Alcoholics Anonymous History
A.A.’s Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions
Dick B.
Copyright 2012
Anonymous. All rights reserved
When a Christian Shares His Own Experience
I received an email (part of which is set forth in this
article) which asks my view on how a Christian can share his faith in an A.A.
or N.A. meeting without violating the “Traditions.”
Of course, I can’t and don’t speak either for A.A. or N.A.
Nor can I or do I purport to be an interpreter of what is right or wrong,
consistent or inconsistent, permissible or “forbidden” by the Twelve Traditions.
Nor even as to precisely how one should “take” the Twelve Steps..
Preliminarily, I do say that I can share my experience. I do say that the
“Traditions” are neither laws nor rules nor governing edicts. They are simply
suggestions that arose when, just before Dr. Bob’s death, Bill Wilson proposed
as “traditions” some ideas from his own experience that he felt would help
maintain the unity of his 12 Step fellowship program and its groups.
But no police force was established back then.
There are no A.A. police. A.A. leaders do not govern. There
is no power to “enforce” the ideas of Bill Wilson, Dr. Robert Smith, A.A.
General Services, the Traditions, some A.A. leader, some A.A. group, or even
some individual member. There is no index of forbidden books, and fellowship
members can do or say or read or write what they like, whatever the clamor the
remarks might cause. In fact, retiring A.A. “senior” advisor, former General
Manager, and former Trustee Bob P. spoke specifically to this problem and the
growing rigidity he had observed in his years of service.
Let’s address the matter of unity. Bill explains the matter
well when he talks about the fellowship and the common solution upon which, he
says, all can agree in harmonious action. Let’s talk about what happened just
after Dr. Bob’s death when Bill felt quite free to have two Jesuit priests
(Fathers Ed Dowling and John Ford) edit his Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
Let’s talk about the almost contemporaneous St. Louis Conference where, in
1955, Bill felt quite free to have Father Ed Dowling, S.J. and Rev. Samuel M.
Shoemaker, Jr. (the Episcopal rector from whom Bill had learned most of the
steps) speak to AAs. Let’s talk about Bill’s feeling quite free five years later
to have a Roman Catholic clergyman and Dr. Shoemaker (for the second time)
address AAs at their Long Beach convention. Let’s talk about the religious
endorsements Bill sought for his books from Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick and
others.
Did any of these religious activities, writings, or speeches
jeopardize A.A. unity?
Apparently Bill didn’t think so; and they really marked a
period of enormous growth in A.A. that has now diminished. The common solution
in A.A. is not unity. It is God. And yet in today’s A.A. members are free to
believe in God, in not-god, in no god, or in nothing at all. That freedom may
or may not promote unity, but it certainly doesn’t exclude God or A.A.’s
reliance on Him in its Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and Big Book. Unity
comes from recognition of what works based on the experience of AAs themselves.
And what works is reliance on God; or at least that is our great history of
what worked in the beginning. And there is nothing in the Traditions that
rejects or suppresses or prohibits that solution or the sharing of that
solution.
That said, the real approach for me is how effectively to
help the alcoholic who still suffers—how to bring to him or her the same love
and service that was brought to me when I entered the rooms almost 23 years
ago. It is also how to be free, as a Christian and Bible student and active
recovered AA, to tell how God did for me what I could not do for myself. For
that is precisely the approach that Bill’s “sponsor” Ebby Thacher used when
Bill wanted to argue about religion.
Ebby simply told Bill that God had done for him what he
could not do for himself. That language is quoted in the Big Book, and it is
repeated in the so-called “promises” contained in the Big Book. Moreover, page
29 of the latest editions of the Big Book, points out that, in the personal
stories, each individual, in his own language and from his own point of view,
tells how he established his relationship with God. That should have settled
once and for all what an individual AA could talk about in his own language and
from his own point of view.
Now what of the Christian in A.A.?
What about his or her own victory and cure through belief in
God and coming to Him through Jesus Christ? Can he or she say this? Should he
or she feel constrained by Twelve Traditions? Does the adoption of Twelve Steps
written in 1938 and published by Bill in 1939 somehow intrude on a Christian’s
freedom to explain to other AAs, to newcomers, and in A.A. meetings how he
established his relationship with God and recovered?
A quick look at page 191 of the Fourth Edition of the Big
Book published in 2001 will show that Bill Wilson proclaimed that the Lord had
cured him and that he wanted to keep talking about it and telling people. It
also will show that A.A. Number Three not only endorsed Bill’s statement, but
said it represented the “golden text” of A.A. for him and for others (See Dick
B., The Golden Text of A.A.).
Perhaps the greatest problem for both the Christians who
speak and the naysayers who object is that they simply don’t know their own
roots, their own history, and the things that their own founders and pioneers
said freely and repeatedly through the years. They also may not know that those
founders and pioneers, in Akron, achieved a documented 75% success rate among
those who really tried. And how the Cleveland AAs achieved a documented 93%
success rate—utilizing the Big Book, Steps, Four Absolutes, Bible, and “most of
the old program.”
