The history of AA at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

Thanks.

My name is Clancy Emma Salon, and I'm an alcoholic.

My big problem tonight. It's a quality problem, but it's a problem. Why do they move Doctor Young from over there to over there? You see him over there? He was over here earlier.

I'm glad to be here tonight. I'm glad to be safe and sane and sober, as I like to say, because I didn't used to be and I may not be again. I think this is a wonderful event. Bob started this five years ago, I guess, and I've been president most of them whenever I could, and I always enjoy it here. Good speakers talking about subjects they know something about. Not a bunch of philosophers

and and what ifs, but real a A. And I very much enjoyed Charlie's talk.

He he told me tonight that he was nervous talking before I talked. But just to be fair, I'm nervous talking after he got done.

But I'm here to talk about something, not about the steps. This is something else and it's the most people long term sobriety may know all about it already. So you may always doze off. But there's a lot of people here I'm sure who don't. Because I didn't douse around a for years and I didn't understand. I know all the bits and pieces. I didn't know where they fit into the scheme. And so I want to talk to you just a little bit tonight before,

and what a remarkable thing that Alcoholics Anonymous exists.

You know, Charlie was talking about alcohol, real Alcoholics and Alcoholics of our type. But there seem to be a couple types of Alcoholics, and we don't talk about it much, but there are a couple types of Alcoholics. There's a type of alcoholic who seems to be an alcoholic anywhere you measure them, they drink and get in trouble and have things happen. If something happens that really threatens their security, maybe someone dies, or maybe they lose their job or lose a family and they quit

and they never drink again.

And I know several people like that that I swore were Alcoholics and that same type of person, if they had become physically addicted to alcohol, which we don't hear much about. But physical addiction, alcohol is much worse than lethal, more lethal than drug addiction. When you come off drugs, you get awfully sick and it's just terrible. When you come off an alcohol addiction, you sometimes die, smashing your head to the sidewalk.

But they are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created to medically withdraw them and point out the error of their problems all the way along.

And

they came out and they learned their lesson, and they quit, and they never drank again. There's a very famous hospital up in Seattle called Schick, She Del, who still advertises we will cure your alcoholism in one month, including follow-ups. And we think that's funny. But they have a whole list of names of people. They've done that for it.

That's one type of alcoholic. Then there's another type of alcoholic who seems to be an alcoholic by any way you measure them. They drink and get in trouble and have problems and something happens that really threatens their security. They lose a job or a family or somebody dies and they quit,

but they always begin to drink again. And these same people came out of treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks. I've learned my lesson. And they quit, but they always drink again. And those are what we call Alcoholics of our type. That's what Bill describes. And there's never been an answer for these people.

And the history of them written history goes back 4000 years of

talking about people that had this problem with alcohol at one time they thought there must be a must be possessed by the devil did put him to death, flog them, send them away. And this went on for hundreds and thousands of years. Doctors and medical men and and religious people and philosophers and everybody tried. There's just no dealing with them because no matter what they said or promised, it was not going to happen.

Even when I was born, which was a long time ago but not 4000 years.

Felt like it this morning, but not now.

But when I was born, there was still no answer to it. After all these years, when I was a little boy up in Wisconsin, I didn't, of course, I didn't know or care either. But you know, there still was no answer. The best answer and when I was a young kid was the Keeley Cure, where they'd give you drugs and alcohol and make you sick. And so you didn't want anymore. And they worked perfectly till you got out and you found a bar where they didn't put drugs and alcohol.

The which reminds me, this has gone on in 19. In the early 1960s

I was sober. I was working in a medical corporation and at the Los Angeles Times one day they had a full page article on the new answer to alcoholism. The 7th Day Adventists at the White Hospital had found an answer and they just had 100% recoveries. And I read this of course, and they had set up one of their their dead set against drinking, but they realized alcoholism exists. They took one of their wards and turned it into a bar

with a full bar with a back bar was booze and everything

and a bartender. And they bring these poor mopes in there for treatment.

If you want a drink, you got drugs and that stuff. Nope, not just really. They give a drink of whiskey, had a little cord out and so it wouldn't steal the glass, I guess. And

hey, you 73 adversaries know how what's how to treat alcohol give you nothing will you have

and did grew every morning John drink. I sure do.

