Today
Easy Does It,
One Day at a Time,
First Things First,
Live and Let Live and
Think, Think, Think
are mottoes that adorn the walls of AA meeting rooms and clubs around the globe. Few
realize however these concepts entered AA’s collective consciousness most likely from Emmet Fox. The early members of what would become Alcoholics
Anonymous* residing in New York attended Dr. Fox’s gatherings on
Wednesday evenings. Emmet Fox held his Wednesday meetings and Saturday
services in the largest enclosed public venues available in 1930’s New York; the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, Hippodrome, Steinway Hall
even Madison Square Garden as attendance grew. This continued up to the
start of World War II when large gatherings were suspended out of
security concerns. The early AA members** who did not live in New York
studied Dr Fox’s teaching through his two best sellers
The Sermon on the Mount and
Power Through Constructive Thinking (both still in print) and
Sparks of Truth
(out of print) which is a collection of teachings originally published as a
series of 10 cent pamphlets. It is in these pamphlets that
the mottoes later adopted by AA are found. Additionally in early
pamphlets published by the first recognized AA group, King’s School in
Akron,
Sermon on the Mount is suggested reading.
*Though AA dates its birth from 6/10/35 the first AA meeting (the group
broke from the Oxford Group (Moral Rearmament) and stood in singleness
of purpose in helping those suffering from alcoholism) did not take
place until 5/11/39 in Cleveland Ohio, the secretary Clarence Snyder, a
few months after the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) was published.
Source: Bill and Lois Wilson‘s personal correspondence in archives.
**Bill Wilson sponsored (helped sober up) Emmet Fox’s secretaries son,
Al Steckman. Al would go on to be the first editor of the AA Grapevine
and has been credited with coining the phrase “I am responsible” at the
first AA convention. Source: Igor Sikorsky Jr. AA’s Godparents 1990
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