The traditions at Hatfield group in Hatfield, UK

Thank you very much. Good evening everybody. My name's Richard and I'm very, very grateful. Recovered alcoholic and quite a power greater than myself which I choose to call God today. 12 step program of recovery, good sponsorship and clear cut directions from the big book of alcohol astronomers. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink, drug or mind altering woman today.

Are you sure you didn't lie to everybody, Dave? Usually when I won't mention the word traditions, why everyone just gets their coat and heads for the door. Are you sure he hasn't lied to you? Like I told you, it's something else going on here tonight. There seems to be a lot of you. That's fantastic. It just means we're all on the same page and that that's a wonderful thing.

So yeah, we are going to talk about traditions tonight. And 1st off, I'm going to qualify myself. So when I drunk, I didn't want no control over how much I drunk. When I try to stop, I found that I couldn't.

In fact, when I got here, I was an actual a professional stopper. I was so good at it. I stopped three times in one day once. That's how good I was known as a drunk 1/4 of a bottle of vodka. I said I've got this has got to stop, I'm not doing this no more. And I asked for that afternoon, I drank another quarter bottle of voucher and said this has got to stop. I'm not doing that no more. And I've asked 10 that night as I drunk another quarter of vodka and I went in like absolute paralysis. There's my head at the table. I said I've got to stop doing this. So that's how good I am at it.

I'd like to keep things light because that's the way that I learn.

We're not glamour, so I don't believe in sitting there being all too serious and and like and trying to elect you in anyway. I'm not going to be using any big words tonight and that's not because I don't want to confuse you. It's just 'cause I don't know any.

So in the spirit of learning light and in the spirit of keeping it interactive, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to look over to somebody who you haven't seen for a while or you don't know. And I'd like you to get up and I'd like to go over and introduce yourself to them and ask them how they are. So everybody.

Hello.

Sounds funny.

So well done, everybody. You just took part in Tradition One. You went over, you asked your fellows about their Commonwealth Fair and we all did that in unity. So let's go do Tradition 2. It's that simple. No, it's not. I'm joking. Tradition. Well,

but that is what it's about. It's about our Commonwealth are coming first. It's about I was asking how are you, what's happening for you and about the growth.

The steps of my individual personal recovery. They're our personal recovery, the traditions, the group's recovery and the concepts. Is the fellowship's recovery OK for me, basically, the steps help me live with me, the traditions help me live with yours. 1 old timer put it, the steps of that stopped me committing suicide. The traditions of that stop me committing homicide. And after you've been around a while, you will understand that you really will.

So Tradition 1A, common welfare comes first.

Bill Wilson No,

The Commonwealth of any group, any country, any population has to come first. I mean, if you look at something like an army, what they will do is they will sacrifice a regiment in order to win a battle. And sometimes they'll sacrifice winning a battle to win the war. And a country will sometimes sacrifice an army in order to save the population. So with our individual welfare come second, club second, The Commonwealth of all of us has to come first.

And the reason it comes first is because without a group here, I am not going to get recovery.

I'm not the Commonwealth of the group has to come first. So I'll ask you a question because it is an interactive workshop we're doing. Do we have the right to throw somebody out of a meeting if they're causing problems?

OK, why

do you have anyone else?

So yeah, I think it's important for secretaries, if there are secretaries in here, to know that we absolutely have the right to ask somebody to leave. And if they don't leave, then we ask the police to come and get them because the Commonwealth voted group must come first. Okay, as we go through the traditions, I'm going to talk about the Oxford Group and I'm going to talk about the Washingtonians. The Washingtonians was in 1848 and it started by 6 men in Clancy's Bar in Baltimore and they got together and decided not to drink.

Within four years of them forming, they had over a million members and they grew at 10 times the rate of a a four years later they was gone off the face of the planet. So as we go through the traditions, I'm going to go big and battles and forwards to the Washingtonians to explain why we have the traditions that we have. And it was the same with the Oxford group. By 1940 the Oxford Group had gone and we learned a lot of our our steps and you'll see that from the tenants at the Oxford Group had

so I want to run sat past you that I just found out recently

blew me away. The Washingtonians in 1848 had 6 steps and this were there 6 steps. One, we missed. We must recognize that alcohol is our problem and it's destroyed our lives. Two, we must seek help from God. Three, we must serve God. Four, we must take a moral inventory of ourselves. Five, we make restitution and I love this, right? Number six, we have to go and recruit a new member every week.

