Dick
B. Discusses What He Has Found over the Course of His 24 Years of Research
on
the July 26, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick
B." show
on
You
Can Hear This Radio Show Right Now
______________________________________________________________
You may hear Dick B. discuss
some of the things he has found during his 24 years of research on A.A. history
and the Christian Recovery Movement here:
or here:
Episodes of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show are archived at:
Introduction
At the
outset, I want to thank the many A.A. friends and Christian leaders and workers
who joined my son Ken and his wife and me in praying for the success of what in
fact resulted in the success of my recent surgery at Tripler Army Medical
Center in Honolulu. Thanks to you all. Dick B.
________________________
Today's radio show will give you a
large number of historical snippets that author Dick B. has unearthed and
published on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and on the Christian Recovery
Movement.
It will serve
several purposes. First, my son Ken and I are preparing for the series of three
conferences to take place in September and October of this year. All are
centered around what I've found, and how A.A. leaders and writers are using it
and improving on it. The topics will be covered either in my own story or
in chunks of substantial importance or in the subjects shared by participants
in the conferences. Second, we have devoted 24 years to researching,
publishing, and widely distributing to 12 Step people, to Christians,
and to others in the recovery community the Christian origins and original
program of A.A. to the end that these resources can be learned and applied in
today's recovery scene--beginning with A.A. General Service Conference-approved
literature as a guide. Third, we want our materials to be seen and digested in
small chunks of discoveries--chunks that will more likely be remembered as such
but also applied to the whole recovery scene. The last major
objective is to follow the suggestion of a Christian A.A. leader and speaker
who is preparing a Big Book sponsor's guide covering the Big Book in
detail and showing its relationship to Christianity. But he wanted us to enable
him to append a "Where Dick B. Found It" segment that would use
bite-by-bite, footnoted, references to actual facts embodied in the A.A., 12
Step, and Big Book story. And in this show, we will tell you part of the large
number of A.A. history bites you can find in my own 29-volume A.A. history
reference set; and, of course, in the history we have unearthed.
__________________________________________________________________
Synopsis of Dick B.’s Talk
Look
What Dick B. Found
By Dick
B.
Author
of The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.’s
Roots in the Bible
© 2013
Anonymous. All rights reserved
What the
“Forever Books” Are
What are the “Forever Books” about Alcoholics Anonymous?
They are those in the 29 volume Alcoholics Anonymous History Reference set by
Dick B. Those that give the 12-Step follower (including a speaker, sponsor,
newcomer, historian, recovery leader, clergyman, physician, therapist, or
writer) an accurate, truthful, comprehensive, cohesive account of the many
varieties of programs A.A. has had; the varied roots A.A. has had; the
conflicting ideas about A.A. language and texts; and how to meld and utilize
them today. And much, much more.
How
the “Forever Books” Enable You
to
Study a Complete History of A.A. One Bite at a Time
Today, however, the alcoholic who still suffers, and those
trying to help him, can study and digest the contents of the Dick B. 29 volume
Alcoholics Anonymous History set at the bargain price of $249.00. And they can
own the complete history and many little-known but preciously valuable facts
that can tell readers “precisely how to recover” as the successful AAs did.
The
Importance of Acquiring This Set for Yourself, Your Group, Your Meeting, and
Your Fellowship or Facility
After many travels, vast reading, personal interviews, talks
at conferences, and research, I have come to know thousands of Christians,
believers in God, students of the Bible, and alcoholic AAs who are hungry to
remain in A.A. To tell others the golden text of A.A. To pass along the vitally
gathered history of where A.A. came from, where it acquired its ideas and
program, how the program has many different approaches and has changed with the
years, and how the history can be applied to enhance 12 Step fellowship
prospects today and eradicate some grossly absurd or dangerous ideas that have
sprung from sources outside A.A. or nonsensical “wisdom of the rooms.”
What’s
missing today? Now look at What Dick B. Found about A.A.?
