5,000 Big Books, Two Orders – AA Speaker – Bill W.
Bill W. shares the untold story of publishing the Big Book: rejection from wealthy donors, a failed Reader’s Digest gambit, and the $1,000 loan that saved AA’s foundational text.
Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, recounts the unlikely journey to publish the Big Book in this AA speaker tape recorded at an early AA gathering. In the late 1930s, Bill and Dr. Bob faced a crisis: they had printed 5,000 copies but received only two orders, faced foreclosure, and had dwindling funds. This talk walks through how the book almost died, the role of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s famous decision not to give money (which saved the movement), and the unexpected generosity that kept AA’s primary text alive.
Bill W. describes the obstacles in creating and publishing the Big Book, including failed fundraising attempts with wealthy donors, a poorly timed Reader’s Digest article that never ran, and the crisis moment when only two book orders arrived after printing 5,000 copies. He explains how the group evolved from wanting “drunk tanks” and missionaries to realizing they needed literature to unify AA’s message and prevent it from being distorted by word-of-mouth variations. Rockefeller’s decision to give only $1,000 as a gift rather than major funding proved crucial; his public endorsement (including buying 400 books to send to bankers) sparked wider interest and ultimately saved the fledgling works publishing company and AA itself.
Episode Summary
Bill W. takes listeners on a remarkable journey through the birth of AA’s most important text. In 1937, with only a handful of sober alcoholics in New York and Akron, Bill and Dr. Bob recognized they faced a fundamental problem: how could this message spread if every group was teaching the program differently? The solution seemed clear—they needed a book, a unified text that would carry the message consistently to distant readers who couldn’t come to New York or Akron.
The challenge was money. Bill, ever the promoter, approached wealthy New Yorkers, including connections to the Rockefeller family through his brother-in-law. The pitch landed him in Rockefeller Plaza in late 1937, where Bill sat in an office next to the great man’s own, convinced a breakthrough was near. But the wealthy donors were unmoved. “Haven’t you already sobered up 35 or 40 drunk?” they’d ask. “We’ve done that before.”
Undeterred, Bill and his collaborators formed the Alcoholic Foundation (later the General Service Board) to pursue their vision of writing and publishing the Big Book. When fundraising dried up entirely in the summer of 1938, they turned to Harper & Brothers, who offered $1,500 in advance royalties—a lifeline that let Bill finally sit down to write. But even this created tension. The group worried that Harper would own the book, that AA’s primary means of carrying the message would rest in a commercial publisher’s hands. So they decided to publish it themselves, forming Works Publishing Company using blank stock certificates they bought from a stationary store—never even incorporating. They sold shares for $5 a month to members, promising massive profits based on printing costs of 35 cents and a sale price of $3.50.
Bill describes the chaos of writing by committee. Chapter drafts went to New York meetings where they sparked fierce arguments. Some wanted the book to be spiritual and rooted in God; others feared that would alienate agnostics and atheists. The famous phrase “God as you understand Him” emerged from one of these heated debates—not from inspiration, but from necessity. Late one night, lying in bed mad at the world, Bill sketched out what became the 12 Steps, breaking the program into small pieces so people “can’t wiggle out of it.” When the steps first appeared at a meeting, pandemonium erupted. But the core idea held.
By early 1939, they had a manuscript and a printing contract with Cornwall Press. But the subscription payments from stockholders had slowed to a trickle. They had nearly no money left. Then came the brilliant but ultimately heartbreaking strategy: they visited Reader’s Digest, convinced the managing editor that this story—AA’s emergence, the friendship of Rockefeller, the new textbook—was perfect for their 12 million readers. The editor seemed interested. Bill promised the book would be ready by May or June. They returned to their stockholders with news: *Reader’s Digest is going to give us a free ad to 12 million people. The books will move out by the carload.*
Blackwell at Cornwall Press agreed to print 5,000 books on credit. The drunks scraped together $4,500 from stock purchases. Another member, Charlie T., loaned $2,500 on a promissory note for a book not yet written. They had maybe $500 left in the bank. Then Bill walked into the Reader’s Digest offices to say they were ready to roll. “Oh,” said the editor, “I consulted our editorial board right after you left last time. They didn’t like the idea at all. We won’t be running the piece.”
The Wilsons lost their house. Their furniture was set on the street. They survived that summer on $50 a month from members passing the hat for groceries, a borrowed car, and a summer camp donation. The book office faced foreclosure. The printer wanted to know what to do. And when Bill checked the post office box for orders from the Gabriel Heater radio interview and postal card campaign, he found twelve postcards, ten illegible, and exactly two orders for the book.
It was Bert T., a member with a fashionable clothing business on Fifth Avenue (mostly on mortgage), who saved it. He had heard of a promised article in *Liberty* magazine called “Alcoholics and God” coming in September. He cold-called a wealthy man he knew, M. Cochran from Baltimore, and convinced him to loan Works Publishing $1,000 to bridge the gap until that article ran. When the *Liberty* piece finally appeared, 800 inquiries came in. They barely squeaked through 1939.
Then, in February 1940, came the turning point. Rockefeller—who hadn’t been heard from since 1937 but had been watching all along—wanted to host a dinner. He invited bankers, business leaders, prominent figures. Bill thought this was finally the moment. Rockefeller would announce major funding. The dinner happened. Harry Emerson Fosdick praised the Big Book. Dr. Foster Kennedy spoke to the medical possibilities. The room warmed up. And then Nelson Rockefeller, standing in for his ailing father, delivered the message: “This is a work that proceeds on goodwill. It requires no money.”
The bankers stood and walked out. Bill’s heart sank. But then something remarkable happened. Rockefeller asked that the talks be published in a pamphlet and offered to buy 400 books to send to all the bankers who attended—at a deep discount. He sent a personal letter with each copy, signed by his own hand, saying how deeply this work had moved him and enclosing a check for $1,000. “If John D. is giving $1,000,” the bankers reasoned, “surely I can send these boys $10 or $300.” That dinner list, solicited for five years, brought in roughly $3,000 annually. More importantly, Rockefeller’s public endorsement—his willingness to attach his name and reputation to AA when he was under public criticism for his views on alcohol—gave the fellowship credibility.
