The Tri-State RoundUp in Loughlin, NV

Thank you, Jackie. First of all, I want to thank all the committee that put this together. I realize that these things take a tremendous amount of work and my personal thanks and I feel like I share your thanks also with those people. Let's hear for the committee, huh?

I put on one of these things for the West TX assembly once no one was done. I thought it's going to be a broken man.

I'm so glad to see so many newcomers and young people here at this conference. Some of you I've got to talk to. Many of you have been kind enough to come up and speak to my wife and me and, and we really appreciate that. It makes us feel right at home where you've even given us beautiful weather.

We live in a little town called Nokona, Texas, and I can tell by the look on your face, it's not a household word.

People say, what's it near? It's not near anything.

It's 29192 people. It's always been 29192.

Whenever a new child's born, somebody leaves town.

And you know, folks, we've had this tremendous range, perhaps that you've read about them or seen them on TV. And when they when the sun finally came out and the water subsided in our little town, we found out that it had done over $20,000 worth of improvements.

I know we're going to have a good time this afternoon. You know, these are joyous programs. My name is Bob Smith, and I'm an enthusiastic Alamak.

There's four things that I think I must do to be an al Anon. I think I need to work the steps, I think I need to abide by the traditions. I think I need to attend meetings regularly, and I think I need to have a sponsor. And I do these four things.

I I have a sponsor that's one of those conference approved Al Anon

and my sponsor goaded me into service work. I've been the GR and the Dr. and I put in three years as treasurer, the West TX Assembly. And a few years ago, I got a letter from the Home Office of Al Anon in New York City asking me if I would submit my name to be a candidate for Trustee at Large Alimon.

And I prayed about that, and I seem to have the all the educational requirements that they were seeking. So I sent in my letter and said I'd be glad to be considered as a trustee. And guess what, folks? I didn't get it.

Well, of course I was hurt,

Wounded.

But what I want to tell you is that my program came to my rescue is it will in all facets of your life if you let it. And I realized that this was the way it's supposed to be, that whoever took that job was infinitely better qualified than I is doing a much better job than I was capable of doing. And I released it. It works. It just works.

I've I've been in an al Anon little over 11 years now. I came in here as a well. I owe it all to my wife, Betty.

Betty drank my way into the organization.

I'm ready, folks. I'm truly grateful for that because it is showing me a way of living that I just wasn't smart enough to figure out myself.

That's the way it was,

although I've only been out and on a little over 11 years now. I'm somewhat of an anachronism in that I'm the only person still living that was present when the two cofounders of alcoholic Synonymous met for the first time at the home of Henrietta Sibling in Akron, OH on Mother's Day in 1935. And my father is Doctor Bob and my mother's aunt.

And I rolled out with my father and mother on that day. You see, my father had come home to on the Saturday before Mother's Day with a potted plant. Set it down. He was potted.

He went on stair and run on upstairs and went to bed as he was his custom. And Henrietta sidewalk was a friend of my mother's and she called and said, Anne, there's a man out here that thinks he can help Bob bring him right on out.

Well, my mother had to explain to Henrietta that Bob was in no shape to see anybody.

Being good al Anon material, she'd get him out there the next day.

Only had a terrible hangover and finally he said, OK, 15 minutes of this bird is all I want.

But folks, when they got there, he and Bill went off in a room by themselves and it wasn't 15 minutes. They stayed several hours. And as a result of that meeting and at my mother's invitation, Bill came to live at our home there in Akron, OH for all that summer three month period of time.

And this is the time and the place that Alcoholics Anonymous work first was first started. And I would like to take some of the time that you've allocated to me to tell you about the beginning of these movements.

I think that they offer a hope

and I think that they have been guided by a higher power, a Heavenly Father, to keep the thing from making terrible mistakes. I think little nudging miracles have kept it growing to what it is today. Now it started in the middle of the last Great Depression in Akron was the one industry town of rubber factories were all there. Goodyear, Goodrich, General, Firestone, Cyber League, Miller and a bunch of others.

People stop buying automobiles, they stop needing tires. And that town just fell flat on its base economically. They were strong men on the street corner selling apples for five cents apiece. There was repo cards just tier after tier stored in the downtown garages. That's how tough the times were there. But maybe God provided that providentially because people had a lot of time on their hands and they could be with each other and

and I think that was so essential when this little movement was first starting.