Boy, this is a treatment center. I could go go for it. And finally, after a while, one morning, they'd send an electric shock through that cord.

Hold the ice next time, will you, Fred? I

maybe give a couple drinks without it, then you give a drink with it. And after all these poor boobs, just, you know, frightened fawns, you know,

finally said no thanks. Since they did that two mornings in a row, we knew they were all right. And they ran a whole food full page story about it. And then about two years later someone did a follow up

and nobody was sober at all. Most of them hadn't gotten by the 1st bar that didn't have cords on the glasses. You know, just

goes on and on. And that's what's so remarkable to 1930. There was a family, wealthy family in New York who had a son. They were grooming to be run their company, which was the Depression, but they were wealthy. This time was about 35 years old, I guess. And he had a funny problem. He sometimes would get terrible attacks of nerves. And when he got these attacks of nerves, sooner or later he drank whiskey and got drunk. And they were so shocked by this,

and so they thought we ought to do something about this. So they found the best psychiatrist in the world and contacted him to take care of their son. That was Doctor Freud, and Dr. Freud refused the case, which is the first break we ever got.

We'd all be here tonight, Drunk said. We're dreamt I was so burger.

So they went to his colleague Doctor Young, who's been demoted to the lower echelons. Sorry, Doctor Young,

we were talking before the meeting. These two gentlemen are going to speak later. And I pretended to be Doctor Young. I said what is your problem? And one says I think I'm a wigwam. That one says I think I'm a teepee. And there's huh, I see your problem. You're too tense.

Yeah, well,

ah, shut up.

We are a glum lot,

so. But so they sent they sent him their son over there and the son put him in his sanitarium in Switzerland. And apparently Doctor Young talked to him every day and worked with him to break through these psychic walls that are confining him. And after about a year, he seemed to be doing very well. He said, Roland, I think you understand how the nature of your problem. I don't think you'll have any more of these nervous attacks. And if you do, you will drink. You may go home now. So we went home and he stopped in Paris.

He was very wealthy. Families came from. There's some wealthy friends of theirs

had his dinner for him and to celebrate his new found health and everybody had a glass of wine and a couple days later he was face down his own vomit again and nobody could understand why such a nice man. How, why how could he do that? So they took him back to Doctor Young's sanitarium and Doctor Young refused to take him back

and which was a great break for us, it turned out. But they said why I did. The guys who brought him back said he didn't mean any harm. Dr. He just seemed to get disturbed. So, you know, so I, I'm not angry at him. I now realize I've misdiagnosed his case. I thought he was, I thought he needed some deep psychiatric help. But I realize now he is what is known as a chronic alcoholic,

and to the best of my knowledge,

there is no effective treatment for that condition today in the world at any cost. That was 1931, not all that long ago. And Roland, of course, was taken aback. He said, what does this mean, Doctor? He says it means that you must keep yourself confined voluntarily or involuntarily as long as you live or otherwise. You almost certainly will intermittently drink to excess until you die or go mad.

Bad news,

he says. There any possible other method at all, Doctor?

He says, in reading through the literature,

I've noticed that there's been one or two citations where people like you have had some involuntary psychological reversion. They call it a spiritual experience of some kind. But he said, I would think that your chances of being hit by lightning are better than that is such a rare thing.

And so Roland left him, came home with much chastened individual on the ship. He did something. He didn't stop for dinner with his friends this time. And on the chip, he did something that most of us have to do if we're ever going to stay sober any length of time at all. I guess he surrendered to the fact he was hopeless and he came back to New York and he didn't know what to do. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, but that hadn't helped him. He believed in God. That hadn't helped him.

He thought If I could just do something, As he wrote later,

I wanted to stay sober as long as I could. So when I died drunk, my parents would have a pleasant memory of me.

And by an odd coincidence, another one of the odd coincidences. At that time, there was something going on in New York and all over the country. She's at the height of his career in 1910. There was a minister up in Pennsylvania who felt Christianity was getting a little too loose. I mean, people weren't really dedicated to it like they were in the 1st century where they would be willing to crucify it and burn for their belief.

So he started a little movement called the 1st Century Christian Association.

