You know it's funny, but I want to say "No"

They don't "understand"

My entire being screams Noooo!!!! They don't "get it"!!!!


But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.

The legal system spared no expense to send me to top notch alcohol counselors and therapists for years. I would tie these poor people in knots, either by totally horrifying them by telling them the truth or just pulling their chains and playing with them if they were especially naive.

The only two that ever "got" to me both had well over 20 years sober in AA and they used what they learned in AA to get through to me.

They spoke my language, they used Socratic questioning and me build a box in which there was no escape. They both had PHD's in the BS we are full of when we are still drinking, and rather then tell me, they used questions so my self delusions and fallacies were exposed.

So with every fiber of my being, and every personal experience I have screams "No, they can't help"

However:

Step One came to us from Dr Silkworth:

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker.

I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control ...they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.

Step Two came to us from Carl Jung (through Roland Hazzard who helped Ebby Thatcher, who passes it on to Bill Wilson I believe iirc)

A certain American business man had ability, good sense, and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best known American psychiatrists. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician (the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung) who prescribed for him. Though experience had made him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence. His physical and mental condition were unusually good. Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time. More baffling still, he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fall.

So he returned to this doctor, whom he admired, and asked him point-blank why he could not recover. He wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well- balanced with respect to other problems. Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this?

He begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor's judgment he was utterly hopeless; he could never regain his position in society and he would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long. That was a great physician's opinion.

But this man still lives, and is a free man. He does not need a bodyguard nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where other from men may go without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.

Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor.

The doctor said: "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you." Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?" "Yes," replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description."*

Steps 3 - 12 came to us from a splinter group of Christians working first century Christianity

Came to believe was originally phrased: believe that God can restore you to sanity. The came to believe part originated with Shoemakers emphasis on John 7:1.Shoemakers thesis: Do Gods will, and then youll know what God can do, said he. Good examples can be found in Shoemakers Religion That Works and Twice Born Ministers.

The Third Step called for a decision to entrust your life to Gods care. It was primarily based on Thy will be done from the Lords prayer (Matthew 6:10). And you can see these points in the Anne Smith, Shoemaker, and Oxford Group writings. The addition of God As we understood Him simply came from many of Shoemakers writings about surrendering as much of yourself as you understand to as much of God as you understand. Good examples can be found in Children of the Second Birth by Shoemaker.

The Fourth Step originated with on the Oxford Groups Four Absoluteshonesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Also with Matthew 7:1-5 of Jesuss sermon on the mount. You wrote the four absolutes down. You also wrote down where your life was astray. And you looked for your part in the wrongdoing. These ideas can clearly be seen in Annes, Shoemakers, and the Oxford Groups writings.

Our Fifth Step language can be found in the same three sources. But all state that the basic idea came from James 5:16.

The Sixth and Seventh Step language leaves many bewildered today.  These two Step ideas really come from the Five Cs. They rest primarily on Conviction (Step 6) and Conversion (Step 7). You can see these explained in detail in the early Oxford Group book Soul Surgery by Walter.

The Eighth and Ninth Step ideas of restitution have their roots in four segments of the Bible (See Dick B., The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous; The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous; By the Power of God; and The Good Book and The Big Book). This concept of life-change that involves restoring, making restitution, taking corrective action can be seen most vividly in the Oxford Group book For Sinners Only by A. J. Russell.

The Tenth Step derives from the Continuance principle of the Oxford Groups Five Cs. You continue the surrender, the life change, the self-examination, confession, conviction, and conversionas well as the restitutionyou learned in and undertook in the first nine Steps. To know the roots and the purpose is to understand better why there was a Step Ten. And Shoemaker wrote eloquently about continued surrender as did Anne Smith.

The Eleventh Step is  Quiet Time, Guidance, Bible study, Prayer, Listening, Checking, Journaling, and use of devotionals and other literature

Now the Twelfth Step. The language spiritual awakening is from the Oxford Group (See Buchman, Remaking the World). (Taken and edited from Dick B's site)

So our entire program came from Non-alcoholics. All twelve steps. Bill and Bob put it all together, but all of AA is borrowed from something or somewhere else, quite a bit from Sermon on The Mount actually.

Whoda thunk? (This post was inspired an throw away comment listening to Joe and Charlie reminding us to keep our egos in check)