The Birth of Recovery and The Spiritual Solution - Gary K Recovery - Sober Not Boring

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Uh, my name is Gary Kay, andI am a grateful, recovered
drug addict and alcoholic.
I love Gary Kay.
I'm so grateful to be here, uh, inthe presence of love and courage.
Um, okay, so I'm gonna try to coveran extensive, uh, amount of history

(00:23):
in a very short period of time.
Before I do that, I went to 47 detoxes,11 trips to jail, caught two felonies,
seven suicide attempts, electroshocktherapy, union therapy, Freudian
therapy, psychodynamics, gestalttherapy, two, Anthony Robbins, firewalk,

(00:49):
ayahuasca, puke and Purge.
Um, and then 19 trips to treatment.
And when I went to treatment.
I met, that was me in 1992,
right?
Just prior to one of my, my last suicideattempt, I looked like a combination

(01:13):
of Nick Nolte, Gary Busey, andCharles Manson, all on a very bad day.
And when I was in treatment, I metthese two men, father Edgar W and
Mel b, and they were great friends.
Uh, Edgar's father was one of the first87 members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

(01:36):
He did his step work the first timewith Bill W and a man named Hank
Parkhurst, who wrote two chapters inthe big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He wrote to wives and to theemployer, and, um, was Bill's first
sponsee in New York and Mel b.

(01:57):
Did his steps the first time withfour men from Akron Group number
one, uh, that happened in California.
And, uh, those four men were allsponsored by AA co-founder Dr. Bob Smith.
And then Mel drank periodically fortwo years while he learned how to
incorporate the steps into his life.
And, uh, that's what he always said.

(02:20):
And then he nearly drankhimself to death on a train trip
from California to New York.
He had been offered a job working forthe Wall Street Journal as a, an editor.
And uh, he ended up beinghospitalized and almost died.
And when he came out, he had a firstedition big book, and it had the
address of the AA office in New York.

(02:42):
And he went there and Bill w wasthere and did steps with Bill.
And, uh, bill quickly convinced himto quit his job at the Wall Street
Journal, and Mel became the editorof the AA International Grapevine
Magazine for the next 60 years.
He was Bill's traveling companion.
His office was across the hallfrom Bill, his New York office.

(03:02):
Uh, he gave the eulogy at LoisWilson's funeral founder of
Al-Anon, Bill's wife of many years.
And, um, a's official historian andarchivist my last trip to treatment, they
had me discharged, rode the train backto New York from New Jersey with me, and,
uh, co-sponsored me for the next 24 years.

(03:24):
I'm telling to reader is if you comeback to one of the other sessions,
I'll tell you my whole story.
Um,
and they, uh, mentored mein such an amazing way.
We did the steps quickly and often the waythey were designed to be done, according
to clear cut, precise directions inthe big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

(03:45):
And my life changed like immediately.
Um, I started working in thea, a archives in New York.
I did that for about 17 years,two years at Stepping Stones in
Bedford, New York, which is theWilson Home in, uh, Bedford Hills.
And, um, I went back, I'm fromAkron, Ohio, and I went back

(04:07):
home and I worked in the archivesthere, put in about 2000 hours.
And, uh, this man was one of my mentors,Wally P, who wrote back to basics
and how to listen to God, and, uh,did steps in Dr. Bob's living room.
Wally has taken about 300,000 peoplethrough the steps, uh, in groups, the

(04:30):
way they did it in northeast Ohio, inthe, uh, early, uh, in 19 39, 40, 41, 42.
And, um, worked with Wally on aproject to build the second largest
a, a archive, and the largest Allenon archive for the Wolf Street
Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Uh, that, that, um, project was directedby Joe, uh, Ew of Joe and Charlie

(04:56):
and, uh, founder of Wolf Street.
And I had the privilege of workingwith Joe, uh, until he passed in 2007.
And, uh, my first year of recovery workedwith this man, James Howell, who helped
Bill Wilson get sober before AlcoholicsAnonymous existed in the Oxford Group.
So, welcome to the Birth of a Miracle,and what I hope to cover in one hour,

(05:19):
and that's gonna be amazing if I can doit, um, is the evolution of the spiritual
solution to alcoholism and addiction,which began, uh, with Marcus Aurelius.
In, uh, actually 1 65 ad he ruledin Rome from one 60 to 180 2.

(05:40):
When he was assassinated, uh, around 165, the Roman soldiers were outta control.
Drunkenness was rampant in thesociety, and yet the society was angry
with the government because of theexcesses, and something had to be done.
And the, uh, one legion of soldiersburned down a temple of Apollo.

(06:04):
Right after that, a plague ofsmallpox, uh, went through the entire
Roman empire and killed millionsof people, and the citizens thought
that was be, am I still there?
Okay.
The citizens thought that was becausethe soldiers burned down the temple of
Apollo, and that was Apollo's retribution.
So something had to happen.
Marcus Aelius had developed aphilosophy, they called stoicism, and,

(06:29):
uh, moral wisdom was a chief tenant.
Of that philosophy.
And, uh, Marcus Aurelius quit drinkingby practicing the principles of stoicism.
He said the problem was spirit againstspirit, the mind against the body,

(06:50):
higher spirit against the lower spirit.
And yet the solution was alsoappealing to the divine spiritual
experience conquers alcohol.
And that's what, uh, whathis philosophy was all about.
He forced many officers and keysoldiers to practice this way of living,

(07:12):
and a percentage of them got sober.
And he wrote about this in this,uh, piece, which is in a book
form there called meditations.
Those that writing was lost untilthe, it was written down by scribes in
ancient Greek and, uh, in ancient Latin.
And, um.

(07:33):
It was lost in the midst oftime until the 10th century.
It was rediscovered then it was lostagain, rediscovered in the 16th century.
The first English translationof meditations by Marcus
Aurelius was in 1742.
That book was embraced by GeorgeWashington, who did not wanna drink

(07:53):
any, uh, he taught these principles tothe Revolutionary War soldiers so that
alcoholism would not destroy their, uh,chance of winning the Revolutionary War.
That information traveled to Dr.Benjamin Rush, who was one of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence.
And, uh, um, in 1784, he wrotethis very important book, an

(08:15):
inquiry into the Effects of Spirit,two Liquors on the human body.
In Ancient Rome, they called alcoholspirits because they believed
there were demons in the liquid.
So if you acted crazy.
It was demonic possession.
And if you couldn't stop drinking,you were absolutely demon possessed.
So the only solution was to appealto the divine, to expel the demons.

(08:39):
And we still call it spirits today.
Uh, so Dr. Rush in this book said,alcoholism must surely be a disease
that only God could conquer.
There was a great will in Americato stop everyone from drinking.
It was seen as, uh, a moral, uh,moral issue, and it was evil.

(09:01):
Um, and alcoholism was rampantright from the get go, from
the beginning of this country.
A temperance movement began in 1826.
This is, uh, in, uh, Bill's story.
He says, there was that profferedtemperance pledge I never signed.
That's what they looked like.
This particular one was from 1912,which was around the time that bill.

(09:22):
Would have decided not tosign a Temperance Pledge.
He wasn't drinking at that time.
However, uh, this, uh, then in 1846,drunks Embracing Stoicism, uh, formed an
organization called the Washingtonians,which was named after George Washington.
And they had a pledge where theyswore they would never touch alcohol.

(09:46):
And, uh, many of them were in the, thesix men who who founded it were in fact
absolute fall down drunks and alcoholics.
Um, Washingtonian or the, uh, MarcusReis and Stoicism was, the idea
was to expand your spiritual lifewould give you the moral courage

(10:07):
and strength to stop drinking.
This organization combined that withthe first fellowship that we know of.
Of alcoholics helping another alcoholic.
They became a very powerful organization.
They charged dues and fees tojoin the organization, and, uh,
that was their, their downfall.

(10:28):
Um, at one point they threw allthe clergy out because they felt
the preachers were talking down tothe drunks because everyone thought
alcoholism was a moral issue.
They were evil, bad people, and theydidn't like being treated that way.
So they expelled all the clergy andturned their back on the religious aspect

(10:49):
of the program, of their own program.
But they found that many of them were ableto stay sober because of the fellowship,
the strength of the fellowship.
So now we had two components.
We had stoicism expand yourspiritual life and the concept of a
fellowship, helping people stay sober.

(11:09):
John B Go.
He was the founder of the TemperanceMovement in 1826, and then he became
a spokesman for the Washingtonians.
He wrote these two very importantbooks, which chronicle the
success that the Washingtonianswere having sobering up drunks.
Eventually the Washingtonians, uh,got involved in the politics of the

(11:30):
abolitionist movement, and they werecharging a lot of money to join the
organization, and, uh, it destroyed them.
Lest, uh, power, money, and prestigedivert us from our primary purpose.
And one of the reasons the preambleof Alcoholics Anonymous says, we're
not Alli with any sect, denomination,organization, politics, religion.

(11:52):
Do not wish to engage in any controversy.
Neither endorse or pose any cause.
Our primary purpose isto help an alcoholic.
Uh, the Temperance Torch was carried bythe Women's Christian Temperance Union.
In 1874, I love this picture.
It says, lips that touchliquor shall not touch ours.

(12:12):
And if you look at that pictureclosely, I don't think anybody
would be touching their lips.
Anyway,
then it was carried on by theAnti Saloon League in 1893.
In 1902, professor William James didresearch on alcoholism and, and this
the, he was studying why spiritualitywas helping people, uh, sober up.

