Extracts
from the aacultwatch forum (old)
“Thanks
…... I agree Joe’s books are really simple, that’s the problem
I have with them. It’s all there in black and white, how to take
the steps and how to sponsor, according to Joe. Done and dusted; a
quick fix. I can understand their appeal. However, much of the way we
communicate is subconscious. The subliminal insinuated messages in
Joe’s writing are disturbing to me. Anyone who hasn’t much
knowledge of AA history will probably be unaware of them. For many
alcoholics recovery is not so simple. Nor is AA history as simple and
as black and white as Joe McQ portrays. He makes little distinction
between early AA groups and Oxford Groups. Early AA groups were not
Oxford Groups. He takes the 1935-1939 pre formative AA timescale
(Oxford Group/alcoholic group) out of its context and then mixes it
with the post 1939 early AA timescale. His account of the early AA
period (post 1939) doesn’t appear to distinguish between what was
the overall developing AA policy at the time and what were the
painful mistakes of inexperienced groups who were either
dictatorships or on rule making benders.
To me,
Joe McQ portrays a half truth of early AA history which leaves a very
distorted picture of the origin of the twelve steps, of AA history
and of sponsorship. His books just give you the white, as Joe
sees it, leaving out most of the black and shades of grey to be found
in the Alcoholics Anonymous World Service books. What Joe doesn’t
say is just as telling as what he does. To explain why I have a
problem with Joe’s books will take a number of posts, so I hope
you’ll bear with me. I’ll reference the posts with literature
published by AA World Services and AA Grapevine, so if you then wish
to do so, you’ll be able to check out what I have to say for
yourself. The first post will be a few things about the Oxford Group
that Joe doesn’t tell you, the 2nd will be a few things
from the early AA period that Joe doesn’t tell you, the 3rd
will be relating AA traditions to the reason why I have a problem
with his books. First post coming up soon….. “
“Here’s
the first post about the problem I have with Joe McQ’s portrayal of
The relationship between early A.A. and the Oxford group. The
beginnings of A.A. are complex because A.A. began simultaneously both
in New York and Akron. It is noted in the forward to “Dr. Bob and
the Good Oldtimers” that a joint biography of the Co-founders was
planned, but this proved impractical; therefore the biography of Dr.
Bob and the development of A.A. in the Midwest was published in “Dr.
Bob and the Good Oldtimers” and Bill W’s biography and the
development of A.A. in New York was published in “Pass It On”.
The development of AA in the Midwest around Akron is only half
the story. In this post I’ll focus on a couple of issues I have
with Joe McQ’s version of events and the development of A.A. in New
York.
Joe
McQ writes very simply about the Oxford Group as though it was a
successful and positive influence; Bill W got his ideas for the AA
program from the Oxford Group in Akron.
“…Buchman
was immediately successful. People who followed this procedure were
changed. The Oxford groups grew and spread. Realizing that these five
basic principles – these tenets – were the foundation of
Christianity (and other religions worldwide), Buchman called his
movement “First Century Christian Fellowship”… (Carry
this message p14)
..
“After visiting with the Oxford Group members in Akron, Bill went
back to New York with a better understanding of their program. And he
went back with knowledge of the powerful dynamics he had learned in
Akron: the problem, the solution, and the program of action…”
Carry This Message p18)
“Bill
expanded the Oxford Group’s tenets, and this is what he, Dr. Bob
Smith, and the ‘first one hundred’ got sober on. Although they
got sober in the Oxford Groups, Bill felt that alcoholics needed to
change more drastically than other members of the Oxford Groups did.
He realized the tenets needed to be adapted and the meetings made
separate for alcoholics. When he wrote the steps in 1938, Bill Wilson
did a lot more than just put them together. He found a language
alcoholics were more likely to respond to.”(Carry This Message p
19)
The
Oxford Group wasn’t as successful as Joe portrays, it mostly failed
in sobering up alcoholics. The relationship between the Oxford Group
and early AA wasn’t as simple, nor was it as positive. Joe doesn’t
mention the Oxford Group’s negative side of coercion or the
development of A.A. in New York. It can be seen from the
extracts from Conference Approved literature below that Bill W. and
Ebby T. were with the Oxford Group in New York. Bill W started
going to the Oxford Group meetings in December 1934 in New York. The
first pre-formative AA meetings in New York were held in 1935 at Bill
W’s house in Clinton Street. Perhaps if these meetings had not been
suppressed by the Oxford Group in 1935, Bill might have had more
success with sobering up alcoholics in the early days in New York.
