Alcoholics Anonymous Step Study, Big
Book Study, Bible Study, History Study, and Recovery Study Groups Growing Now
Dick B.
© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved
We have just completed three years of meetings and conference trips to California,
Ohio, Florida, and Vermont to survey, report, and encourage A.A. Friendly,
Bible Friendly, History Friendly learning and listening by AAs, NAs, 12-Step
groups, sponsors, speakers, meetings, conferences; by treatment and counseling
programs; by A.A. Bible and Step Study groups and Big Book Study Groups; by
Christ-centered and Christian recovery fellowships; by sober and transitional
living recovery homes; by prison, military, veteran, hospital, and homeless
message carriers; and by you.
Here's what we see from the audiences, the leadership
response, the outpouring of emails and phone calls, and the visitor records on
our internet site:
- A.A. Study Groups: Today
there are dozens and dozens more groups in A.A., N.A., churches, Christian
recovery programs, treatment facilities, and counselor training groups
than there were 23 years ago when we started unearthing and widely
disseminating the neglected facts about A.A. origins, history, founding,
original program, astonishing successes, and changes made just before the
Big Book was published. People then didn't know the facts. Today they want
to know them. And today we are receiving all kinds of requests from AAs,
NAs, and Christian leaders who want to start study groups in their area
and their church. And these are being facilitated by our continued production
and distribution of the 4 DVD introductory class--"Introductory
Foundations for Christian Recovery"--www.dickb.com/IFCR-Class.shtml.
They are being facilitated by the hundreds of articles we are posting on
the internet, our blog, facebook, and email newsletters. They are being
articulated with the help of our new The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide,
3rd ed., 2010--widely distributed and acquired by audiences during our
California visit--www.dickb.com/Christian-Recover-Guide.shtml. They are
being reported on the International Christian Recovery Coalition and
Christian Recovery Radio websites: www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com
and www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com.
- What about the flak
received by a few about their study, distribution, and talk about these
resources? The flak is there. But so are the
appropriate answers: (a) There is no index of forbidden literature or books in
A.A. AAs have been studying and reading the Bible and discussing it since the
earliest meetings in Akron and in Cleveland. Dr. Bob urged AAs in 1948 to
cultivate the habit of prayer and read the Bible. AA Cofounder Dr. Bob insisted
that the Book of James, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were
"absolutely essential" to the program. Can you then read what
co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob read? Can you study what the first three
AAs studied? Can you read from the Bible at a meeting like Dr. Bob, A.A. Number
Three Bill Dotson, Cleveland A.A. founder Clarence Snyder, and a host of others
did in the years of early A.A. success? Can you invite clergy to talk to your
meetings, as Bill Wilson did in St. Louis and in Long Beach AFTER the Twelve
Traditions were adopted--having Father Ed Dowling, S.J.; Rev. Sam Shoemaker, rector
of Calvary Episcopal Church; and a Roman Catholic Archbishop from the Los
Angeles area speak to A.A. International Conventions in 1955 and 1960? Has A.A.
suddenly and officially become anti-church, anti-religion, anti-Bible,
anti-Christian, anti-Protestant, anti-Roman Catholic, and anti-Jewish? Has
atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism, and humanism replaced the Creator with some new
kind of nonsense god--called an higher power--and described as a light bulb, a
tree, Ralph, Santa Claus, and the Great Pumpkin?
- Not on your life! A.A.
today is diverse, varied, tolerant, and inclusive when it comes to
religion, church, Bible, and Christianity--as well as gay and lesbianism,
atheism, agnosticism, unbelief, and worship of false gods and nonsense
gods. It's going on all the time in meetings all over the world. How do we
know this? The Big Book, the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, the
plethora of A.A. Conference-approved literature state so specifically.
Pamphlets published by A.A. encourage membership by women, blacks, prisoners,
gays and lesbians, and those who don't believe in anything at all.
