Big Book study in McKenzie Bridge, OR

Wild hogs?

Well, I'm the dog and that's the pony.

How y'all doing?

You know I've been looking for God and I found him up here in these hills.

All right, whenever in my wife see anything like what y'all get the witness and

is this thing working? Yeah,

mostly in and out. That's kind of what she said.

Once again, it's such an honor and a privilege to be up here. We we get to do this all over the country

and me and my damn fool scheduling I have.

I've scheduled too many of these,

but

we're real grateful to be here. We're running a different schedule this weekend and we're accustomed to

and we hope that we can get everything that you bargained for in this deal. We're going to take a break once an hour for you to go out and do whatever it is you need to do. If you need to get up and get coffee, get it. You need to get up and go, Let some go get it. You're not going to bother us. We're going to be covering a lot of material and it's going to be extremely helpful. If you have a pinned and a highlighter, you don't have either one.

Don't make for good

charged to you this weekend

is that we're going to pass along a lot of information to you that was given to us purely

by a couple of guys named Charlie formerly and Joe Mcqueeney at Arkansas.

And we were trained by people that that were trained by them. And our hope and desire this weekend is to pass along information to you pure in nature with our damn fool egos and wisdom out of it. And when we have an opinion about something, we will make it very clear because my opinion has no place

with this information.

The very first piece that we're going to go over today

is a piece that you've not seen before, but what we're going to do at this point, we're going to turn this thing into a little meeting.

I'd like to clarify that this is not an A a meeting. This is a big book study,

so we're going to start it out by saying welcome to the Eugene, OR Big book study,

if you would. Let's take a moment of silent meditation and open this thing up with the Serenity Prayer. And during this moment of silence, let's think about why we're here.

Serenity, Prayer,

Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

If you do have a cell phone, we'd ask you to silence it at this time. And if you got a newcomer with you, keep them quiet, will you?

So we got some, we got a few of these. We had a big box of them. We run out these little big book dictionaries. They cost us 2 bucks. And that's what we'll sell them to you for. They're extremely helpful if you become a student of this book because there are words in here that were written in the 30s. And I know being a South Georgia boy, I don't understand some of that stuff. So I need to look it up.

Short words and long ones.

Hope everybody's got a big book.

We talked about smoking. I don't need to go back over that.

I've asked a friend to read the preamble.

John, I'm an alcoholic,

it says. Unless we

a a member follow the to the best of our ability, the suggested 12 steps to recovery,

we almost certainly sign our own death warrant. Our drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority. Instead, they result from our personal disobedience towards spiritual principles. Thank you Sir. Probably a good idea to tell you that my name is Larry Scott and I'm an alcoholic.

My sobriety date is December 31st, 1987 and I'm free tonight. I've asked a friend to read the tradition statement.

My name is Leo and I'm an alcoholic.

Ahig must function, but at the same time it must avoid the dangers of great wealth, prestige, and entrenched power which necessarily tempt other societies. Although our traditions at first sight seem to deal with purely practical matters, the actual operation they disclose is a society without organization, animated only by the spirit of service, a true fellowship.

My name is Christian Proctor. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is August 7th, 2001

and I know well there are a lot of purists in this room are probably going preamble, tradition, statement the heck they get these things from. There's a couple groups out of California Escondido, the Misfits group and the Robbers roost out of Vista, CA and then the Robbers Roost E out of Atlanta, GA and the We Are Not Glumlock group out of Atlanta, GA. Something happens when you hear. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. People just seem to tune out, go out, grab a smoke, go make some coffee

because they've heard it a trillion times. You know, we as per group conscience voted to go to the 12 and 12 in the 9th tradition and actually pull those two readings that you just heard and it keeps things fresh. It's our prerogative to decide what we want to share in an A, a meeting, as long as it's in compliance with the literature and hopefully our group conscious statement that we're going to be able to carry a vision of hope for those who are suffering from alcoholism. And one of the reasons why we went to the 12 and 12 in this because

we're a big book study. We just alcoholic and we want to keep it mixed up a little. And this next reading that you're going to hear was written by God at Dallas, TX named Cliff Bishop and co-authored by a fell out of the Northeast named Bob Bacon. And what we did is we asked their permission to plagiarize it, condense it down to where it would fit within this format. And it talks about the success rate as it has declined since 1955. And we got a friend that's going to read that for us.

