The Akron Genesis and the Pioneer Program That Predates the Twelve Steps – Dick B.

My name is Dick B. I'm an active, recovered member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a roundtable series on AA's biblical roots, and it's coming to you from Hawaii. And this is Session 3, which in many ways is my favorite subject of all the subjects perhaps, apps and certainly in this series because it really points up what the early AAs did with the Bible, how simple their program was, and how simple the emulation of that program could be today and be consistent with AA's steps and traditions and bring about the substantial recoveries they had in those early days. I've called this session the Akron AA Pioneers, their program and their good book. And we're going to deal first with Dr. Bob, AA co-founder Dr. Rob's own good book answer. And this material comes from a conference approved pamphlet called The Co-Founders of of Alcoholics Anonymous and some of the most valuable material on Dr. Bob's views of the Bible and its place in early AA can be found at pages 13 and 14 of this pamphlet, and I'm going to cover some of what he said. He said, beginning at page 13, In the early days, our stories didn't amount to anything to speak of. When we started in on Bill D., that's Bill Dotson who was AA. We had no 12 steps either. We had not traditions. But we were convinced that the answer to our problems was in the good book. It wasn't until 1938, and that's almost three years after the founding of AA, that the teachings and efforts and studies that had been going on were crystallized in the form of the Twelve Steps. And then he points out, I didn't write the Twelve steps. I had nothing to do with the writing of them. We already had the basic ideas, though not in terse and tangible form. We got them, as I said, as a result of our study of the Good Book. And you will find those remarks on pages 13 and 14 of this pamphlet put out by AA itself, and embodying Dr. Bob's last major talk to AAs in Detroit in 1948. Now I want to talk about what I call the Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wrote a book some time back called The Akron Genesis of Alcoholic Synonymous. It has a picture of Dr. Bob's home, which is where AA all began, and it has a foreword by Congressman John Seiberling, who attended some of those earliest meetings, and whose mother brought Bob and Bill together at the time AA was founded. A.A.'s Akron Genesis really began much, much earlier than most A.As know. It began with Dr. Bob, his Christian church activities as a youngster and his excellent Bible training as a youth in church and in Christian endeavor. We've already covered in the previous session a good deal about Christian endeavor Dr.Bob was born and raised in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. His parents were pillars of the North Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury. From childhood through high school, Bob attended each week the Congregional Church, its Sunday school evening service, Monday night Christian endeavor, and sometimes its Wednesday evening prayer meetings. This was likely at the insistence of his mother, but Dr. Bob continued membership in Christian churches most of his life. First, there was a St. Johnsbury Congregational Church of his youth, and then according to his kids, possibly St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal Church, and then probably the Church of Our Savior, an Episcodal church in Akron, where his kids attended Sunday school, and then for sure, Akron's Westminster Presbyterian Church, where Dr. Bob and his wife Anne were charter members from June 3rd, 1936 to April 3rd 1942. And finally a year before his death Dr. Bobby became a communicant at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Akron. Dr. Bob told the AAs he had nothing to do with writing the Twelve Steps and he didn't have much to do with the writing of A.A.'s basic text, The Big Book, other than to review the draft manuscripts as Bill Wilson passed them to him prior to publication in the spring of 1939. But there were really very few, if any, changes that Dr. Bob suggested. So his was not the role to write The Big Books. His was the role to write or supervise the writing of the personal stories of victory that were in the back of the first edition of the big book but dr. Bob did make some very clear statements about the Bible and AA and it was an Akron where a basic Bible ideas were home and tried and then later put into terse intangible form at Bill's hands dr. bob said the a basic ideas came from in the Bible. And Bill and Bob each stated often that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, that's in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, contained the underlying spiritual philosophy of AA. And Dr. Bob often read the AAs from those Bible passages. He pointed out that the AA slogans, First Things things first and easy does it were we taken from the sermon Matthew 633 and 634 and when someone asked him a question about the