An Important Exchange of Questions and Answers Between Ken
B. and “Paul” who is a major, active, recovered AA member in the Southwest USA.
About Bill W., Dr. Bob, and their Christian beliefs.
Paul!
Thank you for the quick, preliminary response. I look
forward to your thoughts after you have had time to reflect on the information
more fully. My dad (Dick B.--www. DickB.com) and I really appreciate your
ongoing love and support for our work. Benefactors continue to make possible
our ongoing research and publications of books, video classes, audio talks,
conferences, etc.
In GOD's love,
Dick B.'s son, Ken
On Jul 15, 2014 7:00 AM, "paul Oh my gosh thank you! This is awesome! In
between meetings in NYC...talk soon
Paul
To: paul
Cc: Dick B.
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 7:02 AM
Subject: Paul
Aloha, Paul!
Thank you for your email message below.
I heard two surprising things on my trips with my dad to
Founders Day in Akron, Ohio, in 1992 and 1993:
1. In Akron during Founders Day, it was very common to hear
people being asked: "Are you a friend of Dr. Bob?"
2. Dr. Bob's daughter, Sue Smith Windows, liked to be at Dr.
Bob's Home on 855 Ardmore Avenue in Akron during the Founders Day weekend in
June. And she would say to people there: "There are two founders of A.A.,
you know."
As I believe you know, my dad's and my research and travels
and interviews over the past 25 years--starting before A.A.'s International
Convention in Seattle in 1990--began with the attempt to answer the question
put to my dad: "Dick, did you know that A.A. came from the Bible?" By
1997, and with 10 books already published, we were able to answer
"Yes" to that question based on thorough research. Our ongoing
research of A.A.'s early history--mainly up to the publication of the first
edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book") in April 1939--then
began to move toward identifying and publishing the roles played by God, His
Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in early A.A.'s astonishing success among
"seemingly-hopeless," "medically-incurable" alcoholics who
thoroughly followed the early A.A. path. And today, we are focusing on sharing
with interested people "the rest of the story" of A.A.'s early
history so that they can carry an accurate message to alcoholics and addicts
who still suffer today.
Over the years, my dad and I have come across many, many
surprising pieces of information--particularly about the roles played by God,
His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in early A.A.'s astonishing success--after
having studied the two A.A. General Service Conference-approved books you
mentioned in your email message (i.e., DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers and 'PASS
IT ON').
I would like to expand on that thought through my responses
interleaved with your comments below.
In GOD's love,
Dick B.'s son, Ken
On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 1:13 AM, paul
The AA Founders biographical books are amazing. Anyone in a
12 Step Recovery program, or anyone associated with members of that
"Fellowship of the Spirit", (as it is so aptly named in the last
sentence of the Book Alcoholics Anonymous on p 164) should take the time to
read Dr Bob and the Good Old Timers, and Pass It On.
[Ken: You are absolutely right, Paul.
The A.A. General Service Conference-approved biography of
A.A. cofounder Bill W.--'PASS IT ON': The Story of Bill Wilson and How the A.A.
Message Reached the World--contains some gems. For example, we read of promises
Bill wrote to Lois ". . . in the family Bible, the most sacred place he
[Bill W.] knew . . ." on four separate occasions:
1. October
20, 1928 [p. 81];
2. Thanksgiving
Day of 1928 (November 29) [p. 81];
3. January
1929 [p. 81]; and
4. September
3, 1930 [p. 86]
The A.A. General Service Conference-approved biography of
A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob--DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers: A Biography, with
Recollections of Early A.A. in the Midwest--contains many gems as well. You
referred to one great example further down in your email message; i.e.:
"(Dr. Bob was always positive about his faith, Clarence
[S., Dr. Bob's sponsee who founded the third A.A. group in the world in Cleveland
on May 11, 1939] said. If someone asked him a question about the program, his
usual response was: 'What does it say in the Good Book?' Suppose he was asked,
'What's all this "First Things First"?' Dr. Bob would be ready with
the appropriate quotation: '"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."'" [p.
144]
Another example occurs on the very next page, on which
Clarence's wife Dorothy is speaking about the wife of AA Number Three, Akron
attorney Bill D. and is quoted as follows:
"I remember Henrietta D--------- talking about faith.
The words were like a hammer, striking away all the fears when she said, 'God
had a plan.'
