The Washingtonians Lost Every Sober Drunk Because They Had No Traditions – Michael E.

My name's Michael. I'm a female alcoholic. Hi, Michael. And a couple weeks ago, we had the privilege of the three of us doing, being together, three, you know, the line of sponsorship. Vivian, Polly, and I were in Cleveland, and Vivian gave one of the best talks that I have ever heard. And believe me, talking was not easy for her. But she gave one of the best talks I've ever heard, Vivian. You really did. You were awesome. So what I'm going to share about are the God shots. I don't share about the whole history. There's so much, you'd never be able to do it. But I just share about the God shots that meant a lot to me because when I came to this program, I had a lot of trouble with God. You know, I had tried to recover in church, and I couldn't. I couldn't recover, and I ended up seducing the minister and stealing the church money. And so when I got here and I saw those steps and the word God, I knew I was screwed. You know, I knew God wasn't going to help me. But something about the history, hearing about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous showed me that we're governed by a loving God and that God loved drugs so much he gave us the 12 steps to recover. So I'm just going to share about the God shots. There's four things that make up Alcoholics Anonymous besides the 12 steps. I can do it. Everybody's babying me because I hurt myself. I'm all screwed up. I have two rods in my back and eight two-inch screws. And I hurt myself yesterday lifting my daughter's wheelchair. So anyway, so everybody's kind of taking care of me, and I appreciate it. The four things that make up Alcoholics Anonymous besides the 12 steps, one thing is that alcoholism is a disease. It's not moral leprosy. It's not lack of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. It's a physical allergy coupled by a mental obsession. The second thing is if you've passed in the stage of chronic, there's different stages of alcoholism. I don't know if you've read Chapter 2 of the Wives. It talks about four different stages. And in the book it says given a good reason, if you haven't passed into chronic, given a good reason you might be able to quit without a spiritual experience. My brother was one of those. He had cirrhosis of the liver. His twin brother just dropped dead of this disease. He went. He went to the hospital and was supposed to die. And when he got out, he was able to just quit drinking without Alcoholics Anonymous, without God, without a spiritual experience. So, but if you've passed into the stage of chronic, and believe me, if you keep drinking, I guarantee you will cross that line into chronic alcoholism. Your only hope of recovery is a vital spiritual experience. The second thing is you can choose your own conception of God. Third thing, you can choose your own conception of God. No matter how limited it is, it could be G.O.D., group of drunks. It could be G.O.D., good orderly direction. It could be just doing the next right thing. Whatever makes sense to you. I've heard people say you can make the doorknob your higher power. Now, does that make sense to anybody, truly? Does that make sense? The book says as long as it makes sense to you. If you're in Iraq and your doorknob's here, you're screwed. So, it has to make sense. And. Um. I know for me, that's what I had to do, is make the group my higher power when I first came in. The fourth thing is that it has to be one drunk talking to another drunk. It can't be a minister talking at a drunk. It can't be a psychiatrist talking down to a drunk. It can't be a counselor, as my girls here know, talking with drunks or whatever they do. It has to be one drunk talking to another drunk. A drunk cannot stand to be talked down to. They cannot stand to be preached to about their drinking. And the only hope is one drunk talking to another drunk. But the real reason why we do this, the real reason why Polly and I and everyone else is doing service here tonight, and the reason why I do it every Wednesday night, is it guarantees immunity from drinking. And this is why sometimes you'll hear, this is a selfish program. We're not out there helping others because we are some spiritual guru. We don't want to drink again, and we're desperate. So that's how come they call it a selfish program. And I think after you've done it for a lot of years, you do. Polly and I have both done this. We've done this so many years now that we do get, we do, it's not just about us not drinking. We really do care. And we really want to see these people get sober. And it's heartbreaking. It breaks our heart. We have to go to Al-Anon so we can let go of these alcoholics. Now, I'm going to tell you how those four things came about. They were all God shots. There's a speaker named Norm Alpey who's now in the meeting in the sky. And he used to talk about seconds and inches, seconds and inches. And that's what these God shots are. If they're seconds and inches, one thing different, and we wouldn't have Alcoholics Anonymous today. And I didn't want to share the history tonight. I thought everybody here had heard it. But so many women raised their hand that wasn't here. Polly said I had to. So, okay, so there's four men trying to get sober at the same time, all chronic alcoholics. One of them's name is Rowan Hazard, who lives in New York. Evie Thatcher, who lives in Vermont. Bill Wilson, who lives in New York. And Dr. Bob, who lives in Akron, Ohio. Rowan and Bill both lived in New York, but they did not know each other. Evie Thatcher, who lived in Vermont, knew Rowan and knew Bill because he'd gone to school with them at different times. And Dr. Bob didn't know any of the other ones. The interesting thing about these four men is all four of them were born in Vermont. All four of them were born in a relatively small area of each other. And even though they didn't all know each other, after AA was in full swing, they found out a lot of their relatives knew relatives. But the first one we're going to talk about is Rowan Hazard. He came from the Kodak family. Very wealthy. Anything money could buy, anything money could pay for, he tried really hard to get sober. And it wasn't just his family pushing him. He really... He really wanted to be sober. And he just couldn't get sober. At that time, the psychiatric effort was getting to be a big deal. And so that's what Rowan decided. He decided he needed the psychiatric effort. And his alcoholic