Henrietta Seiberling on A.A.'s beginnings, supplied by Cong. John Seiberling
“Congressman
John Seiberling wrote:
In
the spring of 1971, the newspapers reported the passing of Bill
Wilson of New York City, who as one of the two co-founders of
Alcoholics Anonymous. The other co-founder, Dr. Robert Smith of
Akron, Ohio, has passed on some years earlier.
Shortly
after Bill’s death, the Akron Alcoholics groups asked my mother
Henrietta S. Seiberling, to speak at the annual “Founders Day”
meeting in Akron, which is attended by members of Alcoholics
Anonymous from all over the world. She lives in New York and did not
feel up to traveling, so they asked me to speak in her place.
I
agreed to speak but felt that it would mean most to them to hear some
of her own words, so I called her on the telephone and asked her to
tell me about the origins of Alcoholics Anonymous so that I could
make sure my remarks were accurate. I made a tape recording of the
conversation and played part of it at the 1971 Founders Day meeting,
which was held in the gymnasium at the University of Akron with a
couple of thousand people present.
So
many people have asked for a transcript of the recording that I have
finally had one typed. Attached is a copy of the transcript, which
follows the tape recording as closely as possible, with only my own
remarks and some of the conversational asides and redundancies edited
out.
The
first meeting of Bob and Bill, described in the attached transcript,
took place in the summer of 1935 in Henrietta’s house in Akron,
which was the Gatehouse of Stan Hywet Hall, then my family’s
estate, now the property of Stan Hywet Hall Foundation.
Henrietta
was not an alcoholic. She was a Vasser college graduate and a
housewife with three teenage children. She, like Bob and Bill, would
be deeply disturbed by any inference that she or they possessed any
extraordinary virtues or talents. On the contrary, they would all
emphasize the power of ordinary people to change their lives and the
lives of others through the kind of spiritual discipline so
successfully exemplified in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I
am happy to make this transcript available to persons who are
sincerely interested in learning more about Alcoholics Anonymous and
its message. It is a way of sharing some of the insight’s which
made and still make Alcoholics Anonymous a vital force in people’s
lives. I ask only that the transcript be held in the spirit in which
it is offered and not used for publicity or in an effort to magnify
any individual.
John
F. Seiberling
Transcript
Of Remarks
Henrietta
B. Seiberling:
I
would like to tell about Bob in the beginning. Bob and Ann came into
the Oxford group, which, as you know, was the movement which tried to
recapture the power of first Century Christianity in the modern
world, and a quality of life which we must always exercise. Someone
spoke to me about Bob Smith’s drinking. He didn’t think that
people knew it. And I decided that the people who shared in the
Oxford group had never shared very costly things to make Bob lose his
pride and share what he thought would cost him a great deal. So I
decided to gather together some Oxford Group people for a meeting,
and that was in T. Henry Williams’ house. We met afterwards there
for five or six years every Wednesday night.
I
warned Ann that I was going to have this meeting. I didn’t tell her
it was for Bob, but I said, “Come prepared to mean business. There
is going to be no pussyfooting around. And we all shared very deeply
our shortcomings, and what we had victory over, and then there was
silence, and I waited and thought, “Will Bob say something?” Sure
enough, in that deep, serious tone of his, he said, “Well, you good
people have all shared things that I am sure were very costly to you,
and I am going to tell you something which may cost me my profession.
I am a silent drinker, and I can't stop.” This was weeks before
Bill came to Akron. So we said, “Do you want to go down on your
knees and pray?” And he said, “Yes.” So we did.
And
the next morning, I, who knew nothing about alcoholism (I thought a
person should drink like a gentleman, and that's all), was saying a
prayer for Bob. I said, “God, I don't know anything about drinking,
but I told Bob that I was sure that he lived this way of life, he
could quit drinking. Now you have to help me.” Something said to me
– I call it “guidance” – it was like a voice in the top of my
head – “Bob must not touch one drop of alcohol.” I knew that
wasn't my thought. So I called Bob, and said I had guidance for him –
and this is very important.
