Dick B., Author and A.A. Historian, has recommended three reliable sources for early AA meeting formats

Early A.A. Meeting Formats

 

Dick B.

© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved

 

There are three reliable and complete sources of information on the early A.A. Meeting Formats of A.A. Akron Number One Group:

 

1.     Frank Amos visited and investigated Akron, interviewed the Akronites, and rendered a summary of the “program” as he learned and reported it from a large number of different Akron  people. You can find it in the A.A. General Service Conference-approved book DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 131. See also Dick B. and Ken B., Stick with the Winners!” http://mcaf.ees50q

 

2.     Largely from DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, as well as from books, manuscripts, and interviews, we were able to learn the sixteen practices that the early Akron A.A. Group Number One Christian Fellowship actually did to implement the program summarized by Frank Amos. See also Dick B. and Ken B., “Stick with the Winners!” http://mcaf.ee/s50mq.

 

3.     Two new sources have emerged from our research and writing. The first is Dick B. and Ken B., Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous. These personal stories were very specific renditions by the pioneers of what they did and accomplished. http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw.

 

Because the entire First Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous became so expensive, and because A.A. itself had removed all but three of the personal stories in subsequent editions, Dover Publications, Inc. phoned me, told me they were going to reprint the First Edition in trade paper. They were referred my way by Bonnie B., Manager of the Wilson House and Griffith House Library in East Dorset, Vermont.

 

They asked me to write an introduction; and my explanatory introduction will help you see the Akron A.A. program specifics told in story form by the pioneers. It will help you see the substantial differences between the specifics of the early Akron A.A. program and the “new version” Bill W. and Hank Parkhurst framed primarily from Oxford Group ideas obtained from Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker and from points made by William D. Silkworth, M.D. and by Professor William James. See Alcoholics Anonymous The  Original 1939 Edition With a 23-Page Introduction by Dick B. http://mcaf.ee/j4hq5

 

 

Gloria Deo