The alcoholics attending the Oxford Group Calvary mission in New York
were instructed by the Oxford Group not to attend the meetings at
Bill’s house. After about six months of early failures in trying to
sober up alcoholics in New York by preaching the Oxford Group
message, Bill changed his approach on the advice of psychiatrist Dr.
Silkworth. He tried Dr. Silkworth’s approach shortly after with Dr.
Bob when he made a trip to Akron. It is clear that Bill W. was not
getting a better understanding of the Oxford Group program and the
“powerful dynamics he had learned in Akron” as Joe McQ
insinuates, but that he was carrying his own developing A.A. program
to Dr. Bob in Akron. At this time, it was based on Bill’s previous
six month experience of trying to sober up alcoholics in New York
combined with the advice gained from Dr. Silkworth. The following are
extracts from AA Conference approved literature:
“After
Bill’s release from Towns on December 18, he and Lois started
attending Oxford Group meetings at Calvary House, adjacent to Calvary
Episcopal Church.” (Pass It On p127)
“In
those early months of 1935, Bill Wilson preached the Oxford Group
message to anybody who would listen. He spent long hours at Calvary
Mission and at Towns, where Dr. Silkworth, at the risk of his
reputation, gave Bill permission to talk with some of the patients.”
(Pass It On p 131)
“My
new Oxford Group friends (the religious group in which Ebby had made
his, first, but not final recovery) objected to the idea of
alcoholism as an illness, so I had quit talking about the allergy
–plus- the- obsession. I wanted the approval of these new friends,
and in trying to be humble and helpful, I was neither. Slowly I
learned, as most of us do, that when ego gets in the way it blocks
communication” (Bill W. The Language of the Heart p 247)
“In
that fall of 1935, a weekly meeting took shape in our Brooklyn
parlour. In spite of much failure, a really solid group finally
developed. There was first Henry P., and there was Fitz M., both out
of Towns Hospital. Following them, more began to make real
recoveries.” (Bill W. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age p74)
"While
Lois later admitted that their success rate was low during the
1935-36 period at Clinton Street, she pointed out that many of the
alcoholics Bill worked with during that time did recover later on. In
other words, Lois said, the seeds of sobriety were being planted, to
take root slowly." (Pass It On Page 166)
“Tension
began to develop between the main group at Calvary Church and Bill’s
struggling band of alcoholics. The Oxford Group leaders resented the
fact Bill was holding separate meetings for alcoholics at Clinton
Street. They criticized his work with the alcoholics as being “narrow
and divisive” The alcoholics, on the other hand, felt they needed
these special meetings because many of the nonalcoholic O.G. members
did not understand them. Jack Smith, one of Sam Shoemaker’s
assistants, disapproved of Bill’s work and finally brought the
conflict out into the open. In an informal talk at a Sunday Oxford
Group gathering, he made references to special meetings “held
surreptitiously behind Mrs. Jones’s barn.” The atmosphere of the
Oxford Group then became “slightly chilly” toward the Wilsons.
Near the end of 1935, the alcoholics living at Calvary Mission were
instructed not to attend the meetings at Clinton Street. “This not
only hurt us but left us disappointed in the groups’ leadership,”
Lois remembered.1” (Pass It On p169)
“1.
This incident led Sam Shoemaker to apologize to Bill later, after he
himself had broken with the Oxford Group in 1941. Shoemaker wrote:
‘If you ever write the story of A.A.’s early connection with
Calvary, I think it ought to be said in all honesty that we were
coached in the feeling that you were off on your own spur, trying to
do something by yourself, and out of the mainstream of the work. You
got your inspiration from those early days, but you didn’t get much
encouragement from any of us and for my own part in that stupid
desire to control the Spirit, as he manifested Himself in individual
people like you, I am heartily sorry and ashamed.” (Footnote Pass
It On page 178)
“After
some six months of violent exertion with scores of alcoholics which I
found at a nearby mission and Towns Hospital, it began to look like
the Oxford Groupers were right. I hadn’t sobered up anybody.”