We lived in a very modest frame home there in Akron and would have lost that have had been for the mortgage moratorium declared by President Roosevelt 1933,

whereby people like us who could no longer make the mortgage payments were allowed to stay in the home and not be thrown out in the street. That's how tough it was, because alcoholism and the times had reduced us to a state of absolute poverty.

There was times when there was nothing to eat in that house except bread and milk, sometimes nothing but potato soup. We didn't starve, but it was a mere thing, so

it was a really unlikely start. Well, Bill moved in. And I'd like to describe my father to you. I think you'd love the man. He was a tall, thin Vermonter. He had icy blue eyes.

He was a graduate of Dartmouth, one of the Ivy League colleges in the East, and the Drinkers Ivy League College.

And he had worked in industry a couple of years and then had come back to St. Johnsbury, Vt, his home, and prevailed upon his father, who was a probate judge up there to allow him to go to medical school. And he came out to Chicago and barely managed to get graduate from medical school because his alcoholism like alcohol and it is, is progressive

and somehow managed to obtain a coveted internship there at City Hospital in Akron. It was coveted because they had some new equipment there, moved out to Akron and married my mother after a whirlwind courtship of only 17 years.

Doctor Bob thought things over very carefully.

Doctor Bob had a brilliant mind, a great sense of humor. He was a man's man. He used to, as a young man, used to like to go out in the woods in Maine and Vermont and sustain himself off the land. He liked that sort of thing. Women felt comfortable around him because he was always courteous

and he so obviously loved my mother that it that they felt at home with him. He loved the slang of the day and I'm not talking about the nasty four letter words, but just the words that the young people like to use. Even though he had a marvelous vocabulary, he loved that kind of words. So anybody could talk to Doctor Bob. Doctor Bob had been a General practitioner there in Akron for a number of years. And then he decided he would go back to Rochester, MN and study under the Mayo Brothers and Mayo Clinic, become a surgeon,

did nothing but surgery for the balance of his professional career. Well, Doctor Bob, like a lot of people I've noticed that drink had tattoos

and of course they wore those short sleeve surgical gowns. And one of Doctor Bobby was a dragon and it started at his shoulder and it went around and around and came clear out to his wrist and it was blue, was a red fire.

And I said, dad, how in the world did you get that? And he said, boy, that was a dandy.

He had a beautiful sense of humor.

When I brought Betty home to be my prospective bride back in the 40s, he looked her over and as you see, Betty's tall and thin. He got me aside and said she's built for speed and lighthouse keeping

and I'd like to tell you his section hygiene lecture to me as a teenager.

He got me up in the bathroom one day up on the 2nd floor and closed the door and I thought hot dog, I'm going to find out all about it now.

We sat down and he said to me, he said fly spread disease, keep yours button.

Oh my God,

I want to tell you some of today about my mother Ann, who was so vital and so important to this early program.

Mother was didn't drink. She was a graduate of Wellesley, wanted to find woman's colleges in the East and went there on a scholarship. She was no dummy. Her great uncle was the president of Santa Fe Railroad and took a liking to her as a young lady. And in those days, the president had their own private railroad cars and they could tie onto any

train and go wherever railroads went. And he used to take her with him and she got to know the gentle, nice part of life. She was had led a very protected life. She was a school teacher. She was very easily shocked until a A

bill Bill set himself. And Smith is the mother of a A. And I truly believe that because there was times when they were so discouraged

that perhaps they might not have gone on and perhaps none of us would be here. But she never lost faith that somehow this thing would work, that her husband would stay sober.

Well, when Bill moved in, you know, Bill was also a tall, thin Vermonter. And, you know, like Bill, too, those of you who didn't get to know him. But he was the exact opposite of Doctor Bob. Bill was garrulous. Bill loved to talk. Bill was a promoter. Bill was a visionary. Bill Wilson could see further up the road than any human I've ever known.

Bill's mood swung. He was either high as a Georgia pine or low as a snake. Yeah,

he's never seemed to level out. My father was was the level one, and they fit together perfectly. And I think maybe God arranged that too. Because you know, folks, if any two of us are exactly alike, one of us is unnecessary.

