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#2118 From: "ogzigensenza1" <ogzigensenza@...>
Date: Tue Jan 4, 2005 10:37 am
Subject: Chuck and Lee? ogzigensenza1
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I'm curious. Are the Chuck and Lee in "A.A. Comes of Age"/Los
Angeles A.A., Chuck and Elsa C.?

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#2117 From: "Mel Barger" <melb@...>
Date: Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:49 pm
Subject: Re: Trying to source hard to find material, please help. thanks melb@...
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Hi Folks,
   I suspect that this was a talk Father Martin gave somewhere at an
anniversary or other AA affair.  Have you tried Dicobe tapes out in
Nebraska?  They have 50,000 talks in their library and must certainly have
something by Father Martin.  Their toll-free is 1-800-999-3381.
Mel Barger
~~~~~~~~ Mel Barger melb@accesst ~~~~~~~~ Mel Barger melb@...
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Cox" <chesbayman56@...>
To: <AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: [AAHistoryLovers] Trying to source hard to find material,
please help. thanks


>
> Try this link http://www.sobrietytalks.com/Father%20Joseph%20Martin.htm
>
> mhaydenbiko <mhaydenbiko@...> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to source an elusive audiotape of Father Martins talk on
> the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism". Kelly Productions which
> supplies AA related audio tapes has a version but it is not the
> version I'm looking for and I'm trying to find other sources?
>
> Kelly Productions told me they know of no other resources for Father
> Martin material. I know another version exists, it starts with the
> Zebra and Rhino's playing football (he uses that story in the Kelly
> Production version but this particular audiotape begins with that
> Zebra/Rhino story) (It's also before Ashley was built or opened, he
> refers to what Ashley will be like one day). It's a great tape and
> I've been looking all over the place for info.
>
> Please ask around and be as creative as possible to
> help source this material. It is a live audience talk on
> the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism" (1 hour plus) and I've been
> searching for it everywhere. thanks
>
> P.S. (I tried mentioning it through a few chat rooms and people
> responded like I had three heads, I need some experienced assistance
> here. thanks)
>
> M. Hayden
> 973.452.9727
> mhayden@...
>
>
>
>
>
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#2116 From: William Cox <chesbayman56@...>
Date: Tue Dec 28, 2004 11:44 pm
Subject: Re: Trying to source hard to find material, please help. thanks chesbayman56
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Try this link http://www.sobrietytalks.com/Father%20Joseph%20Martin.htm

mhaydenbiko <mhaydenbiko@...> wrote:
Hi,

I am trying to source an elusive audiotape of Father Martins talk on
the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism". Kelly Productions which
supplies AA related audio tapes has a version but it is not the
version I'm looking for and I'm trying to find other sources?

Kelly Productions told me they know of no other resources for Father
Martin material. I know another version exists, it starts with the
Zebra and Rhino's playing football (he uses that story in the Kelly
Production version but this particular audiotape begins with that
Zebra/Rhino story) (It's also before Ashley was built or opened, he
refers to what Ashley will be like one day). It's a great tape and
I've been looking all over the place for info.

Please ask around and be as creative as possible to
help source this material. It is a live audience talk on
the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism" (1 hour plus) and I've been
searching for it everywhere. thanks

P.S. (I tried mentioning it through a few chat rooms and people
responded like I had three heads, I need some experienced assistance
here. thanks)

M. Hayden
973.452.9727
mhayden@...





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#2115 From: "mhaydenbiko" <mhaydenbiko@...>
Date: Tue Dec 28, 2004 3:51 am
Subject: Trying to source hard to find material, please help. thanks mhaydenbiko
Offline
Send Email

Hi,

I am trying to source an elusive audiotape of Father Martins talk on
the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism". Kelly Productions which
supplies AA related audio tapes has a version but it is not the
version I'm looking for and I'm trying to find other sources?

Kelly Productions told me they know of no other resources for Father
Martin material. I know another version exists, it starts with the
Zebra and Rhino's playing football (he uses that story in the Kelly
Production version but this particular audiotape begins with that
Zebra/Rhino story) (It's also before Ashley was built or opened, he
refers to what Ashley will be like one day). It's a great tape and
I've been looking all over the place for info.

Please ask around and be as creative as possible to
help source this material. It is a live audience talk on
the "Spiritual Aspects of Alcoholism" (1 hour plus) and I've been
searching for it everywhere. thanks

P.S. (I tried mentioning it through a few chat rooms and people
responded like I had three heads, I need some experienced assistance
here. thanks)

M. Hayden
973.452.9727
mhayden@...

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (3)

#2114 From: spokann24@...
Date: Sun Dec 26, 2004 11:51 pm
Subject: Re: Victor C. Kitchen's "I Was A Pagan" spokann24
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Merry Christmas,
    In reply to _sleuthgrrl@..._ (mailto:sleuthgrrl@...)  's email
dated  12/26/2004--Does anyone here have any excerpts from this  book? Could
you please tell me which parts of the Big Book were influenced by  Kitchen
besides the origin of the term "higher power?"  Love,Kim  ----
I have a copy of Victor C.  Kitchen's book, "I WAS A PAGAN," Harper &
Brothers, New York and  London, 1934.  He dedicates it "To The Oxford
Group...that
disciplined army  of life changers who helped to give my life new meaning."
     For your interest, here is an  excerpt from the Chapter IX (titled "This
Business of Living The Other Way  Round").  I think it sounds in several
places quite similar to  our Big Book.

  “I WAS A PAGAN,” by V. C. KITCHEN
Harper &  Brothers
New York and London
1934

An excerpt from pages 81-87 of CHAPTER IX
"THIS BUSINESS  OF LIVING THE OTHER WAY ROUND --
RE-DIRECTION"

In the post-War days of dizzy peaks and dizzier slumps I decided  I was
living in a world turned upside-down.  I now see, however, that it  was I who
was
upside-down.  In most areas of my life I let myself be guided  by a force that
was pulling in the very opposite direction from God.   Forces working in
opposite directions nullify each other.  That, I think,  is why the selfish
indulgence of my desires cancelled out their own  satisfaction.  That is why my
self-directed thinking led nowhere, either  for myself or others.  And, since
both
my senses and my understanding were  continuously dulled by back-pedalling
against God, they were never sharpened to  the point of sensitivity needed for a
spiritual experience.

God handled these blocks in the physical area of my life by  removing
sensuous desire, as I tried to explain in my last chapter.  He  stopped the flow
of
my mis-directed forces and gave me His force to flow within  me unopposed.  I
thus found the peace that comes when conflict  ceases.  And I found the joy
that comes through sharpened senses and a  righted under-standing when these
subjects of the human will are subjected to  God's will instead, and brought
within the pattern of His plan and within the  consciousness of His affection. 
I
did not, however, stop there.  The  purpose of the Oxford Group is to hold one
always to the highest, and they did  not let me hesitate half-way.

The Oriental mystic, for example, is content to submerge himself  in God just
to gain cessation of desire and the peace and joy that  self-forgetfulness
invariably brings.  But the Oxford Group is a Christian  body.  And Christian
mystics are working mystics.  They “seek God—not  joy” and they submerge
themselves in God, not so much for the happiness that  results as for the
usefulness.  They contact God in order to implant His  purpose in and transmit
His power
to the lives of others and thus, individual by  individual, to bring about
regeneration of the world.

