We Wouldn’t Trade the Worst of These 35 Years for the Best of What Came Before – Cliff W.

Very intelligent, very articulate. I know one time we picked up a guy named Tex Adams who had kidnapped a couple of police officers and took their guns away from them. After he got into AA, they finally caught up with him, and when he went to the judges, the Superior Court judge, and told them about Tex, being sober and it was wonderful with the Skid Row drunk, they finally just pardoned him. I've always been too serious about myself and taken myself too seriously, and even at that time I couldn't loosen up at all. But Christmas 1941, we had a party, and Red Skelton came down and entertained us. We worked for an hour and a half. It was a show. It was the greatest thing for me that ever happened, because I learned what a belly laugh can do. Back through the years, all I saw was that, you know, like Bailey, who can give funny talks but still good AA talks and make a person laugh. I believe a good belly laugh is as spiritual as the Lord's Prayer. Then I ran out of tape. I didn't notice it. I'm not sure exactly what I left out. However, it's not too important. Judges, I don't want you to think that I'm being overly modest or capitalizing on humility, but Doug and I both strongly feel that the post-class and answering the phone literally saved our lives. We're so darn grateful to these people who came in, who I know gave us a feeling of self-respect, especially me. I had lost all respect for myself when these fellows began to look up to us. And particularly to me, I needed this very much to feel that I was useful and effective in doing something. And I always, through my whole AA life, I've been given jobs that I didn't want to take it on at all because of this inferiority, I guess. And I know when they started the general service structure and a delegate from this area, the old-timers wanted me to make myself available. And I just wasn't capable. They voted me in anyway. And I got a place to go back to New York. And I'd be a delegate. And yet I know that this was one of the greatest experiences of my entire life, to meet you people back there. And I'll never forget how bad the morale was in 1950 and 51 when you folks back there were going broke because everybody had forgotten about you. And I got the ball rolling. And I got to meet Bill. And he told us about the story of AA and the services that without some kind of help from the groups, you people would go under. And this was quite an experience for me. And then later, when our first trustee from this area was Jerry McCumber. And Jerry served about a year and then passed away. And then when I was being a delegate, we had to pick a replacement for Jerry. And at the meeting, I made myself unavailable because I just felt that I wasn't the right person. But they then voted me in anyway. And I was so shocked about it. That after I got the, I mean, I got home, I knew I couldn't do it. So I wrote a letter of resignation to Bill and also to the nomination committee chairman and told them I just didn't have the kind of experience or brains that they needed. And Bill, of course, bless him, he wrote and told me that they didn't need brains. They needed some old time AAs who might advise them on policies. But these things were always more or less forced on me, not by my own volition. That's why I say everything that I've done in AA has been done because it's something I had to do. I didn't know if I felt I was capable or not. I'll never forget the experience there in New York and Bill. Bill was such a great teacher. And Bernie Smith and all the old timers. These are high points of my whole life. And I'm so always, you know, grateful that these things happened. And yet I also know that, left to my own volition, they would have never happened. I have a tremendous feeling for Bill. I have a tremendous feeling for all these people. One of the things I was talking about without a tape was about a guy, Chet Rood. Chet Rood was, when he came into AA, was still on the board of one of the largest banking chains in the world. But he knew that he was an alcoholic. And yeah, he was really a high bottom. He was a drunk. He did a tremendous service for us. When I had gone back to New York, one of the things I wanted to do was go up to your central office there, which I did. It seemed to be going so smoothly. And our own service office here was going to pot because it was run by some people. They just appointed themselves the committee and ran it. They were from the Beverly Hills group, and they punished the bulk of the money. But they would try to tell the different groups what to do, and they tried to interpret the traditions. And so they lost the support, and they were going broke. So I told Bill about that, and he said, well, what you need is a good business practice there. He said, you know, most groups try. You know, most groups try to run their groups, their central offices like a group. And it just don't work when you've got money and the fund. I mean, you have a payroll to meet and rent to pay. You should set up a good business practices. He told me about Hank Grimmie, who had dropped there, your service officer in New York. And he had made... They had almost gone broke. And he said, also, we should involve the different groups. If they didn't have a voice in it, they wouldn't be interested. When I came back to Los Angeles, I went to see Chet Rood, head up... You know, one of the heads of the Reconstruction Finance Company, probably the largest corporation ever formed. It was after the war, you know. And also, he was raising a million dollars for his church. He was president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and on the board of some of the big... Some of the big aircraft companies. He was really a genius when it come to money and money