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 in the 1930’s in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, Steinway Hall
even The Hippodrome 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 best sellers The Sermon on the Mount, Power Through Constructive Thinking and Sparks of Truth 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
© Vincent Lee Jones Living In Spirit All Rights Reserved
#The Secret,
#Wayne Dyer, #Serenity, Enlightenment, #Zen, #Emmet Fox, #How To Be Happy, #Golden
Key, #Pope Francis, #Chopra, #Jesus, #Einstein, #AA, McRaven,
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