Rarely have we seen a person fail... meaning?

[Roberth]

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path

considering the only measurement we have is not drinking, could it be as simple as rarely have we seen a people drink again? Hmmmmm food for thought

[Layne]

For me, the path they were talking about is the twelve steps and the fail is not experiencing recovery as a result.

[D'oh]

The forums ‘traffic’ goes up and down, when it’s up we see new people joining and asking questions, and other oldtimers pitching in. When it’s down it’s like an empty AA meeting room, new people look in, see no action there and leave. It was in one of those slumps that Greywolf posed a question, in short order we had seven posts on that topic, we were picking up speed again, then saying we are thinking too much was like sticking a spoke in the wheel and killing the momentum. Now in part due to that topic getting some folks posting, we have a lively forum this morning.

In, no way, did I say anything, or mean Anything about "Forum Traffic". I didn't see anything about "Forum Traffic" in Greywolf's question either.

However, I did quote

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

Which, may answer the "What is meant by Fail question." And "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" mean? question

Again, Think, Think, Think. is a puzzling Slogan.

[Greywolf]

One of my "sponsees" asked after tonight's meeting what does, "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path" mean? Seems he wants to know what path Bill, Dr. Bob and the alcoholics who were the originators of this portion of How It Works were talking about. He also wanted to know what was meant by "fail"?

This is what I told Robert. The path was the approximately 6 steps (later expanded to 12 steps) used by those first 42 sober alcoholics. Sobriety was the successful result of taking these steps. To fail in 1937 meant they returned to drinking.

Both Bill and Dr. Bob were sure that an experience that lead them to find God was essential to recovery. When the combined (New York and Ohio) number of successful, "recovered" alcoholics reached about 42, the bunch of them decided to put their experience in a book so that other alcoholics not able to reach NY and Akron personally could end their suffering and recover.

There were more questions than answers generated in our discussion.

With Bill in New York, Dr. Bob in Akron and the newly sober alcoholics split up between the 2, how did they get the book written?

[tomsteve]

With Bill in New York, Dr. Bob in Akron and the newly sober alcoholics split up between the 2, how did they get the book written?

guided by God.

[Greywolf]

With Bill in New York, Dr. Bob in Akron and the newly sober alcoholics split up between the 2, how did they get the book written?

guided by God.

I think he was asking how, in a time without email and the expense of travel, did they get the actual writing done. Is it with all this study of the BB, nobody knows or is it no one is willing to tell?

He has been led to believe that the BB was the joint work of the first 100 sober alcoholics. My answer was (with no help here) Bill Wilson started by writing "How It Works" including the now expanded 12 steps and snail-mailed it to Akron for Dr. Bob to read and comment on. Dr. Bob "peddled it around" as Bill put it to the alkies in Akron who vigorously discussed the text and word-smithed it to reflect more of how it worked for all sober alcoholics but not strictly adhering to Bill's original text.

I don't know how many times "How It Works" was sent back and forth but whatever the process the group of Bill, Dr. Bob and the 42 original AAers finally aligned on the text and 12 steps as we know them today, guided by God of course. Not surprisingly a large chunk of the time allotted by the publisher to get the book written was used up.

The group decided so the story goes that Bill would write the remainder of the book. All agreed he was the one for the job. The completed draft was circulated around the group in New York. Bill tells us in a talk 15 years later that there was quite an ado about the book. Some thought it had too much about God and some thought it had too little. Bill said he pretty much stayed out of it but more or less played the role of umpire.

Bill indicates in that talk that the Akron bunch was included in the hassle about the final draft but he must have mixed his memory of the How It Works hassle with Akron folks in with the final hassle with the New York folks. Not hard to understand how the mix up could occur given the time lapse between the actual happenings and Bill's talk.

[Brock]

I find that an excellent commentary on how the book was put together. I have also read a speech by Bill describing it, found at the Silkworth site, we can’t use links for that but by Googling “How the book Alcoholics Anonymous came about -Bill Wilson speaking in Fort Worth, Texas -1954” it will be found. There is also a recording of that speech on you tube, and the Hazelden group has on their site - “The Book That Started It All -The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous.” We are lucky in this computer age to have access to these things, just by typing a few words to find them. We also have a couple members here well known for their work in AA history, including Mitchell K, who wrote the biography of Clarence Snyder, although he has not been active in a while.

[Blue Moon]

Both Bill and Dr. Bob were sure that an experience that lead them to find God was essential to recovery.

Bob knew a lot more about God than Bill ever did. That alone was not enough for him to stop drinking. The real difference was that Bill was able to talk Bob's language when talking about himself. Identification. Then they got into helping others. Action. Those are the elements vital for recovery, God really is optional here.

[BrendaChenowyth]

Be honest, and be of service to others.