Why Knowing How It Works is Better Than Just Knowing It Works – Joe M.

I believe we're going to have fun this weekend. Joe and I both believe that our book tells us that we are meant to be joyous, happy, and free. We love to be that way. We love to be with a group of people that love to be that way. I think we can have a hell of a good time this weekend and maybe learn something about our book at the same time. My name is Charlie Parman. I'm a very grateful recovering alcoholic because I'm a member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and by the grace of the power that I found in the 12-step program of Alcoholic Anonymous. I haven't found necessary to take a drink for 6,372 days today, one day at a time. And for this, I'm grateful. I couldn't count that good when I was drinking it. We always like to say at the beginning of one of these things that we do not consider ourselves to be the gurus of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. us. Most certainly we are not the experts on anything at all. The opinions you'll hear us express as of this weekend are our own as of this weekend. They do change from time to time. Nobody speaks for AA as a whole, and you are most certainly free to agree or disagree with anything that we say, as you see fit to. In fact, if you can't reconcile what we say with what's in the big book or other conference approved material, we would suggest you pay no attention to it whatsoever. We, as I said, do love to have fun. We try to keep this thing just as absolutely informal as we possibly can. You know, we started messing with this thing years ago, two or three or four of us sitting around in a room talking about the big book, laughing and cutting up and have fun. And as far as we're concerned, it's still the same thing. We love to tell jokes. We love To Hear Other People Tell Jokes. And we really do intend to have a lot of fun this weekend. There's a lot humor in the big books. I think we'll find a lot things we can laugh about and a lot thing we can have fun with. So if you all just kind of sit back and relax and join with us, and we're going to take off here in a minute and start talking about the book. We never really know for sure what we're gonna do. You know, we just know we're gonna start talking about it, and we let the chips fall where they may. We never know what part of it we're gonna emphasize. We continually are learning more about it ourselves as we go along. Every time we do a big book study, we learn something new about the book, and if we learn something new that may be the part we'll emphasize the most this weekend we don't know but we're going to enjoy it and have a good time and we hope you all do too thanks for asking us up here and thanks for being here to listen to us joe my name is joe and i'm a real alcoholic through god's grace and through the power of god that worked in my life through the 12 steps and through the people within the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink of alcohol since March 10, 1962. And for this, I'm grateful. I like Charlie. It's good to be here. We've been looking forward to coming to Omaha. We had some special friends in the area, really all over the country, but particularly here. And we're looking forward to this study. As Charlie says, you know, this began giving you some idea of where are we coming from. We are just two members of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's all. and some years ago I had a miracle of my life I became involved in working with alcoholics which I do today and I had been in the program about nine years at this time and as I got to work with alcoholists So to begin this work, I began to look at what I had to offer people. And although for doing those eight or nine years in the program, I had sponsored a lot of people one-on-one and worked with a lot of people, and I thought maybe I felt kind of insecure in working with larger groups of people. i know but one thing and that was alcoholics anonymous and i felt like maybe if i could learn a little bit more about that i could better help people so i began a study of the big book um i would study each night and i would make notes and this went on for pretty much a year I was making little or no progress on my own studying the book and I began to talk to local AA members at that time of course this was, you'd have to remember this is 16 years ago and 16 years ago when I began talking to my local AA members about the big book nobody was interested in the big book in fact I've become somewhat of a nuisance around AA Every time I would bring up the big book and they'd say, yeah, that's nice, and walk off. And finally they got where they'd see me coming and go the other way. And I began to wonder, you know, people would say, well, it works. We don't need to know how it works or something like that. And I begin to think maybe that maybe I was wrong in what I was attempting to do. but i continued in the summer this started by 1972 and in 1973 in the spring of that year i was asked to introduce a speaker out of all places the al-naan convention and my wife lubelle she she always says i i would volunteer for the lecture chair before I found out what it was if it was NAA, but I told them, yeah, I'd do it. And how you're playing months ahead, you do something like that. The time came and they had the conference and I went down to the Holiday Inn there in downtown Little Rock. I'll never forget that night. It was a special time in my life. And I was introduced to a speaker, and it was Charlie. I hadn't met Charlie. Charlie lives 225 miles from me, and he was in another area that stayed in AA, and I had never met him. So I was to introduce the speaker, and I told him that night I was very disappointed in the speaker because I saw his name was Charlie P., and I thought it was going to be Charlie Pratt. This guy wasn't even the right color. And he couldn't sing either. But I introduced him, and quite naturally, you know, I was into this pretty good. I look back on my life at that time. I was really into this big book thing for myself. And as soon as the meeting was over, as we began to talk, as soon As I got to know him well enough, I pulled out my favorite subject, a big book. And this guy is the first guy that didn't run off from me. You know, he listened to it. And I said, Well, I better hold on to this guy. Now, you know, he's the only person I know who's fool enough to listen to me. But we became instant friends that night in 1973. We became instantly together over the big book. And it really changed my life and his life. You know, it's unbelievable how our lives have changed strictly over what's in the big-book Alcoholics Anonymous. We would make notes. He had been studying on the book, too. He wanted to learn more about the book, and he hadn't found anybody in his group to talk to. So we just kind of came together over the big book. We would meet in different, when we went to conferences, we would arrange to meet each other and go into rooms on a Saturday evening, and he and I would study the book. Some weekends during that period of time, Lou Bell and I will drive up to Charlie's Farm and spend the weekend at the farm studying the big books sitting in his kitchen on the farm. And those were some memorable times we spent together. And during this time, other people heard about what we were doing and they asked, one guy said, Charlie asked me, he said, one time we were together, he would like to sit