Good afternoon, everybody. I’m Don. I’m an alcoholic. Everybody hear me? Okay out there. That was a long read. That was almost a whole meeting. I would like to start off by thanking Boom. Boom, Mark, Kirk, Doug and the rest of the Santa Clarita Valley convention of Alcoholics Anonymous for asking me to come up here and share with you guys this afternoon, I’ve been asked to share with you at this meeting on a topic which many of you may know, is a topic that’s very dear to me, and that topic is the history of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Big Book.

And because this is a topic workshop type meeting, if you will, I felt like I had license to take some notes. So I wrote some things down. I’ll be referring to my notes. I’ll also be reading a few things to us this afternoon which are of interest. This is a little bit different than coming up here and telling my story, what it was like, what happened and what it’s like. Now, what I’m going to be talking about this afternoon is I’m going to be talking about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Big Book.

I’m going to be talking a little bit about the pre AA days, the early AA days, the pre Big Book days, whose idea the Big Book was. It wasn’t bills, it was Hank Parkhurst how the writing of the Big Book went, and a little bit about what happened after that. So we’ll be what it was like, What happened and what it’s like now, but it’ll be about Alcoholics Anonymous in the Big Book.

I find it to be somewhat difficult to come up here and get put up with my jokes too, guys, same jokes. I find it to be somewhat difficult to come up here and talk about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, without talking a little bit in recovery from alcoholism, without talking a little bit first about the history of alcohol and the history of the consumption of alcohol.

And my research is, is that the history of the consumption of alcohol dates back to the clay tablets of the Babylonians these tribes, when they would plant their crops in season, and if they had a good year, they would harvest their crops, and they’d take their crops and take their harvest, and they’d ferment their crops and they’d make booze, and they’d throw parties and have big feasts, similar to the hospitality suite. Here, they throw parties, have big feasts, cause fights and war, go raid the other tribesmen’s camps and steal their women and bring them back. Anybody identify with that? That’s back when we were writing in stone guys we’ve been drinking for a long time. And in the Bible, there’s a story of Noah. And if you read the story, I guess that God was upset with humans. And the story goes that he caused Noah to build a huge boat, huge ship. The story goes that he put two each of his favorite animals on that boat, on that ship.

3:20 If you read the story, the floods came, and when the floods went away, the very first thing that Noah did when he got off that boat was he planted grapes. My kind of drunk, I think he planted grapes, got drunk, and barbecued the animals. Kind of what we do today, you know, and what I’m going to be trying to do for us today is I’m going to be creating the links in the chain, the links in the chain that created Alcoholics Anonymous and gave every one of us in this room this afternoon a place to come to to recover from our own alcoholism and our own seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

And after having done the research that I’ve done, collecting archives, studying the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s become very apparent to me, guys, that every link in that chain, up to and including every seat in this room this afternoon in the chain of recovery is a miracle. And I was listening to a friend of mine, actually, he’s a late friend of mine now talk a few years back, Tom I. out of North Carolina, and he was talking about miracles. And I’m a guy that likes definitions, and Tom I gave, for me the best definition of a miracle that I’ve ever heard. What he said was a miracle is nothing more than what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and the two have to be divinely introduced, but the miracle happens when preparation meets opportunity.

And I would venture to say that every one of us in this room this afternoon, man, when we got here, we were prepared. We were at a bottom beyond belief. Preparation meant opportunity. The two were divinely introduced. The miracle happened, and we’re sober today, and a lot of miracles had to happen in order for each one of us to be sitting here this afternoon, the history of Alcoholics Anonymous is very well chronicled guys. The book, Pass It On is about Bill Wilson and his story and his writing. The book, Dr Bob and the Good Old Timers is about Dr Bob and the early Akron members. The book, AA Comes of Age is a great history book on Alcoholics Anonymous. I think that AA comes of age should be required reading for every newcomer coming into Alcoholics Anonymous.

One of the things that I was told early on was it Don if you’re thoroughly convinced that your life depends on Alcoholics Anonymous, then you should turn to try to learn as much about it as you possibly can. And what I’m going to be doing today is I’m not going to be talking so much about what’s in those history books, but I’m going to be talking more about the links in the chain, links in the chain of recovery.

Anyway, we’ll get this thing started. Back in the 1800s guys, the early 1800s there were six drunks, and these six drunks were sitting around a bar in Baltimore, Maryland, and the name of the bar was the Washington Inn in Baltimore, Maryland. And these six drunks decided one day that they were going to swear off alcohol. They also agreed to get a higher power and these six drunks did this. And one of the first things that these six drunks realized or discovered, if you will. One of the first things that came about the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous was that they could stay sober together, but that they couldn’t stay sober alone. And these six drunks did this. And this group became known as the Washingtonians, the Washington Temperance Society. And this group grew to number within 10 years, within 10 years, depending upon which news article you read, from the time, 500,000 people. That was 500,000 people here in the United States staying sober together. And I want to read something to you out of this book right here. It’s a very short clip. I know, I know some of you are saying, Don just tell the story and go home and read that stuff. I’m gonna read it anyways. Guys, just deal with it.

But it’s about the Washingtonians. This book was written by a fellow by the name of T. S. Arthur. There’s no printing date in this book. The title of the book is Three Nights with the Washingtonians. It’s estimated that this book was written in the mid 1840s and it’s about the Washingtonians. It says this come, said a friend one evening in the winter of 1841 let us look in upon the Washingtonians, the Washingtonians, I replied, and pray, who and what are they?