Didn't get a lot of play, you know? You know, I go down there and be crucified. Screw you, Jim, you know,

But he, he got a few mopes. And after this First World War, he went to Europe. And for some reason the students at Oxford just ate it up. Oh, yeah. That's what we needed, a structured for religion. And they really took it up so much, in fact, they changed the name to the Oxford Group. And he came back in the late 1920s now with the Crest of the Oxford people and all these other things. And all of a sudden the Oxford Group began widely spread all over America,

very much of A fad like

just so people want to get into it. What it really consisted of in the last analysis of nice people, upper better type people getting to another in one anothers homes and discussing deep spiritual values and how they could increase their understanding of God

and the actual and

our friend saw that. Roland saw that well, maybe if I go there for a while, I could say sober a while. It's some kind of they seem to be doing well. And he got went to the Oxford Group and for some reason it just he got caught up in it. Their essential sense of enthusiasm amongst some of the people he got caught up in these states over and he did very well and he went back and ran the company first family and became successful.

And two, three years later his family was so proud of me, he said. Roland, you're doing so well.

We're so proud of you. You know our country home where we've always gone to in the summertime when you were a little boy, why did you go to Vermont? Take a week, a couple weeks, and go up to Vermont and just relax. We'll run the company when you come back. You really deserve all sorts of laudatory action. So is it okay? And then he just went up there one week.

And the irony is this, if you'd have gone 2 weeks later,

there would be no a A, there would be nothing. If you'd have gone a week later, there would be any a. It sounds dramatic, but it's true. He got there and the day after he got there, one of his childhood friends that he knew when he went up there said Kevin, said Roland, our, our chum Ebby that used to know he's become a terrible drunk. Would you talk to him? Because I know you're sober now? He said, sure, I'll talk to him. And he brought Ebby over and he said, Abby, I'm, I'm in the Oxford group. We're finding a new way to approach God. I mean, I don't want to hear that.

I don't hear that real. God, I'm disappointed in you, Holden. And Way went and later that same week he was drunk again and ran his car into somebody's house and was under severe. He was already on severe probation. Now I had to go to court Friday and the same kid came over to see Roland, said. Roland, you got to come to court.

Do something for the judge. The judge is my father, but he won't listen to me. But he'll listen to you because he knows your family and he knows you. Could you come to court, please? OK, So we came to court and said, you know, judge, I used to drink myself, but I don't drink anymore. If you would release Ebby to me, I'll take it back to New York and put him in the Oxford Group and and he won't be any trouble to you and maybe it'll save his life. And the judge says only because it's you.

I would not do it for anyone else. But I know your father and I know you,

you take them out of Vermont. But if he comes back to you, he's going to the penitentiary. So I talked about a New Yorker second admission on lower Broadway and got him active in the Oxford Group. And after he didn't really like it, but he didn't like his lot better than the Vermont penitentiary. And he after a few months rolled and said, well, well, every time to testify, he said what he said. You know, after you're so here a while and you're learning new values, we want you to find someone and

testify to them. What you found

numbers. I don't want to testify to anybody. That's embarrassing. You want to go back to Vermont? No, I believe I'll testify.

I mean, these people were fallible people, you know, all of us. And he thought, who could I testify to? And he suddenly remembered he had another friend from Vermont, one of them hotbed that was up there, who was last he heard, he was drunk in New York, a mooch living off his wife. Couldn't hold a job. Just a bum, he thought. But I could testify to him. He will remember the next day.

So we got a hold of Bill Wilson in Brooklyn, made arrangements to call on him. We know in our book what from Bill's point of view is that? Well, he came to the door and looked so nice. I said Gibby looks a good, he said. He said, yeah, I got religion. And I felt a little put down that you just couldn't do very much detail. I heard every talk at the 1960 International Convention. The only time you ever talk at the convention.

And he gave a few more details. He went and sat down and tried to explain the Oxford group to Bill and he. That's really wonderful. I'd be able, but you're here happy. And that made him upset. God I hate to be outsmarted by a drunken boob like that. So he came back to about 3 days later and he had the Oxford Group closer with him.

Hi Mr. Watson, I'll take a little bit of tax for your brother

and build a decent person. Would do when I got drunker than ever

and sobered up briefly in early November and

thought, Gee, I really did act pretty badly to Abby Houston. I guess he's trying to help me. I'll go over to that mission in Manhattan and I'll apologize. So we went over there and got drunk on the way just to keep him hand in. Got to the mission. Ebby wasn't there, so he gave a short sermon anyway to the folks. Just made him feel better. Staggered off down the street

and soon he was in the hospital again.

