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Dick B.
~addresses all aspects of the highly successful spiritual roots of early Alcoholics Anonymous — roots which came from the Bible, Christianity, and Christian literature

History and Origins and Alcoholics Anonymous: The Latest Answers from 25 Years of Research www.dickb.com

It's all new. It will help you evaluate the outpouring of plays, movies, videos, books, and articles that just plain omit the "rest of the story"--the parts of A.A. history we have been researching and reporting for the last 25 years. Go to "Alcoholics Anonymous History: Dick B.'s Website"

www.dickb.com

History of Alcoholics Anonymous: The New Presentation and Content of Dick B. Main Website

After years of researching, publishing, speaking on, and disseminating facts about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was time to summarize and capsulize the landmark epochs on our main, popular website that has served almost five million viewers.

That time is here. The main website www.dickb.com is completely changed in presentation and initial content. You can still see all the historical resources, book references, articles, blogs, profiles, social media references etc. on the left navigation bar. But the real change is in the complete presentation of A.A.'s historical landmarks and the derivation of most from Christian beginnings.

Take a look. You will see a dramatic, accurate, and truthful presentation of the "old school" A.A. and present-day A.A. landmarks that we have been discussing for many years. On the very first page, you will see what awaits those who still believe that the "power" in A.A. is the power of God for those who choose to rely on that option.

Your comments will be welcome.

God Bless, Dick B. , dickb@dickb.com

The Story of Dick B.'s Travels and Research to help the AA Newcomer and Support AA

The Story of Dick B.’s Travels and Writings About A.A. to Help the A.A. Newcomer, and Alcoholics Anonymous Itself

Dick B.’s “personal story” (his drunkalog) has been delivered in hundreds of 12-Step and recovery meetings and reported in thousands of published books and articles. Also, at some length on his own Alcoholics Anonymous History website—www.dickb.com.

But this is a different story.

It is about Dick B., the real alcoholic and prescription pill addict who entered the rooms of A.A. twenty-eight years ago a very very sick person. A sixty-year old newcomer who knew little of addiction, little about alcoholism, little of Alcoholics Anonymous itself, and very little about the link between his malady and his seemingly mountainous pile of self-created troubles. Disasters  that almost inevitably plague the wet drunk or drug addict. He found he had entered a strange and unfamiliar fellowship with no real leaders, no common approach among its old-timers, and virtually no guidance in selecting a mysterious “sponsor” whose qualifications are neither fixed nor evaluated.

This is z brief story of how Dick traveled all over the United States, interviewed hundreds of those with an explicit knowledge of various aspects of A.A. and its roots and beginnings, gathered books and manuscripts that filled in blanks, and realized there was an A.A. that many know little about: An early fellowship in which many determined drunks had recovered in A.A.’s pioneer days. And a program that has enabled many Christians—including the many newcomers Dick sponsored—pursue progress in recovery within the rooms of A.A. itself.

The details Dick unearthed over many years in A.A. were not easily found. Yet the elements were such that suffering affected and afflicted entrants can utilize today without wandering in the muddle of treatment options and criticisms abounding about A.A.

Blessed with God’s help, Dick was delivered from the power of darkness while he was an A.A. newcomer It happened when Dick was soon hospitalized in the Veterans Administration psych ward at Fort Miley in San Francisco. And what a nightmare of physical and mental stress and ill-health, confusion, fear, anxiety, terror, and genuine life-sized financial, legal, criminal, domestic, and other problems common among battered newcomers today! Searchers for a way out that does not have a well-lighted path.

But at six months of sobriety, Dick was—while an expectant member of the A.A. fellowship--able to turn wholly to God for help, return from two-months of hospitalization to Alcoholics Anonymous for fellowship, and embark on the greatest pleasure of his life—giving the great majority of his time to finding, helping, guiding, and leading newcomers to God through Christ. Aiding new found lives among a virtual army of newcomers. Lives where newcomers could be and were released through the process of faith in God, through changed life-patterns mapped out in the Twelve Steps, through study of both the Bible and A.A. literature in  the rooms, and through concurrent liberation as Christians from guilt, shame, loneliness, isolation, fear, and a sense of friendlessness.

Here’s how the story began.

Maybe it’s best to show you the “path” and then to go briefly into what Dick found along the way.

After about three years in A.A. since gaining and maintaining continuous sobriety and enjoying the fellowship and the A.A. program, Dick heard about an A.A. he had never seen, never experienced, and never been able to pass along to others. What he had heard had to do with the early A.A.  successes and godly features.

And this brings us to the story of John. John was an alcoholic.

It also brings us to the surprising statement John made to me at a Twelve Step study meeting in San Rafael, California. Interestingly, the meeting itself had the name “Steps to Freedom.”

John knew I had been attending a Bible fellowship, had been helped to grow in understanding and knowledge of God’s revelation, promises, healings, and commandments. He also knew I  had been puzzled by the absence in A.A. of this deliverance and growth factor which had been tested and utilized by thousands of former alcoholics and addicts in the Bible fellowship itself. Christians who had been healed and had continuously been clean and sober without A.A. Yet whose members had little knowledge of A.A., the Twelve Steps, or the background of A.A. itself.

The incongruity did not drive me away from A.A. It had simply left me unable easily to link what were commonplace practices among the early Christians in the Book of Acts and the activities of those in his Bible fellowship to many of the seemingly Bible-related words and ideas that existed in A.A.’s basic text.