I could not, therefore, stop with the mere cessation of my old  desires, nor
linger to bask in the new peace and joy thus gained.   Identification with the
Oxford Group meant my acceptance of the new desire  Christ wanted to plant in
place of the old.  And it meant taking up the new  direction He gave to my
life when I permitted His force to flow unopposed.

I became most definitely conscious of this new direction one  night as I was
praying some six months after my change.  I realized that my  prayer had been
little but wishful thinking—that I had prayed God chiefly to  bring about the
things I wanted, in the way I wanted them to come.  I then  and there asked
God to take over my prayer and guide it, so that I might pray  for what He
wanted to bring about and so that He might use me for that purpose  instead of
my
trying to use Him.  At that moment I became distinctly  conscious of a force
flowing through me.  At first, while I was praying for  the things I wanted,
this force seemed to gather within me.  It generated  from the wish of my being
and flowed upward and outward as though I were  broadcasting my wish to God and
asking Him to do something about it.  The  moment that I asked Him to take
over, however, that flow definitely  stopped.  And then it started in the
opposite direction.  It was as  though an idea generated outside of me had been
broadcast from space, entering  my mind and flowing downward to become the wish
of
my being.  I was not  only changed, but completely turned around.

Before this, in other words, I had been passively obedient to  god.  I was
now put actively and creatively to work for God.  And  while, with my first
surrender, my life had been greatly altered, this new  surrender completed the
reversal and started me in a direction which lay  absolutely opposite to all my
old ways.  I took up a re-directed path, not  only in the physical or sensuous
environment, but in all the social-intellectual  and spiritual-volitional
areas of life.

In the physical area, as already suggested, I used to be guided  only by the
pull of my desire for a sensual indulgence.  I would boorishly,  for instance,
refuse to give or to go out for an evening party unless I saw  there some
chance to excite my senses through conquests at bridge, to dull my  senses
through the conquest of more alcohol than others could drink, or to  gratify my
senses through flirting with some lady who was not my wife.   To-day I give
parties or go to them, not because I hope for sensual excitement,  but because
God
has told me to do so.  And He tells me to give or go to a  party because, at
that party, He has some definite and creative work for me to  do.

  It may be—much as in the old days—that He guides me to a  party simply
because He knows I need the rest or relaxation I will find  there.  I am seldom,
however, as tired as in the old days.  More  often, I believe, God guides me to
a party to show my old crowd that giving  one’s life to God does not make one
queer.  It is to show them that  working, “guided” Christians do not become
down-in-the-mouth cranks, but that  they actually outlive, outlaugh and
outlove the pagans.  Again (and this  seems usually the case) God may guide me
to a
party because He knows some man or  woman will be there who is in spiritual
need.  He knows that my experience  and victories in Christ will help them.  He
guides me when to speak and  whom to speak to, and thus uses me to win another
person to His kingdom.   Stupid as this may seem to those who have not tired
it, I can assure you that  going to a party to make a “conquest” for Christ
is far more exciting,  satisfying and gratifying than any of my old attempts to
make a conquest of my  own.

I can even, these days, put on my dinner coat and go with a  smile to parties
that my wife used to have to drag me to if I consented to go at  all.
Following god’s guidance is by no means a drearily submissive form of 
obedience.
It is something you can always do willingly and gladly.   God, in fact, has
never called upon me to do anything without giving me the  power, courage,
words,
wisdom, money, love, patience, foresight, stimulation, or  whatever else I
might need to accomplish the desired result.  Just as in my  “B.C.” days I
never faced unpleasant things without a hip flask to see me  through, God never
calls me to a difficult or boring task without giving me new  spirit to take the
place of that flask and to do a 1,000 per cent better  job.

This re-direction of old desires and substitution for old  stimuli has
extended not only throughout my sensual life, but into my social and 
intellectual
life as well.  It enters into all of my thinking and into all  of my dealings
with other people.  When, for instance, I only thought about  God—when He
existed only in my mind as a belief—I could reach Him only as an  intellectual
conclusion.  I concluded that there must be some Higher Power  to account for
all
the things taking place in space much as scientists concluded  that there must
be an atom to account for all the things taking place in  physics.  Knowing
Him only as a conclusion, however, I could only conclude  what He wanted me to
do in my relations with other people.  And since these  conclusions took place
entirely in my own mind, I usually concluded that I was  just about perfect,
but that something should be done about other people to make  the world a more
comfortable background for my personal exploits, and to remove  the various
obstructionists who disturbed the even tenor of my ways.

Even before I was married I had decided to “reform” my future  wife.  I
decided, among many other changes obviously needed, that I would  “ring her up
to
my intellectual level” in order that she might form an  intelligent and
complementary foil to my philosophical discourses during the  (anticipated)
“long
winter evenings.”  Once, however, she fell asleep as  I—reading
aloud—waded
through the fourth volume of a history of  civilization.  I decided to abandon
the attempt and contented myself in  later years with merely pointing out her
faults.

She should, I told her, check her tongue a bit.  She should  speak less
sharply to the children.  She should prove less diligent in  inventing tiresome
errands for me.  She should look with greater tolerance  on my drinking
companions and with less interest on social affairs.  She  should spend less
money on
practically everything and keep the children from  pounding the piano and
playing the radio simultaneously while I was giving the  world the benefit of my
great wisdom and trying to write.  Everything, I  was sure, would turn out much
better if she would correct these erroneous  ways.  And everything would have
been much better—for my ego.   Nothing, however, would have happened in the
world I was so nobly trying to  help.  And nothing would have happened in my
wife.

Here, I think, has been my most conspicuous redirection.  I  see now the
utter futility of trying to reform the other fellow without starting  to reform
myself.  I see the utter uselessness of trying to work out  systems which would
solve the world’s economic and social problems if I myself  am of such a
nature that no system—other than self-satisfaction—could work out  for me.

I therefore no longer tell my wife to check her tongue.  I,  as God directs
and empowers me, check my own.  And when I find myself, not  my wife, speaking
sharply to the children, I realize that it is because some  element of
selfishness is not yet dead within me and that I have further  surrenders to
make.
When I see her spending too much money I realize that  I have been too
preoccupied to seek guidance in the matter with her. Or too  utterly lazy to sit
down
with her and work out the budget by which God wants us  to expend His funds.
As for drinking companions, I no longer happen to  drink while, as for
society, we both have learned to think of people’s worth  rather than to think
how
much they are worth, and to move in circles where God  has use for us rather
than with the people we think we can use.