The book orders began to flow. Jack Alexander’s article in the *Saturday Post* brought another flood of inquiries. Within a few years, the book income was supporting the office itself. The group could tell Rockefeller, “We don’t need any more money now.”
Bill reflects that it wasn’t Rockefeller’s money that saved AA—it was his restraint. By refusing to fund the movement lavishly, he forced it to remain self-supporting, grounded in the members themselves. His public endorsement, his willingness to say “this is good” at a time when alcohol was still a contentious issue, opened doors. The Big Book went out into the world not as a commercial product but as a message carried by people who had bought it themselves, who had skin in the game, who believed in it.
Notable Quotes
This thing must be held together, but not until after a lot of people have done an awful lot of work along with a lot of praying. One of those two alone will not get the job done.
The idea of God as you understand him came out of that perfectly ferocious argument.
We are not always going to have Bill. Bill’s got to project 10, 15, 20 years out into the future. That’s the way it must be with him.
By what it means? How could we transmit our message to them? Not all the drunks in the world could come to Akron or to New York.
Mr. Rockefeller’s decision not to give us money saved this society. He gave of himself at a time when he was under public ridicule for his views about alcohol.
It isn’t the money that has come out of it that matters. It is the message that it carries that has transcended the mountains and the sea and is even at this moment lighting candles in dark corners and on distant beaches.
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Big Book Study
- Founders & AA History
- Sponsorship
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▶ Full AA Speaker Transcript
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Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> All know Bill wrote our 12 step, our individual recovery program some 15, 16 years ago in Brooklyn.
and he wrote them in quite a bit of confusion and he completed them from beginning to end in about 30 minutes and I don't think to this day he can tell us honestly what that pen of It's true he had had a few years of experience in dealing with alcoholics. It's true he had talked to Hebian about he had some experience from the Oxford group. But let's not forget this one thing.
We are not always going to have Bill. Bill can't be like you and me and live a day at a time. Bill's got to project 10, 15, 20 years out into the future.
That's the way it must be with him. He's got to think of a unity in 1984. This thing must be held together and it will be held together, but not until after a lot of people have done an awful lot of work along with a lot of praying.
One of those two alone will not get the job done. And nobody knows that better than our beloved Bill. Will everybody rise, please?
Now that we're assembled here in full strength and in all the joy of this superb occasion, I first want to renew my thanks to all who have made it possible to Jack and his committee to each one of you to the untold miles of travel that you've all made to be present to inspire me to fill me with the warmth of your hospitality to be with each other. I'm grateful to the governor of this state, mayor of this town for their recognition that we are again not only a members but citizens of the world. We once more belong.
So these friends have said I'm deeply grateful to this hotel and the owners of it who have housed us, especially me so superbly. Could you see that apartment I'm in? You'd wonder how the hell anybody could stay sober in it in that bar.
As for me, I come here in great gratitude not only for the many tokens of your generosity and affection that I have received in the past, but for what you are making possible for my sponsor as a just as much founder of AA as I or any of the score without whom this thing couldn't them. So again, I record my deep gratitude and I can find no better words to say that. I think I'm on the bill for tonight's show with a talk on the tradition, the 12 traditions of AA.
But you know, drunks like women uh have the prerogative or at least seize the prerogative of changing their mind. Don't make any such something very festive. I think the tradition 1 to 12 would be a little too grim.
Might bore you a little. As a matter of fact, uh speaking of traditions, uh when they were first written back there in 1945 or six to sort of tentative guide to help us to hang together and function, nobody play paid any attention except a fewers who wrote me what the hell mail about him. Nobody paid the slightest attention.
But little by little as these traditions uh got around and we had our club clubhouse squabbled, our group refs this difficulty in that. It was found that the traditions indeed did reflect experience and were guiding principles. So they took all little more and a little more and a little more so that today the average AA coming in the door learns at once what they're about.
What kind of an outfit he really has landed in by what principles his group and they as a whole are governed. But as I say the day with all that I just like to spin some yarns and they will be a series of yarns which cluster around the preparation of the good old book alcoholics knowledge. Some people reading the book now, they say, "Well, this is the AA Bible." And when I hear that, it always makes me shudder because the guys who put it together weren't a damn bit biblical.
I think sometimes, you know, the drunks have an idea that these old-timers went around with the almost visible halos and long gowns and they were full of sweetness and light and oh boy, how inspired they were. Oh yes, but wait, doesn't it? I suppose the bookyard really started in the living room of uh Doc and Annie Smith.
As you know, I landed there in the summer of 35, a little group called Hold. I helped Smithy briefly with it and he went on to found the first AA group in the world. And as with all new groups, it was nearly all failure.
But now and then somebody saw the light and there was progress. Tempered. I got back to New York, a little more experienced.
The group started there and by the time we got around to 1937, the thing had leaked a little over into Cleveland and it began to move south in New York. But it was still, we thought in those years a flying blind, a flickering candle indeed, that might at any moment be snuck out. So on this late fall afternoon in 1937, Smithy and I were talking together in his living room and sitting there by the gas log and we began to count notes.
How many people had stayed dry in act in New York? Maybe a few in sleep. How many had stayed dry and for how long?
And when we added up that go, it was a handful. I don't know 3540 maybe but enough time had elapsed on enough really fatal cases of alcoholism so that when we grasp the import of these small statistics Bob and I saw for the first time that this thing was going to succeed. That God in his providence and mercy had thrown a new life into the dark caves where we and our kind had been and were still by the million dwelling.
I never can forget the elation and ecstasy that sees us both. And then we fell happily talking and reflect. We reflected that well a couple of score of them but had taken three long years.
There had been a momentum out of failure but a long time has been taken just to sober up this handful. How could this handful carry his message to all those who still didn't know? Not all the drunks in the world could come to Aland or to New York.
How could we transmit our message to them? By what it means? Maybe we thought we should go to the old-timers in each group, which then meant nearly everybody, find a sum of money, somebody else's money of course, and say to them, "Well, now take a sabbatical year off your job if you have any, and you go to Kiaak and Omaha and to Chicago and to San Francisco and Los Angeles and wherever it may be, and you give this thing a year and get a group start.
