The Good Book
and
The Big Book*
A.A.’s Roots in the Bible
Dick B.
Copyright 1995, 1997 by Anonymous.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN 978-1-937520-08-3
Published by First Edition Design eBook Publishing July 2011
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com
Smashwords Edition
With a Foreword by Robert Smith son of A.A. co-founder Dr. Bob and his wife Anne
Paradise Research Publications, Inc. Kihei, Hawaii
*Big Book" is a registered trademark of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.; used here with permission of A.A.W.S., Inc.
Published 1997 Printed in the United States of America
*Big Book* is a registered trademark of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.; used here with permission of A.A.W.S., Inc.
This special Bridge Builders Edition is published by arrangement with Good Book Publishing Company, Box 959, Kihei, Maui, HI 96753¬0959
Cover Design: Richard Rose (Sun Lithographic Arts, Maui)
We gratefully acknowledge permission granted by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., to quote from A.A. Conference Approved publications with source attributions and to reprint the Twelve Steps. Permission to reprint this material does not mean that A.A. has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, nor that A.A. agrees with the views expressed herein. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only-use of the Twelve Steps in contents and discussions which address other matters does not imply otherwise.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-69696
Disclosure – Due to the media style of this electronic book, footnotes and index have been removed. For unabridged version, please refer to the print version of this book. ISBN 1-885803-24-9
To Frank Costantino and The Bridge Builders of America
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be? Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith.
Alcoholics Anonymous
The trouble with the faith of to-day is that it is ... [removed] from faith in God. It is faith in laws, and moral principles, and ways of life: but it is not faith in God Himself.
Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Confident Faith
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10: 17
Contents
Foreword to the First Edition
Preface
Acknowledgements
-Chapter One
Lest We Forget Early AAs and Their Bibles!
Early A.A.’s Success Rate Compared to Today
The Historical Evidence of A.A.’s Good Book Roots
The Oxford Group-Shoemaker Impact
Bible Devotionals and Other Early A.A. Literature
The Purpose of Our Book
-Chapter Two
God!
The Frequency of Biblical Names for God
God is
A Loving God
A Special "god" for A.A.?
Whence Came "Higher Power?"
Bill Wilson's Higher Power
"God As We Understood Him"
"A Power Greater Than Ourselves"
-Chapter Three
Biblical Impact on Big Book Language
Direct Quotes from the Bible
Recognizable Biblical Words and Concepts
A.A. Slogans and Watchwords with Biblical Roots
Two Other Biblical Concepts
-Chapter Four
The Parts Dr. Bob Found "Essential"
The Thirteenth Chapter of First Corinthians
The Book of James
The Sermon on the Mount
-Chapter Five
The Good Book and the Twelve Steps
Step One and Deflation at Depth
Step Two, Willingness, Belief, and Seeking
Step Three and the Decision to Surrender
Step Four and Self-examination
Step Five and Confession
Step Six, Conviction and Readiness to Change
Step Seven, Humble Submission and Rebirth
Step Eight, Willingness to Make Amends
Step Nine, Restitution
Step Ten and Daily Corrective Action
Step Eleven, Prayer, Guidance, Growth, Power
Step Twelve, Awakening, Witness, Practice of Principles
-Chapter Six
Keeping It Simple
The Original Six Steps
Simmered Down to the Last
-Chapter Seven
The Good Book and A.A. Today
-Bibliography
-Index
Foreword to the First Edition
Before there was a Big Book-in the period of "flying blind," God's Big Book was the reference used in our home. The summer of 1935, when Bill lived with us, Dr. Bob had read the Bible completely three times. And the references that seemed consistent with the program goals were the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, and the Book of James. At Anne's "Quiet Time"-a daily period held with the alcoholics in our home, the Bible was used.
The search for spirituality seems to be insatiable among those who truly seek continual growth. In this book, Dick B. has shown serious research and integrity to give us an excellent base as we seek to progress ourselves.
BOB SMITH Nocona, Texas
Bob Smith, "Smitty," is the son of Dr. Bob and Anne Smith and co-author of Children of the Healer
Preface
The purpose of this particular title is, quite simply, to provide an historically accurate account of what early AAs heard, studied, and borrowed from the Bible. That they did so is clear. But what they did has never been researched and recorded in any detail. We hope this book will assist AAs themselves and students of A.A. history in seeing the light the Bible sheds on the reasons for early AAs' relationship with God and the resultant power and success they had.
