How it Works (Continued)
C: It's also apparent
that Bill did not intend for this to be a set of suggestions. Bill
intended for this to be a set of directions. Bill was very emphatic. First, he was a super-salesman. He sold us on One
and Two as we looked at the book.
Now he comes along, and he's going to
direct us in what we need to do. He said, if you want what we had and
you're willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to follow
directions. He took this thing and he went to the rest of the A.A.
members, and about that time the crap really hit the fan. (laughter) One
group of them said, my God what do you mean trying to direct alcoholics.
You can't tell them what they've got to do.
They said, they won't do anything if you tell them. Another faction said,
Bill, you didn't tell them hard enough. Turn the crank harder. They
fought, and they fought, and they fought over that word directions.
Another word they fought over was God. This was a religious thing in the
beginning, but there had begun to be some people come in there who
professed to be atheists.
There was one fellow that they call, Jimmy the atheist, Jimmy B, you ought
to see his picture. He's sitting there, and he's smoking an old long
stemmed straight pipe. He is the coldest eyed sucker I ever saw.
(laughter) He looks exactly like what you think an atheist ought to look
like. (laughter) He said, get all that God stuff out of there. We don't
want none of that in there.
But one side of the group was very religious. They said, oh, let's talk
more about God, put more in there. They fought and they fought, up and
down, back and fourth, round and around. They tried to make Bill change.
Bill said, I'm not going to change (AA Comes of Age p 166). I wrote this
after prayer and meditation. These aren't my words, they're God's
words.
They said, you are going to change. He said, I'm not. They said, you are.
(laughter) And they just damn near blew the whole thing right there.
Finally Bill recognized that he would have to compromise, if they were to
go any further.
At the suggestion of a nonalcoholic psychiatrists, (AA Comes of Age p 167)
they made some changes. He said, why don't you change it from directions
to suggestions. More people would probably accept this thing as something
suggested to them, than they would if you told them they had to do
it.
He said, where you keep saying, "you, you, you" in there, why
don't you tell them what you had to do. Use the words "we."
Instead of saying you've got to do this, say we had to do this. Where you
keep saying "must, must, must," let's change that to
"ought, ought, ought." I believe it would be more
successful.
Today, nobody has any idea, if we hadn't made those changes, instead of a
million and a half world wide today, we might have ten million. But also
if we hadn't made those
changes, instead of a million and a half world wide, we might have ten
thousand. Who knows? None of us are that smart.
We simply know that this is the history behind the book. When you read the
original manuscript, then this thing makes more sense. Bill was cunning,
baffling and powerful also. With his compromise, he put one stipulation on
it. I'm willing to change, but I'm going to tell you one thing. If I'm to
finish this book, from now on, I'm going to be the only authority. I'm not
going through this anymore. Unless you give me the authority to write the
rest of the book the way I want to, he said, then I'm through with it (AA
Comes of Age p 163-164 ).
They really had no choice. What he knew, but what they didn't know, there
(it) was two pages later. He's going to put directions right back in this
thing. (laughter) And he talks about directions all the rest of the way
through the book. (laughter) When they took it out in How It Works, they
ruined the continuity of the book. I think we'll be able to see that as we
progress through the book. But it's evident that he meant them to be a set
of directions.
