There are many rumors about Bill W.'s life. I won't mention them to avoid repeating the gossip here. But, there are a number of sites on the internet that are trumpeting these rumors or running information about his life that is unflattering in an attempt to discredit him and the AA program. I don't know why these people are doing this except, perhaps, because they are in denial about their own problems and this is a way to fortify themselves against the truth. Or, perhaps it's just the propensity for malicious gossip all people are tempted by that is the attraction. Nevertheless, seeing people run down Bill W. or the AA program can be painful to watch.
This is why this film I have been presenting here on The Happy Hour is so important to watch. Bill presents himself here with all his character defects, and literally throws open his life of near-death and insanity coupled with the miracle of recovery so people can see and hear first hand what it was like and how he changed. Sure, he's a bit pompous here, and he uses flowery language, but the essential message is one of recovery and how that was accomplished in one man's life. One cannot escape the idea that here is a film where the founder of the most successful, formal program of recovery for alcoholics in history is presenting the story of how it started. That is every bit as important as if Caesar had been caught on film describing the conquest of the world, Jesus had been filmed during the sermon on the mount, or Buddha was interviewed on CNN as he traveled throughout Asia. Lest you think I am exaggerating, keep in mind that this is one of the most difficult of all diseases to understand and treat, and conservative estimates of the number of people world wide who have stopped drinking due to the influence of the AA program is in the tens of millions.
So, sit back and relax as Bill takes us further along the journey of his recovery and the beginning of the AA program. This segment begins with his description of pacing in a hotel lobby in Akron OH on that fateful day when he could have either turned to the telephone to call for help or turned to the bar and relapsed. It concludes with Dr. Bob and his wife walking through the door on their first meeting to sit and talk about a process that would change the world.
All the best, Roger W.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Pride in NA...
Over the past weekend, I had the chance to participate in a magnificent project for Narcotics Anonymous here in St Paul MN. I am the Chair of the Hospitals & Institutions Subcommittee (affectionately just known as H&I) of the local area NA group that brings meetings into facilities where recovering addicts cannot get out and go to regular NA meetings. We held a Learning Day last weekend and it blew my socks off!
More than 100 recovering addicts from the Twin Cities area took part in the process of learning ways and means to bring a message of recovery to addicts in hospitals and other institutions, like detox facilities or jails. Now this may not seem like a huge number to some folks outside the NA community, but it was the largest turnout for a Learning Day I have seen in more than 22 years of participating in H&I events like this. We in NA are notorious for not showing up for meetings despite the fact that virtually every NA member is involved with some form of service work to help fellow addicts. Morevoer, it wasn't as if these people who attended sat on their hands during the session. They were all deeply involved in the panel presentations, sharing that some addicts provided about experience, strength and hope found through H&I work, and small group discussions. At one point I got all misty eyed when watching recovering people work together to teach one another how to carry an effective message of recovery to the still-suffering addict.
Before 1953 addicts interested in recovery literally could not publicly gather together in halls and rooms because many of them had done things while using that attracted the authorities' attention. If they all came together for a public and well-known meeting, they exposed themselves to possible arrest. Then, in 1953 things started to change. Jimmy K started public meetings in Southern California that challenged the notion addicts could not be public about their recovery and their past. It was a miraculous and wonderful day when that first meeting took place among a handful of addicts in recovery.
I remembered that as I looked out on the sea of smiling faces at the Learning Day. Here we were, 100 addicts meeting in a well-publicized, public gathering to work on recovery. We were not under surveillance and threat. We were enjoying recovery and planning for the future. We, were NA.
All the best, Roger
More than 100 recovering addicts from the Twin Cities area took part in the process of learning ways and means to bring a message of recovery to addicts in hospitals and other institutions, like detox facilities or jails. Now this may not seem like a huge number to some folks outside the NA community, but it was the largest turnout for a Learning Day I have seen in more than 22 years of participating in H&I events like this. We in NA are notorious for not showing up for meetings despite the fact that virtually every NA member is involved with some form of service work to help fellow addicts. Morevoer, it wasn't as if these people who attended sat on their hands during the session. They were all deeply involved in the panel presentations, sharing that some addicts provided about experience, strength and hope found through H&I work, and small group discussions. At one point I got all misty eyed when watching recovering people work together to teach one another how to carry an effective message of recovery to the still-suffering addict.
