Aa history Lovers 2010 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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> under his name. The topics he talks about on this CD set are: > > CD #1 - What is the point of my staying sober? > CD #2 - Is it necessary to have a spiritual experience? > CD #3 - What are the old ideas and how do you let go of them? > CD #4 - After the old ideas, then what? > CD #5 - Recap > > Peace.
> >
++++Message 6387. . . . . . . . . . . . Tenth Tradition From: Liana . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/4/2010 5:31:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII What could the group tell me about the history and development of Tradition 10 ? thanks Liana
From the moderator: This would mean a discussion of how Bill W. made use of an account he had read about the Washingtonian movement -- an account which some have argued was inaccurate in some of the things that it said.
the historical development of Bill W's ideas about the issues involved in the Tenth Tradition, if this is possible. But I don't know whether this is in fact possible. Do we have earlier and later versions of his ideas about AA taking political stands, and AA involvement in public controversy?
Re-Armament in 1938, and its greater and greater involvement in political activism -- on one occasion (Frank Buchman's statement about Adolf Hitler) with disastrous consequences -- may also have pointed out to Bill W. the wisdom of keeping AA out of that kind of thing.
Group no longer existed by 1938-39) was increasingly poking its fingers into every political and labor controversy it could find. Although Bill W. TALKED ABOUT the Washingtonians in his chapter on the Tenth Tradition, it was surely Moral Re-Armament which he was now predicting was going to wither away and lose most of its influence in the world.
during the 1930's, 40's, and 50's were often bitter and devisive: conservative politicians had already been claiming that laws forbidding child labor and giving the vote to women were Communist /Socialist plots to destroy American democracy. We had Herbert Hoover vs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, isolationism vs. getting involved in the Second World War, and those who favored U.S. involvement in the Korean war vs. those who wanted us out of Korea. And then the trial of Alger Hiss in 1950 and the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in that same year started a Red scare. Senator Joseph McCarthy began his anti-Communist witch hunt in February 1950.
Traditions book was published. NOT a wise time for a group like AA to get involved in political controversies of ANY sort, if they could avoid it.
of the New Thought movement which had so much influence on early AA (Emmet Fox's Sermon on the Mount and James Allen's As a Man Thinketh) counseled that when we were attacked by somebody else, the worse thing possible was to respond with an angry, out-of-control, bitter counter- attack.
blessing the other person, praying that they might find peace and an end to their anger and so on, and by thinking instead of God and love and the goodness of the universe. If we think about controversy and conflict all the time, we will only find ourselves involved in more and more controversy and conflict -- that was the basic teaching of New Thought -- "as a man thinketh" so shall his life become. It was an unbreakable law of nature, they said. So there was a deeper underlying spiritual principle involved in the Tenth Tradition, as well as the desire to keep AA out of the bitterly devisive American political scene of that period.
Alcoholics Anonymous From: egrott2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 5:03:00 PM
quote in an address to AA: "You are all now the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous..." ...... of the future? I had remembered it as being a quote from Lois W. at one of the AA International Conventions but I can't find it referenced anywhere. I don't think I made this up but, well, I never know... Any help in locating the source of this quote (and the context in which it was said) would be much apreciated.
in April 1939 From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 10:45:00 PM
Delphine Weber, organized a Wednesday-night Oxford Group meeting at the home of T Henry and Clarace Williams, 676 Palisades Dr in Akron. The meeting was started specifically to help Dr Bob with his drinking problem. Prior to this OG meetings were held on Thursday nights at the OG West Hill group (address unknown to me). There were no meetings at Henrietta Sieberling's gatehouse home on the Sieberling estate.
Group's separation from the OG. Up to this time the meetings at the Williams home during 1939 may well have been considered both OG and AA meetings due to the mix of people involved and AA had not as yet evolved the tradition of non-affiliation. The same would be true of meetings held at Bill W's home on Clinton St up to around August 1937. Since the AA Fellowship marks its beginning as June 1935, the meetings held under the auspices of the OG in Akron and NY were also meetings of the "alcoholic squads" of both cities which later became the AA Fellowship. Perhaps, for the question of whether early fellowship meetings were OG meetings or AA meetings, the most appropriate answer might be "yes." Care should be exercised to not try to retrofit today's standards of what is or isn't an AA meeting to the situation that existed in the latter 1930s. The fellowship of alcoholics (which consisted of only two groups) began using the name Alcoholics Anonymous well prior to the publication of the Big Book in April 1939 (its foreword begins with "We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women ..." and later states "When writing or speaking publicly about alcoholism, we urge each of our Fellowship to omit his personal name, designating himself instead as "a member of Alcoholics Anonymous"). When Cleveland separated from Akron and the OG in May 1939 they identified themselves as Alcoholics Anonymous. The members in Akron had a tremendous affection for T Henry and Clarace Williams and their separation from the OG in October 1939 was painful due to that great affection. I would tend to designate the meetings at Dr Bob's house as unambiguous AA meetings. - - - - THIS IS A RESPONSE AND CONTINUATION OF THE DISCUSSION in Message 6385 between Arthur S. and Jared L., which in turn was in answer to the question asked in Message 6372 by Jim L. from Columbus, Ohio: > Were the Akron meetings before the move to > Kings School AA meetings or Oxford Group meetings > attended by some drying out drunks?
