& searching
> 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.
>
>
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++++Message 6387. . . . . . . . . . . . Tenth Tradition
From: Liana . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/4/2010 5:31:00 PM
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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.
But it would also be interesting to look at
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?
The transmutation of the Oxford Group into Moral
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.
Moral Re-Armament (remember that the old Oxford
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.
And the disputes taking place in American society
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.
This was all right before the 12 Steps and 12
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.
It should also be noted that the great teachers
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.
When you were attacked, you should respond by
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.
Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana)
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++++Message 6388. . . . . . . . . . . . You all are co-founders of
Alcoholics Anonymous
From: egrott2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 5:03:00 PM
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Somewhere, my mind latched onto the following
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.
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++++Message 6389. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Times and places of AA Meetings
in April 1939
From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 10:45:00 PM
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Around March/April 1935, Henrietta Sieberling, encouraged by her friend
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.
When meetings moved to Dr Bob's house in October 1939 it marked the Akron
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?
- - - -
In that message, "J. Lobdell"
(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.
- - - -
And "Arthur S"
(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.
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++++Message 6390. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Tenth Tradition
From: pbcliberal . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/10/2010 10:29:00 PM
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr, generally credited with the writing the serenity
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.
A personal introduction: I have rejoined the fellowship after 18 years
of absence that followed 13 years of sobriety. It is good to be back.
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++++Message 6391. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Tenth Tradition
From: Jenny or Laurie Andrews . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/11/2010 2:45:00 AM
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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?).
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++++Message 6392. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Tenth Tradition
From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/11/2010 12:21:00 PM
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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.
Many seeds of the Traditions were spelled out in the Foreword to the First
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.
There is no commentary I can find by Bill W regarding or remotely alluding
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.
Cheers
Arthur
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++++Message 6393. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Tenth Tradition
From: glennccc . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/12/2010 11:02:00 PM
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In message #6392 from "Arthur S"
(arthur.s at live.com)
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
2nd
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:
"In our own times we have seen millions die in political and economic wars
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 ...."
Arthur, just look at the specific words which Bill Wilson used there.
"We have seen millions die in political and economic wars often spurred by
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.
This new threat was being created by a struggle "to determine how men shall
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.
Senator Joseph McCarthy began his anti-Communist witch hunt in February
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.
McCarthyism attacked not only people whom they regarded as Communists or
Communist sympathizers, but also regarded three other issues as part of the
Communist/Socialist plot to poison, brainwash, and destroy the United
States:
(1) polio vaccination,
(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.
This Cold War struggle that Bill W. was referring to, what he called the
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.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was published in 1953, and Alcoholics
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)
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++++Message 6394. . . . . . . . . . . . Gabriel Heatter broadcast, April 25,
1939
From: pbcliberal . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/15/2010 12:51:00 AM
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Do any audio recordings exist of the Gabriel Heatter interview with the
AA member on "We the People?" There are transcripts
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