Are There Two A.A.’s?

Dick B.
© 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Present-day AAs—members of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous—certainly can’t be divided into two A.A.’s or ten A.A.’s. At least not the AAs that I met in April of 1986 when I entered the rooms. Nor the AAs I have fellowshipped with over the past 23years. Nor the AAs I have met at International Conventions, regional conventions, gatherings like the “Spring Fling,” Big Book Seminars, Dr. Bob’s Home in Akron, the Wilson House in Vermont, the Snyder retreats in many states, the Roman Catholic retreat for AAs that I led in a monastery several years back, or just the plain old “meetings” that go on interminably in communities wherever I go. The people differ. The behavior differs. The groups differ. But the doors are open to all.

Is all this just naïveté? Not on your life. A.A. and its eager AAs fit my needs just fine as I came in, got a sponsor, had my seizures, spent time in treatment, spent time in the psych ward, even spent time in prison, learned about the Big Book, learned how to take and take others through the Twelve Steps, and finally discovered that—in the beginning—it was all about God. And, for me, it still is. No matter what others may do or say or think. I have found plenty of support for this position in the history of A.A., the contents of its Big Book, and the astonishing successes of the 1930’s that put A.A. on the map. I thank God in the name of Jesus Christ that He played a role in the whole founding and course of A.A.’s program and enabled me to find a new life that rested on the truths I found in the Bible. Nobody. Just nobody can drive a wedge that separates us drunks merely because of intolerance or variety or diversity. Not even those who claim we are heretics, cult members, on the path to destruction, or lacking in their doctrinal viewpoints.

The truth that I have observed is that there are not two, but dozens, of different types of A.A. gatherings; but all would probably deny that they belong to some separate organization from the gathering next door. Today, the A.A. Traditions still declare that any two AAs meeting for purposes of sobriety constitute an A.A. meeting. And today there are so many different shapes and sizes of these meetings than one can hardly simmer them down to two in number. Or twenty. Or one hundred.

Let’s take a quick look at the types of fellowships that have claimed A.A. affiliation through the years since 1935. First, there was the Akron A.A. “Christian Fellowship” founded in 1935. Its basic ideas came from the Bible. Its five required elements were summarized by Frank Amos and published in A.A.’s present-day literature. Second, before long, there were—according to Bill Wilson’s writings—some six word-of-mouth programs that preceded Wilson’s 1939 Big Book. And any careful review will disclose that none of the alleged six was anything like the Akron program, but they certainly involved A.A. affiliation. All the renditions differed in language and in principles—something Wilson himself admitted as he described them. By 1939, Bill had fashioned his own program primarily from his conferences with Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. and hence primarily from the Oxford Group’s twenty-eight life-changing principles. Then, just before the Big Book was presented for printing, there was a controversy and a compromise that spelled out a program without a necessity for God.

No sooner was this published than Clarence Snyder fashioned a highly successful program in Cleveland—one with a documented 93% success rate--that combined the Bible, the Oxford Group’s Four Absolutes, the Big Book, and the Twelve Steps. It certainly was about God, as an examination of the Cleveland Central Bulletin issues for the period quickly disclose. Again, nobody was claiming this was a non-A.A. program. In fact, Bill Wilson wrote that its results were of the best and far exceeded the fellowship growth elsewhere.

Following this, Sister Ignatia and Dr. Bob worked together on some new and very brief procedures during the short patient stays at St. Thomas Hospital; and some five thousand apparently followed them. But nobody has claimed the St. Thomas five to seven day hospital stay produced a new or different A.A. Then—during Bill’s long years of tremendous depression—all sorts of approaches sprang into view. There was the work of Richmond Walker. There was the work of Father Ralph Pfau. There was the work of Ed. Webster. There were the four pamphlets that Dr. Bob encouraged AA of Akron to publish. There was finally—after Dr. Bob and his wife Anne were dead—the turning over of the Society and the publication of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. But nobody claimed that any of these constituted the first, second, tenth, or unnumbered A.A. Fellowship. A.A. changed. The fellowship changed in composition. But AAs were still AAs. And they still are. One can attend meetings anywhere in the United States and Canada and believe he is in an A.A. meeting. And many that I have communicated with have made it clear that A.A. is still A.A. in England, Sweden, Australia, Japan, and Canada. In fact, the only two A.A.’s that I know of seem to exist in Mexico, but I’ll leave that to other reporters.

What’s the point?

The point is that as A.A. grew from the original, highly successful group of forty pioneers as of November, 1937, hordes thereafter poured into and out of A.A. A.A.’s corporate structure itself became protective of its copyrights, trademarks, symbols, and “Traditions.” This “protection” has been preserved by an international structure that is not even directly answerable to the garden variety of drunk who attends meetings in jails, hospitals, rehabs, treatment centers, and A.A. meetings. But A.A. is still A.A. no matter how much rigidity human beings try to impose.

