Adding an International Christian Recovery Coalition banner to your website, facebook page, or blog

http://christianrecoverycoalition.com/images/banners/index.shtml

The International Christian Recovery Coalition now has participants in every one of the United States, plus fourteen other countries.

Its website, banner, explanatory note, mission statement, leaders and participants, resource centers, projects, Introduction Class, Radio Show with Dick B., conferences, and articles can be found on
http://goo/gl/qP2pw. Be sure to go there first, check it out; and, if you approve, send us your listing so that you too can be named without cost as a supporter and disseminator of information about the role that God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in old school Akron A.A.'s Christian Fellowship program and can play in Bill W.'s "new version" Big Book and Twelve Steps of 1939.

We would be delighted to see every participant with a  website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, YouTube, and other forms of Social Media carry our banner on the page to publicize the Christian Recovery Movement that is now sweeping the recovery arena.

The banner is

http://christianrecoverycoalition.com/images/banners/index.shtml

Just After Publiction of the Big Book in 1939, Dr. Bob Gave This Interview to "Your Faith" Magazine

The Long-Missing 1939 Interview of Dr. Bob in “Your Faith” Magazine

 

Dick B.

 

[Dick B.: The following article is from “Your Faith" magazine. It is an article which A.A. literature had said was lost. AAs speculated that Dr. Bob wrote the article. He didn't. He was interviewed by D. J. Defoe in September 1939 for "Your Faith" Magazine. And the interview disappeared from view for years and years as far as AAs were concerned. Yet in the interview, Dr. Bob told how he read the Bible with patients. He told how they came to trust God. He told how he had been cured by prayer. He spoke about the healings of Jesus Christ. And he was talking about the many drunkards whom he had been able to help once he himself prayed, turned to God for help, and was cured--a priceless article free of the editing and revision of others who might have doubted!]

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D. J. Defoe, “I Saw Religion Remake a Drunkard,” in Your Faith magazine, September 1939, 84-88

http://silkworth.net/aahistory/drbob/drbob_interview_fm_0939.html ; accessed 2/22/12

 

 

Through Liquor, this physician had lost his practice, his reputation and his self-respect. Then one night in a gathering in a private home, he found the way of escape.

 

 

WHEN a doctor starts drinking, he's usually on the skids for keeps. His profession gives him so much privacy, so great exposure to temptation both from liquor and from drugs, and his need of a stimulant to lift him from depression becomes so extreme, that many a good doctor has dropped into oblivion for no cause other than his own thirst for drink.

I could tell you about more than one doctor who came to no good end through liquor. Their stories are alike in their early furtiveness, then a brazen attitude of liquor - might -do-things-to some-men - but - I'm-different, then a broken desperation to try to keep up appearances and pretend nothing has happened, and finally exposure—and failure—and disgrace. One brilliant ex-surgeon a suicide; another exile from home; two others forgotten by their friends; so runs the history.

But Dr. X handled his liquor problem differently. He came close enough to degradation to see how the jaws of hell reaching out for him. But then something interfered and saved him.

Today Dr. X—and I dare not give his name, or even the name of the city, for reasons you will soon discover—is alive and happy and is probably a better and more popular doctor than ever before. What saved his life and reputation? What force made him into a new man?

It was simply religion, brought home to him in a way he could use it. Simply the new habit of living his religion, and the discovery that he could utilize the power of prayer.

We used to see Dr. X around a lot. He was cheery, straightforward, friendly, and successful. His field was a particularly intricate form of surgery and he did well at it.

Then for quite a while we missed him. I saw his wife now and then, and noticed—even a man can things like that—that she seemed a little shabby and not especially happy.

We began to hear ugly rumors. That's bad for any doctor. We heard he was losing his practice. When a doctor begins drinking, not many people are willing to trust their own lives to his skill with a knife.

Last year I met Dr. X for the first time in several years. He was a new Dr. X. Straight as an Indian. Clean eyes. An honest I-can-lick-the-world look in his face. He gripped my hand in a vise and said hello in a way that gave you something to tie to.

We were at a party. Someone offered Dr. X a drink. Then I remembered what had happened to him and wondered what he would do.

"I don't drink," he said evenly. "Some men can take a drink, or two drinks, and stop. I can't. I had that ability once, but not now. If I'd take as much as a swallow of alcohol now, I'd disappear—and you wouldn't see me for three weeks."

From him and from others I got his whole story, a bit here, a bit there. Here it is.

He had been drinking for longer than anyone but his wife suspected. For a while he was able to keep the matter a secret. But he missed a couple of appointments and got into some trouble. First his competitors knew it. Then his friends around the hospital got wise. Finally even his oldest patients began to leave him.

He had always been dignified and aloof, and when he was straight you hesitated to go up to him and tell him he was drinking too much. Usually he drank alone, silently, hungrily, in a sodden fashion of one who wants to forget. Just a deadly, steady sopping up of the poison. It was ghastly. In his saner moments he must have known the way he was headed. But a stubborn pride—and pride of that sort in a wayward person is a terrible thing—held him from seeking help.

Finally a friend he trusted got him to attend a little meeting in a living room one evening. It was a simple affair. Not dress-up at all. Here was a factory foreman who looked happier than almost anybody in town. When the time came to talk he told how he had been cured of drunkenness by prayer. His wife told how unbelievably happy their life was now. They didn't have much money—you could see that—but they had something that money alone had never brought them. They had love, and self-respect, and they had each other.

