 |
| Frank N.D. Buchman |
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| Bill W. |
Doctor Bob
Origins
The origins of Alcoholics Anonymous can be traced to the Oxford Group, a religious movement popular in the United States and Europe in the early 20th century. Members of the Oxford Group practiced a formula of self-improvement by performing self-inventory, admitting wrongs, making amends, using prayer and meditation, and carrying the message to others.
In the early 1930s, a well-to-do Rhode Islander, Rowland H., visited the noted Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung for help with his alcoholism. Jung determined that Rowland’s case was medically hopeless, and that he could only find relief through a vital spiritual experience. Jung directed him to the Oxford Group. Rowland later introduced fellow Vermonter Edwin ("Ebby") T. to the group, and the two men along with several others were finally able to keep from drinking by practicing the Oxford Group principles. One of Ebby’s schoolmate friends from Vermont, and a drinking buddy, was Bill W. Ebby sought out his old friend at his home at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn, New York, to carry the message of hope. Bill W. had been a golden boy on Wall Street, enjoying success and power as a stockbroker, but his promising career had been ruined by continuous and chronic alcoholism. Now, approaching 39 years of age, he was learning that his problem was hopeless, progressive, and irreversible. He had sought medical treatment at Towns Hospital in Manhattan, but he was still drinking.
Bill was, at first, unconvinced by Ebby’s story of transformation and the claims of the Oxford Group. But in December 1934, after again landing in Towns hospital for treatment, Bill underwent a powerful spiritual experience unlike any he had ever known. His depression and despair were lifted, and he felt free and at peace. Bill stopped drinking, and worked the rest of his life to bring that freedom and peace to other alcoholics. The roots of Alcoholics Anonymous were planted.
In the autumn of 1922, the Lutheran Minister, Rev. Frank N.D. Buchman, and a few of his friends, formed what they called, "A First Century Christian Fellowship." Frank Buchman had resigned his connection with the Hartford Theological Seminary around 1921 and had begun his evangelical work of carrying a message of life-changing by "getting right with God." Around 1927, Buchman began working in England. Several of his followers were connected with Oxford University; and when they began to tour South Africa, the press called the evangelical team "The Oxford Group." This because most of the team was from Oxford University, but Frank Buchman was never officially connected in any way with Oxford University. This name stuck. By 1932, A.J. Russell's book For Sinners Only was published, and made frequent reference to The Oxford Group. In 1937, the group was officially incorporated in Great Britain as a not-for-profit entity, known as The Oxford Group. The fellowship held small group meetings, prayer meetings and what were called "house parties," at which its adherents spent "Quiet Time" in meditation seeking "Guidance" from God. Part of these meetings involved "witnessing," or giving testimony regarding prior sins, and what God had done in their lives to remove these sins, or defects in character (or shortcomings).
Frank Buchman and his followers held certain theological beliefs, including the following:
1) Sovereignty and Power of God.
2) The reality of sin.
3) The need for complete surrender to the will of God.
4) Christ's atoning sacrifice and transforming power.
5) The sustenance of prayer.
6) The duty to witness to others.
*Garth Lean, ON THE TAIL OF A COMET - p. 73
Its beliefs included other elements added as the movement grew and became more popular. Examples are as the belief that an experience of Christ would transform a believer, IF he truly believed - beyond anything he had dreamed possible. The belief that an adherent could and should make prompt restitution for personal wrongs revealed to him by his life-changing experience. And the belief that adherents should be part of a sort of "chain-reaction" of life changing experiences by sharing the experience of what Christ had done for them with others. The Oxford Group believed one must surrender to God, not only to be "converted" from sin, but to have his entire life controlled by God. They believed in "Quiet Time," or meditation, during which a believer would get guidance of what to do or in as to the direction he should take. They believed in open confession of sin, one-to-another, following James 5:16 in the scriptures. They believed in the healing of the soul and in carrying the message of personal and world-wide redemption through the sharing of members' testimony by witnessing. Frank Buchman, and his followers believed that people had sick souls, most of which was caused by "self-centeredness." Oxford Group members believed that people were powerless over this human condition, this defect of the soul. To recover one had to admit he was separated from God and his fellow man, and that God could manage their lives. Then they made a decision to turn their lives over to the care and direction of God. They had to make an inventory of their lives and of their sins, and to make full restitution to others, those they had hurt by their sins, or shortcomings. They also had to witness to others as to their own conversion from sin and be available to convert others from sin.
