The Emmanuel Movement and Influences on Early AA — Jonathan S. — Tuesday Night History Workshop — August 7, 2020

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Speaker Jonathan S.

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Date Recorded August 7, 2020

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Topic Emmanuel Movement

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Jonathan Tuesday Night History Workshop • August 7, 2020

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Jonathan Listen to Meeting Recording

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Jonathan ABOUT THIS MEETING

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Jonathan Jonathan S. explains the Emmanuel Movement and the ideas and people that influenced early AA in the early twentieth century.

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Jonathan Full Transcript

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Moderator All right. Welcome to the Recovery Speakers history meeting. My name is Tim and I'm an alcoholic. And this week's meeting we have Jonathan S. presenting on, um, the Emmanuel Movement and other, um, works and people that were influential to, um, Alcoholics Anonymous in the early 1900s. Um, this meeting's being recorded and the recording is being put on recoveryspeakers.com. You can go on the site and search history meetings and it will come up as the first thing, the recordings of the meetings. Or you can re- you can email info@recoveryspeakers.com and sign up to receive our daily email which has a daily speaker, and the recordings are always placed in that email and you can listen to them there. Um, I have everyone muted. I'm gonna close the chat in a minute. I will open up the chat and, um, at in the last 15 minutes or so of the meeting will be Q&A. And if you have any questions, raise your hand and I will call on people in order to ask their question. And I believe that's all that I have. I'll hand it over to Mike. All right. Thank you, Tim.

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Moderator And you are doing a very good job, and we're all very happy for the time that you dedicate each week to making this happen and to putting the speakers out there. You know, I, I'm reminded of the work that Bill and Arbutus O'Neill did when they started the Midwest Tape Library back in the early '60s, late '50s, and began taping all of the conferences, and that's kind of how, how this whole thing had started. This legacy began with Bill and Arbutus and the Midwest Tape Library, and then I acquired the library and have begun to get those recordings, uh, digitized so that we can make them available for free at Recovery Speakers. And that has really thrown me down this rabbit hole of AA history, and as a result of it have, have had the, the opportunity to do some books and do some really fun stuff related to our history, as well as just learn from these recordings and, and all of the pioneers that have been so much a part of it.

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Moderator And now to be able to, to do it in digital in the way that we're doing with the meeting and, and having this platform for people to share is just an honor. So to tell you just a little bit about Jonathan, he and I didn't talk about this, but professionally, Jonathan was able to give me some assistance when it was time to, uh, purchase the Midwest Tape Library. Jonathan and I had become friends. He's a lawyer, so he's able to give me a little bit of guidance with a few things, and it turned out that we were able to do that. During the process, he and I became great friends. He, you know, is somebody who has collected a lot of, uh, related memorabilia. I've always been somebody who's been into that. Some of you that know me know that I've been quite obsessive with that over the decades. But, um, Jonathan has, has put together a workshop that he has done at some conferences and for some groups and, uh, I have not heard it other than he and I have spent countless hours on the phone.

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Moderator I'm excited to hear what he has to say tonight about the Emmanuel Movement, the books that Bill Wilson used while he was writing The Big Book. And without anything more from me, I'm gonna just turn it over to Jonathan S. from Myrtle Beach. You'll have to unmute yourself, Jonathan, or Tim's gonna have to make it so you can. All right. I'm good. Can you hear me? Thumbs up? All right. Fantastic. Well, I'm grateful to be here. Thank you, Mike. Um, you know, it's, uh, the history is something that, um, I was fortunate and blessed to have some people just start feeding me bits and pieces early on in my recovery, and it lit a fire and, and then all of a sudden, um, you know, I finished my education. I got sober at 23, and I'm pushing 54. Um, and, uh, you know, I had a little bit of means to do some things to start digging. And, uh, it's interesting 'cause a lot of the materials I got, the copyrights hadn't run.

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Jonathan In the last 20 years, a ton of copyrights have run, so literally a lot of the literature in some of the books I'll reference tonight you can get for 10, 15, 20 bucks on Amazon. Mike probably sold me a couple for a couple hundred bucks, I know. I, I'm certain of that. But I wanna open up with this, just a little bit of disclaimer. I just, um, I, um, I come here just as another person in recovery with a love for the history and an enthusiasm for this gift and, and hopefully through a little bit of what I learned, I can fuel that fire in somebody else. Um, and I think more so than that is that I hope that what, what I can share with you tonight is gonna further equip us to be more effective in reaching the still suffering alcoholic. Um, we're, we're not in a higher stakes game than anybody else in this world. Uh, the people that we try to reach, um, if we don't reach them, they die.

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Jonathan Um, and these are, these are good people and, and it's, it's, it's just a, a horrible thing when you bury people you love that have good brains and, and productive careers and pretty wives and smart kids and, and, and hope and a future and they die. Um, so I think that underneath everything, um, leaves me with a resolve to do this recovery thing a little better. A little disclaimer here. I have one thing in common with the, uh, donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem Palm Sunday. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar. On that Sunday, they laid down the palms, holy, holy, and they said some nice things to him. The donkey that carried Jesus and I have one thing in common, and that's basically we're both just the ass carrying the message, and I think that's important. Don't go... There's not a lot more in terms of accolades you can give me. I, I'll take that one. The other thing I'd like to say, there's a story of th- this alcoholic sitting on one side of the riverbank and there's a family over on the other side.

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Jonathan And the family screams out to the alcoholic, "Hey, how do we get to the other side of the river?" And the alcoholic screams back and says, "You're on the other side." My hope, my hope at least is that you'll get some useful information. Uh, alcoholics, you know, tend to see things from their own vantage point, and I, and I hope this is productive. So I wanna get... I wanna open up with an illustration tonight. And imagine this. Mike said I practice law, and imagine, say, you've gotten in some trouble with the law and, and you've retained me to, to represent you and provide a criminal defense. And so the day of trial comes, and I meet you outside the courthouse, and I'm standing out there a- and you walk up to me. I'm sport coat, tie, got my briefcase. I look prepared. And as we start walking toward the front door, this guy standing next to me, he's walking along like he knows me. And you kinda stop for a minute. You're swe- you're a nervous person at this point. It's a big day in court.

