Since the 24 Hour book (like the Bible!)
is not Conference-approved, how did sending
profits from its sale to GSO (between 1948
and 1954, when it was being printed under
the sponsorship of the Daytona Beach AA
Group) square with Tradition Seven?
Laurie A.
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++++Message 5687. . . . . . . . . . . . Mike Wallace Interview with Lillian
Roth (1956)
From: Bill Lash . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 2:03:00 PM
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The interview may be seen on your computer as a video at:
http://solstice.ischool.utexas.edu/tmwi/index.php/Lillian_Roth
- - - -
A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS VIDEO:
THE MIKE WALLACE INTERVIEW
Guest: Lillian Roth
Saturday, April 5, 1958
WALLACE: Good evening. Tonight we go after the latest chapter in the story
of
a woman who fought her way back from alcoholism and despair, to become again
one of the most compelling figures in show business. She is Lillian Roth, a
million dollar film star at eighteen, an alcoholic at thirty, a great torch
singer only five years ago and today a woman with a new story to tell.
If you're curious to know why Lillian Roth says that the past five years
have
been among the most difficult in her life, if you want to hear her thoughts
on
her conversion to Catholicism, and if you want to know why Miss Roth says
that
despite her recent success, she is forever trying to fill what she calls an
aching, a frightening void within herself, we'll go after those stories in
just
a moment. My name is Mike Wallace, the cigarette is Parliament.
(OPENING CREDITS)
WALLACE: We'll talk with Lillian Roth in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL)
WALLACE: And now to our story. Several years ago, an all but forgotten
entertainer by the name of Lillian Roth, wrote a brutally frank
autobiography
called I'll Cry Tomorrow. It was made into a successful Hollywood film. Miss
Roth herself was swamped with offers to appear in television, nightclubs.
Since then Miss Roth has forged a new life, which she has written about in a
new
book, to be published later this month, called Beyond My Worth.
Lillian, first of all, let me ask you this: After your remarkable comeback a
few years ago I'd imagine that the general public's impression of you is
that
of a happy and successful woman, who has finally found her way. Yet, in your
new book, Beyond My Worth you wrote this: you said: "I've had mornings
recently
when I woke up and my whole life seemed in chaos and I've said to myself,
I've
fallen back... I've fallen back again." Why have you felt that way?
ROTH: Well, Mike, I guess it's something that stems from my childhood. I've
never quite felt up to of the many amazing things that happened to me. I've
never felt at school that I was as pretty as the next child, or as clever as
the
next child, and anytime anything happens to me, I just thought it was luck.
And that was mostly all through my life, and if I did a performance and the
audience were wonderful to me, I thought it really wasn't good enough, it
could
have been better. I've never felt quite adequate, and because...
WALLACE: And so even now, in spite of the fact that you have overcome what
obstacles you have overcome...
ROTH: Well, you see, when I say: Beyond My Worth, I honestly feel I haven't
done anything extraordinary. The public has been amazing. I've gotten mail
from all over the world you'd think I was a miracle woman. And I'm not! It's
through these people and with the help of God that I have been able to
overcome
so much, but the inadequacy and the guilt within me is still very strong and
many times I feel I'm just not what they... I'm not what I seem to be.
WALLACE: I gather that you find a real responsibility, an awesome
responsibility in the very fact of your comeback.
ROTH: I think that the battle of success is probably more difficult than the
climb. People expect too much from you -- or rather, you want to be all that
people expect from you, I shouldn't say that they expect too much of me
because
they're pretty good about it -- But it isn't only that you have to deliver
the
gift of your entertainment as the good Lord gifted you, but there are other
things in your life and I've never professed to be a saint or a martyr.
There
are many people in the world overcoming greater problems which I tell of in
Beyond My Worth. But comparatively speaking, mine seems simple, but this
inner
conflict, this inner thing that I have, I think too telling the truth about
it
makes people realize that they're not alone. You see people used to be able
to
say, "Lillian, let me help you up," after I took that first long step alone.
WALLACE: Yes.
ROTH: But now, through the mail I've started to feel that people were
wondering if they could talk up there to me. And I'm not up there; I don't
want to be up there where the people are concerned only as a performer. I
want
to be right alongside with them.
WALLACE: You get a tremendous number of letters, I gather, calls from people
who are also in a kind of pain, and trying to find their way and figure
you've
done it, and perhaps you can help them to find it for themselves.