I mean, there's a step 12 or what,

1848, I had that and I was gone within four years. So the Commonwealth, they must come first

and that depends upon our unity. You know, we go to meetings and just my experience, he's saying take your time, we're doing steps. She's saying get a sponsor when you're ready. In two years time, somebody else is doing a step. A year somebody else is saying don't worry about the big book. You can read that when you get, well,

Kayuni, you know, And I think you're very lucky because I've been here before and you're all on the same page and I only use the same book. You're on the same page,

and I think it's absolutely paramount to keeping a group strong. I wanna raise something to you from Bill Wilson,

and this is what he said. Unless each a a member follows for the best of their ability. I suggested 12 steps of recovery. He almost certainly signs his own death warrant. Drunkenness and disintegration are not penalties inflicted by people in authority. They are the results of personal disobedience to spiritual principles. We must obey certain principles or we die. And the same stern threat applies to the group itself.

Unless there is an approximate conformity to AA traditions, the groups two can deteriorate and die. So we have a a dual based spiritual principles first because we must and ultimately because we live the kind of life such obedience brings.

So these are set of guidelines. What happened was in 1944, Bill and Bob decided to go on a road trip. They, they started to go around the country to the states or through the states to have a look at the groups was doing in the World Service office at the time, receiving bundles of letters each week,

everything from can you sort this quote out and we need to sort this out. And it was, it just seemed like it was in chaos. And so they went on a bit of a road trip to have a look around for themselves. In 1946, they got a letter, Bill Wilson got a letter from a bloke talking about the Washingtonians. And Bill had never heard about the Washingtonians. So he really delved into Washingtonians and what they what they did and then came up with the 12 traditions that they come out in an article in a Grapevine in 1949. And I was called 12 points to ensure our future.

And if you look at the word traditions, very, very clever because it makes it sound like they've been around hundreds of years

and I'd even been accepted yet, but he's making it sound like we've had him for hundreds of years. So I was accepted in 1950.

So it's absolutely paramount in unity. We support our Commonwealth over each group. So that's tradition one, nice and simple. I'm not going to board the hell out of you with it. There's lots of different. Otherwise you can go at it. But for me, it really is about us keeping the group strong, being in unity with the message that we carry within the group. All the traditions go back to Tradition 5, our primary purpose, to carry a message. And I'll talk about that in tradition 5. So tradition 2

for our purpose, a great purpose there is but one ultimate authority loving God is he may express himself in our group conscience and our leaders have a trusted servants they do not govern.

So I love that bit. He said God might express himself in our group conscience and sometimes God may not express himself in a group conscience. As far as I'm concerned, I I started a meeting up with a friend of mine called Simon over in Richmond a couple of years ago and my commitment came to an end about 3 months ago. So I had to rotate out of my secretary commitment. So we're in the group conscience and somebody volunteered me to do sweeping up after the meeting to pick the fag butts up. There's no God in there. Let's have it right. Where's God in there? So

I smiled and I said, lovely, I'd love to do it.

In my head I went, don't you know who I think I am? I'm the founder member of this group. But how dare you do that to the great me.

And and I found out two months later that there was a lot of God in that decision because what that did was really keep me humble because no matter how long I'm around, right, I'm still one of you. And the minute I start thinking I'm too big for my boat, so I'm going to pick up and I'm going to go. So there was a lot of God in that. I

do we have the right, if a group conscience has gone off, it's going to get same with we think it's a good idea. Do we have the right to call six or seven of our sponsors down the coffee shop the next day, talk to them about it and get them to go back next week and change the group conference? Do we have the right to do that?

God, thanks for the good conscience. You know what if you're not happy with it and go and find another group simple as that. Just go and find another group good my experience himself and sometimes in our opinion, when we're like that, he may not. The first time a good conscience was used, and I think you'll find it in the 12 and 12, was when Bill Wilson was asked to

be a professional at Towns Hospital. Charlie Wilson asked him to be a professional there and he went back to the group and said, look, me and Larissa Skin, we're on the floor, we're living on people's car cheese. We've got no money, we've got no nothing. We're in trouble here. And the group conscience said, we don't think that's a good idea because how can you sell a gift from God?

