Lets Ask Bill
This series was originally posted to AA History Buffs by Jim B. These excerpts from various talks and articles by and on Bill W. reveal a wealth of the thinking and insight of the co-founder of A.A.
1. Is alcoholism a disease or a moral problem?
2. Do alcoholics as a class differ from other people?
4.
What is alcoholism?
5.
What is meant by mental obsession and the obsessional character of
alcoholism?
6. Is A.A. based totally on your own experiences?
7. Is Alcoholics Anonymous a new religion? A competitor of the Church?
9. What is the success rate of Alcoholics Anonymous?
10. Wouldn't too rapid growth be bad, both for the new alcoholics and for Alcoholics Anonymous itself?
11. How can A.A. best assure its continued existence?
12. What contribution did Dr. Carl Jung make to A.A.?
13. What effect did Ebby's message have on you?
14. What happened to your sponsor, Ebby?
15. Could you describe your spiritual experience for us?
16. When you first sobered up how did you approach alcoholics?
17. Could you tell us about the early days and the meetings in your home?
18. Could you tell us more about Dr. Bob?
19. What did A.A. learn from the Oxford Group?
20. How did you meet A.A. No. 3, Bill Dotson?
21. What led up to the decision to write the book Alcoholics Anonymous?
22. Was the writing of the Big Book a difficult job?
23. How did the Twelve Steps get written?
24. How did you meet Father Ed Dowling?
25. Can the Twelve Steps be compared to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius?
26. How do medicine and religion differ in their approach to the alcoholic?
27. What about the alcoholic who says that he cannot possibly believe in God?
28. Why do clergymen so often fail with alcoholics?
29. What can ministers do to cooperate with A.A.?
30. What is AA's relationship with the community?
31. How
did the connection between the Rockefeller's and Alcoholics
Anonymous develop?
32. What were the conditions that led to the Twelve Traditions?
33. What are the ideas embodied in the Twelve Traditions?
34. Why the General Service Conference?
35. What will the General Service Conference do?
36. How will the proposed General Service Conference be financed?
37. Why
shouldn't the General Service Conference be a government for
Alcoholics Anonymous?
38. Could you explain A.A's tradition concerning other agencies in the field of alcoholism.
39. Could you explain A.A's tradition concerning other agencies in the field of alcoholism.
40. What do the Three Legacies of AA represent?
41. How
many drug addicts are there in A.A. and in the organization similar
to A.A. which operates among drug addicts?
42. If an alcoholic comes to an A.A. meeting under the influence of alcohol, how do you treat him or handle him during the meeting?
43. What purposes do the Twelve Concepts for World Services serve?
44. What purpose does the right of appeal serve?
Is
alcoholism a disease or a moral problem?
Q - How do you justify calling alcoholism an illness, and not a moral
responsibility?
A
- Early in A.A.'s history, very natural questions arose among theologians.
There was a Mr. Henry Link who had written "The Return to Religion
(Macmillan Co., 1937). One day I received a call from him. He stated that he
strongly objected to the A.A. position that alcoholism was an illness. This
concept, he felt, removed moral responsibility from
alcoholics. He had been
voicing this complaint about psychiatrists in the American Mercury. And now, he
stated, he was about to lambaste A.A. too.
Of course, I made haste to point out that we A.A.'s did not use the concept of
sickness to absolve our members from moral responsibility. On the contrary, we
used the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest kind of moral
responsibility on to the sufferer. The further point was made that in his early
days of drinking the alcoholic often was no doubt guilty of irresponsibility and
gluttony. But once the time of compulsive drinking, veritable lunacy had arrived
and he couldn't very well be held accountable for his conduct. He then had a
lunacy which condemned him to drink, in spite of all he could do; he had
developed a bodily sensitivity to alcohol that guaranteed his final madness and
death. When this state of affairs was pointed out to him, he was placed
immediately under the heaviest kind of pressure to accept A.A.'s moral and
spiritual program of regeneration -- namely, our Twelve Steps. Fortunately, Mr.
Link was satisfied with this view of the use that we were making of the
alcoholic's illness. I am glad to report that nearly all theologians who have
since thought about this matter have also agreed with that early position.
While it is most obvious that free will in the matter of alcohol has virtually
disappeared in most cases, we A.A.'s do point out that plenty of free will is
left in other areas, It certainly takes a large amount of willingness, and a
great exertion of the will to accept and practice the A.A. program. It is by
this very exertion of the will that the alcoholic corresponds with the grace by
which his drinking obsession can be expelled.
(N.C.C.A. 'Blue Book', Vol.12, 1960)
Q
- Do alcoholics as a class differ from other people?
A - Some years ago the doctors began to look at Alcoholics Anonymous and
they got about thirty of us together and they said to themselves "Well, now
that these fellows are in A.A., and they won't lie so badly, and maybe for the
first time we'll get a good look at what the interior of a drunk is like."
So a number of us were examined at great length by psychiatrists, and all sorts
of tests taken, and the object of this particular inquiry was to see whether
alcoholics as a class differed from other people, and if they did, just why and
how much.
A number of us were invited to attend the conclave, and a number of learned
papers were read, and finally one of these physicians (a very noted one -- the
meeting took place at the New York Academy of Medicine) began to sum up what he
thought the conclusion which they had arrived at was this: that the alcoholic is
emotionally on the childish side. That the alcoholic is a person who is more
sensitive emotionally than the average person. And then, they ascribed another
quality to us -- they used the word "grandiosity," they were grandiose
(meaning by that that as a type we were what you might call "All or nothing
people.") Someone once described it by saying all alcoholics hanker for the
moon when perhaps the stars would have done just as well. As a class, we're like
that, said the doctors. (Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 18-20, 1947)
Q
- Are alcoholics neurotic?
A - It is possible that about half our members, had they not been drinkers,
would have appeared in ordinary life to be normal people. The other half would
have appeared as more or less pronounced neurotics (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol.44,
Aug. 1944)
Q
- What is alcoholism?
A - Alcoholism is a malady; that something is dead wrong with us physically;
that our reaction to alcohol has changed; that something has been very wrong
with us emotionally; that our alcoholic habit has become an obsession, an
obsession which can no longer reckon even with death itself. Once firmly set,
one is not able to turn it aside. In other words, a sort of allergy of the body
which guarantees that we shall die if we drink, an obsession of the mind which
guarantees that we shall go on drinking. Such has been the alcoholic dilemma
time out of mind, and it is altogether probable that even those alcoholics who
did not wish to go on drinking, not more than five out of one hundred have ever
been able to stop before A.A. (Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June
1945).
Q
- What is meant by mental obsession and the obsessional character of
alcoholism?
A - Well, as I understand it, we are all born with the freedom of choice.
The degree of this varies from person to person, and from area to area in our
lives. In the case of neurotic people, our instincts take on certain patterns
and directions, sometimes so compulsive they cannot be broken by any ordinary
effort of the will. The alcoholic's compulsion to drink is like that. As a
smoker, for example, I have a deeply ingrained habit - I'm almost an addict. But
I do not think that this habit is an actual obsession.
Doubtless it could be broken by an act of my own will. If badly enough hurt, I
could in all probability give up tobacco. Should smoking repeatedly land me in
Bellevue Hospital, I doubt that I would make the trip many times before
quitting. But with my alcoholism, well, that was something else again. No amount
of desire to stop, no amount of punishment, could enable me to quit. What was
once a habit of drinking became an obsession of drinking -- genuine lunacy.
Perhaps a little more should be said about the obsessional character of
alcoholism. When our fellowship was about three years old some of us called on
Dr. Lawrence Kolb, then Assistant Surgeon General of the United States. He
said that our report of progress had given him his first hope for alcoholics in
general. Not long before, the U.S. Public Health Department had thought of
trying to do something about the alcoholic situation. After a careful survey of
the obsessional character of our malady, this had been given up. Indeed, Dr.
Koib felt that dope addicts had a far better chance.
Accordingly, the government had built a hospital for their treatment at
Lexington, Kentucky. But for alcoholics -- well, there simply wasn't any use at
all, so he thought.
Nevertheless, many people still go on insisting that the alcoholic is not a sick
man -- that he is simply weak or willful, and sinful. Even today we often hear
the remark "That drunk could get well if he wanted to."
There is no doubt, too, that the deeply obsessional character of the alcoholic's
drinking is obscured by the fact that drinking is a socially acceptable custom.
By contrast, stealing, or let us say shop-lifting, is not. Practically everybody
has heard of that form of lunacy known as kleptomania. Oftentimes kleptomaniacs
are splendid people in all other respects. Yet they are under an absolute
compulsion to steal -- just for the kick. A kleptomaniac enters a store a
pockets a piece of merchandise. He is arrested and lands in the police station.
The judge gives him a jail term. He is stigmatized and humiliated. Just like the
alcoholic, he swears that
never, never will he do this again.
On his release from the jail, he wanders down the street past a department
store. Unaccountably he is drawn inside. He sees, for example, a red tin fire
truck, a child's toy. He instantly forgets all about his misery in the jail. He
begins to rationalize. He says, "Well, this little fire engine is of no
real value. The store won't miss it." So he pockets the toy, the store
detective collars him, he is right back in the clink. Everybody recognizes this
type of stealing as sheer lunacy.
Now, let's compare this behavior with that of an alcoholic. He, too, has landed
in jail. He has already lost family and friends. He suffers heavy stigma and
guilt. He has been physically tortured by his hangover. Like the kleptomaniac he
swears that he will never get into this fix again. Perhaps he actually knows
that he is an alcoholic. He may understand just what that means and may be fully
aware of what the fearful risk of that first drink is.
Upon his release from jail, the alcoholic behaves just like the kleptomaniac. He
passes a bar and at the first temptation may say, "No, I must not go inside
there; liquor is not for me." But when lie arrives at the next drinking
place, he is gripped by a rationalization. Perhaps he says, "Well, one beer
won't hurt me. After all, beer isn't liquor." Completely unmindful of his
recent miseries, he steps inside. He takes that fatal first drink. The following
day, the police have him again. His fellow citizens continue to say that he is
weak or willful. Actually he is just as crazy as
the kleptomaniac ever was. At this stage, his free will in regard to alcoholism
has evaporated. He cannot very well be held accountable for his behavior. (The
N.C.C.A. 'Blue Book', Vol. 12, 1960)
Q
- Is A.A. based totally on your own experiences?
A - Let's look. Dr. Bob recovered. Then we two set to work on alcoholics in
Akron. Well, again came this tendency to preach, again this feeling that it has
to be done in some particular way, again discouragement, so our progress was
slow. But little by little we were forced to analyze our experiences and say,
"This approach didn't work very well with that fellow. Why not? Let's try
to put ourselves in his shoes and stop this preaching and see how he might be
approached if we were he." That began to lead us to the idea that A.A.
should be no set of fixed ideas, but should be a growing thing, growing out of
experience. After a while we began to reflect: "This wonderful blessing
that has come to us, from what does it get its origin?" It was a spiritual
awakening growing out of adversity. So then we began to look harder for our
mistakes, to correct them, to capitalize on our errors.
Little by little we began to grow so that there were 5 of us at the end of that
first year; at the end of the second year 15; at the end of the third 40; and at
the end of the fourth year, 100.
During those first four years most of us had another bad form of intolerance. As
we commenced to have a little success, I am afraid our pride got the better of
us and it was our tendency to forget about our friends. We were very likely to
say, "Well, those doctors didn't do anything for us, and as for these sky
pilots, well, they just don't know the score." And we became snobbish and
patronizing.
Then we read a book by Dr. Carrell (Man, The Unknown). From that book came
an argument which is now a part of our system. Dr. Carrel wrote, in effect; The
world is full of analysts. We have tons of ore in the mines and we have all
kinds of building materials above ground. Here is a man specializing in this,
there is a man specializing in that, and another one in something else. The
modern world is full of wonderful analysts and diggers, but there are very few
who deliberately synthesize, who bring together different materials, who
assemble new things. We are much too shy on synthetic thinking -- the kind of
thinking that's willing to reach out now here and now there to see if something
new cannot be evolved.
On reading that book some of us realized that was just what we had been groping
toward. We had been trying to build out of our own experiences. At this point we
thought, "Let's reach into other people's experiences. Let's go back to our
friends the doctors, let's go back to our friends the preachers, the social
workers, all those who have been concerned with us, and again review what they
have got above ground and bring that into the synthesis. And let us, where we
can, bring them in where they will fit." So our process of trial and error
began and at the end of four years, the material was cast in the form of a book
known as Alcoholics Anonymous. (Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June
1945)
Q
- Is Alcoholics Anonymous a new religion? A competitor of the Church?
A - If these misgivings had real substance, they would be serious indeed.
But, Alcoholics Anonymous cannot in the least be regarded as a new religion.
Our Twelve Steps have no theological content, except that which speaks of
"God as we understand Him." This means that each individual AA member
may define God according to whatever faith or creed he may have. Therefore there
isn't the slightest interference with the religious views of any of our
membership. The rest of the Twelve Steps define moral attitudes and helpful
practices, all of them precisely Christian in character. Therefore, as far as
the steps go, the steps are good Christianity, indeed they are good Catholicism,
something which Catholic writers have affirmed more than once.
Neither does AA exert the slightest religious authority over its members. No one
is compelled to believe anything. No one is compelled to meet membership
conditions. No one is obliged to pay anything. Therefore we have no system of
authority, spiritual or temporal, that is comparable to or in the least
competitive with the Church. At the center of our society we have a Board of Trustees. This body is accountable yearly to a Conference of elected Delegates.
These Delegates represent the conscience and desire of AA as regards functional
or service matters. Our Tradition contains an emphatic injunction that these
Trustees may never constitute themselves as a government -- they are to merely
provide certain services that enable AA as a whole to function. The same
principles apply at our group and area level.
Dr. Bob, my co-partner, had his own religious views. For whatever they may be
worth, I have my own. But both of us have gone heavily on the record to the
effect that these personal views and preferences can never under any conditions
be injected into the AA program as a working part of it. AA is a sort of
spiritual kindergarten, but that is all. Never should it be called a religion.
(The 'Blue Book', Vol.12, 1960)
A - Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religious organization; there is no
dogma. The one theological proposition is a "Power greater than one's
self." Even this concept is forced on no one. The new corner merely
immerses himself in our society and tries the program as best he can. Left
alone, he will surely report the onset of a transforming experience, call it
what he may.
Observers once thought A.A. could only appeal to the religiously susceptible.
Yet our membership includes a former member of the American Atheist Society and
about 20,000 others almost as tough. The dying can become remarkably
open-minded. Of course we speak little of conversion nowadays because so many
people really dread being God-bitten. But conversion, as broadly described by
James, does seem to be our basic process; all other devices are but the
foundation. When one alcoholic works with another, he but consolidates and
sustains that essential experience.
(Amer. J. Psych., Vol. 106, 1949)
Q
- Just how does A.A. work?
