A Free Pre-AA History Book

A Pre-AA History Book: A Study of Synchronic Events Between Years 1926 and 1935 which Culminated in the Birth of Alcoholics Anonymous
by Bob S
http://www.aamuncie.org/files/Pre_AA_History_Book_2011.pdf

According to the author, the purpose of this book is "to present a brief sketch of AA prehistory in hopes of attracting an interest in the exciting past of Alcoholics Anonymous."

He states his book does not attempt to delve deeply into pre-AA history, but simply provides a number of short snippets and photographs of some key figures that influenced the beginning of 
AA such as  Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob Smith, Dr. Carl Jung, Rowland Hazard, Ebby Thacher, Dr. William Silkworth, Lois Wilson, and Rev. Sam Shoemaker among others.

This free twenty-eight page online book is intentionally not available for sale. It is the author's hope that readers will print it not only for their own research but also pass it on to sponsees, Home Group, District, Area, Intergroup, local clubhouses, AA friends, and interested casual readers.

The author clearly notes that the book is of his own doing and is not endorsed by any Alcoholics Anonymous Group, District, Area or GSO or other agency of Alcoholics Anonymous.

At the same time, people in Ireland and other countries were beginning to learn about an alcoholic who became a holy man, named Matt Talbot (1856-1925), through the multiple editions of a biography written by Sir Joseph Glynn beginning in 1926 and continuing over the next two decades. Within a year of the first publication, copies were translated into fourteen languages.

While AA did not yet exist during Matt's lifetime,  a former Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Venerable Matt Talbot stated
that elements of the twelve steps can be identified in Matt's life. (Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts, 2001, pp 20-27)

A new printing of the "Life of Matt Talbot" by Sir Joseph Glynn

Sir Joseph Glynn published the first biography of Matt Talbot in 1926 a year after Matt’s death. The demand was so great that an expanded edition of Life of Matt Talbot was published in 1928 with additional editions published in subsequent decades.

While original editions of this book are periodically available for purchase online, we have previously noted that a free copy of the full text (microform) is available at http://www.archive.org/stream/MN5135ucmf_8/MN5135ucmf_8_djvu.txt as well as a slightly less complete but perhaps more readable free copy at http://www.solicitor.net/_fileupload/Matt%20Talbot%20book.pdf


For those who may prefer a paperback copy, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, an Amazon Company, has now made available a reprint of Glynn’s book at a modest cost at http://www.amazon.com/Life-Matt-Talbot-Joseph-Glynn/dp/1484809173.

Online Copy of "Life of Matt Talbot"(1928) by Sir Joseph Glynn

In June, 2011, we noted a 1928 book review of Life of Matt Talbot by Sir Joseph Glynn, which was the first biography about Matt Talbot
(http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2011/06/1928-book-review-of-life-of-matt-talbot_1566.html).

While copies of this long our-of-print 1928 edition occasionally appear for sale, the only free edition available online at that time was the 1942 edition
(http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2008/04/life-of-matt-talbot-biography-online.html).

With great appreciation to the Glynn family (and their solicitor), a transcript of the original publication is now available free online at

(http://www.solicitor.net/_fileupload/Matt%20Talbot%20book.pdf) or
(http://www.solicitor.net/legal-news/matt-talbot.608.html).

The chains that bound a free man

by Patrick Montague

http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/21st-august-1981/9/the-chains-that-bound-a-free-man

THE CULT of Matt Talbot began in the mortuary of Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin, when the chains on his body were discovered.

He had been picked up unconscious in a Dublin street. and died without regaining consciousness. The interest in him spread like a forest fire all over the country and throughout the world.

Not the least of the reasons for this was his very obscurity and the difficulty in piecing -together any relevant facts even about his identity.

Sir Joseph Glynn succeeded in putting together a biography of this obscure Dubliner. and within less than two years it was circulating in more than a dozen languages.

The enormous interest in Matt Talbot has never been fully explained. While his extraordinary personal sanctity seems beyond question. it is also a fact that from the moment of his death he was headline news. Few Irishmen have caught the imagination of his people to the same extent nor indeed the attention of the world at large.

All this is at least partly due to the circumstances of his death. It happens also that his much publicised escape from alcoholism coincided with growing modern concern about this social problem.

His lowly social status made him something of a symbol of the ordinary people in the poor areas of Dublin.

His life was dreary. his education was almost nil. his material prospects negligible. He seemed destined to die in the same obscurity had the accident of his death. in hospital not revealed the chains round his body.

Inevitably curiosity was aroused and his very obscurity increased the widespread interest. His cult was immediate and has grown to proportions seldom equaled, considering that there are people still alive who can recall the excitement caused by his death.