My previous titles have led up to this work. Dr. Bob's Library recorded the Biblical materials A.A.'s co-founder studied, recommended, and circulated. Anne Smith's Journal, 1933-1939 showed what AAs were hearing in their meetings and at A.A.'s birthplace; and illustrated how the Bible was the center of their faith. Design for Living: The Oxford Group's Contribution to Early A.A. detailed the origins, beliefs, activities, and impact on A.A. of the Oxford Group ("A First Century Christian Fellowship"), of which A.A. was an integral part in its formative years-and from which much of its spiritual structure was obtained. The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous told how it all came together at A.A.’s birthplace at the home of Dr. Bob and Anne Smith in Ohio. New Light on Alcoholism: The A.A. Legacy from Sam Shoemaker revealed the enormous influence that the American Oxford Group leader, the Reverend Sam Shoemaker, Jr., of Calvary Church in New York, had on the thinking of A.A.'s East Coast co-founder, Bill Wilson. Courage to Change was a shorter work that Bill Pittman and I wrote and which set forth a view of Shoemaker's writings as they seem related to A.A.'s Twelve Steps. The Books Early A.A.’s Read for Spiritual Growth was and is the most comprehensive bibliography available on exactly those Biblical and religious materials that early AAs studied as they were developing the program of recovery that later became embodied in A.A.’s Big Book.
We believe this work on the Bible illustrates in detail precisely what Dr. Bob meant when he said AAs got their basic ideas from a study of the Bible. Dr. Bob called the Bible the Good Book. And Good it was. Our title shows how A.A.’s highly successful recovery program was developed from the Biblical materials: (1) covered in the daily devotionals AAs read, (2) developed by the Oxford Group to which they belonged, (3) taught by Sam Shoemaker as he instructed AAs about the Biblical ideas underlying their practical program of recovery, (4) passed along by Anne Smith (Dr. Bob's wife) as she shared from her spiritual journal with the early AAs, including Dr. Bob and Bill, and (5) used by the AAs themselves as they read widely from the religious literature of their day.
We are convinced that a knowledge of A.A.’s roots in the Bible can illuminate the pages of the Big Book, can set the stage for spiritual growth among individual AAs today, and can provide aid and comfort for those who believe, as did Dr. Bob and his wife, Anne, that the Bible should be the main source book for information about God, about His will and power and love, about prayer, and about the way to deliverance.
We gratefully acknowledge permission granted by A.A.W.S., Inc. to use the name Big Book as part of our title and do not, by that use, claim to speak for A.A.
Our cover uses an artist's rendering of a Bible cover and of the old "circus" cover of the First Edition of A.A.'s basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous, which was published by the Works Publishing Company in 1939. Bill Wilson said the original "Big Book" was made large and thick to depict something of great value. And the circus cover-apparently designed to attract attention-was later abandoned when A.A. itself published the text.
Acknowledgements
The list of those to whom the author is indebted for assistance grows longer by the day; and it is much more detailed in our other titles. Here we will list the contributors by category, and thank them once again for making our research and writing possible.
My son, Ken, is in a category by himself. He is the Bible scholar, critic, reviewer, computer consultant, and daily resource. There would have been no eleven titles, nor the revised editions of them, without his immeasurable patience and help.
Survivors of A.A. founders have had the most impact on this particular work. They are: Robert and Betty Smith, Sue Smith Windows, John F. Seiberling, Dorothy Seiberling, Mary Seiberling Huhn, Dorothy Williams Culver, Sally Shoemaker Robinson, and Nickie Shoemaker Haggart.
Oxford Group people, both former and present, in America and abroad, have given immensely of their time, treasured books, and memories. They are the Reverend Harry Almond, Kenneth D. Belden, Terry Blair, the Reverend Howard Blake, Charles D. Broadhead, Sydney Cook, Charles Haines, Mrs. W. Irving Harris, Michael Henderson, James Houck, the Reverend T. Willard Hunter, Michael Hutchinson, Garth D. Lean, Mary Lean, Dr. Morris Martin, Dr. R. C. Mowat, Eleanor Forde Newton, James D. Newton, Richard Ruffin, L. Parks Shipley, Sr., George A. Vondermuhll, Jr., and Ted Watt.
Clergy who rendered special comments, assistance, and insight are Father Paul B., the Reverend Steve Garmey, the Reverend Tom Gray, the Reverend Dr. Richard L. McCandless, the Reverend Dr. Nonnan Vincent Peale, the Reverend Dr. Charles Puskas, Jr., and the Reverend Douglas Seed.
Others who provided special resources and other kinds of support were Frank M., archivist at A.A. General Services in New York and his staff; Nell Wing, A.A.’s fIrst archivist; Ray G., archivist at Dr. Bob's Home; Gail L., archivist for Founders Day in Akron, Ohio; Paul L., archivist at Stepping Stones; Matjory Zoet Bankson at Faith at Work; Dr. Ernest Kurtz; Martha Baker; Dr. John Campbell; Leonard Firestone; Raymond Firestone; Robert Koch; the Thomas Pike Foundation; Mrs. Walter Shipley; R Brinkley Smithers; Dr. Enoch Gordis; and Dr. Paul Wood of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.
