A.A. with Dick B. - Address to Counselors at Palm Springs

Dick B. Address to Assn of Christian Alcohol and Drug Counselors, Palm Springs

By aioarticles on September 29, 2011 | From aioarticles.com

The Dick B. Address on October 2, 2011
© 2011 Anonymous, All rights reserved
• The Growing Christian Recovery Movement and the Role ACADC Institute can play
The opportunity for our pervasive, informative, Christian Recovery Movement is now!
International Christian Recovery Coalition is adding daily the participants who, at
no cost to themselves, are listing themselves in this world-wide fellowship, talks, and interchange among Christian recovery leaders of all stripes
are becoming commonplace - as evidenced at our recent summit conferences
in Costa Mesa and Brentwood, California where panelists and speakers came
from California, Hawaii, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, South Carolina, and Delaware to share what they do and fellowship with each other.

• A regular radio, webinar, skype, YouTube, podcast, and other media outreach will
soon enable information interviews of and talks by Christian counselors, clergy, and recovery pastors; leaders of Christian fellowships; owners and directors of Christian treatment programs, interventions, detox facilities, after-care, and sober living programs; Christian chaplains, community resource outreach, prison and re-entry outreach, veterans outreach, codependency outreach, hospital outreach, at-risk populations outreach, homeless outreach, food, clothing, and shelter outreach; experienced and long-clean and sober 12 Step leaders; Bridge organizations; members of the Coalition Speakers Bureaus; leaders of libraries, archives, and memorial collections.

• The newest programs and projects of International Christian Recovery Coalition can and will enhance the Recovery Movement growth. And these include:
Revival of understanding and importance of the Alcoholics Anonymous First Edition;
the Original Printer's Manuscript which shows the changes in A.A. of 1939;
the new Dover Publications reprint of the 1st edition, with all the previously
removed personal stories, the original ideas, and the Dick B. introduction; and
a work in progress that will soon be a First Edition Sponsor Guide.
More conferences, seminars, and resource materials
Publishing our materials in print-on-demand, electronic, and web-wide forms--materials
such as The Dick B. Christian Recovery Guide and The Dick B. Christian
Recovery Resource Center Handbook
Expansion of the number of participants in the International Christian Recovery Speakers
Bureau.
• Preparing as many as possible introductions, forewords, and appendices for each Alcoholics Anonymous, substance abuse, treatment, counseling, and Christian recovery history guide book, workbook, text, and article. Our role would be to encourage writers and publishers to begin their recovery items with accurate history of the real origins, principles, and practices of the Christian Recovery Movement and how to apply them today in whatever Christian recovery program or A.A. History work is undertaken.
• Stressing, encouraging, expanding, and establishing Recovery Resource Centers for entities and individuals world-wide. This so that each and every recovery endeavor is also able to provide or steer alcoholics and addicts to reliable resources incorporating the role of God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in the origins.
The needed expansion of this collaborative effort includes the following: Assessment
and qualification of both affected and afflicted persons; providing comprehensive resource information; Intervention, Counseling, Detox; Christian treatment that includes or refers to detox; counseling, family, children, and co-dependency facilities; Teaching about Christian healing, prayer, forgiveness, guidance, deliverance, Bible study, Quiet Time, Fellowship, Salvation, and the importance of God's Word; Fellowships, 12 Step Groups, Teen Challenge, Missions, YWAM, Celebrate Recovery, alumni, after-care, and senior fellowships, transitional and sober housing; re-entry help as to veterans, military, and correctional release; abandonment, youth, senior, family, medical, homeless, at risk and chaplaincies; community recovery resources including churches, food, shelter, housing, clothing, medical help, mental health welfare, unemployment, job training, education, wholesome recreation options, wholesome music, theater, teaching, sports, community volunteer, services such as Big Brother, and business or union or trade groups.
• Holding Renewal Conferences among leaders to discuss and improve: sponsorship,
counseling, treatment; prayer-Bible study-healing-Quiet Time activities; study groups; 12-Step history, A.A. history, and Recovery Movement resources, guides, and programs; Bridge groups and Christ-centered fellowship effectiveness; counselor training and certification, training the trainers, literature resources and recommendations; long-term Christian residential recovery treatment such as CityTeam, Teen Challenge, and similar long-term Christian residential recovery programs.
• These foregoing suggested efforts--(1) Media Christian Recovery presentations; (2) Christian Recovery Resource Centers and Persons (3) Expansion of International Christian Recovery Coalition participant listings. (4) Enabling us as consultants only to help introduce and write for and with you accurate descriptive forewords and introductions to books, articles, guides, workbooks, and web presentations of your programs; and (5) Renewal conferences and Bureau Speakers who can inform you--can go far in helping the growth, effectiveness, networking, information exchange, and program enhancement of ACADC Institute, Christian counselors, Christian treatment programs, Christian recovery fellowships, and community recovery outreach by Christians.
For further information, assistance, counsel, and resources, please contact my son Ken or myself at 808 276 4945, dickb@dickb.com, and PO Box 837, Kihei, HI 96753-0837

