The Fundamentals – In Retrospect, AA Grapevine, Dr Bob, Sept, 1948

Extracts:

“As finally expressed and offered, they [the Steps] are simple in language, plain in meaning. They are also workable by any person having a sincere desire to obtain and keep sobriety. The results are the proof. Their simplicity and workability are such that no special interpretations and certainly no reservations have ever been necessary”.

“We are not bound by the thongs of theological doctrine”.

“We have found it wise policy, too, to hold to no glorification of the individual. Obviously, that is sound. Most of us will concede that when it came to the personal showdown of admitting our failures and deciding to surrender our will and our lives to Almighty God, as we understood Him, we still had some sneaking ideas of personal justification and excuse. We had to discard them but the ego of the alcoholic dies a hard death. Many of us because of activity have received praise not only from our fellow A.A's but from the world at large. We would be ungrateful indeed to be boorish when that happens yet it is so easy for us to become, privately perhaps, just a little vain about it all. Yet, fitting and wearing halos is not for us.

We've all seen the new member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsor-worship. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk and you know what usually happens. Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk too. He has been glorifying an individual instead of following the Program.

Certainly we need leaders but we must regard them as the human agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as individuals”.

“Our organization needs no title-holders nor grandiose buildings”.

“In as large an organization as ours, we naturally have had our share of those who fail to measure up to certain obvious standards of conduct. They have included schemers for personal gain, petty swindlers and confidence men, crooks of various kinds and other human fallibles”.

(our emphases)

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

Your Third Legacy, December, 1950, Dr Bob and Bill

See also Links and downloads 

PS For AA Minority Report 2013 click here

Conference Questions (2012) forum discussion (contd)

Committee No. 1

Question 2:

“Would the Fellowship ask itself the question: “Are there too many meetings and not enough groups?”

Background

Traditions 4, 7

Pamphlet ‘The AA Group’

The Home Group: Heartbeat of AA

Consider the contribution to the carrying of the message, financial and practical implications when deliberating each question.”

Extracts

“I think the revival of the “Little Rock Plan” does have something to do with AA’s lack of growth and problems concerning unity, since it inverts the principles of AA Traditions. I wonder if Conference delegates, the General Service Boards of AA World Services, AA Grapevine Inc., the General Service Board in Great Britain, and those serving at regional, intergroup and group levels have not erred too much on the side of being led by the group conscience over the last 30 years or so, instead of leading the group conscience on AA Traditions via concept IX on certain issues.

At Conference 2000, the question was asked: How well is the transfer of delegated authority understood at group, intergroup and regional level within our structure? Is the trusted servant provision fully understood? Make recommendations.

Answer: The transfer of delegated authority is, in general, poorly understood at all levels. In addition the trusted servant provision is not fully understood. (Committee 5 Question 3)

This poor understanding of the transfer of delegated authority doesn’t appear to have changed in the last twelve years and it has laid the fellowship wide open to exploitation by outside enterprises.

In the 1970s, Little Rock, Arkansas, produced another alcoholic with a plan which has striking similarities to the 1947 version in its coercive sponsorship and study. The 1947 plan was met with an outcry at the time including H.E.T.’s exclamation: “Good grief and little fishes! What have they got out there in Little Rock, Ark.--a concentration camp?”(AA Grapevine November 1947). It is therefore not surprising that the modern revival of the Little Rock plan has brought with it similar comparisons to a concentration camp with AA members referring to others as “Step Nazis” in Great Britain. It appears the term “Nazis” has also been coined in the USA:

"A lot of AAs are very rigid," according to one of my university professors. "Some turn into AA Nazis," she says. "There's no room for people who need to work a different kind of program." This woman is experienced and skilled with reaching troubled adolescents.” (Let the Dogs Bark, What do you say to AAs critics? AA Grapevine October 2004)

With the outside publication of a sponsorship guide to promote this Little Rock alcoholic’s plan for the fellowship and his treatment centres using this plan to sponsor newcomers into the fellowship, I’m sure few would disagree that this outside interference in our affairs has had a major influence on the fellowship. On a website which is providing help and support for people leaving AA the following post was made: (Names have been shortened to initial, to hopefully comply with this forum moderation. Although this could be construed technically as an opinion on an outside issue, I would disagree for the following reason: It represents an opinion on an outside interference in the affairs of AA which has already drawn AA into public controversy and therefore it is not an outside issue, but one which the fellowship as a whole needs to address without delay according to warranty five.)

