Aa history Lovers 2004 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page

with the other, and with the world outside. They involve relations of the A.A.

to his group, the relation of his group to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole,

and

the place of Alcoholics Anonymous in that troubled sea called Modern Society,

relevant is the problem of our basic structure and our attitude toward those

ever pressing questions of leadership, money and authority. The future may

well

regard our public relations. Our final destiny will surely hang upon what we

presently decide to do with these danger-fraught issues!

Now comes the crux of our

discussion. It is this: Have we yet acquired sufficient experience to state

clear-cut policies on these, our chief concerns? Can we now declare general

principles which could grow into vital traditions--traditions sustained in

the heart of each A.A. by his own deep conviction and by the common consent of

his fellows? That is the question. Though full answer to all our perplexities

may never be found, I'm sure we have come at last to a vantage point whence we

can discern the main outlines of a body of tradition; which, God willing, can

stand as an effective guard against all the ravages of time and circumstance.

Acting upon the persistent urge of

old A.A. friends, and upon the conviction that general agreement and consent

between our members is now possible, I shall venture to place in words these

suggestions for _An

Alcoholics Anonymous Tradition of Relations_--_Twelve Points to Assure Our

Future._

sequence of the Gv essays that Bill wrote do not follow the sequence of the

Traditions until December 1947 through November 1948 when he wrote an essay

for

AA Comes of Age).

His

essays from August 1945 to November 1947 were:

Plank for Good Public Relations - Aug 1945

'Rules''

Dangerous but Unity Vital - Sep 1945

The Book Is

Born - Oct 1945

A Tradition Born

of Our Anonymity - Jan 1946

Our Anonymity

Is Both Inspiration and Safety - Mar 1946

Twelve

Suggested Points for AA Tradition - Apr 1946

Money - May 1946

Policy on Gift

Funds - Jun 1946

The Individual

in Relation to AA as a Group - Jul 1946

Who Is a Member

of Alcoholics Anonymous - Aug 1946

Will AA Ever

Have a Personal Government - Jan 1947

Dangers in

Linking AA to Other Projects - Mar 1947

Clubs in AA -

Apr 1947

Hospitalization: One Great Need - May 1947

Lack of Money

Proved AA Boon - Jun 1947

Last Seven

Years Have Made AA Self-Supporting - Aug 1947

Traditions

Stressed in Memphis Talk - Oct 1947

Incorporations:

Their Use and Misuse - Nov 1947

The above

period of time was also when Bill was going through some of the worst of his

episodes of depression.

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;">

10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;">

-----

(Bill) [mailto:wlash@avaya.com]

*Sent:* Wednesday, March 31, 2004

1:35 PM

AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com

*Subject:* [AAHistoryLovers]

Traditions Question

12.0pt;">

Does anyone know why the Twelve Traditions are in the order

that they are in? Thanks!

12.0pt;">

Just Love,

Barefoot Bill

12.0pt;">

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++++Message 1737. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Alan Guiness/A Members Eye View of

AA

From: mlibby . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/3/2004 1:06:00 AM

His name was Allen McGuiness (deceased) and I believe he was from Southern

California. I love the pamphlet and have memorized a large chunk of it because

it is, in my opinion, the most beautiful expression of what AA is that I have

ever read. I'll send you separately a 15 minute excerpt from the pamphlet that

I recite daily on my way to work.

You can go to xa-speakers.org and search for "Allen" and you'll find a series

of five talks he gave in Brentwood, California back in 1968 called "AA

Workshop" or something to that effect. Tremendous....very much in line with A

Member's Eye View.

You can download those and learn a significant amount more about this man

through his sharing... He got sober in the early 1950's, went out shortly

thereafter, but came back. Thank God.

Mike

From: burt reynolds

To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 5:05 PM

Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Alan Guiness/A Members Eye View of AA

Does anyone know anything about the man whose speech became the pamphlet

"A Member's Eye View of AA"?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you Yahoo!?

Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online [5]

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++++Message 1738. . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Shoemaker Obituary (1964)

From: Lash, William (Bill) . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/5/2004 8:08:00 AM

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January 1964 AA Grapevine

In Memory of Dr. Sam

by Bill

ON Thursday, October 31, 1963 Dr. Sam Shoemaker, the great Episcopal clergyman

few without whose ministration AA could never have been born in the first

place - nor prospered since.

