Aa history Lovers 2006 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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Teachers of the A.A. Old timers, page 246:
get sober in A.A., left Akron in 1938 and moved to Evansville, Indiana, where he eventually was able to start the first A.A. meeting in Indiana. "Although Rhoda was not an alcoholic, she and J. D. held something like an A.A. meeting every Wednesday night in their home in order to help him keep sober .... Like so many A.A.'s from the very early period, J. D. and Rhoda used an extremely popular devotional manual called The Upper Room for their private daily meditation and also to provide a discussion topic for this little Wednesday meeting."
From: doci333 . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/8/2006 1:45:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Good Day AA History Lovers, A while back I read Message #2499, regarding wanted information on The Forgotten Steps. I had read a pamphlet, which was printed and copyrighted by Hazelden in 1981, titled, "The Forgotten Steps" but couldn't put my finger on it at the time. The pamphlet is 14 pages long and deals with the struggles of "working" The Program and finding character defects that just haven't gone away, and suggests looking a Steps 6 and 7 from an entirely different angle.
of them, and they're still there. Something's not working. What am I doing wrong?" There seems to be a persistent feeling of uneasiness in spite of sincere efforts to work the program."
people overcome the obstacles they face in working these Steps."
in Steps 4 and 5, individuals still are not finding the peace of mind that indicates serenity. "Doubt creeps in, and the recovering person begins to feel inadequate and discouraged about the program of recovery suggested by Alcoholics Anonymous." The pamphlet goes on to point out that: "One of the potentially frightening aspects of working Steps Six and Seven is that they require us to deal directly with God. We are left alone to communicate directly with our God; to look at our relationship with Him in the privacy and loneliness of our own hearts and minds. Very frequently, this problem arises not because we do not want to work these Steps, but because we don't know how."*
author of the pamphlet." Another frightening aspect, in a "nut-shell": "Are we so ashamed of our acts that we cannot bear to look at them ourselves, much less share them with such a powerful being? One must wonder if these feelings aren't present when we pray like this:
'Dear God, I want to have more patience.' 'Dear God, I want to be a kinder person.'
think we should be, instead of simply and honestly telling Him how it really is with us. Wouldn't it make sense, when we come to God with our defects of character, to make a statement of what our condition is rather than what we want it to be?
as I so often gave God my shopping list. Steps 6 and 7 do mention, 'remove.' I know now that I was still controlling and manipulating my environment. For the healing of my Alcoholism, began when I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and not when I continually asked, "make me a normal drinker." Some further excerpts: "Coming back to Steps Six and Seven, perhaps we need to remember the problems we encountered with Step One. Maybe we need to begin our prayers with an honest statement of how it is! 'Dear God, I am impatient.' 'Dear God, I am an intolerant person.' 'Dear God, I do lack faith.' 'Dear God, I am an unkind person.' Present Him with the reality of ourselves, instead of our dreams and wishes of how we want to be."
of the willpower that was so useless to us in our attempts to stop drinking on our own. Will is simply the power to choose. We have the power to choose to do whatever we need to do to nourish our faith, no matter how tenuous it may be. We can choose to go to meetings. We can choose to read the daily readings. We can choose to attempt to live the Twelve Steps honestly. We can choose to go to any length in pursuit of sobriety. We can choose to pray unselfishly.
to identify them, to become aware of them and accept them and, as a result, gain some measure of strength to manage them, instead of being managed by them. We can choose to share them honestly with our Higher Power, to tell it like it is and to ask His help in their removal, believing that He will remove them." Just passing it on, David G.
Illinois IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3928. . . . . . . . . . . . The Upper Room and Travis Park Church in San Antonio From: James R . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/8/2006 1:39:00 AM
Travis Park Methodist Church of San Antonio played in the origins of "The Upper Room." That church provides meeting space for two AA groups. I've attended many meetings there.
From: Tom Hickcox . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/7/2006 7:51:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I originally wrote: The editors tell us some changes are made "in the interest of clarity." They changed victory in the 3rd Step Prayer to transcendence, but that doesn't seem to me to add clarity. Tommy - - - In the Big Book what has come to be known as the Third Step Prayer is found on p. 63 and it has a sentence that starts, "Take away my difficulties, that victory over them . . ." Page 210 of As Bill Sees It/The A.A. Way of Life, quoting p. 63, has the same sentence but with different wording, "Take away my difficulties, that my transcendence over them . . ." Victory is used in all four editions of the Big Book and in the "Original Manuscript"[s] I've seen.
of ABSI/AAWL saw fit to change the wording of the Third Step Prayer?
deacons?
From: Ernest Kurtz . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/7/2006 2:19:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Once upon a time, there was a discussion whether the original term for a certain type of frustrated leadership was "bleeding deacons" or "bleating deacons." Might anyone recall how that was settled, if it was -- and, of course, the evidence adduced?
ernie kurtz IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3931. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bleeding deacons or bleating deacons?