Oxford group members believed and were taught that the only way you could keep what you had been given by God, was to give it away to another. They did not try to force anyone into their path. They were to live their lives as an example, which would inspire others to want to follow. The Oxford Group called its conversion process "soul-surgery."
Its' so-called surgical procedure broiled down to five concepts:
CONFIDENCE, CONFESSION,CONVICTION, CONVERSION CONSERVATION.
Oxford Group people also believed that their followers should have a formula for checking their motives in following this path.
Part of the checking procedure involved the Four Absolutes:
HONESTY, UNSELFISHNESS, PURITY and LOVE
Oxford Group people believed these were the four absolute standards of Jesus. A.A. members knew that no one could ever hope to attain the perfection of absolute anything. They instead were told to strive for perfection, as their guide for progress, knowing that they would never fully attain it. Bill Wilson was visited by Ebby T., an Oxford Group follower (who never really attained sobriety, and died destitute). Bill was told by Ebby, "I got religion." Bill went to Calvary Mission in New York City with Ebby and later surrendered to Christ, making open confession of his alcoholism at the mission which was run by Calvary Episcopal Church. Bill soon had his "white light" spiritual experience at Towns Hospital and after this surrender, never drank alcohol again. Ebby "had two years and seven months of continuous sobriety in the beginning, a long period of about seven years' sobriety in Texas in the 1950's, and about 2 1/2 years' sobriety just before he died in 1966. Bill knew when he was going to have a binge. Prior to his spiritual experience, Bill had been a patient at Towns Hospital and knew that he had to make reservations at Towns Hospital. He would call up two weeks in advance of binge and tell Towns when he was going to be there. His binges were planned. After his spiritual experience, he never found the need to call for reservations again. Dr. Bob too, had had experience with the Oxford Group. After Frank Buchman's series of Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron in January 1933, Henrietta Seiberling and Dr. Bob's wife, Anne Smith, convinced Dr. Bob to attend the meetings which were, by now, being held at the home of T. Henry and Clarence Williams. Dr. Bob, though he had confessed his drinking and had been a devotee of the Oxford Group and of its writings and teachings, had not been able to stop drinking. It was not until he had met with Bill Wilson, another Oxford Group member, and was relating, one-drunk-to-another, that he eventually surrendered. Dr. Bob met Bill on Mother's Day in May of 1935, and later drank while going to and attending a medical convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in June 1935. Bill Wilson gave Bob his last drink of beer just prior to performing surgery on June 10th , 1935. This was to be Dr. Bob's last "slip."
Bill Wilson was once quoted as saying that even though he did not want the connection to the Oxford Group and its religious teachings associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, he had incorporated most of their ideals and precepts in the Steps and in the writing of what to become the A. A. Recovery Program.
Six Steps of Oxford Group:
1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.
2. We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.
3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.
4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.
5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.
6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.
Although those steps had helped in the recovery of New York and Akron alcoholics, Bill felt the program was still not definitive. "Maybe our six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces," he said. "Thus we could better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the same time we might be able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of our whole presentation." Pass It On, p.197
**If you go back to the Oxford Group beginnings, you start primarily with the title by Howard Arnold Walter, Literary Secretary, National Council Young Men's Christian Association of India and Ceylon. Walter wrote this title in conjunction with Professor Henry B. Wright and Reverend Frank N.D. Buchman. It bore the name Soul-Surgery: Some Thoughts on Incisive Personal Work, and was published in 1919. Its major topic dealt with what later became called the 5 C's–Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation [also called "Continuance"]. These five principles, in turn, became the heart of the ideas behind A.A. Steps Three through Twelve, as Bill Wilson himself was later to write in The Language of the Heart.
