Russell S. of Miami, key speaker, "Stick with the Winners!" Conf in Calif May 19

Russell Spatz, a Key Speaker at our Stick with the Winners! Conference in Orange County on May 18-19 has just sent the following—well worth repeating.

[Note the mention of the use of Scripture in a regular meeting. Come see how this

privilege is used to enhance recovery by the power of God – and is a right as well as privilege]

Dick and Ken

Thought you guys would enjoy this!!

I get these - its great to see that recovery through Christ is blossoming!!

Sent from my iPhone

Russell

-------------

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt 

[By the way, this famous dust in the arena speech by Teddy Roosevelt was used by my law firm in a brief to the United States Supreme Court in a case not all that popular but highly charged and worthy. The court denied certiorari, but two of the nine justices did vote to hear the case.]

Begin forwarded message:

From: ……….Date: April 30, 2012 11:09:19 AM EDT
To: Russell <sponsor1@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Deerfield Berach tommorrow night

Thanks so much Russell, I would greatly appreciate a physical brochure, my address is 2109 CONROY WAY, WILLOW SPRING,N.C.  27592.   My home group is ONE NOON AT A TIME.  Your guidance is greatly appreciated. We have all had quite a few belly laughs while driving and listening to the step series. thanks again. Peace, Mike

On Apr 30, 2012, at 6:39 AM, Russell wrote:

Dear Mike

We use our brochure to start every meeting – we start with a moment of silent meditation and the serenity prayer – Long or Short version  - your option – then we read the steps and their biblical comparison from the Brochure.  Chairman does a lead (just like AA)  and then a discussion begins.  A newcomer would see little difference between our meetings and a regular discussion meeting except that besides the Big Book and other AA material we use scripture.  Keep it SIMPLE!!!  All the stuff can be found on our site www.alive-again.org 

I can scan a brochure and send it to you or mail you one if you send me your address.  You can make up your own – do your thing!  Let me know how it works out.

Russell

From: michael 
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 5:29 PM
To: sponsor1
Subject: Re: Deerfield Berach tommorrow night

Russell , I would like to take you up on that. Do you have a basic meeting layout preference or any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. Peace. Mike

On Apr 27, 2012, at 10:10 PM, sponsor1 wrote:

That sounds great Mike – Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.

Russell

From: michael 
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 9:04 PM
To: Russell
Subject: Re: Deerfield Berach tommorrow night

Hey Russell, I've been listening to your step series here in N.C. As a fellow New Yorker , your dynamic is very familiar and comforting to me. Anyway, just wanted to let you know, we have been inspired to start a Bible based big book fusion meeting as well. I was telling some fellow group members about alive again. Everyone was on board so we are searching for a meeting place. Thanks again. God bless you...Michael. . . . 

On Apr 27, 2012, at 7:38 AM, Russell wrote:

Saturday Night Speaker Meeting

Address:  959 SE 6th Ave , Deerfield Beach, FL 33441   (Off of SE 10th St, about 2 miles East of 95)

Time:       7:30pm

Date:       April 28th

For those interested - I just got a copy of The "digital download" version of Dick B. and Ken B., Stick with the Winners! How to Conduct More Effective 12-Step Recovery Meetings Using Conference-Approved Literature at www.dickb.com  The  book is for your personal use and is copyrighted so forgive me for not forwarding out a copy for you.

Belief in thepower of God, plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain a new order of things were the essential REQUIREMENTS. Simple, but not easy. A price had to be paid. It meant the destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all. (A.A. Page 13, 14)

“Remind the potential newcomer that their recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon their relationship with God.” (A.A. Page 99)

“Burn the idea into the consciousness of every newcomer, that – they can get well – regardless of anyone. The only condition is that they TRUST IN GOD, and CLEAN HOUSE.” (A.A. Page 98)     

-  Ezekiel 33:1-9

The Twelve Steps and Alcoholics Anonymous--Step One Study

The Twelve Steps and Alcoholics Anonymous – Step One Study

Dick B.

Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Here’s what AA Cofounder Bill Wilson said about Step One

“Our recovery Step One reads thus: ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.’ This simply means that all of us have to hit bottom and hit hard and lastingly. But we can seldom make this sweeping admission of personal hopelessness until we fully realize that alcoholism is a grievous and often fatal malady of the mind and body—an obsession that condemns us to drink joined to a physical allergy that condemns us to madness or death.

