Benjamin
Disraeli
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 1995. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Recovery Rates & chips
From: t . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/25/2004 12:58:00 PM
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Peter,
To those unfamiliar with actual membership in AA, I think it may well have
made
sense
to compare number of chips sold as a elementary attempt to compare numbers of
those
who start the program to numbers who achieve sobriety ... unfortunately, in
real
AA
life there are complications inherent in that ...
How many 'desire chips' are picked up by any one individual? How many members
claim
to have collected a 'drawer full' before achieving sobriety? How many pick up
a
'desire chip' each day/meeting for first week/month or more? ...And that
doesn't
even
address the question of how many replacement desire chips sober members may
pick
up.
[How many desire chips have I taken during my time in the program? Many more
than the
number of yearly chips. I can quickly count at least three that I have right
now. To
me personally, a desire chips mean so much more than any other I might have no
matter
how many X's, V's or I's it might have] ...
How many folks stay sober but have quit picking up yearly/birthday chips? How
many
pick up multiple 'birthday chips' -celebrating at different groups? How many
yearly
celebrants receive an old chip from their sponsor and group doesn't have to
buy
them
a new one? There's also the question of whether to count all yearly chips or
just the
1-year chips?
The underlying assumption that a one-to-one correspondence between chips
-- members starting the program, or achieving a year's sobriety-- just is not
there
in practice in our groups [at least not anywhere I've attended meetings]. And
I'm not
sure how one could come up with quantifying just what sort of number
relationship
there might be between those two chips.
There's an added problem of comparing desire chips to yearly chips --the
growth
factor of the fellowship.
... [if we could really compare them] you would not compare desires chips
given
this
year with yearly chips given this year. You would need to somehow go back and
compare
desire chips given last year to yearly chips given this year, or desire chips
given
in 1974 to 30-year chips given this year.
As far as the decline in numbers of desire chips ... how much of that is based
on
folks not qualified for the program being referred, or going 'on their own',
to
more
appropriate sources for help? How much is based on the push in the 90's to
quit
the
practice of offering them to sober members for 'a little extra emotional
support'?
[remember when groups did that?]
Probably not all the decline is due to those or other similar reasons, but I
personally believe that a rather large part are.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 1996. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Re: Earliest Printing of
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
From: Arthur Sheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/25/2004 6:33:00 PM
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Hi Dennis
I found 3 references in the listings of Conference Advisory Actions.
1953:
Delegates weigh this question for submission to the 1954 Conference: Does the
Conference feel it should depart from its purely textbook program by printing
non-textbook literature such as the "24 Hour Book of Meditation"? (Literature
Committee)
1954:
The publication rights of Twenty-Four Hours a Day not be accepted. (Floor
Action)
1972:
The Twenty-Four Hour Book not be confirmed as Conference-approved literature.
(Literature Committee)
Cheers
Arthur
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Mardon
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 6:29 AM
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Re: Earliest Printing of Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Thanks to Glenn C. for posting that history of the early writing, printing
and distribution of the Twenty-Four Hours a Day book by Richard W.
I seem to remember that prior to or maybe concurrent with the Hazelden
opportunity there was consideration given to the book becoming the property
of AA publishing. In fact, I believe it may have been considered more than
once by the General Service Conference in the early 1950's. I don't have a
copy of Advisory Actions handy. Can anyone shed more light on this?
Dennis M.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 1997. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Recovery rate.
From: Arthur Sheehan . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/25/2004 6:38:00 PM
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
This doesn't make sense and it comes across a lot more as mythology rather
than history. We are supposed to be a history group. The data circulated are
not even subjected to the barest minimum of analysis and scrutiny. The mere
fact that a Group puts something on a web site, or that an Intergroup Office
publishes a paper, does not automatically endow the data with accuracy and
relevance.
Flawed data gathering techniques, and flawed assertions of cause and effect,
remain flawed regardless of where they reside or who constructed them.
Historical analysis is supposed to consist of some measure of scholastic
scrutiny coupled with some minimal attempt at verification or refutation of
the accuracy of the data observed.