The Second Touch
Mark 8:25
(To F.N.D.B.)
The blind man, sunk in sordid helplessness
A sound of footsteps caught. 'The Healer come, ' they cried, and through the press The hapless wretch they brought. With wild hope, born of uttermost distress, The healing touch he sought, A hand reached forth in potent tenderness--The miracle was wrought.
Strangely he stares. 'What doesn't thou see?' they cry.' I see men walk as trees. 'Again the cool hand strokes each aching eye; The last dim shadow flees; Not moving shapes but live men drawing nigh, And tells to each how God's own Son came by And healed his dire disease.
Dungeoned by self, we too besought His hand, Our shuttered eyes to free. His touch bestowed, vast stricken crowds we scanned, And guessed their misery. Lord Christ, Thy second touch our hearts demand, Each separate soul to see, His wounds to salve, his wants to understand, And lead him home to Thee.
H.A.W.
Originally published by Oxford University Press
Rowland Hazard, who came to the aid of Ebby T. in August 1934, had a thorough indoctrination in Oxford Group teachings and he passed many of these along to Ebby and Bill W. Soon after his release from Towns Hospital at the end of 1934, Bill and the rest of the alcoholic contingent of the Oxford Group began gathering at Stewart's Cafeteria in New York following their regular meeting. Shep Cornell, then a member of the Oxford Group business team that included Rowland, Sam Shoemaker, and Hanford Twitchell, was also a recovering alkie. Lois Wilson talked of regular attendance at the Oxford Group meetings with Bill, Shep, and Ebby. James Houck, a nonalcoholic Oxford Group member in Frederick, Maryland, stated that Bill W. went to many Oxford Group meetings at the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick and always centered on alcohol. Jim Newton went to Ft. Myers, Florida in 1926, at age 21, to visit his father, and they bought a 35 acre tract of land across the road from the Thomas Edison estate. Jim Newton often acted as host at Edison's famous birthday parties which were attended by Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and many world renowned business leaders and public figures. Harvey Firestone, Sr., offered Jim a job as secretary to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1926, and moved him to Akron, Ohio in residence across from the Firestone Estate. Jim worked for Firestone eleven years and was being groomed as president of the company when he resigned and went full time with the Oxford Groups. Jim had been in New York for the Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney fight. While there he confessed to Frank Buchman that his life was in turmoil and he was about to take a "geographical cure". Buchman sent him to meet Sam Shoemaker at the Calvary Church. He made an Oxford Group confession to Sam and was led to join one of the Oxford Group business teams. These were groups of important men who made attempts to convert others to the Oxford Group method of spirituality. Jim frequently met with Shep Cornell and Rowland Hazard. He met T. Henry and Clarece Williams, husband and wife Oxford Group members from Akron and members of Walter Tunks' church, clergyman for Firestone. The business team put on house parties in various cities at the finest hotels and clubs.
In January of 1933, Frank Buchman, leading a team of thirty men and women, descended on Akron for the first time to give testimonials at the Mayflower Hotel and in Akron churches, and initiate the townspeople in the experiences of the Oxford Group. Clearly, Jim Newton's association with Firestone and Tunks' Episcopal Church group influenced the choice of Akron as the site of this endeavor, rather than some other city. Had Jim not already been a business team member and in place in Akron, it is very unlikely that Buchman would ever have chosen this small, rather unknown city as a place to pursue his evangelistic efforts. Jim was the spokesman who introduced Buchman at all the affairs that week in Akron. When Jim first arrived in Akron, he had been welcomed into the Firestone family, and had become fast friends with a son, Russell (Bud) Firestone. Bud had a very bad drinking problem and had already been sent to several hospitals to no avail. Jim went with Bud to still another drying-out place, on the Hudson River in New York, and stayed through the entire 30 day program. Then he took Bud to an Episcopal Conference in Denver to which the Oxford Group people had been invited. On the train East again after the party, he was able to introduce Bud to his old Oxford Group minister, Sam Shoemaker. Alone with Sam, Bud surrendered his life to God. His life changed, and his family situation and marriage were saved. Jim Newton had helped bring to the city the Oxford Group message of his alcoholic friend, Bud Firestone. The message and recovery were broadcast to an interested community by a grateful father, Harvey Firestone, Sr.
