Jim B. from San Diego, CA author of the story "The Vicious Cycle" speaking in Sacramento, CA

But I am Jim Burrow. I'm an alcoholic. I do. I I do. Thank you a lot.

And I do have one little story to tell that is a little different probably than anybody else in AA in this area. Here's a little bit about what AA used to be, what happened, and what we are like now. And I like to do it in areas because I feel it's a one shot job. And once you do it, I don't have to come back in and do it again. Next time, my talk will be my personal history, which takes about 25 minutes.

This will take a little longer. But, damn it, I think you deserve it. But I do think it's good to see the trials and errors we went through. I was saying tonight at lunch at dinner, that the most important thing that happened in AA, of course, was the writing of the book. Do you know it took 4 years to get the book started?

And at the time the book was finished, there was only 8 people 6 months. I'll try to point that out. That was in April 1939. 1 year after that, with a unity of thinking, a unity of action, a unity program, I think this whole talk should be on longer lines of unity, not the church. 1 year after that book came out, instead of 2 groups, we had a 110 groups.

Instead of possibly, we said a 100 people. A 100 people were involved in the book coming and going. Most of them were going. But, the actual meetings in Akron and New York, the 2 meetings that were being held at that time, they didn't average over 10 or 12. But from the well, say we have 40 people fairly actively coming to meetings in 2 cities.

1 year later with the vodka, damn few soul too as you will hear later, but with the unity of thinking, taking out the personalities, and bringing out principles. We had a 110 groups as I said, and instead of about 40, we have about 1500 AAs. Now that's the first point of unity. Now tonight, I come up here. I was here about 4 years ago.

I was asked, I knew, by one of the factions up here to come up and give a talk. I think it might have been on an anniversary up here. It might have been on this anniversary. There was a hundred there that night. It's a pretty sour crowd.

And it was a very unhappy meeting for me. I mean, I didn't get anything. There wasn't any kickback to me personally. So some of the people were here that night, I guess. I don't mean it personally.

But there was a feeling. When I got in town, there was criticism. There was no feeling of coming together. Well, tonight, it's a completely different. It's a feeling at home that, we're all here together for the same thing.

To get back to this unity, I'd like to say a few words on it before I go into this talk because, for instance, I dare say that 90% or 95% of the people in this room tonight got the original AA some other spot, and you can say that in every group wherever you might go. So that is why it's so important that us groups stay together, that we stand together behind New York, that we stand together internationally, because we're the greatest floating members in the world. We're here today and gone tomorrow, and trucks are always that way. So we have to have a unified effort together. So no matter where we go, we'll feel at home.

So we'll go to Oshkosh. Well, they don't do it like they do in Sacramento. The hell with them here. Don't let's have the man have that chance. Let's make it like AA all over and stick to the simple principles of the book.

Now those are my personal opinions, and that's why it's so grand to see the central office. I think it's gonna be the real stepping stone of bringing together because I do know throughout California, you have a reputation of being up here of factions. Of course, we have factions every place, but they're not as as clearly lined as they seem to have been thought of up here. I know I'm talking as an outsider. It's none of my damn business.

But I can feel a difference of talking with people. I met both people. I don't know who's on what side. I know there's actions a bit. I don't know, who's on.

It don't make a hell of a lot of difference. But I think you're over that now. And I think you'll be surprised to see the older people come back. You'll see the better attendance. You'll see the more interest being taken.

It's been that way all throughout AA. AA. So so much for unity. 1st, I'd like to qualify myself as a little bit of a historian on this thing. I came in in January 38 in Washington DC.

I was pushed in by circumstances. I didn't ask to say, hey. That's another story. But, anyway, I ended up by going to New York. And I met 2 people there, Bill Wilson and Hank Ponkers, who were the 2 people that actually did the physical writing and promoting of the book.

