- Lois Burnham Wilson

Born – March 4, 1891 in Brooklyn Heights, New York. (Of course – I see you JJ)

Died – October 5, 1988 at 97 years old.

Lois’ father was a gynecologist and surgeon. Her Mom’s name was Matilda and is described as “a woman of refinement.” Lois had two brothers and two sisters (a third sister died early in infancy). Childhood was “idyllic.”

Very interestingly, Lois and her siblings ran in such high society circles that their friends included the children of the son of Abraham Lincoln. Add to that small tidbit the fact that Lois no doubt met Ebby Thatcher before Bill did. Ebby was a friend of Lois’ brother Rogers and they all got together during the summer in Vermont where Dr. Burnham sojourned to care for his wealthy NY patients on vacation.

Rogers met Bill in 1913 and introduced Bill to his sister Lois. Lois was four years Bill’s senior and didn’t take him very seriously early on, but one thing led to another and eventually they fell in love to be engaged secretly in 1915 then married in 1918.

Lois was not able to have children due to a series of ectopic pregnancies. She and Bill attempted to adopt but Bill’s drinking apparently became the excuse for not being approved to adopt. This is described as “devastating” to both. (In the Twenties and Thirties couples didn’t automatically divorce due to circumstances like these.)

Bill’s alcohol abuse led the couple to homelessness and “all ambitions dashed and wonderful opportunities for employment and advancement shattered.” Even sober they had difficulties. (How many of us can identify with that?)

Through the graciousness of an acquaintance they settled down finally at Stepping Stones in 1941. It was there in 1951 that Lois adapted the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to the Twelve Steps of the Al-Anon Family Groups. Please visit the Al-Anon Family Groups website here.

Lois Remembers: Memoirs of the Co-Founder of Al-Anon and Wife of the Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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Lois

Native American Indian General Service Office

From the site’s introduction;

“The Native American Indian General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous functions to provide a vision of recovery, unity and service to the more than 500 sovereign Indian Nations in North America, which are recognized by the Federal Government.

• Provides contact point for information on AA activities happening in Indian Country.

• Establishes and maintains a Native American AA Directory of Groups and individuals (loners).

• Provides traditional/cultural means of representation from the AA group and individual level to the world services level and return.

• Supports Native American sovereignty and self-determination.

• Structures and encourages the Native American fellowship of AA to incorporate Native American customs into the order of AA meetings and gatherings.

• Provides service in concert with the Native American’s traditional manner of gathering(s).

• NAIGSO-AA will travel and participate in Indian AA Council Gatherings.

Cool! With a hat tip to Silkworth.net again!

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Native American Indian General Service Office

There are those who may be ignorant of, not too mindful of, or belligerently opposed to, the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Whichever it may be, this is wrong. And more of “us” ought to seriously consider losing whatever fear we have of calling this stuff for what it is – grandiosity, self-centeredness, self-serving, destructive and other negative, non-productive descriptions.

The Third Tradition;

“The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.”

The Tenth Tradition;

“Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.”

The Third Tradition of A.A. does not say: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using.” The Third Tradition of Narcotics Anonymous says that!

No opinion on outside issues? Well, drug use and recovery from addiction is covered by Narcotics Anonymous, thankfully! It is an outside issue for A.A. Therefore, no opinion!

So, if you have a need to say “I also will use and interchange Alcohol and Drugs for one in the same during this series because they are the same” you dam* well ought to offer a disclaimer that you are expressing your personal opinion, not the opinion of A.A. Alcohol and drugs are not the same! I say that from personal experience and it is my personal opinion! If you’re a newcomer to recovery please, do not be misled by statements like these.

Additionally, be forewarned that the principle of anonymity is “the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.” If you’ve come across someone who has, for whatever reason, offered up a full name on the Internet of someone in recovery or involved with recovery, with no permission to back it up, be wary! If you’re the person who did that – fix it as soon as possible or get permission from the person you’ve exposed and add it, with some level of proof. You obviously have no clue what harm you may have caused by this type of old behavior.

In the interest of perpetuating our Twelve Traditions, I’d ask you all to review the Traditions Checklist.

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The Traditions – Lost

Concept III

“As a traditional means of creating and maintaining a clearly defined working relation between the groups, the Conference, the A.A. General Service Board and its several service corporations, staffs, committees and executives, and of thus insuring their effective leadership, it is here suggested that we endow each of these elements of world service with a traditional “Right of Decision.”

With the disclaimer that I may personally be mis-perceiving this, here are a couple of thoughts from the “talk” that follows in the service manual.

