Books That Shaped Early AA

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Moderator Welcome to the Tuesday Night Recovery Speakers History Workshop. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight. My name is Tim and tonight's presentation is Books That Shaped Early Alcoholics Anonymous. And this is presented by Mike F. And we meet here every Tuesday night at the same time and at the same Zoom ID number.

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History And this meeting is recorded. All past audio presentations are available at recoveryspeakers.com. We are not affiliated with any 12-step organization, though our focus is on the history of AA and other 12-step fellowships. Recoveryspeakers.com is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to preserving and sharing the audio history of AA and the 12-step movement for today and for future generations. We send a daily email featuring a different speaker talk from our archive, recordings of these meetings, and flyers for upcoming presentations.

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History To subscribe, you can use the link I'll be sharing in the chat or you can send me an email at info at recoveryspeakers.com and I'll get you added to our email list. And if you're able to support our work, contributions are appreciated. The donation link is in the chat or you can use the QR code that is up on the screen. And I have an announcement here that we were just talking about for anyone that's joining us late. The History Roundup in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is coming up at the end of March and I'll share the flyer that you're seeing on the screen in the chat and you can check out their website, thehistoryroundup.com, and get registered and book your hotel room and can't wait to see you all there.

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History And now that is it for me. I am going to turn it right over to our presenter for this evening and yeah, I got it, I don't got it. No, no. Here. I'm not going to shrink it, or am I stuck with it?

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History I think you're stuck. All right. I don't want that chair. Oh, how are we going to let people in? Andrew.

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History Hi, everybody. Chili, Charlie, give me a thumbs up if you can hear me. Thank you. I just didn't want to get going and 10 minutes from now find out that nobody's heard a word that I said and I'll forget everything that I said. I'm so happy to see so many people who come on week after week, the same people.

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Moderator And I'm always, you know, personally a little bit nervous that what we bring to the table isn't going to feed you. And I say that in all sincerity that we have a tremendous amount of archives here and history and experience, but yet we regurgitate a lot of it at times just because it's readily available. And the other reason is there's people on here that are brand new that haven't seen any of what we present. So I'm not apologizing, I'm just making sure that some of the historians and some of the people who've spent a lot of time on here over the last almost six years understand that we're trying to make each week interesting. So tonight, the books that shaped Early Alcoholics Anonymous, and I didn't want to do something on the books that shaped the big book because, you know, a few weeks ago I did a presentation on the original six steps.

0:44

History And if you haven't seen that presentation, the video of it is on our website at recoveryspeakers.com and you can see that. In that presentation, I mentioned a lot of the books that they were reading prior to the big book publication, the books that they were getting sober on. So I didn't necessarily want to make this presentation exactly the same. And we've got on the cover page there, The Common Sense of Drinking, I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. The only book mentioned in the big book by name is The Varieties of Religious Experience.

0:52

Moderator And I really believe that the reason that Varieties of Religious Experience made it into the book was because of the history that Roland Hazard had with Carl Jung. You know, most people know this story, but Roland Hazard was having a very difficult time trying to get sober in the late 20s and his family had extreme wealth. They were from Rhode Island and Hazard was able to travel to Switzerland and actually be personally treated by Carl Jung. And Jung basically said to him, Roland, there isn't... Hang on, what am I doing?

1:00

Moderator Sorry, guys. I don't know what's happening. They were seeing the wrong slide. There it is, Tim. They weren't seeing this?

1:01

Moderator Well, that's a good thing I've got Tim here. So Carl Jung basically said to Roland, if you don't have some sort of religious conversion, you're going to die. And there's nothing that I can do to make you have a religious conversion, although I know of some that have taken place. And there are some people who have had these profound experiences. I would bet that Carl Jung said, Roland, some of these experiences are outlined in the book, the varieties of religious experience.

1:08

History Now what I'm going to share with you now is the information that I got that I do not have documentation of. This was handed down to me from, I believe, Pete from Palmer, who was in Texas. And he was a historian and archive and a collector and a very well-educated guy when it came to AA. And he said that Roland Hazard was told to get the book, Varieties of Religious Experience. And when he started through that book, he came across a conversion story of S.H.