In the hospital one more time. This time was a little different. Doctor Silkworth.

I took that picture to my doctor, my Barber, and I said I want to look like that.

I really got a head of curly hair. Chrysler

the

But

Silkworth called Mrs. Wilson and said, Mrs. Wilson, Lois, I have some bad news. I don't think your husband has any more trips to us left. I don't think he's going to live through many more if he lives through this one. And she was just aghast. So she called the mission and said, Abby, could you please go up and talk to Billy's in the town hospital? So I took a couple guys. When I talked to him, she had to talk to you. Bill, you naked, You got to find the power greater than yourself. He said, I don't want to hear that religious junk that never helps anybody.

OK, So they went home in the middle of the night. This loser, bum undeserving person woke up in the night in a terror. And he said, if there's a God, show yourself to his empty room. All of a sudden he said there was a light in the room, like someone turned on a light and there was wind blowing through from somewhere and he knew he was going insane. He knew he was insane.

The wind died down and the lights went out. He tear. He laid his bed terrified.

Next morning, told the doctor. Doctor said, I think I snapped less. I think I had a terrible psychiatric breakdown. I don't think so, Bill. I don't think so. Whatever it is happened to you. Whatever you found, hang on to it. You look like a different man.

And eventually Bill left at hospital and went to the Oxford Group. Now you say, well, what's all the other crap of a Bill? And every and Roland because of the few people that ever had a spiritual experience, they always associated with church work and they go into church work and never be heard from again. But because of what Ebby been talking to him about, he thought he had some sort of a calling to help drunkards. So he went to the Oxford Group and he went assiduously and he wanted people. He wanted to help people. He would find St. Drunks, old, slobbering,

vomiting, sick

and bring him to us with all these nice people.

I'm I'm afraid you're vomiting on my shoe, Sir.

And sometimes you take him home and nobody ever stayed sober. Just a joke. You talk to him about God and higher powers and

and Monday, after a few months of this, he got up one morning

and he saw his wife putting on her sweater with a patch on the sleeve who'd Once Upon a time been a pert little society girl, now old before her time, with Gray hair, going to work in a 2 bit department store and make a few dollars so he could afford decay. Going to Manhattan and help people go to the Oxford Booth.

And he had a terrible wave of revulsion.

Lois, I want you to know I apologize. God, I,

I thought I had some sort of calling to help people, but I don't. I'm going to get a job. I don't care if it's shoveling dirt. I'm going to get a job and I'm going to let you rest. I'm so sorry. I've made your life so much so bad, honey. I'm just, I just, it's ridiculous. I've tried to help people every day and not one person to stay sober. To hell with it.

And right there the a, a movement died in its infancy momentarily. And then she turned to him and said something that changed the course of history. I was having lunch with her some years ago in Connecticut. I said, how did you ever think of that answer, Lois? My God, it's just changed the court. I don't know. It seems so obvious to me, He said, not one person to stay sober. And she said you did.

And Oh yeah,

that's why old timers don't have much hair in front. You just go. Oh, yeah.

So he went down to see Doctor Silkworth.

My hair is neater than his, for Christ sake. Anyway, he would not see Doctor Silkworth. The Doctor Silkworth, she said, I can't seem to get anybody to understand what I'm trying to do. And Doctor Silkman says, don't you understand, Bill Trunks don't respond to religion. No drunken responded to. Very, very rare if it ever happened. What you have to offer them is that you know how they feel and why they drink and that you don't drink anymore. That's what you have to offer them.

Well, I want to tell him about God's will. You tell him about God later. You tell him that I know how you feel. So. OK. And then somebody came along and offered Bill a job. He said, I noticed you're staying sober, Bill. I know you're making a comeback. I'll give you one chance. If you blow this one, you're done. But I'll give you a chance. We got to deal with some proxies on our behalf.

We'll take over this country company, you'll be president and you're we're on our way

building out to acronyms. We all know he the deal blew up on his face

the day before Mother's Day 1935, he said

in a hotel lobby at $10 in his pocket,

he could either pay his hotel bill or buy a train ticket home. And I needed to go home and admit one more failure. I can't do anything. I'm no good. I never be any good. And he heard I stood that same spot in the lobby of years with some kind of a romanticist trying to recreate what it must have been like. And over there is a door with a little curved sign over saying cocktails.