Have you not heard about them? No, then you are ignorant of one of the most remarkable facts in the history of the times. Explain yourself with pleasure. About nine months ago, perhaps not quite so long, they were assembled in a drinking house in this city, Baltimore, six men well advanced in age, in plain language, that means they were old, well advanced in age, well advanced in years, who had for a long time been confirmed drunkards, or at least so wedded to the love of strong drink as to found it almost impossible to live without a daily resort to its stimulating influences. They had met accidentally, or rather without any other design in repairing to the bar room than that which had taken them there 100 and 100 times. But in the mind of each there was a feeling of sorrow for his enslaved and wretched condition, a strong desire to rise out of it, yet a painful, hopeless sense of weakness. How often, Alas, how often had each made resolutions of reform, how often had each renounced the cup of confusion only to seek again the bewildering drought and to sink still lower in the scale of human degradation?

Thus they met as they had often met before, but neither seemed inclined to call for the subtle poison that had so many times stolen away their reason. Soon, the feelings of each became known to the others, and they felt a sudden hope springing up in their minds, a hope in the power of association. Sad experience had proved each of that little company that alone he could not stand but together, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, and heart to heart, they felt that, though the struggle would be hard, they could and they would conquer. And that’s the Washingtonians. And one of the bases, excuse me, one of the bases for our traditions is. In Alcoholics Anonymous is that we’ve learned from other people’s mistakes. And the Washingtonians, what happened?

The Washingtonians had no roots. The Washingtonians had no traditions. The Washingtonians had no rules, for lack of a better word and money, property and prestige, started to interfere. And with a short period of time, the Washingtonians had failed. And some of the reasons that the Washingtonians had failed was they started getting involved in outside issues. They started getting involved in different political issues of the time. One of the political issues that they got involved in was alcohol reform. And the political vision, position that that they took a position on was slavery, and that divided the group, and it caused the Washingtonians to fail. Now keep in mind that the Washingtonians were a very similar society to Alcoholics Anonymous in that they started out with a singleness of purpose. They also had the Martha Washington society, which was very similar to Al-Anon.

11:12 I’m going to go now to the year 1895 was the year that Bill Wilson was born. So we’re just prior to Bill’s birth. In 1895 there was a fellow and I’m going to expect you guys to remember these names, especially you guys, my hand is quiz out. So remember these names? In 1895 there was a fella by the name of Sam Hadley. And Sam Hadley had gotten sober through this profound religious conversion experience. And it was notable. It was very notable. And Sam Hadley, back in 1895 we didn’t have the means of public communication and social media that we have today. We didn’t have radio. We didn’t have television in 1895, newspapers were quite sparse in 1895 certainly there was no social media. You weren’t going to like Sam Hadley on Facebook. You weren’t going to follow Sam Hadley on Tiktok.

But I think that we can assume safely that if this was happening in one place here in the United States, it was probably happening in others as well. And Sam Hadley had gotten sober through this profound religious conversion experience, and he was staying sober in a mission with 35 other people. And the name of the mission was Jerry McAuley’s mission. Jerry McAuley is a mission. And there was a young, brilliant psychiatrist back then, a guy by the name of William James. And William James was writing a book, a book about different types of religious conversion experience, and he wanted to write about an alcoholic, and so he wrote about Sam Hadley in this book right here. The name of the book is The Varieties of Religious Experience written by William James and published in 1902 this book, not this particular book, but this book happens to be the book that Bill Wilson read when he was in towns hospital, when he had what he called his white flash experience. And in that book, William James wanted to write about an alcoholic, and so he wrote about Sam Hadley’s profound religious conversion experience. Now Sam Hadley also had a son, and his son’s name was Harrison Hadley.

And what I’m going to ask you to do is I’m going to ask you to log that name. I’ll tie Harrison Hadley into the links in the chain here in just a few minutes, I’m going to flash forward now to the year 1927 Bill Wilson is in the throes of his alcoholism. He’s still successful at this point, but he’s starting to lose things. He’s going to detox. Alcohol is becoming a major problem in Bill’s life, and in 1927 Harrison Hadley, who I had you log that name. Sam Hadley, son. He had grown up just like his dad was, a chronic alcoholic. Couldn’t get sober, but he knew that his dad had gotten sober in a mission, and he began to think that if he could get to a mission, he could get sober and stay sober as well.

And in 1927 over in China, there was a brilliant young minister by the name of Frank Buckman. I’m sure some of you are going to start recognizing some of these names as I go along here, there was a brilliant young minister by the name of Frank Buckman. And Frank Buckman had these great new ideas on Christianity and moral re armament and different things like that. And while he was over there in China, he met up with a brilliant American young minister. But. The name of Sam Shoemaker. Sam Shoemaker and Frank Buckman convinced Sam Shoemaker of this message that he was trying to get across, and those two established what was to become the Oxford group.

And Sam Shoemaker came back here to the United States, and he was installed as the director of the Oxford group east of the Mississippi River. Now I say east of the Mississippi River, there wasn’t much out west here of the Mississippi River in 1927 but Harrison Hadley, Sam Hadley’s son had grown up just like his dad, chronic alcoholic, couldn’t get sober. Knew that his dad had gotten sober in a mission, and began to think that if he could get to a mission, that he could get sober, stay sober as well. And Harrison Hadley had heard about Sam Shoemaker.