AA program his usual question was what does this say in the good book he declared that AA pioneers were quote convinced that the answer to their problems was in the Good Book he added to some of us older ones the parts we found absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and the book of James. And in fact, Bill Wilson said that James was so popular with the pioneers that many favored calling the AA fellowship the James Club. The biblical emphasis in AA's Akron Group No. 1 involved a lot more than the points just covered. Akron meetings opened with prayer, and as mentioned they were called old-fashioned prayer meetings. Bible devotionals such as The Upper Room and My Upmost for His Highest and The Runner's Bible were regular fair at the meetings, and they also were fair in the individual quiet times and the quiet times with Dr. Bob's wife each morning at the Smith home, and quiet time itself had distinct biblical roots. Almost invariably, scripture was regularly read at meetings. In addition, scripture passages, both from devotionals and from the good book itself, were often the fountainhead for the topics discussed at pioneer meetings. Bible study was particularly stressed for all. Dr. Bob called every meeting of early AA a Christian fellowship, and early AA was in fact a constituent part of a first century Christian fellowship. As has been detailed in many of my titles, every single 12-step idea can be traced to specific Bible verses and segments read or quoted in early AA. Furthermore, early Akron AAs were required to, quote, surrender. This meant accepting on one's knees Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Older members then prayed with newcomers in the manner specified in the book of James in chapter 5, verse 16. These are not my thoughts. They're based on 11 years of research, which started out with this very conference-approved book, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. And how did all of the Bible material wind up in AA? Certainly not from, or properly described as traveling through, Bill Wilson. It was the daily grist of the Akron experimental work to deliver drums, particularly the work in the summer of 1935 and often thereafter where Bill Wilson was actually in attendance. There's a final point, one that really marks the beginning of the Akron Genesis. The details are only recently unearthed in my research. My focus has been on Christian Endeavor, the worldwide Christian church movement for youth to which Dr. Bob belonged as a youngster. That movement, its practices and principles, can be seen as having great impact on many of the basic and unique aspects of Akron AA, and we covered that in the last session. These special Akron features differed substantially from the Oxford Group approaches and principles with which Bill Wilson had been indoctrinated on the East Coast. They did not involve the Four Absolutes, nor the Five Seeds, nor restitution, nor guidance, nor sharing for witness, nor other distinctly Oxford Group ideas ideas with which Bob and Bill were both familiar from their respective previous Oxford Group connections. The Akron prayer meetings and Bible studies and discussions from devotional literature, confessions of Christ, encouragement as to church affiliation and Christian outreach were a distinct characteristic of the Akron program. They were not emphasized in New York where Bill Wilson was holding for it. They seemingly demonstrate a powerful Christian Endeavor influence on Dr. Bob, particularly because he specifically mentioned his Christian Endeavour membership and because that movement began as a unique product of Dr. Bobs' own New England area. And we covered in the last session this important Christian Endeaver book by the founder of the movement Christian endeavor in all lands and so the descriptions of the program and how it resembled the Akron program can be found in the Christian endeavor literature all of which we mentioned before including Amos Wells a textbook Christian expert endeavor a textbook of Christian endeavor methods and principles the next thing we want to talk about is the basic biblical tools of the pioneers program and what did their program consist they have the Bible and they had the Oxford book principles and these they studied and incorporated into their simple program but here is what they actually did, in summary. They usually hospitalized the newcomer, they shared their victories with him, they left him only a Bible for reading, and they had him surrender to God before he was discharged after only a few days of hospitalization. They easily handed him a copy of the Upper Room, the Methodist periodical daily Bible devotional that was in circulation then, and then they introduced him to others. He was counseled by Dr. Bob and his wife Ann. Each morning he attended quiet times led quite early each day by Ann Smith at the Smith Home in Akron where there was regular Bible study, prayer, and requests for God's guidance. At these extended sessions Ann Smith shared her ideas