 

 

What Subjects Does Dick B. Write About? You Decide!

To Jack who asks what I write about. I suggest he check Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, the titles on my website - 43 of them (www.dickb.com/titles.shtml), the 850 articles I have written - published on dozens of sites and forums and blogs (http://MauiHistorian.Blogspot.com). On digg, word press, on goarticles.com, on wryte stuff. Plenty options, Jack. Just plug into www.dickb.com; and you will be busy for hours and hours and hours reading about Alcoholics Anonymous History, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, alcoholism, addiction, recovery, Bill W., Dr. Bob, Bill D., Clarence Snyder, Grace Snyder, Anne Ripley Smith (www.dickb.com/annesm.shtml) and on and on and alanon. God Bless. It's not about drill baby drill, it's about read baby read.

Plus dozens of articles about the Christian Recovery Movement, the changes in A.A., the role that God, His Son, and the Bible played in the origins, history, founding, original program, astonishing successes, and changes in 1939. www.dickb.com/realhistory.shtml. www.dickb.com/goodbook.shtml; www.dickb.com/conversion.shtml.

Dick B. dickb@dickb.com

One Man Awake!

One Man Awake

Dick B.

Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

What Do You Say When you hear . . .

“They won’t let us study the Bible in our A.A. group. They say the Bible is religious. They say that A.A. is spiritual, but not religious. And they say the Bible is not conference-approved literature!”

“Every time I mention God in my A.A. meetings, some oldtimer says: “If they had used the word God when I came into A.A., I’d have left the meeting and gotten drunk.”

“When I bring a Bible devotional into my A.A. meeting, place it on the table in front of me, and begin to read—reading from something like the Upper Room, I hear: ‘You can’t do that. It’s against the Traditions.”

Do you. . .

Leave the meeting. Leave the group. Leave A.A. Or start an argument?

Comment that you are not going to any more meetings because you are a Christian, because the others are wrong, and because A.A. is drifting more and more to unbelief and away from God?

Open Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th edition and try to find a quote that shows everyone how wrong the statements are and therefore why you have a right to go right ahead with the  supposedly “forbidden” act?

Or, are you ready to LEARN and then act like the “One Man Awake?”

But: Maybe you could just settle for a compromise

And concede to yourself and others that the members, the meetings, and the objectors are just trouble?

And then open your Big Book, read from it, and straighten them all out?

And then open your Bible and start quoting verses you think will show others what the “Master” would do?

And then clinch the deal by telling everybody that those troublesome remarks are not even what your sponsor told you was right?

We hope not! For there is a better way: Learn the truth and BECOME the “One man awake!”

The truth is available if you look for it, curb your tongue, learn the correct facts, and then BE the ”One Man Awake”

Maybe you’ll think one man just can’t do what’s needed

But here’s a poem that may help you stiffen your spine, patiently search, ask God’s help, find the facts, and then go and tell to the next one—the one who wants to know

AWAKE

One man awake, awakens another.

The second awakens

His next door brother.

The three awake can rouse a town,

By turning the whole place

Upside down.

The many awake

Can make such a fuss,

It finally awakens the rest of us.

One man up with dawn in his eyes,

Surely then

Multiplies!

