Christian Alcoholics and
Addicts-- Seeking Care for and Cure of Them
“The Rest of the Story”
Dick B.
© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved
In many ways
today, seeking care for and cure of alcoholism and drug addiction for
Christians can easily find itself facing the same end of the road as, in 1935,
did afflicted Christians who wanted God’s care and healing.
The Backdrop for the
Mutual Aid by Those Still Suffering
In those
early, sorry days, alcoholics and addicts were often pronounced “medically
incurable.” Doctors and psychiatrists supported a fellowship that would look
after the “seemingly hopeless” relapsed, recidivist alcoholics (and often
addicts) for which they had found no cure. Churches and clergy had lost much of
the zeal their predecessor organizations and leaders of the later 1800’s had
for revivals, healing meetings, and conversions.
Yet the ogre
of addiction problems was present. It was growing. And it seemed likely to lead
to death, insanity, or incarceration for the frequent repeaters. These
recidivists were the folks who weren’t necessarily groveling in the gutters and
flea bag hotels. They were the folks who perhaps welcomed “soup and soap” but
not the more compassionate and understanding “soup, soap, and salvation”
offered by missions, the Salvation Army, Young Men’s Christian Association, and
the evangelists like Moody, Meyer, Folger, and Sunday who were still dishing
out healings to thousands—not necessarily just to alcoholics, but to the lost,
the derelicts, and the “bums.”
Prohibition
had been tried as a remedy, but it didn’t stop the obsession, craving, and
repeated disastrous behavior.
The Turning Point in
1935 to Reliance on God by Unskilled Desperate Comrades
But, in 1934
to 1935, by a series of miraculous healings, a tiny group of alcoholics had
taken into their own hands as fellow drunks and addicts the best of the best
that had gone before them. The Creator was ever-present. That was the best. His son Jesus Christ was still the towering
necessity for a relationship with God as seen by most Americans. That too was
the best. And abstinence, obedience to God’s will, and charitable help for
others were a good fit.
But the very
ingredients that had been tendered to the suffering in the previous century had
fallen out of common purpose and concern. Wars, the temptations of liquor, poverty,
financial disaster, unemployment, a mere nodding belief, and the lack of
medical know-how had left the truly Great Physician behind. And the suffering deplored
their own seeming powerlessness, helplessness, hopelessness. Yawning open
skyscraper windows, the option of homelessness, and the seemingly easier,
softer way trumped routes that led to God’s love, healing, and power.
Barriers of Doubt,
Temptation, Inaction, Fear, Weakened Will, and Seemingly Insane Thinking Stood
in the Way
The purpose
here is not to breathe life into the sources, origins, biblically developed,
individual victories of the earliest days of such societies as Alcoholics Anonymous.
The need for “Divine Aid” was there in 1935. But the trust and believing—such
as existed--were largely dormant or unused.
Could God
cure alcoholism?
The first
answer in Alcoholics Anonymous was, “Yes.” And that view was voiced by almost
every early AA who dug into their program, placed his life and efforts in God’s
hands, found release, and then insisted on helping others achieve the same cure.
What were
the ingredients that fostered the results?
Sticking With the
Winners – the First Century Christians
Neither God,
nor His son Jesus Christ, nor the Bible were new to society. But out of their
own sheer repeated failures, the first three AAs decided they themselves must
quit and quit for good. They decided to pray that God would care for, guide,
and heal them; and they did so. And when, in short order, each was cured and
said so, all three set out to help others do likewise.
Was this
biblical? Of course it was. From the Bible and its Acts of the Apostles in
First Century Christianity, the practices were easy to find. The practices
included repenting, being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, listening to
Apostles’ eye-witness-derived doctrine since most written New Testament
elements had not yet been promulgated. The brethren prayed together, broke
bread together, met in the homes or temple together, kept almost continuous
fellowship together, healed others, and went about witnessing and converting
others to God through Christ.
The Book of
James served almost as a road map with instructions: Patience, Asking God for
wisdom and doing so without doubt, Avoiding temptation, Doing God’s Word and
not just hearing it, Refusing to be a respecter of persons, Loving others, Accompanying
their faith with works, Avoiding devilish conduct, Guarding their tongues, Submitting
themselves to God and resisting the devil, Humbling themselves before God in
order to be lifted up, Seeking healing, Confessing their faults one to another,
Praying for one another, and Believing that the effective, fervent prayer of a
righteous man would avail much. Adding to these, the guides to God’s will in
Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and the guides to God’s love in 1 Corinthians 13.
And the
church grew by leaps and bounds. Sometimes thousands in a day.