From: James Blair . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 12:19:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Bleeding deacons or bleating deacons? Once upon a time, there was a discussion whether the original term for a certain type of frustrated leadership was "bleeding deacons" or "bleating deacons." This term was used in a GV article and it was Bleating Deacon. I can't remember the year. Jim
printing
From: Tom Hickcox . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/8/2006 11:52:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII The title page of the 17th printing says 1963 - - - At 16:32 12/8/2006 , john wikelkius wrote: >Need date of the 17th printing of >The Little Red Book. - - - The title page of the 17th printing says 1963 while the list of "to date" printings on the copyright page says that the immediately previous printing came out in 1962, which was also the year the 16th printing was published.
1946 and two printings in 1947. There was one printing a year thru the 24th in 1970 except for no printings in 1956 and 1958. I would suspect the publishing date was 1963. Tommy H in Baton Rouge IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3933. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: The Little Red Book 17th printing
From: dudleydobinson . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 6:53:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hi, I have a copy of the 17th printing and it lists on the copyright page all printing dates from 1st to the 17th which it states as being 1962.
page gives 1963 and later printings give the printing date as being 1963.
From: DudleyDobinson . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 5:15:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hi Tommy I agree with your posting except that there was a 25th printing in 1970. I have a complete collection from 1st to 25th with the exception of the 10th printing in 1954, which I have been looking for since 2002. Can anybody help? In fellowship - Dudley [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3935. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Bleeding deacons or bleating deacons?
From: Azor521@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 12:25:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII In a message dated 12/9/2006 jblair@videotron.ca (jblair at videotron.ca) writes: This term was used in a GV article and it was Bleating Deacon. I can't remember the year. - - - AA Grapevine 1962 and 1963 "Bleating Deacons' Corner" "Bleeder's Bleat" AAGrapevine.org .... AA Grapevine Digital Archive Azor [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 3936. . . . . . . . . . . . The different printings of The Little Red Book From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 5:38:00 PM
which printing you are using, and when it came out, is more important for the AA historian than with any other early AA book. Edward A. Webster (sober October 10, 1942, died 1971) made what were sometimes fairly substantive changes in The Little Red book during the early years (see http://hindsfoot.org/ed02.html ), from 1946 to 1949, which was the last edition where we had Dr. Bob checking through the material and making additions and corrections. (Dr. Bob died on November 16, 1950.) Ed Webster however continued to make changes at times in the editions of The Little Red Book which appeared subsequently, all the way down to the end of his own life (he died in 1971, the same year as Bill Wilson).
they have unfortunately continued to make changes all the way down to the present, most of them made by some Hazelden editor who did not have Ed's skill or intelligence or knowledge of the program, but thought that he or she could change the wording of a sentence slightly to make it "read more smoothly." It's frustrating, because it's a bit like some of the Victorian editors who thought they could improve Shakespeare's wording ("What did Shakespeare know about writing good English, or the proper way of constructing a play?" they apparently thought to themselves). It would be nice to have a volume containing the text (exactly as the material was originally printed) of the 1946 printing and the last of the two 1949 printings, because of their importance for early AA history.
that Bill W. was, so The Little Red Book is the closest we are going to get to understanding the details of the way Dr. Bob taught the AA program to newcomers. It nevertheless gives us a clear enough picture of the way Dr. Bob thought, to show the falsity of some of the recent claims, made by various people, that they have reconstructed "original Akron AA" on the basis of a few spotty bits of anecdotal evidence and statements by people like Frank Amos.
have written in to the AAHistoryLovers) arguing that "meetings are not important, and I can PROVE it from conference approved literature" [sic] it is probably important to post a note on that particular claim here. Frank Amos was a good man, but he was not an alcoholic, not a participating member of any AA group, and was simply the representative of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., making a quick report in February 1938 based on a few days of investigation, see Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, pp. 129-134.
important, BUT NOT VITAL, that he meet frequently with other reformed alcoholics and form both a social and religious comradeship," was blatantly untrue.
Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, where it is clear that the early Akron AA's usually dropped by Dr. Bob and Anne's house at least once a day, either for the morning meeting (where they read most commonly from the Bible or The Upper Room, and discussed what they had gotten from the reading and from the prayerful period of Quiet Time which followed) or by coming over to their house in the evening, to engage in fellowship with other recovering alcoholics.