* * * * * * * * * * *
The Table of Contents list the following chapters:
I.  THIS BUSINESS OF CHASING FALSE GODS: PAGANISM
II.  THIS BUSINESS OF THINKING THINGS OUT:   PHILOSOPHY
III.  THIS BUSINESS OF MEANING WELL AND DOING BADLY:   MORALS
IV. THIS BUSINESS OF "MAKING CHARACTER":   SCIENCE
V.  THIS BUSINESS OF THE SUPERNATURAL:   METAPHYSICS
VI.  THIS BUSINESS OF THE OXFORD GROUP:   APPLICATION
VII.  THIS BUSINESS OF BEING REBORN IN LIFE:   TRANSFORMATION
VIII.  THIS BUSINESS OF GETTING NEW BEARINGS:   ORIENTATION
IX.  THIS BUSINESS LF LIVING THE OTHER WAY  ROUND:  RE-DIRECTION
X.  THIS BUSINESS OF STARTING IN SCHOOL AGAIN:   EDUCATION
XI.  THIS BUSINESS OF BEING REMARRIED:  WEDLOCK
XII.  THIS BUSINESS OF MAKING A LIVING:   ECONOMICS
XIII.  THIS BUSINESS OF "NEW DEALS":  POLITICS
XIV.  THIS BUSINESS OF REMAKING THE WORLD:   SOCIOLOGY
XV.  THIS BUSINESS OF GOING TO CHURCH:  RELIGION
XVI.  THIS BUSINESS OF BEING OF USE TO PEOPLE:   CREATIVENESS
XVII.  THIS BUSINESS OF GETTING AHEAD IN LIFE:   GROWTH
XVIII.  THIS BUSINESS OF GETTING BACK TO GOD:   DESTINY





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#2113 From: Corey Franks <erb2b@...>
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:18 am
Subject: Re: Stools and Bottles erb2b
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HI. This is Corey. Look at our new webite at.... archivesinternational.org... 
under portraits and you will see for yourself Barry C. and Ed W. and what they
and did and were as we move ahead with our website . We will be factually
display what it is we have found for many of our Pioneers. Put this in your
favorites and let us know also what you think of out site, with suggestions,
comments, requests or whatever. THX! Corey F.


Hi Victor,
The Book "Stools and Bottles" was copywrite 1955 as a companion to "The
little Red Book"(c)1946 which evolved from The Crawford's Men's Training in
Cleveland. There isn't credit given to any one Author in the editions I
have. But they were both Coll-Webb Co. copywrites. Coll-Webb, PO Box 546,
Minneapolis 40, Minnesota. Hope this helps. Bill M.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Victor" <victhor90@...>
To: <AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 4:58 PM
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Stools and Bottles


>
>
> I was looking for info on the book titled "Stools and Bottles".   I
> was wonder if anyone new who the author was and when it was first
> publish.
>
> Thank you in advance
>
> Victor F.
> Austin, Texas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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#2112 From: "jst4tdy" <jst4tdy@...>
Date: Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:00 pm
Subject: Re: Stools and Bottles sufi7403
Offline
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Hi Victor,
The Book "Stools and Bottles" was copywrite 1955 as a companion to "The
little Red Book"(c)1946 which evolved from The Crawford's Men's Training in
Cleveland. There isn't credit given to any one Author in the editions I
have. But they were both Coll-Webb Co. copywrites. Coll-Webb, PO Box 546,
Minneapolis 40, Minnesota. Hope this helps. Bill M.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Victor" <victhor90@...>
To: <AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 4:58 PM
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Stools and Bottles


>
>
> I was looking for info on the book titled "Stools and Bottles".   I
> was wonder if anyone new who the author was and when it was first
> publish.
>
> Thank you in advance
>
> Victor F.
> Austin, Texas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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#2111 From: "Victor" <victhor90@...>
Date: Sun Dec 19, 2004 10:58 pm
Subject: Stools and Bottles victhor90
Offline
Send Email

I was looking for info on the book titled "Stools and Bottles".   I
was wonder if anyone new who the author was and when it was first
publish.

Thank you in advance

Victor F.
Austin, Texas

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#2110 From: "Kim" <sleuthgrrl@...>
Date: Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:42 pm
Subject: Victor C. Kitchen's "I Was A Pagan" sleuthgrrl
Offline
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Does anyone here have any excerpts from this book? Could you please
tell me which parts of the Big Book were influenced by Kitchen
besides the origin of the term "higher power?"

Love,
Kim

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#2109 From: CBBB164@...
Date: Tue Dec 14, 2004 6:26 pm
Subject: Re: Joe and Charlie Big Book Study Tapes CBBB164@...
Send Email

According to Joe McQ. & Charlie P., the first recording of them sharing their experience and knowledge of the Big Book was at an AA Group in Anadarko, OK. It was recorded on a reel to reel recorder. A taper in Little Rock learned of its existence and transferred the real to reel on to four cassettes. I am in possession of a set of that first "The Big Book Comes Alive" cassettes and they did a great job even back then.

Cliff Bishop - The Primary Purpose Group - Dallas, TX

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#2108 From: "caseyosh" <caseyosh@...>
Date: Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:11 am
Subject: Joe and Charlie Big Book Study Tapes caseyosh
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Can a member of this group provide me with authentic documented
research information concerning the original venue and date of the
first time these tapes were used in an instructional format for AA
members.  Also, please supply the type format they were first
recorded on.  I am assuming they were first compiled on
audiocassette tapes but would like confirmation of that assumption.

Thanks,
Casey O

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#2107 From: Ernest Kurtz <kurtzern@...>
Date: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:50 pm
Subject: New Jersey AA History kurtzern@...
Send Email

Does anyone have any contact with or know the whereabouts of Merton
Minter? A New Jersey attorney some years ago, he was researching the
history of AA in northern Jersey and especially Hank Parkhurst's
contributions to AA.  He took me around the old 17 William Street
building just before they demolished it.  None of the online
people-finders have been helpful.  I would appreciate any information at
all that might help me get in touch with Merton.

Along the same line, is there a published history of AA in New Jersey,
by anyone?

ernie kurtz
kurtzern@...

NMOlson@... wrote:

> The man was Hank Parkhurst who lived in New Jersey.  It was probably
> Montclair, New Jersey, as that is where the doctor he referred to lived.
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#2106 From: NMOlson@...
Date: Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:49 pm
Subject: Re: "Large Community" BBook p.163 moyerolson
Offline
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The man was Hank Parkhurst who lived in New Jersey. It was probably Montclair, New Jersey, as that is where the doctor he referred to lived.

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#2105 From: "hjfree2001" <hjfree@...>
Date: Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:19 pm
Subject: "Large Community" BBook p.163 hjfree2001
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Is the "Large Community" Known

.. an AA member who lives in a large community... he found that the
place probably contained more alcoholics per square mile than any
city in the country"

This is my first inqury so this might already be asked.

blessed2bsober
rob

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#2104 From: "Arthur Sheehan" <ArtSheehan@...>
Date: Sat Dec 11, 2004 3:13 pm
Subject: Nancy O's Desire lefthanded_ny
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Dear AAHistoryLovers Members

As you should now be aware, Nancy O, the founder and moderator of AAHistoryLovers, is in hospice care and expected to live for only a short while. When this was recently announced, many of you sent in messages asking for a way to send expressions of gratitude and love to her through an e-mail message or other means.

After conferring with Nancy, she requested that no special action be taken and that the AAHistoryLovers forum not be used to distribute such e-mails. Although she very much appreciates the desire of the members to communicate with her, the best expression on our part would be to honor and respect her wishes.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Arthur S

In keeping with Nancy's request, please do not reply to this message if it will be sent to AAHistoryLovers@.... You can send direct replies to me if you wish, I'll volunteer to consolidate them with those I've received so far and keep Nancy informed about them.

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#2103 From: "Susan B" <nascarmom@...>
Date: Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:37 am
Subject: Re: 12X12 New and old version? susanbenedict
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Hi Jani, I am like you - I read and learn. I have The Little Red Book For Women. It is the 12 steps and it is pretty much the same, but with some footnotes added. It is by Hazelden.