“We have seen how the A.A. groups, under the concept of the “group conscience,” are today holding the ultimate authority and the final responsibility for world services. We have also noted how, by reason of the Conference Charter and the “trusted servant” provision of Tradition Two, the groups have delegated to their General Service Conference full authority to manage and conduct A.A.’s world affairs.”

My thought – I’ve seen (and was privy to) a very strange act from a group member who attempted to call in a vote to a group conscience due to the fact they couldn’t make the group conscience on time and wanted to voice their negative vote to an issue they were sure was about to be brought up!

“But good management seldom means the full exercise of a stated set of ultimate rights. For example, were the groups to carry their instruction of Delegates to extremes, then we would be proceeding on the false theory that group opinion in most world service matters would somehow be much superior to the Conference opinion. Practically speaking, this could almost never be the case.”

Oh gosh, there we go with that “practical” stuff again

“There would be very few questions indeed that “instructed” Delegates could better settle than a Conference acting on the spot with full facts and debate to guide it.”

Aaah… FULL FACTS!!! And – debate for guidance. Now, here is something my perception and understanding relishes;

“Of course it is understood that complete reporting of Conference actions is always desirable. So is full consultation with Committee Members and Group Representatives. Nevertheless the “instructed” Delegate who cannot act on his own conscience in a final Conference vote is not a “trusted servant” at all; he is just a messenger.”

It is only my personal belief but I am very thankful for the checks and balances we in AA have in place through all our principles. Lives are at stake!

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Concept III

And, for that I am responsible.

[ Print image found at Fine Art Prints On Demand ]

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I Am Responsible

Believe it or not, it may be that the oldtimers, perhaps even the founders, were the first to sugarcoat recovery because of FEAR!

Once again, from Gresham’s Law;

“This audacious blueprint for life change was drawn up in 1939 by a former dead-end drunk serving as spokesman for an unknown, unproven society of 100 reformed problem drinkers, many of whom were still in the relatively early stages of recovery from alcohol addiction.

Yet for all their boldness of scope, the Steps are so plainly worded, and so well-explained in chapters five and following of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ the AA ‘Big Book,’ that they can be done by anyone. And, therein lies their greatest genius. There is no prior requirement of purity of life or advancement of learning. Just a willingness to admit personal defeat and a sincere desire to change.

The Twelve Steps sharply contradict the secular psychological axiom that where the level of performance is low you must set a low level of aspiration in order to gain a positive result in life. By this view, the proper approach for the early AAs would have been to put together a program aimed certainly no higher than alcohol abstinence and a return to life as it had been in the pre-alcoholic days, life as ordinary men and women of the world. But these newly-sobered-up drunks set out to become totally committed men and women of God.

The authors of the Big Book knew that this radical recovery plan was apt to jar many of the newcomers they were trying to reach with their message and they made two moves to sugarcoat their pill. First, they put the following disclaimer immediately after listing the Twelve Steps in chapter five: ‘Many of us exclaimed, I can’t go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.’

That short paragraph was a stroke of inspiration, especially the phrase, ‘We are not saints.’ It has eased thousands of new, half-convinced AA members (myself included) [the author of this piece] past the fact that we were headed, under the guidance of the Steps, in the completely unfamiliar direction of spiritual perfection.”

I’ve spent some time inside my own head this morning and another “saying” I haven’t heard for forever is “If you don’t do a thorough and fearless fourth Step you are doomed to drink again!”

No, what I hear today is a little pat on the back to a slipper along with something like “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. Let’s have a first Step meeting.”

Our way got us drunk – it will succeed at that again if we don’t stop trying to re-write the program of recovery for the sake of our own egos!

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We Are Not Saints

Sorry, in this case, you can’t have it your way. There is only one program of recovery according to the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Though it has it’s detractors and violent opposition, it has been working for millions for over 65 years.

And your name wasn’t, isn’t, and won’t be, named as the author.

Someone was talking with me along these lines this past week. They spoke of baking a cake according to the instructions, the recipe. He also mentioned that, even though it doesn’t say it, when you see that it says “add 2 eggs,” most alcoholics (like me) are of the type that, without the guidance of a sponsor or the Twelve Steps, will add the egg – shell and all!

When it is firmly suggested you run something past your sponsor – that’s what it means. Hopefully your sponsor has the experience of trying to make the same cake without removing the shells and learned in order to pass the information along to you.

How many of you newcomers are soooooo smart you won’t do that? Then you’ll stare in wonderment when someone takes a bite of your cake and asks “what’s this?”

