Founders day in Sydney, Australia

All extremely welcome. Would you please help me to open the meeting with a moment's silence, followed by the serenity prayer? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference. This is the preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for membership. We are self supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organisation, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

We'll now read a portion of chapter 5 of our book, Alcoholics Anonymous. To those who are new, these three pages may seem strange and unrelated to your specific problems. Do not be discouraged. Take what you can and file the rest for future reference. Tonight, I have asked Angela to read this excerpt.

Hi, I'm Angela and I'm an alcoholic. How it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our parts. Those who do not recover, those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Usually, men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.

There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.

There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these, we balked. We felt we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not.

With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power.

That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. 1, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. 4, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5, admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. 8, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. 9, made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.

10, continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 11, meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Many of us exclaimed, what an order. I can't go through with it.

Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress.

We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after make clear 3 pertinent ideas: a, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And c, that God could and would if He were thought. Thanks, Angela.

Just another brief reminder to turn off all mobile phones and pages. AA also has a set of traditions which apply to the group conscience in much the same manner as the steps apply to the individual. Tonight, I've asked Toby to read these. Good evening. My name is Toby.

I'm an alcoholic and a member of Shell Harbour Tuesday Night Meetings of AA. The local. The 12 Traditions. 1, our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA Unity.

2, for our Group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority. A a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are the trusted servants. They do not govern. 3, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4, each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. 5, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6, an AA Group ought never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7, every AA group ought to be fully self supporting declining contributions. 8, Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9, AA as such, would never be organised, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

12, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Thanks, Toby. It now gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker for this evening, Clancy Ihle from Los Angeles. Would you please help make him welcome? My name is Clancy Inmislad.

I'm an alcoholic. I'm very glad to be here tonight, glad to be back in Australia. I've been here several times over the years. I always like to come here. It's always a pleasure.

Someone always treats me well. The trip is getting a little longer as I get older, however. When I was a young man, younger man, and came down here, I could tap dance through that trip. Now it's a kind of a I have to be helped off the plane. But it is as bad as some.

A few years ago a few years ago, I was speaking in Iceland. I don't know if you know where Iceland is off the coast of Norway. It isn't as far as Australia, but it seems like a lot further. And I came back there on a plane, and I was so tired. And we have to stop in Minneapolis Sunday night for about 4 hours.

I had to hurry and then catch a plane back to Los Angeles to go to work the next morning. And I was sitting in the airport in Minneapolis. I was tired and felt old and forgotten. And then I'm sitting in the red carpet room, which is the United Airlines frequent flyer room, and I I had to go to the washroom. So I went to their little washroom, and they have 2 little stalls side by sides, very nice and clean.

And I sat in one of these stalls, and I'm sitting here doing what I do to stalls. All of a sudden, a voice came out the other side and said, hi there. Can't mean me. He said, I just ignored it. Presume the voice said, what are you doing tonight?

And I thought, I I do wanna put up with this. I better settle this now. I'll tell you what. I'm going back to Los Angeles to see my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren, but thank you for asking. Why did it, nice of you to ask?

There was a long pause, and this voice said, we could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to. And I was tired and a little impatient, and I I said, look. I don't know what your problem is, and I don't know what's wrong with you. I I'm not wired the way you are apparently, but why'd you just drop it and leave me alone? There was a long pause, and the voice said, I'll have to call you back.

This jerk in the next stall won't shut up. That might be funny to you, But I really am glad to be here tonight and especially as that's a magnificent day, it's June 10th, which is the 70th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous. And a lot of us, we come here and we just think it's always been you're not always going to be here, but I want to just take a couple of minutes for those of you who may be new. The beginning of it was such a series of coincidences and just seconds and minutes and inches. And, most of you some of you remember, you know, that in 9 Well, let me put it this way.

There seem to be 2 types of alcoholics. We don't ever talk about it much, but there seems to be at least 2 types. One type that seems to be an alcoholic by any way you measure them, they drink and they can't control it and so on. But some significantly threatens their security. Maybe they lose a family or lose a job or someone dies, and they quit and they never drink again.