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Jonathan And you said, uh, "Who's your, who's your buddy?" And I say, "Oh, h- his name is Joe." And I start walking more, and Joe's walking with me, and he's walking with you, and you're like, "What is Joe doing?" "Oh, Joe's gonna help us today in your trial." Now, Joe's wearing jeans, got a rip on them, a T-shirt, flannel shirt. It looks like he's got a little bit of gruff on his face. He, he looks rough. He, he looks like a manual labor kind of guy. And so you're, you're getting a little anxious, and you say, "Well, what's he gonna do?" And I say, "Well, he's devised some theories on picking the right jury." And you say, "Well, he doesn't look educat- Does he... Did he go to college? Trained in psychology or something?" I said, "No, no, no, not at all. He has actually has no training whatsoever in the realm of this jury-picking thing." And so you're, you're a little perplexed, and you say, "Well, well, does he have any experience here?" And I say, "Yeah, yeah, um, he ha- In the last month, well, he, he had a rough trial.

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Jonathan It went really pretty bad," but he's certain that these new theories he's got based upon his experience is gonna be invaluable to you. And you'd step back and say, "Well, I, I think I need a new lawyer at this moment." And here's a question for us. We, we stand here in modern AA, and we show up at an AA meeting, and, and there's Joe the plumber, no qualifications, and he steps forward and says, "I'll be your sponsor. I'm gonna reacclimate you to a life without alcohol and give you skills, gifts, tools, and abilities on how to live a sober, happy, productive life." No education, no formal training. W- Yet we go and say, "Oh, th- that'd be great, Joe. I'd like your help." And we embrace this concept of lay therapy without question. But why is it? What, what would've gone through somebody's mind in 1935 if you're a hospital and a patient, a neurologist walks up to you and says, "Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a therapeutic-" Plan of treatment for your alcoholism.

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Moderator And some half-cocked, barely sober stockbroker walks up and gives you a smile and says, "I'd like to tell you about a little flash of bright light and what I've learned about recovery," in the interim. Would we lose a little bit of confidence in a doctor? And it, over the years, I started thinking about this and I'm like, "Well, how did... Who, what's wrong with that doctor? Is there anything else wrong with that doctor?" Then you would think there's something wrong with me. And tonight, hopefully you're gonna see with clarity how profoundly the Emmanuel Movement influenced early AA. Not only in delayed therapeutic treatment of alcoholics, but in a whole ton of other psychiatry that we have. We know from AA Comes of Age, um, Bill told us that, that steps four basically through, through 12 came straight from Shunemaker. And, and so the question becomes, well, where is this one day at a time? Where is this hopelessness of alcoholism? Where is this, uh, suggested program of recovery? Where's all this other stuff that we use as actual tools coming from?

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Jonathan And so tonight I'm, I'm gonna do my best to give you some factual evidence to let you draw your own conclusions. So with that, we're... And, and one of the things I said before the meeting started, silkworth.net, I've got a ton of materials from. Great website. Um, and, and I haven't read everything on it, but a lot of the materials you'll see that I found there and went back and kind of comb through it. But more so beyond that, I'm gonna read from, directly from some literature. From 1909, 1919, 1916, and 1930 and '31, where you'll be able to draw your own conclusions. So let me tell you a little bit about the Emmanuel Movement. Emmanuel Movement, founded in Boston, 1906. The Emmanuel Episcopal Church, don't hold that against them. Founder was Dr. Elwood Worcester. Practiced a method of healing for assorted, what they called a nervousness, including alcoholism and other addictions. He had an assistant, Dr. Samuel McComb. Um, they operated a free clinic supported by the church for about 23 years. Worcester and McComb, both clergymen, but what's really interesting, they had doctorates of psych- psychology.

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Moderator Um, both Worcester and McComb were severely criticized at the time when they stepped out, and I'll tell you when. We'll get to a little more of that. They were criticized by physicians because they're saying, "You're messing with medicine and religion." And they were severely criticized by the clergy for dragging God into medicine. And you're stuck on both ends of that going, "Where do we go with this?" Worcester believed that the disease of, of alcoholism... Excuse me, not of alcoholism. That ha- had all diseases, all diseases had physical, mental, and spiritual components. Now, this is interesting. Some problems might be primarily physic- physical, such as a broken leg, but the patient's attitude could promote or retard healing. Now, this, some of this we think, "That, well, that sounds normal." Doctors today will tell you, if you, if you find you a spiritually grounded doctor, some will tell you unequivocally, "My patients who pray and have people pray for them heal quicker than those who don't." We had a local CEO at a hospital who actually promoted physicians praying with patients. He said, "Hey, it's less lawsuits.

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Jonathan Let's be realistic." Um, so they both believed that the body, the mind, and the spirit interacted in a delicate balance in each person, so an improvement in one area might lead to an improvement in another. And they also believed that the clergy and the physicians working together could accomplish more than either alone. And again, some of this makes a little, makes sense to that. They believed that nervous sufferers and alcoholics became morbidly pr- preoccupied with their destructive habits, sufferings, and that through the use of a therapeutic effort, that they redirect their attention toward higher goals, that they could affect some type of beneficial treatment. They believed all nervous sufferers could be helped by redirecting their attention away from themselves toward a life of service to others. That's pretty interesting. Sounds familiar there, right? For Worcester, the redirection of attention was a basic element of therapy. He said the guiding principle of the social service department, according to the Emmanuel Church, uh, 1909 yearbook, was to turn the thoughts of each sufferer from himself to others.

