Tuesday, April 30, 2013

First International Alcoholics Anonymous History Conference -- Portland, Maine, Sept 6 -7, 2013


The First International Alcoholics Anonymous History Conference

 

September 6-7, 2013

Portland, Maine

(Christian Endeavor—of which Dr. Bob was a member—was founded here on February 2, 1881)

 

Featuring A.A. Historian Dick B. of Maui, Hawaii,

and Special Guests

 

Conference Theme:

“Exploring A.A.’s Christian Beginnings in New England”

 

Meetings, Roundtables, Speakers, Research, and Workshops in Portland, Maine

(and possible A.A. history research tour of Dr. Bob’s birthplace, St. Johnsbury, VT, Sept. 8-10)

 

Conference Location

 

The First Baptist Church of Portland, Maine

360 Canco Road, Portland, Maine

(207) 773-3123

http://www.firstbaptistportland.org/

 

Conference Schedule and Other (Possible) Events

 


 

            Dick B. and Ken B. arrive in Portland, Maine

 

Friday, September 6

 

            10:00 AM to 3:00 PM:            Personal meetings available with Dick B. and Ken B.

              4:30 PM to 6:00 PM:            Roundtable meetings with Leaders and visitors

              7:00 PM to 9:00 PM:            Mtgs. with Dick B. & Ken B., or Celebrate Recovery mtg.

 

Events

 

Saturday, September 7

 

              9:00 AM to   9:45 AM:         Registration, coffee and tea, hospitality

              9:45 AM to   9:50 AM:         Conference begins with prayer by Ken B.

              9:50 AM to 10:00 AM:         Welcome by Wally P.

            10:00 AM to 10:50 AM:         Session One: The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

            11:00 AM to 11:50 AM:         Session Two: A. A. Origins, History, Founders & Facts

            12:00 PM to    1:15 PM:         Lunch

              1:15 PM to    2:05 PM:         Session Three: Sponsorship Today

              2:15 PM to    3:05 PM:         Session Four: Orienting and Informing Newcomers

              3:35 PM to    4:15 PM:         Session Five: A.A. History Past, Present & Future

              4:15 PM to   ???                    Viewing of exhibits, networking, dinner (meetings)

 

Sunday, September 8:                         Morning church service, Dick B. personal testimony

                                                           

Sun., Sept. 8, to Tues., Sept. 10:         Personal meetings with Dick B. & Ken B. in Portland; or

                                                            Possible trip to Dr. Bob’s birthplace, St. Johnsbury, VT

 

Wednesday, Sept. 11:                         Morn./afternoon: pers. mtgs. w/Dick & Ken B. in Portland

                                                            Evening: Dick B. speaking at regular A.A. mtg., Portland               

Thursday, September 12 (morning)

 

            Dick B. and Ken B. depart from Portland, Maine

 

Conference Planning, Needs, and Items

 

Overall vision: Introducing an accurate, and comprehensive picture of Alcoholics Anonymous history to members of 12 Step Fellowships—old-timers, speakers, sponsors, newcomers, garden variety drunks and addicts,, International Christian Recovery Coalition participants; physicians, clergy, recovery pastors, Christian recovery leaders and workers; and professionals working in the fields of intervention, detox, treatment, counseling, sober living, psychology, and psychiatry.

 

Donations may be sent to Dick B., PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837 or sent through PayPal www.dickb.com. Donations will cover local meals, transportation, help for the needy

 

$3,000 has just been received from one benefactor who agreed to fund half of the estimated costs of conducting the conference.

 

$3,000 from other benefactors and donors, large or small, who wish to support by defraying the total needed, anticipated expenses

 

No registration fee. Open to all

 

Special small group meetings with Dick and Ken B.

 

            Dr. Bob’s wife Anne Smith and Quiet Time—Eleventh Step practices and resources

 

            Impaired physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, attorneys, and other licensed workers.

 

            Others suggested and worked up in advance of Conference time.

 

 

 

.

 

 

Hail to the Rescue Missions and Their Role in A.A.'s Beginning; thanks to Andy Bales and his mission in L.A.


Dick B., Copyright 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved.

Andy Bales of the Los Angeles mission was kind enough to send me good wishes on my 27th  year of continuous sobriety. And I take this opportunity to thank him and to highlight some important A.A. landmarks emanating directly from A.A.'s beginnings with the missions:

1. On Bill W.'s third desperate trip to Towns Hospital, Bill was told by Dr. William D. Silkworth that Bill would die or go insane if he didn't quit drinking.

2. Bill and his wife Lois were there and were devastated--asking if there were any hope.

3. Silkworth  told Bill, as he had told other patients, that the "Great Physician" could cure Bill of his alcohlism. And this is something Bill specifically confirmed--that the "Lord" had in fact cured him--on page 191 of the 4th edition of the Big Book.

4. Bill's longtime school-mate and drinking friend Ebby Thacher had just been lodged in Calvary Mission--a rescue mission run by Rev.Sam Shoemaker's Calvary Episcopal Church in New York--the place where, as Shoemaker put it, "Jesus Christ changes lives." And Ebby's was sure changed. He miraculously got sober after years of heavy drinking. And he visited Bill to witness to Bill what had happened. Ebby told Bill that  he had "got religion." He told Bill  all about the Mission and the altar call Ebby answered. Bill concluded that Ebby had been born again and had, in fact, been reliant on the Great Physician Jesus Christ.

5. Still suffering from drinking, Bill checked out Ebby's testimony at Calvary Episcopal Church. Bill decided that if the Great Physician and the Calvary Mission had helped Ebby they could perhaps help him (Bill)
.
6. Bill got drunk, went to Calvary Mission, and answered the altar call when it was given. Several, including Bill, attested to the fact that Bill had there accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and started on the road back to healing. Mrs. Samuel M. Shoemaker was there, and she told me in a telephone interview that she had seen and heard Bill "make his decision for Christ." Bill Duvall, an assistant at the mission, confirmed the event. Bill's wife Lois reported at a recorded meeting in Texas that Bill really had, "in all sincerity, gone to the altar and handed his life over to Christ." To top it  off, Bill specifically wrote in two different places; "For sure I'd been born again." See Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W. www.dickb.com/shtml.

7. Drunk again, desperate, and depressed, Bill headed out for his last visit to Towns Hospital. Bill decided that if there were a Great  Physician, he'd better call on him now. Bill checked into Towns. The  thought about the Great  Physician returned, and Bill cried out to God for help. Bill's room blazed with an indescribably white light. Bill sensed the presence of the Spirit; and he exclaimed to  himself: "Bill you are a free man. This is the God of the Scriptures". See The Language of the Heart, page 284.

