Quotes from The
Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide, 4th ed.
© 2011 Anonymous. All
rights reserved
(preliminary draft)
Linking and Applying in A.A. Today the
Lessons from Akron and Cleveland Pioneers
The Seven Points of the Frank Amos Report:
Following his visit to Akron in February 1938, Frank Amos,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s agent, summarized the original Akron A.A. “Program”
in seven points. Here are those points, as quoted in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers:
·
An alcoholic must realize that he is an alcoholic,
incurable from a medical viewpoint, and that he must never drink anything with
alcohol in it.
·
He must surrender himself absolutely to God,
realizing that in himself there is no hope.
·
Not only must he want to stop drinking
permanently, he must remove from his life other sins such as hatred, adultery,
and others which frequently accompany alcoholism. Unless he will do this
absolutely, Smith and his associates refuse to work with him.
·
He must have devotions every morning—a “quiet
time” of prayer and some reading from the Bible and other religious literature.
Unless this is faithfully followed, there is grave danger of backsliding
·
He must be willing to help other alcoholics get
straightened out. This throws up a protective barrier and strengthens his own
willpower and convictions.
·
It is important, but not vital, that he meet
frequently with other reformed alcoholics and form both a social and a
religious comradeship.
·
Important, but not vital, that he attend some
religious service at least once weekly.
Mr. Amos said, “All the above is being carried out
faithfully by the Akron group, and not a day passes when there is not one or
more new victims to work on, with Smith as their leader by common consent.”
Stressing Dr. Bob’s importance in the work at Akron,
Frank Amos went on to note that even though there were other able men in the
group, they all looked to Dr. Bob for leadership.
Points to Remember
- The
seven simple points of the original Akron A.A.
"Program,"—summarized by Frank Amos and set forth above—should
be part and parcel of what Alcoholics Anonymous Fellowship members—and all
of those seeking or teaching Christian recovery—should have the
opportunity to learn and to apply.
- This
means sharing these points today alongside of: (a) the support to be found
in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous; (b) the program of recovery
spelled out in its Big Book; and (c) the suggested Twelve Steps contained
in the Big Book.
The 16 Practices Associated
with the Original Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship” founded in 1935
Dr. Bob and Bill W. developed 16 actual practices of the original Akron A.A.
“Christian Fellowship” during the period from June 10, 1935, to the publishing
of the First Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book") in
April 1939. The following are those 16 actual practices as described primarily
in A.A.’s own General Service Conference-approved literature:
1. Qualifying the newcomer. Newcomers—and often their wives—were interviewed by
Dr. Bob (and other pioneer AAs) to determine: if they had conceded that they
had an uncontrollable alcoholism problem; if they had shown a desire to quit
permanently; and if they had committed themselves to go to any length to stay
sober.
2. Hospitalization was a must. Newcomers were hospitalized for a period of some
five-to-seven days. They were medicated to prevent seizures and other problems.
During this time, Dr. Bob would visit the newcomer extensively each day. Other
sober alcoholics would tell the newcomer their stories. The Bible was the only
reading material allowed, and Dr. Bob would read the Bible with the newcomer.
And, at the end of the hospitalization period, Dr. Bob would offer the newcomer
the opportunity to "surrender" before release.
3. “Surrender” by the newcomer before discharge after his five-to-seven-day
stay at the hospital. Before the newcomer was discharged from the hospital, Dr.
Bob would conduct his final visit and require that the newcomer profess a
belief in God—not “a” God, but God.
Then the newcomer would get out of his bed, get down on his knees, and pray
with Dr. Bob, accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior in the process.
4. Upon leaving the hospital, in the case of Clarence Snyder at least, Clarence
was taken to his first Oxford Group meeting at T. Henry’s house, given a Bible
by Dr. Bob, and told by Dr. Bob to “go out and fix drunks as an avocation.”
This practice of telling the newcomer, at the time he surrendered to God, that
he must go out and help other drunks was consistently followed from the very
first.
5. Most went to live in the Smith residence or in the residences of other Akron
people like Wally G. and Tom L. They stayed as long as needed in order to get
steady in their path.
6. There were Christian fellowship meetings every day in the hospital; and then
in the homes daily with Dr. Bob, Anne, and Henrietta Seiberling.
