Rick Swaney 4-01-1987
Wapakoneta, Ohio
______________________________
MEL B. WAS THE PRINCIPAL AUTHOR OF PASS IT ON,
THE CONFERENCE-PUBLISHED BIOGRAPHY OF BILL W.
http://www.walkindryplaces.com/
He is also the author of:
**New Wine: The Spiritual roots of the Twelve Step Miracle (1991)
**Ebby: The Man Who Sponsored Bill W. (1998)
**My Search for Bill W. (2000)
**Walk in Dry Places (1996)
And the author (along with Bill P.) of:
**The 7 Key Principles of Successful Recovery (1999)
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++++Message 6432. . . . . . . . . . . . Upper Room
From: Charlie C . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/7/2010 7:23:00 PM
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Although I don't use it so much these days, I still enjoy the Upper Room
devotional, and looking at one recently in a Methodist church where I attend
a
meeting I noticed that this is their 75th year, the same as AA!
It can help to understand the popularity of the Upper Room in early AA to
know
that such daily devotionals are not that many in number, and this is one of
the
earliest and longest running. The Daily GuidePost, a similar title, was not
started until 1977 for example. The Methodist church too was then, as it is
now,
quite large, and very widespread geographically, so undoubtedly many
meetings
were housed in Methodist churches, thus perhaps giving some exposure to the
Upper Room, copies of which are often set out for the taking.
Following is a history of the Upper Room from their website.
"The Upper Room began as a daily devotional guide, which remains at the
heart of
its ministry. During the 1930s, a group of women in San Antonio, Texas
discerned
through prayer that families needed a time of worship and Bible study to
sustain
them through the stress of the economic depression. They asked their church
for
a devotional guide -- a request that inspired the Board of Missions of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to "publish a quarterly devotional
booklet to
be sold in the local church."
Dr. Grover Carlton Emmons, the first editor of the guide, determined the
one-page meditation format and decided that the devotions would be written
by
various Christians, both lay and clergy, from around the world. The final
decision, the name of the guide, came to him as he heard a speaker describe
the
outpouring of spiritual power among Jesus' disciples gathered in an upper
room
on the day of Pentecost. He quickly telegraphed those who were typesetting
the
first issue, and in April 1935, the first issue of The Upper Room daily
devotional guide rolled off the presses.
In the decades since the guide was "prayed into existence," The Upper Room
has
grown into a global ministry and touched millions of lives. The Upper Room
continues to expand in response to the spiritual needs of persons and
communities of faith."
Charlie C.
IM = route20guy
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++++Message 6433. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Modern AA success rate
From: Kimball ROWE . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/8/2010 4:29:00 PM
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THE 75% / 25% RULE-OF-THUMB STILL WORKS TODAY,
FOR ALL WHO CAME TO A.A. AND "REALLY TRIED"
Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and
remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the
remainder,
those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement. (Foreword to the Second
Edition, pg xx)
We posed the same question to our home group with the stipulation that they
had
to "Really Try." How many got sober at once, how many sobered up after some
relapses, and what happened to the remainder. Our criteria for "Really
Tried"
is as follows:
1. Did you thoroughly follow the path?
2. Did you completely give yourself to this simple program?
3. Did you grasp and develop a manner of living that demands rigorous
honesty?
4. Did you have the capacity to be honest?
5. Did you have the willingness to go to any length?
6. Did you take certain steps?
7. Were you fearless and thorough from the very start?
8. Did you let go of your old ideas absolutely?
9. Did you find a Power greater than yourself?
10. Did you ask this Higher Power for help?
11. Did you take the steps?
12. Were you willing to grow along spiritual lines?
For each person that really tried (a yes response to the above questions) in
our
home group, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up
after
some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed
improvement. For my home group, the numbers haven't changed since 1939.
That said, the Foreword to the Second Edition continues, "Other thousands
came
to a few A.A. meetings and at first decided they didn't want the program.
But
great numbers of these about two out of three began to return as time
passed."
I can only presume that these "thousands" are the people who didn't try.
They
were not counted with those that tried. They are sometimes referred to as
the
"passing parade" or "visitors" but rarely take the time to become members.
Kim
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++++Message 6434. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Upper Room
From: M.J. Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/9/2010 5:03:00 PM
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I'm very interested in finding archived issues of The Upper Room from the
30's
and 40's - ideally electronically... does anyone know where I might find
them?