There have been a host of A.A. and AI-Anon oldtimers, archivists, historians, and collectors who have responded to queries, sent books and historical items, and opened their treasures for inspection. They include David A., Mel B., Charlie B., Paul B., Dennis C., Earl H., Mitch K., Joe McQ., Tim M., Charlie P., Bob P., Bill P., Ron R, Bill R, Robert R, Dave S., Grace S., Sally S., Eddie S., Jay S., Joe S., George T., Berry W., Charles W., Jim W., Bruce W., Danny W., and Fay and Bob W.
The men on Maui whom I sponsor and the members of our Bible fellowship have helped in many ways. They are: Bob, Cody, Jeff, Katy, Nathanael, Patrick, Shane, and Tamara. Thanks also to my sponsor Henry B. and my grand-sponsee Robert T. Special thanks also to my daughter-in-law, Cindy, who has always helped and been available for endless tasks. I owe a special debt to Matt G., who, as a member of our Bible fellowship, rendered great assistance in checking footnote accuracy against the innumerable references to the Bible, to Twelve Step literature and histories, and to the religious literature applicable to this work.
Chapter One
Lest We Forget Early AAs and Their Bibles!
Alcoholism, substance abuse, and their often attendant addictions can be, and frequently are, deadly, terrifying, productive of despair, financially devastating, and morally destructive. A recent annual report from the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University declared, as to the American people alone:
•18-and-a-half million are addicted to alcohol or abuse it.
•Some 12 million abuse legal drugs, such as tranquilizers, amphetamines and sleeping pills.
•Two million use cocaine weekly, including at least half a million addicted to crack.
•Up to one million are hooked on heroin.
•Half a million regularly use hallucinogens such as LSD and PCP.
•Some 1 million, half of whom are teenagers, use black-market steroids.
•The financial costs of substance abuse approach a staggering $400 billion annually.
To these figures, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse has added that some seventy-five million American lives are impacted by the disease of alcoholism. Technical reports and newspaper accounts of the day make it clear that interdiction, prohibition, prevention, punishment, intervention, treatment, therapy, counseling, and "self-help" groups are not even close to eradicating these problems.
Such was not the picture as it looked on June 10, 1935, and continued through the early 1940's. In that period, an age-old solution had been rediscovered out of the helplessness of medicine, the message of assured deliverance in the Bible, and the desperate experimentation of a handful of drunks who sought to rely exclusively on the power of God.
If one is prepared to accept the following verdict from a staff member of a world-renowned hospital, many doctors and psychiatrists agree to the following:
What you [the staff member said to several AAs] say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholic's plight is, in my opinion, correct. As to two of you men [in Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930's], whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from Divine help. Had you offered yourselves as patients at this hospital, I would not have taken you, if I had been able to avoid it. People like you are too heartbreaking. Though not a religious person, I have profound respect for the spiritual approach in such cases as yours. For most cases, there is virtually no other solution.
The spiritual solution was most definitely the power of God Almighty. A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson said the following:
God knows we've been simple enough and gluttonous enough to get this way, but once we got this way [became real alcoholics], it was a form of lunacy which only God Almighty could cure.
A.A. was not invented Nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous. Who invented AA? It was God Almighty that invented AA.
What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him [the real alcoholic] willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker-then he knew. Even so has God restored us all to our right minds.
We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength.... All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God.
A.A.’s other co-founder Dr. Bob was equally explicit in his personal narrative in A.A.’s Big Book editions:
If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you .... Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!
In an article published in A.A.’s official publication in July 1951, shortly after Dr. Bob's death, the famous medical writer Paul de Kruif wrote:
The medicine the AAs use is unique. Though it should be all-powerful, it has never been tried with any consistent success against any other major sickness. This medicine is no triumph of chemical science; has needed no billion dollar scientific foundation to discover it; does not come in capsules or syringes. It is free as air-with this provision: that the patients it cures have to nearly die before they can bring themselves to take it. The AAs' medicine is God and God alone. This is their discovery.
And there is no doubt that the foregoing names for God and comments about Him were a direct product of the Bible study which took place daily in early A.A. Let's look at Dr. Bob's comments:
Dr. Bob, noting that there were no Twelve Steps at the time [from mid-1935 to early 1939] and that "our stories didn't amount to anything to speak of," later said they were convinced that the answer to their problems was in the Good Book .... As Dr., Bob recalled: "I didn't write the Twelve Steps. I had nothing to do with the writing of them.... We already had the basic ideas, though not in terse and tangible form. We got them ... as a result of our study of the Good Book."
He [Dr. Bob] cited the Sermon on the Mount as containing the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.