Gloria Deo

Hawaii and California Old School A.A. Workshops

The Blooming, Booming Responses and

Expanded Plans of the Christian Recovery Movement

By Dick B., Executive Director

International Christian Recovery Coalition

Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

Just since our visits in Southern California in January of this year, we have had an increasing volume of messages from those wanting to participate in our planned meetings this spring. So the following is the way things are going and being planned as of February 29^th.

The Basic Approach Is Announced in This New Guide

How to Conduct “Old-School” 12-Step Recovery Meetings Using Conference-Approved Literature: A Dick B. Guide for Christian Leaders and Workers in the Recovery Arena

By Dick B. and Ken B. (2012)

There Is No “One Size Fits All” Plan

An A.A. or N.A. meeting listed with a local office may conduct and adopt a “Group Conscience” stand and also then establish a regular meeting founded on “Conference-approved” literature. A Christian recovery fellowship may choose to reach out to alcoholics, addicts, prescription drug abusers, and others with life-controlling problems. A Christian, Christian-Track, or other type of treatment program—limited by expense and time constraints—may decide to prepare “graduates” for the long haul beyond the discharge date. Groups like Teen Challenge and Celebrate Recovery may recognize and plan for the “daily” or “24/7” or Christian fellowship after-care needs of its Christian graduates or weekly meeting attenders in order to keep all of them in full bore recovery or recovered mode; continuing service to others; and sustained spiritual growth loop—all being often-accepted components of real, life-long, Christian healing, abundance, and ultimate salvation. Detox programs, interventionists, counselors, after-care facilitators, alumni gatherings, and sober living operators and managers may emphasize a variety of ways in which recovered “clients” or “students” can build on the strength of First Century Christian and early Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship” principles and practices.

Program Content Which Each Servant Can Adopt, Adapt, and Then Apply as Desired

The emphasis here is on fostering long-range deliverance, sustained fellowship and service, and effective and continued reliance on the power, love, forgiveness, guidance, healing, and will of God “in all our affairs.” Early Christian outreach extended first to the Jews. Then to the Gentiles. Then to both as members of the “body of Christ.” Included among these groups were the lost, the poor, the sick, the deaf, the blind, and even dead who were still being raised—just as Jesus had raised the dead.

The Present Plans for Implementing This “Old-School,” First Century Christianity Success Story in Forthcoming Hawaii and California Gatherings This Spring and Summer

And Here Is Where We Will Be Listening, Assembling, Teaching and Facilitating with You

[Details Still Need Further Attention and Firming, But This Will Show You the Plans]

For Maui, Hawaii:

County of Maui Salvation Army Partnership with our Coalition: to learn the existing 24/7 program at the Lahaina Outpost, The Salvation Army, 131 Shaw Street, Lahaina, Hawaii, 96761. (Initial two-hour meeting at our Kihei Office, Friday, March 2, Noon-2:00 PM)

Speaking on the Second Step and A.A. roots at a regular A.A. meeting in Kihei: followed by a meeting to discuss plans for a new “old-school” recovery meeting to be formed in the near future. (Saturday, March 3, 7:00 AM—with a private after-meeting)

For Oahu, Hawaii:

An evening meeting in Honolulu, Thursday, March 22 (6:00 PM) evaluating and initiating Christian Recovery Movement hands-on outreach to alcoholics and addicts in three different Christian recovery efforts: (1) The long-standing men’s outreach to alcoholics and addicts led by an NA-oriented Christian skilled men’s group leader. (2) The plans of this leader’s pastor who is extending outreach in Oahu as well in China, Japan, and the Pacific Rim. (3) The current work of an Oregon-based faith-centered Christian fellowship pastor in Germany and Europe. All three are looking for ways to utilize First Century Christian practices, to adapt early A.A. “old-school” fellowship techniques, and to present 12-Step approaches with individuals needing direct help and structured practices with long-term recovered Christian living as the aim.

For Cornerstone Fellowship—Livermore Campus, Livermore, California

Workshop/Participation/Study Meeting for all (Thursday, March 29, evening).

For Golden Hills Community Church, Brentwood, California

Workshop/Participation/ Study Meetings with Leaders and public (Friday, March 30,

afternoon and evening).