(and other kinds of fellowship with other recovering alcoholics, in the form of a telephone call or an exchange of emails, if in no other way) is one of the most important parts of the program.
regularly observed that at least 90% to 95% of the AA people who go back out and start drinking again, FIRST stopped attending meetings. The slide downhill often starts very slowly -- "it's raining out, and I think I'll skip just this one meeting" (never stopped any of us from going out when we ran out of liquor in the house, did it now?) -- "I'll cut back and go to one less meeting a week, so I can watch TV" (or go bowling or what have you) -- but gradually these people on the downhill slide go to fewer and fewer meetings, until they are not attending any at all.
in spite of that. But again, at least 90% to 95% of the alcoholics who got sober in AA but return to drinking, FIRST stopped going to meetings. Rich Dubiel's book on the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club (the only other twentieth century groups which had significant success in getting alcoholics sober) makes clear by its title one of the most important things which Rich observed: it was fellowship among recovering alcoholics (combined with a little bit of non-denominational spirituality and a little bit of lay psychological therapy) which enabled those two groups to be successful. Richard M. Dubiel, "The Road to Fellowship: The Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous" (2004) -- http://hindsfoot.org/kDub1.html For those who want a "scientific theory" of why fellowshiping with other alcoholics is so important, in a book which will be coming out in early 2007, a good sociologist, Annette R. Smith, Ph.D., in "The Social World of Alcoholics Anonymous: How It Works," is going to lay out the details of the process through which newcomers to AA heal their lives by slowly becoming more and more involved in what she calls "the social world" of AA. Dr. Smith argues that looking only at the formal organizational structure of AA does not tell us nearly enough about where the healing is coming from. The picnics and dances are just as important, along with going out for pie and coffee before or after the meeting, learning to know the other members of the group at a deep personal level, talking to people on the telephone, and building up a strong support network of people whom we can call on at any hour of the day or night, and who will come to us instantly (without us even having to ask them) whenever they hear that we are in the hospital or have a family member dying or have just lost our job or any of the other slings and arrows which life can throw at us.
AA literature like The Little Red Book (which gets us closer to Dr. Bob's mind than anything else we have) can help keep us from developing hare-brained ideas and theories about early AA, and keep us sensible and squarely on the beam. A book containing the 1946 first edition of The Little Red Book, together with the last of the two 1949 editions (where under Dr. Bob's impetus a good deal of additional excellent material had been inserted in the book) could help the modern AA fellowship enormously, in terms of giving us some solid and guaranteed workable guidelines for getting sober in AA, and continuing to grow spiritually, so that our lives might continue to grow ever more serene and filled with joy and satisfaction.
AA From: Mitchell K. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/9/2006 2:02:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII As you quote Dorothy S. M. as an "old-timer" please note that Dorothy was Clarence's wife. It was Dorothy Snyder, Ruth Hock, Bill Wilson and Hank Parkhurst who visited Cornwall, NY (Orange County NY) to visit Cornwall Press to review, finalize and approve the finaly galleys of the Big Book First Edition First Printing.
> use of "The Upper Room" for morning prayer and > meditation in early AA, which I give below. > > Ernie Kurtz is corresponding with the Upper Room > headquarters in Nashville about making either > a printed version or a searchable electronic > version of the 1935-1938 issues available for > AA historians. > > They were interested, but wanted some good solid > documentation that this AA tradition (about > early AA people reading The Upper Room) could > be thoroughly corroborated > > Are there members of the group who could give us > some other citations from written sources from > the period between 1935 and 1948 of AA people > using "The Upper Room"? > > (I am using 1948 as the cut-off date, because > that is when AA member Richmond Walker published > Twenty-Four Hours a Day.) > > Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana) > > - - -
> > From Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, the official > A.A. biography of the cofounder of A.A., pages > 71-72, 137-139. and 310-311: > > "Sue [Dr. Bob's daughter] remembered the quiet > time in the mornings -- how they sat around reading > the Bible. Later, they also used The Upper Room, > a Methodist publication that provided a daily > inspirational message, interdenominational in its > approach. 'Then somebody said a prayer,' she > recalled. 'After that, we were supposed to say one > ourselves. Then we'd be quiet. Finally, everyone > would share what they got, or didn't get. This > lasted for at least a half hour and sometimes went > as long as an hour."' > > "As T. Henry described it, a typical meeting in > 1938-39 went like this .... 'Usually, the person > who led the Wednesday meeting took something from > The Upper Room [the Methodist periodical mentioned > earlier] or some other literature as a subject. > Sometimes, they selected a theme such as "My > Utmost Effort" or "My Highest Goal." There would > be a quiet time. then different people would > tell something out of their own experience.'" > > An A.A. old timer named Dorothy S. M., talking > about the way Dr. Bob worked with newcomers, > mentioned that he would sometimes recommend that > they read Drummond's The Greatest Thing in the > World. "Those were the three main books at that > time: that, The Upper Room, and [Emmet Fox's] > Sermon on the Mount." > > A Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous (from AA Group > No. 1, Akron, Ohio, 1940, Part VI): > > "Now you are out of the hospital .... First > off, your day will have a new pattern. You will > open the day with a quiet period. This will be Yüklə 13,83 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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