(jlobdell54 at hotmail.com) said: As I understand it, the meetings at Henrietta's were OG meetings; those at Bob's house may be considered AA meetings even when (if) they were officially OG meetings.
(arthur.s at live.com) said: They were both up to October 1939 when meetings moved to Dr Bob's house. Later due to their size meetings moved to King School in January 1940. The meetings at T Henry and Clarace Williams home were Oxford Group meetings and reputedly continued up to 1954. When the meetings were at the Williams' home, alcoholics and their spouses usually attended together. After a certain point the alcoholics ("the alcoholic squad") would go to a separate part of the house and meet together by themselves and with prospects - this was the origin of closed meetings. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 6390. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Tenth Tradition From: pbcliberal . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 10:29:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII In the years after Buchman's intemperate remarks, theologians and philosophers that had helped underpin not-necessarily-religious spirituality also were taking political positions, most of them liberal.
prayer, was a prominent leader in the American socialist party. His contemporaries at Union Theological Seminary included Dietrich Bonhoeffer who founded an anti-Nazi church and wrote prison epistles on religion-less Christianity, and was executed by the Nazis for an alleged attempt to assassinate Hitler. It probably took tremendous will to resist what were surely great pressures to apply an army of newly sober alcoholics who now were seeking higher purpose to address the political ills of the world.
of absence that followed 13 years of sobriety. It is good to be back. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 6391. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Tenth Tradition From: Jenny or Laurie Andrews . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/11/2010 2:45:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From Laurie Andrews and Tom (tomvlll) - - - - From: Laurie Andrews (jennylaurie1 at hotmail.com) Remarkable forbearance from Bill, given that he was a crusty Republican and used to fire off vitriolic letters to Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was drunk! - - - - From: "Tom" (tomvlll at yahoo.com) I think another issue which led to the tradition was the problem raised when Marty Mann put Bill Wilson's and Dr. Bob's names on her National Committee on Alcoholism letterhead, naming them as board members (or advisors?).
From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/11/2010 12:21:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII What's wrong with the explanation given by Bill W in AA Comes of Age on the origin of Tradition Ten (pages 123-128)? It seems unambiguous and to the point.
Edition Big Book in April 1939, among them the statement that "We are not allied with any particular faith, sect or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted." The Twelve Traditions were defined by Bill W in their long form in an April 1946 Grapevine article ("Twelve Suggested Points for AA Tradition"). During the mid to latter 1940s Bill published a series of explanatory Grapevine articles on the Traditions that can be found in "The Language of the Heart" (and which were used for the writing of the 12&12 in 1953 and AA Comes of Age in 1957). In December 1947, the Grapevine carried a notice that an important new 48-page pamphlet titled "AA Traditions" was sent to each group and that enough copies were available for each member to have one free of charge. It was AA's first piece of literature dedicated totally to the Traditions. Bill wrote another series of articles on the Traditions in the early 1950s which pretty much echoed the 1940s articles.
to the Traditions being influenced by the MRA, conservative politicians, the 2nd World War, Korea, McCarthy, etc. Bill certainly did seek to distance himself and the fellowship from Frank Buchman after his August 1936 PR disaster regarding his Hitler comment (which the press reported out of context and which plagued Buchman for many years). It marked the beginning of the decline of the OG. The NY Group separated from the OG around August 1937 (Sam Shoemaker separated from the OG/MRA in 1941 and had them vacate the premises at Calvary House - his dispute with Buchman was amplified in the press and MRA was losing many adherents). Bill was inclined to refer to the OG as more of a positive influence on AA than as a negative one (and there were negative influences). In a July 1949 letter to the Rev Sam Shoemaker, Bill W wrote: "So far as I am concerned, and Dr Smith too, the Oxford Group seeded AA. It was our spiritual wellspring at the beginning." Bill later expressed regret that he did not write to Frank Buchman as well. In AA Comes of Age (pg 29) Bill wrote: "Early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects, restitution for harm done and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and from nowhere else." According to Nell Wing, Bill W's political viewpoint was conservative Republican and he was reputedly very anti-FDR and anti-New-Deal. AA history trivia and myth item: contrary to popular belief, the short form of the Traditions were not approved at the 1950 International Convention in Cleveland. What was approved was quite different than the familiar short form of the Traditions we know today. Prior to voting on the matter, Bill W was asked to sum up the Traditions for the convention attendees. In his summation, Bill paraphrased a variation of the Traditions the text of which is in the book "The Language of the Heart" (pg 121). Notably missing from what Bill recited to the attendees were the principles embodied in Tradition Ten of AA having no opinion on outside issues and not drawing the AA name into public controversy. Nevertheless, the Traditions as recited by Bill were approved unanimously by the attendees.