The example cited for the Houston data illustrates its own flaws. Desire chips
sold in 1996 are used to represent the number of members coming into the
Fellowship that year. Ten year chips are used to represent the number of
members who have stayed in the Fellowship for ten years. This then is used in
a formula where the number of 24 hour desire chips sold that year are divided
into the number of ten year medallions sold that year and that somehow
produces a "success rate" for Houston, TX for that year.
Aside from a dubious premise, the rounding of the results of the arithmetic
performed is flawed. 707 divided by 24,246 yields .029 (which would
approximate 3% not 2%). Also 707 divided by 40,000 yields .0176 (which would
approximate 2% as opposed to 1.5%). It seems that the numbers are rounded down
to exaggerate failure.
Other considerations that make what the data are purported to reflect quite
suspect are:
1. Members picking up desire chips are presumed to pick up one and only one.
This serves to exaggerate the presumed number of people coming in (perhaps
exponentially). How many AA folks have you heard say "I have drawer full of
desire chips."
2. The number of members presumed to be celebrating ten years is likely
substantially understated. If someone who stayed sober for a decade moved away
from the Houston area, and didn't purchase a ten year medallion in Houston, it
would be inferred as a failure even though they may be quite happily sober
wherever they moved to.
3. Likewise, if someone stayed sober without attending AA any longer it would
also be inferred as failure. There are other little factors such as mortality
rates where over the ten year period someone dies (sober) of natural causes it
too would be inferred as failure. In addition, if someone who started ten
years ago slipped and sobered up again, and is counted in one of the other
annual groups, it would also reflect as a failure for the 10 year group.
Many of the postings of "success rates" in AAHistoryLovers seem to have a
flair for the dramatic and notions of impending doom. A number of people seem
hell-bent on knocking down the success achieved by AA by using flawed data,
flawed arithmetic and flawed presumptions and conclusions.
When AA started in 1935 it did so with two members. Today, after almost 70
years, world-wide membership is conservatively projected at 104,589 groups and
2,066,851 members (per the 2004 Conference report). Instead of celebrating the
obvious (i.e. a rather remarkable demonstrated track record over seven
decades) there seems to be a fixation of pursuing both the morbid and obscure
(i.e. using the sale of chips and medallions to infer how many people are
failing to stay sober).
Cheers
Arthur
----- Original Message -----
From: R. Peter Nixon
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:32 PM
Subject: RE: [AAHistoryLovers] Recovery rate.
Hello,
In response to Johnny's question, the following is an excerpt from an
article entitled, "Don't Drink and Go to Meetings". The entire article may
be found on the Primary Purpose Group of Dallas, Texas' website:
http://www.ppgaadallas.org/aa_articles.htm
In love and service,
Peter N.
Vancouver, BC
..."Let's take a look at what appears to be happening as is reported in one
of our major cities in the Southwest (Houston).
NUMBER OF CHIPS SOLD BY THE INTERGROUP OFFICE IN 1996
Desire---------------------24, 246-----------------100%
30 days---------------------8,839-------------------36%
60 days---------------------5,960-------------------25%
90 days---------------------5,019-------------------21%
6 mos.-----------------------3,370-------------------15%
1 yr.--------------------------2,102---------------------9%
2 yr..-------------------------1,170---------------------5%
5 yr..----------------------------707---------------------3%
10 yrs.--------------------------560---------------------2%
20 yrs.--------------------------143-------------------0.6%
30 yrs.---------------------------26--------------------0.1%
For the year 1997, the number of "desire chips" sold was reduced to 22,191.
For 1998, the number dropped to 19,504. For 1999, 16,285 Desire Chips were
sold. The other statistics remained the same. So how well is your group
doing?
A very disturbing observation from the 1998 statistics is that 592
medallions were purchased for AA's celebrating 10 years of sobriety. The
total number of folks taking "desire chips" in 1988 was in excess of 40,000.
Did only about 1.5% apply our Program?"
-----Original Message-----
From: Johnny Hughes [mailto:drofjoy@nc.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 7:56 PM
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Recovery rate.
Hello all you history lovers....
Somewhere I read an article about someone doing research on the present
recovery rate and they had secured information from a large intergroup
source concerning the number of white chips purchased by local groups and
the number of blue chips purchased by local groups which gave some
indication.
Does anyone know of this article or any other source concerning the present
recovery rate experienced by AA?
Thanks....