John’s conversation with me at the Step meeting went like this: “Dick, did you know that A.A. came from the Bible?” “John, I have been much involved in A.A. for three years, have probably attended over one thousand meetings, but I have never, ever heard of any connection of A.A. with the Bible.”

“Dick, you need to read A.A.’s DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers. It is filled with information about how the Bible was the center-piece of early A.A., how the Bible was studied, and how the Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were absolutely essential to the early AA successes and program. In fact, the Book of James was so popular that early AAs wanted to call A.A. “The James Club.””

With a mind much clearer after three years of sobriety and having dipped into A.A. literature, I had seen a number of Bible verses like “Faith without works is dead,” “Thy will be done,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” quoted in the Big Book. I had seen there biblical descriptions of God such as Creator, Maker, Father, Heavenly Father, and Father of Lights. But within A.A., I had never heard members link these Bible roots in A.A. literature to the Bible and A.A. itself.

I had, however, incessantly in A.A. heard of a “higher power,” that A.A. was “spiritual but not religious,” and that AAs should read nothing but the Big Book the first year of their recovery. Consequently, I was amazed at John’s statement.

 But I did read DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers—a precise account of how early A.A. was founded in 1935. Details about how early Akron members called themselves a “Christian Fellowship,” And about requirements for A.A. newcomers just never heard in Marin County, California meetings.

I read that: (1) Hospitalization was a must in early A.A.—something never even mentioned to me as a newcomer though I was detoxing heavily and soon had three gran mal seizures in A.A. (2) Pioneers were required to “surrender” their lives to a God of their understanding—a practice only vaguely outlined in A.A.’s Step Number Three. (3) Elimination of sinful conduct such as adultery was a must—conduct that was boldly and frequently mentioned in meetings. (4) Each day, early AAs held Quiet Times, prayed together, studied the Bible together, read Christian literature Dr. Bob circulated among them—just never mentioned in A.A. meetings in Marin County. (5) Helping others get straightened out the same way was something every A.A. considered a duty—a concept that was stressed as we moved forward in A.A. (6) Newcomer fellowship with like-minded believers was encouraged—whereas it was never a part of the A.A. I had “joined.” (7) Attendance at a religious service once a week was recommended—though it was common in meetings these days to hear someone say: “My sobriety comes first. Church and family follow.”—hardly an affirmation of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” One Irishman used to come to a beginners meeting on Maui and say: “I go to church for my religion. I go to A.A. for my alcoholism.”

Frankly, I wouldn’t go anywhere for my alcoholism—only to a place like A.A. which pointed the way out of this destructive illness.

Even today, 28 years later, an AA is often likely to doubt, reject , or ignore these facts that are plainly stated in some of their “Conference-approved” literature.

But I did not doubt either the facts or the history. I was tired of hearing about a “higher power” that could be a rock, a light bulb, the Big Dipper, or “Ralph.” I was tired of hearing folks in meetings talking about “spirituality,” and ignoring published truth about Bible, prayer, Quiet Time, and Christian books. Yet I was not condemning A.A. And I don’t. But rather the comments of friends who had probably never heard in A.A. about anything but a “higher power” named Ralph, an A.A. which was not “religious,” or even prayer to a God “of their understanding” for healing and cure.

Yet I had also, begun to study A.A.’s Big Book assiduously and spent hours trying to learn about the Twelve Steps. But, after my talk with John, I was challenged to begin a search. And here is what I did.

The Path to the Rest of the A.A. Story

It was to my delight that I picked up a copy of Bill Pittman’s book, AA the Way It Began, at an A.A. Conference in Sacramento, California. At the same Conference, I again met a lady from Manteca who had looked after me when I was at an early meeting in Stockton. I said to her that I  would like to go to the International Convention in Seattle; and she advised that I’d better go “now” considering my age.

And so I did. I went with an agenda in mind—finding out what the leaders at the International gathering knew about A.A. and the Bible. Meanwhile, I saw in AA The Way It Began the first glimmerings of some of the major sources of A.A. ideas—the Bible, the Oxford Group, and Reverend Sam Shoemaker.

In Seattle, I went right to the archives meeting at the International Convention with the specific purpose of learning about the Bible roots of A.A.

But seated on the stage were some A.A. old-timers who never mentioned the Bible. One, however, had a stack of Oxford Group books in front of him and said he’d send them to me after the convention. Then I had heard panelists frequently mention “Frank.” And I asked one who this “Frank” was that all the panelists referred to. He replied, “Frank Mauser, the A.A. General Services Archivist from New York.” I introduced myself to Frank and asked if he had material on Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. Frank replied, “No.” But he promised to and did in fact send me what little he had.

The upshot of this first research adventure was this: The Oxford Group books arrived at my home. Frank merely sent a Xerox copy of a page from Bill Pittman’s book that listed some Shoemaker books. And I had learned nothing about A.A. and the Bible. However, as I began to read the Oxford Group books, I could see the remarkable similarity between words and phrases in the Big Book and those in the Oxford Group. I could also see that most of the Oxford Group writers talked about their “principles” almost always citing the Bible as authority for the ideas.

I felt I was on the Bible trail at last. I went to the small A.A. group that my sponsees and I had formed. I proposed that the group hold a meeting in the large parish hall in Mill Valley, California where Frank Mauser could speak, where films and recordings of Bill and Bob could be presented, and where I could introduce the audience to the Oxford Group roots.