into your mine. It was a thing between he and I, but I said, I don't know if he's interested, let him come on in. So he sat there, and the three of us studied the big book that Saturday afternoon. Someone else found out about it, and then another one came in, and finally we had 18 and 20 people in a room sitting on the bed studying the big books. We were in Oklahoma at a conference, and one of the guys was in the room and said, Joe, I would like for my group to hear this. He said, I think it would be good for my group to learn more about the book. And they were talking. He said finally I invited Charlie and I to come to his group. So we went to Lawton, Oklahoma. And after four years of doing this in the rooms in 1977, we were invited to go to Lawson, Oklahoma and do the first big book study because it wasn't a big book story then. It was just do the big book. So we did it, and there were 35 people there. Well, someone taped that meeting and this was the first time The Big Book was taped. I went back home and there was a taper there at home who used to ask me about the tapes and I told him, well, I didn't get no tapes. He said, did anybody tape it? I said, yeah. He said y'all send off and we'll get the tape. And I procrastinated for about three months and that guy kept bugging me so finally I sent the guy after—sent up and got the tape and it was on a huge reel and it never had had been played. Guy had it for three months. And I got it and I gave it to the local taper and he said, Joe, that tape is good. He said, I believe I'll make it four little cassettes and see if anybody would like to have some of those. And this was the story of the big book tapes. And from that, you know, in the early days, Charlie and I were invited to go to do a lot of big book studies during those early years. And finally in 1980, I guess when the really the big book uh studies were we had been here to omaha and before those times so this is a before anybody else in the country learned about the big but we weren't in omaha but in 1985 in fact we met west here in omaha we were invited to come up here and do that big book study last time over here we met wesley paris wesley perris was a great student of the book probably a student of the books way before challenger even coming to aa but Wesley had never been and he was sitting in the in a meeting here at a big book study when he first heard heard the big book steady and he was amazed you know that he has studied the book for so many years and never really unlocked a big boy in fact he was the kind of thing that he told me and Charlie who in the hell are y'all where did y' all come from I've been studying that book for years and I have never seen it like that so we became instant friends over the big book and this is this is when west set up uh you know uh the bigbook seminars in pompano beach uh west was also very instrumental in in the big books because in 1980 he was a he was ahead of the international lunching at the international convention in new orleans and he called charlie and i and he said look i want to do something with those tapes looking i said wait they're not eyes we don't have anything to do with any tapes in fact charlie and i have nothing to do with any types books or any financial connections or anything in in the big book study even to this day but west we told him you can do what you want to do when he said well i'd like to give some of them away at international luncheon now you'd have to know west he was a real alcoholic god bless him he's passed on cunning and baffling and powerful and west had 1500 people at this lunching and he seated them all you know he was the older that he knew where everyone would be seated so he decided to give away a hundred sets of big book tapes and what west did he gave away a hundred set of big books tapes but he chose who was going to win him he picked out the people to win them and he made them go to each state in every every largest city and they went all over the world. And actually this is what really started a great interest, you know, in many, many other places in the big book study. And Charlie and I since then have been invited to many places to do just the same thing we did the first time in the rooms. This is no different. And each year, you now, like last year, we probably did close to 35 big book studies in the United States and Canada and Australia and the Bahamas. So, you know, but it's still—this is still the same. It's very informal. We like to think it's just like being in those rooms, four or five of us sitting on bed studying a big book. I think what I like about this the most is everywhere we go in the United States today, Canada, or anywhere else, we sense a great movement back to the basic fundamentals of Alcoholics Anonymous. seem like everybody's searching for something and everybody seems to be wanting to go back to the way this thing started in the very beginning i was so happy tonight to hear not only the steps read but to hear the traditions read and then the concepts also you know we do have three legacies it's absolutely necessary that we have the three legancies and follow those three legacies, in order for us to recover personally, in order for our fellowship to stay united, in order to be able to serve all alcoholics throughout the entire world. And this is one of the first meetings that I've been to in a long time where they actually read the 12 concepts. And we appreciate it. We love it. Thank you. Now, you see up here in front of us two books. They both happen to be a copy of the first edition, first printing. The big red book we refer to them as. It's quite easy to see why it is called the big book. If you'll notice, the outside measurements are quite large. If you look at it from a side view, you'll notice that it's a very, very thick book. And being cunning, baffling, powerful alcoholics, when the first 100 decided to put the book out, they decided that the bigger it is, the better it'll sell. The message that's in it is the same as the one in the book today. The only difference is they printed it on the cheapest old thickest paper they could find to make it thick. And then if you'll notice, the margins on the pages are quite wide in order to make it appear a much bigger book than it really is. And that's how it got the affectionate name of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. They printed 5,000 of these in 1939. We are very fortunate to have one each and we're going to have them here all weekend. Anybody that wants to look at them, please feel free to do so. The only request is that you be a little careful with them. They're getting old and brittle, especially this one of mine. The silverfish have been eaten on it in somebody's closet, and they're going to come apart quite easily. But feel free to look at it. Just be a Little Careful With Them if you want to see them. Basically, this is what we're going to be talking about, the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, as it appeared in 1939. I think in order to discuss it in full detail, we might ought to go back to the summer of 1937 and in the summer of 19 37 there were two fellas sitting in a kitchen on Ardmore street in Akron Ohio and this kitchen happened to be in the home of Dr. Bob and the other fella he was talking to was this fella named Bill Wilson and as they sat there in the kitchen and talking to each other, they reviewed what had happened to them in the last four years. Bill began