Dr. X was surprised to find that everyone in this little group had some sort of a fight to make, and had won. He began to look at these people in a new way. They had been weak and now they were strong. Unconsciously he began to envy them.

He surprised himself by starting to say something. He admitted he had a tremendous hunger for liquor, and sometimes it got him down. He found that just merely talking about his trouble seemed to bring relief. As long as you conceal your difficulties, no one can help you. But once you bring your trouble out in the open, you can invite help and encouragement from friends. And you can benefit by the strengthening power of prayer.

 

Merely getting on his knees and asking for help wasn't the whole story of Dr. X's reformation. Many a drunk knows there's a wide difference between promising to go straight and sticking to it!

What enabled him to hold fast to his resolution was the discovery that he, who had just started to climb back to sobriety and respectability, had the ability to help other desperate and disheartened drunks to live decent lives too.

In fact, that's a big part of the cure. When Dr. X gets an inebriate started on a new life of decency, he sees to it that the man gets on his feet now and then and talks to other people in the same predicament. Telling yourself and the world that you're going to go straight helps you to remind your subconscious mind that you are going straight.

There have been a lot of ex-drunks that have come within Dr. X's influence since that fateful night he was turned back from a drunkard's grave. Forty-three of them, no less, owe their new lives to him. He'll leave a party or a dinner, almost leave an operation, to go and sit up all night with some drunk he probably never saw before but who he knows needs help.

He has worked out a little system. Usually he puts the drunk to bed in a hospital, where he can sleep off his liquor quietly but can't get any more. There the sick man—for a drunk really is a sick man—receives regular care, and hot meals, and also some measure of discipline and restraint. There he has privacy, and time to think.

"But you can't do much for a man until he hits bottom and bounces back up, can you?" I asked.

"A man doesn't necessarily have to hit bottom, but he has to come close enough to it to see where he's going if he doesn't stop drinking," replied Dr. X quietly. "And he's got to want to be helped before we can do much with him or for him"

When a drunk in the hospital starts to sober up, Dr. X closes the door and starts to talk to him.

"I know where you hide your bottles," he'll say. "I know every sneaky little thing you do to get liquor when you're not supposed to have any. I've been there myself. And I want to tell you, my fine young friend, it's getting you nowhere. You're rotten. You're ashamed of yourself. Now let's do something about it."

So there in that white, silent hospital room they read the Bible together. Then they pray. Very simply. First the Doctor, then, falteringly, the man himself. He finds his voice gains in confidence. He finds it is easy to talk to God, and talk out loud. He finds a huge load is lifted off his chest. He begins to feel he could hold his head up again. He gets a fresh look at the man he might be. The whole idea becomes real and feasible to him. He becomes enthusiastic and eager about going straight. He promises to read the Bible, and Dr. X leaves him.

Then, like as not, the sick man slips up, and badly. Success is not that easy. Those nerves that have been accustomed to bossing the mind and the body can't be straightened out without a last tough fight. The patient begs for just one more last little drink, and when the nurse refuses, he is angry at Dr. X and may storm about and threaten to go home. Fortunately, the foresighted Dr. X had carefully removed the patient's pants and shoes and locked them up in his own locker in the surgeons' room of the hospital.

And then, because he knows the fight the sick man is going through, Dr. X comes back in time to bring new comfort and new cheer and to again call forth the searching and ever-available help of prayer. And in a couple of weeks the man, rested and refreshed and with the eyes alight as a result of decent living, goes home to his friends and his family that had almost given him up for dead.

"No, I don't dare let you tell about this," Dr. X said to me when I asked him for a signed interview.

"We can't publicize these cures. These men are outside the realm of every day medicine. They have tried everything and been given up as hopeless. We don't succeed every time ourselves. We can't brag. Every case is a new battle."

"But if word got out that we can do anything at all for a drunk, then derelicts would come into this town by the TRAINLOAD. We couldn't handle them. We couldn't handle a dozen. Two is a lot. One at a time is plenty. I can't talk to one of these fellows for more than an hour or two without feeling spent and tired, unless I talk like a parrot, and talking like a parrot wouldn't do them any good".

"Do you remember when Christ turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched me?' and some woman confessed she had touched his robe because she wanted to be cured? Christ felt some of his power pass out from him at that touch. It's the same way with helping people. You're giving something. It tires you.

"We fellows who are doing this sort of thing feel we have hold of something, but we don't dare use our names in connection with it. Look up the new book, Alcoholics, Anonymous which we helped write. We studied around for a long while to find how we could tell our story without using our names. That book was the answer. It tells some actual stories—my own among them—but no names are given. Even the publisher doesn't know our names."

 

"But Dr. X," I insisted, "Why not let these drunks pay you something for what you do for them? After all, they have been a burden to their friends. You put them back where they can earn a living again and live a decent life. You deserve any kind of fee you want to charge."

"No, we can't commercialize the idea," the doctor said firmly but kindly. "That would spoil everything. We've got to keep our work as a gift to anyone we are able to help.

"Moreover, I'm not sure we could set up a sanitarium and cure people effectively in any wholesale manner. I'm convinced this idea has to grow, one cure at a time."

I tried to argue still further. "But Christ was willing to let folks invite him in for supper and the night," I suggested. "You and your wife have food to buy, and rent to pay, and overhead expenses in the way of taxes and insurance and shoes for your daughter. It's your own fault if you don't let these reformed drunks help pay their own way."

