Learn A.A. Recovery and Helping Others the Same Way You Learn Other Vital Subjects - One Piece at a Time

Now that 25 years of research has been completed, the emphasis will be on teaching the actual facts--the "rest of the story", and the ignored links--in digestible bites. The basic documentation is available in 46 titles, 1700 articles, blogs, newsletters, and personal conversations. But the wide dissemination now will allow viewers, speakers, diverse training folks, and leaders to conduct their own programs in their own ways, but to have access to regular input from Dick and Ken.

 

How? Radio, videos, webinars, interviews, and ample, personal communications, facebook, twitter, and other media. Expensive travel to conferences will be replaced largely by specific, brief, topical segments that will help trainers, help trainees, enhance recovery, and help others.

 

Mindless meeting chatter, war stories, and entertaining circuit speakers can give place to groups that learn chunks of recovery facts, ask questions, receive pointers to resources, and make comments. Fellowship, Big Book study, Step study, history study, and information about the role played and that can be played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, the Bible will enable old school A.A. to supplement the experience of members in helping others with today's spiritual tools.

 

No change in A.A. Just enabling serious recovery facts to beef up learning at a local, personal, nationwide level.

So you would like to form a recovery group. . . .

So You’d Like to Form a Recovery Group. . . .

Dick B.

This introductory snippet will be brief. And we’d like to have you begin by telling us why you want to form a recovery group, what you are opposed to, what you favor, and your suggestions.

Day in and day out, we receive phone calls in Maui (808 874 4876) or emails (dickb@dickb.com) at our residence.

In which the caller says he wants to start a recovery group and asks what to do.

We have a number of books and guides that can be helpful and often send along some of these to be read by the inquirer. But this is a grass roots series of articles

We will start with several suggestions and questions: (1) What people do you want to be members of the group? AAs or NAs or believers? (2) Are you willing to ask a small group of friends, some folks from your church, some “members” you’ve met in A.A. or in treatment or in prison or in church or at school or at work? (3) Is your purpose to learn how to help those who still suffer? (4) Are you willing to acquire, read, and discuss the tools that truthfully report the facts—the newly reprinted First Edition of the A.A. Big Book, The Co-Founders of A.A. Pamphlet P-53, DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and The Language of the Heart? (5) Are you beginning this quest because angry at a member, a sponsor, a leader, or motivated by anger with a meeting or a member or a church or at a treatment program, or the fellowship? (6) Are you willing to select as the leader of the group someone who is known for his or her knowledge of the Steps, the Big Book, the real origins of A.A. ideas, the religious ideas that produced A.A., the parts of the Bible like the Book of James, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 that were the heart of the basic ideas of early A.A.? (7) Will you freely read, study, and discuss “non-Conference-approved literature” that helps understanding of A.A., its origins, its co-founders, its original program, and the substantial changes and new version of the program adopted four years after A.A. was founded? (8) Are you willing to start with a small group?

Again! Let us hear your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions before you ask us questions or begin to form your group.

History of Alcoholics Anonymous

History of Alcoholics Anonymous

 

Bill Wilson’s 1943 Affirmation of His Born Again Status “in” Christ

 

By Dick B.

© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

Born again

 

Bill Wilson said in his autobiography: “For sure, I’d been born again.” Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W., 110.

 

After Ebby’s visit to Bill prior to Bill’s decision for Christ at Calvary Mission, Bill Wilson wrote of Ebby “The man was transformed; there was no denying he had been reborn.” Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W., xv, 47. 49

 

After Bill Wilson made his own decision for Christ at the rail at Calvary Mission, he told his wife Lois the following, which she quoted in a speech in Texas: “And he went up, and really, in very great sincerity, did hand over his life to Christ” Dick B. The Conversion of Bill W., 61.

 

Lois Wilson wrote in her autobiography: “Although my joy and faith in his rebirth continued, I missed his companionship. Dick B., The Conversion of Bill W., 114.

 

Even author Mel B., the man who dubs himself a casual historian, concluded: “His was clearly a kind of “born again: experience. Mel B., New Wine, 88.

 

In John 3:7, Jesus said to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

 

In 1 Peter 1:23, the Apostle Peter wrote: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

 

In Christ:

 

In January 13, 1943, Bill Wilson signed his full name “Bill Wilson” in an inscription in a First Edition Big Book he gave to his friend, Dr. Jess M. Bader. A photo of the inscription was sent to me {Dick B.} by Ken R. I have it in my archives and have shown it at A.A. History conferences,

Ken R. also posted the following message on the web:

 

“I just purchased a First Edition, Third
printing Big Book inscribed on the front free
endpaper, "To my friend Dr. Jesse M. Bader,
Yours in Christ, Bill Wilson, 1/13/43."

Jesse Moren Bader (1886-1963) was a noted
evangelist, ecumenist and global leader. He
founded the global, ecumenical, World Communion
Sunday which was launched on October 6, 1940
and continues on the first Sunday in October
each year.

This is the first time I've ever seen Bill W.
inscribe anything "Yours in Christ" and it's
also notable that he signed his full name. He
apparently stopped signing his full last name
about the time the Traditions were coming out.

Sincerely,
Ken R.”

 

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” King James Version (bold face added)

 

In Romans 8:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (King James Version (bold face added)

 

See also: in the King James Version, bold face added by Dick B.

 

2 Corinthians 2:17 “in the sight of God speak we in Christ”

 

1 Peter 5:14 “Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen,

 

Appendix: “In Christ”

 

Ken B.

 

Rom 16:7: Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

 

1 Cor 1:2: Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

 

1 Cor 1:30: But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

 

1 Cor 3:1:  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

 

2 Cor 5:17: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

 

Gal 1:22: And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ:

 

Eph 1:1: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

 

Phil 1:1: Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

 

Phil 4:21: Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you.

 

Col 1:2: To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

1 Thess 2:14: For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

 

1 Thess 4:16: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

 

1 Pet 5:14: Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Sponsorship! A 12-Step Fellowship 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