from her spiritual journal and invited discussion of the topics. I've said before AAs have never had access to Ann's journal, which is why I wrote and published the book Ann Smith's Journal, because that's what they were listening to that pertained to the Bible, to the Oxford Group, and the Christian principles. The Pioneers and their families had other meetings each day, and they had a regular Oxford Group meeting twice a week. One was a set-up meeting, and then they were encouraged to attend church and have religious affiliations. But quiet time was a must. The Bible was stressed for reading. They opened their meetings with prayer, then read Scripture, then had discussions on how to live according to biblical principles, then surrendered to Jesus Christ if they'd not already done so, they were informed about newcomers still needing help, and then they closed with the Lord's Prayer and fellowshiped with each other. They did observe some of the basic Oxford Group life-changing practices known as the Five Cs, usually with Dr. Bob and they often stayed in the homes of Dr. Robb and Ann and several others in the Akron area until they were well enough to sally forth on their own. We talk about a day with the Akronea pioneers though it doesn't seem ever to have been done in AA literature, a lot of these points come from the AA book, Dr. Bob and the Good Old-Timers, which though it was not published until 1980, contains the recollections of Dr. Bob's family and some other old-timers. But most of our information sources have never seen the light of day as far as the average AA is concerned. For the most part, AAs usually don't know about and probably have never even seen Ann Smith's journal or the books of Dr. Bob's library or the transcripts of Akron old-timer tapes that are lodged in GSO, General Service Organization archives in New York, or the papers of old-timers like Clarence Snyder and Bob E. Most AAs have little or no knowledge of the four AA of Akron pamphlets that have been on sale for a number of years in Akron and Cleveland. I never heard about them in California, where I got sober and went to meetings almost constantly. But a few of us have had the opportunity to interview some of the survivors of our earliest days or their immediate friends or families. And the results do enable us to paint a picture, even though it's reconstructed by me, of what a single day in the Akron Fellowship in the formative period from 1935 to 1938 and even after was really like. Let's begin with quiet time. Early morning quiet time at Dr. Bob's home. And we have an appendix attached to the syllabus connected with this seminar seminar which details the quiet time procedures. But Dr. Bob's daughter told me in person that the guys, as she called them, who came over to the Smith home often, often said they were coming to Anne's quiet times for spiritual pablum. Let's start with some of the documented descriptions of Anne's early morning quiet times and also the quiet times conducted by other pioneers individually and in groups. Again, a lot of this information comes from the book Dr. Bob and the Good Old-Timers and from my own research embodied in the acrogenesis of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here are some of the quotes of the descriptions of the quiet times. He, an alcoholic, must have devotions every morning, a quiet time of prayer and and some reading from the Bible and other religious literature. Unless this is faithfully followed, there's grave danger of backsliding. That's what the trustee of AA to be, Frank Amos, reported to John D. Rockefeller Jr. Then another description. The AA members at that time did not consider meetings necessary to maintain sobriety. They were simply desirable. Morning devotion and quiet time, however, were musts. and then a description in Ann Smith's journal of daily quiet time. She said, This cannot be emphasized too much. Not a day should be missed. The early morning hours are best. It may be that more than one quiet time will be needed during the day. Whenever need arises, one should stop and pray and listen. The method of holding quiet time varies some with each individual. all include prayer and Bible reading and study and patient listening to God that's how Anne described her own quiet times and then her daughter Sue said this at that time when dad and mom were working out the program I dr. Bob's daughter sue was getting involved with the quiet times they had in the morning. The guys would come and mom would have quiet time with them. There was a cookie salesman, and he'd bring the stale cookies over, and we'd take up a collection for three pounds of coffee for 29 cents. They'd have their quiet time, which is a holdover from the Oxford group, where they read the Bible, prayed and listened, and got guidance. Then they'd have coffee and cookies. This was early in the morning when the sky was starting to get light. Sometimes they'd get us out of bed to do this. And another statement by Sue, Dr. Bob's daughter. Sue also remembered the