How it Works

 

            Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.  Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.  There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.  They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.  Their chances are less than average.  There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.      Notice “honesty” is mentioned three times in the first paragraph.

            Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps.

            At some of these we balked.  We thought we could find an easier, softer way.  But we could not.   With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.  Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

            Remember that we deal with alcohol-cunning, baffling, powerful!  Without help it is too much for us.  But there is One who has all power—that One is God.  May you find Him now!

            Half measures availed us nothing.  We stood at the turning point.  We asked His protection and care with completed abandon.

 

            Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery

1.      We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.  See First and Second step explained

2.      Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  See First and Second step explained

3.      Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.   ReCap of Third Step

4.      Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  ReCap of Fourth Step

5.      Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  ReCap of Fifth Step

6.      Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.  ReCap of Sixth Step

7.      Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.  ReCap of Seventh Step

8.      Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.  ReCap of Eighth Step

9.      Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.  ReCap of Ninth Step

10.  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.  Discussion of Tenth Steps

11.  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.  ReCap of Eleventh Step

12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.  ReCap of Twelfth Step

 

Many of us exclaimed, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.”  Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

            Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after makes clear three pertinent ideas:

(a)    That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b)   That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c)    That God could and would if He were sought.

 

How It Came About

 

Clarence Snyder, one of the first 40 members of AA came from The Oxford Group.  Following are some videos (really one video that was divided because it contains so much information).  These short videos were obtained by converting a 27-year-old VHS tape of a lead given by Clarence Snyder.  The videos contain an extreme amount of information on how AA was formed from the Oxford Group.  Clarence has been accused of being a grand stander and breaking the anonymity traditions.  Clarence was my sponsor and I know that he did a number of great things in AA and never took the credit for doing them.  In his last six months of life, Grace, his wife, begged him to stay home, but he continued to work to spread the word of AA.  He personally felt that anonymity was something that should be guarded for someone else.  He said that he was proud to be a member of AA and would shout it from the roof tops, however, he would never break someone else’s anonymity.  He coined the phrase, “This is a spiritual program, not a religious program,” and never took credit for the phrase.  He did state, however, that the phrase was twisted into something that it was never intended to mean, that it was aimed at the Oxford Group not religion in general.  When AA was breaking away from the Oxford Group, things got pretty nasty and that is how the phrase came into being. 

 

                        Click on the link to see the video.

 

                        Video                                                         Content

 

                        Clarence - 1  Covers how the Oxford Group came into being, that it had 6 steps (which we turned into 12), his first family, and a trip to NY.

                        Clarence - 2  Tells of his first family and in-laws, how he survived in NY (very funny), Dr. Strong (Bill Wilson’s brother-in-law) at the

                                             Calvary House, where Bill Wilson attended the Oxford Group in NY, and Dr. Robert Smith who attended the Oxford Group

                                             in Akron, Ohio and how he was getting involved with these two people.  When he returned to his home in Cleveland, his first

                                             wife put him on a bus to go to Akron because her sister had written her from NY about Dr. Bob in Akron.  He says that it

                                             was God’s hand doing it.

 

                        Clarence - 3  Tells the story of how he met with Dr. Bob and got sober on February 11, 1938, how Dr. Bob made him get on his knees and

                                             made him pray, how they attended meetings at the Oxford Group in Akron.

 

                        Clarence - 4  Tells about the problem with the Catholic Church telling Catholics that they could not go to a different religion (the Oxford

                                             Group was a Protestant Evangelic Society), the Big Book was written in 1938 and came out in 1939, the problem that the

                                             Oxford Group said it was the Catholics tough luck, and Clarence breaks away from the Oxford Group and has first AA

                                             meeting in Cleveland because we had the Big Book and the four absolutes:  Humility, Unselfishness, Love and Purity.

                                             Clarence wanted to make it so all religions could attend meetings.  The first AA meeting was in May of 1939 in Cleveland.

 

                        Clarence - 5  Clarence talks about how it is impossible to drink if you work the program, and how he brings people through the 12 steps.

 

                        Clarence - 6  Says we should be proud to be in AA and talk about it, that anonymity is to protect other people’s anonymity, not ours.

 

                        Clarence - 7  A person in the audience asks Clarence to tell the story of the Prodigal Son and he tells the story.