Alcoholics Anonymous History
An Invitation and Challenge for 12 Step Speakers, Sponsors, and
Counselors
By Dick B.
Copyright 2012
Anonymous. All rights reserved
The Talent Before You Right Now
Right now, take a look at the speakers, sponsors, and counselors
you know or have known in your A.A. or 12 Step Fellowship. I’ve been involved
with hundreds of them, and you may have been too.
Many are talented, experienced, and articulate speakers and,
in fact, good instructors. They are also caring, loving, giving people. But
what are you learning from them today? There are hundreds and hundreds of women
and men in the recovery movement who have never studied A.A.’s basic text or
learned how to take people through the Twelve Steps in accordance with the instructions.
There are far more who haven’t a clue about A.A.’s history
and roots, and haven’t any idea where the recovery program got its ideas. And
many of these have never opened an A.A. history book, been to an A.A. history
conference, or even cared to learn our history. Why? Generally speaking, it’s
because they’ve had no resources to work with or with which they cared to work.
Sometimes because they just don’t care.
What are resources are available to those who want to
correct the situation? The Big Book contains virtually no history. The Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions contain virtually no history. Conference Approved
pamphlets by the dozen tell you nothing significant about history. And the two
or three significant A.A. history books either omit the details, omit entire
segments of history, or focus on what they think AAs should hear, rather than
on what actually occurred.
And are treatment programs any different? Ask yourself how
much you heard about history in a treatment program or rehab. Are sponsors any
different? Ask yourself how much your sponsor talked to you about A.A. history.
Are certification courses and facilities teaching history? Ask someone who is
certified. Ask them about history, and watch them go blank.
Then there are the “history” books currently proliferating
outside the fellowships. Do they talk about God? Do they talk about the Bible?
Do they talk about the literature early AAs read? Do they detail the
contributions of such major A.A. influences as Anne Ripley Smith and her journal,
the books and teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker, the life-changing program of the
Oxford Group which underlies the Steps, the devotionals which were a major part
of Quiet Time, and even the Bible itself? It was quite clear that the Book of
James, the Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were considered absolutely
essential to the program; and yet have you ever heard them read, discussed, or
studied in your program or by your conferences or by your sponsor or by any
counselor you’ve encountered?
Would Talented Speakers and Sponsors Revolt if Challenged?
Dr. Bob never let a pigeon loose from the hospital without
asking him if he believed in God. Have you ever put that question to a
potential speaker, sponsor, or treatment facilitator? When asked a question
about the program, Dr. Bob usually replied: “What does it say in the Good
Book?” Have you ever put such a question to those we mention? The Big Book
states clearly that “God either is, or He isn’t.” Have you ever asked a speaker
or instructor if he agrees? Bill and Bob were speaking at the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles before 4500 people. Bill commented on the “religious element” of
A.A. and the need for “Divine Aid.” Have you ever inquired about these? The Big
Book says a number of times that its stories were written to tell how, from the
writer’s own viewpoint and experience, he “established his relationship with
God.” Have you ever asked a speaker or instructor to do likewise? At the Shrine
Auditorium, the entire audience rose in tribute to Dr. Bob. And he succinctly
suggested that all “cultivate the habit of prayer” and “study the Bible.” Have
you ever asked your teachers about that one?
We now know that A.A.’s many roots included United Christian
Endeavor, the Salvation Army, the Rescue Missions, the Great Evangelists Moody
and Sankey and F.B. Meyer and Allen Folger, the Oxford Group, and even the
Young Men’s Christian Association. They definitely included the Bible and Bible
study. They included the required daily chapel, reading of Scripture, prayers,
and sermons at the academies Dr. Bob and Bill attended. They included parental
guidance, church services, prayer meetings, Sunday School.
Have you ever asked that these be explained to you?
The roots included Dr. Carl Jung’s views on “conversion”—the
very solution Rowland Hazard, Ebby Thacher, and Bill Wilson sought when they
were born again. They included Professor William James’s views on the variety
of conversion experiences he’d studied. Do your instructors talk about these?
Dr. William D. Silkworth told Bill Wilson and Silkworth’s other patients that
the Great Physician Jesus Christ could cure them? Have you ever heard that?
Have you ever had the Four Absolutes, the Five C’s, Quiet Time, and Conversion
explained to you in terms of their A.A. significance? Have you ever learned the
books that early AAs read, the devotionals they used, and the
contents of Anne Smith’s Journal which was shared with AAs and their family
every day? Have you asked about them?
They represent the heart of what Bill codified from the
Oxford Group.
What a Speaker Can Be and Do
The A.A. speakers that are entertaining and dynamic attract
crowds. How many people have rushed to hear Clancy I., Gene Duffy, June G.,
Eve, Poor Richard, Geraldine D., Mel B., Joe McQ., Charlie P., Father Martin,
and dozens of others—because these men and women are entertaining and dynamic.
I’ve heard them all, and I’ve been entertained. They’ve made me laugh, and
laughter is either “the best medicine” or a great help. They’ve made me cry,
and emotion is part of needed enthusiasm. They’ve made me admire what they’ve
done and what they’ve become.