If someone asked him, [Dr. Bob] a question about the program, his usual response was: "What does it say in the Good Book?"
Dr. Bob donated that Bible [the one he carried to meetings] to the King School Group [A.A. Group No.1], where it still rests on the podium at each meeting. Inside is an inscription: "It is the hope of the King School Group-whose property this is-that this Book may never cease to be a source of wisdom, gratitude, humility, and guidance, as when fulfilled in the life of the Master" [Jesus Christ]. It is signed "Dr. Bob Smith. "
Bill Wilson, a former atheist, was gun-shy when it came to mentioning the dominance of the Bible in the early scene. But the following is reported in A.A.'s official biography of him:
Bill [when he moved in with Dr. Bob and his wife Anne in the summer of 1935] now joined Bob and Anne in the Oxford Group practice of having morning guidance sessions together, with Anne reading from the Bible. "Reading from her chair in the corner, she would softly conclude, 'Faith without works is dead. ,,, The Book of James was considered so important, in fact, that some early members even suggested "The James Club" as a name for the Fellowship.
Dr. Bob's wife Anne wrote in the journal she shared with A.A. pioneers:
Of course, the Bible ought to be the main Source Book of all. No day ought to pass without reading it.
Clarence Snyder, who founded A.A. in Cleveland and was responsible for its tremendous growth in 1939 and the early 1940's, said: "Everything in this program came from the Bible."
Wrapping up his 1938 survey of the early recovery program,
A.A.’s Trustee-to-be Frank Amos reported to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.:
He [the alcoholic] must have devotions every morning-a "quiet time" of prayer and some reading from the Bible and other religious literature. Unless this is faithfully followed, there is grave danger of backsliding.
A word or two about the Bible in our society today. The Bible still appears to stand as America's Number One authority on the matter of "divine help." A recent survey by George H. Gallup, Jr., and Robert Bezilla (issued by the Princeton Religion Research Center), which appeared in The Maui News on September 16, 1994, bears the headline" Bible still best seller, but lessons being lost." Gallup and Bezilla began their article as follows:
It never appears on the bestseller lists, but the Bible is the nation's perennial best-selling book.
And we believe that, just as the Bible still stands as America's top best seller, it stood in the 1930's as number one on the early AAs' reading and study list for information on divine help.
We believe those concerned with preventing and treating the devastating problems of alcoholism and drug dependence will want to consider two questions: (1) Is a knowledge of the Biblical roots of A.A. of major importance today in Twelve Step programs, the religious community, and in the treatment arena? (2) Is there substantial, credible evidence that early AAs took most of the basic ideas for their highly successful recovery program of the 1930's from the Bible, which they affectionately called the "Good Book"'] One will not understand the importance of knowing the biblical roots of the Twelve Steps without also understanding that A.A. (the Number One success group) is undergoing a plummeting rate of recovery while being asked to process vastly increasing numbers of alcoholics and addicts. Let's examine the success rate of the 1930's and compare it with widely reported failures in the alcoholism and addiction arena today.
Early A.A.'s Success Rate Compared to Today
Early A.A. claimed at least a seventy-five percent success rate among those who really tried. Early AAs, who were deemed "medically incurable" in the late 1930's, actually recovered from their seemingly hopeless disease at that very high percentage rate. And many observers in and out of A.A. underlined, and/or corroborated the early AAs' seventy-five percent claims. Bill Wilson himself contended there was an 80 % success rate. Early Cleveland AAs actually recorded a 93% success rate there. And in his famous 1941 Saturday Evening Post article about A.A., Jack Alexander said AAs claimed 100 % success among non-psychotic drinkers.
Yet these high percentage rates of yesteryear do not depict the A.A. success rate today-a fact to which any active AA can attest. Those of us who regularly attend A.A. "birthday," "chip," or "anniversary" meetings can observe that the number of people who rise to celebrate their A.A. birthday quickly decelerates after the first year; and very very few stand at these meetings and exhibit significant, long-term sobriety.
To be sure, A.A.'s numbers have increased from perhaps 100 in the late 1930's to some two million in 1996, but the percent who recover today is tiny compared to that in the early years. And these are facts which have been observed both within and without of the rooms of A.A. As a caveat, we need to add that it is very difficult to "survey" a fellowship which has no members as such; which claims it ought never be organized; whose attending people are not consistent in the meetings they attend or the groups to which they belong; and which keeps no rosters, does not conduct research, and has difficulty keeping in touch with its own groups, meetings, and the floaters who come and go. That said, there have been some creditable observations about today's success rate.
First, in its own 1989 A.A. Membership Survey and Analysis,
A.A. General Services in New York stated the following:
Half those coming to A.A. for the first time remain less than three months approximately 50% of those coming to A.A. leave within three months.