grandiosity, he wanted the most famous psychiatrist. So there were three of them to choose from. One of them was Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Dr. Carl Jung. And his first choice was Freud. And Freud was very ill and could not take him on. His second choice was Adler, and Adler was on vacation. So he ended up with Dr. Jung. And talk about willing to go to any lengths. He had to get on a boat and go to Switzerland because he was practicing in Switzerland. So Rowan went to Switzerland, and he spent a year with Dr. Carl Jung. And in that year, he did not take a drink. And he learned everything there was to know about alcoholism. And he had what we call... All this self-knowledge. And he was so confident that he would never drink again because he had all of this self-knowledge. And he got on the boat to go back to New York. And on the boat, he got drunk. He didn't even make it back to New York, so he goes back to Dr. Jung. And he asked him, he says, what happened? Why did I drink again? And Dr. Jung told him, he said, well, I believe you're a chronic alcoholic. And I've not seen one case such as yours recover. Except through a vital spiritual experience. And Rowan was very relieved at that time because he was a very religious man. And Dr. Jung had to tell him those religious convictions were very good. They didn't spell the necessary vital spiritual experience to recover from the disease of alcoholism. So Rowan goes back to New York, and this is not documented. It's just... I haven't seen it documented, but there's some... Some people... There's some rumors. We'll call them rumors. There's some rumors that Dr. Jung pointed Carl Jung... Dr. Jung pointed Rowan Hazard into the direction of the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group was a religious affiliation, and it was a Lutheran minister who broke up from the Lutheran Church, and he started this movement. And this movement was very first century Christianity. And they had a set of principles, which we call steps, and they had what they call the four absolutes. And they had a set of principles, which we call steps, and they had what they call the absolute purity, absolute love, absolute unselfishness, and absolute honesty. When the drunks broke off from the Oxford Group, Bill didn't think we could do any of those things absolutely, and he was absolutely right. So we did not take the absolutes. We just took the principles. Anyway, they had sponsors in the Oxford Group. You had to be sponsored into the Oxford Group, and the job of the sponsor was to guide you through the steps of the principle. Now, in the first 164 pages of That Better Be God, to copy Trish, that's what I had in Edisto. I had my cell phone go off. I didn't know I had it with me. And I was sitting like this close to the speaker, and she goes, that better be God. Oh, gosh. Okay, so anyway, this book, the first 164 pages of this book. My favorite book. What is that? They're turning down their phones. Is that what it is? Talk about being distracted, Vivian. Yeah, would everybody check your phones? It's just a little ringing in my ears, or maybe not ringing in my ears. Okay, so in the first 164 pages of the big book, it does not tell you to get a sponsor. They've always had sponsors. From the Oxford Group, they've always had sponsors. And the reason why the first 164 pages doesn't tell you to get a sponsor is, first of all, there's no such thing as Alcoholics Anonymous. When they wrote this book, they were in the Oxford Group. And they were like the drunk squad at the Oxford Group. And how they got around the sponsorship thing, there's no AA. They can't say get a sponsor because the Oxford Group is in Europe, and it's on the East Coast, but it's not all over the United States. It's not all over the world. You know, it's a new religious affiliation. So they just knew that if they said get a sponsor, nobody would know what to do. So how they got around that is the whole book teaches you how to be a sponsor. It's not about getting the perfect sponsor. It's about being a sponsor. And you will learn so much more about yourself when you start taking other people through the steps. You know, there's something that happens when you go through the steps, but when you start taking other women through the steps, something miraculous happens. And how they got, this book is just unbelievable. Anyway, so Roland Hazard, the Oxford Group didn't believe in drinking, and they didn't believe in smoking. So they really didn't like us when we started. And it was for everybody. It wasn't for drunks, you know. And then a few drunks started going there and getting sober. And so the leader of the Oxford Group really wanted notoriety. He wanted fame. He was into promotion. He just thought if he could get everybody in the Oxford Group, the world would be perfect. So he had these squads. And Roland was placed on the business squad because he was from a rich family. So his job was to go out and get famous business people into the Oxford Group, say somebody like Firestone. And Firestone was in the Oxford Group. Not through Roland Hazard, but he was in the Oxford Group. A couple of sprinkling of alcoholics that are getting sober, a couple of them approachable. He approached Roland and told him about one of his school friends, Ebby Thatcher, who lived in Vermont. Ebby was being committed for alcoholic insanity. In Vermont, they had that, you know, three strikes and you're out. I know some states are trying to bring that back. But back then, if you were committed for alcoholic insanity, you never saw the light of day again. It was very grim. It wasn't like it is today. It's getting grimmer today, though. I'm just going to tell you some of his offenses because I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. Because I have a sick sense of humor, and I think they're funny. My favorite offense was his first offense, and that was he's from a very wealthy family also. Ebby Thatcher's from a very wealthy family also. And so he had an automobile. I use words that they used. He had an automobile in the early 30s, and he was driving. It was 5 or 6 in the morning, and he was drunk on his butt. And he literally crashed his car into a woman's house. I think it was the next-door neighbor. The car literally just went through the wall and into her kitchen, and she is in there making coffee. It's just a miracle, you know, he didn't hit her. But he got out of the car, and he went up to her and asked her for a cup of