From his teaching, Dr. Bob and I absorbed most of the principles that were

later embodied in the Twelve Steps of AA. Our ideas of self-examination,

acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harms done and working

with others came straight from Sam. Therefore he gave to us the concrete

knowledge of what we could do about our illness; he passed to us the spiritual

keys by which so many of us have since been liberated.

We who in AA's early time were privileged to fall under the spell of his

inspiration can never be the same again.

We shall bless Sam's memory forever.

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++++Message 1739. . . . . . . . . . . . Significant April Dates in AA History

- Revised

From: NMOlson@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/6/2004 3:55:00 AM

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April 1:

1966 - Sister Ignatia died at the age of 77. She worked with Dr. Bob in

treating many early AA members at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron.

1984 - 12 Coconuts Group, Kapiolani Park, Waikiki, Hawaii, was founded.

[22]

April 3:

April 4:

who helped start the first AA group in St. Louis, had died at age 62.

April 7:

1941 - Ruth Hock reported there were 1,500 letters asking for help, as a

result of the Saturday Evening Post Article by Jack Alexander.

April 10:

1939 - The first ten copies of the Big Book arrived at the office Bill shared

with Hank Parkhurst in Newark, New Jersey.

April 11:

1938 - Alcoholic Foundation held its first meeting.

1939 - Marty Mann attended her first meeting a the home of Bill and Lois

Wilson in Brooklyn.

1941 - Bill and Lois Wilson moved into their new home, Stepping Stones.

April 12:

1942 - The Windsor Daily Star in Ontario, Canada, reported that over 400 AA's

attended a testimonial dinner for Dr. Bob.

April 16:

1940 - A sober Rollie Helmsley caught the only opening day no-hitter in

baseball history since 1909.

1973 - Dr. Jack Norris Chairman of the AA General Service Board, presented

President Richard Nixon with the one-millionth copy of the Big Book at the

White House.

April 17:

1941 - 2nd group in Los Angeles, the "Hole in the Ground Group" was formed.

April 19:

1940 - First AA group in Little Rock, Arkansas, was formed.

April 22:

1940 - Bill Wilson transferred his Works Publishing Stock to the Alcoholic

Foundation. The date on which Hank Parkhurst transferred his stock is

uncertain. See: Yahoo! Groups : AAHistoryLovers Messages : Message 75 of 1732

[23]

April 23:

Wilson insisted on them for Dr. Bob and Anne.

April 24:

1989 - Dr. Leonard Strong died. He was Bill's brother-in-law and an AA

Trustee.

April 25:

1951 - AA's first General Service Conference was held.

April 26:

1939 - Bill & Lois Wilson moved in with Hank Parkhurst after the bank

foreclosed on 182 Clinton St. This was the first of over 50 moves before they

acquired Stepping Stones.

April 30:

1989 - The film "My Name is Bill W.," a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation,

was broadcast at 9 p.m. on ABC TV.

Other April events for which we have no specific dates:

1940 - The "Texas Preamble" used to open meetings in Texas, was written by

Larry J. of Houston. See:

Yahoo! Groups : AAHistoryLovers Messages : Message 841 of 1732 [24]

1940 - The first AA pamphlet was published, entitled simply: "AA."

1958 - The word "honest" was dropped from "an honest desire to top drinking,"

in the AA Preamble.

1960 - Bill Wilson refused to be on the cover of Time Magazine.

1988 - Cybil C., the first woman member in Los Angeles and archivist, died.

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++++Message 1740. . . . . . . . . . . . Periodical Lit., REad, March 1945

From: Jim Blair . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/7/2004 7:15:00 AM

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Do You Drink Too Much?

A Professor of Psychology Tells Why PeopleDrink - and Offers Advice

By Peter J. Hampton

The moderate drinker avoids getting drunk. He does not seek intoxication. He

uses alcoholic beverages because he likes their taste and enjoys their

soothing effects. Occasionally he uses them also as a means of allaying

irritation and assuaging minor pains. Alcohol is not a necessity for the

moderate drinker. It constitutes only a small item in his budget.

More than half of the approximately 40,000,000 users of alcoholic beverages in

the United States fall into this category. They can take it or leave it alone,

for they have complete control over their drinking. This, more than anything

else, distinguishes the moderate from the habitual or intemperate drinker.

The habitual drinker uses alcohol almost every day but in view of his health

and tolerance for alcoholic beverages, he does not as a rule develop any

alcoholic disease. He indulges in alcohol for the lift he gets from it.

Alcohol breaks down his reserve and removes his inhibitions, and thus gives

him a chance to work up enthusiasm for social activities and self-expression.