Unfortunately there seems to be no way in which the reasons for departure can be determined .... It is little comfort to suggest that many who leave return later, because those who have done that are already counted in the numbers shown here. After the first year, survey results show that attrition continues, but at a much slower rate. [After providing a number of graphs, the survey closed as follows:] Individuals may rebel against this result as contradicting our time-honored statement that "half get sober right away, another 25 % eventually make it, » etc. That statement applies to observations made at an earlier time, and there is no reason to doubt that changes in society and in A.A. since that time could create a different circumstance today.
While the figures were difficult for this author to interpret and express in clear terms, the Survey then set forth percentages of those surveyed who have been sober for varying lengths of time. In the first year, it reported 34.5 %; 13.3 % in the second year;
17.2 % for five to ten years; 6.8 % for ten to fifteen years and then figures for intervals of five years that move from 2.8% to .1 % at 40 to 45 years.
Dr. Enoch Gordis, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, delivered an address on April 30, 1989, to The Membership Survey was transmitted on January 22, 1991, to Enoch Gordis, M.D., Director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Gordis provided the author with a copy and Gordis's own comments.
The Board of Directors of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Dr. Gordis furnished the author with a transcript in which Dr. Gordis stated:
I believe that much of our field's present difficulties with public skepticism is the misleading message that we have all been putting out.... The misleading message is this: that treatment is a solved problem, and that the main issue in treatment is motivation and referral-all you have to do is to get John or Mary to become aware of their problem, then go to AA meetings, to the NCA affiliate office, or to the treatment program and everything will be OK. But everything is not OK for most patients. And, although we all are aware of the tremendous relapse rates in our field, we continue to foist upon the public this misleading message in TV shows, in the literature, on bus and train posters, and in many other public places (p. 4, italics in original).
Even if we were to assume that AA was the magical solution for everybody, which Bill Wilson never claimed, note first that after 54 years, less than 5 percent of the alcoholics in this country are involved with AA. . . . The second thing is the very high relapse rate in our field. The fact of the matter is that only a minority of people do very well. . . . I think we all know that only a minority of patients do very well, while the majority either bounce from one treatment to another with some periods of sobriety or disappear altogether from the treatment world. These are the facts! Not that some patients don't do well. And those who recover through AA must consider themselves blessed (pp. 6-7).
An article in the Akron Beacon Journal reporting on A.A.'s Founder's Day Weekend in June, 1995, quoted Scott Tonigan, Ph.D., deputy director of the Research Division at a Center on Alcoholism in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as follows: "It is an axiom in the field that about 75 percent of those who tum to AA drop out by the end of the first year.,,27 As stated, similar facts on the negative side were supplied to the author (from A.A.’s own surveys and from other data) by the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at Rockville, Maryland.
Joan Matthews-Larson, Ph.D., wrote an article for The PHOENIX, April, 1997, issue. It was titled: "An End to the Revolving Door of Treatment." Quoting Dr. Gordis, the writer then asked:
Would you sign on for surgery that had a 75% failure rate?
Then she wrote:
In 617 independently done follow-up studies, conventional (psychologically-based) treatment has an average success of 24 percent. The Rand Corporation Report, which followed 900 males from six NIAAA Treatments Centers over a four-year period, found only 21 percent sober after the first year, and seven percent still sober in the fourth year.
Referring to a Kansas City Veteran's Administration Medical Center study of three groups: (1) those who got no treatment at all; (2) those who received an abuse only; and (3) those who got a full range of treatment services, including Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr. Matthews-Larson reported:
At the end of one year, here's how the three groups compared: 1) no treatment of the alcoholics were still drinking (76 percent failure); 2) an abuse only of the alcoholics were still drinking (80 percent failure); and 3) full treatment services out of were still drinking (80 percent failure).
Whatever the reasons, alcoholics who go to Alcoholics Anonymous are not coming close to achieving the successes that their brothers and sisters did in the early pioneer days when God Almighty was the cure and the Holy Bible was the guidebook.
So the question is: Should the Twelve Step, recovery, and religious communities continue to ignore the fact that something good, something dramatic, and something uniquely successful was developed in those early, heady A.A. years of the 1930's. And do they really want to forget the major spiritual tool that produced the results?
As they review the following quotes from A.A.’s own "Conference Approved" literature, people in the Twelve Step, religious community, and recovery programs may want to revisit in detail early A.A.’s highly successful spiritual roots and practices. We believe these people do not wish to be uninformed as to a vital early A.A. tool, nor miss the opportunity to bring their own expertise to bear with that information in mind, nor compromise their contributions by pointing to ideas that are not producing a high success rate in Twelve Step programs today.
And these are some quotes we offer for consideration:
1. To the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous:
[On the importance of learning what early A.A. ideas meant in their highly successful, experimental days:] Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.
