“Separates the men from the boys” - 12 and 12 on Step Six

The opening paragraph of the chapter on Step Six in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: "'This is the Step that separates the men from the boys.' So declares a well-loved clergyman who happens to be one of A.A.'s greatest friends. He goes on to explain that any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults -- without any reservations whatever -- has indeed come a long way spiritually, and is therefore entitled to be called a man who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness of his own Creator." 

“It was almost certainly Father Ed Dowling who was the "well-loved clergyman who happens to be one of A.A.'s greatest friends."

But the dates make it a little awkward. The 12 + 12 was published in 1953, and Father Ed had had a retinal stroke by that point, and was left too blind to read. His sister (and others) were having to read to him. So he had heard the final draft of the 12 + 12 read to him aloud, but was surely not in any shape to make detailed comments on it, or additions to it, or whatever. This is important to remember.

And the only place I can find where Father Ed used that phrase in print was in an article he wrote in the NCCA (National Catholic Conference on Alcoholism) annual publication called the Blue book in that same year, 1953. If anybody can narrow down the exact time when the NCCA talk was given, and when the final draft of the 12 and 12 was finished, we might be able to see what the possibilities were that Bill Wilson could have read or heard some version of the NCCA talk before he wrote that particular part of the 12 + 12.

At any rate, here is the crucial paragraph in Father Ed's work:

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I think the sixth step is the one which divides the men from the boys in A.A. It is love of the cross. The sixth step says that one is not almost, but entirely ready, not merely willing, but ready. The difference is between wanting and willing to have God remove all these defects of character. You have here, if you look into it, not the willingness of Simon Cyrene to suffer, but the great desire or love, similar to what Chesterton calls "Christ's love affair with the cross."

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That paragraph is taken from "Catholic Asceticism and the Twelve Steps"

Reverend Edward Dowling, S.J., The Queen's Work, St. Louis, Missouri, NCCA Blue Book, 1953


In terms of the dates, it should also be remembered of course, that since Father Ed was Bill Wilson's sponsor, they could easily have discussed this idea in their private conversations long before 1953.

So from the wording and everything in the 12 + 12, I think Bill Wilson just about has to be talking about Father Ed Dowling. The phrase "a well-loved clergyman who happens to be one of A.A.'s greatest friends" does not seem to ring quite true if it were supposed to be talking about the Rev. Sam Shoemaker. The Rev. Sam abandoned AA to its fate in 1937 when a group of Oxford Group people in New York forced Bill and Lois out of the Oxford Group, and did not lift a finger to help their little group of recovering alcoholics survive.”

Source: AAHistoryLovers 

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous ….and serious research)

Our thanks to the AA member who pointed this correspondence out to us

See also: 

AA Recovery rates 
Primary Purpose/Back to Basics
Minority Report 2013