He had heard about Frank Buckman and the Oxford group. And what he did was he went and met with those two guys. And what he told them was he said, You guys own an old mission down in the Bowery of New York. It’s old. It’s dilapidated. It’s run down. How about if I go in there with a group of my people, clean this place up, make it usable, and under the direction of the Oxford group, we’ll get and stay sober there. Frank Buckman and Sam Shoemaker told Harrison Hadley that that would be fine. So Harrison goes down to the Bowery of New York with a group of his people, and they clean up this old mission and they make it usable. And under the direction of the Oxford group, they open the Calvary mission.

Now the Calvary mission becomes very important to us in Alcoholics Anonymous. The Calvary mission is where Bill Wilson went to his first Oxford group meetings. The Calvary mission is where one of the places where Bill went to to drag drunks out of to try to get them sober and help them out. So what I’m going to do right here, guys is give you the answers to the test. I’m going to stop right here, guys, and I’m going to recap just a little bit so nobody gets lost.

So far, what we have, guys is we have the Washingtonians. From the Washingtonians. A message went to Sam Hadley. From Sam Hadley, the message went to William James, a psychiatrist who wrote the book. From there, it went to Frank Buckman and Sam Shoemaker in the Oxford group, to Harrison Hadley, down to the Bowery of New York, and now to the Calvary mission.

We’re still in the late 1920s there’s a young rich drunk here in America, very wealthy kid, guy by the name of Roland Hazard. And Roland was a rich kid. He was actually very wealthy. He was the heir to the Allied Chemical Corporation. But Roland was a drunk, and Roland had tried everything that a man could do to try to get sober and stay sober on his own, and he had no success. So his dad one day decides that he’s going to send Roland over to Europe, Zurich actually to spend a year with the most renowned psychiatrist that we have in the world at that time. At that time, we had Freud, and we had you Carl Jung. And so his dad sends him over to Zurich to spend a year with Carl Jung. And he learns all of this stuff. He learned everything that a man could learn about the thinking of the alcoholic, the behaviors of the alcoholic, the psychiatry of alcohol. He learned all of this stuff, and he had it licked this time. So Roland, he got back on the boat, come back here to America. I can’t remember if was on the boat, but right shortly thereafter, he got drunk again, and he couldn’t get sober, so his dad gathers him up, sends him back over to Carl you and Carl Jung told him this time, this was the first time that this was said. The next time it was said would be from Dr Silkworth to Bill and Lois Wilson.

But what Carl Jung told him was, he said, Roland, with all my medical experience and all of my degrees and everything I know about psychiatry and everything I know about psychology, I cannot help you. You are beyond human aid. No human power can relieve your alcoholism. But what he told him, he said, Roland, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be helped. That doesn’t mean that you’re hopeless. He said, There has been rare instances of profound religious conversion experience. You may be one of those that can do that. And so Roland, he got back on the boat, and he came back here to America.

And Rowan Hazard had heard of Sam Shoemaker, he had heard of Harrison Hadley, and he had heard of the Calvary mission. And what Roland did was he went down to the Calvary. Mission down in the Bowery of New York, and he got sober, and Roland remained sober. And one of the first things that Roland discovered or realized, if you will, another thing that came about in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, but one of the things that Roland realized was that he had to pass this thing on. He had to be working with another alcoholic. He had to be helping other people achieve sobriety. And what Roland did was Roland hazard summered in Vermont. A lot of your affluential people out of New York have summer homes in Vermont.

Now, Vermont is very important to us in Alcoholics Anonymous. Vermont is where Bill Wilson was born. Vermont is where Dr Bob was born. Vermont is where the links in the chain that created Alcoholics Anonymous started to become connected. But keep in mind, Vermont is not known for anything other than there’s more cows than there are people in Vermont, but, but Vermont is where Roland hazard summered. And so what he did, where is the summer of 1934 and rolling hazard goes up to Vermont.

21:15 Excuse me, to spend the summer of 1934 he gets up there, and he’s got to find somebody to work with and to try to help with their alcoholism. So he goes out and he finds himself two guys, two guys. Here’s some more names for you. These two guys. Names are Siebert Graves and Shep Cornell. Siebert graves and Shep Cornell. Now there’s another fellow that summer of 1934 up in Vermont, and I’m sure many of you have either read his story or heard his story. This guy’s name is Ebby Thatcher. Ebby Thatcher is the man that Bill Wilson credited for being his sponsor up until the day that he died. So Ebby is the guy that carried the message to Bill. But Ebby is up in Vermont in the summer of 1934 spending the summer. What took him up there was, Ebby had all kinds of trouble with alcohol. Ebby had a lot of trouble with alcohol. He was either in jail or he was in an institution, or he was in front of a judge or but Ebby had all kinds of trouble with alcohol, and a judge had pronounced Ebby as insane. And the judge had told Ebby, he said, Ebby, one more beer, one more beer, and I’m going to commit you to the State Mental Institution for an undetermined amount of time. So if that’s not a reason to give up the booze, I don’t know what is, but what happened was, so Abby’s family, they sent him up to Vermont to get the summer home, ready for the family to come up. And I love Abby.