In Akron, T. Henry and Clarece Williams and Henrietta Seiberling were attending Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower Hotel and elsewhere. Dr. Bob Smith also attended with his wife, Anne. He shied away from talking about his problem publicly, and continued drinking. In her concern for Bob, Henrietta suggested to T. Henry that if they could set up a smaller, more private meeting perhaps Bob might feel more at ease and be able to make a confession in the Oxford Group fashion, and a commitment to sobriety. T. Henry's home was chosen for this special meeting and these meetings started on a Wednesday in April of 1935--just one month before Bill Wilson came to Akron. These meetings were usually led by T. Henry, Henrietta, or Florence Main, and at one of these Dr. Bob was able to confess that he was a secret drinker and needed help as he could not stop.
Then, there was Bill. Bill Wilson, the "rum hound" from New York, had come to Akron on a business venture that went sour. Having recovered from his disease, he was determined to stay sober by seeking out and helping another drunk, after being tempted by the bar at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead of drinking, having been sober five months in the Oxford Group, he said a prayer. He received guidance to look at a ministers' directory board and a strange thing happened. He put his finger on one name--Tunks. The Rev. Walter Tunks was Harvey Firestone's minister, and Firestone had brought Buchman and thirty Oxford Group members to Akron for ten days in gratitude for their help for his son, Russell, a drunkard. Bill W. made the desperate and fateful phone call. Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson came together at a meeting in Henrietta Seiberling's home in the Gate House of the Firestone Estate, and thus, Alcoholics Anonymous was born.
The origins of Alcoholics Anonymous can be traced to the Oxford Group, a religious movement popular in the United States and Europe in the early 20th century. Members of the Oxford Group practiced a formula of self-improvement by performing self-inventory, admitting wrongs, making amends, using prayer and meditation, and carrying the message to others.
In the early 1930s, a well-to-do Rhode Islander, Rowland H., visited the noted Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung for help with his alcoholism. Jung determined that Rowland’s case was medically hopeless, and that he could only find relief through a vital spiritual experience. Jung directed him to the Oxford Group. Rowland later introduced fellow Vermonter Edwin ("Ebby") T. to the group, and the two men along with several others were finally able to keep from drinking by practicing the Oxford Group principles. One of Ebby’s schoolmate friends from Vermont, and a drinking buddy, was Bill W. Ebby sought out his old friend at his home at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn, New York, to carry the message of hope. Bill W. had been a golden boy on Wall Street, enjoying success and power as a stockbroker, but his promising career had been ruined by continuous and chronic alcoholism. Now, approaching 39 years of age, he was learning that his problem was hopeless, progressive, and irreversible. He had sought medical treatment at Towns Hospital in Manhattan, but he was still drinking.
Bill was, at first, unconvinced by Ebby’s story of transformation and the claims of the Oxford Group. But in December 1934, after again landing in Towns hospital for treatment, Bill underwent a powerful spiritual experience unlike any he had ever known. His depression and despair were lifted, and he felt free and at peace. Bill stopped drinking, and worked the rest of his life to bring that freedom and peace to other alcoholics. The roots of Alcoholics Anonymous were planted.