Before 1953 addicts interested in recovery literally could not publicly gather together in halls and rooms because many of them had done things while using that attracted the authorities' attention. If they all came together for a public and well-known meeting, they exposed themselves to possible arrest. Then, in 1953 things started to change. Jimmy K started public meetings in Southern California that challenged the notion addicts could not be public about their recovery and their past. It was a miraculous and wonderful day when that first meeting took place among a handful of addicts in recovery.
I remembered that as I looked out on the sea of smiling faces at the Learning Day. Here we were, 100 addicts meeting in a well-publicized, public gathering to work on recovery. We were not under surveillance and threat. We were enjoying recovery and planning for the future. We, were NA.
All the best, Roger
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Bill W Film #4...
I finally found the 4th installment of the film Bill W and Lois made about his experience, strength and hope for recovery. It took a while, but, thanks to You Tube, we have it and are offering it to you here, on The Happy Hour.
The importance of this film cannot be over emphasized. Bill certainly had a way with words and some of the written wording and phrasing in the "Big Book" and the "12 and 12" is sometimes a little flowery and overly developed. That was just his way as the character defects of grandiosity and pomposity appear to creep into his writing every now and again. As a fellow New Englander, however, I recognize in his language a matter-of-fact and clipped way of presenting ideas that is relatively free of emotion and uncluttered by intellectual jargon. This film shows his true nature as a man who struggled mightily with addiction and had a colorful lifestyle to back it up. It also puts some flesh on the bare bones of the written legacy he left us. Here he gives us a picture of himself the way he truly was.
So, sit back and enjoy the latest in Bill's story of how it came to be that he discovered the power of one alcoholic helping another.
All the best, Roger W.
The importance of this film cannot be over emphasized. Bill certainly had a way with words and some of the written wording and phrasing in the "Big Book" and the "12 and 12" is sometimes a little flowery and overly developed. That was just his way as the character defects of grandiosity and pomposity appear to creep into his writing every now and again. As a fellow New Englander, however, I recognize in his language a matter-of-fact and clipped way of presenting ideas that is relatively free of emotion and uncluttered by intellectual jargon. This film shows his true nature as a man who struggled mightily with addiction and had a colorful lifestyle to back it up. It also puts some flesh on the bare bones of the written legacy he left us. Here he gives us a picture of himself the way he truly was.
So, sit back and enjoy the latest in Bill's story of how it came to be that he discovered the power of one alcoholic helping another.
All the best, Roger W.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Ramblings of my mind...
* Had to take a break from the blog in order to file some classroom work for my dissertation. Finding the administrative things I have to do for this study are boring and time consuming. It seems everyone on the planet has to review and approve of my dissertation. But, I'm sticking with it.
* There's a relatively new book out that may interest some folks... Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality
It has to do with the biological facts about spirituality and experiences that we might categorize as mysterious that we have actual scientific evidence exists as naturally hard-wired circuitry in our brains. This kind of argument - that we are pre-disposed to be spiritual or even religious - has been around for a while, but this book gives some up-to-date evidence for the claim. It also talks about some people with amazingly powerful spiritual capacities. No necessarily reading for the beach, but it may give some useful perspective to your own spiritual journey.
* We who volunteer for Narcotics Anonymous's Hospital & Institutions work -sort of the local speaker's bureau for NA - are continuously amazed by how few recovering people actually give back to the recovering community the freely given hope they found to be able to stay clean and sober. H&I work is not for everyone, for sure. Some folks are just plain uncomfortable speaking before even a few fellow addicts who are suffering with the effects of the disease of addiction. But, many of us are astounded by how few seem to be really involved with carrying a message of hope for recovery to addicts still suffering.
* Another issue that amazes me in my work as an alcohol and drug counselor is how tenaciously some people hang onto character defects that are keeping them sick and thwarting their recovery. We sometimes want to not let go of the familiar ways of coping with stress of living. Moreover, these techniques we use to defend against pain are sometimes the very things that kept us alive. So it's no wonder that people in reocvery need to have a program that allows them the opportunity to have these defects removed. We recommend Steps 6 and 7 for the remedy:
Step 6 - We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7 - Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
These two steps are down the line a bit and newly recovering people ought not concern themselves with these for a while. But they are powerful weapons against drifting back to those dysfunctional attutides and behaviors that kept us in trouble for so long. When we have these defects reoved from our daily lives, we find that the things they were designed to protect us from also disappear...faith replaces fear, courage replaces cowardice, hope replaces despair, and honesty replaces lying.