quiet time in the mornings, how they sat around reading the Bible. Later they also used the Upper Room, a Methodist publication that provided a daily inspirational message and interdenominational in its approach. Then somebody said said a prayer, she recalled. After that, we were supposed to say one to ourselves. Then we'd be quiet. Finally, everybody would share what they got or didn't get. This lasted for at least a half an hour and sometimes went as long as an hour. Now, I mentioned Ann Smith's journal, and we're still talking just about this quiet time period that Ann Smith conducted every morning at the Smith home which involved prayer Bible study listening and the use of devotionals but it also involves sharing from Ann's own journal some 64 pages which I was able to obtain from a trustees in New York and a lot of which has been summarized in my book and Smith's journal and it was quite some sometime later that I found out from John R, an Akron pioneer who remembered this. Before one of these meetings, the meetings of Ann Smith at a quiet time at the Smith home, Ann used to pull out a little book and quote from it. We would discuss it, then we would see what Ann would suggest from it for our discussion. These are all things which are missing from today's AA now I just wanted to read you one segment from hands spiritual journal to give you some idea of how detailed it was here's here's a statement one of over a hundred and just picture a reading from the Bible at Anne's function then a prayer then a quiet time and a sharing what was received and then Anne's reading the following from her journal and inviting discussion of the remarks now we're still talking about what happened each morning in Akron AA and wrote confession don't be shocked at any confession it's hypocritical for you yourself that least thought of doing something similar a man may share many many problems but not his deepest one. You must share deeply with him. This is a discussion really of the fifth step as it was involving a sharing between one person in confidence with another. She says you must share deeper with him under guidance. You may be guided to share your deepest sin and this will clear the way for him to share his. And I want to say that most AAs would recognize that this is what is still being done today. The time will come when he will begin to tell you things about himself that he doesn't tell to others. Why are people so afraid to face their deepest problems? Because they think there's no answer. When they learn there is one, they will believe it can work out for them and they will be really honest about themselves, and you can find that language in A.A.'s big book. When we fail to share, people think their sin is unique, but sharing lifts a tremendous load. It is absolutely necessary to face people with the moral test, and that's the test of the yardsticks of the Oxford group, absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Fundamentally, she She said, sin is independence toward God. Living without God, seeing oneself as God sees one, brings hatred out of sin. And what was next? We're talking so far just about what happened in those half-hour to hour quiet times at the Smith home. I don't pretend that we can state precisely what happened every moment in the course of a pioneer day. But we do know certain facts for sure, in addition to those about the morning quiet time. The first vital hospital visits with newcomers. Teams of AAs, many of them call themselves the Alcoholic Squad of the Oxford Group, visited newcomers who had been hospitalized at the Akron City Hospital. These visitors told the newcomer their stories. They told the newcomer that Dr. Bob had the answer to their problems. Sometimes they even gobbled up the food that the hospitalized pigeon was unable to stomach. Dr. Bob also visited the patient each day by his own account. He said, I used to go to the hospital and stand there and talk. I talked many a time to a chap in the bed for five or six hours. On the final day, Dr. Bobs would make sure the newcomer believed in God and then would have him get out of bed, get down on his knees, and quote, make surrender. And this meant accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, an event that we have documented in several of my books with the statement of early AA pioneers. Warren C., who came to AA in Cleveland in July 1939, said this of hospitalization. This was so much a part of the treatment that, quote, there was considerable debate about whether he, Warren, should be admitted to the fellowship since he'd not been hospitalized. That can be found right here in Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. So we have morning quiet time, we have hospitalization, and we have daily meetings next. Dr. Bob said we used to have daily readings at a friend's house. That's the home of Deanna and Clarice Williams in Akron. All this happened at a time when everybody was broke, awfully broke. It was probably much easier for us to be successful when broke than it