Bill W.’s First Draft of
the Big Book Chapter Titled “There Is A Solution”
By Dick B.
© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved
During the early 1990’s, while I was doing research at
Stepping Stones in New York, I found, and was given permission to make a Xerox
copy of, a manuscript Bill W. wrote titled “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: CHAPTER #1:
THERE IS A SOLUTION.” As my son Ken and I note in “Appendix Two: Key Highlights
in the Writing of the Big Book with Approximate Dates” of our new title God,
His Son Jesus Christ & the Bible in Early A.A., when Bill W. originally
wrote the chapter titled “There Is A Solution” in March or April of 1938, it
was identified as chapter one. As I was reviewing my copy of Bill W.’s
manuscript again today, I was struck by significant differences in language between
Bill’s early manuscript and the Big Book as we know it today—particularly
relative to the phrase “religious experience(s).”
How Bill W. Wrote of the “Solution”
Before “the Great Contribution of Our Atheists and
Agnostics”
[See Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age, 166-67; italics added]
• “The
tremendous fact for every one of us has been the discovery of a common solution
– a way out with which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in
brotherly and harmonious action.” (Manuscript page 2).
• “The main
purpose of this book is to exhaustively, definitely and specifically answer
those questions and to let you know what you can do about it.” (Manuscript page
5).
• “But there
is a solution, and how glorious was the knowledge of it to us. Almost none of
us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of our
sins of omission and commission which the process requires for its successful
consummation, but we saw that it really worked in others.” (Manuscript pages
9-10).
• “And the
GREAT FACT is just this and no less;
that all of us have had deep and effective religious experiences which have in
every case revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows
and toward God’s great universe.” (Manuscript page 10—emphasis added).
• “The
central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that the Creator of
you and me has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is to us new
and beautiful and has there commenced to accomplish those things which by no
stretch of the imagination were we humanly capable of.” (Manuscript page 10).
• “After
years of living on a basis which now seems to us wholly false, you are not
going to get rightly related to your Creator in a minute. None of us has found
God in six easy lessons, but He can be found by all who are willing to put the
task ahead of all else.” (Manuscript page 10).
• [Dr. Carl
Jung told Rowland Hazard, wrote Bill:] “Sporadically, here and there, once in a
while, alcoholics have had what are called vital religious experiences. . . .
[H]is faith and his religious convictions were very good as far as they went,
but that in his case, they did not spell the vital religious experience so
absolutely imperative to displace his insanity with respect to matters
alcoholic.” (Manuscript page 11—emphasis added).
• “So . . .
it began to look to us as though we must have a vital religious experience or
perish. Our friend [Rowland Hazard] did finally have such an experience and we
in our turn have sought the same happy end, with all of the ardor of drowning
men clutching at straws. But what seemed at first to be a flimsy reed has proved
to be a loving and powerful hand of God.” (Manuscript page 11—emphasis added).
• “As a
group, or as individuals, we have no desire to convince anyone that the true
God can only be discovered in some particular way . . . If what we have
learned, and felt, and seen, means anything at all, it indicates that all of us
. . . are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a new
relationship upon very simple and understandable terms, the moment any of us
become willing enough to do so. Therefore, we waste no time in the kind of
religious disputation which has so frequently torn people apart.” (Manuscript
page 11).
• “Not all of
us have joined religious bodies, but we are nearly all agreed that by so doing,
each would be taking a step toward new growth and availability for God’s
purpose.” (Manuscript page 12).
• “The next
few chapters are the personal narratives of several of us. In these accounts
each person will describe in his own language and from his own point of view
the way in which he happened to find the living God.” (Manuscript page 12).
Notes for the Readers
1. Bill said
that the solution was a “vital religious experience.” So did Rev. Samuel M.
Shoemaker in his first significant book, Realizing Religion. And so, as you can
see here, did Dr. Carl G. Jung—who fathered the solution through advising
Rowland Hazard.
2. The “vital
religious experience” was explained by Bill W. as the need for a “defense;” but
there was no mention of a “higher power.” Bill simply explained that Rowland
had “placed himself beyond all human aid, and unless locked up, is virtually
certain to die, or to go permanently insane.” (Manuscript page 9).
3. The GREAT
FACT, said Bill, was that “all of us have had deep and effective religious
experiences.” (Manuscript page 10).
4. The
solution, said Bill: “So it began to look to us as though we must have a vital
religious experience or perish.” (Manuscript page 11).
5. “All of us,”
said Bill, “are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a new
relationship.” (Manuscript page 11).
6. The author
of each personal narrative “will describe in his own language and from his own
point of view the way in which he happened to find the living God.” (Manuscript
page 12).
7. The result
produced by seeking God and obtaining the solution, said Bill, is “The central
fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that the Creator of you and
me has entered into our hearts and lives in a way . . . which by no stretch of
the imagination were we humanly capable of.” (Manuscript page 10).
The Certainty, in the Minds of the First Three AAs,
that Establishing a Relationship with the Creator Had
Produced the Solution
On page 191 of the latest edition of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Bill W. is quoted as follows:
Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me
of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about it and telling
people.
On page 181 of the latest edition of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Dr. Bob is quoted as follows:
If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or
have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what
is in this book, I feel sorry for you. . . .
Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!
On page 191 of the same edition, A.A. Number Three (Bill D.)
is quoted a follows:
I thought, I think I have the answer. Bill was very, very
grateful that he had been released from this terrible thing and had given God
the credit for having done it, and he’s so grateful about it he wants to tell other
people about it.
That sentence, “The Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing
me of this terrible disease that I just want to keep telling people about it,”
has been a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.
The Certainty Was Embodied in the Three Pertinent Ideas on
Page 60 of the 4th edition
(a) That we were
alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
(b) That
probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
(c) That God
could and would if He were sought.
Gloria Deo
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