He didn't like it. He wasn't happy with it, but he obeyed it. And of course I could not Alcoholics Anonymous has grown and grown and grown and we've we've stayed non professional as a direct result of that. So even for him, he had to obey the group conscience. And I'm going to give him my experience on this very quickly. I got a friend of mine who started the meeting up in Chiswick and

he's making us on a Saturday and there was another meeting on a Sunday. So what he wanted to do was affiliate himself with the other meeting and have basically the same sort of secretaries, the same GSRS and get because there was a great message there and he wanted to be able to say this is where we carry a message in here of of this type.

And so on a Sunday, they had a group conscience to sort of like affiliate with the other group, and 25 people who don't usually go to that meeting showed up to the group conscience to vote it out.

Is that right? Can I do that?

The great conscience is up to you because you're autonomous as a group. So therefore

you can have anything going on within that group. If you want to make it that you got to turn up three times you in a row to be able to vote in a good conscience, then so be it. So be it because it will stop that happening. Because for me, I just think there was no God in that. That was an absolute travesty. It goes on to talk about

a trusted service of leaders. I do not govern.

So how can we have leaders when there are no leaders here? The leaders are simply the people that have been around the longest usually, and they don't lead by telling you to go here and go there and do that. They just lead by example,

That's what it means. We lead by example for the no person walking in the door. So that's tradition too.

So tradition free. The only requirement for AA membership is a desired desire to stop drinking.

When I go through the work responses and we talk about tradition free, I get them to put underneath.

I am an AI member because I say I am. That does not make me an alcoholic. It doesn't. When Bill Wilson wrote this, one of the worst things you could have was alcoholism. It was such a stigma. So he didn't believe that anyone was going to turn up at these meetings who wasn't an alcoholic. And for me, years later, my own opinion, and I'm not expressed opinions of 80s and my own opinions. We tend to see a lot of people from treatment centres. We see a lot of people that have a bit of a drink problem and they're told come to a A

so I'm not everybody sitting in here. As far as I'm concerned, he's an alcoholic. If you stop

and you're OK and you do nothing and you don't suffer from the spiritual mode of the irritable wrestling discontent and I'm sorry, you're not like me. And unfortunately what will happen is you will tell me to do nothing and that will kill me.

I want to talk about a woman as well. In 19401941, her name was Irma Livoni. Irma Livoni was a woman of the night prostitutes, a very woman of Ill repeat. At the time, Southern California had two meetings a week

and the wives in the townspeople were seeing Irma turn up at the meetings and they didn't like it and they didn't want to win there. And at the time there was only like 3 women in a A. So it was not only a stigma to be a man and be an alcoholic, but if he was a woman it was even worse. So if you go on a computer and you look up on Barefoot, I think it is, you'll find that there's a letter on there from a A to Irma and it basically states

we don't want you in here. You're not one of us. You're not one of our members. Please leave,

she wrote to Bill Wilson. And he said there's nothing I can do because each group's just doing whatever they was at the time. There's no conditions. And 2 1/2 years like Irma died of alcoholism. Now that's not specifically the reason why they did tradition free, but I'm sure that it must have contributed to it that anybody, anybody that's suffering and what I do is like, I prefer,

I prefer the long form. A membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover.

If you're suffering from alcoholism, you're welcome here. If you're not, you need to get therapy and you need to go away and you need to go and do that stuff because this is not a place for therapy. This is not a self help program. This is an altruistic program where we look out to fix what's within. So. So that's tradition free. Tradition 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups as a whole. So can I start a meeting?

Bikers meeting? What do you reckon? Yeah,

yeah.

OK, So what about if I call it the Gay Hairy Bikers? Me. Can I do that?

Age group is self governing. That's what autonomy. Autonomy means. We're all self governing.

One of my sponsors hung up a little while ago. He's was in over at a meeting in Ealing and he said to me that the meeting on say the Tuesday night at 6:00 was rubbish. And I said there's no such thing as a bad meeting, it's just bad members right? So don't give me that, it's rubbish bit well, we want to start a meeting up at the same time

and arrived with like a really strong message so that people wanna hear a solution can come to this meeting. Is he allowed to do that?