1:15

Moderator Hadley. And he read the story of Hadley, and he, at that point in time, found that there might be hope in the missions. Because the story of S.H. Hadley tells about Samuel Hadley's experience in the Water Street mission, where he gave his life to Christ and had a conversion and spent the rest of his life working in the mission, ministering to alcoholics. He worked side by side with a guy named Jerry McCauley, and Jerry's nickname was the Apostle to the Drunkard.

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History So there was a lot going on at this Water Street mission, and with the conversion stories here in Varieties of Religious Experience. And I can see that Roland, when he would read this story, would have been moved by it, because I know I certainly have been moved by it. And many, many other AAs who have gone down this rabbit hole have gone, wow, that's really incredible. And he talks about how he was going to end his life, and then he gets restored and dedicates his life to service. Well, here Roland reads this, and Roland had been a lost soul.

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Moderator He couldn't get sober on his own, and he kept relapsing and kept getting in trouble, and his family was upset with him, and they had spent all kinds of money on him trying to get him sober. And it was just one failed attempt after another until he read this story. And then when he read the story, he began to look for missions in the New York area where he was at the time, and he came across Calvary Mission, which was the mission being used by the Oxford Group. And when I say by the Oxford Group, we're talking about Ebbie, and we're talking about Bill, and we're talking about these were the guys that were coming to the mission, okay? And they hadn't yet made it there, but those were the people who were showing up at Calvary Mission.

1:41

History And they were attending Oxford Group meetings, and the guys in the mission were recovering, and they were trying to find work and doing things together. And the mission was very, very effective. The person who was running the mission was being run through Calvary Church and Sam Shoemaker, and the custodian there at the mission was the nephew of Samuel Hadley. You can just imagine Roland Hazard showing up at the mission, seeking a spiritual experience, had read the story of Samuel Hadley, gets into the mission, and he's greeted by none other than a sober Hadley related directly to the one he had read about. This, I believe, helped Roland to have his own spiritual experience that led his sobriety, and he began to transfer the obsession from himself to that of service to others.

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History And he started going out with the Oxford Group and doing house parties. So as a result of that, they called on Ebbie, and then Roland ends up back in New York, and then Ebbie goes to Bill, and a few things start happening around New York. But the mission continues to grow for probably the next six or seven years, even while AA was getting off the ground. So the mission became a very important part of early AA members there in the New York area. And this book played a very, very instrumental role, and if we look back and we try to see the golden thread, this is one of those books that are going to come up.

2:01

History Then the Water Street book, Down on Water Street by Samuel Hadley, this is the gentleman whose story was told in the conversion in varieties of religious experience. So this was his account of the story of 16 years' life and work in the Water Street mission, a sequel to the life of Jerry Macaulay. And Jerry was the apostle to the lost or the apostle to the drunkard. Oh, here, he got apostle to the lost, and this was a Jerry Macaulay book. Now, we're trying to show some things of some of the stuff that helped to formulate and create AA and early AAs and kind of the atmosphere.

2:09

Moderator So we're going back here to the late 1800s and the things that were being tried and experimented with, with some success. And as a result of that success, that helped to validate some of the things that hadn't yet come, but were on the way. And that was the Oxford group, Calvary mission. Now, in New York, you had all kinds of things going on at the time. In the early 30s, people were trying to recover from the stock market collapse in 29 and get back on their feet.

2:16

History People were looking for jobs. Richard Peabody, who was part of the Emanuel movement, and he was trained under Courtney Baylor and some of the people from Boston. And Richard Peabody wrote a book in 1931 called The Common Sense of Drinking. Most historians and collectors are familiar with this book, but I wanted to show you why this book played such an important role. Richard Peabody, being an alcoholic, understood the language very, very well.

2:22

History He was a great communicator. And he came up with some lines that were so good that Bill Wilson really enjoyed those lines and definitely decided that he would include those in the work that he was putting together. One of the things is half measures of halfway measures. He's got listed in the book. In the AA book, big book says half measures of Valis nothing.

2:27

History And Peabody, halfway measures are of no avail. Another one was once an alcoholic, AA big book says always an alcoholic, but Peabody wants a drunkard, always a drunkard or a teetotaler. So we definitely know that there's a lot of the same ideas from this book carried over. And some of it looks like it's word for word. Here, the million dollars, abstinence story, very similar.