The meeting was a smash. Frank came from New York. He brought a Bill Wilson film with him, and spoke at some length on A.A. and on its history as he knew it. 400 members from A.A. were in attendance. Women brought in lunch materials. The audience partook, and not a one left the conference. We called it “A Day in Marin.” And Frank’s talk was so inspiring that I asked if they would like to hear him tell more in the afternoon. The answer was, “yes.” He did. And then I presented what I had learned about the Oxford Group and A.A. thus far. Frank turned to me and said, “Dick, it looks like you’ve got a book in you.” And I sure did.

I boned up on as many A.A., Oxford Group, and Shoemaker books as I could find. I wrote some lengthy material on the Oxford Group. I went to nearby seminary libraries to find more. And then I proposed once again to our little A.A. group (“Steps to the Solution”) that we hold a second “A Day in Marin” Program, invite some knowledgeable speakers on the history, and broaden the subject to fit the speakers’ areas of expertise. Frank Mauser was invited to return, but could not come. But he did label it the “Son of Day in Marin” program.

So we invited as speakers: (1) Mel B., who was a substantial contributor to “PASS IT ON” and who had just published his book New Wine: The Spiritual Roots of the Twelve Step Miracle. (2) T. Willard Hunter, who had been employed by the Oxford Group for many years, who knew Frank Buchman and Sam Shoemaker personally, as well as many of its surviving members, and who had written extensively for the Oxford Group. (3) Robert R. Smith (Dr. Bob’s son and his wife Betty) who came all the way from Nocona, Texas.

Mel B. was the first speaker. And his opening remark was “A.A. came from the Bible.”

And this second conference was also a smash. 800 AAs attended. They were provided with lunch. And not a one left the scene until the conference was over. Mel told about early A.A. Willard told about the Oxford Group. Smitty told about his father Dr. Bob and the founding of A.A. And I read from the Book of James to let the audience hear what the early AAs had regularly studied.

In the interval between the first and second Marin County events, I had continued my search for A.A. historical roots—a search broadened with much additional information about early A.A., the Oxford Group, Dr. Bob and Akron A.A., and the Bible segments early AAs read—the Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13. And I went to my first Founders Day Conference in Akron—loaded to the gunnels with questions to be asked and people to be interviewed. And a whole new arena of facts began to open.

My first Akron visit was with Dr. Bob’s daughter Sue Smith Windows. She answered many questions and she wrote and signed several statements about Akron. Then I asked her if she had ever heard her father use the phrase “born again.” Immediately she trudged up the stairs to her attic, using an inhaler to breathe properly. She returned with a book called “Born Again.” It was by Emmet  Fox. Her father had dated it, written “Please return,” and signed it also adding his address  855 Ardmore, Akron. I asked her if her father was “born again.” She replied, “yes.”

Then I asked Sue if she had other books her father owned and read. She went to the attic and brought several more downstairs. She said the attic was full of her dad’s books. I asked if I could go up and look at them. She replied that it was too messy, but she would clean it up and let me look at the collection if I returned to Founders Day the next year. I asked her if she would make a list of the books and send it to me. And she did. She also commented that her brother “Smitty” had an equal number of Dr. Bob’s books in his home in Nocona, Texas.

I phoned Smitty. He and his wife Betty both got on the phone and told me they had a large number of books, would make a list, and send it to me. And after collecting some books from seminaries and bookstores as well as individuals who had them for sale, I was ready to and did write and publish my first book, Dr. Bob’s Library.

The next year I returned to Akron and Founders Day for more visits. Sue invited me to attend a meeting of the Board at Dr. Bob’s Home. I went to her attic, examined the books carefully, compared them to the list she had sent, and verified that many were signed, dated, in Dr. Bob’s own handwriting, and had the “Please return” with 855 Ardmore written in them. At the Akron University Library, and at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, I poured over the newspaper articles and pictures of the town-wide Oxford Group events of  1933.

Sue had another surprise for me. On the plane to Akron, I had read in a footnote in a Hazelden book that its author had visited GSO archives in New York and seen some scribbled notes said to have been written by Anne Smith. I asked Sue what these were. She told me that her mother had kept a journal from 1933 to 1939 and shared it with AAs and their families in morning quiet times at the Smith home. She also said she had typed some of the material for her mother while she was at business school. Lois and Bill Wilson had taken the journal at the time of her father’s death.

She agreed to write requesting her mother’s journal and sign a letter to the A.A. Trustees requesting that they make that journal available to me and to her. Frank Mauser expedited it at GSO; and I soon had almost all the pages—some with handwritten annotations, and some simply typewritten. I could see quite plainly that over the period from 1933 to 1939, Anne had written down most of the materials shared with early AAs and their families—biblical, Oxford Group, and life-changing subjects. The material contained much discussion of the Bible, prayer, Quiet Time, recommended books, Oxford Group ideas, and practical suggestions for AAs and their families. And Anne had written: “Of course, the Bible ought to be the main Source. Not a day should pass without reading it.” And I wrote and published my second book, Anne Smith’s Workbook, It contained the contents of Anne’s journal as well as footnotes and my annotations sourcing many of the materials Anne had covered.

On the same visit, I made a date to see Congressman John Seiberling at the University of Akron where he was teaching. His mother Henrietta Seiberling had introduced Bill W. to Dr. Bob and had led many of the early meetings. She and her children attended them.