A - I cannot fully answer that question. Many A.A. techniques have been adopted
after a ten-year period of trial and error, which has led to some interesting
results. But, as laymen, we doubt our own ability to explain them. We can only
tell you what we do, and what seems, from our point of view, to happen to us.
At the very outset we should like it made ever so clear that A.A. is a synthetic
gadget, as it were, drawing upon the resources of medicine, psychiatry,
religion, and our own experience of drinking and recovery. You will search in
vain for a single new fundamental. We have merely streamlined old and proven
principles of psychiatry and religion into such forms that the alcoholic will
accept them. And then we have created a society of his own kind where he can
enthusiastically put these very principles to work on himself and other
sufferers.
Then too, we have tried hard to capitalize on our one great natural advantage.
That advantage is, of course, our personal experience as drinkers who have
recovered. How often the doctors and clergymen throw up their hands when, after
exhaustive treatment or exhortation, the alcoholic still insists, "But you
don't understand me. You never did any serious drinking yourself, so how can
you? Neither can you show me many who have recovered."
Now, when one alcoholic who has got well talks to another who hasn't, such
objections seldom arise, for the new man sees in a few minutes that he is
talking to a kindred spirit, one who understands. Neither can the recovered A.A.
member be deceived, for he knows every trick, every rationalization of the
drinking game. So the usual barriers go down with a crash. Mutual confidence,
that indispensable of all therapy, follows as surely as day does night. And if
this absolutely necessary rapport is not forthcoming at once it is almost
certain to develop when the new man has met other A.A.s. Someone will, as we
say, "click with him."
As soon as that happens we have a good chance of selling our prospect those
very essentials which you doctors have so long advocated, and the problem
drinker finds our society a congenial place to work them out for himself and his
fellow alcoholic. For the first time in years he thinks himself understood and
he feels useful; uniquely useful, indeed, as he takes his own turn promoting the
recovery of others. No matter what the outer world thinks of him, he knows he
can get well, for he stands in the midst of scores of cases worse than his own
who have attained the goal. And there are other cases precisely like his own --
a pressure of testimony which usually overwhelms him. If he doesn't succumb at
once, he will almost surely do so later when Barleycorn builds a still hotter
fire under him, thus blocking off all his other carefully planned exits from
dilemma.
The speaker recalls seventy-five failures during the first three years of A.A.
-- people we utterly gave up on. During the past seven years sixty-two of these
people have returned to us, most of them making good. They tell us they returned
because they knew they would die or go mad if they didn't. Having tried
everything else within their means and having exhausted their pet
rationalizations, they came back and took their medicine. That is why we never
need to evangelize alcoholics. If still in their right minds they come back,
once they have been well exposed to A.A.
Now to recapitulate, Alcoholics Anonymous has made two major contributions to
the programs of psychiatry and religion. These are, it seems to us, the long
missing links in the chain of recovery:
1. Our ability, as ex-drinkers, to secure the confidence of the new man -- to
"build a transmission line into him."
2. The provision of an understanding society of ex-drinkers in which the
newcomer can successfully apply the principles of medicine and religion to
himself and others.
So far as we A.A.s are concerned, these principles, now used by us every day,
seem to be in surprising agreement. (N.Y. State J. Med.,Vol.44, Aug. 15, 1944).
A - On the surface A.A. is a thing of great simplicity, yet at its core a
profound mystery. Great forces surely must have been marshaled to expel
obsessions from all these thousands, an obsession which lies at the root of our
fourth largest medical problem and which, time out of mind, has claimed its
hapless millions. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol. 50, July 1950.)
This question has 5 responses from various documents.
Q
- What is the success rate of Alcoholics Anonymous?
A - Of those sincerely willing to stop drinking about 50 per cent have
done
so at once, 25 per cent after a few relapses and most of the remainder have
improved. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol. 44, Aug., 1944)
A - As of 1949 our quantity results are these. The 14 year old society of
Alcoholics Anonymous has 80,000 members in about 3,000 groups. We have
entered into about 30 foreign countries and U.S. possessions; translations are
going forward. By occupation we are an accurate cross section of America. By
religious affiliation we are about 40% Catholic; nominal and active Protestants,
also many former agnostics, and a sprinkling of Jews comprise the remainder. Ten
to 15% are women. Some negroes are recovering without undue difficulty. Top
medical and religious endorsements are almost universal. A.A. membership is
pyramiding, chain style, at the rate of 30% a year. During 1949 we expect 20,000
permanent recoveries, at least. Half of them will be medium or mild cases with
an average age of 36 - a fairly recent development.
Of alcoholics who stay with us and really try, 50% get sober at once and stay
that way, 25% do so after some relapses and the remainder show some improvement.
But many problem drinkers do quit A.A. after a brief contact, many, three or
four out of five. Some are too psychopathic or damaged. But the majority have
powerful rationalizations yet to be broken down. Exactly this does happen,
providing they get what A.A. calls a "good exposure," on first
contact. Alcohol then burns such a hot fire under them that they are driven back
to us, often years later. They tell us that they had to return; it was A.A. or
else. Such cases leave us the agreeable impression that half of our original
exposures will eventually return, most of them to recover. (Amer. J. Psychiatry
Vol. 106, 1949)
A - About two thousand recoveries now take place each month. Of those
alcoholics who wish to get well and are emotionally capable of trying our
method, 50 per cent recover immediately, 25 per cent after a few backslides. The
remainder are improved if they continue active in A.A. Of the total who approach
us, it is probable that only 25 per cent become A.A. members on the first
contact. A list of seventy-five of our early failures today discloses that 70
returned to A.A. after one to ten years. We did not bring them back; they came
of their own accord. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol.50, July 1950)
A - As we gained in size, we also gained in effectiveness. The recovery
rate went up. Of all those who really tried A.A., 50 per cent made it at once,
25 per cent finally made it; and the rest, if they stayed with us, were
definitely improved. That percentage has since held, even with those who first
wrote their stories in the original edition of "Alcoholics Anonymous."
In fact, 75 per cent of these finally achieved sobriety. Only 25 per cent died
or went mad. Most of those still alive have been sober for an average of twenty
years.
In our early days and since, we have found that great numbers of alcoholics
approach us and then turn away -- maybe three out of five, today. But we have
happily found out that the majority of them later return, provided they are not
too psychopathic or too brain damaged. Once they have learned from the lips of
other alcoholics that they are beset by an often fatal malady, their further
drinking only turns up the screw. Eventually they are forced back into A.A.,
they must or die. Sometimes this happens years after the first exposure. The
ultimate recovery rate in A.A. is therefore a lot higher than we at first
thought it could be.
Yet we must humbly reflect that Alcoholics Anonymous has so far made only a
scratch upon the total problem of alcoholism. Here in the United States, we have
helped to sober up scarcely five per cent of the total alcoholic population of
4,500,000. (N.Y. Med. Society on Alcoholism, 1958)
A- A.A. members can soberly ask themselves what became of the 600,000
alcoholics who approached the Fellowship during the past thirty years but who
did not stay.
How much and how often did we fail all these? When we remember that in the 30
years of A.A. existence we have reached less than 10 per cent of all those who
might be willing to approach us, we begin to get an idea of the immensity of our
task, and of the responsibilities with which we will always be confronted. (G.S.C.
1958.)
A - I took note of the fact that in the generation which has seen A.A.
come alive, this period of twenty-five years, a vast procession of the world's
drunks have passed in front of us and have gone over the precipice. Based on
figures I was careful to get, it looks like, worldwide, there was something like
25 million of them and out of that stream of despair, illness, misery and death
-- we fished out just one in a hundred in the last 25 years. I think we're
fishing somewhat bigger and better.
Our numbers are considerable. We have size. There is great security in numbers.
You can't imagine how it was in the very first two or three years of this thing
when nobody was sure that anybody could stay sober...Then we were like the
people on Eddie Rickenbacker's raft. Boy, anybody rock that raft, even a little,
and he was sure to be clobbered, that's all, and then thrown overboard. But
today it's a different story.
Along with greater security in numbers, there has come a certain amount of
liability. The more people there are to do a job, it often turns out, the less
there are. In other words, what is everybody's business is nobody's business. So
size is bound to bring complacency unless we get increasingly aware of what's
going on. (Transcribed from tape. GSC, 1960)
Q
- Wouldn't too rapid growth be bad, both for the new alcoholics and for
Alcoholics Anonymous itself?
A - Some of us used to think so, but several experiences of quick
expansion have largely dissipated that fear. We had a striking example at
Cleveland, Ohio. In the fall of 1939 Cleveland had, perhaps, 30 members. Most of
them had become Alcoholics Anonymous by traveling to the nearby city of Akron
where our first group had taken root in the summer of 1935. At this
juncture the Cleveland Plain Dealer published a striking and forceful series of
articles about us. Placed on the editorial page, these pieces told the people of
Cleveland that Alcoholics Anonymous worked; that it cost nothing; that it stood
ready to help any alcoholic in town who really wanted to get well. Cleveland
quickly became Alcoholics Anonymous conscious. Hundreds of inquiries by phone
and mail descended upon the Plain Dealer and the expectant but nervous members
of Alcoholics Anonymous. The rush was so great that new members sober themselves
but a week or two, had to be used to instruct the still newer arrivals. Several
private hospitals threw open their doors to cope with the emergency and were so
please with the result that they have cooperated with us ever since. To the
great surprise of everyone, this rapid growth, hectic though it was, did prove
very successful. Within 90 days the original group of 30 had expanded to 300; in
six months we had about 500; and within two years we had mushroomed to 1200
members distributed among a score of groups in the Cleveland area. Although we
have no precise figures, it is probably fair to say that 3 out of 4 who came
during that period, and who have since remained with the groups, have recovered
from their alcoholism. (Quart. 3. Stud. Alc., Vol.6(2), September 1945)
Q
- How can A.A. best assure its continued existence?
A - Since the beginning of recorded time, many societies and nations of
civilizations have passed in review. In those great ones that have left their
mark for good, in contrast with those who have left their mark for evil, there
has always been a sense of history, a true and high constant purpose, and there
has always been a sense of destiny.
In the societies which failed to leave a bright mark in the annals of the world,
there was always a false or boastful sense of history, always a mistaken or
inadequate purpose and always the presumption of an infinite, a glorious and an
exclusive destiny.
In the societies that left their mark of goodness on time, the sense of history
was not a matter for pride or for glory; it was the substance of the learning of
the experience of the past. In the purpose of such a society there was always
truth and constancy, but never a supposition that the society had apprehended
all of the truth -- or the superior truth. And in the sense of destiny there was
no conceit, no supposition that a society or nation or culture would last
forever and go on to greater glories. But there was always a sense of duty to be
fulfilled, whatever destiny the society might be assigned by providence for the
betterment of the world.
This is the crossroads at which we in A.A. stand. This is a good time to
re-examine how well we have looked upon our A.A. history and how much we
have profited by it, what false insights or false glories we may have been
extracting from history -- to our future detriment. It is a moment to examine
the purpose of this Society. Indeed, we are very lucky to be able to state as
the nucleus of that purpose a single word: sobriety.
Quite early we saw, however, that sobriety in abstinence from alcohol could
never be attained unless there was sobriety and more quietude in the false
motivation that underlay our drinking.
When the Twelve Steps were cast up -- without any real experience and therefore
under some Guidance, surely -- we were given keys to sobriety in its wider
implications. We have been blessed with a concrete definition of purpose but,
for all its concreteness, we could still abuse it and misuse it in a very
natural way.
Some times we begin to think that perhaps, according to Scriptural promise, the
first shall be last and the last -- meaning us -- shall really be first.
That would indeed be a very dangerous presumption and never should we indulge
it. If we do, we shall compete in history with other societies who have been
ill-advised enough to suppose that they had a monopoly on truth or were in some
way superior to other attempts of men to think and to associate in love and in
harmony.
We may look out upon our destiny with no violation of our principle that we are
to live one day at a time. We mean that, emotionally, each in his personal life
is never to repine upon the past glory too much, in the present, or presume upon
the future. We shall attend to the day's business but we shall try to apprehend
ever more truth from the lessons of our history, not the lessons of our
successes but the lessons of our defections, failures and the awful emotions
that can set us loose upon us. For these, indeed, are the raw materials that God
has used to forge this still rather little instrument called Alcoholics
Anonymous. So we may look at destiny and we may ask ourselves about it and
speculate upon it a little -- if we do not presume to play God. (G.S.C., 1961)
Q
- What contribution did Dr. Carl Jung make to A.A.?
A - Few people know that the first taproot of A.A. hit paydirt some
thirty years ago in a physicians office. Dr. Carl Jung, that great pioneer in
psychiatry was taking to an alcoholic patient. This is in effect what happened:
The patient, a prominent American businessman, had gone the typical alcoholic
route. He had exhausted the possibilities of medicine and psychiatry in the
United States and had then come to Dr. Jung as to a court of last resort. Carl
Jung had treated him for a year and the patient, whom we shall call Mr. R., felt
confident that the hidden springs underneath his compulsion to drink had been
discovered and removed. Nevertheless, he found himself intoxicated within a
short time after leaving Dr. Jung's care.
Now he was back, in a state of black despair. He asked Dr. Jung what the score
was, and he got it. In substance, Dr. Jung said, "For some time after you
came here, I continued to believe that you might be one of those rare cases who
could make a recovery. But I must now frankly admit that I have never seen a
single case recover through the psychiatric art where the neurosis is so severe
as yours. Medicine has done all that it can for you, and that's where you
stand."
Mr. R.'s depression deepened. He asked, "Is there no exception, is this
really the end of the line for me?"
"Well," replied the doctor, "there are some exceptions, a very
few. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital
spiritual experiences. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional
displacements
and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding
forces of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of
conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to
produce some emotional rearrangement within you. With many types of neurotics,
the methods which I employ are successful, but I have never been successful with
an alcoholic of your description."
"But," protested the patient, "I'm a religious man, and I still
have faith."
To this Dr. Jung replied, "Ordinary religious faith isn't enough. What I'm
talking about is a transforming experience, a conversion experience, if you
like. I can only recommend that you place yourself in the religious atmosphere
of your own choice, that you recognize your own hopelessness, and that you cast
yourself upon whatever God you think there is. The lightening of the
transforming experience may then strike you. This you must try -- it is your
only way out." So spoke the great and humble physician.
For the A. A -to-be, this was a ten strike. Science had pronounced Mr. R.
virtually hopeless. Dr. Jung's words had struck him at great depth, producing an
immense deflation of his ego. Deflation at depth is today a cornerstone
principle of A.A. There in Dr. Jung's office it was first employed on our
behalf.
The patient, Mr. R., chose the Oxford Groups of that day as his religious
association and atmosphere. Terribly chastened and almost helpless, he began
to be active with them. To his intense joy and astonishment, the obsession to
drink presently left him.
