1 NATURE COAST JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2020 ELECTIONS My thoughts on the Evolution of AA. by Dean B. In the spirit of the Twelve Traditions and the Twelve Concepts of Service, District 28 and Na- The life and recovery of a drunk, especially the al- ture Coast Intergroup will be looking to rotate out coholic, has always been misunderstood and the some Committee Chairs and Officers before the suffering to all those involved immense. So how end of the year. Nominations will be accepted at did we get from going to our local AA meeting in the October Business Meetings and Elections will town to logging onto a computer and Zooming all be conducted at the November Business Meet- over the world for a meeting? ings. If you feel you would like to volunteer for Ser- I am not going to talk about the beginning of time, vice Work please plan on attending the October or references in the Bible, or the treatment of Business Meetings. If you know someone who drunkards in other countries. I am going back to might be interested in Service but may not see this what should have worked and what works well. So, article please ask them to come to the October a little history to get to Alcoholics Anonymous. Meetings also. The October Business Meetings of In the mid 1700’s, various Native American tribes District 28 and Nature Coast Intergroup are sched- uled to run concurrently at 2pm on Sunday Octo- created ‘Circles’, or abstinence-based cultural revi- ber 4th. The meeting will be at the outside pavilion talization movements and temperance organiza- of the Nature Coast Church, 5113 South Sun- tions. (Although not mentioned in the Alcoholics coast Blvd, Homosassa, FL 34446. If you would Anonymous literature, one of the earliest equiva- like to have District 28 DCM Bob M. or Intergroup lents of AA’s 12 steps and “Big Book” was the Chair Ingrid R. contact you before the October orally-transmitted teachings of Meetings please send email address and/or phone the Gai'wiiò of Ganioda'yo—the Good Message of number to [email protected]. Handsome Lake—later known as the Code of Handsome Lake. What most Native recovery pio- Service Work is always about carrying the mes- neering movements shared was an expectation of sage to the next suffering alcoholic and of course personal sobriety, the use of ancestral teachings to Bill has advised us that nothing as much assures anchor that sobriety, and a code of moral conduct.) our sobriety as this kind of effort. Those of us who In the early 1800’s, Dr. Benjamin Rush called for have taken the plunge can affirm that it has been a the creation of a ‘Sober House’ for the care of the source of personal growth as well as a wonderful opportunity to enable the still suffering Alcoholic to confirmed drunkard. Dr. Rush didn’t want people to find the help that was so freely given to us. stop drinking entirely, but it’s clear that some of his writings may have ..(continued on page 3)… HOTLINE 352-621-0599 2 Steps | Traditions | Concepts Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would in- jure them or others. ————— Tradition 9: A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they service. ————— Concept 9: Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our future functioning and safety. The primary world ser- vice leadership once exercised by the founders of A.A. must necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous CONTRIBUTIONS District 28 P.O. Box 640914 “What it was like, What Beverly Hills, FL 34464 happened, and What it is like Nature Coast Intergroup now” P.O. Box 2634 Crystal River, FL 34423 Your story could appear in an North Florida Area Conference upcoming issue. (Please write District 28 and your group number on the check) Make checks payable to NFAC and send to: Send your stories, poems, P.O. Box 10094 articles, and anniversary lists Jacksonville FL 32247 to General Service Office [email protected] P.O. Box 459 Grand Central Station New York, NY 10163 3 (continued from front page)… inspired some to join itics and abolition of slavery. It is believed the temperance movement later in the 19th century. that Abraham Lincoln attended and spoke at one of The Washingtonian move- the great revivals, presumably not for treatment, but ment (Washingtonians, Washingtonian Temperance out of interest in various issues being discussed. The Society or Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society) Washingtonians drifted away from their initial pur- was a 19th-century temperance fellowship founded pose of helping the individual alcoholic, and disa- on Thursday, April 2, 1840 by six alcoholics at greements, infighting, and controversies over prohi- Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Mary- bition