2:32

History AA big book, the man of 30. Now we know that Bill was new in sobriety. There was nobody that he could look upon that had long term sobriety. He had to get that story from somewhere. And he got it right here in Richard Peabody's book, The Common Sense of Drinking.

2:36

History This book is available online. They have also redistributed it in recent years. I believe it's a paperback version and probably get it for, you know, $10 or something. So here we go. Interesting.

2:39

History Ah, Sermon on the Mount. Now, it's interesting. I was of the mindset because in one of Bill's, no, in Dr. Bob's talk, Dr. Bob said that they use the Book of James, or Bill Wilson said this, that they use the Book of James, the 13th Corinthians, and the Sermon on the Mount.

2:43

Moderator And I believe that those were all from the Bible and that Ann Smith was spending a tremendous amount of time with Bill W. and Dr. Bob and some of the first handful of AA members through Akron, and Ann would read to them from the Bible. And I always assumed that she was reading the Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, and the 13th Corinthians, like Bill and Dr. Bob both mentioned.

2:49

History And I disregarded any contribution from Emmett Fox because I just felt like they're using 13th Corinthians and the Book of James straight from the Bible. When they said the Sermon on the Mount, I just made that assumption. Now, I don't know that Bill Wilson took directly anything from the Sermon on the Mount when writing the book, but I do know, there is absolutely no question, that Dr. Bob read the Sermon on the Mount and gave it to his people and suggested it. Even in the manual of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was printed in Akron.

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Moderator They list that as one of the books to read. Now, this book came out—Tim didn't put the copyright date, but I think it was 1902, if my memory is correct—Principles of Jesus. Now, this is where the Oxford group got the four absolutes or the ideas for the four absolutes. And on page 35 of the Principles of Jesus, he begins to outline those. Absolute standard of truth, absolute standard of unselfishness, absolute standard of purity, and absolute standard of love.

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History So, we know that these things had existed even before the Oxford group had started. These were materials that were being passed around. The Oxford group really were big proponents of the four absolutes and hung on to those and made that part of their message, was absolute love, purity, unselfishness. And love, purity, unselfishness, what am I forgetting? Honesty and absolute honesty.

3:08

History So, those were the four absolutes. And in some areas today around Cleveland, they're still using the absolutes, and they're putting out a little pamphlet on the four absolutes. Here's one of the Oxford group books that came out in 1934. So, this was the same year that Bill Wilson got sober, and you can see absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love right there in What is the Oxford Group? This was a popular book among both Oxford group members and early AA members because of the teachings and the philosophy that they were expanding on the absolutes and expanding on the philosophy of the Oxford group.

3:16

History And it's outlined here. I don't believe that this book has been republished in the public domain, but it may have been. I was a pagan. Now, this book was written by VC Kitchen, a New York advertising person. You can see he's got a book.

3:20

History We've got a high watch farm there with Ebby sitting on the back of the car. I wonder if that's the car that the guys in Texas bought for Bill W. Anyway, I was a pagan by VC Kitchen. He was an alcoholic. He tells his story in this book.

3:24

History There is no question that Bill W. had contact either directly or indirectly with VC Kitchen. Most likely directly. A lot of the philosophy and the tools that Kitchen was using made their way into AA literature. He became a great friend of AA.

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Moderator The people in and around New York were hanging together, whether they were Oxford Group or AA. At that point in time, AA still was nameless for the first few years. So a lot of this carryover happened during a time where AA had not yet completely separated from the Oxford Group or took its own name. This was probably the key book for the Oxford Group, written by A.J. Russell, For Sinners Only.

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History This book led to the publication of a lot of other books, but it certainly led to an understanding and an opening for AA with meditation and some of the things that A.J. Russell was sharing about the Oxford Group in For Sinners Only. There were two ladies that got a hold of this book. They followed the instructions in the book and then afterward they were taking notes. They claimed that during their meditations, Jesus was speaking to one of them and they were writing down all that Jesus allegedly had shared with them.

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Moderator And then after this period of time, they wanted to get their work published and they went to publishers in the London area and nobody wanted to touch a book that was written by Jesus. So they went back to A.J. Russell and basically said, as a result of reading and studying your book, For Sinners Only, we have been doing this and this is what has happened. And they shared with him their notes that they had taken. And A.J.