For San Francisco Bay Area, California –

Dialogue with leaders of recently renamed CityTeam International and its ministry to the

“lost” in Nicaragua and West Africa (Either morning, March 29, or on March 31).

In Kihei, Maui, Hawaii –

 A meeting of several days with Rob W. from Utah (April 2-6) – Planning and funding

In Southern California:

We will be in Orange County, California (arrive on Sunday, May 13 and depart on Monday, May 21). Quartered at the beginning and end at The Costa Mesa Marriott Hotel, and during the week at a private home in Orange County. The agenda for any and all includes the following planned:

Individual meetings with:

Rev. Michael Liimatta, City Vision College, Kansas City, Missouri

                        Wally Lowe, Christian businessman, Vero Beach, Florida

                        Russell Spatz, Christian attorney and speaker, Miami, Florida

                        Robert Turner, M.D., Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina

                        Gary Martin, Mariners Church, Planning regular “Old School” training meetings, Irvine, California

                        Pastor Joe Furey and Roger McDiarmid, His Place Church, Westminster, California (the location of our May 18-19 major conferences)

                        Rev. James Moody, Manna House Ministry, Jamestown, Tennessee

                        Bob Noonan, Marriage and Family Counselor, Orange, California

                        Danny Simmons, Sons of Thunder and Book Distribution, Costa Mesa, California

                        Rev. Bill Wigmore, Chairman of Episcopal Diocese of Texas Recovery Committee, Austin, Texas

                        Gary Moates, attorney, Houston, Texas

                        Richard Skolnik, Recovery Historian and believer, Nesconset, New York

                        Other local and out of area visitors and speakers

                                     

Conference on Friday evening, May 18 and all day Saturday, May 19, at His Place Church, Westminster, California: focused on participation, panels, workshop, classes, programs, questions and answers, and full leadership sharing

            [Orientation, Leader presentations, Panel, and Q and A – Friday evening;

                        Main Conference – Saturday all day – Music, prayer, Orientation by Dick B. and Ken B., lead speaker, orientation, leader speakers, and panel with Q and A.]

           Working with individual and group Christian Recovery leaders on formats and content for regular meetings, guides, videos, Conference-approved literature, and other resources on how best to employ all these to help directly those suffering alcoholics and addicts rely on God for help today; to learn the First Century Christianity practices in Acts of the Apostles; to learn how early “old school” A.A. practiced these principles with such great success; and to suggest how these foundations can be or are being used today hands-on.

The Actual Programs We Will Be Outlining, Discussing, Formatting, and Planning

·         A program of your own fashioning on How to Train, Teach, Cooperate, and Disseminate Christian Recovery programs, conference information, and media—programs that will emphasize God’s power and Christian recovery efforts.

·         Sample suggested programs suitable for and tailored to each particular Christian, treatment, sponsorship, and supportive approach and area.

·         Training the Trainers so that others may pick up the torch and move it forward.

·         Distributing free literature through benefactors.

·         Continuing dissemination by blogs, forums, newsletters, videos, radio, audio, conferences.

Coming Shortly: Dates, Places, Times, Contacts, Programs, Subjects, and Resources

To produce effective results, in the most compact way, we will welcome your phone calls and emails in advance; welcome any literature or suggestions you have; welcome your donations to help defray expenses; and welcome any particular approach you wish to take with your own program, practice, fellowship, and church.

DickB@DickB.com

Gloria Deo

What Dr. Bob said about prayer, cure, God, Jesus Christ

A.A., Religion, "Your Faith" 1939 Interview of Dr. Bob

---

[This is the "Faith" article which A.A. literature had said was lost. AAs speculated that Dr. Bob wrote the article. He didn't. He was interviewed by Defoe in September 1939 for "Your Faith" Magazine. And the interview disappeared from view for years and years as far as AAs were concerned. Yet in the interview, Dr. Bob told how he read the Bible with patients. He told how they came to trust God. He told how he had been cured by prayer. He spoke about the healings of Jesus Christ. And he was talking about the many drunkards whom he had been able to help once he himself prayed, turned to God for help, and was cured--a priceless article free of the editing and revision of others who might have doubted!]