They healed by
calling on the name of Jesus Christ, just as Jesus had promised they could.
They were guided. They were empowered. And they had received the gift of the
Holy Spirit that provided guidance and the power of God. And they believed.
Religion’s Concern for
the “Unworthy,” and the Vermont Christian Catalysts for Bill and Bob
In the
1850’s religious leaders began turning to the down-trodden in America. They did
it with the message of “soup, soap, and salvation.” They provided shelter. They
provided food. They held services where the Bible was read, salvation through
Jesus was preached, and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior was regularly
invited and sought. Moreover, this produced healing of alcoholism for many a
drunk of those earlier days.
Bill W. and
Dr. Bob were born and raised Christians in Vermont. They attended
Congregational church and Sunday school. They heard Scripture read at home and
in church. They heard salvation preached, and they became aligned with
Congregationalists through baptism and profession of faith. Both men attended Congregational
academies which required daily chapel; and the daily chapel proffered sermons,
reading of Scripture, hymns, and prayers. Attendance at Congregational Church
services once a week was required by the Academies. The Young Men’s Christian Association
was active in both of their lives and villages.
Amidst all
of this, they had excellent training in the Bible as youngsters.
Bill took a
required four year Bible study course at Burr and Burton Seminary in
Manchester. And Bob was not at all hesitant to say and repeat that he had had
excellent training in the Bible as a youngster. We now know, from church
records themselves, that this took place in their family, in their church and
Sunday school, (and in Bob’s case) in the regimen of the Young People’s Society
of Christian Endeavor where he was active, in St. Johnsbury Academy, and through
the YMCA principles and practices to which both were exposed.
Had they
learned that there could be healing by the power of God and, as God was with
them, as Christians in the name of Jesus Christ?
Biblical Lessons about
Cures Obtained by Christians
The answers
abounded in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus healed the blind, deaf, dumb, crippled; and he even
raised from the dead. He told the Apostles they would do likewise after he had
prayed his Father to send them the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the Apostles
produced the same kinds of healings and raising from the dead and often gave
testimony of what they had received through accepting Jesus Christ as their
Lord and Savior.
Could
alcoholics and addicts be healed by Christians who utilized the power of God,
prayed, and believed?
Again, the
remarkable healings by evangelists in revivals, the cures at missions like
Water Street Mission in New York, and the successes of the Salvation Army and of
the Congregationalists all established
that the drunk, the derelict, and the down-and-out people could be
delivered “wholesale” (as Bill expressed years later to Dr. Carl Jung).
The Development in A.A.
of “Christian Techniques” and a “Christian Fellowship”
And what of
the program developed by the Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship—having in your
mind that, at the outset, the miraculous healings of the first three (Bill W.,
Dr. Bob, and Bill D.) took place before there was a group or a program.
Later, in
greater and greater numbers, there were hundreds who participated in the early
A.A. of Akron seven-point program summarized in A.A.’s DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 131.
Then came
Bill W.’s “new version of the program the Twelve Steps” published in 1939--four
years after the founding. It repeatedly referred to God. It spoke of prayer. It
spoke of church. It spoke of religious literature obtainable from or
recommended by rabbi, minister, or priest. And it spoke of daily devotions
often called “Quiet Time.”
The Change in A.A.
Approaches that Scuttled Homogeneity
After twenty-seven years of continuous sobriety as an active
AA and twenty-five years of researching its reported roots--as well as
"the rest of the story," I would call attention to the great change
in recovery fellowships today.
Neither the fellowships nor their members are all of one uniform kind
with respect to religion or lack of it, belief in God or lack of it, or whether
they can be cured or not.
Their societies are not monolithic today. It is fair to say
that A.A. itself has had four "programs," and that its membership has
expanded from three drunkards in 1934-35 to two million in the meantime.
The Unvarying Belief Among Thousands and Thousands of AAs Is No More
If you don't start with this history, you just start with
conjecture and the subjective viewpoints of one or more of the "four"
who completely compromised the A.A. principles and practices just before their
first Big Book manuscript went to press.
And, before speculating on what A.A. is or isn't, a reader
needs to learn and evaluate the historical research and discoveries of the last
thirty years plus years, beginning about 1990.
For example:
(1) Before A.A. was founded in June of 1935, and before their
first group was founded in Akron on July 4, 1935, the AAs had no program, no
Big Book, no Steps, no Traditions, no war stories, and no meetings like those
today. In turn, the healing process of the new society emerged from the
successes stemming from how the first three got sober: All three (Bill W., Dr. Bob, and Bill D.)
believed in God, were Christians, and had lots of Bible in their backgrounds.