Many thanks in advance.
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++++Message 6435. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Modern AA Success Rate
From: planternva2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/8/2010 9:46:00 AM
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From James Scarpine, Tim T., and Glenn C.
- - - -
From: "planternva2000"
(james.scarpine at verizon.net)
You say that this passage in the Big Book on pages 159-160 is
"talking about early Akron AA. Read Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers to see
more
details about what this paragraph was actually describing. Also read the
whole
first paragraph, including 'scarce an evening passed that someone's home did
not
shelter a little gathering of men and women.'"
Is it truly talking about early AA? Or is it talking about the Akron Oxford
Group? "A year and six months later....." has to mean during the time when
the
alcoholics were O.G. members, since the split didn't take place till later.
It's
reasonable to assume that those early members needed frequent contact with
one
another because there was no "AA program of recovery" available. Yes, they
had
the O. G. `six step' program, but as we see from different examples in our
literature, there were several different versions of those. If meetings were
so
vital in those early days I'm sure Bill would have made the point in the Big
Book. Instead he stressed the importance of the 12 Steps. His comments about
the
frequent gatherings in members' homes is mentioned in passing, an example of
the
alcoholic's different social activities.
- - - -
From: pvttimt@aol.com (pvttimt at aol.com)
The claim was made that "THE ONLY MENTION OF MEETINGS is on pages 159-160 in
the
Big Book, which says ONLY ONE MEETING A WEEK IS NECESSARY."
If you go to pagers 159-160, you'll find that the above quote is not what it
says at all. The word "necessary" is never mentioned. In fact, the context
of
this section suggests that lots of homes had meetings lots of nights and
that
these folks saw a lot of one another.
It's very distressing when people take quotes out of context and "spin" them
to
mean something else, for whatever reason, or to support whatever agenda.
Over
the last several years there have been individuals who belong to groups that
hold themselves out to be better than the rest of us. These individuals
frequently use this "straw man" argument, whereby they set up this false
choice:
"Meetings alone" vs. doing it their way.
Obviously, in the experience of most sober, long-term AA members, a home
group,
a sponsor, working the steps, surrendering to some kind of spiritual
open-mindedness, reading the literature, trying to carry the message to
other
suffering alkies - ALL these things together produce the highest quality of
life
for the recovered alcholic. Having "sects" of AA that claim they are better
than the rest of us; the "sects" using their own literature; the "sects"
interpreting the Big Book in idiosyncratic ways; it strikes me that this
only
divides our fellowship and unnecessarily complicates what is a fairly
straightforward process.
Tim T.
- - - -
From: glennccc@sbcglobal.net
(glennccc at sbcglobal.net)
THIS IS THE KIND OF EARLY AKRON A.A.
which was being referred to on pp. 159-160 of the Big Book.
J. D. Holmes (A.A. No. 10) describes the Wednesday night Open Meeting (as we
would call it today) at the home of T. Henry and Clarace Williams, where
non-alcoholics also took part in the discussions.
He ALSO describes the daily visits either to Dr. Bob's office or to Dr.
Bob's
home, where the door was never locked, and groups of recovering alcoholics
could
be found there literally every hour of the day or night.
It was not a get-together-once-a-week program, but a program in which people
got
together seven days a week.
http://hindsfoot.org/nfirst.html
J. D. Holmes and the First A.A. Group in Indiana
Evansville, April 23, 1940
______________________________
Based on a talk given by Glenn C. (South Bend) at the archives workshop held
at
the Courthouse Annex in Peru, Indiana on March 25, 2000, assembled from his
notes and Frank Nyikos’ transcription of the tape recordings which Frank
made of
the speakers.
James D. "J. D." Holmes got sober in Akron, Ohio in September 1936, where he
was
A.A. No. 10. After the newspaper J. D. worked for in Akron was sold, he
moved to
Evansville, Indiana, on May 30, 1938, and got a job selling advertising for
a
newspaper there. He started the first A.A. meeting in Indiana in Evansville
on
April 23, 1940.Around 1951, J. D. returned to Akron, where he was a writer
for
the Akron Beacon-Journal. He died at his home in Akron at the age of 66 on
Saturday, May 27, 1961, with 24 years of sobriety.