I can identify with this thinking he’s in this great big house up in Vermont, his family that sent him up there, and he goes down to the basement of this great big house, and he sees this case of unopened beer, of unopened beer, his alcoholic mind sits there and tells him, man, this is a dangerous thing. It’s warm up here in Vermont. It’s summertime. And if this beer sits here and ferments, and if those kids that are coming up here happen to be running around and playing in this basement, and if this beer sits here and ferments to the point that it could explode, someone could get hurt. So what was an alcoholic to do? You could not dump the beer. So Ebby drank the beer. He got drunk. He got in his car. I’m sure some of you can identify with that. Got in his car and he drove directly in through the front window of the neighbor lady’s house. He rolled out of his car and she was standing there all freaked out. He asked her if she had the coffee on that’s Ebby Thatcher and Ebby continued to drink for just a short period of time after that, he finally got arrested again.

He was out hunting streetlights, is what he was doing. So he got arrested for shooting off a firearm in city limits. So here he is in court again, and if you read the history books, there were three people that showed up with Abby Thatcher in court that morning. Now, a lot of people say the court orders are new to Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m standing here to tell you court orders were going around before Alcoholics Anonymous. The guy that was to become Bill Wilson sponsor was actually court ordered Alcoholics Anonymous. Basically there was none back then, but he was court ordered.

So there was three people that showed up with Abby Thatcher in court that morning, Roland Hazard, Siebert Graves and Chef Cornell. And the judge looked down at Abby, and he said, Abby, I told you one more beer and I was going to commit you to state mental institution for. Undetermined amount of time, he said, but there’s a man in this courtroom this morning that I’ve been trying to get sober for his entire adult life, and I’ve had no success, but that man is sober today. That man is my son. Siebert graves, he said, I have no idea how it’s happened or what happened, but that man is sober that as my son see the Graves who Roland hazard had gotten sober, and the judge looked down at Ebby, and he said, Ebby, I sent you to go with that man which was Roland Hazard. I sent you to go where he tells you to go and do what he tells you to do. And I’ll withhold sentencing to the state mental institution.

So I’m going to stop right here again. Guys, I’m going to recap for us one more time here. So far what we have, guys, I don’t want anybody to get lost.

So far, what we have is we have the Washingtonians. From the Washingtonians, the message went to Sam Hadley. From Sam Hadley. The message went to William James, the psychiatrist who wrote the book. It went to Frank Buckman and Sam Shoemaker in the Oxford group. Went to Harrison Hadley down to the Bowery of New York, to the Calvary mission, and went to Roland Hazard to Carl Jung back to Roland Hazard up to Vermont to Seibert Graves and Shep Cornell, and now to every Thatcher. So they took Ebby Thatcher back to New York, is what they did, and they put him out on the street corner to preach and to convert people.

26:36 And one of the first people that every stature started to think about was his old friend Bill, our founder, Bill Wilson, so Abby decides that he’s going to go over visit his friend Bill. He goes over to Bill’s house, and Bill’s drunk at the time, he’s sitting across the kitchen table from Ebby, and Ebby tells bill, he says, Man, I got religion. Bill sits there and thinks to himself, man, I’m glad you got religion because I got more gin, buddy, and my gin is going to outlast your religion. But it says it in the book that Ebby Thatcher flatly proclaimed to Bill Wilson what came to be our 12th promise that we read in a lot of meetings today. What Ebby Thatcher told Bill was that God was doing for him, what he could not do for himself. God was doing for him what he could not do for himself. So Bill, even though he’s drunk at the time, he decides that he’s going to go back one more time. So Bill decides he’s going to go back to Towns Hospital, where he claims that he was four times. Ray O., a friend of mine out of Florida, who’s an archivist and history buff and Alcoholics Anonymous, claims that he got to see the records for Towns hospital. And he claims that Bill Wilson was in there 14 times. So I really don’t know how many times Bill was in Towns hospital. I know that it was a number of times. So bill goes back to Towns hospital, and he has his white flash experience, and he gets sober, and he and he gets sober, and he’s got to give this thing away, and I’m not going to go through all the leading up to it, but he gets sober for a few weeks, or whatever it may have been.

He’s out dragging drunks off of barstools. He’s trying to get him sober for some reason. For some reason, Bill knew that the key for him to stay sober, he had the information. Dr Silkworth, the doctor who had worked with 1000’s of alcoholics, 1000s of alcoholics, and pronounced bill to his wife, Lois, the same thing that Carl Jung had said to Roland Hazard few years earlier, the last time that bill was in Towns Hospital. Dr Silkworth pulled him and Lois aside. He was talking to Lois, and he said, You know, there’s nothing we can do for your husband. There’s absolutely nothing we can do for him. He’s either going to die in a short period of time or he’s going to be committed to a state mental institution for an undetermined amount of time. No human power can relieve his alcoholism.

And so Bill, he had what was required in this program, which is a bottom a bottom at depth is the first requirement for sobriety in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So he’s sober now, he’s had his white light experience. He’s out dragging drunks off barstools. He’s trying to get him sober. He’s bringing him home. His good wife, Lois, is feeding him, and he’s not having any success. And the time came during that first six months before Bill met Dr Bob. Bill sobriety date is the first part of December, December 11 of 1934 but we celebrate June 10, 1935 as Founders Day, because that’s when Dr Bob had his last drink. And then there were two. But Bill was dragging drunks off a bar stool. He’s trying to get them sober, bringing them home, his good wife, Lois, his freedom. He’s not having any success.