It had already got evident by then or we were just about to be moved out of the city hospital in Ashan to make room for people with broken legs and ailing livers that the hospitals were not too happy with us. We tried to run their business perhaps too much and besides drunk were to be noisy in the night and there were other inconveniences which were all meant. So it was obvious that uh being such a lovely creatures we would have to have a great chain of hospital and as that dream burst upon me it sounded good because you see I've been down in Wall Street in the promotion business and I remember the great sums of money that were made as soon as people got this chain idea you know the chain drug stores grocery stores dry goods or why not chain drunk tanks and let us make the doll.
So we needed some missionaries of the guys. We needed a chain of drum tanks. That got very clear.
All clear to me. Bob is a conservative type of Yankee. I don't think he was quite so fast for those items.
I was very insistent. It would take a pile of dough to finance all this. But after all, with this brand new light shining in our dark world, we just squirt it in the eyes of rich guys and laid up with the dog.
Besides, we reflected uh we'd have to get some kind of literature. Up to this moment, not a syllable of this program, so far as I know, was in writing. And it was a kind of a word of mouth deal.
you with variations according to each man or woman's fancy. Well, in a gentle way, we said, "Well, the fools have got you down, boys. You got an allergy and an obsession and you're hopeless.
If you are, you better get honest with yourself. Take stock. You ought to talk this out to somebody." Kind of a confessional, you know.
And you ought to make restitution for the harm you did. You ought to make amends and all that kind of business and while you're praying as best you could according to your life and panic and that was the sum was the word of mouth program up to that time. But as I say variations on that were already appearing.
How could we unify this? Could we out of our experience get certain principles describe certain methods that have done the trick for us? Yet obviously if this movement was to propagate it had to have a literature so it message could not be garbled either by the drunk or by the general public.
So Bob and I reflected that late afternoon in 1937. Missionaries, chain of drunk tanks and a book. Well, even by then he and I had begun to learn that we were not the government of alcoholics enough.
He I guess more than I already realized that the conscience of the group, the opinion of the group when it was an informed opinion and in the group's interest could be better than our own. We better consult folks. Well, there was dear old dear old non-alcoholic wife T.
Henry Williams there in a let us meet in their house after he got out of Smith parlor and got into theirs and he was great friends of ours. So we called meeting of the Akan group that is to say those who had been sober any great length of time. I think for this particular meeting we prayed up about 18 and that evening Bob and I told them that we were in within sight of success that we thought this thing might go on and on and on that a new light indeed was shining in our dark world.
But how could this light be reflected and transmitted without being distorted and garb? And at this point they turned the meeting over to me and being a salesman I set right to work on them drunk tanks and subsidies for the missionaries. I was pretty poor then.
And we touched on the book and group conscience consisted of 18 men, good and true. And the good and true men you could see right away were damn skeptical about it all. Almost with one voice saying, "Horest, let's keep it simple.
This is going to bring money into this thing. This is going to create a professional class. We'll all be ruined.
Well, I countered. That's a very good argument. Lots to what to say.
But even within gunshot of this very house, alcoholics are dying like floods. And if this thing doesn't move any faster than it has in the ne in the last 3 years, it may be another 10 before it gets to the outskirts of a how in God's name are we going to carry this message to others? We've got to take some kind of chance.
We can't keep it so simple it becomes an anarchy and get complicated. We can't keep it so simple it won't propagate itself. And we got to have a lot of money to do these things.
So exerting myself to the utmost which was considerable in those days. We finally got a vote in that little meeting and it was a mighty closed vote by just a majority of maybe two or three. The meeting has said with some reluctance, "Well, Bill, if we need a lot of dough, you better go back to New York where there's plenty of it." And you raise it.
Well, that was the word I've been waiting for. So, I scram back to the great city and I began to approach some people of means and describe this tremendous thing that had happened. And it didn't seem so tremendous as the people of means.
Oh, at what 35 or 40 drunk sobered up? They have sobered them up before now, you know. And besides, Mr.
Wilson, don't you think it's kind of sweeping up the shavings? I mean, uh, I mean, wouldn't something for the Red Cross be better? In other words, with all of my most high visitation, I got one hell of a freeze from the gentleman away.
Well, I began to get blue. And when I began to get blue, my stomach kicked off as well as other things. And I was laying in bed one night with an imaginary ulcer attack.
Used to have them all the time. I had one the time step for it. And I said, "My God, we're starving to death here at Clinton Street." By this time, the house was full of drunks.
They were eating us out of house and home. In those days, we never believed in charging anything for anybody for anything. So Lois was earning the money.
I was being a missionary and the drunks were eating meals. This can't go on. We got to have them drunk tanks.
We got to have them missionaries. And now we got to have them missionary. And we got to have a look.
That's for sure. Well, the next morning I crawled into my clothes and I saw my brother-in-law. He's a doctor and he is about the last person instru way way down.
The only one save of course, dear Lord. Well, I said I'll go up and see L. So, I went up to my brother-in-law Leonard.
He cried out a little time between patients coming in up there. And I started my awful belly ache about these rich guys who wouldn't give us any dull for this great and glorious enterprise. So well on its way and it seems to me that somehow he was tied up with the Rockefeller family and their charity.
And if you want to, we'll call up the Rockefeller offices and see if there is such a man. And if there is, is he alive? And will he see us?
Would you like me to do that? Well, I hadn't tried the Rockefeller off, so I said, "Well, sure. Give him a ring." On what slender threads our destiny sometimes has.
remember my brother-in-law said I knew a girl and I think she had enough. So the call was made instantly there came onto the other end of the wire the voice of Dear Willard Richard, one of the loveliest Christian gentlemen that I have ever known. And the moment he recognized my brother-in-law, he said, "Why Leonard?" He said, "Where have you been all these years?" Well, my brother-in-law, unlike me, is a man of very few words.
So, he quickly said to dear old Uncle Willard, that he had a brother-in-law who was apparently having some success ups. Could the two of us come over there and see him? Why?
Certainly, said dear Willard. Uh, come right over. So, we go over Rockefeller Plaza.