In fact, the latest edition of the Big Book openly tells
them about this on page xx. My objective for the past twenty-six years of
continuous sobriety has been to make these facts evident to all who wanted to
know them.
Here is part of the email I received—a question I receive
with great frequency
“Hi Dick !
Hope this note finds you in good health and excellent
Spirit. I am still. . . very active in sharing the Good News of the Gospel in local
recovery meetings (AA and NA). I will be leading a group this coming Thursday
to discuss how us Christians can share our faith in AA and NA meetings and yet
not violate any of the traditions (mainly Traditions 1 and 10). Have you ever
written any articles about this issue? I would be interested in your thoughts
on this matter. I feel that as we share our experience, strength and hope we
can bring our faith into the mix. I would support sharing via many
"I" statements, stay away from "you" statements. Tie the
sharing of my faith to Steps 2 and 3 i.e. "I turned my will and my life
over the Jesus Christ" and Step 11 to talk about God's will for me.
There is significant demonic activity in . . . the recovery
meetings. I am fully aware how the father of lies and his demon spirits invade
men and women and their minds. It very much is a spiritual battle and I am
looking for all the practical and useful ways to proclaim Christ wherever I go
and especially in AA and NA. God bless and regards.”
Here is an edited and enhanced part of the reply I wrote:
“I favor the history approach and also the one-on-one
approach rather than “sharing.” The question is how to share effectively with a
newcomer what God has done for you in such a way as to love and serve that
newcomer who still suffers. The “Traditions” have no relevance when it comes to
that point. If you read or quote or paraphrase accurately our own
history—particularly when you work with
“A.A. General Services Conference-approved literature”—you can hardly go
wrong in applying it to your own recovery experience.
Thus:
You don’t violate traditions if you share how you
established your relationship with God (Big Book, page 29).
You don’t violate traditions if you quote Dr. Bob and his
remarks about where AA came from (These are specifically and well-stated in The Co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous:
Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks.)
You don’t violate traditions if you quote Bill Wilson on
page 191 of the Big Book where Bill told the wife of A.A. Number Three: “The
Lord has cured me of this terrible disease, and I just want to keep talking
about it and telling people.”
You don’t violate traditions if you tell people the
Christian devotionals Bill and Bob and the pioneers used, and which are
specifically named in DR. BOB and the
Good Oldtimers. These include The
Runner’s Bible, The Upper Room, My
Utmost for His Highest, and The
Greatest Thing in the World. See The
Books Early AAs Read for Spiritual Growth, 7th ed.
You don’t violate traditions if you point out that you, like
Dr. Bob and the pioneers, believe that the answer to our problems is in the
Good Book and that the parts considered absolutely essential are Jesus’ sermon
on the mount, the Book of James, and 1 Corinthians 13. See The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their
Last Major Talks.
You don’t violate traditions if you describe your own
understanding of God and say so.
You don’t violate traditions if you quote the last sentence
of Dr. Bob’s story on page 181. And say, as Dr. Bob did, Your Heavenly Father will
never let you down!
You don’t violate traditions if you stand your ground when
someone spouts off and you quote your sources in A.A. history and literature.
But quote them accurately!”
General Comment
There is too much fear among some Christians in A.A. and
N.A. They timidly retreat when they mention their Creator, Jesus Christ, the
Bible, religion, church, and their faith. Why? Those matters are widely discussed
in their basic text Alcoholics Anonymous.
In fact, now that Dover Publications has published its reprint of the
Original 1939 Big Book, you can read how freely the pioneers talked about these
things as they shared their old school experiences.
There is no authority that can or could or would keep them
or me from feeling quite free to say, in a lead talk, in a meeting, or with a newcomer,
exactly how they or established their relationship with God, were cured, and
declare that the founders were right when they concluded that: (1) God had
restored them to sanity, (2) He had done for them what they could not do for
themselves, (3) their Heavenly Father did not let them down.
Consequently, my suggestions on “taking” the Twelve Steps as
a Christian newcomer and taking someone through the Steps as a Christian
sponsor are stated in my title, Twelve
Steps for You: Take the Twelve Steps with the Big Book, A.A. History, and the
Good Book at Your Side.
Bill Wilson was right when he said that fear is sand in the
machinery of life. The Bible speaks plainly that “God has not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” A familiar
passage from Proverbs that was used in early A.A. was “Trust in the LORD with
all thine heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways
acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” As a favorite passage from the
Book of James said: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Giving in to fear, to intimidation, to criticism, and to
unauthorized “governors” was never intended for the AA who finally recognized
his only hope was reliance on the power and love and grace of God!
Gloria Deo
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