______________________________
There's a lot of stuff about J. D. in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, the
official A.A. history of those early Akron years when A.A. was first
beginning
.... J. D. was one of the few early A.A. members who were not hospitalized
first
.... But in J.D.'s case, they decided he didn't need that kind of
hospitalization, so they just invited him to attend the regular Wednesday
evening meeting of the "alcoholic squad" (as it was later jokingly referred
to)
at the home of Oxford Groupers T. Henry and Clarace Williams.
"I met seven other men there who had a drinking problem," J. D. said,
"together
with Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson. They all told me their stories, and I decided
there might be hope for me." They conducted it a little bit like they used
to do
when they gave you the third degree at a police station -- you know, the
bright
light shining in your eyes, everything except beating you with a rubber hose
--
the old timers weren't kidding around when they did a twelfth step on you!
During this period, J. D. recalled, he saw Dr. Bob every day of the week,
either
at his office or in his home.
"I was over there four or five times a week in the daytime, and then I'd
wind up
there at night. I've gone to their home on a morning, opened it up, and gone
in," J. D. said. "No one up. I'd just go ahead and start the pot of coffee
going. Somebody would holler out, 'Who's down there?' -- thinking maybe it
would
be a drunk who had stayed overnight. Anne never knew who would be on her
davenport when she got up in the morning."
The early A.A.'s in Akron [stuck together constantly]. This was somewhere
around
early 1938 by now.
J. D. told how "Ernie's mother used to throw a party every two weeks during
this
period. She'd make the doughnuts, and though everybody was broke, we all
brought
something. It was nothing unusual to see 25 or 30 people over there drinking
coffee and eating doughnuts."
"I've been at those parties when there were calls from Cleveland from people
who
wanted to come down," he said. "Two men would hop in a car, go to Cleveland,
and
bring the man down to Akron."
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++++Message 6436. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Modern AA success rate
From: James Bliss . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/7/2010 7:38:00 PM
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From Jim Bliss, Steven Calderbank, Dave G., and Bill McIntire
- - - -
From: James Bliss
(james.bliss at comcast.net)
First Sentence, Chapter 7, "Working with Others," Big Book page 89:
/Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from
drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other
activities
fail./
These statements directly show that we do not get sober and stay that way
without continued work. Work with another alcoholic, at least my reading
from
the Big Book, is working the steps with them. Note the term 'with'. This
does
not mean that they alone are working the steps but that I also am working
the
steps over and over when I work with
other alcoholics.
I agree, going to meetings does not keep me sober, although it may keep me
dry
(which my wife and family do not want to see). For me to stay sober I must
continue to work the program, and this is best done by working with another
alcoholic, through the steps.
I have seen people who claim to have worked the steps go back out, and
perhaps
they have worked the steps. But they have not 'practiced these principles in
all
of our affairs' which, in my reading, is continuing to work the steps. They
also
have not continued to (or at all) work with other alcoholics.
As Bill says in the 12 and 12 in his discussion of step six, '/Only Step
One,
where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can
be
practiced with absolute perfection./' The plain reading of this is that I am
supposed to continue to 'practice' the steps. In my opinion, I need to
continue
to work them, striving for perfection, although I know that I will not be
able
to achieve perfection in any of them but the first.
Jim
- - - -
From: steven.calderbank@verizon.net
(steven.calderbank at verizon.net)
No offense Bill, but when you said: "However, I have met only a very small
handful of people over the last 23 yrs who had truthfully gone thru the
steps,
that went back out, and I have yet to meet ANYBODY who is current with
themselves and has a current experience with the steps who has gone back out
--
ever!!!"
How do you quantify such a statement? It was said with such authority, but I
fail to see where such a statement makes much sense. I know that the program
of
AA works for me 100% of the time that I use it. I have a 100% success rate.
That
is the only one I can honestly quantify.
And even if the only mention of meetings in the Big Book is the one on pages
159-160, it is also true that the Big Book doesn't use the word sponsor in
the
first 164 pages. But I am sure most folks would not suggest doing without
one.
- - - -
From: David G.
(doci333 at hotmail.com)
Hi Jim and Everyone,
I wrestled with that 2%-3% in my head to.