"I have my doubts that “the F[ellas] [ie. aacultwatch]…” will be taken seriously, but I congratulate them on trying! We have a lot of J[oe] and C[harlie] worship in my area, we have a couple of treatment centers that use their “R[ecovery] D[ynamics]” program. It is very strange to hear some young guy from a hard upbringing, no more than 25 years old, spouting 1930′s sentax like a programmed machine, except with the fire of an evangelical preacher. That’s what R[ecovery] D[ynamics] will give you though. That and the people in the treatment centers being forced to endure painful dental surgeries and other medical procedures with no pain medication allowed afterward. Brain washing and torture.The best slogan spouting examples of the most recent graduates of these RD treatment centers are kept on as “assistant staff”. In other words, they get to make the newer clients obsessively analyze the alcoholic motives of their recurring belly-button lint and the center pays them next to nothing for their trouble since they are eternally grateful for the love of the center." (Border Collie Mix, 28th October 2011, on a website helping people leave AA)

I wonder if the inclusion of the Little Rock Plan in “Home Group: Heartbeat of AA” even the concept of the “Home Group” itself, has been led not by AA Traditions, but by the influential promotion of this alcoholic’s plan for the fellowship.

In 2010 another outside organization published a 12 step guide for use within AA [The Last Mile Foundation]. The organization specifically targets AA members, the vulnerable who may need medication, with “emotional sobriety”, as quoted on its website:

“We want and we encourage AA members to refer alcoholics to us who fit our demographic, especially those who are talking about going on medication or into a treatment program or talk therapy; most importantly, before they do so.”

From reading the guide, website and promotional workshop flier picked up at a local AA meeting in my area, I would call it ego feeding emotionalism, preying on the vulnerable, dangerous both to vulnerable individuals and to AA as a whole. But I wonder if this outside interference into our affairs is also leading the board of AA Grapevine Inc. to new publications such as “Emotional Sobriety 1” and “Emotional Sobriety II”?

Yet another sponsorship guide is being advertised as soon to be published, by another outside organization which has already published doctrinal AA meeting guides.

The comparison between Dr. Bob’s AA Grapevine editorial “On Cultivating Tolerance” (AA Grapevine July 1944) and the university professor’s comments in “Let the Dogs Bark, What do you say to AAs critics?” (AA Grapevine October 2004) shows how far some AA groups have moved away from the original flexible and all inclusive principles of A.A. to a rigid and exclusive dogma.

Dr. Bob’s all inclusive flexible approach to the programme with his analogy of the wheel with radiating spokes, each spoke allowing the individual AA newcomer almost unlimited ways in which to approach and interpret the programme; irrespective of religious belief, cultural or social backgrounds; inclusive to all those who need to work a different kind of program. Whereas the comment of the university professor in 2004 shows some AA groups are now rigid and exclusive: "A lot of AAs are very rigid," according to one of my university professors. "Some turn into AA Nazis," she says. "There's no room for people who need to work a different kind of program." (Let the Dogs Bark, What do you say to AAs critics? AA Grapevine October 2004).”

Cheerio

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

ON CULTIVATING TOLERANCE

By Dr. Bob Smith, July 1944, AA Grapevine©

"During nine years in AA, I have observed that those who follow the Alcoholics Anonymous program with the greatest earnestness and zeal not only maintain sobriety but often acquire finer characteristics and attitudes as well. One of these is tolerance. Tolerance expresses itself in a variety of ways: in kindness and consideration toward the man or woman who is just beginning the march along the spiritual path; in the understanding of those who perhaps have been less fortunate in education advantages; and in sympathy toward those whose religious ideas may seem to be at great variance with our own.

I am reminded in this connection of the picture of a hub with its radiating spokes. We all start at the outer circumference and approach our destination by one of many routes. To say that one spoke is much better than all the other spokes is true only in the sense of its being best suited to you as an individual. Human nature is such that without some degree of tolerance, each one of us might be inclined to believe that we have found the best or perhaps the shortest spoke.

Without some tolerance, we might tend to become a bit smug or superior - which, of course, is not helpful to the person we are trying to help and may be quite painful or obnoxious to others. No one of us wishes to do anything that might act as a deterrent to the advancement of another - and a patronizing attitude can readily slow up this process.

Tolerance furnishes, as a by-product, a greater freedom from the tendency to cling to preconceived ideas and stubbornly adhered-to opinions. In other words, it often promotes an open-mindedness that is vastly important - is, in fact, a prerequisite to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual.

These, then, are a few of the reasons why an attempt to acquire tolerance should be made by each one of us.