[As to A.A.'s program resting on spiritual verities, rather than treatment techniques:] THE OTHER SIDE: During a meeting one day, I remarked that I was just tickled to death with this A.A. program-all but the spiritual side of it. After the meeting, another member came up to me and said, "I liked that remark you made-about how you like the program-all but the spiritual part of it. We've got a little time. Why don't we talk about the other side of it?" That ended the conversation.
[On the danger of A.A.'s forgetting its spiritual roots:] Whenever a civilization or society perishes, there is always one condition present. They forgot where they came from.
2. To churches, the clergy, and the religious community in general:
[On the fact that AAs themselves bowed to the expertise of established religion when they were formulating their program:] As a society we must never become so vain as to suppose that we have been the authors and inventors of a new religion. We will humbly reflect that each of A.A.'s principles, every one of them, has been borrowed from ancient sources .... Let us constantly remind ourselves that the experts in religion are the clergymen; that the practice of medicine is for physicians; and that we, the recovered alcoholics, are their assistants.
Big Book, p. 47; also in Came to Believe: The spiritual Adventure of A.A. as Experienced by Individual Members (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1973), p. 1.
Came to Believe, p. 6 (italics in original). A quote from historian Carl Sandburg, which is frequently used by A.A.’s current archivist, Frank M., in his talks about the origins of A.A.-a quote Frank used in a program on the spiritual roots of A.A. in which the author participated several years ago, and which Frank used again at A.A.’s 1995 International Convention in San Diego. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pp. 231-32.
[On the fact that early A.A.'s religious emphasis was not on a particular sect, denomination or religion, but rather on the Bible itself:] The Bible was stressed as reading material, of course.
[On the facts about the Good Book and Jesus Christ, Cleveland
A.A. Founder Clarence Snyder said:] Since our A.A. program was based on the Word of God, God says there is no access to Him except through His Son Jesus Christ [See John 14:6]. That was the basis for getting the kids on their knees and meeting Jesus.
[On the fact that A.A. itself could not provide enough spiritual information for Bill Wilson's own growth, Bill said:] Some AAs say, "I don't need religion, because AA is my religion." As a matter of fact, I used to take this tack myself. After enjoying this simple and comfortable view for some years I finally awoke to the probability that there might be sources of spiritual teaching, wisdom, and assurance outside of AA. . . . AA didn't try to answer all my questions. . . . Neither science nor philosophy seemed able to supply me convincing answers .... Though still rather gun-shy about clergymen and their theology I finally went back to them-the place where AA came from. . . . I here cast up AA's debt to the clergy: without their works for us, AA could never have been born; nearly every principle that we use came from them. . . . Almost literally, we AAs owe them our lives, our fortunes, and such salvation as each of us has found.
3. To physicians, therapists, counselors, and recovery center staffs:
[On the fact that distinguished medical and psychiatric people humbly declined to trench on religion's jurisdiction over A.A.'s root ideas:] Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: "Doctor, I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!" Faced with this problem, if the doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. . . . One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change.
[On the fact that AAs could predetermine their demise by the same kind of stubborn resistance to God that they displayed to admitting their alcohol problem:] Mine was exactly the kind of deep-seated block we so often see today in new people who say they are atheistic or agnostic. Their will to disbelieve is so powerful that apparently they prefer a date with the undertaker to an open-minded and experimental quest for God.
The author believes it will be immensely valuable to learn the following points involved in the subject of our exploration-A.A.'s roots in the Bible:
1. If, as is commonly acknowledged, A.A.’s success rate is declining even as its numbers have, until lately, been increasing geometrically, is it not important to learn everything possible about the major source of A.A.’s ideas during the period it produced miraculous results among those who really tried?
2. We believe we can show how the pages of A.A.’s Big Book and the language of its Twelve Steps can be significantly illuminated by understanding what early AAs really meant when they used phrases from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible-phrases such as "Thy will be done," "Faith without works is dead, " and "Love thy neighbor as thyself. " Understanding can also be enhanced through knowing where AAs borrowed such ideas as "willingness," "humility," and the "experiment of faith." Therefore, why not approach A.A.'s program in the light of what the early, successful AAs actually meant when they used Biblical terms instead of fashioning self-made substitutes which have no present-day success rate to conform their utility?
1. If, as we've shown, A.A.’s own founders humbly conceded that they had learned their ideas elsewhere than from alcoholics, that they had not invented their own religion, that they were not theology experts, and that much could gained from turning to root sources, why not learn what those root sources were?
2. If, as we think A.A. history discloses, the spiritual elements of early A.A. have become subject to what A.A.’s religious mentor, the Reverend Sam Shoemaker, Jr., called "half-baked prayers," "absurd names for God," and self-made religion, why not enlighten Twelve Step people and the religious and recovery communities by showing how much can still be contributed to Twelve Step recovery by searching its Scriptural foundations and understanding its Biblical roots?