Returning to America, Mr. R. came upon an old school friend of mine, a chronic
alcoholic. This friend -- whom we shall call Ebby -- was about to be committed
to a State Hospital. At this juncture another vital ingredient was added to the
synthesis. Mr. R., the alcoholic, began talking to Ebby, also an alcoholic and a
kindred sufferer. This made for identification at depth, a second cardinal
principle. Over this bridge of identification, Mr. R. passed Dr. Jung's verdict
of how hopeless, medically and psychiatrically, most alcoholics were. He then
introduced Ebby to the Oxford Groups where my friend promptly sobered up. (N.Y.
City Med. Soc. Alcsm., April 28, 1958)
Q
- What effect did Ebby's message have on you?
A - Well, by this time I knew how hopeless my alcoholism was, and yet I
still rebelled -- the idea of a dependency on some intangible God who might not
even be there. Oh, if I could swallow it, but could I! I went on drinking for a
number of days and gradually I got jittery enough to think about the hospital
and then it came to me "Of a sudden" one day -- "Fool! -- why
should you question how you're going to get well, why should beggars be
choosers? If you had a cancer and you were sure of it and your physician said
"This is so malignant that we can't touch it with our art and even if your
physician came along with the improbable story that there were many who got over
cancer by standing on their head in the public square crying 'Amen' and if he
could really make a case that it was so, yes Bill Wilson, if you had cancer, you
too would be out in the public square ignominiously standing on your head and
crying 'Amen'- anything to stop the growth of those cells and that would be the
first priority, and your pride would have to go."
And then I asked myself "Is my case different now? Have I not an allergy of
the body; have I not a cancer of the emotions -- yes, and maybe I have a cancer
of the soul which has resulted in an obsession which condemns me to drink and an
increasing tolerance of liquor which condemns me to go mad or die? Yes, I'm
going to try this. And then there was one more flicker of obstinacy when I said
to myself, "But I don't want any of these evangelical experiences, I mean
it will have to be a kind of intellectual religion that I'll get, so just to be
sure that I don't go into my emotional tizzy, I believe I'll go up to see dear
old Dr. Silkworth and have him dry me out.
(Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 18-20, 1947)
A - What then did happen at that kitchen table? Perhaps this speculation
were better left to medicine and religion. I confess I do not know. Possibly
conversion will never be fully understood.
My friend's story had generated mixed emotions; I was drawn and revolted by
turns. My solitary drinking went on, but I could not forget his visit.
Several themes coursed in my mind: First, that his evident state of release was
strangely and immensely convincing. Second, that he had been pronounced hopeless
by competent medicos. Third, that those old-age precepts, when transmitted by
him, had struck me with great power. Fourth, I could not, and would not, go
along with any God concept. No conversion nonsense for me. Thus did I ponder.
Trying to divert my thoughts, I found it no use. By cords of understanding,
suffering, and simple verity, another alcoholic had bound me to him. I shall not
break away. (Amer J. Psychiat., Vol.106, 1949)
A - He first told me his drinking experience, accent on its more recent
horrors, Of course his identification with me was immediate, and as it proved,
deep and vital indeed. One alcoholic was taking with another as no one except an
alcoholic can. Then he offered me his naively simple recovery formula. Not one
syllable was new, but somehow it affected me profoundly.
There he sat, recovered. An example of what he preached. You will note that his
only dogma was God, which for my benefit he stretched into an accommodating
phrase, a Power greater than myself. That was his story. I could take it or
leave it. I need feel no obligation to him. Indeed, he observed, I was doing him
a favor by listening. Besides it was obvious that he had something more than
ordinary "water wagon" sobriety. He looked and acted
"released"; repression had not been his answer. Such was the impact of
an alcoholic who really knew the score. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol.50, July 1950)
Q
- What happened to your sponsor, Ebby?
A - It was Ebby who brought me the message that saved my life and
uncounted
thousands of others.
Because of gratitude and old friendship, my wife Lois and I invited Ebby to live
at our home shortly after I sobered up. The son of a well-to-do family in
Albany, he had never learned any profession so he was broke and had to begin all
over. These were difficult circumstances, naturally. Ebby stayed with us
something like a year and a half. Being intent on getting re-established in
life, he took little interest in helping other alcoholics.
Little by little, he commenced the rationalization we have seen so often. He
began to say that if he had the right romance and the right job then things
would be okay. At length, he fell by the wayside. He would not mind if I tell
this -- it is a part of his story today.
For many years, my old friend Ebby was on the wagon and off. Sometimes he
could stay sober for a year or more. He tried living with Lois and me for
another considerable period but apparently this was of no help. Maybe we
actually hindered him. As A.A. began to grow his position became difficult.
For a long time things went from bad to worse.
About six years ago the groups down in Texas decided to try their hand. Ebby
was shipped non-stop to Dallas and placed in an A.A. drying out place. In these
new surroundings in Texas, far from his old failures, he has made a splendid
recovery. Excepting for one slip which occurred about a year after his arrival
down there he has been bone dry ever since. This is one of the deepest
satisfactions that has ever come to me since A.A. started and many another A.A.
can say the same. (N.C.C.A. 'Blue Book,' Vol.12, 1960)
Q - Could you describe your spiritual experience for us and your
understanding of what happened?
A - In December 1934, I appeared at Towns Hospital, New York. My old friend,
Dr. William Silkworth shook his head. Soon free of my sedation and alcohol I
felt horribly depressed. My friend Ebby turned up and although glad to see him,
I shrank a little as I feared evangelism, but nothing of the sort happened.
After some small talk, I again asked him for his neat little formula for
recovery. Quietly and sanely and without the slightest pressure he told me and
then he left.
Lying there in conflict, I dropped into the blackest depression I had ever
known. Momentarily my prideful depression was crushed. I cried out, "Now I
am ready to do anything -- anything to receive what my friend Ebby has."
Though I certainly didn't expect anything, I did make this frantic appeal,
"If there be a God, will He show Himself!" The result was instant,
electric, beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I
knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and
penetrating me. To me, it was not of air but of Spirit. Blazing, there came the
tremendous thought, "you are a free man." Then the ecstasy subsided.
Still on the bed, I now found myself in a new world of consciousness which was
suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace came over me. I
thought, "So this is the God of the preachers, this is the great
Reality." But soon my so-called reason returned, my modern education took
over and I thought I must be crazy and I became terribly frightened.
Dr. Silkworth, a medical saint if ever there was one, came in to hear my
trembling account of this phenomenon. After questioning me carefully, he
assured me that I was not mad and that perhaps I had undergone a psychic
experience which might solve my problem. Skeptical man of science though he
then was, this was most kind and astute. If he had of said,
"hallucination," I might now be dead. To him I shall ever be eternally
grateful.
Good fortune pursued me. Ebby brought me a book entitled "Varieties of
Religious Experience" and I devoured it. Written by William James, the
psychologist, it suggests that the conversion experience can have objective
reality. Conversion does alter motivation and it does semi-automatically enable
a person to be and to do the formerly impossible. Significant it was, that
marked conversion experience came mostly to individuals who knew complete defeat
in a controlling area of life. The book certainly showed variety but whether
these experiences were bright or dim, cataclysmic or gradual, theological or
intellectual in bearing, such conversions did have a common denominator -- they
did change utterly defeated people. So declared William James, the father of
modern psychology. The shoe fitted and I have tried to wear it ever since.
For drunks, the obvious answer was deflation at depth, and more of it. That
seemed plain as a pikestaff. I had been trained as an engineer, so the news of
this authoritative psychologist meant everything to me. This eminent scientist
of the mind had confirmed everything that Dr. Jung had said, and had extensively
documented all he claimed. Thus William James firmed up the foundation on which
I and many others had stood all these years. I haven't had a drink of alcohol
since 1934. (N.Y. Med. Soc. Alcsm., April 28,1958)
Q
- Could you describe your spiritual experience for us and your
understanding of what happened?
A - In December 1934, I appeared at Towns Hospital, New York. My old
friend,
Dr. William Silkworth shook his head. Soon free of my sedation and alcohol I
felt horribly depressed. My friend Ebby turned up and although glad to see
him, I shrank a little as I feared evangelism, but nothing of the sort
happened. After some small talk, I again asked him for his neat little
formula for recovery. Quietly and sanely and without the slightest pressure
he told me and then he left.
Lying there in conflict, I dropped into the blackest depression I had ever
known. Momentarily my prideful depression was crushed. I cried out, "Now I
am ready to do anything -- anything to receive what my friend Ebby has."
Though I certainly didn't expect anything, I did make this frantic appeal,
"If there be a God, will He show Himself!" The result was instant,
electric,
beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I knew
only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To me, it was not of air but of Spirit. Blazing, there came
the tremendous thought, "you are a free man." Then the ecstasy
subsided.
Still on the bed, I now found myself in a new world of consciousness which
was suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a great peace came over
me. I thought, "So this is the God of the preachers, this is the great
Reality." But soon my so-called reason returned, my modern education took
over and I thought I must be crazy and I became terribly frightened.
Dr. Silkworth, a medical saint if ever there was one, came in to hear my
trembling account of this phenomenon. After questioning me carefully, he
assured me that I was not mad and that perhaps I had undergone a psychic
experience which might solve my problem. Skeptical man of science though he
then was, this was most kind and astute. If he had of said,
"hallucination,"
I might now be dead. To him I shall ever be eternally grateful.
Good fortune pursued me. Ebby brought me a book entitled "Varieties of
Religious Experience" and I devoured it. Written by William James, the
psychologist, it suggests that the conversion experience can have objective
reality. Conversion does alter motivation and it does semi-automatically
enable a person to be and to do the formerly impossible. Significant it was,
that marked conversion experience came mostly to individuals who knew complete defeat in a controlling area of life. The book certainly showed
variety but whether these experiences were bright or dim, cataclysmic or
gradual, theological or intellectual in bearing, such conversions did have a
common denominator -- they did change utterly defeated people. So declared
William James, the father of modern psychology. The shoe fitted and I have
tried to wear it ever since.
For drunks, the obvious answer was deflation at depth, and more of it. That
seemed plain as a pikestaff. I had been trained as an engineer, so the news
of this authoritative psychologist meant everything to me. This eminent
scientist of the mind had confirmed everything that Dr. Jung had said, and
had extensively documented
all he claimed. Thus William James firmed up the foundation on which I and
many others had stood all these years. I haven't had a drink of alcohol
since 1934. (N.Y. Med. Soc. Alcsm., April 28,1958)
Q - When you first sobered up how did
you approach alcoholics and did you change that approach?
A - I took off to cure alcoholics wholesale. It was twinjet propulsion;
difficulties meant nothing. The vast conceit of my project never occurred to me.
I pressed my assault for six months; my home was filled with alcoholics.
Harangues with scores produced not the slightest result. None of them got it.
Disappointingly, my friend of the kitchen table, who was sicker than I realized,
took little interest in other alcoholics. This fact may have caused his endless
backslides later on. For I had found that working with alcoholics had a huge
bearing on my own sobriety. But why wouldn't any of my new prospects sober
up?
Slowly the bugs came to light. Like a religious crank, I was obsessed with the
idea that everybody must have a "spiritual experience" just like mine.
I'd forgotten that there were many varieties. So my brother alcoholics just
stared incredulously or kidded me about my "hot flash." This had
spoiled the potent identification so easy to get with them. I had turned
evangelist.
Clearly the deal had to be streamlined. What came to me in six minutes might
require six months in others. It was to be learned that words are things, that
one must be prudent. It was also certain that something ailed the deflationary
technique. It definitely lacked wallop. Reasoning that the alcoholic's
"hex" or compulsion, must issue from some deep level, it followed that
ego deflation must also go deep or else there couldn't be any fundamental
release. Apparently religious practice would not touch the alcoholic until his
underlying situation was made ready. Fortunately, all the tools were right at
hand. You doctors supplied them.
The emphasis was shifted from "sin" to "sickness" -- the
"fatal malady," alcoholism. We quoted doctors that alcoholism was more
lethal than cancer; that it consisted of an obsession of the mind coupled to
increasing body sensitivity. These were our twin ogres of madness and death. We
leaned heavily on Dr. Jung's statement of how hopeless the condition could be
and then poured that devastating dose into every drunk within range. To modern
man science is omnipotent; it is a God. Hence if science could pass a death
sentence on a drunk, and we placed that verdict on our alcoholic transmission,
it might shatter him completely. Perhaps he would then turn to the God of the
theologian, there being no place else to go. Whatever the truth in this device,
it certainly had practical merit. Immediately our
whole atmosphere changed. Things began to look up. (Amer. J. Psychiat., Vol.
106, 1949)
Q
- Could you tell us about the early days and the meetings in your home on
Clinton Street?
A - In those days we were associated with the Oxford Group and one of its
founders was Sam Shoemaker and the Group was meeting in Calvary Church. Our debt
to the Oxford Group is simply immense. We might have found these principles
elsewhere, but they did give them to us, and I want to again record our
underlying gratitude. We also learned from them, so far as alcoholics are
concerned, what not to do -- something equally important.
Father Edward Dowling, a great Jesuit friend of ours, once said to me,
"Bill, it isn't what you people put into A.A. that makes it good -- it's
what you left out." We got both sets of notions from our Oxford Group
friends, and it was through them that Ebby had sobered up and became my sponsor,
the carrier of this message to me.
We began to go to Oxford Group meetings over in Calvary House, and it was there,
fresh out of Towns Hospital, that I made my first pitch, telling about my
strange experience, which did not impress the alcoholics who were listening. But
something else did impress one of them. When I began to talk about the nature of
this sickness, this malady, he pricked up his ears. He was a professor of
chemistry, an agnostic, and he came up and talked afterward.
Soon, he was invited over to Clinton Street -- our very first customer. We
worked very hard with Freddy for three years, but alas, he remained drunk for
eleven years afterward.
Other people came to us out of those Oxford Group audiences. We began to go down
to Calvary Mission, an adjunct of the church in those days, and there we found a
bountiful supply of real tough nuts to crack. We began to invite them to Clinton
Street, and at this point the Groupers felt that we were over doing the drunk
business. It seemed that they had the idea of saving the world and besides
they'd had a bad time with us. Sam and his associates, he now laughingly tells
me, were very much put out that they gathered a big batch of drunks in Calvary
House, hoping for a miracle. They put them upstairs in those nice apartments and
had them completely surrounded with sweetness and light but the drunks imported
a flock of bottles and one of them pitched a shoe out of the apartment window
and it went through a stained-glass window of the church. So the drunks were not
exactly popular when the Wilsons showed up.
At any rate, we began to be with alcoholic all the time, but nothing happened
for six months. Like the Groupers, we nursed them. In fact, over in Clinton
Street, we developed in the next two or three years something like a boiler
factory, a sort of clinic, a hospital, and a free boarding house, from which
practically no one issued sober, but we had a pile of experience.
We began to learn the game, and after our withdrawal from the Oxford Group -- a
year and a half from the time I sobered in 1934 -- we began to hold meetings of
the few who had sobered up. I suppose that was really the first A.A. meeting.
The book had not yet been written. We did not even call it Alcoholics Anonymous;
people asked who we were and we said, "Well, we're a nameless bunch of
alcoholics." I suppose that use of the word "nameless" sort of
led us to the idea of anonymity, which was later clapped on the book at the time
it was titled.
