Aa history Lovers 2010 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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Hospital, thirteen from other hospitals and institutions. There have been only twenty-three active members who do not appear to be recovering. These are not included in the above figures. Neither are the fifty other men and women who are now in the process of becoming members. This gives us a total general membership of Two Hundred men and women. To the best of our knowledge, the foregoing is correct. (Signed) Dr. A. Weise Hammer (Signed) Dr. C. Dudley Saul Medical directors
rates collected in http://hindsfoot.org/recout01.pdf and analyzed in detail in pages 14-18 and 22-23. Please, YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK required to look at ALL the surviving documents from the early AA period, and you have to read and think about "the fine print"
in each of those early claims. The important thing to note is how frequently the 50%-75% rule had a guarding
phrase added: "of those who tried" or "of those who genuinely wanted to stop drinking." And this was coupled with the admission that only 2 or 3 out every 5 people whom they tried working with seemed to them to "really try." If the 2 out of 5 people formula is followed, this means that in early AA, only
50% of the 40% who "really tried" actually got sober and stayed sober the first
time they tried AA, which means only a 20% success rate the first time around.
http://hindsfoot.org/recout01.pdf which indicate that in modern AA, 56% of the
people who have completed 90 days of attending AA meetings, will still be attending AA meetings at the end of the year. I'm not trying to make early AA "look bad," merely trying to point out that we need to quit trying to compare apples with oranges. The truth seems to be that, in so far as we can put early AA figures and modern AA figures on the same statistical basis, they did pretty good back in the old days, and WE STILL DO EXTREMELY GOOD TODAY, maybe even a little better (because of more people with many more years of experience who can serve as guides and sponsors and good examples to the newcomers).
seen in
places on the web, going back originally to Richard K. (goldentextpro at aol.com) and his supporters, see Message 1351 http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/1351 Richard K. insisted that modern AA has only a 2.4 - 4.8% success rate, based partly on a total failure to understand the statistics in the A.A. Triennial Membership Surveys for 1977 through 1989. But his backers and supporters started
vigorously posting those figures (sometimes abbreviated as "modern AA has been
proven to only have a 5% success rate") every place on the internet which would
let them post messages. Their argument today is "but of course the 5% success rate figure is true, you
see it cited everywhere on the internet so it MUST be true"!!!! IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 6188. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Buddhism and AA From: Baileygc23@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/28/2009 2:02:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From Ted G. and Baileygc23 - - - - From: Ted G. = "Edward" (elg3_79 at yahoo.com) Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age p.81 has a reference to a Thai Buddhist abbot approving the Twelve Steps, quoted in As Bill Sees It p.223.
Ted G. - - - - From: Baileygc23@aol.com (Baileygc23 at aol.com) Interest in Buddhism went back of AA into the Oxford Group period. In his historical novel Wide is the Gate (1943), Upton Sinclair described Oxford Groupers holding séances in London with a self-proclaimed medium who claimed to channel the spirits of the Indian chief Tecumseh and a long-dead Ceylonese Buddhist monk.
reading: an excerpt from the author of the "Physician, Heal Thyself!", interview with the Grapevine (GV). October 1995 edition. GV: Have you had periods in sobriety that were emotionally difficult? Dr. Earle: Oh my, yes. So did Bill -- you know that Bill had a long depression. Let me tell you how I got at some emotional rest. Years ago, a medical college in the South asked me to go to Saigon as a visiting professor to help the Vietnamese set up a new department in gynecology and obstetrics.
