randomly assigned more than 1,700
alcoholics to one of three popular therapies used at professional treatment
centers. The first was called 12-step facilitation, in which a licensed
therapist guides patients through Bill Wilson's method. The second was
cognitive behavioral therapy, which trains alcoholics to identify the
situations that spur them to drink, so they can avoid tempting
circumstances. And the last was motivational enhancement therapy, a
one-on-one interviewing process designed to sharpen a person's reasons for
getting sober.
Project Match ultimately concluded that all three of these therapies were
more or less equally effective at reducing alcohol intake among subjects.
But 12-step facilitation clearly beat the competition in two important
respects: It was more effective for alcoholics without other psychiatric
problems, and it did a better job of inspiring total abstinence as opposed
to a mere reduction in drinking. The steps, in other words, actually worked
slightly better than therapies of more recent vintage, which were devised by
medical professionals rather than an alcoholic stockbroker.
AA is still far from ideal. The sad fact remains that the program's failures
vastly outnumber its success stories. According to Tonigan, upwards of 70
percent of people who pass through AA will never make it to their one-year
anniversary, and relapse is common even among regular attendees. This raises
an important question: Are there ways to improve Wilson's aging system?
AA is obviously not about to overhaul its 75-year-old formula. But there are
a few alterations that would almost certainly make the program work for more
people, starting with better quality control. Since no central body
regulates the day-to-day operations of local groups, some meetings are
dominated by ornery old-timers who delight in belittling newcomers. Others
are prowled by men looking to introduce nubile newcomers to the "13th
step"-AA slang for sexual exploitation. Finding a way to impose some basic
oversight of such bad behavior would likely reduce the dropout rate.
Some AA groups would also do well to shed their resistance to medication.
There is nothing in the Big Book that forbids the use of prescription drugs,
but there are plenty of meetings where such pharmaceutical aids are frowned
upon. Perhaps this sentiment made sense back in AA's formative years, when a
variety of snake oils were touted as alcoholism cures. But today there are
several medications that have been proven to decrease the odds of relapse.
One such drug, acamprosate, restores a healthy balance between glutamate and
GABA, two of the neurotransmitters that get out of whack in the brains of
alcoholics. Naltrexone, commonly used to treat heroin addiction, appears
effective at preventing relapse by alcoholics who possess a certain genetic
variant related to an important mu-opioid receptor. Both can be valuable
aids in the recovery process.
But the best way to bolster AA's success rate may be to increase the
personalization of addiction medicine. "We're starting to get an inkling
that something about the initial state of the brain prior to therapy may be
predictive as to whether that therapy will be a success," says Grant of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse. In other words, certain brains may be
primed to respond well to some therapies and less so to others.
NIDA and other government agencies are currently funding several studies
that aim to use neural imaging technology to observe how various therapies
affect addicted brains. One alcoholic might have a mesolimbic pathway that
normalizes quickly after receiving a certain type of therapy, for example,
while another will still suffer from dopamine disregulation despite
receiving the same care. The hope is that these studies will reveal whether
neurobiology can be used to predict a person's odds of benefitting from one
treatment over another. Perhaps there is one sort of mind that is cut out
for the cognitive behavioral approach and another that can be helped only by
the 12 steps.
A person's openness to the concept of spiritual rebirth, as determined by
their neural makeup, could indicate whether they'll embrace the steps. Last
September, researchers from the National Institutes of Health found that
people who claimed to enjoy "an intimate relationship with God" possess
bigger-than-average right middle temporal cortices. And a Swedish study from
2003 suggests that people with fewer serotonin receptors may be more open to
spiritual experiences.
For the moment, though, there is no way to predict who will be transformed
by AA. And often, the people who become Wilson's most passionate disciples
are those you'd least expect. "I always thought I was too smart for AA," a
bespectacled, Nordic-looking man named Gary shared at a meeting in Hell's
Kitchen this past winter. "I'm a classical musician, a math and statistics
geek. I was the biggest agnostic you ever met. But I just wrecked my life
with alcohol and drugs and codependent relationships."
And now, after more than four years in the program? "I know God exists," he
says. "I'm so happy I found AA."
Maybe one day we'll discover that there's a quirk in Gary's genetic makeup
that made his prefrontal cortex particularly susceptible to the 12 steps.