coffee. First drive-through. That's where it came from. His first offense, his first offense, you'll see in the book. It doesn't say anything about it. It's just Bill. In Bill's story, it says there was that time we completed an airplane jag. That's all it says. Everyone's going, what's an airplane jag? What's an airplane jag? What it was was Bill and Abby and another man who happened to be a pilot, and I don't know his name. I can't think of his name, were all drinking in a bar, getting quite drunk, and they were talking about Manchester, Vermont, because in Manchester, Vermont, they had just built an airstrip. It was their first airport, and they were very excited about it. So these three guys decided that they wanted to be the first plane to land on this airstrip. So anyway, they chartered an airplane, and drinking the whole time. They did notify the city, because the city was scrambling to get the newspaper out there and marching bands and the mayor to make a big deal out of it. It's their new airstrip. And so the plane's coming in for a landing, and it's looking pretty good. Totally misses the runway, and it goes off into the grass. And the picture they got were of the three men face down in the tarmac. They all fell out of the plane. So. The third offense, this is his third offense. Ebi had a period of sobriety, and he had his parents' house, which was a beautiful house, and he decided he was going to really fix it up and paint it and make it look really good, and he did. He just, he did the work himself, and it looked beautiful. And then he started drinking again, and he's out there admiring his work, and he notices these pigeons, and he notices these pigeons are shitting all over his... I have never done that. We're... These pigeons were pooping all over. You know, when I first came into AA, they told me profanity was not a sign of spiritual growth. So I tried really hard not to cuss up here. I'm very sorry. Anyway, so he notices these pigeons pooping all over his house, and he's starting to get mad. The more poop, the madder. The madder he got. So he decided to get a shotgun and shoot these pigeons, and he's drunk, so he's shooting at these pigeons, and he shot all kinds of holes in his house, the neighbor's house, the neighbor's house. And so that was the final straw that he was being committed for alcoholic insanity. And so Roland Hazard went before the judge. This is what it says in the book. This was all a setup. There were two other people involved, and the people that approached Roland, Roland Hazard, about Ebi Thatcher. One of these guys, his father was the judge. So this was all set up with the judge, but Ebi didn't know it. Roland went before the judge and asked the judge to suspend Ebi's commitment, release him into the care of the Oxford group. And so the judge says, okay, just get him out of the state of Vermont and don't come back. And so Ebi Thatcher went back to New York with Roland Hazard. Roland is Ebi's sponsor. Roland takes him. He's through the steps of the program, and Ebi has the spiritual experience, and he recovered from the disease of alcoholism. He's from a wealthy family. Oh, the first God shot I forgot to tell you about. Let's go back to Dr. Jung. Dr. Jung, who met with Roland Hazard, the one thing that's so important about Dr. Jung is he had studied under Dr. Freud, getting all tied up here. Jung had studied under Freud, and he became an associate of Freud. And he left Freud because Freud was a staunch atheist. And Dr. Jung really believed in spiritual principles. And so just that thing alone, if he had ended up with Freud, we probably wouldn't have Alcoholics Anonymous today. Or it'd be another way, I guess. So anyway, that's the first God shot. And then Ebi Thatcher goes back to New York with Roland Hazard and sponsored through the steps, and he has a spiritual experience, recovers from the disease of alcoholism, and he, too, is placed on the business squad because he's from a rich family. But he remembers his friend Bill W. How many of you have seen the movie My Name is Bill W.? God, everybody. Not factual. The Ebi Thatcher thing is not factual. Well, I... I talked to the man who wrote it. I was speaking with him at a conference. And I asked him why he portrayed Ebi Thatcher as a stockbroker who lived in New York. And he collaborated with Lois Wilson for the whole movie. And she really wanted to get a point across about this jealousy that Ebi Thatcher developed. But it wasn't at the time that Bill and Bob were together. That he did not... He never went with them in the Drunk's Club. He stayed with the Oxford Group. He... So that's not factual about him being a stockbroker and him drinking over Bill being there for three months. So anyway... But at the first international, Ebi is drunk. Ebi drank again. He's in and out of AA. Bill's doing everything he can to get him sober because he just... And Bill called him his sponsor until the day he died, even though he drank. Mine's just like... I'm tired. So at the very first international, Ebi Thatcher is at the very first international. AA's 15 years old. It's the only international that Dr. Bob talked at because he died shortly after. But Ebi's in the lobby, drunk, pulling everybody aside and saying, and Bill and Bob didn't start this. Bill and I started this. Bill and I started this. And so that's what Lois Wilson wanted people to know, is that... And the AA growing really big, Ebi developed a real jealousy, you know, over Dr. Bob. So anyway, so Ebi Thatcher remembers his friend Bill Wilson, got in a lot of trouble drinking with Bill Wilson, and he knew Bill was a chronic alcoholic. So he looked him up, and it talked... You know, in the story it says Ebi called him on the telephone and asked if he might come over. And Bill is very excited to see Ebi because at this time he hadn't worked in five years. He's never out of his pajamas. He's never shaved. He's, you know, he's just a mess. But he was really looking forward to someone coming over. He has no friends, nobody to socialize with. So he's looking forward to having Ebi come over. And Ebi shows up, and Bill says, there's something inexplicably different about his eyes. And he poured him a drink. I think it was gin. He pushed it across the table, and Ebi refused it. And Bill said, what happened? And Ebi said, I've got religion. Now, all through Bill's story, it talks about religion because when Bill got sober, it was in the religion of the Oxford group. And the rest of the book talks about