Big Book History #1: The First Two Forewords

In this first episode of “Big Book History,” William Schaberg (the author of Writing the Big Book: The Creation of A.A.) explores the time, the place and the personalities behind the writing of the first two Forewords to be found in the book Alcoholics Anonymous - the first one published in 1939 and the second in 1955.
As preliminaries to later observations in this episode (and in the episodes to follow), Schaberg introduces Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and discusses his unreliability as an accurate historical witness. Bill also takes some time to introduce Hank Parkhurst, Wilson’s right-hand man in New York throughout the late 1930s, and establishes his importance not only to this week’s story, but also to many of the episodes to follow.
Schaberg then takes a look at some the fascinating things to be discovered by carefully and critically reading those Forewords - including some of the factual errors to be found there and his understanding of how and why they had made their way into the text.

[@MindBodySoulOk]

Have only listened to a small portion of this first video but I could see this becoming the definitive history.

[@newportdjdrew2593]

Thanks Bill, I'm really just getting into the history of AA and appreciate your research. Thank you for your service.

[@HJANDF081399]

Fascinating! Thank you for all your work and research, Bill
Looking forward to your complete work.
God bless!

[@thejulesfather]

Awesome work brother

[@georgetkaczuk6379]

Great work thanks 👍 so much

[@sherwpinkhair]

Thanks for capturing your talks for us to preserve. I benefit greatly from your investigations and presentations. Thank you.

[@donalddurant3984]

Thank you so much for all your hard work

[@Createanextraordinarylife]

Amazing work. This best detail work . Everyone in AA should deff watch this

[@trevorphinnemore7439]

Thanks for uploading. ❤

[@eugenelane3291]

Very good Bill !!

[@lizsteilkie]

Thank you Bill. I am currently reading Varieties of Religeous Experiences by William James and am looking forward to finding out how his ideas were integrated into the Big Book.

[@406MenaceRacecar]

Be aware, that book is New Age nonsense written by a man who rejects Christ.

[@MindBodySoulOk]

I need to check this out too

[@michaeljohns8817]

GREAT STUFF !!!!!! thanks for all of your hard work 😀😀😀😀 very interesting

[@jkdarrow]

I'm so happy to discover your work. My grandfather, Jack Darrow, was quite reticent about his activity. It's taken us this long to put the pieces together.

[@billschaberg8911]

Jack... love to chat about this... can you email me your contact information at [e-mail]?

[@1davemcd]

Thanks Bill,
Another great presentation , a grand slam home run.
Peace
Dave McDermott

[@williambutler6317]

Do you have a live link I can listen in on ?

[@JohnLewis-qk3jt]

Is there a place to find the missing chapters that are not currently on youtube?

[@billschaberg8911]

Not yet, John. My business life has interfered with completing this set of presentation. I am hoping to get back to them sometime over the summer.

[@JohnLewis-qk3jt]

@@billschaberg8911 Understand completely - thank you so much for doing this!

[@jkyoft78]

We tell our stories so that others can identify...we raise the bottom so that others can hit it....we show it was a progressive disease.

[@406MenaceRacecar]

"We" didn't tell stories at meetings, they actually did that for the 12th step call. Meetings provided a spiritual answer. Today's meetings of contemporary AA seem to be lost .

[@406MenaceRacecar]

According to Bill Wilson he never called alcoholism a disease, they had plenty of opportunities to do so and chose carefully to not use the word disease, except when they described "spiritual disease" which as most of us know the spiritual disease is part of being nonalcoholic as well as alcoholics.

[@michaelscully7303]

@@406MenaceRacecar They're only "lost" if they don't work the Eleven Steps to the point of experiencing the Spiritual Awakening.."as T-H-E result of these steps".
Without the psychic change, the total rearrangement of your previous Self, it doesn't matter if you tell stories, don't tell stories, make coffee for the entire community, or go to five meetings a day.
Bill Wilson's foundational belief was that there is "no effective mental defense against the first drink." Period. Whether you are dry as a bone or not. The only defense is a Spiritual defense brought about the same way the original members discovered. Nothing has changed, except the dilution of exactly what works and why.

[@406MenaceRacecar]

@@michaelscully7303 GOD
it's God. Why should anyone be wishy washy about it.

[@michaelscully7303]

Who’s wishy washy? Yeah, it’s God. You don’t work they Steps, that’ll mean nothing either.