These two guys never had an argument. They seemed to fit together perfectly

and I think that was necessary to, you know, I've heard this said. Perhaps you have to that if A A been left up to Doctor Bob Smith, it would still be in in Ohio.

And if A had been left up to Bill Wilson, either sold it to a franchise.

You know, folks, we owe a tremendous debt to an organization called the Oxford Group. A bill that belonged to it for six months in New York and my father and mother for 2 1/2 years there in Akron and didn't seem to have anything to do with Oxford, England. It was a started out by a Lutheran minister by the name of Buckman from Pennsylvania. But the basic idea of the Oxford Group was back to the simple spiritualism,

and they had some tenants that fit right into our program. We took them and we used them. They had

4 absolutes, absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity of thought, absolute love. Those things fit in. They also had a form of fifth step. I used to go to some of those Oxford Group meetings with my parents

and I've often wondered

fly I went. But I did see I was a teenager when this thing started,

and I guess I probably went because I was wanted to get out of the doghouse with my parents.

You can't tell by looking at me, but I was not a constant source of joy to my parents.

But they had a form of fifth step also, and they used to take a new fellow upstairs in one of the bedrooms and bore in on him, four or five of them, till he fessed up. What he's problem was, you know, and they must have worked him over pretty good. I can still remember the guy coming down. He's pretty white faced

and shaking. But you see that was a form of open confession. And of course that would not be satisfactory with people of the Catholic faith. And there are some Catholics who drink. I don't know where you know that. Or

also the Oxford group catered to the upper middle class.

And believe you me folks, the early drunks were not upper middle class. The Oxford Group wanted publicity and the Alcoholics had already had all the published do they wanted.

So those things led to the fact that finally the the Alcoholics outnumbered the Oxford groupers and they had to separate. They had to break away. But we owe those people a tremendous debt of gratitude and it was a a difficult separation to make, but one that had to be done.

Film Doctor Bob only had two things going for him that I know of.

They had an open spiritual mind and they had their desire for service. So the first thing they set out to find is another alcoholic and they found a young guy by the name of Eddie R who'd just been thrown out in the street for non payment of rent along with these cute little blonde wife and two kids.

So they decided that to move the whole shebang into our home,

lock Eddie upstairs in the bedroom where he'd be available as they got this knowledge.

You got to remember folks, nothings written. They're just staying a page ahead of Eddie.

But Eddie was an agile guy and we had downspouts, and Eddie would open the second story windows, slide down the downspouts and escape. And they'd have to postpone Eddie's treatment to recapture him

one time. Eddie goes as far as Cleveland,

Ohio, 35 miles away. Call them up on the phone, collect to let them know that he was going to commit suicide,

but would give them time to drive up and witness the event.

Can you imagine a more improbable start of anything? Well, they brought Eddie back. And when Eddie sobered up, he had a few little things that hadn't shown up immediately, and he began beating up on this little blonde wife. Then he began chasing my mother around the house with a butcher knife. So we held a group conscience meeting

and it was decided the only thing to do with Eddie was for his little life to take him back to Ann Arbor, MI, recommit him in a mental institution. And this was done.

And of course Bill and Doctor and Bob were crestfallen. Here's their first attempt to sober up another alcoholic together. Total failure.

But I want to tell you folks something. And my father's mural in 1950, fifteen years later, a man walked up to me and he said, do you know me? And I said, yeah, I know you. You're ready. And he said, that's right. And he said, I'm a member of the Youngstown, OH a A group. And I've been sober one year,

and I tell you this because you never know the result of that 12 step call.

You'd never know. We're only called on, I think to make the call. I think the desire of the person that we call on and our Heavenly Father will take care of the of the rest. But we are required to make that. And sometimes that's difficult. It's happened to me and I assume it's happened to you. You make that call and

it's pretty obvious that the person you call on isn't even listening.

And they don't. And it's obvious that they wished you weren't there.

And pretty soon, it's pretty obvious that you wished you were there.

But when that happens, remember Eddie. Remember Eddie? You just don't know how long it takes.

Maybe something you said will be retained by that person.

You know, everybody was terribly broken. Hospital beds were very expensive then.

