Why an Agnostic Can Get Well – Back T.

Since I'm getting ready pretty close to my Social Security, may I sit down? Well, Joe's little thing on the center of the GSO, I think is appropriate. It gives me an idea of what I might say that could be of interest maybe to some of you folks of showing what we used to be like. Where this thing grew out of, AA is like Topsy. It was no planning. I think Bill and Bob both would, I know all the rest of us that I know of, will look up to one sponsor, one guy, one real founder of Alcoholics Among Us. And that wasn't a real founder, is John Bollycorn, because every time we did the wrong thing, John Bllycorn eliminated us or cut us down and brought us down to size. So it seems that John Ballycorn never really got the billing he should on Alcoholics Anonymous, because he was the real, in my estimation, the real founder of this thing. But going back, I won't give you my story because maybe I'm a little more use in giving a little bit of the background of the early days. Because now there are only three of us left that were in during the writing of the book, which was in 1938. One of them is a fellow named Clarence Snyder who started the Cleveland Group. and Florida, and of course Bill and myself. I came in in January 38. Instead of going through my story, you can find it in the new book if you wish to, The Vicious Circle. I'd been in 60 jails, and I'd tried suicide two or three times, and i'd been really through the ringer. Of course, that was the only qualification, only way you could make it in those days. So that was in January 38th. My last drink, however, was June 38th, so if I make it till June, I'll have 25 years. And I like to think if I can make it till June it would be the second 25-year cake alive in alcoholics and others. So Well, the reason I'm saying this is to try to give you a little picture that I do have a little knowledge of what's going on. I came in January, as I said, in 1938, and I had been called on by a guy in Washington, D.C., a fellow named Jackie Williams, and two weeks after he called on me, he was suddenly taken drunk, and I took him up to Bill Wilson's up in 182 Clinton Street which is where the hot flash happened and when I was up there and took Jackie into Bill's I met a former boss of mine who had been in an oil company a fellow named Hank Parkhurst and he and Bill were the only two in the New York division who had over a year of sobriety. Bill had at that time, by three years, Hank had about two, a little less than two. Bob had about 2 1⁄2 at that time, and maybe there was another one or two over there in the Akron Division that had a year. I'm trying to give you a general picture. So this fellow Hank knew I was a pretty good peddler when I was sober in his old company, offered me a terrific job working for he and Bill selling automobile polish at the terrific sum of $10 a week in my keep if I'd stay around New York. Well, I was out of a job and out of my wife at that time, and I was ahead of everything, so $10 pretty good. So I parked up in New York, and at that time things started to happen. You see, this thing originally happened in an innocent way. Bill was on his last drunk in Brooklyn. Eddie comes to see him, who had been sober six months, in the Oxford group. and Bill's on this last drunk of course you've heard a little bit of the story of this and he laughs at this guy here's another one of these screwballs got in religion now Bill was agnostic like most of us are that come in first come in so Bill went on drinking and ended up in town's hospital and he started remembering what Ebby had told him which were just simple truths which any spiritual group will give you. Said, Bill, if you will clean up your background, clean up yourself, clean up the messes, be useful to other people, try to be helpful, get rid of your resentments, understand that this booze is unbeatable, you won't have any trouble drinking it. the message was not to help other drunks. It was just to help other people. So Bill, after he sobered up, made daily trips back to the hospital where he was and then he went to a mission up there, Calvary Mission which was run by the Oxford Group and Bill became a member also of the Oxford Group. Well, the Oxford group at that time was a Protestant sort of group with no roots. There was never any real book written on the thing. It was just an idea of having small groups and a sharing and a being of use to each other. They were not necessarily trunks, they could be anything. And they have four absolutes Absolute purity, absolute honesty, absolute love, and absolute charity. Well, of course, if you throw that out drunk today, he'd go screaming down the street. Of course, he would be glad to go through for the purity. So Bill was going to these Oxford groups, meetings, and he was going to the hospital daily and he's taking these boys home from the mission Lois told us afterwards he brought home 75 people there in that first year two of them committed suicide one of them damn near burnt the house down another stole his clothing and another one stayed sober that's good old rehabilitation didn't work that's why Rosa and I seemed to seem deceived the only thing you can do is let a guy find his own way give him the tools try to help him so Bill went along like this and he happened to get back a job and he goes to Akron on a business trip with this thing the deal goes down it goes flop they would have made him independent at that time he'd been a Wall Street prepper and he's back in almost into the chips, but