Last updated:
 May 29, 2009

Alcoholics Anonymous History
Introduction to the Sources and Founding of
Alcoholics Anonymous

By Dick B.

Introduction to the Sources and Founding of
Alcoholics Anonymous

Dick B. has long awaited the opportunity to provide a written introduction to the history of Alcoholics Anonymous that could be used by individual Twelve Step people, sponsors, facilitators, therapists, writers, historians, treatment centers, and interested agencies to include a correct 12 Step history in their own programs. And this is the title for just that!

There are five major epochs in the spiritual recovery program that is embodied in Alcoholics Anonymous itself. Each is covered in this introduction; and the points here provide an umbrella introduction to the variant sources, attitudes, strains, divergences, and language in programs today.

1. The Akron Genesis Period – Bob’s childhood to prayers for him in Akron in 1935.

2. The New York Conversion Period – Calvary Mission to Bill’s Akron visit.

3. The Original A.A. Program that Bill and Bob developed from Akron Bible roots between 1935 and 1938.

4. The Works Publishing Co. Program Bill fashioned and embodied in A.A.’s basic text of 1939.

5. The Reshaping of the Wilson Program between 1939 and 1955.

Learn these stages of Twelve Step program development, and you’ll know our real A.A. sources and understand its original program, the Big Book changes, and the enormous divergences that began just before Bill’s years of severe depression. You’ll be able to describe our history as it is and was, not as some have reshaped it to satisfy individual promotional, universalist, secularist, or revisionist agenda theories.

Recommended by:

"Emerging congregations that are seeking a Christ-centered recovery ministry will find valuable help in Dick B.'s well-researched and balanced work in spiritual matters so neglected by other A.A. historians. Recovery for the early members of A.A. became an occasion for celebration, peace, and joy, because of their close identity with the Christian faith that birthed and nurtured it."
Charles B. Puskas, Ph.D., who has pastored several congregations in Midwestern America, is a biblical scholar, and the author of The Letters of Paul (Liturgical Press), and a forthcoming title with Wm. B. Eerdmans on the Gospels and Acts.

“Dick B. has given us yet another thoroughly researched and pointed book of the essential historical life-changing features of one of the most amazing miracles of the past century. Application of what is written in this book will help all who are recovering from alcoholism and other addictions, as well as those working in the field. Well done, Dick. Thank you!"
Robert Turner, M.D., M.S.C.R., Charleston, South Carolina, Associate Professor, Medical University of South Carolina.

Steve F., Businessman, Winter Park, Florida; Co-author, Our A.A. Legacy to the Faith Community: A Twelve-Step Guide for Those Who Want to Believe. Leader, Clarence Snyder Spiritual Retreats for AAs and their families.

Paradise Research Publications, Inc.; 82 pp.; 6 x 9; perfect bound; 2007; $22.95; ISBN 1-885803-86-9
 

Contact:
Dick B.
P.O. Box 837
Kihei, Hawaii
96753-0837
Ph/fax: (808)874-4876
dickb@dickb.com

© 1999-2010
Paradise Research
Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.