8. Bill was healed on the spot. He never again doubted God. And he never again touched a drop of liquor, Much of this is told in what Bill wrote several years later in his own autobiography--Bill W. My First Forty Years.

I have twice spoken at an International Conference of the Gospel and Rescue Missions. I have also long worked with Rev. Michael Liimatta who was their education director and in charge of their Alcoholics Victorious work; and I have been much involved with rescue mission leaders in many different areas.

The joshing title for the rescue mission work has been "soup, soap, and salvation." But--like the Salvation Army--this group of rescue workers goes way back two centuries in its work to have derelicts and drunks recognize their seemingly hopeless plight, accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and then go on to do constructive life-building with the support of the missions.

Two of the best known leaders in America--who literally helped thousands and thousands of drunks--were Jerry McAuley who founded Cremone Mission and who inspired S. H. Hadley, the successor head of the famous Water Street Mission. And their techniques certainly had much to do with many of the ideas adopted by early AAs--including the original Akron A.A. requirement of accepting Jesus Christ as Lord.

For further information, contact dickb@dickb.com

Gloria Deo

Monday, April 29, 2013

My Real Higher Power The Light Bulb and AA

Would you go to a church, a revival, a Bible class, or a Christian gathering where the leader was asked  to lead all in a prayer to a light bulb? If so, be prepared for them to call 911.

Even a confused, frightened, brain damaged newcomer A.A. alcoholic would reject a tree, a radiator, or a door knob as some great power that would cure him of his alcoholism. God forbid that he is suffering that much!

My Higher Power: The Light Bulb

The crazier the higher powers become, the crazier the statements about them--whatever they are--get to be. Light bulbs are. . . chests of drawers are. . . Gertrude is. . . Ralph is. . . A table is. . . A door knob is. . . A radiator is. . . The back end of a city bus is. . . There are now dozens and dozens of these absurd names for "a" god--what kind of god that is could well lie in the realm of science, but not reason.

How about starting with Clarence Snyder's pamphlet, "My Higher Power: The Light Bulb"

And then see if anyone is on his knees praying to a chest of drawers, a radiator, or a light bulb. Or see if anyone really thinks that a chest of drawers or a light bulb or a Gertrude is really a "power greater than ourselves." Or see if anyone is going to church these days to worship a chair, the Big Dipper, or a Coke bottle.

See Dick B., God and Alcoholism  www.dickb.com/titles.shtml.

AA Article with Common Errors About AA History, A.A. Roots, the Oxford Group, and Forgetting the Bible

There are several points about this article that need correcton and then fleshing out. First, the roots of A.A. were in the Bible, and not in the Oxford Group. The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A's Roots in the Bible www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml. Second, Bill's Towns Hospital event was precipiated by several preceding occurrences which should not be overlooks: (1) Dr. Silkworh, a devout Christian, advised Bill that the Great Physician (Jesus Christ) could cure him. (2) Bill's friend Ebby Thacher had been to Calvary Mission in New York, told Bill that he had been there and to the alter; and Bill concluded Ebby had been born again. (3) Bill went to the altar at Calvary Mission, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and wrote that he had been born again www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml. (4) Bill was then desperate, drunk, and depressedand decided to check in to Towns Hospital onece again. On the way, he decided that if there was a Great Physicia he had better call on hm. (5) At the hospital, Bill cried out to God for help; had a blazing extraordinary light fill his room; felt the breeze of the spirit; and said to himself "Bill, you are a free man. This is the God of the Scriptures. (6) Bill was cured and never drank again. (7)See Bill'sown statement on page 191 of the 4th edition of the Big Book where Bil tells of his thankfulness for the Lord's curing him

A.A. "Christ Meetings" -- a new moniker for anti A.A. writers purporting to be Christian critics

There are probably seven to a dozen writers who describe themselves as Christians but are violently anti-A.A. They are unable to describe themselves as, or in terms of  A.A. History writers, A.A. history lovers, Christian alcoholics, Christians in A.A., the early A.A. Christian Fellowship, Akron Number One--a Christian Fellowship, the early A.A. program, Akron A.A. programs, AA of Akron, and on and on.

Consequently, this limited group sometimes post under such dubious titles as "Christ Meetings" in A.A. and other unknown formats.

Solid, accurate, Alcoholics Anonymous History, and Christian Recovery Movement books, articles, interviews, participants, and those dedicated to disseminating the role that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in A.A. are best seen by looking at those which tell the facts: The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous (www.dickb.com/Akron.shtml); Anne Smith's Journal 1933-1939 (www.dickb.com/annesm.shtml); A New Way In (www.dickb.com/titles.shtml); When Early AAs Were Cured and Why (www.dickb.com/alcoholismcured.shtml); and Why Early A.A. Succeeded (www.dickb.com/aabiblestudy.shtml); and Turning Point (www.dickb.com/Turning.shtml).

For further information, go to www.dickb.com; http://drbob.info; www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com; and www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com; and dickb@dickb.com

God Bless, Dick B.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Fundamentals & Utility of Alcoholics Anonymous History


The Fundamentals & Utility of Alcoholics Anonymous History

 

Origins, Transmission, Successes, Proliferating Parts

 

By Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

Today’s Jumble of “Programs”

 

All A.A.’s Ideas Were Borrowed, said Bill W.

 

Early in its founding years, A.A.’s co-founder Bill Wilson put the torch to the idea that A.A. sprang from just one source. He said frankly that nobody invented A.A. He said all its ideas were borrowed. And Dr. Bob broadened the source picture by pointing out that all the basic ideas came from the Pioneers’ study of the Bible. See The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks; Dick B. and Ken B. Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw

 

Unfortunately, neither co-founder put in writing in one place all the well-springs that produced the component historical streams in A.A. Consequently, commentators, both favorable to and critical of A.A., have had a field day with discussions of our roots. Most of them have a number of erroneous concepts so embedded in their historical approaches that they just never tell it like it is or like it was.

 

Those who don’t like the Bible say that we left it behind in Akron. Those who don’t like the Oxford Group say that it taught us more about what not to do than what to do. And those who don’t like either the Bible or the Oxford Group have tried to quiet the waters by diverting the stream. They say A.A. is “spiritual, but not religious” even though any well-informed historian, scholar, clergyman, and semanticist would probably ask: “And what’s the difference?” Nobody really knows, but the distinction without a difference leaves many in a peaceful atheistic no man’s land.