ROTH: Well, I... it isn't just problem letters I get. After all I'm not the
know-all, see-all, and I haven't the answer to everything, but the type mail
I
get comes from psychiatrists, doctors, writers, priests, ministers, and
there
are lonely ministers, nuns, and priests all over the world and I can read
between their lines too, and they think that this certainly shows the grace
of
God being bestowed and my difference of course is that I don't think God
graces
one person and not the next. But I am very grateful for their affection.
WALLACE: Tell me this: Does the fear of sliding back, of hitting rock-bottom
again, does that worry you, or do you feel you're over that hump?
ROTH: Well, they say that... I mean, even if you should slip back a little,
it
isn't really slipping back. If you fall slightly, that's just another step
up.
I mean to step down is to step up. Sometimes we're forced to be knocked down
a
little bit, and then we gather our forces together, and we're that much
stronger when we go again. I don't think... I think once you've hit the
bottom
you're not afraid down there. You just feel you don't want to disappoint
people.
WALLACE: Of course one of the things that sparked your comeback was your
book,
I'll Cry Tomorrow... and I'm sure this latest book, which is also quite
revealing, will do your career no harm. Let me ask you this: Did you never
think it undignified, Lillian; did you never think it in bad taste for a
woman
to write so candidly of her personal life and of the life of others?
ROTH: Truthfully, I wasn't happy about any of it... I think I told you when
I
spoke to you a year ago... there's no glory in being a glorified alcoholic.
If
these were the steps I had to take, and there seemed to be a force that
worked
it out... I know when I first worked on my book coming from Australia 10
years
ago, and through the years -- speaking of I'll Cry Tomorrow -- I shelved it.
I
closed the book and said: 'That woman!'
But after this is your life, After Ralph had prevailed on me, and even there
I
didn't want to do it. I was hesitant. It was terrible panic when I first
went
to Australia. It... it just isn't a good feeling to know that you have other
gifts, but I rated what was done. I mean, I rated the fact that I didn't
deserve any better than to be called an alcoholic and I don't know why I
should
have expected extra...
WALLACE: But, why did you want to write about it? Why did you want to tell
and, and not only about yourself, but you wrote fairly graphically about,
for
instance, about being beaten by one husband, about your wedding night with
another husband, a fairly prominent man, about emotional scenes with your
mother. Why have... why did you find it necessary to write about these
things?
ROTH: Well I didn't feel that I was writing an expose, I felt I was
disclosing
rather than exposing. My husband felt from the inception that if I wrote
everything out... I remember when I first went to a hospital for slightly
mentally unbalanced, from 12, 13 years ago, I said even then I wanted to
write a
book... but then they told me everybody that comes in here has a book to
write.
So I kept it to myself for some time. But Bert told me it isn't a case of
being
a martyr. He said this, "In telling all and freeing yourself, and the world
being a big jury, they're very fair; and in doing that, maybe somebody along
to
this will be helped." I'm not going to tell you that my thought was I'm
going
to go out and be a martyr now and help the world. I didn't feel that way; I
was
frightened to death when this book came out.
WALLACE: Diana Barrymore, who wrote a somewhat similar book, told us that
she
did it as a catharsis to get the past out of her system. Was that...? You
smile when I say that.
ROTH: Well, I really... I'm not living my past any more. I'm creating new
thoughts and new habits. A priest once told me, this may answer it by a
thought, that there are certain bad characteristics or formation of a bad
character that is always there with bad habits, but you can create good
habits
and work on them so often that you form a new character and I feel that
if...
I'm not speaking, necessarily about Miss Barrymore, but anyone that
continues to
live as they lived in the past, isn't doing anything to send out a message
or
to help someone in distress. Not that they have to. But what is the sense of
the book? If you're going to go to all this embarrassment, you might be
helpful while doing it. And I... I think it has... well, I shouldn't speak
about what it's proven, but it has helped many people be able to overcome
certain pain that they've had.
WALLACE: I'm certain of that. Have you ever wondered, though, why the
American public seems to be so fascinated with this kind of story? Is it
possibly just the desire to look... to look across the courtyard into
somebody
else's open window?
ROTH: Well, I think where my story is concerned, it goes back to an old
philosophy that I read that said, "In each man's heart there's a secret
sorrow
that the world knows nothing about." And often we call a man 'cold' when
he's
really just sad. And I think that humanity feels that their sorrow is for
you
and their compassion is for you, but it has touched a part of their hearts
that
they will not open the door themselves. They won't even begin... and in the
subconscious the tie is there...
WALLACE: They see a little of themselves in you and that is why they want to
read and hear and...
