and in the beginning:
Dr. Bob’s Farewell Talk
First AA International Convention, Public Hall, Cleveland, July 30th 1950
My good friends in AA and of AA… I get a big thrill out of looking over a vast sea of faces like this with a feeling that possibly some small thing that I did a number of years ago played a small part in making this meeting possible. I also get quite a thrill when I think that we all had the same problem. We all did the same things. We all get the same results in proportion to our zeal and enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness. If you will pardon the injection of a personal note at this time, let me say that I have been in bed five of the last seven months and my strength hasn’t returned as I would like, so my remarks of necessity will be very brief.
But there are two or three things that flashed into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis; one is the simplicity of our program. Let’s not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind, but have very little to do with our actual AA work. Our Twelve Steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words “love” and “service.” We understand what love is, and we understand what service is. So let’s bear those two things in mind.
And one more thing: None of us would be here today if somebody hadn’t taken time to explain things to us, to give us a little pat on the back, to take us to a meeting or two, to have done numerous little kind and thoughtful acts in our behalf. So let us never get the degree of smug complacency so that we’re not willing to extend, or attempt to, that help which has been so beneficial to us, to our less fortunate brothers.
The Wilmington Preamble has long been surrounded by controversy and discussion of such has sparked many a debate almost from its inception in the early years of Alcoholics Anonymous. The history of our fellowship has mostly been passed from member to member over the expanse of many years; member whose very disease has a tendency to distort one’s memory. Inaccuracies may prevail. The following is in no way an attempt to dispel those controversies, but an effort to establish an accurate history of the birth of the Wilmington Preamble and to keep it’s true history alive for the enlightenment of future generations. Documentable corrections are welcomed.
The Wilmington Preamble’s birth ties in with one of Wilmington’s earliest members, Shoes L. Shoes joined the Wilmington Group and got sober in May of 1944.The following month in June, Shoes was Chairman of the group and in charge of getting speakers for their meetings. There was at this time a sportswriter in town covering the horseraces at Delaware Park. His name was Mickey M. and Shoes asked him to speak at the group’s meeting. Mickey replied that he wasn’t much of a speaker but that he would write something appropriate. He reportedly went back to his room at the Hotel Dupont and wrote the Wilmington Preamble as we know it and it was read the following Friday night.
Being a sportswriter, Mickey M. covered events in other towns, and while in Baltimore covering the races at Pimlico gave the same preamble to the Baltimore Group which they also adopted as their own. Where it was actually read first is the subject of many debates but one fact remains clear, that this “Preamble” was widely accepted in Maryland and Delaware long before World Service sanctioned the shorter A.A. Preamble that is more universally accepted today.
The Wilmington AA Preamble
We of Alcoholics Anonymous are a group of persons for whom alcohol has become a major problem. We have banded together in a sincere effort to help ourselves and other problem drinkers recover health and maintain sobriety.
Definitions of alcoholics are many and varied. For brevity we think of an alcoholic as one whose life has become unmanageable to any degree due to the use of alcohol.
We believe that the alcoholic is suffering from a disease for which no cure has yet been found. We profess no curative powers but have formulated a plan to arrest alcoholism.
From the vast experience of our many members we have learned that successful membership demands total abstinence. Attempts at controlled drinking by the alcoholic inevitably fail.
Membership requirements demand only a sincere desire on the part of the applicant to maintain total abstinence.
There are no dues of fees in A.A.; no salaried officers. Money necessary for operating expenses is secured by voluntary contributions.
Alcoholics Anonymous does not perform miracles, believing that such powers rests only in God.
We adhere to no particular creed or religion. We do believe, however, that an appeal for help to one’s own interpretation of a higher power, or God, is indispensable to a satisfactory adjustment to life’s problems.
Alcoholics Anonymous is not a prohibition or temperance movement in any sense of the word. We have no criticism of the controlled drinker. We are concerned only with the alcoholic.
We attempt to follow a program of recovery which has for its chief objectives: Sobriety for ourselves; help for other alcoholics who desire it; amends for past wrongs; humility; honesty; tolerance; and spiritual growth.
We welcome and appreciate the cooperation of the medical profession and the help of the clergy.
Remembering AA’s Pioneers: Sam Shoemaker
| Bill Wilson wrote:“Every river has a wellspring at its source. AA Is like that too. In the beginning, there was a spring which poured out of a clergyman, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker.…” “It was from him that Dr. Bob and I in the beginning absorbed most of the principles that were afterward embodied in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous….” |
| Remembering Our Roots |
| AA has now begun the ten-year countdown to its 100th Anniversary. Our Pioneer members have died long ago while its birth from within the Oxford Group is little known or appreciated by many of its members today.But historian-poet Carl Sandburg left a warning we might do well to heed, “Whenever a society or civilization fails, there is always one condition present. They forgot where they came from.”Our Twelve-Step Fellowships need to be around for many more years to serve the millions of alcoholics and addicts yet to come. Knowing where we came from can go a long way to preserving what we’ve been so freely given and entrusted to pass on.Over the course of the next several issues we’ll highlight the contributions of some of these AA Pioneers. Knowing their experience with and their dedication to Two Way Prayer helped open many of us to the prayer practice our Fellowships nearly lost until we remembered “where we came from.” If you’re not familiar with the practice, this video will introduce you to it – and if you’re interested in going still deeper into its origins and putting it into practice, our new book will get you jump started. Your Program may never be the same! |
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| “Sam Shoemaker’s Spiritual Legacy“ |
| By: Father Bill W. It would be impossible to recount in a few, short paragraphs the many ways Sam Shoemaker left his imprint on the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill Wilson credited him with being his source for no fewer than ten of the Twelve Steps. Dr. Bob could trace his joining the Oxford Group directly to Shoemaker’s sobering up the son of one of Akron’s rubber barons two long years before Bill Wilson arrived in town pacing back and forth in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel knowing he needed an alcoholic to work with if he hoped to stay sober. Bob wouldn’t have been there waiting for him if Sam hadn’t been there first.It’s equally impossible not to see the Hand of Providence at work through Sam Shoemaker’s influence on the evolution of AA’s principles and practices. As Bill Wilson later confided to Shoemaker’s youngest daughter, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you I founded A.A. If it wasn’t for Sam Shoemaker, A.A. would never have been born.”In this Newsletter, I thought it would be best to let Sam speak for himself. I’ve chosen three examples from among his many works that may give you a feel for the man, his character and his message. First, his poem I Stand by the Door is a classic every 12-Step sponsor needs to read and re-read if they want to understand and emulate the spiritual attitude that Sam and many of the AA Pioneers adopted in carrying the spiritual message to the religious skeptics of their day. Many of today’s alcoholics and addicts are even more turned off to religion than they were in Sam’s time. His poem counsels caution, but without watering down of the message of God’s power to transform the lives of broken men and women in need.Second, is an article drawn from the talk Sam delivered at AA’s 1955 Twentieth Anniversary in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s titled, What the Church Has to Learn from Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s a work well worth copying and sharing with a friend and the Step Study website you’ll find it on hosts a treasure trove of Pioneer AA material, so be sure to sample some of the other Pioneer gems.Finally, there’s a YouTube link to Sam’s 1960 AA Address delivered at the Twenty Fifth Anniversary in Long Beach, California. He’s warmly welcomed to the podium by his grateful student Bill Wilson.I hope you’ll sample one or all of these so we never forget where we came from. |