I was with them closely for the next 2 years. I think I saw Bill and Hank at least once a day during those 2 years or at least, when I was in town. I was doing a little traveling towards the end. So a good deal of this stuff I saw on the ground floor or heard from them when it was fresher. I wrote it down 7, 8 years ago, and I tried to keep it as simple and quick as I can to give you a digest.

How come we is what we is today? How we this thing was formed so much against the will of all of us, against any idea. I always slightest idea what it'll be and I don't think anybody knows, But it'll be better AA. It'll be improved AA. It'll be better for the new person, and that's the person we want.

They have to once we've had inoculation in AA, our responsibility is a new person, the person that don't know. So he has an opportunity to get well like we are trying to do. So that is my being around in those early days is my reason for saying a little bit about the historian thing. But to go back from the here say, that was in January 38. I have my last drink 6 weeks months later in June 15th 38.

So you don't get mixed up on these dates of my birthday. But to give you a quick digest of the happening things, trying to look at this AA thing as sort of a fellowship mansion or center being built from the ground up, the excavation and so forth. And to see how this thing has been growing, we are self contained, so nothing can upset us and break up this unity of thinking. Just think what the churches would like to done and be able to do to hold themselves together, what we are trying to do. We, the most rugged people in the world, are the ruthless.

They cut through life and think of nobody, and together, we're unified. It's it's a wonderful feeling to think we can get along with each other and work together. God, one thing is lucky, we have to. Or else, we die. But to get back at the starting of this thing, little bit of the excavation, take you back to 182 Clinton Street, Street, Brooklyn, New York, November 34.

Bill was on his last binge. He'd been in Towns Hospital 3 times that year, and Towns had told him the last time that it wasn't much chance of him, that he had a wet brain and no recovery. He gets a telephone call from an old school friend of his that he drank with many times and got in much trouble with, Abby Thatcher. Bill invited him over. Abby came over sober.

He'd never seen Eddie sober before. Eddie had been in one nuthouse after another. He seemed to be happy. He seemed to be contented. Bill asked him what happened.

He wasn't. Bill was broke. But a millionaire broker and was down flat, about to lose his house. And he said, I have got religion. The way Bill tells it, it's like the guy hit him in the face with a cold fish.

Well, he's gone wacky on religion now. That's even worse than this booze he was hit. But, anyway, he's a good old friend and the bottles will last a little longer. So he continued to drink, asked Eddie what they did in the Oxford Group. Very simple.

We try to help other people, share our troubles, talk ourselves out, and be useful. And Bill, of course, gave me Obelani. Well, that's the old religions. They've been doing that for years. Same old root re routine now, all of it, and continued his drinking.

We could so later ended up in towns in DTs, town's hospital. This is an interesting point that came up at this time. Deb was in this room, these delusions, the wheels going around as we all know. I heard doctor Silkworth talking to Lois outside the door. So forth, well, I don't think he'll ever leave this hospital again.

I think he's gone. His brain's gone. Liver, everything is shut. He hasn't got a chance. You'll have heard that.

And something hit him like a flashlight. That screwball, Thatcher. Maybe he's got some. And he said he went through a terrific delusion, a build up, a wind floating through it. We always call these Bill's Hot Flats.

Called Silkworth in. He said, doc, I don't know why I'm going crazy again. Oh, god. Why I'm going crazy or what? He says, I don't want to drink again.

I've got something. I don't know what it is, but I got something. Doctor Silphus says, I don't know what you've got, Bill, but you better hold on to it, but you haven't got anything else. That was the beginning. Bill didn't get out of bed for weeks there, stayed in the hospital, talked to the other drunks there.

He tried to stop there. Of course, the drunks in towns are not very applicable type. They're all millionaire drunks. Then he met Eddie afterwards and got out of the hospital and started going down to the Oxford Group Mission called Calvary Mission, where they had a lot of poor broken down trucks. They were using it from a Nazarene, and the silver amount do good as you know that they were doing in a lot of these missions in those days, or still do.