(1) An understanding of the fact and
details that A.A. had Christian origins applicable today.
(2) A knowledge of the basic ideas from
the Bible that formed the foundation for the
early Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship program and Bill W.’s new version
in the 12 Steps.
(3) A knowledge of how Bill Wilson’s
grandfather Wilson had a mountaintop religious
experience, was saved, and was cured of alcoholism for the
remaining 8 years of his life.
(4) A knowledge that both Rowland Hazard
and Ebby Thacher were converted to God
through accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—two men that had much
to do with the Oxford Group ideas Bill later codified in the 12 Steps.
(5) A knowledge that Dr. William D. Silkworth
told his patient Bill W. that the “Great Physician” Jesus Christ could cure him
of his alcoholism.
(6) A knowledge that Bill Wilson soon thereafter
went to the altar at Calvary Mission in New York and accepted Jesus Christ as
his Lord and Savior—as confirmed by 4 people.
(7) A knowledge that Bill wrote in his
own autobiography: “For sure, I’d been born again.”
(8) A knowledge of the “golden text of
A.A.” which Bill wrote in what is now the 4th edition of Alcoholics Anonymous:
“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) An
understanding that, when Bill had his vital religious experience in his
Towns Hospital room, he saw a blazing, indescribably white light fill his room;
sensed the presence of Spirit; thought: “Bill, you are a free man. This is the
God of the Scriptures;” stopped doubting God; and never drank again.
(10) A knowledge
of the prayer meeting in Akron prior to the meeting of Bob and Bill and prior
to the founding of A.A. in June, 1935, where Dr. Bob and his friends dropped to
their knees and prayed for his deliverance from alcoholism.
(11) A knowledge
that Dr. Bob (after he met Bill in Akron and after Bill moved in with Dr. Bob
and his family in the summer of 1935) had heard Bill say he was cured of
alcoholism, and (after his own last drink) himself said that he had been cured
of alcoholism, and then ended his personal story in the Big Book: “Your
Heavenly Father will never let you down!”
(12) A knowledge
of how, immediately upon his discharge from Towns Hospital, Bill ran around
feverishly to the Bowery, flea bag hotels, Bellevue Hospital, Towns Hospital,
Oxford Group meetings, and drunks in the street; and that Bill had a Bible
under his arm, telling every drunk he could find that he must give his life to
God—with Bill’s then relating his own story.
(13) The growing
proof that Bill’s friend Ebby Thacher never said to Bill: “choose your own
conception of God” and that this alleged language was written by an
unidentified hand and inserted in the typed Big Book printer’s manuscript just
before the Big Book went to press.
(14) A knowledge
that Bill, his wife Lois,, and others were constantly going to Oxford Group
meetings immediately after Bill was discharged from Towns Hospital in December,
1934; that Bill participated in a Calvary Church processional led by Rev.
Shoemaker—with a member carrying a sign “Jesus Christ changes lives—and went to
Madison Square, got on a soap box, and witnessed to others.
(15) Knowing that
it was Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, Jr., who urged Bill—even when Bill was, at first,
getting nobody sober—to work with drunks, witness, and continue to do so. Just
as Bill then did when he went to Akron and relentlessly sought a drunk to help
there.
(16) A knowledge
of the real origins of the “Four Absolutes” in the writings of professors
Robert E. Speer and Henry B. Wright.
(17) A knowledge
of the biblical origins of A.A. expressions like First Things First, Easy Does
It, One Day at a Time, and But for the Grace of God.
(18) A knowledge
of the critical necessity and importance of hospitalization for early AAs.
(19) A knowledge
of the influence of the Oxford Group’s 5 C’s (Confidence, Confession,
Conviction, Conversion, and Continuance) on A.A.’s 12 Step content.
(20) The wide
participation in and observance of (by varied pre-A.A. Christians) of “Quiet
Time,” “Quiet Hour,” “Morning Watch,” and devotionals like The Runner’s Bible,
Upper Room, My Utmost for His Highest among A.A.’s sources; how those
meditation practices and tools found their way into the original Akron A.A.