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History Russell was very interested in this and he agreed to publish their book, but he remained anonymous in the publishing of the book. And so the book was called God Calling and it was written by two listeners and edited by A.J. Russell. Now A.J. Russell agreed that he would publish this book, but he wanted to do it the way that their notes had been given to them.

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History So it became a daily reader, it became a meditation book. He launched it, it first hit the market in January of 1935, and it was so popular that they had to do a second printing the same month. To date, God Calling is the most purchased daily meditation book ever written. Right here, God Calling. From this book, Richmond Walker, an AA member from Boston, was able to put his notes together and he used the meditations in God Calling when he put together the 24-hour-a-day book.

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History And he wrote the 24-hour-a-day book the same way, as a daily meditation book, more specifically for alcoholics. I understand AA felt that it might be a little bit too religious, but I think that the AA members who have utilized this book as a tool for their recovery have said that it has been incredible. One of the things I often say in my talk is that I didn't know a whole lot about prayer when I was trying to get sober, but I remember going by my dad's bedroom and he'd be kneeling down by the side of his bed, and I asked him once, I said, why do you do that? And I don't know if I was challenging him or being sarcastic or just curious, but he said, well, my sponsor told me to put my 24-hour-a-day book in my shoe and then put my shoes under my bed. And when I get up and I reach down to get my shoes, well, I'm already on my knees.

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History I should say a prayer while I'm down there. I started doing the same thing just because that was what I was taught. And I have to tell you that early in my sobriety, the 24-hour-a-day book was as important to me as any other literature that I was reading. I then started reading God Calling, and now I'm into some other stuff. But I think that that's recovery as we advance and we grow and we find things that interest us at different points in our life.

4:19

Moderator And certainly AA members didn't just read these books or stop at these books. They read all kinds of books. Now we, uh, what's going on here, Tim, video, all right, there we are. So that's the total of my presentation that I wanted to share about some of the books that were influenced early AAs. But I did want to say that AA wasn't a whole lot different in the 1940s and 50s.

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History Because we think, you know, oh, AA's changed, and you hear some of these people who haven't really studied our history that'll tell you what it used to be like, okay? And oh, we need to get back to what it was like in the beginning. They've watered this thing down. They've watered the messes. There are more people sober today on the planet than there ever has been.

4:30

History The 12 steps and 12 traditions are more effective today than they've ever been. People who are looking for help with addiction or alcoholism have more opportunities and more services available to them today than ever before. What's happening in the recovery movement today is absolutely fantastic. And Alcoholics Anonymous is leading the way. Alcoholics Anonymous is the grandfather of all of it.

4:35

Moderator And those people who are members of Alcoholics Anonymous, I encourage and ask you to be responsible and understand that all of these other organizations that are starting up and have been going on, and some are struggling and some aren't, but our job is to encourage them, welcome them. When someone comes to your meeting or my meeting, and maybe they don't qualify as an alcoholic, let's help them find a place where they do qualify. Let's not just say, I'm sorry, you can't come in here because you're not an alcoholic. Let's take them by the hand and give them a meeting schedule and bring them to a meeting that will help them. Because you see, all these programs have a key thing, and that's what Bill Wilson and Ebby Thatcher and these guys learned in the beginning, and that was they could identify with one another.

4:47

History They had something in common. What they had in common was a problem, and then they had a solution that had depth and weight. And the big book is the solution that they used. And we know that other groups have successfully used the big book, like CA just came out with their own book recently, and that's fantastic. But for the first 25 years, they used the AA big book because that's what worked.

4:53

History And I'm sharing this little rant probably because I want to communicate a message of love and responsibility. In 1965, the theme of AA's international convention was, I am responsible. And the responsibility pledge says, I am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help. I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible.

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Moderator Now, folks, if somebody's coming into an Al-Anon meeting, an Al-Ateen meeting, a CA meeting, an HA meeting, a PA meeting tonight, they are coming in as a result of what Dr. Silkworth did for Bill Wilson in December 1934 when he said, Bill, you're not hallucinating. Whatever you got, hold on to it because it's so much better than what had you just a few hours ago. Thank you guys for being with us tonight, and we do have some time for Q&A. Why do you want to do it, Tim?

5:05

Moderator Let's not mute. Am I muted? Oh, my gosh. Hi, Timmy. You're up first.