- What can you call your
study group or recovery fellowship? Some call them The James Club or The
James Gang. Some call them a Step Study group. Some call them a Big Book
Study group. Some call them a Big Book/Bible study group. Some call them a
History Study Group. And more and more and more are wising up and calling
them "A.A. Recovery Study Groups." The virtue of that name is
that some bleeding deacon in a Central Office or GSO cannot say that the
name of the group is too religious, too Christian, too biblical, too
violative of Traditions, and is sanctioning study of non Conference
Approved literature.
- Call your study group an
"A.A. Recovery Study Group." So long as the group involves
two or more people gathered for
purposes of sobriety, it is and can be called an A.A. group.
- As early AAs did, and as
many do today, you can study the Bible, daily devotionals, religious books
and literature; you can talk about your experience with God, Jesus Christ,
the Bible, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and water baptism; you can tell
how you established your
relationship with, or found, or rediscovered God; you can talk about the
history of A.A.; you can talk about the Christian origins of A.A.; you can
talk about the Christian up-bringing of Bob and Bill; you can talk about
the early A.A. surrenders to Jesus Christ as Lord; you can talk about the
Upper Room, The Runner's Bible, My Utmost for His Highest, The Greatest
Thing in the World, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, 1
Corinthians 13; you can talk about the origins of the language in the Big
Book and the Twelve Steps; you can compare the Big Book language and
Twelve Step language with the teachings of the Bible, Dr. Bob, Dr. Bob's
wife Anne Smith, Henrietta Seiberling, T. Henry and Clarace Williams, Rev.
Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Father Ed Dowling, S.J., Father Ralph Pfau and
his "Golden Books," Rabbi Abraham Twerski, Hazelden, William
James, Professor Starbuck, Jerry McAuley, H.H. Hadley, Harold Begbie and
the Salvation Army, Carl Jung, Emmet Fox, and the literature of the Young
People's Christian Endeavor Society--which attained a membership of 4.5
million around the world at or after Dr. Bob was active.
Our latest documentation of your
rights, privileges, and freedom—with full citations to A.A. General Service
Conference-approved books and pamphlets—can be found in Stick with the Winners! http://mcaf.ee/s50mq;
Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw; and Alcoholics Anonymous The Original 1939 Edition With a 23 Page
Introduction by Dick B. http://mcaf.ee/j4hq5.
- Bill Wilson was called
many years after his death "one of the most permissive guys I ever
knew" or some such language.
The man who called Bill that was Bob Pearson who not only befriended Bill but
served A.A. for years as its General Manager, Chairman of the Trustees, and
finally Senior Advisor. And Bob Pearson decried the rigidity and enforcement
attitudes that have developed recently.
The bottom line? Let's stop bashing A.A. and AAs. Let's
report the truth about our fellowship. Let's support the truth about A.A., A.A.
History, Early A.A., and the Fellowship today. A.A. today is not some
monolithic organization of like-minded religious or atheist zealots It is not a cult. It is not a Christian
Fellowship. It is not an anti-God, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic,
anti-Protestant, anti-Muslim, anti-Buddhist, anti-Bible, anti-Mormon,
anti-church, anti-religious outfit.
Plainly stated, Alcoholics Anonymous as it exists today is
just a fellowship of men and women gathered together to maintain their own
sobriety and to help others recover from a “medically incurable,” “seemingly hopeless,”
condition of mind and body known as alcoholism. It would be grossly erroneous
to say that any of these fellowship people today joined A.A. to start a church,
to establish a Christian fellowship, to foster atheism, to condemn religion, to
convert others to God through Jesus Christ, or to sing “Cum by ya.” They came
because they hit bottom. They were referred, ordered, or attracted to the
anonymous help A.A. could and does provide. Bill Wilson often called it a
Society. Dr. Bob often called it a Christian Fellowship. Clarence Snyder called
it Alcoholics Anonymous. For me, it was a way out of a horrible state of mind,
body, spirit, and human errors.
Freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of
belief, freedom of studies, and freedom of reading and discussion are the
watchwords of "love and service" and "love and tolerance."
Both of these are stated codes by and about A.A. and AAs
Can you form and
conduct an "A.A. Recovery Study Group" under such conditions? Of
course you can!
Gloria Deo
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