The Historical Evidence of A.A.'s Good Book Roots
There is an abundance of clear and convincing evidence establishing that Alcoholics Anonymous-early Alcoholics Anonymous-had its roots finally planted in the Bible. There is also ample evidence establishing that countless basic ideas and quotes from the Bible found their way directly or indirectly into A.A.’s basic text and Twelve Steps of recovery.
But there is a problem with specifics. To be sure, Dr. Bob told early AAs that such A.A. slogans as "First Things First" and "One day at a time" came from certain verses in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. However, with such minor exceptions, neither of A.A.’s co-founders, Bill and Dr. Bob, ever really graced us with records, speeches, or writings stating this specific idea, this specific phrase, or this specific step in their Big Book came from this specific verse, chapter, or idea in the Good Book. And that has caused some doubters and critics to question whether there is convincing historical proof that A.A. took its basic ideas from the Bible.
As we will see, there is a solution to the problem of specificity. To begin with, A.A.'s co-founders stated very clearly that A.A.'s spiritual principles came either from the Bible or from "A First Century Christian Fellowship" from which A.A. sprang. Also, "A First Century Christian Fellowship" (the Oxford Group) and its writers stated clearly that their fellowship and its principles came from the principles of the Bible. During the period in which A.A. was an integral part of the Oxford Group, Dr. Bob and many other early AAs referred to their society and its meetings as "a Christian fellowship. ,, And the spiritual principles enunciated by the Bible, the First Century Christian Fellowship, and A.A. are, in many instances, an exact match. In fact, A.A.’s principal writer and co-founder Bill Wilson demonstrated the existence of roots outside of A.A. by stating with ever-increasing particularity as the years rolled by that "every" idea in A.A. came either from medicine, or from religion, or from A.A. experience. The principles were all borrowed, he said.
To the author it therefore seemed clear that one could determine what A.A. borrowed from the Bible by simply matching up the language and statements in A.A.’s Big Book and Twelve Steps with the language and teachings in A.A.’s Biblical roots. And though this appears never to have been done, the evidence established the links almost to the point of demonstration. To be sure, there is little or no A.A. eye witness verification. There is little or no A.A. textual proof. As far as we can tell, there is no statement by either Bill Wilson or Dr. Bob that such Big Book expressions as "Thy will be done," "Faith without works is dead, " and "love thy neighbor as thyself" (all exact quotes from the Bible found in the Big Book) had any relationship whatever to the Good Book. In fact, the co-founders seem rather clearly to have chosen not to say so in their Big Book references to Biblical phrases. One of the earliest AAs in New York, a Christian named John Henry Fitzhugh M., lost his battle to have A.A. literature be specific about its Biblical roots; and one A.A. historian states that "Fitz" headed up a group which wanted A.A. to espouse Christianity and declare Jesus Christ as the "Higher Power.,, Whatever may be the precise details, Fitz very definitely lost his battle just as A.A.’s Big Book was going to press-a point of A.A.’s history that has been widely reported by A.A. itself.
Nonetheless, we believe that the specifics about what A.A. borrowed from the Bible have not been lost-merely shelved. We were and are certain they could and can be learned.
What Dr. Bob and Other Akron AAs Said
Always terse and practical, A.A.’s co-founder Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, whom A.A.’s knows as "Dr. Bob," put his finger on A.A.’s four most basic Biblical sources. In his last major address to AAs in 1948, Dr. Bob said:
When we started in on Bill D., we had no Twelve Steps .... But we were convinced that the answer to our problems was in the Good Book. To some of us older ones, the parts that we found absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the Book of James.
Then, as to four particular early A.A. spiritual principles, Dr. Bob added, "The four absolutes, as we called them, were the only yardsticks we had in the early days, before the Steps. " The "Four Absolutes" were the basic moral standards or "yardsticks" of the Oxford Group, of which, as we will discuss, A.A. was an integral part in the 1930's. And the Oxford Group's four standards came from the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some in the Oxford Group believed the Absolutes were derived directly from Dr. Robert E. Speer's study of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus's four moral standards can be found there. But Dr. Speer and other Oxford Group mentors and writers developed the standards from several of Jesus's teachings (including, among others, those in the Sermon on the Mount) and from the New Testament Church Epistles of Paul.
A pamphlet published by "AA of Akron" and written at the request of Dr. Bob states:
There is the Bible that you haven't opened for years. Get acquainted with it. Read it with an open mind. You will find things that will amaze you. You will be convinced that certain passages were written with you in mind. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew V, VI, and VII). Read St. Paul's inspired essay on love (I Corinthians XIII). Read the Book of James. Read the Twenty-third and Ninety-first Psalms. These readings are brief but so important.