And there's a number of cases like that around. And the same type of alcoholic, if they have become physically addicted as well, they are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created to step by step take them off medically off this alcohol addiction. People say, what's the big deal about alcohol addiction? I'll tell you something strange you may not know. Alcoholic addiction is much more lethal than drug addiction.

Many more people die to withdraw from alcohol addiction than from drug addiction, but they take them each step of the way. Each step of the way, they show them the nature of their problem, and they quit, and they never drink again. In fact, there's a hospital up in Seattle called Shick Shadel that specializes in those kind of people and they say, we will cure your alcoholism in a month and they do. And they have a big long list of names of people, but of course they they only take the people, if they can help it, of that type of alcoholic. Then there's another type of alcoholic who seems to be an alcoholic by the way you measure them.

They can't drink, can't control it, and something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe lose a job, a family, or somebody dies, or something, and they quit. But they always eventually begin to drink again, much to the startled expressions of the people around them. And these same people come out of treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks, and they mean it. And they say, I'll quit.

I quit. But they always eventually drink again. And these type of alcoholics are the people who have been puzzlements to everyone who's tried to help them for 5000 years in recorded history. Everything they've ever tried to one time, they put them to death. They thought they were possessed by devils.

They flog them and lock them up and send them away. A lot of them came to Australia from England. Glad to talk to their descendants. Not really. I mean, it was all it's always been a puzzlement.

And even in my lifetime, there was no answer for it. And you may not think this is a big deal, but I'll tell you how far you might have the same reaction to it as I do, and that is seeing the face of someone you love or who loves you with that terrible, oh my god. How could you do this? You were doing so well. You promised and the children and you're about to have your job back, and now look at you drunk again.

How could you do this? And it really rips you up inside. And all you can say is, oh, leave me alone. Just leave me alone. And these are the type of alcoholics that there have just never been any answer to, And that's why it's such a remarkable thing that this place started some time ago because they've been trying to help these people for years and it almost didn't start.

You know, it started because a guy in New York, son of a very wealthy family, had this problem. His parents thought it was his nerves. When he gets nervous, he drinks so much. We can only help his nerves. So they called the best doctor in the world that they knew to help him, see if he could help him.

A lot of people don't know who they called. They called doctor Jung, or they called doctor Freud. The first contact they made was to doctor Freud, And doctor Freud refused to accept the case, which was the first good luck we ever had. We might have all been sitting here drunk, and I said, yeah. But I dreamt I was sober.

So they went to his ex friend, doctor Jung, and doctor Jung took this guy into his hospital for a year in Switzerland and sent him home as a recovered case. And he stopped in Paris to drink with some have to eat dinner with some friends of his family, and they toasted his new success with wine. And 3 days later, he was drunk again and sick and facedown. And they sent him back to the doctor in Switzerland, and the doctor refused to take him back. They said, Why?

Roland didn't really mean any harm. He said, I don't know. I misdiagnosed his case. I thought I could help with his deep psychological problems. What I see now, he said, that he's what's called an alcoholic.

And to the best of my knowledge there is no treatment for that condition today in the world at any cost. This was 1931, not very long ago. The best doctor in the world had never heard of a treatment for alcoholism. And Roland, a little taken back, he says, What does this mean doctor? He said, what it means is you have to keep yourself confined voluntarily or involuntarily as long as you live, or else you almost certainly will drink to excess until you die or go mad.

And that really felt he felt bad about that. He said, Is there any other solution at all? He said, Well, in the literature there's been some few cases of some involuntary psychological reversion. They call it a spiritual experience, but I've never seen one. You can't rely on that.