His intercession is frequently invoked and his devoted followers have long considered devotion to him as the surest route to divine favour.

At the age of 28 he suddenly altered his entire lifestyle. Instead of spending all the time he could in public houses, he made God the centre of all his thoughts.

He introduced extraordinary austerities into his Ilk to keep his mind constantly on the spiritual lite. The chains on his body were one thing.. The wooden planks and wooden pillow on his bed were others.

He prayed from 2 am till 4 am and was waiting daily outside church for the Mass at 6 am.

One of those who was able to recall this strange ascetic figure at this early Mass was an altar boy who later testified to his sanctity. This was Sean T. O'Kelly, President of Ireland.

Matt Talbot's sanctity was intensely personal. He did not attempt to influence others directly. He did not in any way exhibit his devotion.

Indeed he kept it to himself so successfully that even now no one knows just when he began his privations. He shared his life entirely with Almighty God.

Even those with whom he worked knew nothing of his intense spirituality beyond the fact that he remonstrated with them at any sign of irreverence in their talk or behaviour.

Intense asceticism was a well-known feature of Irish life in the early centuries of Christianity. Most Irishmen would say it was a passing phase consistent with the times.

Matt Talbot showed that this was not the case. He was the modern example of the ancient monks of Ireland. He showed that this kind of example is as relevant today as it was fourteen and fifteen centuries ago.

The intense interest he has aroused has shown that many people in the world can be deeply impressed and affected by such personal example.

The canonisation of Matt Talbot is confidently expected at all levels of society. If and when it comes about, he is already elected by devoted followers to be the hope and inspiration of all problem drinkers whose desperate need for such hope and inspiration exceeds that of most other sections of mankind.

Note:  Additional articles about Matt Talbot from this archive can be found at http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/search?term=Matt+Talbot&page=1&keyword=Matt+Talbot

1928 book review of "Life of Matt Talbot"

[The person most responsible for making Matt Talbot well
known in Dublin and all of Ireland shortly after Matt’s death
in 1925 was Sir Joseph A. Glynn. Background information 
about how Sir Glynn came to write the first bibliography of 
Matt Talbot and its subsequentsuccess can be found at http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2008/04/life-of-matt-talbot-biography-online.html, which also includes a link to reading the 1942 edition of his book online.]

.

LIFE OF MATT TALBOT. By Sir Joseph A. Glynn. Dublin:

Catholic Truth Society of Ireland. 1928.

Book Review by: John Howley.

Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 17, No. 66 (Jun., 1928), pp. 317-319.

When Matt Talbot died in 1925 his name was known to very few:

a few friends, a few comrades knew and esteemed him as an

excellent Christian and a model worker, a good man in every

sense of the word. Still fewer knew of his life of ceaseless prayer,

his heroic penances, his magnanimity, his poverty joined to

magnificent generosity, his life as a modern Cali De. Now,

three years after his death, this Dublin worker is known to the

pamphlet written for the Irish Catholic Truth Society by Sir Joseph

A. Glynn.' Should the present volume prove as good "a best

seller " as his pamphlet, and in my opinion it will deserve to,

Sir Joseph will have well merited . of his native land. Her true

glory lies in heroic souls like Matt Talbot: the man of God and

not the man of blood should be the theme for the Irish bard, the

perdurable glory of the land that was known as the Insula

Sanctorum.

This is quite a small volume, barely 116 pages, but full of

meat. A live man looks out at us from its pages. Sir Joseph

has fashioned no plaster image daubed and gilded with pietose

rhetoric; he has steered his course safely between the Scylla of

"swaddle " and the Charybdis of humanism, we see the super

natural in a vivid and objective presentation of the natural. The

author keeps himself in the background, he narrates facts but

he suggests rather than expresses comments. He gives his reader

a chance to make his own reflections, he does not furnish him

with a ready-made meditation. As Matt Talbot lived a singularly

hidden life, uneventful and undramatic from a worldly point

of view, the temptation to embroider and pad out the slender

narrative with edifying considerations must have been very

severe. By the narrative of fact, rather than by comment,

the author drives in on the reader's mind that sense of awe

which flows from any real apprehension of holiness in a fellow

creature.

Sanctity is the shadow of .God on earth, the participation of

His creature in the most ineffable and terrible of His attributes.

Sanctum et terribile nomen ejus. When we dimly realise what the

word " holy" means and feel in our hearts that it is a silly abuse

of language to say "a very holy man " when we only mean "a

good pious Christian," we are then capable of that sense of awe

and reverence which this sacred epithet should inspire when we

see or suspect its appropriateness in the lives of God's servants.