Alan

that question is being asked a lot of alcoholic. What happened to our success rate forward to the second edition acknowledges 75% success rate. Today's numbers are much less. The problem is we no longer we are no longer showing the newcomers. We have a solution out.

You're not telling them how important.

Instead, we are using our meetings. We don't allow discussions of our problems, our ideas and our opinion. We're telling newcomers, just don't drink and go to meetings. Don't rush into taking the steps. Take your time. That relapse is hard recovery.

Most most means have turned into a misery trap. Comers and those who depend upon discussion and participation.

We need to tell the newcomers that there is,

we have had a spiritual waiting as the result of taking,

that this is a message.

We've studied this text on the research material so we can share the weather

when we were through.

When we are through, we will have introduced you to the authors. Thank you. Thanks, Alan.

The disclaimer for this thing is that we are students of the book. We're not gurus, experts, or authorities. We simply want to share with you guys this weekend the information that we've discovered and that that was passed on to us by those that have gone before. I've been doing this personally for 14 years and being here with a group of guys tonight is where it all began for me.

And we're going to go through that in a second. But there was a period of about 12 years that I only attended men's gatherings

just like this in Southern California, in Georgia, and in Florida. And all of a sudden the women found out what we were doing and asked us if we'd bring it to them. And they were mad. And I got to tell you, I miss being with men. Being introduced to men in my fifth year is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, scariest damn thing that ever happened to me because I can't get over on you. And I like that

in this. And we're only going to do these readings

and what I'm about to do with you right now tonight, because it's time, because of the time constraint, we do in here a thing we call the three parts of an alcoholic puzzle because invariably there's some guy in this room tonight that has no idea what the hell he's doing in the woods with eighty guys

and all these rules.

Why did I pay to do this? Well, if you're like me, I have a problem.

So it looks like a Murphy's Bend symbol. I'm done it. It's not.

First part of this puzzle is the problem.

The problem is broken into two parts. The first part of the problem is the obsession of the mind.

The obsession of the mind is the greater aspect of this disease, and it is a disease. A lot of us walk into these rooms thinking that we have a moral dilemma, that we don't measure up, we're just no good. What you have is a disease. In The first part of this disease is the obsession of the mind. If you look up the word obsession in a dictionary, it'll tell you that it's a thought that overrides all other thoughts.

Simply put, when that thought begins up here,

all I can think about is drinking. I don't think about her. I don't think about my bike. I don't think about my business, think about my dogs,

and what happens every time is I cave in.

I passed by that little old bar within my sickles painted on the front of it that says Coldest beer in the county.

Amen. And once I pour that alcohol into my body, it sets into motion the second part of the problem,

call the allergy of the body.

This component is what sets me apart from a normal drinker, a problem drinker, a hard drinker, or the social drinker. I stopped for one reason. Well, one of a couple.

I stopped when they locked me up behind bars to where I can't get to. No more liquor

or I stop when they grab me and they put me in a spin dry somewhere and lock me down.

The other way I stop is if I die in the street, and there's so many of us doing that today.

There's somebody in this room tonight back there in your mind you're saying, well, I quit when I run out of money.

It's not my story. Because when I run out of money, I grab a tire tool and I beat the windows out of your home, your car, your business, and I take what belongs to you and turn it into what I have to have because I'm on that. Run this and we're going to go over it in depth. This doesn't occur in the normal drinker, the hard drinker, the problem drinker, and especially the social drinker. They tip over a glass of Sherry at the pool and say, oops, I need to go to treatment. It's not my story.

Second part of the puzzle is the solution.

The solution spent in a spiritual nature. It's the only thing that we found that will combat alcoholism.

Well, this is powerlessness.

This is power. Where do we find and keep that power? Third part of the puzzle. Practical program of action outlined in masterly detail in the 1st 164 pages of your book. Any questions on this?

You know, our Home group is over in Dunwoody, GA, and there's a lot of housewives in that area. And he'll do that little exercise and he'll point to that part, you know. Well, you know, I'm not one of those, like, Sherry drinkers who dropped a glass of wine by the pool and showed up in A and a. And inevitably there's somebody in that room that their feelings are offended. We're knuckleheads, man. We took it to the dumpsters. You know, we both lived on the streets and and

we're just we're so grateful that, you know, a A is the great evening up process.