So Roland came home, and he was convinced he was gonna die drunk. So there was a religious group, kind of spiritual group. He was a strong church member, but he he got this spiritual group called the Oxford movement, and he As he wrote later, I wanted to stay sober as long as I could so that my parents would have a pleasant memory of me when I died drunk. And some years later when he died drunk, his parents had a friendly memory of him. But he, through a series of quirks, his family gave him a vacation in Vermont up in Northern United States and he happened to go there just arbitrarily selected time and he got there the very week that saved our life because when he got there, a childhood friend of his from years ago was going to the penitentiary for breaking his parole or his probation on drinking.

And he was a friend of the judge, so he said, Judge, release him to my custody. I'll take him to New York. If he'd got there a week later, we wouldn't be here. But he got this guy back to New York and got him in the Oxford movement, and this guy did much like the Oxford movement but at least he was in the Vermont penitentiary. And after a while in the Oxford Movement, he had to go testify to somebody.

He said, Ebbie, you have to go testify to somebody. Ebby didn't wanna testify. I don't know. Well, do you wanna go to the penitentiary? No.

I think I'll testify. But he he found he happened to think of a childhood friend of his that had moved to New York who was a bigger mooch than he was, who'd been some big success but now is living off his wife just a mooch. He said, I'll go over and testify to this goof. He won't even remember it tomorrow. He made arrangements to go testify to this drunken bum called Bill Wilson.

Just sucked out of and he went over to Brooklyn and made arrangements. We in our book, we talked to Bill. He said he came to the door and said, I, I've found religion. And Bill was quite depressed. I heard I heard Ebby talk some years ago.

He had a little little went a little further. He said he went in and sat down with Bill and was telling him about the Oxford Movement, and Bill just kept drinking as fast as he could. He said, that's really wonderful. I mean, I'm happy for you. And he left, and he was upset about this.

He had to be put down with this junk. And this is done in our literature, but I guarantee it's true. He came back 3 days later, and he had the Oxford group closer with him. Mister Wilson, I'm not talking about the Oxford group. And Bill Wilson reacted as any of us would.

We're not one of the damnedest drunks of his life. Screw you and the Oxford group. And he was drunk for a few days and wound up in the hospital again and these guys went up to see him and Ebby said, you gotta find the higher power bills. I don't give me that religious crap, that doesn't work for me. And in the middle of the night, this drunken mooch woke up the middle of the night and cried out in the darkness, if there's a god, show yourself.

You know, he as anyone of us would. And he had an experience that, he thought he was going insane because it's he said, it looks as though the room lit up, and there seemed to be some wind blowing. And, he didn't know what it was. He was very frightened. My mind's gone.

And he determined later he might be had one of those spiritual experiences, when he came out of there and he went to the Oxford group. People say, what's the big deal about Ebby and all these other guys? Because the very few people who ever had spiritual experiences went to church, and he didn't go to church. He went to the Oxford group to try to help drunkards. He tried to help drunkards and had very little luck.

When he finally got a job after a few months, they sent him out to Akron, Ohio to put a deal together if he'd become the president of the company. His one chance to go back to the world and that blew up in his face and he was gonna I remember he was gonna stay in the hotel lobby, gonna get drunk. Some years ago, I stood in the hotel lobby trying to imagine what it must be like. He had $10 in his pocket. He'd either pay his hotel bill or take a train home to New York and admit his failure.

And right over there was a little door with a curved top where it says cocktails. And anyone in this room knows the feeling. If I just have a couple of drinks, I'll I'll find a solution to this problem. And he went towards that door, and our lives hung by the thinnest thread available. But it turned out that he saw some telephones.

He remembered that he was supposed to call somebody the oxford, but went through a series of dumb things. He got a hold of some minister who gave him the name of a woman who said that her doctor was a drunk, and they got together. He moved in with the doctor to talk to him. They talked about spiritual examiners of the oxford. How could you stay sober?

And after 2 weeks, the doctor went to a medical convention and got so drunk he had to be carried off the train. And again our life barely held. But this time they got together and they came to the realization that sitting around talking about spiritual matters is not what had kept Bill, the original guy, sober. He tried to help people. So they went up to Akron Hospital and they began the policy of a of trying to help other people.