to think and talk about back in 1933 when he was first introduced to Dr. Silkworth in the town's hospital in New York City. Dr. silkworth not only withdrew him from alcohol but he also told bill what he thought his problem was. He told Bill, I think you suffer from a disease. I don't think it's weak will. I don'T think it'S moral character. I DON'T think IT'S sin. He said, I THINK YOU SUFFER FROM AN ACTUAL FULL-BLOWN DISEASE, WHICH IS A TWO-FOLD DISEase, A DISEASE OF THE BODY AS WELL AS A DISAGE OF THE MIND. HE SAID THE DISEASE OF THE BODIES CONSIDERED TO BE AN allergy. When you take a drink, you react differently than other people. It produces a craving in your system which is a physical factor that is so strong that you're unable to control the amount you're going to drink after you take one or two drinks. So it doesn't make any difference what your mind has to say about it. Even though you were only going to have two, after you've had the two, the craving develops. The physical factor is so strong that your mind cannot then stop you from drinking. And he said, I consider this to be an allergy to this material known as alcohol because it is an abnormal reaction. Nine people out of ten do not react that way. He said, in addition to the allergy of the body, you have an obsession of the mind. He said somewhere, somehow when you were young growing up, you didn't feel good. You were on the outside of the crowd looking in. Somebody gave you a drink and it made you feel real good. And it lets you function like other people. And he became a power greater than you are. And He said your mind became so obsessed with the idea of drinking alcohol that you could not differentiate the true from the false. And he said that's all an obsession of the mind is, an idea that is so strong that it overcomes all ideas to the contrary and makes you believe something that isn't true. And He said your obsession ofthe mind will always make you believe that you can drink safely and you will try it and any allergy will take over and the craving to develop, and you'll end up drunk and sick. He said, You can no longer safely drink because of the allergy, nor can you stay sober because of obsession with the mind. He said to Bill, You have a hopeless condition of the mind and of the body, and unless locked up, you will either die or go permanently insane. And Bill had left that town's hospital in the summer of 1933 knowing for the first time in his life what was really wrong with him, knowing what the problem was. And he felt, now that I know what's wrong with me, I'll never have to take another drink as long as I live. And he reviewed that shortly thereafter he got drunk again. The obsession of the mind told him he could drink. He took a drink, he triggered the allergy, and he couldn't stop. A year later in the summer of 1934, Bill went back to the town's hospital. and there dr silkworth withdrew him from alcohol again again pronounced him incurable and told bill's wife that he's either going to die during convulsions or he's going to go permanently insane within a very short period of time bill left the hospital in the summer of 1934 in fear sobered him up for a bit but on our missed to stay 1934 his mind told him he could drink and he took a drink and he triggered the allergy and he couldn't stop. In December of 34, he was put back in the town's hospital again and there under the care of Dr. Silkworth and because of some information he had found out from a fellow named Ebi Thatcher, Bill had what he always referred to as a vital spiritual experience. Ebi had brought to him two other pieces of the puzzle. Dr. silkworth had given him the problem ebby had told him of the solution and he said the solution lies in spirituality in the finding of a power greater than human power or what we call a vital spiritual experience and he says if you can find that power then you can overcome the power of alcoholism and ebbey had given him a practical program of action that if he applied it in his life he was guaranteed to have the vital spiritual experience. Now, based upon that information in the town's hospital, and due to the application of the practical program of action, Bill had what he always referred to as the vital spiritual experience. That was about December the 10th of 1934. Bill didn't die until January of 1971, never necessary for him to take another drink as long as he lived. Bill had gone that spring of 1935 to Akron on a business venture. The business venture was a deal where Bill and some other cunning, baffling, and powerful stock speculators were trying to take over a company. The deal had fallen through, and Bill was standing in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel with $10 in his pocket, not enough money to get a home on, and not enough to pay the hotel bill. and Bill almost got drunk. In desperation, he remembered how back in New York City, even though he had never helped anybody, every time he had tried, he himself had felt better. Bill picked a name from a church directory on the wall in the lobby of the hotel, called a minister, and was put in contact with a lady named Henrietta Seiberling who in turn put him in contact with this fellow named Dr. Bob. bill had carried the idea of the hopeless condition of the mind and of the body the real problem of alcoholism to this fellow called dr bob and dr bob had bought into that idea and bill found that dr bob has been going to a group of people there in akron trying to have this vital spiritual experience through the same program of action that bill had used in New York City, and when Bob found out about the disease, he applied the program to an extent he never had before, and on June the 10th of 1935, he recovered from his disease, never to drink again to the moment of his death in 1950. These two guys were sitting there reviewing what had happened to them in 34 and 35, and they remembered how they had carried the message to another fellow there in Akron who was a guy named Bill Dotson and he applied the same three pieces of information in his life and he had recovered from his disease also. And then they'd carried it to another and another and a little group had taken form in Akran, Ohio. Bill had gone back to New York City working with drunks in New York city and started another group in New York City. And a strange bunch from Cleveland, Ohio had heard of the Akron Drunks and they came down to visit them to see what was going on. And there they also heard of these three basic ideas. What is the problem? What is The Solution? And what is the practical program of action? And within these three groups, by the summer of 1937, while they were sitting in the kitchen reviewing this, they counted heads and there had been approximately 40 people that had attained sobriety through this little program they were using. I think probably for the first time they realized that we might have some information that could avert death in literally thousands and thousands of people, and that just really might be the answer to the disease of alcoholism. But I'm almost sure, probably, that Dr. Bob turned to Bill and said, Bill, what do you think we ought to do with this information? And probably Bill said, Bob, it beats the hell out of me. What do you thing? And I think right there was the first indication or the first time the group conscience really began to work because they decided that even though they had been the two to start it, that they did not have the wisdom