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Practice These Principles And
What is the
Oxford Group? by Bill Pittman
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about the principles of the program
Those interested in A.A. history will find this two-book
volume to be a must-have edition.
Practice These Principles is an edited version of the original work, What is the
Oxford Group? (full text reprinted) which served as a basis for the text of Alcoholics Anonymous. What is the Oxford
Group? was written in 1932 and served as one of the core books for early A.A.s
AA Historian
Bill Pittman
for the preface for the Hazleton Pittman Published Book
Practice these Principles and What is the Oxford Group
I spoke at an AA group's anniversary meeting in St. Paul,
Minnesota, about a year ago and left the members with a riddle, If the
principles of Twelve Step recovery are not the Twelve Steps, then what
are the principles?
I returned to the same meeting recently
to present a sponsee with a sobriety medallion and a few people
approached me with the same comment. I've been looking all year, since
your talk, in the literature for the principles and can't find them! My
answer was the same as I tell my sponsees, The principles of Twelve
Step recovery are the opposite of our character defects.
In recovery, we try to take the
opposite of our character defects/shortcomings and turn them into
principles. For example, we work to change fear into faith, hate into
love, egoism into humility, anxiety and worry into serenity, complacency
into action, denial into acceptance, jealousy into trust, fantasizing
into reality, selfishness into service, resentment into forgiveness,
judgmentalism into tolerance, despair into hope, self-hate into
self-respect, and loneliness into fellow- ship. Through this work we
learn to understand the principles of our program.
Such work may look like an
overwhelming goal to an Outsider, but those of us in AA know that our
true goal is 11 progress, not perfection. As the Big Book, Alcoholics
Anonymous, tells us, we are not destined for sainthood and we should not
be discouraged when we cannot Maintain anything like perfect adherence
to these principles. The point is, that we are willing to grow along
spiritual lines. The principles are guides to progress.
But what, exactly, are these principles and where did they come from?
Over the years a list of principles that correspond to each of the
Twelve Steps has been printed in local area AA newsletters and on pocket
cards. The origin of this list is unknown, although used by many Twelve
step members:
Principles of the 12
Steps:
STEP: (The steps are printed on pages 59 & 60 of the Big Book.)
1. Surrender.
(Capitulation to hopelessness.)
2. Hope. (Step 2 is the
mirror image or opposite of step 1. In step 1 we admit that alcohol is
our higher power, and that our lives are unmanageable. In step 2, we
find a different Higher Power who we hope will bring about a return to
sanity in management of our lives.)
3. Commitment. (The key
word in step 3 is decision.)
4. Honesty. (An
inventory of self.)
5. Truth. (Candid
confession to God and another human being.)
6. Willingness.
(Choosing to abandon defects of character.)
7. Humility. (Standing
naked before God, with nothing to hide, and asking that our flawsin His
eyesbe removed.)
8. Reflection. (Who have
we harmed? Are we ready to amend?)
9. Amendment. (Making
direct amends/restitution/correction, etc..)
10. Vigilance.
(Exercising self-discovery, honesty, abandonment, humility, reflection
and amendment on a momentary, daily, and periodic basis.)
11. Attunement.
(Becoming as one with our Father.)
12. Service. (Awakening
into sober usefulness.)
The origins of AA's principles, and of
the AA program itself, can be traced back to the Oxford Group, a
nondenominational spiritual movement. The cofounders of AA, Bill
Wilson
and Dr. Bob Smith, were both associated with the Oxford Group prior to
their meeting in 1935. (Bill attended meetings for five months and Dr.
Bob for two and a half years.) The Oxford Group's influence on the
development of AA was substantial. As Bill Wilson wrote in A1coholics
Anonymous Comes of Age, The important thing is this: the early A.A. got
its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgment of character defects,
restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the
Oxford Groups. Today millions of individuals and their families have
been helped by AA's suggested Twelve Step program, which originated
primarily from the Oxford Group. Also, other Twelve Step fellowships
(e.g., Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Overeaters Anonymous) have helped
countless others improve their lives. What Is the Oxford Group?, written
anonymously in 1933, is considered to be the Big Book of the Oxford
Group and its reprinting here is offered for those interested in the
historic roots of the Twelve Steps, principles of AA, and as a study
guide.