I Saw Religion Remake A Drunkard
by D.J. Defoe
September 1939 "Your Faith" Magazine, page 84

Through Liquor, this physician had lost his practice, his reputation and his self-respect. Then one night in a gathering in a private home, he found the way of escape.


WHEN a doctor starts drinking, he's usually on the skids for keeps. His profession gives him so much privacy, so great exposure to temptation both from liquor and from drugs, and his need of a stimulant to lift him from depression becomes so extreme, that many a good doctor has dropped into oblivion for no cause other than his own thirst for drink.

I could tell you about more than one doctor who came to no good end through liquor. Their stories are alike in their early furtiveness, then a brazen attitude of liquor - might -do-things-to some-men - but - I'm-different, then a broken desperation to try to keep up appearances and pretend nothing has happened, and finally exposure—and failure—and disgrace. One brilliant ex-surgeon a suicide; another exile from home; two others forgotten by their friends; so runs the history.
But Dr. X handled his liquor problem differently. He came close enough to degradation to see how the jaws of hell reaching out for him. But then something interfered and saved him.

Today Dr. X—and I dare not give his name, or even the name of the city, for reasons you will soon discover—is alive and happy and is probably a better and more popular doctor than ever before. What saved his life and reputation? What force made him into a new man?

It was simply religion, brought home to him in a way he could use it. Simply the new habit of living his religion, and the discovery that he could utilize the power of prayer.

We used to see Dr. X around a lot. He was cheery, straightforward, friendly, and successful. His field was a particularly intricate form of surgery and he did well at it.

Then for quite a while we missed him. I saw his wife now and then, and noticed—even a man can things like that—that she seemed a little shabby and not especially happy.

We began to hear ugly rumors. That's bad for any doctor. We heard he was losing his practice. When a doctor begins drinking, not many people are willing to trust their own lives to his skill with a knife.

Last year I met Dr. X for the first time in several years. He was a new Dr. X. Straight as an Indian. Clean eyes. An honest I-can-lick-the-world look in his face. He gripped my hand in a vise and said hello in a way that gave you something to tie to.

We were at a party. Someone offered Dr. X a drink. Then I remembered what had happened to him and wondered what he would do.

"I don't drink," he said evenly. "Some men can take a drink, or two drinks, and stop. I can't. I had that ability once, but not now. If I'd take as much as a swallow of alcohol now, I'd disappear—and you wouldn't see me for three weeks."

From him and from others I got his whole story, a bit here, a bit there. Here it is.

He had been drinking for longer than anyone but his wife suspected. For a while he was able to keep the matter a secret. But he missed a couple of appointments and got into some trouble. First his competitors knew it. Then his friends around the hospital got wise. Finally even his oldest patients began to leave him.

He had always been dignified and aloof, and when he was straight you hesitated to go up to him and tell him he was drinking too much. Usually he drank alone, silently, hungrily, in a sodden fashion of one who wants to forget. Just a deadly, steady sopping up of the poison. It was ghastly. In his saner moments he must have known the way he was headed. But a stubborn pride—and pride of that sort in a wayward person is a terrible thing—held him from seeking help.

Finally a friend he trusted got him to attend a little meeting in a living room one evening. It was a simple affair. Not dress-up at all. Here was a factory foreman who looked happier than almost anybody in town. When the time came to talk he told how he had been cured of drunkenness by prayer. His wife told how unbelievably happy their life was now. They didn't have much money—you could see that—but they had something that money alone had never brought them. They had love, and self-respect, and they had each other.

Dr. X was surprised to find that everyone in this little group had some sort of a fight to make, and had won. He began to look at these people in a new way. They had been weak and now they were strong. Unconsciously he began to envy them.

He surprised himself by starting to say something. He admitted he had a tremendous hunger for liquor, and sometimes it got him down. He found that just merely talking about his trouble seemed to bring relief. As long as you conceal your difficulties, no one can help you. But once you bring your trouble out in the open, you can invite help and encouragement from friends. And you can benefit by the strengthening power of prayer.