And in fact, when this doctor coming off his last drunk woke up in the morning, 1 morning, so sick in bed. Oh, God. And Bill and his wife are staying there. He said, What day? He said, It's Wednesday, Bob.

Oh, my God. I have to do a surgery today, and I can't look at my hand. I've gotta do a cancer surgery. My God, I can't do it. But they got him up and they bathed him and got his clothes on, and Bill took him out and got him a drink, couple drinks to hold a stand steady.

And he went down to the hospital and scalpel. That was June 10, 1935. That was the birth of this organization, but not a very enhanced beginning of an organization, But little by little, they got some people, and the more people didn't will stay rather than did, but eventually grew through a series of things and articles and Reader's Digest and The Saturday Evening Post. And to make a long story short, it's now over 2,000,000 sober alcoholics of our type. Alcoholics of our type who have never stayed sober in history in a 134 countries and who are doing the same things.

And it's grown to something beyond anybody could conceive. And the only problem we have today is that still a lot of people like us die drunk and a lot of people like us go to AA and think, That can't help me. My case is different. The universal cry of every alcoholic of our type. And so but anyway, we're very successful.

70 years and never had been done before. And, so what do we have to talk about? Well, I'll tell you. I travel around the world a lot in AA and over the years I hear a lot of things and I talk to a lot of people around the world and and especially around the United States and there seemed to be a school of thought that AA now is 70 years sober, 70 years old, but it needs to be modernized. It needs to be modernized.

It's kind of written for the 19 thirties. It's not written for a new generation of people, a new century. And it really boils down into maybe 4 or 5 categories. 1, one argument is proposed a great deal is that maybe we've passed the point where we have to be an alcoholic to be an AA, that maybe we should encompass other people with addictive problems. For example, narcotics, or food, or gambling, or any one with a series of things that destroy people's lives, and we don't have to be so selective anymore.

We don't have to have anything to hide and be protective. We should encompass everyone. And there's another school of thought, that also believes that we should be perhaps that maybe we should change the book. The book is a good book but it's written in 1930s style. The language is not very modern, not very exciting.

It's kind of a Even at best it's not a terribly exciting book, and maybe we should kind of streamline it and bring it up to date to get a little more possessed. We get younger people to come in. In addition to that, why should we have to be so concerned about anonymity anymore? It may be 1930 5 or 1940 when people were so ashamed of being an alcoholic, they had to take anonymity, but hardly any reason for it today. And the other thing of course, of course it I know this already happened in say in Australia, but in most of the world, they say the lord's prayer at the end of the meeting.

And, there's a school of thought that the lord's prayer is really much too religious. We're keeping people out for they do say the lord's prayer. We shouldn't be using the lord's prayer. It keeps Jewish people out. It keeps non Christians out.

It's a Christian prayer. And so these schools of thought believe that Alcoholics Anonymous has done a wonderful job, but could do so much more if it were streamlined. And I wanted tonight just talk for a few minutes about these thoughts, about where do we go from here. It's time. Maybe we should go somewhere.

Now they say, why do you why must you be an alcoholic to be an Alcoholics Anonymous? I mean, the therapy is so universally good that why would you have to have to be an alcoholic? And the universal cry, of course, they always say is this, it's all one big disease. Alcoholism, narcotics addiction, food compulsion, gambling, cocaine. Do you know where that phrase came from?

It's all one big disease. That started with the treatment center that only had one van. I'll be in the van. It's all one big disease. Why would we have to have to be an alcoholic?

Why Why would you have to be an alcoholic to be an Alcoholics Anonymous? And to understand that, you have to get back to the basic concept of what causes the rejection of treatment or the recovery here. If there's one universal trait of all alcoholics that I've ever heard of of our type, it's this. I know you mean well when you try to help me but my case is different. We laugh about that, but that kills all of us.