Double room was $16.00 a day. I think they're up some now,

but it didn't make any difference. Nobody had the 16 bucks,

So what they decided to do was treat them in our home. Now, Doctor Bob's the only medical man associated with his fledgling movement at the time. So he'd take the fella upstairs in one of the bedrooms, either my sisters or mine, and say now okay, now I'm going to give you a shot of whiskey, but I want you to take this little bit of medicine 1st. And it was per aldehyde. Yeah, some of you smelled per aldehyde. I can see a man nodding his head, terribly pungent

sedative. And so when Susie and I opened the door coming home from school, if we spelled for Ali, we knew we'd lost her bed.

But he knocked him out from 24 to 36 hours, gave him a tremendous joke.

And then when they came to why, then he and Bill took him downstairs and they started on the diet. Diet, you know, to get the the nerve settled and the strength back and the mind cleared up. And this is the diet. Canned tomatoes,

yes. Sauerkraut. Yeah, Bill had an ulcer and he thought sauerkraut cured everything.

And Cairo syrup.

I think you all have to agree the early Alcoholics were a Hardy group.

The early Alcoholics were all

low bottom. They were all men.

Or just what kind of like this group I see right here in front of me.

There was one lady that came along fairly early in the program of AMA Elsie, but they caught Elsie doing little 13 step work on Doctor Bobby, examining table with one of the early AAS by the name of Mitch.

And of course, the wives and sweethearts all went up in smoke and they decided that perhaps they better contain their efforts to amend for the time being.

I think Elsie sent you gals calls back two years all by herself. But thank God you're here. Thank God you're here.

This, you know, this thing was just a very trickle, very slow growth, very slow growth until the media got hold of it. You know, first an article in Cleveland playing the other, then Jack Alexander's article. And then as we saw it, the the word got out that there was a doctor in Akron, OH could, quote, fix drunks.

A man that came in on the bus on the train dropped off by loving relatives.

Dropped off by relatives who weren't so loving.

But again, I think our Heavenly Father provided the right person at the right time. The Sister Ignatius. Sister Ignatia was the admitting nurse in a Catholic hospital, and she and Doctor Bob prevailed upon Father Hops, who was the head honcho of that hospital, Saint Thomas, to allow them to start a little alcoholic ward. And it was a flower room. I think some of you already know this is just a cop 7 cots.

But anyway, for the first time the alcoholic could be admitted with a disease of alcoholism, not under some guys false admittance like gastroenteritis. It can actually be admitted with a disease of alcoholism. And you know folks, that ward is still in that hospital. It's not the flower room. It take occupies the whole fifth floor of the hospital as a private entrance to it. It's been in continuous operation ever since that time.

My mother, I like to talk to this lady about this lady to you. You know, she was the one when they were taking these guys in. She made the beds, she cooked the food, she cleaned up the messes, she answered the telephone and she did endured the snubs because this program, these programs were not at an instant success.

It was thought it was a cult.

A bunch of nuts.

A bunch of overzealous, zealous zealots.

And we were taking these people into our home and we weren't very popular. You know, if you think that won't happen, just start a halfway house in your home. See how the neighbors react.

The Presbyterian minister that we bond to his church came down and personally kicked us out of the church. I never heard of anyone getting kicked out of the Presbyterian Church, but we were.

So you see, it wasn't an an an instant success, but she endured all that. And I have a letter here. She was the one that seemed to realize that it was a was a family disease right from the word go. And I want to excerpt this letter for you people. This was a letter written to Bill Wilson by Henrietta Dodson. Now don't confuse her with Henrietta Cybering. Henrietta Dodson is the wife of the man that's considered to be the first successful,

the Southern attorney in the stories and

I'll read this to you. On Friday, June 28, 1935, I met Ann Smith. I met Doctor Bob on Thursday morning in the hospital. On Thursday evening when I went to the hospital to see my husband, Doctor Bob was there and he said the little woman would like you to come over to the house. I told him I could not go that night but would go the next night. On Friday night, when I went to the house on Ardmore Ave., I met the most thoughtful, understanding person I've ever known.