There were great doings in Clinton Street. I remember those meetings down in the
parlor so well. Our eager discussion, our hopes, our fears -- and our fears were
very great. When anyone in those days had been sober a few months and slipped,
it was a terrific calamity. I'll never forget the day, a year-and-a-half after
he came to stay with us, that Ebby fell over, and we all said, "Perhaps
this is going to happen to all of us." Then, we began to ask ourselves why
it was, and some of us pushed on.
At Clinton Street, I did most of the talking, but Lois did most of the work, and
the cooking, and the loving of those early folks. Oh my! The episodes we
had there! I was away once on a business trip (I'd briefly got back into
business), one of the drunks was sleeping on the lounge in the parlor. Lois woke
up in the middle of the night, hearing a great commotion. One of the drunks had
gotten a bottle and was drunk; he had also gotten into the kitchen and had drunk
a bottle of maple syrup and he had fallen into the coal hod. When Lois opened
the door, he asked for a
towel to cover up his nakedness. She once led this same gentleman through the
streets late at night looking for a doctor, and not finding a doctor, then
looking for a drink, because, as he said, he could not fly on one wing!
On one occasion, a pair of them were drunk. We had five, and on another
occasion, they were all drunk at the same time! Then there was the time when two
of them began to beat each other with two-by-fours down in the basement. Then
one night, poor Ebby, after repeated trials and failures, was finally locked out
one night, but lo and behold, he appeared anyway. He had come through the coal
chute and up the stairs, very much begrimed.
So you see, Clinton Street was a kind of blacksmith shop, in which we were
hammering away at these principles. For Lois and me, all roads lead back to
Clinton Street. (Manhattan Group, 1955)
Q
- Could you tell us more about Dr. Bob?
A - In A.A. we always deal in personalities, really, this thing is
transmitted from one to another and it isn't so much what we read about it that
counts, it's what we uniquely know about ourselves and those just around us who
help us and who we would help. Therefore, I take it that you would like it
better than anything else if I just spin a few yarns about Dr. Bob and that very
early part of A.A. which we often call the period of flying blind.
Of course you'll remember my little story about how a friend comes to me with
the idea of getting more honest, more tolerant, making amends, helping others
without demand for reward, praying as best I knew and that was my friend Ebby.
Dr. Bob had heard those things too, from the same source, namely the Oxford
Groups, which have since as such, passed off the scene and have left us with a
rich heritage of both what and what not to do. Anyway, a friend comes to me and
I go to other alcoholics and try to make them my friends and some did become my
friends but not a damn one got sober.
Then came that little man that we who live in this area saw so much, him with
the kind blue eyes and white hair, Doc Silkworth. You'll remember that Doc said
to me, "Look Bill, you're preaching at these people too much. You've got
the cart before the horse. This 'white flash' experience of yours scares those
drunks to death. Why don't you put the fear of God into them first? You're
always talking about James and The Varieties of Religious Experiences and how
you have to deflate people before they can know God, how they must have
humility. So, why don't you use the tool of the medical hopelessness of
alcoholism for practically all those involved. Why don't you talk to the drunk
about that allergy they've got and that obsession that makes them keep on
drinking and guarantees that they will die? Maybe when you punch it into them
hard it will deflate them enough so that they will find what you found."
So, another indispensable ingredient was added to what is now this successful
synthesis and that was just about the time I set out for Akron on a business
trip. It had been suggested by the family that it was about time that I went
back to work. I went out there on this venture which fortunately fell through. I
was in the hotel and was tempted to drink and needed to look up another
alcoholic, not to save him but to save myself, for I had found that working with
others had a vast bearing on my own sobriety.
Then we were brought together by a woman who was the last person on a long list
of people I had been referred to. The only one who had time enough and who cared
enough was a woman in Akron, herself no alcoholic. Her name was Henrietta
Seiberling. She invited me out to her house and became interested at once. She
called the Smiths and we learned that Smithy had come home with a potted plant
for dear old Annie and he put it on the dining room table, but as Annie said
that, just then, he was on the floor and they could not come over at that
moment.
You remember how he put in an appearance the next day. Haggard, worn, not
wishing to stay and how we then talked for three hours. Now I have often heard
Dr. Bob say "it was not so much my spirituality that affected him," he
was a student of those things and I certainly know that he was never affected by
any superior morality on my part. So, what did affect him? Well, it was this
ammunition that dear old Doc Silkworth had given me, the allergy plus the
obsession. The God of science declaring that the malady for most of us is
hopeless so far as our personal power is concerned. As Dr. Bob put it in his
story in the book "here came the first man into my life that seemed to know
what this thing alcoholism was all about."
Well, if it wasn't the dose of spirituality I poured into Dr. Bob, it was that
dose of indispensable medicine to this movement, the dose of hopelessness so far
as one doing this alone is concerned. The bottle of medicine that Dr. Silkworth
had given me that I poured down the old grizzly bear's throat. That's what I
used to call him.
Well, he gagged on it a little, got drunk once more and that was the end.
Then he and I set out looking for drunks, we had to look some up. There is a
little remembered part of the story. The story usually goes that we immediately
called up the local city hospital and asked the nurse for a case but that isn't
quite true. There was a preacher who lived down the street and he was beset at
this time by a drunk and his name was Eddie and we talked to Eddie and it turned
out that Eddie was not only a drunk but something which in that high faluting
language is now called a manic-depressive, not very manic either, mostly
depressed. Eddie was married with two or three kids, worked down at the Goodrich
Company and his depression caused him to drink and the only thing that would
stop the depression was apparently baking soda. When he got a sour stomach, he
got depressed so he was not only drinking alcohol but we estimated that in the
past few years he had taken a ton of baking soda. Well, we tried for a while, of
course, we thought we had to be good Samaritans so we got up some dough to try
to keep the family going, we got Eddie back on the job but Eddie kept right on
with the alcohol and baking soda both. Finally, Dr. Bob and Annie took Eddie
along with me into their house, a pattern which my dear Lois followed out to the
nth degree later, and we tried to treat Eddie and my mind goes back so vividly
to that evening when Eddie really blew his top. I don't know whether it was the
manic side or the depressive side but boy did he blow it. Annie and I were
sitting at the kitchen table and Eddie seized the butcher knife and was about to
do us in when Annie said very quietly," Well Eddie, I don't think your
going to do this." He didn't. Thereafter, Eddie was in the State Asylum for
a period of a dozen or more years but believe it or not he showed up at the
funeral of Dr. Bob in the fall of 1950 as sober as a judge and he had been that
way for three years.
So even that obscure little talk about Eddie made the grade. So then Dr. Bob and
I talked to the man on the bed, Bill Dotson, who some of you have heard.
A.A. No.3. Here was another man who said he couldn't get well, his case was too
tough, much tougher than ours besides he knew all about religion. Well, here it
was, one drunk talking with another, in fact, two drunks talking to one. The
very next day the man on the bed got out of his bed and he picked it up and
walked and he has stayed sober ever since. A.A. No.3, the man on the bed.
So the spark that was to become Alcoholics Anonymous was struck. I came back
to New York after having taken away a great deal from Akron. I never can
forget those mornings and the nights at the Smiths. I can never forget Annie
reading to us two or three drunks who were hanging on, out of the bible. I
couldn't possibly say how many times we read Corinthians on love, how many
times we read the entire book of James with loving emphasis on that line
"Faith without works is dead." It did make a very deep impression on
me, so from the very beginning there was reciprocity, everyone was a teacher and
everyone was a pupil and nobody need look up or down to the other because as
Jack Alexander put it years later "We are all brothers and sisters under
the skin."
Smithy, unlike me and the man on the bed, was bothered very badly by the
temptation to drink. Smithy was one of those continuous drinkers. He wasn't what
you would call one of those panty waist periodics. He guzzled all the time and
apparently by the time he got to be sixty odd which was when he got to A.A., he
was so rum soaked that he just had a terrible urge to drink. Long after,
he told me that he had that urge for six or seven years and that it was constant
and that his basic release from it was doing what we now call the Twelfth Step.
So Smitty, greatly out of love and partly being driven began to frantically work
on those cases, first in City Hospital in Akron and then as they got tired of
drunks in the place, finally over at St. Thomas where there is now a plaque
which bears an inscription dedicated to all those who labored there in our
pioneering time and describing St. Thomas in Akron as the first religious
institution ever to open it's doors to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Ah, how much of a drama, how much of a struggle, how much misery, how much
joy lies in the era before the plaque was put there. No one can say. There was a
Sister in the hospital, a veritable Saint, if you ever saw one. Our beloved
Sister Ignatia. Dr. Bob often mentioned her. He told how she would deny beds to
people with broken legs in order to stick drunks in them. She loved drunks. She
was a sort of female Silkworth, if you know what I mean.
So finally a ward was provided and you remember that Dr. Bob was an M.D. and
a mighty good one. Now you know that quite within the A.A. Tradition, Dr. Bob
might have charged all those drunks who went through that place for his medical
services. He treated 5,000 drunks medically and never charged a dime, even in
that long period when he was very poor. For unlike most of us to whom it is a
credit to belong to Alcoholics Anonymous, it was no credit to a surgeon at that
time. "It was lovely that the old boy got sober," his patients said,
"but how the hell do I know he'll be sober when he cuts me open in the
morning." And so that frantic effort went on in Akron and New York and we
got back and forth a bit. You have no conception these days of how much failure
we had. You had to cull over hundreds of these drunks to get a handful to take
the bait. Yes, the discouragement's were very great but some did stay sober and
some very tough ones at that.
The next great memory I have is that of the day I shared with him in his living
room in the fall of 1937. I, you remember had sobered up in late '34 and Bob in
June 1935. Well, we began to count noses, we asked ourselves "how many were
dry and for how long," Not how many failures, but how many successes were
there in Akron, New York and the trickle to Cleveland and in the other little
trickles to Philadelphia and Washington. How much time elapsed on how many
cases? We added up the score and I guess we may have had forty folks sober and
with real time elapsed. For the first time Dr. Bob and I knew that God had made
a great gift to us children of the night and that the long procession coming
down through the ages need no longer all go over into the left hand path and
plunge over the cliff. We knew that something great had come into the world.
Then it was a question of how we would spread this and that was answered by the
publication of the book and the opening of the service office. There were
friends in medicine, friends in religion, friends in the press and just plain
but great friends. They all came to our aid and spread the good news.
Meanwhile, drunks from all over Ohio, all over the Mid-West flocked into the
Akron hospital where Dr. Bob and Sister Ignatia ministered to them. I have no
doubt that two out of three of those drunks are sober, well, and happy today. So
that achievement certainly entitles Dr. Bob to be named as the prince of all
twelve steppers.
That was the end of the flying blind period, next we needed to discover whether
we could hold together as groups. We had learned that we might survive as
individuals but could this movement hold together and grow. On a thousand anvils
and after a million heartbreaks the Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous was also
forged out of our experience and what had been a tiny chip, launched in the
flying blind time on a sea of alcoholism now became a mighty armada spreading
over the world, touching foreign beach heads. Of all that, this meeting here in
this historic place in commemoration of Dr. Bob is a great and moving symbol. I
know that he looks down on us. I know that he smiles and we know that he is
glad. (Memorial service for Dr. Bob, Nov. 15, 1952)
Q
- What did A.A. learn from the Oxford Group and why did they leave them?
A - AA's first step was derived largely from my own physician, Dr.
Silkworth, and my sponsor Ebby and his friend, from Dr, Jung of Zurich. I refer
to the medical hopelessness of alcoholism -- our "powerlessness" over
alcohol.
The rest of the Twelve Steps stem directly from those Oxford Group teachings
that applied specifically to us. Of course these teachings were nothing new; we
might have obtained them from your own Church. They were, in effect, an
examination of conscience, confession, restitution, helpfulness to others, and
prayer.
I should acknowledge our great debt to the Oxford Group people. It was fortunate
that they laid particular emphasis on spiritual principles that we needed. But
in fairness it should also be said that many of their attitudes and practices
did not work well at all for us alcoholics. These were rejected one by one and
they caused our later withdrawal from this society to a fellowship of our own --
today's Alcoholics Anonymous.
Perhaps I should specifically outline why we felt it necessary to part company
with them. To begin with, the climate of their undertaking was not well suited
to us alcoholics. They were aggressively evangelical, they sought to revitalize
the Christian message in such a way as to "change the world."
Most of us alcoholics had been subjected to pressure of evangelism and we never
liked it. The object of saving the world -- when it was still very much in doubt
if we could save ourselves -- seemed better left to other people. By reason of
some of its terminology and by exertion of huge pressure, the Oxford Group set a
moral stride that was too fast, particularly for our newer alcoholics. They
constantly talked of Absolute Purity, Absolute Unselfishness, Absolute Honesty,
and Absolute Love. While sound theology must always have its absolute values,
the Oxford Groups created the feeling that one should arrive at these
destinations in short order, maybe be next Thursday! Perhaps they didn't
mean to create such an impression but that was the effect. Sometimes their
public "witnessing" was of such a character to cause us to be shy.
They also believed that by "converting" prominent people to their
beliefs, they would hasten the salvation of many who were less prominent. This
attitude could scarcely appeal to the average drunk since he was anything but
distinguished.
The Oxford Group also had attitudes and practices which added up to a highly
coercive authority. This was exercised by "teams" of older members.
They would gather in meditation and receive specific guidance for the life
conduct of newcomers. This guidance could cover all possible situations from the
most trivial to the most serious. If the directions so obtained were not
followed, the enforcement machinery began to operate. It consisted of a sort of
coldness and aloofness which made recalcitrants feel they weren't wanted.
At one time, for example, a "team" got guidance for me to the effect
that I was no longer to work with alcoholics. This I could not accept.
Another example: When I first contacted the Oxford Groups, Catholics were
permitted to attend their meetings because they were strictly
non-denominational. But after a time the Catholic Church forbade its members to
attend and the reason for this seemed a good one. Through the Oxford Group
"teams," Catholic Church members were actually receiving specific
guidance for their lives; they were often infused with the idea that their
Church had become rather horse-and-buggy, and needed to be "changed."
Guidance was frequently given that contributions should be made to the Oxford
Groups. In a way this amounted to putting Catholics under a separate
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. At this time there were few Catholics in our
alcoholic groups. Obviously we could not approach any more Catholics under
Oxford Group auspices. Therefore this was another, and the basic reason for the
withdrawal of our alcoholic crowd from the Oxford Groups notwithstanding our
great debt to them. (N.C.C.A. 'Blue Book', Vol. 12, 1960)
Q
- How did you meet A.A. No. 3, Bill Dotson?
A - I was living at Dr. Bob's place and one day he said to me "don't
you think that for self-protection that we had better be working with more
drunks." I thought it was a good idea and the upshot was that he called
City Hospital where he was in some discredit because of his drinking and he got
hold of the Head Nurse down there and said to her "a fellow from New York
and I have a new cure for alcoholism." Quite kindly the nurse observed,
"Well doctor, I think that you should try it on yourself." Then she
told us that they had a dandy prospect who was strapped down for blackening the
eyes of one of the nurses. So Doc said, "Put him to bed and we'll be down
when you get him cleared up a bit and put him in a private room."