The more commentators try to divide A.A. into this or that category, the more they distort the composition of this basically unorganized group of drunks who come into the rooms in unbelievably bad shape and, if they really try, and, if they really seek God’s help, can achieve a victory of sobriety and new life that they never believed possible. The range of dividers ranges from those who say that if you mention the Bible or God, you will get drunk to those who advocate going elsewhere because they can’t find Jesus in A.A. Some say A.A. is religious. Some say it is not religious. Some say it is “spiritual but not religious.” But it’s still A.A., whatever they choose to label it.

No, there are not two A.A.’s. But today there are tens of thousands in A.A. who have differing criticisms, differing viewpoints, even different types of “programs.” But most of us don’t even know about these when we first climb on board. We just welcome the love, friendship, and service that surround us; and we pay very little attention to those who are climbing the ladders of authority, but not really governing anybody.

I suppose you could say that “Give me liberty, or give me death” does not describe A.A. as such. But I also think you can say, “I didn’t want to die; so I’ll give A.A. a try. I did!

dickb@dickb.com; www.dickb.com

Gloria Deo

A.A. History Epochs and What They Tell Us Today

Dick B.
© 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved

A.A.'s Real History - a product of ongoing research and open-mindedness. The more the research, the more writers are able to divest themselves of the idea as to what AAs do and don't say, believe, practice, and pass along. The shibboleths of higher power, spiritual but not religious, salvation or something, nonsense gods that can be chairs, and all the other baggage that has emerged from lack of historical research may never be extracted from today's recovery language. But there's hope. A.A. had several distinct and usually unreported epochs. The first had to do with the religious training of Dr. Bob in St. Johnsbury and Bill W. in East Dorset and Manchester, Vermont. It was Christian. It involved Bible study. It emphasized salvation and learning the Word of God. It came from the Congregational churches to which both cofounders belonged; from the YMCA of which Bill was a president and Dr. Bob's father was president; from the rescue missions which is where Bill made his decision for Jesus Christ; from Christian Endeavor in which Dr. Bob was active; from the evangelists; from the rigorous requirements of St. Johnsbury Academy and Burr and Burton Academy where daily chapel, weekly church attendance, and Bible study were required. Thus, contrary to what most writings contend, Bob and Bill had strong Christian religious training as youngsters. It was buttressed by their families, their churches, their Sunday schools, their prayer meetings, and the whole environment in rural Vermont at the time. The second epoch was the period when Bill and Bob earned their stripes as real, fully qualified drunks. The third began as each finally turned to God for help--Bill by his decision for Jesus Christ at Calvary Rescue Mission and his call to God for help at Towns Hospital, followed by his "white light" experience, his belief he had been in the presence of "the God of the Scriptures," and his total cure. With Bob, the turning point began on the carpet of the home of T. Henry Williams, where Bob and his supporters dropped to their knees and prayed for his deliverance. This was followed by the seemingly miraculous appearance of Bill W. in Akron--proclaimed by Henrietta Seiberling to be "manna from heaven" and then by Dr. Bob's final decision to quit after his last binge which ended in June, 1935. Both men stated in writing that they were cured! The next epoch involved the actual program the two cofounders developed in the summer of 1935. Its ingredients were summarized in seven points by the Frank Amos report to John D. Rockefeller--which is lodged in the Rockefeller Archives in New York. The actual 14 "practices" including hospitalization, quiet time, Bible study, acceptance of Jesus Christ, witnessing and the rest are described in my book When Early AAs Were Cured and Why. Next came what Bill and Bill alone described as "six" word-of-mouth ideas. Bill admitted they varied widely in the hands of the users. And they certainly did not follow the Akron Christian Fellowship program that began in 1935. Bill then got permission to write a book. He and his partner formed a pseudo corporation, prepared a prospectus, outlined the book, sold shares, and (in Bill's case) conferred with Sam Shoemaker at length. The end result was (even though Bill had left the Oxford Group in August of 1937; and even though the Akron program was NOT an Oxford Group program)that Bill restored most of the Oxford Group's 28 precepts to A.A. and codified them in his Twelve Steps. Dr. Bob had nothing to do with the writing of these. And then Bill eliminated "God" from the proposed Step Two and added "as we understood Him" to Steps Three and Eleven; and the compromise was concluded. The atheists and agnostics had been mollified. And A.A. no longer was the Christian Fellowship that it had been in Akron from 1935 to the Spring of 1939 (and probably long thereafter). From all of this, the student of A.A. history needs to cease depicting A.A. as some monolithic society of agreed atheism, an Oxford Group offshoot, and a spiritualism dispensary and recognize it for the diverse and varied fellowship of which it consists today. I am a Christian, a Bible student, an active and recovered A.A. member; and today I have learned a great deal about the "biography" of the fellowship in which I gained continuing sobriety that has lasted almost twenty-four years to date. God Bless, Dick B.