and Marty M. and some others, and I spent about eight or nine days back in New York before I went to Asia. Bill took me to the airport and on the way there he said, "You know, Earle, I've been sober longer than anyone else in our organization. After all I was sober six months when I met Bob. But," he said, "I don't have too much peace of mind." He said, "I feel down in the dumps a hell of a lot." So I said, "So do I, Bill. I don't have much serenity either." I was sober by this time maybe sixteen, seventeen years. He said, "Do me a favor. When you get over to Asia, see if you can investigate firsthand, the various religions in Asia. That means Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and Confucianism and ancestral worship and the whole shebang." And I said, "All right, I'll do it." And he said, "Stay in contact with me and maybe we can find something in those religions. After all, we've taken from William James, we've taken from all the Christian religions. Let's see what these others have." So I hugged Bill and got on the plane and went to Asia. I had three or four rest and relaxation periods a year but I didn't rest and relax. I was determined to find something that would bring peace and serenity to me. I spent a lot of time in Nepal and in Indonesia. I spent time in India.
looking for serenity. I spent two or three years just driving to find out something. I tried meditation, I read the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas -- everything. I went to an ashram on the southeast coast of India, run by a very famous guru and saint. There were about a hundred and fifty East Indians there. I was the only Westerner and they welcomed me. I wore a dhoti -- that's a white skirt that men wear -- and I wore one like the rest of them did. We all ate on the ground on great big banana leaves over a yard long. There would be food on the banana leaves and you'd make it into a ball with your right hand and throw it into your mouth. There were no knives or forks at all, so I did what they did. I didn't like the taste very much but I did it. I happened to be there at the time of the Feast of Dewali. Dewali is like our
time of Easter; it's the time of renewal. We were awakened on the early morning
of Dewali around two o'clock. This ashram was located at the base of a mountain
known as Arunachal. Now Arunachal in Hindi means sun, and the myth goes that one
of the gods, Rama, lives inside of this mountain. We were told we had to walk around the base of this mountain-which was a ten mile walk-and as we walked, we were yelling to Rama. If you do it in a very firm and believing way, it's said that Rama will come up and wave at you and bless you. I was there, and I did it. We walked around and we were yelling "Rama, Rama, Rama" hoping that Rama would come up and bless us all. They all walked in their bare feet. I didn't, I wore my shoes. Gosh, I was tired. But I walked all night long, the whole distance. After that event, I came back to my little apartment in Saigon, ready to return
to my medical work. I was so beaten because I'd been driving and searching and
clenching my fists for almost three years (and I kept writing to Bill about all
this, you know). And I came into my apartment and I suddenly collapsed down onto
the floor. I lay there breathing kind of heavily and I said to myself, "Oh to hell with serenity, I don't care if it ever comes." And I meant it. And do you know what happened? All of a sudden the craving to find serenity utterly evaporated-and there it was. Serenity. The trouble was the search . . . looking out there for what was right here. You know, we only have this given second. There's always now. Once I realized
that, serenity became mine. Now -- I'm speaking about emotions -- I haven't sought one single thing since that day because it's all right here. I often say to people at meetings. "You're trying to find peace of mind out there. I don't blame you, but it isn't out there. It's here. Right here." Now do I think there is a supreme being, a God? Sure I do. Of course. But do I have any religious beliefs? No. Religion demands that you do certain things and my life in AA isn't like that. AA is a very loose-Jointed organization. People say there is only one way to work the program. That's crazy. We talk about the "suggested" Steps, which are guides to recovery, not absolutes. Chapter five of the Big Book says "no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles." If we had all the members of AA standing
here, everyone would have a different idea what AA is all about. Bill's idea was
different from Dr. Bob's, yours will bedifferent from mine. And yet they're all
based on one thing and that is: don't drink, and use the Twelve Steps in your
own way. - - - - SEE ALSO HIS BIOGRAPHY IN THE WEB SITE ON THE AUTHORS OF THE STORIES IN THE BIG BOOK: http://www.a-1associates.com/westbalto/HISTORY_PAGE/Authors.htm Dr. Earl M. San Francisco Bay area, California "Physician Heal Thyself" 2nd edition p. 393, 3rd edition p. 345, 4th edition p. 301
friend, Harry, took him to his first meeting the following week, the Tuesday Night Mill Valley A.A. group, which met in Wesley Hall at the Methodist Church.
