(Special
Bargain Offer--January 2015 ONLY!)
The
31-Volume “Dick B. A.A. History and Christian Recovery Reference Set”
$224.95 +
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Are you involved with a Christian Recovery and/or 12 Step:
·
Group;
·
Treatment Program;
·
Sober Living Home;
·
Family Outreach;
·
Correctional Outreach;
·
Active Military and/or Veteran’s Outreach;
·
Recovery Ministry;
·
Counseling Practice; or
·
Other Outreach to alcoholics, addicts, or those impacted by alcoholism
& drug addiction
Start 2015 off right! Add
to your recovery library the fruits of Dick B.’s 25 years of research on the
roles played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in early A.A.’s
astonishing success with “seemingly-hopeless,” “medically-incurable” alcoholics
who thoroughly followed the early A.A. path (and many also had problems with
drugs). Dick B.’s books will help you become more effective in equipping suffering
newcomers with “the rest of the story” of recovery, including:
1. Similarities
between First Century Christianity (particularly as seen in the book of Acts)
and the early Akron A.A. program;
2. The
principles and practices of A.A.’s Christian progenitors, including:
a. The
Young Men’s Christian Association;
b. Gospel
rescue missions;
c. Christian
evangelists such as Dwight L. Moody and F. B. Meyer;
d. (Vermont)
Congregationalism (including the “Great Awakening” of 1875 in St. Johnsbury,
Vermont);
e. The
Salvation Army;
f. The
Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor; and
g. “A
First Century Christian Fellowship” (later also known as “the Oxford Group”)
3. The
original, highly-successful, “old-school,” early Akron A.A. “Christian
fellowship,” program, and practices; and
4. How
practices of First Century Christianity, Christian progenitors of A.A. from the
1850’s to the early 1930’s, and early Akron A.A., can serve as “lessons
learned” to enhance the effectiveness of Christian leaders and workers in
today’s recovery arena by enabling them to avoid unnecessarily “reinventing the
wheel” in carrying the message to those who still suffer.
The 31-volume “Dick B. A.A. History and Christian Recovery
Reference Set” will enable you to see in a whole new light the solution A.A.
proposed for the problem of alcoholism:
There is a solution. . . .
The great fact is just this, and nothing
less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences* which have
revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward
God’s universe. The central fact of our
lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is
indeed miraculous. He has commenced
to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.
[Big
Book, 4th ed., 25; italics and asterisk in original; Appendix II:
“Spiritual Experience,” to which the asterisk refers, was not present in the
first edition, first printing, of Alcoholics
Anonymous published in April 1939; bolding added]
You will be able to share with newcomers more effectively the original message of A.A.’s “first
three”—A.A. cofounders Bill W. and Dr. Bob, and “AA Number Three” Bill D.:
“Henrietta,
the Lord has been so wonderful to me,
curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about
it and telling people.”
[Bill
W. to the wife of “AA Number Three” in mid-July, 1935; Big Book, 4th
ed., 191; bolding added]
Your
Heavenly Father will never let you down!
[Dr.
Bob, in the last line of his personal story; Big Book, 4th ed., 181]
That sentence [by Bill W.], “The Lord
has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just
want to keep telling people about it,” has
been a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.
[“AA
Number Three,” Akron attorney Bill D., in his personal story; Big Book, 4th
ed., 191; bolding added]
The “Dick B. A.A. History and Christian Recovery Reference Set”
will help you understand in depth why A.A. cofounder Dr. Bob, a medical doctor,
already felt comfortable in late June 1935 stating to “the nurse on the
receiving ward” at Akron’s City Hospital that:
[H]e
[Dr. Bob] and a man from New York [Bill W.] had a cure for alcoholism.
[Big
Book, 4th ed., 188; bolding added]
It’s time for this nation, its families, and its citizens, long
crippled by alcoholism and drug addiction—along with the families and citizens
of other nations who have been similarly handicapped—to hear A.A.’s actual
solution for the problem of alcoholism. A solution that A.A. cofounders Bill W.
and Dr. Bob began developing over the summer of 1935 in Akron, Ohio. Dr. Bob
stated about this time period in 1935:
In
early A.A. days, . . .
At
that point, our stories didn’t amount to anything to speak of. When we [Bill W.
and Dr. Bob—“the first two”] started in on Bill D. [“AA Number Three”], we had
no Twelve Steps, either; we had no Traditions.
But
we were convinced that the answer to our
problems was in the Good Book.
[From
the transcript of Dr. Bob’s last major talk given at Detroit, Michigan, in
December 1949, and quoted in The
Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches: Their Last Major
Talks (A.A. pamphlet # P-53), 13; bolding added]
And about this same time period, Dr. Bob also stated:
Bill
[W.] came to live at our house and stayed for about three months. There was
hardly a night that we didn’t sit up until two or three o’clock, talking. It
would be hard for me to conceive that, during these nightly discussions around
our kitchen table, nothing was said that influenced the writing of the Twelve Steps. 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.
[The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous,
14; bolding added]
The “Dick B. A.A. History and Christian Recovery Reference Set”
will help you understand the historical significance and modern application of
statements such as these by A.A. cofounder and primary author of the Big Book,
Bill W.:
All
this time I [Bill W.] had refused to budge on these steps. I would not change a word of the original draft, in which, you will remember, I had consistently used the word “God,” .