(12:39):
And he wrote about the phenomenonof a white light experience,
variety in this book, varieties ofReligious Experience, which became
required reading for early aas in thebeginning of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In this, uh, uh, book, he describes thathe discovered that 1% of all alcoholics.

(13:00):
Have a random, vital spiritualexperience, which we cannot explain,
and is of such a nature of such anintensity that it shifts their thinking.
What we call today a psychic change.
Old ideas tossed out the window.
New ideas adopted
a psychic change.
It created this, uh, spiritualphenomenon for people, and 1% of

(13:24):
alcoholics just stopped drinking.
That happened to Bill Wilson's, uh,grandfather, his paternal grandfather.
Uh, one day he walked out the backof the house in East Do of Vermont.
He hiked all the way to Mount Olisand the Green Mountains to commit
suicide by jumping off a cliff.
And he did not believe this wasa God he didn't believe existed.

(13:46):
He laid down prostrate.
With his body and his face and beggedto God he didn't believe in for help.
And he had a white light experience,came down from the mountain, never drank
again eight years till the day he died.
That was Bill Wilson's grandfather,which I think is fascinating.
Uh, Dr. Elwood Worcester, uh,embraced the work of stoicism what

(14:09):
had been learned by the Washingtoniansand also Professor William James.
And together they formed theEmanuel movement, which combined
Christianity, Christian action,spiritual action, not just reading
about it, putting it into practice.

(14:30):
Spiritual action plus psychotherapywas sobering up some people.
So the elements of what wouldbecome alcoholic synonymous are
in the air and are being learnedby people slowly over time.
Uh, let's see.
Whoop, I'm going the other wrong way.
Dr. Worcester wrote this book, religionand Medicine, which again is about how

(14:51):
spiritual action can conquer disease.
Courtney Baylor enters the picture.
Courtney Baylor was a fall down drunk, andhe came to Reverend Worcester for help.
He began practicing, uh, expandinghis spiritual life stoicism, um, that
what was missing was the fellowship.

(15:12):
But he did achieve acouple of years sober.
And Courtney Baylor studiedpsychotherapy and he became the first
alcoholic, uh, therapist, alcoholismspecialist, first paid alcoholic
therapist, who was also an alcoholic.
And he wrote this book, remaking aMan, which was more detail detailing,

(15:38):
focused, uh, on how spiritualaction can overcome alcoholism.
Prohibition 1920 Alcohol isbanned in the United States, which
created a plague of alcoholics.
Enter Reverend Dr. Frank Bookman.

(16:00):
He founded the Oxford Group in 1921.
This is Bookmans philosophy.
All people are sinners.
All sinners can be changed.
The changed person canaccess God directly.
Miracles are again possible.
The changed person must change others.

(16:22):
Fascinating.
And they were very interested inaddictions, what they called nervous
disorders, including alcoholismand, and addiction And, um.
Frank Buckman had worked for a numberof churches and they called him on
the carpet about how he was spendingmoney, and he was very insulted
and he developed a deep resentment.

(16:43):
He left the United Statesand he went to Kesa England.
Uh, he was codependent, so he borrowedmoney from his parents to do that.
And, uh, his resentment almost killed him.
It turned into severe stomachulcers, which they thought
was developing into cancer.
He could barely eat.
He lost a lot of weight and he was a mess.

(17:05):
And there was a Jesuit priest fromOxford University who came and
worked with him, and they started toanalyze these resentments and, uh, an
organization was formed, the OxfordGroup, and they were there to help
people overcome spiritual maladies.
Maybe you're going through adivorce or your husband's a drunk

(17:27):
or something and you've got deepresentments and they're killing you.
And what they discovered is theseresentments are blocking us from
God and blocking us from the sourceof our healing and prosperity.
And they met in a group and sat in acircle, talked about their problems,
and they practiced these six tenets,complete deflation, which would

(17:49):
become step one, dependence on God.
Two and three, a moral inventory,four, confession, five,
restitution eight and nine.
Continued work withothers in need, 11 and 12.
Those would become our 12 steps.
Reverend Sam Schumaker at CalvaryEpiscopal Church in New York City
embraced the Oxford Movement, invitedthem to set up their world headquarters

(18:13):
at Calvary Episcopal Church.
Uh, that's Calvary on, uh, it's around14th and Park Avenue South and Oxford set
up their world headquarters there in 1927.
Enter Roland Hazard, Roland Hazard.
It came from a very wealthy family.
They had five homes of thiskind of, uh, massive structure.

(18:36):
This is, they actually called thehazard castle in Narragansett.
And um, they had five massivehomes in different states.
They were among the robberbarons of the Gilded Age.
Uh, Roland's father owned every textilemill in South America and North America
and had ridiculous amount of money.

(18:56):
Roland, whoops, sorry.
Roland Hazard wasabsolutely batshit crazy.
I had no other way to describe it.
And, um, he drank a lot, butso did everybody in the 1920s.
So nobody thought anything about that.
They didn't recognizethat that was the problem.
They just thought he wasjust absolutely crazy.

(19:20):
So they started sending him to Americanpsychiatrist to no avail and psychiatric
medicine was brand new at that time.
Uh, the movement was foundedby, or the, that practice
was founded by Sigmund Freud.
His two main proteges were AlbertAdler and, uh, Carl Gustav.

(19:40):
And then they taught other men.
And there were about a dozenpsychiatrists in the United States
and about a dozen in Europe.
So it wasn't, it was, they were havingno luck and he wasn't getting any
better when he wasn't having whatthey called episodes, which actually
meant he was sober for a little while.
He was charming and brilliantand great at business, but

(20:01):
that didn't happen very often.
He was drunk most of the time sincehe was a little kid, and they just,
again, they thought he was crazy.
So they said, we got lots of money.
What are we doing?
Sending him to theseAmerican psychiatrists?
Let's send whoop wrong way.
Let's send them to the best.
So they contacted Freud and hewasn't taking any new patients.
He was writing a book.
Alfred Adler was in the hospital,and they were very upset.

(20:24):
Their first choice andtheir second choice said no.
And they were wealthy and entitled.
Third choice ConstellationPrize was Carl Gustav Jung.
Oh,
now he had a clinic in Zurich,Switzerland that treated severe
mental illness such as schizophrenia.
These were among Carl Jung's favoritebooks, Marcus Aelius and Stoicism,

(20:50):
the work of the Washingtonians, uh,the work of the Emanuel movement
and the work of the Oxford Group.
Wow.
He knew all the elements.
Yeah.
So he was ConstellationPrize number three.
And often in life we receive a gift thatwe don't realize is a gift, and it's
not what we want, but it's what we need.

(21:12):
So is it odd or is it God?
Because Carl Jung was the man withthe solution and he coined the term
Spirito Sperum from all of his studies.
Um.
Embracing the work of the stoicism,Marcus Reis, the Emanuel Movement,
Christian Action plus Psychotherapy.

(21:32):
Uh, the fellowship one, alcoholichelping another in the Washingtonian
movement, and, uh, the Oxfordmovement with actual tenants that
had numbers on 'em, a map that youcould follow and again, group support.
And he came up with that term SpiritoSperum, which is Latin for spiritual

(21:54):
experience, conquers alcohol orhigher spirit, conquers lower spirit.
It's exactly what MarcusAelius talked about.
So here he is, mammoth, a solutionthey send Roland to Zurich.
It takes 45 days to get there becausethere are lots of stop the ship
makes before it gets to Zurich.

(22:14):
And he drinks a great deal on that trip.
And yet he is diagnosed by CarlJung as being schizophrenic.
So they send him back home.
He was there 30 days with Jung.
They send him back to New YorkCity and he drinks like a pig
for 45 days across the ocean.
And they're still missingwhat his actual problem is.

(22:37):
But Carl Jung had told him,go to the Oxford Group.
You might find comfort in dealingwith your schizophrenia and I suggest
you continue with psychotherapy.
And Jung suggested CourtneyBaylor of the e Emmanuel movement.
So Roland Didis told he didnot work the Oxford program.

(22:57):
He simply went to the Oxford meetings andwas a meeting maker who didn't make it.
And uh, then he beganworking with Courtney Baylor.
He had some periods ofsobriety between 1928 and 1930.
And then, uh, he actually tooka trip to South Africa to meet

(23:19):
Frank Bookman who was there.
He had always wanted to meet FrankBookman, and Bookman had decided he no
longer wanted to help change the worldby helping one individual at a time.
He now wanted to convert nationsbecause he was getting a little
power, mad and greedy, becauseOxford also charged a great deal
of money to join the organization.

(23:40):
We learned a lot from FrankBookman and the Oxfords.
We learned what to do and what notto do from the same organization.
So, uh, Roland drinks himselfnearly to death and has to be
hospitalized on the trip backfrom South Africa in, uh, in 1931.
And between 1931 and 34, hewas a continuous hard drinker

(24:02):
and hospitalized many times.
You can see his deterioration,uh, just looking at that picture.
So in 1934, the familysays, you know what?
You're an embarrassment.
We'd like you to leave for a while,so we're gonna send you to Zurich.
And we've made arrangementswith Carl Jung.
You're gonna stay therefor six months this time.
So now he goes back to Carl Jung'sclinic and they do intensive

(24:25):
psychotherapy, moral psychology.
Carl Jung called it, and it gotto the point, which is written
about, I believe, on page 26.
In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It says that his, uh, knowledge ofthe inner workings of his mind, uh,
he has such great knowledge of hismind, its springs and its hidden traps.