Christian Fellowship program, and then into the Eleventh Step of Bill’s new
version of the program in the 1939 Steps.
(21) A knowledge
of the content and purpose of regarding as “absolutely essential” the Book of
James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13
(22) An
understanding and knowledge of how much the Christian upbringing of Bill and
Bob influenced the original Akron A.A. program as well as Bill’s “new version”
embodied in the Twelve Steps.
(23) An
understanding of exactly how and why the first three AAs got sober.
(24) An
understanding of the whole panoply of
pre-A.A. influences in Vermont—influences of Ebby Thacher, Rowland
Hazard, F. Shepard Cornell, Cebra Graves, Cebra’s father Judge Graves, Rev.
Sidney K. Perkins, Bertha Bamford and her family, Mark Whalon, the Griffith
family, the Wilson family, even the Burnham family of Lois Wilson.
(25) A
realization that A.A. ultimately adopted effective principles and practices
that were used and typical long before A.A. in: (a) the Young Men’s Christian
Association, (b) the Gospel Rescue Missions; (c) the “Great Awakening of 1875”
in St. Johnsbury, Vermont; (d) Congregationalism; (e) the great evangelists like
Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, Francis Clark, Allen Folger, F. B. Meyer, Amos
Wells and Henry Drummond; the United Christian Endeavor Society; and later the
Oxford Group itself
(26) A knowledge
of the Christian training, biblical studies, sermons, Scripture reading, hymns,
church services, and prayer meetings that Dr. Bob and later Bill W. attended or
participated in.
(27) A knowledge
that the Academies (St. Johnsbury for Dr. Bob; Burr and Burton Seminary for
Bill; and Norwich University for Bill) had daily chapel; that this included
sermons, reading of Scripture, prayers, and hymns; that all students were
required to attend church (usually a Congregational one), and a Bible study; that Bill W. took a four
year Bible study course at Burr and Burton Seminary; that Dr. Bob and his
family were much involved in the Young Men’s Christian Association, that Bill
was president of the Burr and Burton YMCA, and his girl-friend Bertha was
president of the YWCA there.
(28) Learning the
original Akron A.A. Christian fellowship Group Number One program,
summarized in 7 points, and printed on page 131 of DR. BOB and the Good
Oldtimers.
(29) The sixteen
practices of the Akron A.A. pioneers that implemented the 7 point program; and
are laid out in “Stick with the Winners” by Dick B. and Ken B.
(30) The contents
of the journal and the morning quiet times of Anne Ripley Smith (Dr. Bob’s
wife), who recorded in and taught from them during 1933-1939 the principles and
practices she gleaned from the Bible, Oxford Group, and Christian literature
she recommended.
(31) The specific
principles and ideas found in the large number of books read by Dr. Bob,
recommended by him, and distributed by him to the early Akron A.A. pioneers.
(32) The specific
ideas of early A.A. that Bill W. gleaned from the writings of Professor William
James on the variety of religious experiences.
(33) The essence
of what Dr. Carl Jung told Rowland Hazard, and later Bill W., about conversion
as a possible solution to alcoholism for those with the mind of a chronic
alcoholic that had rendered them “medically” incurable.
(34) The immense
influences of Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. on Bill Wilson’s formulation of his
new version of the A.A. recovery program.
(35) The fact that
Bill Wilson asked Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. to write the Twelve Steps; but
that Shoemaker declined, telling Bill they should be written by an alcoholic,
namely Bill.
(36) The real
picture of what Shoemaker did, wrote, and said about the ideas of the Big Book
and Steps.
(37) The immense influence
of some 28 Oxford Group ideas which, like the Shoemaker ideas, found their way
into the actual language of the Big Book and Steps.
(38) The exact
details of and their sources on the subject of Quiet Time.
