AA historians have recently uncovered guidance notes issued in the mid 1970s to AA circuit speakers. Here's a transcript:
How to do a one-hour pitch
- Say how nervous you are
- Call out particular people in the room who no one else knows
- Thank your host whilst insulting them and revealing personal details
- Make an off-colour joke about Al-Anon, preferably involving fishing or golf
- Invite everyone to your home group in, say, Spartanburg or Boise
- Make it seem really likely that the audience in, say, Tampa will drop by
- Go into 15 minutes of nostalgic trivia about pre-drinking childhood
- Mention specific TV programmes, brands, and other important details
- Say you enjoyed drinking because it was nice
- Tell improbable stories about how dumb and selfish you were generally
- Never tell low-key, nuanced, authentic, or instructive stories
- Talk about the consequences of drinking
- The stories cannot be pathetic enough, so really go for it
- Do not indicate how this relates to alcoholism
- Do not distinguish heavy drinking from alcoholism
- Never mention the physical craving or mental obsession
- Cry suddenly and continue to speak through the crying
- Never pause to compose yourself: press on
- Attribute survival of alcoholism to God's personal intervention
- Do not address the question of why others do die of alcoholism
- Say what you were wearing at your first meeting; make it funny
- Stress how stupid, mean, and insincere you were when new
- Tell stories about how your sponsor bullied you
- Mention the Steps once but do not relate any substantive content
- Immediately segue into sappy stories about nice things that happened
- Attribute the nice things to the programme, even if unrelated
- Tell a tale involving a coincidence and an old person who was unexpectedly wise
- Say you'd better stop because you're going over time
- Cry again, quote page 164, bless the room, stop