We go up that elevator. 54 flight 56 I guess it is. And we walk plump into Mr.
Rockefeller's personal office as to see Mr. Richards. And here's this lovely benign old gentleman who nevertheless had a kind of shrewd twinkle in his eyes.
So I sat down and told him about our exciting discovery, the horrific sure for alcoholics that had just hit the world, how it worked, what we had done. And boy, this was the first receptive man with money or access to money. Remember, we were in Mr.
Rockefeller's personal office at this point. And by now too, we had learned that this was Mr. Rockefeller's closest personal friend perhaps.
So he said, "Why yes, I much would you like to have lunch with me, Mr. Wilson." "Well, now you know for a rising promoter that sounds pretty good. Going to have lunch with best friends of St.
John De. my ultra attack disappeared. So I have lunch with the old gentleman and we go over the thing again and boy he's so warm and kind and friendly right close the lunch he said well now Miss Wilson or Bill if I can call you that said wouldn't you like to have a larger meeting with some of my friends there's Frank Amos he any advertising business, but he was on a committee that recommended Mr.
Rockefeller drop the uh prohibition business. And there's Loy Chipman. He looked at Mr.
Rockefeller's real estate. Here's M. Scott.
He chairman the board up the Riverside Church. And he said, "A number of people like that. I believe they'd like to hear this story." So a meeting was arranged and it fell upon a winter's night late 1937 and the meeting was at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
We called in post haste a couple of drugs minty included of course having the procession. I came in with the New York contingent 45 and to our astonishment we were ushered into Mr. Rockefeller's personal boardroom right next to her office right next to his office and I thought to myself well now this place is really getting hot and indeed I felt very much warm when I was told by Mr.
Richardson that I was sitting in a chair just vacated by Mr. Rockefeller. I said, "Well, now we really are getting close to the bankroll." Old Doc Silkworth was there that night, too.
And he testified what he had seen happen to these new friends of ours. and each drunk thinking of nothing better to say. Well, each of us told our story, drinking and recovering.
And these folks listen, they seem very definitely impressed. So, I could see that the moment for the big touch was coming. So I generally brought up the subject of the drunk tanks, the substitized missionaries and this question of a book or literature.
Well, God moved in mysterious way his wonders to perform. But it didn't look like a wonder to me when Mr. Scott, head of a large engineering firm and chairman of the Riverside Church, looked at us and said, "But gentlemen, up to this point, this has been the work of goodwill only.
No plant, no property, no paid people, just one carrying the good news to the next." Isn't that true? And may it not be that that is where the great power of this society lies. Now if we justize it, might it not honor its whole whole character?
We want to do all we can. We're gathered for that. But what it want?
Well, then the salesman all gave Mr. Scott the right and we said why Mr. Scott there only 40 of us it's taken three years why millions Mr.
Scott will rock before this thing ever gets to him unless we have money and lots out of it. And we made out our tape at last with these gentlemen for the missionaries the drunk tank the vote. So one of them volunteered to investigate user and since poor old Dr.
Bob was harder up than I was and since the first group and the typical community situation was in Akran, we directed their attention out there and Frank Amos still a trustee in the foundation at his own expense got on a train went out to Akran made all sorts of preliminary inquiries around town about Dr. Bob. All reports were good except that he was a drunk had recently got over.
He visited the little meeting out there. He went to the Smith's house and he came back with what he thought was a very modest project. And he recommended to these friends of ours that well, we should have at least just a token amount of money at first, say $50,000, something like that.
That would clear off mortgage on a Smith place. It would uh get us a little rehabilitation place. We could put Dr.
Smith in charge. Uh we could subsidize a few of these people briefly until we got some more money. We could uh you know, it would start the chain of hospitals.
We'd have a few missionaries. We could get busy on the book. All for mere 50,000 bucks.
Well, considering the kind of money we were backed up against, that did sound a little small, but you know, one thing leads to another, and it sounded real good. We were we were real glad. Mr.
Willard Richards, our original contact, then took that report in John Dun, as everybody called him. And I since heard what went on in Mr. Rockefeller read called Willard Richardson back and he said somehow I am strangely stirred by all this.
This interests me a man. And then looking at his friend Willard and he said, "But isn't money going to be spoiled this? I'm terribly afraid that this would." And yet I'm so strangely stirred by it.
Then came another turning point in our destiny when that man whose business is giving away money said to Willard Richardson, "No," he said, "I would be the one to spoil this by with money. You say these two men who are heading is a little strapped. I'll put $5,000 in the Riverside Church treasury.
You folks can form yourselves into a committee and draw on as you like, but please don't ask me for any more, but I want to hear what goes on. Well, the 50,000 is then shrunk to five. We raised the mortgage on Smithy's house for about three grand that left two and Smithy and I commenced chawing on that tomb.
Well, that was a long way from the string of our drunk tanks books and missionary. What in thunder would we do? Well, we had more meetings with our new found friends Amos Rich Scott Shiffman and those fellas who stuck with us to this day come out of now being gone.
And in spite of Mr. Rockefeller's advice, we again convinced these folks that this thing needed a lot of money. What could you do without it?
So, one of them proposed, well, why don't we form a foundation, something like the Rockefeller Foundation? Well, I said, I hope it'll be like that with respect to money. And then one of them got a free lawyer from Elie Hill Road's firm who was interested in the thing and we are asked him to draw an agreement of trust a charter for something to be called the alcoholic foundation.
Why we picked that one? I don't know. I don't know whether the foundation was alcoholic.
It was the alcoholic foundation, not the alcoholic foundation. No, and the lawyer was very much confused because in the meeting in which we formed the foundation, we made it very plain that uh we drunks did not wish to be in the majority. We felt that there should be non-alcoholics on the board and they ought to be in a majority one.
Well, indeed, said the lawyer, what is the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic? And one of our smart drugs says, well, that's a non-alcoholic is a guy who can drink, and a alcoholic is a guy who can't drink. Well, said the lawyer, how do we state that legally?
I wouldn't know. Joy Lang had a foundation and a board which I think then was of about seven consisting of four of these new friends including my brother-in-law Mr. Richards Chipman Amos and some of us drunk I think Smithy went on the board but I kind of coily stayed off it thinking it well it would be more convenient later on.