So Bill would go down to Calgary Mission, come back and talk to the drug citizen town's hospital, stayed in there for 3 months, afraid to walk out of the place. Finally, he goes on to Deloitte, continues his business weekly, daily practically, and he's staying so. And he has a chance to go back into the market, and he's on a big deal, goes to Akron. The deal falls through in Akron, and he'd always fought back in New York as a last resort. If I can talk to another drunk, I'll feel better.

So he was in the Portage Hotel in Akron, Ohio, pacing the cart, deciding whether to go into the bar. Saw the church directory there. Decided he would call the the preachers on this directory and try to find out if anybody belonged to the Oxford group there. That's the only thing he knew is the trucks that were in the Oxford group in New York. So he finally got a hold of a gal named Henrietta Seiling, the rebel Seiling people.

And Henrietta said, hold hold it, mister Wilson. And so I think I have just the man for you to talk to. I will come down and pick you up. Came down, picked Bill up, took him out to where Anne Smith, doctor Smith's wife. This was on Mother's Day 1935.

Bill was on this binge that time. I mean, Bob Bob Smith, Doctor Smith who was a co founder of AA was on this binge. And was it didn't get into quite late. Bill waited for him. He finally came in, as the old expression says, pied with a pie plant on Mother's Day, and fell flat on the on the porch.

Bill picked him up and Annie took him up to his room. Annie said to Bob, he said, Bob, here's a man who is an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink for 6 months. He's got an angle. He's got an idea. He wants to talk to you.

Bob brushed him off and says, nuts. I've talked to these drugs that are reformers. I've read everything there is in medicine. Nothing's doing any good. But I will talk to him 15 minutes.

He did talk about all that night practically. They start comparing notes and Bob start catching fire. So we stayed there, built at Bob's house for 2 or 3 days. And then doctor Smith had to go to Atlantic City for convention, a medical convention. As the good doctor gets back around the middle of June, pull him off the train drunk again.

That was Bob Smith's last drink. June 15th tonight, they're having the 22nd anniversary in Akron. That's when he got off the train and Bill took him in and nursed him back. And Bill stayed in Akron for 6 months. And they started visiting hospitals in Akron, talking to drugs, taking them to the Oxford group meetings.

And 2 months later, a number 3 man came into AA. We have no creed. We have the 4 absolutes. It is a very mixed up deal. Nobody knew who was doing what.

All we knew was that as long as we were holding on to each other, we were staying sober. When I was cut away, we were gone. So the number 3 man was Bill Dodson. That was a couple of months later. Bill Dodson died about 2 years ago.

Never had another drink from that night. He had been a straps when Bill and Bob saw it in the hospital, a well known lawyer in that town. For 6 months, nothing else happened. They brought talk to a lot of people. A lot of people got some angles that came back years later or months later, but nothing happened.

So Bill had to get back to work. He goes to New York. Goes back to New York. Starts testing. Harold Hospital.

The mission, the Oxford mission, factors and forwards, finally picked up the number 2 boy, Hank Parkers, in New York. Well, Hank is a different breed. As you all know in AA, we're all promoters. But this guy promotes the promoters. He was a fireball and I've seen a lot of men in my life, but I've never seen a pressure man like mister Parker.

Mister Parker was sales manager of the Standard Oil of New Jersey, one of these high pressure boys who'd been in the Mexican oil situation when they were sparring down there, so he he really knew his way around. He was a roughneck. It's quite an interesting story how it happened, how Hank happened to get in town a lot, but it's another story. Anyway, so that was the end of 35. They had exactly 4 people.

5 people. No, 4 people. 2 in Akron, 2 in New York. Bill would run over every few weeks to Akron, Bob would run over every few weeks to New York, so I would recharge their batteries. And, of course, everybody that came in those early days were the babies of either 1 of the 2, Bill Abott.

So then comes 36. And in the whole of 36, nobody really stayed sober and followed through at all. No recoveries at all. We'd have them come up for 2 or 3 months. But we weren't getting anywhere.