5:06

History You can unmute and ask your question. Ooh, the baby. Hi. Hey, John. Say hi, buddy.

5:07

History Hey, John. Oh, yeah. John, recovered alcoholic in Newport Beach, hey, what about Howard Walder's soul surgery? Do you know much about him? Was he affiliated with Shoemaker?

5:10

Moderator I don't know that he was affiliated with Shoemaker. He may have been, but I certainly know he wrote the book, Soul Surger, around the time that Shoemaker got involved with Bookman, and that was around 1919. So I would say that around that time, there was a lot going on with the Oxford Group, with Bookman, and with Shoemaker, and certainly Soul Surgery became one of the anchor books for the movement. So I don't know his direct connection, but I believe that they were associated. You're pretty wrong.

5:17

Moderator It was 1919. Is that what I said? Yeah. See, Tim's pulling stuff out to check my facts. He just said, you're pretty good.

5:18

Moderator It was 1919. You think I just make this stuff up? Sometimes, yeah. John, great to see you. Thank you.

5:20

History Next is Juan. You can unmute. Hi. I have a question regarding the Akron pamphlets. Why did they take out the early editions had the list of literature?

5:22

History Do you know why they took that out? No. You'd have to ask some editorial committee there in Akron. I really don't know why they would remove or change anything. Okay.

5:25

History Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Next is Marty. You can unmute.

5:25

Moderator Hey. Okay. Let me lower my hand and Marty recovered alcoholic. I don't know if sometime before you did, I took pictures, I think, and that guy Spears. Robert Spears.

5:28

History Yeah. Robert Spears. So he had somebody that somewhere he wrote a book about God and man's life. Yeah. Okay.

5:29

History It was a Henry A. Wright, and he wrote, he was a student of Spears, and he wrote a book, The Will of God in a Man's Life. Yep. Yeah. I got a PDF there.

5:32

History The other one is, did you ever come across the runner's Bible? You were saying that was an early 19. Yep. I've got a bunch of them. Yeah.

5:34

History Yeah. I thought so. Okay. Yeah. And the idea was that you can use it while you're on the run.

5:36

History Very busy people. It was on Dr. Bob's reading list and really a very popular book among early AAs in and around Cleveland, Akron area. Yeah. The Cleveland Way or the faith-based community, Clarence Snyder.

5:39

Moderator In the back of the book, they give a lot of, The Utmost I've been reading for a long, long time. The Utmost is wonderful. Yeah. Wow. Look at that.

5:41

Moderator All right, Mike. And Tim, thank you. And everybody else on the meeting. Thank you, Marty. And next is Terry.

5:42

History You can unmute. Hi. I'm Terry, I'm an alcoholic. There's another pamphlet I picked up years ago called Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. There's a lot of different information in there.

5:45

History On YouTube, I recently found, I listen to AA meetings, YouTube has a lot of AA meetings from different places in Al-Anon. Well, this one was Al-Anon, but it was Smitty. Smitty Spoke, that's Dr. Bob's son. And you just have to microphone your TV these days and say, Smitty, Dr.

5:49

History Bob's son, Al-Anon, whatever, you'll find it. And he tells a lot of little things that over the years, I didn't even know. So it was very interesting, he explained his life and also parts of how AA started. Thank you. Thank you very much.

5:53

History And he was a friend, and got to know him in early recovery, and he was quite a contributor to both AA and Al-Anon. So thank you for sharing. Yeah, this particular, I'm sorry, this particular YouTube was, it's dated 1935 to 1965. So when he spoke, I don't know, but that's what it stated. All right, thanks.

5:57

Moderator Thank you. Thank you, Terry. And next is Carl, you can unmute. Thank you, Tim. My name is Carl, and I'm an alcoholic.

5:59

History I'm going to put in a shameless plug for Recovery Collectibles, and I have three first editions through Recovery that I bought through Recovery Collectibles of I Was a Pagan by my favorite book by VC Kitchens. Am I correct in assuming that VC Kitchens, Shep Cornell, and Sieber Graves were all part of that businessmen's group, and Bill Wilson, until Bill Wilson dropped out, that was at the Calgary Church through Sam Shoemaker in 1934, that they all went to the Oxford Group businessmen's meeting? Yeah, I believe you're correct, Carl, and that would have been through 35 too, not just 34. Thank you. Because Bill got sober in 34, and there was so much going on in New York.