In the autumn of 1922, the Lutheran Minister, Rev. Frank N.D. Buchman, and a few of his friends, formed what they called, "A First Century Christian Fellowship." Frank Buchman had resigned his connection with the Hartford Theological Seminary around 1921 and had begun his evangelical work of carrying a message of life-changing by "getting right with God." Around 1927, Buchman began working in England. Several of his followers were connected with Oxford University; and when they began to tour South Africa, the press called the evangelical team "The Oxford Group." This because most of the team was from Oxford University, but Frank Buchman was never officially connected in any way with Oxford University. This name stuck. By 1932, A.J. Russell's book For Sinners Only was published, and made frequent reference to The Oxford Group. In 1937, the group was officially incorporated in Great Britain as a not-for-profit entity, known as The Oxford Group. The fellowship held small group meetings, prayer meetings and what were called "house parties," at which its adherents spent "Quiet Time" in meditation seeking "Guidance" from God. Part of these meetings involved "witnessing," or giving testimony regarding prior sins, and what God had done in their lives to remove these sins, or defects in character (or shortcomings).
Frank Buchman and his followers held certain theological beliefs, including the following:
1) Sovereignty and Power of God.
2) The reality of sin.
3) The need for complete surrender to the will of God.
4) Christ's atoning sacrifice and transforming power.
5) The sustenance of prayer.
6) The duty to witness to others.
*Garth Lean, ON THE TAIL OF A COMET - p. 73
Its beliefs included other elements added as the movement grew and became more popular. Examples are as the belief that an experience of Christ would transform a believer, IF he truly believed - beyond anything he had dreamed possible. The belief that an adherent could and should make prompt restitution for personal wrongs revealed to him by his life-changing experience. And the belief that adherents should be part of a sort of "chain-reaction" of life changing experiences by sharing the experience of what Christ had done for them with others. The Oxford Group believed one must surrender to God, not only to be "converted" from sin, but to have his entire life controlled by God. They believed in "Quiet Time," or meditation, during which a believer would get guidance of what to do or in as to the direction he should take. They believed in open confession of sin, one-to-another, following James 5:16 in the scriptures. They believed in the healing of the soul and in carrying the message of personal and world-wide redemption through the sharing of members' testimony by witnessing. Frank Buchman, and his followers believed that people had sick souls, most of which was caused by "self-centeredness." Oxford Group members believed that people were powerless over this human condition, this defect of the soul. To recover one had to admit he was separated from God and his fellow man, and that God could manage their lives. Then they made a decision to turn their lives over to the care and direction of God. They had to make an inventory of their lives and of their sins, and to make full restitution to others, those they had hurt by their sins, or shortcomings. They also had to witness to others as to their own conversion from sin and be available to convert others from sin.
Oxford group members believed and were taught that the only way you could keep what you had been given by God, was to give it away to another. They did not try to force anyone into their path. They were to live their lives as an example, which would inspire others to want to follow. The Oxford Group called its conversion process "soul-surgery."
Its' so-called surgical procedure broiled down to five concepts:
CONFIDENCE, CONFESSION,CONVICTION, CONVERSION CONSERVATION.
Oxford Group people also believed that their followers should have a formula for checking their motives in following this path.
Part of the checking procedure involved the Four Absolutes:
HONESTY, UNSELFISHNESS, PURITY and LOVE
Oxford Group people believed these were the four absolute standards of Jesus. A.A. members knew that no one could ever hope to attain the perfection of absolute anything. They instead were told to strive for perfection, as their guide for progress, knowing that they would never fully attain it. Bill Wilson was visited by Ebby T., an Oxford Group follower (who never really attained sobriety, and died destitute). Bill was told by Ebby, "I got religion." Bill went to Calvary Mission in New York City with Ebby and later surrendered to Christ, making open confession of his alcoholism at the mission which was run by Calvary Episcopal Church. Bill soon had his "white light" spiritual experience at Towns Hospital and after this surrender, never drank alcohol again. Ebby "had two years and seven months of continuous sobriety in the beginning, a long period of about seven years' sobriety in Texas in the 1950's, and about 2 1/2 years' sobriety just before he died in 1966. Bill knew when he was going to have a binge. Prior to his spiritual experience, Bill had been a patient at Towns Hospital and knew that he had to make reservations at Towns Hospital. He would call up two weeks in advance of binge and tell Towns when he was going to be there. His binges were planned. After his spiritual experience, he never found the need to call for reservations again. Dr. Bob too, had had experience with the Oxford Group. After Frank Buchman's series of Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower Hotel in Akron in January 1933, Henrietta Seiberling and Dr. Bob's wife, Anne Smith, convinced Dr. Bob to attend the meetings which were, by now, being held at the home of T. Henry and Clarence Williams. Dr. Bob, though he had confessed his drinking and had been a devotee of the Oxford Group and of its writings and teachings, had not been able to stop drinking. It was not until he had met with Bill Wilson, another Oxford Group member, and was relating, one-drunk-to-another, that he eventually surrendered. Dr. Bob met Bill on Mother's Day in May of 1935, and later drank while going to and attending a medical convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in June 1935. Bill Wilson gave Bob his last drink of beer just prior to performing surgery on June 10th , 1935. This was to be Dr. Bob's last "slip."