OK. What else?

Yeah, OK, that's right.

If you're going to affect another group, then the best thing that you can do is go and see the secretary of that group and say, look, we want to start another meeting up. When's it best to start it up? Is it best to start before your meeting or after your meeting, but not at the same time? Your autonomy stops when you start affecting I as a whole or another group. So therefore you can only only do your own stuff as long as it doesn't affect anybody else. Otherwise you can call your meeting what you want. And here's the thing about autonomy, right?

You can build autonomous and call your meeting whatever you want

as long as the common welfare comes first, As long as God expresses himself in a great conscience, as long as you have a primary purpose, as long as money and prestige doesn't divert you from that promise. As long as you're self supporting, as long as you're not organised non professional, you can have that. You can add that ultimate don't you want as long as you were there to these traditions that are set out. So you're autonomous up until the point of having to comply to these 12 traditions so that we don't fold up and die.

So that's about autonomy and that you can do basically whatever you want as long as you follow these traditions.

So Tradition 5.

Each group has one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

What message?

What's the Message,

Program, solution, Book,

spiritual experience? Anybody else?

The 12 step says it having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So our primary purpose as a group is to tell the person coming through the door. I've had a spiritual experience as a direct result of doing the 12 steps contained within the big book of Arcots Anonymous. That is relieved me of the obsession to drink or use whatever your substance is and has given me a life that I'm able to deal with my problems. That is the message that you carry as a group, and it says in there

that you ought to be one spiritual entity,

one voice together. How many meetings will you go to? And it's about his dog. Her plumber is hearing aid. Everything under the sun. Other than having a vital spiritual experience, which is relieved me of the obsession to drink and use. That is the primary purpose. The Washingtonians going back to them diverted from their primary purpose, which was about stopping alcoholism and how to get well from it. I started going into politics

and I started going into religion and I got involved in everything. Everything I could get there they got involved in. And slowly but surely the Alcoholics were there started to leave. Their membership got up to 1,000,000 because what they did was they opened the doors and said that anybody could come. You didn't even have to be an alcoholic. And that's why they got to a million so quickly. But very quickly they were gone because they started getting involved in all this other stuff.

So as a group,

you're to act as one spiritual entity

having exactly the same message. How you deliver that message, it's entirely up to you, but you're supposed to act as one single entity together. I don't know if you know what the success rates are and what they was.

The book says it's 75%. I read an article the other day by a man called Wally Peter, back to basics. He said that his groups, what they would do is when you when you came to a meeting, you was taken in a backroom.

And over the next four weeks, you was made to do the 12 steps before you was allowed in the meeting. What that did was it wiggled out the people who didn't want to do it because they didn't bother showing up. But the ones who did want to do it went through the 12 steps before they was allowed in the meeting. Their success rate was 95 percent, 95%. Today, the success rate in Alcoholics Anonymous is somewhere between 3 and 6%. Why?

Any ideas?

When I was why at that moment of of you know, I wanted this, you know, I needed it there and then that I wasn't I couldn't do 2 weeks over mine. I'm, I'm So therefore

we have to carry this one primary purpose, right? But you can have a spiritual experience as a result of this. If you take anything back to the groups that you go back to, please take this back. This is our primary purpose, right? Is it more spiritual to not say anything or is it more spiritual to tell people the truth?

You know, people sitting there dying and we just keep patting them on the back and say just keep coming back. Just don't take the first one and you won't get drunk. That's what we tell them. That's what they've been told. You know, that's not what the book says. The book says, I've had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. This is the message that we try to carry a 12 step. That's our message.

So tradition 5.

So we're going to tradition 6

An AI quote will never endorse finance or lend the a a name to any related facilities or outside enterprise. These problems as many property, prestige, diversity, primary purpose and

there was a rope, I think it was Maryland. I could be wrong on that, not sure. And they found that they become quite a big group and they become quite successful and started owning lots of money at the pot. So they bought a building and I'm sure it's in the 12:00 and 12:00,

we're on the bottom floor. It was going to be a a meetings. The 2nd floor is going to be a mother and baby unit. Third floor is going to be a detox centre full for counselling. And they wrote to the World Service officer, this is what we're going to do. And they wrote back and said, we don't think that's a good idea,

but you have the right to be wrong, crack on and do whatever you want, being autonomous. So that's what they did. I think it was very quickly after they started getting all the money in and getting all that stuff, they all started to just fall apart. And that day was arguing about money. They was arguing about what they should have on this floor, what they should have on that floor. And it didn't take long for them to almost disappear off the face of the planet. And

if you've seen it in 12 and 12, the World Service Office got a card, a letter from the from the group, from the Group, One of the group members who said basically, we should have listened to you.