"I'm satisfied," he said with a quiet smile that permitted no debate. "My wife and I are happier than we have ever been in our lives. We can keep going very nicely as long as I get a few operations from time to time, as I am doing. I'm doing a good job of living, and am happy," he ended.

Then he handed me this final thought. "I have found that no one can be permanently happy unless he lives in harmony with the rules set down in the Good Book," he said. "Try it some time! You don't need to wait till you're down and out before you ask for help. There's help waiting for you right now, if you just ask God to help you."

† † †

 

The gifts of friendship have only the value that

friendship gives them.—The Advance.

YOUR FAITH

How Early AAs Succeeded, and What those who attended our Arizona Conferences Heard

Thank you for this article on success rates, and I have a few comments from the trenches.

First, the weakest link in the recovery rate scene is the content of talks that speakers give all over the world. If they insist on war stories and drunkalogs, entertainment ranks high. But the speakers need to be held to a much higher standard if newcomers are to be helped. First, the talks need to include the following: (1) Discussion of the Big Book. (2) Discussion of the Steps. (3) Discussion of how the first three AAs got sober. (4) Discussion of the early Akron A.A. program--set forth on page 131 of DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers. (5) Discussion of the First Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous and the removal of all the personal stories but three which deprives the newcomer of testimonies of the real program. (6) Discussion of two major tools--a) The Dr. Bob interview article in Faith in 1939 which shows how that cofounder got well and helped others get well by prayer  and study of the Bible. b) The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks. And, if the speaker can't cover our basic text, cover the origins of A.A., can't bring himself to discuss the role of God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible in the A.A. program, cover the original program, and cover the major compromise in the Big Book before it went to press in 1939, that speaker is not prepared and is merely telling his own drinking story rather than focusing on informing the newcomer who still suffers. His "experience, strength, and hope" amounts to very little if it does not include the kind of information the founders were providing. See "Stick with the Winners!"

Second, the next weakest link is the sponsor who fails to qualify himself in learning each of the tools mentioned above. He owes it to the newcomer who has placed his recovery in the hands of someone who yet has the fundamentals to learn and pass along.

Third, then there is the newcomer himself. The best start for him is an Orientation Meeting like the ones being  conducted by Rock Recovery Ministries in San Diego. It's never too soon to let the newcomer in on what Conference-approved literature there is, what the chapters of the Big Book are for, why the personal stories in the First Edition of the Big Book need to be learned if people want the kind of successes that early AAs had. They are testimonies of success, and that is their purpose. Back to the first two points: The newcomer needs to be listening to speakers who are talking about how they used the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, the information about the early Akron program, the fact that A.A. is not  monolithic and needs to be viewed as a place for love and tolerance, love and service, and tolerance of the varied beliefs, individuals, and approaches. The newcomer needs to be provided with Beginners Meetings which provide information instead of an opportunity to vent concerns and questions.

You don't go to kindergarten and tell the teacher what  you would like to hear.  You recognize you are there to learn, not teach; get educated, not expose ignorance; personify humility, not pride.
God Bless, Dick B. www.dickb.com

Bill I gives a top interview today on Christian Recovery Radioo

You may hear Dick B. interview noted author and speaker Bill I. on the October 8, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show here on www.ChristianRecoveryRadio. It’s a top speaker and well worth your listening ASAP

 

http://mcaf.ee/dyr10

 

or here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/christian-recovery-radio-with-dickb/2013/10/08/dick-b-interviews-noted-author-speaker-bill-i

 

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

www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com

Meeting Dick B. - A Visitor to Maui Comments

While on holidays the past 2 weeks, I had the privilege of meeting Dick B.
Dick is regarded as one of the most notable historians on Alcoholics Anonymous.  Being one of few, if not the only person, to have researched in-depth the individuals and material used in the orignal AA fellowship.
Dick has met and interviewed numerous family members and others who knew AA founders such as Bill W, Dr. Bob, Anne Smith (Dr. Bob’s wife), and Reverend Samuel Shoemaker.  He has researched many of their published and unpublished writings and visited the places they lived and worked.
It was fascinating to hear of the origins of AA in contrast to where it has gone today.   I was able to recognize the source of some of my discomfort with my current experiences in AA.  I was also able to see areas I can redirect my focus in recovery and personal growth closer to ways that worked for the original AAs.
The AA founders did not endeavor so much to please everyone.  They found what worked and focused intently on it.  They believed in God and sought him diligently.  They seemed to have far greater purpose than what I experience today in the rooms of AA.
This experience left a question malingering in my mind.  Why, when in AA we hear so many warnings against anything centred around “self”, do we then accept the suggestion by many AA’s to self-design our own god/higher-power? 
This is not what the original AAs practiced.  I have begun reading more on original AA and am discovering an AA that I never knew.
Thanks Dick for a great chat and lunch together in the beautiful setting on the island of Maui.  It was particularly special given that our meeting happened to be on the day of my sobriety anniversary.
Ciao.
Chaz
Dick B’s web site is www.dickb.com

Cured of Alcoholism! A letter to a recovered AA trying to reconcile the one statement that we cannot be cured with the many that said we can and were

My dad (Dick B.—www.DickB.com) has written two whole books on the topic of “cured” and Alcoholics Anonymous. They are:

 

·         Dick B., Cured! Proven Help for Alcoholics and Addicts, 2d ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2006): http://mcaf.ee/hpjsb; and

·         Dick B., When Early AAs Were Cured and Why, 3^rd ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2006): http://mcaf.ee/ik64w.