He
came over at 10 in the morning, and I told him that my guidance was
that he mustn't touch one drop of alcohol. He was very disappointed,
because he thought guidance would mean seeing somebody or going
someplace. And then – this is something very relevant – he said,
“Henrietta, I don't understand it. Nobody understands it.” Now
that was the state of the world when we were beginning. He said, some
doctor had written a book about it, but he doesn't understand it. I
don't like the stuff. I don’t want to drink. I said, “Well, Bob,
that is what I have been guided about.” And that was the beginning
of our meetings, long before Bill ever came.
Now
let me recall some of Bills very words about his experience. Bill,
when he was in a hotel in Akron and down to a few dollars and owed
his bill after his business venture fell through, looked at the
cocktail room and was tempted and thought, “Well, I’ll just go in
there and get drunk and forget it all, and that will be the end of
it.” Instead, having been sober five months in the Oxford Group, he
said a prayer. He got the guidance to look in a ministers directory,
and a strange thing happened.
He
just looked in there, and he put his finger on one name: Tunks. And
that was no coincidence, because Dr. Tunks was Mr. Harvey Firestone’s
minister, and Mr. Firestone had brought 60 of the Oxford Group people
down there for 10 days out of gratitude for helping his son, who
drank too much. His son had quit for a year and a half or so. Out of
the act of gratitude of this one father, this whole chain started.
So
Bill called Dr. Tunks, and Dr. Tunks gave him a list of names. One of
them was Norman Sheppard, who was a close friend of mine and knew
what I was trying to do for Bob. Norman said, “I have to go to New
York tonight but you can call Henrietta Seiberling, “When he told
the story, Bill shortened it by just saying that he called Dr. Tunks,
but I did not know Dr. Tunks. Bill said that he had his last nickel,
and he thought, “Well, I’ll call her.”
So
I, who was desperate to help bob in something I didn’t know much
about, was ready. Bill called, and I will never forget what he said:
“I’m from the Oxford Group and I’m a Rum Hound.” Those were
his words. I thought, “This is really manna from Heaven.” And I
said, “You come right out here.” And my thought was to put those
two men together. Bill, looking back, thought he was out to help
someone else. Actually, he was out to get help for himself, no
thought of helping anyone else, because he was desperate. But
that is the way that God helps us if we let God direct our lives. And
so he came out to my house, and he stayed for dinner. And I told him
to come to church with me next morning and I would get Bob, which I
did.
Bill
stayed in Akron. He didn’t have nay money. There was a neighbor of
mine, John Gammeter, who had seen the change in my life brought by
the Oxford Group, and I called him and asked him to put Bill up at
the country club for two weeks or so, just to keep him in town. After
that, Bill went to stay with Bob and Ann for three months, and we
started working on Bill Dotson and Ernie Galbraith.
The
need was there, and all of the necessary elements were furnished by
God. Bill the promoter, and I, not being an alcoholic, for
perspective. Every Wednesday night I would speak on some new
experience or spiritual idea I had read. That’s the way we all
grew. Eventually the meetings moved to King School. Some man from
Hollywood came, an actor, and he said that he had been all over the
country and that there was something in the King School group that
wasn’t in any other group. I think it was our great stress and
reliance on guidance and quiet times.
Bill
did a grand job. We can all see in his life what the Oxford Group
people had told us in their message: that if we turn our lives to God
and let him run it, he will take our shortcomings and make them
valuable in His way and give us our hearts desire. And when I got the
word that Bill had gone on, I sat there, and it was just as if
someone had spoken to me again on top of my head. Something said to
me, “Verily, verily, he as received his reward.” So I went to the
Bible, and there it was, in Matthew VI. Then I looked at Bill’s
story in Alcoholics Anonymous where Bill had said that all his
failures were because he always wanted people to think he was
somebody.