And he said there are sounds of music coming out. And I suppose from a jukebox just on Saturday morning, it wouldn't be a lot of people in there.

But he realized that, and he said if I just had a couple drinks, I could think of an answer.

And we started to go

and we almost died right there. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw some telephones and he went over there because he promised these people in the Oxford Group he'd call somebody before he got drunk. Nobody ever thought he's going to get drunk again. Incidentally, let me just mention something about that situation right there.

Many, many people come to a A to have a remarkable feeling of getting well and doing better.

So well, in fact, they don't even do it anymore. You they don't have to do it. They've got the answer now. Just stop and think. Bill Wilson had a true spiritual experience and six months later, he was ready to drink. I mean, when the heat's on, people like us drink.

So we went over these phones. I don't know if you know small town hotels. They used to have the list of the churches, the big churches, the ministers name and their phone number over the phones. So we took a nickel and called the top one, said I'm Bill Wilson, rum Hon from New York and I want to find someone in the Oxford. You have to talk to you about drinking. The man said, I really don't know what you're talking about, Sir. I'm trying to write a sermon. Please don't bother me.

Hung up.

Call the next one. Nobody home. Call the next one. No answer. Call the next one. I don't know. I can't help you. Sorry

and right there

I know about you, but if that had been me at that phone,

I did what I said I would. I just need a

couple drinks.

But the last name you saw the last name, the bottom there, Walter Tonk. I better call Walter Tonk that one more rejection from that strange sounding fool.

So we called Walter Tunk,

trying to be probably the only man in Akron who could have helped him. He said funny you should call, funny you should call. A woman in my congregation was telling me about a member of their Oxford group who was a Doctor Who just admitted in the Oxford group that he was a terrible drunkard and he couldn't help himself and everybody worried about him. Why should you stay in that phone booth and I'll get back to you and see if I can browse him. So he called the woman who's an heiress to the US Rubber Company fortune, just divorced from Guy out. She had

West Akron. And she said, yes, that's true, Reverend, let me see if I can get a hold of Mrs. Smith and see if we can get the doctor to meet him. She called Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith picked up the phone. She said there's someone here from the Oxford Group of New York, and he seems to have some way to stop drinking, Would like to talk to him alone or Anne. And I said, God, I'd love to, but the doctor is drunk, laying on the floor. He can't even get up.

She said, could we do it tomorrow? I'll get him. I'll get him out there tomorrow. OK. So she called the doctor, I mean, called the Reverend Tongue back,

called Bill back. And what's interesting about that, just stop and think. If anyone of those phone calls hadn't been answered, wouldn't be here, if Ann Smith hadn't been home, if the Harris hadn't been home, if Bill Wilson got tired of waiting in that damn hot phone booth. God just said the shivered on your side. But they made arrangements to meet in her mansion or the gatehouse of her mansion in Akron the next day. Bill had instruction on to

streetcar there and doctor, this doctor, Doctor Bob, as we all know, was in his car too sick to drive. So his son, young Smitty drove 16 years old and his sister in the front seat and his parents in the back. And he always like to tell that story about how his father just kept saying and I'll go out and listen to this guy, but I'm so sick of servants. I'm not going to listen to very long. I'll give him 10 minutes. That's what I'll give him because I know a spoiled mother. Today's Mother's Day and I've spoiled that for you. And I'm awfully sorry, but I'll I'll

10 minutes. So they got out there after the foldy roll. These two men went in the room for their 10 minutes and came out four hours later. The doctor said, my God. And

that's the first man I ever talked to who seems to know how I feel and why I drink to my God. It's just, it's like a miracle, he said. Bill, I know you probably got to get home, but could you stay with us, maybe just a short while, we could talk some more about what we can do. And Bill felt his pocket and had no way to get home.

Yes, I can.

So he stayed with him and he and Doctor Bob spent the next two weeks

going to Oxford Group meetings and discussing the spiritual values therein.