The the ones that don't hear, my case is different. You don't understand because the defense mechanism of people like us is quite strong, and we've been listening to re advice and suggestions for all kind all of our lives. And they it might be work for people like them, but it doesn't work for, like, for people like me because my problem is not They think my problem is alcohol. It isn't alcohol. If it were, I'd quit a long time ago.

My problem is maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I get my emotions out of whack. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I just don't get treated right. Maybe I haven't been nurtured enough or something, but I know that sometimes I feel so bad and I have discovered that 2 or 3 drinks helps me more than all the advice and all the psychiatry and all the books and all the literature.

And then sometimes I drink too much, and that's wrong I suppose. So I'm going to try to find a way to drink without going to extremes. And I thought I always thought I was the only one who really had that problem. Remember after I was sober while and read that page in the first page of chapter 3, where they describe that? If you're kind of feeling different, they talk about what people like you and I, what do we have in common?

It's so easy to see what we don't have in common. But what do we have? Look around the room, different sizes and shapes and colors and everybody's story is different. What the hell do we have in common? In that little page it talks about one thing we have in common.

Alcoholics of our type, somewhere along the line, have voluntarily or involuntarily had to accept the obsession that somehow, someday, I will control and enjoy my drinking. It says, the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many of us pursue it into the gates of insanity and death. And so I talked about how we fight against accepting the label alcoholic because that indicates my problem is alcohol. And we have occasional brief recoveries, and everybody's had those, followed always by still worse relapse, and we've all had those.

We're ultimately gonna be here tonight. And you finally get to a point of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I remember reading that thinking, Boy, they get awfully drunk to be like that, but that isn't what that means at all. That's how you feel after you sober up again, and the heat's on, and you got to turn around and imp, Just leave me alone. Then you keep drinking.

Then tells a few little lines of what people like us do. We change from one kind of booze to another. We drink beer only, or we try drinking wine only, or we only drink at home, or or we never drink at home, or we take physical exercise, or we read spiritual literature, all sorts of things. But all was and it just baffles people around us. My god, look what alcohol is doing to you.

What do you keep drinking it for? You don't understand. My case is different. And so we, what would what would change that? Somehow to enable people to get through that armor somehow.

How do you get through that armor? Because that armor only opens up from the inside. There's no thing you could do from the outside to get through it, and the one thing that helps get through is trying to convince someone, or being able to tell someone that I have the same feelings and emotions you do. I've had the same experience that you've had. I drink for the same reasons you do, and maybe they'll open the arm just a little bit.

It's called identification. I remember I slipped in and out of AA for 10 years and I went from being a successful high bottom AA to being a skid row bum with my teeth kicked out and standing on the street corner and I would have bet my life I'm not an alcoholic because my problem isn't alcohol. My problem is a lot of things that my psychiatrist couldn't find out even just something wrong with me. It's that's how it was fun to say I wasn't nurtured as a child. This adult children of alcohol thing is so nice, you can lay the heat off on somebody else always.

Not my fault. But I would have bet the last day I drank, I would have bet my life there was no answer for a problem like mine. I knew all about it and I walked in the range 72 box to an a club and I fell into the hands of some crazed old alcoholics one more time. And this one guy impressed me because he was a movie actor, so I listened to him a little bit. And over a period of time, what happened?

Little by little I began listening. I thought, my god. This guy seems to know how I feel. He I got him to be my sponsor and I was gonna just get some money off him and get out of town and he somehow held me. And I really had a plan.

Here's a motivation to stay sober. I'm gonna stay sober. I'm gonna get some front teeth of some money from this goof. Get some front teeth. Get some clothes.

I'll go to New York where I've been fired as an advertising guy. I'll say, I'm I'm don't drink anymore. I've learned my lesson. I'll work for nothing. Are you sure I'm I'm okay?

And I'll save some money, and I'll come back to Los Angeles someday, and I'll buy this AA club, and I'll burn it down. And I hope they're all in and having a big meeting. Not much of a reason to stay sober. I'll tell you something. I look back now.