flow. So I told him I'd like to have him if I could get the other folks to resign. I'd like him to go in there and set up some good business practices. And he told me all about this. He'd only been sober about two years. And he said he had more things to do than he could do in 24 hours a day. But he said AA comes first, so he'd do it. And I went to the board and asked them if they would... We hit the board meeting and asked them if they wouldn't resign and let Chet... Chet take over. And, of course, they got mad as hell. But eventually they realized that something had to be done. So they got a hold of Chet and he worked for a year down there at the central office every weekend and nights and structured our area like our general service structure. I became a trustee. I was in New York and met Archie Roosevelt. And Archie at that time was the head of the finance committee for the world services. And he told Archie what they were doing with the reserve fund. You know, the 50 cents from each book was put into that. And Archie said, well, they added saving banks. And he suggested they put it in fluid money. If there was a big depression or something, there might be a moratorium and money wouldn't be available. And I think he advised, for some years, their money practices. He was truly a great man. In fact, his story is in the big book now, the new sections. About some of these people that were on the original group, they had Irving Osweed. He used to be a very famous football player at California University. He's still sober. He's about six foot eight. He lives now up in Las Vegas. He has a big business there and doing well. And Bigelow was a major in the Air Force and went all through the war without taking a drink, even though he couldn't go to meetings. In fact, he trained there in Tucson and started his Tucson career. He wants to be a real man. But I think he's really good at those things. Which I think is a great thing. And I think he may be able to get people to believe in him or something, but I think he has a world of knowledge. And if you're not in a good place, you may not have what you need. I think he's a great guy. Now he's a good guy. I think he's a good guy, but I think he's really good at this. I think he's a good guy. I think he's a good guy. You know, my son, Pete Cunningham, who was dead, he wrote Pete's pamphlet that we still sell a lot of them. Harry Chisholm, I told you about, he has passed away. Val Deshaies is still alive. I don't know where he is. John Douglas, he was a famous football player in California. Andy Gold, he was one of our first secretaries. He did a tremendous job. Andy Given, he came in in 1940, shortly after I did. He is now in the rest home. And very soon now he'll celebrate his 45th birthday. He started the groups down in Orange County. He and another friend, Kent Hayden, he used to drive all the way from San Bernardino. Regardless, rain or shine, he was here and he started the groups up in that area. Wayne Hopper, he started the groups in... I haven't seen him for a while. I know he's still sober. He's done very well financially. And Dr. Forrest Haley, the dentist I told you about, Dr. Haley is dead now, but he started the groups up in the mountains at the Crestline. And there was Jim Judd. Jim Judd was one of my first attempts. I wrote him a letter once. He was in the sanitarium. I didn't have the money to get over and see him. He was one of the first people I contacted. He was gone to the World's Fair. He went up there and got drunk and stayed in his hotel room for two weeks and then came back. Never did see the fair. And then he got sober. His brother was a... was a house representative for years and a missionary. In fact, he moved back to Indiana and was one of the... from that area some years ago. He's dead now. Mosley Jones. He's a chain of... He's done very well. Walter King. He was one of the guys in the power mountain fall and got drunk and started a downfall in the 40s. He's now secretary of the Oxnard central office. Of course, you all know Al Marino. He's always been controversial, but actually one of the finest men I know with new people. And he... Of course, he is the... You know, makes a lot of noise. But we need those kind of people. In fact, I feel that we need... God has given us everything we need, including people. Even the ones that, you know, that ditch a lot are the ones that... Even the losers we've learned a lot from. Bob Maypaul. He was on this Orange County group. Earl McBride came in on the... He's a Scotsman, still alive, still active. Jack Nichols, he's still alive. He started out... The group's out in Burbank. He's done well. Lee Scott. He started the groups in Redondo Beach. Started the group in Barboa at the... On Barboa Island. Harry Selene. Harry's very active in the... Starting two of the Burbank group. And now lives in Colorado, where he has started a group. You probably heard of Hal Silverton. He started with Kay Miller. And I think he did have some trouble. But he did start the groups in San Diego. Frank Thatcher. His wife, America Thatcher, was our first secretary. Frank has passed away now. Jack Turton. He helped start the groups in Beverly Hills. He's still alive. Thompson with Panorama City. Helped in that area get started. Jack Witt was always... Almost Jack Witt is dead now. But he was very active. And Dud Winfrey. Dud Winfrey, though, is a guy... For 17 years. And they gave up. And he went out to Beverly Hills. And got in the 6300 club. And he got sober. And died sober after six years of sobriety. So these are just some. But all of them were... I think I need to mention. I'd like to mention some other highlights that stand out in my memory. I think one of the greatest was the... The advent of bringing... Lois and Bill out to Los Angeles. I believe it was about 1943. I can never forget