“Bill W. “A fragment of A.A. History: Origin of the Twelve Steps”
AA Grapevine July 1953, The Language of the Heart p 198)
“There
was, though, one bright spot. My sponsor Ebbie, still clung
precariously to his newfound sobriety. What was the reason for all
these fiascos? If Ebbie and I could achieve sobriety, why couldn’t
all the rest find it too? Some of those we’d worked on certainly
wanted to get well. We speculated day and night why nothing much had
happened to them. Maybe they couldn’t stand the spiritual pace of
the Oxford Group’s four absolutes of honesty, purity,
unselfishness, and love. In fact some of the alcoholics declared that
this was the trouble. The aggressive pressure put upon them to get
good overnight would make them fly high as geese for a few weeks and
then flop dismally. They complained too of another form of coercion –
something the Oxford Groupers called ‘guidance for others.’ A
‘team composed of nonalcoholic Groupers would sit down with an
alcoholic and after ‘quiet time’ would come up with precise
instructions as to how the alcoholic should run his own life. As
grateful as we were to our O.G. friends, this was sometimes tough to
take. It obviously had something to do with the wholesale skidding
that went on.” (Bill W. “A fragment of A.A. History: Origin of
the Twelve Steps” AA Grapevine July 1953, The Language of the Heart
page 199)
“Just
before leaving for Akron, Dr. Silkworth had given me a great piece of
advice. Without it A.A. might never have been born. ‘Look, Bill,’
he had said ‘you’re having nothing but failure because you are
preaching at these alcoholics. You are talking to them about the
Oxford Group precepts of being absolutely honest, absolutely pure,
absolutely unselfish, and absolutely loving. This is a very big
order. Then you top it off by harping on about this mysterious
spiritual experience of yours. No wonder they point to their finger
to their heads and go out and get drunk. Why don’t you turn your
strategy the other way around? Aren’t you the very fellow who once
showed me that book by the psychologist James which says that
deflation at great depth is the foundation of most spiritual
experiences? Have you forgotten that Dr. Carl Yung in Zurich told a
certain alcoholic, the one who later helped sober up your friend
Ebby, that his only hope of salvation was a spiritual experience? No,
Bill you have got the cart before the horse. You’ve got to deflate
these people first. So give them the medical business, and give it to
them hard. Pour it right into them about the obsession that condemns
them to drink and the physical sensitivity or allergy of the body
that condemns them to go mad or die if they keep on drinking. Coming
from an alcoholic, one alcoholic talking to another, maybe that will
crack those tough egos deep down. Only then can you begin to
try out your other medicine, the ethical principles you have picked
up from the Oxford Groups. ” (Bill W. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of
Age pp 67- 68)
“Shortly
after this history-making conversation, I found myself in Akron,
Ohio, on a business venture which promptly collapsed. Alone in the
town, I was scared to death of getting drunk. I was no longer a
teacher or a preacher, I was an alcoholic who knew that he needed
another alcoholic, as much as that one could possibly need me. Driven
by that urge, I was soon face to face with Dr. Bob. It was at once
evident that Dr. Bob knew more of spiritual things than I did. He
also had been in touch with the Oxford Groupers at Akron. But somehow
he simply couldn't get sober. Following Dr. Silkworth's advice, I
used the medical sledgehammer. I told him what alcoholism was and
just how fatal it could be. Apparently this did something to Dr. Bob,
On June 10, 1935, he sobered up, never to drink again. When, in 1939,
Dr. Bob's story first appeared in the book, Alcoholic
Anonymous,
he put one paragraph of it in italics. Speaking of me, he said: "Of
far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human
with whom I had ever talked, who knew what be was talking about in
regard to alcoholism from actual experience".”
(Bill
W. “A fragment of A.A. History: Origin of the Twelve Steps” AA
Grapevine July 1953, The Language of the Heart pp 199-200)
“The
Oxford Groupers had clearly shown us what to do. And, just as
importantly, we had also learned what not to do as far
as alcoholics were concerned. We found that certain of their ideas
and attitudes simply could not be sold to alcoholics. For example,
drinkers would not take pressure in any form, excepting from John
Barleycorn himself. They always had to be led, not pushed. They would
not stand for the rather aggressive evangelism of the Oxford Groups.