After talking with her for a while I addressed her as Missus Smith and she said And to you my dear

she wanted to remove all the barriers. I skip a little bit. Bill Wilson was there at this time and I skip a little more and said Anne told me to surrender myself to God and and ask him if he had a plan for me to reveal it to me and taught me to have a quiet time in the morning that I might feel near to God and receive strength for the day. She taught me to surrender my husband to God, not to try and tell him how to stay sober as I've tried that and failed

and taught me to love everyone. She said ask yourself what is wrong with me today if I don't love you. She said the love of God is trying here. It must flow from God through me, through you and back to God. She taught me that I should never criticize the remarks of the person leading the meeting as we do not know God's plan. Maybe what that person says will meet the need of someone in the group.

Early part of 1936 and organized a woman's group for wives of Alcoholics, whereby in her loving way she tried to teach us patience, love and unselfishness and made it very plain to me from the beginning that she wanted no credit for herself, it was God. All she wanted was to keep herself so that she could know and follow God's plan. When I met and talked with this intelligent, deeply spiritual woman, I was completely sold

on a a Henrietta Dodge.

So you see, it was a family affair right from the beginning. And of course, the Lois, while Bill was there, Lois caught the train and came out to see visit with us and see, I guess if we pass muster. And that started a beautiful friendship there. And Lois could only stay a little while because she had to get back to New York City.

Lois, you got to remember totally when I had a job.

But when Lois decided to formalize our alumni program, their beloved Lois in 51, just prior to that, she sent out letters to all the AA groups around the country asking if there would be any interest in this. And you know what she found out? She found out that 67 groups around the country had already figured it out for themselves that it was a family disease

and they had their own little thing going and 40 of those groups immediately came into to Alamon. So there were a lot of thinking people around the country who realized that that it not only affected the alcoholic, but it affected those who love the alcoholic and are around them.

Betty and I attended the first International 1950. My father was terminally ill. He was a dying man.

And I want to tell you about this guy. You see, he only stayed alive and sober 15 years. He was older than Bill and the last five years he was terminally ill. He was dying and he knew it. But in the length of time that he was able to and was active, this man treated

a A and medically over 5000 Alcoholics without charge. And I think that I like to think of Doctor Bob as being Mr. 12 Step and I've run it.

But anyway, he was terribly ill. And after this first International and this is the one where the traditions were adopted. And I want to tell you a little bit about that. You know, Bill has dumped the countries trying to get the traditions adopted in a enrollment in 46. But groups were then like they are now. They said, Bill,

you go back and run that New York, we'll do this like we want to.

You know, they have changed. So it wasn't until he and Doctor Bob presented it to these First International that they adopted the 12th traditions. And thank God for that. The longer I'm in this organization, the more I realize the importance of those traditions. They're the glue that holds us together. They're the things that keep us from making mistakes that could have just blown it wide open.

Betty and I took my father, drove him back to Vermont for the last time,

and we shared some beautiful, poignant memories with that man sitting on the edge of the bed at night and riding along in the automobile, things that we just wouldn't take for. And we drove him back to Akron. And I had a fine job out of Dallas at the time, so I had to get back to work. And I never saw my father alive again. But I cherish the memory that we had then.

Betty and I attended the second one in 1955 in Saint Louis. Bill invited us down there

and we got to hear the, the spiritual people who had been so helpful to our programs, you know, that weren't necessarily involved in alcohol. You like Doctor Sam Shoemaker and Father Ed Dowling and they, they recorded everything these two men said. And it's in the chapter Religion looks at a a in the book a, a comes of age. If any of you are interested. It's beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Betty and I did not attend another one until

New Orleans in 1980, and I met some of you people that are here today at that convention. You see, we were out working on our case history.

A A was getting along great without us and we thought we were getting along great without it. Occasionally someone would find out that Doctor Bob had a son and I wasn't really advertising it because we like to party and drink, you know, do the things that young people, a lot of us did. And so we'd go to a meeting and, and we'd enjoy it and we'd get home and we'd say

good for them. They needed that.

Now, Betty put her father in a drying out place in Denver in 1944. And he and a fellow from California here, Bobby, who's still alive, started Alcoholics Anonymous in New Mexico in the 40s, in the early 40s. So, you know, if there was ever two people

that knew about alcoholism,

foreknowledge availeth absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's a shame to admit we are that stupid, but we got to do it. It's an honest program. It availed us absolutely nothing.