But all that really matters now is that he's sober.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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++++Message 6668. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Split from the Oxford Group: New
York, Cleveland, Akron
From: jax760 . . . . . . . . . . . . 6/25/2010 4:30:00 PM
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I believe if you check Mitch K's biography you will find Clarence entered
the
hospital on Feb 10, 1938. Not long after Dr Bob got him down on his knees
(while
in the hospital) for his surrender and that same night took him to his first
Oxford Group meeting at T. Henry's
Regards
--- In AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com, Roy Levin wrote:
>
> According to what Clarence says in his talks, in February of 1938 he would
still be in Akron City hospital being "interviewed" by Paul Stanley, Bill
Van
Horn, Bill D., and other early members of the "alcoholic squadron" of the
Akron
Oxford Groups.
>
> - - - -
>
> On Thu, 6/17/10, John Barton wrote:
>
> Clarence came into the group in February of 1938 and was not one of the
"members" reported to Frank Amos by Dr Bob in that second week of February
1938.
>
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++++Message 6669. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Re: Big Book Page 100 to do with
sponsorship
From: Roy Levin . . . . . . . . . . . . 6/26/2010 9:54:00 AM
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I contacted my AA buddy Jay S. on this topic. Jay will be giving one of
the
talks on AA history at the upcoming Interntational on Friday, I believe.
Â
Jay is an expert on early Oxford Group history and has collected first
editions
of their literature ("What Is The Oxford Groups?") and heard recordings or
interviewed older members.
Â
He even went so far as to join the vestigial remnant of that organization
which
I believe is now known as "Christian Initiative" or something like that. I
forget the name, but Jay showed me pictures of his retreat at their
headquarters
in Switzerland where they rendezvous annually.
Â
Jay says he's heard or read accounts by early members which indicated that
the
word "sponsor" was indeed in common usage by the O.G. members. Yes, it did
sometimes mean that one person might pay for the hospital stay ( about $50
in
depression era ) for an alkie's detox if we're talking about the "alcoholic
squadron" of the O.G.
Â
But for the non alcoholic members of the O.G. which you realize were
numerically
superior to the drunks ( we were in a minority ) the term "sponsor" was used
commonly much in the same way we use it today, i.e. as someone who
introduces
you to the the group and undertakes your early training in spiritual
practice.Â
A sponsor is a "mentor" in definition and practice, and note the word
"protege"
is used in our Big Book. The opposite of a protoge is a patron or mentor
in
common usage, i.e. a "sponsor."
Â
To sum it up, O.G. expert Jay says the term comes from the Oxford
Groups. If
you're attending the convention catch his talk or Friday and query him in
person. I plan to be there myself.
Â
Roy L. ( class of `78 )
--- On Thu, 6/24/10, Roy Levin wrote:
From: Roy Levin
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Re: Big Book Page 100 to do with sponsorship
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 8:20 AM
Â
Where is this reference to the use by Oxford Group members of the word
"sponsor"
in the same sense of a baptismal Godfather term? Is it in any of their
literature?
- - - -
From: J. Lobdell
Subject: Re: Big Book Page 100 to do with sponsorship
<<... the OG used the term "sponsor" more or less in the sense used of
Godparents in Sacramental Baptism -- and btw at Calvary, Bill was Ebby's
sponsor.>>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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++++Message 6670. . . . . . . . . . . . Oxford Group and sponsorship
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 6/27/2010 12:13:00 PM
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I'm writing this in a campground at Bardstown, Kentucky, where I don't have
access to my books.
On the OG and sponsorship: they did not use the word "sponsor" to describe
this,
but an essential part of their method was the concept of one-on-one
individual
evangelism. If you get my book "Changed by Grace" you can see that the idea
of
replacing mass evangelism (i.e. preaching big revivals in the 19th century
frontier revival style) with the concept of individual evangelism first
appeared
towards the end of the 19th century. It was Henry Drummond who first
proposed
this idea in 1873 (he was the one who wrote "The Greatest Thing in the
World" in
1887, which later became, along with Emmet Fox's "Sermon on the Mount," one
of
the standard books recommended to AA newcomers, in Akron and elsewhere).
Drummond's ideas on individual evangelism were further developed as the idea
of
the 5 C's, about which you can also read more in my book. H. A. Walter, a
Protestant missionary to India, talked about this in his book "Soul-Surgery:
Some Thoughts on Incisive Personal Work" (the phrase "personal work" meant
one-on-one individual missionary work). In order to evangelize you, I have
to
first Confess my own sins to you in order to win your Confidence. Only then
will
I be able to move on to bringing about your Conversion and your Continuance
in
the faith.
This idea became extremely important in early 20th century Protestant
missionary
work in places like China and India, which is where Frank Buchman picked it
up.
He left China and went to England, where he tried this kind of
foreign-missionary-to-the-heathens approach on students at Cambridge
University
and later at Oxford University.
The OG did not CALL this "being a sponsor," but when an OG member made his
first
call on someone whom he was trying to convert, it was a lot like the initial
relationship between an AA sponsor and a raw newcomer to AA.