6:08

Moderator You had Emmett Fox every Sunday growing a huge audience of people. You had Emily Cady, you had Emmett Fox, you had Napoleon Hill. All of these people were coming out, and many of them were what they called at the time metaphysicians. They were taking Christianity and they were putting it out in a way that people could identify and become more comfortable with. There was a whole regime of these people, all in the 30s.

6:14

Moderator So you think about a businessman's breakfast through Oxford Group and Shoemaker's Church at Calvary, and you put that period of time together, and you think about the people who were popular in New York at the time. These would be the people who would be attending that. The Oxford Group was not pulling people out of alleys and gutters and off of bar stools. They were going after the super wealthy influencers. They were looking for people who could help grow them globally quickly, and AA was completely the opposite.

6:21

Moderator AA was about one drunk talking to another in his living room and encouraging him in the hospital bed and taking him to a meeting. So thank you for mentioning that, and I think it's important to realize that Bill Wilson was connected with some of the most powerful leaders at the time, and he certainly became a leader of men throughout his life. Larry had mentioned AA comes of age. What a document that is. Bill wrote AA comes of age as the history book of AA up through 1955, when AA came of age.

6:29

History So that's something important, so I appreciate her mentioning that. Next. I'm going to throw a question here for Mike, just because I thought there's a really fun story for him to tell, and we saw a picture of Abby on the slide with I was a pagan. Do you want to share the story about that? No.

6:33

Moderator Go ahead, Tim. I don't know the story. What is the story? From what I recall, when Abby was contacted by Shep Cornell and Roland Hazard and Sieber Graves, they arrived to Abby with a book for him to keep. That book was I was a pagan.

6:37

History Abby then got sober in the Oxford group after reading that book. He thinks he needs me to tell a story. He just told the story. The guys show up at Abby's house. He's painting.

6:40

History It's a summer afternoon. He's probably half loaded. These two guys show up and start talking to him about religion and God and not drinking, and they give him this book and they leave. The book had just come out, 1934. I was a pagan.

6:43

Moderator If it wasn't for that book, we might not be having this conversation. Thank you for sharing that, Tim. Thank you, Mike. And now our next question is from Marty. You can unmute.

6:46

History You doubled it. Let me lower my hand. So I have a couple of – Fred was a member of an accounting firm. And Dickie B, I read his book, The Holy Bible, and the big book. And he mentions that Sam Shoemaker gave – he had a guy who was staying sober, Bill.

6:50

History He wasn't thinking he was helping anybody. And I can't find the page. But could that be the Fred that was part of the business group of the Oxford group? I have no idea. Okay.

6:53

History Unfortunately, Dick B. did not offer to help. he's he's kept in a document where he got his information from and some of the documentation in some of the books is slanted a lot more toward a Christian organization almost almost claiming that if you weren't Christian in Akron, Cleveland, you couldn't come into the program which is just not never been true and even even you had mentioned Clarence Snyder. Well, Clarence Snyder, if you listen to his recordings, Clarence will say he was in Akron City Hospital for 8 days. Doctor Bob was his sponsor and put him into the hospital during that 8 days.

7:01

Moderator He didn't eat much but all of the people who were sober at the time came to visit him. There are about 18 of them. They came every day to see him. Dick Stanley used to come and eat his breakfast and his lunch and Clarence would save the dessert for himself and he said on the very last day. Now, all these people came to see him and they all told him how great this this fellowship is, how wonderful this is but he said nobody would tell him what the secret was, what what they had to do, what it was and Clarence said on the very last day, very last day.

7:10

History Doctor Bob came in and sat on the side of his bed and pointed his bony fingers at Clarence and said, do you believe in god? Amen. And and and and and they they prayed. Okay. Now, let me ask you something.

7:13

Moderator Clarence acted like this was a revelation. This is the first time he heard about god. He had been in the hospital for 8 days. He had been visited by everybody that was sober there. How come they weren't preaching Christianity to him?

7:16

History I get it. I mean, if you read some of the some of the books that were written, you'd think that I was full of **** but you know what? I'm only basing on Clarence Snyder's words. I have another one. Bill comes back.