It doesn't discriminate one iota. I mean, as far as alcoholism is concerned, it'll kill you regardless of your background, your heritage, your upbringing, your education, your social class, how much money you have or don't have in the bank. I mean, that's one of the great things about alcoholism is that everybody is affected in the same way, you know, but in the same way also, we got a A and so we're a bunch of knuckleheads sitting in this room full of housewives, ex cons, car thieves, you know, we got people who are shaking and bacon still. And it's just, it's so neat to

room where, you know, the book talks about people who normally wouldn't mix math. And let's take a look around. We're mixing pretty normally now, huh? In this room tonight over this weekend, please. I say this, I say it emphatically to a group of men because male ego is a bad dude. It'll get you drunk and get you dead. If we go over something tonight or this weekend that's unclear that you don't understand because we do it so much at second nature. We do this stuff in our sleep. Stop us,

make us go back over and explain what we're talking about, please. I sat in the room with Rob Hayes, the man that took me through the book, great big fella, and he saw me over there kind of zoning, and he says, hey, you ain't got no idea what I'm talking about, do you? I said no. He says you better listen up and ask questions. You'll walk out of here, drunk boy, and you know what? Here we are

somewhat sane.

We're going to tell you how this thing started. This isn't something that Christian and I drummed up. Christian alluded to the fact that we were both homeless. We were back in the day and we couldn't stand each other. But what I just what we discovered about each other several years ago is that when we looked at each other, it was like looking in a mirror. We both have a love and we have a passion for this book and

it is manifested itself and God putting us together.

This book study

was started by Joe Mcqueeney and Charlie Parmalee out of Arkansas. I understand they have been to this retreat back before Joe passed

and what happened is these guys discovered each other at an AA conference someplace and they discovered that they both had the same passion for this, for this information in this book that the other had. So what they would do is they would meet at conferences around the country and when they would meet they would go to one of the other ones rooms and they would study this information and share what they knew with each other.

Well, where did that got out? And there was this cunning, baffling and powerful alcoholic down in Florida

named Wesley Parish. Wesley Parish had enough money to burn a wet dog. This boy was loaded and he thought well this information needs to get out

a so Wesley Parish. With all his money he put together a 1500 seat sit down dinner

and he had Joe and Charlie come and do a book study. The very first one and back in the days, this is 73, they had the old reel to reel tapes. Well they recorded this thing. Everybody had a nice dinner and when it was over Wesley had a raffle and he was, bless you. He was going to give out 100 copies of this weekend session.

His cunning baffling and powerful.

He rigged the raffle and what he did is he hand picked out of these 1500 people who was going to get a copy of that tape And what he did is he based that on

their profile in their own communities, wherever they were based in the world so that this information would get maximum exposure and the rest is history. So they started touring the world doing these book studies.

There's a couple of guys, couple of brothers in Atlanta named Dante and Rick Rosante. They were taught by Joe and Charlie. Well, I ended up, I had about 5 or 6-7 years, whatever it was sober. And I ended up in a meeting one night and it was a pretty much a discussion meeting. But all I heard out of the, the, the, the core group of members was the book, the book, the book, the book, the book. And I thought,

this is just a little different. I've got one of these books.

I've been to book studies.

So I got Rob Hayes off to the side. I said, what do you got? Why are you all obsessing in this book? And he says, has anybody ever taken you through this? And I said, well, yeah. He says, won't you show up over here Wednesday night? We're going to have a little old book study upstairs over here and see what you think. Well, I showed up and they cracked the book open to the chapter to wives.

I came that close to walking out. I didn't have one, didn't need one, didn't want one, was not interested.

But for some reason I sat there and all of a sudden this book took on a life that I'd never known. And I said, well, that was pretty cool. He says, why don't you show up at my house tomorrow night? There's a group of men going to be over there, and let's take a look at it again. So I showed up. There were 16 men in the room, and there was a empty chair sitting right here. It was a long, narrow room. And Robin and Rick and Dante were at that end. And they opened the book to Bill's story,

and they started talking about Bill Wilson.

They talked about how he acted, the place he had put himself in in life. They talked about the way he thought, the thought that preceded his first drink and how his drinking escalated. They talked about the things he did once it once he started drinking. And they talked about the aftermath of his alcohol abuse and alcoholism. And I looked in that chair and Bill Wilson was sitting there. This is no lie. This is my experience. And all of a sudden, that man started nodding.