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Jonathan They believed that in all troubles of mental origin, one of the most successful curative agencies has been to get one person to help another suffering from exactly the same form of trouble. In this way, moral strength, they said, is passed on from one sufferer to the other. They further believed, I think this is really kind of fascinating when you think about alcoholism. They believed that a large part of sorrow, failure, sickness, and discouragement in life comes from one source. Now, here's a little bit of the church coming in. The anticipation of synonymous, where in the first year of sobriety, I could ask everybody, "What are the first five thoughts?" And label them positive or negative when you roll out of bed in the morning. Now, if you, if you've swallowed the AA pill and have fully embraced this, I wake up in the morning and I can praise God I've got hot water, I'm not throwing up, I'm not crawling toward the toilet. You know, things like that. But how much of this preoccupation is with something that's negative in nature?

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Moderator So they used also as one of, one of their main tools was prayer as an essential vehicle for acquiring this, this redirected attention. So what I want to do now, Tim, if you can throw up, uh, slide one. That's Elwood Worcester picture there. Give you a quick picture of this gentleman. Let me know when you guys get that up there. All right, gonna give you some pictures and some books. Yeah, there I am. Next. Picture one. Photo of Elwood Worcester. All right. I hope, I hope you got a big screen and you're not walking off a little phone there. The name under word, Elwood Worcester. And so what I want to do at this point is give you a, an idea of the scope of how widely known and how prolific their writings were during this early stage. So if you, if you go to screen two You've got a book, Religion and Medicine, 1909, by Worchester, McComb, and Curate. I'm gonna touch on some other books. We're gonna go to slide three. Yep.

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Jonathan And if you look in here, and I don't know if you can see this, chapter three is Suggestion, chapter four, Auto-Suggestion, chapter five, The Functional Neurosis. Now, listen to this, chapter six, The Causes of Nervousness, and he puts down heredity, and then the cause of ner- uh, neurosis, um, being environmental. And, and Worchester firmly believed that alcoholism was twofold, that there was something physiological different with the individual as well as being, um, something that went beyond that. Next slide, over to four. Got some books here. I'm gonna touch upon a couple things here. Uh, Mind, Religion, and Health, McDonald. In the beginning of this, um, then I'm just gonna read a quick introduction here on this. He gives a little synopsis, and he says, "The power of suggestion," um... Oh, give me one second. Sorry about that. We're gonna get to suggestion in a minute. He gives an analysis of the Emmanuel Movement. What is it? Um, how was it begun? Why is it started? The weakening hold of the church upon the thinking practical masses. That's a really interesting observation that he had.

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Moderator And then he turns and he says, "The remarkable growth of Christian science, diseases attacked and remedied by the Emmanuel Movement, methods of treatment." And later on in the book, they sum this up when he talks about the Emmanuel Movement, and he sums it up this way. He says, "An Episcopal rector and his associate in office conceived of the happy idea of making Christian faith do service in the entire physical and psychological realms." Really interesting here. So he's saying, "Finally, we're gonna get some religion here that does things not only for your mind and your spirit, but for, for your body as well." If we flip over now, one more. Hold on one second. Christian Religion as a Healing Power. Um, this is 1909. Flip over another. You'll see a little bit of the introduction here. Talks about a defense and an exposition of the Emmanuel Movement. Next slide, uh, six. And just to put this in context when you look at this in the forewords, this is 1909. You can move on to the next slide, Tim. Are we getting that up to number six? Nope, back. Gotta go back. Yep. There we go.

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Jonathan And so in here, we've got this introductory, the defense and exposition of the Emmanuel Movement. Uh, obviously authored by, uh, Wood, Worchester, and McComb, 1909. Um, picking out of page 48 in this, it says, "Our aim-" And method. The meaning and aim of our work may be expressed in one single sentence. It is to bring into effect cooperation of the physician, the psychologically trained clergymen, and the trained social worker in the alleviation and arrest of certain disorders of the nervous system, which are now generally regarded as involving some weakness or defect of character, or more or less complete mental dissociation. Really interesting stuff there. They had two, two rules, ni- page 51, I'm reading from the same book. Um, so a lot of people said, "Well, you've wholly discounted medicine," which was just unfair. Um, it's interesting when people would give some type of complaint or critique where they basically would say something and it becomes obvious they haven't read all of the literature. Um, two rules for governing our work.

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Jonathan Um, they said, "No person shall be received for treatment unless the approval of and having been thoroughly examined by his family physician, whose report of the examination shall be filed with the church clinic records, and to all patients who are not under the care of a physician must choose one and put themself in the care before they can receive treatment at the Emmanuel Church." So they were really kind of adamant when they were saying that, that, "Yes, we're gonna address some things here, but we wanna be sure that physically there are things that doctors can do that we wanna be sure you get the benefit of the doubt." We're gonna flip over to the next slide. Um, page seven of the slides. Um, this is a book by Samuel McComb, The Power of Suggestion. You know what? It, it is unequivocal, I'm gonna read some more stuff later on, where you're gonna be, uh ... It's hard to refute that the suggested program of recovery didn't come unequivocally from the Emmanuel Movement.

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Jonathan Now, one of the things they said is that they wanted to program into one's mind to counterbalance negative thoughts, and they said, "By flooding this system with positives versus negatives, when you would come to that turning point of making a good decision or a bad decision, that you would default to the good decision." Think about this, how many people that if, if you're early in recovery and you're embracing the program and you're on the fence, you don't know whether you're coming and going, and you go to a meeting that day, and that night you're thinking about a drink, but for some reason you overcome that temptation to take a drink. Maybe it's a thought of what somebody said in a meeting, a thing, a thought of God, or something that was planted as a seed that now makes a determining factor in your, your consciousness versus not having gone to a meeting that day and you wind up drinking. Page 17, it says, "A well-known English physician puts it, 'A man outside the baker's shop may be just balanced between stealing or not. Hunger prompts the one way, principle the other.