So we had this wonderful new foundation. These friends unlike Mr. Rockefeller were told that we needed a lot of dough and so salesman around New York started to solicit solicit the money again from the very rich and we had a list of them and we had credentials and letters from friends of Mr.
John D. Roth. How could you miss?
I ask you say the foundation had been formed in the spring of 1938 and all summer we solicited the race. Well, they were either in Florida or they preferred the Red Cross or some of them thought the drugs were disgust. And we didn't get one damn scent in the whole summer of 1938.
Praise God. foundation meeting a couple of chapters of a proposed book in rough and in mimograph. As a matter of fact, we've been using chapters of this proposed book along with some recommendations of a couple doctors down at John's Hopkins to try to put the bite on the wreck.
And we still had these two book chapters kicking around. So Frank Amos said, "Well, now I know the religious editor down there in Harvard, old friend of mine, Jean Aman. He said, "Why don't you take these two book chapters, your story and the introduction to the book down there and show them to Jean and see what he thinks about." So I took the chapters down.
To my great surprise, Jean, who has since become a great friend of ours, looked at CHAPTERS AND SAID, "WHY?" HE SAID, "MR. WILSON," HE SAID, "COULD YOU WRITE a whole book like this?" OH, I SAID, "SURE." WELL, it was more talk about it. I guess he went in and showed it Mr.
Canfield, the big boss. Now, the meeting was handed. The upshot was that Harers estimated that they would pay me as the budding author, $1,500 in advanced royalties, bringing enough money in to enable me to finish the book.
Well, I felt awful good, you know, about that. It made me feel like I was an author, a comer maybe. I felt real good about it, but after a while, not so good.
because I began to reason and so did the other boys. Well, if this guy Wilson eats up the 1,500 bucks while he's doing this book, after the book gets out, it'll take a long time to catch up. And if this thing gets some publicity, what are we going to do with the inquiries?
And after all, what's a lousy 10% royalty anyway? Well, the 1500 still look pretty big to me. Then we thought too, now here's a fine publisher like Harpers, but if this book, if and when done, should prove to be the main textbook FOR AA, WHY WOULD we want our main means of propagation in the hands of somebody else?
Shouldn't we control this thing? Well, at that point, the book project really began to get popular. It began to take off.
Why? And we said what we ought to do is to form a book company, a publishing company, corporation. We could call it, let us say, works publishing company.
This being the first of a great many works, you see. And we could sell stock certificates to all the drunks. Get some money coming in with support, the author and the guy who collected the money and the gal who would help me on the book while this was going on.
Well, we took this idea of the next trustees meeting and they all shook their heads and they went out and made some more inquiries and we had another trustees meeting and they'd gone to some publisher friends and the publisher says, "Well, these authors, they all got the crazy idea that they can publish their own books, but it ain't so. We don't believe it." Well, then we had kind of an alcoholic rebellion. We said to our friends, "Well, after all, you didn't produce honey dough.
uh we think we'll try this on separate the foundation. So I had a guy helping me on this thing who had red hair 10 times my energy and some promoter he was said Bill this is simple come on with me. We walk into a stationary store.
We buy a pad of blank stock certificates. We write across the top of them. Works publishing company.
Par value $25. So we take a pad of these stock certificates. Of course, we didn't bother to incorporate it.
That didn't happen years. We took this patty talk to the next AA meeting where you shouldn't mix money with spirituality at all and we said to the drunks well look this thing is going to be a sin partners he'll take a third of this thing for services rendered I the author I'll take a third for services rendered and you can have a third of these stock certificates par 25 if you'll just start paying up on your stock. If you only want one share, it's only $5 a month.
5 months. See? And the drunk gave us this stony look.
What the hell? You mean to say you're asking us to buy stock in a book that you ain't written yet? >> Why, sure, we said.
If Harper will put money in this thing, why shouldn't you? Harper said it's going to be a a good book. But the drug still gave us the stony stair.
No. So, well, we had to think up some more art. So, we said, "Well, um, we've been looking about the printing cost of the books, boys.
We get a book here, you know, 400 450 pages on sale for about 350. Now, back in those days, uh, we found on inquiry from printers that that 350 book could be printed for 35, making a,000% profit. Of course, we didn't mention the other expenses, just printing cost.
So, boy, just think of it. When these books move out in Carlos Lot, we're printing them for 35 cents and we're selling them direct mail at 350. How can you lose?
The drunk still gave us the stony stair. No. So, well, we figured we had to have a better argument than that.
Harper said it was a good book. We could print them for 35 cents and sell them for 350. But how are we going to convince the drugs that we could move carro lots?
Millions of dollars. So we get the idea. We'll walked to the reader digest and we got an appointment with Mr.
Can managing editor up there. Gee, I never forget the day we got off the train up to Pleasantville. Went over to his office, ushered in.
We excitedly told him the story of this wonderful budding society. We dwelled upon the friendship of Mr. Rockefeller and Harry Emerson Plaza.
You know, we were traveling in good company with pain and uh the society by the way was about to publish a textbook then in process of being written and we were wondering Mr. campaign. This wouldn't be a matter of tremendous interest to the readers digest having in mind of course that the Reader Digest had a circulation of 12 million readers and if we could only get a free ad of their common book in the Reader Digest, we really would move some.
You see? Well, Mr. Paint said this sounds extremely interesting.
I'm I I LIKE THIS IDEA. WHY? I THINK IT WILL be an absolutely ideal IDEAL PIECE for the D.
Well, how soon do you think this new book will be out, Mr. Wilson? Well, I said we got a couple chapters written and we said we can get right at it, Mr.
P. You know, probably this being, let us say October, we ought to get this out by next April, next May. Why Mr.
Pain said, "I I'm I'm sure that I just would like to think like this, Mr. Wilson." He said, "I'll take it up to the editorial board." And he said, "Uh, when the time is right and you get all ready to shoot, come on up and we'll put a special feature writer on this thing and we'll tell all about your style." And then my promoter's friend said, "But Mr. Payne, will you mention the new book in the piece?" Oh, yes.