Susan

My name is Jani C. and I have been receiving AAHistoryLovers posts from all of you for quite some time, I just read and learn, no sharing, so thank you for all the information.

I finally have a question: I had heard there is a "new" and an "old" version of the 12x12, 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book? Does anyone know this to be true? I heard the numbers of pages are different, I heard there is a "gift" version. Just very curious, because I love that book and am interested, not that it matters, well, I guess it does matter, because if I am missing out...

Thanks in advance. Jani C.

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#2102 From: "Arthur Sheehan" <ArtSheehan@...>
Date: Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:21 am
Subject: Re: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions lefthanded_ny
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Hi Penny

The reason the page numbers of early printings of the 12&12 are different from later printings is because the typeface (or font) was changed. Early and newer printings are about 2 pages off in their numbering as you progress through the books page by page.

The 12&12 is still a "1st edition" with numerous printings. Most, if not all, other changes were to the book's dimensions. It took a fair amount of Conference activity to approve the small "gift edition" of the 12&12 as well as the "pocket edition" and the large print and soft cover editions. I don't believe there have been any wording changes to the book.

The early 12&12 dust cover had a darker background color. Initially there were two publishers - one was Harper & Brothers for the books sold in commercial book stores - the other was what is today AAWS for books sold at a discounted price within the Fellowship.

There is supposedly a project underway to write a preface to the 12&12 to respond to past requests to change its wording to be gender neutral and other matters of political correctness. The Conference, however, has maintained a position to keep the books that Bill W wrote worded the same way Bill W wrote them.

Cheers

Arthur

----- Original Message -----

From: pennington2

To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 10:12 AM

Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

A recent discussion on another AA-related mail list brings about this query. I know that revisions and changes to the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions has not always been as closely as it appears to be today. Older printings of the Twelve and Twleve have such things as paragraphs ending in different places from other printings, words changing, punctuation changes, different pagination, and different pagination and paragraphs from the regular book to the "gift edition" even within the same year. Does anyone know when consistency was brought to the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, and was it a conference item, what are the guidelines, etc. Thank you for any information you can offer. Penny P.

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#2101 From: "C. Cook" <ccp28para4@...>
Date: Thu Dec 9, 2004 10:37 pm
Subject: Re: 12X12 New and old version? ccp28para4
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I have a 1973 edition of the 12x12. It is a little different. I found this out when I was looking for the part of step 10 that talks about 'nothing pays off like restraint of pen and tongue. I was looking on page 91 where I've always found it. In my book it's on page 93. So yes, the older books are a bit different.

And yes there are 'gift' 12x12's. They are a little smaller than the regular hard cover, and a little bigger than the pocket sized soft cover.

C. Cook

Jani <janipooh72802@...> wrote:

My name is Jani C. and I have been receiving AAHistoryLovers posts from all of you for quite some time, I just read and learn, no sharing, so thank you for all the information.

I finally have a question: I had heard there is a "new" and an "old" version of the 12x12, 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book? Does anyone know this to be true? I heard the numbers of pages are different, I heard there is a "gift" version. Just very curious, because I love that book and am interested, not that it matters, well, I guess it does matter, because if I am missing out...

Thanks in advance. Jani C.

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more.

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#2100 From: "Jani" <janipooh72802@...>
Date: Thu Dec 9, 2004 4:52 pm
Subject: Re: 12X12 New and old version? janipooh72802
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My name is Jani C. and I have been receiving AAHistoryLovers posts from all of you for quite some time, I just read and learn, no sharing, so thank you for all the information.

I finally have a question: I had heard there is a "new" and an "old" version of the 12x12, 12 Steps and 12 Traditions book? Does anyone know this to be true? I heard the numbers of pages are different, I heard there is a "gift" version. Just very curious, because I love that book and am interested, not that it matters, well, I guess it does matter, because if I am missing out...

Thanks in advance. Jani C.

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (3)

#2099 From: "pennington2" <pennington2@...>
Date: Thu Dec 9, 2004 4:12 pm
Subject: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pennington2
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A recent discussion on another AA-related mail list brings about this
query.

I know that revisions and changes to the Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions has not always been as closely as it appears to be today.
Older printings of the Twelve and Twleve have such things as
paragraphs ending in different places from other printings, words
changing, punctuation changes, different pagination, and different
pagination and paragraphs from the regular book to the "gift edition"
even within the same year.

Does anyone know when consistency was brought to the Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions, and was it a conference item, what are the
guidelines, etc.

Thank you for any information you can offer.

Penny P.

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#2098 From: NMOlson@...
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2004 12:02 pm
Subject: (no subject) moyerolson
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<NMOlson@...>

Hi,

Ernie Kurtz here. *Not-God,* which was researched 1974-1979 and
published in 1979 (the later “revision” added only a chapter on AA’s
history after Bill W’s death), is now very much out of date. I would
like to think that my book was one thing that sparked the immense
interest in AA history that we have seen since and especially recently.
For the younger among you, when I was hunting through New England book
barns during my research, I found many copies of first editions of the
Big Book, priced from $.50 to $1.25. Of course I never bought one – I
had my own copy already! This may perhaps explain why scholars are poor.

Anyway: the ongoing research has uncovered many matters that I omitted
or got wrong in *Not-God*” Bill W’s exact sobriety date, the
shenanigans around the original stock certificates and other matters
relating to finances, what happened in Akron after Dr. Bob’s AA left the
auspices of the Oxford Group and began meeting at King School . . . .
and many more. And many new resources have turned up: the Clarence
Snyder and Sue Smith Windows papers now at Brown University, the Marty
Mann papers at Syracuse University, the new information turned up in the
Browns’ story of Marty Mann and Nancy Olson’s study of the politics
behind alcoholism treatment reform, for just a few examples.

It thus troubles me a bit when I hear *Not-God* referred to as “the
authoritative history of AA.” Surely from a scholarly point of view
that is not true: there is too much later knowledge that is available
and should be part of any “authoritative history.”

I am not sure who will undertake this task – it will almost certainly
not be me. It may be Bill White or Rick Tompkins or one of our many
younger hobbyist-historians. The choice of that individual will be made
by the then-editors of the AAHistoryLovers and ASDH listservs and
myself, though we may choose to include others in our deliberations.
Anyone, of course, is welcome to try to be the updater, but because the
original *Not-God* was a scholarly endeavor and accepted as such, we
hope to preserve that credibility.

What I am asking is that if you know of any errors or omissions in
*Not-God,* you send a notice of them to me. I will try to be the node
that gathers together all the new information. My present intention is
to insert the new or revised information in brackets at approximately
the place I think it may fit in the original manuscript (which I have on
computer through the kindness of friends) so that someone else can
construct a new book, a more accurate history of AA that will be as
“authoritative” as we can make it in for AA's 70th birthday in 2005. [I
do not require that the new book be titled “Not-Ernie.”]

Please note that to achieve that end, the ultimate writer will need the
source material behind your new information. Historians always ask: “1.
What is my evidence? 2. Is there any other evidence that I am
overlooking or ignoring? 3. What else was going on at the time – what
is the context of this event?” Please be sure to answer at least the
first question when you send your information submission.

Please send your contributions and thought to either the AAHistoryLovers
or the ASDH listserv and, I hope and ask, please, also directly to me at
kurtzern@....