The latter included individual and group Bible study, prayer, and Quiet Time
observances.
One personal story described
the meetings in this way:
Then and then only, after a
thorough indoctrination by eight or nine individuals, was I allowed to attend
my first meeting. This first meeting was held in the living room of a home and
was led by Bill D, the first man that Bill W. and Dr. Bob had worked with
successfully.
The meeting consisted of perhaps
eight or nine alcoholics and seven or eight wives. It was different from the
meetings now held. The big A.A. book had not been written and there was no
literature except various religious pamphlets. . . . The meeting lasted an hour
and closed with the Lord’s Prayer. . . . Every evening we would meet at the
home of one of the members and would have coffee and doughnuts and spend a
social evening.
I spent a great deal of time with
Dr. Bob whenever he had the time to spare, and in the homes of two or three
people, trying to see how the family lived the program.
Another personal story described the hospital conversations:
Then occurred the event that saved
me. An alcoholic who was a doctor came to see me. He didn’t talk like a
preacher at all. . . . The doctor imparted his knowledge to just a few other
men at the time—not more than four or five. . . . The visits from these men
impressed me at once. I could see they were sober. The third man who came to
see me was one of the greatest business getters his company had ever employed.
From the top of the heap in a few years. . . his business was practically gone,
he told me when he discovered the answer.
You’ve been trying man’s
ways and they always fail, he told me. You can’t win unless you try God’s way.
. . In a few sentences he made God seem personal to me, explained Him as a
being who was interested me, the alcoholic, and that all I needed to do was be
willing to follow his way; and that as long as I followed it I would be able to
overcome my desire for liquor.
He went on talking and told me he
had found the plan has a basis of love, and the practice of Christ’s
injunction, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
.
. . . That day I gave my will to God and asked to be directed. But I have never
thought of that as something to do and then forget about. I very early came to
see that there had to be a continual renewal of that simple deal with God; that
I had to perpetually keep the bargain. So I began to pray; to place my problems
in God’s hands.
Another personal story
said of the visits by others:
There were only seven or eight
people in the group before me and they all visited me during my period in the
hospital. The very simple program they advised me to follow was that I should
ask to know God’s will for me for that one day, and then, to the best of my
ability, to follow that, and at night to express my gratefulness to God for the
things that had happened to me during the day.
Another personal story described the newcomer’s earliest
days:
No conviction was necessary to
establish my status as a miserable failure at managing m own life. I began to
read the Bible daily and to go over a simple devotional exercise as a way to
begin each day. Gradually, I began to understand. . . .
I can remember the urge of the Prodigal Son
to return to his Father. . . . But in those days I had no one to whom I might
take my troubles. Today I have. Today I have someone who will always hear me. .
. .
. I took my last drink in 1937.
7. In addition, each morning, alcoholics and their family
members gathered at the Smith home for a Quiet Time conducted by Anne, with
prayer, Bible reading, seeking guidance, and discussion of portions of Anne’s
personal journal.
8. There was one “Oxford Group” meeting each Wednesday at the home of T. Henry
Williams—a meeting unlike any other Oxford Group meeting. These meetings
scarcely resembled conventional Oxford Group meetings. Oldtimers Wally and
Annabelle G. said they had read a lot about the Oxford Group meetings being held
at the Mayflower [in 1933] but that “it wasn’t until later that they realized
the meeting at T. Henry’s was 'sort of a clandestine lodge of the Oxford
Group.'”
Dorothy S. M., wife of Dr. Bob's sponsee, Clarence S., observed in 1937 that
the meeting was actually “a regular old fashioned prayer meeting.”
Dr. Bob’s son, Robert R. (“Smitty”) Smith, in a telephone conversation with me
from his home in Nocona, Texas, described the meetings as “old fashioned
revival meetings.”
Author Nan Robertson quoted Dr. Bob's son, Smitty, as follows: “It was kind of
like an old fashioned revival meeting.”
Some called the group itself
“the
alcoholic squad.” Frank Amos referred to the group as the “self-styled
Alcoholic Group of Akron, Ohio.”
Dr. Bob called the group a “Christian Fellowship.”