We were mixing up these rugged individuals with these damn placid Oxford groupers, and they didn't seem to mix too well together. And in this time, Bill, was taking people into his home. In a year and a half, Bill took 75 drunks into his home to sober up to taper off. And in the whole time, not a one of them stayed sober. He got personally involved with he's gotta personally fix these people up.

Well, of course, we've learned now that the last person in the world you can help is a person you get personally involved with. You have to be impersonal in AA, it seems. It's the tough point. The problems you wanna get well the most are the ones you can do the least for. They have to do it for themselves.

The guy you tell can't make it is the guy that makes it. So they took, he took 75 people into his home, wet nursing, driving about, taking them to hospitals, giving them a little front money or anything he could do. 2 of them commit suicide in his home. 1 stole all their clothes at one time, and there wasn't nobody was done any good. And Bob Smith, all in all, almost did as bad in in Hackett.

So then, in 36, later we were going. In 37, finally, one person more came in to the New York group that seemed to hold water. That was Fitzmaier, the southern gentleman in the book who did an awful lot to encourage be our own. And Bill felt very loyal because of what Oxford Group had done for him in New York to break away. So finally, in 1937, in New York City only, they finally, sent a written note to the Oxford Group that the that they were resigning from the Oxford Group.

That was never done in Akron or Cleveland. That's why they were a little slower to grab AA on a broad basic basis, I think, as we seem to have it most everywhere else in the country. They got a little mixed up with the Oxford group. Bob didn't wanna break away too fast. So that's the way it was in the end of 37.

We have broken away. We had about 10 people that were going to meetings, and only 3 of them dry over 6 months. And that was after nearly 2 years. It's pretty frustrating. In those days, we knew we had something.

At least, of course, I came in in 37. I've been myself. We knew because I haven't gotten to me yet. Well, I came in in 38. The picture I saw at that time was the sort of a flooding craft king.

You got a new guy in. He was your baby until you got drunk, and then somebody else got you. And you have no chance in the world of getting out to hunting you. And if he asked for guidance from somebody else, that was that was the cricket. He had to come to you with all his problems that he had you had to tell him all the things to do even if it was to give you a couple of bucks if you need.

You see, you gotta remember that us original people, we're quite a select crowd. We didn't figure anybody was an alcoholic that have not been in a state hospital. Anybody that happened to mean that, that was a, unless you'd been in Bellevue or Gallagher or some of those places up on the East Coast, you couldn't possibly be an alcoholic. Sanitarians, oh, that wasn't alcoholism. That was just bad drinking.

But an alcoholic was the guy out the street world apart. That's because we were, and that's what we had to have. Incidentally, of all those original people that were coming in at this time, the age of all of them was less than 40, with exception of Bob Smith. But none were under 35, or no under 36. It was between those 4 or 5 years there.

Nearly all of us had had nice families and were black sheeps of that family thrown at. We were unemployable. We had washed out everything. A lot of us had never really done an honest day's work in our lives. Of course, me, I was different.

I had work. So we weren't getting any place when I came in January 38, which was nearly 4 years, no, three and a half years, and just these 4 or 5 people, same people over and over again coming and going with nursing them. And nothing was happening. And Hank started pushing the pressure on Bill. Bill, we got to do something.

Let's get some sort of a program. Every group, every fellowship has some sort of a program. Just something simple, maybe a page or 2, that we are trying to do. We can incorporate the absolutes, but let's change the wording around a little bit. Make it simple, and let's work together and have closed meetings.

Well, when they did, break away from the Oxford group in New York, we held a Tuesday night meeting at Bill's home. They, they were sort of about 7 or 8 men seated around a circle and Bill Wilson in the center with a little 3 legged stool, one of these old antique, sewing stools. And Bill would get that and he would do all the talking. We would do the listening and answering the questions because he had all the books answered, if any. And I'll never forget how Bill used to guide that thing around, this thing while he was talking.

