Dick B. discusses the first,
introductory video for the upcoming "Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of
Alcoholism: The Rest of the Story" class on the January 31, 2014, episode
of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show
www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com
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You
may hear Dick B. discuss the first video in the upcoming "Bill W., Dr.
Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism: The Rest of the Story" class here:
or
here:
Episodes
of the "Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show are archived at:
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Introduction
Tonight’s
radio show brings us to the brink of filming the introductory video in our
forthcoming “Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism: The Rest of the
Story” class. In the three shows, we gave you a preview of those parts of the
class that show how much is missing from the details about how the first three
AAs got sober, the simplicity of their actions, and the astonishing success of
their efforts. This was just to give you a taste of one of the many parts of our
history that are really beyond the knowledge or experience of the newcomer who
still suffers. And the main purpose of the class is not to write just another “total
history” of A.A. or a series of minor snippets of history that leave out some
vital helps for the newcomer.
Tonight’s
show looks into why our new historical account of “the rest of the story” is so
important at this stage of A.A. history. It will also show you that a ship
without a full complement of equipment is like a ship without a rudder engaged
in a meandering voyage. It will give you a taste of a great many important
historical helps that have been ignored, omitted, or forgotten up to this
point. And it will provide you with some of “the rest of the story” which is
really the portion most needed by books, articles, conferences, speakers,
sponsors, and the still-suffering newcomer.
We
note that today’s A.A. has at least five different types of programs, because
few recognize either that fact or the difference in approach. Because few try
to utilize and harmonize the effective parts that are virtually unknown. And
because we believe from the thousands of phone calls, emails, and conversations
we have had over the past 24 years of researching A.A.’s history that the cause
of helping to cure the still-suffering newcomer is best be served when the full
complement of historical truths and approaches is restored to view.
Synopsis of Dick’s
Talk
Rest of the
Story Introduction – A Draft
What?
Another history of Alcoholics Anonymous!
Yes!
And one that is much needed today.
Why this New
Historical Account of “the Rest of the Story!”
Needed
because of what is said and believed by many who speak about Alcoholics Anonymous;
write about A.A.; study alcoholism and
addiction; speak about their war stories;
share their “experience, strength, and hope” in meetings; grind out more
and more biographies and autobiographies; produce more timelines and forum commentaries; and characterize A.A.
as monolithic—rather than diverse in membership—and as “spiritual, but not
religious,” and as a “cult,” too Christian, too much focused on an “any god”
philosophy, an heretical fellowship that Christian AAs must never join or
attend, and an invitation to self-made deities (called higher powers) that can
be anything from a rainbow to a tree to a door knob to a light bulb, to “Somebody”
or to “Something” that “saves.”
The Ship Without
a Rudder
It
is a fair assessment to say that none of the foregoing descriptions can be
characterized as A.A. today. Nor are they commonly understood and agreed to
among today’s vacillating two million members. More important, they are not representative
of the views of A.A.’s original founders, the original Akron A.A. fellowship
program, the biblical and Christian roots and practices of pioneer A.A., or the
successes that were achieved when reliance on the Creator was the center-piece
of early A.A. recovery.
What,
then, is the task here? Is it to write a new, ponderous, comprehensive,
complete history?
No!
But
Writing
about the weaknesses of a voyage devoid of a full complement of equipment constitutes
conducting a voyage of meandering and opinionated theories about travel. But it
is on a journey with an untrained crew.
For
one thing, those who need the successful techniques of old school recovery are
often still ill, perhaps poorly educated, and usually not very enthused about
reading anything at all—not even their basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous. Half a loaf of history will not produce a
repast that satisfies the need.
The Lacuna – The
Gap – The Missing Tools
Several
years ago, Dick B. learned from his A.A. historian friend Mel B. that a scholarly
Roman Catholic priest was quite enthused over our work in unearthing A.A.’s
missing historical points. We were just about to publish Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes
(San Rafael, CA: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1997). The priest was
Father Paul B., M.A., Ph.D., Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri.
The gracious priest kindly agreed to endorse the Turning Point book, saying:
Though there
have been excellent histories of A.A.’s beginning years, each and corporately,
have left one major lacuna—the precise origins of A.A.’s spiritual principles
(page 1)
Now,
let’s ask what the average AA knows about Professor William James, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience—the
man whom Bill Wilson had named as one of the three sources of A.A.’s Twelve
Steps. What does the average AA know about this foundational statement in which
Professor James wrote:
Self-surrender
has been and always must be regarded as the vital turning-point of the
religious life, so far as the religious life is spiritual and no affair of
outer works and ritual and sacraments.