ROTH: Yes, and... and even youngsters that write to me, they tell me they
understand the problems at home more and I just think it's reached, that's
all.
WALLACE: Let's look at some of the things you write about. One of them,
which
helped you rehabilitate yourself, has been religion. In your new book, you
write with complete assurance... "God loves me." How do you know He does?
ROTH: Because I think God is all loving, just as a parent would be, that
they
love their children good, bad or indifferent. And it's often been said, I
believe, sum and substance of the Bible is that little black sheep that
strayed
away, that worries him so very much, He hopes it will come back some day.
WALLACE: Lillian, who is God?
ROTH: God is everything that's quite wonderful and the... you know I always
quote because I think that the authenticity of a thing... After all I'm a
new
writer, I don't even know if I have a great talent except of telling of
myself
and giving of myself. But a man like Emerson says that God made... almost
everything He made had a crack in it... and I thought that was such a good
thought. We have... we don't have this feeling of perfection, but to please
Him
we'd like to improve ourselves. And I think he's all loving and he's always
there, we just don't always know it.
WALLACE: Let me pursue this a little more specifically. You were born into a
Jewish family, yet several years ago you converted to Catholicism. Why was
Judaism apparently unsatisfactory, unfulfilling for you?
ROTH: Oh, I don't think that Judaism was a case of unfulfillment, I think
that
Catholicism is a fulfillment of Judaism as far as the acceptance of the
Messiah. It... My only difficulty has been in the last two years with all my
respect to the Church because it doesn't make me right and the Church wrong,
I
can't go in and say now this is Lillian's way of doing it. I just felt that
certain man made dogma little things simple as a child. They say "Come as
little children." Well, some of the little flaws or that I felt were flaws,
flaws within myself -- the question -- were child like things, and I have
never
denied my Judaism and as a matter of fact, I learned...
WALLACE: But how -- wait -- How can you convert from Judaism to Catholicism
and yet not deny your Judaism?
ROTH: Well, of course, I have a different theory. I believe that an
Irishman's an Irishman, a Jew is a Jew, an American-Irishman, American Jew.
I
can't see saying that it is merely a religion, I don't go along with that. I
think Christ on the Cross which I spoke to you last time was a Jew who never
denied his Judaism and Christian came from the word "Follower of Christ" and
so
therefore that's an acceptance of the Jewish Messiah and he stated he came
to
fulfill the law, so I don't see where there's a denial of Judaism or... how
can
you deny what you are?
WALLACE: You didn't feel the least bit disloyal when you turned from Judaism
as a religion to Catholicism as a religion?
ROTH: Well, in this way, the physical sense, the material sense, I do
believe
there is a time in the Bible that Christ says that "They will mock you in my
name sake and that..." and it did come in the minority. People were very
good
about it, they didn't care how I found God as long as I had Him, but I don't
think there was too much resentment. I did have feelings of guilt but I
would
have to rise above it and try to get into a spiritual way and to my own self
be
true. You know Mike, they wrote about you in the LaGorian which Father
Clyber
who is a Jew and a priest convert to Catholicism and he sends me the
LaGorian
and it's strange, a few weeks ago they had an article where you asked the
Catholic Church some questions.
WALLACE: Yes.
ROTH: While I was reading it, I also read an article about the face... Five
Faces of a Hypocryte and I thought to myself, one of the things were those
that
professed to be a Christian, you know, and wear the face of a hypocrite, and
I
thought that went along with my thinking, that if I were to take and to
continue taking sacraments, at a time when I felt in the eyes of God, I
didn't
go along with it, I would be wearing that face of a hypocrite. And, although
I'm lonely, not belonging at the moment...
WALLACE: You... Have you forsaken Catholicism now?
ROTH: Well I... I hope God hasn't forsaken me, that's the main point and I
feel that in conscience I can look up to Him and that what is right to do,
he
will lead me to. One wonderful thing about the Catholics and the Catholic
Church, and my own people too is that they don't desert you, you may desert
them
but they say you shall be back. But I think it's along the lines of wherever
the good Lord wants you, that's where you'll be.
WALLACE: You were a member of Alcoholics Anonymous?
ROTH: Yes.
WALLACE: Did you regard that...? -- are you still a member of AA?
ROTH: Well I follow the principles. I believe with AA, of course I don't
advise this for a newcomer, but I think just as you get well, after you come
out
of a hospital, I don't think that you have to sit in the hospital, come back
every day; I think you use the medicines and in this case it's the
suggestions
and principles of AA.