“So, then, how did we first learn that alcoholism is such a fearful sickness as this? Who gave us this priceless piece of information on which the effectiveness of Step One of our program so much depends? Well, it came from my own doctor, ‘the little doctor who loved drunks,’ William Duncan Silkworth. More than twenty-five years ago at Towns Hospital, New York, he told Lois [Bill Wilson’s wife] and me what the disease of alcoholism actually is.” The Language of the Heart: Bill W.’s Grapevine Writings, page 297.

Here’s what Rev. Sam Shoemaker, the man Bill Wilson called a “cofounder of A.A.” said

“The reason so many people in A.A. give thanks that they are alcoholics is that the problem of living, and the failure to meet life successfully, is singled down for them to the problem of alcohol. It is definite and specific. This is exactly what Christianity has taught from the beginning, not only about a problem like alcoholism, but about the whole range of human defeat: that the old clichés like ‘exerting more will power’ are utterly impractical. We are just as powerless by ourselves over temper, or a bad tongue, or a moody disposition, or a habit of lust, or a hard and critical spirit. It is only pride and lack of insight into ourselves that would keep anyone from saying, ‘our lives have become unmanageable.’ This is the first step, not only towards sobriety, but towards self-understanding and the knowledge of life.” Bill Pittman and Dick B., Courage to Change: The Christian Roots of the Twelve-Step Movement, pages 208-09.

In his usual short and pithy language, A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob said

“’The first one will get you.’ According to John R., he kept repeating that.” DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 227.

“. . . Dr. Bob advocated that members stay in dry places whenever possible. ‘You don’t ask the Lord not to lead you into temptation, then turn around and walk right into it,’ he said.” DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 281.

“Nobody pushed you into that bar. You walked in there, and you ordered that drink, and naturally, you drank it. So don’t tell me you don’t know how you got there.” DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, page 274.

Bill Wilson called Dr. Bob’s Wife “The Mother of A.A.,” and she said

“Surrender is a simple act of will. What do we surrender? Our life. When? At a certain definite moment. How? ‘Oh God, manage me because I cannot manage myself.’” Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal 1933-1939, page 21.

“Paul speaks of a wish toward good, but power to carry it out is lacking. A stronger power than his was needed. God provided that power through Christ, so that we could find a new kind of relationship with God. Christ gives the power, we appropriate it. It is not anything that we do ourselves, but it is the appropriation of a power that comes from God that saves us from sin and sets us free.” Dick B., Anne Smith’s Journal, page 22

Early AAs often said

“We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.” Dick B., Twelve Steps For You: Take the Twelve Steps with the Big Book, A.A. History, and the Good Book at Your Side, page 33; Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, page 160.

One Personal Story in the First Edition of the Big Book quoted the Bible and said:

“One morning, after a sleepless night worrying over what I could do to straighten myself out, I went to my room alone—took my Bible in hand and asked Him, the One Power, that I might  open to a good place to read—and I read ‘For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death.’

That was enough for me—I started to understand. Here were the words of Paul, a great teacher. When then if I had slipped? Now, I could understand.

From that day I gave and still give and always will, time every day to read the word of God and let Him do all the caring. Who am I to try to run myself or anyone else?” Alcoholics Anonymous, 1^st ed. 1939, page 347. [See Romans 7:22-25].

dickb@dickb.com; www.dickb.com

Gloria Deo

A.A. and the Twelve Steps

A.A. and the Twelve Steps

A.A. History

By Dick B.

© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Would you like to learn about A.A. its Twelve Steps? Would you like make A.A. history and the roots of A.A. a part of your study? Would you like to know what A.A. “founder” Rev. Samuel Shoemaker said about A.A. and the Twelve Steps? If you would, then Courage to Change by Bill Pittman and Dick B. is the first place to turn. http://www.amazon.com/Courage-To-Change-Christian-Twelve-Step/dp/1568382456. In fact, Courage to Change: The Christian Roots of the Twelve-Step Movement is one of earliest source books for the study of A.A. history, reporting the role of A.A. founder Bill Wilson and of the man Bill Wilson dubbed a “cofounder” of A.A., as a means for understanding A.A. and the Twelve Steps.