It all went tips up and he put a card in it and he had on the front of it Rule 62. And he opened it and it said, don't take yourself too damn seriously

because that's what they've done. They diverted themselves away from our primary purpose, which is to help a drunk walking through the doors. That's what our primary purpose is. Not mother and baby unit, not the counselling session, not the hospital detox. This is what it's about. And we got to remember as well, right, that when,

when we start getting affiliated with other things like treatment centers, detox centres, the public out there don't know that we're not, I don't know that we're not affiliated with these people. They just presume that we are.

So we can't get involved with anybody else. We just have to stick to our primary purpose and not let any of that outside stuff diverse from what we're doing here. OK, so that's tradition 6.

Tradition 7 Fully self supporting

I Just as we are as individuals, we must be fully self supporting. So our colleagues anonymous must be fully self supporting. Can you imagine if we were sponsored by Coke, right?

The 12 spot steps as sponsored by Coca-Cola? It wouldn't take long before Coca-Cola started asking you to go and do talks for them. It's as simple as this. Whoever's got the money makes the policy. How long before I said, do you know what we don't really like that word recovered, right? Let's take that out. Can we take that out of the book, please? Or what about we take alcohol out and put like Bacardi because we don't like them.

The minute we're taking money from other people,

they call in the shots. So we must always be fully self supportive. But also as well, we must be fully self supporting, but not to the point where we get too rich. We must never get too rich. And that's why age group usually has a prudent reserve about what they keep. There was a woman in the states who died and she, I think she died about 30 years, 30 odd years of sobriety and she left a will. And in all will she said I'd like to thank our quite synonymous for the last 33 years I've had of my sobriety. And she left $10,000

which of course they they picked up and was like wow, we're going back in the 1940s here, $10,000. That's a lot of money. And of course they all spoke about him and talked about it and this is what they said about it.

Like the Alcoholics first drink, it would, if taken, inevitably set up a disastrous chain reaction. And where would that land us? What they found out was that during look at this woman's will, another 180 people had died also leaving 10,030 thousand 25,000. We would have become too rich and money once again would have diverted us from our primary purpose. So it was refused in the States today. I think you'll find, and I'm not sure it's the same over here,

one person is only allowed to donate up to $1000 a year. That's it. Then no one, no one person is allowed to donate more, more money than that. And that's why they've kept it so that we never become too rich. Because sooner or later we're going to be arguing about money, what we should spend it on, what we shouldn't spend it on, what we should put it to, who we should sponsor. And then once again, we're going to get diverted. So that's the reason why we're fully self supporting and we decline outside contributions.

OK,

So traditional our colleagues anonymous should remain never always non professional service centers may employ special workers. And as I talked about Bill W earlier, being offered by Charlie Town to come in as a life therapist and nobody's going to pay him $1000 a year, which he actually thought was a fantastic idea until the group said no.

And I'll ask you the same question that he was asked. How can we give a God-given gift?

Really, we can't. You know, one of the things I see is

I've been around a while and I know a lot of people that work within the treatment industry. Now I'm not knocking them, right? What the book says is none of us make a sole vocation of this work, nor would you think it's effectiveness will be improved if we did. And much more important demonstration of our principles lies before the expensive homes, occupations and affairs. Now I'm not knocking anybody works to treatment. That's your thing and you want to go and work in it. Fantastic. And I worked in the treatment centre myself,

but I was under no illusions. But what I did on a daily basis with the addicts and Alcoholics I worked with wasn't the same as I did in a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon with a sponsor. I absolutely knew the difference. One was money and one was spiritual and I kept them separate. I've seen so many people go down the road of thinking that what I'm doing at work is spiritual, therefore I'm doing the work, therefore I'm OK. And a lot of these people are now dead.