7:20

History I believe that Victor Kitchen. No, no, thank you. I'm I'm you know, so Bill comes back and Victor Kitchen was part of the Oxford group at Calvary Church and Bill now has AA because he came back, you know, he left Doctor Bob and he's back in New York and Victor Kitchen stayed with the Oxford group. He didn't want to you know, get involved with the AA. He he's the man that decided to stay with with the Oxford group.

7:26

History I know he continued on with the Oxford group. I do not know if the kitchen ever declared any kind of membership in AA. The the anonymity you know, a lot of these people who came to AA really did stay anonymous and and he may have been one who did in the early like Charles Clap Charles Clap was a profound Oxford group member. He wrote a couple of books. One is called the Big Bender.

7:32

History Another is drinking is not the problem. He did one more book. I can't think of the name of it but Charles Clap was clearly Oxford group. Okay. As a matter of fact, never have I seen him listed as an AA member.

7:35

History Okay. And I just had a book passed through here. AA big book of third printing, I think and it was signed by Charles Clap. So, these people were they were involved just a lot. I have one more question about the authenticity.

7:39

History It could be a myth because there's misconceptions. I heard that Dr. Silkworth in between like relapses gave Bill the varieties of religious experience. Yeah. It's possible because I don't know that it's documented.

7:42

History Someone gave Bill varieties of religious experience at one of his early visits at Towns Hospital and he definitely read the conversion stories. I don't know if he read or studied the whole book. He certainly didn't read the book in a day. I'll guarantee you that. Thank you, Marty.

7:46

History And next is Chili Charlie. Oh, no. Who could read varieties of religious experience in a day? Yeah, no shit. Sorry.

7:47

History I guess my question is the early members are reading these books, right? And are they reading passages out of them in their formal meetings? And if so, how long would that practice last? And kind of what I'm getting to, I was thinking during your presentation it's like in today's AA, you can't read anything that's not conference approved in the meetings, right? And I was thinking, what if you started reading passages out of the Bible?

7:53

History You'd be chastised, but I was just kind of curious as to how long that practice might have lasted. Well, thanks. That's really a good question. The traditions tell us that each group is autonomous. So each group can make its own decision about literature and about governing their meeting.

7:57

History The group conscience can make this decision. Some group consciences have decided that they only want AA conference approved material read or displayed at their meetings. Some have a separate table where they might have conference approved books and stuff. Each group gets to make their own decision when it comes to that. I really, you know, it's always bothered me that somehow people would think because it's conference approved that some committee read through that and said, oh, this is exactly what we want to share.

8:04

History That's not the case at all. It's approved because it came up through the conference and that's the only way it can be published. So they have no committee that looks at books and rejects them. We have no opinion on any outside book, any of them. So I had mentioned Richmond Walker's 24 hour a day book.

8:09

Moderator Now I know in 1960 at the International Convention held in Long Beach on July 3rd, they introduced Richmond Walker as one of the speakers and before they introduced him they said, and this is the second most popular book about AA that's ever been written and we're going to read today's reading from July 3rd and they read that and then introduced Richmond Walker. So we definitely know in 1960 they were reading non-conference approved books at their international conventions and I think that honestly I think that a lot of the rigidity of AA or rigidity within some pockets of AA started after Bill Wilson died and a lot of the rumors that have surrounded Bill Wilson's life that stuff wasn't even mentioned when he could defend Bill waited and then they started all this crap I would think that today there are still some groups that are reading non-conference approved literature because their group conscience decides that that's okay which is definitely the groups I seek out because I don't, I'm not into rigidity I feel like you know if you want to do that and you need to take an antidepressant and go to three therapists and walk every day for four hours and go to a meeting and that's your recovery I'm going to applaud it I'm not going to get in the way of it I'm not going to tell you how to do it differently I'm going to say great job and I think that you know when AA was getting going they were encouraging each other to read so would they read it at the meetings? Yes definitely they would bring this stuff in and read them at the meetings you know my mom was Al-Anon and she she was in Al-Anon for a long time she used to call me all the time now where are the promises in the big book? It's just so much fun how they used to really do that and when she came into Al-Anon they only had two books they had Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale at her group that's what they read and they had the Al-Anon family group and those were the only two books that they had oh and the AA big book so I talk a lot Charlie I'm not sure I answered your question but I probably somewhere there said something that might help Thank you Looking forward to speaking for you guys next week Tuesday night Great facts right? Great facts Thank you Charlie Our next question Our next question is from Andrew you can unmute Is this Andrew S from San Diego?