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Moderator Now, if his emotion idea is presented to his mind of his starving family at home, he takes the loaf and becomes a thief. If, on the other hand, a vision of prison or the verse, "Thou shall not steal," rises forcibly to his brain, he walks away.' In the same way ..." Excuse me one minute. In the same way, um, in many nervous affections, and this is dealing with encompassing alcoholism, a comparative slight self-suggestion will enable you to do what you otherwise could not, and so overcome some act. And so McComb, um, we'll see a little bit more of this. I'm gonna move on with this. Um, pick up a little bit of the treatment protocol. Let me give you this now. Worcester had no doubt that alcoholism was both a disease and a moral problem. Addiction involving a habit for him was clearly a moral category, yet he unhesitatingly ranked alcoholism, along with tuberculosis, cancer, and syphilis, as the four major diseases of the time. To Worcester, the question of the will was irrelevant to alcoholism. Think that through for a moment.

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Moderator Both were diseases of the whole person in body, mind, and spirit, not problems of simply a faulty will. Uh, Worcester and McComb recorded three rules for accepting alcoholic patients in their clinic. Uh, they must come voluntarily from their own desire to stop drinking, not solely because of pressure from others. What do we tell people in AA? If you wanna get sober, where's the desire gotta come from? Within. They must be willing to accept the goal of total abstinence. Now, we're gonna hammer that later on. For the attempt, I love this, this is in quotes, and I'm gonna touch this quote again later, "For the attempt to convert a drunkard into a moderate drinker cannot be done once in a thousand times." That sounds familiar. And they must be dry during their first interview and pledge to be abstinent for one week. Just saying, "Give it a shot." An important offshoot of the arrangement was a church-sponsored club for alcoholics founded in 1910. Um, actually a non-alcoholic parishioner put it together, and they, and they said this was interesting, in the basement of the church. Eh, we all gotta meet in basements, right?

6:17

Jonathan Um, where the club's relationship to alcoholism was disguised in church reports, but the evidence is there that says it was set up for alcoholics to help newly abstinent patients reinforce each other's abstinence. Its motto was, quote, "A club for men to help themselves by helping others." Sounds familiar. That's 1910, okay? There were no membership fees. Only requirement for membership was an expressed desire to lead an honorable life and a willingness to aid in men less fortunate. Worcester added one other requirement: they should not come to church drunk. Follow-up committee was established for those who failed to appear at the meetings. The system was resembling the sponsorship created where they called upon special brothers. Each was expected to look after one another. So as they went through with this treatment protocol, they were treating a lot of people f- for a litany of psychiatric conditions, but they started seeing really more consistent responses to particular treatment protocols for alcoholics. And one of the guys that came in there was a person named Courtney Baylor. 1913, Courtney Baylor began to work for the Emmanuel Church as a specialist in alcoholism.

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Jonathan He's the author of Remaking the Man, 1919. We see this up here. Mike, uh, flip over. Yep, there we go. Um, Mike and I go back a good way, and I think I saw one original copy of this book that ran 1,500 bucks. You can get it for, uh, 15, 20 bucks on Amazon. Uh, this is published 1919. Uh, Baylor was probably one of the first paid alcoholism therapists in the country. Came to Worchester in 1911 for help with a drinking problem. After a period of sobriety, he retired from the business world, became what they called a paid friendly visitor at the church's social services department. Baylor observed at the church report that alcoholics were coming in for treatment as far as Santa Barbara, Denver, Mobile, Washington, and Philadelphia, while they considered New York a suburb of Boston. He remained at the church until Worchester retired in 1929, after which they practiced together at the Craigie Foundation of Bo- Boston. 1940, Worchester died. Interesting, 1945, now an old man, Baylor resumed his work at the Emmanuel Church. All accounts have him dying sober.

6:49

Moderator By the end of his career, one of the interesting things that happened, by this time AA came into existence, and he actually attended an AA meeting and enthusiastically recommended it. So what I wanna do now is I'm gonna read from this book. And now here's what's gonna get interesting. Just look for a little bit of information where we can start connecting dots in AA. So it says, "He'd been working seven years at the church under the guidance of Dr. Elwood Worchester." This is page two, under the Emmanuel Movement. "He first applied himself to the retrofitting of the mental process by psychological methods in work with alcoholics." So what he was saying is, "I'm trying to get them to start thinking differently about how they would see life and events and circumstances." He said, "Every case of alcoholism has behind," what he called, "an alcoholic or neurotic atmosphere." He also observed this, it said on page four, "So often he found in families of alcoholic patients, persons in whom exactly the same abnormal conditions were obtained, although they had never taken alcohol." Uh, sounds a little bit of Al-Anon-ism there.

7:07

Jonathan "And that they yielded to the same form of treatment." Pretty interesting when you think about the significance of how the steps not only treat the alcoholic, but for everybody else. So here's something interesting. He made these observations about al- alcoholics, and here's what he said. He said, "He, the alcoholic, consciously believes that he is fearful, depressed, and irritable entirely because of negative circumstances or because of the attitude of other people." I don't know if that sounds like an alcoholic or not, but certainly it sounds like some people I know. One of the things that he said here, it said, "It's hard to re- Realize that a person suffering from alcoholism or from fear, melancholy, or trembling limbs or other symptoms of neurotic states should not want to get entirely well. But such is not the fact with a great many cases." He said, "This point is elusive." So literally he was saying there were some people that came in that I was treating and, and they, there seemed to be no inclination or desire or willingness to wanna get better.