WALLACE: Did you regard...? -- Do members of AA regard it themselves as kind
of a religion?
ROTH: No, to the best of my knowledge, they believe that AA will direct
people
back to their own religions or give them some spiritual contact with God.
WALLACE: Back in 1955, one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous wrote
a
thought provoking pamphlet in which he warned former alcoholics against,
resuming what he called, quote: "our old and disastrous pursuit of personal
power and prestige, public honors and money." He suggested that these are
egotistical, self-seeking ephemeral things and if the alcoholic or the
former
alcoholic were to lose them again, that could shatter a person all over
again.
Now you are a fairly ambitious woman. Do you ever feel that perhaps you're
pushing... pursuing the dangerous course now in going after prestige, money,
public honor once again?
ROTH: Well I'm pretty sure that when the good Lord put us on this earth, he
knew that there were human footsteps to take and he certainly doesn't want
us
to be a ward of a state. Whatever our job is, whether we're a truck driver
and
go back to trucking, or a waitress go back to the waitress. Every job is
important in life and mine was to go back to singing and as I said earlier,
there's no glory in it. Now, these rules that you read; you see, when I
joined
AA there was no such thing as a rule. There were suggestions. I wasn't
anonymous, I... when I was drinking, of course, and I didn't wish this type
publicity but I have found the press to be fair. I've said it over and over
again: it came out and they could just, as well, have gone to the morgue and
dug
up any story. I don't think that there is glory in saying: Look, I want a
lot
of gold stars; I want to be up in lights 'cause I'm a cured alcoholic. I
mean,
it's a little bit ridiculous, I feel that I'm now after 5 years or 12 years
that
I have had my sobriety, free from the bonds of sympathy. I don't feel if the
public comes back three and four times or I'm asked to appear places that
many
times that they come back to see what an alcoholic that doesn't drink
anymore
looks like.
WALLACE: Lillian in a moment I'd like to ask you about something that you
write of quite movingly in your new book. You write, "All people go through
life with a void inside them." You write that even love and marriage
probably
doesn't vanish entirely that feeling of aloneness, of lostness; you say,
"The
void seems to remain during life." I'd like to know why you say that. And
we'll get Lillian Roth's answer in just 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL)
WALLACE: Lillian, in your book you write, "Within us, there seems to be an
aching, a frightening void we are forever trying to fill but never quite do.
We're always alone." What do you mean?
ROTH: You've never felt that feeling?
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
ROTH: Well, with the hundreds of people, the thousands of people I've met,
it's a strange empathy I guess I get and maybe at times contrary to belief,
I'm
subject to a slight melancholia but I look across a room at a person and
somehow
the way the shoulder is, a certain look in his face, the age of the face, I
know that the man has lived a life that hasn't had any great joy in it but
he's
worked very hard. I never saw Death of a Salesman but I imagine the
expression
that I've seen on the pictures of that man's face, I've seen in so many
faces
and you want to go over and say, "Oh, I want to do something, say something
to
you."
And also I feel that when two people love each other and are married, the
ache
of loneliness for someone that's gone that you wish could be part of this
and
they're not there anymore to see it, your parents or your loved ones can see
all
this, and also if you have your separate little problems and you don't want
to
put it on one another. You don't want to tell the fears. Lots of times, --
and Bert probably is watching tonight, he's in California, he hasn't been
too
well and it's our first time we've been apart in 12 years but you see we're
not
really apart -- but a lot of times does that void... he may have an ache or
pain, he says, "I don't want to tell Lillian." I may have a certain worry, I
think he almost made me come to New York so that I wouldn't be there to
worry;
but it's not just me or just Bert, it's... I don't know whether it's a
longing
to a return properly, Freud said: to the mother... the original birth state
or
to a humanity and those of the Church who are so longing to return to God,
but
we are surely never complete here on this earth.
WALLACE: Are you going to...? -- Do you believe that you will find your
completeness after life?
ROTH: Oh well, I certainly hope and I feel like I'm on the verge of some
discovery and I don't like to delve too much because I don't want to go back
to
Bloomingdale's, they'll say this gal is odd, but I know that Lecomte du
Noüy you
recall the book that fascinated me so, the physicist that wrote Human
Destiny,
he said that the odd person of today is just the normal person, you know a
century from now when you have these dreams and ideals. And I think all
those
wonderful stars and planets that we're trying to reach so hard, we're going
to
sit all around them one day in the hereafter and those will be the different
stages until we'll reach our final place.