the deal fell through so he's walking up and down the lobby of this hotel one end was a bar and he started thinking about how nice it'd drink and for the first time he remembered although he hadn't sobered up a soul in six months. He'd stayed sober, and he'd stayed sober talking to drunks daily. He never realized that before. So he called up the one must after another on the roster there in the hotel, and finally hit one that knew the Oxford group in Akron. He called this woman up. She says, I've got just some drug for you. Come on out to the house and tell him how to get there, and so on and so forth. And Bill was broke, the deal had flopped, and he's the end of the road in the way he tells it about to drink. And the first time he'd had a desire in those six months. Well, he met Bob. Bob was a medical doctor. He'd read everything that was in medicine and nothing was helping him. He'd also been going to the Oxford Group without any success. But this time, there was a drunk talking to him apparently and that made the thing click. And Bill stayed around Akron for a few months and they went to the Oxford Group meetings and finally Bob Smith found in the hospital where he's working there was another drunk in there and they want to see him and number three man came in, Alcoholics and Ambulance, Bill Dodson. So they were getting a glimmer then that maybe one drunk could talk to another. Then Bill came back to New York. Then he started working the old mission in his home, in the Oxford group and so on and so forth. But he found that these drunks he was taking in to the Oxford group were getting drunk on him and none of them staying sober. So this fellow Hank that I was mentioning that I had known before, ten years before, who had hired me as a salesman for this oil company finally insisted we've got to get out of the Oxford Group. We've got some new drunks and we're not doing any good. And Bill hated like hell to pull away from Shoemaker, Dr. Shoemaker who had helped him so much. But he began to realize that these drunks weren't working with civilians. It didn't seem to work that way. So finally they pulled out of the Oxford group in New York. However, all this time, they were running along with the Oxford Group in Akron. Those were the only two groups, no name, no nothing, Oxford Group if you want to call it anything. And I came in to New York just two months after they broke away from the Oxford group. and they just started I think they had their second meeting in Bill's house of alcoholics only in a second floor on his second floor and the wives were downstairs doing the cooking at those meetings there were seven or eight we had no program no nothing we were probably using the absolutes we were talking about sharing and being of use to other people and all this sort of thing and these people they were coming to meetings average about seven or eight and we understood that in Akron they were running pretty much the same size but they were mixed up more or less with the Oxford group and it's so hard to pull them out as a matter of fact we found out that two years later they accepted the AA book after it had been published but they wouldn't accept the breaking away from the Oxford group. It was a tough struggle breaking away. Thank God we broke away a little earlier in New York. So there we were meeting in Bill's and then we started having a little luck. These people were sticking around a little longer. Of course, Bill was one of these guys that got an overnight flush at this terrific agnostic and then hearing in Towns Hospital On his last drunk, the doctor talked him to the lawyers and said he wouldn't live six months. And that shocked him. And he called the doctor in, as it is in the book. And he says, I don't know what's happened to the doctor, but something's happened. And Dr. Silkworth, my great friend, the director in the books, says, Bill, I Don't Know What It Is, But It's Better Than What You Have. but we all thought it and even Silkworth thought it was DT's and we don't know yet whether it was DT'S but Bill had a flash and he hasn't had a drink since and Bob Smith had almost the same thing although he had one drunk more after Bill sorry but that was the trouble since Bill and Bob had this overnight flash and change then all of us that were coming in after All of us agnostics go and help them for election against everything in the world. And then being told about Bill and Bob, we had to get down on our knees. And it was in the original writing of the book. You had to Get Down on Your Knees to Another Person in the Group and all this and that. In other words, everybody had to have religion to get well. Now we know that you can be an agnostic and get well, I'm an agnostic still. I don't think I'm a militant agnostic I know I'm not an atheist I know there's something but what it is I don' t know but it works for me I believe I have as much faith as the next guy but it's a very broad unexplainable thing that works to me and probably that's about the only damn thing I ever gave the AA book was that God is your understanding, which let us all live. And we fought many, many times in a lot of battles. So that was the way it was going at that time. And Bill was flying with the geese, as we said at that time, and he was way up there. And very few of us could get well because we all patterned after Bill. That was one of the first things we learn, the personalities. You can't have personalities because you can't build on individuals. It took us another five years to find that out. But so here we were, this little group in New York, this small group in Akron, sort of semi-inly Oxford group both places, going alone. And then this guy, Parkhurst. I always feel that we owe as much debt to this guy Parkhurist as we do to Bill. He got drunk two months after the book was finished. But if he hadn't, he'd probably run and set up business because he's one of those pressure boys. Bill is a pretty good pressure man, but this guy had bills like two to one. He'd been a standard oil manager, the sales manager for Standard Oil. He'd been down in Mexico in those fights for the oil down there and all that battle. So he was really a roughneck. So Hank said, Bill, we've got to get something of our own, something we all believe in. so Bill said we'll talk to Bob we should have a pamphlet says Hank well talked about so they talked about Bill Bob goes back to Akron Bill goes with him so does Hank now these are the threads that hang that made this change at that meeting they had 20 people out there in Akron deciding whether they would allow New York to write a pamphlet. A pamphet, just a pamphet, mind you, a typewritten pamphret. Twenty people. And by one vote, it went through. Now suppose they had put it down. A lot of us would have gotten drunk before we could have done anything more. So then it was decided that we'd write a Pamphlet, Bill's story Bob's story and the doctor's story those were the three chapters that were finished and Hank the promoter says well we've got to get somebody to print this now typewriting it won't be good enough he says I've got a friend up at Harper's a publishing company so Bill and Bob go up to Harper's in New York and the editor looks it over and he says Mr. Wilson Mr. Parker this is good if you can finish this mind you and make this a full size novel we will advance your royalties we were all broke completely flat everybody we're going to advance you three thousand dollars in royalties that Bill had never written anything not a damn soul in either group had ever written anything anytime anywhere so they broke that back and the next Tuesday they brought it up at the New York meeting should we get Harper's to take out their deal and make this a novel on alcoholism that would straighten up all the drunks in the world, and let them have control. And Hank says, no. If it's worth $3,000, this was in 1938, reminds you, $3.000 is a lot of dough. If its worth $2,000 to Harper's, its worth a million dollars. So right then and there we decided to go into the publishing business. No experience, no nothing. And that was in June 1938, just the time that I got on my last truck. So then they were writing this thing. Most of it was written in Hank's home where I was at my keep and was coming back from my soirees of selling automobile sometimes. We were going to put DuPont out of business, but we didn't quite make it. Looks like DuPort had it in for us. So this thing was written chapter by chapter. It was written double-spaced, triple-copied. One copy to Akron, one copy to the New York group, and one Ruth Hock, who as Ray will know her from way back. She was our original secretary in the D.C. Street office when it's just Bill and Ruth. Ruth did the typing, Bill did the dictating. Double space, three copies. Then he would bring them into our group, each chapter, and we'd all punch at it. And we would punch at it this way and that way. And Akron did the same thing. Then they would bring the Duke back. Then then rewrite it and it would go back again. So actually every word in that book and in this book today, in the text part was okayed and strained and restrained by 50 alcoholics in two groups. I always like to say alcoholic lawyers, because they didn't leave a loophole. But the funny part in the damn book is, it's a lousy piece of literature. If you will notice, you read a sentence in there, and you think, well, they're going to miss this thing, and all of a sudden they bring it up with another half a sentence. It just rambles. Well, that's the way this thing was written. It's all-encompassing, yet it don't demand that you do a damn thing. And it answers your questions before you really get through it. We didn't realize these things at that time. We still thought we had no idea of groups, although we had these two groups. Groups were never thought about. This was going to be a moneymaker. We would sell a million books. Instead of getting on the spiritual thing, all of a sudden we were on the financial thing. And everything we did went wrong. We went broker and broker and brokering. They started the Alcoholic Foundation, which was before the General Service. The Alcoholic foundation was organized and incorporated. They could open up hospitals, they could open up schools, they Could borrow money, they Could do any damn thing they wanted to, Real estate, buy, sell or whatnot. We had The most wonderful charter and that's Where we were going to get the money From the civilians. And we had this Alkanotic foundation set up before the Book with three chapters we had that Already set up with what we've been doing With all the profits we made on the book. and the book was originally going to be called One Hundred Men and that was a one hundred men corporation you could buy stock in twenty five dollars a share they showed you this beautiful brochure that if you'd bought Colgate at one dollar fifty years before that it'd been worth ten thousand dollars at that time well the same thing about probably something with this new book that's coming out this One Hundred Man But all of a sudden, we got a gal that had been sober almost a year. So we couldn't call it 100 Men. And it was 100 Men Corporation. So we had to have a name. So we started scouring around for names. The way out, exit, the last resort, this and that. and we found all of them had been used so damn many times before doubled hither and yon so about this time this was at the end of the year if you notice that in the book in the original AA book where they had no appendixes it didn't mention a damn thing about Bruce it didn'y say a damn things about the name of what this thing was In other words, everything happened after the book was finished. So in October, we were still just going to sell books, make a million bucks in this alcoholic foundation. And we had nothing to do with that. The book company was divided three ways. Hank, Bill, and 35 of us had put in, what, $25 worth of shares or whatnot. You could buy it even more time. But it seemed like the civilians weren't interested. And that's how, Joe, the Alcoholic Foundation first became lopsided with non-alcoholics. We put the non- alcoholics in there to get the bill in. That was a reason. Well, not that we were afraid we knew what to do with the bill, we weren't worried about that, but we had to have a front. But we had three women alcoholics, and Bill and Hank Parker were on the original foundation. So we got nothing in the damn foundation. And then finally, the book was pretty near finished in October or November of 1938, and we still had no name. And we hadn't had any printing done or anything. so we rescued a guy at a Rockland State Hospital a guy named Joe Word show you how these damn things come from all over the place we don't know why or where Joe had been out of the insane asylum for about two or three weeks on the drug again he'd been an old promotion man, had started the New Yorker magazine way back and Joe was in this meeting so for about 2 or 3 weeks we start talking about excesses and so forth and he said anonymous anonymous anonymous alcoholics for anonymous in those days meant for the new guy not for us guys not for safaris the ones that knew all the answers that was just to suck the new person in anonymous so this kicked around And in five minutes, the word stuck, Alcoholics Anonymous. Because Parkhurst could see this was going to be right at the head of the telephone directory, the city directories and everything else. And it's a quick flash. So that's how we happened to get our name. So here we were struggling, book all finished. And incidentally, the stories in the original book, There were about 23 or four. Only three of them ever stayed sober, I thought, of Bill, Bob. No, there was more than three, about five. But all those stories were actually written by those people without any editing. But the rest of that book was pushed and torn and pulled this way and that way. And so everything in there is a cross-section of us 40 or 50 people that were around at that time. now about this time as we were going along with writing this thing as they were going along I was sort of an innocent bystander they didn't think I'd last so long I claimed to have quite an honor I didn't find it out some years later I found out they'd had many secret meetings in New York half of everything that turned out to be Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, some of you guys may have individuals that want to see you get drunk. Alcoholics anonymous won't be drunk. And that's the time I stayed sober after I had that one trouble. So, I think my staying sober helped a lot of you guy's in today. It just proves that anybody can get well no matter what sort of way they come in, Bass Aquids or whatnot. So that was our situation at the end of 1938. No money, no nothing. Then a psychiatrist got a hold of one of our copies of the book, Dr. Howard from New Jersey State Hospital. And he said, Bill, you've got to change this. You and Hank, you're going to change it because it's nothing but Oxford proof. It says you've got to do this, you've gotta do that. The original book was you had to. You had to get down on your knees even in the original book. He says you gotta make it broad and you gotta say we found we had to or this seemed to be the best way. There's two ways of doing it. Some of them do it this way, some do it that but it seems better if you do it thither way. So that almost killed Bill. I think that's about the closest that he ever came to blowing his top his baby being torn apart. But he finally accepted it, and then the book was brought. Then we got an angel, a Mr. Cornwall, of Cornwall Press, who we tried to help his son with no luck. He said he would go ahead and print these books for us, and he'd print 5,000 copies. But we didn't come up with any dough. The best we had was $1,000 we borrowed from one of our early members. So the books went into bonded warehouses. And the only way we could get those books out, they were selling for $3.50 then. We would take up six, eight, ten, or even two I've seen that come out at the time. We'd pay $2.50, go to YMCA's or doctor's or anybody else we could brace and sell them for three and a half and go back and get another couple. In other words, I was selling on the road, and I was trying to peddle these books any place I could to try to get them out. Because the first year, instead of selling a million books a week, but expected to, we actually sold 150. And we had everything all breezed. We had the American Medical Society all breeced up. Fishbein was a great friend of Dr. Towns. and Fish Pine promised that he'd read the book and give us a terrific write-up. So our first publicity came from the AMA. Now this is something I don't think anybody in this room has ever heard. I didn't get a hold of this until a few years ago. This actual publicity because Bill sort of keeps his side lots of things Bill would rather leave them over there because now we are very friendly with the AMA. But that time, so I will read you the review they had on Alcoholics Anonymous back in October the 14th, 1939, the American Medical Journal. the book under review is a curious combination of organizing propaganda and religious extortation it is in no sense a scientific book although it was introduced by a letter from a physician that's our old friend Silkworth who claims to know some of the anonymous contributors see this is only three or four months after the book who have been cured of the addiction to alcohol and have joined together in an organization which would save other addicts by a kind of religious conversion. The book contains instructions as to how to intrigue the alcoholic addict into the acceptance of divine guidance in place of alcohol in terms strongly reminiscent of Dale Carnegie and the adherence of the Buckman-Oxford group. The one valid thing in the book is a recognition of the seriousness of addiction to alcohol. Other than this, the book has no scientific merit or interest. That was our first publicity. And as far as I know, that's the only adverse publicity I've never heard on Alcoholics Anonymous. Have you ever heard of one, Joe? That's the only one. Of course, they came back. You see, at that time, when Alcoholics Anonymous book came out, there was, I think it's about the first book or maybe the second or third that ever came up for the layman on alcoholic. Alcoholics, I mean, the word alcoholic was an unknown name. If you had a book, you were a dipsomania. If you were broke, you're a bum, because they're all the same. But this alcoholic was of an unknown term. And even Bill Hill, who used to run through something like 25,000 alcoholics a year, still thought there were cured alcoholics from some of the people they'd let out when we went to see them in 1939 and 40. It wasn't until 43 when the U.S. Health came out and confirmed what we've said in this book with every reason why there is things, that what's alcoholic always an alcoholic. As a matter of fact, in the first red book, the first edition, You remember this, I believe, Ray. It said in there, us ex-alcoholics. We used the word ex-alkoholics to ourselves in the first book. But we changed that pretty damn fast in recovery, to recover. So just about that time, we did get one good piece of publicity. You all saw the picture up there on the, whatchamacallit, Liberty Magazine at that time. It was a big magazine. And Liberty ran a four-page spread on this, two pages in Liberty, which ranked at that times pretty close to the Saddening Post. Alcoholics and God. That came out right after this medical thing. and that did sell a hundred books but it brought in about a thousand inquiries and then at that time we, Bill and Hank had been calling on Dr. Richardson who was a spiritual man in the Rockefeller Foundation constantly asking for help Bill wanted of moral health, Hank wanted to re-mate naturally. We, two of those men that were on that original alcoholic foundation were friends or connections of Rockefeller. We thought it would be a good come home but they didn't go for it. So in 1940, February, Rockefeller invited 200 of the richest men in this country at that time, February 1940, to the Union League in New York. This was John D. Jr. Sixty of them accepted. Eight of us went up there. There were eight tables divided. Wendell Rookie was there. this was in 38 Sarsen from Ford Owen Young we had all the big shots these are men that had worked with Rockefeller in his foundation and other places but John Dee didn't show he was sick but Nelson we owe a hell of a lot to Nelson Rockefeller even most Democrats alcoholics because Nelson led the thing off he was a kid then and he said, my father asked me to invite you gentlemen here. He wanted to tell you about something new. Well, you see, a lot of these fellows had come before back in 1915 when John D. Sr. was putting over Prohibition and they thought, well, here's another one of them rock fellow drying up processes. so I.D. Lee who was publicity man for the Rockefellers at that time maybe he still is or the family is estimated that in that room there was over four billion dollars worth and Bill Hank says well this is it no more words 150 books, over 4,000 in the hock still. Can't get them out. We can't put them on display. We can give them around to different bookstores so they can sell them. Our Britannians did get a few out. We were willing to take a chance on us. They were the first ones. So they had Fosdick Kennedy. They had a psychiatric society. Well, what's the name of the guy from Riverside Church, Rosamond? Oh. Fosdick. Huh? Fosdy. Yeah, Emerson Fosdiq, who was a great spiritual leader of that time, was up there. And he was the first guy to give us our professional okay. Fosduck came in because he'd seen Marty Mance over us. and he'd seen this terrific recovery an almost impossible case because it happened to be his patient said we were good people and finally Bill gave up his story a little bit, Bob gave his and Hank gave his a little better and then Rockefeller closed it up and they said gentlemen as you notice on this book on this place here on each table, there's an AA book for each