The Bible tells us to put "first things first" [Matthew 6:33].
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things itself [sic]. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.-Matthew VI, 34. Those words are taken from the Sermon on the Mount. Simply, they mean live in today only. Forget yesterday. Do not anticipate tomorrow. You can only live a Christian one day at a time and if you do a good job of that, you will have little trouble.
The Akron pamphlet is not A. A. "Conference Approved," but it had the statement on its cover that it "was written and edited by members of Alcoholics Anonymous of Akron, Ohio, . . . among [whose] Akron members are one of the founders, the fIrst person to accept the program, and a large number of other members whose sobriety dates back to 1935, 1936, and 1937. ,,
Another Akron, Ohio, A.A. pamphlet of the 1940's-published by the Friday Forum Luncheon Club of the Akron A.A. Groups-summarized the following from a "lead" (address) given by Dr. Bob in Youngstown, Ohio:
Members of Alcoholics Anonymous begin the day with a prayer for strength and a short period of Bible reading. They find the basic messages they need in the Sermon on the Mount, in Corinthians and the Book of James.
Still another Akron pamphlet said:
Remember this simple thing: The entire structure of the Christian religion is built on Love. The word has many synonyms, such as Charity [1 Corinthians 13], Grace, Good-will, Tenderness, Generosity, Kindness, Tolerance, Sympathy, Mercy, and others. . . . Spirituality is simply the act of being unselfishly helpful. If you will start with this simple explanation, you will find that the green light has been flashed on. Christ taught that there are two great commandments: to love God; and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you can follow these you will have no trouble.
And another said:
WE ARE TOLD from the very beginning that AA is a Spiritual program, but many of us are perplexed by the meaning of the word. There IS NO MYSTERY in the Spiritual side of AA. As a matter of fact, the good active member is practicing Christianity at all times whether or not he knows it. . . . The Spiritual program of AA is a simple and basic thing, as simple as attendance at Sunday School of our childhood. In Sunday School we were not asked to listen to sermons, and about the only prayer we knew was the simplest and best, The Lord's Prayer. We were told the stories of David and Goliath, Samson and his amazing strength, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan. As we grew older we learned something of the history of religion, something about the more complex parts of the Bible. When we outgrew Sunday School we were ready to take part in Church with a fair understanding of what it was all about. Boiled down to its essence, Christianity, in fact Spirituality is simply LOVE.
Akron's Spiritual Milestones was filled with biblical materials:
When you hear an AA say "I can't understand the spiritual angle of the program," note that it is almost invariably said wistfully. In other words, he would LIKE TO UNDERSTAND the spiritual program. And that in itself is a humble gesture. For humility is teachability, the willingness to learn, keeping an open mind. . . . Consider the words of St. Paul, whose memory of wrongdoings in the past led him to write to the Corinthians (1-15:9) "For I am the least of the apostles, that I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." He then goes on to say "But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." These words of deepest humility from the man who, more than any other, kept alive by his perseverance and faith the Christian religion!
We cannot pray for something that is apparently out of our reach, then sit back and expect God to dump it in our laps. But if we pray sincerely, then do our part by taking dynamic action, even things we thought beyond attainment will fall like ripe plums. St. Paul put it this way: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4: 13).
Practice charity. This is simply another way of saying practice the Twelfth Step. The unselfish helping of others is the practice of love, upon which Christian philosophy is based. Remember at all times our Lord's two commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. And ... thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
The God of the New Testament is like Dad, kindly and helpful, full of compassion and ever ready to forgive. We should always strive to make God a companion rather than someone from whom we constantly demand gifts.
Ponder the words of St. Paul: "Be not deceived; evil companionships corrupt good morals." (I Corinthians 15 :33).
THUS THE STORY of three men who found God in their darkest hours. They are not unusual. History is full of dramatic conversions. Perhaps the story of St. Paul is the most familiar. We read in the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, how Saul, a persecutor of the Church, was stricken blind near Damascus and heard the voice of Jesus gently chiding him.
Changing his name to Paul, he became the most dynamic force the church has ever known. Some three centuries later came another miraculous conversion that made a lasting and vital impression on Christianity .... [H]e [St. Augustine] heard a voice say over and over, "Take up and read." Believing it to be a divine command he turned at random to a page in a volume of the Apostles and found himself reading what today we find in Romans 13: 13, 14: "Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (It is strange how many passages in the Bible seem directly aimed at us alcoholics.) And St. Augustine, through reading that passage, found peace, and went on to become one of the greatest theologians.
"Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted form the world." -The General Epistle of James 1:27 .... All we need to do in the St. James passage is to substitute the word "Alcoholic" for "Fatherless and Widows" and we have Step Twelve.