In His Service
Johnny H.
Fayetteville, NC
"Remember, Bill, let's not louse this thing up. Let's keep it simple"
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 1998. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Dates on the 20 questions
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/27/2004 12:21:00 AM
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Dear JP,
I don't think A.A. ever copyrighted those questions, nor could they have if
they came from the medical faculty at Johns Hopkins. I don't know when the
earliest version was drawn up at Johns Hopkins, but the Test Questions began
appearing in A.A. literature at a very early date.
In terms of the dates when they first began to be used in A.A., these Test
Questions, which were always credited to Johns Hopkins University Hospital to
the best of my knowledge, appeared for example in the Detroit Pamphlet
entitled Alcoholics Anonymous: An Interpretation of the Twelve Steps, also
known as the Washington D.C. Pamphlet (editions were also published in
Oklahoma and on the west coast of the U.S.). See
http://hindsfoot.org/Detr0.html and especially http://hindsfoot.org/Detr1.html
The Detroit/Washington Pamphlet gives 35 Test Questions, a longer version than
the 20 Test Questions that you have discovered.
This pamphlet was clearly not used in Detroit until after they began holding
their first beginners meetings on June 14, 1943. Bobby Burger at the New York
A.A. office refers to the pamphlet in its Washington D.C. version in a letter
to Barry Collins in Minneapolis dated November 11, 1944. See pages xiii-xiv of
Bill Pittman's Foreward to Hazelden's 50th Anniversary Edition of The Little
Red Book for the full text of her letter.
I believe on the basis of my own research so far that the Detroit A.A. people
originally wrote the pamphlet (presumably using it at first in a mimeographed
version) but it seems fairly clear that Washington D.C. published the first
printed version. If this is so, the Detroit/Washington Pamphlet was written
somewhere in the year and a half period between June 1943 and November 1944,
although closer to the beginning of that period than to the end.
Jack H. (Scottsdale, Arizona) emphatically disagrees with me on this. He
believes that pamphlet originally came out of Minneapolis, just like The
Little Red Book.
Jack does have a mimeographed Instructor's Manual from the Nicollet Group in
Minneapolis which gives one of the short versions of these Test Questions, and
he believes strongly that this version went back almost to the very beginning
of A.A. in Minneapolis, since beginners meetings were conducted there, he
says, even before the Nicollet Group was formed. The first group in
Minneapolis was formed in November 1940, and the Nicollet Group was not
founded until December 1943.
So in terms of the dates you asked for, we have one A.A. version which I know
of which probably went back to the second half of 1943 (or not much later) and
another A.A. version which may have been used as early as 1941.
Other members of the AAHistoryLovers may be able to come up with earlier
examples of these Test Questions being used in A.A. writings prior to that
time. Hopefully someone could come up with some sort of date for when someone
at Johns Hopkins first drew up these questions.
Modern mental health professionals scoff at these Test Questions and do not
regard them as scientifically valid. At the practical level though, it is
quite amusing to see a newcomer who is still in partial denial about being an
alcoholic take this test, noting the expression on the person's face when the
person comes to the end of the test and realizes how it is scored. Many A.A.
people like the test because they take a kind of humorous pleasure in having a
test where they can point proudly to a score of 100% without even having to
study for it.
Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana)
butterfly2479 wrote:
The 20 questions are often sited and used
in various re-written forms...I am aware
that AA has Its' use of them copyrighted now,
and contained in one of its' pamphlets.
But it appears to have been used by varying
sources for many years before this.
Can anyone verify the ORIGINAL date on the
JOHN HOPKINS TEST FOR ALCOHOLISM.
And what are your sources please?
thanks JP
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/219olB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go
to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
AAHistoryLovers-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
++++Message 1999. . . . . . . . . . . . Richmond Walker and New York 1953-1954
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/26/2004 11:30:00 PM
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Dennis M. and Art S. have both written about the decision in New York in
1953-4 not to help Richmond Walker publish and distribute Twenty-Four Hours a
Day, and Art cited the Conference Advisory Actions involved, which was the
ultimate outcome of Rich's request. In fact it was never even seriously
considered in New York at that time for financial reasons. It was an
impossibility.