one of you members. He did buy those 60 books, maybe I think he bought 100. He says, I want you to read this and he said, I have decided that we will help this thing but we think the money is the last thing it should have. As Bill says that $4 million is working out the room. But, he said, my father has decided he will give a thousand dollars to this for five years and we hope that you all will come in accordingly. And out of those sixty men there, we got $5,000 for five years. In other words, if Rockefeller put up a thousand, you naturally know what those guys have put up, a hundred and so forth. But we did get $5 thousand from the Rockefeller friends and the crowd for five year. And I'd like to report here that we paid every nickel of that back five years later, once we got it a-hock. And I believe the foundation told us at that time that was the first time they ever got all their money back. So we had something to be thankful for. Most of it gave it back to us anonymously, but anyway, we had the fun of making them think we were giving it back. so here we were we were still going no place this was in February but the wires carried across the country Rockefeller says Alcoholics Anonymous are good is good and we started selling books then down in Philadelphia then what started happening these traveling men like you saw in that picture. That's what spread this AA thing throughout the country. Then we began to see that this fellowship was the most important. To me, the steps are maintenance. But this fellowship is number one. Without this, we never make a start. If we can't accept this fellowship, this God stuff don't seem to work so good alone. We need each other. We need to work on each other. At least that's my personal opinion. But anyway, all of a sudden, things started happening in Akron and New York. Some of us started getting jobs. Larry Jewell, a very well-known newspaper man in Ohio, Cleveland, goes to Texas, Houston, Texas. All of a suddenly we find a nucleus of a group there. This was in 1939. I went to Philadelphia. My God, I had to get somebody around me. So for the first time, instead of being on the fence and on the outside, I went into Philly. I started hitting the hospitals, the doctors, and we got a few people together. And immediately I started telling them what Bill and the rest of them told us in New York. And all of a sudden I was sucked in. and since that time there's been no trouble because once I became part of AA once I started doing some work I had no more trouble no more thought of Bruce as long as I didn't forget that simplicity of keeping close so I went to Philly Fitzmayor went to Washington Kay Miller the wife of a fellow named Miller from Ohio who goes out to Los Angeles, passes the book around to the judge up there. Or rather, the model will copy the book, not even the book itself. It was a typewritten copy she passed around. And all of a sudden, a little group got there. So we found out that in April of 1939, there were two groups. In April of 1940, and two groups with probably forty-five people, when the book was published, that were active in the membership. And one year later, we had a hundred and thirty-five groups, and we had fifteen hundred members. And then this thing started blooming. And then all of a sudden in Philly, I like to think of my little group there did it, we have Judge Bach used to come to some of our meetings. Well, Judge Buck's family owned the Sardinian Post. So after one of the meetings there, I asked to be introduced to him by one of our lawyer boys who was doing very, very well. And I said, Judge, you've been coming to our meetings. You've been interested in the Oxford Group original. And you've seen what we're doing and what we'RE trying to do. We need some publicity. We need a chance to tell the world what weRE trying to do? He says, what can I do to help? I mean, that was just that serious. I said, well, we said, how about this evening, folks? He said, sure, I'll take you down there in addition. So they got the master down, Mr. Russell and Hank. No, Hank was drunk then. It's too late. Because Hank would have really promoted us out of nothing. And he died in seen asylum, incidentally, two or three years later. Yet he's the guy that made Bill, because Bill has always been a guy to do it tomorrow, like a lot of us are. But he's a pressure boy. He's the boy that believed it. Of course, he believed it would bring in a couple of bucks. And that's the reason. And when Hank got drunk, the only way we could get Hank out of the picture financially, at least Bill could. He told Hank, all right, I'll give mine up if you give yours up. So Bill had to get his share up too, which was given to Alcoholics Anonymous, or to the Fellowship, which at that time was the Alcoholic Foundation. so we went Bill came down they went to Sadine Post and immediately they took him to Jack Alexander and Jack Alexander at that time had just finished breaking the Hines case in New York he'd made quite a record in breaking up rackets and we were introduced to Jack Alexander and Mr. Alexander said well we've been thinking very seriously of writing an article on Alcoholics Anonymous. He says, I believe you all grew up in the Oxford group in Germany. We said, yeah, at least Bill did. He gave the story and so on and so forth. He said, that's swell. We'll write the story. We didn't know until later. The reason he was going to write this story was to bust us wide open as another racket. that was the reason the Saddine Post was going to run our article at