There were only five people there, all men: a butcher, a carpenter, a baker, and
his friend Harry H, a mechanic/inventor. He loved A.A. from the start, and though he has been critical of the program at times, his devotion has remained constant. Described in his story heading as a psychiatrist and surgeon, he was qualified in many fields. During his long career, he has been a prominent professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and an outstanding clinician at the University of California at San Francisco. He was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons
and of the International College of Surgeons, a diplomat of the American Board
of Obstetrics and Gynecology, board-certified psychiatrist, vice-president of the American Association of Marital and Family Therapists, and a lecturer on human sexuality. He was raised in San Francisco, but was born on August 3, 1911, in Omaha, Nebraska, and lived there until he was ten. His parents were alcoholics. In Omaha they lived on the wrong side of the tracks, and he wore hand-me-down clothes from relatives. He was ashamed of this, and could not begin to accept it until years later. He revealed none of this in his story. Instead he talked about how successful he had been in virtually everything he had done. He said he
lost nothing that most alcoholics lose, and described his skid row as the skid
row of success. But in 1989 he wrote an autobiography by the same title, which reveals much more
of his story. During his first year in A.A. he went to New York and met Bill Wilson. They became very close and talked frequently both on the phone and in person. He frequently visited Bill at his home, Stepping Stones. He called Bill one of his
sponsors, and said there was hardly a topic they did not discuss in detail. He took a Fifth Step with Bill. And Bill often talked over his depressions with Earle. In a search for serenity Earle studied and practiced many forms of religion: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and ancestor worship. He has long been a strong advocate for the cross-addiction theory, and predicted that over time we would see the evolution of Addictions Anonymous.
newcomers and began a group in San Francisco for oldtimers. It was called The Forum. He wrote a credo for it designed of ten steps for chemically dependent people. He felt that addiction represents a single disease with many open doors leading to it: alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, etc. Most of the Forum members were also devoted A.A. members. He also established a new kind of A.A. group, which used confrontational techniques. Some A.A. members disliked it intensely, while others seemed to gain a great deal from it. Many alcoholics make geographic changes when they are drinking. But Earle seems
to have made his after achieving sobriety. He has lived in many places, both in this country and abroad, traveled around the world three times, and attended A.A. everywhere he went. He also married several times. In 1968 he divorced his first wife, Mary, whom he had married in 1940. She once
told him she had great respect for him as a doctor, but none as a human being.
He admitted that he'd had affairs during the marriage, even after joining A.A.
His relationship with their only child, Jane, who was a very successful opera
singer, was strained, but he gave her an opportunity to air her feelings in his
book. She wrote that when she received the gold medallion at the International Tchaikovsky Voice Competition in Moscow in 1966, a high honor, her father did
not attend. Some people told her that it was not easy for him to see her become
such a success -- to be so in the public eye. She added that their paths were
still separate, but she did not ever totally close a door because he WAS her father.
groups, which were then in vogue. At one of the encounter marathons he met his
second wife, Katie, and within a year they were married and soon moved to Lake
Tahoe. They lived separately except for two brief periods, and after a few years
were divorced. Later he accepted a job with the U.S. State Department at the University of Saigon Medical School, in Korea. He spent five years there, after which he returned to San Francisco, hoping to rekindle his marriage to Katie.
Appalachian Regional Hospital. There he met his third wife, Freda, thirty years younger than he was. Freda came from a truly humble background. She was the daughter of a miner who had died of black lung disease. She and her six brothers
were raised in a typical two-room coal miner's house in Hazard. During his relationship with her and her family he was able to put to rest some ghosts concerning his Nebraska background. This wonderful family helped him to re-evaluate his memories of Omaha. In 1978 his feet began again to itch again. He accepted short-term job in Napal.