I want to answer a question that I get. I ask pretty often. What's it like being raised in alcoholic home? The first seven, Yeah. First 17 years of my life, I was raised in the alcoholic home. How many of you were with me? Would you raise your hand?

There's a bunch of us.

Well, you know, we learned to handle it in our own way. I was a runner. All you had to do is come by and haunt the horn and I lift. And I didn't come back until I thought I could just barely get in without being in serious trouble. That was my way of handling it. I resented the poverty. I used to think when I was a kid in high school, if I could just have 1/4 to have a milkshake with the other kids, wouldn't it be great? But that's how close we were. It just couldn't be done, and I resented that.

But it isn't until I got into the Al Anon program that I realized that many of us reach adulthood with some unresolved scars

and some unresolved pain. Sure, sure we do. But our program teaches us that's a plus because we know that we've had some problems and we know that the solutions there

now, I'm begging you, don't get bogged down in the problem. Don't become part of the problems. Just we know what the solutions are. And I want to say this to you personally, I do not intend to remain forever frozen in the role of an injured adolescent.

So I have been, I've been privileged to see the despair

and mother's home and I got to see recovery. And believe you me, it was beautiful. You know, I love to see these guys come in the house with the blank eyes, you know, and sick. And then pretty soon you begin to see a little twinkle and then here comes a a viable live human being. It's wonderful to see recovery. Well, Betty and I went merrily our way and Despair entered our home again,

our own home. And

we we didn't seem to know what quite what to do. Well, Betty, I think was the one that finally resolved it. The young man called her up and said we're starting a group here in Nocona for people to have a problem like you and me, where you come. And she said, I wonder how he knew

big secret, those two. But anyway, she Betty went on to a A

and I got to see the change starting to make in this way. She quit cold Turkey, just hanging on by her fingernails with not much help from me. I unintentionally obstructed her really, because I was so untrained. I I just didn't understand it, you know, like she started buying the groceries again and I got a resentment.

Yeah. And I hate to buy groceries,

but she took off and she just took off running with it. And the change was what attracted me.

So someone said to me, well, why don't you join Al Anon?

Then I thought to myself,

why not? I don't mind joining the auxiliary.

And

so I got my car and I drove over to Gainesville, TX, 40 miles away, and I showed up at my first Alamon meeting

and I walk in there.

Noble

the Rock didn't and hold in the family together.

Bloody but unbowed.

Just enough knowledge about alcoholism to be absolutely dangerous

and I look around and I'm the only man.

Well, I began getting mixed emotions about alimony immediately and

I think I can describe mixed emotions in the term that you'll that you'll readily understand. Is that like that feeling you get when your teenage daughter

comes in at 4:00 in the morning with the Gideon Bible under her arm?

But thank God for those lovely ladies. They meant business and they stayed with me and they helped me. And, and, you know, I carried around that image of that first meeting where I presented myself,

really laid a trip on those gals, you know, that was just almost perfect, maybe a few little character defects. You know, I really worked them over pretty good. And I carried that idea around with me a long, long time. And wasn't too awfully long ago, I got to talking to Anne, one of the ladies that was there. That's my first meeting. And I told her how I felt about it. And she said, yeah. And I want to tell you something.

After you left, we had a little meeting

ourselves and we said, boy, there's a sticky, he ain't going to make it.

Isn't it funny? The truth to us is how we perceive it. How we perceive it?

Well, I

I didn't have any problem with God.

You know, when you're raised in alcoholic home, you get sent to church, you don't get taken. But I've been sent

and I was I've AI was a bomber pilot in Africa in World War Two and I went from the newest copilot to the flight commander in the lead flight in six months time because of the attrition we were suffering. And one night the squadron commander said one of the Palestinian flights having trouble ride with him. See if you can find out what his problem is and help him.

And he said I'll take your crew out and we carried A10 man crew in the old 4 engine liberators and he took my crew out. My all my buddies had been flying with me and they never came back.

I'm the only survivor of that crew.

Well, I had kind of a petty button relationship with God. I guess you could describe it. You know, I, I wanted help and

God seemed to provide it. So that part of it, you know, believing wasn't too difficult for me, like perhaps it has been to some of you, but the,

the recovery has not been just the easiest thing in the world. I'd like to talk to you about the time that I have about recovery because I, I don't think even though it's, it's wonderful, it's not just all cloud nine. I think you'll agree.

