AA co-founder Bill W. recalls spending their last $500 to promote the Big Book around a national radio appearance. They expected orders by the carload. They got two.
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Speaking in Fort Worth in 1954, Bill sets aside a planned talk on the Twelve Traditions and tells the story of how the book Alcoholics Anonymous came to be. He begins with a conversation with Dr. Bob in 1937, when counting the people who had stayed sober gave them confidence that their small fellowship could work. The question was how to reach alcoholics beyond Akron and New York without garbling the message. Bill's first answer included paid missionaries, a chain of hospitals, and plenty of somebody else's money. He recounts approaching wealthy donors, finding friends through the Rockefeller offices, and discovering that John D. Rockefeller Jr. feared a large subsidy might spoil what made the fellowship work. The book project took shape amid borrowed money, stock sold on installments, unpaid work, and arguments over nearly every chapter. Bill describes breaking the earlier six-part program into smaller pieces on a pad of paper, numbering them, and finding that he had written twelve steps. He also recalls the fierce disagreement that brought the phrase "God as you understand Him" into the program. The publishing story is just as unruly: an expected Reader's Digest feature falls through, 5,000 copies are printed, and their last $500 goes into postcards promoting a national radio interview. When they check the post office box, there are twelve cards, ten unreadable, and exactly two book orders. With creditors closing in and Bill and Lois losing their home, another member arranges a loan that keeps the project alive. Publicity in Liberty magazine, the Rockefeller dinner, and Jack Alexander's Saturday Evening Post article eventually bring inquiries the little office must learn to answer. Throughout this candid, humorous AA history talk, Bill gives credit to the alcoholics and nonalcoholic friends who kept the effort going. He closes by returning to what mattered most about the Big Book: the message it could carry across mountains and seas to alcoholics the early members would never meet.
Bill W. from Bedford Hills, NY speaking in Fort Worth, TX - June 13th 1954
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