Holy Church alone can infallibly declare the holiness of any

servant of God, but we are not forbidden to suspect its appro-

priateness in the case of Matt Talbot and to look forward with

hope to the judgment of the Holy See.

Chapter IV of this little book is a remarkable piece of work,

a fine Judicial and judicious, account of the labour troubles

between 1911 and 1914. It is interesting to note that while

Matt Talbot in that crisis was fully on the Labour side, he took

no part in the later politics of the " troubled times." Sir Joseph

Glynn tells us that he "made enquiries from Matt Talbot's most

intimate friends, including two sisters, a brother-in-law, and

fellow-workers, all of whom agreed that Matt Talbot took no

interest whatever in politics; that he was never known to vote

at an election ; and never discussed political events......

During the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921 he never was drawn

into discussions on the subject. If anyone asked him had he

heard of such and such a matter, he replied that he had not, as

he did not read newspapers nor look at the placards.

During the later troubles, when, alas, our own people fought one

another, he was equally reticent, and carefully avoided expressing

any opinion on the merits of the dispute which occasioned the

fighting. His friends were most emphatic in their denial of his

having ever done more than express his sorrow at seeing Irishmen

fighting amongst themselves." These passages are very illumi-

nating as revealing Matt Talbot's outward reaction to public

events of a political character. Was he as inwardly indifferent

as he seemed to his comrades Talk or action on his part was

useless and he knew it and was silent before men. But was he

silent before God How came it about that the English Government

gave way when the insurgents were all but crushed Events

govern nations, but the saints pull the strings that govern events.

Matt Talbot did "not read newspapers nor look at the

placards." This is a little touch of Sir Joseph's which enables us

to reconstruct the man. To pass through Dublin in those

troubled times and not glance at the posters! For an Irishman

to reject news! And such news It seems to me that such

voluntary indifference to what at that moment was most humanly

interesting marks the mystic union with God even more than the

traits scattered all over Chapters V and VI which deal expressly

with Matt Talbot's prayers and inner life. These two Chapters

show us the man of prayer and the man of penance. The author's

industry in collecting all possible information as to the details

of Matt Talbot's prayers and pious practices is beyond all praise.

Directly we know very little of Matt Talbot's interior life, but

his various outward practices, his fondness for the cross-vigil,

for motionless erect kneeling, etc., all point to an intense

concentration in prayer, often prolonged for hours. We have all

the outward signs of a sublime mystical union.

Matt Talbot was first and foremost a man of prayer. His

penances are the features that will most attract public attention

in this self-indulgent age, but it would be a grave error to look

on him as a mere ascetic. Leuba and Co. will regard him as an

Irish fakir, a mere degenerate; but we know he was healthy in

mind and body, the healthier because he brought body into

subjection to mind, that both .might be in subjection to God.

He helps us to understand the old Irish Saints and their constant

prayers and penance, for he reproduced their life in these days

when no one will bear the least avoidable pain or suffer the
smallest discomfort.

To write the life of a servant of God is a difficult thing to do

well, but Sir Joseph Glynn has succeeded in this. Let us hope

that before long it will bulk large in the Postulator's dossier.

The Alcoholic Who Became a Saint

Venerable Matt Talbot

By: Ann Bottenhorn

June 2011

Source: http://wau.org/resources/article/re_the_alcoholic_who_became_a_saint/

Nothing ever happened to Matt Talbot, an ordinary Irish laborer of no great learning, no riches, no remarkable accomplishments.

He lived in poverty and died, alone and unrecognized on a cold cobblestone lane, in Dublin. He left no family, no followers, no written discourses.

Scarcely anyone knew a thing about him. Yet within six months of his death, a brief biography sold 120,000 copies. Within a year, it had been published in twelve languages. Five years after that, the Catholic Church began investigating Matt Talbot’s life to determine if he warranted consideration for sainthood. A short fifty years after his death, the Church bestowed on him the title, “Venerable,” finding him fit to be commended as a “hero” whose virtues are worthy to be imitated.

No, nothing ever happened to Matt Talbot, but as one biographer noted, “he happened to those about him, as light happens to a dark room.”

Living to Drink. Darkness abounded during Matt’s lifetime. Ireland’s great famine of the 1840s had driven many countryfolk into the city, seeking food and employment. England had garrisoned troops in Dublin, and shortly after Matt was born in 1856, soldiers began returning from the Crimean War. The city teemed with people who were out of work, out of money, and out of hope.

