Is A.A. based totally on
your own experiences?
Answer
Let's look. Dr. Bob
recovered. Then we two set to work on alcoholics
in Akron. Well, again came this tendency to
preach, again this feeling that it has to be
done in some particular way, again
discouragement, so our progress was slow. But
little by little we were forced to analyze our
experiences and say, "This approach didn't work
very well with that fellow. Why not? Let's try
to put ourselves in his shoes and stop this
preaching and see how he might be approached if
we were he." That began to lead us to the idea
that A.A. should be no set of fixed ideas, but
should be a growing thing, growing out of
experience. After a while we began to reflect:
"This wonderful blessing that has come to us,
from what does it get its origin?" It was a
spiritual awakening growing out of adversity. So
then we began to look harder for our mistakes,
to correct them, to capitalize on our errors.
Little by little we began to grow so that there
were 5 of us at the end of that first year; at
the end of the second year 15; at the end of the
third 40; and at the end of the fourth year,
100.
During those first four years
most of us had another bad form of intolerance.
As we commenced to have a little success, I am
afraid our pride got the better of us and it was
our tendency to forget about our friends. We
were very likely to say, "Well, those doctors
didn't do anything for us, and as for these sky
pilots, well, they just don't know the score."
And we became snobbish and patronizing.
Then we read a
book by Dr. Carrell (Man, The Unknown). From
that book came an argument which is now a part
of our system. Dr. Carrel wrote, in effect; The
world is full of analysts. We have tons of ore
in the mines and we have all kinds of building
materials above ground. Here is a man
specializing in this, there is a man
specializing in that, and another one in
something else. The modern world is full of
wonderful analysts and diggers, but there are
very few who deliberately synthesize, who bring
together different materials, who assemble new
things. We are much too shy on synthetic
thinking - the kind of thinking that's willing
to reach out now here and now there to see if
something new cannot be evolved.
On reading that book some of us
realized that was just what we had been groping
toward. We had been trying to build out of our
own experiences. At this point we thought,
"Let's reach into other people's experiences.
Let's go back to our friends the doctors, let's
go back to our friends the preachers, the social
workers, all those who have been concerned with
us, and again review what they have got above
ground and bring that into the synthesis. And
let us, where we can, bring them in where they
will fit." So our process of trial and error
began and at the end of four years, the material
was cast in the form of a book known as
Alcoholics Anonymous. (Yale Summer School of
Alcohol Studies, June 1945)