"I was
never so exhilarated in all my life. I went home from that meeting, and for the
first time in years, I got down on my knees. And I said, 'God, if you have a
plan for me, I want that. I don't want any of my own plans.'" [p. 145]
Interestingly, on the AA.org web site, which continues to be
periodically "beefed up" when it comes to A.A.'s history, we now find
mention of four (4) A.A. General Service Conference-approved books in the
"Archives and History" area (http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/archives-and-history),
in the "History and Resources" section
(http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/history-and-resources):
1. 'PASS IT
ON';
2. DR. BOB
and the Good Oldtimers;
3. Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age; and
4. As Bill
Sees It
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age also contains many
historical gems. For example, after Bill W. is quoted as saying that he ".
. . had seen some kind of light . . ." at Calvary Mission; and that he had
". . . kept pondering that mission experience"; he is quoted as follows:
So if there was a
great Physician who could cure the alcoholic sickness, I had better seek Him
now, at once. I had better find what my friend [Ebby] had found. [p. 61]
Even As Bill Sees It has an historical gem. On the page
titled "No Personal Power," Bill W. speaks of the six-month period
between his release from Towns Hospital in New York on December 18, 1934, and
his meeting with Dr. Bob on Mother's Day, May 12, 1935, in Akron, Ohio. During
this period, he very actively sought out drunks to help, with a Bible under his
arm, with the message that the drunks needed to give their lives to God in
order to be cured of their alcoholism, but without any lasting results. But
here is Bill's view of that period:
"At first, the remedy for my personal difficulties
seemed so obvious that I could not imagine any alcoholic turning the
proposition down were it properly presented to him. Believing so firmly that
Christ can do anything, I had the unconscious conceit to suppose that He would
do everything through me--right then and in the manner I chose. After six
months, I had to admit that not a soul had surely laid hold of the Master--not
excepting myself." [p. 114; letter, 1940]
The Language of the Heart: Bill W.'s Grapevine
Writings--which, although not an A.A. General Service Conference-approved
publication, is published by the AA Grapevine, Inc.--also contains a number of
historical gems. For example, note the exact language Bill uses in describing
part of what happened during his final stay at Towns Hospital December 11-18, 1934,
when his hospital room "blazed with an indescribably white light":
". . . then the great thought burst upon me: 'Bill, you
are a free man! This is the God of the Scriptures.' And then I was filled with
a consciousness of a presence. A great peace fell over me, and I was with this
I don't know how long." [p. 184]
Could the words "Bill, you are a free man! This is the
God of the Scriptures" have been revelation from God to Bill W.? Food for
thought.]
These books, which are published by AA, contain the actual
stories of the founders, the progression of their disease, and then the
progression of their faith and recovery.
[Ken: The two A.A. General Service Conference-approved books
you mentioned, Paul--'PASS IT ON' and DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers--do
contain biographies of A.A.'s cofounders. But what about "the rest of the
story"--the roles played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in
early A.A.'s astonishing success among "seemingly-hopeless,"
"medically-incurable" alcoholics who thoroughly followed the early
A.A. path? Here are some points to consider as to how thoroughly the two A.A.
books you mentioned actually present the full picture of A.A.'s cofounders,
Bill W. and Dr. Bob:
1. DR. BOB
and the Good Oldtimers was published in 1980, about 30 years after A.A.
cofounder Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950. Just one observation--with several
parts(!)--on this book for now. The book devotes eight (8) pages--i.e., from
the middle of page 9 to the top of page 17 (with one of the pages being a full-page
picture of Dr. Bob with no accompanying text)--to Dr. Bob's upbringing in St.
Johnsbury from his birth on August 8, 1879 (page 9) to his graduation from St.
Johnsbury Academy in mid-1898 and subsequent departure for Dartmouth College in
Hanover, New Hampshire, that fall (top of page 17). In contrast, my dad's and
my 2008 biography of Dr. Bob during his childhood years--Dr. Bob of Alcoholics
Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a Youngster in Vermont
(http://www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml)--devoted more than 300 pages to Dr.