(24:49):
That relapse was unthinkable.
So after six months of psychotherapy, Jungthought he had cured him of schizophrenia.
Roland gets on the trainto go back to the ship.
Uh, it's a two day journey onthat trip I've taken it and,

(25:10):
um, he sees a man drinking.
Roland's got lots of money, so hebuys the booze from the guy and he's
drunk before he gets back to the ship.
He drinks for another 45 days backacross the Atlantic Ocean and all
the stops that they make along theway, he has a very severe seizure
and almost dies on the ship.
His parents won't lethim get off the ship.

(25:33):
They have a doctor come and detox himin his suite and they hire a bodyguard
and they send him right back to Zurich.
Only this time he can'tmake this stuff up.
Now, this time he's sober'cause he's got a bodyguard.
And he arrives in Zirk and he's sober.
And Yung says What happened?

(25:56):
And he tells him the whole story.
And I saw the guy withthe booze and I'm drunk.
And, and, and Yung says,I have made a tag mistake.
You are not schizophrenic.
You are a chronic inebriate.
That's what they called us.
Chronic inebriate.
That's what it was.

(26:17):
I love that term.
It covers all the bases.
Drugs, alcohol, doesn't matter.
That's a great thing youcan use in a meeting.
If you don't know,should I say alcoholics?
The addicts say, my name's GaryKay, and I'm a chronic inebriate.
And you're good.
You're good to go.
And you won't offend anybody.
They won't even know whatyou're talking about.
They'll be like, what?

(26:37):
I do that all the time.
It really salts their beans.
They're like, what is it?
Salt.
So, uh,
so Roland Ama, uh, uh, remains aboardthe ship and he returns to Jung.
So Jung says, I've made a terrible mistakeand I have a new prescription for you.
Spirito.
Sperum, you must expandyour spiritual life.

(26:59):
In order to do that.
You must take action.
You must work the Oxford program.
By doing that you, it maycreate for you a vital spiritual
experience, which is essential.
If you do not have a vital spiritualexperience and an entire psychic
change, you will not stay sober.
He tells him to continue withpsychotherapy, and then the fourth part

(27:21):
is now finally put into place the fourthelement needed for him to stay sober.
You must find a fellowship of alcoholics.
Wow, where am I gonna find that?
He said, I don't know.
Maybe you'll have to find a coupleof other drunks and get them
sober and build a fellowship.

(27:41):
But that's what you're gonna need.
I believe if you do all of thesethings, practical application,
you'll be able to stay sober.
So Rowan gets back on the ship.
And guess who's on the ship?
Reverend?
Dr. Frank Bookman, founderof the Oxford Group.
Wow.
He's coming back fromhis third trip to Berlin.
He's now decided to convertHitler to Christian practices.

(28:06):
Good luck.
Great idea.
You know,
so he got as far as Himler, and thenHimler finally got him the third
trip, he got an audience with Hitlerand Hitler said, Hey, I like you.
If you give me a lot of money, youcan start Oxford here in Germany.
And, uh, again, he charged a lotof money to join the organization,
which was part of their downfall.

(28:28):
So, uh, he, he, uh, Hitler says,you may now tell people that I am
a proud member of the Oxford Group.
Uh oh.
So that's why Frank was on the ship.
While he's on the ship with Roland,he takes him through the six spiritual
procedures of the Oxford Group.
Roland spends most of the tripin the Telegram off Telegraph

(28:51):
office, sending telegrams.
Back to people who he hadharmed as letters of amends.
And he arrives in New YorkHarbor and he's sober.
He joins the Oxford Group and he findsout when he's with, uh, Frankman.
Bookman says, well,what did Jung tell you?

(29:11):
And he said, well, one thing, I'vegotta find a fellowship of drunks.
And he said, well, are you awarethere's a mission in the basement
of Calvary Episcopal Churchfor Bowery Bums from New York?
You could start helping some of them.
So he did that.
He had two close friends, ShepCornell and Seber Graves, also

(29:34):
from very wealthy families.
He took them through the sixspiritual procedures and the three
of them started helping drunks in thebasement of Calie Episcopal Church.
And they all stayed sober for five months.
And this changed thecourse of human history.
Uh, Seber and Shep joinedthe Oxford movement.
19, uh, 1934.

(29:56):
Frank Bookman, when hegot back to New York.
Turns out Joseph Gerber sent a pressrelease to the New York Times, uh,
letting the world know that thatHitler really liked Frank Bookman
and that they were close friends and,uh, that Hitler had joined the Oxford
movement and that destroyed Oxford.

(30:17):
That was the death kn.
And when he arrived in the harbor, therewas a group of angry reporters, and
he said this to the reporters, I thinkheaven for a man like Adolf Hitler,
who built a front line of defenseagainst the antichrist of communism.
And that was the final death nail hit.
The Oxford Group was absolutelygone within two years.

(30:37):
Uh, Reverend Shoemaker, um, he ended upon the cover of Time Magazine, Bookman.
He was called a Nazi cult.
Us to.
And the following month, Hitlerwas on as Man of the Year.
So pretty crazy stuff.
And again, the AA preamble we'renot alive with any SEC denomination.
Politics, organization, religion.
Don't wish to engage in any controversy.

(30:58):
Neither endorse or oppose any cause.
And this is where we learned it from, fromthe Washingtonians and from the Oxfords.
So they're sober five months and theydecide to go up to Manchester, Vermont.
Their families all have bigpalatial homes up there.
And, uh, they all belong to Mount Equinoxand they decide to take a vacation.

(31:19):
Enter Eby Thatcher.
Edwin Throckmorton Thatcher, betterknown as Eby Eby, attended Bur and Burton
Boys Academy for high school in 1912.
That's in Manchester.
This is one of their family'shomes in Albany, New York, um,
in Albany from 1800 till 1932.
One of the Thatchers was Mayor of Albany.

(31:41):
His grandfather, great-grandfather,and uncle and his brother Jack.
This is Father George.
George golfed withPresident Taft all the time.
He made a fortune.
His company built every train wheelin the world, so you can imagine
the kind of money that they had.
This is a newspaper article from 1925.

(32:05):
Now there's a law in Vermont, threestrikes, and you're going away
either to prison or an insane asylum.
If you get arrested threetimes for certain crimes,
that's gonna happen to you.
Strike one.
Eby.
Thatcher drives his Packard, drunkendrives drunk, drives it through the
wall of some old lady's kitchen.

(32:27):
Here's a closeup of that article.
Packard driven into houseand stops that stove.
You gotta love Eby.
Then it says, an occupant then asksowner of house for a cup of coffee.
Isn't that amazing?

(32:48):
This is what he said.
It's in the police report.
He said, Madam, you are very beautiful.
I'm awfully sorry about your kitchen.
May I trouble you for a cup ofcoffee that's in the police report.
So they locked him up.

(33:10):
He had to pay a $50 fine.
His family, of course, wasvery influential, but that
was strike number one.
In 1927, he crashed three stretchBentleys in Albany, New York.
His alcoholism was really taken off.
His father kept buying him carsand saying, erect this one.
I'm disowning you.

(33:31):
If you wreck this one, I'm disowning you.
A clear case of enabling and codependence.
So he was asked not to return to Albany.
Then the stock marketcrashed October 24th, 1929.
Eby crashed with it andbecame a continuous drinker.
Now he crashes two stretch blue trainBentleys in New York City in 1930.

(33:55):
It's really fun reading the courtdocuments on all these things.
Uh, this is his brother Jack.
He was the presumptive nominee forGovernor of New York in 1932 to replace,
uh, he did not win the election, buthe was the presumptive nominee of the
Democratic Party and, uh, was goingto replace Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

(34:16):
When Roosevelt was elected president,and of course Roosevelt repealed
prohibition, the very day he got electedpresident, that was the first thing that
he did was make alcohol legal again.
Uh, he was eby was exiledto Vermont by his family.
They said, you have to go to Vermont.
You can't come back.

(34:37):
If you want us to support you,that's what you're gonna do.
His father bought him one more car.
He said, this is it.
Last one, you wrecked this.
I'm disowning you.
1932, Packard Deluxe, eightEby gets in that Packard.
He drives, he drinks six pintsof gin on his way to the bat and

(34:58):
Kill Inn, which is up in the GreenMountains, up way up in the mountains.
He claims he didn't drink for two years.
Really?
I'm kind of doubting that.
But that's what he said.
He cleared trails and did a lot of manuallabor and a key says that kept him sober.
Then one day the father calls and hesays, you know, I'm not gonna support

(35:18):
you anymore unless you earn your keep.
So I want you to go down to one of,they had four houses in Manchester.
This house was right nextdoor to the Burnhams.
Which is, uh, Lois Burnham, who wouldbecome Bill Wilson's wife, a large home.
And the father said, you aregoing to paint the house.

(35:39):
I've ordered a couplehundred cans of paint.
Get at it, go back, go down the mountainto Manchester and go paint the house.
So Abby's got a resentment and hedrinks all the way down to Manchester.
By the time he gets down there,he's absolutely three sheets to the
wind pigeons that keep landing onthese various, how do you do that?
They're landing on these roofs, you know,all these olos and ruining the paint job.

(36:02):
So Eby goes in and gets a shotgun, andhe starts shooting at the pigeons and
he blows holes in the house and thepigeons are flying all over the place and
he's just shooting all over the place.
He shoots out the neighbor, uh, oneof the neighbors is the mayor, and
he blows their front windows out.
Of course, they call the police.
And this is strike number two.