And after two weeks, Doctor Bob was glowing and he said, Bill, I feel wonderful. I'm going to go to this weekend in Atlantic City is the inner is the American Medical Association convention. I was there last year and I was drunk. I was drunk and they ridiculed me. If you stay here with my wife and kids, I'll be back Tuesday or Monday morning or Tuesday morning. I want to go and show what we found. So away when

and Tuesday morning, early in the morning,

6:00, phone rang. Mrs. Smith answered the phone woman said hi. I'm so sorry to tell you this. Missus Smith, this is Doctor Bob's office nurse. The station agent called me this morning. They carried the doctor off the train so drunk he couldn't walk. And they laid him on the platform and he called me to come down and get him. And I've the cab driver and I've got him on the floor of his office. And we feel so bad because we know so much what you were trying to do and it didn't work and I'm awfully sorry. And she cried

and Misses Smith and her friend Bill Wilson went down, got this drunken, crying, sick

puke. You know, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I shut up. You know, people get tired of their kind of crap after a while, I've discovered.

I mean not be. I mean different people. Sorry.

And so they put him to bed and he woke up a couple days later.

What day is it? And he said Thursday morning, baby, Oh my God. Oh my God. I said, I'm going to do a cancer surgery today. Look at my hand. I can't hold a knife. My God, they'll take my license. Oh my gosh. But they got him up and bathed him and put his clothes on. His new friend Bill got him some booze to steady his hand. And he went off in his car, left. I'll be I'll be home about 1:30.

And

so they waited for him. Didn't get over 130 or two or three or four or five. Every notice the old son of a bitch was drunk again. About 6:00, he burst through the door. Cold sobers. I just feel wonderful. He said, where you been, Bob? He said when I was doing that surgery, I was thinking they want people to make amends for the harm they've done. And I thought a doctor shouldn't have to make amends. But I really am a human being, not a doctor. So I've been all afternoon making amends all over Akron, and I just feel

wonderful.

And that was June 10th, 1935, which is the birthday of our organization. Because neither one of them drank after that. But they realized one thing, that sitting talking about spirituality didn't work.

And Bill thought about it, too, said I guess you got to do that. But

I seem to feel better. When I was helping people, they had to communicate. They're just sitting. Talking about spiritual values is nice, but it isn't enough to keep people like us over, apparently.

So the doctor had knew a nun up at the hospital, Sister Ignatia,

you couldn't get drunks in hospitals and yet be gastritis just make up some phony thing. But he she told the other lawyer up there that was in bad shape. So they tried to make arrangements to see him. Now I'm going to tell you I told Tom this on the car over coming over here. I think, I don't know if this really happened because it's hard to remember at my age, but in 1960 I kissed Sister Ignatia on the cheek

and I remember that happening and I got Dell after that. It seems to me she's, I said,

oh, is it all right to kiss a nun? And I think she said as long as you don't get in the habit.

I can't remember every little detail that long ago I.

But they, they wanted to talk to this guy. So Sister Ignatius put him in touch with his wife and I, I heard him speak years ago, many years ago, Bill Dee, he said I was laying in that bed in Akron. I was a lawyer from Louisville, but I wound up in Akron. And my wife came in, told me two fellows. One told me about drinking. And I said absolutely not. I'm not going to listen to any more sermons. Listen to all the more nonsense I've had. All of it I can do,

but my wife's a rather strong woman.

So I talked to those two fellows

and they never talked to me about drinking once. They talk about their drinking and how they felt, I thought, my God, there are other people in the world like me, and I couldn't believe it. And he became #3

then they had got a few people, the local people that made him stayed because they didn't have any place to take it except for the Oxford Group meetings. And boy, did just hear about Jesus and God. Nothing about staying Selbert, which would turn them off. One of the funny little guys, they picked up

guy named Ernie,

a young man. He was 29. They thought you're probably too young to be really an alcoholic, but you do drink bad, so we'll try to help you. And he went around with him and doing them things and he fell in love with Doctor Bob's daughter, which sounds beautiful, doesn't it? He did, although he didn't know it at the time. He

he brought our organization its first relationship.

I don't know a word that chills a sponsor worse than that one.

I want to talk to you about my new relationship. Oh, Jesus,

you just have to have a machine on your desk that says uh-huh, uh huh, and put the

because they say wonderful things. You know, I know Clancy. I thought the last girl was this. But today, Jesus, when I saw her walking out of detox, I just knew.

But but, but

they, they got married in this young man, Ernie and Bill's daughter or Doctor Bob's daughter, which again sounds wonderful. That happened in my family. My youngest daughter, Susan, several of you know, married a guy I sponsored about six years sober. I was not for it, but I was outvoted by all the women in my family. What does daddy know? He doesn't know anything.