Bob's strong Christian upbringing in St. Johnsbury. Note the following
statement by Dr. Bob in his last major talk given in Detroit, Michigan, in
December 1948, of which a transcript is provided in the A.A. General Service
Conference-approved pamphlet The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (item #
P-53:
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/aa-literature/p-53-the-co-founders-of-alcoholics-anonymous):
"I [Dr. Bob] had refreshed my memory of the Good Book [since joining A First
Century Christian Fellowship (aka: "the Oxford Group") in 1933], and
I had had excellent training in that as a youngster." [pp. 11-12]
2. 'PASS IT
ON' was published in 1984, about 13 years after A.A. cofounder Bill W. died on
January 24, 1971. Again, just one observation--with several parts(!)--on this
book for now. The book devotes 24 pages--i.e., from the middle of page 13 to
the middle of page 37 (with four pages and part of a fifth in that chapter
being comprised of pictures with almost no explanatory text)--to Bill W.'s
upbringing in Vermont from his birth on November 26, 1895, to his failure to
graduate from Burr and Burton Seminary in the late spring/early summer of 1913.
And yet there is no specific reference to East Dorset Congregational Church situated
on the lawn between the Wilson House and the Griffith House. Nor of the
relationships of his paternal and maternal grandparents, and of his parents, to
that church. And there is no mention of Bill's perfect attendance at Sunday
school in that church for the final quarter of the year in 1906. Nor of his
having to take a required, four-year Bible course at Burr and Burton Seminary.
Nor of his being president of the Young Men's Christian Association at Burr and
Burton Seminary. And the list goes on. Those facts and others led to my dad's
writing his biography of 2006 biography of Bill W., titled The Conversion of
Bill W.: More on the Creator's Role in Early A.A.
(http://www.dickb.com/theconversionofbillw.shtml). To provide further details
that we learned about A.A.'s cofounders, we published Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the
Green Mountain Men of Vermont: The Roots of Early A.A.'s Original Program in
2012.]
Dr Bob is quite clear about the spiritual foundation of the
fellowship being the Bible,
[Ken: Absolutely, Paul. As Dr. Bob put it in The Co-Founders
of Alcoholics Anonymous: "In early A.A. days, . . . our stories didn't
amount to anything to speak of. When we [Bill W. and Dr. Bob] started in on
Bill D. [AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D.], we had no Twelve Steps,
either; we had no Traditions. But we were convinced that the answer to our
problems was in the Good Book. To some of us older ones, the parts we found
absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount, the thirteenth chapter of First
Corinthians, and the Book of James." [page 13] ]
and his common response to anyone inquiring about living
problems or seeking guidance in sobriety was "What does the Good Book
say?"
[Ken: Again, Paul, right on the money. The following is
stated about Dr. Bob in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers: "(Dr. Bob was
always positive about his faith, Clarence [S., Dr. Bob's sponsee who founded
the third A.A. group in the world in Cleveland on May 11, 1939] said. If
someone asked him a question about the program, his usual response was: 'What
does it say in the Good Book?' [page 144] ]
Bill's recount of his spiritual experience is inedible and a
very compelling testimony about his life
long assertion about the importance of
"total ego deflation"(hitting bottom in modern day fellowship
lingo) in order to let God into their lives completely.
[Ken: I agree, Paul, if by "Bill's recount {sic} of his
spiritual experience . . ." we include the whole 1934 sequence of
"spiritual events":
1. "During his [Bill W.'s] third visit to Towns
Hospital [in September 1934], Bill had a discussion with Dr. Silkworth on the
subject of the 'Great Physician.' . . . Bill Wilson himself wrote that he had
thought about this discussion before he decided to check himself into Towns for
the last time, . . . In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of
A.A., Wilson wrote: 'Alcoholism took longer to do its killing, but the result
was the same. So if there was a great Physician who could cure the alcoholic
sickness, I had better seek Him now, at once.'" [Dale Mitchel, Silkworth:
The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks, 44--which I quoted correctly from
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 61]. This is so important because people are
only aware of Silkworth's conversation with Bill's wife Lois, in which
Silkworth told Lois that "[s]he would soon have to give . . . [Bill] over
to the undertaker or the asylum" [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 7];
2. Ebby T.'s visit with Bill W. at 182 Clinton Street in
late November 1934 during which Ebby told Bill:
a. "I've got religion" [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th
ed., 9. These were Oxford Group "code words" meaning that Ebby had
accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and had become born again];
b. "[T]wo men . . . had told of a simple religious idea
and a practical program of action." [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 9];
and
c. ". . . God had done for him [Ebby] what he could not
do for himself." [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 11]
3. Ebby T.'s return visit a few days later, accompanied by
Shep C. of the Oxford Group, to see Bill W. at 182 Clinton Street. (This was
the same Shep, who along with Cebra G., had told Ebby in July 1934 in Vermont
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."