spirituality. So anyway, Bill's not an atheist, but he's very anti-organized religion. He can't stand organized religion. So he bristles back, and he just doesn't want a thing to do with it. And out of nowhere, Ebi Thatcher says, Bill, why don't you choose your own? Why don't you choose your own conception of God? Now, why would he say that? The Oxford group is very first-century Christianity. What would make him say, Bill, why don't you choose your own conception of God? And Bill says that statement hit him hard. It melted the icy intellectuals' mountains and shadows who he had shivered for many years. And it wasn't a matter of believing in anything specific. It was just a matter of being willing to believe in something greater than himself. So Bill's able. Bill's able to drop his defenses. He goes to a few meetings of the Oxford group with Ebi Thatcher. He actually got two weeks of sobriety. And then on Armistice Day, he drank again. And drunk, he went to the Oxford group meeting, and he got up there and testified drunk. That's what endeared us to the Oxford group. One of the many that got up there and testified drunk, Ebi Thatcher got to him and talked him into going back, talked him into going back into Towns Hospital for the third and the last time. Now Bill's just the vehicle. He's in the right place at the right time. It had nothing to do with Bill or Bob. I mean, it was all a God shot. Now Bill had been in Towns Hospital two times, and he met Dr. Silkworth, who wrote Doctor's Opinion for the big book. Dr. Silkworth was a neurologist. It was during the Depression. He couldn't get work, so he took this job head of Towns Hospital for Alcoholic and Addicts. And he's the one who came up with the theory that alcoholism was a bad thing. Alcoholism was a disease. That these people were sick. They weren't bad. So Bill already had that little bit of information. And then from Ebi Thatcher, choosing your own conception of God, meeting Roland Hazard and knowing that if you've passed the stage of chronic, your only hope is a vital spiritual experience, these pieces of the puzzle are coming together. So he goes into the hospital for the third and the last time. And in the hospital, Ebi comes and takes him through his steps, or the principles. And that was in the first week. So it tells us that it's not about a lot of time to do the steps. Bill did them in his first week of sobriety. And then in the hospital, Bill had a vital spiritual experience. I mean, this was a huge vital spiritual experience. And it was frightening to him. It was very frightening. And then after the spiritual experience ended or faded, he had this sense of utter peace that he couldn't describe. And then after this utter peace, his thinking kicks in and he starts thinking, I bet I've burned too many brain cells. I bet I'm going insane. So he calls Dr. Silkworth in to talk to him. And he told Dr. Silkworth all about his spiritual experience. And Dr. Silkworth told him, he said, you know, I'm a scientific man. I do not understand these kinds of things. But whatever happened to you, you better hang on to, because you're so much better than the way you were. And everybody knows that Dr. Silkworth became a great supporter of Alcoholics Anonymous. He let Bill actually get drinks out of the hospital and try to get him sober. So Bill lays in the hospital after his spiritual experience, and all he thinks about is working with drunks. He doesn't care about the business squad. He doesn't care about the homemaking squad. All Bill cares about is drunks. He doesn't even care about the Oxford group. He just wants to help drunks. And so he went about helping drunks. He was getting them out of bars and out of gutters and out of jails and out of hospitals, taking these drunks home, feeding them, clothing them for six months. And in this six-month period, not one of these drunks got sober. Not one of them. And Bill was so discouraged that he finally decided that he just wasn't going to do this anymore. And he talked to his wife, Lois, and he said, not one of these drunks have gotten sober. I'm not going to waste my time. And Lois looked at him and she said, but Bill, you're still sober. And that's the first time Bill realized he had six months of sobriety. He had never had six months of sobriety. And how did he get that? By getting out of self and trying to help other drunks. And then he also went to talk to Dr. Silkworth in Towns Hospital, and the last piece of the puzzle comes into place because he's telling Dr. Silkworth that not one of these drunks have gotten sober, and Dr. Silkworth said, Bill, you're preaching to them. Stop preaching. You know how a drunk hates to be preached to. He said, why don't you just share about the disease of alcoholism, a physical allergy coupled by a mental obsession. Why don't you share some of your drinking experiences? So the puzzle is all together in perfect timing because out of nowhere, Bill gets a job that plucks him out of New York. He hasn't worked in five years. Now he gets a job that plucks him out of New York, drops him in Akron, Ohio, and is working on a proxy deal for the rubber industry. And the deal fell through. Bill's in Mayflower Hotel pacing up and down, not knowing what he's going to do because he has $10 in his pocket. It's not enough money to get home on, and it's not enough money to pay his hotel bill. He just did not know what he was going to do. So he's pacing up and down in Mayflower Hotel, and he keeps walking past the bar. Not intentionally. The bar just happened to be there in the lobby. You know, he keeps noticing the warm lights, and there weren't people in there drinking alcoholically. That kind of turns us off, but everybody was social drinking, and it looked very warm and very inviting. And so he started thinking, maybe I can go into that bar and drum up a conversation with somebody who could help me with this proxy deal, and I'll just drink ginger ale. So he walked over to the bar, and the minute he got to the door, he could not walk in. He just was gripped with fear. I believe he had a major panic attack. He was just gripped with fear and terror, and he knew if he walked in there, he'd get drunk. And he knew his only hope was to find a drunk to work with. And he turned around. He noticed the church directory, so he decided to go to the church directory. And some people say that he called 10 names on the church directory, and that's not true. He called one name on the church directory. Bill had a lot of quirks. He