Real Twelve Step Fellowship History: The Old School A.A. You May Not Know: Training the Trainers

The substantial work contains a much-needed and detailed history guide published in order to to train trainers in the full and concise presentation of an early A.A. history segment as a part of any recovery program. This book details all aspects of the original Akron Christian Fellowship Program as reported by Frank Amos to AAs and to Rockefeller. It highlights and illustrates the distinct difference between that original Akron spiritual program of recovery and the later program fashioned by Bill Wilson from the teachings of Rev. Sam Shoemaker and for A.A. s basic text (the Big Book). In its carefully documented pages, you will readily see and learn how much the A.A. program changed during the 1940 s in the period of Bill Wilson's deep depression when others stepped up to the plate with their own versions of how to work the recovery program Bill had fashioned in his 1939 basic text. These new entrants included Clarence Snyder, Sister Ignatia, Father Ed Dowling, Richmond Walker, Ed Webster, Father Ralph Pfau, and Father John C. Ford. With the death of Dr. Bob and his wife Anne by 1950, the A.A. fellowship had taken on a totally different hue. And the new approach was codified in Bill Wilson's two books--Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. Each of the two was thoroughly edited for Bill by the two Jesuit priests, John C. Ford and Ed Dowling. With the new hue came the new structure with conferences, boards, traditions, concepts, warranties, and manuals. And through it all, the viewer can still find in this new Dick B. volume what the original program looked like, where it came from, the revised program of 1939, and the streams of new approaches that came onto the scene thereafter--within the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. This comprehensive historical biography is truly the product of the author's 18 years of researching the A.A. picture.