WALLACE: You mentioned Freud. Have you ever thought about analysis?
ROTH: Well I did have a doctor, A. A. Bill who passed away... sent me to the
original place to rest my little mind when I was thirty-four years old and
up
there they didn't believe in my particular case that there should be deep
analysis. They feel that it takes about a year and a half and if you can't
discover what's wrong in a year and a half, that's bad. And if it takes any
longer, it's real bad. If there's nothing wrong, there will be something
wrong
and I don't mean to interfere with the psychoanalysis but that was Doctor
Bill's
advice where I was concerned.
WALLACE: Lillian, when you add it all up, all of the tragic things that have
happened to you, all of the unhappiness that rarely comes to one human
being,
and I ask this question perfectly seriously, have you ever or do you now
ever
regret the fact that you were born?
ROTH: No, no. Look I knew my mother and I knew my father and so many
wonderful people, I think it's all been worth it. I think I have a greater
appreciation for life than I ever had with all my little hesitancies, a
greater
gratitude. I'm gradually learning more compassion and understanding and I
just
hope I can be. I don't intend to be or hope to be a saint but I hope I can,
in
some measure, repay the good that's come to me. And, I don't mean that as a
Pollyanna or Little Orphan Annie glad all over, Annie Rooney, is that it? I
just think that I... I think life has been very good to me and it takes
those
steps to give you that appreciation.
WALLACE: Lil, what makes you happiest?
ROTH: Well I don't think that there's any way to judge a complete happiness.
I don't think there's such a thing as "happiness". I know my little dogs
though, you know our two little dogs out on the coast, and I got very
lonesome... Do you think I have time to...?
WALLACE: I'm sorry we only have about fifteen seconds.
ROTH: Oh... well I have the cutest little things about dogs. I think that we
all get a great joy from the animals... one thing in the world that loves
you
without question.
WALLACE: Lillian, thank you for coming and spending this half hour and I
know
lots of people who want to read your new book Beyond My Work.
ROTH: Thank you, Mike.
WALLACE: Few come back stories have been as compelling as Lillian Roth's,
perhaps because it seems to be a story that has no end, no artificial happy
conclusion. Miss Roth's comeback has been in the truest sense the search for
her self. It has also been an inspiration for other searchers. I'll be back
in a moment with a rundown on next week's guest, one of the world's youngest
and
most embattled diplomats from one of the world's youngest and most embattled
countries.
(COMMERCIAL)
WALLACE: Next week we go after the story of violence in the Middle East, the
threat to world peace from hostility between the Arabs and Israel. Our guest
will be the Israeli Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations,
Abba
Eban. If you're curious to know Ambassador Eban's answer to the Arab charge
that Israel endangers world peace through a policy of war like expansion,
and
his reply to the Arab statement that his country, Israel must eventually go
bankrupt, we'll go after those stories on the eve of Israel's tenth
anniversary
as a nation next week. Till then for Parliament, Mike Wallace. Good night.
ANNCR: The Mike Wallace Interview has been brought to you by the new High
Filtration Parliament. Parliament! Now for the first time at popular price.
(CLOSING CREDITS)
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++++Message 5688. . . . . . . . . . . . Travis, Language of the Heart
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 4:26:00 PM
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By Trysh Travis
The Language of the Heart: A Cultural History
of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics
Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey
University of North Carolina Press, January 2010
http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1647
In The Language of the Heart Trysh Travis
explores the rich cultural history of
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its offshoots
and the larger "recovery movement" that has
grown out of them. Moving from AA's beginnings
in the mid-1930s as a men's fellowship that
met in church basements to the thoroughly
commercialized addiction treatment centers
of today, Travis chronicles the development
of recovery and examines its relationship to
the broad American tradition of self-help,
highlighting the roles that gender, mysticism,
and print culture have played in that
development.
Travis draws on hitherto unexamined materials
from AA's archives as well as a variety of
popular recovery literatures. Her analysis
traces AA's embrace of the concept of addiction
as disease, the rise of feminist sobriety
discourse and the codependence theories of
the 1970s and 80s, and Oprah Winfrey's
turn-of-the-millennium popularization of
metaphysical healing. What unites these varied
cultures of recovery, Travis argues, is their
desire to offer spiritual solutions to problems
of gender and power.
Treating self-help seekers as individuals whose
intellectual and aesthetic traditions are worth
excavating, The Language of the Heart is the
first book to attend to the evolution and
variation found within the recovery movement
and to treat recovery with the attention to
detail that its complexity requires.