It is time to bring into general knowledge the many important things
that so many of you have so devotedly worked to explore and discover.

[To those few of you who received this as a "bcc" message, I ask that
you please allow the listservs to take the initiative in replying.]

ernie kurtz
kurtzern@...

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#2097 From: Joe Petrocelli <jopet34@...>
Date: Wed Dec 8, 2004 11:53 pm
Subject: Re: Is there anybody there ???? jopet34@...
Send Email

Hi Arthur,

I would be very happy to send Nancy O a message. Please tellme how to do it. have misplaced the instructions lon how to do this.

Thanks and God Bless

Joe Petrocelli

jopet34@...

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#2096 From: "Arthur Sheehan" <ArtSheehan@...>
Date: Wed Dec 8, 2004 8:57 pm
Subject: Re: Is there anybody there ???? lefthanded_ny
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Dear AAHistoryLovers Members

I'm taking a bit of liberty in speaking up for our moderator Nancy O.

In August Nancy distributed a posting advising the group of her terminal illness. In a recent message to me, dated December 6, she advised that she is currently in hospice care and is expected to live for only a short while.

Let's send her messages of love and gratitude. She is a pioneer in helping to reform the US Federal Code to have alcoholism recognized as an illness, she is a distinguished author and speaker and she is the respected founder of this special interest group.

Arthur

----- Original Message -----

From: jsto1958

To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 2:06 PM

Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Is there anybody there ????

Hi my fellows history lovers, # 2 I posted a question a couple of days ago about the examples in the chapter, "More About Alcoholism." and it never got posted. Was it not a good enough question to post? Did I do something wrong? I would appreciate a response from a moderator to let me know. John S. Montreal cdn

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#2095 From: "jedlevine" <jedlevine@...>
Date: Wed Dec 8, 2004 1:23 am
Subject: To the Moderator jedlevine
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I also submitted a post a few days ago and it never got posted.  If I
wasn't within the guidelines (I think I was), then it would be
helpful if I got that feedback so that I can be clear on what's
appropriate and what's not.  Thanks.

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#2094 From: "jsto1958" <jeanst_onge@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 8:06 pm
Subject: Is there anybody there ???? jsto1958
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Hi my fellows history lovers, # 2

I posted a question a couple of days ago about the examples in the
chapter, "More About Alcoholism." and it never got posted. Was it
not a good enough question to post? Did I do something wrong? I
would appreciate a response from a moderator to let me know.

John S. Montreal cdn

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#2093 From: "dan" <dcwalker35@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 7:20 pm
Subject: To a moderator dcwalker91
Offline
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I posted a question a couple of days ago about the examples in the
chapter, "More About Alcoholism." and it never got posted. Was it
not a good enough question to post? Did I do something wrong? I
would appreciate a response from a moderator to let me know.

Thanks- Dan

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#2092 From: Glenn Chesnut <glennccc@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 5:46 pm
Subject: What old timers read, Part 3 of 6 glennccc
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The A.A. Tools of Recovery

A good old-timer named Don Helvey in Elkhart put together a short piece called the A.A. Tools of Recovery, which is still read at the beginning of many A.A. meetings in Elkhart, Mishawaka, South Bend, and other parts of the St. Joseph river valley region along with reading the twelve steps:

"ABSTINENCE: We commit ourselves to stay away from the first drink, one day at a time.

MEETINGS: We attend A.A. meetings to learn how the program works, to share our experience, strength and hope with each other, and because through the support of the fellowship, we can do what we could never do alone.

SPONSOR: A sponsor is a person in the A.A. program who has what we want and is continually sober. A sponsor is someone you can relate to, have access to and can confide in.

TELEPHONE: The telephone is our lifeline -- our meetings between meetings. Call before you take the first drink. The more numbers you have, the more insurance you have.

LITERATURE: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is our basic tool and text. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and A.A. pamphlets are recommended reading, and are available at this meeting.

SERVICE: Service helps our personal program grow. Service is giving in A.A. Service is leading a meeting, making coffee, moving chairs, being a sponsor, or emptying ashtrays. Service is action, and action is the magic word in this program.

ANONYMITY: Whom you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our program."

Many of the good old-timers, like Submarine Bill and Raymond I., believed that it was important to repeat these basic principles over and over, until newcomers had them instinctively drilled into their heads, and could repeat them almost like a litany. The first principle made it clear that the way an alcoholic kept from getting drunk was not to take even the first drink. The next five were the things that not only got people sober but kept them sober. Good sponsors like Bill and Raymond noted that those who relapsed and returned to drinking had almost invariably failed to do one or more of these five things in any serious and dedicated way. And the seventh principle was a constant reminder that A.A. meetings could not function properly unless members could talk about all of their feelings and anything that was bothering them, in an accepting and shame-free atmosphere, without worrying about whether it was going to be repeated outside of the group. That was a solemn pledge which the members of the group had to make to one another.

If we want to ask what was the basic foundation of A.A. in the St. Joseph river valley, it was the Twelve Steps and the Seven Tools of Recovery. Everything else was based on these.

The Grapevine and Bar-less

In the 1950's, according to Ellen Lantz's reminiscences, they always read from something at the Elkhart closed discussion meetings, and frequently used this reading to provide the discussion topic. She said that it had become very common during this period to use an article from the Grapevine, the magazine which was published by the New York A.A. office (it first began coming out in 1944, under the editorial guidance of Marty Mann and some of her friends). (NOTE 4) But Ellen said that they would also sometimes use an article from Bar-less, the little magazine which was published by the A.A. prison group. Some of these articles were written by people who were not prisoners. Ken Merrill, for example, the founder of A.A. in South Bend, wrote a very good article for the magazine once, about the way alcoholics get locked into behavior patterns during their childhood years, and because of a traumatic event or a general dysfunctional family situation, are unable to grow past that stage, and continue to throw two-year-old temper tantrums, or become lost in ten-year-old daydreaming fantasies of romance and heroism, or whatever, even after they are adults.

The First Principle

When I asked Brooklyn Bob, one of the South Bend old-timers, whether there were any rules in good old-time A.A. about what books A.A. people could and could not read, he just laughed and snorted, and said, "We read anything we could get our hands on that might get us sober!" Good old-time A.A. was a totally pragmatic program, not an authoritarian system of doctrines and dogmas and endless rules which had to be followed blindly, and were imposed upon the membership by self-important people who thought they had the right to boss other people around ("for their own good" was these arrogant people's standard alibi).

In early A.A., people simply experimented and tried various things, and if they worked, they recommended them to other members. As is always the case in A.A., the recommendations of people who had a good deal of time in the program were taken more seriously. Pragmatically, if they had that many years of sobriety, they must have been doing something right! So on matters of what sorts of books and writings should be read in meetings and made available for loan or purchase by groups and intergroup offices, people looked to the wisdom and experience of those who had time in the program and quality sobriety.

The Central Service Offices in South Bend and in Elkhart both still follow that principle. They have a variety of books on spirituality, recovery, and A.A. history available for loan or purchase -- books printed by various publishing houses and usually (but not always necessarily) authored by A.A. members. There are Al-Anon books as well. But the selection of books which are provided is made on the recommendation of responsible people who have a good deal of quality time in the program.