Yes, Mr. Payne mentioned the new book. That's all we need.
Then we went back to drugs and said, "Now look, boys, there are positively millions of them. How can you make Harper says it's going to be a good book? We buy them for 35 cents from the printer.
We sell them for 350. The Reader Digest is going to give us a free ad in a piece." And boys, they'll move out by the car. How can you miss?
And after all, we only need four or 5,000 bucks. So then we began to sell the shares of Work Publishing, not yet incorporated, par value $25. $5 a month to poor people.
Some people could buy as many as one guy bought 10 shares. We sold a few shares to non-alcoholics. And my promoter friend, who was to get a third interest, was a very important man in this transaction because he went out and kept collecting the money from the drunks so that little Ruthie Hawk and I could keep working on the book and so Lois would have some groceries, although she was still working in that department store.
So the preparation stopped and some more chapters were done and we went into aa meetings in New York with these chapters in the rough. Well, it wasn't like chicken in the rough. The boys didn't eat those chapters up at all.
I suddenly discovered that I was in a terrific whirlpool of arguments. I was just the umpire and finally had to stipulate. Well, boys and over here you got the holy rollers who say we need all the good oldfashioned stuff in the book and over here you tell me we got to have a psychological book and that never cured anybody and they didn't do much with drugs in the missions.
So I guess you'll have to leave me just to be the umpire. I'll scribble out some rocks here and show them to you. Let's get the comments in.
And so we fought, bled, and died our way through one chapter after another. We sent them out to a room and they were pedled around and there were terrific hassles about what should go in this book and whatnot. Meanwhile, we sat drunks writing their stories or having newspaper people and we had write stories for them to go in the back of the book.
We had an idea. We'd have a text, you know, and then we'd have stories all about the drunks who were staying sober in the back, move it up. So then came that night when we were up around that about chapter five, as you know, I'd gone all out about myself, which was natural after all.
And then we did a little introductory chapter and we dealt with the agnostic and we described alcoholism. But boy, we finally got up to the point where we really had to say what the book was all about and how this deal worked. Well, as I told you, it was a six-step program.
Then on this particular evening, I was lying in bed in Clint Street wondering what to do this next chapter be about. And the idea came to me, well, we need a definite statement, a concrete principle that these drugs can't wiggle out. Can't be any wiggling out of this deal at all.
And this sixstep program has two big gaps in between. There'll be wiggling out. Moreover, if this book goes out to distant readers, they have got to have an absolute explicit program by which to go.
Well, while I was thinking these thoughts and while my imaginary officer was painting me and while I was mad at hell as these drunks because the money was coming in slow, some had to stop and weren't paying off. A couple of guys came in and they gave me a big argument and we yelled and shouted and I finally went down and laid on the bed with my officer and I said, "Poor me." Well, it was a pad of paper for the bed and I reached for that and I said, "Well, now you got to break this program up into small pieces so they can't wiggle out." So, I started writing, trying to bust it up into little pieces. And when I got the pieces set down on that piece of yellow paper, I put numbers on and was rather agreeably surprised when it came out at 12.
I said, "Well, that's a good significant figure in Christianity and mystic lore." Then I noticed that instead of leaving the God ideas of the last, I'd got it up front, but I didn't pay much attention to that. Looked pretty good. Well, next meeting comes along.
I'd done on gone on beyond the steps trying to amplify him and the rest that chapter and I took that chapter with the steps in the meeting and boy pandemonium broke loose. What do you mean by changing the program? What about this?
What about that? This thing is overloaded with God. We don't like this.
You got these guys on their knees. Stand them up. This thing a lot of these drunks are scared to death of being God.
Let's take God out of it. Such were the arguments we had. Well, out of that terrific hassle about the 12 steps, there did come a 10 strike.
That argument caused the introduction of a phrase which has been a lifesaver by thousands. It was certainly none of my doing. I was on the pas side then, you see, still suffering from this big hot flash of mine.
The idea of God as you understand him came out of that perfectly ferocious argument and we put that in. Well, little by little the thing ground down and little by little the drunks put in the money and we kept an office open over in Newark which was the office of a defunct business that I tried to establish my friend in. The money ran low at times though.
Little Ruthie Hawk worked for no pay. We gave her plenty of stock in the works publishing. Of course, you all you had to do is tear it off the pad.
Fire 25 have a week's sal. So we got around to about January 1939. Somebody said, "Well, and we better test this thing out and we better kind of make a pre-publication copy, a monolithic or mimograph copy of this text and a few of these stories that have come in.
Try it out, you know, on the preacher, on the doctor, Catholic committee on publication, psychiatrist, policemen, fish wives, housewives, drunk, everybody, just to see if we got anything that goes against the grain any place. and also to find out if uh we can't get some better ideas here. So at considerable expense we got this pre-ublication copy made and we pedled it around and the comment came back some of it very helpful and went among other places to the Catholic committee on publications in New York and at that time we had only one Catholic member to take it there and he just got out of the asylum and hadn't anything to do with publish with preparing the book and to our great surprise I just a promising people something later on.
Well, so the book had passed month and the stories came in. Somehow we got them edited. Somehow we got the galley together.
We got up to the printing contract. Well, meanwhile, the drunks had been kind of slow on those subscription payments. The thing a little further on, I was able to go up to Charlie Town where old Doc Tilford held forth.
Charlie believed in us. So, we had put the slug on Charlie for 2500 bucks. Charlie didn't want any stock.
He wanted a promisory NOTE ON the book not yet written. So we tapped Charlie for 2500 which we rooted around through the alcoholic foundation so it could be taxed as you understand. So all told we had blown in supporting three of us in an office to do this job in these nine months upwards of $6,000 and the till was getting very low.
Well we still had to get it printed. No, we go out to Cornwall Press, the largest printer in the world, where we made a previous inquiry and we asked about printing and uh oh yes, they'd be very glad to do it. And uh how many books would we like?
Well, we said that's very hard to estimate. Of course, our membership is very small at the present time. We won't tell many of the membership, but after all, the Reader Digest is going to print a plug about us.
To 12 million readers, this book should go out in Carlo's Mr. Printer. And Mr.