Merely getting on his knees and asking for help wasn't the whole story of Dr. X's reformation. Many a drunk knows there's a wide difference between promising to go straight and sticking to it!

What enabled him to hold fast to his resolution was the discovery that he, who had just started to climb back to sobriety and respectability, had the ability to help other desperate and disheartened drunks to live decent lives too.

In fact, that's a big part of the cure. When Dr. X gets an inebriate started on a new life of decency, he sees to it that the man gets on his feet now and then and talks to other people in the same predicament. Telling yourself and the world that you're going to go straight helps you to remind your subconscious mind that you are going straight.

There have been a lot of ex-drunks that have come within Dr. X's influence since that fateful night he was turned back from a drunkard's grave. Forty-three of them, no less, owe their new lives to him. He'll leave a party or a dinner, almost leave an operation, to go and sit up all night with some drunk he probably never saw before but who he knows needs help.

He has worked out a little system. Usually he puts the drunk to bed in a hospital, where he can sleep off his liquor quietly but can't get any more. There the sick man—for a drunk really is a sick man—receives regular care, and hot meals, and also some measure of discipline and restraint. There he has privacy, and time to think.

"But you can't do much for a man until he hits bottom and bounces back up, can you?" I asked.
"A man doesn't necessarily have to hit bottom, but he has to come close enough to it to see where he's going if he doesn't stop drinking," replied Dr. X quietly. "And he's got to want to be helped before we can do much with him or for him"

When a drunk in the hospital starts to sober up, Dr. X closes the door and starts to talk to him.
"I know where you hide your bottles," he'll say. "I know every sneaky little thing you do to get liquor

when you're not supposed to have any. I've been there myself. And I want to tell you, my fine young friend, it's getting you nowhere. You're rotten. You're ashamed of yourself. Now let's do something about it."

So there in that white, silent hospital room they read the Bible together. Then they pray. Very simply. First the Doctor, then, falteringly, the man himself. He finds his voice gains in confidence. He finds it is easy to talk to God, and talk out loud. He finds a huge load is lifted off his chest. He begins to feel he could hold his head up again. He gets a fresh look at the man he might be. The whole idea becomes real and feasible to him. He becomes enthusiastic and eager about going straight. He promises to read the Bible, and Dr. X leaves him.

Then, like as not, the sick man slips up, and badly. Success is not that easy. Those nerves that have been accustomed to bossing the mind and the body can't be straightened out without a last tough fight. The patient begs for just one more last little drink, and when the nurse refuses, he is angry at Dr. X and may storm about and threaten to go home. Fortunately, the foresighted Dr. X had carefully removed the patient's pants and shoes and locked them up in his own locker in the surgeons' room of the hospital.

And then, because he knows the fight the sick man is going through, Dr. X comes back in time to bring new comfort and new cheer and to again call forth the searching and ever-available help of prayer. And in a couple of weeks the man, rested and refreshed and with the eyes alight as a result of decent living, goes home to his friends and his family that had almost given him up for dead.
"No, I don't dare let you tell about this," Dr. X said to me when I asked him for a signed interview.

"We can't publicize these cures. These men are outside the realm of every day medicine. They have tried everything and been given up as hopeless. We don't succeed every time ourselves. We can't brag. Every case is a new battle."

"But if word got out that we can do anything at all for a drunk, then derelicts would come into this town by the TRAINLOAD. We couldn't handle them. We couldn't handle a dozen. Two is a lot. One at a time is plenty. I can't talk to one of these fellows for more than an hour or two without feeling spent and tired, unless I talk like a parrot, and talking like a parrot wouldn't do them any good".
"Do you remember when Christ turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched me?' and some woman confessed she had touched his robe because she wanted to be cured? Christ felt some of his power pass out from him at that touch. It's the same way with helping people. You're giving something. It tires you.

"We fellows who are doing this sort of thing feel we have hold of something, but we don't dare use our names in connection with it. Look up the new book, Alcoholics, Anonymous which we helped write. We studied around for a long while to find how we could tell our story without using our names. That book was the answer. It tells some actual stories—my own among them—but no names are given. Even the publisher doesn't know our names."