least that's the reason Jack Alexander was going they had him to write it so Bill very sensibly said for God's sake Jack don't write a word until you've visited 10 or 15 of these nucleuses that down in St. Louis Baltimore Washington this is the end of 40 I mean middle of 40 so Jack Alexander did that, and he wrote the greatest thing that he'd ever written in his life. He got more commentation. More posts were sold from that one article than had ever sold previous to that. They sold out. They reprinted it several times. They're selling reprints still. All your central offices still have them. But from that 1 article in the Sagdean Post, we had over 14,000 cries for help throughout the country. And then we sold books. We were in business. And now all of a sudden these groups started growing up. Now I'm going to get so long, so I'm gonna get quick. So here we go, all these groups coming up big hell collection, we were all showing our names in the paper. We were all hitting the soapboxes, Bill, Bob, and the rest of us. Some of us getting drunk, and they were making a hell of a mess. The groups were building on their founders, on personalities. And then the grapevines started coming up, and that was gradually accepted. And when we began to see through the baseline, you start telling about some of these things happening. And then we began to see the mistakes we'd been making. We began to see John Barley going batting the hell out of us into line, making us stick to the principles we had printed, that ourselves as a group or as a fellowship. So then it was in 1946 that Bill wrote The Traditions. Those traditions were very, very simple. They were just written up from mistakes that were made in Alex Anonymous from one end of the country to the other. And it was quite a mess. And every group said, well, those are not for our group. Those are for that other group over there. This is so-and-so. Because it was a battle royale. And the religionists got in. We had the Catholics, the Protestants. We had their psychological AAs. Oh, we had the mess. And I believe you had Dr. Nason here a couple of weeks ago. He was going to get into this thing the medical way. All those things were entering into this damn thing, causing an uproar. And the traditions came out. They weren't accepted. And the reason they weren't accepting is because we were still making money. We had money in the New York office. And suddenly Bob Smith dies. That was in 51. Just about that time, the New York office was busted because they weren't sending a damn cent in. They said, the hell with those guys up there. They're spending it all. They don't tell us what to do with it, and nobody knows what's going on or anything. And it was true. So then they decided the third legacy, that the groups would be brought in as representatives so that we'd see what's growing on. So that's what's coming now. And this GSO, this thing has just been one thing after another. I give you my word, I guarantee one thing. Alcoholics Anonymous will be no more like it is now, 20 years from now, than it was 20 years ago. It'll improve. Because we're learning more and more and more. We're catching the guys higher and higher and higher. We begin to recognize that only one or two percent of these trunks are on skid row. And we've been combing them and combing and combing. Now we should give a chance to these guys in the middle flats. These guys, I admire a guy who comes in with a couple of bucks. I don't see how he does it. Anybody can stop his growth. But how you do it with a couple of buck in your pocket, I don' t know. But it makes it a whole lot harder. I'd like to go on for this damn thing and tell you more of these screwy things that happen. But I know it's after 10 o'clock, and I know you're tired. But I will say this. I'll take two minutes if there are any special questions. Now, don't ask me what makes AA work because I haven't got a damn better idea. I don't think Bill does or any of us. But if you want to know where some of the original things came from quickly or what happened, I'll try to answer them, and then I'll quit. Are there any particular questions? Hank Parkhurst. Yeah, Johnny. Jim, I'd like to know, as I was all over and over again, part of the story of John Fox, first 200 alcoholics were sober for a year, both or both? No. No, it said 100 alcoholics. They didn't say sober a year. There was nothing in print on that. But there was 100 people that had come and gone in. 100 names they had. They had more than that. But we had to have some nice big round figure, which was Parker's. Another one was that 50% stay sober. There wasn't 10%. Pay fund? No. No, the steps were written off the cuff by Bill one night, and we changed them a good deal. But they were in pretty much the same rotation. As a matter of fact, he's the story he tells, he woke up in the middle of the night and jotted them down. But they are very simple to the, what's the name of that group, that old, no, no not the Washington, no they didn't have any program like that. But it was some religious Catholic group way back, St. Francis, they're very much similar to St. Francis. Yeah. Sure. Ah, yes? Yes. Well the text is the same as the original text of the second edition of appendixes spiritual experience and explains the fellowships and the proofs. In other words, there's no mention of proofs in the early books. Now, for you to be able to get God's answer within a year or two, yeah, of course, I'm sorry. Well, if I'd have made it through all that time, I would have been honest with you.