Dr Bob of Akron"

(our emphases)

Comment: Cult members might like to consider the above rather carefully 

Cheerio

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

Tolerate all but the intolerant!



Time for AA to wake up! An AA member's analysis

"Ultimately the solution to this lies in awareness and action by intergroups. I think that at the moment the fellowship is still in the stage of waking up to implications as to what is happening. I think this movement represents the beginning of all the ingredients of what Bill W. outlined in concept XII, warranty five, the grave situation of a split running right accross AA and the formation of a separate fellowship, with the exception that this new separate fellowship has no intention of separating, so the onus is on AA to insist on conformity to tradition four or initiate the separation. The concept is clear that such a situation demands action. The longer this movement is left alone , the more damaging to AA it will be.

Why the primary purpose approach to carrying the message is not AA, is summed up quite nicely in the the words of both Bill W and Dr. Bob:

" A very tough minded prospect was taken to his first AA meeting, where two speakers (or maybe lecturers) themed their talks on "God as I understand Him." Their attitude oozed arrogance. In fact, the final speaker got far overboard on his personal theological convictions. Both were repeating my performance of years before. Implicit in everything they said was the same idea: "Folks, listen to us. We have the only true brand of AA- and you'd better get it!" The new prospect said he'd had it- and he had. His sponsor protested that this wasn't real AA. But it was too late; nobody could touch him after that." (Bill W.) from: Arrogance and its opposite, Page 199, As Bill Sees It.

"As finally expressed and offered, they (the twelve steps) are simple in language, plain in meaning. They are also workable by any person having a sincere desire to obtain and keep sobriety. The results are proof. Their simplicity and workability are such that no special interpretations and certainly no reservations have ever been necessary......" (Dr. Bob) from: Dr. Bob and The Good Old Timers, page 227.

I think the message here in the words of Bill W and Dr. Bob are that the interpretations of the AA progamme, published on the internet and by ego driven indivualists such as Mess'rs Dick B, Wally P, Joe MacQ, Cliff B and Myers R are perhaps best used to kindle a bonfire.

Keep up the good work"

A counter to idolatry

The Fundamentals--In Retrospect (extracts from the Grapevine article - full version available via AA Grapevine website)
　
"September 1948

......As finally expressed and offered, they [the Steps] are simple in language, plain in meaning. They are also workable by any person having a sincere desire to obtain and keep sobriety. The results are the proof. Their simplicity and workability are such that no special interpretations, certainly no reservations, have ever been necessary. And it has become Increasingly clear that the degree of harmonious living which we achieve is in direct ratio to our earnest attempt to follow them literally under Divine guidance to the best of our ability.

YET, withal, there are no "shibboleths" in A.A. We are not bound by the thongs of theological doctrine. None of us may be excommunicated and cast into outer darkness. For we are many minds in our organization and an A.A. decalogue in the language of "Thou shall not" would gall us indeed.

Look at our 12 Points of A.A. Tradition. No random expressions these, based on just casual observation. On the contrary, they represent the sum of our experience as individuals, as groups within A.A. and similarly with our fellows and other organizations in the great fellowship of humanity under God throughout the world. They are entirely suggestive, yet the spirit in which they have been conceived merits their serious, prayerful consideration as the guidepost of A.A. policy for the individual, the group and our various committees, local and national.

We have found it wise policy, too, to hold to no glorification of the individual. Obviously, that is sound. Most of us will concede that when it came to the personal showdown of admitting our failures and deciding to surrender our will and our lives to Almighty God, as we understood Him, we still had some sneaking ideas of personal justification and excuse. We had to discard them but the ego of the alcoholic dies a hard death. Many of us because of activity have received praise not only from our fellow A.A.s but from the world at large. We would be ungrateful indeed to be boorish when that happens yet it is so easy for us to become, privately perhaps, just a little vain about It all. Yet, fitting and wearing halos is not for us.

WE'VE all seen the new member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsor-worship. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk and you know what usually happens. Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk too. He has been glorifying an individual instead of following the Program.

Certainly we need leaders but we must regard them as the human agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as individuals. The 4th and 10th Steps can not be too strongly emphasized here--"Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. . .continue to make personal inventory. . .promptly admit it when we are wrong." There is your perfect antidote for halo-poisoning.....

........ we have no V.I.P.'s nor have we need of any. Our organization needs no title-holders nor grandiose buildings. That is by design. Experience has taught us that simplicity is basic in preservation of our personal sobriety and helping those in need.
.......

Dr. Bob

Akron, Ohio"
(our emphases in bold print)

(thanks to the AA member who drew our attention to this essay)

The Fellas