They're either dead or they're out there using, drinking, smashing themselves to pieces because

they've got mixed up between what is the spiritual, what is the money side of it. So we must stay non professional with this stuff. We must. There is, there is a difference between the two and that's my experience of, of seeing people within the treatment industry that do that stuff. You know, I read, I see it all the time.

So tradition 9II assault never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those that they serve.

Can you imagine a a being organised right? And it sounds a bit of a mad one because we have to have some sort of organization. So how can that be right? We can't be organised but we can but we can't be. Anyone got any ideas? How can we be organised but we can't be organised? Anyone want to answer that

with great group members and it goes up to your canal way along the line. I don't know how it starts at the bottom of the styles here and it goes up to up to York, doesn't it?

OK, Can you imagine old timer standing at the back of the room and saying, right, you need to stand over there, you need to go there and you need to go there. One near ego would just be like manifesting in the illness, right? You need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do that. And then who comes? Everyone else be going, well, I ain't doing that. There's no way. So what we really have is sort of like organized chaos. That's what we have, but what we rely on is each person within it, as an individual within the group,

adhere into the principles that we have,

adhering to the traditions. So that makes us organized in a certain way.

I don't know if you've ever seen a, a business like a big company business, you got like they have a triangle, which is like the company CEO, the vice chair, the directors of the board, the general board, then the workers and it goes down. Well, we have to try and call this upside down. So what we actually have is we have the group that serves the individual. The committee serves, the group into group serve, the committee

serve. The intergroup conference serves the region. So when you hear the newcomers, the most important person in the meeting, this is the reason why the conference serves the region. The region serves the intergroup, the intergroup serve your committee, your committee serve your group, and you serve

the no camel walking through the door. Now here's the paradox in it, right? If you're no brain, no, you're not the most important person at me, the geezer next to you is. Get your head around that one, right? No matter how many times you sit here thinking I'm a newcomer, I'm the most important person in the meeting. No, you're not. It's the geezer next to you. It's just as new as you are because that's what we know. We look out. So we have organization, but we only have it to a certain point.

So it's just like I said, it's just sort of like organized sort of chaos that we have as long as we are dear to the principles within the the traditions.

Tradition 10

We have no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name never be ought to join in public controversy. So going back to the the Washingtonians in 1848, in 184018491850 the Washingtonians decided to put their name to a senator who was up for election.

Part of his policy for election was that people shouldn't drink, which they absolutely loved. So they threw their weight behind them, their million members to get him elected

before the elections with Joe, he was caught in bed with his secretary, which of course in 1848 could get your hands cut off in in base. All right. So it was all over the newspaper, Washingtonians football Senate. So and so he's been caught with his pants there. He didn't take long for them to be completely ostracised by everybody. So going on for the Washingtonians to the Oxford Group. And I don't know if you know about the Oxford Group,

but the Oxford Group did the same thing in 1930

381939. They was quite taken by a fellow in Germany. What he'd done was he'd invented this car called the Volkswagen and they thought it was one of the greatest things they'd ever heard, because what he did was he wanted to give it to everybody in the country to use his Volkswagen. So they threw the weight of the Oxford Group behind this man and said he's our saviour, he's going to be fantastic. His name was Adolf Hitler.

You can imagine by 1940 how long the Oxford Group were around still,

because this savior who was such a social giant

was invading Poland and Czechoslovakia as this was going on, as they were saying, he's such a fantastic fella. So we don't lend our name to anything. And that's born out of the experience of the Washingtonians and the Oxford Group, and that's where it comes from. So

traditionally level

public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We may always maintain personal anonymity at a level of fresh radio and film.

Dave introduces himself

as what, Dave? Why'd you do that, Dave

Wiggins?

So we're anonymous at level of press, radio and film now? The reason we're anonymous at that level is because there was a baseball player called Rowley H and he was a bit like David Beckham every day, except he was a proper piss head and he was just off the scale.

And all the the newspapers got hold of the fact

that each stop drinking and went and said, now you stop drinking. And he said, I've joined our colleagues anonymous. He's fantastic. I've saved my life. And of course they was like, wow, this is fantastic. He's like a lot to them as they must really be good at what they're doing in three months. Like, we was pissed.