7:23

Jonathan Yet he said, "Then once the patient recognizes and understands this tendency to hide behind his illness and acknowledge its existence, his recovery can become rapid." So once he points out the, the nature of the afflictions of these individuals, they're like, "Oh, well, that, that sounds like I might have a problem. We might be able to do something." It's interesting what, what he went on to say. He says, "If I'm right in my contention that the mental tenseness," think about the, the words restless, irritable, and discontent come up all over the book, but they're talking about, they said these people were riddled with anxiety. And what he said is that, "This mental tenseness is the underlying cause of the neurotic condition. Therefore, we must, to relieve the neurosis, permanently remove its cause." So he talks about this therapeutic treatment. He says, "He must be provided with an inspiration of an entirely new outlook on life." What do we receive in Alcoholics Anonymous? In quote he calls it here, "A s- a new scale of values.

7:40

Jonathan The patient must be eventually be re-educated in his whole mental process so know, so as to know how to recognize and to, to solve certain tendencies at their very inception and before they get underway. For it is only by doing this that he can prevent the reoccurrence of his mental tenseness. Irritability, dread of making contact, procrastination, depression, self-pity, general feeling of fear, and all these and more should be labeled as danger signals and eliminated while they're still tendencies. This reeducation work is done through logical analysis." So he's saying, "We've gotta walk these people through this." Now, here's where it gets interesting. "In order to accomplish anything by any method, the instructor must first gain the confidence and cooperation of the sick man's mind." How far can the alcoholic get when, when bringing a message to the new man if, if the new man doesn't have the confidence? Our book tells us that.

7:54

Jonathan It says, "He will," uh, when working with this individual, it says, "He will, however, cooperate quickly if ideas are offered to him for his acceptance or rejection, as they may or may not appeal to him, rather than hand it to him as something which we have already accepted for him. The instructor must keep in mind constantly how large a part indirect methods play in the successful handling of any patient. When he remembers that all person interviews are 100% suggestion," in quotes, um, "direct or indirect, and is watchful and skillful, he may so arrange his contact with the patient that everything which is said and done, the entire atmosphere, shall contribute to the latter's recovery." Sounds interesting. A little bit of psychiatry there that seems somebody has stolen. So here's the interesting thing now. They step a little further in to terms of this issue of taking the drink. Uh, page eight, uh, 35 it says this. "This is entirely necessary in working primarily not with the surface difficulty, but upon the condition behind it and upon the cause underlying the condition." What is the condition? He's got a bottle sticking out of his mouth.

8:12

Jonathan "I discovered in working with alcoholics that I was getting my best results when I frankly devoted all my explanations to the comments to the conditions behind the physical act of taking a drink." What does our literature tell us in AA? Our liquor's but what? Huh, a symptom. So he talks about the condition behind the physical act of taking the drink, "And spoke of alcohol only to indicate that I had an intelligent idea of the effect." He says, "In non-alcoholic, uh, people, he adopted the same method." So, so what he's saying, he says, "Once the situation is clear to him, he'll usually cooperate with me and will set aside his symptom," the act of taking the drink, uh, "for the moment and help me analyze the remedy of the underlying cause." So you see a lot of this coming into play now with Baylor. And so where, what I wanna do now, one of the things Baylor said, he says, "Getting to the man to stop drinking is only the first step in a very long march." Or like the man that came up out of the cyclone, cyclone cellar and to what?

8:30

Jonathan His wife remarked what? "I don't see anything the matter here." And it ran, the wind stopped blowing. All of the negative traits induced by alcohol must be eliminated and positive traits must be put in their place. We're gonna move on now to the landmark book that really had a lot of influence in AA. If we can flip over one slide here, we're gonna see a book called The Common Sense of Drinking. Um, we're gonna talk about something called the Peabody method. The author of this book, this was 1930, '31 when the book was published. Uh, Richard Rogers Peabody, the author, he began treating alcoholics individually in the 1920s. Um, wrote the book obviously 1930, '31. He refined and professionalized the ideas that he had learned in the Emmanuel Movement from Elwood Worcester and Courtney Baylor. Um, he, he was treated by Baylor and actually was Baylor's most famous patient. The, um, book is dedicated to Courtney Baylor. Um, Peabody, interesting man, raised in kind of an odd home, and I'm not gonna get into it. Um, graduated from Gordon Preparatory School, got accepted to Harvard, never finished.

8:47

Moderator Got married 1915, and actually at that point there were a lot of people in the family that were already worried about his drinking. Went off, did some military service at the Mexican border, then went off and served in World War I. Um, a- and coming back, ultimately lost the family fortune, was very affluent. 1921 his wife gets a divorce. They had two kids. Uh, his wife didn't have a lot of money problems 'cause she had an uncle by the name of JP Morgan. Not familiar for, for you if you've ever heard that name before, but- I guess she went to him, asked for a little financial assistance, and it was there. He suffered multiple times from, from depression and was hospitalized multiple, multiple times. Came to the Manual Church for alcoholism with help, for help in 1921. Attended the church's clinic, attended weekly classes in the winter of '21, '22, and by '24 was listed as, in one of the publications, as a volunteer assistant. Now, that's interesting because now they were wholly in swing of promoting lay therapy at this point.

9:03

Moderator That they had figured out, you know, you've been through this treatment protocol, you volunteer here, and you assist others in the lay therapeutic treatment of alcoholics. Established a professional office, Newbury Street, Boston. Became known as Dr. Peabody. Um, it's likely that Baylor from the church was referring patients to him from the church. Now, here's where things get really interesting. In 1933, Peabody is practicing this Peabody method of rehabbing alcoholics in New York City at a location called 24 Gramercy Park. You on Google Maps, you got that and you hit a little pin there. The Calvary Episcopal Church, the, the church that was basically the mecca for the Oxford Group head- headquarters run by Samuel Shoemaker, the one who ultimately Bill attributes to spoon-feeding him from the Oxford Group steps four through 12, is the head rector of that church. That church is located at 2, uh, 277 Park Ave South, on the corner of East 21st Street in, drum roll, Gramercy Park. Um, it's three blocks away, by the way. Charles B. Towns Hospital is located 293 Central Park West, a little more uptown.