it. I know that 1943, the earlier members that ran the group for several years had been beheaded. And that included the early... Some of the early post-class people. We had been beheaded. And we had a new breed come in. In fact, they didn't like the old-timers at all. And I think they had good reason. Because our Central Committee at times became very high-handed. So they finally ejected us. And took over. They would let us come to the meetings. But they wouldn't let us participate. Or have anything to do with it. And they're the ones that raised the funds to bring Lois out here. But we were really... The old-timers were really in disrepute. And I think they had good reason. In fact, they wouldn't tell us when... I mean, they allowed us to donate money to bring him out here. But they wouldn't tell us when he would be here. He and Lois. And where they were staying. Bill and Lois got here. They'd been there, oh, maybe a day or two. And Bill called up Frank Randall. And he says... To Frank, he says, where's all the old-timers? He says, we've been surrounded by the Senators. And we'd like to meet some of you older guys. And so he invited us down to the hotel. Frank and I and Mork and some of the... Eric Chisholm and a few other of the old-timers went down to the hotel. And the rest of us, we didn't know just what kind of man or... What manner of man this might be. We didn't know whether he'd wear white robes or what. How should we address him? How should we treat him? So we finally got into his room. And there was Bill. He had some old slacks on and tennis shoes. And, well, he just... Well, he cussed a little. He smoked cigarettes. And we knew then that he was one of us. And I think the classic remark was when Harry Chisholm and I were leaving. And Harry says, you know, that Bill, he's just like us. He's a drunk. He says, I bet he puts his trousers on one leg at a time just like you and I. And I thought this was... This was the classic remark for that time. And later we had a dinner with Lois with just the old-timers. And it continued for many years. But one thing happened then that quite impressed me. We had a fellow at that time called Marshall Brockway who was really a tremendous guy. One of these real charmers. And he knew the book. He worked backwards and forwards. And he was the best 12-stepper we ever had. And he could give the best speeches you ever heard. And he was getting all kinds of babies. But just periodically he'd get drunk. And so Frank and I got Bill aside. And we told him about Brockway. What do you do with a guy like that? What's the matter? And Bill says, well, he says, fellas, I think it's a matter of soap. Marshall uses up all his soap on the other guy and don't save any for himself. It's a tremendous impression on us that there are certain people that, as our preamble says, that are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. And most of these people I've seen through the years have gone down the drain. We really fell in love with Lois. Lois is such a gentle and such a wonderful person. And I know every time that Lois came out here she always remembers everybody's name. And I hear Bob Hitchens wrote me a letter about Lois, said that since Bill has left she has really bloomed. And we can't wait until July hardly to see her again. There's another event that comes into my mind that I think might interest you. Sometime early in the early 40s, I lived, that's when I lived on the west side of town, close to Beverly Hills. I got an attorney, Earl Winnett, came to meetings at our house. And he was a wonderful guy. He had a nice wife and a wonderful family. However, Earl was an atheist. And after he'd come to a few meetings, he called me up and said that he was going to start his own group, because he just couldn't go for the God stuff. And he said he was going to call it the Wagoneers. And they, you know, had their own program, leaving out any mention of God at all. In fact, there for a while his group began to grow much faster than ours. And at one time we passed a rule at our meetings that we couldn't mention God at the meetings because it might scare away a new man. So God at that meeting went kind of underground. We still believed in him, but we didn't want to scare people away. In fact, Earl wrote a book called The Alkalergics. It was published in 1945. And it's called The Alkalergics, The Great Drink Mystery. It's a book actually more of logic than anything else. And I know, of course, logic doesn't seem to do the job, because most of these Wagoneers either come back to AA or died. And I think Earl has passed away by this time. I haven't heard of him for years. But he was a wonderful guy. And it certainly proved to us, though, that if you leave God out of it, you get nothing. And certainly this is one of the proofs to all of us. Another thing I probably should mention, you know, when the Post article came out, one time I had worked for Curtis Publishing Company. And I knew that any returned magazines that weren't sold, they would tear off the covers and junk them. So I went over to the Curtis Publishing Company and distributors and asked them if I could have these posts that hadn't been sold. And they gave me several hundred of them. And I know that who used this question, we used this quite a bit as our literature. And every place we would make a call, and even though the guy might not be interested, he would still leave the Post article. And you know, all through 1940, up to even almost up to 1950, we were still getting people coming in that had that Post article. Jack Alexander, he put us on the map, and I'm sure it did back there also, because it gave us some respectability. George, I'd like to finish up this tape by relating some of the incidents that have happened through the years. Most of them happened in New York. But these incidents