Some
years later, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., author of Realizing Religion—and the clergyman whom Bill Wilson had named as
a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous as well as one of the three sources of
A.A.’s Twelve Steps (ten of the twelve in Shoemaker’s case)—wrote:
Now the thing
which is striking about much of the misery one sees is that it is spiritual misery. It is the unhappiness
of spiritual very often—souls who are
too fine-grained to get along without religion, yet who have never come to
terms with it. It is the sadness of maladjustment to the eternal things, and
this throws out the whole focus of life. Rest cures and exercise and motor
drives will not help. The only thing that will help is religion. For the root
of the malady is estrangement from God—estrangement from Him in people that
were made to be His companions. . . . Now St. Augustine said truly: “We are not
born Christians, but we become Christians” (pages 4-5).
All of us cling,
despite all proofs to the contrary, to the idea that we are different, and need
something that others do not need, and never can be satisfied with any
generally accepted ideas about religion. But this is our old pride raising its
head for a last thrust. Our heavenly Father knows where we are really different
(pages 8-9)
What you want is
simply a vital religious experience. You need to find God. You need Jesus
Christ (page 9).
Years
later, Reverend Shoemaker helped Bill Wilson shape the proposed manuscript of
A.A.’s “Big Book.” The two men actually worked together in Shoemaker’s
book-lined study on the Twelve Steps. Bill actually asked Shoemaker to write
those steps. but Shoemaker declined. Yet those words by Shoemaker in Realizing Religion still seemed to be
ringing in the ears of A.A.’s cofounders Bill W. and Dr. Bob as they completed
their portions of the Big Book.
Shoemaker’s
role in the language of “The solution” emanating from a vital religious
experience.
As the years have rolled by, A.A. has altered its seminal phrase “vital
religious experience.” First, it substituted “spiritual experience.” Then, “spiritual
awakening.” And finally, the so-called
Spiritual Appendix which offers a variety of choices for a solution, one
including a “personality change.”
But
it was not always so. The “vital religious experience” phrase had at least one
origin in the William James volume “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”
Shoemaker then used the expression in Realizing
Religion. In a manuscript Dick B. found at Stepping Stones in the early
1990’s, Bill had written:
And the GREAT
FACT is just this and no less; that all of us have had “deep and effective
religious experiences” (page 10).
Then,
writing about what Dr. Carl Jung had told Rowland Hazard, Bill stated:
Sporadically,
here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called “vital
religious experiences. . . His [Rowland’s] faith and his religious convictions
were very good as far as they went, but that in his case, they did not spell “the
vital religious experience so absolutely imperative to replace his insanity.”
(page 11).
Finally,
speaking for himself, Bill then wrote:
So it began to
look to us as though we must have “a vital religious experience” or perish. Our
friend [Rowland Hazard] did finally have such an experience and we in our turn
have sought the same happy end.
What
happened to the “vital religious experience?” It’s missing. Yet Professor James
wrote extensively on the variety of religious experiences. Reverend Shoemaker
wrote that, to find God, you needed a vital religious experience. Dr. Carl Jung
told Russell Hazard that “vital religious experiences” had at times solved the
alcoholism problem. And then Bill himself said it began to look as though we “must”
have a vital religious experience. Who changed this, and why!
Shoemaker’s
Role in the A.A. Language about Finding God: Shoemaker had
said that, to overcome spiritual misery and become companions of God, men
needed to “find God.” In the same Stepping Stones manuscript named above, Bill
wrote:
All of us are
the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a new relationship. The
author of each personal narrative “will describe in his own language and from
his own point of view that way in which he happened to find the living God (pages 11-12).
How
did finding God suddenly shift to finding a “higher power?”
Bill Wilson had written in the Big Book: “Without
help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—That One is God.
May you find Him now!”
On page 193 of the First Edition of the Big Book,
Dr. Bob wrote:
If you think you are an
atheist an agnostic, a skeptic, or have
any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in
this book, I feel sorry for you. . . . Your Heavenly Father will never let you
down!
Did AAs suddenly conclude that Dr. Bob had just
opened a “broad highway” for atheists and agnostics? What role had he played in
the great compromise that did so? He didn’t!
Shoemaker’s
Role in Specifying the need for Jesus Christ::Shoemaker
concluded his vital religious experience remarks in Realizing Religion with the statement: “You need Jesus Christ.”
And, in so doing, Shoemaker was referring to the Bible requirement as expressed
in John 14:6 (KJV) “Jesus saith unto
him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the Father, but
by me.”
And
every early Akron A.A. was required to make a “real surrender” in which he
accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. That concept is missing from A.A.
Conference-approved literature? Why?
The Example
Above: Filling the Holes with the True Solutions
The
challenge here is to identify the chunks of history that have been omitted,
ignored, or misstated. The challenge is to identify which of the missing pieces
of historical information is directly applicable to today’s A.A. fellowship, to
the recovery and cure of still suffering AAs, and to today’s stated solution
for the problem of alcoholism—a solution emblazoned in an entire chapter of
A.A.’s basic text (There Is A Solution),
and articulated on Page 25 of even today’s Fourth Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous.. Today’s challenge
is to investigate and report those portions of A.A. history that are either
unknown or not sufficiently known and therefore not a significant part of what
is being spoken about, taught to, or practiced by the alcoholic who still
suffers. One of these is seeking a “vital religious experience.” One is “finding”
God. And one is coming to God through His son Jesus Christ—the needed factor
Shoemaker explained.