So a little while after Dr. Bob and I saw a sight that tens of thousands of us
have since beheld and God willing, hundreds of thousands shall see. It was the
sight of the man on the bed who did not yet know that he could get well.
Well, as it turned out, the man on the bed was no optimist, like many a drunk
since he said, "I'm different, my case is too tough and don't talk to me
about religion, I'm already a man of faith. I used to be a Deacon in the Church
and I've got faith in God still, but quite obviously He has none in me. Anyhow,
come back tomorrow and see me as you fellows interest me as you've been through
the mill." Of course we had related our simple formula. Of course we had
told him of our release although he was not impressed that mine was only of
months and Bob's only of days. He said, "I was sober once that long
myself."
We came once more and as we entered his room the man's wife sat at the foot of
the bed and she was saying to her husband, "what has got into you, you seem
so different." He said, "Here they are, these are the ones who
understand, they've been through the mill." He made great haste in
explaining how during the night hope had come to him and he had taken the
resolve to follow our simple formula. Something else had happened, there was a
sense of lightness, a sense of feeling in one piece, a feeling of relief, he
said.
The next thing we knew No. 3 said to his wife "Fetch my clothes dear, we're
going to get up and get out of here." So A.A. No. 3 rose from his bed and
walked out of that place never to drink again. Well, at that time there was no
realization on the part of us what had begun to happen. Of course, that was the
beginning of A.A. as we understand it today. The essential process was the same
and the grace of God just as everlasting. (Chicago, Ill., February 1951)
Q - What led up to the decision to
write the book Alcoholics Anonymous?
A - The first A.A. group had come into being but we still had no name.
Those were the years of flying blind, those ensuing two or three years. A slip
in those days was a dreadful calamity. We would look at each other and wonder
who might be next. Failure! Failure! Failure was our constant companion.
I returned home from Akron now endowed with a more becoming humility and
less preaching and a few people began to come to us, a few in Cleveland and
Akron. I had got back into business briefly and again Wall Street collapsed and
took me with it as usual. So I set out West to see if there was something I
could do in that country. Dr. Bob and I of course had been corresponding but it
wasn't until one late fall afternoon in 1937 that I reached his house and sat in
his living room. I can recall the scene as though it were yesterday and we got
out a pencil and paper and we began to put down the names of those people in
Akron, New York and that little sprinkling in Cleveland who had been dry a while
and despite the large number of failures it finally burst upon us that forty
people had got a real
release and had significant dry time behind them. I shall never forget that
great and humbling hour of realization. Bob and I saw for the first time that a
new light had begun to shine down upon us alcoholics, had begun to shine upon
the children of the night.
That realization brought an immense responsibility. Naturally, we thought at
once, how shall what we forty know be carried to the millions who don't know?
Within gunshot of this house there must be others like us who are thoroughly
bothered by this obsession. How shall they know? How is this going to be
transmitted?
Up to this time as you must be aware, A.A. was utterly simple. It filled the
full measure of simplicity as is since demanded by a lot of people. I guess we
old timers all have a nostalgia about those halcyon days of simplicity when
thank God there were no founders and no money and there were no meeting places,
just parlors. Annie and Lois baking cakes and making coffee for those drunks in
the living room. We didn't even have a name! We just called ourselves a bunch of
drunks trying to get sober. We were more anonymous than we are now. Yes, it was
all very simple. But, here was a new realization, what was the responsibility of
the forty men to those who did not know?
Well, I have been in the world of business, a rather hectic world of business,
the world of Wall Street. I suspect that I was a good deal of a promoter and a
bit of a salesman, rather better than I am here today. So I began to think in
business man's terms. We had discovered that the hospitals did not want us
drinkers because, we were poor payers and never got well. So, why
shouldn't we have our own hospitals and I envisioned a great chain of drunk
tanks and hospitals spreading across the land. Probably, I could sell stocks in
those and we could damn well eat as well as save drunks.
Then too, Dr. Bob and I recalled that it had been a very tedious and slow
business to sober up forty people, it had taken about three years and in those
days we old timers had the vainglory to suppose that nobody else could really do
this job but us. So we naturally thought in terms of having alcoholic
missionaries, no disparagement to missionaries to be sure. In other words,
people would be grubstaked for a year or two, moved to Chicago, St. Louis,
Frisco and so on and start little centers and meanwhile we would be financing
this string of drunk tanks and began to suck them into these places. Yes, we
would need missionaries and hospitals! Then came one reflection that did make
some sense.
It seemed very clear that what we had already found out should be put on paper.
We needed a book, so Dr. Bob called a meeting for the very next night and in
that little meeting of a dozen and a half, a historic decision was taken which
deeply affected our destiny. It was in the living room of a nonalcoholic friend
who let us come there because his living room was bigger than the Smith's parlor
and he loved us. I too, remember that day as if it were yesterday.
So, Smithy and I explained this new obligation which depended on us forty.
How are we to carry this message to the ones who do not know? I began to wind up
my promotion talk about the hospitals and the missionaries and the book and I
saw their faces fall and straight away that meeting divided into three
significant parts. There was the promoter section of which I was definitely one.
There was the section that was indifferent and there was what you might call the
orthodox section.
The orthodox section was very vocal and it said with good reason, "Look!
Put us into business and we are lost. This works because it is simple, because
everybody works at it, because nobody makes anything out of it and because no
one has any axe to grind except his sobriety and the other guy's. If you publish
a book we will have infinite quarrels about the damn thing. It will get us into
business and the clinker of the orthodox section was that our Lord, Himself, had
no book.
Well, it was impressive and events proved that the orthodox people were
practically right, but, thank God, not fully right. Then there were the
indifferent ones who thought, well, if Smitty and Bill think we ought to do
these things well its all right with us. So the indifferent ones, plus the
promoters out voted the orthodoxy and said "If you want to do these things
Bill, you go back to New York where there is a lot of dough and you get the
money and then we'll see."
Well, by this time I'm higher than a kite you know. Promoters can stay high on
something besides alcohol. I was already taking about the greatest medical
development, greatest spiritual development, greatest social development of all
time. Think of it, forty drunks. (Chicago, Ill., February 1951)
A - That evening Bob and I told them that we were within sight of success and
that we thought that this thing might go on and on, that a new light indeed was
shining in our dark world. But how could this light be reflected and transmitted
without being distorted and garbled? At this point, they turned the meeting over
to me and being a salesman, I sat right to work on the drunk tanks and subsidies
for missionaries, I was pretty poor then.
We touched on the book. The group conscience consisted of eighteen men good and
true. . . and the good and true men, you could see right away, were dammed
skeptical about it all. Almost with one voice they chorused "let's keep it
simple, this is going to bring money into this thing, this is going to create a
professional class. We'll all be ruined."
"Well," I countered, "That's a pretty good argument. Lots to what
you say, but even within gunshot of this house, alcoholics are dying like flies.
And if this thing doesn't move any faster than it has in the last three years,
it may be another ten before it gets to the outskirts of Akron. How in god's
name are we going to carry this message to others? We've got to take some kind
of chance. We can't keep it so simple that it becomes an anarchy and gets
complicated. We can't keep it so simple that it won't propagate itself, and
we've got to have a lot of money to do these things."
So, exerting myself to the utmost, which was considerable in those days, we
finally got a vote in that little meeting and it was a mighty close vote by just
a majority of maybe 2 or 3. The meeting said, with some reluctance, "Well
Bill," if we need a lot of dough then you had better go back to New York
where there's plenty of it and you raise it." Well, boy, that was the word
I had been waiting for. (Fort Worth, Tx., 1954)
Q - Was the writing of the Big Book a
difficult job?
A - As the chapters were done, we went to A.A. meetings in New York with
the
chapters in the rough. It wasn't like chicken-in-the-rough, the boys didn't eat
those chapters up at all. I suddenly discovered that I was in a terrific
whirlpool of arguments. I was just the umpire. I finally had to stipulate,
"Well boys, over here we have the holy rollers who say we need all the good
old-fashioned stuff in the book, and over here you tell me we've got to have a
psychological book, and that never cured anybody, and they didn't do very much
with us in the missions, so I guess you will have to leave me just to be the
umpire. I'll scribble out some roughs here and show them to you and let's get
the comments in." So we fought, bled and died our way through one chapter
after another. We sent copies out to Akron and they were peddled around and
there were terrific hassles about what should go in this book and what should
not.
Meanwhile, we set drunks up to write their stories or we had newspaper people to
write the stories for them to go in the back of the book. We had an idea that
we'd have a text and then we'd have stories all about the drunks who were
staying sober. (Transcribed from tape, Fort Worth, Tx., 1954)
Q - How did the Twelve Steps get
written?
A - We were up around Chapter 5. As you know I'd gone on about myself
which
was natural after all. Then we had the introductory chapter and we dealt with
the agnostic and we described alcoholism. Well, we finally got to the point
where we really had to say what this book was all about and how this deal works.
As I told you this had been a six-step program then.
On this particular evening, I was lying in bed on Clinton Street wondering what
the deuce this next chapter would be about. The idea came to me, well, we need a
definite statement of concrete principles that these drunks can't wiggle out of.
There can't be any wiggling out of this deal at all and this six-step program
had two big gaps which people wiggled out of. Moreover, if this book went out to
distant readers, they have to have got an absolutely explicit program by which
to go. This was while I was thinking these thoughts, while my imaginary ulcer
was paining me and while I was mad as hell at these drunks because the money was
coming in too slow. Some had the stock and were not paying up. A couple of guys
came in and they gave me a big argument and we yelled and shouted at each other
and I finally went and laid on the bed with my ulcer and said, "Poor
me."
There was a pad of paper by the bed and I reached for it and said, "You've
got to break this program up into small pieces so they can't wiggle out."
So I started writing, trying to bust it up into little pieces and when I got the
pieces set down on that piece of yellow paper, I put numbers on them and was
rather agreeably surprised when it came out to twelve. I said, "That's a
good significant number in Christianity and mystic lore." Then I noticed
that instead of leaving the God idea to the last, I'd got it up front but I
didn't pay too much attention to that, it looked pretty good. Well, the next
meeting comes along; I'd gone on beyond the steps trying to amplify them in the
rest of that chapter and I presented it at the meeting. Well, pandemonium broke
loose. "What do you by mean changing the program, what about this, what
about that, this thing is overloaded with God. We don't like this, you've got
these guys on their knees...stand them up because a lot of these drunks are
scared to death of being Godly . . . let's take God out of it entirely."
Such were the arguments that we had. Out of that terrific hassle came the Twelve
Steps.
Those arguments caused the introduction of a phrase which has been the lifesaver
to thousands. It was certainly none of my doing. I was on the pious side then,
you see, still suffering from the big hot flash of mine. The idea of "God
as you understand Him" came out of that perfectly ferocious argument and we
put it in the book. (Transcribed from tape, Fort Worth, 1954)
Q - How did you meet Father Ed Dowling?
A - My first unforgettable contact with Father Ed came about in this way.
It was early 1940, though late in the winter. Save for old Tom, the fireman we
had lately rescued from Rockland Asylum, the club was empty (24th St. clubhouse
in N.Y. City where Bill and Lois were living as they had been evicted from their
Clinton St. home.) My wife Lois was out somewhere. It had been a hectic
day, full of disappointments. I lay upstairs in our room, consumed with
self-pity. This had been brought on by one of my characteristic imaginary ulcer
attacks. It was a bitter night, frightfully windy. Hail and sleet beat on the
tin roof over my head.
Then the front doorbell rang and I heard old Tom toddle off to answer it. A
minute later he looked into the doorway of my room, obviously much annoyed. Then
he said, "Bill, there is some old damn bum down there from St. Louis, and
he wants to see you."
"Great heavens, I thought, this can't be still another one" Wearily
and even resentfully, I said to Tom, "Oh well, bring him up, bring him
up." Then a strange figure appeared in my bedroom door. He wore a
shapeless black hat that somehow reminded me of a cabbage leaf. His coat collar
was drawn around his neck, and he leaned heavily on a cane. He was plastered
with sleet. Thinking him to be just another drunk, I didn't even get off the
bed. Then he unbuttoned his coat and I saw that he was a clergyman.
A moment later I realized with great joy that he was the clergyman who had put
that wonderful plug for A.A. into The Queen's Work. My weariness and annoyance
instantly evaporated. We talked of many things, not always about serious matters
either. Then I began to be aware of one of the most remarkable pair of eyes I
have ever seen. And, as we talked on, the room increasingly filled with what
seemed to me to be the presence of God which flowed through my new friend. It
was one of the most extraordinary experiences that I have ever had. Such
was his rare ability to transmit grace. Nor was my experience at all unique.
Hundreds of AA's have reported having exactly this experience when in his
presence. This was the beginning of one of the deepest and most inspiring
friendships that I shall ever know.
This was the first meaningful contact that I have ever had with the clergymen of
the Catholic faith. (The 'Blue Book', Vol. 12, 1960)
A - Father Edward Dowling, a great Jesuit friend of ours, once said to
me, "Bill, it isn't what you people put into Alcoholics Anonymous that
makes it so good -- it's what you left out." (Transcribed from tape,
Manhatten Group, 1955)
Q - Can the Twelve Steps be compared to
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius?
A - In 1941, I visited St. Louis and Father Ed Dowling met me at the
field. This was a blistering day and he had come to bring me to the
(Jesuit) Sodality Headquarters. I was struck by the delightful informality. Of
course I had never been to such a place before. I had been raised in a small
Vermont village, Yankee style. Happily there was no bigotry in my grandfather
who raised me but neither was there much religious contact or understanding. So
here I was in some kind of a monastery. Even then, believe it or not, I still
toyed with the notion that Catholicism was somehow a superstition of the Irish!
Then Father Ed and his Jesuit partners commenced to ask me questions. They
wanted to know about the recently published A.A. book and especially about
AA's Twelve Steps. To my surprise they had supposed that I must have had a
Catholic education. They seemed doubly surprised when I informed them that
at the age of eleven I had quit the Congregational Sunday School because my
teacher had asked me to sign a temperance pledge. This had been the extent
of my religious education.
More questions were asked about AA's Twelve Steps. I explained how a few
years earlier some of us had been associated with the Oxford Groups; that we
had picked up from these good people the ideas of self-survey, confession,
restitution, helpfulness to others and prayer, ideas that we might have got
in many other quarters as well. After our withdrawal from the Oxford
Groups,
these principles and attitudes had been formed into a word-of-mouth program,
to which we had added a step of our own to the effect "that we were
powerless over alcohol." Our Twelve Steps were the result of my effort to
define more sharply and elaborate upon these word-of-mouth principles so that
the alcoholic readers would have a more specific program: that there could be no
escape from what we deemed to be the essential principles and attitudes. This
had been my sole idea in their composition. This enlarged version of our program
had been set down rather quickly -- perhaps in twenty or thirty minutes -- on a
night when I had been very badly out of sorts. Why the Steps were written down
in the order in which they appear today and just why they were worded as they
are, I have no idea.