have left a lasting impression on me. And have given me a much greater perspective and these incidents have left a lasting impression on me. And have given me a much greater perspective and have helped me get this reverent and lasting admiration for our society. Quite often I tell these incidents to 40 new people that come into AA, particularly those who feel ashamed that they had to join us. I try to get them to see what a magnificent society they are joining. There's nothing that ever happened in social societies like this, I'm quite sure. The first incident, was at my first service conference when only half of us from the delegates were there. And Bernie Smith then was the chairman of the board and chairman of the conference. And I truly loved that man, because Bernie always seemed to have a sense of the conference. He knew when we were disturbed or when we were uncertain. At this particular time he told us that the board of trustees were thinking of getting a congressional corporation for AA, like the Boy Scouts and others. And I guess he felt that we could come under their protection and also it might raise the level of respectability for our fellowship. The sense that, well, we were uncertain. And then he made a statement that he, I'd heard him make at many conferences, he would, he said, well, we're seeking, we're not seeking compromise, we're seeking certainty. So let's table it. And asked us to go back and talk to our people and the areas and see what they felt about it. The next year when the full panel was there, from all the states and all, and the provinces of Canada, this came up again. And he also, he still felt a great uncertainty amongst us. So finally we decided to appoint a committee to study it further. And they would report next year. Then on the third year, when I became, I made about the third or fourth year, I'm not sure, when the committee made the report, the committee chairman, who was a lawyer from down south, made his report. He got the one and only standing ovation I've ever heard of, I've ever seen at the general service conference. Of course it was made on Sunday morning. And the gist of his report was that how could you incorporate a way of life that started 2,000 years ago. And if we became under the protection of the Congress, might we not come under their jurisdiction? But everyone knew, including the board and staff members, that this was the right decision. Another incident happened the second year. She'll never forget the, when we got back the second year, in our portfolios, it was a letter from Lois. In it she said that they had asked us to occur to kind of structure the family groups. And at that time I also pick a name. And at that time there were many names. Out here we called them the non-alcoholic groups, and other places called them the associates. There were many different names, some of them not very flattering. Anyway, the trigger word was in her letter, she wanted to know what the family group's relationship would be with AA. That afternoon we discussed it, and of course all hell broke loose. And it was the worst battle I've ever seen at the General Service Conference. In fact, many of the states were going to secede from AA, and it really got bloody. And we didn't resolve it, and we finally called a special meeting on a Sunday morning. And the battle started again, and it got bloodier and bloodier. And about one o'clock in the afternoon one of the delegates got up and said he had heard from, got a telephone message from the Rives who had attended the conference with their husbands and had met with Lois. And they had a message for us. And the message was this, that the only thing that they wanted out of us was to be damn well left alone. Everybody laughed, and that broke the, broke the fight. The next incident, I'll never forget the rest of my life, I'm sure. And still it sometime haunts me. The January meeting, 1954, when I got back to New York, Bill met me as usually, as usually at the Commodore Hotel. The weather area, and only area trustee was from Toronto, Canada, was quite ill, and he wasn't there. Before the policy committee started, or had convened, Bill got me aside and told me that he had had a correspondence from the Yale award committees, committee, and they wanted to give him an L.R.D., a doctorate of law degree, for his work in Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, well, he wrote them back and said that we as individuals, we couldn't take awards, but they could direct it to the movement itself, the AA movement itself. He had written back and said, no, they, his doctorate of law degrees were like knighthoods, they were only bestowed upon individuals. But Bill says, I'm thinking now, perhaps, I could take it under the name of the WW. He says, the reason, he says, you know, after the L.L.D., quite often a prize is bestowed to the same person. And he said, I think this would impress the hell out of these drunken Swedes. It was new to me. Anyway, on Monday night at a trustees meeting, after the business, the other business was taken care of, he said he wanted to present something to the board and the staff, the members that were there. He says, it's something that I, as a decision, I have to make myself. He says, I have no titles in AA anymore, but I would like your opinion. So he told them what he had told me earlier, wanted to know their comments. Well, most of the people seemed to agree. And then when he came to G. Roosevelt, G. Roosevelt said, well, Bill, he says, my father turned it down. He turned to Jonas Anderson, this wonderful Jonas, who was always quite brusque, but a wonderful guy. Jonas, what do you think about it? What do you think about it? And Jonas says, well, Ben, you ask me, I'll tell you what I think. He says, I think that's only 99% anonymous. Then he finally asked me what I