They do not have the sort of pop recovery books that can lead newcomers seriously astray or involve them in psychologically dangerous schemes (like one notorious book encouraging people to "get in contact with their inner child" in a way which actually produced in some cases total psychotic breakdowns requiring long hospitalization in mental facilities). But the South Bend office has carried some materials which were purely psychological, such as offprints (distributed by the National Council on Alcoholism) of scholarly papers written by Dr. Harry M. Tiebout for psychiatric journals and journals on alcoholism studies. Tiebout was not an alcoholic, but he was one of the most important of the handful of psychiatrists in the early days who appreciated and understood and backed the new Alcoholics Anonymous movement, and his statements about how A.A. works are still extremely insightful today.

The commercial bookstore chains do not have good material for A.A. people on their shelves, and the small commercial operations which sell "recovery materials" such as t-shirts and coffee mugs cannot be totally depended upon to have quality literature for sale either. If groups and intergroups do not make good books available for A.A. members, no outside commercial venture is going to take over that responsibility. Learning that we have to be responsible for ourselves, instead of just depending on others and demanding "to be taken care of," is a vital part of recovery from alcoholism.

The Second Principle

The first principle was that A.A. groups and intergroups, as well as individual members, have to make their own responsible decisions about which books and writings are going to be helpful for recovering alcoholics. However, there was a generally assumed principle that seems to have been followed, not only in the St. Joseph river valley, but in early A.A. all across the United States and Canada: It was usually assumed that any piece that was authored or sponsored by one A.A. group could automatically be used to read from in meetings by any other A.A. group which chose to do so.

That was also a guiding principle followed at New York A.A. headquarters. On November 11, 1944, for example, Bobby Burger, the secretary at the Alcoholic Foundation in New York (what is today called the General Service Office) wrote a letter to Barry Collins, who had helped Ed Webster in assembling and publishing the Little Red Book (NOTE 5):

"Dear Barry,

. . . The Washington D.C. pamphlet [a.k.a. the Detroit Pamphlet] and the new Cleveland "Sponsorship" pamphlet and a host of others are all local projects, as is Nicollette�s "An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps" [the Little Red Book]. We do not actually approve or disapprove of these local pieces; by that I mean that the Foundation feels that each Group is entitled to write up its own "can opener" and let it stand on its merits. All of them have good points and very few have caused any controversy. But as in all things of a local nature, we keep hands off, either pro or con. I think there must be at least 25 local pamphlets now being used and I�ve yet to see one that hasn�t some good points. I think it is up to each individual Group whether it wants to use and buy these pamphlets from the Group that puts them out.

Sincerely, Bobby (Margaret R. Burger)"

Bill Wilson felt the same way. In November 1950, he wrote a note to Barry Collins about The Little Red Book making the same basic point, only even more strongly. Such locally sponsored works "fill a definite need" and their "usefulness is unquestioned." Most importantly of all, Bill went on to say in that letter: "Here at the Foundation we are not policemen; we're a service and AAs are free to read any book they choose." (NOTE 6)

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#2091 From: Glenn Chesnut <glennccc@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 5:46 am
Subject: What old timers read, Part 3 of 6 glennccc
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The A.A. Tools of Recovery

"ABSTINENCE: We commit ourselves to stay away from the first drink, one day at a time.

MEETINGS: We attend A.A. meetings to learn how the program works, to share our experience, strength and hope with each other, and because through the support of the fellowship, we can do what we could never do alone.

SPONSOR: A sponsor is a person in the A.A. program who has what we want and is continually sober. A sponsor is someone you can relate to, have access to and can confide in.

TELEPHONE: The telephone is our lifeline -- our meetings between meetings. Call before you take the first drink. The more numbers you have, the more insurance you have.

LITERATURE: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is our basic tool and text. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and A.A. pamphlets are recommended reading, and are available at this meeting.

SERVICE: Service helps our personal program grow. Service is giving in A.A. Service is leading a meeting, making coffee, moving chairs, being a sponsor, or emptying ashtrays. Service is action, and action is the magic word in this program.

ANONYMITY: Whom you see here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our program."

If we want to ask what was the basic foundation of A.A. in the St. Joseph river valley, it was the Twelve Steps and the Seven Tools of Recovery. Everything else was based on these.

The Grapevine and Bar-less

The First Principle

The Second Principle

"Dear Barry,

. . . The Washington D.C. pamphlet [a.k.a. the Detroit Pamphlet] and the new Cleveland "Sponsorship" pamphlet and a host of others are all local projects, as is Nicollette�s "An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps" [the Little Red Book]. We do not actually approve or disapprove of these local pieces; by that I mean that the Foundation feels that each Group is entitled to write up its own "can opener" and let it stand on its merits. All of them have good points and very few have caused any controversy. But as in all things of a local nature, we keep hands off, either pro or con. I think there must be at least 25 local pamphlets now being used and I�ve yet to see one that hasn�t some good points. I think it is up to each individual Group whether it wants to use and buy these pamphlets from the Group that puts them out.

Sincerely, Bobby (Margaret R. Burger)"

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#2090 From: Glenn Chesnut <glennccc@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 5:57 am
Subject: What old timers read, Part 4 of 6 glennccc
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In other words, based on the principle of group autonomy, an A.A. group can in fact choose to read anything at its meetings which it wants to, if a group conscience has been held. Even if there are other A.A. groups which are convinced that they are wrong, a long-standing principle in the New York A.A. office, repeated over and over, is "the right of a group to be wrong." This is an extremely important principle which has even further ramifications: even if 51% of the A.A. groups in a particular area are convinced that the other 49% are wrong, they cannot force them to read what they want that minority group to read. Too many A.A. people came out of religious traditions where the leadership tried to stuff things down their throats in this fashion -- "you will read only what we order you to read" -- and they will not tolerate A.A. organizations trying to operate that same way.

But if the book or pamphlet or reading was sponsored by some other A.A. group, it was especially true that any other A.A. groups in the country could borrow and use that piece without having to go into any long debate about its appropriateness. So the Twenty-Four Hour book, The Little Red Book, the Detroit Pamphlet, the Tools of Recovery, and Bar-less (the little magazine produced by the prison A.A. group) were sort of automatically considered as appropriate for reading at meetings if a particular group chose to do so.

The Upper Room and Fulton J. Sheen's talks and other heavily Christian-oriented materials (such as God Calling by Two Listeners, the prayers of the Rosary, and so on) have continued to be employed by numerous A.A. people in the St. Joseph river valley for their own personal use. In fact nearly all of the most deeply spiritual members regularly use traditional religious materials in their private devotions and in their studies of spiritual issues. But things which were too obviously totally Christian, particularly if they spoke of salvation as only being possible through accepting Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior, stopped being used in meetings on the simple pragmatic grounds that it drove an excessive number of newcomers away, did not in fact prove to be necessary for getting people sober and leading them into the paths of true serenity and the greatest depths of love, and seemed to ultimately involve the group in too much pointless debate and endless hostile disputing over narrow Christian theological issues that did not help anyone get sober.

The last time someone tried to set up an A.A. meeting in the St. Joseph river valley on an explicitly Christian basis, with Bible readings and scripture verses studied at the meeting, was around ten years ago, and the group did not even last a year. This was in spite of the fact that Indiana is often regarded as part of the American "Bible Belt." Everyone except the old-timer who started it finally quit or went out and got drunk. That is why I am skeptical about trying to run A.A. meetings that way today. But everybody agreed that the good old-timer who tried this experiment had a perfect right to do so. There may be places in America or elsewhere where it would work. It certainly did not violate any A.A. "rule," and if it had actually worked, we would now have additional meetings in northern Indiana, I am sure, organized in this way. A.A. is pragmatic, not doctrinaire.