(36:22):
And he spends just a couple daysin jail and there's like $150
fine, which was a lot of money in1932 when a week's wages was $2.
That was a chunk of money.
Now e's angry.
He comes back home, the boys whoare still on vacation up in Vermont
here, that e's gotten into troubleand they decide to go visit him.

(36:46):
They find him in the backyard, uh, injust a pair of boxers, and he's defecated
all over himself and urinated, and he'sdirty and filthy and mumbling and out
of his mind, and they try to help him.
And he says, get the hell outta here.
Get off my property.
I'll shoot you.

(37:08):
So they leave, and that evening, Ebywandered into town in that condition.
Strike number three.
And he enters the Vermont Asylum forthe insane, they called it the retreat.
And a week later, he's to be arraignedat the Bennington County Courthouse.

(37:31):
And it turns out the judgeis Seber Grave's father.
The big book says Two men appearedin court and persuaded the
judge to suspend his commitment.
Those two men were Roland Hazardand Seber Graves seabird's dad.
They went and talked to himlike Dad, let us help him.
So Eby was remanded into the careof Seabra, Shep and Roland to be

(37:56):
sent to the Oxford Group in NewYork to work the sixth procedures.
So Eby became the first drunk,remanded to treatment by a judge.
Reverend Shoemaker embraced Ebyand said he could sleep in the
basement of the church 'cause hisfather wouldn't let him come home.
So he had nowhere to live andhe's sleeping in the basement
with all the piss and puke.

(38:18):
And for the, the drunks offthe streets of New York.
Frank Bookman decides thathe should go out and renew,
recruit new people for Oxford.
'cause of course, Oxford's losingall kinds of members because
of Frank's Nazi affiliation.
And he says he'll give him a cut'cause he's gotta earn a living.
And now Eby becomes thefirst treatment marketer.

(38:41):
Enter William Griffith Wilson.
He was born at Wilson House, whichis a hotel, small hotel in east in
the village of East Do of Vermont.
Uh, you can still go there today.
Uh, bill was born in this house.
They keep a light on, on anightstand next to a sofa where
the spot is, where he was born.

(39:04):
Um, anyway, this is Bill when he was nineyears old, when he was nine years old.
His fall down drunk father.
Took him up to the top ofMount Olis in a snowstorm.
Uh, his father was generalmanager of a marble quarry.
And, uh, when they got up there, hesaid, well, I want to have a father
and son talk, but just a second.
I gotta go into my officeand get some whiskey.

(39:24):
It's so cold out here.
And it was now nighttime.
The sun had gone down and a terribleblizzard, and he never came back.
He went out another door, went downa hiking trail, and Bill didn't see
him again for 25 years till he wason his deathbed in, uh, Montreal.
Uh, the next morning, bill had towa he couldn't get down that night

(39:44):
and he went and hid in the office.
And the next morning he walked downthe mountain, he got frostbite, had to
be hospitalized, and discovered thathis mother had abandoned him also.
So he was left to be raised byhis grandfather, Fayette Griffith.
As a young man, bill worked atEquinox Resort and that's how he
met Roland and Zebra and Shep.

(40:07):
He attended Byr and Burton BoysAcademy and was Eby Thatcher's
roommate at Byr and Burton.
That's how they got to know each other.
They went to high schooltogether basically.
And Bill, by the way, was captain of theswim team, captain of the soccer team,
captain of the football team, captainof the basketball team, captain of the
baseball team, lead chair, violin in theschool orchestra, uh, lead actor in all

(40:31):
the plays and naturally class president.
And at a girl stance nearby.
He met the most beautiful girlin the state, Bertha Bamford.
Her father was a very famous preacher,and he embraced Bill because he knew
Bill had been abandoned by his family.
And, uh, bill and Bert haddated for about nine months,
and he was on top of the world.
She was the love of his life.

(40:54):
And then the father said, we'retaking Bertha down to New York
City for a little while and wewon't be in touch for a few weeks.
And we'll get ahold ofyou when we get back.
Four days later, a telegram arrivedand forming Bill that Bertha was dead.
She had brain cancer thewhole time he knew her.
She didn't even know it.
The parents hid the diagnosis from herand from Bill so that she could have

(41:15):
a, a normal romance before she died.
That absolutely devastated Bill and thatslammed the lid shut on preachers church.
God, anything that had anything todo with that just really angered him.
And he took to his bed where he stayedfor the next eight months until his

(41:35):
grandfather, Fayette Griffith came to him.
He said, bill, I'm gonna open the firstPacker dealership in the state of Vermont,
and I want you to be my lead salesman.
And Bill said, well, I can talk a dogoff a meat wagon and I know everything
there is to know about gas engines.
And that got him up and outta bed.
He went to Mount Equinox and he stole abanged up rowboat, attached a blanket for

(41:57):
sale and set her afloat on Emerald Lake.
To contemplate his futuresuccess in auto sales.
One morning he was sailing hisrowboat and, uh, a beautiful
brunette went whizzing by in a brandnew Abercrombie and Fitz Skiff.
And her name was Lois Burnham.

(42:19):
And that's how he met Lois.
They raced that entire summerand um, she went back to New
York at the end of the summer.
Uh, whoop.
I missed one in there.
Where'd to go?
Oh, I guess I took it out.
He went to Norwich Military Academyand was drafted to serve the United
States Army, and before he went,they were secretly engaged and then

(42:40):
married Before he went off to war,he rose to the rank of Lieutenant
Colonel William Griffith Wilson.
One of his jobs was communicationsto raise and train carrier pigeons to
carry messages over the German lines.
Wow.
It's kind of fascinating.

(43:01):
They're very smart animals.
Yes.
Many years later, when the fellowshipwasn't growing, after three years of
working with Dr. Bob and Bill Dotsonand, uh, Clarence Snyder, Vic Kitchens,
Fitz Mayo, they only had 87 members.
And Bill said, if this thing doesn'tgrow any faster than it has in the

(43:22):
last three years, it's gonna be anotherdecade before we reach the outskirts
of Akron, Ohio, we'll be lucky tohave 500 members by the year 2000.
How in God's name are we gonna carrythis message all the way around
the globe to the millions who aresick and suffering and still don't
know about the spiritual solution?
He said, in my two ray prayer,I received guidance from God

(43:43):
that we need to raise 50 grand.
That was like a half milliondollars at that time.
We need to hire a hundred missionaries tospend a year traveling around the country.
Teaching what we're doing toother people holding seminars.
We need to open up a hospitaland put Dr. Bob in charge.
That would be the first actualtreatment center, not a detox.

(44:05):
Treating people with thespiritual procedures.
And he said, and we need to writea textbook, a training manual,
teach people how to do this.
And then of course, we're gonnahave to raise an army of pigeons
and train them to carry our message.
That's where carry the message comes from.
Carrier pigeons.
Carrier pigeons.

(44:26):
A lot of people say, why do oldtimers call their responses pigeons?
It's probably 'cause they'restupid and they shit on people.
But that's not it.
It's because they're smartand they're highly trainable.
They're ready and they're willingto take orders and we can train
them to carry our message.
So arm this day, world War I endsafter one year and bill returns to New

(44:50):
York City, his bride and bathtub gin.
He begins working on WallStreet with Eby Thatcher.
Uh, he makes a fortune on Wall Street.
He comes up with this crazy idea.
He buys an army issue.
World War I surplusmotorcycle with a sidecar.
He makes his wife drive it, and Lois isthis big and bill's almost six seven.

(45:15):
There's a sweet letter inin the archive in New York.
It says Burnham.
Oh, Burnham.
How?
I love every inch.
You don't, you wish you were taller.
That's from Bill de Lois.
I always thought that was sweet.
And, uh, she drove andthey had camping equipment.
They would set up a tent outin the woods outside of town.

(45:39):
Near a factory that Bill wanted to spy on.
How does he know thestock reports are valid?
Maybe they're lying.
So he would set up camp out in thewoods 'cause they had to be able
to get out of town in a hurry.
He had fake resumes.
He would talk his way into a jobas a janitor or a night watchman.
Then he would go through their files andfind out how they were doing business.

(46:00):
Then he'd wire this information backto New York and they made millions.
Lots of people were getting rich.
A lot of average Joes were gettingrich because of the work of Bill
and Joe Hirshhorn and Frank Shaw.
They were all working together.
Excuse me, bill called thisscientific stock analysis,

(46:20):
we call it insider tradingand corporate espionage.
And you go to jail fora very, very long time.
And that makes me love Bill even more.
You know, he was a real sketchyalcoholic just like I was.
The stock market had crashed andBill of course crashes with it.

(46:41):
He's now over $60,000 in debt.
Half of New York is broke because ofBill and they want to, people want
him dead and they have to pack upthe car in the middle of the night,
and he and Lois go to Montreal.
Then he screws his hostin Montreal, cheats.
The guy ends up in jail.

(47:02):
Uh, he also got very violent when hedrank, and he ends up in jail and the
host says, I'll bond you out, but you haveto get outta Canada and never come back.
So they snuck back into the United States.
You know, when the market crashed,men were jumping from the towers
of high finance, as it says in thebig book, my favorite line in the
book, bill said, that disgusted me.

(47:23):
I would not jump.
I went back to the bar.
I love that.
So now he's in and outtaCharlie Towns drunk tank.
What they did to a drunk in Charlie Towns,they would strap him down to a gurney.
They would put him in,uh, this is Charles towns.
He was, bill was treated theremany times between 1930 and 1934.