But as far as I can tell, there was no major notion of CONTINUING one-on-one
sponsorship in OG in the later AA fashion. Once you had joined an OG group,
the
entire group sat around and prayed and received "guidance" about you, i.e.,
told
you what to do -- and you had to do whatever they said, because God had
revealed
those instructions to them. And ANY individual OG member could come up to
you
and "check" you, i.e., take your inventory and tell you how to run your
business, because that person claimed to have received "guidance" from God.
In the OG, once you had been a member for a while, you were "sponsored" (in
the
AA sense) by a group conscience of the entire Oxford group which you
belonged
to, and also by any self-righteous, know-it-all busybody in your group. The
OG
was widely criticized back at the time for its heavy handed authoritarian
domination over its members.
The AA understanding of the continuing personal relationship between a
sponsor
and his pigeon, which was well developed by the middle to latter 1940's, was
very different from anything in Oxford Group practice. Read Sgt. Bill
Swegan's
book for example, and Jimmy Miller's story in "The Factory Owner and the
Convict" (which is going to be part of the play put on at the San Antonio
International), to see how the modern concept of AA sponsorship was simply
taken
for granted within early AA by the last half of the 1940's.
And the BEST early account of how really good AA sponsors did their job, is
in
Father Ralph Pfau's autobiography "Prodigal Shepherd" (which is still in
print).
The good sponsor in this case was Ralph's sponsor, the sainted Doherty
Sheerin,
and this was very early in AA history -- November 1943, only three and half
years after the publication of the Big Book. For a short account, see
http://hindsfoot.org/PfLou3.html but you really need to read the book to see
how
smoothly and effectively Dohr did his job. And not just with Father Ralph --
Dohr teamed up with J. D. Holmes, one of the original Akron AA's, to spread
AA
all over Indiana (from whence it spread across the river to Louisville,
Kentucky, etc.).
Dohr did everything right. And maybe this is a hint as to one possible
source of
the early A.A. idea of sponsorship -- Dohr was a good Irish Catholic, and it
is
assumed in the Catholic tradition that anyone who wishes to make real
spiritual
progress needs to choose someone as his or her spiritual director. (Even an
extraordinary saint like St. Teresa of Avila had a good priest whom she used
as
her spiritual director.) In Akron A.A., Sister Ignatia was active by this
time,
and in Cleveland, a majority of the early AA's at that time were of Roman
Catholic background.
But for whatever reason, AA had de facto moved well beyond Oxford Group
ideas by
1938, when they started writing the Big Book. They had either stopped using
the
OG ideas completely, or had greatly modified and transformed them, because
those
particular OG ideas didn't work that well, particularly with alcoholics.
We all need to remember that the enormous spread and growth of AA came, NOT
during the first couple of years, when the alcoholics were part of the
Oxford
Group, and trying to do everything the Oxford Group way -- look at the
membership figures from 1935 to 1949 -- the extraordinarily rapid spread and
growth of AA was the spread and growth of BIG BOOK A.A., which began in 1939
with the publication of that extraordinary book.
And also remember that very few (if any) genuine hard core chronic
alcoholics
ever gained permanent sobriety within the Oxford Group. Rowland Hazard went
back
to drinking again, and so did Ebby Thacher. Richmond Walker (of the 24 hour
book) was only able to stay sober for a couple of years or so within the
Oxford
Group, and didn't get permanently sober until he joined AA.
When Bill W. arrived in Akron in 1935, trying to stay away from the booze by
using OG methods alone, "white light" experience or not, he was in fact only
hanging onto his sobriety by the skin of his teeth. And Dr. Bob was never
able
to get sober at all within the OG alone, in spite of long effort -- it took
Bill
Wilson, and the new ideas which Dr. Bob and Bill then began developing once
they
got together, to get Dr. Bob sober, and to KEEP Bill Wilson sober.
Or in other words, everything good in A.A. didn't come from the Oxford Group
--
Bill W. and Dr. Bob were religious geniuses, innovative and creative, and
not
simply blind copiers of other people's ideas. And Doherty Sheerin, Ed
Webster,
Richmond Walker, Ralph Pfau, and many of the other early AA people were
extremely bright and creative people themselves -- the good old timers
didn't
turn off their minds and stop thinking and figuring out additional new good
ideas after the Big Book came out in 1939.
Glenn
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++++Message 6671. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We
Don''t Know How It Works
From: ricktompkins . . . . . . . . . . . . 6/26/2010 5:13:00 PM
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From: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Fiona Dodd
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2010 2:02 AM
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don't Know How
It Works
* June 23, 2010 |
* 12:00 am |
* Wired July
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