Alcohol aids him, also, in covering up any neurotic faults he may have.

A credit manger for a retail store claims that drinking makes him a better

social companion and at the same time gives him a feeling of importance. "when

drinking," he says "I feel like 'a big shot' and have no worries."

An inspector of machine parts puts it this way: "Because of my backward and

timid nature, especially when I have to meet people, I take a few drinks to

bolster me up. I feel as though the only time I can assert myself is when I am

half drunk. I honestly believe that my being shy, timid, and having an

inferiority complex is the main reason for my drinking."

Unlike many of the 7,000,000 habitual drinkers, this inspector of machine

parts knows why he drinks. Knowing, he can help himself.

The neurotic drinker has to overcome his fear of people and things before he

can regain control over alcohol. The pleadings and prayers of others have no

effect on him. It is only when he shakes off his juvenile thinking and begins

to realize that peace, contentment, relaxation and happiness come from within

himself, and not from the inside of a beer glass, that he is on his way to

recovery from the bondage of liquor.

The remaining 3,000,000 users of alcoholic beverages in the United States,

grouped under intemperate drinkers, include the normal excessive drinkers,

symptomatic drinkers, stupid drinkers and alcoholic addicts. Recklessness,

exuberance and mistaken good fellowship are usually to blame for the

overindulgence of excessive drinkers. Many are individuals of high alcoholic

tolerance who could stop, but do not merely because there seems to be no

reason to do so.

The symptomatic drinkers are those individuals whose excessive drinking is the

result of a disturbed mental state. They may suffer from hysteria,

neurasthenia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, paranoia or manic depressive

psychosis. Their drinking is only one of the many debilitating symptoms of

their psychoneurotic or psy-chotic state.

Here is the story of a retail salesman who may be classified as a symptomatic

drinker:

"As nearly as I can remember," the salesman told me, "I began to drink heavily

in 1927. My average consumption of liquor per day then was two pints of hard

stuff. In 1930, I had my first bout with delirium tremens and was

hospitalized. When I got out, I resumed my drinking. During the next few years

I was under a doctor's care three or four times. In 1937 I married, more to

escape the family and be able to drink in peace than anything else....

"The courts got tired of seeing me and I was probated and sent to a mental

hospital. I stayed for thirty days and then got out on probation. Two months

later I was back at the hospital. This time I was placed in the strong ward

for incurables where I spent the next thirteen months. Thirty days after I was

let out, I was drunk once more. My wife got fed up with me and divorced me.

"My trips to the hospital continued, sometimes for delirium tremens, sometimes

for epileptic convulsions. Finally in September, 1943, I joined Alcoholics

Anonymous. I had my last drink on October 3, 1943, and haven't had the

slightest urge to drink since."

Our friend, of course, is far from saved, even though he has joined Alcoholics

Anonymous and has been sober for more than a year. A psychiatric examination

shows that he has the symptomatology of paranoia, psychasthenia and

schizophrenia, and, by his own admission, he has had epileptic convulsions.

His drinking is therefore symptomatic and not causative, and unless the cause

of his psychotic tendencies can be removed or ameliorated, he will at some

future time relapse into inebriety.

Stupid drinkers are the feeble-minded individuals who drink because they

cannot resist temptation and because they cannot rise to any higher form or

recreation than the passive one of intoxication. These are the unfortunate

individuals who, because of their low intelligence, cannot foresee the

consequences of their actions.

Finally, the alcoholic addict is a person with an uncontrollable craving for

alcohol. The outstanding criterion is the inability to break with the habit.

Alcohol serves the purpose of creating an artificial social and personal

adjustment.

A woman inspector at a watch-case factory tells this story: "At the time I

started to be a heavy drinker, I had become very discouraged, not having a

husband and a home of my own in which to rear my daughter. All the men I came

in contact with were heavy drinkers and I drank with them. I thought at the

time most men liked a woman who drank with them. I drank because my marriage

had been a failure."

A bond dealer adds: "It was difficult to live with myself. I was not an

upstanding citizen. I could not understand myself. I drank because of the

threat of divorce and because I was losing custody of my baby son."

From a social point of view, only the 3,000,000 intemperate drinkers

constitute a serious problem to society. The symptomatic drinkers and the

stupid drinkers, when detected, are as a rule hospitalized in state

institutions, with the result that society manages to keep them harmless. The

normal excessive drinkers, although troublesome at times, usually contain

themselves sufficiently to avoid being public hazards. The most pernicious and

the most dangerous of intemperate drinkers are the alcoholic addicts.