In
the first edition of the book, he said he always wanted to make his
mark among people. And by letting God run his life, God took his ego
and gave him his hearts desire in God's way. And when he was gone, he
was on the front page of the New York Times, famous all over the
world. So it does verify what the Oxford Group people had told him.
Father
Dowling, a Jesuit Priest, had first met our group in the early days
in Chicago, and he came to Akron to see us. And then he went on to
New York to see the others. And he said to one of our men, “This is
one of the most beautiful things that has come into the world. But I
want to warn you that the devil will try to destroy it.” Of course,
it’s true, and one of the first things that the devil could have
used was having money, and having sanitariums' as the men were
planning. Much to Bob’s and Bill’s and Ann’s surprise, I said,
“ No, we’ll never take any money.”
Another
way where I saw that the devil could try to destroy us was having
prominent names. The other night I heard on TV special about
alcoholics, a man explaining why they are anonymous. And he showed
that he didn’t really know why. He just said that it wouldn’t do
to let people know that you were an alcoholic. That’s not the
reason. In fact, the surest way to stay sober is to let people know
that you are an alcoholic because then you have lost something of
yourself.
I
would say that the second way that I saw that the devil would be
trying to destroy us was to have any names. Those who think that they
are prominent or that they have become leaders, all fail people
because no one is on top spiritually all the time. So I said, “We’ll
never have any names.”
I
feel that the whole wonderful experience of Alcoholics Anonymous came
in answer to a growing great need in the world, and this was met by
the combination of Bill, who was a catalyst and promoter, and Bob,
with his great humility (if you spoke to him about his contribution,
he’d say, “Oh, I just work here.) and Ann, who supplied a
homeyness for our men in the beginning.
And
I tried to give to the people something of my experience and faith.
What I was most concerned with is that we always go back to faith.
This brings me to the third thing that would be destructive to the
early days, Bob and Bill said to me. “Henrietta, I don’t think
we should talk too much about religion or God.” I said to them,
“Well, we’re not out to please the alcoholics. They have been
pleasing themselves all these years. We are out to please God. And if
you don’t talk about what God does, and your faith, and your
guidance, then you might as well be the Rotary Club or something like
that. Because God is your only source of power.” And finally they
agreed. And they weren’t afraid any more. It is my great hope that
they will never be afraid to acknowledge God and what he has done for
them.
The
last A.A. dinner that I went to, over 3,000 people were there. And it
was the first meeting that I went to which I was disappointed in.
There were two witnesses there, a man and a woman, and you would have
thought they were giving you a description of a psychiatrist’s work
on them. Their progress was always on the level of psychology. And I
spoke to Bill afterwards and I said that there was no spirituality
there or talk of what God had done in their lives. There were giving
views, not news of that God had done. And Bill said, “I know, but
they think there were so many people that need this and they don’t
want to send them away.” So there again has come up this same
old bugaboo – without the realization that they have lost their
source of power.
This
makes me think of the story of the little Scotch minister who was
about to preach his first sermon, and his mother hugged him and said,
“Now, Bobbie, don’t forgot to say a word for Jesus. Your mother
always wants a word for God."
And
then there is one other thought I‘d always like to stress, and that
is the real fact of God’s guidance. People can always count on
guidance, although it seems elusive at times.
Congressman
John Seiberling placed this in the Congressional Record on September
11, 1973”
(our
emphases)
Comment:
An account of some of the events leading up to the first meeting
between Dr Bob and Bill Wilson.
From
the above it is noteworthy that both Dr Bob and Bill had already
arrived at the same conclusion - that too much emphasis on God and
religion would not work with alcoholics. It was only on Sieberling's
insistence (dogma driven) that they conceded the point. But already
the seeds of AA's separation from the Oxford Group were sown.
Religious dogma (or for that matter any sort of dogma) was – and is
- not going to work with alcoholics. There may be an initial
compliance (as illustrated above) but finally intuition will win out.
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends
of Alcoholics Anonymous)