And they would not accept the principle of ‘team guidance’ for
their own personal lives. It was too authoritarian for them. In other
respects, too, we found when first contacted most alcoholics just
wanted to find sobriety, nothing else. They clung to their other
defects, letting go only little by little. ” (Bill W. Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age p 74)
“One
of the first insights Dr. Bob and I shared was that all true
communication must be founded on mutual need. Never could we talk
down to anyone, certainly not a fellow alcoholic. We saw that each
sponsor would have to humbly admit his own needs as clearly as those
of his prospect. Here was the foundation for AA’s Twelfth Step to
recovery, the Step in which we carry the message.” (Bill W. “The
Language of the Heart” The Language of the Heart p 247)
“Until
the middle of 1937 we in New York had been working alongside the
Oxford Groups. But in the latter part of that year we most
reluctantly parted company with these great friends. Naturally enough
they did not think too highly of our objective, limited as it was to
alcoholics.” (Bill W. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age p 74)
“Bill
had friends in the Oxford Group who understood his view of the
situation. One of them was John Ryder, a New York advertising
executive who knew Bill in the days of the Calvary Mission. Ryder
made these comments about Bill’s separation from the Oxford Group:
“I was, or felt, quite close to Bill Wilson in the early days
before A.A. was started. Herb Wallace, a close teammate of mine,
spent much time with Bill, caused him to take a public speaking
course at the Downtown Athletic Club; but I think the ‘group’
proper disowned Bill when he proceeded on his guidance to create a
special group for A.A.’s. At that time, if you were associated with
the ‘group,’ your guidance seemed to be of questionable worth
unless okayed by Sam Shoemaker or Frankie Buchman or one of his
accredited representatives.” (Pass It On p173-174)
“The
Oxford Group disapproved of the alcoholics’ concentration on their
problem to the exclusion of other group concerns. Lois even said that
the “Oxford Group kind of kicked us out,” that she and Bill were
not considered “maximum” by the groupers. (“Maximum” was used
by the Oxford Group to define the expected degree of commitment to
group activities.)” (Pass It On p174)
“1937
Bill and the New York alcoholics separate from Oxford Group. More
than 40 alcoholics are now staying sober. (Pass It On Page 407)
“…but
by counting everybody who seemed to have found sobriety in New York
and Akron, they concluded that more than 40 alcoholics were staying
dry as a result of the program! (Pass It On page 178)
In
1938, Frank Amos, an assistant to John D. Rockefeller Jr., made
several reports to Rockefeller about the newly forming A.A. In one
report he put the membership as follows: “Of the 110 members then
in the program, 70 were in the Akron-Cleveland area, the report said”
(Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers p135) (This leaves 40 members in New
York)
In
1939 Dr. Silkworth published a medical paper in which he
stated: “These ex-alcoholic men and women number about one
hundred at present. One Group is scattered along the Atlantic
seaboard with New York as a center. Another and somewhat larger body
is located in the Middle West” (Dr. W.D Silkworth M.D. (A New
Approach to Psychotherapy in Chronic Alcoholism,” Journal
Lancet, July 1939; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, appendix
E:a, p 303)
To
sum up, the first problem that I have with Joe McQ’s account of
early AA history is his insinuation that Bill got his ideas for the
A.A. program from the Oxford Group in Akron, and as Joe put it, “Bill
went back to New York with a better understanding of their program.”
It can be seen from the above that this statement should be the other
way around. Bill took his own developing A.A. program to Akron and
sobered up Dr. Bob, who couldn’t stay sober with the Oxford Group
until he met Bill. Secondly, it can be seen from the above that
Joe McQ’s reference to ‘the first one hundred’ “got sober in
the Oxford Groups” is simplistic. At the time the book Alcoholics
Anonymous was published in 1939, the New York group had already been
separated from the Oxford Group for some two years. It is unlikely
that all the ‘first one hundred’ got sober with the Oxford
groups. Those of the ‘first one hundred’ who joined the New York
group after 1937 would have got sober in this group rather than the
Oxford Groups.”
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
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