Matt was the second of twelve children born to Charles and Elizabeth Talbot. The family lived on the verge of poverty, for although Charles Talbot worked regularly, he spent most of his wages at the local pub. Eventually Matt and seven of his brothers followed in Charles’ footsteps, drinking their way through life.

After spending just one year in school, Matt went to work at the age of twelve. He started as a messenger for a wine merchant and soon began sampling the products. Before long, he was living to drink. Neither thrashings from his father nor a change of jobs—he became an unskilled laborer for a bricklayer—deterred Matt. Over the next sixteen years, he spent nearly all of his earnings on alcohol.

By nature generous, Matt sometimes paid for his friends’ drinks when they had no money. When he had none, he pawned or sold what he could—right down to his own shoes once—so that he could continue drinking. Thus one Saturday, when twenty-eight-year-old Matt had been out of work for a week, he stood outside his neighborhood pub, broke but optimistic. Surely one of his friends would buy him a drink. Hadn’t he done so for them?

But curt nods and cold shoulders were all that Matt’s friends gave him. Eventually, he returned home, dejected and sober, and announced that he was taking “the pledge”—a euphemism for making a solemn promise not to drink. That evening he met with a priest, made his promise, and went to Confession for the first time in years. And from that day, the grace of God, which Matt hadn’t even thought to ask for yet, began manifesting its work in Matt.

“Don’t Let Me Go Back.” Now he faced an enormous dilemma. Matt had promised, for three months only, not to drink. His family drank. His friends drank. He spent his non-working hours drinking. How was he to avoid the alcohol his body craved, that his mind assured him he could never do without?

He took refuge in the only place his drinking buddies wouldn’t come looking for him: church. Matt began to attend Mass daily, before work, and to spend evenings kneeling in a shadowy corner of a neighborhood church —a neighborhood far from where he lived.

There, he made new friends—Jesus, Mary, and the saints—and cultivated new tastes—for solitude, prayer, and the presence of God. It didn’t come easily, and time and again Matt returned home convinced that he would never stick with sobriety. Back in church the next day, he’d beg God, “Please, don’t let me go back to my old ways. Have mercy on me.”

Years later, Matt told his sister that the first three months were the hardest, declaring that it’s easier to raise someone from the dead than to stop drinking. To help himself, Matt stuck two pins, crossed, in the sleeve of his coat, where he would see them often. They were to remind him to pray and to remind him that Jesus had suffered and died on the cross for him.

Matt was practical about adopting a new life. He established a schedule of Mass and prayer that left no time for visiting pubs. He never carried money in his pockets, lest he be tempted to stop in while walking to or from work. He joined the Franciscan Third Order and numerous sodalities. He spent Saturday afternoons and evenings, and all day Sunday, in church with his “new friends.”

Drunk with the Spirit. Gradually, a new thirst began to replace the old one: a thirst for more of God’s life and love. And God didn’t let him down. The love of Christ began to overwhelm Matt’s indulgence and intemperance. Matt wanted only to become like Christ, so he started fasting, sleeping less and praying more, and giving money to the missions and local poor families.

He read Scripture, lives of saints, and—considering his meager schooling—an astounding assortment of books: The Confessions of St. Augustine; writings of St. Francis de Sales, Teresa of Avila, and John Cardinal Newman; papal encyclicals, world history, and social policy. Word by word, he deciphered what they said. What he couldn’t understand, Matt laboriously copied onto a scrap of paper and handed it to a sometimes astonished priest for explanation the next time he went to Confession.

Prayer, reading, and atonement grew into a way of life that Matt managed to keep hidden. Meanwhile, those around him began to notice his humility, generosity, and self-control. His fellow laborers learned that Matt didn’t abide cursing or lewd stories, so they stopped. His employer suspected that Matt was giving away most of his earnings, but no one guessed the intensity with which he was living this new life. He was inebriated now by the Holy Spirit, “drunk,” as one writer put it, “only with the mercy and the wisdom and the power and the love of God.”

For the last two years of his life, Matt suffered from heart disease. Strict fasting, limited sleep, and hard physical labor had worn him out. On June 7, 1925, he collapsed on the way to Mass. No one recognized the frail little man who died in Granby Lane. He carried no money or identification, just a few odd scraps of paper in his pockets. Curiously, two pins, blackened with age, were pinned to his sleeve in a cross. Four days later, the body of Matt Talbot was identified. The books in his bare tenement room were discovered, along with many scraps of paper on which he had written. On one of those scraps was written the following prayer: “O Virgin, I ask only three things: the grace of God, the presence of God, and the benediction of God.” Among many others, this prayer was surely answered.