We we thought we can pull that thing apart, but the thing's still stuck together. Afterwards, that little 3 legged stool, which started to become a symbol. And, you'll find that that's how one of the reasons that the book came along a little later. It was a symbol that AA stands on 3 legs. It does.

It stands on religion, on medicine, and on this understanding fellowship. We need all three legs. Without either one of the 3, we are gone. I mean, the thing lofts out. So it's a balance.

So that was one of the things we were using as a symbol when they started to get this idea of getting the book together. So they finally decided they would write some sort of a pamphlet or something. So the only thing they could think of was if Bill and Bob Smith would write stories of how they have recovered. And that would be the the pamphlet that we would distribute to the new people and show them how these 2 have recovered. At that time, in 38, they both had a premier 3 year sobriety.

And that was a hell of a lot of sobriety in those days. I mean, 6 months was a real sobriety. 3 months was damn good. And, so these two chapters were written, and those are the same chapters that are in the AA book today with practically no change. And Hank, the promoter, said, well, these chapters are so wonderful.

Let's get this printed. We'll take it up to Harper's to do a magazine article on this thing, and that'll bring us a lot more trucks, and we'll probably get a couple bucks for this thing. And, then, maybe we we can get somewhere. We're not getting that place now, Bill, unless we do something. So they go up to Harper's unknown, throw these couple chapters in.

And Harper's talked to to Bill and Hank, said, mister Wilson, if you will write this into a book form with a program of recovery and some stories of some of these boys that are getting well to go along with us to make it a broad story, we will give you $3,000 Well, an unknown author going into a publishing company and getting a guarantee of $3,000 to write a book that had never been written with only a couple chapters. Hank said, boy, those fellows really smell something. They smell a $1,000,000. That's why they invested $3,000. If it's worth 3,000 to Harper's, just think what it is worth to us.

They're just trying to get to pick up this this this hot dough. So we started then and there. Then the wheel started moving. We were in business. We were gonna be taken off the hook.

We were all gonna be back in business again. All hail automobiles. There wasn't an automobile in the New York group for 4 years. This was it, this book. So the real idea, I'll tell you frankly now, we weren't a damned bit different.

As a matter of fact, we are much goonier than all the original people than you all that are coming in today. But the real idea of running this book started before me. We would write this book. We'd sell a 1,000,000 copies. We'd make we had it all figured out, what we'd make on it and everything.

And then we would take this and put it in into fund. So immediately, now we're gonna write our own book. Now the first thing we gotta do, we gotta have a foundation. Rockford's got a foundation. Ford's got a foundation.

So we'll have an alcoholic foundation. So the alcoholic foundation was put in business after the writing of 2 chapters, Bill and Bob. The alcoholic foundation could take money from any place, could open hospitals, drug farms, do anything they wanted to do with no strings. And that's towards the beginning of general service conference. Then they decided, Hank, Bill, Hank particular, Now, Bill, we gotta get this thing separated a little bit.

You know, you can have these corporations that interlink and so on and so forth. We gotta have a book company. Book company, an alcoholic foundation. The dough goes into there finally, which is, where the the alcoholic foundation was controlled by Hank, Bill, and Bob. Those 3 were the 3 owners of the Alcoholic Foundation.

Now I said, well, we gotta get the small boys in here, here, and we gotta make them feel useful. So we wanna start a book company. And, that will be the book company who will write this book. And with the profits from that, we'll throw them into the Alcoholics Foundation and for tax purposes, we can see you can't get way up at that. So they decided, well, we have to have a book company.

We never went into court to do these things. We just formed them and that was it. So then we decided we'd have the Works Publishing Company. Well, the interesting part of where we get the name Works. Well, Hank's great old expression used to be was it works.

So it became the Works Publishing Company. So now we have a publishing company. We have an alcoholic foundation, a nonprofit alcoholic foundation, which could do anything, go out and solicit, publish, print, or do anything. And all we have is 2 chapters. So then we started writing the book.