Printer was none other than dear old Mr. Blackwell, one of our greatest friends. And Mr.
Blackwell said, "Well, boys, uh, how much of a down payment you're going to make? How many books would you like?" I said, "Well, we said we'll be conservative. Let's print 5,000 of them just to start.
And Mr. Blackwell said, "Well, what you going to use for money?" Well, we said, "Well, we won't need much. I imagine a few hundred dollars on account.
Be all right with you, Mr. Black. I told you all we're traveling very good copies.
You know, friends, Mr. Rockefeller and all that." So, Blackwell started printing 5,000 books. Plates were made and the galleys were read.
Gee, all of a sudden, we saw in the Reader's Dent. So we go up to the Raiders digest. We walk in on Mr.
Kenneth Payne and we said, "Mr. Payne, we're all ready to shoot." And Mr. Payne said, "Shoot one." Oh yes.
He said, "I remember you, Mr. Parkers and Mr. Wil.
You were the gentleman up here last fall." He said, "I told you that I thought the Reader's Digest would be interested in this new work and in this book, but he said, "Right after you were here, I consulted our editorial board, and to my great surprise, they didn't like the idea at all. And I forgot to tell you, boy, we had the drunks with 4,500 bucks in it. Charlie Town's hook for 2,500 bucks.
on the cuff with the printer, maybe $500 left in the bank. What in the dose would we do? Well, this fellow Morgan Ryan, the good-looking Irishman that had taken the books uh for the Catholic Committee on publication, had been in earlier time a good adman.
And he said, "I know Gabriel Heater." And Gabriel Heater is putting on these three minute mark plug programs on the radio. He said, "I'll get an interview with Gabriel Heater. Maybe he'll interview me on the radio about all this." So our spirits rose once again.
And then all of a sudden, we had a big chill. We thought, well, supposing this Irishman got drunk before he interviewed him. So, he went over to see her and lo and behold, Heer would interview him.
And then we got still more scared. So, we rented a room in the downtown athletic club and we put Ryan in there with a day and night guard for 10 days. Meanwhile, boy, our spirits rose again.
We could see those books just going out in carpet. Then my promoter friend said, "Well, look, should the uh, you know, a followup on a big thing like this Peter interview?" He said it'll be heard all over the country in national network. Now he said I think folks that the big market for this book are the doctors, the physicians.
And he said I suggest that we pitch the last $500 we got in the treasury on a postal card shout going to every position east in the Rocky Mountains. And on the postal card we will say here all about alcoholics anonymous on Gabriel heers program send 350 for the book alcoholics anonymous short cure for alcoholism. So we spent the last $500 the postal card shower went out.
They managed to keep Ryan sober although he since hasn't made it. All the drunks had their ears glued to the radio. The group market and Alcoholics Anonymous was already saturated because you see we had 49 stockholders and they all got a book free and then we had 28 guys with stories and they all got a free book.
So we'd run out the AA market but we could see it moving out in parallels to these doctors and their patients. Sure enough, Ryan is interviewed. Peter pulls out the old tremolo stop and we could see them bookers coming back in car.
Well, we just couldn't wait to go down to old post office box 658, Church Street Annex, the address printed in the back of the old book. We hung to it for about 3 days and then my friend Hank and little Ruthie Hawk that some of you remember and I went over and we looked in box 658. It wasn't a lock box if you just looked through the glass and we could see in there a few of these postal cards.
I had a terrible sinking sensation. But my friend, the promoter, he said, "What?" He said, "They can't put all that stuff in the box." He said, "They got mailbags full of it out here." So we go to the clerk and he brings us out 12 lousy postal cards. 10 of them completely illegible written by doctors drunkies monkeys and we had exactly two orders for the book alcoholics anom anonymous and we were absolutely and utterly stony broke.
The sheriff then moved in on the office. Poor old Mr. Blackpool wondered what to do for money and felt like taking the book over.
And at that very opportune moment, the house in which Lois and I lived where it was foreclosed and we and our furniture were set out in streets. And that was the state of the book Alcoholics Anonymous in the summer of 1939. and the state of grace that the Wilsons were in.
Moreover, a great cry went up from the drunks, "What about our $4500?" And Charlie, uh, who was pretty well off, was even a little uneasy about that note for $2500. What would we do? What would we do?
Well, we put our goods into storage on C. couldn't even pay the dry man. An AA led us to summer camp.
Another AA led us to car. The folks around New York began to pass the hat for groceries for the Wilsons for which they supplied us $50 a month. So we had a lot of discontented stockholders.
50 bucks a month, a summer camp in an automobile with which to revive the falling fortunes of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. We began to shop around from one magazine to another. Would they give us some publicity?
Nobody bit. And it looked like the whole dump was going to be foreclosed. Book office, Wilson's everything.
when one of the boys in New York, who happened to be a little bit prosperous at the time and who had a fashionable clothing business on Fifth Avenue, which we learned was mostly on mortgage, having drunk nearly all of it up. One of those guys, Bert Taylor, saved this. I went to Bird one day and I said, "Bert, there is a promise of an article in Liberty magazine.
I just got it today, but it won't come out until next summer. Uh, next September. It's going to be called Alcoholics and God.
It'll be printed by Liberty Magazine, the Fulton editor, the the the Fton Howler, Zanzer. And when that piece is printed, why these books will go out in Carlo's life. We need $1,000 real bad to get us through the top.
Well, B says you're you're sure that article is going to be printed, aren't you? Oh, yes, that's possible. Well, he said, "Okay." Says, "I haven't gotten." But he said, "This man down in Baltimore, M Cochran, he's connected with the wet and dry forces." And well, I said, "Bless wet and dry." B said, "You ain't going to be fussy where you get this stuff." He's a customer of mine.
He buys his pants in here. Let me call him up. Ober gets on longd distance phone with Mr.
Cochran Baltimore very wealthy man and he said Mr. Cochran he said from time to time said I mentioned this alcoholic fellowship which I belong said yes Mr. Taylor well uh Bert said Mr.
Cochran our fellowship has just come out with a magnificent new textbook sure cure for optimalism Mr. Cochran is something that we think that every public library in America should have. And Mr.