 

The real difference in how we characterize A.A. is that, without a knowledge of A.A.’s various sources—mostly religious—people are quickly inclined to make up their own sources. That has been called and is in fact “self-made religion.” And A.A.’s co-founder Rev. Sam Shoemaker pointed out that this self-fabricated stuff leads to all kinds of nonsense—including “absurd names for God” and “half-baked prayers” as Sam described them.

 

So it is. Those who have woven or fabricated their own sources often say that our Creator can be a tree, that a tree can be God, or that neither the Creator nor the tree is “Conference Approved.” They often go on to say that you really don’t have to believe in anything at all. And most AAs add, “Don’t analyze; utilize,” or “Don’t think and don’t drink,” or “Look for the similarities and discard the differences.” They may add that the Big Book is A.A.’s basic text and let it go at that. Thus, “The Big Book says it, and that settles it” is a common A.A. expression. And that leaves us with what the Big Book says, but with a barrel full of what it doesn’t say.

 

AAs today have seen all mention of the Bible deleted from their basic text. They’ve seen Jesus Christ mentioned only once, and then as a man whose ideas are seldom followed. They’ve seen the Creator turned into a higher power which has been turned into a radiator. At the same time, they hear about prayer and meditation and haven’t the slightest bit of information as to what those ideas meant either in earliest A.A. or even in the Big Book and Steps.

 

Consequently, they are left with nonsense. Prayer to a rock? Prayer to a chair or a tree? Meditation as a chant? Meditation as listening? Praying to what! Chanting to what! Listening to what—a light bulb? For assistance, they read in their Big Book that there are “helpful books,” but there is no mention of the Good Book which was the major source for their basic ideas.

 

The Twelve A.A. Well-Springs Are Not the Basic Ideas—Just Most of the Sources

 

I have now devoted 27 years looking continuously for A.A.’s basic ideas. I’ve published at least one book and many articles on each of those ideas. And this article will not repeat the materials in those titles.

 

However, I will point out here though that you can find the well-springs of the basic ideas and the basic ideas themselves. You can see them discussed in detail in the following of my titles: (1) The Bible: The Good Book and The Big Book; Why Early A.A. Succeeded (a Bible Study Primer); The James Club and the Original A.A. Program’s Absolute Essentials; Twelve Steps for You; The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook; (2) The contents of Anne Smiths Journal: Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939; (3) Quiet Time: Good Morning: Quiet Time, Morning Watch, Meditation, and Early A.A.; (4) The Oxford Group’s Life Changing Twenty-Eight Ideas: The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous; Henrietta Seiberling: Ohio’s Lady with a Cause; (5) The teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker: New Light on Alcoholism; By the Power of God; (6) The Christian literature they studied and circulated: Dr. Bob and His Library, 3rd ed.; The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth; The original program founded in Akron in 1935; The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous; That Amazing Grace; Making Known the Biblical History and Roots of Early A.A. (7) The Akron Elements from United Christian Endeavor Society: When Early AAs Were Cured and Why; The James Club; Making Known; God and Alcoholism; Cured! Proven Help for Alcoholics and Addicts.

 

Other basic ideas came from sources I have researched and which are covered in numerous articles I have published on my websites. They are mentioned below in connection with their sources. And they did have influence on some of the language Bill used in the Big Book and in his other writings.

 

But that’s not what’s at issue here. Here we’ll take a cursory look at Twelve Well-Springs of A.A. They don’t fit in a nice timeline. They are not particularly consistent, nor are they congruous. None of them can be found ever-present in each one of the various streams of A.A. from Akron, Cleveland, New York, Sister Ignatia, Father Ralph Pfau, Ed Webster, Richmond Walker, Father Ed Dowling, or Rev. Sam Shoemaker. They simply ought to be known as part of our history.

 

To be brief, our history ought to be known in full and not just through opinions. And this is so that recovering people can make intelligent choices and appropriate decisions. Following, then, are the well-springs—some of great importance, some virtually unknown, and many conflicting in meaning and emphasis.

 

 

Twelve Well-Springs as Sources of our Basic Ideas

 

Number One: The United Christian Endeavor Society.

 

Organized about the time of Dr. Bob’s birth. The Society focused on the young people in a local Protestant Church in Maine. The first Christian Endeavor Group was formed in that Maine Congregational Church. It developed and used almost all of the major ideas that were carried over into early Akron A.A.’s Christian Fellowship led by Dr. Bob. The ideas? Confession of Christ. Bible study. Prayer meetings. Conversion meetings. Quiet Hour, topical discussions, reading of religious literature, witness, and fellowship—all under the banner of “love and service.” See The James Club and The Early A.A. Program’s Absolute Essentials; The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook; Making Known the Biblical History and Roots of Early A.A..

 

Number Two: The Salvation Army.

 

Organized under General William Booth in England not long after Christian Endeavor and introducing ideas about working with drunks, derelicts, and street criminals. Its techniques were used in rescue missions, observed by Ebby Thacher and Bill Wilson, and exemplified by the practical program of early Akron A.A. The ideas?  (1) Abstinence. (2) Resisting Temptation. (3) Confessing Jesus Christ. (4) Carrying the message of the importance of Salvation and the truth in the Word of God. (5) Relying on the Creator. (6) Eliminating sinful conduct. (7) Utilizing the appeal of one saved and recovered drunk in order to witness to another still-suffering drunk the messages of salvation, love, and service. (8) Perpetuating the Army’s purpose, fellowship, and witnessing among the ranks of those recovered “soldiers” already saved. See When Early AAs Were Cured and Why; The First Nationwide A.A. History Conference. Dick B. and Ken B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a Youngster in Vermont; Bill W. and Dr. Bob: The Green Mountain Men of Vermont.

 

Number Three: New Thought Ideas That Arrested Bill W.’s Attention.

 

Also beginning to take wing through the impetus of Christian Science and similar movements that began to flower at almost the same period as the first two sources. But New Thought focused on a new kind of god—a higher power—that used words from the Bible. But one of its later proponents, Emmet Fox, flatly rejected salvation and claimed it didn’t exist in the Bible. Fox and his colleagues saw God, good, and evil in non-salvation terms. The terms pop up in the A.A. Big Book and Bill’s writings. But they are accompanied by New Thought words and phrases like higher power, cosmic consciousness, fourth dimension, and Universal Mind—words that filtered in to the A.A. stream. But they could not be reconciled with the Big Book’s repeated explicit and frequent mention of God, the Creator, the Maker, our Heavenly Father, and Father of light. The moving New Thought expositors included Mary Baker Eddy, Waldo Trine, William James, Emmanuel Movement writers, and Emmet Fox. See The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed; When Early AAs Were Cured and Why; Dr. Bob and His Library; Good Morning: Quiet Time, Morning Watch, Meditation, and Early A.A.; God and Alcoholism.