(47:47):
They would strap them down in a straitjacket, whoops, sorry, in a straitjacket.
And then they would, uh, put a funneldown their throat, pour up to a gallon of
cold tomatoes till their stomach bloated,and that was for lycopene and minerals.
Then they would give them nightshade,which made them vomit for a long time.
Then they gave them peralta, hide andwhiskey, which knocked them out, gave them

(48:07):
stomach cramps, and then they had to peefor a couple hours and their bladder would
open up and they would just keep peeing.
They called this to piss,puke and purge treatment.
If you did that three times, any familymember could lock you away for life.
If you did that three times in 23states in the United States, uh, it was
mandatory sterilization for an alcoholicbecause they thought it was caused

(48:30):
by evilness and they didn't want to.
Teaching our evil ways to our children.
So they stopped us from reproducing.
So Bill, his wife, is gonna lockhim up and he talks her out of it.
They move into her, one of her family'shomes on Clinton Street in New York,
so they don't have to pay rent.
And now Bill is drinking, drinkingthe clock around, as it says in

(48:53):
the big book, from 1929 to 1934.
He has a few periods ofsobriety, but every time it
gets worse and worse and worse.
Eventually he starts having the dts.
There are five floors to the house theylive in, and he thinks people are on those
floors, that spooks are gonna kill him.
He is got severely paranoid, he's seeingshadow people and he drags his mattress.

(49:16):
He tries to push his wife out the window.
Actually, one time therewas a police report.
He tried to push Lois out thewindow, and a couple times he
tried to jump out the window.
So finally he drug his mattressdown to this basement kitchen
and he was hiding down there.
Reenter Eby Thatcher, uh, EbyThatcher is now in the Oxford Group,

(49:40):
sleeping i'll, I'll revisit that.
He's sleeping in the basement of CalvaryEpiscopal Church and he has agreed to
become a marketer for the Oxford Group.
He has to bring a new person in, andthat's how he's gonna make money.
And he thinks of his old palBill, and he heard the bill had
made a decision to commit suicideby drinking himself to death.
So Eby goes to see Bill andwhen, and, uh, bill said, uh, one

(50:05):
morning my little suicide partywas interrupted by the telephone.
The cheery voice on the other end of linewas my old drinking pal, Eby Thatcher.
He was the biggest drinker I ever knew.
And when Eby Thatcher told me he'dbeen sober two whole months, you could
have smacked me in the face with awet mop and I wouldn't have felt it.
The old boy was on fire last summer.
He was a crackpot drunk, and now Ifigured he's cracked on religion.

(50:29):
And I said to him, EEB, you can talkabout anything you want, rant all day.
My booze will last longer thanyour bullshit, but if you pull
a Bible out, I swear to God, I'mgoing to beat you to death with it.
That's what he told Eby.
That's a quote from Bill.
Well, Eby did come over and hetalked about what was happening to

(50:49):
him in the Oxford Group and how he'dachieves two whole months of sobriety.
He said, God has released mefrom the compulsion to drink.
Bill kept trying to get him todrink and he kept refusing it.
And when Eby started talkingabout prayer, bill threw him out
of the house into the snowstorm.
November 28th, 1934, therewas a huge blizzard in New

(51:09):
York for a couple of weeks.
It was a legendary blizzard, and hethrows his best friend out into the
night, into the blizzard, and uh,then Bill is astonished he can't
stop thinking about sober eby.
He sobers up enough.
He tries controlled drinking forfive days and sobers up just enough
to be able to walk on his own.

(51:30):
And he wraps up, bundles up and goes outinto the snowstorm in a late afternoon to
go see Eby at Calvary Episcopal Church.
And as soon as he gets off toStaten Island, ferry walks into a
bar and starts drinking with sometall, Swedish marlin fisherman.
And at one point he says,gotta go, gotta go see my pal.

(51:51):
Eb.
Well, where's he live at?
The fisherman says, Calvary EpiscopalChurch, you're going to church?
Yes, I'm going to church.
What you gonna do at the church?
He said, oh, they're probablygonna try to save my soul.
And the fishermen said, well, let's go.
We'll sing hymns.
It'll be fun, and they're hammered.
Bill said, by the time I reachedthe church, I was three sheets to

(52:13):
the wind and a full blown blackoutsinging hymns at the top of my lungs.
Altar call had just begun.
I'm told I caused quite a scene asI got on my knees, stumbled down
front and gave my life to God.
I don't recall that incident myself,but I'm told it was very moving.

(52:36):
Then he got into an argument,
that's the calvary.
I was amazing to find a pictureof that church in the blizzard.
He gets into an argumentwith the preacher.
Bill takes his shoes off and hurlsthem at him, the preacher ducks.
And one of the shoes goes through a Lewiscomfort Tiffany sting glass window, right?

(52:58):
And they call the police and Billtakes off into the snowstorm.
Now he's on another run and he hasno shoes, and he's in the great
blizzard in 1934, and he has hislast drink on December 11th, 1934.
Somehow makes it back toCharlie Towns Hospital.
Tells Charlie Towns hospital in a blackoutthat his brother-in-law's gonna pay for it

(53:25):
and he's there for thelast time on December 11th.
He said, when I woke up, I was wearingone of Charlie Town's comfy canvas, pajama
tops, the kind that tie in the back.
And Dr. Silkworth, they beginadministering the PIs FU and Purge
treatment and Dr. Silkworth throwsin extra nightshade and Bella Donna,

(53:51):
which will either kill him with a brainseizure or cause an epic hallucination
of a religious nature, which Dr.
Silkworth had discovered.
Silkworth was a student, uh,a great fan of Carl Jung.
He knew all about Spirit Two's spiri tune.
He knew William James work.

(54:11):
He knew that one percentage of alcoholic.
Had a vital spiritual experiencethat couldn't be explained.
Why did that happen?
But what they knew for certain was a vitalspiritual experience would get them sober.
So now how do we create that?
How do we cause that to happen?
They were experimenting with chemicals.
That was Dr. Silkworth.

(54:32):
And his great contribution, of course,was charting the fact he created
empirical data, collected empiricaldata that alcoholism had signs,
symptoms of course, and a progression,meaning that it had to be a disease.
They still didn't know what was causingit, but he knew that it wasn't a moral
failure, that every drunk had the samesigns, symptoms course and progression.

(54:57):
Bill Wilson has a white lightexperience on the Bella Donna.
Um, I had a friend named ClancyIland, who was an old timer in AA
who passed away a couple years ago.
He was an amazing human being.
Uh, one day he told me this story.
He was at a convention with Bill W andthey were walking together and some old

(55:18):
drunk came up and said, bill, I love you.
Thanks for saving my life.
But that stuff about the whitelight thing, that's a bunch of bs.
I heard you were tripping.
And Clancy said, bill was listeningwhile he tapped his Lucky's, and
he pulled a cigarette out and helit it, and he gave him the finger

(55:38):
and said, what's your point?
I never drank again.
So does it matter?
Was it God?
Was it a chemical thing?
Does it matter?
He never drank again.
Next day, Abby Thatcher shows up
carrying a copy of WilliamJames Varieties of Religious

(56:00):
Experience and leaves it with Bill.
The two of them worked, the sixspiritual procedures of the Oxford Group.
Bill stays in the hospitalfor nine more days.
Writing letters of amends andmaking amends phones calls.
And then he leaves the hospital.
He joins Calvary Episcopal Church andhe begins working with other drunks,
uh, in the basement of the church.
And of course, he has a sober fellowship,which is Roland Shep zebra Eby.

(56:27):
And now James Houck, also,
he's on fire with evangelism.
He said, I'm gonna start a chainreaction that's going to save
all the drunks in the world.
After working with drunks for fivemonths, nobody's getting sober.
And he goes to his wife and hesays, I'm still batting zero.

(56:47):
God revealed to me I was gonna save allthese drunks and it isn't helping anybody.
And Lois said, yes, it is.
It's helping you.
Very important lesson to learn.
He goes to Dr. Silkworthsays, what am I doing wrong?
He said, well, first of all, nevertell a drunk what they have to do.
They're very stubborn.
They're gonna dig in their heels.

(57:10):
And they're just gonna drink more.
Tell 'em what you did.
Tell 'em what happenedto you and what you did.
Also, the first thing you must tell themis that they're sick and they're dying.
And get their attention.
Scare the hell out of them'cause it's the truth.
Do you know today, alcoholismand addiction is the number

(57:31):
one killer of human beings.
It kills more people than heart disease,cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.
Last year, 250,000, 20 somethingyear old males died from fentanyl
overdose in the United States.
That's double the number of all Americanmilitary casualties since World War ii.

(57:53):
It's become the number one killer ofhuman beings, and it is a chronic,
progressive fatal brain disease
accompanied by a physicalallergy to the substance.
With alcohol, it's an allergicreaction in the body, an abnormal
reaction, which causes a phenomenonof craving and in the mind with drugs.

(58:15):
It's a condition calledhyperalgesia, which causes pain to
be more acute than it should be.
And, uh, the brain wants relief fromthe pain and it demands a second,
third, fourth, fifth hit of crack.
So that was a very important contributionwe got from Dr. Silkworth, Bill's
partners, uh, Joe Hirshhorn and FrankShaw here that he's sober a few months.

(58:38):
And Bill was nicknamed the Einsteinof Wall Street by the New York Times.
Is it okay to keep going?
Yes.
You're sure?
Yes.
Okay.
I just knew I'd do this talk too long.
I, I, these stories are like babiesto me and to cut stories out is like
killing children to me, you know,

(59:00):
because I love our legacy so very much.
So, uh, bill has an opportunityto, to work and make some money,
hasn't worked in a long time.
And Joe Hirschhorn and Frank Shaw wanthim to wage a hostile takeover of Goodyear
Tire and Rubber, one of the biggestcorporations in the United States.
It's owned by Frank Sebering.