(39) The position
of the early Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship on belief in God, and on
“surrender” to Him through accepting
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
(40) The sources
and meaning of the strange phrases like “higher power,” “Power greater than
ourselves,” “God as we understood Him,” “spirituality,” and “spiritual but not
religious.”
(41) The cures
that early Akron AAs claimed, wrote about, and widely publicized.
(42) The nonsense
gods, self-made religion, and half-baked prayers that emerged after the changes
in the Big Book text; the new language introduced in 1939 in the wording of the
Twelve Steps; the original view of Bill on God (using an unqualified and
undeniable description of “the God of the Scriptures”); and the compromise with
atheists and agnostics that took place just before the Big Book went to print
in 1939.
(43) The rapid
growth, exact program, and recorded successes of the Cleveland A.A. group
founded by Clarence Snyder in 1939.
(44) The best
information on the “counting of noses” in 1937, the success rates Bill and Bob
counted and recorded thereafter, and the real early Akron A.A. group success
record.
(45) The Akron
Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous.
(46) The
testimonies of Christian deliverance found in the personal stories of the
pioneers in the First Edition of the Big Book—stories that were removed from
AAs’ view for years.
(47) The
importance of the First Edition of the Big Book when Bill’s new version of the
program is compared with what the pioneers testified had happened in the
personal stories.
(48) The
importance and purpose of the personal stories in the Big Book, and the
restoration of these to a conference-approved book many many years after early
A.A.
(49) The practices
of First Century Christians as recorded in the Book of Acts.
(50) The various
people—including some Congregational leaders, the Rockefeller group, Frank
Amos, Lois Wilson, and Dr. Bob--who specifically likened the principles and
practices of the First Century Christians to the early Akron pioneer group
which Dr. Bob called a “Christian Fellowship.”
(51) The heart of
the Christian Endeavor program in which Dr. Bob and his family were involved in
St. Johnsbury, and how much early A.A. principles and practices seem to have
embodied that program in both the Akron A.A. program itself, and in their
special “Christian technique” (as Rockefeller’s agent Frank Amos described it).
(52) The emphasis
on daily prayers, listening to the Word of God, witnessing, breaking bread
together, gathering in the homes and temple daily, the healings, and the
conversions and growth in numbers of the First Century Christians.
(53) The many
comparisons of early Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship practices as well as those
of the Congregational churches of the Bill W.-Dr. Bob youth to those of First
Century Christianity.
(54) The frequency
of biblical words like God, Creator, Maker, Father, Heavenly Father, Father of
Lights, and God of our fathers in the Big Book in all editions.
(55) The critical
importance of beginning one’s journey on the path to recovery by mastering the
contents of A.A. General Services Conference-approved literature such as the
Big Book, The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous Pamphlet P-53, RHS—the
Grapevine Memorial on Dr. Bob’s death, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, DR.
BOB and the Good Oldtimers, “Pass It On,” The Language of the Heart, and the
Best of the Grapevine editions..
(56) How to
restore, incorporate, apply, and utilize “old school” Akron A.A. principles and
practices in 12-Step programs today for those who are Christians, want God’s
help, or want to learn and know what pioneer AAs did to attain complete cures
they claimed.
(57) Why the new
“broad highway” open to atheists and agnostics and those of other than
Christian religious persuasions in no way excludes their unbelieving views or
excludes the privileges of Christians and other believers in God to seek His
help and healing as the “abc’s” of A.A. clearly suggest can be done.
(58) The
evidence—underlined by the numerous statements by William D. Silkworth,
M.D.--that alcoholism and addiction can be cured by the power of God versus the
claims that these maladies are still incurable and the borrowed from Richard
Peabody allegation that--as occurred in the case of the “choose your own
conception of god” insertion once again “added”) that “once an alcoholic always
an alcoholic”—despite the crystal clear statements by both Bill Wilson and Bill
Dotson (A.A. Number Three) on page 191 of the 4th edition of the Big Book that
“the Lord” had “cured” them of their terrible disease.