The way the book was written was, Bill would write a chapter a week. It was made up in 3 copies, double spaced for changes. One copy They, see Bill and Bob had, They, see Bill and Bob had, automobile polish, which I was general sales manager of and worker and mixer of Polish and whatnot. And, they were in that corporation, so that's where Ruth knot was. They would write these chapters.

Bill would write them walking up and down. Double spaced. It would be taken to the Tuesday meeting in New York. Bill would read them to us. We'd all take shots at it.

Well, this thing ought to be changed, that thing ought be changed. So every word in that wordage of the book there was called double combed by alcoholic lawyers. Every loophole, we were taking out anything, so you can find nothing in the book that says anybody has to do anything. It's a it's a motor monocle, that's why we all agreed with it. It doesn't say anybody has to do anything.

But, Bill was wide enough to put it in the background, but it seems like more people do better if they do it this way than if they do it that way. So they could take it either way, but this way looked a little better than the other way. So that's the way these chapters were done. We'd call them over, Bill would take them back, bring them back the final week, the final week, the the following week. The copy would come in from Acton, the changes would be made there, and each copy would be brought down that way.

A lot of the people wanted to know where a lot of the ideas came from that are in the where we stole. Guys, everybody knows the whole of AA has been trial and error, and we've taken from everybody we could think of to try to use anything that we thought would be useful to help the new drug. The 4 main books that Bill wrote, in case anybody's interested, they'd write these down, Where you'll find that nearly everything that's in the AA book and traditions came more or less from these 4 books. Number 1, where we got the psycho psychological approach on alcoholics came from The Common Sense of Drinking by Richard Peabody. Richard Peabody had stayed sober by working on other drugs.

For 11 years, he died just before AA started, and he died of alcoholism in every chapter. He said, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. And he had stayed sober for 11 years. But Dick Peabody had missed 2 things in his book. Working with other drunks, killing the new drunk, and the spiritual.

There was no spiritual. It was good hobbies, get away from yourself, so on and so forth. The second book was James' variety of religious experiences. The third book was, Emmett Fox's Sermon on the Mount and the Traditions and the third legacy. Most of that stuff was called From This Believing World by Lewis Brown.

Lewis Brown wrote this book breaking down all religions as he saw them. He's considered quite an authority of doing it. You all that are in the book deal. I don't know anything about it. He was a Jew.

And he showed the rise and fall of all spiritual groups, major spiritual groups, throughout history. And the fall of those that have failed, the fall of those that have failed, he could show and trace back to 3 things. And those are the 3 things you'll see in traditions and the third legacy if you look very clearly in them. What I always call the 3 p's. The three things that seem to break up spiritual groups is personalities, property, and politics.

And those are the things that we are trying to keep our personalities, principles always above personalities. And it wasn't always that way. The original AA was all personalities. It had to be. We had, we were emotionally saving people.

Today today, it's a more of a practical thing. We know we can't take that none of us can go to see a drunk individually for the first time. It's best to have 2 hours, 2 angles on a person. It's best to bring them immediately and introduce them to as many AAs as you can so they can see so many different sides. So they won't say, well, I like that guy or this guy, so therefore I'm not one of these things.

But you can't say that when you bring him into a room like this or into a larger meeting. So, though, that's why this book, Personality, Their Principles, why it stressed so much in the traditions and in anonymity. So we finally got the book pretty well together, the original idea of how we financed the book. It was a stock selling proposition. You buy a share of stock for $25, you'd get a book if and when it was present.

You could buy out Time Pinkerton. The brochure with this stock certificate was that, Colgate you departed at a dollar in 19 2. It'd been worth $10,000 a share now, and it brought up, General Electric and a few others, all these things. And this was your idea to get in here. A book cost about 35¢ to make.

We were selling for 35.3 dollars and a half. Look at the big profit. And the book company was made up three ways. 1 third owned by Bill, 1 third owned by Hank Parkers, 1 third owned by 29 of us that contributed $2,800 Neither Bill or Hank contributed damn set. All they did was the poison.