would have been if we'd had a checking account apiece. We were, every one of us, so painfully broke. I think now that it was providentially arraigned. Until 1940 or maybe early 1941 we held the Akron meetings at the residence of that good friend who allowed us to bang up the plaster in the door jams, carting chairs upstairs and downstairs. Then we outgrew that. Since many lived at the Smith home itself as well as at other AA homes homes, and since none was prospering, an AA historian Ernest Kurtz said in hindsight it seems as if most of their waking lives was a continuous AA meeting. Kurtz was focused on his own not-God thesis, and he seemed to miss the more insightful observations as to the nature of these meetings by Dr. Bob, by early AAs, and by other observers. Dr. Bob characterized every meeting as a Christian fellowship, and actor and old-timer Bob E., in a letter to Bill Wilson's secretary, Nell Wing, and also in a memo to Bill's wife, Lois, said Dr. Dr. Bob referred to AA as a Christian fellowship. The Oxford group itself, of which AA was a constituent part, was called AA First Century Christian Fellowship. AAs themselves perceived this Christian fellowship emphasis for Bible study, prayer, the use of Christian devotionals, and the reading of Christian literature was stressed along with the breaking of bread together. And to see the resemblance to first century Christianity, one need only look at the Book of Acts, chapters 1 and 2 and 4 and 10 and 12, and also in Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, at pages 135 and 136. Sam Shoemaker had often written of the importance of Christian fellowship, quoting in many cases from the Book of Acts. Early AAs such as Bob E. were speaking of living Christian fellowship, and outside observers commented on the similarity between Ackland's old-fashioned prayer fellowship and the first century's Christianity. So we had morning quiet times, hospitalization where there were visits to the newcomer, with a surrender, and then regular meetings, but but there were other daily happenings that we know about in early Akron, A.A. The first thing for the A.As was input from Dr. Bob's wife, Ann Smith, and from Henrietta Seiberling, who had brought Bob and Bill together and was a Christian and an Oxford grouper. In addition to the quiet times and hospital visits and frequent meetings, the pioneers were beneficiaries of the efforts of Ann and Henrietta personally. Ann was legendary in her work with new people. She acted as a counselor, nurse, evangelist, and teacher, and the pioneers had great confidence in her love and advice and said so in writing. She often shared important Bible passages with them. She used the phone much to keep in touch with those who were not actually present at the Smith home. This is a book about Ann and her journal, and it shows the kind of input AA's were getting from this wonderful lady, not just from her journal but also from her knowledge of the Bible and her participation previously for two and a half years in the Oscar group. She used the phone to keep in touch with those not present at her home and Henrietta Seiberling paid daily visits to the Smith home, kept in touch by phone, and shared many important Bible and Oxford Group ideas with the early people and their families. How do we know that? Each one of Henrietta's three children sent me letters stating what Henrietta read, what she continually continually talked about, and I actually saw her Bible and the notes in it at the home of her daughter Dorothy in New York from individual ladies who were not alcoholics, who were highly educated, and who knew their Bible and had attended and graduated from distinguished universities, Wellesley and Vassar. Then there was individual reading and study. Individual AAs did a great deal of reading on their own. The Upper Room was a major guide, and so was the Runner's Bible. Now we've talked about that Runner's Bibel before, and how it covered so many upbeat promises that God makes in the Bible. And daily Bible study, prayer, and quiet time were important aspects of AA's spiritual growth and understanding. The number of Christian books in wide circulation and use is astounding compared with the situation in AA today. And in my books, Dr. Bob and his library and the books early AAs read for spiritual growth which listed and given detailed bibliographies on what that literature was. Lastly, there was most assuredly a socialization which was actually called religious comradeship. It appears that the fellowship and comradeship with believers was far more important in those earliest days than just social activities. The pioneers and their families were deadly serious and they took their reliance on our Creator very seriously and shared it in religious fellowship. Now what about the regular meetings? Well, really, they were a small candle compared to all of the things we've just been mentioning. The daily meetings, the quiet times, the visits with Ann and Henrietta, the visits to the hospital. But they did have