 

Here are some points about the use of the word “cured” in the Big Book and about its use by Bill W. and others before the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published in April 1939.

 

1. A person should not be considered "naive" because they state that the Big Book declares:

 

We are not cured of alcoholism. [Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 85]

 

That statement does occur—once—in the part of the book before the “Personal Stories” section.  However, that is not all that is stated in the Big Book about a cure for alcoholism.

 

2. One aspect of how to approach the problem(s) raised by the foregoing claim on page 85 of the Big Book is to list some other facts about the Big Book; e.g.:

 

a.       The entire book, Alcoholics Anonymous (“the Big Book”), is "the basic text for Alcoholics Anonymous"--as stated on the front cover of the dust jacket of the hardback edition of the fourth edition of the Big Book:

 

“Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the Fourth Edition of the Big Book, the Basic Text for Alcoholics Anonymous”

 

That fact is also stated on page xi of the Preface to the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous:

 

“. . . [T]his book has become the basic text for our Society . . .”

 

b.      There are seven other occurrences of the word “cure” in the fourth edition of the Big Book (published in 2001) referring to the time before the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published in April 1939; and they all state or imply that alcoholism was being cured by the “old,” pre-April 1939 program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

1)      "Another feeling we are very likely to entertain is one of resentment that love and loyalty could not cure our husbands of alcoholism. We do not like the thought that the contents of a book or the work of another alcoholic has accomplished in a few weeks that for which we struggled for years.” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 118 (chapter: “To Wives”)].

 

2)      “Though he [“one of our friends”] is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment. She sees she was wrong to make a burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured.” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 135 (chapter: “The Family Afterward”)].

 

3)      “But this was a man [Bill W.] who had experienced many years of frightful drinking, who had had most all the drunkard’s experiences known to man, but who had been cured by the very means I had been trying to employ, that is to say the spiritual approach.” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 180; (“Doctor Bob’s Nightmare,” the personal story of A.A. cofounder and medical doctor, Dr. Bob)].

 

4)      “Then she [the wife of A.A. Number Three, Bill D.] told me that these two drunks she had been talking to had a plan whereby they thought they could quit drinking, and part of that plan was that they tell it to another drunk. This was going to help them to stay sober. All the other people who had talked to me wanted to help me, and my pride prevented me from listening to them and caused only resentment on my part, but I felt as if I would be a real stinker if I did not listen to a couple of fellows for a short time, if that would cure them.” [Italics in original, bolding added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 185; (“Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” the personal story of AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D.)].

 

5)      “Two days before this, Dr. Bob had said to me [Bill W.], ‘If you and I are going to stay sober, we had better get busy.’ Straightway, 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. Did she have an alcoholic customer on whom it could be tried?” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 188; (“Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” the personal story of AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D.)].

 

6)      “Bill [A.A. cofounder Bill W.] looked across at my wife [the wife of AA Number Three, Bill D.] 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.’” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 191; (“Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” the personal story of AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D.)].

 

7)      “That sentence, ‘The Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep telling people about it,’ has been a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.” [Emphasis added; Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 191; (“Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three,” the personal story of AA Number Three, Akron attorney Bill D.)].

 

[See DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), 131, for Frank Amos’s February 1938, seven-point summary of the original Akron A.A. program; and see Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957), 162, for Bill W.’s statement that he had written “the new version of the program, now the ‘Twelve Steps.’”

 

To help you research the facts contained in the Big Book, you might want to acquire a copy of A Concordance to Alcoholics Anonymous, comp. Stephen E. Poe and Frances E. Poe (Reno, NV: Purple Salamander Press: 1990): http://mcaf.ee/1supo. It is a concordance to the third edition of the Big Book, but the page numbers are (approximately) the same at for the fourth edition—at least until the “Personal Stories” section. Or, you could use the concordance feature of the www.164andmore.com Web site.]

 

3. Present a little historical background for the use of the word “cured” by early AAs. E.g.:

 

·         William D. Silkworth, M.D., a devout Christian [Dale Mitchel, Silkworth, the Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2002), 11], had told Bill W. during Bill’s third visit to Towns Hospital in September 1934 that “the Great Physician” (Jesus Christ) could cure Bill of Bill’s alcoholism. [Mitchel, Silkworth, 44; see also 43-51, 225].

 

·         According to Bill W., .on the morning of the third day after he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at Calvary Mission (about December 7, 1934), Bill thought to himself:

 

“So if there was a great Physician who could cure the alcoholic sickness, I had better seek Him now, at once.” [Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 61].

 

·         Bill W. then entered Towns Hospital for his fourth and final stay on December 11, 1934; had the experience in which his hospital room “blazed with an indescribably white light,” and sensed the presence of God. After that experience, he never again doubted the existence of God and never drank again. [‘Pass It On’ (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1984), 121]. When he left Towns Hospital on December 18, 1934, he sought out drunks wherever he could find them with a Bible under his arm, telling them that they needed to give their lives to God.

 

·         A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob, a medical doctor, declared that A.A. cofounder Bill W. “had been cured” of alcoholism. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 180). And Dr. Bob told a nurse on the receiving ward of Akron’s City Hospital that he and Bill “had a cure for alcoholism.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 188).

