Recovery Before A.A. – Three Facts to
Note
Dick B.
© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved
Were Alcoholics and Addicts
Being Healed and Cured Before A.A.?
There are a good
many pieces of evidence you could look at in search of an answer to the
question: Were alcoholics and addict s being healed and cured before A.A. But
there are three sets of facts without dispute and clearly relevant to the
answer.
We will briefly
discuss the three evidentiary sources:
(1) The people and organizations who were helping and successfully healing
alcoholics beginning in the 1850’s.
(2) The results cited by eminent clergy at the Yale Summer School (in
which Bill W. participated) in 1945 and by others.
(3) The details of how the first three
AAs—Christians and Bible students—were cured (and said so) by renouncing their
alcoholic lives, turning to God for help, and then helping others – before A.A.
and its first group were formed in 1935.
More on each of the three discussions of
Recovery Before A.A.
·
Beginning in the 1850’s, the following groups
were healing alcoholics. For
one thing, they were FOR curing alcoholics and addicts and NOT Against liquor.
Here are the
people
and organizations in the first set of facts:
The
great evangelists who
offered salvation, the Word, and healing in huge revival meetings in Vermont
and elsewhere: Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, F. B. Meyer,
Allen
Folger, and several others
Young
Men’s Christian Association brethren who could point to the revivals they conducted and their role
in The Great Awakening of 1875 in St.
Johnsbury—the village where Dr. Bob was born and raised. That Great Awakening
brought over 1500 to Christ in a town with a 5,000 population and transformed
the whole village religious life. The Young Men’s Christian Association was
actually founded in Great Britain to bring young men out of street drinking and
into Bible study. Dr. Bob father was President of the St. Johnsbury YMCA. Bill
Wilson was President of the Burr and Burton Seminary YMCA.
Congregationalism in Vermont and New England. Towering
Congregational Church leaders, including former Governor Deacon Erastus
Fairbanks, former Governor Horace Fairbanks, Joseph Fairbanks, Thaddeus
Fairebanks, Col. Franklin Fairbands, Rev. Edward Fairbanks, Rev. Henry Fairbanks
all figured in the revivals, building of churches, and public buildings and the
St. Johnsbury Great Awakening and its aftermath. The entire Bob Smith family
were much involved in Congregationalism in Vermont. Bill Wilson’s boyhood
church—East Congregational Church of East Dorset and his seminary church
Manchester Congregational Church were active in temperance and revivals. So were the staunch
Congregationalists heading Bill’s Burr and Burton Seminary.
Gospel
Rescue Missions, such as
those of Jerry McAuley and S.H. Hadley at Water Street and elsewhere were
helping many thousands of alcoholics,
addicts, and derelict receive salvation, the Word of God, and release from
their alcoholism and addiction.
Salvation
Army. General William
Booth founded this movement in the slums of darkest England and offered to
drunks and criminals the simple formula of: (1) One recovered Salvationist
approaching the suffering with Salvation and the Bible. (2) Once the suffering
soul accepted both and was healed of his curse, he was urged to join “God’s
Army” and help others get out of the pit.
The
Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor. Building to a worldwide membership of 4.5
million, this movement began in Maine at the Williston Congregational Church
and rapidly spread through New England and then worldwide. Dr. Bob and his
parents were involved at North Congregational Church of St. Johnsbury. And the
program to bring young people back to church offered many of the features later
part of the Akron A.A. Christian
Fellowship—conversion meetings, Bible study meetings, prayer meetings, Quiet
Hour observances, reading and discussing Christian literature. It also had a
minor interest in Temperance.
Our
three most important resources providing more facts and documentation are: Dick
B. and Ken B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics
Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a Youngster in Vermont;
Bill W. and Dr. Bob: The Green Mountain Men of Vermont;
And Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W.: More
on the Creator’s Role in Early A.A.
·
The Summaries of Leading Clergy, including
Those participating in Twenty-nine
Lectures with Discussions as given at Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies
in 1945
The Lecture of the Reverend Francis W. Mc Peek, Executive Director of
the Federation of Churches in Washington, D.C. [who reviewed what he called “a brief, highly
selective survey of a century‘s efforts among religious people to bring the
healing power of God into the lives of those who suffer from inebriety]
It is, moreover, the insistence of historical Christianity that no man
can live fully without a knowledge of and dependence upon God. . . . No one is
exempt (p. 404)
The deep-running desires for a faith which united and heals the soul
and directs the will, and the bits of emotionally tinged knowledge of God from
earlier times, are refreshed or activated in many ways. Sometimes they are
strengthened by chance words heard or real—a phrase overheard from conversation
in a public place, a radio sermon, a service of public worship, a quotation
from the Scriptures in and unexpected place. Augustine was converted by reading
a single passage. St. Anthony by a single word (p. 405)
But by all odds the most of those who find their way back to sobriety
after years of indulgence find it because they first find a friend with whom
there is no necessity of pretense. The scold, the crank, the moralizer, the
contemptuous-these serve usually only to
widen the abyss, already so great, that separates the inebriate from those to
whom he most truly wishes to belong. The hallmark of a good friend is his
stability and freedom from censoriousness; the hallmark of a religious friend
is not only these things, but also a humility tempered with unshaken faith. To
these religious elements we add one other—the moving power of mass example (pp.
405-06)
Much work was done in city missions and particularly by the Salvation
Army. The Army, however, has focused its efforts on the conversion experience
and has made use of its own general facilities and of other community resources
when these were needed in aftercare. Those who wish to read a portrayal of the
Salvation Army’s methods and approach may consult Hall’s biography of Henry F.
Milans (Out of the Depth).
Generally speaking, the Salvationists have capitalized on the same
techniques that have made other reform
programs work: (1) Insistence on total abstinence. (2 reliance on God. (3) the
provision of new friendships among those who understand. (4) the opportunity to
work with those who suffer from the same difficulty. (5) unruffled patience and
consistent faith in the ability of the individual and the power of God to
accomplish the desired ends (pp. 414-15).
Certain things may be held as conclusive. Towering above them all
is this indisputable fact: It is faith
in the living God which has accounted for more recoveries from the disease than
all other therapeutic agencies put together (p. 417).
For others, see Alcohol, Science
and Society: Twenty-none Lectures with Discussions as given at the Yale Summer
School of Alcohol Studies; Dick B., When
Early AAs Were Cured and Why, 3rd ed., 2006; Howard Clinebell, Understanding and Counseling Persons with
Alcohol. Drug, and Behavioral Addictions. Rev. and enl. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1998).
·
Details about how the first three AAs (Bill
W., Dr. Bob, Bill D.)—Christians and Bible students all turned from liquor,
turned to and relied on God, and then helped others get cured by the same means. This before the founding
of A.A. and its first group in 1935; and before there were any Big Books,
Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, drunkalogs, and meetings like those today.
When the first three got sober, there were no Big Books, Twelve Steps,
Twelve Traditions, drunkalogs, and meetings like those today. In The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet,
Dr. Bob pointed out the absence of either the original old school A.A. program
and of Bill W.’s new Big Book Twelve Step program. He said the pioneers
believed that the answers to their problem were in the Bible. And they studied
and discussed the Bible as they developed the original program and the Twelve
Step program.
We now know how the first three AAs got sober in these early days. They
were Christians. They had always believed in God. They had all studied the
Bible extensively. Their stories of cure should be known to all AAs—Bill’s
cry to God for help at Towns Hospital
and immediate deliverance from alcohol; Dr. Bob’s prayer for deliverance with
Henrietta Seiberling and others, the miraculous appearance of Bill Wilson, and
Dr. Bob’s last drink; Bill D. had been hospitalized many times. Bill and Bob
visited him. Bill D. surrendered to God asking for his help. He was told to
help others if healed. And all of this happened and began immediately. Only
after that was the first A.A. group founded.
And development of the old school program began over the summer of 1935.
Each of the first three AAs specifically stated he had been cured and,
in the case of Bill W. and Bill D..specifically attributed the healing to the
“Lord.” Dr. Bob attributed it to his “Heavenly Father.”
Specific resources for these facts are: Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 191, 179-81; The Co-Founders of Alcoholics: Biographical
Sketches Their Last Major Talks, 13-14; The
Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide: Historical Perspectives and Effective Modern
Application, 4th ed. 167-71; Dick B. and Ken B., Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous:
God’s Role in Recovery Confirmed!, ix-xiv, 34-38,41-42