Each renounced liquor as a way of life. Each turned to God for help. Each was
cured permanently (two of them after a brief binge). And each devoted his life
thereafter to helping other drunks by the same means. See The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their
Last Major Talks.
(2) For the next two and a half years, the Akron AAs--under
the leadership of Dr. Robert H. Smith--took their basic ideas from the Bible
and felt that it contained the answer to their problems. They developed a
program involving five required points, and two that were simply
"recommended." That founding program is described in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 131.
(3) Then Bill Wilson asked permission in Akron to write a
book that allegedly would tell others how the first few drunkards had been
cured. Bill, got that permission from Akron. And work on the book began in
1938. Wilson wrote the chapters for his "new version" of the program.
And the pioneers wrote their personal stories telling how they had worked the Akron program--called a "Christian
Fellowship."
Bill's new version itself, he said, was drawn from three sources:
(a) Dr. Silkworth's suggestions to Bill on the alcohol
illness problem--including Silkworth's statement that the Great Physician Jesus
Christ could cure Bill--this last point just left out of the story for years.
(b) Professor William James who had explored "vital
religious experiences" primarily in the rescue missions and the cures that
had resulted therefrom.
(c) Reverend Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. who taught Bill the basics
included in the remaining 10 Steps which came exclusively from the
"practical program of action" or "life-changing" art of A
First Century Christian Fellowship, later called the Oxford Group.
(4) Just before Bill's book was sent to press, it consisted
of what Bill called his program’s "new version" the Twelve Steps in
Bill’s chapters and the "old school" stories of Christian Fellowship
drunks. But four people—a secretary, a Christian, Bill’s partner Hank P., and
Bill himself re-wrote the manuscript and changed the program dramatically. In
addition, they inserted a hand-written piece at the beginning of the
typewritten draft.
And that hand-written insert was-neither typed like the rest
of the manuscript, nor was it at all accurate as to what Ebby Thacher had actually
said to Bill and allegedly assuring Bill
that he could "choose your own conception of God." And that's not
what Bill's typewritten text had originally said.
Then the same four people altered the Twelve Steps--taking
God out of the Second step, and inserting "God as we understood Him"
in Steps 3 and 11.
So now there were
four programs. And there still are. Unfortunately for the newcomer, the New
Thought expression "higher power" and some other language from New
Thought writers then crept into the talk and writing of AAs, writers,
professionals, academics, clergy, history “buffs,” and many lay people.
Worse, AAs were assured at a later point that they really
didn't need to believe in anything at all. In the fourth altered and
compromised program, that is.
And this totality of program ideas in the four “programs” is
not monolithic, homogeneous, nor uniform. It describes the doings of three
drunkards before there was any problem consisting of Steps, Traditions, Big
Books, and drunkalogs. Then it describes in detail and summary form what those
in the Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship did. Then Bill began writing about six
alleged “word-of-mouth” ideas on which there was no common agreement and no
common language in the varied versions. Then Bill wrote the new version
consisting of his Twelve Steps. And finally, he and three others compromised
and turned over the theme of the book to atheists and agnostics and left readers
with a self-made “power” and a “god” that could be whatever members understood
it to be.
And all this baffles Christians today. It confuses newcomers. And it fashions for
some fellowship participants a quasi-religious program that classes itself as
"spiritual, but not religious." But not for me! Nor for the many I
have sponsored. Nor for most in the International Christian Recovery Coalition.
And now for a personal word.
I am a Christian. This a fact challenged by a tiny group
which depicts itself as Christian but then says, neither I, nor the founders,
nor the early AAs, nor anyone else who subscribes to the A.A. program are,
were, or could possibly be Christians. No facts. Just out-of-context biblical
and other gibberish.
I am a Bible student.
I believe in God. I was very sick when I came into A.A. I was given immense
comfort and friendship by the members of A.A. who greeted and helped me. I immediately dove into the fellowship and
stayed committed. I loved helping others the way I was helped. Though a Christian and Bible student, I didn't
discover A.A.'s biblical roots until I had been sober three years and started
my research. See www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml.
I can't speak for AAs who are atheists, agnostics, Christians,
Jews, humanists, people of various non-Christian religions, non-believers, and
"not-god" believers. But I can tell those who follow secular,
unbelieving, or other self-made religions that I never relied upon, or urged others to
believe in, a door knob, a light bulb, a
chair, a table, the Big Dipper, or some strange “higher power” to get well.
I relied on God.
So can you. And you can do so as a full-fledged “member” of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
Gloria Deo
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