If you don’t believe these principles apply to your recovery, start reading on the bottom of page 31. Yeah – that’s how damn serious this is – it’s life or death and we play it that way!

Have A Wonderful Day,

Mark

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Burger King Recovery

“Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.”

Listen up newcomer… [rant]

The folks who taught me, and folks like me, paid for their experience with their blood, sweat and tears. They taught us how to get through those times when we’d shed our blood, sweat and tears – SOBER!!!

Those of us who were truly desperate enough to want to not drink again, did what it took, anything they suggested, to learn through the Twelve Steps how to live life without drinking and then come out of the other side of things like losing your children. They’re gone. I did shed my blood, sweat and tears, gallons of tears! And didn’t drink alcohol!

And now you tell us we don’t understand? Especially when we offer you our experience, strength and hope? We let you know what worked for us, what was said to us that helped? And you return to us some rehab tripe? You twist my words, add things I didn’t say, offer up your newcomer “wisdom” as a contradiction to years of experience and tell us we’re wrong? BTW – I know the Book of Job extremely well – it was a part of getting me through the roughest times of my life.

So here, guess what – I know for a FACT from my own personal experience that hurt like hell – that’s right hurt (described to me by my sponsor as having my heart ripped out and stomped on) – that’s a feeling too – that feelings aren’t always factual and the disease of alcoholism that I have loves to weave itself into my feelings and delude me with them!

And if you are truly – TRULY – an alcoholic like me, it will try to do that identical thing to you! But now you won’t be prepared because you’ve denied the concept, you wouldn’t listen, you’ve even mocked valuable, hard-earned experience that tried to help. Good luck. [/rant]

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A Fellowship Of Men And Women Who Share

“In the course of writing my two latest A.A. History titles – The Conversion of Bill W. and Introduction to The Sources and Founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, I had occasion to look much more deeply into the Silkworth/Wilson/A.A. links.

First, as to resources, there are none better for me than Dale Mitchel’s Silkworth: The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks and the Silkworth website.

Second, because Mitchel dug into Silkworth family papers, we can see much more about the good doctor’s belief in healing by religious means.

Third, some of the newly unearthed facts are these: Silky belonged to Sam Shoemaker’s Calvary Episcopal Church in New York and also attended Norman Vincent Peale’s church; and as their friend also, he was privy to a good many religious ideas with which he inculcated Bill Wilson in the pre – ”hot flash” days at Towns Hospital. Silky was also conversant with the William James Varieties title which documented the many healings by conversion that had taken place in the missions over the years. Silky also appears to have been familiar with Carl Jung’s prescription of conversion as a cure for alcoholism.

Not only does history now flesh out these points; but the points themselves make clear how Bill Wilson’ first and foremost solution to the alcoholism problem was conversion. Bill’s grandfather Willie had been converted and healed of alcoholism. Bill was told by Dr. Silkworth that he could be cured by Jesus Christ, the Great Physician. Bill was told by Ebby that conversion was available at the altar at Calvary Rescue Mission, and Bill went there and made a decision for Christ – writing in two different places that he had “for sure been born again.”

Bill staggered on to Towns Hospital and declared that if there were a Great Physician, he’d better call on Him. And this he did – having a conversion experience almost identical to that which his grandfather had had years before – and with the same result: sober for life. Then, when both Silkworth and Lois Wilson confirmed to Bill that he had experienced a genuine conversion, Bill spent the rest of the day studying the William James book which had been given to him by either Ebby or Rowland.

Bill saw the many recorded instances of conversions and cure by the power of God; and he concluded that his own conversion was valid and established the validity of the solution Jung had prescribed for Rowland. The bottom line is that “conversion” became the A.A. solution – both in Bill’s mind as he expressed the idea on page 191 of the Big Book; and in Akron where surrender to Jesus Christ was a mandatory part of the A.A. program.

And what’s the point?

Well most AAs have never heard these historical points; most AAs have no realization that the Oxford Group expressions (spiritual experience and spiritual awakening) were Oxford Group expressions referring to dynamic life-change, whereas the conversion experience was what Carl Jung, Rowland Hazard, Ebby Thacher, Sam Shoemaker, Dr. Silkworth, and the Missions were tendering to drunks. And with great success.

I hope this new data will help correct so much of the confusion today about what a “spiritual experience” or a “spiritual awakening” are and exemplify how they differ from the original “conversion” experience that Bill had. For it was Bill’s conversion that topped the list of items that Bill was asked over the years to keep recounting.”

God Bless,

Dick B.

Thanks Dick… [it was waaaaaay too long for a simple comment ]

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Dick B On Dr. Silkworth