But how many times have you or I heard them talk about the
early A.A. fellowship?
Can they? Could they? Will they? Would you have the courage
to ask them?
We’re big in A.A. about “love and service.” We even insist
that our “leaders” are but trusted servants. And in fact, all speakers,
sponsors, and counselors are “but trusted servants.” And what do trusted
servants do? I’d like to think they do the service that is suggested. But
nobody tells these speakers what to say, nor the “staff” at World Services, nor
the editors of the AA Grapevine—at least not you or me. Why? The servants are
beyond the reach of the masters, and their instructors are long dead and gone.
They are peopled or persuaded by professionals, by universalists, by
revisionists, and by timid unbelievers. The servants dote on pleasing everyone.
Thus if they write a piece of literature like a daily reflection, they’d rather
get 365 views, one for each day, than to select from the hundreds of pieces of
literature which were part and parcel of early A.A. and its successful techniques.
How Long Will You Wait?
We’ve reached the point in Twelve Step history where there
are few, if any, who ever met, talked to, or learned directly from Bill Wilson,
Dr. Bob, Anne Smith, Henrietta Seiberling, Sam Shoemaker, Dr. Silkworth, or
even A.A. Number Three—Bill Dotson. Hence speakers cannot speak from experience
about these people. But they can learn!
Speakers can, could, and would (if asked) spend the same
amount of time looking into A.A. history resources that Joe and Charlie spent
in studying the Big Book so that they could explain it and teach it to our
members all over the world. But finally, even these servants hung up their jock
straps as they played “the last quarter of the game,” as Charlie put it to me.
Instead of bemoaning
the absence of “old timers” or “elder statesmen” or “people who knew or were
sponsored by Bob or Clarence Snyder” or those even archivists who have studied
and know the archives, why not bring up a new crop?
ould you rather listen to Eli Whitney tell you how he
invented the cotton gin, or would you find it more instructive if a football
star told you how he helped win the Super Bowl?
Look at the Early Teachers
Our founders were humble. Our founders were students. Our
founders were ever on a quest to learn more. Our founders believed in God. Our
founders read the Bible. Our founders read all kinds of religious literature.
Our founders put their learning to use in directly working to help others with
what they had found. Dr. Bob read the Bible three times to refresh his memory
before helping others with Bible materials. Anne Smith was in the trenches,
reading her Bible, suggesting literature, and teaching from her journal. So was
Henrietta Seiberling. So were Mr. and Mrs. T. Henry Williams. And so was Bill
until he got hung up with depressions shortly after he published the Big Book.
Sam Shoemaker never stopped writing, preaching, and teaching. And these, plus
Dr. Silkworth, were the people who handed us the most information.
And What About You!
Are you willing to look for speakers, sponsors, and programs
which will provide a full platter of information? Are you willing to read
whatever you need to read to learn what you’ve been missing? Are you willing to
organize meetings, seminars, and conferences that will tell others our history?
Are you willing to pass along what you learn? Are you willing to stand up and
be counted when someone asks if you believe in God, if you believe in the
importance of the Bible to AAs, if Jesus Christ has any place in your heart,
and if you attend a church or Bible fellowship or Christian study group?
Are you willing to be a student, a researcher, a learner, a
speaker, a teacher, an organizer, and a supporter of the quest to learn the
truth and carry it to others in order to help them recover, get well, and be
cured?
Would you rather promote and pass on information about the
program Frank Amos described when he told of the five-point program in Akron
that had produced such astonishing results? It’s all plainly there for you to
see in A.A.’s own DR. BOB and the Oldtimers
on page 131.You don’t even have to go to the bookstore or library. Surprise!
You can study the Book of James, the Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13
by buying a used Bible and reading it. You don’t even have to go to church or
to your rabbi, minister, or priest. Although it could help!
If you don’t want to
be one who does or leads, are you willing to support those who do? Do you
realize that in the World Services offices of A.A. itself there are scrap books
that contain hundreds of newspaper clippings and articles that tell of the
cures early AAs claimed they had received at the hands of their Creator. Have
you thought of ordering, reading, or donating one where it will actually help
someone?
And, if you found
great joy, at learning what the Big Book was all about and how to take the
Twelve Steps properly, are you willing to start or join a group that does this
and studies history as well?
The Bottom Line
Have you helped a drunk today? Do you belong to a group that
really carries out its primary purpose of helping the alcoholic who still
suffers? Do you vote with your feet when you hear a speaker, a sponsor, or a
counselor who talks about “higher powers,” about “spirituality,” about
meetings, about how much he drank, about how much trouble he had, and yet who
never mentions whether or not he established a relationship with God and has
had something more than a dry drunk in his life?
Think about it. Think how much you can help others if you
are able to tell them what God has done for you, what God did for the pioneers,
and how they learned about Him from the Good Book!
Dick B., PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837; dickb@dickb.com;
808 874 4876
Gloria
Deo
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