He took a pulse and I went wow. They brought the book to life. And that's our chore here this weekend is to introduce you to some of these early players. And hopefully

by the end of this thing, you will have made the notes and the highlights in your own book and gather enough information. And so you can carry this on. Because I don't know how many other guys are doing what we're doing, but I guarantee there's a lot of people out here that want to know it. I mean, when Joe Mcqueeney died, our phone started blowing up and we're having to just say no

because it's our charge to carry this message.

And I don't want to go on this tirade, but you go to these meetings and somebody wants to talk about the tore up weed eater.

I'm sorry y'all, it ain't got a damn thing to do with drinking liquor. Weed eaters didn't get me in here. I need to carry this experience and this information to that new guy that walks in here. You know, when you pull up in front of your first meeting, you were scared to death. You didn't know what to expect beyond the door. And then you walk in and somebody wants to talk about weed eaters.

We need to get that person when they walk in the door and tell them the truth. They walked in here to us to find a solution to what was killing them.

That's our charge guys, and that's why we're in Oregon tonight with y'all. And hopefully we can pass on a little information that was so freely given to us by the guys that went before us.

You've got this sheet on the front of your thing. It's called the timeline

and y'all have already looked at it and perused this packet. And you're thinking one of these guys doing Alcoholics Anonymous didn't start until 1935. But what God did in his infinite wisdom, in 1907, he started pulling people together all over the world.

And he started out with a guy by the name of Frank Buchmann.

Frank Bookman was a Lutheran minister

living in Philadelphia and he had established a Hospice for Homewood homeless boys.

He ran into a got into a problem with the trustees of this Hospice

over the food budget.

And what happened to Frank is he got angry. He got what we call a resentment today and it blocked him off. Here he is as a minister, a preacher, and he can't preach because he doesn't have God in his life.

So he leaves Philadelphia for Europe. 1907. Skip forward to 1908. Bukman has what we call on this sheet of paper a conversion experience. And what happened to him? He's in Keswick, England. He'd gone there for an evangelical conference that turned out to be somewhat boring and glum. And he wandered away from that thing and he was going down the street and he saw a little old sign on the sidewalk that said there was a lecture, a spiritual lecture given by a lady by

name of Jesse Penn Lewis. And this is Jesse right here. There's a ton of books. If you Google her name, you'll come up with a whole bunch of information about her and what she did during this. During this lecture that she gave to a small group of people. She talked about the solution that we now know today and

she actually sat down with, with Frank after her lecture and went over the information and he walked away, converted and walked away from the resentment that had been blocking him off

with us. All right, 1918, ten years later, there's a guy by the, pardon me, Lewis, Jesse Pin Lewis. 10 years later, there's this Episcopal minister. His name is Sam Shoemaker.

Well, Shoemaker was in Peking, China, and he was teaching Chinese men math.

He got angry at these fellows because they wouldn't learn math. They're Chinese, and he's an American. And he got a resentment. He's blocked off from the sunlight of the Spirit. He can't do what God called him to do, and that's preach.

Well, he runs into Frank Bookman

and Boatman told him. He says, I get it. He says I was blocked off in the sunlight and spirit too. But he says, let me tell you about these four absolutes that I learned when I was honesty, purity, unselfishness and love.

And at that point,

Bugman decided to let go of self and allow God to guide his life. Now fellas, let me let me give you a disclaimer on this stuff we're going over.

I don't know if you got Waffle Houses out here, but this information and $0.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Waffle House. It will not keep you sober for a minute, but it kind of keeps it interesting for a second or two. Just hang with us a minute. Skip forward in 1921, Schumacher gets ordained. He goes to Calvary Church

in New York City. The cool thing about Calvary Church is it's got a mission attached to it

for homeless people and it has a 52 bed halfway house for alcoholic men.

OK,

at this particular time, the Oxford, what we now know to be the Oxford Group, was set up in this church and it was called a 1st century Christianity movement. It didn't become the Oxford Groups until 1928. Little side note here, none of these people are alcoholic. Jesse Pan Lewis, Frank Bukman, Sam Shoemaker, They're not alcoholic. They simply deal with human emotions, human feelings, human resentments, basically everything that sucks about

being human. You know, we get cut off because ego inflicts itself upon upon others and upon self.

One of the things that came out of this when Frank Buckman had his barn burning conversion experience, you know, we we grace over this word. He has a conversion experience now. He had the presence of God brought in front of him. He didn't have this little clap of Thunder. He had a huge God showed up and that's changed his life. So when Bukman shared this with Shoemaker, Shoemaker didn't want to hear it,

but he had just been told that he had a solution.