dickb@dickb.com
www.dickb.com

Gloria Deo

Alcoholics Anonymous and Bill Wilson’s Bible Witnessing

A.A. History Fragment Number No. Eight
By Dick B.
© 2009 Dick B. All rights reserved

The Bill Wilson that many do not know became an “evangelist” almost immediately after he was discharged from Towns Hospital, having had a spiritual experience. For example, Lois Wilson’s biographer wrote:

The doctor [Dr. Silkworth] always allowed Bill to share his God-experience with some patients, hoping somehow it might help. . . . Dr. Shoemaker [the Episcopal rector at Calvary Church] encouraged Bill to spread the message of change and spiritual recovery to others like himself. Bill took the preacher at his word. With Lois’s full support, he was soon walking through the gutters of the Bowery, into the nut ward at Bellevue Hospital, down the slimy corridors of fleabag hotels, and into the detox unit at Towns with a Bible under his arm. He was promising sobriety to every drunk he could corner, if they, like he, would only turn their lives over to God. [See William G. Borchert, The Lois Wilson Story: When Love Is Not Enough: A Biography of the Cofounder of Al-Anon (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2005), 170.]

In fact, Rev. Sam Shoemaker wrote to Bill on January 22, 1935, commending Bill for his witnessing to Frederick E. Breithut who became known as the “chemistry professor.” Shoemaker wrote:

I hope you realize the guided-ness of your having known Jim Williams previously, as I understood you did, in business. His wife, Margaret, is fulltime in the Group and he has held out for a long while. You may be just the person that cracks the shell and brings him over. He drinks a lot and is desperately unhappy and inferior and needs what you have got for him. I am grateful for what you did for Breithut. [See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., new rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1999), 531.]

And in a 1935 issue of Shoemaker’s parish newsletter, The Calvary Evangel, there was the announcement “that Frederick E. Breithut was confirmed on March 24, 1935, as a member of Calvary Episcopal Church, having previously been sponsored at a baptism on March 14, 1935, by William G. Wilson as his godfather, with Reverend Samuel Shoemaker performing the baptism.” [See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, 558]

The October 1929 issue of The Calvary Evangel contains a photograph of Sam Shoemaker and his staff in full vestment preceded by a member of the church who is carrying a cross. The photograph caption states, “On our way to rejoicing to Madison Square.” One church member in the 1928 photo was carrying a sign which stated, “Jesus Christ changes lives.” Other sign urged onlookers to “Come with us to Calvary Church.” L. Parks Shipley, Sr., a long-time Oxford Group activist, specifically recalled to me marching to such events in the 1930’s where the march would be followed by public witnessing at a park from a “soapbox.” Shipley said he believed Bill Wilson was among the “rejoicers” at one or more of these events during Wilson’s involvement with the Oxford Group. [See Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism, 556.]

Bill Wilson’s enthusiastic witnessing with the Bible and to the power of Jesus Christ bears a distinct relationship to what Dr. William D. Silkworth told Bill Wilson during his third visit as a patient to Towns Hospital prior to Bill’s getting sober. Dr. Silkworth’s biographer states that Bill had a discussion with Dr. Silkworth on the subject of the “Great Physician.” And then Bill reached the conclusion, “Yes, if there was any Great Physician that could cure the alcohol sickness, I’d better find him now, at once.” [See Dale Mitchel, Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks: The Biography of William Duncan Silkworth, M.D. (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2002), 44.] Silkworth’s biographer stated, “that it was Dr. Silkworth who used the term ‘The Great Physician’ to explain the need in recovery for a relationship with Jesus Christ.” Author Mitchel states further:

In the formation of AA, Wilson initially insisted on references to God and Jesus, as well as the Great Physician. [See Mitchel, Silkworth, 50.]

Wilson’s fervor as to the power of Jesus Christ is evidenced by his statement on page 191 of Alcoholics Anonymous (4th ed., 2001): “The Lord has cured me of this terrible disease and I just want to keep talking about it and telling people.”

dickb@dickb.com; http://dickb.com
Gloria Deo

Alcoholics Anonymous and God

A.A. History Fragment No. One
Dick B.
© 2009 Dick B. All rights reserved

Alcoholics Anonymous Cofounder Bill Wilson wrote in the A.A. basic text: “we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?” (4th ed., 53). Dr. Bob’s story in the Alcoholics Anonymous basic text concludes with this statement: “Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!: (4th ed., 181). Typically, Dr. Bob asked a newcomer, “Do you believe in God, young fella?” When the response was, “What does that have to do with it,?” Dr. Bob answered: “Everything.” (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980, 144). The basic idea from the King James Version of the Bible that early AAs studied is found in Hebrews 11:6: “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” For details on Alcoholics Anonymous and God, see Dick B., Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes, 1997, 157-188.

http://www.dickb.com/turning.shtml