didn't like to use the same word twice. So character defects and shortcomings are the same thing. I mean, when it comes to the steps, he calls them principles, proposals, tools, spiritual tools, anything he can to not use the same word twice. And he also liked strange names. And so he looked at the church directory, and he picked what for him was a strange name because it had meaning to him. It was Reverend Tunks, T-U-N-K-S. And in New York, Tunks meant a walk in the woods. And so he called Reverend Tunks, and he said, I'm a rum hound. I'm an Oxford grouper. I have a cure for alcoholism. They used to think they had a cure, and we proved we don't have a cure. And I have to find a drunk to work with. And Reverend Tunks was not in the Oxford group, but Firestone had brought the Oxford group to Akron, Ohio, because he was so grateful that the Oxford group got his son sober. So the Oxford group was in the Oxford group, and they were in Akron. And Reverend Tunks gave Bill ten names of people he knew were in the Oxford group. And Bill called nine of them. He was avoiding one name. He was avoiding it. It was Cyberling. And he had some bad dealings with Cyberling. It had to do with the Goodyear industry. And he was just scared to death to call that number. But he called nine numbers. No one answered. And so his last hope was to call that last number. And he called it. And the woman that answered the phone was Henrietta Cyberling, who was the ex-wife of the man he was so terrified of. So he gives her the same spiel. He says, I'm a rum hound. I'm an Oxford grouper. I have a cure for alcoholism, and I have to find a drunk to work with. And as soon as Henrietta heard his spiel, she knew that was an answer to her prayers. She had been praying diligently for Dr. Bob Smith for over two weeks. Dr. Bob Smith had already been in the Oxford group for two and a half years, and he couldn't get sober. So it tells us there's a little more to it than just the Oxford group. But two weeks before Bill got into town, he admitted to his group that he was still drinking. Bob was very quiet and wouldn't share. And finally he shared. And he told his group that he was still drinking. He's now closet drinking. He's throwing bottles down the hamper, sticking it in his socks. I mean, everything he's doing to sneak alcohol in. And he asked his group to pray for him. So his group started praying for him diligently every morning, you know, in their hour of quiet time. Everybody was praying for Dr. Bob Smith. So in the midst of this group praying for Dr. Bob Smith, Bill gets plucked out of New York and dropped in Akron, Ohio. And that always makes the hair on my neck stand up. I just get the chills every time I think about that. So Henrietta told Bill to come right over, and she called Ann to get Bob over there. And Ann said, it was the day before Mother's Day, Ann said, well, Bill brought me a potted plant for Christmas, for Mother's Day, and he's under the table potted himself. So he was too drunk to meet with them. And so Ann promised that she'd get Bob there the next day. Bob was not happy. He was hostile. But he loved Henrietta so much that he decided, to go, and they're in the car on the way over there, and he told his wife, you have to come and get me in 15 minutes. I'm not going to give this bird more than 15 minutes of my time. Just say I have an emergency. He was a proctologist, which is a butt doctor. Very appropriate for alcoholics. So anyway, they put Bill and Bob together, and Bob immediately, gets in Bill's face. And he just, he's got his arms folded much like mine, and he says, I'm a physician. I know everything there is to know about alcoholism. I've been to the best doctors. I've been to the best psychiatrists. I've been sprayed, sprinkled, and dunked. What do you think you can say or do for me that hasn't already been said or done? And Bill just told him the absolute truth. And it's what we call the language of the heart, where the heart speaks and the heart listens. As he poured Bob a drink of alcohol, he told Bob, he said, it looks like you need this. He gave him a drink of alcohol. And as Bob was drinking it, Bill said, believe me, I am not here to get you sober. I'm here strictly so I can stay sober. And that just threw Bob. And he was able to drop his defenses, and Bill did exactly what Silkworth told him to do. He shared about the disease of alcoholism. He shared about some of his drinking experiences. And they talked five or six hours that night. And they laughed and they cried together. And Bob really knew that Bill knew what he was talking about. And Ann Smith wanted to ensure Bob's sobriety. So Bill doesn't have any place to live. He can't get home. Not enough money. So she talks Bill into moving into their home. That's going to ensure Bob's sobriety. And, you know, I get a little bit sad because I don't think Ann Smith gets enough recognition. You know, everybody knows Lois. She started Al-Anon. Ann Smith was the one that was considered the mother of AA. She immediately embraced all those alcoholics, their wives and their kids. And she was such a humble woman. And she loved all these alcoholics. She always wore this black tattered dress to a meeting. And she had a couple new dresses. And somebody asked her, why do you always wear that black tattered dress? You've got new dresses. And she said, because somebody might come in here who's less fortunate. And I don't want them to feel out of place. That's just the kind of woman she was. And Bill asked her to write chapter to the wives. She couldn't do it. She was just too humble. You know, she just didn't want that responsibility of writing chapter to the wives. So Bill wrote it. You know. And Lois wasn't too thrilled about it. But this is the period of time where Lois wasn't too thrilled about alcohol. About alcoholics. And she's throwing shoes and stuff like that. So Bill didn't want her to write it. So he wrote it. I don't know if any of you have. Have any of you seen this tape out about the women of Alcoholics Anonymous? The early women of Alcoholics Anonymous? Well, the woman who gives this talk is fabulous. She's the archivist. And she's head of central office in Akron, Ohio. But she accidentally said the name of a woman that wrote chapter to the wives. And I was listening to that tape and I was going, oh, my God, I've been saying this wrong all these years. I know I read Bill wrote that. And Ted and I ended up in Akron. And she was right there. And I just asked her about it. And