I read Congressman John about 12 of the 28 Oxford Group, A.A. related ideas I had found in their books. I asked him if he had ever heard any of the material in the early meetings he, his mother, and his sisters attended. He said: “I never heard anything else. My mother talked about all of these ideas repeatedly; and my mother, I am sure, read all of the Oxford Group literature of the 1930’s.”

I asked John for the names of his two sisters. I arranged a visit with Dorothy at her huge condo in New York, reviewed her mother’s Bible and its notes with her, and corresponded with her about her mother’s views. I could not arrange to see her sister Mary Seiberling Huhn in Pennsylvania. But, when I wrote Mary, I received quite a bundle of information about her mother, the meetings, and the Seiberlings.

By this time, I had begun to map out 10 books I wanted to write about A.A. One had been Dr. Bob’s Library. One had been the  Anne Smith book. One was “The Books That Early AAs Read.” One was “The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous.” And one was “The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous.” I also had in mind writing about Rev. Samuel Shoemaker’s role and also a book on the often mentioned “Quiet Time.” For sure, I knew I would soon be writing one or more books about the Big Book and what  Dr. Bob called “The Good Book.” And that book was to dig deeply into A.A.’s roots in the Bible. I also planned write a book about the Women Pioneers of A.A.—Anne Smith, Henrietta Seiberling, Clarace Williams, Lois Wilson, Geraldine O. Delaney, and Mrs. Shoemaker (It never got written because Bill Pittman had joined Hazelden, arranged for such a book, and paid me “for hire” to write the Seiberling portion.) I supplied the material on Mrs. Geraldine O. Delaney, founder and president of Alina Lodge.

By this time, thanks to Willard Hunter, I had met and interviewed at length, Willard himself, James D. Newton, Eleanor Forde Newton, Garth Lean, Charles Haines, Harry Almond, Parks Shipley, Mrs. W. Irving Harris, Kenneth Belden, Michael Hutchinson, Jim Houck, George Vondermuhll, Jr., Richard Ruffin, and Dr. Morris Martin. All of these were Oxford Group activists and leaders for years. When the breakup with Rev. Sam Shoemaker occurred, almost all remained attached to Oxford Group ideas and objectives. And we could see we had by then very much mastered the Oxford Group ideas that filtered into Bill Wilson.  

This meant  turning my attention to Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker and his little spoken of influence on Bill Wilson and the new version of the program the Twelve Steps. To me this meant the acquisition and careful review of all Sam’s books. It meant visiting his Calvary Churches in New York and Pittsburgh. It meant meeting with his two daughters, reviewing Sam’s personal journals, and talking to the many in Pittsburgh who were familiar with Sam’s vibrant witnessing, sermons and speeches, and Sam’s growing belief in small groups.

Finally, with a letter of introduction from Sam’s younger daughter enabling us to have complete access to all Shoemaker papers (58 boxes of them), we spent a week going through them with the help of the archivist at the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, Texas. Through this all, we could see that Bill Wilson, like the Oxford Group people he had left, had fully credited Shoemaker with almost all the Step ideas. And we wrote New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A., 2d edition.

After which, Bill Pittman apprised me of the fact that Fleming Revell (publisher of many of the earlier Christian, Oxford Group, and Shoemaker books) wanted a book about Shoemaker’s writings and their relation to the Twelve Steps. The publisher wanted a foundational book that would buttress their planned reprint of many of Shoemaker’s books (all of which I had read) Pittman said he didn’t feel qualified to write the book; and we partnered in writing the book for Baker Books. It is titled Courage to Change: The Christian Roots of the Twelve Step Miracle. Hazelden bought the rights from Baker and still publishes this Pittman-Dick B. book.

We reached a turning point. And I keep mentioning “we.” The fact is that over most of my sobriety and in practically all of my research and publishing years, my son Ken—a talented graduate of University of California in Rhetoric and graduate of San Francisco State in Fundamentals of Oral Communication—assisted me, edited my work, and made endless research contacts. Ken was also a businessman and later an ordained Christian minister and Bible scholar.  And we felt it was appropriate to write a magnum opus work on the spiritual history of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was to incorporate the various elements that we had discovered and published. And it was filled with as much as we had then learned—all 771 pages of it. The title is Turning Point: A History of Early A.A.’s Spiritual Roots and Successes. Paul Wood, Ph.D., President of the National Council on Alcoholism, wrote the Foreword. Those who endorsed the book were Bob and Betty Smith, Ozzie and Bonnie Lepper of the Wilson House, John Seiberling, and Karen A. Plavan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Counseling, Education, and Chemical Dependency at The Pennsylvania State University.

However, the recovery world was changing rapidly. A.A. had stopped growing. Religious publishers like Zondervan, Abingdon, Thomas Nelson, and Harper Collins were pumping out “recovery Bibles” and Christian-related recovery materials that incorporated the Steps.  Treatment programs were closing by the dozens. A.A.’s history writers had reached a dividing point where some were emphasizing A.A. as open to all, “spiritual” in nature, based on a “higher power” and “not-god-ness” and therefore much distanced from religion, Christianity, and the Big Book-Bible study guides. Also from the formation of study groups that would incorporate old school A.A., the merits of the earlier program and practices, and the Conference-approved literature of A.A. today.

