Applying the History
& Origins of Alcoholics Anonymous Recoveries
and
The Christian Recovery
Movement
The Dick B. Papers
© 2014 Anonymous. All rights reserved
[These pages are devoted to reporting the research,
findings, utilization, and dissemination of recovery facts emanating from more than 25 years devoted by author and A.A.
historian Dick B. Clean and sober continuously
for more 27 years, Dick B. (a retired attorney and active AA) has devoted his
help for others to finding and suggesting the application of various effective
phases of successful recovery ideas in Alcoholics Anonymous. And to
pointing out the immense opportunities being
seized today by Christian alcoholics,
addicts, and codependents who rely on the power of God for deliverance – as the early
Akron A.A. Christian Fellowship did in 1935.]
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Dick B. has been traveling throughout the United States for about 25 years in his quest to unearth and report accurately the details of how A.A. began, where it came from, the people and organizations that influenced its development, how the first three AAs got sober, why A.A. was so often likened to First Century Christianity, A.A.'s links to the Bible and to A First Century Christian Fellowship (later known as the Oxford Group) as well as to Reverend Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., Professor William James, Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, and William D. Silkworth, M.D.
The more Dick researched, the more he discovered had been omitted, ignored, distorted, and mistakenly reported, primarily because the "wisdom of the rooms" has taken precedence over the concrete evidence of the facts. The importance of the full story, or what Dick B. calls "the rest of the story" is that its absence has encouraged the drift of many in the fellowship from those who relied on Almighty God, came to Him through His Son Jesus Christ, and learned about them in the Bible. This, despite the fact that early A.A. had no basic text, no Twelve Steps, no Twelve Traditions, no war stories, and no meetings as we know them today.
A.A. Cofounder Dr. Bob made three vitally important historical statements in his last major address to AAs in 1948. The first is that the early AAs believed the answers to their problems were in the Bible (which he often called "The Good Book'). The second is that the well-known Twelve Steps were not published until 1939--four years after A.A. was founded and were a new version of the original program. He said he did not write the steps or have anything to do with the writing of them, but that the basic ideas had come from the teachings, study, and effort in the Bible. The third is that Dr. Bob's personal story--the first of the personal stories in A.A.'s basic text--has always concluded with the statement, "Your Heavenly Father will never let you down."
In the absence of such material from the chapters of A.A.'s basic text which were written by the other cofounder Bill W., various recovery elements began minimizing or actually eliminating many of the principles and practices that had put A.A. on the map and cured its early members. Thus reliance on God began to be replaced by "higher powers" that could be a rock or a light bulb, replaced by an attitude that A.A. was "spiritual but not religious," replaced by comments that "spirituality" somehow trumped the truth in the Bible, and replaced by rigidity and restrictions claiming that it was forbidden for a member to bring into the rooms the Bible or to discuss his belief in Jesus Christ or to give his group a name that even suggested that AAs could believe or not believe what they wished, read or not read what they wished, discuss or not discuss what they wished, and share their beliefs with others in the fellowship as a matter of their own experience, strength, and hope.
In 2014, after having published 46 titles and over 1600 articles on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the blooming Christian Recovery Movement, Dick B. decided to consolidate the many venues of expression he has used for 27 years (meetings, groups, conferences, talks, radio and TV shows, YouTube and Blog presentations, newsletters and more). A major reason is that the volume of virtually unknown A.A. facts, origins, and history is so great that it needs to be presented today in bites. This can be accomplished largely through computers, the web, radio, TV, printed matter, phone conversations, and emails without the necessity for the highly expensive travel that Dick has engaged in as he carried his message all over the USA and researched and interviewed just as widely.
These new approaches, in the form of short bites, will begin appearing almost immediately and provide greater assurance that they will bless more alcoholics, addicts, codependents, and 'significant others" who still suffer.
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