Good Morning!

Dr. Bob's Nightmare is the first of the personal stories on page 171.

Page 165 is interesting however. This is the Section
Heading "Personal Stories - How Forty-Three Alcoholics RECOVERED From
Their Malady" (Emphasis is mine). Not a typo.

Page 172 - Paragraph 1 - Bob attributes "selfishness" as playing an
important part in "bringing on my alcoholism". In the next paragraph
we can see his antipathy towards the church. Reading through page 173
we see that he is in trouble early on with drinking, change of
scenery didn't help. At the bottom of page 174 he began to go to
sanitariums voluntarily to dry out. This was before Prohibition
(1920), he still had many more years of drinking ahead of him.

On pages 176 and 177 his drinking was out of control and all of the
classic symptoms were there: hiding bottles, others recognizing his
drinking as a problem, hoarding alcohol, social life deteriorating,
switching drinks (the Beer Experiment). On page 178 he falls in
with "...a crowd of people who attracted me because of their seeming
poise, health and happiness". (About 1932). That crowd was The Oxford
Group, although Dr. Bob had not connected this group of people with
any solution of his drinking problem. He drank and spent time with
the Oxford Groups for the next two and a half years.

In paragraph 1 the lady who called Bob was Henrietta Sieberling (of
the rubber tire manufacturing empire) and the friend was Bill Wilson.
The first meeting between Bill and Bob was about 6 hours longer than
the fifteen minutes Bob was initially willing to give to Bill.

Bob did get drunk again 3 weeks later at the AMA convention. Bill
worked with him again and the founding of our society dates from June
10, 1935 the date of Dr. Bob's last drink.

The end of paragraph two says alot of the power of one alcoholic
talking with another - "Of far more importance was the fact that he
was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what
he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience.
In other words, be talked my language. He knew all the answers, and
certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading". The
barrier had been breached.

Passing it on was important to Bob - the last paragraph on page 180
and continuing on to the top of the following page. "I spend a great
deal of time passing on what I learned to others who want and need it
badly. I do it for four reasons:

1. Sense of duty.
2. It is a pleasure.
3. Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time
to pass it on to me.
4. Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for
myself against a possible slip."

The ending of his story boils down to the essence of how important an
open mind is in order to accept what we have to offer. The assumption
is that the motivation to seek sobriety is in place, that we are
ready to listen to conviction as only the dying can be. "If you think
you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of
intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this
book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough
to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and
truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely
feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for
you. It never fails if you go about it with one half the zeal you
have been in the habit of showing when getting another drink.

Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!"

Tomorrow we'll begin again with the guidelines and follow with the
first post of the new cycle.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in this cycle. A big thanks
for Honey picking up the ball on Friday!

Pass it on to your other friends so they may share in what you have
found.

Jim