eventually destroyed the group. The Washing- land. The idea was that by relying on each other, tonians became so thoroughly extinct that, some 50 sharing their alcoholic experiences and creating an years later in 1935 when William Griffith Wil- atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each oth- son ("Bill") and Dr. Robert Smith ("Dr. Bob") joined er sober. Total abstinence from alcohol (teetotalism) together in forming Alcoholics Anonymous, neither was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preced- of them had ever heard of the Washingtonians. ed Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. By the 1870s’ the New York State Inebriate Asylum, Members sought out other "drunkards" (the the first in the country, is opened in Binghamton, term alcoholic had not yet been created), told them NY. A growing network of inebriate asylums will their experiences with alcohol abuse and how the So- treat alcoholism and addiction to a growing list of ciety had helped them achieve sobriety. With the pas- other drugs: opium, morphine, cocaine, chloral, ether, sage of time the Society became a prohibitionist or- and chloroform. The opening of the Martha Wash- ganization in that it promoted the legal and mandato- ington Home in Chicago marks the first institution in ry prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The Washing- America that specialized in the treatment of inebriate tonians differed from other organizations in women. Jerry McAuley opens the Water Street Mis- the temperance movement in that they focused on the sion in New York City, marking the beginning of the individual alcoholic rather than on society's greater urban mission movement. This movement, spread relationship with liquor. In the mid-19th century, a across America by the Salvation Army, caters its temperance movement was in full sway across message and services to the “Skid Row.” By 1900, as the United States and temperance workers advanced inebriate homes and asylums close, alcoholics are their anti-alcohol views on every front. Public tem- relegated to city “drunk tanks,” “cells” in “foul perance meetings were frequent and the main thread wards” of public hospitals, and the backwards of ag- was prohibition of alcohol and pledges of sobriety to ing “insane asylums.” Wealthy alcoholics/addicts be made by the individual. Washingtonians at their will continue to seek discrete detoxification in private peak numbered in the tens of thousands, possibly as sanatoria known as “jitter joints,” “jag farms” or “dip high as 600,000. However, in the space of just a few shops.” In 1901, Charles B. Towns Hospital was lo- years, this society all but disappeared because they cated at 293 Central Park West in Manhattan. When became fragmented in their primary purpose, becom- the Towns started the hospital in 1901, and the roar- ing involved with all manner of controversial social ing twenties and the increase in alcoholism made it reforms including prohibition, sectarian religion, pol- successful, however, after (continued on page 4) 4 (continued from page 3) the stock market crash of He is credited with introducing Wilson to the initial 1929 admissions to the hospital had significantly de- principles that AA would soon develop, such as clined. The hospital aimed at drying out the well-to- "one alcoholic talking to another," and do patient. It was an expensive detoxification facility the Jungian thesis which was passed along and one was not admitted unless the fee was paid in to Rowland Hazard and, in turn, to Thacher that alco- advance or a backer guaranteed to pay the fee which holics could recover by a "genuine conversion". in those days was $200 to $350 for a five day stay. Thacher was a school friend of Wilson, and battled At this time the Chief of Staff was Dr. William Dun- his whole life with alcoholism, frequently landing can Silkworth. Silkworth had lost all his savings in in mental hospitals or jail. After one bender, three the market collapse and he had come to Towns to members of The Oxford Group, convinced the court help alcoholics. to parole Thacher into their custody. Hazard taught By the early 1930’s the Oxford Group, Thacher the Oxford Group principles and the idea a Christian organization founded by the American that a conversion was needed between patients. Haz- Christian missionary Frank Buchman. Buchman be- ard lodged him in the Calvary Rescue Mission, oper- lieved that the root of all problems were the personal ated by the Calvary Episcopal Church in New York problems of fear and selfishness. Further, Buchman City. In November 1934, Thacher had arranged a vis- believed that the solution to living with fear and self- it to Wilson's apartment.