 

Number Four: Professor William James and the “vital religious experience.”

 

It is unclear just who might be the author of Bill’s “spiritual experience” language. The idea of a “vital religious experience” was used by one of several men named A.A. founders by Bill W., The first was Professor William James and his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, The same solution was used Bill Wilson’s mentor Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., who wrote in Realizing Religion that the solution to man’s spiritual misery (separation from God) was three-fold—finding God, having a “vital religious experience,” and accepting Jesus Christ .Dr. Carl Jung spoke in terms of the need for a “vital religious experience” when Jung told Rowland Hazard that Rowland needed a “conversion” experience. William James wrote Varieties of Religious Experience, which Wilson believed validated his blazing extraordinary white light experience at Towns Hospital. But Oxford Group writings are surfeited with references to “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening.” Bill first used the term “religious experience” in referring to the A.A. solution, Bill also claimed that William James authored the “deflation-at-depth” idea--thought by a few as underlying A.A.’s First Step. Historian Kurtz says he can’t find the “deflation” idea in the William James’s book. However, I certainly can and did and underlined it in my title Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes.

 

Number Five: The Oxford Group—A First Century Christian Fellowship.

 

Not really “organized” until about 1919 when the book Soul Surgery was first published. Primarily, it was a movement which drew its ideas from the life-changing Biblical concepts of Lutheran Minister Frank N. D. Buchman. Each one of the aforementioned well-springs influenced the ideas that were borrowed and adapted by the Akron program. And to these were added catch-words and ideas that Buchman picked up along the way toward the group’s actual existence. There were twenty-eight ideas in all that impacted upon A.A.’s Big Book and Twelve Steps and existed in greater or lesser degree in some of the practices in the earlier Akron Fellowship. The 28 ideas can be summarized in eight groupings of the ideas Buchman adopted: (1) God—descriptions, His plan, man’s duty, believing. (2) Sin—the blocks to God and others. (3) Surrenders—the decision to surrender self and self-will to God’s will. (4) Life-changing art—the Five C’s of the process moving from Confidence to Confession to Conviction to Conversion to Continuance. (5) Jesus Christ—His power and the Four Absolute Standards. Sin was the problem. Jesus Christ was the cure. And the result was a miracle, they said. (6) Growth in fellowship through Quiet Time, Bible study, prayer, and seeking Guidance. (7) Restitution—for the harms caused by sin. (8) Fellowship and witness—working in teams loyal to Jesus Christ to change the lives of others. See The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works; The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous; Turning Point: A History of the Spiritual Roots and Successes of Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

Number Six: The teachings of Episcopalian priest Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.

 

Sam teamed up with Frank Buchman about 1919. Shoemaker then began writing a series of many books on the OG ideas and Sam’s own Bible concepts. And Shoemaker headquartered his efforts at Calvary Church in New York, of which he became Rector in 1925. It is fair to say that the most quoted, the most copied, and the most persuasive influence on Bill Wilson and his Big Book approach came directly from Shoemaker. To the point where Wilson actually asked Sam to write the Twelve Steps, as to which Sam declined in favor of their being written by an alcoholic, namely, Bill. See New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A.; The First Nationwide History Conference; When Early AAs Were Cured and Why; By the Power of God

 

Number Seven: The conversion ideas of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung.

 

Two or three historians who have not really done their homework now claim that Jung had no connection with A.A.’s beginnings. They assert that Jung never saw Rowland Hazard as a patient and therefore the “conversion” solution so dominant in Bill Wilson’s Big Book program did not come from Jung. But the skimpy research done will not support some speculative charge or conclusion that Jung, Rowland Hazard, Ebby Thacher, Bill Wilson, and Sam Shoemaker all lied in order to conjure up a solution. The real point is how badly Wilson missed the point of Jung’s idea of conversion. Conversion, Jung said, was the solution for Rowland’s chronic alcoholism. But conversion, to Jung, did not mean what the Bible describes as a new birth and which Shoemaker and the Akronites were later espousing. The altar call at Shoemaker’s Calvary Mission was not the conversion idea Jung had in mind. See New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A.; Twelve Steps for You; The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook.

 

Number Eight: The medical ideas of Dr. William D. Silkworth.

 

Once again, historians who have not really done their homework now sometimes claim that Dr. Silkworth did not originate the ideas about alcoholism as a disease. But that has not been my area of interest or research. And there is evidence that the disease concept may well not have originated with Silkworth. There is equally strong evidence that it was Silkworth who spelled out for Bill Wilson the idea that Wilson was suffering from a mental obsession and a physical allergy—however the details were or would be characterized in the disease arena. Virtually unmentioned is Silkworth’s belief—explained to Bill Wilson and other patients—that Jesus Christ, the “Great Physician,” could cure them of alcoholism. See The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook; The Positive Power of Jesus Christ; The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks: William D. Silkworth.

 

Number Nine: The lay therapy ideas of Richard Peabody.

 

Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson both owned and studied The Common Sense of Drinking—a book by lay therapist Richard Peabody. And though Peabody died drunk, Wilson somehow saw fit to adopt almost verbatim certain words and phrases from the Peabody book. Among the two most unfortunate derivatives were: (1) There is no cure for alcoholism. (2) Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. Both concepts flew in the face of a decade of declarations by the early AAs and their observers that they had found a cure for alcoholism that rested on the power of Jesus Christ. This was not something Peabody embraced. And how Wilson got switched from God and cure to incurable illness on the basis of the writings of a lay therapist who died drunk is currently a mystery to me. See Richard Peabody. The Common Sense of Drinking; Cured: Proven Help for Alcoholics and Addicts; When Early AAs Were Cured and Why.

 

Number Ten: The Biblical Emphasis from Dr. Bob’s youth and Christian Endeavor.