she said, no, Bill wrote it. I said, but your tape says Henrietta Sessions wrote it. And she said, no, she wrote the story in the back of the book. So she just, like I do all the time, I make errors. You know. I just make errors. But I want people to know that so they won't think that this woman wrote chapter to the wives. She wrote in the back of the big book, the first edition, the story called The Wife of an Alcoholic. One and a half pages. They didn't give her too much space. So anyway, Bill and Bob go about trying to get drunk sober. And the first drink they worked with was a man named Eddie. And I had a very close relationship with Bob Smith, who's now deceased, Dr. Bob's son. And that's where I've got a lot of my information. And he used to say that he's the only one alive from the Oxford group in early AA, so there's no one alive to dispute what he says. So he was 17 years old when he was in the Oxford group. And Bill got Bob sober. And he had a sharp wit. His memory was perfect. And so was Sue Windows. That was Bob's daughter. And she died a couple years before Bob died. They were both just sharp as tacks. I had the privilege of speaking with them in Florida. It was the last time those two were ever together. And I just didn't know what an honor it was at that time. I did not know. I didn't know they'd never be together again. But now I just feel so fortunate that I had that experience, that I could be with the two of them. Anyway, I'll tell you a story I shouldn't tell. Is Smitty's wife still alive in Tennessee? Mona. Yeah? Okay. Well, I hope she doesn't hear this tape. I also, when I first met Bob, he was married to Betty, his first wife who he was married to for over or almost 50 years. And she died of cancer, so I knew her also. But anyway, at this convention, it was in 2000, 2001, something like that, they introduced a woman at the banquet. They had her stand up. And she was older, but she was gorgeous. She was just, have you ever seen some elderly woman that's gorgeous? Just, I mean, she was so beautiful. I think she must have been in her late 70s, early 80s. And they introduced her as Reverend Tunk's daughter. And I noticed she was kind of following Smitty around. So we were having a snack together or something, and I looked at him and I said, did you know Reverend Tunk's daughter when you were growing up in Akron? And he got this big old grin on his face. And he says, yes, she was my girlfriend. So anyway, I just kind of watched what was going on the whole weekend. And at the end of the conference Sunday, I said, how's it going with Tunk's daughter? And he goes, she can't make up her mind if she's an alcoholic. Been there, done that, not going back. I mean, cut and dry. So, but anyway, I feel very fortunate to have had that experience. The first man that Bill and Bob worked with was a man named Eddie. People think it's Bill Dodson, the first man to get sober, but it was a man named Eddie. His wife brought him to Bill and Bob. They don't know what they're doing. It's all experimental. They haven't a clue what they're doing. And so what they did is they just threw Eddie up into Sue's room and gave him the belladonna treatment, which just knocked him out. Knocks you out for three days so that you get over your DTs in your sleep. I don't know. But anyway, he came to, and he crawled down the trellis. And he's running down the street in his pajamas because he wants a drink. And Bill and Bob noticed him. And this is when they had, they wore suits and ties, always very dressed up. And so they're running down after Eddie. And they capture Eddie. And they take him back. And they drag him upstairs and throw him in Sue's room again and give him the belladonna treatment. And he wakes up again three days later. And the next night he crawls down the water spout because they did something to the trellis. He crawls down the water spout. And he's booking down the street. And Bill and Bob notice. And they go booking after him. They capture him. And they throw him back up in Sue's window and knock him out again. He woke up for the third time. And instead of trying to escape, he just walked down the stairs. And Ann was in the kitchen making tuna fish sandwiches. He grabbed a big butcher knife and was going to stab her. He was a very mean and violent man. And he had things other than alcoholism. Ann ran up the stairs. I would have ran out the door. There's a door there. But she ran up the stairs into her bedroom. And she got on her knees and she just started praying. And Bill and Bob got home. As Eddie was up there holding the knife above her. And they wrestled the knife away from Eddie. And they told his wife that they couldn't help Eddie. That he'd have to be committed for alcoholic insanity. At Dr. Bob's funeral, A.A.'s in full swing. A.A.'s 15 years old. This man comes up to Smitty, Dr. Bob's son. And he says, do you remember me? And Bob said, no. And he said, my name is Eddie. And he got sober a year before that in Detroit in Alcoholics Anonymous. So you just don't know when the seeds planted when it's going to bloom. So he did end up a sober member of this program. The next person they worked with was a man in the hospital. Well, they called the hospital that Dr. Bob worked at. And Bob said, do you have any drunks there or anybody that we can work with? And he says, we have this cure for alcoholism. And the nurse says, well, have you tried it on yourself? And he says, as a matter of fact, I did. And so she fixes, well, Bob asks her to put him in a private room. So Bill and Bob goes up there. And the man on the bed picture that you guys see was Bill Dotson. And they just share their experience, strength, and hope with Bill Dotson. And, you know, he had beat up a nurse. He didn't think he'd ever be able to get sober. But after they left, he just had this little ray of hope. And he asked him to come back. And he was our third alcoholic to be sober, which was very important because they really needed that lift in their spirits. Two weeks of sobriety, the American Medical Association had a convention. And Bob hadn't missed one in 20 years. And he wanted to go. And Ann didn't want him to go because every time he went, he got drunk and he disappeared. So Ann's fighting him about going. And Bill really does believe you cannot protect an alcoholic from alcohol, that we have to be able to go out in the world and be around people who drink. And if we're not okay, then we still have, you know, we're not spiritually fit. So he talked