He went up to his room and paced until midnight and at midnight broke down and did what Bukman told him to do. And he had the experience, that conversion experience where God converted him into one of his soldiers, you know. So I mean, we got these two guys and we talked about the Oxford Groups. This was their first thing. Bukman and Shoemaker were working together in Princeton, NJ, and they had this 1st century Christianity. See if this sounds familiar. One guy helping another guy

reconnect with God.

But it was based upon the 1st century Christianity model where two or more gathered in my name. I am there, but it was the blood of Christ. It was a Christian movement and they tried it in Princeton, NJ, and it was very successful. Well, they went over to England and we're trying to replicate it there. And they decided to adopt the name Oxford Group because it had an authoritative name. And the 1st century Christianity movement kind of pushed people off a little bit who had this problem with religion. So that's just a little bit of background. So you can see how we springboard from that

and do here we are 70 plus years later.

All right, we're going to skip forward to 1931. There's a guy by the name of Russell Budd Firestone. He's the son of Harvey Firestone of the Firestone Town Rubber Company. And in Akron, OH, if you notice how how this thing is going from Europe, Philadelphia, Keswick, England, Peking, China, New York City, and now we're in Akron, this thing's going to go all over the place. And I'm going to bring that to your attention because at the end of this deal, you'll see,

we're gonna go with it.

Bud Firestone liked to drink red liquor and show itself. He was ashamed to his family. He was a real eyesore. And the talk around Akron. So he was coming back from Denver, Co on this train with A and he runs into to Sam Shoemaker on the train. And through conversation, Schumacher decides or figures out this guy needs some kind of a conversion to, to combat alcoholism. And he told him about his solution.

And Bookman had a guy with him by the name of Jim Newton. Jim Newton comes into play in two or three different parts of this thing, one of which was a 12 step call on Bill Wilson in later years. But Bookman and Newton were current members of the Oxford Group out of out of New York. Skip down 1931

Fellow by the name of Roland Hazard, another white color industrialist out of the Northeast.

His family on Burlington Industries, they owned Allied Signal, Allied Chemical, $18 billion corporation, had enough money to burn a wet dog. He had a problem. He couldn't stay sober. Boy, like

that's a Southern colloquialism. It's regional dialect. And if you ain't got the Southern and you may not understand, there's a whole lot of money you got to pile up a lot of money to get a wet dog burnt. Anyway,

Anyway, Roland is a real, he's a real, he's a real sore spot. And his family's they're, they're embarrassed by him. So I mean, his, his father was, Roland was a, was a Rhode Island senator, Senator. His father was the mayor of Albany. I mean, there's a whole bunch of politicians and they got lots and lots of money, blue blood. And he can't stay sober.

So he they, they send him over to Switzerland. He visits with a guy by the name of Doctor Carl Junior,

and Yin tells him, he says, man, he says, I am never saying anybody with alcoholism, bad as you got it, ever get get straightened around. He said every now and then, every once in a while, they have what's known as a vital spiritual experience. And that's Ying right there. So this is where this thing gets interesting.

Roland is in Switzerland. He hears the solution

to his problem, but at this point nobody knows what alcoholism is.

We know what the we know what the practical program of action is. Because Bookman

and Shoemaker are doing it. They're carrying their solution to resentment. You with me now and then and then,

Yun tells Roland. He says if you have a vital spiritual experience, you may overcome your dilemma. 2 parts of the puzzle

skip down to the bottom of 31 Doctors. William Duncan Silkworth,

little neurologist over at Bellevue Hospital, lost his butt in the stock market crash at 29. He's out of work. Guy by the name of Charles Towns opens up a hospital for the study and treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, says Silky. Won't you come over here? I'll give you a job. So Silk Worth goes to Towns Hospital and he starts to study of alcoholism and drug addiction.

Major player in this in this puzzle. Skip forward to 1933,

but Firestone gets active with the Oxford Groups. Back in Akron.

He meets a guy by the name of Reverend Walter Tunks, a gal by the name of Anne Smith that was married to our Bob Smith,

meets a gal by the name of Henrietta Cyberling and a couple named T Henry and Claire Ace Williams. And what happened?