 

A.A. detractors and doctrinaire Christians who dislike the Oxford Group seem impelled to claim that A.A. came from the Oxford Group, that the Oxford Group was an heretical cult, and that its very existence was an example of what A.A. wasn’t, rather than what it was. And these canards are so heavily entrenched in religious and recovery thinking and writing they may never be dispelled. But they are fallacious and utterly misleading. It is quite true that Bill Wilson’s Big Book and Twelve Step program embraced almost every Oxford Group idea, while Bill Wilson was busy denying the fact. But the early Akron program, which produced the 75 to 93% success rates, really had very little to do with Oxford Group teams, travels, writing, principles, and practices. The Akron focus was on abstinence—not an Oxford Group idea; hospitalization—not an Oxford Group idea; resisting temptation—not an Oxford Group idea; accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour—not an Oxford Group idea; relying on the Creator for strength and guidance—a universal idea undoubtedly embraced by the Oxford Group; Bible study meetings—not an Oxford Group emphasis; old-fashioned prayer meetings—not an Oxford Group idea; Quiet Time—a universal idea which pre-dated the Oxford Group and was a big item in Christian Endeavor; religious comradeship—not an Oxford Group idea; favored church attendance—not an Oxford Group idea; love and service as a banner—not an Oxford Group expression, but a Christian Endeavor word of art; working with others—not an Oxford Group emphasis when it came to alcoholism, nor was it particularly a Christian Endeavor idea except as to witnessing and conversion. By contrast, the simple Christian Endeavor program appears to represent the heart of what Akron did and what it was reported in official A.A. literature to have done. That program was not incorporated in the Big Book, but it is reported fully by Frank Amos reports to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. that are part of A.A.’s conference approved literature. See my titles The First Nationwide A.A. History Conference; The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible; Why Early A.A. Succeeded (A Bible study primer); The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook; and The James Club and The Early A.A. Program’s Absolute Essentials.

 

Number Eleven: The practical records and teachings of Dr. Bob’s Wife.

 

How A.A. could have buried Anne Smith’s role, her importance, and her spiritual journal is a complete mystery. The facts about Anne’s importance would stand by themselves if she had never even written her 9 year journal. Bill Wilson and many pioneers called Anne the “Mother of A.A.” AAs were housed in her home from the beginning, and those AAs got well. AAs were fed in her home, and it became the first real “half-way” house after hospitalization. Anne read the Bible to A.A.’s founders and to the many who followed them. Anne conducted a morning quiet time each morning at the Dr. Bob’s Home where she led a group of AAs and their families in Bible study, prayer, listening, and topical discussions. Anne counseled and nursed and taught alcoholics; and her work with newcomers in meetings was legendary. They were her special focus. Her journal records every principle and concept that is part of the A.A. picture—God, Jesus Christ, a Biblical emphasis, prayer, Quiet Time, Guidance, Literature recommended, Oxford Group principles and practices, and practical guides to working with alcoholics. It seems likely that she not only shared the contents of this journal—written between 1933 and 1939—with Bill Wilson, but also that Bill took many of his Oxford Group and other expressions directly from Anne’s Journal. If so, the fact has never been mentioned. See Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939; The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

Number Twelve: The Devotionals and Christian Literature Read and Circulated.

 

We know that A.A.’s basic ideas came from the Bible. The Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were frequently read aloud and studied and were considered absolutely essential. AAs studied literature that underlined these roots—(1) books on the Sermon by Oswald Chambers, Glenn Clark, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Emmet Fox, and E. Stanley Jones. (2) Devotionals discussing concepts from the Book of James—The Runner’s Bible, The Upper Room, My Utmost for His Highest, Daily Strength for Daily Needs. (3) Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 13 by Henry Drummond and Toyohiko Kagawa. And various other concepts were fleshed out through the literature of Shoemaker on all aspects of the Bible, prayer, guidance, Quiet Time, and so on. So also in the many Oxford Group books on these subjects—Soul Surgery (and the Five C’s), Quiet Time, The Guidance of God, Realizing Religion, For Sinners Only, When Man Listens, and so on. In addition, there were prayer guides, Bible study guides, and healing guides galore—in Dr. Bob’s Library and circulated by him to others. The whole picture can be found in my titles: The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th edition; Making Known the Biblical History and Roots of A.A.; Anne Smith’s Journal; The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous; Dr. Bob and His Library.

 

 Strange it is that currently, three or four writers have compiled lists of “50” books, or some other number of books that have nothing to do with the roots of A.A., that may well have been read by this or that AA and some time, but are not part of the extensive library owned and circulated by Dr. Bob—books I personally reviewed with the people who owned them—Sue Smith Windows (Bob’s daughter) and Robert R. Smith (Bob’s son). You can find the books, which I firmly believe I was the first person allowed to inspect—and inspect at length. They are listed in three of my titles: Dr. Bob and His Library, 3rd ed., Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939, 3rd ed., The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed.; Good Morning!: Quiet Time, Morning Watch, Meditation, and Early A.A.

 

 

The Whole Picture

 

As Father Paul Blaes, Ph.D., the Roman Catholic theologian who endorsed my Turning Point book wrote so well: there was a “lacuna” in A.A. history when researching and writing about it from 1990 forward. A lacuna is a gap, a hole. And Father Blaes had observed for himself the gaping vacuum in accounts of our history. He therefore welcomed and endorsed my comprehensive history.

 

When I began, I thought the only missing elements were descriptions of how the Bible was used and what the Oxford Group program really was. And there were plenty of gaps even there. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. A.A. literature said Dr. Bob’s library had been given away. Yet I discovered about half of it in his daughter’s attic and tracked down the other half to his son’s home in Nocona, Texas. And without these books, you just couldn’t know what early AAs were reading and concluding. Next, I discovered that Anne Smith’s Journal had simply never been mentioned in A.A. history accounts; yet you could find the whole program there. And, thanks to Dr. Bob’s daughter and A.A.’s GSO archivist Frank Mauser, I was permitted to get a complete copy and publish my book. Then, when I began with the Oxford Group, it was at the suggestion of Frank Mauser, that I wrote my Oxford Group book; and over the years, I found hundreds of their books, encountered an intense interest in those books, my research, and the relevance to A.A. among its leaders. I then realized the whole Big Book program was essentially Oxford Group—something broadly suggested in Joe and Charlie Big Book Seminars. (But I had yet to learn that the Big Book itself was divided into two separate parts—distinct from each other in regard to the time written and to the subjects covered. See Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw.

 

From there I went to the Akron story and realized the importance and differences from the present-day A.A. “new version” in the Steps and the early Christian Akron A.A. Fellowship there. I tracked down the history and wrote the Akron story. Learning there the importance of the Bible, I tackled the Biblical roots and am only now getting the entire picture together—the words in A.A. from the Bible, the prayers in A.A. from the Bible, the slogans in A.A. from the Bible, and then the immense study of the Bible that AAs did in the Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13.