thought. I'm not quite certain. This is exactly what I said, but I did disagree with him on one thing. I said, although he had no official title in AA, that myself and most of the AAs in the world, he was the only spiritual leader that we ever had or ever would have. And what would have to be exemplary, I said, and I'm sure that if you took the AAs, you would be proud of him. I think that's all I said anyway. Bill threw his napkin down and said, well, I'm going to turn the damn thing down and walked out. It just shattered me because Bill, after the trustees meeting, had always taken Adam and I over to Howard Johnson's for ice cream and then taken us back to the hotel. I felt that I had offended him some way, and finally when I got home, I told him, I really made up my mind I was going to resign from the board because I just couldn't stand the fact that Bill might be angry with me. So later I get these, a copy of the Yale Correspondents. And when I read them, and particularly the letter from Bill to Mr. Holden turning it down, I thought, well, it was just a classic. And I'm sure you've read it, and it's probably in your archives now. And of course then it relieved me a great deal. When I went back to the next board meeting, I got a hold of Bill and I told him how great I thought this correspondence was. And I said, Bill, that's a tremendous example to all the AAs of today and tomorrow. So they won't take awards for doing the things that keep them alive. And I think we should make a pamphlet out of this. Bill got a grin in his eye and he says, well, Cliff, not as long as I'm alive. He says, I don't want to capitalize on humility. And he laughed. What a man. But you know, George, particularly after I saw the the Traditions film, when Bill was quite ill, and I always, I knew that Bill was haunted with the alcoholics, the millions of alcoholics throughout the world who didn't know about us. And they were dying because they didn't know this. And I'm sure in this talk he gave on the, in this film, he could see he was still haunted. Did he do the right things? After seeing that, I feel myself, well, was it the right thing? Of course, we'll never know. It was a good example, but I wonder if a lot of people died because this Bill did not accept it. And I'm sure he felt the same way. George, if you are still listening, I have one more thing that I'd like to tell you. And I'm sure this is in the archives too, but it has to do with the updating of the stories in the back of the book. Of course, as you know, the original book had 20 stories of what Bill called the last gas for drunks. He thought we should get stories and stories about alcoholics who were, what he called high bottom drunks. Also, he wanted some stories of some of our women alcoholics. He assigned the job of this project to a couple of AAs there in New York that were writers. One was a woman, one was a man. And they finally conceived the idea that send letters to all the areas asking for tapes of talks. And they would, when they got them, the best ones, they would translate into a story form for the new book. I think this was in, probably sometime in 1954. Anyway, I find a, one day here in Whittier, I received a packet of stories that apparently they had, these people had finished the project. And in the packet was a letter, a covered letter written by Bill stating that he'd passed these around to some of the people in New York and they seemed to think they were okay. And he wanted our opinion from the Los Angeles area. So I read the stories and frankly I was quite shocked because they were way out of taste and, you know, people can say things at meetings if you put them in print. Certainly they are not in good taste. And even the titles of so many of them were garish, like True Confession magazine. And I thought, well, God, if Bill thinks they're good, who am I to say that they aren't? So I thought, well, I'd better get some other opinions. And so I passed the stories around to Chet Rude and Chuck C. and Harry Chisholm and a lot of the different AAs and asked them to give me their comments. When I got the stories back and they had written all their comments on the stories, they agreed with me. So I sat down and wrote a letter to New York stating all these things we thought were wrong with them. I tried to make the letter as gentle as I could, but it was pretty bad. Finally I sent the letter back to Bill with the stories and the comments and then I got some second thoughts. I thought, my God, what have I done? Bill would be angry with me because they were pretty bad, our comments. When I went to the next trustees meeting, sure enough, there was a note in for me to call Bill Wilson and he asked me to get on the next train going to Stepping Stones. I got on the train and when I pulled into the station there, I could see Bill looking in the windows looking for me and finally he spotted me and when I left the train he was still about 50 feet from me and he was yelling, well, we're not going to print the stories, we're not going to print the stories. Well, it happened that Bill had never read the stories yet and he says, I agree with everything that you've said and I mean, the people out there thought of these stories but I was delighted to have your letter because I knew if I had went to them and made the same comments that you had that they would be much badly hurt. So I told them that Cliff represented a large area of Alcoholics Anonymous and that they had always supported us out there from Los Angeles and would never do anything that would hurt anybody but he said, I do agree with this. So of course they scrapped the stories and then they sent out letters to different people to write the stories and that's when we got the Chet Root story and the Wynne Law story. Bill was always such a gentle guy and most of the time I