- - - -
Referred to in:
Message #5678
Re: the 24 Hour book and spirituality vs. religion
From: "trysh travis"
(trysh.travis at gmail.com)
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++++Message 5689. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Travis, Language of the Heart
From: jenny andrews . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 7:53:00 AM
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Dear Trysh,
I've been following historylovers correspondence re 24 Hour book and read yr
contribution with interest; I also look forward to reading "The Language of
the
Heart", the same title that the Grapevine gave to its compilation of Bill
W's
writings, which might confuse some AA's!
The blurb says your book records, inter alia, "AA's embrace of the concept
of
addiction as disease." Apart from the fact that AA sticks to its experience
of
alcoholism and does not generalise about the nature of addiction, let me
quote
my letter which was published in the March 2004 Grapevine, viz: "The
November
2003 Grapevine loosely conflates disease with illness. The first 164 pages
of
the Big Book refer to alcoholism as illness or malady, rather than disease.
As
Bill W. said, when he addressed the National Clergy Conference on Alcoholism
in
1960, 'We (AA) have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically
speaking, it is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as
heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments or
combinations of
them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Hence, we did not wish to
get
in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism as a disease
entity. Therefore, we call it an illness, or malady - a far safer term for
us to
use.' A few years ago, the General Service Office in New York said in a
letter
to me: 'Our role as a society of recovered alcoholics helping others does
not
endow us with any mediacal or scientific stature. Therefore, the issue of a
medical determination of a disease is something on which AA could not have a
position.' If a physician said I had the disease of diabetes and that my
only
hope of recovery was a spiritual awakening, I would demand a second opinion.
We
can use disease as a metaphor for alcoholism, as in 'other spiritual
diseases'
(Big Book); but given the different theories about the causes of alcoholism,
the
Fellowship would do well not to claim any special medical expertise and thus
avoid being drawn into this controversy, as Tradition Ten suggests." (saved
on
Grapevine digital archive).
The distinction between disease and illness is explored in John Crossan's
book,
"Jesus: a revolutionary biography" - Harper Collins.
Treatment centres have their own reasons for claiming all addictions are the
same, and that alcoholism is a disease. It would be unfortunate if your book
suggested AA took the same view.
Abundant blessings,
Laurie A. (DOS 8/10/84)
- - - -
Original Message #5688
By Trysh Travis
The Language of the Heart: A Cultural History
of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics
Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey
University of North Carolina Press, January 2010
http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1647
In The Language of the Heart Trysh Travis
explores the rich cultural history of
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its offshoots
and the larger "recovery movement" that has
grown out of them. Moving from AA's beginnings
in the mid-1930s as a men's fellowship that
met in church basements to the thoroughly
commercialized addiction treatment centers
of today, Travis chronicles the development
of recovery and examines its relationship to
the broad American tradition of self-help,
highlighting the roles that gender, mysticism,
and print culture have played in that
development.
Travis draws on hitherto unexamined materials
from AA's archives as well as a variety of
popular recovery literatures. Her analysis
traces AA's embrace of the concept of addiction
as disease, the rise of feminist sobriety
discourse and the codependence theories of
the 1970s and 80s, and Oprah Winfrey's
turn-of-the-millennium popularization of
metaphysical healing. What unites these varied
cultures of recovery, Travis argues, is their
desire to offer spiritual solutions to problems
of gender and power.
Treating self-help seekers as individuals whose
intellectual and aesthetic traditions are worth
excavating, The Language of the Heart is the
first book to attend to the evolution and
variation found within the recovery movement
and to treat recovery with the attention to
detail that its complexity requires.
- - - -
Referred to in:
Message #5678
Re: the 24 Hour book and spirituality vs. religion
From: "trysh travis"
(trysh.travis at gmail.com)
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++++Message 5690. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Travis, Language of the Heart
From: Fiona Dodd . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 4:51:00 PM
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Actually disease is mentioned on page 64 of
The Big Book. "Resentment is the "number one
offender". It destroys more alcoholics than
anything else. From it stems all forms of
spiritual disease, for we have been not only
mentally and physically ill, we have been
spiritually sick." And AA number 3, Bill D
uses the expression disease.
Disease, illness, malady? Semantics.
Fiona
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++++Message 5691. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Travis, Language of the Heart
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 5:09:00 PM
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Laurie,
It strikes me that the question of whether
alcoholism was or was not referred to as a
"disease" during the early AA period is a
lot more complicated than you are implying.