 

Even that, however, was not the end. I stumbled upon Christian Endeavor and began to realize that the whole Akron program was far more founded on Christian Endeavor principles and practices than on those of the Oxford Group. Piece by piece, other details emerged. There was the whole Shoemaker story and my discovery that the words in the Big Book and even the Steps were largely Shoemaker words. See www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml;  and that Sam had been asked to write the Twelve Steps, but declined.

 

More? Yes. More on Carl Jung. More on William James. More on Richard Peabody. More on William D. Silkworth. More on Henrietta Seiberling. More on T. Henry Williams. More on Rev. Samuel Shoemaker. More on Dr. Frank Buchman. More on Clarence Snyder. More on the Wilson manuscripts. More on the deleted materials. More. More. More.

 

These parts of the lacuna could not, of themselves, fill in the holes. They didn’t add up to the whole picture, or even part of the picture. And the gap had left alkies to their own devices in fashioning substitutes. When Bill dumped the Oxford Group in the East, the Oxford Group details were omitted from his Big Book. When Bob and Anne died, the Bible in A.A. died with them. When Clarence Snyder got on the wrong side of Bill Wilson, the Snyder legacy disappeared until recently. When Henrietta Seiberling was put on the shelf, her reprimands about phony spirituality, séances, substitute psychology, and sick thinking were shelved along with her futile protests.

 

People began denying the date of Dr. Bob’s sobriety; and they’re doing it even more. People began denying that Jung saw Rowland Hazard; and they’re doing it even more. People just never even seemed to want to know about Anne Smith nor the early books nor the Bible verses nor the Sam Shoemaker story nor the devotionals.

 

Too much religion seemed to be the cry. That from those studying a program so obviously religious at its beginnings and so obviously religious today that one court after another has ruled that way and rejected the “spirituality” ruse.

 

There’s a lot more. But cheer up. I’ve been able to field 46 published titles, 1550 articles, 70 audio talks, seminars at the Wilson House, a talk “near” the Minneapolis convention, several large history conferences and cruises, and five websites where freedom of speech abounds and frequent visits have added up to over four million these days. Others interested in history are beginning to let the cats out of the bags.

 

Plural. Plural cats. Plural bags. Good stuff has just begun to come out of Silkworth. Good stuff has already come out about Clarence Snyder. Interesting facts are emerging from the Lois Wilson stories. Some have dared to mention Bill Wilson’s LSD experiments with his wife, Nell Wing, Father Dowling, and others. Also his spiritualism sessions at Stepping Stones. Also his womanizing and squabbles over his estate. Also his obsession with psychic phenomena, Niacin, and book sales. Also the deadening effect his years of severe depressions had on A.A. ideas and historical accuracy. And more.

 

For a long time, I felt the foregoing didn’t belong in the picture. They had to do with Bill and what may appropriately and biblically termed his “carnal Christian” walk after the flesh, rather than with A.A. I thought. In fact, at Stepping Stones, I was asked to bypass the files on drugs and spooks; and I did. Yet I found that others had trod that route and even published on it in A.A.’s “Pass It On.” Then I discovered the missing records on Shoemaker at the Episcopal Archives in Texas. And that was a real loss because at least two scholars had tried to research them, couldn’t find them, and were astonished at the gap. Some assumed the missing papers didn’t exist. But they did and do, I believe. In fact, I’m almost certain they were shown to me in an apartment in New York City. And are these things part of the whole picture?

 

I certainly think so, but not the picture I’m interested in. I was and am focused on helping the newcomer through our great A.A. Fellowship. I was and am focused on discovering every aspect of the recovery program that was used in Akron, and then in Cleveland, and then in the Big Book, and then by the host of writers who emerged during Bill’s 1943-1955 depression period.

 

It’s what worked that counts. Not the bickering over writers, over dates, over opinions. It’s accuracy that counts. It’s the complete picture that counts. And it’s the relevance to our getting sober, getting well, getting delivered from the power of darkness, and loving and serving our Heavenly Father that count.

 

I think the last 27 years of my sobriety have not only unplugged twelve well-springs; they’ve started the streams running. And I don’t think the flood will stop.

 

Dick’s titles and the foregoing bibliography items can all be found in the title pages of his website: http://www.dickb.com/titles.shtml. His titles can all be purchased through that page. They can also be purchased on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets.

Call dickb@dickb.com; 808 874 4876

Gloria Deo

 

Friday, April 26, 2013

Plan on Coming to the Third International Alcoholics Anonymous History Conference in Portland Maine in early September

Plans are under way for a major international A.A. history conference to be held in Portland, Maine in September, 2013. Stay tuned for dates, times, and locations. Dick and Ken will arrive early and be available for personal meetings and discussions on A.A. history and the Christian Recovery Movment. Friday, there will be a roundtable discussion by leaders who want to present suggestions, problems, and experienced solutions in presenting A.A. history fully, truthfully, accurately, and informatively . Saturday will have four major topics: (1) Early A.A. roorts, principles, practices, program, and successes. (2) Discussion of the Twelve Steps in the context of today's AA and old school A.A. (3) Focus on newcomers, beginner's meetings, and what beginners need to know about A.A. (4) Focus on sponsorship and what is missing, needs adjusting, and is valued. Sunday Dick will give testimony in a Portland Maine Church. Then t here will several more days of meetings, talks, brainstorming sessions, and contacts. Wednesday the conference will close with Dick being the speaker at an A.A. meeting.

For information, contact dickb@dickb.com 808 874 4876. Come join us. If you're knowledgeable, we need you. If you're not, you need us! Aloha, Dick B.