All the best, Roger
* There's a relatively new book out that may interest some folks... Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality
It has to do with the biological facts about spirituality and experiences that we might categorize as mysterious that we have actual scientific evidence exists as naturally hard-wired circuitry in our brains. This kind of argument - that we are pre-disposed to be spiritual or even religious - has been around for a while, but this book gives some up-to-date evidence for the claim. It also talks about some people with amazingly powerful spiritual capacities. No necessarily reading for the beach, but it may give some useful perspective to your own spiritual journey.* We who volunteer for Narcotics Anonymous's Hospital & Institutions work -sort of the local speaker's bureau for NA - are continuously amazed by how few recovering people actually give back to the recovering community the freely given hope they found to be able to stay clean and sober. H&I work is not for everyone, for sure. Some folks are just plain uncomfortable speaking before even a few fellow addicts who are suffering with the effects of the disease of addiction. But, many of us are astounded by how few seem to be really involved with carrying a message of hope for recovery to addicts still suffering.
* Another issue that amazes me in my work as an alcohol and drug counselor is how tenaciously some people hang onto character defects that are keeping them sick and thwarting their recovery. We sometimes want to not let go of the familiar ways of coping with stress of living. Moreover, these techniques we use to defend against pain are sometimes the very things that kept us alive. So it's no wonder that people in reocvery need to have a program that allows them the opportunity to have these defects removed. We recommend Steps 6 and 7 for the remedy:
Step 6 - We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7 - Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
These two steps are down the line a bit and newly recovering people ought not concern themselves with these for a while. But they are powerful weapons against drifting back to those dysfunctional attutides and behaviors that kept us in trouble for so long. When we have these defects reoved from our daily lives, we find that the things they were designed to protect us from also disappear...faith replaces fear, courage replaces cowardice, hope replaces despair, and honesty replaces lying.
All the best, Roger
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Foundation Principles of the Steps...
Somewhere in my ramblings through the literature on Alcoholics Anonymous I once ran across a Letter to the Editor of the AA Grapevine magazine from Bill W. He was answering a question a man had raised that has been on the minds of many people who are new to the program: "You say that I am to 'practice these principles in all my affairs', but exactly what are the principles I am supposed to practice?"
Bill responded very directly by listing out what he said were the foundational principles that he and others used to create the 12 Step Program::
Step One - Honesty
Step Two - Hope
Step Three - Faith
Step Four - Courage
Step Five - Integrity
Step Six - Willingness
Step Seven - Humility
Step Eight - Love
Step Nine - Perseverance
Step Ten - Discipline
Step Eleven - The Presence of God
Step Twelve - Service
When I first stumbled onto this, I marveled at the simplicity of the AA program. However, I also wondered why each of these specific principles was used as the guiding force for each step. Then it suddenly struck me like lightening about how this program was assembled, and my life hasn't been the same since.
When I used to get my drugs, it was clear that I had to give some dealer or bartender money for the drugs. That process I understood real well...it was a business deal: I give you what you want, you give me what I want. It wasn't until I did the Step Four inventory of my life that I realized that I had given up much more than just money in the transaction. In fact, each time I got my drugs, I gave the drug connection the principles that made my life worth living. I gave the dealer or bartender my honesty, hope, faith, integrity, self-respect, dignity and a host of other principles that I thought I lived by. In truth, the deal stripped me of all value in my life and left me a hollow shell of a man without any of the principles that made my life worthwhile.
The founders of AA who huddled around kitchen tables in Akron Ohio 70 years ago had the same experience I had... they traded the values in their lives for alcohol and other drugs. So, when they sat down to create the program, I think they asked themselves very simply, "Exactly what is it that I have to recover in my life in order to stop drinking?" The answer, was simple: Principles. They recognized that they needed to recover their lost principles if they were to have any hope of stopping the whirlpool spiral of their lives that was killing them all. So, I think Bill and the others first sat down and listed out what were those lost principles, rank ordered them according to which they thought they first needed to recover, and then created the method in each step that would lead to recovering that principle.