a, quote, regular meeting, and here is some information about it. There was a unique focus in Akron. Simplicity was the watchword. Prayer was the focus. And if you do as I did and examine the kind of meetings Dr. Bob attended as a youth in Christian Endeavor, you can see how much Akron AA resembled the Christian Endeavour program, and we've already covered that. And in an apparent attempt to effort to stigmatize the Oxford group's acknowledged and very clear influence on AA and then to develop excuses for AA's departure from that Oxford group, commentators have often ignored the startling differences between Akron AA, New York AA, and regular Oxford group meetings of the 1930s. Akron was just plain different. In Akron, there was no Calvary Church where either Oxford Group founder Frank Buchman or Reverend Sam Shoemaker called the shots. There were no Calvery House meetings adjacent to the church of the dynamic Sam Shoemaker. In fact, there were no Sam Shoemer doing the mentoring. There were not teams or house parties or even the kind of sharing that was so typical of the Oxford group activity. But what was a regular meeting like? A typical Akron meeting began with prayer, and the prayer was not the serenity prayer that's so widely used at the beginning of today's meetings. Akron's meetings ended with the Lord's Prayer. There was usually an open Bible present with the meeting's leader referring to Scripture to the group. There were prayers during the meetings. There were announcements about newcomers in the hospital who needed visitation by the alcoholic squadron. There were brief group quiet times, but these were hardly peculiar to the Oxford group, for the quiet time had been observed in the morning in one form or another from the earliest Bible days. Quiet time was widely prevalent in a worldwide student Christian movement, YMCA, the Christian Endeavor, and the teachings of F.B. Meyer who influenced all those movements. Quiet Time was observed in Christian Endeavour meetings Dr. Bob attended as a youth and in the practices Sam Schumacher advocated in his books. Sam along with other religious leaders called the practice The Morning Watch and later Quiet Time. It meant prayer, Bible study, quiet time for receiving God's guidance, confession of Jesus Christ, and focus on fellowship. It did not mean sharing of experience, strength, and hope as the Oxford group generally so often did and as New York's meetings began to emphasize. Particularly significant is the fact that early Akron AA meetings did not have drunk go-logs. The focus was on the Bible and communicating with our Creator and His children. Now, what about the Bible reading? I'd like to have you visualize what happened in Akron that was absolutely unique. Picture Dr. Bob's tall, stern figure opening up his Bible and then reading one of the following passages to a group from portions that Dr. Bob and the old-timers considered absolutely essential. And this is from the Sermon on the Mount. And just visualize Dr. Rob reading this to the group. And then visualize trying to have him read it to the groups today. From the sermon, You've heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5, 43-45 And again from the Sermon on the Mount Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through to steal but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven 7. Where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, but where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. This concept that there was a choice and that people had to make that choice. And then from 1 Corinthians 13, 4-6 came the principles that were considered so important. Charity, that's love, suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity wanteth not itself is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own. is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoicest in the truth. Now even though that's old English, you can see the concepts of patience, kindness, avoidance of envy, avoidance of self-importance, avoidence of discourteous conduct, avoidience of self seeking, avoidace of anger and of evil thinking and of wickedness and of rejoicing in honesty or the truth. Those are all found in A.A. today. And then from the book of James, visualize Dr. Bob reading this. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. Notice the choice. We have a choice. For when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted when he has drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth fourth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. And that's from the book of James, the third major source. James chapter 1, 12 to 16. And so visualize that this was what took place in the meetings. Dr. Bob would stand and read these chapters, and then there would be a discussion of the significance of those chapters from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. and this is a picture of dr. Bob and Bill the co-founders of AA at those early meetings there was no talk of drinking no talk of 90 meetings in 