necessary to make these decisions. And they called a meeting of all the people in Akron that was sober in this strange little fellowship. And there was a total of 18 of them at the meeting in Dr. Bob's house to discuss what will we do with these three pieces of information. And like all alcoholics, they discussed, they argued, they talked, and finally they voted. And when they voted, they voted to do three things. First, to build a chain of hospitals throughout the entire world so that every alcoholic who suffered from the disease would have available what had been given to them. Second, they wanted to build an army of people They voted to hire and train a group of paid missionaries to send them out all over the world looking for those that hadn't heard of it yet and to be sure that they could all avail themselves of this message. And third, they decided to write a book. And I think one of the important things behind the decision to write the book was somebody said, how are we going to pay for them hospitals and them missionaries? and somebody said well we'll write a book and it'll be the first definitive book on alcoholism the world has ever seen and it will become an immediate bestseller and we'll make literally millions of dollars and we will use that money to build the hospitals and hire the missionaries another reason for the writing of the book was they knew that with all human beings as time went by and they continued to carry the message one-on-one, face-to-face, mouth-to‑mouth, that sooner or later the message would become garbled. People tend to change things as time goes by. And they said we believe this message is so important that it probably should be put down in the written form, preserved for the future, so that any people reading it and using it in the future will get it ungarbled, unchanged, exactly as we have experienced it in our lifetime. And they made a decision that night to write the book. And the book was to do for other alcoholics the same thing that they had done themselves. It was to give them first what is the problem. You know, you really can't do much about a problem until you figure out what the problem really is. And then after the problem was given, it was to then give the solution to the problem. And after giving the solution, it was then to give a practical program of action that if applied would bring about the solution and would solve the problem And they turned to this fellow named Bill Wilson and they said, Bill, you've been sober longer than any rest of us And at that time, that was about three years Bill had been sober. And they said, you're the guy that started this thing, and we think you ought to write the book. Now, Bill was a night school lawyer, a stock speculator. They referred to him as a stock broker. He was a stock speculator. He was a fast-talking, fast-selling New York City stock speculator. Knew very little about spirituality. About the only thing he knew about spirituality at that time is what Ann, Dr. Bob's wife, and Henrietta had read to him from the Bible. Knew nothing about writing books, period. Had never attempted that, but he agreed to make the effort. And they said, Bill, this is not to be your book. It is to be our book. And he said, as you write it, we want to see the chapters. And we will add to, delete from, and change around whatever we need to. And when we're through, it will be the collective knowledge, experience, and wisdom of all 40 of us. And the book will be our work. Our book, not your book." And when Bill started writing it in 1937, really didn't start till 38, but the decision was made in 37, there was a 40 of them sober. Today we know by the time the book was printed and released in the form here that we have, there were approximately 100 of them sober. And there's where we start the big buddy, big book study from the day the book was first printed. We've always said if we ever found a reason to study the table of contents, that's where we would start. And we believe we have now found the reason. Joe? Okay, we'll look at the table of contents. For those of you that have the handout sheets or get to where you can see one, Charlie's going to put it up on the overhead and we're going to see the simplicity of the big book. you know as in problem solving when you get ready to solve a problem and there are many many types of problems in our lives human life is we got all financial problems medical problems all types of problems they seem very complicated but there is one basic procedure to solve all problems and the steps in the big book are laid out on that simple procedure to solve the problem of alcoholism. When you get ready to solve a problem, the first step, as Charlie says, in solving a problem is to find out what is the problem. A complete, like when you go to a doctor, first thing he does is to figure out what it is, the problem, he makes a diagnosis. And alcoholism is the only disease that takes a self-diagnosis. Other diseases are diagnosed by somebody else. but alcoholism the patient has to diagnose himself and that's what makes it hard you know alcoholism is also the only disease that tells the patient he ain't got it in fact that's the way you can tell who's got it the one that swears he ainít got it's got it yeah it's one of these social drinkers you know you might be an alcoholic he'll say i might he ain't got it. It's the one that ain't's got it that's got him. Okay, so the first step is a self-diagnosis and to find out what is the problem and that information is the foundation of everything because once you see them understand the problem then you can determine a solution. you can't determine the solution until you understand the problem and in this said I've heard it you know they want to profound statements about that we say we find that the solution is simple once you understand so the second step is and we're going to go through that we're gonna use a doctor's opinion and build store which will lay a foundation and give us the information on what is the problem and that's step one the problem is we're powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable that's a problem statement and once we see that then we will come to the second section of the book the second step came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and that is found in there is a solution more about alcoholism and we agnostics these three chapters will give us information on the second step or the solution well you might see very simply what the big book what it does number one the first step shows the alcoholic exactly where he is not where you think he is but where he is and once he sees where he years in the second step said, we believe you'd be better over here. So we got two points where we are and where we want to go. And the main purpose of the book is a plan to go from point one to point two. The last 10 steps, the main purposes is a planned program of action that will carry us from the problem to the solution and you might look at it very simply there's three things three simple things powerless and if you're powerless the solution would be power and if that was the case the main thing was a plan to find that power so it's powerless knowledge, power. How do we find that power? And this will be found in how it works into action and work with others. The 10 steps, the planned program of action or the 10 step program of recovery is the main purpose of the book. But the first two purposes set up the main purpose of