Following this explanation of mine, my new Jesuit friends pointed to a chart
that hung on the wall. They explained that this was a comparison between the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous, that, in principle, this correspondence was amazingly exact. I
believe they also made the somewhat startling statement that spiritual
principles set forth in our Twelve Steps appear in the same order that they do
in the Ignatian Exercises.
In my abysmal ignorance, I actually inquired, "Please tell me -- who is
this fellow Ignatius?"
While of course the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous contain nothing new,
there seems no doubt that this singular and exact identification with the
Ignatian Exercises has done much to make the close and fruitful relation that we
now enjoy with the Church. (The 'Blue Book', Vol.12, 1960)
Q
- How do medicine and religion differ in their approach to the alcoholic?
A - They differ in one respect. When the doctor has shown the alcoholic
the
underlying difficulties and has prescribed a program of readjustment, he says to
him, "Now that you understand what is required for recovery, you should no
longer depend on me. You must depend on yourself. You go do it."
Clearly, then, the objective of the doctor is to make the patient
self-sufficient and largely, if not wholly, dependent upon himself.
Religion does not attempt this. It says that faith in self is not enough, even
for a non-alcoholic. The clergyman says that we shall have to find and depend
upon a Higher Power - God. He advises prayer and frankly recommends an attitude
of unwavering reliance upon Him who presides over all. By this means we discover
strength much beyond our own resources.
So, the main difference seems to add up to this: Medicine says, know yourself,
be strong and you will be able to face life. Religion says, know thyself, ask
God for power, and you will become truly free.
In Alcoholics Anonymous the new person may try either method. He sometimes
eliminates "the spiritual angle" from the Twelve Steps to recovery and
wholly relies upon honesty, tolerance and working with others. But it is
interesting to note that faith always comes to those who try this simple
approach with an open mind -- and in the meantime they stay sober.
If, however, the spiritual content of the Twelve Steps is actively denied, they
can seldom remain dry. That is our A.A. experience. We stress the spiritual
simply because thousands of us have found we can't do without it.
(N.Y. State 3. Med., Vol. 44, Aug. 15, 1944)
Q - What about the alcoholic who says
that he cannot possibly believe in God?
A - A great many of them come to A.A. and they say that they are trapped.
By
this they mean that we have convinced them that they are fatally ill, yet they
cannot accept a belief in God and His grace as a means of recovery.
Happily this does not prove to be an impossible dilemma at all. We simply
suggest that the newcomers take an easy stance and an open mind; that he
proceeds to practice those parts of the Twelve Steps that anyone's common sense
would readily recommend. He can certainly admit that he is an alcoholic; that he
ought to make a moral inventory; that he ought to discuss his defects with
another person; that he should make restitution for harms done; and that he can
be helpful to other alcoholics.
We emphasize the 'open mind,' that at least he should admit that there might be
a 'Higher Power.' He can certainly admit that he is not God, nor is mankind in
general. If he wishes he could place his own dependence upon his own A.A. group.
That group is certainly a "Higher Power," so far as recovery from
alcoholism is concerned. If these reasonable conditions are met, he then finds
himself released from the compulsion to drink; he discovers that his motivations
have been changed far out of proportion to anything that could have been
achieved by a simple association with us or by any practice of a little more
honesty, humility, tolerance, and helpfulness. Little by little he becomes aware
that a "Higher Power" is indeed at work. In a matter of months, or at
least in a year or two, he is talking freely about God as he understands Him. He
has received the gift of God's grace -- and he knows it. (N.C.C.A., Blue Book,
Vol.12, 1960)
Q
- Why do clergymen so often fail with alcoholics, when A.A. so often succeeds?
Is it possible that the grace of A.A. is superior to that of the Church?
A - No clergyman, because he does not happen to be a channel of grace to
alcoholics, should ever feel that his Church is lacking in grace. No real
question of grace is involved at all -- it is just a question of who can best
transmit God's abundance. It so happens that we who have suffered alcoholism,
we, who can identify so deeply with other sufferers, are the ones usually best
suited for this particular work. Certainly no clergyman ought to feel any
inferiority just because he himself is not an alcoholic.
(N.C.C.A., 'Blue Book,' Vol.12, 1960)
A
- I thought the answer to be very simple. The Church has the spirituality,
but in the case of drunks, it didn't have the communication to pave the way,
one alcoholic to the next, for the Grace to descend. So you have the
spirituality, of which we have borrowed, and we have the communication.
Therefore we are in no competition at all; we can do together that which we
cannot do in separation. (Transcribed from tape. G.S.C. 1960)
Q - What can ministers do to cooperate
with A.A.?
A - The approach to the alcoholic is everything. I think the preacher
could do well if he does as we do. First find out all you can about the case,
how the man reacts, whether he wants to get over his drinking or not. You see,
it is very difficult to make an impression on a man who still wants to drink. At
some point in their drinking career; most alcoholics get punished enough so that
they want to stop, but then it's far too late to do it alone.
Sometimes, if the alcoholic can be impressed with the fact that he is a sick
man, or a potentially sick man, then, in effect; you raise the bottom up to him
instead of allowing him to drop down those extra hard years to reach it. I
don't know of any substitute for sympathy and understanding, as much as the
outsider can have. No preaching, no moralizing, but the emphasis on the idea
that the alcoholic is a sick man.
In other words, the minister might first say to the alcoholic, "Well, all
my life I've misunderstood you people, I've taken you people to be immoral by
choice and perverse and weak, but now I realize that even if there had been such
factors, they really no longer count, now you're a sick man." You might win
over the patient by not placing yourself up on a hilltop and looking down on
him, but by getting down to some level of understanding that he gets, or
partially gets. Then if you can present this thing as a fatal and progressive
malady and you can present our group as a group of people who are not seeking to
do anything against his will -- we merely want to help if he wants to be helped
-- then sometimes you've laid the groundwork.
I think that clergymen can often do a great deal with the family. You see, we
alcoholics are prone to talk too much about ourselves without sufficiently
considering the collateral effects. For example, any family, wife and children,
who have had to live with an alcoholic 10 or 15 years, are bound to be rather
neurotic and distorted themselves. They just can't help it. After all when you
expect the old gent to come home on a shutter every night, it's wearing.
Children get a distorted point of view; so does the wife. Well, if they
constantly hear it emphasized that this fellow is a terrible sinner, that he's a
rotter, that he's in disgrace, and all that sort of thing, you're not improving
the condition of the family at all because, as they become persuaded of it, they
get highly intolerant of the alcoholic and that merely generates more
intolerance in him. Therefore, the gulf which must be bridged is widened, and
that is why moralizing pushes people, who might have something to offer, further
away from the alcoholic. You may say that it shouldn't be so, but it's one
of those things that is so. (Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June 1945.)
Q - What is AA's relationship with the
community?
A - Now that our methods and results are better known we are receiving
splendid cooperation everywhere from clergymen, doctors, employers, editors --
in fact, from whole communities. While there is still a well-understood
reluctance on the part of city and private hospitals to admit alcoholic
patients, we are pleased to report a great improvement in this direction. But we
are still very far, in most places, from having anything like adequate hospital
accommodations.
Over and above this traditional activity, we may give some counsel to those who
work upon various aspects of the total problem. It may be possible that our
experience fits us for a special task. Writing of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr.
Harry Emerson Fosdick once said: "Gothic Cathedral windows are not the sole
thing which can be seen from within. Alcoholism is another. All outside views
are clouded and unsure." Thus, with our inside view-one best seen by those
drinkers who have suffered from alcoholism -- we would help those working on
alcohol problems who have not had our first hand experience.
While we members of Alcoholics Anonymous are not scientists, our special insight
may help science; while we are of all religions and sometimes none, we can
assist clergymen; although not educators, we shall, perhaps, aid in clearing
away unsure views; not penologists, we do help in prison work; not a business or
organization, we nevertheless advise employers; not sociologists, we constantly
serve families, friends and communities; not prosecutors or judges, we try to
promote understanding and justice; emphatically not doctors, we do minister to
the sick. Taking no side on controversial questions, we may sometimes mediate
fruitless antagonism, which have so often blocked effective cooperation among
those who would solve the riddle of the alcoholic.
These are the activities and aspirations of thousands of the members of
Alcoholics Anonymous. While our organization as a whole has but one aim -- to
help the alcoholic who wishes to recover -- there are a few of us, indeed, who
as individuals do not wish to meet some of the broader responsibilities for
which we may be especially fitted. (Quart. J. Stud. Alc., Vol.6, Sept., 1945.)
A - Many an alcoholic is now sent to A.A. by his own psychiatrist.
Relieved of his drinking, he returns to the doctor a far easier subject.
Practically every alcoholic's wife has become, to a degree, his possessive
mother. Most alcoholic women, if they still have a husband, live with a baffled
father. This sometimes spells trouble aplenty. We AA's certainly ought to
know! So, gentlemen, here is a big problem right up your alley.
We of A.A. try to be aware that we may never touch but a segment of the total
alcohol problem. We try to remember that our growing success may prove to be a
heady wine; will you men and women of medicine be our partners; physicians
wielding well your invisible scalpels; workers all, in our common cause? We like
to think Alcoholics Anonymous a middle ground between medicine and religion, the
missing catalyst of a new synthesis. This to the end that millions who still
suffer may presently issue from their darkness into the light of day! (Amer. J.
Psychiat., Vol. 106, 1949)
A - Alcoholics Anonymous once stood in no-mans land between medicine and
religion. Religionists thought we were unorthodox; medicine thought we were
totally unscientific. The last decade brought a great change in this respect.
Clerics of every denomination declare that, while A.A. contains no shred of
dogma, it has an impeccable spiritual basis, quite acceptable to men of all
creeds, even the agnostic himself. You gentlemen of medicine also observe that
AA is psychiatrically sound so far as it goes and that A.A. refers all bodily
ills of its membership to your profession. Therefore, it is now clear that
Alcoholics Anonymous is a synthetic construct which draws upon three sources,
namely, medical science, religion and its own particular experience. Withdraw
one of these supports and its platform of stability falls to earth as a farmer's
three-legged milk stool with one leg chopped off. That you have invited me, an
A.A. member, to sit in your councils today is a happy token of that fact, for
which our society is deeply grateful.
What, then, has Alcoholics Anonymous contributed as third partner of the
recovery synthesis which promises so much to sufferers everywhere? Does
Alcoholics Anonymous contain any new principles? Strictly speaking it does not.
A.A. merely relates the alcoholic to the tested truths in a brand new way. He is
now able to accept them where he couldn't before. Now he has a concrete program
of action and the understanding support of a successful society of his fellows
in which he carries that out. In all probability, these are the long-missing
links in the recovery chain. (N.Y. State J. Med., Vol. 50, July 1950)
Q
- How did the connection between the Rockefeller's and Alcoholics
Anonymous develop?
A - After the meeting in Akron in the Fall of 1937, I went back to New
York as we say, all steamed up. I then made the dismal discovery that the very
rich who had the money that we needed had not the slightest interest in drunks,
they just didn't give a damn. I solicited and I solicited and I became very
worried. I even approached the Rockefeller Foundation, you know, I figured John
D. would have an interest in alcoholism, sociology, medicine and religion and
this should just fit the bill. But no, we didn't fit into any category with the
Rockefeller Foundation and they felt a little poor at the time what with the
depression.
One day I'm in my brother-in-law's office, he a doctor. I was moaning about the
stinginess of the rich, our need for money and how it looked like this thing
wasn't going to go anywhere. He said, "Have you tried the Rockefeller
Foundation." And I told him that I had. "Well," he said, "it
might help if you saw Mr. Rockefeller personally." I said, "I don't
want to seem facetious, but could you recommend me to the Prince of Wales, he
might help out too." And then came one of those strange turns of fate, if
you like, or providence, if you prefer and the slender thread was this, My
brother-in-law the doctor sat there scratching his head and he said, "When
I was a young fellow I used to go to school with a girl and I think the girl had
an uncle and it seemed to me that his name was Willard Richardson and it seems
he was a pretty old guy and he might be dead now but it does seem to me that he
had something to do with the Rockefeller charities. Supposing I call the
Rockefeller offices and see if he is around and if he would remember me. He
called this dear old gentleman on the phone, one of the greatest nonalcoholic
friends that A.A. ever had. Immediately he remembered my brother-in-law and
said, "Leonard where have you been all these years. I'd love to see
you."
Unlike me, my brother-in-law is a man of very few words and he rather tensely
explained that he had a relative who was trying to help alcoholics and was
making some headway and could we come over to Mr. Rockefeller's offices and talk
about it. "Why certainly," said the old man, and soon we were in the
presence of this wonderful Christian gentleman who was incredibly one of John
D's closest friends. When I saw that I thought that now we are really getting
close to the bankroll and the old man asked me a few shrewd questions and I told
the yarn so far as it had been spun. Then he said, "Mr. Wilson, would you
like to come to lunch with me early next week."
Oh boy, would I. Now we were really getting warm. So we had lunch and at the
lunch he said, "I know of three or four fellows who would be real
interested in this. I'll get a meeting together with them as they are friends or
are associated with Mr. Rockefeller and some were recently on a committee, which
recently recommended the discontinuance of the prohibition experiment.
So presently, several of us alcoholics, Smitty and a couple from Akron, some of
the boys from New York, found ourselves sitting in the company of these friends
of Mr. Rockefeller in Mr. Rockefeller's private boardroom. In fact, In fact I
was told that I was sitting in a chair that Mr. Rockefeller had sat in only a
half-hour
before. I thought, now we are really getting hot.
Well, we were nonplussed, a little lost for words, so each of us alkies just
started telling his story. Our new friends listened with rapt attention and then
with reluctance and modesty I brought up the subject of money and at once you
see that God has worked through many people to shape our destiny.
At once, Mr. Scott who had sat at the head of the table said, "I am deeply
impressed and moved by what has been said here but aren't you boys afraid that
if you had money you might create a professional class, aren't you afraid that
the management of plants, properties and hospitals would distract you from your
purely good will aims."
Well, we admitted, we had certainly thought of those difficulties. They had been
urged upon us by some of our own members, but we felt that the risk of not doing
these things was greater than the risk of doing at least some of them. "At
least," we said, "Mr. Scott, this society needs a book in which we can
record our experience so that the alcoholics at a distance can know what has
happened."
One of the gentlemen said that he would go out to Akron and we kind of steered
him that way as the mortgage on the Smith's house was bigger than mine and he
went out to Akron and came back with a glowing report which Mr. Richardson
placed in front of Mr. Rockefeller. This marked another turning point. After
hearing the story and reading the report on Akron Group No. 1, Mr. Rockefeller
expressed his deep interest and feelings about us. "But Dick," he
said, "if we give these fellows real money its going to spoil them and it
will change the whole complexion. Maybe you fellows think it needs money and if
you do go ahead and get them up some." He said, "I'll tell you what
I'll do, I'll put a small sum in the Riverside Church treasury and you can draw
it out and at least try to help these two men for a while but this thing should
be self sustaining. Money, Dick, will spoil it."