New York was so desperate to come up with the money to publish the Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions in 1953, as we remember, that they had to make a
deal where a commercial publisher published some of the books on the
commercial market in return for printing other copies for the New York A.A.
office.
I have heard people try to explain why this did not really violate the Twelve
Traditions, which forbid ANY kind of entanglement between A.A. and outside
interests, particularly outside commercial interests, but I have never found
it truly convincing. At any rate, the New York office was absolutely desperate
to somehow get Bill Wilson's book out in print. They certainly didn't have the
money to take on any additional books even if they had wished to do so.
I'm sure the feeling in New York at that point was that Richmond Walker was
doing a whole lot better than they were, by far, because he had managed to
keep Twenty-Four Hours a Day in print since 1948. Not only had he not gone
into serious debt, he was sometimes making a slight profit (which he of course
promptly figured out how to send to the New York office to help keep it
going). Why was he asking them, of all people, for help?
If I understand correctly, there is speculation that Bill Wilson called the
First International Convention to meet in Cleveland in 1950, in part to
preempt plans which were being laid elsewhere (in Texas, if I remember
correctly) to hold an international AA convention there.
At any rate, it is clear that in the early 1950's, Bill W. was working very
hard to try to establish New York as the international A.A. center. Dr. Bob's
death in 1950 meant that Akron A.A. could no longer claim to be headed by one
of the two co-founders. It seems pretty clear that, by the early 1950's, Bill
W. was not interested in being too helpful to anyone who might appear to be
competition to New York's primacy.
In fairness to Bill, there were in fact forces at that point, when the A.A.
organizational structure was still almost wholly anarchic, which were
threatening to fragment A.A. into numerous rival recovery groups by a kind of
centrifugal force. It was in fact necessary to pick somewhere to be the
central office, and to fight (if necessary) to keep A.A. unified around some
viable center. The one surviving co-founder was in New York City, so that
seemed the obvious choice at that time.
Things did change though in all sorts of ways once past the year 1950. In the
late 1940's, for example, the New York A.A. office regularly bought numbers of
copies of The Little Red Book from Ed Webster in Minneapolis (according to
Jack H. in Scottsdale, Arizona, who found the invoices among Ed Webster's
papers). We must assume that these were then sold from the New York A.A.
office. The Little Red Book of course was Dr. Bob's baby -- he gave Ed Webster
lots of help in phrasing parts of the book, sent copies of it various places
(e.g. a number of copies to Florida A.A. people at one point) -- and otherwise
tried to promote it everywhere. And as Bill Pittman discovered, we also have
letters from the New York office all the way down to November 1950 saying that
The Little Red Book was a very good and helpful book for A.A. people
everywhere.
Ed Webster had also figured out ways to print and distribute copies of The
Little Red Book all over the United States and Canada without going in the
red. It was the New York A.A. office at that point which couldn't figure out
the financial side of how to get a book published.
After the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions was finally published in 1953,
Bill Wilson still had to worry about selling enough copies to break even. So I
don't think he was in any kind of mood to do anything to help "the
competition" at that point, such as Twenty-Four Hours a Day, and particularly
The Little Red Book, which was a straight rival to Bill's new book. Did Bill
Wilson go a little bit overboard at that point in trying to squeeze out any
possible competition to his own book? Opinions among modern A.A. historians
seem to vary greatly on that question. Those A.A. historians who identify
themselves with Akron A.A., or Cleveland A.A., frequently feel that Bill was
going to great and sometimes unfair lengths to squeeze out any competition and
to minimize the contributions of anyone who had not been part of his own
narrow circle in New York.
If this were so, it would be a great shame, for this was totally unnecessary.
I don't see how anyone who has worked the Twelve Steps could deny that the Big
Book and the Twelve and Twelve represent the inspired core of A.A. thought. If
we don't read those two books over and over again, all our lives, we will
never be able to truly grasp the really profound depths of the program. In my
own estimation, the other twelve-step groups (N.A., O.A., Emotions Anonymous,
and so on) are greatly weakened by not having anything truly equivalent to the
Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve. But this doesn't mean that nobody in A.A.
is allowed to read anything other than those two books.
The important thing to remember is that the traditional understanding in
genuine old-time A.A. was that any book which was sponsored by one A.A. group
Share with your friends: