Preparing for 6 video/guidebook Special A.A. History by Dick B. and Ken B. now in Preparaation

Last Minute Suggestions for the 6 A.A. History Videos and Accompanying Guidebook About to Be Published

Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Suggestions in preparation for the “rest of the story” videos and guidebook about to be released.

The title is “Bill W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism: “The Rest of the Story”

Shortly, on dvd’s and with a guidebook, you will have access to the “rest” of the A.A. story (and it is huge, seldom mentioned, and overdue—particularly as more and more books and films come out but never cover all the facts). These videos and this guidebook tells and shows you what  you’ve probably never seen, heard discussed, researched, or studied.

It will tell you how organizations and people were curing alcoholics by religious means long before there was an A.A.; who and what these were; how their ideas became a part of Bill and Bob’s upbringing; the major role that Vermont played in shaping A.A.’s original, simple recovery ideas; how the first three got sober before A.A. was founded; what the original 7 point program of Akron A.A. and the 16 practices of that first group were; how successful their effort was; and how it can still be applied in present-day 12 Step and other recovery fellowships. Also, how speakers, sponsors, recovery leaders can make presentations more helpful to still suffering newcomers by giving them the full picture, based on their own experience and study.

What else do you need? We will be showing many books, manuscripts, and historical materials in the six videos. We will also be showing conference-approved materials, most of the Dick B. books, and much of the biographical and historical material that backs up the rest of the story!

For some time, we have offered a 29 volume A.A. history set of the books on A.A. history by Dick B. If purchased individually, the cost would be about $750.00 plus shipping and handling. But right now you can obtain the entire set, and a couple of bonus volumes, for only $249.00 – with free shipping and handling within the USA.

Why? Because this set provides a lifetime of accurate reference books you can use as you view and listen to the videos; as you hear and see our talks and conferences and web presentations; and as you put it all to use in your fellowship, group, meetings, and work with newcomers.

Contact Dick B. at 808 874 4876; or purchase directly on the Dick B. main website: www.dickb.com.

AA History: The Conversion of AA Cofounder Bill Wilson

The Conversion of Bill W.

More on the Creator’s Role in Early A.A.

Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

How many times have you heard that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is God-given, was divinely-inspired, or was accurately characterized in the article by a Chicago judge: “Why We Were Chosen?” Or that Bill Wilson was guided by God when he penned the famous “Twelve Steps?”

On the other hand, how many times have you heard the expression: “A.A. is spiritual, but not religious?” Or heard that A.A. requires a belief in a “higher power?” Or heard that A.A. is about “not- god-ness?” Or is an “any god will do” program?

This book doesn’t address those questions. It is not about the nature of A.A. Nor about the place of the Creator in today’s program. Nor about whether AAs are a chosen bunch. It’s an account of the many ways the Creator seems to have touched the life of Bill W. and, through him, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Did He impact Bill W.’s life and hence A.A. itself? You will meet a Bill W. you haven’t met in the dozen or so biographies of his life. You’ll look at events in Bill’s life you’ve probably never heard of— whether inside or outside of A.A. You will see how many times Bill seemingly had a conversion or religious experience, whether he called it that or not. You will see how many times religion and church and clergy impacted on Bill’s activities, whether or not he impacted on theirs. You’ll note the details about Bill’s decision for Christ at the Calvary Rescue Mission and his belief he had been born again. You will see the many examples of conversion experiences that Bill might have run across, just following his own “extraordinary white light” vital religious experience—the event resulting from his call for help to the “Great Physician” and his vision that he had been in the presence of “the God of the Scriptures.”

Was Bill Wilson saved when he attended the East Dorset Congregational Church and Sunday school, which both the Wilson and the Griffith families were regular members and much involved—their homes being right next door to the church? Was Bill Wilson saved when he was enrolled in the Burr and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vermont? Where he was President of the Young Men’s Christian Association? Where he went to daily chapel where he heard reading of Scripture, hymns, prayers, and sermons? Where he joined other Burr and Burton scholars when they attended Manchester Congregational Church? When he took his four year Bible study course?

 Was Bill Wilson converted? Did Bill Wilson ever become a born-again Christian? Did Bill Wilson truly believe in the one, true, living God? Were all of Bill’s frequent references to Almighty God, to the Creator, to the Maker, to his Heavenly Father a manifestation of what he really believed? God knows the answers. They’re His special province. Not mine.

But you will have the opportunity to focus on a new question about the part our Creator may really have played in the life of Bill Wilson and in the worldwide Fellowship which began in Akron in 1935 and of which Bill was co-founder. For Bill, as a youth, had had abundant Bible study, exposure to sermons and hymns and Scripture reading, prayer meetings, Sunday school and church teachings, and YMCA requirements. In other words, Bill had had abundant exposure in his family to Vermont Congregationalism, Vermont Congregational academies (Burr and Burton Seminary and possibly Norwich Military Academy), revivals, temperance meetings, conversion meetings, Bible study at the Seminary and with his grandfather Griffith, and in company with his lady love Bertha Bamford—YWCA president and daughter of an Episcopal rector. Until Bertha’s unexpected and tragic death from surgery just before the two were to graduate. Bill turned his back on God, blamed God, became depressed for months and months, and could not finish his Seminary graduation.

Yes. And this is just a part of the Christian upbringing in Vermont and elsewhere that his friends Ebby Thacher, Mark Whalon, and his family members had heard about salvation, the Bible, and Jesus Christ.

Contents

Introduction

 Ch. 1:   “The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth”

Ch. 2:   The God of the Preachers

 Ch. 3:   Two Heralds of Divine Help on Its Way for Alcoholics

 Ch. 4:   The Turning Point: Bill’s Decision for Christ

 Ch. 5:   “For Sure I’d Been Born Again”

Ch. 6:   Repent, and Be Converted

 Ch. 7:   “If There Be a Great Physician, I’ll Call on Him”

Ch. 8:   “Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits”

Ch. 9:   Open Their Eyes That They May See: Manna from Heaven

 Ch. 10: The Touch of the Master’s Hand

 Ch. 11: “With a Mighty Hand, and with an Outstretched Arm”

Ch. 12: As Bill Saw It: “Thy Will Be Done”

Bibliography

 Appendix: “Conversion” in the Bible

 Index

Paradise Research Publications, Inc.; 249 pp.; 6 x 9; perfect bound; 2006; $23.95; ISBN 1-885803-90-7

The A.A. Crossroads and the Switchblade

The Crossroad and the Switch Blade

Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Several vivid memories passed my way in the last day or so. And I’d like to share them with you.

The first involved my hearing a passionate talk by David Wilkerson at an Association of Gospel Rescue Missions Conference in Missouri. Wilkerson was the author of The Cross and the Switch Blade. He told of his famed work with tough druggies in the middle of New York City. Then he told how, after a year of their cooperative behavior, these men departed and went back to drugs. Why do I continue to do this work, he said? And his answer was that he was serving his Lord Jesus Christ.

The second memory was that of reading a somewhat dated commentary on A.A, by Andrew and Thomas Delbanco who were claiming in 1995 that A.A. was at the Crossroads. At that time, I was almost ten years sober and still hunting down A.A. history. I thought A.A. was just grand. But there were rumbles in the rafters. There were treatment programs injecting scads of therapeutic ideas into prospective members. There were prisons and jails where A.A. participation was possibly more “for the record” than for the recovery. There were courts and probation officers who asked little more than that alkies go to meetings and bring back signed “court” cards. There was little of the old practice where a drunk called an A.A. office, had two AAs appear at the alkie’s door, and had these people take him under their wing. Very possibly A.A. was at or approaching the crossroads in 1995. But I was too busy with the men I sponsored, with conferences and A.A. outings, with Big Book Seminars, with our Bible fellowship, and with traveling and writing to see the changing tide.

The third event occurred when I received today an email about Gert Behana—the tough alcoholic woman who got sober before she came to A.A. According to one A.A. old-timer, she distinguished herself often by being the only person in the A.A. meetings she attended who talked boldly about Jesus Christ. And Bill Wilson’s friend and spiritual mentor Reverend Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. was Gert’s champion. I had heard tapes of her victory and loved them.

Why, then, in the face of the frequent recidivism among alcoholics and addicts? Why, in the face of waning confidence in the treatment programs, the drug court efforts, and the time-honored Twelfth Stepping of old? And why the growing vociferous objections to talk in meetings about the mention of God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. This when all three had played a role that provided the heart of a simple, effective program of some five required principles. These simply embodied abstinence; surrender to God; elimination of sinful conduct; spiritual growth with the Bible, prayer, quiet time, and Christian literature; and virtually compulsory helping of others get well by the same means?

Why, some twenty years after the Delbano Crossroads article, was the recidivism increasing to a rate many estimated at 75%? Why was government money being poured into drug wars, drug courts, drug czars, and billions for government grants and research? With little to show for the ventures. And why, with Traditions which condemned public controversy and emphasized unity, were so many AAs openly rebuking those who mentioned Jesus Christ or the Bible? And why had some dedicated Christians aimed their arrows at Christians and would-be Christians who dared to fellowship with and render help and service to those AAs who had diverse religious, humanist, and outright atheist viewpoints?

Slowly I began to be asked to speak around the United States and to answer endless phone calls from mothers, wives, aunts who were despairing of their relatives’ repetitious DUI’s, imprisonments, auto accidents, and family split-ups. And it became appropriate for me to wonder if A.A., atheists, and biased Christians had not only passed the crossroads, but had picked up the switchblades and gone on the attack against A.A. and AAs. 

Today there are dozens of “Why I left A.A.” articles published.

Why continue to search the biblical roots of A.A.? To report on the Christian upbringing of its founders? To report on the principles and practices of the early Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship? And yet to watch the crumbling of some very early, very strong, and very widely recognized A.A. program techniques which can still be applied today?

The answer?

I believe, I have (as David Wilkerson did) a duty, to search for, truthfully report, widely disseminate, and firmly continue to serve and glorify my Heavenly Father and His Son by showing the role they played and could play in a long and hefty trail of successful organizations and people, including early A.A. itself, who had turned to God for help, picked up the tools that worked with the facts, and then boldly reached out to those who still suffered. I firmly believe the early techniques relying on God’s help can play that role today among those who believe in God and want His help.

I say this. But not to win arguments. Not to cave in to specious factual or warped accounts. Not to let the suffering newcomer wallow in a fellowship that has changed but need not ignore or cast away an increasingly researched and published history of defeating the “cunning, baffling, powerful” temptations, confusion, and failures of the alcoholic swiftly encountered by the newcomer who yearns for a way out. Still!

The Golden Text of A.A. - Are You Familiar with It?

We will shortly hit the 2014 deadline for filming the 6 videos and printing the accompanying guidebook. And they are about "the rest of the story:--the volumes of important A.A. history that are either not known, not read, or shelved. But this A.A. history is vital to an application today of "old school" A.A. And as we prepared, I studied again the following book Dick B., The Golden Text of A.A.: God, the Pioneers, and Real Spirituality www.dickb.com/goldentext.shtml. A great beginning for starting with clarity as to what the early AAs really said about God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible.

Dick B., The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth

The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth

By Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

If you would like to know how the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous maintained and grew in the spiritual condition produced by their recovery program, then this book is for you. The author has spent over twenty-four years in travel, research, and interviews discovering the books and other written materials that were studied by members of the highly successful A.A. of the late 1930's.

Here you will find that their primary source book was the Bible—called by A.A. co-founder, Dr. Bob, "The  Good Book." 

There is a summary of the immense amount of spiritual literature that Dr. Bob read, recommended, and loaned to the thousands he helped. Anne Ripley Smith, Dr. Bob's wife, who was called the "Mother of A.A.," assembled a wide variety of spiritual books which she read, recommended, and interpreted to the early A.A.'s and their families at the Smith home on 855 Ardmore Avenue, Akron, Ohio. A.A.'s other "co-founders" in Akron also did a great amount of reading for spiritual growth and passed the contents on to the pioneers. And this title contains the books that Henrietta Seiberling, T. Henry and Clarace Williams, and Clarence S. discussed at the meetings of the early Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship meetings.

In addition, you will find a comprehensive list of the daily Bible devotionals, and the writings of the Oxford Group and of Sam Shoemaker that inspired early AAs. You will also learn of the large amount of other Christian literature of the day that was studied by Bill and Lois Wilson, and the others in their Oxford Group and alcoholic circle of friends and acquaintances. The recollections of Bill Wilson's secretary, Nell Wing, and of other old-timers are listed. Without a doubt, this title contains,not only the most recent, but also the most comprehensive report on the spiritual literature that was read and utilized during A.A.'s formative years.

Dick B., The Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7^th ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc.; 1998; $21.95; ISBN 1-885803-26-5. Available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, www.dickb.com/titles, and other distributors.

 

Sponsorship! A 12-Step Need and Must

Sponsorship!

A 12-Step Fellowship Need and Must

Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

From the earliest thoughts of A.A., “helping others” – “love and service” – “self-preservation” -- have all been considered the one thing that recovered alcoholics, addicts, and others who have suffered can do best. And must!

Bill Wilson’s friend and “sponsor” Ebby Thacher hastened from his recovery from alcoholism at Calvary Mission in New York to the home of Bill Wilson to “witness,” to tell Bill his story, to explain that God had done for him what he could not do for himself, and to show Bill the winning way.

Just after he had his vital religious experience in his Towns hospital room ablaze with an indescribably white light, Bill concluded he was a free man and had been in the presence of “the God of the Scriptures.” Bill believed he had been commissioned to help other drunks. On discharge, Bill rushed out from the hospital with a Bible under his arm; a desire to tell his story to drunks in the streets, the missions, the flea bag hotels, the mental wards; and at Towns Hospital that they could be cured if they gave their lives to God.

Having failed to bring any drunks to sobriety after six months of hard work, Bill heard from Dr. Silkworth that he needed to change his approach. And he heard from Rev. Samuel Shoemaker that he should continue to carry his spiritual message to others. And when Bill’s business venture failed in Akron, he reached out to Henrietta Seiberling to find a drunk to help; and Henrietta brought Bill and Dr. Bob together for a six hour visit, And, at that visit, Dr. Bob grasped Bill’s message of “service.”

When both Bill and Bob had achieved sobriety by turning to God for help, their first thought was that they  must find another drunk to help. And, when they contacted Akron City Hospital for a harvest, the nurse told them of the very sick alcoholic attorney  Bill D.  Bill and Bob told Bill D. (A.A. Number Three) their stories, persuaded  Bill D. to entrust his life to God’s care and direction, and insisted that,  upon recovery, Bill D. help others – things he did at once. And was cured!

All three men were cured and said so. All three had quit drinking for good. All three had turned to God for help. And all three—sober for life—devoted their remaining days to helping other drunks.

These men had no Steps. They had no traditions. They, of course, had no Big Books. They didn’t give  drunkalogs. And they had no meetings like those of today. They simply believed the answer to their problems was in the Bible. And they considered the Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 to be absolutely essential to program success.

Do sponsors today have that degree of belief that God can help them and others? That He can enable them to quit drinking for good? That prayer and the Bible still hold the keys to recovery? And that they have a responsibility, a need, a mission to carry that message to others? Do they need more information, more study, and more help in learning how to do these things?

Most important, do 12-Steppers today believe they want and need to spend the time to help? Do they know enough about the origins of the recovery movement, the simple techniques of the early program, the successes that the pioneers told about, where the Bible fit into the picture? How to pray? How to integrate old school A.A. with the chapters of the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, and the personal stories of the pioneers?

Those are the questions we will present to you in the next articles. And provide some suggested answers.

Dickb@dickb.com; www.dickb.com

Gloria Deo