 

·         AA Number Three, Akron attorney and Sunday school teacher Bill D., quoted Bill W. as having said to his (Bill D.’s) wife, “Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about and telling people.” And that, for AA Number Three, Bill D., Bill W.’s statement had been “a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th ed., 191).

Dick B. A.A. History Yahoo

I now have an Yahoo Group; and its name is

Dick B. A.A. History

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dickbaahistory/conversations/topics

Hear Dick B. Radio Talk about Presentations in Phoenix and Tucson at Old School Recovery Leadership Meetings

You may hear Dick B. share about upcoming "old-school" A.A. leadership and public meetings on Friday, October 11, in Phoenix, and on Saturday, October 12, in Tucson, Arizona, on the October 6, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show here

http://mcaf.ee/lkxbu

or here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/christian-recovery-radio-with-dickb/2013/10/07/dick-b-shares-on-upcoming-old-school-aa-leadership-meetings

 

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

www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com

A First Century Christian Fellowship Utterance by Oxford Group Author Victor C. Kitchen

Thanks to Carl "Tuchy" Palmieri, for his newly published reprint of Victor C. Kitchen's Oxford Group book, "Believing in False Gods: I Was a Pagan." Published by Healing Habits it is now ready for AAs, A.A. history lovers and students, and those who want to know about A First Century Christian Fellowship, founded by Dr. Frank N.D. Buchman about 1923--a movement that provided the ground work for many an A.A. idea later codified by Bill W. in his 1939 new version of the A.A. program (the Big Book and 12 Steps)

I particularly like Kitchen's statement of what well can be a statement of early A.A.'s Christian Fellowship precepts, the precepts of "A First Century Christian Fellowship" (known later as the Oxford Group), and a solid link from early Akron A.A. to the principles and practices of the Apostles in the Book of Acts, who were, of course, the real First Century Christians.

Page1 271 of the Victor Kitchen reprint closes the book with this line:

"My thanks to the Oxford Group who, led me to Christ, and to Christ Who is leading me to God."

Carl "Tuchi" Palmieri's Great Service to A.A. History Lovers and Students of the Christian Recovery Movement

Dick B.’s Letter of Thanks to Tuchy P., Author, Philanthropist, Owner of Healing-habits (Publisher), Christian leader, and Long-Recovered AA  10/4/2013

 

Dear Tuchy:

 

I am writing this letter to give you another special vote of thanks for all you have done in reprinting so many of A.A.’s key historical books—particularly those by A First Century Christian Fellowship (later known as the Oxford Group) group of highly skilled Christian activist authors, often recovered alcoholics, who “found” God, were cured of alcoholism and had their lives changed.

 

I’m publishing this thank you for several reasons.

 

As a participant in our International Christian Recovery Coalition, and one who has also participated in our investigative research in St. Johnsbury, you are rendering a very special service that  not only  glorifies God, but also makes known his power, love, and healings as set forth in the Bible and applicable to all sickness, particularly alccholism.

 

Your Healing Habits has now reprinted widely known and used Oxford Group books by Victor Kitchen,  Harold Begbie, Cecil Rose, Olive Jones, Sam Shoemaker, Stephen Foot, A. J. Russell, and Charles Clapp.

 

These are the books which contributed the very language that Bill Wilson incorporated into his new version of the A.A. program when he published the first edition of the Big Book in 1939.

They were eagerly sought out and often purchased at a high price by those of us who were able to recognize the language of the authors in many pages of Bill W.’s writings. And, of course, Bill was far more involved with the Oxford Group from 1934 to 1937 and then in 1938 and 1939 with Rev. Sam Shoemaker than almost anyone in early A.A. including Dr. Bob.

 

You have generously donated many of these books to places which make them available to AAs and those in recovery all around the world. You donated a number of copies to the Dr. Bob Core  Library at North Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury when we were all there dedicating the library and rounding  up mounds more A.A. history about Dr. Bob, his family, his church, his excellent training in the Bible, his participation in Christian Endeavor and YMCA activities as a youngster, and his rigorous Bible study and church attendance while at St. Johnsbury Academy.

 

A word to others. Tuchy has just started chemotherapy for abdominal cancer; and our heart goes out to him in prayers, good wishes, and miracle affirmations. We ask the same of those who read this letter.

 

Tuchy’s latest reprint effort is Victor Kitchen’s Believing in False Gods: I Was A Pagan in which Kitchen (an avid Oxford Group member, Christian, friend of Sam Shoemaker’s, and friend of Bill W.) spelled out how he moved from idolatry to Jesus Christ, changed his life, and was cared of smoking and alcoholism. May all those who read this book profit from it as much as I did when I was researching and writing my landmark book, The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works,  2d ed, www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml.

 

I particularly cherish the last line of this reprint where Kitchen wrote: “My thanks to the Oxford Group who led me to Christ, and to Christ Who is leading me to God.”

 

This sentence is the epitome of First Century Christianity in action. And it more than justifies the name “A First Century Christian Fellowship” adopted by Frank Buchman and his friends in the early 1920’s, and the name “Christian Fellowship” adopted by the early Akron A.A. Christians who founded A.A. in Akron in 1935.

 

God Bless you, and keep you, Tuchy

 

Dick B.

 

"A First Century Christian Fellowship"--Source of Ten of the Twelve Steps, Said Bill W.

