Getting
Started (Continued)
J: You know, another thing they had in the Oxford Groups: they always felt you could get guidance from God. This became our Step Eleven. They also felt that one member could receive guidance for another member. God could tell you what you needed to tell the other person.
C: I think some of those people are still around today. (laughter)
J: Henrietta got a message in the kitchen one night. Something spoke to her within her inner being, not in a voice, and said, Dr. Bob you shouldn't drink any more whiskey, not one drop. She said to herself, what does that mean? Well, they didn't have the First Step, so they didn't know what that meant. They didn't have Dr. Silkworth's work at that time, because Bill hadn't brought it.
So, she did call Dr. Bob, and told him to stop by her house. On the way to his office, by the next morning, on a Monday morning. She said, Dr. Bob, God spoke to me last night and said you shouldn't drink any more whiskey, not even one drop. Dr. Bob said, what does that mean? She said, I don't know. (laughter) But they continued to pray for Dr. Bob.
When Bill came to Dr. Bob--see Dr. Bob was in the Oxford Groups. He had the program of recovery. Dr. Bob knew the solution was in the spiritual realm, because he was already trying to seek it in the Oxford Groups. But he could not apply it. It could not work for Dr. Bob. What Bill brought to Dr. Bob was the First Step. Once he understood the problem, then he could apply the program of action, and he recovered.
(p. xvi, par. 3) 'This physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed.
But when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and it's hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never before been able to muster. He sobered, never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. '
What Bill brought to Dr. Bob was the First Step. Once he got this, then he was able to go. (p. xvi, par. 3; p. xvii, par. 1-2) 'This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no nonalcoholic (top of p. xvii) could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery.
'Hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in the ward of the Akron City Hospital. Their very first case, a desperate one, recovered immediately and became A. A. number three.'