I didn't realize this at the time, but I look back and what really saved my life, I begin thinking, this guy seems to know how I feel. Now that doesn't sound like much, but I'll tell you, you and I have been listening to advice all our lives. And if you're like me, I never had anybody that I really believed in how I felt. My dad didn't. My bosses never did.

My minister never did. Nobody ever seemed to know how I feel because it's a strange thing, But this guy seemed to know how I feel. Well, what's the big deal about that? I'll tell you the big deal about that is this. If you find someone that you believe knows how you feel, you may do things they say whether or not you agree with them.

That's the that's the most startling thing of it all. And if you if they know how you feel, what from everyone else's advice from this person becomes meaningful information with identification. And I remember thinking, I'm gonna try doing what he says. That probably won't work, but I'm gonna try it. It.

And the only problem with getting a sponsor that that you believe in, then they have you do stupid things. Stupid. Stupid. Now they don't actually say this, but it sounds like this. They might say, see that curtain back there?

That's bright red. I don't think so, Bob. I think it looks pretty blue to me. I tell you, it's red. I think it's blue, Bob.

Well, damn it, you act like it's red. Now they don't tell you the color of curtains because that's too easy to check, but they tell you things equally stupid. I want you to apologize to that woman. You call her a bitch. She is a bitch, Bob.

Why do you think she's a bitch? She told her new girls to stay away from me. Well, she's right. You apologize. Sorry.

Bitch. I don't care how unless you you stay on that job. Jeez, Bob. You got me stuffing envelopes for a dollar 9¢ an hour. I used to have an office bigger than this whole company.

I got a lot of talent, Bob. I don't care. Just do the job till you get a better one. I don't care. I understand you missed the Wednesday Friday night meeting, Oh, Jesus, Bob.

It's a big click. They just call on each other, they think you're all so cute, they think you're smart, they treat you like a piece of crap. Or maybe they know something. You go to that meeting. And this goes on and on and on and on.

You see, how much longer could I go stand it? And you turn around one day and the damn curtain is red. And you have to spend your life dealing with dumbbells who think is blue. But that's exactly how AA works. Through actions our perceptions of the same things change.

And that is why it is imperative there will be identification. And that is why we ask that you have to be an alcoholic because Now for example, I've been working with narcotics addicts in one form or another for 30 years, but to this day if I sit in an AA meeting, I don't care how slick the guy is who gives up and talks about drugs. It's just information to me. I mean, I'd much rather have some just, I drank too much. I'm not sure my problem is alcohol, but I'm sure up to the creek.

I got a sponsor I'm trying to do better. I've been sober over 14 days. Jesus Christ. I know that feeling, baby. Identification.

And that is why members of a a member of a Jim Willis, friend of mine, who has also had a severe gambling problem in 1957 went to a and said, can I use the 12 steps and form something called gamblers anonymous? I had them try to come to a, but they didn't identify. I'll give them a place where they can identify. And he was the first one to form in 1958 2 guys in North Hollywood, California who were also narcotics addict, heroin addicts as well as alcoholic. They got permission to form narcotics anonymous so that narcotics addicts would have a place to go and identify.

Same program, same steps except insuring that word. That's why members of a woman with a severe eating problem in 1960 called A. N. Got permission to form Overeaters Anonymous for the 12 steps and cocaine anonymous. That's where they all came from.

For one reason only, so they could establish identification because without that, it's just information and information has never kept people like us straight. I never really understood that till 1960. For example, I was 2 years sober and I was giving a little talk at the a club that was gonna burn down at one time. Now I'd accepted it, and sealed down my front teeth when I I'd give a good talk on obsessions. I'm authority on obsessions, not what to do about them, but the obsessions themselves.

I know a lot about them. And this rather plump woman came up afterwards. She says, Oh, that was just wonderful. She said, said, I've just formed an organization called Overeaters Anonymous. We meet over in Christ the King Church on Olympic Boulevard and we've been there a couple months ago.

Would you come over on Sunday and talk to our ladies about obsessions? And I weighed about a £130. I was pretty scrawny. Sure. Give them some hope when they see my flat stomach.

