Dear Steven

This is in response to a notice from David Fahey of Alcohol and Drugs History Society to which I belong. I doubt that I have the time to apply for your Editor post. Yet I wanted to alert you that the most distorted, forgotten, and ill-covered data in the treatment, prevention, and recovery arena today are details pertaining to what has come to be known as the faith based community. Even there, the personnel seem more concerned with grants, research, and administration than with recoveries and healing through what President Bush defined in his own case as changing the heart through spiritual believing.

In my case, I have devoted 15 years of my life to researching the Biblical roots, history, and successes of early Alcoholics Anonymous. The group between 1935 and 1938 developed a program of cures in Akron which proclaimed and documented a 75% success rate there in Akron, and 93% shortly thereafter in Cleveland. The program was simple: (1) Abstinence. (2) Hospitalization where needed at the beginning. (3) Resisting temptation. (4) Reliance on the Creator for guidance and strength. (5) Quiet times of Bible study, prayer, and reading of religious literature. (6) Elimination of sin from one’s life. (7) Working with other alcoholics. (8) Religious and social comradeship with believers – recommended. ((9) Church attendance – recommended. (10) Applying the fundamental principles of love and service, as emphasized in the United Christian Endeavor Society Movement, in which co-founder Dr. Bob participated actively as a youngster. This program was reported to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., by trustee-to-be Frank Amos and was the foundation for the entire early program and its successes. Bill Wilson was then commissioned to write a basic text defining the program, but changed it to a more secular bent in the Big Book he wrote in 1938 and then published in 1939 with the Twelve Steps. The end result highlights an original program with a high 75 to 93% success rate and today’s watered-down program with a dismal 1 to 5% success rate. Both need to be accurately reported, documented, and discussed.

As I said, you will not find this history reported properly or fully except in the 25 published titles and more than 60 articles I have written. The reasons are probably manifold – having to do with the treatment industry’s dominance, the reluctance of today’s 12 Step groups to step back into a report of their own religious roots, and a certain comfort level in 12 Steps meetings that espouse the “don’t drink and go to meetings” thesis combined with the “no cure” for alcoholism dogma. The public today seems hungry for the entire spiritual picture. And my books have received the endorsement of almost everyone connected with the original A.A. program. I myself have sponsored more than 100 men in recovery, acquainting them with, and urging the original simple ideas while at the same time going full bore with the A.A. program. And those who have done that – young men in their 20’s – today are 12 to 16 years abstinent, married, employed, have children, still count themselves believers, and in some cases still attend A.A. More important, at the beginning, they dived into the A.A. fellowship as I did, mastered the A.A. recovery program as set forth in its basic text, turned to the Bible and believing for support and complete recovery, and went on to sponsor others, with whom I have kept in touch. More than 150,000 of my titles are in print; and our website has visits exceeding 355,000. We are at the top of most relevant search engines on the subject of Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous History.

It would be a sad thing if your publication did not cover the rich, highly successful, early history and program. Thus the fine book Slaying the Dragon covers the treatment history like a blanket, purports to deal with A.A., and yet misses the boat completely on reporting the early A.A. program, its roots and development, and its astonishing results. That should not happen again when a scholarly history encyclopedia is the intended result.

Respectfully, Richard G. Burns, J.D. (pen name Dick B.)

Writer, Historian, Retired attorney, Bible student, Recovered and Cured AA

Member: Alcohol and Drugs History Society, Research Society on Alcoholism, Association for Medical and Educational Research on Substance Abuse, Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, Christian Association for Psychological Studies, Coalition of Prison Evangelists, International Substance Abuse and Alcoholism Coalition. Phi Beta Kappa.

http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml; http://www.archivesinternational.org; http://www.dickb-blog.com

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