So now their headline was A A does not work because they didn't look at it. He didn't work a A, they looked at it. A A does not work. So therefore we're anonymous at a level of press, radio and film. We're not anonymous at the level of our own fellowship. Dave says he's named Dave Wiggies. My name is Richard Eve,

and I want to tell you a story. In Richmond a little while ago, we had a fellow called Steven. He'd been coming to the meetings for about about three years on and off. And he, he, he really was struggling to get this. He really was. And as I kept trying to explain to him, there's nothing to get here. This is about giving. When you learn to give, you'll get.

That's what this is about. But he was in and out, in and out and in and out, and we've all seen him. We've all seen him in and out, in and out. And unfortunately, he took a quarter of a bottle of vodka, tripped downstairs and choked on his own vomit.

Nobody from AA went to his funeral. Anybody know why?

Nobody knew he was. Nobody knew his family was. Nobody knew what his second name was. Not one of us showed up at this man's funeral

because we did, not because he'd stayed anonymous at a level of AI. That's not what this tradition is about. All my sponsors I know either where they live, I know their families, I know their second names, or I know how to get hold of them if one of them is in hospital and can't get the phone. Oh no,

because they are not anonymous at the level of a A. We have to be like that. So between tradition 11 and tradition 12,

it talks about anonymity being a spiritual foundation of all our practicing principles for personalities. I'm going to tell you a couple of stories. So there's an American businessman and he's a glass salesman and he's going round the country selling glass. And he turns up at this big factory one day. And his primary purpose in life, right, is to earn as much money as he can apart from me and a, a means where it's to give the message away. So he goes to this big company and as he gets his big company, there's a car in the car park and there's a bumper sticker and it says I'm a friend of Bills

and he sort of smiles at it. He looks at me and he goes in and he says to the woman, I'm I'm here to see the purchasing manager and he'd like, you know, anytime. So she rings up and you know, is he about puts the fan and she said be with you in a minute. So he said, who's is the car outside? She said, oh, that's the purchasing manager. He went

so he makes a purchase in managing, shakes his hand. I go up into the office and on the way up to the office, he thinks to himself, you know what? I'm not going to use a A but I I shouldn't really do that at a principle I should not do. My personality wants me to scream at her friend of Bills. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Secret handshake, whatever it is. And he decided the best thing he can do is actually, on his own merit, try and get the contract to get as much glass as he can.

So after about an hour of talking and discussing backwards and forwards, the purchasing manager agrees to have half $1,000,000 worth of glass off of him over the next two years. And he's chuffed a bit. So as he's leaving, he turns to him and he says

who's is the car in the drive right tough with himself and the purchasing manager looked at him and he said that's the wife or the ex-wife. She ran off of one of them fucking a a geezers.

So I've got another story for you.

A friend of mine,

his little brother suffers from a terminal illness. I think he's, I think he's got mental handicap problems as well. And he has to go to hospital quite often. So he goes up the hospital with his brother and his mum and while they're up there every week, they get to have the same nurses that are always dealing with them. And over the course of eight months of him coming in to the rooms and doing a program, the nurses watch him get well, he doesn't know, he's just changing. She said to him one day,

you seem to be really different. I don't know what's happened to you, but you just seem to be really different. So I decided to break his anonymity and he said, you know what he said? I've been going to IAI, got myself a sponsor and I did the steps and that's what's changed me. She said that's fantastic. She said my husband's been going to a A, he's a doctor and he's banging in trouble and he went, well, I'm sorry to hear that. So my friend didn't go to the hospital again. His mum has been going up there and every time the mum goes up there, the nurse hugs her about her son, what's happening

and what does he do? She said oh, you want to get stand every morning on his knees and he wants a gratitude list and he reads 2 pages out of the big book. He rings his sponsor and apparently he rings newcomers. This is the mum telling all right, because he watches him do it.

So she's going home and telling the doctor what he's doing and he went up the hospital. Oh no, he didn't. The mum came back to him about two or three months later and she said I've got something to tell you. And he said, what's that? She said the nurse came to see me and she said she wanted to send her thanks to you. Her husband's now six months so. But he's got a big book Nazi sponsor. He's getting on his knees every morning writing a gratitude list. He's going through the big book, he's going through the steps. And her life has improved immensely because of the direct result. If you're breaking your.