have my room over there I don't use it much and why doesn't somebody live with Morgan in there the week before to just stay with him and be sure he gets the Heater all right? Can you imagine that? So, you just followed him around to keep him sober then, huh? Well, did it work? Well, did it work? So, the great day came. The postal cards was out. In Akron, New York, Cleveland, The ears were to the radio. The ears were to the radio. We visioned the books going out in carloads, We visioned the books going out in carloads, orders flooding in, biggest profit of all in direct mail, no commissions. And sure enough, Heater pulled out the tremolo stop, Heater pulled out the tremolo stop, Ryan was sober, and boy, we were made. Wow. Well, um, I know you were pretty excited to go to that post office, right? Tell us about the post office. We gave a post office box, old 458 in New York, I think it was, where we had a one-room office. where we had a one-room office. Little Ruthie Hock, who helped me with the book, bless her soul, my promoter friend Hank Parkhurst and I just couldn't wait to get over to see what was coming into that box. what was coming into that box. Well, I know a little bit about that because I know you held back, it was hard to do, but you held back for three days, and you brought suitcases with you. and you brought suitcases with you. And I know that when you looked in the box, you didn't see too many cards, and your heart just sunk. What was Hank's response? Hank was an incorrigible optimist. He said, well, they couldn't put them all in the box. He said they got several mail bags full out there. He said they got several mail bags full out there. So, the clerk came with the cards. The clerk came with the cards. Hank said, ain't there any more? No. We took them over to the desk, We took them over to the desk, and we counted them, and there were twelve. And ten of them And ten of them were from doctors, obviously stewed themselves, obviously stewed themselves, who lambasted the hell out of us, and we had exactly two orders for the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't imagine how hard that was. What a story must have been to walk through that and to have that experience. But you know, Bill, you had a knack for pulling out the positive. Can you sum it up for us? For us, almost more than any other society, pain has been the touchstone of our spiritual progress. of our spiritual progress. So we can say, thank God that we have suffered such pains. That such a spectacle as this has been brought into view has been brought into view and being. Hey, thank you, Bill. Say hello to Dr. Bob Forrest, will ya? Thank God for technology that Bill can speak again at Founders Day, huh? Little did he know when he gave that talk that he would still be talking here. There again is Big Red, but check out the jacket. Now, you're a new member of Alcoholics Anonymous in the early, late 30s. Can you imagine walking down the street of the early 40s with this thing under your arm? How anonymous would you be? I don't know. They call that the circus jacket. That's why. Now I'm gonna read to you the very first big book off the press that belonged to Bill Wilson. He has a note in it that says this was the very first AA book off the press. We used thick paper to make the alcoholic feel they were getting their money's worth. So I'm gonna ask you, all the people that are here today, have you gotten your money's worth out of that book? That's why you're here. That's why you're here. They used to say you're here because you're not all there, right? He also writes to Lois, one whose loving care and fortitude in our dark days together made these pages possible. So to her, this first book of the first edition is lovingly and thankfully given Bill. And that would be in memory of the fifth Christmas, 1225 of 39. I gotta tell you just a few more stories because we're walking on a miracle here. You see, there's big books sitting in warehouses Reader's Digest has collapsed and threw away their deal and so there's nothing. They loaned out all that money, they only paid that 10% down. And you have this guy, Burt the tailor, that's his tailoring shop, he was an early member. And they approached him and they said we might be able to get a magazine article coming up but we can't make it. We can't make it. And they asked Burt if he could loan them some money. And he said, I can't. But he called up a Mr. Cochran and he was the benefactor and he said, why don't you buy these books, Mr. Cochran? We'll give you a dollar off. You'd like one of those books today for a dollar off, wouldn't you? And you could put them in libraries. He said, well send me your financial books. And he took one look at our finances and he said, I don't think so. And Burt said, will you lend me the money? And he said, yes. And Burt hocked his business to get us to this article. September 30th, 1939, the first publicity for Alcoholics and Adults came out on Alcoholics and God by Morris Markey. Can't appreciate that book and that magazine unless you understand how we got there. February of 1940, Mr. Rockefeller, as he said, let me know what's going on. He'd been watching us. He didn't give us a lot of money, but he gave us a lot of support. He had all the bankers and money makers to know about Alcoholics Anonymous. So, he threw a big dinner for us. And the next thing, I don't know, I should have a slide on that if I don't. He threw a big dinner and Nelson, his son, presided over it. And he said, my father thinks, because JD was sick, he said, my father thinks, let me back that one up. They put an alcoholic at every table. One alcoholic at every table. Remember Morgan Ryan? Well, they had him all dressed up in a suit. He was a pretty good looking Irishman. And one of the bankers looked at him and said, in what institution are you with? And he said, well, I'm not really with an institution, but I just got out of one recently. And so, Nelson stands up and he says, my father thinks this is a work of goodwill. And money will ruin it. And with that, Bill says a couple billion dollars got up and walked out the door. And there's a book out on how all that money took place. Well, the next thing that happened is this guy, Jack Alexander, who'd been busting rackets, he comes along and he got the job to write an article on us. Now, we're still broke. It's almost over for Alcoholics Anonymous. But he's still dead. You know, we only had about 600 came in on that other article. So, he comes to Akron, Chicago, and a few other cities. And this is where By Attraction We Promote comes in. He's come to bust us and we turned him around. And he wrote this beautiful article in the Saturday Evening Post. And it came out March 1st of 1941 and 6,000 people came in to, 6,000 inquiries were answered for help. And it's a beautiful article. And so, I want to thank you for all the work that you do. And I'd like to thank the people who helped us in the process. And I'd like to thank the people who helped us with the book, and the people who helped us with the book. And I'd like to thank the people who helped us with the book, and the people who helped us with the book. And the story that we wrote about the alcoholics and the human rights and the ways that the alcoholics and the human rights and the human rights are treated and treated I've mentioned a lot of people in this story, and I'm going to just go through the cast of characters again. And I'm going to ask you, challenge you, to remove one name. Would we be sitting here celebrating 83 years today of Alcoholics Anonymous? Bert T. Abby. Bill W. Lois W. Jack Alexander. Mr. Cochran. Henrietta Seiberling. T. Henry and Clarice Williams. John D. Rockefeller. Frank Amos. Albert Scott. Willard Richardson. Leonard Strong. Dr. Bob. Ann Smith. Dr. Silkworth. Ruth Hawke. Hank P. But I really believe that all the credit goes to the author of the story. The higher power. Frank Reich. And the theesarians.