Harvey Firestone, Budd's dad, was so ecstatic about the change that had come over his son. He holds a banquet. This is going to blow your mind. We just learned this at the Mayflower Hotel

for Oxford Groupers, 300 of them.

This thing about Harvey, about Bud straightening up is hit the front page paper of the Akron News. And about this time, Doctor Bob starts attending the Oxford Groups because his wife's aggravating you to death,

she says. I found a peep. I found a group of people that seem to be sane, sensible, and their lives are going somewhere. He says fine. And they kept going to his mink for two years. He'd go to the meetings at night and get drunk on the way home. He's my kind of guy. Skip down the middle of 33. Rolling, rolling. Hazard becomes active at Calvary with the Oxford Groups.

He's working with Shoemaker guy by the name of Shep Cornell, Seabro Graves and Jim Newton there. And I've dropped these names because these guys are real key. These are early, what we would call today, good 12 stepping boys. They love to carry the message. Drop down in 33, The fall of 33, Bill Wilson makes his first trip to Towns Hospital and he meets Doctor Silkworth

and Doctor Silkworth

gives him all these treatments with Belladon and hydrotherapy and you name it, fill them up with enemas and vitamins and all kinds of stuff. First of four visits, y'all. This is the fall of 33 real quick. Those guys he mentioned, chef Cornell Sieber Graves, those, they're not alcoholic. They're Oxford Group members. And the Oxford Group, the sole purpose was to take somebody who was doing

some form of sin, whether it be gambling or womanizing or overeating or alcoholism or some form of something that was separating them from God.

They fell out of fellowship with God and their lives were falling apart.

The sole purpose of the Four Absolutes and the six tenets of the Oxford Group was to reconnect to God.

And so they're working with people whose lives were falling apart, but they weren't working with any low bottom bottom of the barrel drunks. They're working with white collar well to do come from good families. Guess why because it looks good. When Bud Firestone when he got sober, it was front page news for weeks. Bud Firestone, heir to the tire and rubber company sober. You know, Oxford groups have something to do with it and they're doing, they're doing things about gambling and womanizing, all these other

issues outside the scope of alcoholism. So skip up to the top of 1934.

Bob continues to go to the Oxford Groups. Continues to get drunk every night.

Middle of 34, followed up by the name of Ebbie Thatcher. Edwin Throat. Morton Thatcher.

Yeah, baby. Abby is my kind of guy,

I love Evie. No hollow leg. God Almighty, this boy left a drink and show himself

he's about to be committed

for alcoholic insanity. And we're going to delve into this deeper into the book study. But there's some fellows that showed up at court, Roland Hazard, Seabird Graves, which was the actual son of Judge Collins Graves. It was sitting on the bench. His son, Zebra Roland, who's this high-powered, you know, blue white collar industrialist Shep Cornell, They show up at court and said, Judge, if you'll turn him over to us, we think we got something to help him with his.

He says you're better because I'm fixing to lock his tail up.

So they told him. They said, Debbie, if you have a if you'll, if you'll find religion, if you'll get religion. No Alcoholics Anonymous yet.

You can. You can get over your alcoholism, but in order to keep it, you got to go give it away. And they told him about the practical program of action.

So Evie scratched his head a minute and he says, huh, I got just a feller. These old broke down stock speculator over her name, Bill Wilson. I've run with him. So he went to visit Bill Bill 'cause he wanted to keep this new newfound sobriety. On December the 11th, 1934,

Bill Wilson sucked down a cup his his last two beers and walked himself into town's hospital drunk as a coupe.

When he goes in there,

Doctor Silkworth told him

listen up. Evie showed up and he told him, he said, Bill,

if you will have a vital spiritual experience, if you'll get religion, you can get over your alcoholism, but in order to keep it, you got to give it away. Those are two parts of the puzzle. When he went to see Doctor Silkworth, Silkworth told him, he says, Bill, when you start thinking about drinking, you can't quit thinking about it until you drink candy. So that's me.

He said once you start drinking you can't quit Kenyans, that's it. He said I go on a tear and I stay out there for a while. He said well let me tell you what my theory is. He says I think you have an obsession of the mind couple with an allergy of the body. Bill said Yep, that's me. So at this point in time guys, Bill Wilson is the only human being on the planet earth that knows all three things. He knows the problem, the solution and the practical program of action.

