The International Christian Recovery Coalition
Impaired No More Project
Dick B.
Copyright 2011
Anonymous. All rights reserved
Focus Clip Two: “Just Before Bill W. Got
Sober”
Decisions for Jesus Christ-- “The Rest
of the Story”
1.
Often, the stories regarding Bill W. begin with the
escalation of his
drinking problem. Then they turn abruptly to the
dramatic story of Ebby
Thacher’s visit to Bill and what Bill did after that. But
there is a major
hole in the story. It doesn’t even hint at what we now
know happened
with Bill and Jesus Christ shortly before Bill got
sober at Towns Hospital.
2.
And the impact of Bill’s story can only be small, only
very limited,
unless and until the reader also learns and
understands how God’s role in
recovery fit into the Christian background that so
heavily influenced Bill and
our Society.
3.
That’s “the rest of the story.” That is what will be
told here.
4.
The story
really begins with Rowland Hazard. He’s
the American
businessman of whom Bill wrote (Big Book, p. 26). He it was who began the
powerful rescue operations helping drunks that became
the A.A. of today.
a)
Rowland Hazard treated with the renowned psychiatrist,
Dr. Carl
Jung in Switzerland, in order to be freed and released
from his alcoholism. At
length, Dr. Jung told Rowland that he could not help
him. Rowland, he said,
had “the mind of a chronic alcoholic,” (Big Book,
p. 27). He did suggest,
however, that Rowland might receive help through a
“vital spiritual
experience” (Big Book, p. 27). Many years later, in correspondence
with Dr. Jung years, Bill identified this solution experience
as “a
spiritual or religious experience—in short, a genuine
conversion.” Bill also
called the cure a “conversion experience.” (“Pass
it On” pp. 382-83). At that
time, in responding to Bill, Dr. Jung used the Latin
word “spiritus” and
described the cure as “the highest religious
experience.” (“Pass It On” p. 384).
b)
Rowland then associated himself with the Oxford
Group. But what
has little, if ever, been noticed or discussed is the
fact that Rowland Hazard
also made a decision for Jesus Christ. (A.A.
Spiritual History Workshop, Jay
Stinnett, Reykjavik, Iceland, March 11, 2007, slide 52:)
“1932 New York. Rowland returns and joins the Calvary
Church, studies
[with] Rev. Sam Shoemaker, and gives his life to
Christ. His obsession to
drink is removed.”
c)
Such surrenders were not uncommon among Oxford Groupers.
In
fact, Rowland’s mentor Rev. Sam Shoemaker frequently
led people to Jesus
Christ at the first opportunity (New Light on
Alcoholism, p. 474
“Conversion”). In processionals from Shoemaker’s
church to Madison
Square, Sam in full religious vestment led the group
which carried the sign
“Jesus Christ changes lives.” (New Light on
Alcoholism, p. 471.) Even in the
Midwest, it was Shoemaker who, in 1933, led the
alcoholic Russell Firestone to
Jesus Christ in a train compartment, facilitating
Russell’s immediate,
miraculous relief from alcoholism for a time (The
Akron Genesis of Alcoholics
Anonymous, pp. 33-34.). An event
which marked the beginning of the whole
Akron chain of events that led to the founding of A.A.
in Akron in 1935.
(The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, pp.
27-36.)
d)
Rowland Hazard himself made his decision for Jesus
Christ
in the backdrop of Shoemaker’s Calvary Church in New
York. He became
much involved with Sam Shoemaker’s Calvary Church. He was a vestryman.
He was a member of Shoemaker’s Oxford Group businessman’s
team, and he
was personally mentioned by name in the Shoemaker’s
personal journals—
photo copies of which we examined at the home of
Shoemaker’s daughter,
Nickie Shoemaker Haggart. (New Light on Alcoholism,
pp. 537, 539, 558-59.)
e)
We have discovered nothing to date that can answer the
question
when, where, or even whether, Rowland was led to Jesus
Christ by
Shoemaker himself.
But Rowland made a decision for Jesus Christ
and was relieved of his alcoholism—just as Dr. Jung
said might happen.
5.
Rowland and two Oxford Group friends (Cebra Graves and Shep
Cornell) rescued Ebby Thacher from incarceration for
alcoholism. Then
they coached him.
a)
Ebby said: They
“told me that they had run into the Oxford Group
and had gotten some pretty sensible things out of it
based on the life of
Christ, Biblical times. . . I was much impressed
because it was what I had been
taught as a child and what I inwardly believed but had
laid aside. . . .
Rowland. . . had had a thorough indoctrination (in
Oxford Group teachings). .