- - - -
See for example one of the best modern
sociological studies of Alcoholics Anonymous:
http://hindsfoot.org/kas1.html
Annette R. Smith, Ph.D., "The Social World of
Alcoholics Anonymous: How It Works," with an
introduction by Linda Farris Kurtz, DPA,
Hindsfoot Foundation Series on Treatment and
Recovery (New York: iUniverse, 2007), pp. 74-75.
Annette Smith notes that:
The word "disease" appears only three times
in the A.A. Big Book. It is mentioned first on
page 64 in discussing alcoholism, then again
at the beginning of the second part of the
book in the story of Bill Dotson, the Akron
lawyer who was Alcoholics Anonymous Number
Three. When Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob visited
Dotson in the hospital, they told him he had
"a disease," and when he explained his
conversion to his wife, he told her he felt
that God had cured him "of this terrible
disease." (AAWS, 1976:187-188, 191)
However, in spite of its avoidance of the
specific word "disease," alcoholism is referred
to over and over again throughout the book
as a "sickness," a "malady," and an "ailment,"
and alcoholics are characterized as persons who
are "sick" or "ill." In the Personal Stories
section of the third edition of the Big Book,
one of the subtitles is "How Forty-Three
Alcoholics Recovered From Their Malady." [NOTE 44]
Kurtz (2002:5) states that despite the fact
that "A.A. does not promote the disease concept
of alcoholism," most members refer to their
alcoholism as a disease. However, this can be
regarded more as a metaphor than as a literal
description in the sense in which the word
disease is usually employed in technical medical
terminology (Kurtz, 1979:199-202). Use of this
metaphor removes the stigma generally attached
to alcoholism in society, allowing A.A.
participants to see themselves as "sick"
rather than "bad" (Conrad and Schneider,
1980), and to assume the "sick role" (Parsons,
1952), so that recovery becomes possible. As
will be shown in this chapter, dealing with
and finally accepting this concept is crucial
in enabling newcomers to move through the four
progressive stages of becoming integrated into
A.A.'s social world.
NOTE 44. Sick, sick person, or sickness on
pages 18, 64, 67, 90, 92, 100, 101, 106, 107,
108, 115, 139, 140, 141, 147, 149, 153, 157,
and 164.
Ill or illness on pages 7, 18, 20, 30, 44, 92,
107, 108, 115, 118, 122, 139, 140, and 142.
The words ail or ailment are used on pages 135,
139, 140.
Malady appears on pages 23, 64, 92, 138, 139,
and 165. (AAWS, 1976)
AAWS. 1976. Alcoholics Anonymous. 3rd ed.
New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services.
Orig. pub. 1939.
Kurtz, Ernest. 1979. Not-God: A History of
Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, Minn:
Hazelden.
Kurtz, Ernest. 2002. "Alcoholics Anonymous
and the Disease Concept of Alcoholism."
Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 20 (Nos. 3/4):
5-40.
Conrad, Peter and Joseph W. Schneider. 1980.
Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to
Sickness. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.
Parsons, Talcott and Renee Fox. 1952. "Illness,
Therapy and the Modern Urban American Family."
The Journal of Social Issues 8(4):31-34.
- - - -
It is impossible, I believe, to discuss the
issue of why alcoholism was regarded as a
disease in early AA without a detailed and
careful study of Sally Brown and David R.
Brown, A Biography of Mrs. Marty Mann.
We can start with p. xiii, a citation of
"Imagine Such a Disease" by the President of
the American Medical Society.
And then go on to p. 10, where the Brown's
describe the basic credo which Marty publicized
all over the United States:
"Alcoholism is a disease and the alcoholic
is a sick person.
The alcoholic can be helped and is worth
helping.
This is a public health problem and therefore
a public responsibility."
- - - -
Or let us note how the issue is discussed by
Bill Swegan, the principal spokesman for the
wing of early AA which stressed the psychological
side of AA rather than the spiritual side.
Sgt. Bill Swegan, On the Military Firing Line
in the Alcoholism Treatment Program, pp. 13-15
"Alcoholism is not a behavior problem,
but a very complex disease"
"In the past half century, more has been
accomplished to recognize, define, and
eliminate the stigma associated with alcoholism
than had been brought about in any previous era.
At the heart of this change has been the partial
removal of the old principle of defining
alcoholism by the behavior it produces, and
the progress that has been made in solving
many of the mysteries surrounding the disease.
It is an illness, and this is now recognized
by most health agencies, medical treatment
facilities, and therapists.