(59:20):
Frank Sebering, owner ofGoodyear Tire and Rubber.
This is his home.
It's 165 rooms in Akron, Ohio.
Stan Hewitt Hall, one of the largesthomes in America like the Biltmore Estate.
You know, it's incredible.
And Bill arrives in Akron witha couple of other guys from

(59:44):
the company on May 10th, 1935.
Now put a pin in that part of the story.
Meanwhile, the week beforeBill arrives in Akron, Ohio.
These two women, Henrietta and Anne,are attending Oxford meetings at
Paul St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
In Akron, Ohio.

(01:00:04):
Henrietta's going because she'sgoing through a painful divorce.
Anne's going, 'causeher husband is a drunk.
Her drunken husband isDr. Robert Holbrook Smith.
This week, prior to Billcoming, Henrietta had a vision.
They all practiced what was calledtwo-way prayer, which is our lost 11th
step, which was a vital part of theprogram and one of the reasons why

(01:00:28):
we had a 50 to 75% permanent sobrietyrate as opposed to three to 5% today.
That was one of the criticalcomponents that we've stopped
doing or many people have stopped.
Most people, I think, is safe to say,and in her two-way prayer, she received
the vision that a sober drinkingman was gonna come and help Dr. Bob.

(01:00:49):
There was no such thing as a soberdrinking man for 10,000 years.
Since alcohol was first created in ancientSumaria, there was no such thing as a
sober drinking man, a sober alcoholic.
She had this vision and before hearrives, they must hold a special prayer
meeting for Dr. Bob to give testimony.

(01:01:10):
'cause that's something he never did.
The two women would drag him alongto meetings for two years and he
would sit in the back and complain.
Never worked the program,go home and drink again.
A meeting maker who didn't makeit like Roland, he didn't work the
principles and he wouldn't admitout loud what his problem was.
And he sure wasn't gonna pray.

(01:01:34):
He always said, whatever's wrong with me,it ain't gonna be cured by praying to God.
So, um, also that week,Henrietta and Ann tried to get
him to go to an Oxford meeting.
He got angry and he said no.
And Anne blew her cork for the first time.
She said, you drunken sought,look at this dingy wallpaper

(01:01:54):
covered with nicotine stains.
You washed the wallpaper while I'm gone.
And she slammed the doorand she never lost her.
Cool.
She was long suffering, gentlesoul Ann Smith, spiritual
mother of AA and and of Aun.
So she slams the door and leaves.
Dr. Bob's angry.

(01:02:15):
He's drunk and, uh, he's in his underwear.
Every time he drank, hetook his clothes off.
He used to dance naked in front ofthe living room window, tap dancing
and got arrested a few times.
He did.
He did, and that was afavorite thing to do.
He would sing Japanese Sandman anddance naked with just his dress shoes

(01:02:35):
on, and, and entertain the neighbor,you know, he would take it to shear
lamp, take the, take the, uh, shade offthe lamp and use it for a microphone
that's, that's in police reports.
So he opens up the living room windows,goes outside, climbs in with his butt
hanging out, gets the garden hose, andstarts hosing down the living room.

(01:02:58):
Oh, and the wallpapercomes off the plaster.
The plaster comes off thelathing, everything's ruined.
Ann comes home, he's naked in themiddle of the living room with a hose
in his hand and the hose is still going.
There's water everywhere.
So that has just, all that has justhappened and Dr. Bob is reading
Varieties of Religious Experience,which Eby had brought for Bill.

(01:03:23):
He's reading that book at this time.
Bill stays at the Mayflower Hotel.
The meeting to take over Goodyear Tireand rubber happens in the rubber room.
It was built by Frank Sling, two footthick rubber walls, floors, and ceilings.
So it was absolutely soundproofand I just love that detail.

(01:03:43):
That's where they had the meetingin the rubber room at the Mayflower
Hotel and Frank Serling caught wind.
The bill was coming that thiswas gonna happen, and uh, he
had a team of lawyers there andabsolutely crushed Bill's efforts.
It was humiliating, embarrassing.
Uh, so the deal went south and thepartners raced back to, to New York and

(01:04:05):
left Bill alone to clean up the PR mess.
And they forgot to leave him petty cash.
And he had $10 in his pocket in 1935.
You could be king for a day with 30, with,with, uh, 10 bucks, but only for a day.
So he is pacing backand forth in the lobby.
Oh, shoot.
What did I just do?

(01:04:26):
Yep.
Nope, nope.
Yeah, that's it.
Okay.
Ah, there it is.
Right.
Here's the doorway to a cocktail lounge.
The Parisian lounge here is a payphonewith a church directory next to it.
Bill's pay pacing back and forthfor two hours, and he wants
to drink and he finally dropsto his knees and he asks God.

(01:04:48):
Please show me what Ineed to do to stay sober.
And he said, in a flash, I knew I mustfind another drunk to talk to someone
who needed me as much as I needed him.
And he glances over at the churchdirectory and a name jumps out at him,
Reverend Walter f ts, who happens tobe the rector at St. Paul's Episcopal

(01:05:10):
Church, where Anne and Henriettaare attending Oxford meetings.
Is it odd or is it God?
So, um, he calls up Reverend Ts and hesays, Reverend Ts, my name is Bill Wilson.
I'm a rum hound from New York City.
I'm on the wagon five months.
See, I'm about to fall off.
And if I do, that means suicide.

(01:05:31):
See, I'm in a lobby of theMayflower Hotel and I want a drink.
And I dropped on my knees and God revealedto me I needed to find a drunk to talk to.
And I glanced over at the churchdirectory and your name jumped out.
And Reverend Tung said, uh, whoop.
Wrong way.
Reverend Tung said, so,you think I'm a drunk?
And he said, no.
Well then why did you call us?
Is it because we're Episcopalian?

(01:05:57):
And he said, no, I thought youmight host Oxford meetings.
The Episcopal church often hostsOxford meetings around the country,
and he said, well, you're in luck.
We do have Oxford meetings here atour church, but there's not one today.
And Bill said, I've gottafind a drunk to talk to.
And he said, well, I'm gonna giveyou the names of 10 Oxford members.
Maybe one of them can lead you toa drunk Bill said, for the next two

(01:06:19):
hours, he pumped nickel after nickel,after nickel into the payphone.
They were all either busy, nothome, throwing a party, had a sore
to, or some damn thing he reached.
The last name on the list wasa man named Norman Shepherd.
Norman answered the phone drunk,and he was angry because he was
late to catch a train for Chicagofor an important business meeting.

(01:06:42):
And when Bill told him, I got your numberfrom Reverend Ts, he thought you might
know a drunk he, he thought he was callinghim a drunk and he got a resentment.
He got mad.
He couldn't hear anything Bill was saying.
And he said, listen Powell,I'm about to miss my train.
I'm gonna give you the number ofa woman named Henrietta Sebering.

(01:07:03):
Henrietta Sebering.
Ann Smith's best friend.
Bill says Sebering, isthat Frank Sling's wife?
I could never call her.
I just tried to take over the company.
And he said, no, it's theirdaughter-in-law and they're
not too happy with her.
She's trying to divorce his son and theythrew her outta the mansion and she's

(01:07:24):
holed up at the gatehouse with the kids.
Go ahead, you call her.
And the reason he gave Henrietta'snumber to Bill was to mess with Bill.
'cause he was angry 'causehe knew Henrietta was part
of the Temperance movement.
She was a close friend of John dRockefeller and together their family
money and their influence helpedcreate the 18th Amendment, which

(01:07:45):
banned alcohol from the United States.
She was always on Dr. Bob about hisdrinking, to the point where Dr. Bob
said she's very nice, but she really isthe Poltergeist of the rubber industry.
That's what he used to call her.
So, um,
bill, she says, you march downthat staircase and come to my

(01:08:07):
house right now, get in taxi.
Bill took a bus so he could save money,and he ended up at the Cylin gate house
and he meets Henrietta, and he says,now, for the next three hours, I am
interviewed by Henrietta Cyberlinksso that I can prove to her that I
am, in fact a drunk who is now sober.
Which is ironic as I had beeninterviewed a hundred times to

(01:08:28):
prove that I was not a drunk.
So she was convinced.
She said, I've got just thedrunk for you to talk to.
He's the husband of my best friend.
He's a rectal surgeon here in Akron,and he's got the shakes and he's cut a
few people and he's got some lawsuits.
And there's even a joke around town.

(01:08:48):
When you go to see Dr. Bob,you're betting your ass.
He was a proctologistand er rectal surgeon.
So they call up Ann Smith and, andHenrietta says, the miracle it's happened.
A sober drinking man ishere in my living room.
You gotta bring Dr. Bob.
She says, well, my husband is in hisunderwear in the front yard right now, and

(01:09:12):
he's drunk and he's dancing around with aterracotta pot with a tree seedling in it.
And he's singing Happy Mother's Day.
I'll try to get him into the house.
So she coaxes bob up the stepsand he falls and he breaks the
pot and he crawls through it.
He's all cut up.
When he gets to the doorway, hesuddenly passes out and cuts his
forehead open on the door jamb.

(01:09:34):
She pulls them into the house beforeneighbors can see and call the police.
'cause people have called thepolice on the Smith house many
times and it's humiliating for her.
And she runs around closingthe, the, uh, Venetian blinds.
And she pulls Dr. Bob, rolls them underthe dining table, goes back to the phone.
She said, my husband is completely bagged.
He's incapable of listening to anyone.