Bill Wilson was once quoted as saying that even though he did not want the connection to the Oxford Group and its religious teachings associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, he had incorporated most of their ideals and precepts in the Steps and in the writing of what to become the A. A. Recovery Program.
Six Steps of Oxford Group:
1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.
2. We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.
3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.
4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.
5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.
6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.
Although those steps had helped in the recovery of New York and Akron alcoholics, Bill felt the program was still not definitive. "Maybe our six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces," he said. "Thus we could better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the same time we might be able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of our whole presentation." Pass It On, p.197
**If you go back to the Oxford Group beginnings, you start primarily with the title by Howard Arnold Walter, Literary Secretary, National Council Young Men's Christian Association of India and Ceylon. Walter wrote this title in conjunction with Professor Henry B. Wright and Reverend Frank N.D. Buchman. It bore the name Soul-Surgery: Some Thoughts on Incisive Personal Work, and was published in 1919. Its major topic dealt with what later became called the 5 C's–Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, Conservation [also called "Continuance"]. These five principles, in turn, became the heart of the ideas behind A.A. Steps Three through Twelve, as Bill Wilson himself was later to write in The Language of the Heart.
The Second Touch
Mark 8:25
(To F.N.D.B.)
The blind man, sunk in sordid helplessness
A sound of footsteps caught. 'The Healer come, ' they cried, and through the press The hapless wretch they brought. With wild hope, born of uttermost distress, The healing touch he sought, A hand reached forth in potent tenderness--The miracle was wrought.
Strangely he stares. 'What doesn't thou see?' they cry.' I see men walk as trees. 'Again the cool hand strokes each aching eye; The last dim shadow flees; Not moving shapes but live men drawing nigh, And tells to each how God's own Son came by And healed his dire disease.
Dungeoned by self, we too besought His hand, Our shuttered eyes to free. His touch bestowed, vast stricken crowds we scanned, And guessed their misery. Lord Christ, Thy second touch our hearts demand, Each separate soul to see, His wounds to salve, his wants to understand, And lead him home to Thee.
H.A.W.