Ann into letting Bob go. Also in those early days, they always kept a couple bottles of alcohol in plain sight so that not right here but kind of up here so they could prove that they could be around it and not drink. And they used it to bring green recruits down that were going to go through delirium tremens. Anyway, so Bob goes. He gets on the train. He does what he always does. He got drunk and he disappeared. And he was gone for days. And finally, he surfaced at somebody's house. They called Ann. Smitty and Bill went and fetched Bob and brought him back home. And they're desperately trying to get him sober because he has to perform surgery Monday morning. And this is during the Depression. They're foreclosing on his house because of his drinking and everybody's broke. Nobody has money. And he really needs to perform the surgery because he needs the money. And everybody's cosigning this. No one cares about the guy's butt he's about to cut open. Everybody's cosigning this, trying to get Bob sober to perform the surgery. And so Monday morning comes and Bob is sober. He's stark raving sober. He's so sober he can't hold his scalpel. And so Bill drove him home. He drove him to the hospital. And before he went in, Bill gave him one goofball and one beer to drink. And I've looked up everything on goofballs. They say it's either a sedative or a pain medication. But back then, I've never really seen it in print. But I was thinking back then, I know they had phenobarbital for seizures. So maybe it was phenobarbital. Just to study his nerves so he can go in there and perform the surgery. And the surgery went perfect. And he called home and he said he had some things to take care of. He'd be home later. And Bill and Ann waited and they waited and they waited. And it was quite late when Bob finally got home. And they knew he was drunk. They knew it. When he walked in, he was sober. He was sober. What he did is he went around the city of Akron and he started what we call Step 9. But it wasn't that step back then. And he started making amends to people. He admitted to his clients. About his alcoholism. Apologized for not showing up for doctor's appointments. Not showing up for surgeries. I hope he didn't kill anybody. I don't know. And he never wanted to do that because he was afraid he'd lose his clientele. And he did. He lost a lot of his clientele. But what that did is that it allowed him a lot of time to work with drunks. And he worked with something like 5,000 drunks before he died. And Bob was much more successful getting drunk sober than Bill was. He also went to his creditors and started setting up payment schedules to pay his creditors back. And he admitted to them about his alcoholism. That day that Bill gave him that beer was the day of Bob's last drink. And that was on June 10, 1935. There's no such thing as Alcoholics Anonymous. They're all meeting in Oxford meetings. But this little group is forming called the Drunk Squad. So we've got this group getting sober in Akron. We've got this group getting sober in Cleveland. And Bill goes back to New York. We've got a group getting sober in New York. But we're having a lot of problems with the Oxford group. They don't really like us. We're relapsing and we're smoking. And they just really didn't care for us. So the drunks started meeting in their own homes. But they were meeting at the Oxford group. You know, religious pamphlets and all that. There's no such thing as AA. When they had something like 79 alcoholics sober, they decided that they really had something. They had something here concrete that would work. And there was a lot of debate on what they were going to do to help drunks. But they settled on writing a book to go out in the world to help drunks. And the book is Alcoholics Anonymous. And the book came first. And then AA broke off in 1939. And they... And they took the anniversary date of Bob's last drink and made that the anniversary date of Alcoholics Anonymous, even though it was three years before that, or four years before that. So AA's growing in leaps and bounds. They've got this book, Choose Your Own Conception of God. I mean, everything's kind of changing. It's no longer Oxford Group Meetings. They named their fellowship after the book. So they're Meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we were in what we call our adolescence period, where we were 15, 20 years sober. And we're having a lot of problems. A lot of problems. We don't have traditions to hold us together. And drunks are getting in fights in meetings. Drunks are getting in fights in the parking lot. I mean, they were really making AA look really bad. So one of these drunks sent Bill a letter, and he said, I'm afraid AA's going to be destroyed from the inside, just like the Washingtonians. And up until that time, Bill never heard of the Washingtonians. And that was a group of alcoholics getting sober in the 1800s. They were very successful. It was around the temperance movement. Six drunks always in a bar. Two of them went to a revival. They came back, and they're telling the other four drunks about this revival. And that really made the pub owner mad. He just started yelling at them, calling them a bunch of hypocrites. Which proved to him they could stop drinking if they wanted to. And they weren't part of the temperance movement. But they started this movement, and it was named after George Washington, called the Washingtonians. And they grew a lot faster than we did. I mean, they really grew. Because every meeting they went to, they had to bring a wet drunk. So, I mean, in a short period of time, I always get my figures mixed up, if it was 200,000 or 500,000. But they had a lot of sober people. But what happened to them, what destroyed them, is they were not single on purpose. You know, they started trying to push their beliefs on everybody. It's no longer just for alcoholics. They had a big convention, and the speaker's Abraham Lincoln. Which is very impressive, but he's not an alcoholic. The Civil War broke out, because they didn't have a set of traditions to hold them together. It destroyed the group. I mean, just like what's going on in Iraq. Half the people believe in what we're doing, half the people don't. But thank God we don't bring that into the rooms. You know, that is an outside issue. We don't bring that into the rooms. We're not going to let anything destroy us. He made a study of the Washingtonians. He made a study of the Emanuel Group, which was part scientific and