"But Dr. X," I insisted, "Why not let these drunks pay you something for what you do for them? After all, they have been a burden to their friends. You put them back where they can earn a living again and live a decent life. You deserve any kind of fee you want to charge."

"No, we can't commercialize the idea," the doctor said firmly but kindly. "That would spoil everything. We've got to keep our work as a gift to anyone we are able to help.

"Moreover, I'm not sure we could set up a sanitarium and cure people effectively in any wholesale manner. I'm convinced this idea has to grow, one cure at a time."

I tried to argue still further. "But Christ was willing to let folks invite him in for supper and the night," I suggested. "You and your wife have food to buy, and rent to pay, and overhead expenses in the way of taxes and insurance and shoes for your daughter. It's your own fault if you don't let these reformed drunks help pay their own way."

"I'm satisfied," he said with a quiet smile that permitted no debate. "My wife and I are happier than we have ever been in our lives. We can keep going very nicely as long as I get a few operations from time to time, as I am doing. I'm doing a good job of living, and am happy," he ended.

Then he handed me this final thought. "I have found that no one can be permanently happy unless he lives in harmony with the rules set down in the Good Book," he said. "Try it some time! You don't need to wait till you're down and out before you ask for help. There's help waiting for you right now, if you just ask God to help you."
† † †
The gifts of friendship have only the value that
friendship gives them.—The Advance.
YOUR FAITH

dickb@dickb.com

Recovery Model for Christians Now - A First Century Christian Fellowship

A First Century Christian Fellowship

Major Sources for Observing Early A.A.’s Apostolic Principles, Practices, and Resemblance to First Century Christianity at Work

By Dick B.

© 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

A Common Observation about “Old-School” Alcoholics Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymous History: A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob called the first A.A. group (known as “Akron Number One”)—founded on July 4, 1935—“a Christian fellowship.” [DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers (New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980), 118]

Of the five Rockefeller people—including John D. Rockefeller, Jr—who met the early AAs, listened to Dr. William Silkworth, and read the report that Frank Amos had given to them in February 1938, all said something to the effect, “Why this is First Century Christianity at work. What can we do to help?” And they did help.

But long before that, Christian evangelists were telling New Englanders and many in other parts of the world how the Apostles not only found salvation, but taught and lived Christianity—healing drunks, addicts, and derelicts along the way.

And then there was the Oxford Group and that American sparkplug of its early period, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. Bill Wilson called Shoemaker a “cofounder” of A.A. Bill discussed the proposed Big Book and Step contents with Shoemaker. He even asked Sam to write the 12 Steps, but Sam humbly declined. Yet the very language of the 12 Steps paralleled Sam’s teachings—teaching founded on basic ideas in the Bible that Dr. Bob said were the foundations for the Steps.

Shoemaker and many other early Oxford Group people called their life-changing group and groups “A First Century Christian Fellowship” and defined what that phrase meant to them and their groups.

“A First Century Christian Fellowship”

At the times Bill W. (1934-1937) and Dr. Bob (1933 until at least 1939) were involved with the Oxford Group, it was actively using the name “A First Century Christian Fellowship.” And here are some of the ways people described the personal work with others of members of that important A.A. predecessor, the Oxford Group.

In his popular book, Life Changers, Harold Begbie (who had written Twice Born Men and much more about General William Booth and the Salvation Army) described the Group this way:

Above all, the Group was a Fellowship—a first-Century Christian Fellowship controlled by the Holy Spirit. [Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 31]

We discuss and cite precise sources for the following statements:

. . . Frank Buchman’s formation of what he and his friends called “A First Century Christian Fellowship.” Buchman had said, “It is an attempt to get back to the beliefs and methods of the Apostles.” He said, “We not only accept their beliefs, but also decided to practice their methods” [Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 286]

In Life Changers, author Begbie also wrote:

Since those words were written he has paid a visit to the United States in company with F. B, . . .

----

In his last letter written from America he tells me that he is entering with others into “A First Century Christian Fellowship,” explaining that they wish to get back to the type of Christianity which was maintained by the apostles—“We not only accept their beliefs, but are also decided to practice their methods.”