Meanwhile, we were receiving voluminous numbers of phone calls, emails, letters, and visits from at least two groups of people: (1) Christians who were being rebuffed within the walls of A.A. if they mentioned God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, or religion; and being intimidated and stricken from “official” meeting lists if their group did. (2) Christian relatives of prisoners and addicted people in trouble who recognized their family members wouldn’t quit using their drug of choice, were recidivists in the extreme, and needed Christian help—trying to find an effective Christian recovery program.

I had worked with dozens and dozens of newcomers and had taught them the Big Book and taken them through the Steps. I had introduced them to the biblical approaches that were used and applied both before and at the time of early A.A. And it was apparent to me that young men and women (as well as one 90 year old sponsee, one 65 year old sponsee, one  50 year old sponsee) were willing to emulate the actions of the early AAs.

These wanted to quit drinking and using. They recognized their seeming helplessness and hopelessness. And they were very very receptive to learning about God, His Son, the Bible,  prayer, healing, salvation, and other subjects that could able them to become more than just “in recovery” or “recovered” or even “cured.”

At the same time they were lacking the tools, principles and practices that had dominated early A.A.—the fruits and techniques of the pre-AA organizations like the YMCA, rescue missions, Salvation Army, and Christian Endeavor. They had rejected many recovery-related biblical ideas primarily because of lack of knowledge of the Christian upbringing and Bible studies of A.A.’s founders and their earliest successes in growing in understanding God, Christ, and the Bible. They were enjoined to apply their own principle that “God could and would if He were sought.” Without the background, they were ill-equipped to establish a relationship with God, come to Him through Jesus Christ, understand the elements of prayer, define the sinful conduct that had been blocking them from God, and then turn to God for help in their own case and in the lives of those they wanted to help.

But there was also a flight factor that had intervened in A.A.’s simple early program. Objections fostered by atheists, agnostics, humanists, and unbelievers; and the utter lack of information about the biblical roots of A.A. were driving Christians out of A.A. and into the arms of diverse religious programs like Alcoholics Victorious, Teen Challenge, Overcomers Outreach, Inc., Celebrate Recovery, Alcoholics for Christ and others. Many of these new resources just couldn’t or didn’t invest in the  24/7 love and service that had made A.A. so much needed, popular, and welcome to those in deep trouble and propelled toward recognizing alcohol and drugs as the enemy to be licked.

This further caused us to dig deep into the real history of the highly successful Christian organizations and leaders who helped alcoholics long before A.A. was even thought of. That meant investigating the virtually unreported Vermont Christian upbringing and Bible training of the two cofounders and the third AA who got sober before the A.A. and before it had a recovery program other than that obtainable from the Bible. Their strong faith without a structured program nonetheless produced reliance on God, help for others, and continuous sobriety for the rest  of their lives. This meant for us instructive writing, teaching, and speaking on these topics.

Furthermore, a new and strong Christian Recovery Movement was springing up to deal with the factors mentioned here. A host of Christians in A.A. and Christian leaders in treatment programs, sober-living homes, counseling, fellowships, and churches began to unite in their desire to support the A.A. which had enabled them to get sober and to learn and apply the old school A.A. which firmly planted the pioneers in the God-centered recovery fellowship and groups.

That is where we are today. That is how my son Ken and I view our task as servants of our Heavenly Father, heralds of the Word of God, and practical utilizers  and appliers of the biblical A.A. of yesteryear.

But this cannot be accomplished without the uniquely lonely solid information we have  unearthed and published and without a persistent eye on the need  to “seek first the Kingdom of God” and then reap the harvest that awaits those who decide to abandon deadly alcoholism and drug abuse, and become the individuals described in 2 Corinthians  5:17—a favorite in early A.A.

If the sharing of experience, strength, and hope is truly to inform people of the readiness of God to help, of the fruits of a God-centered life, and of the merits of combining A.A.’s motto of love and service as a guide to helping others is imparted to trainers, then this effort can prosper. It can certainly be far more powerful today than the efforts of the alcoholic himself, the senses-knowledge fashioned, self-made religion,  and self-made human efforts of others. The solution is responding with God’s love and power to the calls of those who are still seemingly hopeless, medically incurable, last gasp sufferers who can and do get healed and restored by renouncing their poison, establishing a solid relationship with God, and helping others get well.

The A.A. story as presently told and limited in presentation today leaves out these factors. It is therefore  the “rest of the story” that needs to be discovered, reported, documented, and disseminated as an option to all who seek something more than their own strength, the weaknesses in man’s efforts, and the manufacture in the rooms and by theorists of false gods, unbelief, and “evidence based” failures when help from God was the very thing early AAs needed and present-day AAs need the option of seeking and receiving by whatever truthful means have been discovered and revealed as to A.A.’s origins, roots, success factors, and programs.

The relationship of A.A.'s Bill W. with the Lord Jesus Christ

The History of Alcoholics Anonymous: Some of “The Rest of the Story”

 

From Sunday School at East Dorset Congregational Church, Bill W. Had a Relationship with Jesus Christ. And That Is Presented Here

Dick B.

