Aa history Lovers 2004 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
Yüklə 1,35 Mb.
|
|
Richard K. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1906. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Loners International From: Jim S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/12/2004 1:10:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From page 7, Box 459, Vol. 50, June-July 2004: "Staff Report: Loners are A.A.s who are unable to attend meetings because there are no groups nearby. There are about 210 Loners in 57 countries. Seagoing A.A.s, known as Internationalists, number about 73 as well as 55 Port Contacts. We now have 185 Homers, A. a .s who are housebound due to illness or physical disability. Homers, Loners, and Internationalists stay sober by sharing with each other through letters, tapes, and e-mails. Each new Loner, Homer, and Internationalist receives a directory of members, a subscription to Box 459, and the Loners/Internationalists Meeting-By-Mail (LIM), a confidential bi-monthly bulletin which shares excerpts of letters received at G. S. O. from LIM members. There are also over 475 Loner Sponsors, who share A. A. activities and personal experience." From LIM, Volume 13, No. 1, January/February 1988: "...Note: for those who might not know, Capt. Jack is the founder of A. A. Internationalists. ........" From LIM, Volume 29, No. 2, March/April 2003: "OVERVIEW OF LIM HISTORY" "The first LIM bulletin, printed in 1949 as The Internationalists Round Robin, was a few pages of excerpts from letters received at G. S. O. and mailed to a small band of Internationalists determined to stay sober no matter how isolated they were. By 1963, the bulletin consisted of 5 or 6 one-sided pages, mimeographed on blue paper. In 1976, an A. A. Loners meeting merged with the original Internationalists meeting. Since the March-April 1980 issue, LIM has been printed on the familiar yellow pages. Lim began through the efforts of Captain Jack S., a sailor who found sobriety in A. A. and understood that to maintain sobriety he needed to reach out to other members through correspondence. Initially, Captain Jack was looking for A. A. contacts in port cities when he wrote a letter to G. S. O. dated March 28, 1946. Captain Jack requested information on A. A. contacts because he was "...still at sea on oil tankers, on which I have served for ten years. I have few contacts ashore with A. A., and have to rely on the Book and the guy upstairs." A G. S.O. staff member provided Captain Jack with the names of A. A. contacts in port cities, and encouraged him to write to other seagoing members, which he did. After the publication of a three-part article, "A `Loner' at Sea," by Captain Jack in the October, November, and December 1948 issues of the A. A. Grapevine, plans began to take shape to start an Internationalists meeting-by-mail. Letters responding to that Grapevine article prompted another G.S.O. staff member to suggest to Captain Jack that he consider starting a "Round Robin Meeting" via letters. Captain Jack responded positively and suggested the name be "The Far East International Group." he said the name `...would leave it open to members stationed ashore in the Far East and also to men who sail these waters under flags of different nations." Captain Jack died in December 1988 at age 91, a few months after celebrating his 42nd A. A. anniversary. He had remained active in the Fellowship, seeking newcomers in Portland, Maine, where he had retired, while continuing to answer the many letters he received. Some of A. A.'s phenomenal worldwide growth is attributed in part to Captain Jack and hundreds of Internationalists like him who, sailing the seven seas, carried the message wherever they dropped anchor." It's my understanding that the Pacific Group in California has well over 1000 members, which would make it larger than LIM. Jim S. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1907. . . . . . . . . . . . AA on the Internet From: Gary Becktell . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/12/2004 10:41:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Does anyone have any info on the early days of AA on the Internet, and the Bulletin Boards that preceded the Internet? Thank you. G gk@kitcarson.net IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1908. . . . . . . . . . . . Older Grapevine Question From: rrecovery1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/12/2004 8:08:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I am area archivist and we are often donated older Grapevines. The duplicate ones, I give to the Institution and jail reps to bring to hospitals and jails but I just can't bring myself to donate thirty or forty year old ones. Any other people have this problem? I would rather trade for ones we are missing. Any suggestions? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1909. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Older Grapevine Question From: Mel Barger . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/13/2004 8:45:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Instead of donating the old Grapevines, a better way would be to find the articles on the new Digital Archive and print them out for institutions. This will serve the same purpose and will allow you to save your old GVs as treasures. I understand that there's no problem in making these printouts as long as it's not for commercial purposes. And it can be done very cheaply on your printer. Mel Barger ~~~~~~~~ Mel Barger melb@accesst ~~~~~~~~ Mel Barger melb@accesstoledo.