“Singleness of Purpose “

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“Singleness of purpose “ The Washingtonian movement (Washingtonians, Washingtonian Temperance Society or Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society) was a 19th-century fellowship founded on April 2, 1840 by six alcoholics. The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total abstinence from alcohol was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards" (the term alcoholic had not yet been created), told them their experiences with alcohol abuse and how the Society had helped them achieve sobriety. Their monthly meetings proved such a success that by their first anniversary the Baltimore Washingtonians counted about 1,000 reformed drunkards and 5,000 other members. By may of 1842 the movement had penetrated every major area of the country. At its peak the membership was estimated at anywhere from one to six million of whom perhaps 100,000 to 600,000 were sober drunks Washingtonians at their peak numbered 600.000However, in the space of just a few years, this society all but disappeared because they became fragmented in their primary purpose, becoming involved with all manner of controversial social reforms including prohibition, sectarian religion, politics and abolition of slavery. The Washingtonians drifted away from their initial purpose of helping the individual alcoholic, and disagreements, infighting, and controversies over prohibition eventually destroyed the group. By 1848 the movement had destroyed itself. The Washingtonians became so thoroughly extinct that, some 50 years later in 1935 when William Griffith Wilson ("Bill") and Dr. Robert Smith ("Dr. Bob") joined together in forming Alcoholics Anonymous, neither of them had ever heard of the Washingtonians. The Oxford group The Oxford group was a Christian organization founded by an American Christian missionary Frank Buchman. In 1921 he founded a movement called A First Century Christian Fellowship. By 1931 the fellowship had become known as the Oxford Group. All the ideas came from the bible. In 1938, Buchman proclaimed a need for moral rearmament and that phrase became the movements new name. The oxford groups failed because they where aggressively evangelical they set out to save the world. They talked about absolutes and purity and had a highly coercive authority. AA During its first decade AA as a fellowship struggled and accumulated substantial experience which indicated that certain group attitudes and principles were particularly valuable in assuring survival of the informal structure of the fellowship. 1955 Bill W When an Alcoholic applies the 12 steps of our recovery program to his personal life, his disintegration stop’s and his unification begins, the power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly the same Principle applies to each AA group and Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. So long as the ties which binds us together prove far stronger than those forces which would divide us if they could, all will be well. .

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