The mottoes Easy Does It, One
Day at a Time, First Things First, Live and Let Live and Think,
Think, Think adorn the walls of 12 Step recovery 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 inexpensive 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, listed right after the
Holy Bible.
*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.
Miracles Of Recovery
© Vincent Lee Jones Living In Spirit
All Rights Reserved
Miracles Of Recovery, The Secret,
Wayne Dyer, Recovery, Addiction, Zen, Emmet Fox, Opioids, Four Agreements,
Chopra, Heroin, Einstein, AA, Healing Path, Law Of Attraction, God, Buddha,
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