Unable to control their drinking, they will go to almost any length to satisfy

their craving for liquor. Although many of these people are likable and

intelligent, they often become dangerous to themselves and to others. Their

main difficulty lies in their absence of deep emotional responses, their

inability to profit from experience, and their disregard of social mores.

Between alcoholic sprees, they behave like perfectly normal people.

The inability of alcoholic addicts to profit from experience makes them

especially liable to asocial and antisocial deeds. The following excerpts,

taken from autobiographical sketches of alcoholic addicts in my files,

illustrate the point.

A district manager for a business concern writes: "When I was in high school,

I worked afternoons and Saturdays at a shoe store for $7 per week. Finding

that having money in my pocket all the time added to my popularity, I soon

began a system of petty thievery at the store."

A woman running a rooming house writes: "I gradually came to the point where

drink was the first thing in my mind. I would lie, steal and deceive to get

it. I became a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I treated my mother awful while under

the influence of liquor, but would do anything for her when sober. The same

thing with my daughter. I even thought of suicide to end the disgrace I was

causing my mother and daughter."

Within the last ten years, a group of alcoholic addicts, known as Alcoholics

Anonymous, have instituted a program of cure which has led many of these

people back to sobriety. In a recent study of the personality structure of

alcoholic addicts, I had an opportunity to question several hundred members of

Alcoholics Anonymous as to why they became heavy drinkers.

Many of the reasons offered are good reasons, but not necessarily the real

ones, for, like most other people, alcoholic addicts are past masters of the

art of rationalization. However, the consistency found in the statements

reveals a common trend which points to escape as perhaps the most fundamental

reason for excessive drinking.

The alcoholic addict may try to escape from himself. Drink makes him gay,

lively and happy. He forgets about his emotional immaturity, his feelings of

insecurity. He becomes noisy, even boisterous and defiant. He feels like "a

big shot" with no worries.

Instead of trying to escape from himself, the alcohol addict may try to escape

from other people. He may drink to escape the nagging of his wife, the

pettiness of domestic and business relations. Disappointed in his social and

financial ambitions, he may drink to escape all social responsibilities. He

may become depressed and morose and hides from people.

A manager for a construction company says: "I was unable to secure the

financial and social position I desired. I had an adolescent viewpoint-refused

to accept things as they were. I tried to find continued escape through

alcohol and hide my frustration."

Finally, the alcoholic addict may try to escape from the environment in which

he finds himself. He may use alcohol as a means to overcome the fears, worries

and anxieties brought on by the real world or as a straight defense mechanism

to substitute phantasy for all reality.

An advertising copywriter explains: "I used my first wife's desertion as an

excuse to drink. But I believe it was an effort to escape from all reality. I

drank because of boredom, frustration, anger and the weather."

A stenographer says: "I sought to find temporary escape from reality. Mother's

illness, which steadily grew worse until she was finally committed to a mental

hospital for senile dementia, made my life drab and miserable. I drank to

escape from it all."

These then are the reasons why people drink. There are many ways of finding

relief from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Alcohol is one of

the worst.

Source: Read, March, 1945

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++++Message 1742. . . . . . . . . . . . grapevine 6/1950

From: billyk3 . . . . . . . . . . . . 4/8/2004 4:22:00 PM

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does anyone know for sure who wrote this?

it was probably the 'editors' but if there is a name,

i'd like to know it. what a trbute to a wonderful lady!!

thanks

June 1950 AA Grapevine

ANNE SMITH

(March 21st, 1881 - June 1st, 1949)

"She greeted strangers, and listened for their names."

SOMEHOW we believe Dr. Bob's beloved Anne would prefer this simple

tribute beyond all others. It was written by one who knew her well.

It came from the bottom of a grateful heart which sensed that

extravagant language and trumpeting phrases would serve only to

obscure a life that had deep meaning.

It is doubtful if now, only one year after her passing, that, the

true significance of Anne Smith's life can be realized. Certainly it

cannot yet be written, for the warmth of her love, and charm of her

personality and the strength of her humility are still upon those of

us who knew her.

For Anne Smith was far more than a gracious lady. She was one of four

people, chosen by a Higher Destiny, to perform a service to mankind.

How great this contribution is, only time and an intelligence beyond

man's can determine. With Dr. Bob, Lois and Bill, Anne Smith stepped

into history, not as a heroine but as one willing to accept God's

will and ready to do what needed to be done.

Her kitchen was the battleground and, while Anne poured the black