So they got married and I want to tell you the absolute epitome of mixed emotions,

watching your daughter put on the aisle to marry a man whose 5th step you've heard.

You can't really say anything,

but you can give hints.

Let me know if he ever brings a sheep home, honey.

Yeah,

but they provided me with a lot of grandchildren and now great grandchildren. So I forgive them.

And this Ernie, they said, Ernie, you know, you don't really need to be run around this. You're a newlywed. You stay home and take care of your wife for a while. You have a little honeymoon at home and we'll go take care of all these other things. So they were quite shocked when he got drunk and turned her against a A for 50 years.

But eventually life went on and then eventually, pretty soon, Bill went back to New York and started a little organic group there. And they had these two little tiny groups

and they thought, you know, the trouble is we can't get people because in those days, they talk to the adult normally with really low bottom, sick, sick, sick people drunk.

We have to get people in the hospitals, but they won't take them in the hospitals. But if we built our own hospital, we have a place to say we could help. Yeah. Where the hell We're going to get the money to raise a hospital. We'll write a book. We'll write a book that'll make us so many much money in royalties. We'll build a hospital in Akron. We'll build another one, maybe New York. And we will be on our way. So Bill Wilson sat down

and thinking about all the things he had seen and what he knew about the Oxford Group. In here, he wrote a book.

He called it at first, the way out. Then they found the copyright department there, about 10 books already named that. So they made it Alcoholics Anonymous, and they published it, and they sent a postcard to all the doctors of the eastern United States, and only one ever returned, ordered one. And he didn't like it.

So there's no hospital out here.

But it's, you know, it's a funny thing that book,

Charlie talked about it at length. It is true. But you know, the when you're new, that book is not very inspiring. I must say. When I first came to a, my sponsor had me read the book and I read it

and I'm an incipient writer. I was on my way to becoming a writer. And they say it's a badly written but isn't a badly written book. It's just dull. Just dull.

I just put aside some years later when I came off Skid Row and went back to a A

and my dude, my new sponsor had me read that book. I said I read. I, Deputy Frontina, had I read that book? I'll read it again.

And I read it again, and I realized my memory had played me tricks. It was much duller than I remember. Jesus. Yeah. I wrote things. Buy this product. Take this action. You read it here looking for a little inspiration

if you are thorough at this stage of your development.

But I I was so ill, I took did what my sponsor said and I later found out there all those things were in the book. I didn't know at the time.

But look, The funny thing about the book is, if you stay sober a little while the book begins to make sense,

it has even a more remarkable character. It gets smarter every year you're sober.

I've been reading this book for over 50 years. They still are sneaking things in there that I never saw before, but that wasn't there last year. What is it?

When you're new and contiguous, they say things like this book is a miracle.

That's no word is more badly used in a than miracle. Everything's a miracle. Heard a guy a few years ago, he said hi, Got up early this morning. I looked at the eastern sky and the sun was rising and I said it's a miracle. I've been given another day.

Get up early tomorrow and have another one, you goof.

Miracles are supposed to be unexplainable or inexplicable, as they say. What's a miracle about this book? Well, couple little things. There's odd. This guy who wrote this was three years sober. No background in medicine, no background in psychology, abnormal psychology, surrounded by people who are getting drunk mostly. And if you're new, you might think of Jesus.

By the time you're three years sober, you should know enough to write a book.

When you get to be three years sober, you'll discover you don't.

When you're five years sober, you just try to be nice to people three years sober, hang in their gym. You're doing a good job

by the time you're 10 years sober. You hate to send people three years sober to get your coffee and that two creams and one sugar or two sugars and I'll get it myself for Christ sake

by the time you're 20 years sober. You hate to have people three years sober unattended on your property.

Nothing against him once he had the turn out first.

This guy three years over sat down and wrote this book without any background by observing most of the people who are drinking, and they had very, very few. Just stop and think. If you were to go to a meeting and every time they went to a meeting, they had a religious service there, wouldn't you? You wouldn't be, you'd be turned off pretty bad. They really had to be dedicated. In fact, it's amazing. Let me tell you. In 1963, I was in New York working for a company in Los Angeles, and I thought, I'll go and see Bill Wilson.