©2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

·        Bill W. virtually began his life in Vermont hearing about his grandfather Willie Wilson’s vital religious experience and the cure of alcoholism at the top of Mount Aeolus, next to Bill’s boyhood home at East Dorset, Vermont. Biographer Susan Cheever relates the following details:

 

William Wilson’s drinking had led him to take a series of temperance pledges. One Sunday morning in despair he climbed to the top of Mount Aeolus and beseeched God to help him. He saw a blinding light and felt a great wind and rushed down into town to interrupt the service at the Congregational Church. Demanding that the minister leave the pulpit, Wilson described his experience to the congregation of his friends, neighbors, and family.  [Bill’s mother loved this story and told it to her son and husband as often as they would listen. In the eight years William Wilson lived after that experience, he never had another drink, page 17

 

·         Bill’s parents, Gilman Wilson and Emily Griffith Wilson had, prior to their marriage, lived in the houses adjacent on either side of the little white East Dorset Congregational Church between. Emily’s family (the Griffiths) attended that church and regarded it as their family church. The Wilson family had an even more active role there. They had founded the church, helped build it, contributed to it, and owned Pew 15. Bill’s parents were married in that church and immediately went to live in the parsonage for a time.

 

·         Bill Wilson attended Sunday school at East Dorset Congregational Church. His pastor, D. Miner Rogers presented Bill a New Testament inscribed as follows:

 

Will Wilson, for perfect attendance at Sunday School, Fourth Quarter 1906 from his pastor D. Miner Rogers East Dorset Vt. Jan 1, 1907 II Tim.3/14.15

 

·         Bill’s biographer Robert Thomsen describes Bill’s grandfather Fayette Griffith as one who “read his Bible, supported the church,” page 34.

 

·         Bill was an avid reader and certainly did study the Bible—not just in Sunday school, church, chapel, and Burr and Burton Seminary.  In fact, in the Stepping Stones archives today, there is a book titled “Studies in the Scriptures,” published in 1914, with the inscription “W. G. Wilson, East Dorset, Vermont.” Bill went unquestioningly to the East Dorset Congregational Church Sunday school. He attended Temperance meetings. He had seen people witnessing to conversions at the tent revivals he attended as a boy. Biographer Raphael stated that when Ebby Thacher visited Bill years later, “Bill relaxed into childhood memories of starchy Sunday sermons and old-time temperance pledges,” pages 76-77. And Bill’s biographer Robert Thomsen wrote:

Always, even as a small boy in Sunday school, he had been taught that one must forgive, even try to love, the enemy, as one did unto the least of these—and this he believed, page 200.

·         Biographer Susan Cheever pointed out that one of Bill’s earliest memories was of his mother’s playing the piano while Gilly [Bill’s father] was singing. And Bill wrote his mother:

It is eventime at the parsonage. The parlor is softly illuminated by that wondrous old kerosene lamp with the large imposing globe. You are sitting at the piano and as you play father sings. The song is concerned with Jerusalem and Is ended in a climax marked by the word “Hosanna.” Though I first heard this evensong well over fifty years ago, I am still moved by it. It made me feel secure and mysteriously happy because you two were father and mother and because your music told me of the Great Father whose arms are outstretched toward us all, pages 28-29.”[See Matthew 21:9: “And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

 

·         Bill also attended, in successive order, two different Congregational Churches, their services, and their events in Vermont during his Christian upbringing there. The first was the East Dorset Congregational Church in East Dorset, Vermont. Its Confession and Covenant were seen by us in the East Dorset Church, and much resembled those of the Manchester church. The second was The First Congregational Church, Manchester, Vermont. The written history of The First Congregational Church, Manchester, Vermont: 1784-1984 was published by its Bicentennial Steering Committee in 1984. The Confession of Faith and the Church Covenant can be found on page 128, and are discussed on pages 26-27. And they leave little doubt as to the profession of faith that Burr and Burton Seminary students accepted.

·         Two things were required for those who were members of both churches: (1) Baptism. (2) Profession of faith.

 

·         By the time Bill was later attending Norwich University (the military academy) in Northfield, Vermont, there was a Congregational Church in Northfield, Vermont (built in 1835). It was located less than a mile away from the current grounds of Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. Young cadets attending the Norwich University were required each week to attend a church of their choosing in addition to the academy’s daily chapel. Whether Wilson opted for this nearby Congregational church is not presently known.

 

 

·         When Bill attended Burr and Burton Seminary, in Manchester, Vermont--an academy dominated by Congregational ministers and leaders--Bill took a required four year Bible study course there. Burr and Burton students attended events and were required to attend weekly services at nearby Manchester Congregational Church where the Seminary owned a pew for the students.

Every day, Burr and Burton Seminary required its students to attend daily chapel; and there a minister would give a sermon, there were hymns, there was reading of Scripture, and there were prayers. Bill and his girl-friend participated in “Y” events at the Seminary, And Bill became president of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and his girl-friend Bertha Bamford became president of the Young Women’s Christian Association. Details can be found in Fredericka Templeton, The Castle in the Pasture: Portrait of Burr and Burton Academy, published by the Burr and Burton Academy in 2005.

Bertha Bamford was the daughter of the rector of the Zion Episcopal Church in Manchester. Bertha died unexpectedly from surgery just before graduation time. Bill became deeply depressed and despondent. He left the Seminary without graduating. And he blamed God for the death and held that resentment for almost all of his following years of drinking.