When he was offered a long-term assignment Freda and his stepsons did not want
to leave Kentucky. Disappointed, he returned to Kentucky, and obtained work as a
gynecologist in a family planning clinic, and also lectured to medical students
on human sexuality at the University of Louisville Medical School. When he moved
again, this time to Kirkland, Washington, Freda again refused to leave Kentucky. They were divorced soon after. They remained friendly and talked to one another
on the phone about twice a year. From all his travels, he always seemed to return to the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1980 he accepted a position as medical director of the Institute for Advanced
Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. There he met his fourth wife, Mickey.
She was a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute. He described her as a vibrant, open,
honest, direct woman without pretense, non-threatening, sexually on fire, lacking in prejudice, and tolerant about all aspects of life -- including human sexuality. She was already an Al-Anon member when they met, having been married to an alcoholic. She also made contributions in the field of alcoholism and recovery at Merritt Peralta Chemical Dependence Recovery Hospital in Oakland,
California. They married and remained together until her death in 2000. His book
is dedicated to her. I talked to Earle on July 27, 2001. He told me he still gets to an A.A. meeting
almost every day. His eyesight is not too good, but otherwise he is full of vim
and vigor. Form his voice, I would have taken him for a man of 40. He missed the
A.A. International Convention last year because of Mickey's ill health, but he hopes to attend the one in 2005. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 6189. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Swedenborgianism and the Burnham family''s religious beliefs From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/28/2009 7:07:00 PM
Nathan Clark Burnham, a Swedenborgian minister, performed the wedding ceremony.
Subject: Re: Swedenborgianism and the Burnham family's religious beliefs
Bill W might soon go overseas, he and Lois were married at the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in Brooklyn, NY. The wedding date was originally scheduled for February 1. Lois' brother Rogers Burnham was best man (he was also reputed to be good friends with Bill).
architect From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 12/28/2009 8:13:00 PM
of you -- it was a criticism of the way many AA members seem to take broad-brush and back-handed swipes at religion. Bill W's statements to the American Psychiatric Association 105th Annual Meeting in Montreal (May 1949) noted that: "Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religious organization; there is no dogma. The one theological proposition is a "Power greater than one's self." Even this concept is forced on no one. The newcomer merely immerses himself in our society and tries the program as best he can. Left alone, he will surely report the gradual onset of a transforming experience, call it what he may. Observers once thought A.A. could appeal only to the religiously susceptible. Yet our membership includes a former member of the American Atheist Society and about 20,000 others almost as tough. The dying can become remarkably open minded. Of course we speak little of conversion nowadays because so many people really dread being God-bitten. But conversion, as broadly described by James, does seem to be our basic process; all other devices are but the foundation. When one alcoholic works with another, he but consolidates and sustains that essential experience. ... We like to think Alcoholics Anonymous a middle ground between medicine and religion, the missing catalyst of a new synthesis. This to the end that the millions who still suffer may presently issue from their darkness into the light of day! ..."
none attending this great Hall of Medicine will feel it untoward if I leave the last word to our silent partner, Religion: God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference."
not distance himself from religion - he wished only to avoid the perception or action of affiliation. The closest individual friendship Bill had (in terms of a genuine sponsor) was Father Edward Dowling, a Jesuit priest. Dr Bob had the same type of friendship with Sister Ignatia, a Catholic Nun. Bill W and Dr Bob treated them both with respect and affection and did not consider them pariahs. Bill W also underwent 2 years of personal instruction with Bishop Fulton J Sheen with the intention of converting to Roman Catholicism. He later declined to convert reputedly because he did not want to give the impression of affiliation. Happy holidays (a contraction of "holy days") Arthur - - - - Original message from: Baileygc23@aol.com (Baileygc23 at aol.com) Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 Subject: Re: Re: Huxley on Bill W. as social architect Message #6169 from "Arthur S" was an extremely lengthy criticism of me for saying, in Message 6165 http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/6165
no dogma. The one theological proposition is Yüklə 25,47 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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