['PASS IT ON,' 113]. Shep presented the Oxford Group message to Bill W. at this
meeting with Ebby and himself.
4. On the evening before he went to Calvary Mission in early
December 1934, Bill ". . . had been at Calvary Church . . . [and had seen]
Ebby T. get up in the pulpit and give witness to the fact that with the help of
God he had been sober a number of months. Bill said that if Ebby T. could get
help here, he was sure he needed help and could get it at the mission
also." ['PASS IT ON,' 119]
5. Bill W. went to Calvary Mission the next day. And Bill
reported that "John Geroldsek . . . was on the platform and in charge of
the meeting. The brotherhood took turns at conducting the meetings, selecting
the Bible lesson, the hymns, and then leading off with their own testimony.
Geroldsek had just finished the Bible . . . There were hymns and prayers. Tex,
the leader, exhorted us. Only Jesus could save, he said. Certain men got up and
made testimonials. . . . Then came the call. Penitents starting marching
forward to the rail. Unaccountably impelled, I started, too, . . . Soon I knelt
among the sweating, stinking penitents. Maybe then and there, for the very
first time, I was penitent, too. Something touched me. I guess it was more than
that. I was hit. I felt a wild impulse to talk. . . .Afterward, Ebby, . . .
told me with relief that I had . . . had given my life to God." ['PASS IT
ON,' 117-18]
6. "He [Bill W.] drank on for another two or three
days. However, going to the mission had been more than a drunken impulse, and
he pondered the experience. In the charged atmosphere of the meeting room, he
had been aware of deep feelings." ['PASS IT ON,' 119]
7. "On the morning of the third day [which was December
11, 1934, the day on which Bill W. entered Towns Hospital for his fourth and
final stay] my wandering thoughts gathered into a sharp focus. . . . [I]f there
was a great Physician who could cure the alcoholic sickness, I had better seek
Him now, at once. I had better find what my friend [Ebby T.] had found."
[Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 61]
8. Then, finally, comes Bill W.'s vital religious experience
in Towns Hospital. This was when Bill thought: "But what of the Great
Physician?" [Bill W., My First 40 Years, 145] And this was when Bill
remembered ". . . saying to . . . [himself], 'I'll do anything, anything
at all. If there be a Great Physician, I'll call on him.' Then, with neither
faith nor hope I cried out, 'If there be a God, let him show himself.' The
effect was instant, electric. Suddenly my room blazed with an indescribably
white light. I was seized with an ecstasy beyond description. . . . Then, seen
in the mind's eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit where a great
wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. . . . Then came the blazing
thought, 'You're a free man.' . . . As I became more quiet a great peace stole
over me, . . . I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a
veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. 'This,' I
thought, 'must be the great reality. The God of the preachers.' . . . I thanked
my God who had given me a glimpse of His absolute Self." [Bill W., My
First 40 Years, 145-46]
Both Bob and Bill's story directly tie their own sobriety
and salvation, to their personal
experience and daily relationship with Jesus Christ.
[Ken: To see more clearly the similarities and differences
between the Christian upbringings of A.A. cofounders Bill W. and Dr. Bob, I
would suggest a careful study of: (1) Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W.; (2)
Dick B. and Ken B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous; and (3) Dick B. and Ken
B., Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the Green Mountain Men of Vermont. And for a better
understanding of how "the first three" (i.e., Bill W., Dr. Bob, and
Bill D.] got sober, I suggest: Dick B. and Ken B., The Dick B. Christian
Recovery Guide, 3rd ed.]
They say the method in which they received that message was
through the Oxford Group, the members of which claimed no affiliation to
traditional sectarian or organized religion, but modeled their lives directly
after Jesus as described and directed in the Holy Bible.
[Ken: This is where details my dad uncovered during his
research on the Oxford Group--as set forth in Dick B., The Oxford Group and
Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, 3rd ed.--come in. For
example: (1) The group was not originally known as "the Oxford
Group." When Lutheran minister Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman cofounded the group
in the autumn of 1922, its original name was "A First Century Christian
Fellowship." It was not until September 1928 that a newspaper in South
Africa first applied the label of "the Oxford Group" to a small bunch
of students from Oxford University in England who were traveling by train in
South Africa. The original name, "A First Century Christian
Fellowship," was still being used when Dr. Buchman and a group of
associates came to Akron in January 1933 at the behest of Harvey Firestone, Sr.,
to do a series of meetings in Akron. Dr. Bob's wife Anne and Henrietta
Seiberling (who introduced Bill W. and Dr. Bob) attended those January 1933
meetings in Akron.]