What a profound realization. God did not work through us but through Mr.
Rockefeller whose every interest we had actually claimed from that moment.
This man who had devoted his life to giving away money said "not this
time." And he never did give us real money, praise God. (Chicago, Ill.,
February 1951)
Q
- What were the conditions that led to the Twelve Traditions?
A - After the Jack Alexander article was published in 1941 it brought
down a deluge on our little New York office of thousands upon thousands of
inquiries from frantic alcoholics, their wives, their employers and at that
moment we passed out of our infancy and embarked upon our next phase -- the
phase of adolescence.
Well, adolescence by definition is a troubled time of young life and we were no
exception as groups began to take shape all over the land and these groups
immediately had trouble. We made the very sad discovery that just because you
sobered up a drunk you haven't made a saint out of him by a long shot. We found
that we could be bitterly resentful and we discovered that we had a much better
booze cure than we thought possible. A lot of us found that we could gripe like
thunder and still stay sober. We found that we were in all sorts of petty
struggles for leadership and prestige. A lot of us were very suspicious of the
Book enterprise in the hands of that fellow Wilson who has a truck backed up to
Mr. Rockefeller who has all the dough. And we began to have all sorts of
troubles.
Money had entered the picture -- it had to. We had to hire halls that didn't
come for nothing, the book cost something, we had dinners once in a while.
Yes, money came into it.
Then we found little by little that the groups had to have chores done. Who was
going to be the Chairman, would we hand pick him or elect him or what? You
know what those troubles were and they became so fearsome that we went
through another period of flying blind. The first period of flying blind you
remember had to do with whether the individual could be restored into one piece,
whether the forces of destruction in him could be contained and subdued. Now, we
were beginning to wonder in the early part of our adolescence, whether the
destructive forces in our groups would rend us apart and destroy the society.
Ah, those were fearsome days.
Our little New York office began to be deluged with mail from these groups,
growing up at distances and not in contact with our old centers and they were
having these troubles: There were people coming out of the insane asylums. Lord,
what would these lunatics do to us? There were prisoners, would we be
sandbagged? There were queer people. There were people, believe it or not whose
morals were bad and the respectable alcoholics of that time shook their heads
and said, "Surely these immoral people are going to render us
asunder." Little Red Riding Hood and the bad wolves began to abound. Ah,
yes, could our society last?
It kept growing, more groups, more members. Sometimes the groups divided
because the leaders were mad at each other and sometimes they divided
because they were just too big. But by a process of fission and subdivision this
movement grew and grew and grew. Ten years later it had spread into thirty
countries.
Out of that vast welter of experience in our adolescence it began to be evident
that we were going to take very different attitudes towards many things than our
fellow Americans. We were deeply convinced for example, that the survival of the
whole was far more important than the survival of any individual or group of
individuals. This was a thing far bigger than any one of us. We began to suspect
that once a mass of alcoholics were adhering even halfway to the Twelve Steps,
that God could speak in their Group conscience and up out of that Group
conscience could come a wisdom greater than any inspired leadership.
In the early days we all had membership rules. Where have they gone now?
We're not afraid anymore. We open our arms wide, we say we don't care who you
are, what your difficulties are You just need say, "I'm an alcoholic and
I'm interested." You declare yourself in. Our membership idea is put
exactly in reverse.
Years ago we thought this society should go into research and education, to do
everything for drunks all the time. We know better now. We have one sole object
in this society, we shoemakers are going to stick to our last and we will carry
that message to other alcoholics and leave these other matters to the more
competent. We will do one thing supremely well rather than many things badly.
And so our Tradition grew. Our Tradition is not American tradition. Take our
public relations policy. Why, in America everything runs on big names,
advertising people. We are a country devoted to heroism, it is a beloved
tradition and yet this movement in the wisdom of it's Group's soul, knew that
this was not for us. So our public relations policy is anonymity at the public
level. No advertising of people, principles before personalities. Anonymity has
a deep spiritual significance -- the greatest protection this movement has.
As our society has grown up it has developed its way of life, it's a way of
relating ourselves together, it's way of relating ourselves to these troublesome
questions of property, money and prestige and authority and the world at large.
The A.A. Tradition developed not because I dictated it but because you people,
your experience formed it and I merely set it on paper and tried beginning four
years ago (1946) to reflect it back to you. Such were our years of adolescence
and before we leave them I must say that a powerful impetus was given the
Traditions by the Gentleman who introduced me. (Earl Treat.)
One day he came down to Bedford Hills after the long form of the Traditions were
written out at some length because in the office we were forever having to
answer questions about Group troubles so the original Traditions were longer and
covered more possibilities of trouble. Earl looked at me rather quizzically and
he said "Bill, don't you get it through your thick head that these drunks
do not like to read. They will listen for a while but they will not read
anything. Now, you want to capsule these Traditions as simply as are the Twelve
Steps to Recovery."
So he and I stared the capsulizing process, which lasted a day or two and that
put the Traditions into their present form. Well, by this time we had a lot of
experience on these principles, which we began to think might bind us together
in unity for so long as God might need us. And at Cleveland (1950), seven
thousand of us did declare "Yes, these are the traditional principles upon
which we are willing to stand, upon which we can safely commit ourselves to the
future and so we emerged from adolescence.
Again, last year we took destiny by the hand. (Transcribed from tape.
Chicago, IL, February 1951).
Q
- What are the ideas embodied in the Twelve Traditions?
A - That, touching all matters affecting A.A. unity, our common welfare
should come first; that A.A. has no human authority -only God as He may speak in
our Group conscience; that our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not
govern; that any alcoholic may become an A.A. member if he says so -- we exclude
no one; that every A.A. Group may manage its own affairs as it likes, provided
surrounding groups are not harmed thereby; that we A.A.'s have but a single aim,
the carrying of our message to the alcoholic who still suffers; that in
consequence we can not finance, endorse or otherwise lend the name
"Alcoholics Anonymous" to any other enterprise, however worthy; that A
.A., as such, ought to remain poor, lest problems of property, management and
money divert us from our sole aim; that we ought to be self-supporting, gladly
paying our small expenses ourselves; that A.A. should forever remain
non-professional, ordinary 12th step work never to be paid for; that, as a
Fellowship, we should never be organized but may nevertheless create responsible
Service Boards or Committees to insure us
better propagation and sponsorship and that these agencies may engage full-time
workers for special tasks; that our public relations ought to proceed upon the
principle of attraction rather than promotion, it being better to let our
friends recommend us; that personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and
pictures out to be strictly maintained as our best protection against the
temptations of power or personal ambition; and finally, that anonymity before
the general public is the spiritual key to all our traditions, ever reminding us
to place principles before personalities, that we are actually to practice a
genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us;
that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us
all. (Tape - Twelve Traditions, Cleveland, July 1950)
A - We sometimes congratulate ourselves on the Traditions as though they were a
list of virtues singular to us. Actually, they are a codification of the lessons
of our past experience during the early days of A.A.
These Traditions are not fixed absolutely. There may be room for improvement.
However, they should not be lightly cast aside, since they bear on our unity,
survival and growth under Gods grace.
We are entering a new era of growth with vast forces tearing at the world.
The problems and difficulties of the future may be greater than those we have
already survived. Still, there is a love among us that passeth all understanding
and that will sustain us through all the trials that lie ahead, no matter how
formidable." (Transcribed from tape, GSC, 1968)
34?
Q
- Why the General Service Conference?
A - Alcoholics Anonymous, we think, will always need a world center --
some point of reference on the globe where our few but important universal
services can focus and then radiate to all who wish to be informed or helped.
Such a place will ever be needed to look after our over-all public relations,
answer inquiries, foster new Groups and distribute our standard books and
publications. We shall also want a place of advice and mediation touching
important questions of general policy or A.A. Tradition. We shall require, too,
a safe repository for the modest funds we shall use to carry out these simple,
but universal purposes.
Of course we must take care that our universal center of service never attempts
to discipline or govern. Conversely, we ought to protect our good servants
working there from unreasonable demands or political demands of any kind. No
personal power, no officials or resounding titles, no politics, no accumulation
of money or property, none but vital universal services to Alcoholics Anonymous
-- that is our ideal. To do without such a Center would be to invite confusion
and disunity; to install there a centralized authority would be to encourage
political strife and cleavage. Some little organization of our services,
securely bound by tradition, we shall surely need -- just enough, and of such a
character as to permanently forestall any more.
At the center of A.A. we now have the excellent body of custody and service.
Our Trustees have gradually come to symbolize the collective conscience of
AA, our general office acts in the manner of the heart which receives problems
through its veins and pumps out assistance through its myriad arteries, and The
Grapevine tries to record the true voice of Alcoholics Anonymous. Such is the
happy state of our central affairs that we surely must take pains to preserve
and protect, we trust, into a long and useful future.
Therefore, our headquarters problem of the future will, in all probability,
consist in guarding and preserving, in its main outlines, what we already have.
How then, shall we best keep intact our ideal of service; how shall we avoid
national or international politics; how can we best devise against any possible
breakdown of the present A.A. Service Headquarters and how shall we give each
A.A. in the world a continual assurance that all is well with it; that it
continues to perform its tasks effectively, so meriting his warm support, moral
and financial?
To these problems of tomorrow many are giving prayerful reflection. A.A. s are
commencing to say what, or who, is going to guarantee the operation of our
General Headquarters when the old-timers who inaugurated it have passed off the
scene, especially very early ones like Dr. Bob and Bill. Known so well to us
from the pioneering period of A.A., these early ones still occupy a unique
position. They command a wider confidence and still wield more personal
influence than anyone else could again, or for that matter, ever should. Having
helped set up our universal Service Center they asked the rest of us to have
confidence in it. And we do have that confidence, not that we much know the
present Trustees, but because we know Bob and Bill and the other oldsters, in
the long future, when these oldsters can no longer assure us, who is going to
take their place? Does it not seem clear that the A.A. movement and its Service
Center must soon be drawn closer together?
Though we know our General Office and our Grapevine fairly well, shouldn't we
somehow draw closer to our Trustees? Shouldn't we take steps to allay our
feelings of remoteness while the older ones are still around, and there is still
time to experiment? Such are the questions now being asked, and they are good
ones.
Perhaps the best suggestion for closing the gap between our Alcoholic
Foundation and the A.A. Groups is the idea of creating what we might call the
General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. (Proposal by Bill W.
and Dr. Bob to the Alcoholic Foundation, April 1947)
A - Let's face these facts (October 1950).
First. Dr. Bob and I are perishable, we can't last forever.
Second. The Trustees are almost unknown to the A.A. membership.
Third. In future years our Trustees couldn't possibly function without direct
guidance from A.A. itself. Somebody must advise them. Somebody, or something
must take the place of Dr. Bob and me.
Fourth. Alcoholics Anonymous is out of its infancy. Grown up, adult now,
it has full right and plain duty to take direct responsibility for its own
Headquarters.
Fifth. Clearly then, unless the Foundation is firmly anchored, through State and
Provincial representatives, to the movement it serves, a Headquarters breakdown
will someday be inevitable. When its old timers vanish, an isolated Foundation
couldn't survive one grave mistake or serious controversy. Any storm could blow
it down. Its revival wouldn't be simple. Possibly it could never be revived.
Still isolated, there would be no means of doing that. Like a fine car without
gasoline it would be helpless.
Sixth. Another serious flaw; as a whole, the A.A. movement has never faced a
grave crisis. But someday it will have to. Human affairs being what they are, we
can't expect to remain untouched by the hour of serious trouble. With direct
support unavailable, with no reliable cross-section of A.A. opinion, how could
our remote Trustees handle a hazardous emergency? This gaping "open
end" in our present setup could positively guarantee a debacle. Confidence
in the Foundation would be lost. A .A. 's everywhere would say: "By whose
authority do the Trustees speak for us? And how do they know they are right?
" With A.A.
Service life-lines tangled and severed, what then might happen to the million
who don't know. Thousands would continue to suffer or die because we had taken
no fore thought, because we had forgotten the virtue of prudence. This
must not come to pass.
That is why the Trustees, Dr. Bob and I now propose the General Service
Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. That is why we urgently need your direct
help. Our principle services must go on living. We think the General Service
Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous can be the agency to make that certain.
(Third Legacy Pamphlet, October 1950)
Q - What will the General Service
Conference do?
A - It will hear the annual reports of the Alcoholic Foundation, the
General Office, Grapevine, and Works Publishing and also the report of our
certified public accountant. The Conference will fully discuss these reports,
offering needed suggestions or resolutions respecting them.
The Trustees will present to the Conference all serious problems of policy or
finance confronting A.A. Headquarters, or A.A. as a whole. Following discussions
of these, the Conference will offer the Trustees appropriate advice and
resolutions.
Special attention will be given to all violations of our Tradition liable to
seriously affect A.A. as a whole. The Conference will, if it be deemed wise,
publish suitable resolutions deploring such deviations.
Because Conference activities will extend over a three-day weekend, Delegates
will be able to exchange views on every conceivable problem. They will become
closely acquainted with each other and with our Headquarters people. They will
visit the premises of the Foundation, Grapevine and General Office. This should
engender mutual confidence. Guesswork and rumor are to be replaced by first-hand
knowledge.
Before the conclusion of each year's Conference, a Committee will be named to
render all A.A. members a written report upon the condition of their
Headquarters and the state of A.A. generally.
On a Conference Delegates return home, his State or Provincial Committee will,
if practical, call a meeting of Group representatives and any others who wish to
hear his personal report. The Delegate will get these meetings reaction to his
report, and its suggestions respecting problems to be considered at future
Conference sessions. The Delegate ought to visit as many of his constituent
Groups as possible. They should have direct knowledge of their A.A.
Headquarters. (Third Legacy Pamphlet, October 1950).
A - Through the General Service Conference, A.A. as a whole is now
brought into the picture. The Conference is a "huge rotating
committee" in whose hands has been placed the responsibility for AA's
worldwide services -- assistance to the Groups, public relations, preparation
and distribution of literature, foreign propagation and other activities. (Bill
W. 1st GSC, 1951)
Q
- How will the proposed General Service Conference be financed?
A - How best to finance our Conference is a moot question. The General
Service Conference will function for the benefit of A.A. as a whole. Its entire
cost ought to be a charge against those "Group contributions" now sent
to New York for the support of the General Office. But this method is quite
impossible now. Group contributions are not meeting General Office expenses. Nor
can the "reserve" or the Foundations A.A. "book income"
carry the Conference.
We therefore propose that all A.A. Groups be asked for a gift of $5 each,
yearly, at Christmas. The Foundation Trustees would deposit these sums in a
special account marked "Conference Funds."
