Big Book Study - Post #40
Jim K
Good morning everyone!
Dr. Bob's Nightmare
is the first of the personal stories on page 171.
Page 165 is interesting however. This is the Section Heading "Personal
Stories - How Forty-Three Alcoholics Recovered From Their Malady"
(Emphasis is mine). Not a typo.
Page 172 - Paragraph 1 - Bob attributes "selfishness"
as playing an important part in "bringing on my alcoholism".
In the next paragraph we can see his antipathy towards the church. Reading through
page 173, we see that he is in trouble early on with drinking. Change of scenery didn't help. At the bottom of
page 174, he began to go to sanitariums voluntarily to dry out. This was before Prohibition (1920), and he still had many more years of drinking ahead of him.
On pages 176 and 177, his drinking was out of control and all of the classic symptoms were there: hiding bottles, others recognizing his drinking as a problem, hoarding alcohol, social life deteriorating, switching drinks (the Beer Experiment), etc.
On page 178, he falls in with "...a crowd of people who attracted
me because of their seeming poise, health and happiness." (About 1933.) That
crowd was The Oxford Group,
although Dr. Bob had not connected this group of people with any solution of his drinking problem. He drank and spent time with the Oxford Groups for the next two and a half years.
In paragraph 1, the lady who called Bob was Henrietta Seiberling
(of the rubber tire manufacturing empire) and the friend was Bill Wilson. The first meeting between Bill and Bob was about 6 hours longer than the fifteen minutes Bob was initially willing to give to Bill.
Bob did get drunk again 3 weeks later at the AMA convention. Bill worked with him again and
the founding of our society dates from June 10, 1935*
the date of Dr. Bob's last drink.
The end of paragraph two says alot of the power of one alcoholic talking with another -
"Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living
human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers, and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading."
The barrier had been breached!
"Passing it on" was important to Bob - the last paragraph on page 180 and continuing on to the top of the following page.
"I spend a great deal of time passing
on what I learned to others who want and need it badly. I do it for four reasons:
1. Sense of duty.
2. It is a pleasure.
3. Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it on to me.
4. Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip."
The ending of his story boils down to the essence of how important an open mind is in order to accept what we have to offer. The assumption is that the motivation to seek sobriety is in place, that we are ready to listen to conviction as
only the dying can be:
"If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic,
a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit
drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when getting another drink.
"Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!"
* - An interesting historical note: Because the AMA Convention in Atlantic City began on June 10, 1935 there is the real possibility, according to some researchers, that Dr. Bob got sober on June 17, 1935. Not that it really matters all that much...
Here is something that some have found helpful - it is the text from a plaque that sat on Dr. Bob's Desk:
Humility
HUMILITY is perpetual quietness of heart.
It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.
It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when
all around and about is seeming trouble.
Next, our “Lost Chapter” post
followed by the first post of the new cycle.
Thanks to everyone who has participated in this cycle.
Have a great day!
Jim K. - The
Into Action Group of Manhattan
6:30pm Wednesdays at St. Francis
De Sales Church
135 East 96th Street (Near Lexington
Avenue)
On Manhattan's Upper East Side
Weekend retreats with Jim: http://www.spiritualawakeningsretreats.com
The Wilson House – The Birthplace of Bill Wilson - Weekend Retreats and Workshops -http://www.wilsonhouse.org/