(59) How to cope
with the insults, intimidation, and attacks of various AAs in A.A. meetings
when an A.A. Christian or believer
mentions God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, or religion.
(60) Using
Conference-approved literature to phrase and frame such defensive but warranted
remarks.
(61) Learning the
real answer to the efforts within A.A. groups to ban or prevent the use and
mention of any but “conference-approved literature.”
(62) Learning the
relevance of the Twelve Traditions (including the Long Form) in dealing with
comments about what AAs can believe, can read, can study, and can discuss in
their meetings.
(63) Using the
powerful expression “a loving God as He may express Himself” when opening,
conducting, deciding, and recording an “informed group conscience” by a group.
(64) Understanding
the number of times, A.A.’s own literature emphasizes that there are no laws,
rulers, rules, governors, officers, trustees, or employees who control or
decide what A.A. members and groups and meetings can discuss, read, or bring to
meetings.
(65) Understanding
there is no “index of forbidden books,” no “Conference-disapproved” literature
in the A.A. lexicon, and nothing in the phrase “conference-approved” that
bestows control of groups and reading by A.A. officers, employees, delegates,
office managers, and trustees.
(66) Dealing with
listings in A.A. meeting schedules when notifying A.A. offices of the name of a
group, its purpose, and what it will conduct.
(67) Knowing the
amount of A.A.-related literature that is published, distributed, sold, and
discussed—literature like the Cleveland Central Bulletin, the AA of Akron
pamphlets, the Bible, books about A.A. sources, the founders of A.A., the way
to “take” the Steps,” what the meaning of words and phrases in the Big Book and
A.A. literature is.
(68) Knowing
exactly what the founders and early AAs did, wrote, and said that can help
today and yet is often spurned, criticized, or hindered in use by A.A. members
who mistakenly or intentionally cite some alleged Tradition or
“Conference-approved” rule.
(69) In A.A.
meetings, groups, and conferences, the things that newcomers are missing today.
(70) In A.A.
meetings, groups, and conferences the things that sponsors are not doing today.
(71) In the A.A.
fellowship today, how newcomers can be introduced effectively to the vital
parts of all these principles.
(72) In the A.A.
fellowship today, how AAs themselves can be urged to script and use more
effective orientation, indoctrination, or beginner’s meetings to start the
newcomer off on his path with a full quiver of arrows.
(73) Knowledge of
the variety of viewpoints on the origins of the Twelve Steps—those of Bill
Wilson, those of Dr. Bob, those of A.A. “cofounder” Rev. Sam Shoemaker, and
others.
(74) Knowledge of
the exact contributing sources to the language of the Big Book and Twelve Steps.
(75) And there are
more!
Surely there will be much more reading, study, and research
in the future. Not only by me, but also by those who recognize that the lacuna has
not been filled and is still voluminous. A.A. frequently publishes promotional
materials, pamphlets, guidelines, and other writings that are not binding on
any person, meeting, group, or conference. But A.A. never intended to write a
complete history or become a research organization, nor did Bill W. or Dr. Bob
or practically all the “historians” that have dipped their toes into this or
that subject. Or, if they tried, they left out subjects intentionally, failed
to do the extensive traveling and interviewing necessary to a reliable account,
or were not willing to consult with colleagues and researchers for more
information before pushing their own particular subject and attendant
conclusions.
Relapses, recidivism, “slips,” and further “returns” to the
bottle or needle are commonplace today—in and outside of A.A., treatment, and
religious endeavors, and probably always have been. But that does not mean they
are the norm, the aim, the goal, or the desired result. Early AAs were pressed
to be “teetotalers.” Later they were urged to attain the status of “recovered”
and to tell precisely how they recovered. They were also invited to tell, from
their own standpoint and their own language, how they established their
relationship with God. Their solution—as embodied in page 25 of the Fourth
Edition of the Big Book—does not include failure. It includes what the Creator
can do when sought.
Gloria Deo
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