Every AA Ought to Know - For 2019

From: "The Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous"

Dr. Bob was essentially a far more humble person than I.

 In some ways he was a sort of spiritual natural, and this anonymity business came rather easily to him.

He could not understand why some people should want so much publicity.

In the years before he died, his personal example respecting anonymity did much to help me keep my own lid on.

 I think of one affecting instance in particular, one that every AA ought to know.

When it was sure that Dr. Bob was mortally afflicted, some of his friends suggested that there should be a suitable monument or mausoleum erected in honor of him and his wife Anne - something befitting a founder and his lady.


Of course this was a very natural and moving tribute. The committee went so far as to show him a sketch of the proposed edifice.

Telling me about this, Dr. Bob grinned broadly and said, God bless them.

They mean well.

But for heaven's sake, Bill, let's you and I get buried just like other folks.

A year after his passing, I visited the Akron cemetery where Dr. Bob and Anne lie.

The simple stone says not a word about Alcoholics Anonymous.


 Some people may think that this wonderful couple carried personal anonymity too far when they so firmly refused to use the words "Alcoholics Anonymous" even on their own burial stone.

 For one, I do not think so.

I think that this moving and final example of self-effacement will prove of more permanent worth to AA than any amount of public attention or any great monument.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pages 136-137 

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