I used to think that our relationship had to be 5050 right down the middle. Alan on taught me sometimes it's 9010,

sometimes it's 1090 and what's the difference? What's the difference? That's

that's just the way that it ought to be.

Al Anon is has taught me that the love is a learned phenomenon. And I used to think that I was a shallow person. I didn't seem to have that depth of love that some of you had,

but I found out that you can learn it. And the first thing that you got to do, in my opinion, to learn to love is to accept it. My parents had offered me all the love that I guess in any kid you'd ever want, but I would only accept so much. And then the barriers went down, only allowed so close. So I didn't, I hadn't got that knack of, of actually

accepting it. And that's another thing that I've had to learn. And I think the more I accept, the more I have. So the more I can give to you

and when I give every bit of it that I have to you, I've still got every bit left. It's a it's an amazing, amazing thing. Betty and I have 4 kids

and I learned to pass this on to you. We had a a pact.

Whoever left first got the kids.

I don't see you through some rough ones.

You know, my father had taken my sister and I around to all the churches there in Akron, the different Protestant denominations, the Catholic mass, the Jewish synagogue even took a spy to hear that Bible is interpreted by Mary Baker. Eddie, you know the Christian Scientists and don't believe in doctors, but I think he wanted us to, if possible,

keep an open spiritual mind. We had the Bible of the world with all the great Eastern religions

in it

too. So he wanted us to keep our mind open. Now

let's talk a little bit of the things of the little nudging miracles that I think God allowed to happen that had they not happened, might have totally, totally wrecked the thing and

anonymity.

What a beautiful thing that is. You know, in the early days

there were people with huge egos. Now, I know we don't have any of that anymore,

but you can't be Mr. A A or Misses Allen on if nobody knows what your name is, right?

And another thing it's done. It doesn't make any difference if you've been here 45 years

or 45 minutes were all the same.

Beautiful,

just beautiful.

Money. A&L Non, don't have any money. Don't want any money. Money, you know, Bill and and Doctor Barber, human beings. And they thought, Gee, what we need is some dough to really get this thing rolling. So they had picked out of our big old Greystone mansion there in Akron, and they were going to set up a treatment center. And Doctor Bob could see himself in his white coat, greeting the patients at the door,

Bill probably out on the street. Flag them in. You know,

so

Bill went back to New York City to hit up the Rockefeller Group for money and Mr. Rockefeller and his group and their incident wisdom said no money will ruin it.

Miracle

properties. Alnon and A don't own any property, don't want to own any property. We're not custodians of valuable real estate. We're here just for our primary purpose, and that's to take that hand that reaches out for help.

Miracle,

the Big Book of AA.

This thing was written in the 30s, first published in 39. You couldn't give it away.

There's only been one word change in the 1st 164 pages

in that length of time from the original 1 to the one that we buy today, and that's the word

spiritual awakening instead of spiritual experience. And they changed that because Bill was the only one that had experience right after that

I

but think of that, that book. How many little texts do you have in your library? They were written in 1939 without change that you use every day. It was written by people who weren't literary,

somehow managed to plug all the loopholes. Just think of all the drunks that have tried to find a hole in that.

Millions of them. And so far, it had to be a miracle written in some cases about things that hadn't even happened yet.

And you know that that book is one of the five big best sellers of all time now. Yeah,

and you can't even buy it in the bookstore.

God as we understood him, that was put in the 12 steps to quiet a loudmouth agnostic by the name of Jimmy B from California.

Jimmy said this God stuff will run if it'll run them out faster and we can run them in. So to quiet Jimmy down, they put God as we understood him. And you know what that's done, folks, that has allowed these programs to go into religions that are entirely different from what you and I may have, you know, into the Eastern religions, into the Buddhists and the Hindu religions. Those words. Now that had to be a little nudging miracle

from God because that just those words made it make it acceptable to those people.

Well, getting back to Betty and me, we finally had learned that healing love does not demand its own way, and we don't do it perfectly.

Sometimes Betty gets on a dry drunk,

Sometimes Bob gets on a dry drive.

And if it happens at the same time, there's hell among the Earlings.

But the point I'm making is that we both know enough about the programs now to realize