What Is the Oxford Group? appears here
in its entire original version, although the page numbers in this
reprint do not correspond to the original. Practice These Principles is
a revision of the original 1933 book with more up-to-date secular
language. Studying these books can only add a greater perspective of the
principles of Twelve Step recovery.
That the Oxford Group influenced the
structure of Alcoholics Anonymous is common knowledge within the
program. What has not always been told or recognized are the details of
the spiritual recovery material that Bill W and Dr. Bob heard, learned,
and applied from the Oxford Group. Many of the ideas that formed the
foundation of ANs suggested Steps of recovery came from (the then named)
A First Century Christian Fellowship-founded in 1921 by a Lutheran
minister, Dr. Frank Buchman, and led in New York by his chief American
lieutenant, Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, rector of
Calvary Episcopal Church. This fellowship changed its name to the Oxford
Group in 1928. 1 suggested earlier that the principles of AA are the
oppo- site of our character defects and one can write quite a list. But
basically the principles come directly from the Oxford Group's Four
Absolutes (absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness,
and absolute love). It would have been very awkward for the AA program
to include the Four Absolutes in their Big Book and would have not, in a
sense, indicated a marked split from the Oxford Group. This is not to
say that the founders of AA did not respect and value the role the Four
Absolutes had in the development of AAs suggested program of recovery.
In 1948, Dr. Bob recalled the absolutes as the only yardsticks
Alcoholics Anonymous had in the early days, before the Twelve Steps. He
said he still felt they could be extremely helpful when he wanted to do
the right thing and the answer was not obvious. Almost always, if I
measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty,
absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it
checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can't be very far
out of the way, he said. The absolutes form the basis for many AA
meetings around America today and 4re still published and widely quoted
in the Ohio area. ciale-@D Many men and women found recovery from
alcoholism in the Oxford Group. Another AA forefather who originally
found guidance in the Oxford Group was Richmond Walker. He stayed sober
with the help of the Oxford Group in Boston, Massachusetts. Richmond,
who later came to AA, would write the most famous and often used daily
meditation book for Twelve Step recovery, Twenty-Four Hours a Day. I
Calvary Episcopal Church. This fellowship changed its name to the Oxford
Group in 1928. 1 suggested earlier that the principles of AA are the
opposite of our character defects and one can write quite a list. But
basically the principles come directly from the Oxford Group's Four
Absolutes (absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness,
and absolute love). It would have been very awkward for the AA program
to include the Four Absolutes in their Big Book and would have not, in a
sense, indicated a marked split from the Oxford Group. This is not to
say that the founders of AA did not respect and value the role the Four
Absolutes had in the development of AAs suggested program of recovery.
In 1948, Dr. Bob recalled the absolutes as the only yardsticks
Alcoholics Anonymous had in the early days, before the Twelve Steps. He
said he still felt they could be extremely helpful when he wanted to do
the right thing and the answer was not obvious. Almost always, if I
measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty,
absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it
checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can't be very far
out of the way, he said. The absolutes form the basis for many AA
meetings around America today and 4re still published and widely quoted
in the Ohio area. Many men and women found recovery from alcoholism in
the Oxford Group. Another AA forefather who originally found guidance in
the Oxford Group was Richmond Walker. He stayed sober with the help of
the Oxford Group in Boston, Massachusetts. Richmond, who later came to
AA, would . write the most famous and often used daily meditation book
for Twelve Step recovery, Twenty-Four Hours a Day.
the html name of this page melb.html is incorrect
but I am leaving this error as this page comes up in the search engines
the book was written by Bill Pittman and not Mel B
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