know that he had another side. I remember him telling about the fights he had with the board, what a difficult time he had with them when he came out with the traditions and also when he wanted to start the General Service Conference and I thank God though the way he was because otherwise we probably never had traditions or we might not even had a book and the General Service Conference as bad as it works it still has saved our world services. George, I agree with you on your comments about the talk of the age future I can remember hearing Bill say once that age successes today are only the accumulations of the past and can only be a promise for the future by each generation of drunk. The drunks passing these lessons of the past to every generation of drunk that come along. That's why I feel that the Archives Committee is a very important thing because we don't know what's going to come in the future. I know we try to live a day at a time however what we do today has a lot to do with our future survival. I'm getting a lot of flap at times from some of our newer AAs and from an awful lot of the old timers. I know on our World Service that of course we have our traditional lawyers and so many of them are very critical of that function back there. For instance I had lunch with a very fine young AA who was a lawyer he's been sober about nine years he was very good an awful lot of excellent people but he was quite concerned about general service structure and the type of people we were getting to go back there representing us. He also thought that there were too many professionals becoming delegates and trustees. But I tried to tell him that a lot of these people that even though they're politically minded and do run for the post of delegate or trustee once they go back there in New York and see that function there most of them become very good people. And I tried to tell him too that actually you people there and the people we send back all want the same things that all of us want. And that's a vital working service office that will keep our channels of communications open. I do think much of our criticism the criticism you get is mostly because of communications. I know some of the so-called guidelines and communiques from New York have trigger words in them and that can be interpreted in many ways. I know some time ago there was something in the 459 about AA's getting on television full-face and something about recommending them to with the World Service of Health and the World Service Office would recommend the people who should appear anyway, whatever it was. The implication was that they were endorsing the Alcoholism Council and it was implied endorsement really. But actually that wasn't what was meant at all. I know when I was writing proposals to the groups when I was chairman of the policy committee and things would come up. Bill would get me aside and he said, Griff, he says, when you send out a proposal on any actions back here he says give the pros and cons and be as honest as you can no matter how you feel about it. He said one time I made the, one time I said that the best, infallible guide for AA's affairs was the group conscience. But I've had to make a qualification that is a well-informed group conscience. And quite often I think we take just one side and some of the communiques from our delegates are only telling what they feel is right rather than giving both sides of the coin. But I'm convinced that without our world services AA would not survive because if there ever is a controversy that cuts across the whole society and we didn't have a rallying point AA would surely die. And I remember the story of the Washingtonians who the group started going there. They started going their own way and they published their own literature and handled their own public relations. And I know that the good public relations and bad public relations are separated by a very thin line. Also the same is true with group relations. I know when Bill started the policy committee he said it was the most important committee under the board. He said that this committee might very well make sure that we don't make policy blunders here that might antagonize large areas of our membership. In 1943, the latter part, Dorothy and I moved to the beautiful town of Whittier. It's about 15 miles southeast of Los Angeles. We loved it here because of all the orange trees and avocado trees. However, at that time the nearest group was about 20 miles away. So of course I felt the need of having AAs around me and having a group. So I finally went to the city fathers and the church people and told them that about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was there to save all their drunks. And they politely told me that they didn't have any alcoholics here because they had no bars or liquor stores. At that time this was an optional dry town. So finally I put an ad in the paper, Alcoholics Anonymous, the old box of 212, and began to get letters. However, it was very difficult to get anybody to come to a meeting in this area because of the stigma they felt that if somebody saw them they would be quite ashamed. So Dorothy finally, we finally got a meeting going. First year was in a house and then finally we got an Episcopalia course. But then got some Al-Anon women and started the Al-Anon groups. But today now we must have 25 or 30 meetings in this area of many Al-Anon. The Al-Anons really have an excellent program. I sometimes feel that they are much wiser than us drunks, although I never tell them that naturally. Through the years Dorothy and I have had remarkable experiences and I know we've had our ups and downs like everybody. We've had our bereavements. However, Dorothy and I both agree that we wouldn't change the worst of our life in these 35 years for the very best that happened before.