It`s All About Love And Service

[MajestyJo]

Dr. Bob's Last Message...
Delivered at the first international conference of Alcoholics Anonymous at Cleveland, Ohio in 1950.
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Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950.

My good friends in AA and of AA. I feel I would be very remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to welcome you here to Cleveland not only to this meeting but those that have already transpired. I hope very much that the presence of so many people and the words that you have heard will prove an inspiration to you - not only to you, but may you be able to impart that inspiration to the boys and girls back home who were not fortunate enough to be able to come. In other words, we hope that your visit here has been both enjoyable and profitable.

I get a big thrill out of looking over a vast sea of faces like this with a feeling that possibly some small thing that I did a number of years ago, played an infinitely small part in making this meeting possible. I also get quite a thrill when I think that we all had the same problem. We all did the same things. We all get the same results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness. If you will pardon the injection of a personal note at this time, let me say that I have been in bed five of the last seven months and my strength hasn't returned as I would like, so my remarks of necessity will be very brief.

But there are two or three things that flashed into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis; one is the simplicity of our Program. Let's not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind, but have very little to do with our actual AA work. Our 12 Steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words love and service. We understand what love is and we understand what service is. So let's bear those two things in mind.

Let us also remember to guard that erring member - the tongue, and if we must use it, let's use it with kindness and consideration and tolerance. And one more thing; none of us would be here today if somebody hadn't taken time to explain things to us, to give us a little pat on the back, to take us to a meeting or two, to have done numerous little kind and thoughtful acts in our behalf. So let us never get the degree of smug complacency so that we're not willing to extend or attempt to, that help which has been so beneficial to us, to our less fortunate brothers. Thank you very much.

Robert Holbrook Smith
August 8, 1879 to November 16, 1950

[SoberDriver]

The one thing I have learned in my experience that helps newcomers open up is to expose my own failings. If newcomers know none of us are perfect it makes it ok to be at whatever state of mind they are in. Having come into AA around 1997 I used to hear over and over again this phrase "tough love." If you do a search in the "AA Big Book" or the "12 Steps and 12 Traditions" you won't find that phrase there. Another text lists the qualities of "love" being "Kindness, Gentleness and Long Suffering." In the end each individual is responsible for their own recovery. We have a precept of "attraction rather than promotion." I was fortunate to have grown up in a home where love was gentle and kind. I have listened to that speaker tape that is transcribed above. Dr. Bob's voice communicates the words he's using in a calm compassionate tone. The "old timers" in my area impress me in the way they are gentle and kind and compassionate. They don't preach or talk down to newcomers. That was not my experience where I got sober. I prefer gentleness over harshness every day and twice on Sunday..

[MajestyJo]

Thank you for sharing. I got a lot of tender loving care, and they loved me back to good health, but I was surrounded by some long-timers who told it as it is and didn't spare this child. We had to learn to crawl before we could walk. I was one of the really sick ones and it took me a while to just sober up and bring the body and and the mind followed. 57 was the best year of my life, now I am 75, and not sure I am any wiser. I try to go to each meeting with the attitude of a newcomer. Each day is a new beginning. It doesn't matter how many years I have, all I have is today.

Hope your day is a good one.