We often say that these people were inspired and there is no better example of this than the idea of restoring principles worked. First they got honest, and from that they found a new source of hope, and made a decision to practice faith in that power source. From those few simple steps and principles, they report to us decades later that they were able to build other principles back into their lives. Having a life that had been restored because these principles returned meant that there was no need to use alcohol or other drugs. And, from these first few principles sprang an entire life of renewed values that became a part of what we call recovery.
This realization had a profound effect on my life. It wasn't long after I stopped using before I was challenged to "place principles before personalities" as the program says. For various reasons involving work and family, I had decisions to make as to whether I was going to have principles in my life or whether I was going to exchange those principles for the quick fix of power, security, money, or alcohol and other drugs. It is a miracle that I chose the right thing because in the beginning I was only armed with honesty, hope and faith and had little else in my life. But, from those few, literally dozens of other values and principles have flowed into my life. I am eternally grateful to those men and women who started this program and who have taught me a new way to live.
All the best, Roger W.
Bill responded very directly by listing out what he said were the foundational principles that he and others used to create the 12 Step Program::
Step One - Honesty
Step Two - Hope
Step Three - Faith
Step Four - Courage
Step Five - Integrity
Step Six - Willingness
Step Seven - Humility
Step Eight - Love
Step Nine - Perseverance
Step Ten - Discipline
Step Eleven - The Presence of God
Step Twelve - Service
When I first stumbled onto this, I marveled at the simplicity of the AA program. However, I also wondered why each of these specific principles was used as the guiding force for each step. Then it suddenly struck me like lightening about how this program was assembled, and my life hasn't been the same since.
When I used to get my drugs, it was clear that I had to give some dealer or bartender money for the drugs. That process I understood real well...it was a business deal: I give you what you want, you give me what I want. It wasn't until I did the Step Four inventory of my life that I realized that I had given up much more than just money in the transaction. In fact, each time I got my drugs, I gave the drug connection the principles that made my life worth living. I gave the dealer or bartender my honesty, hope, faith, integrity, self-respect, dignity and a host of other principles that I thought I lived by. In truth, the deal stripped me of all value in my life and left me a hollow shell of a man without any of the principles that made my life worthwhile.
The founders of AA who huddled around kitchen tables in Akron Ohio 70 years ago had the same experience I had... they traded the values in their lives for alcohol and other drugs. So, when they sat down to create the program, I think they asked themselves very simply, "Exactly what is it that I have to recover in my life in order to stop drinking?" The answer, was simple: Principles. They recognized that they needed to recover their lost principles if they were to have any hope of stopping the whirlpool spiral of their lives that was killing them all. So, I think Bill and the others first sat down and listed out what were those lost principles, rank ordered them according to which they thought they first needed to recover, and then created the method in each step that would lead to recovering that principle.
We often say that these people were inspired and there is no better example of this than the idea of restoring principles worked. First they got honest, and from that they found a new source of hope, and made a decision to practice faith in that power source. From those few simple steps and principles, they report to us decades later that they were able to build other principles back into their lives. Having a life that had been restored because these principles returned meant that there was no need to use alcohol or other drugs. And, from these first few principles sprang an entire life of renewed values that became a part of what we call recovery.
This realization had a profound effect on my life. It wasn't long after I stopped using before I was challenged to "place principles before personalities" as the program says. For various reasons involving work and family, I had decisions to make as to whether I was going to have principles in my life or whether I was going to exchange those principles for the quick fix of power, security, money, or alcohol and other drugs. It is a miracle that I chose the right thing because in the beginning I was only armed with honesty, hope and faith and had little else in my life. But, from those few, literally dozens of other values and principles have flowed into my life. I am eternally grateful to those men and women who started this program and who have taught me a new way to live.
All the best, Roger W.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Bill W's Film #3...
It's with a great deal of pleasure that The Happy Hour bring you the next installment of Bill W.'s personal story of recovery in his own voice on video. This series is no hard to find on the internet, but having it be a part of our discourse here is very special. I think it solidifes the ideas behind what The Happy Hour is trying to present - a place where you can find worthwhile information about recovery from addictive disease and share in the joys of recovery.
So sit back and relax and pick up the story where Bill is talking about having met with his friend Ebby and discusses his friend Rowland's recovery with Dr. Jung.
All the best, Roger W.
So sit back and relax and pick up the story where Bill is talking about having met with his friend Ebby and discusses his friend Rowland's recovery with Dr. Jung.
All the best, Roger W.
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