. .
[Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 166;
bolding added]
.
. . [W]e [Bill W., Hank P., Fitz, and A.A.’s first secretary, Ruth Hock—a
non-alcoholic] finally began to talk about the possibility of compromise. Who first suggested the actual compromise words I do not know, . . . In Step Two we decided to describe God as a “Power
greater than ourselves.” In Steps Three and Eleven we inserted the words “God as we understood Him.”
[Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 167;
italics in original; bolding added]
In the quest for carrying an accurate, effective message to
those who still suffer, the books by Dick B. in this reference set will help
you see and be able to explain simply to newcomers vitally-important points
such as the differences between the original, highly-effective, early Akron
A.A. program, and what Bill W. called:
.
. . the new version of the program, now the “Twelve Steps.”
[Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 162]
For example, in the seven-point summary of the “old-school”
Akron A.A. program as it looked in late February 1938 which Frank Amos included
in a report he prepared for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the second point of the
seven read:
“2.
He must surrender himself absolutely to God, realizing that in himself there is
no hope.”
[DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, 131]
Not to “a Power greater than ourselves.” Not to God “as we
understood Him.” And not to “a higher Power” (as the phrase appeared on page 55
of the first printing of the first edition of the Big Book in the last sentence
of chapter three, “More about Alcoholism.”) No, in the highly-successful,
original Akron A.A, program, the word was “God.”—just as was the case in Bill
W.’s “original draft” of the Twelve Steps, before “the final concessions [were
made] to those of little or no faith.” The Being referred to by Bill W. and Dr.
Bob in A.A.’s earliest days—before “the great contribution of our atheists and
agnostics”—was the “Creator,” a word used 12 times on pages 1-164 of the
current (4th) edition of the Big Book.
Ever wondered about the “novel idea” Bill W. seemed to put in
the mouth of his old Burr and Burton Seminary schoolmate and “sponsor” Ebby T.:
“Why don’t you choose your own conception
of God?” [Big Book, 1st ed., 21-22; 4th ed., 12]. The
“Dick B. A.A. History and Christian Reference Set” will give you a perspective
for understanding:
1. The
four paragraphs in which that question occurs—beginning with the words “Despite
the living example of my friend . . .” and ending with the words “Of course I
would!” (Big Book, 1st ed., 21-22; 4th ed., 12)—did not
appear in what primary author Bill W. called “a prepublication copy of the text
and some of the stories” (better known as “the Multilith Edition” and “the
Original Manuscript.”). This fact may be verified easily by a quick visit to www.Silkworth.net where a transcript of the
“Original Manuscript” is available for viewing. (See: http://mcaf.ee/znw4y; accessed 1/13/2015.)
2. That
odious question, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” was part of
four paragraphs written in by hand and included at the last moment in the
document Bill W. called “the printer’s copy of the book.” (Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 169). The first words of the
four-paragraph insertion (i.e., “Despite the living example of my friend . .
.”) begin on the back of the Title Page and end with an abbreviated version of
the words “Of course I would!” on the front side of a piece of paper inserted between
the typed Title Page and the typed Foreword. In this case, another “committee
of four” was at work. This time, the “committee” was composed of Bill W., Hank
P., Ruth Hock, and Dorothy S. (then-wife of Dr. Bob’s sponsee Clarence S.).
[See: The Book That Started It All: The
Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous (Center City, Minn.:
Hazelden, 2010), 23-27, 38. (Dick B. and Ken B. contributed some of the
historical material included in this book.)]
So, would you like to learn more about “A First Century
Christian Fellowship” (as the group was named when it was founded by Lutheran
minister Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman in the autumn of 1922, and as it was still
also known during the time in which Bill W. and Dr. Bob were members of it)?
Would you like to know why John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and several associates
likened early A.A.—particularly in Akron—to First Century Christianity? Would
you like to learn the story of Bill W.’s inviting Episcopal minister Rev. Sam
Shoemaker to write the 12 Steps?
The retail list prices for the 31 volumes in the “Dick B. A.A.
History and Christian Recovery Reference Set,” taken together, come to about
$750.00. For the remainder of the month
of January 2015 ONLY, we are lowering the already-heavily-discounted price
of our ongoing special ($249.00 + FREE Shipping to U.S. destinations) to only
$224.95
(plus FREE Shipping to U.S. destinations*)
And, if you decide to acquire the “Dick B. A.A. History and
Christian Recovery Reference Set” during the month of January 2015, please send
us an email message to kcb00799@gmail.com
and ask about the following materials by Dick B. and Ken B. that will
complement the reference set:
·
A video walk-through of Dick B.’s reference library in which he
picks out numerous materials in the library, and speaks about and/or reads from
those materials.
·
The forthcoming video class and optional guidebook titled “Bill
W., Dr. Bob, and the Cure of Alcoholism: The Rest of the Story” by Dick B. and
Ken B.
·
More than 600 photographs of the Vermont background of Bill’s
and Dr. Bob’s lives.
·
Free interviews and discussions on the “Christian Recovery Radio
with Dick B.” show.
Gloria Deo