And over there on Sunday, I went in this room with about 8 fat women sitting around the table. They gave them a great talk and obsessions. I got done, they all agreed and it was wonderful. And then they they were just, you know, they're just all nodding. I got done then they shared, and I'd I'd never heard anything like that.

Woman over here said that she had her son's 10th birthday. He went to a military school in Long Beach. She sent her husband down to pick him up 30 miles. She had a beautiful 2 layer cake for his birthday. Took one little taste, then another, but it got back.

The cake was gone. I thought, I didn't say anything because I'm too nice a guy. Jesus, have a piece of cake and forget it. What the hell is wrong with you? Woman over here talked about eating ice cream.

She just ate ice cream and got more ice cream and ice cream. I just can't give up ice cream. I didn't say anything because I'm too nice a guy. Right? I thought, no wonder you're fat.

Jesus. Woman over here talks about she ate till she couldn't eat anymore, then put her finger down her throat and puked so she could eat some more. And my immediate thought was, don't bother shaking hands with me after the meeting. I can see doing that for drinking, but not eating. I've done it for drinking a lot.

Oh, Saturday afternoon, I was sun's still up. I better just hold up. Now what was the difference? I could understand it intellectually. I just didn't identify with it.

So it's just information that would never change my thinking about anything. That's why we have to have this identification. And that is why I suppose we have to remember that you have to be an alcoholic to be an Alcoholics Anonymous because when you get up there, you've got to share to enable someone to identify with you. I have 3 daughters who are turning 16 this year in AA, and I have a grandson who just had a year. I have a great grandson who's 3 years old and is either an alcoholic or the spawn of the devil.

I've heard of terrible twos, but this is terrible. But I I look at his back of his neck every so often just see if there's a little 666 back there. But when that little crap head comes to comes to AA someday, I want him to hear the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't wanna hear some garbled stuff from a treatment center or somebody with a problem entirely. Someone talking about their food problems or their narcotic problems or anything because that's what it's about.

So really although intellectually it sounds maybe you were being too selective, making sure that you're an alcoholic. That's not the purpose of it all. The purpose of it is so that we can identify because Alcoholics Anonymous exactly the same in one way tonight in Sydney as it was 7 years ago today in Akron, Ohio. It is one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic to help him reduce his feelings of difference at least enough so that he will begin to take actions he does not yet believe in. And when that time comes, that is the gestation of sobriety.

And they wonder why we should maintain anonymity because anonymity is really passe. You you shouldn't have to remain anonymous. You wouldn't have to be afraid anymore. And it started out as a defense mechanism, I guess, for alcoholics so they wouldn't be in trouble or be found out. But over the years, it's evolved into something entirely different.

Anonymity has nothing really to do with protection anymore at all. It has evolved, as I said, our tradition into a spiritual concept. In fact, the last letter Bill Wilson wrote before he died dealt with the spiritual concept of anonymity. And the spiritual concept of anonymity is that we have to subjugate our ego to the overall good here. I know when I was new in 1958, there's a woman named Lillian Roth.

She wrote a book called I'll cry tomorrow. They made a movie with Susan Hayward. But in her book, she talked about how she had come to AA now. She's a member of AA. They said, You better not put that in there, Lillian.

She says, Listen, I'm a big singing star. When they realize I'm an AA, they'll feel they can come too. And a couple years later when she was facedown drunk in Palm Springs, I don't know what everybody thought about it then, I don't suppose anybody paid any attention. But it destroyed her, it killed her. A couple years later, John Barrymore, a famous actor, his daughter, Diana Duff Barrymore wrote a book.

She even went a step further. She was now AA helped her not only to stop drinking, but now she could have wine with dinner. And when she died drunk in the Malibu jail, people were upset about that and on and on. But I've watched people break their anonymity again and again and again in the last 46 years and never once has it ever done anything positive for them and usually it destroys them. Now why do you think that is?