(01:09:57):
It ain't gonna happen today.
And Henrietta is a force of nature.
You don't say no toHenrietta Sebering, she said.
Then you bring him over,let him sleep a day.
You bring him over on Sunday at five30 for dinner, and you tell him if he
gives this man some time and comes overhere, I'll fill your car up with food.
I know you have no food in yourpantry for you and the kids.

(01:10:19):
I'll fill the car up with food.
I'll pay your mortgage.
I'll give you some cashfor spending money.
I'll repair your living room.
I'll fix the walls, get you newcarpet and some new furniture.
All he has to do is comeover and talk to this guy.
So Sunday morning, Dr. Bob's wakeup, wakes up and he's severely
hung over and not happy at all.

(01:10:40):
And she says, we're going to Henrietta's.
He says, oh, don't, no, thehell we're not, ain't happening.
The PO guy.
What?
What are you?
And the polar guys cooking upnow and they start fighting all
day and he finally says, oh, forGod's sake of you, just shut up.
I'll go.
So he finally agrees and all the way overthere, he keeps saying, who is this egg?

(01:11:01):
Is he a cracked egg or a good egg?
Men were eggs, women were skirts or chicksin Dr. Bob's language, and he swore a lot.
He used the F word, every other sentence.
People don't know thatabout him, but he did.
And he was quite a character.
He was covered with tattoos.
Uh, he had a sleeve tattoo from thewrist of the shoulder on this arm,

(01:11:23):
which was, which he called the serpentfrom the Garden of Good and Evil.
And he had a collectionof nude women over here.
He had American Eagle across hischest and a compass on his left pec.
He got that all of these inthe Navy and he could never
find his way back to the ship.
And somebody said, you need a compass.
So he got one tattooed on his, on his tit.

(01:11:44):
And uh,
someone once asked him, where didyou get, now this was when they
did tattoos with pick and poke.
You take a nail, youdip, you go like this.
Can you imagine?
Oh, both arms and uh, wheredid you get those tattoos?
And he said, I really don't recall.

(01:12:04):
What I do recall is that I wason fire and it was a blazer.
It was a hell of a blazer.
Anyway, he was a kid and actually hethrew some Fs into that sentence, but I
did not say them since I'm in a church.
Um, normally I wouldbecause they're just quotes.
In any event, um.

(01:12:26):
Sunday, five 30 dismiss,knock on Henrietta's door.
Dr. Bob has the shake so badhe can't hold his coffee cup.
It flies out of his hand,smashes on the floor.
He starts choking on his food.
They have to pull it out ofhis throat so he can breathe.
And Bill says, why don'twe just go have our talk?
You're incapable of eating.
So Henrietta ushers theminto the, her tiny mud room.

(01:12:50):
There was little upholstery inthere, and they both chain smoked.
Bob and Bill, both chain smoked.
And that killed both of them, by the way.
And, um, that's where they had their talk.
And in Henrietta's diaries, it saidthat Dr. Bob walked in first and
stood in the corner with his backto the door like a petulant child.
And Bill Wilson walked in, and as Billwas closing the door, she heard Dr.

(01:13:13):
Bob say, you better start talking pal.
You got 14 minutes left.
The whole time over there, he keptsaying, I'll give this guy 15 minutes.
15 minutes stops, and we're out of there.
So you got 14 minutes left.
You better start talking.
So Bill says, have a seat.
You're probably wondering why HenriettaDrug you over here to talk to me.
And he says, you're damn right.

(01:13:36):
And he said, well, listen,I'm a real nasty drunk.
Last night I was knockingaround the Mayflower Hotel and
I was about to take a drink.
And so we got 14 minutes left.
I'm gonna tell you my story.
I'm not sure where to begin.
I've never done this before.
Silkworth, this was thefirst time that he did this.
He's gonna just talk about whathe did, what happened to him.

(01:14:00):
He's not gonna try to,uh, sell anything to Bob.
And Bob even asked him, I don't know whatyou're selling, pal, but I'm not buying.
And Bill said, I'm notselling anything, pal.
I'm doing this to keep me sober.
So I'm gonna start talking.
I think I'll start in 1918 and Bob said.

(01:14:27):
So, uh, bill tells him aboutall the troubles that he's
had and how it progressed.
And at one point he looks down, heis only got a couple minutes left
and he points to his watch andBob says, how old are you, pal?
I'm 39.
Yeah, I'm 55.
I got 16 years on you and I'm a physician.
Go ahead.
We can take a little more time.

(01:14:49):
And Bill continues to talk.
Another half hour goesby points to his watch.
He says, what do you think?
And Bob's just staring at himwhere before he had his back to him
and now he's just staring at him.
And he said, no, go ahead.
Fire away.
Fire away.
Later, Bob would say that first nightmeeting Bill was the first time he

(01:15:10):
ever heard another alcoholic whowas sober speaking Bob's language.
He said, this man knew me.
It was like talking to my, itwas like listening to myself.
So I listened to what he had tosay, and I came to trust him.
And finally Bob sat downand said, it's your turn.
And Bob said, well, exactly what you said.

(01:15:33):
They entered that room around five30 with Dr. Bob saying, you got
15 minutes left, 14 minutes left.
It's now after midnight, and they'vebeen in there over six hours.
And Henrietta bangs on the door andutters the famous words that we've
heard in bars around the world.
You don't have to go home,but you can't stay here.

(01:15:54):
So they get into Dr. Bob'sPierce Arrow, and they go over
to the hotel and pick up bill's.
Sp, and he moves in on ArdmoreStreet with the Smiths.
And that first night, they were noseto nose, elbow to elbow, knee to knee.
Looked like they'd fallen in love.
Talking around the clock.
They talked about William James.
They talked about Carl Jung.
They talked about Marcus Aelius.

(01:16:15):
They talked about what Bill had learnedworking with drunks in the Oxford group.
They talked about the Oxford procedures,which Bob had never done, Bob said.
We also talked about fast cars,which was a hobby of mine.
And then we talked about fast women, whichwas a hobby of bill's, and we could have
talked about the cracks on the sidewalk.

(01:16:36):
For all I cared, all thatmattered is that we were together.
The next day, they went out andpurchased two quarts of whiskey.
That was Bob's idea.
Bob thought he was instantly cured.
He said, I got this.
I got it.
They put one court on the, on the, uh,mantle right here, the other court in

(01:16:57):
the dining room, which was this way inthe house, so they could walk by and
give the bottle the finger and say.
That was Bob's idea.
And his wife thought a lunacycommission should be appointed.
And they stayed together in thehouse talking for three weeks.
And then an invitation arrived,inviting Dr. Bob to attend the American

(01:17:19):
Medical Association Convention,being held in Atlantic City.
He hadn't missed one in 25 years.
And he said, I am absolutely gonna go.
And his wife said, you'renuts, you'll end up dead.
Bill said, let him go.
All he has to do is find adrunk to talk to, and I'm sure
there's other drunk doctors.
So Dr. Bob, thinking he's cured, getson the train, starts drinking scotch the

(01:17:40):
minute he got on the train, drank everydrop of scotch they had on the train.
When he arrived in Atlantic City,he bought four courts of scotch
and took him to his hotel room.
In his words, I bought four ball courtsof scotch to drink in my hotel room so
that I could properly finish the job.
You know, he was from Vermont.

(01:18:00):
So anyway, um, five days into the convent.
He arrives on the convention floor withdress shoes, underwear, and stethoscope.
Oh, singing Japanese Sandman.
Oh, I just screwed up my microphone.
There we go.
Singing Japanese Sandman.
I'm a Japanese Sandman

(01:18:22):
and the doctors have seen this and atthe end of the routine, he rips off
his boxer shorts, throws him up in theair and goes like this and says, ta-da.
So they tackled him before hecompletely disgraced himself.
Got him back to his hotel.
He ordered four more quarts of scotch.
Then on the way to the train,which he doesn't remember,

(01:18:42):
he bought four or courts.
And this is in a 10 day period.
So he is had about four gallons ofscotch and, uh, gets on the train.
He ends up back in Akron, uh, with noclothes on, on the front porch of Nurse
Hill to Hall, who was an admitting nurseat Akron City Hospital where he worked.
And she called his wife and said,your husband is naked on my porch.

(01:19:04):
And you should come and gethim and bring some clothes.
So Bill and Anne got in the pierce arrowand went over and picked up Dr. Bob and
they got him back to Ardmore Street.
They had to carry him upthese steps to the front door.
And by the time they got to thedoor, he went into an alcoholic
seizure, which could have killed him.
And his wife was frantic, wantedto take him to the hospital.

(01:19:26):
And Bill said all they're gonna do isput a funnel down his throat, give him
tomatoes and booze in a what we todaycall banana bag to stop the shakes.
That's all they're gonna do.
I could do that at home.
So she said, you're both insane.
I'm going to my room.
I'm not coming out.
If the house burns down, leave me alone.
So Bill ran around and heknew Bob's hiding places.