           

He announces in detail the elemental beliefs of a First Century Christianity. He believes in:

The possibility of immediate and continued fellowship with the Holy Spirit—guidance.

The proclamation of a redemptive gospel—personal, social, and national salvation.

The possession of fullness of life—rebirth, and an ever-increasing power and wisdom.

The propagation of their life by individuals to individuals—personal religion.

            Out of these beliefs proceeds the method of propagation:

Love for the sinner.

Hatred of the sin.

Fearless dealing with sin.

The presentation of Christ as the cure for sin.

The sharing and giving of self, with and for others.

“We are more concerned,” he writes, “with testifying to real experiences, explicable only on the hypothesis that God’s power has brought them to pass, through Christ, than with teaching an abstract ethical doctrine.”

Rev. Samuel Shoemaker spoke of the Group as “A First Century Christian Fellowship” as follows:

The Spirit can communicate His truth to a spiritual fellowship of believers in ways He cannot communicate to individuals: it is another phase of Christ’s meaning when He said that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. He is wherever a believer is; but He is present in heightened reality in the fellowship. [Dick B., The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous, 293]

In his first significant book, Realizing Religion, Shoemaker had the following to say about the days “when the Church had martyrs in it.” Shoemaker wrote at page 67:

I believe that originally this was the spiritual impulse, entirely apart from considerations of ecclesiastical order or the founding of a brotherhood by Jesus, which welded Christians together in the days when the Church had martyrs in it. The value of united prayer and worship, of inspiring and instructing a group bent on one object, the constant impact of the words and the interpretation of Jesus, has often been dwelt upon. . .

The Acts of the Apostles

In Acts chapters 1 to 6, there are a number of descriptions of what the First Century Christians did, what they had received, and how they fellowshipped together. Here we will just quote two segments.

The first from Acts 2:38-43, 46-47:

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. . . .

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.

Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

 The second segment from Acts 4:29-32:

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word.

By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. . . . And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.

The Keys to Applying First Century Christianity in Recovery Programs Today

Our latest title is:

How to Conduct “Old School” 12-Step Recovery Meetings Using Conference-Approved Literature: A Dick B. Guide for Christian Leaders and Workers in the Recovery Arena.

In a small number of pages, this new book—very succinctly and very specifically—covers the ground above and then shows how the successful “Christian fellowship” practices of the First Century and of the early A.A. group in Akron can be applied today and fully supported by Conference-approved literature published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. And how those who join together in Christian fellowship can attain healing and a whole life in the same way the Apostles did and that the old school AAs did.

Gloria Deo

2010 Marks a New Year in Learning A.A. History

After twenty years of researching, writing about, and publishing facts on the origins, history, original program, and successes of the early A.A. Christian Fellowship, we are about to publish our fortieth title, the long-awaited biography of Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith (Dr. Bob), Cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The title will be "The Prince of All Twelfth-steppers"--a description given Bob by his cofounder Bill Wilson and published in A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature.

The nineteenth year marked the holding of a large number of conferences and meetings in San Diego, Lakeside, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Glendora, Oakland, Livermore, and other spots in California and then an entire week on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii.

Out of these was born the rapidly growing, no cost, informal gathering of Christian leaders and other Christians in the recovery arena who have shown a deep interest in the role played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in the recovery movement, and the applicability of these resources today. The year also marked the completion of the Dr. Bob Core Library at Dr. Bob's family church--North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and free distribution of thousands of Dick B. books to those who want and need them for inforrmation and recovery.

This twentieth year will see a major shift in our outreach. It will include our work on the Curriculum Advisory Committee for the Association of Christian Drug and Alcohol Counselors Institute; the production of a four-part DVD series with workbook and accompanying guidebook that will that will present the details of early A.A.'s Christian roots, the changes in A.A., and the applicability of "old school" A.A. today for those who want God's help. In addition, we hope to continue receiving donations enabling the free distribution of some 15,000 of Dick B.'s titles in order to carry the message of God's role to the recover scene today. Finally, we expect to team up with a Christian treatment program that will specifically focus on teaching the recovery community and patients about the role of God in recovery if they want His assistance and will go to any length to get it.