Saturday, March 28, 2015

Is Jesus Referred to in A.A. Literature and Other Authoritative Sources about A.A. History? Yes!


One more time . . . Is Jesus referred to A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature and other authoritative sources about A.A. history? Let's start with the beginning of A.A. cofounder Bill W.'s “turn-around” during his third stay at Towns Hospital for alcoholism in September 1934: “During his third visit to Towns Hospital, Bill [W.] had a discussion with Dr. Silkworth on the subject of the ‘Great Physician.’”[1] Dr. Silkworth was “[a] devout Christian, . . .”[2] Did your sponsor tell you about those two facts? Here's a statement A.A. cofounder Bill W. made—just after he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at Calvary Mission about December 8, 1934, and just before he entered Towns Hospital on December 11, 1934, for his fourth and final stay at Towns Hospital for alcoholism—“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 T., his Burr and Burton Seminary schoolmate] had found.”[3] And then, while Bill W. was in Towns Hospital during his December 11-18, 1934, stay, he said: “But what of the Great Physician? For a brief moment, I suppose, the last trace of my obstinacy was crushed out as the abyss yawned. I remember saying to myself, ‘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.”[4] Now we know why A.A. cofounder Bill W.'s message—the original, “old-school” A.A. message, at least as of mid-July 1935—was: “. . . ‘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.’”[5] And we know why Bill W. said about A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob in late June 1935: “Straightway, [Dr.] Bob called Akron's City Hospital and asked for the nurse on the receiving ward. He explained that he and a man from New York had a cure for alcoholism.”[6] Are you sharing these facts with your sponsees?
 
In GOD's love, Ken B.
 
Gloria Deo



[1] Dale Mitchel, Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks (Center City, Minn.: Hazelden, 2002), 44.
[2] Mitchel, Silkworth, 11.
[3] Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957), 61.
[4] Bill W., My First 40 Years (Center City, Minn.: Hazelden, 2000), 145.
[5] Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (New York City: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001) 4th ed., 191.
[6] Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 188.

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