Originally published by Oxford University Press
Rowland Hazard, who came to the aid of Ebby T. in August 1934, had a thorough indoctrination in Oxford Group teachings and he passed many of these along to Ebby and Bill W. Soon after his release from Towns Hospital at the end of 1934, Bill and the rest of the alcoholic contingent of the Oxford Group began gathering at Stewart's Cafeteria in New York following their regular meeting. Shep Cornell, then a member of the Oxford Group business team that included Rowland, Sam Shoemaker, and Hanford Twitchell, was also a recovering alkie. Lois Wilson talked of regular attendance at the Oxford Group meetings with Bill, Shep, and Ebby. James Houck, a nonalcoholic Oxford Group member in Frederick, Maryland, stated that Bill W. went to many Oxford Group meetings at the Francis Scott Key Hotel in Frederick and always centered on alcohol. Jim Newton went to Ft. Myers, Florida in 1926, at age 21, to visit his father, and they bought a 35 acre tract of land across the road from the Thomas Edison estate. Jim Newton often acted as host at Edison's famous birthday parties which were attended by Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and many world renowned business leaders and public figures. Harvey Firestone, Sr., offered Jim a job as secretary to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1926, and moved him to Akron, Ohio in residence across from the Firestone Estate. Jim worked for Firestone eleven years and was being groomed as president of the company when he resigned and went full time with the Oxford Groups. Jim had been in New York for the Jack Dempsey vs Gene Tunney fight. While there he confessed to Frank Buchman that his life was in turmoil and he was about to take a "geographical cure". Buchman sent him to meet Sam Shoemaker at the Calvary Church. He made an Oxford Group confession to Sam and was led to join one of the Oxford Group business teams. These were groups of important men who made attempts to convert others to the Oxford Group method of spirituality. Jim frequently met with Shep Cornell and Rowland Hazard. He met T. Henry and Clarece Williams, husband and wife Oxford Group members from Akron and members of Walter Tunks' church, clergyman for Firestone. The business team put on house parties in various cities at the finest hotels and clubs.
In January of 1933, Frank Buchman, leading a team of thirty men and women, descended on Akron for the first time to give testimonials at the Mayflower Hotel and in Akron churches, and initiate the townspeople in the experiences of the Oxford Group. Clearly, Jim Newton's association with Firestone and Tunks' Episcopal Church group influenced the choice of Akron as the site of this endeavor, rather than some other city. Had Jim not already been a business team member and in place in Akron, it is very unlikely that Buchman would ever have chosen this small, rather unknown city as a place to pursue his evangelistic efforts. Jim was the spokesman who introduced Buchman at all the affairs that week in Akron. When Jim first arrived in Akron, he had been welcomed into the Firestone family, and had become fast friends with a son, Russell (Bud) Firestone. Bud had a very bad drinking problem and had already been sent to several hospitals to no avail. Jim went with Bud to still another drying-out place, on the Hudson River in New York, and stayed through the entire 30 day program. Then he took Bud to an Episcopal Conference in Denver to which the Oxford Group people had been invited. On the train East again after the party, he was able to introduce Bud to his old Oxford Group minister, Sam Shoemaker. Alone with Sam, Bud surrendered his life to God. His life changed, and his family situation and marriage were saved. Jim Newton had helped bring to the city the Oxford Group message of his alcoholic friend, Bud Firestone. The message and recovery were broadcast to an interested community by a grateful father, Harvey Firestone, Sr.
In Akron, T. Henry and Clarece Williams and Henrietta Seiberling were attending Oxford Group meetings at the Mayflower Hotel and elsewhere. Dr. Bob Smith also attended with his wife, Anne. He shied away from talking about his problem publicly, and continued drinking. In her concern for Bob, Henrietta suggested to T. Henry that if they could set up a smaller, more private meeting perhaps Bob might feel more at ease and be able to make a confession in the Oxford Group fashion, and a commitment to sobriety. T. Henry's home was chosen for this special meeting and these meetings started on a Wednesday in April of 1935--just one month before Bill Wilson came to Akron. These meetings were usually led by T. Henry, Henrietta, or Florence Main, and at one of these Dr. Bob was able to confess that he was a secret drinker and needed help as he could not stop.
Then, there was Bill. Bill Wilson, the "rum hound" from New York, had come to Akron on a business venture that went sour. Having recovered from his disease, he was determined to stay sober by seeking out and helping another drunk, after being tempted by the bar at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead of drinking, having been sober five months in the Oxford Group, he said a prayer. He received guidance to look at a ministers' directory board and a strange thing happened. He put his finger on one name--Tunks. The Rev. Walter Tunks was Harvey Firestone's minister, and Firestone had brought Buchman and thirty Oxford Group members to Akron for ten days in gratitude for their help for his son, Russell, a drunkard. Bill W. made the desperate and fateful phone call. Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson came together at a meeting in Henrietta Seiberling's home in the Gate House of the Firestone Estate, and thus, Alcoholics Anonymous was born.
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