And Frank Amos declared, “Members did not want the movement connected directly
or indirectly with any religious movement or cult; they stressed the point that
they had no connection whatever with any so-called orthodox religious denomination,
or with the Oxford Movement. (Obviously, Amos meant the Oxford Group).”
Bob E. stated:
Dr. Bob and T. Henry “teamed” the meeting; T. Henry took care of the prayers
with which the meeting was opened and closed. “There were only a half dozen in
the Oxford Group. We [the alcoholics] had more than that. Sometimes, we’d go
downstairs and have our meeting, and the Oxford Group would have theirs in the
sitting room.”
9. The “real surrender” by each newcomer at a “regular” meeting on
Wednesday.
At these “regular” weekly
meetings, there was a time in which newcomers were required to make a “real
surrender” with Dr. Bob and one or two others upstairs. There the newcomer, on
his knees, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, asked that alcohol be
taken out of his life, and asked strength and guidance to live according to
cardinal Christian teachings. The elders prayed with him after the manner of
James 5:16.
10 There was extensive reading of Christian devotionals and literature provided
by Dr. Bob, or recommended by Dr. Bob or his wife, and/or distributed or made
available at meetings.
11. There was particular stress on study of the Book of James, Jesus’ Sermon on
the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and 1 Corinthians 13.
12. Meetings concluded with invitations to reach out to newcomers in the
hospital and elsewhere, and then closed with the Lord’s Prayer.
13. There was frequent socializing in the homes, particularly on Saturday
evenings.
14. The little group of members and wives knew each other well. They frequently
phoned one another. They frequently visited the homes of each other. They
gathered for parties, dances, covered-dish suppers, and picnics. They prayed
together. And they frequently had meals together.
15. Keeping track of names, addresses, phone numbers, and sobriety information
about each member was commonplace as evidenced by their address books and
rosters. They kept little address books with the names, phone numbers, and
street addresses of the pioneers. Also, this data was listed on some of the
rosters which they kept and which are discussed next.
16. The easy-to-find, extant rosters they kept make it equally simple today to
name and document the successes, relapses and returns, and failures among the
original AAs. Particularly evidenced by the hand-written memo and roster kept
by Dr. Bob and on file in the Rockefeller Archives at the present time. Other
rosters of the names and addresses, sobriety dates, and relapses, if any, were
kept and still exist today.
Richard K. of Massachusetts—author of four major works on
early A.A. history, including studies of the “First 40” cures, about early
articles about A.A., and about statistics relating to A.A.—has discussed these
rosters. Richard spent several months with me in Maui reviewing the rosters and
materials I had, as well as materials he obtained from A.A. General Services in
New York and elsewhere. He carefully examined photocopies of original
documents, newspaper accounts, and extant lists of the early A.A. members and
their sobriety records. His work is the most important study of early A.A.
successes, cures, and announcements written to date.
There are also my own copies of the pioneer member rosters
which were acquired by me from several A.A. historians including Earl Husband,
George Trotter, Sue Smith Windows (Dr. Bob’s daughter), and Ray Grumney (former
long-time archivist and member of the managing board at Dr. Bob’s Home in
Akron). Their value became particularly important and confirmed when other
evidence was reviewed and clearly disclosed that early AAs commonly kept
address books—many of which contained names, addresses, phone numbers, sobriety
information, and relapse and death notations. As a group, these rosters enable
an accurate evaluation of the successes of the original 40 pioneers surveyed by
Bill W. and Dr. Bob in November 1937. And they provide important evidence
relating to the 75% and 93% successes rates (overall, and in Cleveland,
respectively) early A.A. claimed.
Recently, an anonymous friend from New Jersey supplied me
with a copy of a roster in Dr. Bob’s own hand, written on his medical office
stationary, and listing all the successful original members, giving names,
drinking history, relapses if any, sobriety dates, and age. It came from the
Rockefeller Archives in New York. I now possess one I secured from those
archives. It is a vital, new piece of evidence apparently unknown to those who
have disputed the early A.A. successes or temporized about the reason for them.
The great success of the Cleveland A.A. program founded in May, 1939,
by Clarence H. Snyder, shortly after the Big Book was published in April. The
Cleveland program took from Akron to Cleveland what might be called “the best
of A.A.” at that time. Documentation for the 93% success rate in Cleveland is
well established
Here are the high points of the Cleveland program are
described by several of the men sponsored by Clarence:
First of all, Clarence never fell for the nonsense gods—the
so-called “higher powers” that had begun to proliferate in the fellowship. He
learned from Dr. Bob. And he learned the lesson well. For, in the hospital, Dr.