part religious. They grew really fast in the early 1900s. Kind of like Christian Science, but not Christian Science. And what happened to that group, is that everybody who got sober wanted to become a counselor. They wanted to get paid for getting other people sober. And so, that destroyed that movement. And Bill's own experience with the Oxford Group. Now, the reason why, the one reason why we had so many problems with the Oxford Group after this book was published, is that in this book, in the first four words, it does not tell you anything about the Oxford Group. Nowhere does it mention the Oxford Group in the first printing, or in the first book, edition, the first edition. And that really infuriated the Oxford Group. But the reason why they didn't mention the Oxford Group is because at that time, the Oxford Group leader was having communications with Hitler. He thought if Hitler would do his steps, Hitler would change his ways. But to the rest of the world, it looked like the Oxford Group were Nazi supporters. You know, that's what destroyed that movement. And then Bill wrote every meeting in the United States and Canada and asked them to send a list of their rules. And if you put the whole list together, everybody's rules, it was so ludicrous. I mean, women weren't allowed, ethnic groups weren't allowed. I mean, it was just so ludicrous that they said not one person would be allowed in AA if they had the entire list. So that's why Bill fought for the traditions. You know, and we had that group in Cleveland that didn't want the traditions. In fact, we had somebody in Cleveland who thought he started AA. And his name was Clarence Snyder. He was very active. He went to Akron, Ohio to get sober. He started bringing a huge group of people from Cleveland to get sober. And a lot of them were Catholics. The Pope got involved. And this is, the Pope got involved and he said Catholics could not go to the Oxford group. And so that's one reason why Clarence Snyder decided to break off from Akron. And he started a meeting, I can't remember the name of the street, in Cleveland, and he said, huh? Borden, something like that, yeah. He started this meeting and he said, we're gonna name our movement after the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill broke off at the same time in New York. So, they're trying to take credit for Alcoholics Anonymous there and it caused a big little thing with Alcoholics Anonymous. But, and they didn't want the traditions. So, and Bob was really close to Cleveland and Bob was just torn. But before Bob died, he totally stood behind him. He totally stood behind the traditions. He knew that we would not survive without him. And Bill would not have enforced them if Bob had not agreed. They had never, ever had a disagreement, never had an argument. Bill would not do anything without Bob's support. And so, we adopted the traditions. What, 1950? I think 1950, we adopted the traditions. And that's the only reason why AA is 71 years old today, because of the traditions. Otherwise, we would have been destroyed a long time ago like all those other movements. And I want to read a page in here. I'm almost gonna let you girls out. I want to read a page in the book. And this page is a result of us being 71 years old. What edition is this? Is this my book? It's a, I think this is a third edition. Oh, is it, is it your book? Oh, okay. So, it's the third edition? Okay. All right. In the third edition, it would be 315. In the fourth edition, it would be 279. No, this is a fourth edition. So, and there's no page number. So, you go to 276 if it's the fourth edition, go to 312 if it's a third edition, and then turn a couple pages beyond that, and you'll see a page called They Stopped in Time. And I want to read this page to you, because, it represents Alcoholics Anonymous, the people that are coming in today. And this was given to me, I was doing a retreat for the women, and this woman came up to me and she said, are you aware of this page in the big book? And I said, the big retreat leader, no. Read that page and I was just overwhelmed by this page. I'd read it, but I just didn't, it wasn't at the right time, I guess. But this is describing who comes in, who comes in Alcoholics Anonymous today, because we've raised the bottoms, we're 71 years old, and you don't have to go to the lengths that those old timers went to. They stopped in time. Among today's incoming AA members, many have never reached the advanced stages of alcoholism, though given time, all might have. Most of these fortunate ones have had little or no acquaintance with delirium. How many of you have heard of delirium tremens? How many of you have not heard of delirium tremens? I mean, I'm with a lot, yeah, a lot of people have never even heard of them. With hospitals, asylums, and jails. Some were drinking heavily, and there had been occasional serious episodes, but with many, drinking had been little more than a sometimes uncontrollable nuisance. Seldom had any of these lost either health, business, family, or friends. Why do men and women like these joint AA? The 17, meaning the 17 stories, next stories, who now tell their experience, I'm going to answer that question. They saw that they had become actual or potential alcoholics, because I hear people trying to jab into the mind of people, a real alcoholic, real alcoholic, but this is talking about potential alcoholics, too. Even though no serious harm had yet been done, they realized that repeated lack of drinking control, when they really wanted control, was a failed symptom that spelled problem drinking. This, plus mounting emotional disturbances, convinced them that compulsive alcoholism already had them, that complete ruin would be only a question of time. Seeing this danger, they came to AA. They realized that, in the end, alcoholism could be as mortal as cancer. Certainly, no sane man would wait for malignant growth to become fatal before seeking help. Therefore, these 17 AAs and hundreds of thousands like them have been saved years of infinite suffering. They sum it up like this. We didn't wait to hit bottom, because, thank God, we could see the bottom. Actually, the bottom came up and hit us. That sold us on Alcoholics Anonymous. How many of you feel like you're on this page? How many feel like you're on page 21, the real alcoholic? Well, how many don't know? Okay. Okay. Anyway, enough people raised their hands about being on this page. So it shows that AA is still doing its job. Thank you.