Matt Talbot believed God absolutely. He emptied his heart and life of all that encumbered him and waited for the Lord to fill him to overflowing. He remained sober for forty-one years and, in a quiet, unobtrusive way, shed light in the darkness around him. He stands now as a hero for all who struggle with addiction, and a model for all who desire, in the words of Pope Pius XII, “the greatness of Christianity lived in all its fullness.”

*Note: For those unfamiliar with Matt Talbot, he is not officially canonized as a “saint” by the Roman Catholic Church; he is currently recognized as “Venerable.” (See Beatification, Canonization, and Sainthood) The 76th anniversity of Matt’s death was Tuesday, June 7. The brief bibliography referred to in the above article was written by Sir Joseph Glynn and expanded in later editions. (See "The Life of Matt Talbot" by Sir Joseph Glynn )

2012 International Eucharistic Congress

Earlier this week as the 49th International Eucharistic Congress was ending in Quebec City, Canada, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the 50th International Eucharistic Congress would be held in the city of Dublin, Ireland, in 2012. This is the second time that Dublin will host the congress; the Irish hosted the 31st congress in 1932. (http://www.zenit.org/article-22985?l=english)

Just prior to the first congress held in Dublin in 1932, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev. E. J.Byrne, D.D., had initiated the Cause for the Beatification of Matt Talbot in November, 1931. Attending this congress was Jean Cardinal Verdier (1864-1940), Archbishop of Paris, who knew of Matt Talbot. During his visit to Dublin, Cardinal Verdier "...knelt and prayed in the room in No. 18 Upper Rutland Street where Matt Talbot had kept vigil with Jesus down many years and, deeply moved by his experiences, had kissed the floor..." (Glynn, 1942)) Cardinal Verdier's concern about alcoholism was apparent early in his tenure as Archbishop when he ordered all French priests to conduct an extensive survey into any alcoholism existing in their parishes. (Time Magazine, July 14, 1930)

Although the theme for the 2012 IEC in Dublin has not been set at this time, it would seem appropriate that Venerable Matt Talbot might be officially or unofficially noted in some way since Eucharistic adoration was especially important to Matt. Even during the times he was hospitalized for heart disease prior to his death, Matt spent much time in Eucharistic adoration in the hospital chapel. In addition, Matt had noted on more than one occasion that he found it difficult for anyone to be lonely, especially when one could spend time before the Blessed Sacrament.

References:

Glynn, Sir Joseph A. Life of Matt Talbot. The full text is available online at

http://www.archive.org/stream/MN5135ucmf_8/MN5135ucmf_8_djvu.txt

Time Magazine. "Cocktails, Confidence, Aberration.," July 14, 1930, found at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,739775,00.html

and in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Cardinal_Verdier

"Life of Matt Talbot" (1942 Ed.) by Sir Joseph Glynn

The person most responsible for making Matt Talbot well known in Dublin and all of Ireland shortly after Matt's death in 1925 was Sir Joseph A. Glynn.

A friend of Glynn's, who knew Matt for 25 years, suggested that Glynn write a short sketch of Matt's holy life for his fellow Dublin workers, although Glynn had not previously heard of Matt Talbot. Within months Glynn wrote a twenty page pamphlet titled, "Life of Matt Talbot, a Dublin Labourer," which was published in 1926 by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland and sold 10,000 copies within four days. Another edition was published in 1927 which sold 120,000 copies within a few months. In 1928 the first edition presumably in hardback with the title, Life of Matt Talbot, was published and subsequent editions have been published, including this 1942 edition that is available online at the link below. (These books have long been out-of-print but do periodically appear for sale at amazon.com and eBay at a reasonable price.)

Being the first biographer of Matt's life so soon after his death, Glynn had the opportunity to interview many who knew and worked with Matt. Later biographers regularly used Glynn's editions for their own biographies. Mary Purcell's biographies, which were first published in 1954 and benefited from interviews at the two official Enquiries about Matt Talbot's holiness which opened in 1931 and again in 1948, are the most definitive and result in some different conclusions about Matt than does Glynn. Therefore, the serious student of Matt Talbot might begin by reading Glynn's 1942 edition followed by Mary Purcell's Matt Talbot and His Times (1977, American Edition) and her Remembering Matt Talbot (1990).

Glynn's Life of Matt Talbot is provided online courtesy of the University of Chicago and the Open Library website established by The Internet Archive.

Either click the homepage at http://www.archive.org/details/MN5135ucmf_8 and then click the flashing text to view the book to the left of your screen or go directly to http://www.openlibrary.org/details/MN5135ucmf_8 to begin reading. Click the right page to turn the pages forward or click the left page for previous pages.