New Interest in the 12 Steps and A First Century Christian Fellowship

 

The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

In his important article published in The Language of the Heart, at page 298, Bill Wilson said the material for ten of the twelve steps came straight from the Oxford Group—which was known by most as A First Century Christian Fellowship. And the most searching and authoritative research and study on this source can be found in The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, 2d ed. To get the facts, see www.dickb.comOxford.shtml.

 

Dick B.'s First Radio Interview on The New Five Videos and Guide Book on Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism

You may hear Dick B. discuss the new five-video series "Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism: The Rest of the Story" on the October 4, 2013, episode of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show here:

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

You May Hear This Radio Show Right Now on www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com

 

and

http://mcaf.ee/u9e6n

 

or here:

 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/christian-recovery-radio-with-dickb/2013/10/05/dick-b-discusses-bill-w-dr-bob-the-cure-of-alcoholism

 

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

www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com

Dick B. on what a "higher power" is or insn't--especially in Alcoholics Anonymous

Higher Power

By Dick B.
© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Some of us spend a lot of time asking the question “What is a Higher Power?” Sometimes, the answer is, “Something.” Sometimes, the answer is “Somebody.” Sometimes, the answer is “Anything that keeps me from drinking.” Others say “it” is a light bulb, a radiator, a chair, the A.A. Group, the Big Dipper, a rock, “Her,” a tree, a rainbow, or “nothing at all.” But whatever we hear, such answers sound pretty screwy to some of us. And they certainly are.

However, the more the answers, the more the questions, because those “light bulb” and “Big Dipper” phrases don’t answer questions, they just raise the question, “What is it?”

Historically, the “higher power” phrase comes from New Thought writers like Ralph Waldo Trine, William James, the Emanuel Movement people, including, perhaps, Bill W.’s friend Victor Kitchen. See Dick B., God and Alcoholism: Our Growing Opportunity in the 21st Century, 2002, pp. 89-101, ISBN 1885803346 (http://dickb.com/Godandalcoholism.shtml); Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes, 1997, pp. 1-10, 163-172, ISBN 1885803079 (http://dickb.com/Turning.shtml).

But what is it?

Dr. Bob’s wife Anne Ripley Smith simply called the nonsense names a “funk hole” See Dick B. Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939: A.A.’s Principles of Success, 3rd ed., 1998, pp. 91. 119-120, ISBN 1885803249 (http://dickb.com/annesm.shtml)

Let me tell you how three old timers approach the answer to what a “Higher Power” isn’t:

One old timer--the oldest--was my friend Jim H. from Maryland. He lived to 100 years old and got sober just about the same time that Bill Wilson did. In fact, Jim knew Rev. Sam Shoemaker and met Bill Wilson at early Oxford Group meetings. In his later years, Jim came to know me and endorsed a number of my books. Jim’s answer to the “higher power” nonsense involved s a “take-away” approach. He said to me and wrote: “If you take God out of the program, you have nothing.”

Another old timer--the archivist at Dr. Bob’s home--is my friend Ray G. Ray takes a large collection of A.A. history materials around the U.S., conducts workshops at conferences, and tells it like it was. Ray’s approach to the nonsense phrase was to “identify” the “highest power.” Ray frequently said: “My higher power isn’t conference approved; but his Father is!”

A third--an old timer from Oregon whose name is Gene--phoned me to say that he was involved in both A.A. and N.A., and was speaking at a world convention of N.A. He said he was interested in our early A.A. history and in my research, and wanted to bring his higher power back into the program. He said that Jesus was his higher power, and he knew that the early A.A. program was a Christian program. We got to talking about “singleness of purpose,” about the common features of A.A. and N.A., and about the drift of both away from God. At the end of our conversation, we both agreed that today’s crowds in A.A. and N.A. are really not single anything—not just alcoholics, not just addicts, not just believers, not just unbelievers, but in fact not much of any of these if they just stayed sick and didn’t get into a fellowship and didn’t focus on getting well. Gene said that he no longer introduced himself in speeches by saying “I’m Gene, and I am an alcoholic” or “I’m Gene, and I am an addict.” Today he introduces himself as follows: “I’m Gene, and I am a responsible member of the program.”

So this little article is addressed to those who are or want to be “a responsible member of the program.” And want so to identify themselves. Who is a responsible member?

Let’s take a cue from the three old timers I just quoted.

A responsible member is one who does not seek, or want, to take God out of the program. It’s neither his privilege nor his right.

A responsible member who is a Christian is one who makes it clear that the Creator, his Father, is “Conference-approved”—certainly not “Conference dis-approved.” He knows that most “Conference-approved” literature refers to God, establishing a relationship with God, the Bible, biblical phrases, and the early A.A. Christian Fellowship.

A responsible member may certainly be a person who gets well by turning to “the Lord”—as Bill Wilson and Bill Dotson (A.A. Number Three) said they did (Big Book, p. 191). He was not required to turn to “the Lord”, and his A.A. forbears were either; but he has that privilege and right.

A responsible member is one who would rather focus on what God has done for him once he sought God, than on sparking conflicts over definitions about who is sick from what, about what the nature of a “higher power” is, about what “it” is or isn’t, about what the meaning of “is” is, and/or about who satisfies the requirements for “membership” and who doesn’t.