And I’m here to tell you guys the three most important words in all of Alcoholics Anonymous ever uttered were about to be uttered right then, and they weren’t even uttered by an alcoholic because Bill. Came home. He was frustrated. He was tired. He was exhausted. He was talking to his wife, Lois, and he said, You know, we’ve done everything. We’ve drug people home, we fed them, we’ve given them money. We’ve done everything with your meager earnings that not one person has stayed sober. And I’m telling you, everybody’s variety in Alcoholics Anonymous was hinging like that on what she said, because she looked him in the eyes, and she said, “You did Bill.“ You did Bill. And that’s important, guys, that’s damn important. So anyway, Bill, six months over, he’s dabbling back in Wall Street. This company that that he’s working with decides that they’re going to send Bill to Akron. And so Bill goes to Akron on this business trip. He meets Dr Bob. Dr Bob gets drunk one more time, and then he gets sober. And Alcoholics Anonymous is formed, and after six months, bill goes back to New York, and he gets a couple of people sober.

So now there’s a group in New York, there’s a group in Akron, and a faction broke off and went out to Cleveland. Those are more links in the chain. One of the people that bill got to work with when he went back to New York, was a fellow by the name of Hank Parker’s. Hank P was a big shot. He drank. He never could stay sober for any period of time. But Hank was a big shot. He he was a big promoter. He was a boss for the Standard Oil Company had 6,000 employees. He figured that the Big Book was actually Hank’s idea. He figured that they had to pass this thing on through literature. And he told Bill one day to write his story and write there was a solution. So the Big Book was actually Hank’s idea. But what they did was, in 1938 they were sitting around a table in Akron, and they’d counted 40 people, 40 people had gotten sober and had maintained sobriety through this short period of time, and they knew they were onto something.

So they were sitting around this table in Akron, and they were talking about, how are we going to pass this thing on how are we going to carry this message? If we keep doing it the way we’re doing it, it’ll be 10 years before it gets out of Akron and Bill, he’s the big shot. He’s the big promoter. He’s the stock broker with the law degree. Bill, he wanted to have a group of paid emissaries go across the country. Bill also wanted to have a string of hospitals. Bill also wanted to name it the Bill Wilson movement.

And he also wanted to write a book, which was Hank P’s child. And so the group consciences started to take effect, or be formed at the time, and they nixed the idea of the string of hospitals. They nixed the idea of the paid emissaries, but they gave bill the okay to write this book. And I’m a man that I believe that God answers our prayers after having done the research that I’ve done studying the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m totally believed guys that our Big Book in this program is a gift to us of answered prayers.

But God wasn’t always saying yes. I believe that God said no through the group conscious to the paid emissaries, and I believe that God said no through the group conscious to the string of hospitals. Dr Silkworth had a friend at Reader’s Digest. Had a friend at Reader’s Digest. So the group got together and they went to Reader’s Digest. Bill had written his story by now. That’s the first thing we do as alcoholics, is talk about ourselves first. But Bill had written his story, and they took his story to Reader’s Digest. And Reader’s Digest read his story, and said, Man, this is great stuff. We would love to print a condensed version of this once you guys get the book written. So they left Reader’s Digest. They were very excited. They had it going on. This was going to be a nationally publicized article about their book. And so Bill goes back, and he starts writing The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Now there’s a lot of we’s and you’s, and this is a we program in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, but there’s not, but that’s not the way that the Big Book was originally written in the original manuscript, and it’s because the group was critiquing everything that Bill wrote, and they were making him change it and making him edit everything, and it was becoming frustrating to him. And then the original manuscript is a Big Book about calling anonymous. There’s a lot of use, and you must, and you better do this. And if you get to this part in the book and don’t agree with what it’s saying, just throw the book and throw the book in the trash, and there’s that kind of stuff in there, guys, but they were editing him, and they were making him change everything that he was writing. And I want to read you something that we read at every meeting today, and it’s about the style of the writing when they were when the group was editing Bill and making him change what he was writing.

It says this, at some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not, with all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be very thorough. From the very start, some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

That was the style of the writing, because they were making him change everything, and they were editing him. And after Bill wrote that, and after he wrote the 12 Steps, Bill, in his frustration, went back to the group, and he said, I will not be passing this in front of every one of you to edit this whole book. Either I write it or you write it. And so they got together and they made the decision. Bill, Okay, you go ahead and write the book, and I want to read you something out of that very same chapter. After that decision was made, it says this, we hope that you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self will has blocked you from him, if you have already made a decision in an inventory of your grocer handicaps, you have made a good beginning that being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.

That’s the difference in the writing style between the first five chapters The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the rest of the book. So we have the book being written. They’ve gone to Reader’s Digest, but they need some money. They need some money. Bill Wilson and Hank Parker’s are both great salesman. These two guys could sell Playboy to a blind man.

36:29 So they decide, so they decide that they’re going to form the 100 men Corporation, and they’re going to steal sell stock. This is a copy of the stock perspective that they were selling at the time, $25 a share of par value in Alcoholic Anonymous in a corporation that never existed.

36:48 I think there’s some legalities in a corporation that never existed. So they sold all this stuff. They got some money together. They got the book completed. They sold stock in a corporation that never exists. They borrowed money from here and there. They formed their own publishing company and this is the book that came out. This is the book that came out. This is the first printing of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous. It came out in April of 1939 came out in April of 1939.

37:27 This is what the Big Book looked like when it came out in April of 1939 it’s the only printing of the Big Book that came out with a red hardboard cover on it. This is what that’s what the Big Book looked like in April of 1939 I this is what, what the Big Book looks like, October 18 of 2025 and I know I don’t need to tell any of you fine recovering alcoholics from Santa Clarita this, but I’m going To say it anyway. This guys, is what the Big Book looks like. Open that’s some useful information. Guys, that’s some real useful information.

38:17 If you don’t hear anything else, hear that. So they got the Big Book completed. They go back to Reader’s Digest, and Reader’s Digest tells them, Hey guys, we’re sorry we decided we’re not going to print the article. So here we are. We’re stuck. We’re stuck with, I’ve heard different numbers. My research is 4,650 copies of that red book, and we can’t do anything with them. Guys are sitting in case boxes in an old run down box in downtown New York City. Nobody had heard about Alcoholics Anonymous. We’re stuck with 4,650 copies of that book.

38:57 What I’m going to do right here, guys for just a few minutes, is I’m going to regress just a little bit, and I want to talk about what went into that book. What went into that book? Does anybody ever wonder about the story that’s in the front part of the Big Book? First 164 pages, the story of the man of 30. Interesting story.

It’s a neat story. Man of 30 KNEW IT 30 years old, that drinking was a problem, so he stopped drinking. So he stopped drinking became very successful in business on the car dealership, actually stopped drinking for 20 years. At retirement age, out came the slippers and out came the bottle, and within a short period of time, four years, as a matter of fact, he was dead. That’s a neat story. It’s an interesting story. But consider the fact that Bill Wilson was only three and a half years sober when they wrote The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Where did the story of the man of 30 come from? I’ll tell you where it came from. It came out of this book right here. The name of the book is the Common Sense of Drinking. It was written by Richard Peabody. Published in 1934 in 1934 a lot of the Big Book came from other big from other people and other books. I’m going to be reading a few things here about the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and get to what the contents of the Big Book are and where it came from.

What are the sources of the principles of the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous? Bill Wilson answered that question in an address delivered to the medical society of the state of New York on May 9, 1944 Bill also spoke to the medical profession at Yale University and the medical profession at Yale University asked Bill this question, and I quote, just how does AA work? And Bill’s answer was this, and again, I quote, I cannot fully answer that question. Many AA techniques have been adopted after a 10 year period of trial and error, which has led to some interesting results, but as laymen, we doubt our own ability to explain them. We can only tell you what we do and what seems, from our point of view, to happen to us at the very outset, we should like to make it ever so clear that AA is a synthetic gadget, as it were, drawing upon the resources of medicine, psychiatry, religion and our own experience, not opinions. No, I threw that in our own experience of drinking and recovery, you will search in vain for a single new fundamental.

We have merely streamlined old and proven principles of psychiatry and religion into such forms that the alcoholic will accept them, and then we have created a society of his own kind where he can enthusiastically put these very principles to work on himself and other sufferers. Alcoholics Anonymous has made two major contributions to the programs of psychiatry and religion. These are, it seems to us, the long missing links in the chain of recovery. Number one, our ability as ex-drinkers to secure the confidence of the new man, to build a transmission line into him, and, number two, the provision of an understanding society of ex-problem drinkers, in which the newcomer can successfully apply the principles of medicine religion to himself and others. So what Bill was saying here, guys, is our very little in our Big Book is original. Our book and our program was taken from many, many different books and many, many different people. But where did the Big Book come from? This book right here is called man the unknown.

42:40 It was written by Alex Corral and published in 1935 what Bill wrote about this book was, he said this was he said this on reading this book. Man the unknown, again, I quote on reading this book. Man the unknown, some of us realize that was just what we had been groping towards. We had begun to build a program out of our own experiences. At this point, we thought, let’s reach into other people’s experiences. Let’s go back to our friends, the preachers, the social workers and all those who have been concerned with us again and review what they have and bring it into synthesis and let us where we can bring them in, where they fit. So our process of trial and error began, and at the end of four years, the material was cast in the form of a book known as Alcoholics Anonymous. So the Big Book was actually cast out a man the unknown.

There are other books. Emmett Fox was a preacher in the 1920s and 1930s in the early 80s, would go and listen to Emmett. He did inspirational readings and talk on his literature, Sermon on the Mount and different things we’ve already talked about, the Varieties of Religious Experience, written by William James and published in 1902 another book that Bill had read was this one right here. It’s called, As a Man Thinketh. It was published in 1910 by James Allen. This is the one that basically the concept of step forward comes from in this book. James Allen’s right that our problems are basically of our own making. The book basically says that we are what we think. It says in this book that we must learn to crucify ourselves on a daily basis.

Thus the poor AA ideas that we must get down to causes and conditions. Must get down to causes and conditions. So our troubles we think are basically of our own making. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas. The result was, now, until we let go, absolutely all of those profound sayings that are in the Big Book came out of this book right here, Ss Man Thinketh, another book that Bill had read was this one right here. It’s called, What is the Oxford group is written by the Layman with a Notebook. This book was basically the Oxford group’s big book. This book talks about the four absolutes they had to have, there was a four absolutes. And then there was a four step program, I believe, but they had to have absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love. And then the four steps of the program, where they shared their sins with other people, other Christians, was step five in our program. Attention to all they had harm, which is steps eight and nine in our program, listening to and accepting and relying on God’s guidance. Is all their affairs, which is the rest of the spiritual steps in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So the Oxford group was huge, was huge in the formation of thought process in Alcoholics Anonymous. This book right here is called Twice Born Men. It was written by Harold Bigby. This is this book. Is all stories of drunks who had gotten sober through a profound religious conversion experience. See if these titles sound familiar, the criminal, the copper basher, lowest of the lows, rags and bones. This is the book that gave Bill the idea for us to put our own stories of our own personal experience in the back of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, again, the Common Sense of Drinking, written by Richard Peabody and published in 1934 four years before the Big Book was written, there are phrases in that book, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Half measures are of no avail. And perhaps the entire story of the man of 30 all came out of the common sense of drinking, written by Richard Peabody. This book right here is Called the Way of Life. It was written by William Osler and published in 1937.

46:21 I don’t think guys that it’s a coincidence, that it’s that in its original form, as Bill sees it, that we read today in its original form was called the AA Way of Life. This book is the book that gave bill the idea for us to live our lives one day at a time. One of the quotes in this book, and this is interesting, it says, our lives are like a great ocean liner. Does that sound familiar? On the first page of Chapter Two, there’s a solution. I don’t want to use the word plagiarize guys, but on the first page of Chapter Two, there is a solution that says, We are passengers in a great freight liner. Anyway, there are a few other books guys, but Bill was a sponge for knowledge on alcoholism, and Bill had read all of these books. And so what Bill was saying, Here was our book was taken from many, many different books and many, many different people. It was taken from Carl Jung, the psychologist. It was taken from the Oxford group, and the people and different tenants of the Oxford group and their experiences and so. So we have the book written.

At this point, we’re sitting on 4650 copies of this book. We can’t do anything with them. Nobody’s heard about Alcoholics Anonymous. All of these books are sitting in case boxes in an old, rundown office in New York. But some things began to happen. Some things began to happen in late September, September 30 of 1939 an article came out in this magazine right here, the Liberty magazine. The title of the article is Alcoholics and God. It was written by a fellow by the name of Morris Markey, and that is the first nationally publicized article about Alcoholics Anonymous. And what that article did was it caused about 500 of those red books to sell, but they still didn’t have enough money. So Bill through relatives, he had a connection with the Rockefellers, and according to Bill Wilson’s words, it was time to put the touch on the big money for the dough. Bill was going to put the touch on the Rockefeller’s for the dough.

So the Rockefeller’s hosted this dinner, and the drunks went to the dinner, and they told their stories, and Mr. Rockefeller senior was not there at the time with his son Nelson was and I think this is another time of God saying no, but the Rockefeller sent back this message that I believe basically saved Alcoholics Anonymous. If it hadn’t been for this message, and if it hadn’t been for these words, we might not be sitting here this afternoon either, guys, because Bill was going to go out and sell this thing. There’s the stock certificate to prove it. But the Rockefeller sent back this message, and the message was, was, won’t money spoil this.

Won’t money spoil this. And the Rockefellers pledge $5,000 for Dr Bob to pay off his mortgage for Bill and Dr Bob to get a stipend to carry on their work. And they carried it on, and they were just absolutely broke when something else broke through. And I’m going to talk this morning or this afternoon real quick, real briefly, about an event that happened right in between these two magazine articles. I

t’s a baseball story, guys. It doesn’t get talked about, and I know there’s Dodger fans here, but this story doesn’t get talked about too often, but I think that was just as important. Yes, as either one of those two magazine articles that came out, there was a young pitcher back then by the name of Bob Feller. And Bob Feller was a pitching phenomenon, and he could throw a fastball faster than any other pitcher in the league at the time. And there was a catcher who would catch for him. He was a great catcher, but he was a drunk and he did crazy things like set the team train on fire and all kinds of stuff. This guy’s name is Raleigh H, Raleigh Hemsley and Raleigh Hensley just happened to be on the team in Cleveland when Bob Feller, the young pitching phenomenon, threw two no hitters, and if you’re the catcher that catches the pitcher that throws two no hitters, you get a little bit of press yourself. And Raleigh caught those two games, and he was being interviewed by the sports reporter, and one of the sports reporters says to him, said, Raleigh, something’s a little bit different about you. What is it? And Raleigh said, Well, I just want you fellas to know that I’ve been sober and Alcoholics Anonymous for a year, and that headline, guys the sports page of the Cleveland plains dealer, April 17, 1940 big headlines, a year without a drink. Home run for Alcoholics Anonymous, different headlines and the associated press picked the story up. From there, it made it to other newspapers across the country, but I believe guys that that did several things for Alcoholics Anonymous. Number one was it went public.

Another thing it did was it let people know that young people could get sober, stay sober. You didn’t have to be old. It let people know that successful people could get sober and stay sober. You didn’t have to be a skid row wine all Raleigh was a catcher for a professional baseball team. And so right along the same time as Liberty made magazine and Saturday and post, I think that was just as important as either one of those two magazine articles. And by the way, for you old timers that are going to argue with me about this after this meeting, there was no traditions of anonymity at the time, so it was okay for him to do that.