Some resistance to the disease concept still
remains however among law enforcement people,
who often still wish to regard it completely
as a behavior problem. And this is also usually
true among the members of the alcoholic's
family. We must not forget that parents,
brothers and sisters, spouses and children,
are the ones who are constantly exposed to
the negative consequences of the alcoholic
behavior. It is difficult indeed for families
to think of alcoholism as a disease, when they
are the ones who are most immediately subjected
to all of the financial and social pressures
caused by the alcoholic family member, and
they are the ones most likely to suffer
physically from the alcoholic's rages and
tantrums and automobile accidents ....
Because even the major components of behavior
differ widely from alcoholic to alcoholic, it
is easy for someone who is an alcoholic to
pretend to himself that he is not. I certainly
did that to myself when I was in my twenties:
convincing me that I was in fact an alcoholic
was a very difficult process, even though when
you read my story, this may seem preposterous.
How could I conceivably not have known, quite
early on, that I was an alcoholic? It was
because people would point at so-and-so, and
say that he was an alcoholic, and I seemed to
myself to be totally different from that person,
in numerous essential ways. Therefore --
I would try to convince myself -- if he is an
alcoholic, then I am not, because I am not
the same as him.
Since alcoholism produces guilt and destroys
the alcoholic's feelings of self-worth, this
produces even greater barriers to responding
in any kind of positive way. If I had to admit
that I had become an alcoholic, then I would
feel even guiltier than I already did back
when I was in my twenties (which was overwhelm-
ingly great), and my almost totally-demolished
sense of self-worth would have been even
further destroyed. So I fought any attempt
by others to try to convince me that I had
a problem with drinking.
We must continue working to educate people
about the true nature of alcoholism. It is
not a behavior problem, and the kind of guilt
I felt about my compulsive drinking was
inappropriate. I had to do something about
it, and I had to do it before I was totally
destroyed by it. But becoming ill is not a
matter for which one should feel guilt, nor
is contracting an illness something which
should shatter one's sense of self-worth. We
do not blame sick people in a civilized society,
but help them to get well again.
And if I myself fall prey to some treatable
disease, from which I could recover by taking
appropriate steps, the intelligent response
is not to feel that I have become worthless,
but to take those steps which I must take to
bring about my recovery."
- - - -
If you want to talk about what Jellinek
believed and said, you have to ask "Jellinek
when?" because he changed his position over
a period of time. But he is most often
remembered for his 1960 book which was
entitled "The Disease Concept of Alcoholism."
And Jellinek also means his AA disciples,
like Searcy Whaley in Dallas, Texas, to whom
Bill W. sent Ebby to see if Searcy could get
him sober.
- - - -
What I'm trying to say here is, that if you
want to discuss the question of whether or not
alcoholism is properly to be regarded as a
"disease" or an "illness" or a "malady" (or
as something else entirely), this is perfectly
all right. And we can talk about our own
theories about what is "good AA" and what is
"bad AA."
But once you start talking about "what the Big
Book says" and "what early AA people believed,"
you have to go back and actually read the early
documents, and accurately report what those
folks actually said on that subject.
Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana)
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++++Message 5692. . . . . . . . . . . . the 24 Hour book and spirituality
vs. religion
From: trysh travis . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/9/2009 1:12:00 PM
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Responding to Art's comment about the impact that "the acceptance of the 24
Hour book would have had on the more mundane matter of Bill W's royalty
agreement," I agree that this was a consideration for the Conference, and I
think comparing the responses Bill (and the delegates, and the New York
office generally) had to *24 Hours* and to *The Little Red Book* is key.
From my reading of the correspondence, I'd say that in both cases, there
were concerns about whether the "spirituality" on offer in the books was
maybe a little too Christian for comfort, combined with anxieties about how
the books' popularity might cut into the revenue generated by Big Book sales
and necessary to keep the work of the GSO alive. Add to this the steady
stream of letters from people who wanted to publish their own guides to AA--
often 12-Step ideas mingled in with suggestions about diet, exercise, or the
power of positive thinking-- and you get an interlocking set of problems
that must've assumed nightmarish proportions.
What impresses me most about this history is the constant willingness to
search for a middle ground for consensus decision-making. "Live and let
live" is a lesson that a lot of big organizations today could benefit from
adopting as their motto!
Trysh T.
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++++Message 5693. . . . . . . . . . . . Early black AA members
From: azmikefitz . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/7/2009 10:53:00 PM
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--- In AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com,
"hesofine2day"
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