One of the reasons I enjoyed and still enjoy the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is that I never tried to substitute any kind of “higher power” for Almighty God. Another is that I never got thrown out when I mentioned God. Or even when I mentioned the Bible. Another is that I used the same terms to describe Almighty God that were used by Dr. Bob, Bill Wilson, and the other pioneers—Creator, Maker, Father, God, Father of lights, Heavenly Father, and Spirit. Another is that I soon gave up thinking I could expect others to stop using the phrase “higher power” to describe their “Something,” or “Somebody,” or “not-god” philosophy. And I am, like Gene, “a responsible member of the program.” At least I think so, and that is what counts for me. My job is to be of maximum service to God and to carry the message to those still suffering from alcoholism. That’s our primary purpose, and it works!

dickb@dickb.com, 808 874 4876

Gloria Deo

Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous and His Excellent Training and Christian Upbringing in Vermont

Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous and His Boyhood Roots in Vermont

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

After one of our several research visits to the birthplace and Christian upbringing locations of A.A. Cofounder Dr. Bob, we established the Dr. Bob Core Library in the North Congregational Church of St. Johnsbury.

 

The entire Smith family attended this church four, and sometimes five, times a week. And we realized that very little had been researched, gathered, or published about Dr. Bob’s Christian upbringing in his boyhood village of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The more we researched, the more we found. And there is currently a vibrant move in St. Johnsbury itself to bring the community’s importance to A.A. and its history back to public attention.

 

Our first major contribution along these lines was to publish Dick B. and Ken B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a Youngster in Vermont. See www.dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml. This landmark book has now been accompanied by a number of Dick B. articles posted on the internet. And it has two companion books to fill out the picture:

 

(1) Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W.: More on the Creator’s Role in Early Alcoholics Anonymous. www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml.

 

(2) Dick B. and Ken B., Bill W. and Dr. Bob: The Green Mountain Men of Vermont. This later book shows the immense number of parallels in the Christian upbringing of both Bill and Bob as youngsters in the State of Vermont.It depicts many other facets of the great influence Vermont has had on the origins, history, founding, founders, and original program of the Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship founded by Bill W. and Dr. Bob in June of 1935.

 

The following Table of Contents shows you what is covered in great depth in our book Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous:

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Foreword

Introduction

Ch. 1:   The “Great Awakening” of 1875 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Ch. 2:   The Challenge and Direction of the Dr. Bob Resource Volumes

Ch. 3:   A.A.’s Dr. Bob and His St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Roots

Ch. 4:   Dr. Bob’s Birthplace and Boyhood Home

Ch. 5:   North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury

Ch. 6:   The Christian Endeavor Society and Its Legacy to Alcoholics Anonymous

Ch. 7:   The St. Johnsbury Academy

Ch. 8:   The Fairbanks Family of St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Ch. 9:   The Town of St. Johnsbury of Dr. Bob’s Youth

Ch. 10: The YMCA and St. Johnsbury, Vermont: 1875-1898

Ch. 11: The Original Akron A.A. Spiritual Program of Recovery

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

 

For further information, contact dickb@dickb.com

Oldl School A.A. Workshops and Leadership

Old School AA and Recovery Leader Workshops by Dick B. and Ken B.

Scottsdale, Phoenix, and then Tucson – Friday Oct 11 and Oct 12

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

AA Authors and Historians Dick B. and Ken B. have been invited to conduct four talks in Arizona on The Akron and Cleveland Old School AA Workshop Subject. Featuring AA Literature and Historical Sources: Why Early A.A. Succeeded-The Path They Thoroughly Followed and Rarely Failed (75% to 93% success rate).

 

This unique gathering about applying the highly successful Akron and Cleveland AA Programs in recovery today will span two days on October 11 and 12, 2013.

 

Continued updates on http://MauiHistorian.Blogspot.com prior to the events.

 

First Old School AA Workshop – Scottsdale, Arizona – October 11, 2013 – Friday – Main Talks at 6:30-8:30 PM. Luncheon meetings for leaders will also take place in Phoenix. Stay tuned for program, location, and topic details in the next few days.

 

Second Old School AA Workshop – Tucson, Arizona – October 12, 2013 – Saturday – Main Talks at 6:30:8: PM. Luncheon meetings for leaders will also  take place in Tucson. Stay tuned for program , location, and topic details in the next few days.

 

Feel free to contact Dick B. in Kihei, Maui, Hawaii for information and details. Phone 808 874 4876; dickb@dickb.com; PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837.

 

These features for Arizona residents, visiting AAs, and recovery leaders are the first for Dick B. and Ken B. in many years.  In fact, The First Nationwide A.A. History Conference took place in Phoenix with Dick B., Dr. Bob’s son Robert Smith, and Archivist Ray G. from Dr. Bob’s Akron Home quite some years back. And these current events will alert this vibrant area and populous to the tremendous benefits for recovery efforts today in learning and applying Old School Akron and Cleveland AA in the recovery scene today.

 

God Bless, Dick B.

Bill W.’s First Draft of

the Big Book Chapter Titled “There Is A Solution”

 

 By Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

During the early 1990’s, while I was doing research at Stepping Stones in New York, I found, and was given permission to make a Xerox copy of, a manuscript Bill W. wrote titled “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: CHAPTER #1: THERE IS A SOLUTION.” As my son Ken and I note in “Appendix Two: Key Highlights in the Writing of the Big Book with Approximate Dates” of our new title God, His Son Jesus Christ & the Bible in Early A.A., when Bill W. originally wrote the chapter titled “There Is A Solution” in March or April of 1938, it was identified as chapter one. As I was reviewing my copy of Bill W.’s manuscript again today, I was struck by significant differences in language between Bill’s early manuscript and the Big Book as we know it today—particularly relative to the phrase “religious experience(s).”

