We’ll try to sell you on this…

From the Original Manuscript;

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas:

(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life.

(b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism.

(c) That God can and will.

If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this point or else throw it away!

That’s right - if you’re unconvinced, throw the book away! And we should practice stroking feathers in recovery? I doubt it.

This is what we need to get straight;

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Alex has done it again

How Bill W. explained what was meant by the saying that
“A.A. is a SELFISH program.”

…. Another correspondent complained directly that he had been ‘disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, ‘A.A. is a selfish program.’” The co-founder’s response was eventually published in “The A.A. Way of Life”:

I can see why you are disturbed…. The word ’selfish’ ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others. Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits.

What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell you that the salvation of his own soul is the highest vocation that a man can have. Without salvation - however we may define this - he will have little or nothing. For us in A.A. there is even more urgency.

If we cannot or will not achieve sobriety, then we become truly lost, right in the here and now. We are of no value to anyone, including ourselves, until we find salvation from alcohol. Therefore, our own recovery and spiritual growth have to come first - a right and necessary kind of self-concern.

[From "Not-God, A History of Alcoholics Anonymous", pp. 243-244, by Ernest Kurtz.]

After a great deal of trial and error, some manufactured, some ill conceived, some forced upon, regarding anonymity, Bill W. learned what may have been the lesson that “saved” Alcoholics Anonymous.

Subsequent to many situations involving the breaking of anonymity by AA members, Bill says (The Language of the Heart, pg. 216);

We now fully realize that 100 percent personal anonymity before the public is just as vital to the life of AA as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of each and every member. This is not the counsel of fear; it is the prudent voice of long experience. I am sure we are going to listen; that we shall make every needed sacrifice. Indeed, we have been listening. Today only a handful of anonymity breakers remain.

I say all this with what earnestness I can; I say this because I know what the temptation of fame and money really is. I can say this because I was once a breaker of anonymity myself. I thank God that years ago the voice of experience and the urging of wise friends took me out of that perilous path into which I might have led our entire Society. Thus I learned that the temporary or seeming good can often be the deadly enemy of the permanent best. When it comes to survival for AA, nothing short of our very best will be good enough.”

How many areas of our lives can this lesson be applied to?

Is where “it” all began…

Considering Bill Wilson was in an alcoholic stupor, I doubt he really perceived it this way until much later.

From page 196 of “The Language of the Heart” Bill tells us;

“In the late summer of 1934, my well-loved alcoholic friend and schoolmate, Ebbie, had fallen in with these good folks (the Oxford Group) and had promptly sobered up. Being an alcoholic, and rather on the obstinate side, he hadn’t been able to ‘buy’ all the Oxford group ideas and attitudes. Nevertheless, he was moved by their deep sincerity and felt mighty grateful for the fact that their ministrations had, for the time being, lifted his obsession to drink.”

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Trying not to speak too soon again, Comcast appears to have settled their difficulties with their connectivity (we’ve stayed online for 6 hours plus now) so I’d like to repeat this too you from the desk of Dr. Bob;

Humility

“Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.”

“It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and pray to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble.”

I don’t know if this is still there, but the copy I found says that this was from the Office of Robert Holbrook Smith, MD, 928 Second National Building, Akron, Ohio.

This one has been kicked around and around and around… what does a group do if a real “live” drunk shows up at a meeting?

Let’s Ask Bill W.!

Bill said;

“Groups will usually run amuck on that sort of question. At first we are likely to say that we are going to be supermen and save every drunk in town. The fact is that a great many of them just don’t want to stop. They come, but they interfere very greatly with the meeting. Then, being still rather intolerant, the group will swing way over in the other direction and say, “No drunks around these meetings.” We get forcible and put them out of the meeting, saying, “You’re welcome here if your sober.” But the general rule in most places is that if a person comes for the first or second time and can sit quietly in the meeting, without creating an uproar, nobody bothers him. On the other hand, if he’s a chronic “slipper” and interferes with the meetings, we lead him out gently, or maybe not so gently, on the theory that one man cannot be permitted to hold up the recovery of others. The theory is “the greatest good for the greatest number.”

“The greatest good for the greatest number.”

One man/woman cannot hold up the recovery of others… oh, and there’s that “intolerance” thing again!

First Things First - for me - I was taught “where else would be better to find a real live drunk?” A gin mill isn’t usually a wonderful place to work on a newcomer. But in a meeting or close to a meeting with trusted servants? Could it be better?