Getting
Started (Continued)
J: This is the man on the bed. (Bill D., their first successful case, in the popular painting.) (p. xvii, par. 2-5) 'He never had another drink. This work at Akron continued through the summer of 1935. There were many failures, but there was an occasional heartening success. When the broker returned to New York in the fall of 1935, the first A. A. group had actually been formed, though no one realized it at the time.'
By late 1937, the number of members having substantial sobriety time behind them was sufficient to convince the membership that a new light had entered the dark world of the Alcoholic. 'A second small group had promptly taken shape at New York. And besides, there were scattered alcoholics who had picked up the basic ideas in Akron or New York and were trying to form A. A. groups in other cities.'
'It was now time, the struggling groups thought, to place their message and unique experience before the world. This determination bore fruit in the spring of 1939 by the publication of this volume. The membership had then reached about 100 men and women. The fledgling society, which had been nameless, now began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous...'
You know Charlie said, this book doesn't say anything about the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" talks about recovery. In fact the Big Book was really written before the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. There weren't but one hundred people. They were even nameless.
This nameless group of people wrote this book.
There was a lot of discussion about what to name the book. We won't go into all that. There were a lot of arguments about this. (Transcriber's note: see the book "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age," page 165 for details.)
So the one hundred people wrote the book, and they named the book "Alcoholics Anonymous." "Alcoholic" Anonymous" is a textbook which contains a planned program of recovery from alcoholism. Now, once the A. A. book was written, then the first one hundred took the name off the book and put on their fellowship.
So there are two A. A. 's, really. One is a book, and the other is a fellowship.
In 1939, quite naturally, the people in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous practiced the same program that was in the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous."
They were identically the same. I can't imagine that. So, the program in the Big Book has been unchanged. Nobody has ever changed the program in the book, but the program in the fellowship has gradually changed. You know, people change. We've added a few things; left out a few things; brought in some new things. In fifty years, the program in the fellowship, hardly, in some places, even resembles the program in the book.
It's sort of like the people who meet in those churches on Sunday morning. You know, if you go home and read their book, they don't even sound like their program. (laughter)