There are other, later, A.A. history books by author Dick B. that add to the A.A. and study groups scene. And we will talk about them in a moment.

In Courage to Change, Bill Pittman and Dick B. crafted a simple, A.A.-founder-related presentation of each of the Twelve Steps—covering the Steps one by one. Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker was Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York. His church was in charge of Calvary Mission where A.A. founder Bill Wilson went to the altar and made his decision for Jesus Christ about December 7, 1934. Shoemaker was the chief American lieutenant of the Oxford Group which laid out the biblical principles and the practical program of action that Bill codified in the A.A. Big Book and its Twelve Steps. So much so, that Bill Wilson asked Rev. Shoemaker to write the Twelve Steps, but Shoemaker declined. However, A.A. “founder” Shoemaker did work with Bill Wilson in Shoemaker’s book-lined study at Calvary House as Bill was developing the language of A.A.’s 12 Steps contained in the book Alcoholics Anonymous published April 10, 1939.

Sam Shoemaker was known as “a Bible-Christian.” His 30-plus books, articles, sermons, and efforts at Calvary Church regularly presented key ideas long before A.A. was founded in June 1935 that eventually made their way into A.A. Shoemaker frequently cited a Bible verse that supported a Step idea. In describing what a Step meant and how to take it, Shoemaker would cite a Bible verse and then use the very language for that Step that one can find in both Shoemaker’s words and in the words of Bill Wilson.

In addition to laying out each Step and the correlative language from the Bible and Shoemaker, Pittman and Dick B. also included two vitally-important and useful articles by Shoemaker which were directly related to A.A. and the Twelve Steps. The first was the “Those Twelve Steps as I Understand Them.” The second was “What the Church Can Learn from Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Dick B. went on to write and publish three additional books about A.A. and the Twelve Steps. Each adds more A.A. history specifics to the ideas that Bill Wilson and Rev. Shoemaker formulated in the actual Steps. The first title is Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. Pittsburgh ed.: www.dickb.com/newlight.shtml. The second title is Dick B., Twelve Steps for You: www.dickb.com/12StepsforYou.shtml. The third is By the Power of God: www.dickb.com/powerofgod.shtml

There are several things a reader can do to enhance his understanding of the Twelve Steps, his knowledge about A.A. and the Twelve Steps, and his ability to “take” the Twelve Steps and take a newcomer through each Step. The first is to look at the 12 suggested Steps as they are spelled out in the Big Book. The second is to look for the specific instructions the Big Book provides for taking each Step (sometimes a bit murky or actually missing in details). The third is to read two A.A. General Service Conference-approved books—Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age by Bill Wilson and The Language of the Heart—where Bill Wilson specifically attributes at least 10 of the 12 Steps to Shoemaker. The fourth is to read Bill Pittman and Dick B., Courage to Change. Finally, to read the three Dick B. books cited above and particularly the explanation of Shoemaker’s part in each Step.

Courage to Change is now available in Kindle format from Amazon.com: http://goo.gl/rItYA.

Good hunting!

DickB@DickB.com;

www.DickB.com/titles.shtml

Gloria Deo

Nationwide Conference May 18-19 on Christian Origins, Histsory, Program of Early A.A.

The International Christian Recovery Coalition

Presents

The First 2012 North American Conference

May 18-19, 2012

His Place Church, 14061 Chestnut St., Westminster, CA 92683

Conference Theme:

“Stick with the Winners”

“Living First Century Christianity in Recovery Today;

Rediscovering‘Old-School’ A.A. in Conference-Approved Literature”

Conference Schedule

Session One: Friday, May 18, 2012

Doors Open: 6:00 PM

Registration, Music, Displays, Networking 6:00 to 7:00 PM

Conference Start 7:00 to 7:10 PM

Prayer: Rev. Ken B.

Introduction: Pastor Joe Furey

Conference Overview: Rev. Ken B.

Focus One: 7:10 to 7:55 PM

Dick B., Executive Director of the International Christian Recovery Coalition and author of more than 40 titles on A.A. history, A.A.’s Christian predecessors, and applying early A.A. principles in modern Christian Recovery efforts—together with his son and coauthor, Ken B.--will present key passages from A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature and other authoritative resources showing that the original Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship”—from the summer of 1935 until at least April 10, 1939, when the Big Book was published—was amazingly successful in helping “seemingly-hopeless,” “medically-incurable”alcoholics recover primarily because the group, in many ways, was “living” the Book of Acts.