(01:19:47):
He found a half bottle of scotch inthe ash container of the furnace.
And uh, I'm almost done by the way.
Uh, he found a half bottle ofscotch in the ash container of the
furnace, and he poured that down.
Dr. Bob's throat.
Then he starts giving him coldtomatoes from the pantry, from
the food Henrietta had sent over.
Dr. Bob is deathly allergic totomatoes, and he starts his airways

(01:20:07):
shutting off and he starts mumbling.
Goofballs socks.
Goofballs socks.
A goofball was a slang term forparaldehyde in a pill for him.
Dr. Bob was, it was a deadly sedative,and Dr. Bob was addicted to those.
And, uh, bill ran up, uh, upstairsand found in the laundry chute

(01:20:29):
a pair of socks full of pills.
So he gives Bob some more scotch andforces the pills down his throat, and
the shakes stop, and Bob calms down.
Bill puts him to bed.
Three days later, he hasto perform an operation.
He's done half of it.
He's a brilliant surgeon.
He's pioneered somerectal surgery procedures.
He's the only man in thecountry knows how to do it.

(01:20:51):
And he was written up in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine several times.
He was a brilliant doctor.
When he was sober, he was never sober.
Uh, so he has to perform this operation.
He wakes up, he still has the shakesso bad he can't dress himself.
And Ann and Bill help him into his clothesand Bill said, that's trembling scalpel.

(01:21:12):
Yours is gonna cut that man a new asshole.
These are all quotes fromdocuments and letters and so
forth and uh, this is real stuff.
And Dr. Bob insists on goingthrough with the operation.
So they get him dressed andAnne gets him out to the car.

(01:21:33):
Bill has to go to the bathroom and heruns upstairs to pee and there's only
one bathroom in that house upstairs.
And he runs upstairs andthe toilet won't flush.
And he takes the lid off the water tankof the toilet and there's a beer in there.
That's why it won't flush.
And he puts that beer in his suit pantspocket and he still got the goofballs and
they drive over to Akron City Hospitaland in the parking lot of the hospital.

(01:21:55):
Bill says to Anne, I'm gonnatalk to your husband privately.
Takes him around the corner.
He says, Smitty, you need tomake, surrender your life to
God before you go in there.
And Dr. Bob said, never ask me that again.
I'll punch you in the face.
I'm not doing it.
And Bill says, look what I have.
And he shows him thegoofballs and the beer.
And Bob says, give that to me.

(01:22:17):
And he said, let's make a compromise.
Get on your knees and surrenderyour scalpel in your hands.
Bob said, oh right.
Dammit.
Dammit damn.
And he gets on the on his knees and hesurrenders his scalpel in his hands.
He takes the goofballsand he drinks the beer.
That turned out to be Dr. Bob'slast drink on June 10th, 1935 in the

(01:22:38):
parking lot of Akron City Hospital.
So he goes in to perform the operation.
Bill and Anne take a taxi home.
They leave the car for Bob.
And they go back home to Ardmore Street.
Bob should be home by noon.
He is not home.
It's three o'clock in the afternoon.
He is not home.
They call the hospital.
Nobody knows where he is.
They figure he is drunk.
Five o'clock, he's not home.

(01:22:59):
Eight o'clock at night, 10 o'clockat night, 11 o'clock midnight,
car comes into the driveway.
Dr. Bob walks into the house,takes off his old straw, hat drops
his doctor bag, says, I'm okay.
Patient's okay too.
That was a good idea.
Surrendering my hands and my scalpel.
Well, where the hell you been all day?
This is from the big, but it saysone morning he took the bull by the

(01:23:21):
horns and set out to tell those hefeared what his trouble had been.
He went around town making amendsto everybody that he'd harmed.
So what we learned about Dr. Bob,he did step one in Atlantic City.
He skipped two, did a minithree, then he did nine.
Now he's back in the living room.

(01:23:42):
He drops to his knees in tears.
He makes a full surrender to God.
In front of his wife and Bill Wilson,and he makes the full surrender.
And Ann says, I'm exhausted.
I'm going to bed.
Bill says, I'm going to bed too Smitty.
I'm glad you're okay.
And Smitty says, oh no, hell, you are.
You're gonna, you're gonna makecoffee and roll some cigarettes.
I'm gonna go wash upand change my clothes.

(01:24:03):
I'm coming down.
I'm gonna get a house cleaningand you're gonna listen.
And Dr. Bob did his fifth step.
So he did one mini three,nine full, three five.
But he never drank again.
They didn't belabor thisstuff back in those days.
They kept it very, very simple.
My favorite quote from Dr. Bob,he said, the 12 steps are not

(01:24:26):
spiritual philosophies to bestudied, understood, and then taken.
They are survival actions to be carriedout immediately, to provide instant
hope and relief and save our lives.
They are a tourniquetto stop the bleeding.
Now it is battlefield triage.
That's how they thought about it.
So now every morning, Ann,Bob and Bill gather around

(01:24:46):
the kitchen table, practicingtwo-way prayer, seeking guidance.
Then Bill and Bob would go out tryingto help drunks in the streets of Akron.
And this went on.
After about three weeks, they found BillDotson and he became AA number three.
Then the three of them went outand they did this hard work for,

(01:25:08):
for, uh, three solid years,and they only had 87 members.
So Bill came up with the idea to write atrading manual, and that project began.
In order to print it,they needed $6,500 Bill's.
Brother-in-law, Leonard Strong,also practiced two-way prayer.
And he said in my prayer this morning,I, I realized, I know a guy who knows

(01:25:32):
a girl who has a friend, who has anuncle who is somehow involved with
the Rockefellers in their charities.
Let's call him up.
They get this guy on thephone, Willard Richardson.
Turns out he's a long lost schoolchum of Dr. Leonard Strong.
Is it odd or is it God?
He invites them out to lunch.
They go over to Rockefeller Center,they go out to lunch, and Willard says,

(01:25:55):
you know, the Rockefeller Foundationwould be very interested in this.
So a winner is a dinner'sarranged for a winner's night.
All the drunks from Ohio come,the New York drunks are there,
Dr. Silkworth, bill and Bob.
And they give testimony and the uh,and they're all staying at the Waldorf.
That's where they're having their meeting.
Um, actually, no I'm wrong.
They stayed at the Waldorf.

(01:26:16):
They had their meeting at the Union Club.
The Rockefeller Foundation decides togive them the 50,000 that they want.
They're gonna recommendthat to John d Rockefeller.
Two days later, Rockefeller callsBill Wilson and he says, Mr.
Wilson, this is John Rockefeller.
I'm somehow strangely stirredby all of this, but up to now it
occurs to me in my two-way prayer.

(01:26:37):
That up to now, this work you'redoing is one of Goodwill only.
No money, no paid people, nopower structure, no property.
Just one man carrying the good newsto the next money will destroy you and
I'm not gonna be the one to do that.
So he says, I'm notgiving you the 50 grand.
So now they kind of come up withsome other source of money and Bill
and Hank Parkers go out to a printshop and create their own stock

(01:27:02):
certificates, which is the illegal.
And they wrote on at WorksPublishing Company, par Value $25.
And Bill would take these to the, tothe Drunk Squad meetings where you
shouldn't mix money with spirituality.
And he would give this speech.
Listen up boys.
I'm telling you, this thing'sgonna be a cinch I, the author
will get a third of these stockcertificates for services rendered.

(01:27:23):
Dr. Bob, co-author will get athird of these stock certificates
for services rendered, and you allcan buy a third par value, $25.
If you only want one share, thenthat's only gonna be $5 a month.
For five months.
See?
And he said they would all sitthere giving me this stupid look
and say, what the hell Bill?
Do you mean to say you want us to giveyou money that we ain't got for a book

(01:27:45):
that you haven't written in a publishingcompany that doesn't exist, but they
sold a few shares and some money came in.
They borrowed 2,500 from CharlieTowns who owned the drunk tank.
Hank Parkhurst loaned them 2000.
They made a deal with the printer and theyprinted up the first batch of 5,000 copies
of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Then after two years,the book was not selling.

(01:28:08):
Bill lost his home.
Bob's the Bob was about to lose his home.
They were in desperate straitsfinancially, and they got a call
from Willard Richardson and hesaid, I've got some good news.
Back when we had that dinner at theUnion Club, Mr. Rockefeller, whoops.
Uh, Mr. Rockefeller hired a teamof Pinkerton detectives and they've

(01:28:29):
been following you and Dr. Bob andyour wives and some of your members
around for a couple of years.
Sending reports back to Mr. Rockefeller.
He's very impressed and he would like topurchase 400 copies of the book, which
he personally wrote notes in the frontof the book and sent them out to media
moguls, bankers, captains of industry, thePresident of the United States, William

(01:28:52):
Randolph Hurst, who owned every newspaper.
Then he held a dinner in theirhonor again at the Union Club.
500 philanthropists came.
Uh, he told the editor of Saturday EveningPost, I want this as a cover story.
Put Jack Alexander on the case.
He's the toughest reporter in America.
Everybody trusts him.
Let him investigate these people andwrite whatever he wants to write.

(01:29:14):
And um, when that article came out inthe Saturday evening post, they had
orders for 7,000 copies of the book.
Bill used to say, I'm sorry,I see it in my vision.
They're gonna go out by the train carload.
And it didn't happen for years, andthey just couldn't understand it.
But it was on God's divinetime, not on Bill's time.

(01:29:35):
Amen.
So it be, uh, after, after, at the end ofa month, they had sold 50,000 copies of
this book, then 60, then a hundred, andit became number one on the New York Times
bestseller list, and that's when meetingsbegan popping up around the world.
The fellowship began togrow by leaps and bounds.

(01:29:56):
That's a book signed by 50 of the first100 members, and the big book now has
been translated into 72 languages.
It's available in 194 countries.
And a quote will finish up withBill W. He said, Dr. Bob and I will
always be with you in spirit as youtrudge the road of Happy Destiny.

(01:30:17):
Thank you.

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