Continuing Series: Supporting Old School A.A. in Present-Day A.A.

 

Part Three Sobriety, Recovery, and Deliverance require a SOLUTION: Four Approaches to the Solution that were tried:

1.         For theorists: “a vital religious experience”—language used by Professor William James, Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, Dr. Carl Jung, and the earliest Wilson writings themselves.

2.         For those who believed the answers were in the Bible—“the Good Book”:

a.         Believe God, confess Jesus as Lord (Hebrews 11:6; John 14:6; Rom 10:9-10), learn the truth (John 8:31-32), God’s will – Thy will be done! (1 Tim 2:4)

b.         The Book of James—the favorite:

i.          Resisting temptation;

ii.         Asking God’s guidance, without wavering;

iii.        “Doing” the Word;

iv.        Love;

v.         Royal law—“Love thy neighbor as thyself;”

vi.        Works required;

vii.       Submit to God;

viii.      Resist the Devil;

ix.        Humbly asking the Lord’s help

x.         Praying (James 5:16)

xi.        Confess faults;

xii.       Heal

c.         The Sermon on the Mount—the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.—as both Bill W. and Dr. Bob put it.

i.          Reconciliation and amends;

ii.         Forgiveness;

iii.        Love;

iv.        Thy will be done;

v.         Put God first;

vi.        Judge not, that ye be not judged;

vii.       Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

d.         1 Cor 13: the renewed mind principles of love to live by

3.         The stated path to the solution: to find or rediscover God (as it was phrased in the Multilith Edition)

a.         “Old-School”:

i.          The first three—Abstained; Asked God’s help; helped others; were cured,

ii.         The seven point “Christian technique” in Akron—DR. BOB, 131;

iii.        The 16 practices—See “Stick with the Winners”

b.         Bill’s “new version of the program”:

i.          Lack of power to overcome the problem

ii.         Must “find” God;

iii.        12 Steps to the solution—10 were Oxford Group ideas;

iv.        ABC’s;

v.         Biblical language (Creator, Maker, Heavenly Father, Thy will be done, Love thy neighbor) and helpful Christian books

4.         The agreed solution—a vital religious experience (Big Book, page 25)