Bob had insistently asked Clarence, “Young feller, do you believe in God? Not a
God, but God!” When Clarence temporized, Dr. Bob asked him again. And finally
Clarence said, “I do believe in God.” Dr. Bob eventually said, “That’s fine.
Now we can get someplace.”
And Clarence was later to write his sarcastic pamphlet called “My Higher
Power—the Light Bulb.”
Second, with the belief in God question settled, Clarence
was then required to get out of his hospital bed and get on his knees and pray
with Dr. Bob, inviting Jesus to come into his life, to remove the drinking
problem. And ask that he manage Clarence’s life because it was unmanageable.
Later, Clarence was required to make a “full surrender” upstairs with Dr. Bob,
T. Henry Williams and a couple of Oxford Group people. They all got down on
their knees with Clarence in an attitude of prayer and introduced Clarence to
Jesus as his Lord and savior. They explained that this was “first century
Christianity.” And then they prayed for the removal of Clarence’s sins,
especially his alcoholism.
And that requirement of becoming a born again Christian
prevailed with his sponsees for the rest of his life.
In fact, Clarence frequently quoted, and all of his sponsees learned 2
Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Third, Clarence made it clear 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.”
Writing to a member trying to get A.A. started in a new
city, Bill Wilson said:
I explain this at some length
because I want you to be successful with yourself and the people with whom you
work. We used to pussyfoot on this spiritual business a great deal more out
here [in New York City] and the result was bad, for our record falls quite a
lot short of the performance of Akron and Cleveland, where there are now about
350 alcoholics, many of them sober 2 or 3 years, with less than 20% ever having
had any relapse.”
An even greater, 93% success rate was reported in Cleveland
A.A., whose first group was founded in May 11, 1939, shortly after the Big Book
was published in April of that year. As Clarence Snyder (Dr. Bob's sponsee and
founder of A.A. in Cleveland) is quoted as saying in the A.A. General Service
Conference-approved book, DR. BOB and the
Good Oldtimers:
Clarence said . . . "I think
A.A. was more effective in those days. Records in Cleveland show that 93
percent of those who came to us never had a drink again. When I discovered that
people had slips in A.A., it really shook me up."
Here is what Mitchell K., Clarence Snyder's biographer,
reported as to the 93% success rate in Cleveland:
Two years after the publication of
the book [i.e., of
Alcoholics Anonymous
(the "Big Book") 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.
And three of Clarence Snyder's sponsees wrote: "Of the
first 260 people who came into A.A. in Cleveland, ninety-three percent never
drank again!"
These were the Cleveland groups that grew from one to thirty in a year.
Fourth, the four winning elements that Clarence Snyder
brought to the Cleveland fellowship were: (1) The Bible. “New people were told
they had to read the Bible. “The King James Version of the Bible. They were
instructed to do this on a daily basis.
(2) The Oxford Group Four Absolutes—Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness, and Love.
Clarence said the early Oxford Group people were told to live by these
absolutes to the best of their ability.
(3) and (4) The Big Book and the Twelve Steps. And in this respect, Clarence
said the name of the Akron group was “Alcoholics Anonymous” taken from the just
published Big Book. Clarence wrote an A.A. Sponsorship Pamphlet.
And he wrote a guide to “Going Through the Steps.”
And Cleveland A.A. not only achieved a 93% success rate, but grew from one
group to thirty in a year.
Finally, to top it off, Cleveland had maintained the same
tight fellowship that Akron had championed—qualification, hospitalization,
Bible, prayer, surrender to Jesus Christ, the literature, the daily comradeship
both religious and social, and the all-important work with others. And it did
so paying due attention to the Big Book program and 12 Steps that had just come
into being.
Taken together with the Akron program, the Cleveland-Akron
techniques provide a splendid model for linking the highly successful “old
school” A.A. to the 1939 Big Book program that followed it and exists to this
day.
DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (New York, N.Y.: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services,
Inc, 1980), 128-36—especially 131.
