Thoughts by Peter Marinelli
I so much enjoy reading about our sacred history and get to touch the early days. I responsibility is to be an upstanding member of this sacred place of recovery so I need to know about its beginning.
As one of my mentors told me we need to not only study our traditions but the tradition of A.A. and our history.
The sense of urgency they had to get well and help others and the passion in which they operated is to be admired and duplicated.
Here are some excerpts:
“In Cleveland or Akron, you couldn’t just walk into A.A. the way you can today” said Clarence S.
He goes on: “You had to be sponsored. The wife would call, and I would go to see her first. I told her my story. I wanted to find out several things about the prospect and his relationship with her. Is he chronic or a periodic? Then I would know how to approach him, figure out how to reach him. I met set some kind of trap for him. I had a lot of whammy working.”
“We didn’t anything about a program of ‘attraction,’ said Warren C. speaking of the hectic days of twelfth-stepping in Cleveland in the fall of 1939. We had great enthusiasm in those days, a dedication that sold this program. We transmitted the way we felt about it to the fellow.
If the newcomer agreed to go along, he was required to admit that he was powerless over alcohol and then to surrender his will to God-in the presence of one or more of the other members.
“We had much prayer together in those days and began quietly to read scripture and discuss a practical approach to its application in our lives” said Paul S.
Dr. Bob was a man in search of God, and it was in this area that he, like Bill Wilson, was probably among the least conservative of men.
Dr. Bob said, “I don’t think we can anything very well in this world unless we practice it. And I don’t believe we do A.A. too well unless we practice it.”
Blessings,
Chop wood, carry water
Peter Marinelli