•          As stated above, when Bill was later attending Norwich University, a prestigious military academy in Northfield, Vermont, Bill was required to attend a church of his choosing every Sunday. The Reverend James B. Sargent, D.D. was the University chaplain during the time Bill was attending Norwich. The University had completed erection of Dewey Hall in 1902, and cadets attended daily chapel in its assembly hall. The chapel had a seating of five hundred. Details can be found in Volume Iv of the History of Norwich University 1912-1965. Additional details are located in History of Norwich University: Images of Its Past, by Gary Thomas Lord, and published by Harmony House in 1995; Norwich Congregational Church United Church of Christ Norwich, Vermont: A Brief History of the Church, and a pamphlet on Norwich University 1819-1911 edited by William Arba Ellis and discussing Religious Work at the University, particularly daily chapel at Dewey Hall, Bible study classes, and YMCA activities at the university, the Student Conference at Northfield, Mass., and the World Students Conference in 1920.

•          Called into the Army in World War I When Bill was serving overseas in World War I, he visited Westminster Cathedral and was much moved. In his autobiography My First 40 Years, Bill wrote:

I walked inside the cathedral. . . . There was within those walls a tremendous sense of presence. I remember standing there and again the spiritual experience repeated itself. . . . And then my mood veered sharply about as the atmosphere of the place began to possess me, and I was lifted up into a sort of ecstasy. And though I was not a conscious believer in God at the time—I had no defined belief—yet I somehow had a mighty assurance that things were and would be all right. . . .  And then it was that I went out and read the inscription about the Hampshire grenadier, and once more I was possessed with the spirit of advent ure, and the spiritual experience. And the depression that had preceded it vanished into the background

. . . the notion of the supernatural and the notion of God kept crossing my mind, and the sense of some sort of sustaining presence in that place was quite overpowering. I didn’t define it, but it was a valid spiritual experience and it had the classic mechanism: collapsed human powerlessness, then God coming to man to lift him up to set him on the high road to his destiny. These were my impressions of my experience in the cathedral, pages 50-51.

•          Having turned his back on God and blamed God for the untimely death of his girlfriend Bertha Bamford, Bill retained that resentment for most of his drinking years and seemed to doubt even the existence of God. But in his autobiography published many years after he got sober, he certainly mentioned how he had interludes of “spiritual experiences” and that they involved his sensing the presence of God.

·         Then, after many tortured years of drinking and high powered sedatives, and deep into his alcoholic sickness, Bill checked into Towns Hospital one more time; and on his third hospitalization was given a virtual death sentence by his physician, Dr. William D. Silkworth. Frightened, Bill and his wife Lois asked Dr. Silkworth what was next. Silkworth replied that either insanity or death awaited Bill if he didn’t quit. Then Silkworth—a devout Christian--told Bill that the Great Physician Jesus Christ could cure Bill.

 

·         Bill was thereafter to use this Bible-based description of Jesus Christ as the Great Physician a number of times: See (1) In Bill W. My First 40 Years: (a) “Yes, if there was any great physician that could cure the alcohol sickness, I’d better seek him now, at once,” p. 139; (b) “But what of the Great Physician?,” p. 145; (c) “If there be a Great Physician, I’ll call on him,” p. 145. In Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill wrote at page 61: “So if there was a great Physician who could cure the alcoholic sickness, I had better seek Him now, at once. I had better find what my friend [Ebb Thacher] had found.”

 

·         Quite soon, Bill received an unexpected phone call and visit at his home by his old drinking buddy, Ebby Thacher. Ebby visited Bill, told him that he had “got religion” and was staying at Calvary Mission where he was born again. Ebby told a questioning Bill that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. And the desperate Bill could not get Ebby’s remarks out of his mind.                   

 

·         Bill checked out Ebby’s story by going to Calvary Episcopal Church (which owned Calvary Mission) and heard Ebby tell his remarkable story from the pulpit of the church. And Bill decided that if the Great Physician had healed Ebby at the Calvary Mission, he (Bill) could perhaps receive the cure there that Silkworth had told him about.

 

·         Though drunk, Bill staggered down to Calvary Mission and attended its service. The leader said that “Only Jesus can save.” The Bible was read. Hymns were sung. And then came the altar call. Several witnesses were there when Bill went down to the rail, kneeled, and “in all sincerity handed his life over to Christ.” He wrote his brother-in-law that (like Ebby) he had “got religion.”

 

·         Bill drank for a few more days and, both depressed and despairing, staggered back to Towns Hospital. On the way, he thought: “Perhaps the Great Physician can help me.” Bill checked into Towns and was placed in a hospital room.

 

·         Biographer Susan Cheever described part of what happened in that hospital room:

 

He found himself begging God for help. “If there be a God, let him show himself!” The response was amazing. “Suddenly my room blazed with an indescribably white light. I was seized with an ecstacy beyond description. Every joy I had known was pale by comparison. Then, seen in the mind’s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air but of spirit. In great, clean strength it blew right through me.  Then came the blazing thought, “you are a free man,” page 118. [In an article in The Language of the Heart, Bill wrote that he also thought: “This is the God of the Scriptures.”

 

            Bill thought “he heard the voice of God!”

 

·         Bill was cured and never drank again. And wrote: “For sure, I’d been born again. “ See My First 40 Years, page 147. He repeated those words in a manuscript I found at Stepping Stones.

 

·         Bill felt that he had been commissioned to save all the drunks in the world. On his discharge from the hospital, he went out with a Bible under his arm. He visited drunks in the streets, a mental hospital, Towns Hospital, and flea bag hotels. And he urged the drunks to give their lives to God; and Bill told this story: “The Lord has been so wonderful to me curing me of this terrible disease that I just want to keep talking about it and telling people.”