9:18

Moderator Towns, at this point, i- is, is doing a load for the treatment of alcoholism. Wrote books, Habits That Handicap, 1915. Um, had a review given in The New York Times. I mean, these are guys that were published and, and renowned. Reclaiming the Drinker, 1931, and Alcohol and Drug Sickness, 1934. By the '30s, Peabody is widely recognized in circles of both medical and lay literature for his method. Um, he was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 1930, Mental Hygiene, 1930. We flip over to the next slide. We've got the American Mercury. Uh, this is 1931. We got that up there. Um, right under Edited by, uh, H.L. McKechan, "Why Prohibition Had Failed," Richard R. Peabody, the lead story in that. Next magazine, flip over to the next one. Um, we have the American Magazine. Um, and I hate to say this, but I couldn't pull the shipping label off. It would kill me to rip the cover. But the caption, the, the head front-page article is, "Why Men Drink," by guess who? Drum roll, your- Yours truly, Richard Peabody. Flipping over, there's a picture of Peabody with the, uh, Why Men Drink.

9:35

Moderator And I'm assuming that's Peabody, by the way, because there's nobody else named near it on either side in the magazine. There are other people's faces, but they have names underneath them. So we're gonna conclude that's Peabody. Flip over one more page. The, and part of the article, it's interesting. It says, "Further, there's nothing to the belief that a man who has once become an alcoholic or who is dangerous during periods of drinking," I like that. Were you one of those people who were dangerous while drinking? Uh, Bill says sometimes people got drunk and ugly, by the way. "Can they ever learn to drink intelligently?" I love this. You know, uh, uh, come into AA and say, "I'm an over-drinker who, who failed at learning to drink intelligently." That'd be a good way to introduce yourself. "Why," pleads the wife, "can't you drin- learn to drink like Mr. So-and-So? Two cocktails and he stops, and he always seems to be to have such a good time." But the husband cannot learn to drink like Mr. So-and-So because he's reached the stage where drinking has become his prime interest.

9:54

Moderator Now, we would say that the mental obsession has a full lock on the poor guy. So at this point, I wa- I wanna give you a little heads-up. Bill and Lois, they had a copy of this. Both read the book Common Sense Drinking in the early days. And now I wanna ask some questions to see if you guys can help me find any parallels in the book from the Common Sense of Drinking. And I'm gonna go quick again. The, the forward dedicated Courtney Baylor. And so I'm just gonna read some ep- excerpts in here, and you tell me if you can connect any dots to what we have. The book is published 1930. Bill's drinking for another four and a half years, by the way. Chapter three, first steps. Title of it is Surrender. "The first essential requirement for successful treatment is the sincere desire to be helped on the part of the alcoholic himself. Nothing constructive has ever been accomplished or ever will be with men who are dragged or pushed toward curative measures by friends or relatives. In fact, sometimes actual harm is done by the procedure.

10:11

Moderator A man will often reject premature persuasion and, once having rejected it, may maintain an attitude for all time. He should be informed that professional assistance is available and then left undisturbed to seek on his own initiative. I can well understand from the point of the view of the family that premature," I love this, "premature may hardly seem a suitable word to apply to a person who's been drinking in excess for many months or possibly years. But in spite of this fact, I repeat, he should be given the idea as a suggestion and then left alone to think it over. If he has a friend who has been successful in treating it in whom he has confidence, some pressure may be applied by his friend." That sound familiar? "But even if the tra-" uh, here is, "tact and suggestion should be relied upon more than persuasion or exhortation." I think you're all gonna be shocked at the next statement. "Alcoholics are apt to be extremely stubborn people." I'm, I'm just shocked.

10:27

Moderator "In fact, it might be said with much truth that the therapeutic problem consists of redirecting the stubbornness from destructive to constructive ends." Pretty interesting there, a little, little bit of theory. Page 74, "The surrender to the fact that alcohol can no longer be indulged in without bringing disastrous results is of such importance that it requires extreme thoughtful consideration." The following is in italics. "The surrender is an absolute starting point as far as the conscious mind is concerned." Some have attributed Peabody to the, to being the father of the, of the first step. Future drinking. "The patient's point of view in regard to the future drinking is a second essential for successful t- for treatment. He must, uh, have as his goal, no matter how fantastic the idea may seem in the beginning," italics, "the complete renunciation of the use of alcohol as a beverage in any quantity, however small, for all time.

10:41

Jonathan No man who has ever passed from normal or hard drinking to chronic alcoholism or whether, or who has shown a persistently a disposition to act in an antisocial manner when under the influence of intoxicating beverages can ever expect to be shown how to drink in a controlled manner or to learn how by himself even after long periods of abstinence. The very concept of eventual drinking, however remote, seems to be fatal to satisfactory results." Now, what he's saying there, he says if there's a lurking notion that someday somehow I'll be able to control and enjoy my drinking, if we don't smash the idea, guess what? They wind up going back to drinking. He says, "You have to take the Gallagher hammer to the idea that someday I'll be able to drink in the future," or it winds up that in the future they wind up going back to drinking. "Dr. Elwood Worcester, a pioneer in the psychological treatment of inebriates, tried in his early days, uh, to work to teach drunkards to drink," quote, "like gentlemen." I'm shocked. "He told me that in spite of his best efforts, he was 100% unsuccessful. Because of Dr.

10:59

Moderator Worcester's skill and experience, this would seem convincing testimony of the futility of trying to teach the art of drinking to one who has ever reached the point where it has become pathologically problematic." Suffice it to say, the next lines are in italics. "Suffice it to say, once a drunkard, always a drunkard," or a teetotaler. Does that sound a little familiar? All right. Page 83, "One of the reasons that he may make it difficult for the inebriate to reform permanently is the idealization of the past, which he futilely believes he can revive, a belief often unexpressed, which with he fools himself over and over again," quote, "This time it's going to be different," you may hear him say. But if you know him well, you will smile. Oh, and here's his methods. There are plans to drink slowly, take small drinks, stick to beer the most futile of all, to prime first with olive oil and not to drink before or after certain hours, all of which is in the long run of no avail. Then there are the occasions. The first ones, the big ones, will cause his vows to be broken.

