UNITARIANISM and ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS by Ian Ellis-Jones

UNITARIANISM AND ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS by Ian Ellis-Jones ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SYDNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH ON SUNDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2005 Most of you would have heard of the “Twelve Steps” of the world’s largest recovery program and fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous (“AA”), which are as follows:- THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS1[1] 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. The Twelve Steps, along with what are known as the Twelve Traditions of AA, encapsulate an overall and organised "way of life" (see the discussion on Tradition 1 in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) involving self-knowledge of one's powerlessness, belief in a power “greater” (or “other”) than self, self-surrender, a sense of guilt, reparation, and reconciliation with God (as one understands God) and others. 1[1] Copyright 1939 AA World Services, Inc. Underlying all of AA's suggestions is that "self cannot change self". Whilst the "Higher Power" (or, in the words of some, “Power-not- oneself”) is "God as we [understand] Him" (see Steps 3 and 11), Tradition 2 speaks, fairly traditionally, of "a loving God" who has the ability to "express Himself" in and through the group. Step 11 makes it clear that that God is capable of being known ("conscious contact") through "prayer and meditation", has a "will" for each member, and confers the power to carry out that will. It is implicit, if not explicit, in Steps 6 and 7 that the "God as we understand Him" can forgive and change people's lives. (Such a God is clearly transnatural, if not supernatural.) "Faith" in God is required (see Step 2, as discussed in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions), and AA stresses the principle of gratitude to an active overruling Power who can confer blessings. According to the primary and secondary literature of AA, life is governed by certain laws or principles which are spiritual in nature. It is officially stated that there is "justice in [the] scheme of things" (see Step 11, as discussed in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions). What we give out, we are inevitably bound to get back. Our troubles are "basically of our own making" (see the "Big Book", ch 5). According to AA, responsibilities are owed to other human beings (see eg Steps 8-10, and Traditions 1 and 5). Defective relations with others is said to be "nearly always ... the immediate cause of our woes" (see Step 8, as discussed in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions). Both the Steps and the Traditions speak of "we" and "our", making it clear that it is a shared quest of ideals and principles; indeed, the "principles" of A.A. must be placed before "personalities" (Tradition 12). Tradition 1 speaks of "common welfare" and "unity". Step 12 speaks of carrying the "message" to others, and practising the principles "in all our affairs". Few people know of the existence of a very early and important connection between the 12-step recovery program Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Unitarianism. However, on 26 November 1939, when AA was still very much in its infancy, the Reverend Dr Dilworth Lupton, minister of the First Unitarian Church (Universalist-Unitarian), Euclid at East 82nd Street, Cleveland, Ohio, preached a famous sermon entitled "Mr X and Alcoholics Anonymous".2[2] 2[2] A copy of the sermon can be found at http://www.aabibliography.com/pdffiles/luptonsermon.pdf Mr X was Clarence Snyder, who was one of the contributing authors of the “Big Book” of AA entitled Alcoholics Anonymous3[3] which was first published in 1939. (He wrote the chapter entitled “Home Brewmeister” and was an originator of Cleveland’s Group No 3.) The fellowship of AA began in Akron, Ohio in May 1935. It first operated under the auspices of the very evangelical religious group known as the Oxford Group. Briefly, the beginnings of AA are as follows. Bill W[ilson], AA co-founder, had been introduced to the Oxford Group by Ebby T[hatcher], an old boyhood friend in November 1934. Ebby was a drinking buddy of Bill's who had “gotten religion" through the Oxford Group after being introduced to it in August 1934 by one Rowland H[azard III], a wealthy Rhode Island businessman, who had been in therapy with Dr Carl Jung in Switzerland and who was also one of the Oxford group circle. Rowland was also a patient of the spiritually based Emmanuel Movement, a precursor to AA, in 1933-34. According to official AA history, Dr Jung had told Rowland that there was no hope for him … unless he were to experience a "vital spiritual experience". (The great American psychologist and philosopher William James, in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, had expressed a similar view, writing, “’The only radical remedy I know for dipsomania is religiomania,’ is a saying I have heard quoted from some medical man.”4[4]) Rowland reportedly was introduced to the Oxford Group by Dr Jung and then passed the message along to Ebby. However, recent research by one Wally P (archivist and historian) has turned up Rowland's personal records, which are at the Providence Historical Society in Providence, Rhode Island. Rowland's personal records do not indicate that he was in Switzerland during the period stated in most AA history books but it is still quite possible that Rowland met with Jung during the period June to September 1931. 3[3] Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd ed (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1976). (There is now a 4th edition of the “Big Book”, published in 2001. However, references in this paper to page numbers of the “Big Book” are references to page numbers in the 3rd edition of that work.) 4[4] William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: New American Library, 1958), p 213, fn. Bill Wilson's drinking had progressed to such a point that in 1933 he was admitted to the Charles B Towns Hospital in New York City. This was the first of four hospitalizations for alcoholism between 1933-1934. It was at the Towns Hospital that Dr William Duncan Silkworth, the hospital’s chief physician, declared Wilson a hopeless alcoholic. According to the Rev Dr Norman Vincent Peale, who was the senior minister of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City from 1932 to 1984, a good friend of Bill Wilson and the Oxford Group’s Canon Sam Shoemaker,5[5] and also one of the first ministers of religion to accept and publicize the “disease concept” of alcoholism as well as the wonders of AA, Dr Silkworth said the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, could cure alcoholics who were declared hopeless. In Bill Wilson’s own words, “I was in favour of practically everything he had to say except one thing. I was not in favour of God.” However, soon after Ebby's visit with him, Bill was admitted for the last time to the Towns Hospital in December 1934 and it was during this hospitalization that Bill experienced his "white light" spiritual experience that he later wrote about in the Big Book. Bill reported this experience to Dr Silkworth and was soon after released from the hospital never to drink alcohol again until his death in January 1971. Bill attended Oxford Group meetings, went to the Calvary Mission and began working with other Alcoholics. He did not have much success at getting them sober during the first five months, but was told by his wife, Lois, that he had remained sober for the first time in many years. Though Bill had considered himself a dismal failure due to his inability to 5[5] “One of the greatest clergymen of American history died about 20-30 years ago. I'm sorry I never had the opportunity to meet him. His name was Sam Shoemaker. He was Episcopalian. Sam Shoemaker and Norman Vincent Peale were very close friends. And the two of them were the spiritual participants that helped Brother Bill put together the Twelve Step Programs for Alcoholic Anonymous. AA didn't come out of secular hearts and secular minds. It came out of the hearts and minds of Norman Vincent Peale and Dr. Samuel Shoemaker.” Robert H Schuller, “The Ultimate Journey”, Hour of Power [Sermon #53] (30/11/02) [Online] http://www.hourofpower.org.hk/data/readdata/readeng-53-text.html [accessed 29/12/2004]. Dr Peale, who often preached and wrote about the efficacy of AA, spoke to AA members at special intergroup dinners celebrating Bill’s sobriety back in the earlier years, and when the “24th Street Club House” in New York wasn’t large enough for the growth, Peale was the one who provided a larger location.

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