90 days no psychobabble or chatter about I'm in a relationship or deadly fatalism and that as I just guess I have to accept this just the reading of what God has said on the important subjects of love service to God walking in the love of God and resisting temptation what a day that would be have been and what a it would be and could be in our time then there was this surrender if it didn't take place at the hospital they took a place in more elaborate form during the meet the one meeting a week you had to make surrender whether at the Hospital or at a regular meeting when when people were taken upstairs to be prayed over by the, quote, elders, as they were called in the book of James. New York did not have some under his pattern on the book of James, nor at its meetings was there acceptance of Christ on your knees, or group prayer to have alcohol taken out of your life, or group prayer over the newcomer that he might live according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. There was another unique Akron feature. Akron had a specific focus on overcoming alcoholism. That's what the meetings were about. There's no evidence I've seen that the New York meetings or East Coast Oxford group meetings as such involved announcements about or actual visitation by the group of the newcomer in the hospital, visitation groups such as the Alcohol Squad in Akron. It's fair to say however However, the Bills' early months of sobriety in New York certainly did involve visits to Towns Hospital and Calvary Mission. But there is no evidence of any focus in Akron on the team life-changing such as that in which Bill participated in New york in late 1935. Bill was handling the businessmen contacts in the huge Oxford Group meetings for the League of Nations. President Ambrose, the League of Nations, had come to the United States when Frank Buchman brought him there and Bill was in charge of some of the events. I'm not one of those who claims or believes or has found any evidence that either Frank Buchmann or Sam Shoemaker turned his back on drunks. I've heard otherwise in person from long-time Oxford Group activists such as James Newton, Eleanor Ford Newton, James Howe, and Willard Hunter, And some of the most famous Oxford books were those by Victor Kitchen, I Was a Pagan, and Charles Clapp, The Big Bender, two problem drinkers who were delivered from alcoholism in the Oxford book. Well-known to AA historians also are the stories of Roland Hazard, F. Shepard Cornell, Ebby Thatcher, and Bill Wilson, drunks who were ministered to within the ranks of East Coast Oxford Group people before AA began. However, the Oxford Group of the mid and late 1930s had its focus on world changing, on world teams, and on changing the lives of world leaders and nations. By contrast, what was perhaps jokingly called the, quote, clandestine lodge of the Oxford group, unquote, in Akron, was for helping drunks. And its precursor became famous for helping Bud Firestone overcome his drinking problem in Akran. And then there was fellowship socializing. There doesn't appear to be much evidence of fellowship socialization on the New York scene. As I said, there doesn't appear to be much evidence of fellowship socializing on the New York scene. That's not to say that Bill and Lois and Fitzmayle and so forth didn't get together. They did. did, but it was hardly the kind of group fellowship that could be found in Akron. And this was regular fare. The people in Akran arranged activities on Saturday nights when AA's would be lonely and there is no evidence of New York's AA having recreational activities such such as those observed in Cleveland not long after AA began, with bowling and baseball and huge picnics and lots of food and coffee. So all of those things contributed to a first-century prayer, Bible-oriented fellowship. Now, why we have lost the one eyewitness independent study study of early AA in our fellowship discussions and in our histories, I don't know. Bill Wilson wanted to raise money for hospital chains and paid workers and literature, and he was able to see John D. Rockefeller, and Rockefeller sent Frank Amos to Akron to see what Dr. Bob and his associates were accomplishing. This was in 1938 after the program had been rolling. Amos thoroughly investigated, interviewing many inaccurate, including doctors, a judge, non-alcoholic members such as Henrietta Seiberling and T. Henry and Clarice Williams, and a number of men, their wives, and in some cases their mothers. Some of these details are reported in this book, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, at pages 128 to 136. It was a thorough investigation. investigation. And I made it a point to look at the original Frank Amos reports during my research trips to New York. And as we'll reiterate in a later session, if you want to see the highly successful Pioneer Program in action, there were two basic places to look. The personal stories of the Ohio people in the first edition of AA's Big Book and the summary of the program by Frank Amos, and