Study A.A. and the Bible with Confidence in Accuracy

A.A. and the Bible

 

Three Excellent Books for Your Holiday Season

 

All three are now available in print on demand and electronic form www.dickb.com/titles.shtml

 

Dick B.

Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

At long last, AAs and Christians in recovery are recognizing the importance in recovery of what Dr. Bob said in his last major talk about the major importance of the Bible in A.A. recovery.

 

In The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks, A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob is quoted as follows on page 13:

 

In early A.A. days. . . our stories didn’t amount to anything to speak of. When we started in on Bill D. [A.A. Number Three], we had no Twelve Steps either; we had no Traditions.

 

            But we were convinced that the answer to our problems was in the Good Book.

 

To some of us older ones, the parts that we found absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the Book of  James.

 

Page 14 underlines the continuity of the Bible’s importance. It quotes Dr. Bob as follows:

 

It wasn’t until 1938 that the teachings and efforts and studies that had been going on were crystallized in the form of the Twelve Steps. I didn’t write the Twelve Steps. I had nothing to do with the writing of them.

 

We already had the basic ideas, though not in terse and tangible form. We got them, as I said, as a result of our study of the Good Book.

 

The “Good Book,” of course, was the Bible that both Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson had studied during their Christian upbringing in Vermont, in church, Sunday school, in their homes, in the daily chapel at their academies, in the Young Men’s Christian Association, and – in Bill’s case – in the four-year Bible study course he took while a student at Burr and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vermont.

 

These facts first propelled me into a study of A.A.’s Bible roots. They caused me to research what Dr. Bob and Bill and Bob’s wife and Henrietta Seiberling and T. Henry and Clarace Williams—as well as many pioneers in their First Edition Big Book Stories—said about how and when they read and stressed the Bible and about which portions were of top priority for recovery.

 

As a result, I published three books which have become landmark guides for AAs, for Christians in recovery, for Christian recovery leaders and pastors, for historians and for meetings.

 

These are they, and they can help you this year (2012) and hereafter as you look for and strengthen your recovery, sobriety, healing, and relationship with God from this point on:

 

Dick B., The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible, Bridge Builders Edition, 1993, ISBN 1-885803-16- 8. www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml.

 

Dick B., The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook, 2006, 1-885803-91-5, http://dickb.com/guidebook.shtml

 

Dick B., The James Club and The Original A.A. Program’s Absolute Essentials, 2005, ISBN 1-885803-99-0, http://dickb.com/JamesClub.shtml

 

All three of these important A.A. and the Bible studies and guides are now available in print on demand and in electronic form. They can be purchased through Amazon.com. If you would like to purchase them at wholesale in bulk, please contact Ken B. at kcb00799@gmail.com.

 

Gloria Deo