8:44

Moderator That would be Andrew S from San Diego Hey How are you man? Good to see you too Awesome presentation Thank you My question to you is in your presentation you mentioned Roland Hazard Did Did he endorse Alcoholics Anonymous Did he ever attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and did he die sober Wow Those are really really good questions for another presenter It would be highly unlikely that Roland Hazard did not attend some AA meetings in New York highly unlikely Shep Cornell had a condo or apartment or a villa or something in New York and he later helped Ebby get sober in Texas and helped finance it Around the early 40s I think these guys were all mixing I can't say for sure but that's the case As far as dying of suicide How did he die? He asked if he died sober You're muted He asked if he died sober That I don't know Did he die sober? Don't know I can share that we had a presentation done by someone from Vermont nearby where the homes were and I can't remember exactly what was shared in that presentation but it went into a lot of detail with Roland Hazard if you do want to re-listen to that sometime You can find it on Recovery Speakers Gotcha, thank you Thank you for being here Andrew and it's so good to see you and you owe me a phone call Okay Alright, thanks Just to piggyback on the question there, something that I found really cool a couple years ago was a newspaper clipping of the Oxford group I think in Minnesota and it was Roland Hazard and VC Kitchen were on the program together at this yeah, so some cool things like that you can find in newspapers and records and piece it together Yeah, it's really hard to speak definitively about some of these things that occurred in an anonymous organization at a time where people were hanging out with Henry Ford and Edison and these guys so we don't know all of the facts but we definitely know that Roland Hazard was there man, he had to have been there Thanks Andrew Alright we've got a few more minutes and we do want to wrap this up at 8 o'clock, so 6 more minutes and 4 more questions, let's make it happen Alright Next up is Terry, you can unmute Terry? Wait a minute, wait You can?

9:16

Moderator Oh, alright No, you know I just did a text what I do is I googled I googled was Fred B did Fred B belong to the Oxford Group and it gives a lot of information about what we're just talking about it's the AI it's the AI overview Fred B was a member of Oxford Group New York City, blah blah blah he was historically significant as the first person Bill Wilson attempted to help achieve sobriety after Wilson's own spiritual and then it goes on and on and on he was introduced to Wilson by Sam Shoemaker Episcopal minister, blah blah blah and it goes on so the question was was Fred B a member of the Oxford Group and you get a little bit a bunch of facts there Great Thanks for sharing Thank you very much And our next question is from Marion, there you are Hi, this is a follow up to Tim's thing about Rowan Hazard They brought a book to him to their house so where does that fit in with the story that they had taken him to court and all these guys rescued him from going to jail Okay so basically he was given the book in August while he was painting the house he got in trouble with the law because he had already had three episodes so as a result of it he went in front of the judge and the judge said Ebby I want you to come back here on Monday and I want you to be sober and Ebby showed up for court on Monday and the two men that came to visit him and gave him the book were there one was Sebra Graves and one was Shep Cornell the judge was Judge Graves who was the father of Sebra Graves the third person that entered the picture that day was Rowan Hazard Rowan Hazard hadn't entered the physical picture of AA as of yet although it's going to link later with the whole varieties of religious experience and Bill Wilson so the judge has Rowan Hazard Sebra Graves and Shep Cornell all together his son is Sebra and Sebra is sober and he's given the credit for Sebra's sobriety to Rowan and he says to Rowan for my kid I'll let you take him and Ebby was a free man to go and he hung with him for some reason I hadn't put the thought together that he was sober before he got to court that I thought maybe he sobered up at the mission he was not sober when he went to court they came while he was drinking he had that book and then they reappeared two months later he was in court but thanks for the question thank you for your little thing on the 24 hour book because I've been here for 60 years and reading that 24 hour book for pretty much 60 years and whenever they complain to me I just say well that saved my butt so I could be here to help you tell them to put it in their shoe thank you thank you so much Marian and thank you everyone for your questions I'm now going to allow everyone to unmute and thank our presenter tonight Mike and they moved all my buttons thanks everyone thank you Mike

The following is an AI-generated transcript. Minor errors may occur. The audio is the authoritative source.

Books That Shaped Early AA

Books That Shaped Early AA

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