But out of the 29 hours, we got $2,800. $1700 came from 1 guy selling an automobile. So then we wish the original idea was to call this book 100 Men, And that was the thing we were working on through 38 while the book was being put up. That would be the name of the book. Then all of a sudden, one of these goddamn women got into the picture.

Lawrence Rankin got sober, and the time the book was getting near to to completion, it should've been sober to damn near a year. He says, hey. 100 men. What do you mean 100 men? 100 men and 1 woman, if you could.

Well, that's a hell of a lot of thing to put on there. Marquis. So all these time, when they were trying to change that over. So then there was heckling on what we're gonna name this thing. As you all noticed, the AA book, there's no mention in the original red book, Florida will remember.

There were Alcoholics Anonymous in the whole book. There's no mention of truth in that whole original book. All those things were coming after I mean, the name came after the book was finished. So that's why there wasn't any name in the book. We talked about the alcoholics in the books, but we didn't say anything about alcoholics and the others in the book, maybe in the forward and on the card, which we're after, and so forth.

So then an interesting thing happened like everything does in AA. These things come from the damndest particular spots. We were figuring on using exit for the name of the book. Oh, the way this way out. Oh, the way out.

The way out was winning by our own run when we sent somebody down to the Congress, but to Washington check up, see how many titles were on hand. There's 12 of them. We had thought maybe there'd not be 13 this way out. It wouldn't be good. So we threw that down, and we just pulled a guy out of state hospital up there named Joe Werten, who had been the founder of the New Yorker Magazine.

Joe Wertheimer went brain. The hospital didn't think he'd stay up very long. So he got in one of these meetings at a very lucid moment. He says, hey. Let's call this, I know it's alcoholics.

And nobody said anything for a moment. Alcoholics and others. And before you know it, that's where the word came from. And before you say, John Robinson, Joe already went back to the Nut House, and he's been in there ever since. So you never know where these things come from.

He came out just long enough to give us water. And you'll find a little later on, I'll show you the hank. Bill would have never done a damn thing. As a matter of fact, this history he's got coming out now. Here that originally was gonna be his 10 years in AA.

Now he's got about 20 another dollar damn thing. As a matter of fact, this history you got coming up now. He that originally was gonna be his 10 years in AA. Now he's got about 22 years in AA, and he's gonna come up with this, AA is now of age. So you can see how long it takes him to do anything.

But Hank is the guy that pushed this and made this thing because he owes money in the bank. We gotta get this done, get it out. So the idea was this time we had to see, we had the label on the book and that we were gonna sell these 1,000,000 books, the 1st year, the $1,000,000. And then what we were gonna do, the original idea was that a person would read this book, go up to the bathroom, get down on their knees, pray, and they wouldn't drink anymore. Just that simple.

And if they had any troubles or felt a little itchy, they'd go and read the book again and that would pray and everything would happen as well because that happened to Bill and Bob. So it had to happen with everybody. That was proof. We had to approve that. The potent and unfortunate, these psychopaths like you folks around here couldn't get well on the book alone.

Well then we would open a string of drug farms across the country. And we even have the plans, the blueprint for those Trump farms. We'd have this institutional building over here with a fence around it, and on the inside we'd have our own little cottage. And at the end of the day, we'd go to our old cottage. And during the day, we'd go and give therapy to these pork chops that couldn't get well in the book alone, provide they paid a certain sum for the therapy there.

Well, that was the original idea of the book. We were gonna make dough out, period. We did wanna save drugs, but here we were unemployable. And you all know the first thing in the world you wanna do is get double in your pocket. And that's the first thing a guy says, yeah, sober up.

But how did I get well financially? And we say all that stuff. But, we didn't think so at that time. So then, the book was finally finished in 'thirty 8. And, but we didn't have any money.

We were broke again, the $2,800 we'd gone out and bought the plates to print the book. But we haven't got a printer to print it, but we bought the copper plain plate, but and still no money. And then Bill and Bob had had to use this up to get buy on and pay my salary in the automobile polish business, which we weren't selling so hot at that time. So finally, we got a Molotov copy. I have one downstairs in the car.