My Response to the Comments and Thanks for the Posts on the WilliamBagley28 Website

To William and Mary: The healthy responses you are getting to your posts is heart warming. Those who get the point might be reminded of one of Clancy's quips in his talks. He mentions a phiilosopher and a sign that quotes him. It says "God is dead." Underneath, a wise soul has writen "N. . . . is dead! As Bill wrote in the Big Boo, God either is, or He isn't. And I'll go with "God is!" And it sure squares with the language of Hebrews 11:6. Today, AAs can believe in God or in nothing at all. And many just notice the "nothing at all" part and forget that we sure have a choice! Page 25 of the Big Book tells the "Solution" in explicit terms. See Dick B., A New Way In www.dickb.com/titles.shtml and Why Early A.A. Succeeded www.dickb.com/aabiblestudy.shtml. Keep those canons of truth blasting away at those who would restrict what we do or don't believe and experience as individuals in A.A. We do have the Bible and the Big Book which tell us what the pioneers believed and did as they made t heir surrenders to God. These current tools portray a picture that needs to be known: 1) The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks. (2) Stick with the Winners! http://mcaf.ee/s50mq. (3) Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous  http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw.
God Bless, Dick B.  dickb@dickb.com  808 874 4876

How One Writer Tried to Bury Bill Wilson's New Birth at Calvary Mission


How One Writer Tried to Bury Bill Wilson’s New Birth at Calvary Mission

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

For years, a few well-known unofficial “histories” of early A.A. ignored the following thoroughly documented facts summarized by the biographer of Bill’s psychiatrist William Duncan Silkworth, M.D. They also ignored the documented statements that Dr. Silkworth suggested to Bill that the “Great Physician” (Jesus Christ) could cure Bill’s alcoholism They ignored the account in Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Positive Power of Jesus Christ that Silkworth had suggested to other “cured” patients that Jesus Christ could be the answer to alcoholism for those willing to come to God through His son Jesus Christ. And they ignored the fact that Bill Wilson went to the altar at Calvary Rescue Mission (before Bill had his “blazing indescribably white light” experience at Towns Hospital) and declared that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior.

 

Now a new writer on the scene—who identifies himself with the “Dublin Group”--has invented a unique wimpy terminology for being born again of the spirit of God. He ignores the advice that Silkworth gave Bill and Silkworth’s other patients. He ignores the fact that Bill’s friend Ebby Thacher had accepted Christ at Calvary Mission, reported that event to Bill, and brought about Bill’s trip to Calvary Mission where Bill accepted Christ and wrote that he had been born again there. Thus Bill said in his own autobiography: “For sure I’d been born again.” See article, http://www.dickb.com/aaarticles/Alcoholism-Could-Be-Cured.shtml. And, in the following early years of A.A., all the early AAs in Akron were required to profess their belief in God and to come to Him through confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Dick B., Real Twelve Step Fellowship History: The Old School A.A. You May Not Know 9, A New Way In: Reaching the Heart of a Child of God in Recovery with His Own Powerful Historical Roots, The Golden Text of A.A.: God, the  Pioneers, and Real Spirituality, 10-32.

 

The clearly substantiated  element of A.A. history—accepting Jesus Christ—has recently been reduced to absurdity by one writer who calls it a mere “small” event. And here’s the quote:

 

Bill was temporarily frightened into sobriety and he did stay sober for several months.  During this period he reunited with Ebby Thacher and met other Oxford Group members and had his first spiritual experience at the Bowery mission of Sam Shoemakers Calvary Church. At least Bill felt that “something had happened” when he “testified” at the mission (p. 119). (This “small” spiritual experience is often overlooked in discussions of Bill’s spiritual development but is worth noting.)  He went back to Towns for the last time and experienced perhaps his deepest depression,

 

This warping of the importance of new birth may surprise Christians who have hung their hat on John 3:16 for centuries.

 

But the writer quoted above ignores John 3:16, ignores Silkworth’s own words about the new birth as a cure for alcoholism, ignores that account of a similar event involving Silkworth and an alcoholic who was cured through a new birth, and ignores those who described the acceptance of Christ at the Calvary Rescue Mission altar. They include the biography of Dr. Silkworth by Dale Mitchel, Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks, pages 44, 47, 49, 50, 51. They ignore Bill’s own autobiography, Bill W.: My First 40 Years, pages 133-35, 137, 139, 145, 147, 152. They ignore the specific account of such born again cures of alcoholism in Norman Vincent Peale, The Positive Power of Jesus Christ: Life-changing Adventures in Faith, pages 59-63, 88-90, 250-54. They ignore the eye witness statements of Mrs. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.; Rev. W. Irving Harris (Shoemaker’s assistant minister), Billy Duvall-an attendant at the Mission, and the statement of Bill Wilson’s wife Lois Wilson Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W., pages 59-63, 88-115, 61, 62, 91-92, 94,  ;New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., Pittsburgh ed., 533-35.

 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

A Welcome New Wave of Recovery Communications to Dick B.

A New Line of Communications Coming from Christian professionals Concerned with Recovery

26Apr
Since our research and publishing began in 1990, we have watched a growing number of alcoholics, addicts, and those with life controlling problems phone (to 808 874 4876) and/or send emails (dickb@dickb.com) expressing a deep interest in the highly successful Christian roots, history, upbringing of cofounders, founding, and early Christian Fellowship of the first A.A. group in Akron, Ohio. Their calls were welcome. They ranged from “I never knew our roots” to “what was the early program” to “where can we learn more” to “how do I start an old school group” to “what about the criticism I get if I mention my own belief in God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible.”

And out of all these sprang the many books that have answered the questions in terms of what the early AAs did and the way the succeeded with reliance on God. The calls were about learning, studying, acquiring resources, getting study group guidance, and holding meetings and conferences. And those communications still come all the time.

But there’s been a welcome change–perhaps because of social media, facebook, twitter, linked-in, Tumbler, blogs, WordPress, cyber recovery social, and other burgeoning sources. Whatever the change, it is most welcome. And we invite much more of it–from the afflicted, the affected, and those whose careers are devoted to helping them.

We sure appreciate this new influx of communications from professionals in the Christian recovery field. We are receiving numerous contacts from many new callers in our arena. They are pastors, Christian recovery leaders, physicians, therapists, counselors, treatment facilitators, psychologists, professors, and sober living-homeless workers. Their interest in old school A.A.’s Christian Fellowship, technique, and successes is heartwarming.

Thank you. Dick B. 808 874 4876; dickb@dickb.com; http://www.dickb.com

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Dick Interview on Christian Recovery Radio of Navy Seal Steve - Recovered, Christian AA


Dick B. interviews Steve, a recovered Christian in the military, on the April 23, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show

 

On


 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

You may hear this show right now!