Break: Visit Display Tables & and Network 7:55 to 8:10 PM

Focus Two: 8:10 to 8:55 PM

Dick B. and Ken B., along with volunteer leaders, will elaborate on points made during Part One; and Dick B. and Ken B. will receive and respond to godly questions and suggestions from the audience through the use of an “Ask-It” basket. This is a real opportunity for leaders to share how they are implementing their Christian Recovery Movement programs right now!

[Depending on the size of the audience attending, we may well use the same technique recently employed in Northern California at the workshops, question and answer, and round-table participation by leaders and others attending]

Wrap-Up and Closing Prayer: Rev. Ken B. 8:55 to 9:00 PM

Session Two: Saturday, May 19, 2012

Doors Open: 9:00 AM

Final Registration, Music, Displays, Networking 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM

Conference Start 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM

Prayer: Rev. Ken B.

Introduction by Host Church: Pastor Joe Furey

Conference Overview: Rev. Ken B.

Purposes of the Conference: To enable participants: (1) to hear speakers on how to apply “old-school” A.A. principles and practices today; (2) to get acquainted with Conference-approved literature, “old-school” resources, and a training plan; (3) to partake in refreshments and lunch; (4) to share with a panel of speakers by presenting godly “Ask-It” basket questions and suggestions; and (5) to hear the comments of Christian leaders and workers who are “in the trenches” of Christian Recovery efforts today.

First Speaker: (To Be Announced)

10:00 to 10:50 AM

Break: View displays and networking 10:50 to 11:10 PM

Second Speaker: Russell Spatz, attorney,

Alive Again, Miami, Florida 11:10 to noon

Lunch: (Eat on premises), view displays, network Noon to 1:00 PM

Third Speakers: Dick B. & Ken B. 1:00 to 2:10 PM

International Christian Recovery Coalition plan for training

meetings, a Guide, and Videos presenting the application of

“old-school”A.A. and First Century Christianity principles and

practices in modern Christian Recovery efforts

Break: View displays and network 2:10 to 2:30 PM

Fourth Speaker: Gary Martin, Christian Recovery efforts

at Mariners Church, Irvine, California 2:30 to 3:05 PM

Roger McDiarmid, Christian Recovery

efforts in Southern California 3:05 to 3:40 PM

Break: View displays and network 3:40 to 4:00 PM

Panel Discussion: 4:00 to 5:15 PM

Dick B., Ken B., Russell Spatz,

Gary Martin, Roger McDiarmid

Godly audience questions and comments via “Ask-It” basket

Break: View displays and network: 5:15 to 5:30 PM

Final Speakers: Dick B. and Ken B. 5:30 to 5:55 PM

International Christian Recovery Coalition Plans,

Challenges, and Announcements

Closing Prayer: Rev. Ken B. 5:55 to 6:00 PM

Conference Registration: $25.00 donation

To register for the conference, or for more information, please contact:

Ken B.: Email: kcb00799@gmail.com

Cell: (808) 276-4945

Important Additional Announcements

· Throughout the Conference Trip period from May 14 to May 21, Dick B. and Ken B. will be in Orange County, California. They will be staying at a private home for some of the period and at the Marriott Costa Mesa Hotel.

· They highly value personal meetings, contacts, and discussions with individuals and groups throughout the May 14 to 21 period. These may include: (1) Meetings and or meals with individual leaders and others at places we will be staying. (2) Visiting churches, groups, fellowships, and offices in the area. (3) Conducting review of, and displaying the new “Stick with the Winners” Guide, accompanying exhibits, and accompanying film clips – to stimulate organization and establishment of Classes and/or special study meetings for AAs, NAs, Al-anons, and other support or 12 Step fellowships, and Christian recovery-related programs, fellowships, meetings, classes, and pastoral and chaplain settings.



· Please contact us either before or during the May 14-21 period to arrange to arrange a personal meeting. Please contact Dick B. by email at DickB@DickB.com until May 12, or Ken B. by email at kcb00799@gmail.com or on his cell phone at (808) 276-4945 before or during May 14-21.