From: glennccc . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/12/2010 11:02:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII In message #6392 from "Arthur S" http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/6392 Arthur wrote: << What's wrong with the explanation given by Bill W in AA Comes of Age on the
origin of Tradition Ten (pages 123-128)? It seems unambiguous and to the point.>>
to
the Traditions being influenced by the MRA, conservative politicians, the World War, Korea, McCarthy, etc.>> Arthur, on page 123, in the first paragraph of Bill W's explanation of why we need the Tenth Tradition, which you cited above, Bill W says: "Our fellowship has never taken sides publicly on any question in this embattled world .... 'Practically never have I heard a heated religious, political, or reform argument among A.A. members.'" AA Comes of Age was written to commemorate the great 20th International Convention in St. Louis in 1955, so in that paragraph Bill W was saying that AA as such never took sides publicly on any of the great political issues of the 20 year period that ran from 1935 to 1955. My little comment simply listed (especially for members of the AAHistoryLovers who live in other parts of the world, and for our younger members too, who weren't around back then like I was) what the big political issues were which often divided the U.S. so deeply during the course of those twenty years, the issues on which (fortunately) AA had "never taken sides publicly." But then on that same page (page 123), in the second paragraph of Bill W's explanation of why we need the Tenth Tradition, he was more explicit in describing these great public political issues:
often
spurred by religious and racial differences. We live in the imminent possibility of a fresh holocaust to determine how men shall be governed and how the products
of nature and toil shall be divided among them. That is the spiritual climate in which A.A. was born ...."
religious and racial differences." Since Bill was talking about the period between 1935 and 1955, it is clear that he was referring there above all to the
Second World War (1939-1945) and the first holocaust (the killing of six million
Jews by the Nazis). "We live in the imminent possibility of a fresh holocaust" referred to the nuclear arms race which began right after the Second World War was over, a race between (in particular) the U.S. and the Soviet Union to see who could build the most nuclear weapons. That is what was threatening the world with (this time around) a nuclear holocaust.
be governed and how the products of nature and toil shall be divided among them." If we look at the specific words which Bill W. used, it is clear that this meant the Cold War struggle between Communism and western style democracy. That's what it was about: Communism had one vision of "how men shall be governed" and of how the goods produced by farmers and factory workers ("the products of nature and toil") should be divided up, and capitalism had a very
different theory about how all this should be done. And this conflict between Communism and capitalism (or however you wish to describe the two sides) was not only threatening the globe with a third world war, it was also grievously tearing up the United States internally at that very time.
1950. McCarthy himself headed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 and 1954, and during that time used it for a number of his Communist-hunting investigations.
Communist sympathizers, but also regarded three other issues as part of the Communist/Socialist plot to poison, brainwash, and destroy the United States:
(2) flouridated water, (3) and mental health care services (which could of course include alcoholism treatment centers if they employed psychiatrists and psychotherapists on their
staffs). Then in 1953, a reaction against McCarthyism began: Arthur Miller produced his
play, "The Crucible," which portrayed McCarthyism as a new version of the Salem
witch trials, and the highly respected broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow also began criticizing McCarthyism. By 1954, Murrow was attacking McCarthy himself as a dishonest fear-monger.
struggle (going on at that time) "to determine how men shall be governed and how the products of nature and toil shall be divided among them," had also already erupted into armed conflict. When North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, it began the Korean War. When General Dwight Eisenhower became
the Republican candidate for president in 1952, he promised to "go to Korea" to end the war. With this promise, Eisenhower was able to defeat Adlai Stevenson in the November elections, and a cease fire ended the major shooting part of the Korean conflict on 27 July 1953. But when I lived in Dallas, Texas, in the early 1960's, there were still some extreme anti-Communists who were viciously attacking Eisenhower as a "Communist fellow traveler" because he worked to end
that war. It was all of this stuff which Bill Wilson was referring to in the first two paragraphs he wrote in his explanation, in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (pages 123-128), as to why AA needed the Tenth Tradition.
Anonymous Comes of Age was written in celebration of the 20th International Convention in St. Louis in 1955, so there was no need for Bill W. to spell all
of these things out for a U.S. audience. And when they heard Bill W. advising them, there in the 1950's, that AA as an organization should not get involved in any of these controversies on ANY side, AA members of that time knew exactly that this was what he meant. In AA meetings today, in my part of Indiana, I sometimes hear AA members trying
to talk politics before or after the AA meeting, and viciously attacking the political figures whom they oppose. Fortunately, it is only on rare occasions, but even a handful of times is too many. This is behavior which is totally out of bounds for AA people. It doesn't matter in the slightest which side you are attacking and which side you are defending. If it is allowed to play any part in AA fellowship, it will end up destroying the AA program. Bill Wilson was exactly right in what he said on this topic. Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana) IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 6394. . . . . . . . . . . . Gabriel Heatter broadcast, April 25, 1939
From: pbcliberal . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/15/2010 12:51:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Do any audio recordings exist of the Gabriel Heatter interview with the AA member on "We the People?" There are transcripts Yüklə 25,47 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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