Details on the Portland, Maine
Nationwide A.A. History Conference Firming Up for Early September Right Now
Dick B.
© 2013 Anonymous. All rights reserved
·
We will soon announce and tell you the precise hours,
dates, locations, and programs for the forthcoming Nationwide Alcoholics
Anonymous History Conference in Portland, Maine this September.
·
There will be Conferences on Friday evening
September 6, and all day Saturday, September 7. My son Ken and I will be in the
area for several days and look forward to meeting also with individuals and
groups who recognize the importance to recovery from alcoholism and addict ion
of: learning about, and passing on, the origins, history, and bliblical roots
of the early A.A. fellowship founded in Akron in 1935. And to fill in the
numerous A.A. history potholes existing in all these realms of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
·
Our additional separate Portland meetings,
whether in a restaurant, a lobby, an office, or a board room, are very
productive in learning others’ questions; hearing their suggestions, needs,
recommendations, and plans; and restoring to full view the role that God, His
Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible played in the origins, history, immense
correlation among Christian leaders, organizations and workers that were
healing alcoholics and addicts long before A.A. was founded in June, 1935.Also,
to spread the message about the Cofounders’ Christian upbringing in Vermont.
And how the first three AAs got sober before there were any Steps, Traditions,
Big Books, drunkalogs and meetings like those we see today. The simply
renounced liquor, sought God’s help, and helped others.
·
Contents of our meetings and conferences in
Portland will be broad, informative, and accurate. They have as their primary
purpose helping the still suffering alcoholics and addicts. Necessarily, they
inform the suffering affected and afflicted about what our Creator has done,
can do, and will do according to His will
·
Probable subjects and events, whether in talks,
or roundtable, or by speeches will include:
(1) Our speaking at an A.A. meeting.
(2) Addressing a large Christian recovery
conference to teach, discuss, and demonstrate what God and His Son Jesus
Christ, and the Bible have done, can do, and will do for those who want that
kind of help.
(3) A round-table sharing meeting among
leaders and working attending.
(4) Hospitality, music, food.
(5) Ample literature accurately describing
and demonstrating how Christian recovery developed from the 1850’s by
(a) Young Men’s Christian Association,
(b) Gospel Rescue Missions,
(c) Congregationalism,
(d) Evangelists like Dwight Moody,
Ira Sankey, Allen Folger, Francis Clark, and
F.B. Meyer who offered salvation, the Word of
God, and healings.
(e) Salvation
Army,
(f)
United Society of Christian Endeavor,
(g) Early writings and talks by activists in A First Century Christian Fellowship, (h) Rev. Samuel
Shoemaker,
(i) Revival, conversion, and temperance meetings,
(j) the survey of vital religious experiences by Professor William James,
(k) the Christian healing of alcoholism and addiction that Dr. William D.
Silkworth suggested to Bill W. and other patients.
(l) the view of Dr. Carl Jung that the seeming hopelessness generated in
the mind of a chronic alcoholic can be countered by a vital religious
experience
(m) Bill W.’s insistence on cure by the power of God through a vital
religious experience.
(n) The disconcerting difference between Bill’s “new version” of recovery published and changed in various
manuscripts and editions of the Big Book, and the precise Christian techniques
used with a claimed 75% success rate for Akron A.A. and a 93% documented
success rate of early Cleveland A.A.
(6) The
published summary, principles, practices, and successes of pioneer AAs.
(7)
Firming up convictions that the early A.A. Akron Christian Fellowship
adapted and applied daily as did Jesus and the fellowships of the Apostles and
Disciples described in the Book of Acts.
(8) Preparing yourself for a
fruitful conference by purchasing (a) a copy of the Dover Publications, Inc.
First Edition, with a twenty-seven page introduction by Dick B.; http://mcaf.ee/j4hq5; (b) Stick with the Winners! http://mcaf.ee/s50mq;
(c) Pioneer Stories in Alcoholics
Anonymous http://mcaf.ee/gj7iw; and A.A.
Conference-approved Pamphlet P-53 The
Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major
Talks.
·
The Portland, Maine meetings and conferences in
September are being planned right now. The dates (and soon the times,
locations, meetings, and programs for Portland, Maine-will be Friday evening
September 6th and Saturday September 7th. We are expecting to see a number of
long-term recovered Christian alcoholics and addicts who are leaders and
workers in their fellowships and participants in International Christian
Recovery Coalition www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com. We hope they come as our
treasured recovered participants from many provinces in Canada; and locations
in Maine; New Hampshire; Vermont; Connecticut; Massachusetts; New York;
Delaware; New Jersey; Washington DC, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
·
We look
forward to their sharing their expertise in recovery, history, Christian roots,
Steps, networking, getting acquainted, helping each other, and learning facets
of recovery that have been buried and/or unspoken correctly far too long.
·
We are doing the planning, fixing the dates and
locations, and contacting likely participants at this early point. Because
experience has shown that the earlier the
planning, the better the conference.
·
We welcome suggestions, questions, and comments
right now. I’ll be celebrating 27 years of continuous sobriety in a day or so.
And I’ll be celebrating 88 years of age in May. And it’s never too soon to
alert your participation and give you information that can persuade others to
join you and/or attend on their own.
Gloria
Deo
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