Cochran, the retail price of the book is 250, but he Mr. Cochran, if you just buy a couple of thousand of those books and put them in the large libraries, of course, we would sell for that purpose at a considerable discount. Well, Mr.
Cochran said he didn't think he'd care to do that. And then uh Bird said, "Well, Mr. Cochran, uh some publicity has come out about will come out next fall about this new book, Alcoholics Anonymous, but uh in the meantime, the books are moving rather slow and we need, say, $1,000 to tie this over." And uh would you loan the Works Publishing Company $1,000?
WELL, SAID MR. COCHRAN, what does his balance sheet look like? This works publishing.
And after he learned what the works publishing looked like, Mr. Cochran said, "No, thanks." So then Bird said, "Well, now Mr. Cochran, you know me.
Would you loan the money to me on the credit of my business?" Why certainly Mr. Cochran said, "Send down your nose, Mr. Taylor." So Bert hopped a business that a year or two later was to go broke anyway and saved the booked alcoholics anonymous.
Turned $1,000 over to us. We lasted till the Liberty Articles came in. A,000 inquiries, 800 inquiries came in.
As a result of that, we moved a few books. We barely squeakaked through the year 1929. But in all this period, we heard nothing from John D.
trial. Meanwhile, there's been foundation meeting after foundation meeting. Too bad we were having such a hard time.
But no, don't do when all of a sudden in about February 1940, Mr. Richardson came to a custo meeting and he said, "I have great news. Mr.
Rockefeller who we hadn't heard from since 1937 we were told had been watching all the time with the main interest. Moreover, Mr. Rockefeller would like to give this fellowship a dinner to which he would invite his friend to see the beginning of this new and promising style.
Then Mr. Richardson produced the invitation list and all here was the president of the Chase Bank and Wendell Wilkkey and uh all kinds of very prominent people, many of them extremely rich. I mean a quick look at the list I figured would add up to a couple of million dollars.
SO WE thought maybe now at last, you know, there would be some money inside. So the dinner came and we got Harry Emerson Fik who had reviewed the AA book down there. He gave us a wonderful plug.
Foster Kennedy came and spoke on the medical attitude. He'd seen a very hopeless gal Marty man recover one of his patients. I got up and talked about life among the anonym.
And the bankers assembled 75 strong and in great wealth sat at the table with the alcohols. Well, the bankers had come probably as a sort of command performance and they were a little suspicious that perhaps it was another prohibition deal, but they warmed up under the influence of the Mr. Ryan, the hero of the here episode, still sober, for example, at his table, was asked by a distinguished banker, why Mr.
Ryan, we presume that you were in the banking business. Mr. Ryan said, not at all, sir.
I'm just out of grace. Well, that intrigued the bankers and they were all warming up the pond. But unfortunately, Mr.
Rockefeller couldn't get to the dinner. He was sick, actually quite sick that night, and he sent his son, a wonderful gent Nelson Rockefeller, in his place instead. And after the show was over, everybody was in fine form and we were all ready again for the big touch.
Nelson Rockefeller got up and speaking for his father said, "My father sends word that he is so sorry he cannot be here, but so glad that so many of his friends can see the beginning of this great and wonderful thing. Something Nelson Rockefeller said that had affected his life more than almost anything that had crossed him. a stupendous plug that was said, Nelson, but for gentlemen, this is a work that proceeds on goodwill.
It requires no money. Whereupon the $2 billion got up and walked out. Well, that was a terrific let down, but we weren't let down very long.
Again, the hand of Providence had intervened. Right after the dinner, Mr. Rockefeller asked that the talks be published in a pamphlet.
He approached the rather defunct works publishing company and said he would like to buy 400 books to send to all of the bankers who come to the dinner and all who had none. Well, seeing that this was for a good purpose, we let him have the books cheap. He bought them cheaper than anybody has since.
We sold 400 books to John D. Rockefeller Jr. for one buck fee to send his banker friends.
So he sent out the book and the pamphlet and with it he wrote a personal letter and signed every doggone. And in this letter he again recited how glad he was that his friends had been able to see this great beginning of what he thought would be a wonderful thing. How deeply it had affected him.
And then he said, "But fortunately, gentlemen, this is a work of good will. It leads little if any money, perhaps a slight amount of temporary help." I, said John D. Rockefeller, and giving these good people $1,000.
So the bankers all received Mr. Rockefeller's letter, and they all tied it up on the cuff. Well, John D is giving $1,000.
Me with only a few million, so I should send these boys about 10 bucks. I'M DEAD. ONE who had an alcoholic relative in to send us in as high as $300.
So with Mr. Mark's $1,000 plus the solicitation of all the rest of these bankers. We got together the principally sum of $3,000 which was the first outside contribution to the Alcoholic Foundation.
And that $3,000 was divided equally between Smithy and me so that we could keep going somehow. And we solicited that dinner list for five years and got about $3,000 a year out of it for five years. And at the end of that time, we were able to say to Mr.
Rockefeller, "We don't need any more money. The book income is helping to support our office. The groups are contributing to fill in.
The royalties are taking care of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson. We don't need any more money.
Now you see Mr. Rockefeller's decision not to give us money. Save this society.
He gave of himself. He gave of himself at a time when he was under public ridicule for his views about alcohol. He said to the whole world, "This is good." The story went out on the wire all over the world.
People ran into the bookstores to get the no book and boy, we really began to get some book order. An awful lot of inquiries came into the little office there at Bey Street. The book money began to pay to answer them.
We hired one more help. There was rupee another gallon me. And then comes Jack Alexander with his terrific article in the Saturday Post.
Then came an immense flood of inquiries, six or 7,000 of them and Alcoholics Anonymous had become a national institution. And such a story in preparation of the book of its subsequent effect you all have some notion the proceeds of that book have repeatedly saved the office in New York but it isn't the money that has come out of it and this matter it is the message that it carries that has transcended the mountains and the sea and is even at this moment lighting candles in dark cars and on distant beaches. What happened to this foundation bought them all in?
>> They did. Okay. >> Thank you, Bill.
God bless you. We're glad that you could be with us and we hope that you can be with us again. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
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