it should be underlined that Amos would soon become one of AA's first non-alcoholic trustees. Now, Amos' summary of the program can be found detailed in this book, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, at pages 135 and 136. So we don't have to, excuse me 131 yes, 131 it's detailed there what he found and so we don't have to guess about what the early AAs were doing Amos did conclude that in many respects their meetings have taken on the form of meetings described in the Gospels of the early Christians during the first century and during an earlier meeting in Rockefeller's private boardroom with Rockefeller associates including Frank Amos, Albert Scott who was the chairman of the trustees of the Riverside Church Scott said why this is first century Christianity what can we do to help? Now the Amos report described the Akron program and Amos said it was being carried out faithfully by the Akon group The man in the group, he said, all looked to Dr. Bob for leadership and these were the specifics he set forth about that program. Now if you want to know what he said not what I'm saying read page 131 which I'm about to cover in detail of Dr. Bob and the good old-timers. This is the program, this is the one that produced the 75 to 93 percent success rate, and it wasn't in the 1940s, it was in the period from 35 to 38 at which time they decided it was sufficiently successful that they would publish a book, the big book, and Bill began writing it in May of 1938, and here was the program. One, an alcoholic must realize that he is an alcoholic, incurable from a medical standpoint, and that he must never drink anything with alcohol in it. Two, he must surrender himself absolutely to God, realizing that in himself self, there is no hope. AA was not a self-help group or group therapy. The AAs surrendered themselves completely and absolutely to God on the assumption that they had no hope on their own. 3. Not only must he want to stop drinking permanently, he must remove from from his life, other sins such as hatred, adultery, and others which frequently accompany alcoholism. Unless he'll do this absolutely, Smith and his associates refuse to work with him. 4. He must have devotions every morning, a quiet time of prayer and some reading from the Bible and other religious literature unless this is faithfully followed there is grave danger of backsliding by he must be willing to help other alcoholics get straightened out this throws up a protective barrier and strengthens his own willpower and convictions next it is important but not vital that he fit meet eat regularly with other reformed alcoholics and form both a social and a religious comradeship. And finally, important but not vital, that he attend some religious service at least once weekly. No direction as to this or that church, just some religious services. Now you can see from that that this is not an Oxford group program such as I have detailed in a number of my books, for example, The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous or New Light on Alcoholism which is about Sam Shoemaker's role. This is AA as it succeeded in Akron, as it was reported by Frank Amos, as it produced a 75% success rate and as it came primarily as Dr. Bob said from the Bible the abstinence the first point was something I covered before you can't do much Bible study if you're drunk but from there on it's turning to God and that's why in AA the expression we stood at the turning point emerged what was that turning point surrendering to God absolutely Absolutely. And then, what did you do next? You removed from your life the hatred, the adultery, and all of the other things that were considered sins, and consequently were in violation of God's will. and a person who has surrendered to God is basically admitting that he hasn't succeeded very well that he has sinned and that God's rules are the ones he will follow that's biblical and next yet must have devotions every morning a quiet time of prayer and reading the Bible in religious literature this is what they did with Ann Smith it was Bible and prayer focused I must be willing to help other alcoholics get straightened out that is the witnessing aspect that was going on in the hospitalization in akron and then they meet with reformed alcoholics in a social and religious comradeship first century christianity was about fellowshipping with like-minded believers reinforcing your believing praying together studying the word together and witnessing and healing, and then finally attending some religious service which was not vital. And so the real heart of this program was stated here, the good book and the big book, AA's Roots in the Bible, and you can see how those roots were translated into these very specific and simple biblical principles that Frank Amos reported to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and that resulted in Rockefeller's approval of the program and then ultimately, a year later, the publishing of the big book which was supposed to embody the program.