Jack Alexander was a journalist, a reporter for The Saturday Evening Post, and Jack Alexander’s intent was he was going to write an expose. He was going to expose Alcoholics Anonymous as the fraud that he thought it was. And so what, what Jack Alexander did was Jack Alexander went to Akron, and he went to some meetings in Akron, and he met the membership, and he met the fellowship, and he saw the work in Alcoholics Anonymous. And what happened was, excuse me, what happened was,

52:51 Jack Alexander fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. He fell in love with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. He fell in love with the work in Alcoholics Anonymous. And he wrote an article that came out in this magazine right here, march 1, 1941 and it was a glowing article, guys. It was about the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was about the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was about the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and out of that article came 10,000 members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it was out of that article that, according to Bill Wilson, AA became a national pastime. And it was out of that article that aa exploded all over the country. I’m going to start wrapping this thing up pretty quick, guys, the rest is all history. The forward to the second edition is probably the best condensed, written history of Alcoholics Anonymous that’s been pinned.

What’s happened over the years, guys, is there was that red book that first printing. First edition came out in April 1939, from that book, there were 16 printings of the first edition. 16 printings of the first edition. People say that nothing in the Big Book has changed, and that is simply not true. Every printing of the first 16 printings is different. Words are different, statistics are different. Things changed in the Big Book. I have them and I’ve read them.

So there were 16 printings of the first edition in 1955 the second edition came. There were 16 printings of the second edition in 1976 the third edition came. There was 76 printings of the third edition. 76 printings of the third edition in 2001 the fourth edition came, and I want to say that we’re on our 51st printing of the fourth edition. The 51st printing of the fourth edition. T

o date, the Big Book is printed in 73 different languages. 73 different language. The Spanish language is the first foreign language. Language that the Big Book was printed in, and that was in 1957 and as of today, guys, there has been approximately 43,079,226 copies of The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, printed in 73 different languages.

And where that takes us is back to the links in the chain. And something that I believe is so true. Anne Smith, Dr Bob’s wife, has a quote, handwritten quote by Carl Sandburg. It’s handwritten on the front page of her diary, of her journal. And what that quote says is, whenever any civilization or society perishes, there is always one condition present. They forgot where they came from, and after hand, I believe that is so true today, after having done the work that I’ve done in Alcoholics Anonymous, I don’t think guys that we’re all that much different than the Washingtonians who simply lost their way. I think we have more experience, and our experience has taught us, but I also think that if we’re not careful and take care of our singleness of purpose and take care of our traditions, that we could lose our way as well.

I would like to close with something that really doesn’t have anything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous, and yet, I think it has everything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. In one of the archival magazines that I’ve collected guys, there’s a prize fighter of the time, guy by the name of Jack Dempsey, and Jack Dempsey is getting ready to get in the ring for a title fight. He’s being interviewed by a sports reporter. And again, this doesn’t have anything to do with alcoholics and honest, but I think it has everything to do with alcoholics. The sports reporter that’s interviewing Jack Dempsey asked Jack did okay, Jack, what’s it gonna take to win this fight. And Jack Dempsey answered that question like this. He said, when we get to this level, and I relate that to us in Alcoholics Anonymous, when we get to this level and we’re in a he said, we all have pretty much equal ability. He said, whoever’s the hungriest is going to come out the winner.

So my prayer and my hope for us that are here in this room this afternoon, if you’re not hungry, you get hungry. If you are hungry, you stay hungry. You take care of our singleness of purpose. You take care of our traditions and you pass this thing on. Again, I would like to thank the Santa Clarita Valley convention committee for asking me to share with you guys. I’d like to see a couple of real special thank you’s again. Boom Boom. Thank you, Mark, thank you. These guys have been with me for years. Teresa, thank you. She’s just upset for if you guys haven’t been over to the archive room, you need to, you need to visit it. And again, guys, I’d like to thank all of you for coming to this meeting this afternoon and where guys did the links in the chain end up, and we’ll just close it with this.

It started in the 1840s with the Washingtonians. It went to 1895 to Sam Hadley. From Sam Hadley, it went to William James, a psychiatrist who wrote the book. It went to Frank Buckman and Sam Shoemaker, the Oxford group. It went to Harrison Hadley, down to the Bowery of New York to Roland Hazard to Carl you back to Roland Hazard up to Vermont to Siebert Graves, to Shep Cornell, to Abby Thatcher, back down to New York to our founder, Bill Wilson from Bill. It went to Bob from Bill and Bob it went to Bill Dotson, Ernie G, Phil S, Florence, Rankin, some of the early members in Akron.

59:13 It went from New York to Akron, back to New York, out to Chicago, out to Cleveland. Came out here to California, guys, you have the bragging rights. The first documentation of Alcoholics Anonymous in California is down here in Southern California in Long Beach. And from Long Beach, the message came up here to Santa Clarita and the starting of the Santa Clarita Valley convention of alcoholic synonymous and all of those links in the chain got up this morning, Saturday morning, October 18, 2025 and we all came marching in this room, trudging the road of how. Be Destiny an hour ago, and we took our seats in this room, and everyone in this room, and that’s attending this convention this weekend is a miracle in Alcoholics Anonymous, and every one of us are connected from here to way back there, and we’re all one. Alcoholics Anonymous, God bless you.