 

How Bill W. Wrote of the “Solution”

Before “the Great Contribution of Our Atheists and Agnostics”

[See Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 166-67; italics added]

 

•           “The tremendous fact for every one of us has been the discovery of a common solution – a way out with which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action.” (Manuscript page 2).

 

•           “The main purpose of this book is to exhaustively, definitely and specifically answer those questions and to let you know what you can do about it.” (Manuscript page 5).

 

•           “But there is a solution, and how glorious was the knowledge of it to us. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of our sins of omission and commission which the process requires for its successful consummation, but we saw that it really worked in others.” (Manuscript pages 9-10).

 

•           “And the GREAT  FACT is just this and no less; that all of us have had deep and effective religious experiences which have in every case revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s great universe.” (Manuscript page 10—emphasis added).

 

•           “The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that the Creator of you and me has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is to us new and beautiful and has there commenced to accomplish those things which by no stretch of the imagination were we humanly capable of.” (Manuscript page 10).

 

•           “After years of living on a basis which now seems to us wholly false, you are not going to get rightly related to your Creator in a minute. None of us has found God in six easy lessons, but He can be found by all who are willing to put the task ahead of all else.” (Manuscript page 10).

 

•           [Dr. Carl Jung told Rowland Hazard, wrote Bill:] “Sporadically, here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital religious experiences. . . . [H]is faith and his religious convictions were very good as far as they went, but that in his case, they did not spell the vital religious experience so absolutely imperative to displace his insanity with respect to matters alcoholic.” (Manuscript page 11—emphasis added).

 

•           “So . . . it began to look to us as though we must have a vital religious experience or perish. Our friend [Rowland Hazard] did finally have such an experience and we in our turn have sought the same happy end, with all of the ardor of drowning men clutching at straws. But what seemed at first to be a flimsy reed has proved to be a loving and powerful hand of God.” (Manuscript page 11—emphasis added).

 

•           “As a group, or as individuals, we have no desire to convince anyone that the true God can only be discovered in some particular way . . . If what we have learned, and felt, and seen, means anything at all, it indicates that all of us . . . are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a new relationship upon very simple and understandable terms, the moment any of us become willing enough to do so. Therefore, we waste no time in the kind of religious disputation which has so frequently torn people apart.” (Manuscript page 11).

 

•           “Not all of us have joined religious bodies, but we are nearly all agreed that by so doing, each would be taking a step toward new growth and availability for God’s purpose.” (Manuscript page 12).

 

•           “The next few chapters are the personal narratives of several of us. In these accounts each person will describe in his own language and from his own point of view the way in which he happened to find the living God.” (Manuscript page 12).

 

Notes for the Readers

 

1.         Bill said that the solution was a “vital religious experience.” So did Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker in his first significant book, Realizing Religion. And so, as you can see here, did Dr. Carl G. Jung—who fathered the solution through advising Rowland Hazard.

 

2.         The “vital religious experience” was explained by Bill W. as the need for a “defense;” but there was no mention of a “higher power.” Bill simply explained that Rowland had “placed himself beyond all human aid, and unless locked up, is virtually certain to die, or to go permanently insane.” (Manuscript page 9).

 

3.         The GREAT FACT, said Bill, was that “all of us have had deep and effective religious experiences.” (Manuscript page 10).

 

4.         The solution, said Bill: “So it began to look to us as though we must have a vital religious experience or perish.” (Manuscript page 11).

 

5.         “All of us,” said Bill, “are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a new relationship.” (Manuscript page 11).

 

6.         The author of each personal narrative “will describe in his own language and from his own point of view the way in which he happened to find the living God.” (Manuscript page 12).

 

7.         The result produced by seeking God and obtaining the solution, said Bill, is “The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that the Creator of you and me has entered into our hearts and lives in a way . . . which by no stretch of the imagination were we humanly capable of.” (Manuscript page 10).

 

 

The Certainty, in the Minds of the First Three AAs,

that Establishing a Relationship with the Creator Had Produced the Solution

 

On page 191 of the latest edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. is quoted as follows:

 

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 latest edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Bob is quoted as follows:

 

If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. . . .

 

Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!       

 

On page 191 of the same edition, A.A. Number Three (Bill D.) is quoted a follows:

 

I thought, I think I have the answer. Bill was very, very grateful that he had been released from this terrible thing and had given God the credit for having done it, and he’s so grateful about it he wants to tell other people about it.

 

That sentence, “The Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease that I just want to keep telling people about it,” has been a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.

 

The Certainty Was Embodied in the Three Pertinent Ideas on Page 60 of the 4th edition

 

(a)        That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b)        That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c)        That God could and would if He were sought.

 

Gloria Deo

Why Did Early Akron and Cleveland A.A. Fellowships Succeed - the Topics at the Two Workshops in Phoenix and Tucson

The agenda for each of the two hour workshops to be held next week, first in Phoenix, and then in Tucson, has now been prepared and submitted to my son Ken for review and to the hosts for comment. It answers, in historical terms, the question why the early Akron and Cleveland A.A. groups succeeded and gives you the details, the answers, and the challenge.

God Bless, Dick B.