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "rrecovery1984" To: Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 9:08 AM Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Older Grapevine Question > I am area archivist and we are often donated older Grapevines. The > duplicate ones, I give to the Institution and jail reps to bring to > hospitals and jails but I just can't bring myself to donate thirty or > forty year old ones. Any other people have this problem? I would > rather trade for ones we are missing. Any suggestions? > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > >
> > > > > > __________________________________________________________ > This message was scanned by GatewayDefender > 9:17:42 AM ET - 7/13/2004 > IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1910. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: AA on the Internet From: Martha Brummett . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/13/2004 9:20:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Subject: AA on the Internet > Does anyone have any info on the early days of AA on the Internet, and the Bulletin Boards that preceded the Internet? Thank you. G There was a FidoNet forum called A.A. SiP (for Singleness in Purpose, s/h/b S of P) in the mid to late eighties. I vividly recall the exchange of messages as a woman in Nashville got sober and got directed to her first meeting. I can't recall any names really. I participated from around 1986 to 1992 or so. Supposedly all the FidoNet stuff was archived, but that was a long time ago, and
there was an effort in this forum to maintain anonymity. Martha Brummett Denver CO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1911. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Older Grapevine Question From: ricktompkins . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/13/2004 7:10:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII You neglected to say what Delegate Area Archives you serve... I would suggest that after your Grapevines are duplicated into two sets, place the older extras with your Area's District archives. Does your Area's largest Intergroup hold an archives collection? There's another destination! Make sure you get a stamp that will print "courtesy of Area xx Archives." From my own past experience, our general service archives grows by giving, not swapping.. Rick T., Illinois past Area 20 Archivist ----- Original Message ----- From: "rrecovery1984" <> To: Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 8:08 AM Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Older Grapevine Question > I am area archivist and we are often donated older Grapevines. The > duplicate ones, I give to the Institution and jail reps to bring to > hospitals and jails but I just can't bring myself to donate thirty or > forty year old ones. Any other people have this problem? I would > rather trade for ones we are missing. Any suggestions? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1912. . . . . . . . . . . . THE A.A. MESSAGE IN PRINT-SUMMARY OF DISTRIBUTION From: JOHN REID . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/14/2004 3:48:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Below are the literature piece that are updated annually. Service Material from the General Service Office THE A.A. MESSAGE IN PRINT-SUMMARY OF DISTRIBUTION First Printing through December 31, 2003 Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) English (First printing - 1939) Hardcover (B-1) 15,845,956 Softcover (B-30) 6,713,109 Large Print (B-16) 241,712 Pocket/abridged (B-35) 1,163,732 Total: 23,964,509 Spanish (First Printing - 1962) Hardcover (SB-1) 53,561 Softcover (SB-30) 495,032 Pocket/abridged (SB-35) 68,024 Total: 616,617 Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions English (First Printing - 1952) Hardcover (B-2) 7,842,858 Pocket Size (B-17) 412,778 Softcover (B-15) 2,254,309 Large Print (B-14) 120,208 Gift Edition (B-4) 1,386,176 Total: 12,016,329 Spanish (First Printing - 1985) Softcover (SB-15) 357,325 Pocket Size (SB-17) 37,440 Total: 394,765 Other Formats Audio Cassettes: Big Book (MB-1) 79,659 Big Book (MB-1A) 490 Twelve & Twelve (MB-2) 38,937 Big Book CD ROM (M-70) 517 Big Book Audio CD (M-81) 1,235 Spanish Big Book (SMB-1) 6,839 Spanish Twelve & Twelve (SMB-2) 11,320 Braille: Big Book (M-34) 2,766 Twelve & Twelve (M-35) 1,717 ASL Video: Big Book (VS-1) 1,910 Computer Disk: Big Book (M-53) 7,234 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1913. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: AA on the Internet From: Susan Krieger . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/14/2004 1:12:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII The West Baltimore site went up 6/26/94, about the time the WWW went up. According to Archives at GSO we are the first and we have sent them a copy of the first site as it went up and also a copy of the Baltimore Intergroup as originally published. Contact Al W. welsch@a-1associates.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Becktell" To: Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 8:41 PM Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] AA on the Internet > Does anyone have any info on the early days of AA on the Internet, and > the Bulletin Boards that preceded the Internet? Thank you. > G >
> > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1914. . . . . . . . . . . . Beginners'' Meeting Format From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/14/2004 4:35:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII For Linda D (Florida Keys), You wrote in on July 8th asking, "Does anyone have a good meeting format for Beginners' Meetings?" Several early pamphlets for newcomers including material designed for beginners' lessons can be found on the Hindsfoot Foundation website: http://hindsfoot.org/archives.html One pamphlet on that website comes from Detroit (1943) and four came from Akron (the earliest published in late 1939 or early 1940, and the others only a few years later at most). The four from Akron give us a very good and detailed picture of what early Akron A.A. people believed and practiced. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Detroit Pamphlet is one which I do know will work very effectively for beginners. On Monday night, June 14, 1943, the North-West Group at 10216 Plymouth Road in Detroit began holding a set of four beginners' meetings (which were repeated over and over again for years). There were so many people coming into A.A. by that point, that the old-timers could no longer give each newcomer the same kind of individual, one-on-one instruction that they had used in the beginning. So the most knowledgeable old-timers sat as a panel at the front of the room, with the beginners gathered in front of them. The introductory material for that particular class was read, and then the newcomers were allowed to ask questions of the old-timers. Like everything else in early A.A., anything that seemed to be working well was rapidly circulated all over the country, and the first printed version was actually produced in Washington D.C., so that some A.A. people still associate these Beginners' Lessons with that city instead of Detroit. But Jack H. in Scottsdale, Arizona, who has done the most careful study on the whole topic of Beginners' Lessons and other early A.A. readers, says that Detroit published its own printed version not long afterwards, probably only a few months later. Just a few years ago I know, copies of The Detroit Pamphlet were still obtainable from the Greater Detroit A.A. office Alcoholics Anonymous of Greater Detroit in Ferndale, Michigan, for a modest cost. In the early 1990's, The Detroit Pamphlet was used very successfully in northern Indiana, so it still works just as well today. In Elkhart, they had a Saturday morning Beginners' Meeting which was structured a little like the original Detroit meetings. An old-timer would preside over the meeting and give a short talk at the beginning on one of the steps. Submarine Bill in particular found that a talk based on The Detroit Pamphlet worked better than anything he had ever used over the years. Then (in Elkhart) the newcomers were allowed to speak, going around the table in turn, much like an ordinary A.A. discussion meeting. It did require a powerful personality like Submarine Bill's (he was used to giving orders to a whole submarine full of sailors, and having those orders obeyed!) for a single person to keep control of a group of newcomers that large (usually thirty or forty people). In South Bend, Indiana, what was called the Golden Key Group was set up in 1990, where each person was given a copy of the pamphlet, and then they went around the huge table, with each person reading two or three paragraphs of that Discussion (The Detroit Pamphlet divides the steps into Four Discussion sessions). Then each person in turn was allowed to speak on something that had been read that evening. (The original Detroit printed version was filled with an awful lot of typographical errors which made it hard to read, so the South Bend people completely re-set the type, but without changing a single word, so it's the same text as the original. The South Bend version is the one which is on the Hindsfoot Foundation website.) In its heyday, of the newcomers who went to the Golden Key Group every Thursday evening without fail for an entire year, 90% remained sober for that entire year. And even today, 90% of those who made it through that first year without a slip are still sober. That's around an 80% success rate. (The idea that only EARLY A.A. could ever have that kind of success rate is a total myth. There are different kinds of strategies that work -- there is no one single formula which must be used -- but there are still meetings in northern Indiana today which achieve that kind of 75% to 80% success rate. Nobody gets sober who doesn't keep on coming to A.A. meetings, but that is hardly the program's fault! Modern medicine can control diabetes with insulin shots and proper diet, but nobody blames the medical doctors when people who refuse to follow these directions get sick and die horribly.) But back to the Golden Key Group. It eventually ended up dying because of a combination of (1) its enormous success and (2) lack of responsibility among the South Bend people with some time in the program. (1) Treatment centers and halfway houses began bringing in bus loads of newcomers, literally, as word spread of how extraordinarily well this Beginners' Meeting worked, and then (2) in response to these floods of newcomers, the people with time in the program gradually began to quit coming in the years that followed. It turned out that, because of its discussion meeting format, it required at least four or five people with a little bit of significant time in the program be present to keep the discussion on track. By the end of the line, it was just me and maybe one other person trying to manage thirty or forty people from halfway houses and treatment centers, many of whom only wanted to wallow in self-pity and complain about "how badly" the place they were in was treating them. And it just doesn't work effectively that way -- you don't put the inmates in charge of the insane asylum! We were all crazy people when we first came in, or I was, anyway -- ask anybody who knew me during my first year, and they will start laughing so hysterically that's it really embarrassing for me even now! -- and when we were newcomers, we needed the people who had a little bit of time in the program to help us slowly find our way towards a little greater sanity. So my advice here is that if you want to set up a Detroit Pamphlet Beginners' Meeting of that sort, most of your work is going to be getting some of the people with significant time in the program to show up and participate and make some real long term commitment. The Twelfth Step says that this should be a primary responsibility for everyone in the program who has worked through the first eleven steps. When people shirk this responsibility, A.A. in their community can no longer flourish and grow. I should say that, in my experience, every one of the twelve steps is a marvelous learning experience. And strangely enough, I have found myself that Twelfth Step work (in the sense of working with newcomers and participating in Beginners' Meetings and things of that sort) gives more insight and personal growth than any of the other steps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some people also think very highly of The Little Red Book: An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous Program for Beginners' Meetings. In the 1940's, the Nicollet Group in Minneapolis, Minnesota, required newcomers AND their spouses to attend Twelve Step Study Classes which were conducted by Ed Webster and Barry Collins along with other members of the group who had some time in the program. Mimeographed copies of the lecture notes Ed Webster wrote up for these classes began circulating all around the United States. Their lesson plans were used in Canada too: in 1946, for example, the Nicollet Group received a letter from an A.A. group in Edmonton (in Alberta) telling them how successful the mimeographed version had been there.
The first printed version was published in Minneapolis in August 1946 as The Little Red Book by the "Coll-Webb Company," which meant that Barry Collins and Ed Webster had it printed themselves. Hazelden took over publishing and distributing the book later on, and keeps a version of The Little Red Book in print today. Jack H. in Scottsdale, Arizona, has a copy of the original 1946 printed edition, which he puts on display at A.A. conferences. The 50th Anniversary Edition which Hazelden published in 1996 claims to be a reprint of that original edition, but Jack says that it was actually a reprint of a slightly later edition. The reason this is an issue, is because Jack (who has tracked all the different versions down) says that Ed Webster himself kept on making revisions in the little book all the way to the end of his life. So the regular version which you can buy from Hazelden today is different in various ways from the original printed edition which came out in 1946, and even that 50th Anniversary Edition isn't quite the same as the original 1946 version. Here in my part of Indiana, I am told that there are groups in Fort Wayne for example which still use The Little Red Book for meetings on a regular basis (or this was certainly true only a few years ago), and I understand that it is also still very much in use in various other places all over the United States and Canada. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But then A.A. hit a crisis in the late 1980's and early 1990's, where some of the younger leaders began insisting that no one was allowed to read ANYTHING except "conference approved" literature. A.A. began being cut off from its historical roots, and falling into greater and greater triviality, and achieving lower and lower success rates. The only opposing force has been the Archival Movement that arose during that same period: Nancy O. and the AAHistoryLovers Group, and Gail LaC.'s role in helping set up the first National Archives Workshop in Akron, and other grassroots archival efforts which arose at that time all over the United States, fortunately began to play a role as significant counter-forces. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But the understanding back in the early days, as far as I can tell, was that any piece of printed material WHICH WAS SPONSORED BY AN A.A. GROUP (the Nicollet Group in Minneapolis for The Little Red Book and the A.A. group in Daytona Beach, Florida, for Twenty-Four Hours a Day) was automatically assumed Yüklə 1,35 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|