 

·         But Bill failed utterly in his attempts and did not get a single person sober. Dr. Silkworth told Bill his witnessing emphasis was backward and that he should first hit the derelicts with the awesome consequences of alcoholism. But Rev. Sam Shoemaker encouraged Bill to keep carrying the spiritual message he had been using.

 

·         Bill carried that message to a perfect  stranger—Dr. Bob Smith in Akron.

 

·         Bill quite clearly recognized that the Lord had cured him. Bill continued to tell his story that the Lord had been so wonderful to him curing him of this terrible disease and that he just wanted to keep talking about it and telling people. He wrote those very words in a personal story in the Big Book, 4^th edition, where the statement can be found on page 191.

 

·         In the October, 1928 issue of The Calvary Evangel, there is a photograph of Rev. San Shoemaker and his staff in full vestments preceded by a member of Calvary Episcopal Church who is carrying a cross. The caption under the photograph reads “On our Way to Rejoicing in Madison Squire.” In the photograph, one church member was carrying a sign which stated, “Jesus Christ Changes Lives.” Other signs urged onlookers to “Come with Us to Calvary Church.”

 

·         In his book, Calvary Church Yesterday and Today, 1936. Shoemaker wrote: “In the summer of 1927 we began holding out-door services on Madison Square, on its eastern side, opposite 24^th Street. The clergy went in vestments and the regular choir in vestments came also.  . . . A large number of our parishioners joined with us, handing hymn leaflets  to the crowd, moving amongst them and talking with them, and helping with the singing. Sometimes the clergy led the service and sometimes the spoke; more often the main speaking was done by changed lay-people, both men and women, young and old, men from the Mission and people who had a message for those in the city park on a Sunday evening. Live were changed through those services.”

 

·         Having read Shoemaker’s book, I personally went to the home of L. Parks Shipley, Sr., in Princeton, New Jersey to interview this distinguished banker, Oxford Group activist, and parishioner of Sam Shoemaker’s church.. Parks was a prominent banker and a strong activist in the Oxford Group. As my interview progressed, Parks specifically recalled for me his own marching in the Calvary Church processionals in the 1930’s where the march would be followed by public witnessing at Madison Square park from a “soap box.” Shipley specifically recalled that Bill Wilson was among the “rejoicers” at one or more of these events during the period of Wilson’s involvement with the Oxford Group. And it was through Bill Wilson’s secretary Nell Wing that I was put in touch with Parks Shipley and learned this witnessing phase of Bill Wilson’s recovery years.

 

·         In an early draft of the Big Book, Bill made these comments about Jesus Christ: “I had a great admiration for Christ as a man. He practiced what he preached and set a marvelous example” See lines 902-904 of the manuscript with numbered lines that I found during my investigation of the Stepping Stones Archives, around 1991.

 

·         When asked by a newcomer (Abby G.) in Cleveland, “what it was that worked so many wonders, and hanging over the mantle was a picture of Gethsemane and Bill pointed to it and said, “There it is.” And  Bill had pointed to a picture of a famous painting—Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He told Abby, “There it is.” See Alcoholics Anonymous, 3^rd ed., pages 216-217.

 

·         In 1940, Bill wrote a letter (now published in As Bill Sees It, on page 114):

 

At first the remedy for my personal difficulties seemed so obvious that I could not imagine any alcoholic turning the proposition down were it properly presented to him. Believing so firmly that Christ can do anything, I had the unconscious conceit to suppose that He would do everything through me—right then and in the manner I chose. After six long months, I had to admit that not a soul had surely laid hold of the Master—not excepting myself.

 

·         Illustrating the relationship Bill felt he had with the Lord Jesus Christ, Bill wrote an inscription in a copy of the Big Book he gave to a distinguished minister. Bill addressed it to Jesse Moren Bader, 20^th century evangelist, ecumenist and global leader. Dr. Bader became pastor of Jackson Avenue Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri. He also became Superintendent of Evangelism in United Christian Missionary Society. He served as first  president of Churches of Christ. In 1932, Jesse Bader was Associate Executive Secretary of Evangelism for the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America.

 

In a First Edition, Third printing, of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill wrote:

 

To my friend Dr. Jesse M. Bader. Yours in Christ, Bill Wilson. 1/13/43

 

There are many other instances in A.A. history of Bill’s references to God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. Instances which occurred  as he conferred  with Reverend Samuel Shoemaker on the proposed new version of the A,A program—the Twelve Steps. Instances as he conferred with Father Ed Dowling, S.J., on the “word of God.” Instances when as he used so many biblical descriptions, words, and phrases in the 1939 basic text. And even instances as he addressed large groups on who it was the “invented A.A.”—Almighty God.

But the foregoing facts in this article contain a good chunk of the “rest of the story” of A.A. that those who believe in and seek God’s help, power, and healing may take much joy in learning.

 

 

Stick with the Winnes! In A.A., Who are They?

Stick with the Winners!

Who are They?

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

Here’s a Winner – Dr. Bob, Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous

 

In his last major talk to AAs, Bill Wilson said this:

 

It had been decided that Bob would attend mostly to the questions of hospitalization and the development of our Twelfth Step work.

 

Between 1940 and 1950, in the company of that marvelous nun, Sister Ignatia, he had treated 5,000 drunks at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron.

 

His spiritual example was a powerful influence, and a never charged a cent for his medical care.

 

So Dr. Bob became the prince of all twelfth-steppers. Perhaps nobody will ever do such a job again.

 

The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks, page 34.