the book? You know, we think this is just as simple as if you had a leak in the roof of your house and the water's pouring in. And on the surface, the problem is that you've got a leak on the roof. But that really isn't the problem. The real problem is where's that sucker leaking? You can't do a thing about it until you find out where it's leaking. And after you find out where it's leaking, then you can figure out a solution. But I don't know whether to take shingles up there, roof and cement, a piece of gutter, a peace of valley. I don' t have any idea what to do until I find out were its leaking. And when I find where it is leaking then I can see the solution. And then after I see the solution then I could take a practical program of action. action. Get the ladder out, get the shingles, get whatever it is that I need and get up on the roof and repair it. But I can't repair the leak until I find out where the leak is. And all problems are the same way. You got to know three things to solve a problem. What is the problem? What is The Solution? And what's the program of action necessary to find The S solution? And the problem with alcoholism for so many, many centuries, so many, many thousands of years is that nobody ever understood the problem. And this is the first book that has ever been written which gives us the problem in detailed form in the written language where we can read it and understand it. Thank God for AA today. AA is still the only place and the big book Alcoholics Anonymous is still there. It's still the one and only place where you can really find out what your problem is if you're an alcoholic and it's all contained in the big book alcoholics anonymous let's go over to the preface for just a moment a few things we want to look at in the preifice and the forwards before we get into the to the actual problem section of the book now mine might read just a little bit differently than yours in the first paragraph i happen to have a second edition in front of me and probably most of yours i imagine will be a third mine says this is the second edition of the book alcoholics anonymous which made its first appearance in april of 1939 more than 300 000 copies of the first edition are now in circulation but then mine says because this book has become the basic text for our society has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists a sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume describing the AA recovery program has been left largely untouched. And in that paragraph, we think there's two ideas we need to look at. First, it has become the basic text for our society. And I think when we see the words basic text, we are alerted to the type book that we have in front of us. Now, we got all kinds of books in the world today. We've got biographies, autobiographies. We got novels. We got novels written on fact, novels written on fiction. All kind of books in the world today. Most of us are familiar with novels. A novel is a book that is written primarily to entertain. If it is written right in the first chapter, it'll lay out the story plot, introduce characters. In the second chapter it adds to that and it becomes more and more exciting as you go through the novel chapter by chapter by chapter. And if it's really good, it'll hold your interest, you can hardly lay the thing down. Finally you reach the end of the novel and if they finish the way I like to see them, they all rode off into the sunset together and holding hands and had their white hats on and lived happily ever after. But the book I have in front of me, it doesn't say anything about it being a novel. It says it's a basic text, and I think we see that word text. It tells me that this is the same thing I used to run into in school that I never did like very well because textbooks in school meant work. It meant that I'm going to have to study. It means I'm going to take tests, which was always a possibility of failure. And I just never really did care too much about textbooks at all. And I know for a long time in AA, I didn't like the idea of it being a textbook. Until finally one time, I went to the trouble to find out what a textbook really is. And you know, a textbook is nothing more than a way to transmit information, to take it from the mind of one human being, put it down in the written form, and then transfer it to the mind of another human being as that human being reads and studies the textbook. Simply a transference of information, hopefully increasing the knowledge of the one who's using and studying the book. A textbook is nearly always written in a certain sequence. A textbook usually assumes that the reader of the book will know very little about the subject matter. starts at a very low setting usually and then as you progress through the book and your knowledge increases the information presented normally becomes more and more difficult to understand for instance we might take a textbook in mathematics and let's say that my friend joe here knows nothing at all about mathematics let's see that joe can't add and subtract he can count to 21 if he's standing there naked and got everything where it's supposed to be. And I walk up to Joe and I say, Joe, I've got a textbook on mathematics. And in chapter five, there's some problems dealing with algebra. And unlike you go to chapter five and work those algebra problems. Joe being a nice fellow, he would open it up to chapter 5. He sees the algebra problems, he's just looking at so much greek means nothing at all to him chances are he'll lay the book down may never pick it up again but if i said joe in chapter one in this book it deals with addition and subtraction and if you read it and study it and ask questions as you need to by the time you reach the end of chapter one you should know how to add and subtract and you can work those problems dealing with addition and subtraction at the end of that chapter. And sure enough, Joe does that and learns how to add and subtract. And then a scene of chapter two deals with multiplication and division. And based on what you've learned in one, you can now go to two and read and study and absorb this more difficult material and learn how to multiply and divide. And he does it. We go to fractions and decimals and gradually we work him through and lo and behold, by the time he gets to chapter five, he's learned enough about mathematics to now be able to read and study chapter 5 and learn how to do and work algebra problems. We think one of the greatest mistakes being made in 8 a day is the newcomer walks in the door, we hand them the big book, we say go to chapter 5 and do what it says and you'll be all right. They go to Chapter 5, they open it up to how it works, they read the 12 steps, and it looks just like so much algebra to them. Number 1 said we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. and we say, hell, we ain't powerless over nothing. Don't tell us we're powerless. Number two says, We came to believe that a power greater than ourself can restore us to sanity. We say, don't tell me we're not powerless. Don't say to us we are nuts. Oh yeah, we do stupid things while drinking. But when sober, we're much like other people. But if you're not powerless and you're not nuts, then you don't need step three. You're well in your life over some power other than you. And we usually close the book, lay it on the shelf and may not pick it up again for years. We believe that this textbook is written in a certain