Sponsors of These Meetings and Conferences

· Hazelden: Treating Addiction, Transforming Lives, Center City, MN

· Episcopal Diocese of Texas Recovery Committee, Rev. Bill Wigmore, Chair, Austin, TX

· Rock Recovery Ministries, ABC Sober Living, Soledad House, David Powers, San Diego, CA

· New Hope Ministry, Golden Hills Community Church, Brentwood, CA: Matt Pierce, Recovery Pastor; David Sadler Group Leader

· Good Book-Big Book Group, Cornerstone Fellowship—Livermore Campus, CA

· Good Book Publishing Company, Maui, HI

· His Place Church, Joe Furey, Pastor, Westminster, CA

· Wally Lowe, Businessman, Christian Recovery Resource Center, Vero Beach, FL

· Richard Skolnik, Addiction Counselor Assistant, Christian Recovery Resource Center, NY

· Bob J., Believer, Philanthropist, Maui, HI

· Rick S., Believer, Businessman, San Jose, CA

· Rob W., Entrepreneur, UT

· Robert Turner, M.D., Medical University of South Carolina

· Sean L., Recovered believer, Seattle, WA

· Dale Marsh, Serenity Pastor, Oroville Church of the Nazarene; International Christian Recovery Coalition Speakers Bureau, Oroville, CA

· Roger McDiarmid, Salesman, International Christian Recovery Coalition Speakers Bureau, Huntington Beach, CA

· Jeff and Debra Jay, Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention, Grosse Point, MI



[More expected to be added by Conference Time]

Announcing the New Stick with the Winners! Guide

Dick B. and Ken B., Stick with the Winners!: How to Conduct More Effective 12-Step Recovery Meetings Using Conference-Approved Literature: A Dick B. Guide for Christian Leaders and Workers in the Recovery Arena (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2012)

[This new book is available at www.DickB.com right now for $9.95]

By the time the May conference arrives, we expect to have: (1) published this book in Print-On-Demand form; (2) completed a series of about ten videos relating to the topics in the book; and (3) made available the resource exhibits that form a training package relating to this book. Already, this book—in spiral-bound form—has been presented to a number of Christian recovery leaders and workers participating in the International Christian Recovery Coalition in several parts of the United States and Canada. In addition, it will enhance recovery efforts already underway at Oroville Church of the Nazarene in Oroville, CA; at New Life Spirit Recovery, Inc., in Huntington Beach, CA; in the Good Book-Big Book Group at Cornerstone Fellowship—Livermore Campus in Livermore, CA; at New Hope Ministry, Golden Hills Community Church in Brentwood, CA; and at several other locations.

This book will be the center piece for discussion, examination, and training at the First 2012 North American Conference of the International Christian Recovery Coalition, and at other meeting places in Orange County, California.

Gloria Deo

Twelve Step Spiritual Roots - Courage to Change

A Kindle Way to Study the Real 12 Step Christian roots inexpensively:
Check out "Courage to Change" by Dick B. and Bill Pittman, Hazelden Publisher

A.A. History--An Easier Softer Way? Not for historians!

A.A. History: There Is No Easier, Softer Way

By Dick B.

© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

With all the passage of time, extensive research and writing, Internet opportunities, multiple biographies, and substantial sobriety and archives and conferences, there are still major gaps in most presentations about Alcoholics Anonymous history.

There is a contemporary phrase you have probably heard: “Spot on.” But nearly all existing presentations on Alcoholics Anonymous history are not “spot on” because they omit key elements that show the roles played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in early A.A.’s astonishing success. And those key elements—which could, should, and would help the still-suffering newcomer recover—are either unknown (because they are missing from most “standard” presentations); or, in the rare cases where they are known, they are often not believed or applied in today’s recovery scene.

The following are some of the key elements of Alcoholics Anonymous history that keep being ignored or shelved:

1.     Rowland Hazard’s decision for Jesus Christ after seeing Dr. Jung.

2.     Dr. Silkworth’s advice to Bill Wilson during his third stay at Towns Hospital in September 1934 (and to other Silkworth patients) that the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, could cure them of their alcoholism.