If even one-half of the A.A. Groups made this annual $5 gift to the Foundation
"for the benefit of the million who don't yet know," we estimate that
the resulting income would absorb the total yearly Conference overhead, plus all
Delegates' transportation to New York in excess of $100 each. (Third Legacy
Pamphlet, October 1950.)
Q - Why shouldn't the General Service
Conference be a government for
Alcoholics Anonymous?
A - Each A.A. Group is autonomous; our only "authority" is a
Higher Power.
Practically speaking, no A.A. Group will stand for a personal government anyhow;
we're built that way. Though the Conference will guide A.A. Headquarters,
it must never assume to govern A.A. as a whole. While it can publicly deplore
misuse of the A.A. name or departures from Tradition, it ought never attempt
punishment or legal restraint of non-conformists -- in A.A. or out. That is the
road to public controversy and internal disruption.
The Conference will give us an example and a guide, but not government. A
personal government is something, God willing, that Alcoholics Anonymous will
never have. We shall authorize servants to act for us, but not rulers.
(Third Legacy Pamphlet, October 1950.)
Q - Could you explain A.A's tradition
concerning other agencies in the field of alcoholism.
A - I remember very well when this committee started (January 1944) It
brought me in contact with our great friends at Yale, the courageous Dr.
Haggard, the incredible Dr. Jellinek or "Bunky" as we affectionately
know him and Seldon [Bacon] and all those dedicated people.
The question arose, could an AA member get into education or research or what
not? Then ensued a fresh and great controversy in AA which was not surprising
because you must remember that in this period we were like people on
Rickenbacker's raft. Who would dare ever rock us ever so little and precipitate
us back in the alcohol sea.
So, frankly, we were afraid and as usual we had the radicals and we had the
conservatives and we had moderates on this question of whether A.A. members
could go into other enterprises in this field. The conservatives said, "No,
let's keep it simple, let's mind our own business." The radicals said,
"let 's endorse anything that looks like it will do any good, let the A.A.
name be used to raise money and to do whatever it can for the whole field,"
and the growing body of moderates took the position, "let any A.A. member
who feels the call go into these related fields for if we are to do less it
would be a very antisocial outlook." So that is where the Tradition finally
sat and many were called and many were chosen since that day to go into these
related fields which has now got to be so large in their promise that we of
Alcoholics Anonymous are getting down to our right size and we are only now
realizing that we are only a small part of a great big picture. We are realizing
again, afresh that without our friends, not only could we not have existed in
the first place but we could not have grown. We are getting a fresh concept of
what our relations with the world and all of these related enterprises should
be. In other words, we are growing up. In fact last year at St. Louis we were
bold enough to say that we had come of age and that within Alcoholics Anonymous
the main outlines of the basis for recovery, of the basis for unity and of the
basis for service or function were already evident.
At St. Louis I made talks upon each of those subjects which largely concerned
themselves about what A.A. had done about these things but here we are in a much
wider field and I think that the sky is the limit. I think that I can say
without any reservation that what this Committee has done with the aid of it's
great friends who are now legion as anyone here can see. I think that this
Committee has been responsible for making more friends for Alcoholics Anonymous
and of doing a wider service in educating the world on the gravity of this
malady and what can be done about it than any other single agency.
I'm awfully partial and maybe I'm a little bias because here sits the dean of
all our ladies (Marty Mann), my close, dear friend. So speaking out of turn as a
founder, I want to convey to her in the presence of all of you the best I can
say of my great love and affection is thanks.
At the close of things in St. Louis, I remember that I likened A.A. to a
cathedral style edifice whose corners now rested on the earth. I remember saying
that we can see on its great floor the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and
there assembled 150,000 sufferers and their families. We have seen side walls go
up, buttressed with the A.A. Tradition and at St. Louis, when the elected
Conference took over from the Board of Trustees, the spire of service was put
into effect and its beacon light, the beacon light of A.A. shone there beckoning
to all the world.
I realized that as I sat here today that that was not a big enough concept, for
on the floor of the cathedral of the spirit there should always be written the
formula from whatever source for release from alcoholism, whether it be a drug,
whether it be the psychiatric art, whether it be the ministrations of this
Committee. In other words, we who deal with this problem are all in the same
boat, all standing upon the same floor. So let's bring to this floor the total
resources that can be brought to bear upon this problem and let us not think of
unity just in terms of A.A. Tradition but let us think of unity among all those
who work in the field as the kind of unity that befits brotherhood and
sisterhood and a kinship in the common suffering. Let us stand together in the
spirit of service. If we do these things, only then can we declare ourselves
really come of age. And only then, and I think that this is a time not far off.
I think we can say that the future, our future, the future of the Committee, of
A.A. and of the things that people of good will are trying to do in this field
will be completely assured. (Transcribed from tape. Address to The National
Committee for Education on Alcoholism. March 30, 1956).
Q - What do the Three Legacies of AA
represent?
A - The three legacies of AA - recovery, unity and service in a sense
represent three impossibilities, impossibilities that we know became possible,
and possibilities that have now borne this unbelievable fruit. Old Fitz Mayo,
one of the early AAs and I visited the Surgeon General of the United States in
the third year of this society and told him of our beginnings. He was a gentle
man, Dr. Lawrence Kolb and has since become a great friend of AA. He said,
"I wish you well. Even the sobriety of a few is almost a miracle. The
government knows that this is one of the greatest health problems but we have
considered the recovery of alcoholics so impossible that we have given up and
have instead concluded that
rehabilitation of narcotic addicts would be the easier lob to tackle."
Such was the devastating impossibility of our situation. Now, what has been
brought to bear upon this impossibility that it has become possible? First, the
grace of Him who presides over all of us. Next, the cruel lash of John
Barleycorn who said. "this you must do, or die." Next, the
intervention of God through friends, at first a few and now legion, who opened
to us, who in the early days were uncommitted, the whole field of human ideas,
morality and religion, from which we could choose.
These have been the wellsprings of the forces and ideas and emotions and spirit
which were first fused into our Twelve Steps for recovery. Some of us act well,
but no sooner had a few got sober than the old forces began to come into play in
us rather frail people. They were fearsome, the old forces, the drive for money,
acclaim, prestige.
Would these forces tear us apart? Besides, we came from every walk of life.
Early, we had begun to be a cross-section of all men and women, all differently
conditioned, all so different and yet happily so alike in our kinship of
suffering. Could we hold in unity? To those few who remain who lived in those
earlier times when the Traditions were being forged in the school of hard
experience on its thousands of anvils, we had our very, very dark moments.
It was sure recovery was in sight, but how could there be recovery for many?
Or how could recovery endure if we were to fall into controversy and so into
dissolution and decay?
Well, the spirit of the Twelve Steps which have brought us release from one of
the grimmest obsessions known -- obviously, this spirit and these principles of
retaining grace had to be the fundamentals of our unity. But in order to become
fundamental to our unity, these principles had to be spelled out as they applied
to the most prominent and the most grievous of our problems.
So, out of experience came the need to apply the spirit of our steps to our
lives of working and living together. These were the forces that generated the
Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But, we had to have more than cohesion. Even for survival, we had to carry the
message and we had to function. In fact, that had become evident in the Twelve
Steps themselves for the last one enjoins us to carry the message. But
just how would we carry this message? How would we communicate, we few, with
those myriad's who still don't know? And how would this communication be
handled? How could we do these things. how could we authorize these things in
such a way that in this new, hot focus of effort and ego that we would not again
be shattered by the forces that had once ruined our lives?
This was the problem of the Third Legacy. From the vital Twelfth Step call right
up through our society to its culmination today. And, again, many of us said:
"This can't be done. It's all very well for Bill and Bob and a few friends
to set up a Board of Trustees and to provide us with some literature, and look
after our public relations and do all of those chores for us that we can't do
for ourselves. This is fine, but we can't go any further than that. This is a
job for our elders, for our parents. In this direction only, can there be
simplicity and security.
And then came the day when it was seen that the parents were both fallible and
perishable and Dr. Bob's hour struck and we suddenly realized that this
ganglion, this vital nerve center of World Service, would lose its sensation the
day the communication between an increasingly unknown Board of Trustees and you
was broken. Fresh links would have to be forged. And at that time many of us
said: This is impossible, this is too hard. Even in transacting the simplest
business, providing the simplest of services, raising the minimum amounts of
money, these excitements to us, in this society so bent on survival have been
almost too much locally. Look at our club brawls. My God, if we have elections
countrywide and Delegates come down here and look at the complexity - thousands
of group representatives, hundreds of committeemen, scores of Delegates - my
God, when these descend on our parents, the Trustees, what is going to happen
then? It won't be simplicity: it can't be. Our experience has spelled it out.
But there was the imperative, the must, and why was there an imperative? Because
we had better have some confusion, some politicking, than to have utter collapse
of this center.
That was the alternative and that was the uncertain and tenuous ground on which
the General Service Conference was called into being.
I venture, in the minds of many and sometimes in mine that the Conference could
be symbolized by a great prayer and a faint hope. This was the state of affairs
in 1945 to 1950. Then came the day when some of us went up to Boston to watch an
assembly elect by two-thirds vote or lot a Delegate. Prior to assembly, I
consulted all the local politicos and those very wise Irishmen in Boston said,
"We're going to make your prediction Bill, you know us temperamentally, but
we're going to say that this thing is going to work." That was the biggest
piece of news and one of the mightiest assurances that I had up to this time
that there could be any survival for these services.
Well, work it has and we have survived another impossibility. Not only have we
survived the impossibility, we have so far transcended it that there can be no
return in future years to the old uncertainties, come what perils there may.
Now, as we have seen in this quick review, the spirit of the Twelve Steps was
applied in specific terms to our problems of living and working together. This
developed the Twelve Traditions. In turn, the Twelve Traditions were applied to
this problem of functioning at world levels in harmony and unity. (10th GSC,
April 1960)
Q
- How many drug addicts are there in A.A. and in the organization similar
to A.A. which operates among drug addicts?
A - We have quite a number of drug addicts who were once alcoholics. So
far,
I don't know of any case of pure drug addiction that we have been able to
approach. In other words, we can no more approach a simon-pure addict than
the outsider can usually approach us. We are in exactly the same position with
then that the doctor and the clergyman have been in respect to the alcoholic. We
just don't talk that fellow's language. He always looks at us and says,
"Well, those alcoholics are the scum of the earth and besides, what do they
know about addiction?"
Now, however, since we have a good number of addicts who were once alcoholics,
those addicts in their turn are making an effort, here and there, to transfer
the thing over to the straight addict. In that way we hope the bridge is going
to be crossed. There may be a case here and there that has been helped. But in
all, I suppose, there may be about 50 cases of real morphine addiction in former
alcoholics who have been helped by A.A. Of course we have a great many barbital
users, but we don't consider those people particularly difficult if they really
want to do something about it; and particularly if it's associated with liquor.
They seem to get out of it after a while. But where you have morphine, or some
of those other derivatives, then it gets very tough. Then you have to have a
"dope" talk to a "dope," and I hope that we can someday find
a bridge to the addict. (Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June 1945)
Q
- If an alcoholic comes to an A.A. meeting under the influence of alcohol, how
do you treat him or handle him during the meeting?
A - Groups will usually rum amuck on that sort of question. At first we
are likely to say that we are going to be supermen and save every drunk in town.
The fact is that a great many of them just don't want to stop. They come, but
they interfere very greatly with the meeting. Then, being still rather
intolerant, the group will swing way over in the other direction and say,
"No drunks around these meetings." We get forcible and put them out of
the meeting, saying, "You're welcome here if your sober." But the
general rule in most places is that if a person comes for the first or second
time and can sit quietly in the meeting, without creating an uproar, nobody
bothers him. On the other hand, if he's a chronic "slipper" and
interferes with the meetings, we lead him out gently, or maybe not so gently, on
the theory that one man cannot be permitted to hold up the recovery of others.
The theory is "the greatest good for the greatest number." (Yale
Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June 1945)
Q
- What purposes do the Twelve Concepts for World Services serve?
A -The Concepts to be discussed in the following pages are primarily an
interpretation of AA's world service structure. They spell out the traditional
practices and the Conference charter principles that relate the component parts
of our world structure into a working whole. Our Third Legacy manual is largely
a document of procedure. Up to now the Manual tells us how to operate our
service structure. But there is considerable lack of detailed information, which
would tell us why the structure has developed as it has and why its working
parts are related together in the fashion that our Conference and General
Service Board charters provide.
These Twelve Concepts therefore represent an attempt to put on paper the why of
our service structure in such a fashion that the highly valuable experience of
the past and the conclusions that we have drawn from it cannot be lost.
These Concepts are no attempt to freeze our operation against needed change.
They only describe the present situation, the forces and principles that have
molded it. It is to be remembered that in most respects the Conference charter
can be readily amended. This interpretation of the past and present can,
however, have a high value for the future. Every oncoming generation of service
workers will be eager to change and improve our structure and operations. This
is good. No doubt change will be needed. Perhaps unforeseen flaws will
emerge. These will have to be remedied. But along with this very constructive
outlook, there will be bound to be still another, a destructive one. We shall
always be tempted to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We shall suffer the
illusion that change, any plausible change, will necessarily represent progress.
When so animated, we may carelessly cast aside the hard won lessons of early
experience and so fall back into many of the great errors of the past.
Hence, a prime purpose of these Twelve Concepts is to hold the experience and
lessons of the early days constantly before us. This should reduce the chance of
hasty and unnecessary change. And if alterations are made that happen to work
out badly, then it is hoped that these Twelve Concepts will make a point of safe
return. (GSC, 1960)
Q
- What purpose does the right of appeal serve?
A - There came to this country some hundred years ago a French Baron
whose
family and himself had been wracked by the French revolution, De Toqueville, and
he was a worshipful admirer of democracy. And in those day's democracy seemed to
be mostly expressed in people's minds by votes of simple majorities. And he was
a worshipful admirer of the spirit of democracy as expressed by the power of a
majority to govern. But, said de Toqueville, a majority can be ignorant, it can
be brutal, it can be tyrannous - and we have seen it. Therefore, unless you most
carefully protect a minority, large or small, make sure that minority opinions
are voiced, make sure that minorities have unusual rights, you're democracy is
never going to work and its spirit will die. This was de Toqueville's prediction
and, considering today's times, is it strange that he is not widely read now?
So that is why in this Conference we try to get a unanimous consent while we
can; this is why we say the Conference can mandate the Board of Trustees on a
two - thirds vote. But we have said more here. We have said that any Delegate,
any Trustee, any staff member, any service director - any board, committee or
whatever - that wherever there is a minority, it shall always be the right of
this minority to file a minority report so that their views are held up clearly.
And if in the opinion of any such minority, even a minority of one, if the
majority is about to hastily or angrily do something which could be to the
detriment of Alcoholics Anonymous, the serious detriment, it is not only their
right to file a minority appeal, it is their duty.
So, like de Toqueville, neither you nor I want either the tyranny or the
majority, nor the tyranny of the small minority. And steps have been taken here
to balance up these relations. (GSC, 1960)
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