sequence to present certain ideas, to increase the knowledge of the user as they go through it chapter by chapter by character. And I think what we'll be able to see this weekend is the doctor's opinion in the first four chapters are used to prepare us for how it works. And if we can really read and study and understand and absorb that material, then when we get to how it worked, the algebra problems make a little more sense to us then. So as we go through, let's bear in mind that each chapter, as we talk about them, we're going to try to fit them into the slot where they're supposed to be and see what their purpose is in this chain of events as we go through the book itself. I think the other important thing in that statement is there exists a sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume describing the AA recovery program has been left largely untouched. Now, it doesn't make any difference whether I'm reading this red book up here, which is the first edition, or whether I'M reading this book that's in front of me, which is a second edition, OR WHETHER I'M READING THE BOOK THAT JOE HAS, WHICH IS A THIRD EDITION HE JUST PUT IN HIS DEAL HERE. THEY ALL SAY EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS FAR AS THE RECOVERY program is concerned. The only changes made between the first and second, and between the second and third editions, regard the stories in the back of the book. It was felt in 1955 that those stories inthe back no longer accurately reflected the membership of Alcoholics Anonymous. More and more women had come into AA. Age was becoming less and less. Bottom was becoming higher and higher. And they made a decision in 1955 to come out with a second edition, leaving the recovery portion the same and changing the stories in the back of the book. Took some out, put some more in. Same thing happened in 1976 with the third edition. But the actual recovery program has been left basically untouched. So what we're going to talk about this weekend even though we might be looking at a third edition or a second edition book we're still going to be talking about the basic recovery program that the first 100 used in the years from 1935 until 1939 when the book was first printed let's go over to the forward of the first edition for just a moment it says we of alcoholics anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book again two short ideas First, more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. If Bill had authored the book himself, and if there had been only one alcoholic recovered in this book, it would have been quite easy for me to argue with it. Because with my keen intellectual alcoholic mind, I'll read a book, and if I don't agree with what the author says, I say, well, who in the hell does he think he's smarter than I am? And I ignore what he has to say. But if I do that with the big book, I'm not going to be arguing with one person. I'm going tobe arguing with 100 people. You see, this is the collective knowledge, experience and wisdom of the first 40 which turned out to be the first 100 by the time the book was published. And those 100 people have recovered from the same thing that's killing me as a practicing alcoholic. And it's a little bit harder for me to argue with them. The second point is to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. Now, Joe and I have been in AA long enough to fully understand, to fully know and fully accept the fact that there's only one requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's a desire to stay sober. You know, you can come to an AA meeting, and you can stand up in the middle of the meeting and say I don't like you damn people at all don't lack your 12 steps can just barely stand your lousy old coffee but I'm going to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous because I've got a desire to stay sober and nobody can say a thing in the world about that you know you don't even have to be sober to be a member of Alcoholic Anonymous it helps if you are but you really don't have to be to be a member But that deals with membership in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. This book has nothing to do with fellowship. This book deals with one subject only, recovery from the disease of alcoholism. And it shows us precisely how the first 100 people recovered from their disease. and it stands to reason that if i would follow their path and do the things that they did then as a practicing alcoholic i could expect recovery also if it worked for 100 of them that's kind of like making cake i go to one of these good potluck meetings and let's say somebody has a strawberry cake there i just love strawberry cake and oh it's just perfect The texture's right, the moisture content's right The icing is just right And I take a bite of that and it just melts in my mouth And I say, oh, who made this cake? Well you being a good cook You'd say I made it And I'd say would you tell me how And you'd say sure, glad to And you'll sit down and write out for me On a piece of paper A set of directions On how to make that cake Now I take your directions home in my kitchen And if I Follow your directions exactly as you outlined them. You're going to tell me the material to put in it, the quantity of the material, the sequence in which to mix it, the temperature at which to bake it, and how long to bake It. And if I follow your directions completely exactly as You laid them out, when I take that thing out of the oven and let it cool off and take a bite of it, I can expect it to taste exactly like Your cake tasted the other day. but if with my keen intellectual alcoholic mind if I say I don't think it needs three eggs it ought to have four or instead of a cup and a half of sugar it oughta have three or instead of baking it for 25 minutes I'll bake it for 40 instead of 375 I'll use 450 when I take it out of the oven and let it cool off and take a bite of it sure I'm gonna be biting a piece of cake but I wonder how closely it would resemble your cake which was my reason for making it in the first place i think those of us in aa today if we will follow the precise method that these people use for recovery then i think we can expect the same thing they got recovery from the disease of alcoholism has nothing at all to do with membership in the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous joe okay Let's move it forward to the first edition, Roman numeral 15 at the bottom of the page. The spark that was to flare in the 1st AA group was struck at Akron, Ohio in June 1935 during a talk between New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. This is when he began on Bill's second trip to Akron. Six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his direct obsession by a sudden spiritual experience following a meeting with an alcoholic friend who had been in contact with the Oxford group of that day. He had been greatly helped by the late Dr. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism who is now a county no less than a medical saint by members, whose story of the early days of our society appears in the next pages. From this doctor, the broker had learned of the grave nature of alcoholism. Dr. Silkworth gave him the problem. Though he could not accept all the titties of the Oxford group, he was convinced that for the need of a moral inventory, or confession of the personality of the defects, restitution of those harmed, and helpfulness to others and necessity of belief in the dependence upon God. Prior to his journey to the Akron, DeBroco had worked hard with many alcoholics on a theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic, but he succeeded only in keeping himself sober. From Bill's experience in December until he met Dr. Bob in May, He had worked with many alcoholics, and he had had really no luck. In fact, we can look and see actually in retrospect what Bill was doing. Bill was so overwhelmed with this spiritual experience that had taken place in his life through this practical program of action that he was going around talking to the drunks about this. You know, he would snatch them off the bars to tell them about his spiritual experience, and they need to take the steps we look back at it now what bill was actually doing he was starting them off with chapter five how it works you know he went by that's why he was using the recovery program and no one would buy into it just before his trip to akron he stopped in to see dr silkworth one day and dr silkworth told bill he said bill you ought to quit trying to force that You're at hot flash you had down these rumps. He said, why don't you first tell them what I told you? And then maybe they will accept your program of action. This had a profound effect on him, I guess, because Dr. Bob was the next person he saw when he went to Akron. This was just before he went there. He sat down with Bill and he said, Bill, explain to them the hopeless condition of the mind and of the body. He said, every drunk I talk to wants to know two things. First, why can't I drink like I used to? Second, why cannot quit now that I want to? And he said, if you'll explain that to them, then you'll get their interest and then you can talk about spirituality. The broker had gone to Akron on a business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly in fear that he might start drinking again. He suddenly realized, in order to save himself, he must carry his message to another alcoholic and that alcoholic turned out to be the Akron physician. The physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcohol dilemma but it failed. Dr. Bob, by the way, was in the Oxford group in Akron, Ohio. Little did we realize that one of these two men, one was in New York in the Oxford groups and the other one was Akron in the oxygen groups. In fact, Dr. Bob had been in the Oxford group for two and a half years. He knew more about the program than Bill. Bill hadn't been in but six months. But Dr. Bobby couldn't stay sober, although he had the planned program of action. He knew the solution. He knew that the solution was spirituality, and he knew the Oxford Group was the answer because he had seen this happen to another man in Akron. And when the Oxford groups came to Akron, and as a result of them, one of the Farstone's sons was sober as a results of the Oxford Group program. So Dr. Bob had the second step. Dr. Bobby had the ten steps of recovery. But when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with an illness he'd never been able to muster and he sobered up to the moment of his death in 1950. What Bill brought him was the first step. See, he had everything else, but he didn't understand his problem. And once Bill explained to him Dr. Silkworth's condition, step one, then he was able to apply step two in the practical program of action. To understand the miracle that took place, you have to think, now here is a highly trained, well-known surgeon and here's a conning, manipulating New York City stockbroker and the stockbroper explained to the surgeon what was wrong with the surgeon's body and mind. Normally the surgeon would have said who in the hell are you to be telling me? But the message had such depth and interest that Dr. Bob bought into it immediately. Absolute miracle. Okay, and as the story goes As a story of this, Dr. Bob was in the Oxford groups and each of these six people would meet each week in the Oscar groups and they would sit around the Oxford group and they were sharing their shortcomings and what God had done for them. We could see all of our recovery steps came out of the Oxford. The program of action came from the Oxford Group And each Sunday, Henrietta was in this group Ann and Dr. Bob attended a group at T. Henry Williams' home And they would all sit around and do this Except Dr. Bobby Dr. Bonnie wouldn't have anything to say Finally Henrietta, you know, she called Ann One second, holding on the phone She said, you now, we're getting sick and tired of him Coming to our meeting every week and not talking So everybody knows he's got a drinking problem but Dr. Bob was a professional man he was a hidden drunk and she said if he don't bring it up I'm going to bring it because I'm sick and tired of that but sure enough one Sunday shortly after that Dr. Bob said you people have been good to me by allowing me to come to the meetings and I'm gonna share something with you that might run my profession he said I've got a problem with drinking and I can't stop and these six little people in the Oxford group, someone said, would you like for us to pray for you Dr. Bob? And he said yes. Someone else sat down on our knees so all six of these people got out on their knees and they started praying for help for Dr. Bobby. This was many weeks before Bill came to Akron but this group continued to pray for Dr., Bob. One thing the Oxford groups, they thought they had an idea that we could receive uh their uh directions from god you know the guidance they called it the word was guidance later on become prayer and meditation but they call we that they thought you could receive guidance from god they also had the idea in this group that one member could receive guidance for another member i think some of those are still around today well henrietta was in her kitchen one night and a sunday after the oxford group meeting she was in a kitchen preparing a meal and something spoke to her within a big she said and she said dr bob shouldn't ever drink any more whiskey not even one drop well that was the solution but you'd have to remember they had never heard of dr silkworth's description so it had no meaning but she did call dr bob up and told him said dr bob i want you to come by yeah i got some guidance from you from god dr bob came by the next morning henrietta said god shouldn't says you shouldn't drink any more whiskey not even one drop dr bob said what does that mean but they continue to pray for help for dr bob so henriette always said when she got the phone call from this guy at the mayflower And he said he was an alcoholic and he needed to talk to another alcoholic. She told him to come right over because she knew that that was the answer to her prayer. She was not shocked by the phone call. And this is when she got Bill to meet with Dr. Bob. And Bill brought to Dr. Rob really step one. And this put the icing on the cake because he knew that relief was spiritual and he knew how to find it, but he couldn't apply it until he saw and heard Step 1. He instituted him in to set about frantically upon an alcoholic arrival in the ward at the Akron City Hospital. This was Bill Dodson. We know this is the man on the bed. The very first case of desperate warren recovered immediately and became a member number three. He never had another drink. This work at Akron continued through the summer of 1935. there were many failures, but occasionally heartening success. When the broker returned to New York and Bill went back home in the fall