11:16

Moderator But in the long run, the little vows, excuse me, the little occasions are getting their full share of alcoholic attention, and eventually they're deliberately invented, the ideas why you need to drink. And I'm coming down the home stre- stretch here. I'd like at this point, Tim, if you could flip me over. Uh, we're gonna come back to the glass crutch in a minute. Um, we're on page fi- uh, 15. Page 99. I hope you guys can see this. It opens up, and it says, "A man must make up his mind to do everything in his power to cooperate in such work as there is done." Italics. "Halfway measures are of no avail." This is published page 99, 1930. Flip over one more italics now, uh, page, Tim, quickly. I'm not sure if any of you guys have ever seen this line before. Four lines down. This is The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page, I believe, 55. What does it say four lines down? "Half measures avail us nothing." Now, if you had a pop quiz and the professor said, "Hey, I think I see plagiarism," what do you think?

11:34

Moderator Do you think he'd get the grades for saying this is plagiarism? And so wh- when we think about this, th- there are a lot of issues when you start looking these things and asking ourselves, "Well, what's going on here?" In The Big Book, there's a story. There's a story of a guy and more about alcoholism, and his name is, uh, it says this: "A man of 30 was doing a great deal of spree drinking. He had a nervous, he was nervous in the morning, and after these bouts, he quieted himself with more liquor. Ambitious to succeed in business but saw that he'd get nowhere if he ever drank at all." Oh, let me back up a minute. First Steps, page 123, Common Sense of Drinking. "Several years ago, there lived a man who decided to give up drinking until he could make a million dollars, at which time he intended to drink in moderation. It took him five years of sobriety to make a million. Then he began to moderate drinking. Two to three years, he lost all his money.

11:50

Moderator In another three, he died of alcoholism." Now, I don't know if you've been able to connect any dots with this, but it seems like there's a lot of coincidences from these materials with basically the things that we have seen here. It's interesting, um, with some of the information about Peabody. And we're coming down the home stretch. Marty Mann described the Peabody method as primarily for well-educated people. Peabody and his followers basically did some things that were very interesting. It became a paid thing. They mitigated the spiritual angle, didn't wanna use a lot of prayer. Dropped the moral stuff. Um, but at this time, by the late 1930s, guess who was using the Peabody and some of this Emmanuel Mo- -ment lay therapeutic treatment approach. There were people including Norman Joll- Jolliffe, uh, Jolliffe at Bellevue Hospital embracing these thoughts and methods. Boston Hospital, Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. And so Silkworth guy came along, William Silkworth. And if we turn quickly to the book, uh, Tim, you can pull that up. Just to give a little evidence now here on how Silkworth played. I'm reading page 41 from the book, uh, Silkworth.

12:08

Jonathan Great book by the way. This guy did his homework. Silkworth had long admired the work of non-alcoholic therapist Courtney Baylor, which is described in Baylor's 1919 book, Remaking the Man. Baylor worked-- Uh, Baylor's work introduced Silkworth for the need to compassion and trust when dealing with the alcoholic. Although Silkworth was always a compassionate man, it was Baylor who provided Silkworth with a case history of a trust-based relationship with his client. Baylor had also believed that the doctor must gain the full confidence of the patient before any true psychological treatment could begin. Baylor also thought to be the first lay therapist to present a formula, a process for treatment. And jumping down a little bit of Baylor's patents, Richard Peabody wrote, uh, Silkworth's fa- one of his Silkworth's favorite book's called The Common Sense of Drinking. After his, after, uh, his Baylor treatment, um, and during the recovery, dedicated to Courtney Baylor, the book supports the complete mental analysis of the alcoholic. The idea which is later found in the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous also discusses Peabody's theory, uh, for the two types of alcoholics that were unfit for treatment.

12:25

Jonathan One, those who were simply psychotic, and two, those who did not want help themselves. Peabody also believed that the alcoholic should not be preached at, a thought later shared by Silkworth. He also believed in total and permanent abstinence. In the work with alcoholics, he understood the importance of breaking down the concept of permanent abstinence into smaller bites, similar to the twenty-four-hour program offered by AA. So you start to look at this, and now all of a sudden you ask the question, does it now make sense when we think about how widely used, uh, the therapeutic lay treatment protocols were embraced, and that how Silkworth could now allow Bill to come back to his hospital to assist in the lay therapeutic treatment for alcoholics. So what is the takeaway? A couple things here. The necessity of trust and confidence-based relationship, um, and the identification we find. 'Cause, 'cause when, when Baylor and Peabody were working with alcoholics, they said, "We've been there. We've got a T-shirt.

12:40

Moderator We can prove this." The concept of one day at a time and breaking life down into manageable parts, the psychiatry of changing one's response to life and events, and the retraining of how one responds to life, the recognizing of the danger of emotional turmoil and of the need to head it off, you know, the restless, irritable, and discontent. To understand the act of taking a drink is a symptom of a greater underlying issue. To embrace the concept of total abstinence for all time. To understand that surrender is a prerequisite to lasting sobriety, and that the concept of lay therapy and to endorse, um, the truth that in order to keep sobriety, you've got to give it away, were all things that were fully in place at this time. So, so I come to this place here now and, and, and I've got, um, give me one second. I knew I'd run into this.

