Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Our Path
For years I wondered what Bill meant by the first sentence in Chapter 5. The sentence was written in 1938 and published in 1939. There were no AA meetings, no Sponsors, the steps were just published. What could the path have been? It goes back to Carl Jung working with Roland Hazard in Switzerland. Roland was sent back to the USA sober again. Dr. Jung told him to find a meeting of The Oxford Group, and go to those meetings. He wanted Roland to find a SPIRITUAL solution, because all the mental and psychiatric solutions didn't work with a "drunk that far gone". Roland did that and was able to stay sober for a short time. The Oxford people told him to find another drunk and help him. That was an Oxford Group Tenant. He went and found an old buddy, Ebbie Thatcher and took him to a meeting. They started to hang out and the two of them seemed to be onto something.Ebbie went and saw his old drinking buddy, Bill Wilson, and convinced him to come to a meeting with him and Roland. Bill finally did. Bill started to get sober and stay that way. Bill went to Akron, Ohio in 1935, on a business trip. It didn't go well and Bill wanted to drink. He decided he would do what his Buddy Ebbie passed on to him. Go find a drunk and help him! Bill did that. It was Doctor Bob. When Bill finally returned to New York, he found his old buddy Ebbie, and he was drunk. Ebbie stopped hanging out with Roland and helping other drunks. He got drunk! So, you see, I see the "OUR PATH" as starting with Dr. Carl Jung to Roland, Roland to Ebbie, Ebbie to Bill, Bill to Dr. Bob, Bill and Bob to Bill Dotson, on and on, up the present day. Me helping you. Whenever we see one of us drinking or drugging again, it simply comes down to "they got off the path". This is 2009. We can say now that the path is Meetings, Sponsors, Sober Support System, Working the Steps, and the list can go on and on. But, I see it at it's simplist demoninator: One Drunk helping Another Drunk. Our Path is spiritual in nature. Not religious, but spiritual. We join our spirits in a path of wellness.
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Right on Bob! Was just discussing this last night at a Big Book meeting. We read the Doctors Opinion and I realized that Bill had begun telling his story and helping others before he was even sober (the ill fated golf trip?). And how God used the character defect of Carl Yung to send Roland along the spiritual path to sobriety. In a Yung biography I recently read, Roland meet Yung when he was trying to write and his private practice was getting in the way, making him increasingly irritable with his patients and eventually led to him dropping the private practice to devote all his time to writing. I really like that bit of information, because it(the path)appears to be truly God or Higher Power directed instead of the pure wills of man or men/women to an end result.
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