He goes back on a business deal to buy National Tire and Rubber Machine

Company

and during the negotiating it, had it gone through, a Bill would have been a multi millionaire been the president of the company and we wouldn't be here because Bill had been drunk again. But that deal got sideways in Akron.

He'd been sober six months, and he'd been running up and down the Bowery's and the bar rooms with that Bible under his arm, trying to get drunks to hit see his way of life. And they were saying, get the hell out of my face with that Bible,

Silkworth told him. He said, Bill, quit preaching these drunks. He says, tell those people what I told you. Tell them about the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body. Bill. His first prospect was a doctor, William Robert Holbrook Smith.

A little bit about Bob.

Bob going to the Oxford groups. They believed wholeheartedly in spiritual

intervention. They believed in prayer and they believed in meditation. They believed in actually listening for the answers that God was going to provide. But they started praying and one of the most devout of the of the people praying,

that's the best picture we can find of her because she's an old battle axe. But she's in a Cyberlink. She's got to beat her feet to make him sleep. Now, Henrietta Cyberling had no other business other than trying to help people. She's what we would call today, a meddler.

She would, they were praying and they were specifically praying for Doctor Bob because Doctor Bob got very candid one night and told everybody about his drinking. They all knew. They could smell it on him. They knew about his exploits, that, you know, he's a proctologist. They knew all about these things that Bob was doing.

They started praying for manna from heaven, manna from heaven, manna for heaven. And when Bill is in the Mayflower Hotel after that business venture went South, and he's pacing the hotel lobby and he looks over and sees that directory and he makes that phone call. The words that come out of his mouth ring like pure honey in her ears, which is I'm a rumhound from New York. I'm a member of the Oxford Groups, and I need to talk to a drunk. And she's like,

Oh my God, I got the guy for you. He's a proctologist and he needs to desperately hear from you

now. Bob didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to hear from Bill, didn't want to hear from nobody.

But she was a meddler. She made sure she got Anne on her side and she did. And she got them together. So Bill's pacing up and down the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel after his business deal collapsed, about to drink a bookkeeping talks about it. And he knew what had kept him sober for the previous six months. And listen up, guys. He didn't call a sponsor, Abby. Abby would have gotten the relief on that call. Bill didn't call a sponsor. He went to the he says I need to talk to another drunk. And he went to the phone directory,

if you've seen my name is Bill W, It's a little dramatized. What he did is he went to that directory and he went to one name, Tonks in the Northeast. If you go for a walk, they call it going for a tunk. Go for a tunk through the woods, it's taking a walk. It was a familiar word to him. He called Reverend Tunks. Reverend Tux was a member of the Oxford Groups. He just chose him at random.

He says I need to talk to another drunk. He said you got just a feller for you. So he goes over to the Cyberling mansion

and it was the day after he made the call because Bob was still sick as a dog. That day, May 12th, 1935, Doctor Bobbin had extracted a promise from his wife. And he says I'm going to go over and see this guy. He says, But you look at your watching, in 15 minutes you come whooping on that door and Get Me Out of there. I'm sick, I'm sick and I can't stay. She said. I'll do it, Bob.

Bob walked in and he stuck his trembling hand across the table.

He said. Mr. Wilson, I don't know what you think you can do for me, he said. I've been carved up and prayed over morning at Christmas gifts.

Bill looked him dead in the ice. Says I'm not here for you, Doctor Smith, I'm here for me. 15 minute conversation lasted 5 1/2 hours is a byproduct of it. Gentlemen, we're in the woods of Eugene, OR tonight. Now I invite you, when you go back to your room tonight, take a look at this timeline.

Extract any date, event, person

out of this and we're not here tonight. There is no AA. We choose to believe that this timeline is divinely inspired, that God put these people in these places at this time.

And here we are,

Alcoholics Anonymous. All right, We're going to open our books at this point.

All right, question real quick. You betcha over the four fundamentals

absolutes. The four absolutes are called. Bear with me.

Honesty,

purity, unselfishness and love. Thank you. You're welcome.

When they took me through the book,

and if I'm,

I don't mean to be rude, but there's what they told me. They said you see this page, this is a free page. It's blank.

That's where they had me turn. They said that's what you know about this bucket this time. And boy were they right. If you flip the page over one more, there's a title page there says Alcoholics Anonymous. Come over one more page, it's going to say other books. These are all conference approved books and depending on what what addition book you have, there's more books than others. Come over to the next page, Alcoholics Anonymous, real quick about those books.