The St. Francis Prayer and the Lord's Prayer are still heavily used however, even though they were originally Christian prayers, because it is felt that they set out universal spiritual truths that any recovering alcoholic is in need of. A few people do not like the use of the Lord's Prayer at the close of meetings (an almost universal practice in the St. Joseph river valley), but some suspect that part of their objection is to the line which says "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." It may be a very hard and uncomfortable teaching indeed, to be reminded constantly of this universal spiritual truth, but if we refuse to forgive, resentment will continue to fester in our hearts, and we will eventually end up going back out and drinking again. All the great spiritual traditions of the world � Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Native American religion, and so on � make clear that forgiveness and compassion and mercy and the restoration of harmony (different religions use different technical terms here) are necessary to living a good spiritual life.

The Golden Books

Ralph Pfau, who wrote under the pen name of Father John Doe, was one of the four most published A.A. authors. He was a Roman Catholic priest who got sober in Indianapolis on November 10, 1943. He conducted a weekend spiritual retreat for A.A. members on June 6�8, 1947 at St. Joseph�s College in Rensselaer, Indiana. Eleven people from the South Bend A.A. group attended the retreat, a very large contingent: Harry Stevens (who sponsored the A.A. prison group at the Indiana state penitentiary), Johnnie Morgan the barber, Ray G., Jack [Q?], Jim McNeil (who was extremely active in all sorts of A.A. service work), Art O. [A?I?], Russ S., Fred Clements, Joe R., Ed Young the newspaperman, and Les Beatty the electrician. Father Ralph gave everyone who attended, as a souvenir of the retreat, a 56-page pamphlet with a shiny gold foil cover, called The Spiritual Side, where he talked about how all of the twelve steps (except for perhaps the first step) were essentially spiritual in their nature.

People who had not been at the retreat began asking for copies, Father Ralph had to do another printing, and over the years that followed, produced thirteen other pamphlets of this sort on different spiritual topics. They came to be called the Golden Books because of the gold foil covered cardboard covers which most of them had. He traveled all over the United States and Canada, giving talks and conducting weekend spiritual retreats, all the way down to his death on February 19, 1967, which caught him on the road in Owensboro, Kentucky (NOTE 7).

One good old-timer, Larry W., told me that, in his early days in the program, those A.A. people in Michigan and Indiana whose serenity and sobriety most impressed him were invariably great fans of Father Ralph�s books.

Specialized meetings

In the St. Joseph river valley, Father Ralph was certainly the third most read A.A. author. But a different kind of procedure was followed with his writings. Those members who were deeply interested in the spiritual life would form small private meetings in their homes to read and study the most recent Golden Book. Copies of these pamphlets were (and still are) sold at the Central Service Office in South Bend. Good old-timers like Submarine Bill would give copies to the people whom they sponsored, and tell them to read them carefully. But there was a kind of tacit understanding that it was not usually appropriate to read from one of the Golden Books or use it for meeting topics in official A.A. group meetings.

Part of this arose from the fact that Father Ralph�s books were not officially sponsored by the Indianapolis A.A. group. He wrote and published those totally on his own. Writings which were not sponsored by a regular A.A. group or intergroup were not automatically regarded as necessarily wise for other groups to use for official A.A. meetings. The Golden Books also were not for everyone in the program (some people liked them and others did not), and perhaps even more importantly, they dealt with fairly advanced issues in the spiritual life which would have probably been greatly confusing to a lot of newcomers who had just walked into their first A.A. meeting.

We are talking here about the question of what sorts of things were appropriate to read in officially scheduled A.A. meetings, that is, those which were listed in the meeting directory for that town or county. These were meetings where one expected struggling alcoholics to stagger through the door, just having chosen a meeting at random off the list, seeking blindly for help, and too new and befuddled to understand anything except the most basic A.A. material.

But there was in fact a whole tradition of specialized meetings which were not A.A. meetings in the formal sense -- particularly in the sense that they were not listed in the local meeting directories that were handed out to those who were brand new to the program. Private study groups meeting in people's homes were one sort of specialized meeting. For a long time, Submarine Bill had all the people whom he sponsored meet once a year to study the twelve steps, sometimes using a tape recording of Father Ralph's talk on the steps or something else of that sort to start off each session.

A private study group of this sort could read any sort of book which the participants wanted to, and groups sometimes chose very interesting sorts of materials to read and study. The general understanding, for example, was that A.A. people needed to be familiar with all sorts of different kinds of spiritual works, from various religious traditions, and other things that were important to the understanding of A.A. history. I have heard of groups on the West Coast, for example, meeting to study the medieval spiritual writer Meister Eckhart, or my own book on The Higher Power of the Twelve-Step Program.

In the St. Joseph river valley region, Father David G. Suelzer, O.S.C., Prior of the Crozier Fathers and Brothers at Wawasee, Indiana, conducted weekend spritual retreats for A.A. members. He was not an alcoholic himself, but he was a consultant at Hazelden during the 1960�s and was very much a friend of the A.A. movement. There never were any rules saying that non-A.A. members could not speak to A.A. groups. Over the last ten or fifteen years, I have heard people try to claim that this was an ancient and sacrosanct A.A. rule, but that is just silly and historically ignorant. A closed A.A. discussion meeting is not supposed to have anyone present who does not have a desire to stop drinking (unless the group conscience decides otherwise), but this is not the same as an A.A. convention, conference, workshop, or international, which is an open meeting.

Or, to mention a different kind of specialized meeting, a group of A.A. people might set up their own private weekend spiritual retreat. For the people in the St. Joe river valley region there were for a long time well-attended annual retreats of that sort at Fatima House retreat center at Notre Dame University and at the Yokefellow retreat center in Defiance, Ohio. In the 1990's, meetings began being set up, bringing people together from various parts of Indiana -- and also large meetings at the national level where people came from all over the United States and Canada -- to hear talks about A.A. archives and A.A. history. These were not necessarily sponsored by any particular A.A. group, intergroup, or Area organization, but were the ad hoc creation of a group of interested A.A. members.

There were also workshops set up by the Elkhart intergroup at mini-conferences, where the A.A. people who attended could hear psychotherapists talk about specific psychological problems which recovering people often had to deal with, and where A.A. members could attend Al-Anon workshops and vice versa, and where all sorts of other topics could be discussed, on A.A. history and other subjects.

In other words, real old-time A.A. was always pragmatic and flexible. About the only real rule which was followed, was that it was usually considered inappropriate to take an official weekly A.A. meeting which was listed in the official meeting schedule, and use any kinds of readings or topics except those which would be of general benefit to everyone in the program, including especially newcomers who had just walked in the door. On the other hand, the more specialized meetings which were intended for people who were beyond the newcomer stage, were often listed in monthly intergroup newsletters and on flyers which were distributed to all the groups in that city or county.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age

There are well-meaning people today who sometimes mistakenly think that the issue was whether or not a particular book or pamphlet was "conference approved." We remember that when Brooklyn Bob was asked about this, he simply snorted and laughed and said, "We read anything we could get our hands on that might get us sober!" When one says that a particular publication is "conference approved," all one really means is that a group of delegates meeting in New York decided to spend New York headquarters money on publishing it. New York never ever had enough funds to print everything that could be useful to alcoholics trying to get sober and stay sober. The principle of institutional poverty means that A.A. as such cannot set up a publishing house of the sort which one sees among various American religious denominations: the Methodists' Abingdon Press, the Lutherans' Fortress Press and Augsburg Press, and other such publishing houses which require a large investment in buildings and printing presses and large staffs of editors and so on, which are financially supported by denominational funds.