12:54

Moderator So now you take in the psychiatry and this aspect of understanding the disease concept of alcoholism, and then you put in moral inventory, confession, restitution for others, prayer and meditation, and then the twelfth step of helpfulness to others, and layer the lay therapeutic treatment on top, and what do we have? We've got the, the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, there's one more thing that I wanted to broach a- and, and Silkworth allowed this to consolidate, and one of the things that's really important here. Before Bill went out to Sil- to, to Akron and, uh, and, um, to ultimately meet Dr. Bob, Bill had worked with alcoholics for six months. None of them got and stayed sober. And in Pass It On, page one thirty-three, h-here's a paragraph I want to read. "It was Silkworth who helped straighten him out. 'Bill was preaching,' said the doctor, 'and his preaching was driving his prospects away. He talked too much of the Oxford Group principles and about the spiritual experience. Why not talk instead of the illness of alcoholism?

13:10

Jonathan Why not tell his alcoholics of the illness that condemned them to go mad or die if they continued to drink? Coming one alcoholic from another, um, maybe that will cr- crack those tough egos deep down,' Silkworth said. 'And only then can you begin to try out your other medicine, the ethical principles that you picked up on the Oxford Group.'" So we see Silkworth bringing in this hopelessness and trying to smash that ego. But I think we now, and in my opinion, I think what I take away here, what does this mean for me? You know, a lot of history and it's been interesting, and I hope you've enjoyed it, but here, here's the takeaway that I think is the big deal for me. A good salesman knows two things. He knows his product, and he knows his customer. And we know the product is a spiritual way of living based on the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And what we learned from the Emmanuel Movement and how to approach an alcoholic and what this, their, their backdrop for tendencies and behaviors and stubbornness, um, come out, we understand more about who our customer really is.

13:27

Jonathan And so I wanna bring this into something that I think really is the big deal for me. We have this story in the Big Book and more about alcoholism with Fred. We know about Fred, successful guy, brilliant guy, winds up in the hospital, a little case of the jitters, does not want to admit he's alcoholic. Some people from AA come, they tell him about alcoholism. He says, "Yeah, I know, but I'm not that bad." What happens? He goes to DC, presents some accounting evidence, leaves, perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon. Suddenly the thought comes, "Perhaps a highball." Four days later, you know, he's found at the airport, back in the hospital, and here's what happens. "Two of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous came to see me. They grinned." I love this. It doesn't get better. "Which I didn't like so much." They realize, "But for the grace of God, I'm in the bed with him." This is beautiful.

13:43

Moderator "They grinned, which I didn't like so much, and then asked myself, asked me if I thought myself, um, alcoholic and really licked this time." How often I go through this with a newcomer, I say, "Has he taken the first step? Are you really licked?" Because here's what he says, "I had to concede both propositions." All right, he's licked and he's an alcohol. Has he taken the first step? And my response is nope, and let me prove it to you now. There's a notion in the back of your head that if you can take a drink someday, what did, what did, what did they say? It proves fatal. "So are you alcoholic and licked this time? I had to concede both propositions. They piled heaps of evidence to the effect of an alcoholic mentality, such as I had exhibited in Washington, was a hopeless condition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen." So now I know today, in knowing who my customer is or the alcoholic I'm gonna reach, how I can use my history to do something for these guys to bring them over that ledge.

14:01

Jonathan But this paragraph doesn't end with that line. It ends with one more sentence. "They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction I could do the job myself." And what we take away from the Emmanuel Movement, and it's so clear for me today, is that if there's a flicker of conviction that these guys can take care of themselves and lick this monster called alcoholism, how far do you think I'm gonna get? I've been around 30 years. I'm yet to find anybody that overshoots the mark in taking alcoholism too seriously. And so knowing these things that we got from, from, from the Emmanuel Movement and the psychiatry of the alcoholic and where he's coming from, the one thing we can do is that we have a message that can help convince them and snuff out that last flicker. Because we know, as Bill said, "If you take the first step 100%, we're gonna be okay." But if there's that flicker, all bets are off. Mike, that'll do it. God bless you. Thank you for allowing me to do this. Jonathan, thank you. It was wonderful.

14:19

Moderator Um- They grinned." I love this. It doesn't get better. "Which I didn't like so much." They realize, "But for the grace of God, I'm in the bed with him." This is beautiful. "They grinned, which I didn't like so much, and then asked myself, asked me if I thought myself, um, alcoholic and really licked this time." How often I go through this with a newcomer, I say, "Has he taken the first step? Are you really licked?" Because here's what he says, "I had to concede both propositions." All right, he's licked and he's an alcohol. Has he taken the first step? And my response is nope, and let me prove it to you now. There's a notion in the back of your head that if you can take a drink someday, what did, what did, what did they say? It proves fatal. "So are you alcoholic and licked this time? I had to concede both propositions. They piled heaps of evidence to the effect of an alcoholic mentality, such as I had exhibited in Washington, was a hopeless condition.

14:37

Jonathan They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen." So now I know today, in knowing who my customer is or the alcoholic I'm gonna reach, how I can use my history to do something for these guys to bring them over that ledge. But this paragraph doesn't end with that line. It ends with one more sentence. "They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction I could do the job myself." And what we take away from the Emmanuel Movement, and it's so clear for me today, is that if there's a flicker of conviction that these guys can take care of themselves and lick this monster called alcoholism, how far do you think I'm gonna get? I've been around 30 years. I'm yet to find anybody that overshoots the mark in taking alcoholism too seriously. And so knowing these things that we got from, from, from the Emmanuel Movement and the psychiatry of the alcoholic and where he's coming from, the one thing we can do is that we have a message that can help convince them and snuff out that last flicker.

14:55

Jonathan Because we know, as Bill said, "If you take the first step 100%, we're gonna be okay." But if there's that flicker, all bets are off. Mike, that'll do it. God bless you. Thank you for allowing me to do this. Jonathan, thank you. It was wonderful. Um-

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

The Emmanuel Movement and Influences on Early AA — Jonathan S. — Tuesday Night History Workshop — August 7, 2020

The Emmanuel Movement and Influences on Early AA — Jonathan S. — Tuesday Night History Workshop — August 7, 2020

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