72 years ago today, Bill had his last drink. 3 days later, he began his road to recovery when, after another visit from Ebby, he kneeled beside his bed and cried out, "If there is a God, let Him show Himself now!" Bill was blessed with a Spiritual Experience and left the Hospital on December 18, 1934 to live the next 36 years of his life sober and devoting his life to doing all he could to see that we had an opportunity to survive alcoholism.

Because of Bill's dedication to our welfare, we have been given the life giving Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the life saving Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and the life propagating Twelve Concepts of Alcoholics Anonymous. All of which are now preserved in our Basic Text.

Yep, it is indeed a day to celebrate and thank God for Bill's dedication.

Discussion meetings are a lot of talk, but recovery is a very short walk, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that is.

What have you done today to deserve this day of life and sobriety?

In God's love and service,

Cliff B
CBBB164@aol.com
www.ppgaadallas.org\

A recording of Bill Wilson reading "How It Works" - p 58-60 of the popular text he drafted and published with editorial input from the "first 100" members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Dr. Bob's character undoubtedly had a strong influence in shaping local meetings. As Akron's Bob E. saw it, one of the big differences between Akron and New York and Akron and Cleveland as well, was that "we did not tell our drinking histories at the meetings back then. We did not need to. A man's sponsor and Dr. Bob knew the details. Frankly, we did not think it was anybody's business. Besides, we already knew how to drink. What we wanted to learn was how to get sober and stay sober."

p.222-223 of Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers
Copyright 1980 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

Reverend Sam Shoemaker of Calvary Episcopal Church met Ebby Thatcher, a newcomer to the Oxford Group brought to him by Rowland Hazard, that "certain American business man" whose contact by the famed psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Jung is described on page 26 of the Big Book.

As a result of these serendipitous events, Reverend Sam came to know Bill Wilson, an alcoholic ex-stockbroker who became a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Reverend Shoemaker wrote several articles and this piece, an apologia – a justification - for his life.

I would like to know if anyone has information about why the Lord's Prayer is used to close meetings in many U.S. locations.

I'd also like to know why other countries and communities use other methods of closing the meetings.

Has anyone gotten drunk over using one over the other? Are there principles that might weigh in the decision?

This topic is up again and I would like to get as much information that I can for contemplation.

I feel like many people are not open-minded to learning more about this and I'm reaching out for more information.

Thanks
David K.

Harry Tiebout, a psychiatrist, learned a great deal about A.A. and had some meaningful things to say about the A.A. program of recovery in a series of articles published in the early '50s.

The Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club were started in Boston in the first decade of the twentieth century, and had demonstrated a good deal more success than the Oxford Group in not only getting alcoholics sober but keeping them sober. In fact, in the 1940's, thoughtful students of alcoholism treatment would tell you that an alcoholic's best bet was to join either A.A. or the Jacoby Club, which both worked, because psychiatry only worked in two or three percent of the cases.

The Jacoby Club believed that alcoholism could be treated only by combining real spirituality with techniques that dealt with psychological problems, using what they called moral suggestion techniques. They also realized that fellowship among recovering alcoholics was absolutely vital to success and made this the centerpiece of their program.

The teaching of Richmond Walker's Twenty-Four Hour book is really much closer to the spirit of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club than it is to the spirit of the Oxford Group. Rich had tried the Oxford Group, and had not been able to obtain permanent, long-term sobriety there.

From "Richmond Walker and the Twenty-Four Hour Book," a talk given by Glenn C of South Bend, Indiana on the history of the popular "Twenty-Four Hours A Day", To visit the site, click here: http://hindsfoot.org/RWfla1.html

On CARL JUNG By Dr. C. George Boeree

This quote should start you off on the right foot: "Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul." -- Carl Jung