In an address to the General Service Conference in 1965, Bill W., said: “Yes, we drunks put A.A. together, but all of the basic components were supplied by others.”* In 1965, I was going into seminary and I was a committed member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (PTAA) and my only idea of a drunk was a neighbor who drank out of a bottle in a brown bag on a wall outside the house, got sick and fell asleep. I did not know A.A. existed. God took care of that three years later as I became involved, even as I drank alcoholically and remained involved on the fringes till God kicked me into the program. The “involvement” was God’s way to prepare me for the program. I came in, reluctantly, and believing I was going to be a great resource to “these people.”
I had much to learn. In time, the one- liners made sense, spirituality began to take hold, the steps began to become a way of life as, slowly, I became “one of us.” Being “one of us”, and being an amateur historian, I began to read any and everything I could get my hands on that was directly or indirectly related to A.A. -- how it came to be, (and I was told some weird stories about that), who and what influenced it -- and, I remain grateful for the time given to me by Sam Shoemaker’s daughters.
Shoemaker was influenced by evangelists like Frank Buchmann (The Oxford Group), who was influenced by men like John R. Mott, Samuel McComb, Dwight Moody, the “new Psychology.” In 1908 there was the Emmanuel Movement in Boston were people suffering from what was then called “Functional Nervous Disorders” were treated at Emmanuel Episcopal Church. Emmanuel Church was the headquarters of the Christian Science Movement. The clinic was run by Revs Dr. Samuel McComb (associate rector), Dr. Elwood Worcester (Rector) and Isador H. Coriat M.D. with a Four Step Program – find a higher power, confession, help others, and the power of “suggestion” (from the new Psychology). These steps found their way via Shoemaker to Bill Wilson to the Twelve Steps in terms of Step Two, Steps Four and Five, Step Twelve and” Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program.
On my own, there is no way I could or would have had anything to do with this program. I came into the program with a lot of religious baggage, Shame and Guilt. I believed in God and was scared/angry of and at God. I wanted confession as a “quick fix” and I wanted to help others so I could look good.
When sobriety happened to me, I was fascinated by the idea that God chose an atheist to bring the concept of sobriety to a devout Christian who, in turn, offered him the ‘Absolutes’ of the Oxford Group, and, with guidance they created the greatest social experiment of their century. Someone once summed it up in this way: “The Big Book is the writing of the Ages [Sages] written in Twelve Steps so a bunch of drunks could get sober.” This was put differently by Bill at the 1953 Conference: “Well, when those Twelve Steps were presented in New York, all hell broke loose. I had committed heresy; Why did we have to have twelve steps when six were just as good…We had a big hassle over those Twelve Steps…”*
Even the symbol of our society had deep roots. Bill said: “We had to have some sort of symbol and the circle seemed to indicate the movement or the group. The triangle suggested the three principal aspects: recovery, unity, and service.’ [When they settled on it] “some student of ancient history came up with this very startling announcement: he said that, in times gone by, this identical symbol was used by medicine men, magicians, wise men, whatnot, and every time they wanted to get rid of evil spirits, they just brought up and brandished this circle containing the triangle!”*
I like to think of our program as the confluence of thousands of rivulets from various hillsides and mountains that flowed down and came together to form a river into which I could be baptized, healed, restored to life, and sent off to suggest to others that real living is in becoming vulnerable, jumping in and trusting that the past will be washed clean; that we will continue with renewed energy, and we will live in gratitude for the blessings of rains creating rivulets which created our river of life.
- · OUR GREAT RESPONSIBILITY A Selection of Bill General Service Conference Talks. 1951-1970. Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 2019
Séamus D.
New Orleans