3.     Ebby Thacher’s decision for Jesus Christ at Calvary Mission on November 1, 1934.

4.     Bill W’s observation that Ebby Thacher had been born again.

5.     Bill’s visit to Calvary Church about December 6, 1934, to hear Ebby’s testimony the evening before Bill went to Calvary Mission.

6.     Bill’s thoughts about calling on the Great Physician.

7.     Bill’s blazing “indescribably white light” experience at Towns Hospital during his fourth and final stay there from December 11 to 18, 1934; and his belief that he had been in the presence of “the God of the Scriptures.”

8.     Dr. Silkworth’s being a devout Christian; his having been a friend of Samuel Shoemaker and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale; his having attended Shoemaker’s church; and his having confirmed that Bill Wilson had insisted on a “relationship with Jesus Christ” for all the earliest AAs.

9.      Dr. Silkworth’s words when he talked to Bill after the “white light” experience.

10.                         Bill’s thorough reading of William James’ book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, to learn about other “conversion experiences” in conjunction with which alcoholics had been cured in rescue missions and other places.

11.                         The respectful viewpoint that Professor William James had expressed in   stating that that these healings by such experiences deserved the attention of   scholars—men of science.

12.                         Lois Wilson’s taped interview on June 29, 1953, in Dallas, Texas, in which she said that Bill had, in all sincerity, gone to the altar at Calvary Mission and handed his life over to Christ .

13.                         Bill’s written statements that he—like his friend Ebby—had “found religion” at Calvary Mission and had “for sure . . . been born again.”

14.                         Bill’s leaving Towns Hospital on December 18, 1934, and feverishly going to the streets, the hospitals, the flea bag hotels, the missions, and even Oxford  Group meetings with a Bible under his arm and telling drunks that they  needed to give their lives to God and that the Lord had cured him of his  “terrible disease.”

15.                         Bill’s repetition of his real experience in the message on page 191 of the Big Book that “the Lord” had cured him and that he just wanted to keep talking about it and telling people.

16.                         Bill’s statement in the Third edition of the Big Book that, as he pointed to a  copy of the famous painting of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane,  that the painting showed the solution to alcoholism that the Clevelander was asking  about. Bill simply pointed to Jesus and said, “There it is.”

17.                         Silkworth’s real advice to Bill that he needed to hit his prospects hard with the dire facts about almost certain death or insanity due to excessive boozing. This was what Silkworth himself had done to Bill and his wife before he offered them the solution which was turning to God.

18.                         Bill had no lasting success in sobering up drunks, before he met Dr. Bob on May 12, 1935, in Akron, and the two worked together during the late spring and summer of 1935.

19.                         The precise details of what Bill told Dr. Bob about the “Great Physician,” the “cure,” and service to others in their six hour first visit at the Seiberling Gate Lodge.

20.                         Dr. Walter Tunks, Rector of St. Paul’s Church in Akron, was the pastor of the Firestone family church; that he had played a big role in helping the Firestones bring Frank Buchman to Akron in 1933; but that he was not himself an Oxford Group member.

21.                         The well-known statement about “choosing your own conception of God” attributed to Ebby in the Big Book was not present in the typed, multilith edition (or so-called “original manuscript”) of the Big Book. And that it was only added to the “printer’s manuscript” of the Big Book as part of four handwritten paragraphs inserted into the Big Book during the last moments before the book was published. (This can be seen very clearly in Hazelden’s title, The Book That Started It All, published in 2010.)

22.                         It was not until 1957 that Bill explained to AAs in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age that, in the original draft of the Twelve Steps, he had consistently used only the unqualified, unmodified word “God,” and not the substitute phrases “power greater than ourselves” and “God as we understood Him.”

23.                         These substitutionary references to “a” god were to be contrasted with the many times previously that Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker had used them in his own, well-known writings as descriptions of what Bill had previously called “the God of the Scriptures.”

24.                         The fact that the “popular,” common, contemporary use of the weird expression “higher power  cannot be found in the Bible—from which the basic ideas of the Twelve Steps came, but were in fact some strange “New  Thought” deity invented by New Thought writers like Ralph Waldo Trine, Emmet Fox, Emanuel Movement writers, and Professor William James.

There are many more historical questions that deserve far more research, analysis, and attention if “the rest of the story” is to be available to recovery programs designed to help “seemingly-hopeless,” “medical-incurable” alcoholics who still suffer.