A.A.
is not a church. It is not a hospital. It is not a place where self-centered
whining attains the prize—a cure! That cure by “the Lord”—called by one of the
first three AAs “The Golden Text of A.A.”—is the one all three of the first
successful AAs specified—healing by the power of God. The Creator whom A.A.
cofounder Dr. Bob called his “Heavenly Father” and declared would “never let
you down!”
And
A.A. either is, or it is not a place where the stentorian tones of “circuit
speakers,” their ability to bring both laughter and compassion, to produce little
information about the guts of A.A. or the history of A.A. or to relate how they
(those present-day icons) practiced the principles of A.A. in recovering their
own sanity, in helping others, and in living godly, useful, sober lives.
The Missing
Historical Elements Are Numerous But Simple in Character
One
of the things that will be made apparent in this introduction and in the
history class is the simplicity of the many elements of recovery that were used
with success by Christian organizations and individuals almost a century before
A.A. was founded. Also how those early elements of recovery were absorbed by
A.A.’s founders before they ever got sober and established their fellowship.
Also how closely the actions of the first three AAs in getting sober. as well
as how the program of recovery that A.A. founders originally developed
beginning in 1935—constituted a program that was itself simple, easily
understood, directly founded on abstinence, reliance on the power of God, and
helping others recover in the same manner. This simple formula involving
renouncing of liquor, relying on and understanding God, and helping newcomers
do likewise constitutes a program still as viable, effective, and consistent
with recovery today as it was at the beginnings of the A.A. Christian Fellowship
founded years ago in 1935.
A Brief Summary
of the Subjects in the Remaining Chapters
Here,
once again, we will be talking about what’s missing. We will also be talking
about what the restoration of missing links can do for those who still suffer
and want to be cured. And we will leave the details and documentation to the
following chapters. The subjects to be underlined are:
·
First
Century Christianity: The Book of Acts and what the Apostles did. The many
comments on the resemblance of early A.A. practices to the acts of the
Apostles. Other comments linking A.A. origins to First Century Christianity
itself; to “A First Century Christian Fellowship”—one of the influences on the
cofounders; and to the early Akron A.A. “Christian Fellowship”—the name given
to the original Akron Christian Group’s program.
·
The
Christian organizations and people from
the 1850’s forward who developed the biblical ideas and techniques for healing
the down and out drunks of those days. Organizations and others such as the
YMCA, rescue missions, Salvation Army, Congregationalism, the evangelists like
Moody, and Christian Endeavor.
·
The
Christian upbringing of Dr. Bob and Bill W. in Vermont and how these youngsters
were exposed to the relevant Christian ideas spawned largely by the foregoing
organizations and people and were being used to help drunks.
·
How
the First Three AAs got sober, and this First Epoch of A.A.’s Recovery Ideas.
·
The
complete details of the Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship’s program and the
practices that implemented it. Also the source of documentation of program
details in The Co-Founders of Alcoholics
Anonymous; DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers; Personal Stories of the Alcoholics
Anonymous Pioneers; and more.
·
The
proof of victory – the counting of noses in 1937; the Frank Amos report on the
Akron program, and the precise written records of those who succeeded
·
The
variant and so-called six word-of-mouth ideas Bill W. expounded as being in use
after 1935, though controversial and, and used as the basis for his Twelve
Steps.
·
The
outline by Hank Parkhurst of the proposed contents of the Big Book – commenting
on the cure of alcoholism and religious experience – expressions which
correspond to Bill’s characterizations in Bill’s descriptions of religious
experiences.
·
The
“New Version” Program of Twelve Steps that Bill constructed, naming William
Silkworth, William James, and Samuel Shoemaker as the sources.
·
The
great compromise made in the printer’s manuscript by the self-appointed
committee of four.
·
Self-made
religion derived from the great compromise and including in the fellowship
atheists, humanists, people that were religious but not Christian, and those
who believed in “something” or in “nothing at all.”
·
Absurd
names and peculiar attributes for “a” god derived from concepts about “higher
powers,” “a power greater than ourselves,” and “God as we understood Him.”
·
The
“spiritual but not religious” dilemma and the attempts to characterize A.A. as
something it was never established in the beginning to be.
·
The
self-appointed governors who attempt to impose personal rules on AAs and their
groups and meetings. This in contravention of A.A. traditions of
non-interference with autonomous groups and non-governance and inability to
control by leaders.
·
The
importance for believers of learning and standing upon undisputed history and
its incontrovertible relevance to 12 Step recovery today as believers wish to
practice it and express themselves.
·
What
the International Christian Recovery Coalition is engaged in fostering and
encouraging.
·
Conclusion.