 

______________________________________________________________________________

 

You may listen to Dick B. interview Steve, a recovered Christian in the military, on the April 23, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show here:

 



or here:

 



Episodes of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show are archived at:

 


 

 

The Pursuit of Excellence

 

[I have been a visitor to Maui, as well as other Islands, with family and friends since 1967. And I have been a resident of Maui since 1990. And now is the time to make and important point. I am about to write up today’s unusual radio interview of a young, bursting with zest, recovered Christian alcoholic who has had a miraculous cure of his alcoholism and addiction while in the arena of  the Navy Seals with whom he is serving and is about to deploy. When my son Ken and I began working with alcoholics and addicts here in Maui, the entire Island chain was rife with “ice” and the consequences of drug and alcohol excesses. We had approached several in the Salvation Army (where we met with much cooperation and favor.) But we also met several church leaders who—until an unusual event this very day—showed little initiative or enthusiasm for melding the work of God and His Son Jesus Christ with the present-day needs and plight of those in Alcoholics Anonymous, and other 12-Step programs. We persistently prayed for God’s guidance and help. And underlying our senses knowledge perception, we kept thinking in terms of the pursuit of excellence by the young (and any) alcoholics and addicts who just seem to get swept into revolving door jails, treatments, arrests, accidents, courts, and “meetings.” These suffering souls make no evident progress in permanently overcoming their maladies and establishing new lives that serve and glorify God and His Son and point them toward useful, purposeful, happy, and productive relationships with God, their families, their jobs, their education and training, their charitable endeavors, their service to other, and their own growth in self-esteem and community life. In so doing, my son Ken was—among other subjects--gorging himself on autobiographies of U.S. Navy Seals and other members of special operations forces around the world. I had a correlative mission in mind. Among the many newcomers with whom I have worked in the last 27 years, I noticed the devotion they had to sports, to physical fitness, and to the state of their mind and body. In short, there appeared forward marching recovery among those who not only “did not drink and went to meetings” as well as “worked the program,” but who had grasped what they could do with their lives by turning to God, focusing on what they could do for others, educating and training themselves, and adopting the disciplines so evident among those who are constructively competitive, determined, and thankful for what they can do with their minds and bodies to the end of excellence. And today, we interviewed Steve. We also today received a call from the pastor of an up-country church who seems a prospect really ready for such an approach. And now back to the very relative and illustrative interview.]

 

Introduction to Steve’s Talk

*     

My son Ken and I just received a wonderful surprise. Steve, a thoroughly-trained, physically fit, very intelligent, eager young Christian sailor, let us know the other day he was vacationing here in Maui with his wife prior to a deployment. Several years ago, we met him at a Bible study class for Christians in recovery held by the dynamic Rock Church in San Diego. Having seen his willingness to serve, we invited him to Maui to be part of our Christian work with suffering alcoholics and drug addicts. But we learned he was headed out for military service. He later got married. And yesterday he called us to say he and his wife were on Maui. At lunch, we were struck with his fitness, motivation, discipline, and devotion to God. We hope he'll share today his: (1) discipline; (2) patent intelligence; (3) commendable four years of sobriety; (4) teaming up with a Christian Navy man; (5) work with addicted newcomers; (6) Bible study classes among service people; (7) highly demanding training over the past two years; and (8) fidelity to sobriety in A.A. His determination was similar to Dr. Bob's in that he attained some remarkable education while doing "graduate work" in alcoholism and addiction. Thus, despite progressing drinking and drugging, he graduated from college and received his degree in a demanding field. Recently, he received a master's degree in a technical field that will serve him well during and after his military service. He and his wife of two years are happily married. And he has a serviceman's patriotic fervor for serving and defending his country. He, also appears to have placed his life under the care and direction of our Creator and His Son Jesus Christ, and respects the Bible's major role in that endeavor. He's an inspiration. Here's his story. And take it away, Steve.

 

Synopsis of Interview

 

Near and dear to the hearts of many alcoholics is Akron, Ohio—the home of A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob, and the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous. And Steve was born and raised there. His mother was a nurse. His father was a teacher and an alcoholic. He said he was dragged by one parent to Roman Catholic Mass and by the other to a Methodist Church. He has little interest in either. But, at age nine, Steven became an adept swimmer and good at sports. At the 8th or 9th year, he found two bottles and three beers, guzzled them, and then blacked out. And he fell in love with that alcoholic experience. At the same time, he suffered from lack of self-confidence; he believed he didn’t fit; and he had a hole in his heart and simply ducked his feelings.

 

Drinking or not, swimming became his achievement of excellence. His high school swim team became national champions. He was the captain. His record item was the butterfly. He could and did push himself there and developed a remarkable discipline.. In his senior year, the y had a weekend dance. He drank heavily, threw up, couldn’t walk, and wound up in the principal’s office. Though captain of the swim team, he was suspended for three days. However, he entertained that his progressive alcoholism really had no effect on his personal life. He graduated and did a geographic from Ohio to Arizona State. There he received a scholarship.

 

He had trouble with alcohol. He was doing well with his grades. But he fell in with drinking pals. He was soon captain of the swim team. But there were three days of the week when there was no practice. And he utilized them well for heavy drinking. Drink took over. He was cast as a “bad role model” though he had broken no rules; and he blamed the status on his friends. He had a desire to be in the military and chose to be one of the “best of the best”—the Navy Seals. But cocaine, pot, and mushrooms entered the competition also. He graduated from Arizona State.

 

He went through boot training in the seals. And the Seals are hard warriors. He went through the arduous BUDS. He couldn’t drink for three weeks. He went through Hell Week and concluded it with 15 shots. On a motorcycle, he crashed into a wall and received a DUI. He was placed in a treatment program. And there he was asked to tell his story as a speaker. And he alternated between sweat and relief. He heard God tell him: “You never have to drink again.” He knew he had a choice—Jesus Christ or A.A. And a miracle of recovery occurred. His saw his obsession miraculously removed. It was November 16th, and he has attained more than four years of continuous sobriety. He graduated. Became an Honor seal. He was voted the best in the Bud crowed. He married his wife Christina, whom he had known since high school.

 

Steve really saw the “Promises” of A.A. come through – fear, fear, and fear were gone. He had to deal with his legal problems, the DUI, the lost friends, the sense of isolation. But he was firm that the change in his life was real. Said he: “I know Jesus Christ.” In A.A. he learned that the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous consisted of all of the book’s pages. He acquainted  himself with the personal stories. And there he saw that the first three AAs were all Christians, had all given up liquor permanently, had all turned to God for help, and had all openly explained the source of their deliverance.

 

On page 191 of the Big Book, Bill Wilson wrote: “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.”

 

On page 181 of the Big Book, Dr. Bob Smith wrote: “Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!”

 

And then again on page 191, Bill D. (A.A. Number Three) said that Wilson’s statement that the Lord had been so wonderful to him, curing him of his terrible disease became  for him and for others in the fellowship “the golden text of A.A.”

 

Steve closed the interview with this succinct observations: “Christians who went to God received complete relief.” And they did. They do!

 

For further information, contact dickb@dickb.com; or 808 874 4876