This is our heritage as members of the fellowship.
In light of these facts about The Fellowship of the Spirit,
the following quotes from the Big Book Chapter Five How It Works describe a
specific and critically important message : "Rarely have we seen a person
fail who has thoroughly followed our path."...."Our stories disclose
in a general way, what we were like, what happened and was we are like
now"......" we must be willing to go to any length"...and
"Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs".
[Ken: Paul, you certainly raised a key point in speaking of
"our path." I'm so glad that my dad encourages people to "master
the Big Book." As you probably know, there were 29 personal testimonies in
the "Personal Stories" section of the first printing of the first
edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (published in April 1939). 22 of those personal
testimonies from the first edition were not included in the second edition of
Alcoholics Anonymous (published in 1955). And another four of the original
personal testimonies in the first edition were not included in the fourth
edition (published in 2001). Why are those facts important? Because Bill W. and
Dr. Bob began developing a "program" immediately after Dr. Bob took
his last drink in June 1935. As stated in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers:
"Smitty [Dr. Bob's son] remembered how his father and Bill Wilson worked
hard during that period to 'formulate a little talk or scheme that would
interest the other drunks." [page 96]. And see the use of the word
"plan" and especially of the word "program" by AA Number
Three, Bill D., in his personal story in the Big Book as he discusses his
interactions with Bill W. and Dr. Bob while he was hospitalized in late
June-early July 1935. [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 185-92] A seven-point
summary of the original Akron A.A. "program," as it looked in
late-February 1938, is given on page 131 of DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers.
Mitchell K., in his biography of Dr. Bob's sponsee Clarence S., discusses that
"old program" as follows: "Two years after the publication of
the book [Alcoholics Anonymous in April 1939], Clarence made a survey of all of
the members in Cleveland. He concluded that, by keeping most of the 'old
program,' including the Four Absolutes and the Bible, ninety-three percent of
those surveyed had maintained uninterrupted sobriety. Clarence opined that even
with New York's 'moral psychology' approach to recovery 'had nowhere near our
recovery rate.'" [Mitchell K., How It Worked: The Story of Clarence H.
Snyder and the Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio, 108]. 18
of the original 29 personal testimonies in the "Personal Stories"
section of the first printing of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous came
from people in the Akron-Cleveland area. And they spoke in their personal
testimonies of the original Akron A.A. program as described on page 131 of DR.
BOB and the Good Oldtimers. (And Mitchell K. described that Akron
program--i.e., the "original" A.A. program--as the "old program.")
And the seven-point summary of the original Akron A.A. program did not speak of
a "higher Power," of"a Power greater than ourselves," or of
"God as we understood Him." It
spoke of "God." Period. And it used the same unmodified, unqualified
word "God" that the writer of the 12 Steps, Bill W., said he had
consistently used in the original draft of the 12 Steps. [Alcoholics Anonymous
Comes of Age, 166]. The other key point to note here is that the primary writer
of the Big Book, Bill W., made it clear that he had not included the original
Akron A.A. "Christian fellowship" program (DR. BOB and the Good
Oldtimers, 118) in the Big Book. As Bill W. stated in Alcoholics Anonymous
Comes of Age: "I was greatly pleased with what I had written, and I read
them the new version of the program, now the 'Twelve Steps.'" [page 162;
emphasis added]. So when one speaks of ". . . thoroughly followed our
path," it is vital to know what "path" we are speaking about.]
The message is clear to me. Follow Jesus Christ and help other do the same, period. No
asterisks or further explanations or
appendixes needed. Amen
[Ken: Let's hear it for the messages carried by A.A.'s
cofounders Bill W. and Dr. Bob, as stated in the "Basic Text" of
Alcoholics Anonymous, the Big Book--and as seen, for example, in all 608 pages
of the fourth edition:
[As AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D., stated in his
personal testimony (which was not included in the first edition):
Bill [W.] looked across at my wife and said to her,
'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.'"
[Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 191]
[As A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob stated in the last line of his
personal testimony in the Big Book]:
Your Heavenly Father will never let you down! [Alcoholics
Anonymous, 4th ed., 181
In GOD's love, Dick B.'s son, Ken]
Paul
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