of 1935, the first AA group had actually been formed, though there was no one realizing it at this time. When he left there, the real, wasn't AA, but the first little group, they were meeting in Dr. Bob's home, and they finally moved to the old King's School. By late 1937, the number of members having substantial showbite at the time behind him was sufficient to convince the membership that a new light had entered the dark world of the alcoholic. And this is when they had their meeting, and they think maybe we have something that we could save for people. A small group had probably taken shape in New York, and besides there were scattered alcoholics who picked up the basic ideas in Akron on New York and were trying to form aid groups in other cities. It was now time that the struggling group thought to place their message and unique experience before the world. This determination broke fruit in the spring of 1935 by the publishing of this volume. The membership had reached 100 men and women, and by the time that they had completed their effort and put the program down in the book, they had 100 men or women. The fledgling society which had been nameless now became called Alcoholics Anonymous from the title of this book. These first 400 people were not AlcoholicsAnonymous. They were a nameless bunch of people. They called themselves Oxford Group members. Some of them said Drunk Squads. The Oxford Group numbers didn't really like these drunks, by the way. And they were nameless until the book was published. And once the book Was published, it was finally determined what to call the book. There were many different titles discussed and arguments over this. finally the idea came out it was probably out of Cleveland that we are alcoholics and we want to remain anonymous therefore Alcoholics Anonymous became the title of the book of the first 100 people now once the first 100 people produced a big book AlcoholicsAnonymous then they took the name off the book and called themselves AlcoholicsAnenomous so there are really two Alcoholics Anenomious one is it number one alcoholics anonymous the first alcoholics anonymous first thing to be named alcoholics anonymous was a textbook that contains a planned program of recovery now then the fellowship took their name off the textbook and called themselves alcoholics now so as charlie says there are two Alcoholics Anonymous, the Fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous. The only thing that you have to do to be a part of that is have a desire to stop drinking. But then there is the program AlcoholicsAnonymous. There are two. In 1939, quite naturally, since the first 100 wrote the book, the program in the fellowship was exactly the same as the program and the book. They were identical. But we have to look at people. It's Charlie says people change. The program in the big book has been unchanged, but the program in The Fellowship has changed. People add to, bring in their little things, 90 meetings in 90 days and don't drink. You know, that ain't in here, but it's in The fellowship. Now we have added so many things in The Scholarship to where you can hardly recognize the program In The Fellowships. Like some of those people that meet in those buildings on Sunday morning. You know, you can go by the church and you can listen to their program and then read their book and it don't even sound like their book. So this weekend we're going to be talking about the program and the textbook Alcoholics Anonymous, not the program and the fellowship AlcoholicsAnonymous. And I challenge myself and I always love, I like to go back to my group And when you go back to your group, listen to the message in your group. And after this weekend, we're going to be talking about the program and the textbook Alcoholics Anonymous and see how far we have gotten away from the real message that's in the big book. Bill makes the statement in the pamphlet Problems Other Than Alcohol. the statement is that the sole purpose not one purpose or a purpose he said the sole purpose of an AA group is the practice and teaching of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to attain sobriety you know today we go into AA group meetings all over the country and many many times we hear a program which is completely different in what's in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. In order to practice and teach the 12 steps, the only book that has the set of directions on how to take these steps is the big books Alcoholics Anecdotes. The book Alcoholic Synonymous. And sometimes you go in that meeting and it's very difficult sometimes today to determine where you really are. You know, here I'm talking about everything else. Here I'm taking about group depression, chemical dependency, co-dependency, shame-based alcoholic co-defendant of an alcoholic father, sexual dysfunction, and everything except how do you recover by the 12 steps of alcoholic synonymous. I really think it's time we begin to look at this. Not that they don't have the right to discuss anything they wish to in an AA meeting, but if the sole purpose is sobriety through the practice and teaching of the 12 steps, and if the big book is the only book that has the directions on the 12 Steps, it would stand to reason to me that that's really what we ought to be discussing in an AAA meeting. Now, back in the days when they did that, over on Roman numeral 20, it said public acceptance of AA grew by leaps and bounds. For this, there were two principal reasons. The large numbers of recoveries in reunited homes. These made their impressions everywhere. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. Now I wonder if we could claim that recovery rate today. I wonder if half of the people that come to AA and really try, stay sober. I don't believe they do because they don't really know what to try. We're not really telling the new people that come in AA that this is the program of recovery. This is the way it was practiced by the first 100. These are the 12 steps. Now here is the information on directions on how to use it and then having used it ourself help them use it in their lives. And I think if we would go back to that, and if you and I really practiced it and really understood it and knew it as the book says, and then we told the newcomer who comes in what we had to do and helped them do it, I believe we could go back to that 50% recovery rate today. You know, I wonder what it is today. Is it 30%? Is it 20%? Is it 10%? You know, we hear figures today flying around, 6%, 7%, 8% of the people who come to AA are staying sober. Now if that's true, then that means 93%, 94% of them are going back to drinking. And I've got to believe that the reason is they're not finding what they come to AAA for. Lots of fellowship. And the fellowship is extremely important. And 90 meetings in 90 days is damned important. But I think we've allowed that to take the place of the basic recovery program in the book. And if we could apply the two in our life, the fellowship and the program, then I think we could see these recovery rates go back to what they used to be. And I think that's what we're sensing today in AA, a movement back into the basic fundamentals, something more than just a social setting, something more Than just coming to a meeting, something more Then just filling a chair, using the program To actually change our lives. But we'll take a ten-minute break, then we're going to jump right into the doctor's opinion. Okay?