With enormous difficulty, the New York A.A. office finally assembled enough money to print the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in 1953. A number of A.A. meetings were subsequently created in the St. Joseph river valley called "step meetings," which would read through the part of the book dealing with one of the twelve steps every week, and then discuss that step as a group. Sometimes the traditions were also studied in the same fashion by the group.

(It should also however be said that there are some good old-timers in Indiana who still believe that The Little Red Book � which was Dr. Bob's baby � and the Detroit or Washington D.C. Pamphlet are actually better introductions to the steps for newcomers. They believe that the material on the steps in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is too philosophical and complicated for newcomers, and that it just confuses alcoholics when they first come in.)

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#2089 From: Glenn Chesnut <glennccc@...>
Date: Tue Dec 7, 2004 6:25 am
Subject: What old timers read, Part 6 of 6 (notes) glennccc
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NOTES

NOTE 1: It is a serious mistake to regard all evangelicals as the same. Even at the very beginning, when the modern evangelical movement first began in the 1740's (in England and the Thirteen Colonies) there were two basic strands, which held many principles and practices in common, but nevertheless strongly disagreed on others. Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist pastor in colonial Massachusetts (who was elected president of Princeton University at the very end of his life), was the greatest early representative of the variety of evangelical thought which tended to be strongly Calvinist, and drew most of its fundamental assumptions from Augustine, the great African saint who wrote at the beginning of the middle ages.

John Wesley, a priest of the Church of England who taught Bible and classical Greek and Latin at Oxford University in England, was the greatest early representative of the other kind of evangelical thought. He was strongly anti-Calvinist, regarded himself as a member of the Anglo-Catholic tradition instead, and drew most of his fundamental theological assumptions not from Augustine, but from the Greek and Syriac fathers of the early church: Clement of Alexandria, Macarius the Egyptian, Ephraim Syrus, and so on. (John Wesley could read and speak French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic, as well as the classical Arabic of the Koran, a book which he greatly admired. He also learned Spanish at one point in order to learn about Judaism from a group of Spanish Jews whom he met while trying to do missionary work among the Native Americans in colonial Georgia.)

This Wesleyan tradition gave rise to the various Methodist denominations and influenced many other Protestant evangelical groups as well. This Wesleyan/Methodist tradition strongly rejected the Calvinist idea of predestination, and spoke instead of a synergistic (co-operative) relationship between God's grace and human will power, of the sort which one saw among the early Christian teachers from the eastern end of the Mediterranean in the first five or six centuries. We were healed by God's grace alone, but we human beings had to co-operate with God, and God gave us the power to reject his grace if we chose to do so, and go our own way. The Big Book characteristically speaks in this way, and Hoosier folks when talking to an A.A. group will often speak of being sober today due to "the grace of God, the help of you people, and a little bit of footwork on my part." The last phrase was the synergistic or co-operative element.

The Wesleyan/Methodist tradition also emphasized that true religion was "the religion of the heart," not "outward formal religion." Scrupulously and legalistically following church rules and rituals, and mechanically believing in all the officially enforced doctrines and dogmas which my own particular church taught, was not real spirituality. Real spirituality arose down in our hearts, at the level of our deepest feelings and desires. What God was concerned with was what was going on in our hearts, not all of those outward things. John Wesley insisted (on well-argued New Testament grounds) that Jews and Muslims, for example, who loved God in their hearts, and who not only treated the other human beings around them with love at all times, but also were able to teach other people to love, had clearly done so only by the help of God's greatest of all gifts of grace (see 1 Corinthians 13 in context), which meant not only that they were saved, but that God loved them fully and unequivocally. These kinds of assumptions also helped to fundamentally shape the Big Book.

The Upper Room came from this Wesleyan type of evangelicalism in its strongly Catholic-leaning old-time Southern Methodist variety, which celebrated sung eucharists every month with medieval chants, using Archbishop Cranmer's English translation of the full medieval Catholic Latin mass. Their ordained clergy, who were called "traveling preachers in full connection" (from the old frontier days when they were sent out on horseback into the wilderness as "circuit riders" searching for little settlements where they could preach) were under the iron rule of the Southern Methodist bishops, who could appoint them to any church post or send them into any missionary situation which they chose, and these pastors were informed quietly during their seminary training that they were priests, even though they were also expected to preach the gospel wherever they were sent.

They were an interesting combination of things. They saw no reason why one could not combine the best of the Catholic tradition with the best of the Protestant tradition, although they were extremely liberal on most theological and social issues of the period, and the Catholicism was fairly low-key. During the early twentieth century, some American Methodist conferences went through a period when they officially denounced the capitalist system, and declared that socialism was the only political structure which true Christians could promote and defend.

NOTE 2: See "Pass It On," the story of Bill Wilson and How the A.A. Message Reached the World (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1984), pp. 281-282 and 335.

NOTE 3: Richard M. Dubiel, The Road to Fellowship: The Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous, Hindsfoot Foundation Series on the History of Alcoholism Treatment (New York: iUniverse, 2004), pp. 132-135.

NOTE 4: In the year 1944 "in New York City a few literary and newsminded A.A.'s began to issue a monthly publication. This original group consisted of Marty, Priscilla, Lois K., Abbott, Maeve, and Kay. Besides this, Grace O. and her husband turned up among its moving spirits." Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1957), p. 201.

NOTE 5: As quoted in Bill Pittman's Foreword to The Little Red Book: An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous Program, 50th Anniversary Edition (Center City MN: Hazelden, 1996), pp. xiii-xiv.

NOTE 6: Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.

NOTE 7: He died sober. His niece told me that a physician gave Ralph a shot for airsickness, and inadvertently used a contaminated needle. Father Ralph contracted hepatitis, and all the efforts made by the doctors at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Owensboro could not save him.

NOTE 8: Mel B. (ed.), Three Recovery Classics: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond, and An Instrument of Peace the St. Francis Prayer, Hindsfoot Foundation Series on Spirituality (New York: iUniverse, 2004).

NOTE 9: The best spokesman from the early days for this important strand of A.A. thought was Sgt. Bill S., a protege of Mrs. Marty Mann who got sober on Long Island in 1948. Bill was not an atheist or agnostic, but felt more comfortable talking about the principles of the program in psychological terms. See Sgt. Bill S., On the Military Firing Line in the Alcoholism Treatment Program, Hindsfoot Foundation Series on the History of Alcoholism Treatment (New York: iUniverse, 2003), which also describes how he and psychiatrist Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West, M.D., developed the Lackland Model for alcoholism treatment during the 1950's.

NOTE 10: Harry Stevens, who had been one of the first four members of the South Bend group, was the outside sponsor of the A.A. prison group at the Indiana state penitentiary at Michigan City during its early years. See the earlier posting on Harry and Nick Kowalski and the A.A. prison program there.

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