By Dick B.
© 2008 by Anonymous. All rights reserved
What Is Our Real Purpose?
Is A.A. a religion? Is it a medical treatment program? Bill Wilson cautioned AAs to remember that clergymen and physicians were the “experts”; and then cautioned that AAs were merely their assistants. Is A.A. today, then, still a Twelve-Step program where the assistants emphasize love and service transmitted by one recovered alcoholic to another who still suffers? I believe it depends on how well we know our purpose.
Bill W. and Dr. Bob were very clear about the primary purpose of the Fellowship.
Bill Wilson wrote: “Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 2001, p. 20). Dr. Bob declared in his last address that our Twelve Steps, “when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words love and service” (RHS, The A.A. Grapevine, 1951, p. 43). And Dr. Bob was the pioneer who devoted himself absolutely, completely, and continuously to helping others recover by the power of God.
Bill Wilson himself called his partner Dr. Bob “the prince of all twelfth-steppers.” The same Dr. Bob who, to 1950, the year of his death, “carried the A.A. message to more than 5,000 alcoholic men and women, and to all these he gave his medical services without thought of charge.” Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 2001, p. 171.
More specifically, Bill said this about our primary purpose and Dr. Bob’s role and accomplishments in carrying out that purpose:
It had been decided that Bob would attend mostly to the questions of hospitalization and the development of our Twelfth Step work. Between 1940 and 1950, in the company of that marvelous nun, Sister Ignatia, he had treated 5,000 drunks at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron. His spiritual example was a powerful influence, and he never charged a cent for his medical care. So Dr. Bob became the prince of all twelfth-steppers” (The Co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical sketches: Their last major talks, 1972, 1975, p. 34).
The message here, then, is the importance of remembering from Dr. Bob’s example why our Fellowship exists and the essentials for its usefulness and potential for future successes.
Here’s What A.A. Literature Says about Our Purpose:
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. (The A.A. Preamble. The A.A. Grapevine, Inc.)
To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 2001, p. xiii) –
“5. Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose–that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 2001, Tradition Five, p. 563)
The Documented Success Rates 75% to 93% among Pioneers Who Really Carried Out the Purpose
Numerous historical documents record that, in 1937, Bill and Bob “counted noses” and found that 40 men had achieved this record: “Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with A.A. showed improvement” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., p. xx. See also: RHS, p. 8; The Language of the Heart, p. 10; and Richard K., New Freedom: Alcoholics Anonymous Reclaimed). By the time Frank Amos investigated the Akron program and reported to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in February, 1938, he could say: “The alcoholic group comprised ‘some 50 men and I believe, two women former alcoholics–all considered practically incurable by physicians–who have been reformed and so far have remained teetotalers'” (DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, 1980, pp. 129-31). In May, 1939, Clarence Snyder started a new group in Cleveland for alcoholics only. He took with him the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, the Bible, and the Four Absolutes. Bill Wilson said that, after a year, the Cleveland group had about 30 groups; and A.A. literature reports: “Records in Cleveland show that 93 percent of those who came to us never had a drink again” (DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, pp. 211, 261).
Gloria Deo
(Glory to God in the Highest…)
Editor’s Note: Dick B. is an active, recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous; a retired attorney; and a Bible student. He has sponsored more than 100 men in the Recovery from alcoholism. For more about Dick B. click here.
Bill regarded Ebby as who sponsored him into the Oxford Group.
Later Sam Shoemaker then Father Ed Dowling became mentors to Bill.
The Soul of Sponsorship is a good read. Is about Father Ed and Bill. A collection of exchanged corres
Surely Bill W was Dr Bob’s sponsor as he brought the message to Dr Bob, just as Bill regarded Ebby T as his sponor because he brought the framework of aa’s 12 Steps to Bill?
Ebb was Bill’s sponsor into the Oxford group. Never AA
Sam Shoemaker then Father Dielingbwas Bill’s sponsore
What I find fascinating is that is Dr Bob says about his sponsor, nothing!
I love Bill W. He was stockbroker whose mission was to hype stocks. In his recovery, he was ever the alcoholic — rounding numbers up, pulling numbers out his hat, shaping the alcoholic’s place in the family, etc. Actually, it’s this very behavior that comforts me with the knowledge that Bill was one of us (and conversely, I am one of him.) But let’s not get to carried away with the numbers. I’ve yet to see any reasonably study of the early Alcoholic Squad sobriety experience that was more than hearsay. Does it matter whether the number is 46% or 73% or 99%? Trying to advance some number seems a lot like promotion, not attraction, to me. The important thing (for me) is that whatever the number is, I’m included in it.
Unfortunately the numbers show the digression of AA. We have flatlined as a group of people who’s primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcaholics achieve sobriety. Ask any member if they do a 10th step daily, and once they say yes than ask them precisely how they do that? Than watch the fear wash over there face as they will not have the answer. They will not even know what are the four character defects that they are to watch for all through out the day. If they don’t kow that they certainly won’t know what 4 instructions are given them to do once one of the four defects surface in there daily lifes. So what you really have is the blind leading the blind. I have read the Big Book through and through and i can no longer attend a AA meeting without editing all the redrick and opionions that run rampant in the rooms. Some speak with such authoirity that the new comers believe what they say is the truth. They are so far from what our book directs us to. In fact they are killing the new comers with harmful information.
Dear David
Perhaps you should try some different meetings. From your comments, one could get the idea you could use a more effective sponsor as well. One thing is for certain, any AA that claims to do the 10th, or any step, except 1, perfectly, is only fooling themselves. Progress not perfection. We are not saints. Man, there’s an understatement, huh? Just an aside, the word is rhetoric, not redrick. My character defect of being a wiseass is still very much intact. Perhaps it’s an asset. Only God knows for sure. I know this in my core, without the fellowship of AA, there is no way this alcoholic could have lived sober and to good purpose for the last 23 1/2 years (includes nights, weekends, and holidays).
Also, it’s rampant, not rampid. Just sayin’
also its opinion n o t opionion
your right David . I see the same thing in the rooms .
Dear Bruce: Your comment is heart-warming. It was four years into A.A. before I knew anything about Pass It On and DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, our founding date, the Akron story, Dr. Bob’s background, or the famous events in Akron from 1931 to 1935. And I have been searching and learning ever since. I think the new book The Conversion of Bill W. will blow your mind when you compare it to the details about Dr. Bob’s youth. There’s lots to learn about Bob, Bill, Anne Smith, Henrietta Seiberling, Sam Shoemaker, the Oxford Group, Jung, James, Rowland Hazard, Ebby and all the rest. And this is a happening site. I’m glad we are on it. God Bless, Dick B. http://www.dickb.com/conversions.shtml
I can’t get enough of that good old stuff! The more I read about the old-timers, the more I realized how far off the mark I was when I first came around and listened to all the opinions. I thank God for this movement that seems to be catching on to go back to basics.