Years back (~15yrs), I asked an oldtimer about those percentages, and he
passed
on to me that he had read that; 3-5% of all Americans were possibly
alcoholic.
He added that with our alcoholic minds we probably just skewed those
percentages
over to the Program Of AA because we like the pain and love to live in the
disaster mode.
It was enough to quiet the beast in my head.
My side of the street shows that I have a 100% success rate.
The "Oldtimer" is the only documentation that I have. Thanks to all for
paving
the way.
AA Love and Hugs,
Dave G.
Illinois
- - - -
From: BILL MCINTIRE
(maxbott at yahoo.com)
This is really great information!!! Brings up some points I havn't
considered
and still follows closely to what I always felt. Meetings are very
important!
They provide a vital aid to recovery. I think most people's chances improve
with
close and constant support and helps us to (hopefully) grow in our sobriety
but
is not what keeps us sober. While early Akron was still in the forming
stages of
a fellowship there was scarce anybody (support) available. I do not take
anything away from the importance of meetings with exception to some peoples
belief that that is how one stays sober. A message stressing more importance
in
meetings as a way to stay sober and much less stressing of the message and
the
steps and the necessity of a continuously growing spiritual experience to
stay
sober is, I believe dangerous to our fellowship.
The list of facts this group has sent me I believe supports that fear I
think
perhaps I am getting a little off base from the topic of history though. For
that I apologize. Occasionally I can fall off on personal experience and my
history rather than learning more of "our" history of AA
Godspeed, Bill
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++++Message 6437. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Modern A.A. success rate
From: Edward . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/8/2010 9:01:00 PM
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From Ted G. and Jim M.
- - - -
From: Ted G.
(elg3_79 at yahoo.com)
Dear ones,
Recently I have been delving into the literature which might be charitably
called the counterpoint to ours .. Jack Trimpey's "The Small Book", Stanton
Peele's "The Diseasing of America", Marianne Gilliam's "How Alcoholics
Anonymous
Failed Me", "The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure" by Chris Prentiss and a
couple
of others.
All contain some variant of the claim that only 3-6% of people who come to
A.A.
get sober, which they further claim is identical to the rate of people who
simply stop drinking with no outside help when they've had enough. I believe
this commonly repeated "statistic" (amongst people who have a vested
interest in
discrediting A.A.) to be the source of the rumors heard in meeting rooms.
I highly recommend to all A.A. members with brains like mine (the kind that
won't shut off) to read at least the first three books I listed, as their
insight into what to avoid saying or doing as a responsible A.A. member is
invaluable.
The authors' objections to A.A. are generally not against what is actually
in
the literature, but against what one hears in rooms nowadays, and when one
examines the "alternative" programs of action they present, there are
striking
similarities to the early A.A. way of doing things .... Which I am sure
would
cause them great resentment if it were pointed out to them.
Y'all's in service,
Ted G.
- - - -
From: Jim M
(silkworthdotnet at yahoo.com)
Numbers don't lie. You can see them for yourself, that which Allen G.
presented
to you below - then compare them
to the early years of AA statistics when long term sobriety success rates
were
much, much higher.
When I lived in Columbia, SC, I had a sponsor who would sit down with me and
the
Big Book and we would study
every word, sentence, paragraph and chapter and discuss its historical
significance and value. He was and lived like
the AA'ers of the early days when the success rates were much higher. He was
well loved and is missed by many
AA'ers. He was known from Columbia, SC all the way up to the top - AAWS,
Inc.
His primary purpose was truly
to stay sober and help other alcoholics to acheive sobriety and is exactly
how
he lived his life.
I believe in one alcoholic helping another,
I believe in AA,
I believe in the 12 Steps,
I believe in the 12 Traditions,
I have Hope and Faith,
I know there is a Power greater than myself,
His name is God and His Son died for my sins.
Yours in service,
Jim M,
http://www.silkworth.net/
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++++Message 6438. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Times and places of AA Meetings
in April 1939
From: allan_gengler . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/8/2010 1:04:00 PM
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The Forward to the Second Editions says there were THREE groups.
From the FORWARD: "A second small group promptly took shape at New York, to
be
followed in 1937 with the start of a third at Cleveland. Besides these,
there
were scattered alcoholics who had picked up the basic ideas in Akron or New
York
who were trying to form groups in other cities. By late 1937, the number of
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