It's a it's a monograph copy of the book. We got this finally finished and published, and there was no name on that when it came out. We're still gonna call it Alcoholics Anonymous, but we hadn't quite decided. There are 20 stories in there. There's only about 4 of those people living today of the original stories, and, 6 out of those 20 committed suicide.

That's terrific. What happened? Florence Rankin, the first gal. That's so so. So we could've used a 100 men, man.

I was trying to fucking hide. But then a remarkable thing happened. We start passing out these miniographs or monolith graphs of the books. We bought out 50 of them. The idea was we would promote the book with this.

You could buy this monolith copy for 3a half, and you've got a nice spanking clean new book if and when printed, for 3 and a half. And we weren't selling the stock certificates. We're all gone. Nobody was buying those. Nobody seemed to give a damn.

And we were in a mess, so we tried to sell these books. And at the same time, we tried to shove them at a few doctors or places we thought would get interest. Then here's another stroke that came along that saved us. Almost killed Bill. Doctor Howard got ahold of one of these chief psychiatrist of the Trenton State Hospital.

And he came rushing up to Bill, said, mister Wilson, you've written a very fine book, you boys, and I think you got something here. But since for him, he did this on his own without any coaching from anybody. Bill thought it was a very lousy trick here. His baby, this beautiful thing put together and everything, and this man coming up the spruple, the psychiatrist, not even a drunk, telling it was all wrong. Doctor Howlett said, I know what you've been doing up here.

I've heard a good deal about it. He said, All you've got there is the Oxford group. Because what we've done in that mold is what they've done. I talk about what I was doing. Well, I was one of those boys that was on the outskirts at that time and the most least likely to succeed.

And, there was a little there was a few prayer being held in there that I wouldn't succeed. The bells were down on me. But I was around there a good deal and I did shoot my mouth up a little bit and sometimes it did a little bit of good. But Doctor. Howard came up there and said, Bill, you can't put it this way.

It's nothing but the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group's going down. You cannot tell the Bronx they have to do anything. You got to suggest. You got to say, well, we found we had to do so and so.

Or we suggest you try it this way or you do it that way. But make no general demands. Bill locked himself up in his room for 5 days. He didn't come out of that room. We we just couldn't get food into him.

Here is his baby all being chopped up. Well, Hank, Fitzmaier myself did work on him to accept it. And overnight, the changes were made from this book that I have down in the car to the original red book, which we found we had to, or suggested, or of recovery and so on and so forth. So the whole thing was changed overnight. If that hadn't happened, the book would have flopped.

I'm pretty positive. A lot of us can see that picture very now. And then God was God cold turkey, and it wasn't as you see Him or as you can find Him. It was right on the line, and you had to get down on your knees. Leave one part of the book there.

If you don't like this book, throw it away. But that shows you some of the struggles drugs today. As a matter of fact, we're probably a little wackier than those are today. But this divine power seemed to be coming in and doing something about it. Here was this excavating going on.

Here was this floor going on on this AA mansion as we see it now. It was all those things we had to go through. So the book finally came out in April 1939. We got a whole of a printer to do it on a consignment basis. He put them in a bonded warehouse, and the only way we could get them out was to pay 2 and a half on them and then we go ahead and sell them for 3.50 and come back and buy another.

So we took books out that 1st year, never more than a dozen at a time. And we would go ahead and sell those to YMCA's or anybody we could click on in any way, shape, or form. Then our 1st publicity. Normally, an interesting thing that happened that came up. If you all have the read copy of the book, which is the first copy of the book, They have a piece in the back, or they have a, last chapter in there was The Long Endeavor.

Well, this is quite a cute one. This is a proof that this thing works, that it will save drugs all over the world. Or one of these monolith copies of the the AA book, cut it here to California at the end of 38. We were describing, let's say, about 50 or 60 of them. We don't know where they all went through.