. . He passed as much of this on to me as he could. .
. he made me believe in
them again as I had as a young man.” (“Pass It On, 113-14).
b)
Evidence tends to establish that Rowland told Ebby
much of
the entire Carl Jung encounter (My First 40 Years,
130-31).
c)
Next, the Oxford Group men lodged Ebby in Calvary
Mission – run
by Shoemaker’s
church. And there Ebby made his decision for Jesus Christ
(T. Willard Hunter, “It Started Right There,”
p. 6).
d)
In fact, at Stepping Stones archives in the home of
Bill and Lois
Wilson, I [Dick B.] found a manuscript titled “Bill
Wilson’s Original
Story.” Every line was numbered. The numbers ran from
1 to 1180. . . .
In that manuscript, Bill began by describing Ebby’s
first visit and Bill’s
impression of him: “The man was transformed; there was
no denying he had
been reborn.” (Dick B., Turning Point, 99-100).
6.
As to what transpired at Calvary Mission services and altar
calls, Bill
Wilson himself elaborated on the services where, at
the altar in Calvary
Mission, one made his decision for Jesus Christ (My
First 40 Years, 136-37).
And Mrs. Samuel Shoemaker herself related to me [Dick
B.] on the telephone
that she was present and witnessed Bill’s own decision
for Jesus Christ there.
7.
What has only recently been revealed by the biography
of William D.
Silkworth, Bill’s psychiatrist at Towns Hospital (“A devout Christian [who]
attended . . . the Calvary Christian [Episcopal]
Church, pp. 11-12) is
Silkworth’s advice to Bill Wilson about Jesus Christ.
a)
Silkworth’s emphasized the healing of alcoholics
through the power
of Jesus Christ (Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who
Loved Drunks, pp. 49-52 ):
“. . . it was Dr. Silkworth who used the term “The
Great Physician” to explain
the need in recovery for a relationship with Jesus
Christ. . . . In the formation
of AA, Wilson initially insisted on references to God
and Jesus, as well as the
Great Physician.”
b)
Bill was not the only one to whom Silkworth (the
devout Christian) had
recommended the healing of alcoholism by the “Great Physician”
Jesus
Christ. See the lengthy and explicit account in Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s
The Positive Power of Jesus Christ, pp. 60-62.
8.
Specifically as to Bill, the Silkworth biography
explains that on Bill
Wilson’s third visit to Towns Hospital, Silkworth had
told Wilson he might
simply be hopeless, that Bill had a serious sickness,
and that Bill might be a
“lost cause.” (Silkworth 45-46). Bill was, said
Silkworth, showing some signs
of brain damage, and that he might have to “confine
him, lock him up
somewhere if he would remain sane or even alive. He
can’t go on this way
another year, possibly.” “This was my sentence,” said
Bill. (My First 40 Years,
116-17.)
a)
However, Silkworth also told Bill that Jesus Christ,
(The Great
Physician), could cure him. (Silkworth, pp. 44-51).
b)
And this was a prognosis—a powerful solution—whose
efficacy Bill
confirmed later when he wrote (Big Book at page 191):
c)
“Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me
curing me of this
terrible disease that I just want to keep talking
about it and telling people.”
9.
After Bill had heard from Silkworth that he could be
cured by the
Great Physician, it was Ebby himself who proved the
point to Bill. For then,
Ebby visited Bill “fresh-skinned and glowing,” and
sober. Bill quizzed him as
to what had happened. Bill quoted himself as follows:
“Come, what’s this all
about? I queried. He looked straight at me. Simply,
but smilingly, he said,
“I’ve got religion.” (Big Book, p. 9) [This was
an Oxford Group expression
referring to having been changed by Jesus Christ
through “conversion.”]
a)
Ebby told Bill the details about Rowland Hazard, the
Oxford Group
men, their comments, and their emphasis on God and
prayer. (Mel B., Ebby,
pp. 6, 49-51, 64, 66).
b)
And Ebby told Bill that God had done for him what he
could not do for
himself—a phrase that became embedded in Bill’s own
Big Book language,
pp. 11, 84).
c)
Bill could not get Ebby’s rebirth and healing out of
his mind (My First
40 Years, 134-35).
d)
But then Bill decided that what had happened to Ebby
at Calvary
Mission could possibly help him (My First 40 Years,
136). And off
Bill went to the Calvary Mission and the altar.
________________________________________________________________
Our third focus clip will be on “The Conversion of
Bill W. and Bill’s
subsequent “conversion
experience” at Towns Hospital. See Dick B., The
Conversion of Bill W.
www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml.
Gunnar MaxeGunnar Maxe
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