Download or read book The Soul of Sponsorship written by Robert Fitzgerald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-03-04 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soul of Sponsorship explores the relationship of Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and his spiritual adviser and friend, Father Ed Dowling. The Soul of Sponsorship explores the relationship of Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and his spiritual adviser and friend, Father Ed Dowling. Many might consider that such a remarkable individual as Bill Wilson, who was the primary author of AA literature, would be able to deal with many of life's problems on his own. Reading The Soul of Sponsorship will illuminate and answer the question of how Father Ed, an Irish Catholic Jesuit priest who was not an alcoholic, was able to be of such great help to Bill Wilson. Part of AA's Twelfth Step reminds us "to carry this message to alcoholics," and The Soul of Sponsorship illustrates how sober alcoholics still need the principles of the Twelve Steps brought to them by friends, sponsors, and spiritual advisers. Some of the problems faced by Bill Wilson were:depression in recoverydependency issueswhether or not to experiment with LSDthe place of money and power in AAknowing God's plan and willlearning from mistakesFather Ed taught Bill the importance of "discernment." In Father Ed's Jesuit tradition, discernment was a gift, passed down to him from St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, who described his own struggle with discernment in Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The Twelve Steps of AA and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius presuppose that there is a caring God whose will can be known. The act of tuning in to God's action at one's center is discernment. The big question is, how do you know your Higher Power is speaking and revealing Himself through your feelings and desires?What Bill learned from Father Ed can be found in books and articles he wrote for AA. For the good of AA and himself, Bill learned to listen to his desires, be aware of his inner dynamics, and tune into the action of God within. Doing this meant learning to recognize and identify his personal movements -- those inner promptings and attractions often called emotions or affections -- which are part of ordinary human experiences. The person who helped Bill grow in discernment was Father Ed, the Jesuit priest with a cane who limped into the New York AA clubhouse one sleet-filled November night in 1940.The two "fellow travelers," Father Ed Dowling and Bill Wilson, gave each other perhaps the greatest gift friends can give: calling on each to know who he is -- before God.
Download or read book Alcoholics Anonymous written by Bill W. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.
Download or read book Father Ed Dowling written by Glenn F. Chesnut and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2015-07-17 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Father Ed Dowling, S.J., the Jesuit priest who served for twenty years as sponsor and spiritual guide to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. An icy evening in December 1940 saw the first meeting of two extraordinary spiritual leaders. Father Ed said that the graces he received from meeting Bill Wilson were as great as those he had received from his ordination as a priest, and Bill in turn described encountering the Jesuit as being like a second conversion experience, where he could feel the transcendent presence of God filling the entire room with grace. The good priest taught Wilson about St. Ignatius Loyolas Spiritual Exercises, about the eternal battle between good and evil which the Spanish saint described in that book, and explained the Jesuit understanding of the way we can use our deepest emotions to receive guidance from God while serving on that battlefield. The co-founder of the twelve step movement in turn supplied Father Ed with some of the most valuable tools he possessed for carrying out small group therapy on a wide range of different kinds of troubled people. Together the two men discussed Poulains Graces of Interior Prayer and Bills attempts to make spiritual contact with both spooks and saints, and explored the world of LSD experiences and the teachings of the Catholic, Hindu, and Buddhist mystics in Aldous Huxleys Perennial Philosophy. And we will see how Father Ed, with his deep social conscience, helped Bill W. turn his book on the Twelve Traditions into a Bill of Rights for the twelve step movement, and how he laid out his own spiritual vision of Alcoholics Anonymous at the A.A. International in St. Louis in 1955.
Download or read book Grateful to Have Been There written by Nell Wing and published by Hazelden Publishing. This book was released on 1994-03-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grateful To Have Been There
Download or read book Decoding Sponsorship written by Maggie Chan Jones and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Writing the Big Book written by William H. Schaberg and published by Central Recovery Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of writing and producing the"Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous, told through extensive access to the group's archives. Alcoholics Anonymous is arguably the most significant self-help book published in the twentieth century. Released in 1939, the “Big Book,” as it’s commonly known, has sold an estimated 37 million copies, been translated into seventy languages, and spawned numerous recovery communities around the world while remaining a vibrant plan for recovery from addiction in all its forms for millions of people. While there are many books about A.A. history, most rely on anecdotal stories told well after the fact by Bill Wilson and other early members—accounts that have proved to be woefully inaccurate at times. Writing the Big Book brings exhaustive research, academic discipline, and informed insight to the subject not seen since Ernest Kurtz’s Not-God, published forty years ago. Focusing primarily on the eighteen months from October 1937, when a book was first proposed, and April 1939 when Alcoholics Anonymous was published, Schaberg’s history is based on eleven years of research into the wealth of 1930s documents currently preserved in several A.A. archives. Woven together into an exciting narrative, these real-time documents tell an almost week-by-week story of how the book was created, providing more than a few unexpected turns and surprising departures from the hallowed stories that have been so widely circulated about early A.A. history. Fast-paced, engaging, and contrary, Writing the Big Book presents a vivid picture of how early A.A. operated and grew and reveals many previously unreported details about the colorful cast of characters who were responsible for making that group so successful.
Download or read book The Glumlot Letters written by Stanley M. and published by Gatekeeper Press. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Soul of Care written by Arthur Kleinman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving memoir and an extraordinary love story that shows how an expert physician became a family caregiver and learned why care is so central to all our lives and yet is at risk in today's world. When Dr. Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he found just how far the act of caregiving extended beyond the boundaries of medicine. In The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Kleinman delivers a deeply humane and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars but caring for patients no longer seems important. Caregiving is long, hard, unglamorous work--at moments joyous, more often tedious, sometimes agonizing, but it is always rich in meaning. In the face of our current political indifference and the challenge to the health care system, he emphasizes how we must ask uncomfortable questions of ourselves, and of our doctors. To give care, to be "present" for someone who needs us, and to feel and show kindness are deep emotional and moral experiences, enactments of our core values. The practice of caregiving teaches us what is most important in life, and reveals the very heart of what it is to be human.
Download or read book Ebby Thatcher and Bill Wilson The Pre History of Alcoholics Anonymous written by Ebby Thatcher and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-19 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pre-history of AA told by two of the people who were part of the most important events; Ebby Thatcher, the man who brought the message to Bill W. tells how he was helped to sobriety by Rowland Hazard and other Oxford Group members, how he carried the message to Bill and the early developments of the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship. AA Co-Founder Bill Wilson talks about the two streams of influence that led to AA. First, Bill tells the story of Rowland Hazard; how having failed to get lasting sobriety with help from Doctor Carl Jung he took Jung's final piece of advice to immerse himself in some sort of spiritual program. How Rowland practicing the principles of the Oxford Group brought the message of sobriety to Ebby Thatcher. Then, during the second part of Bill's talk he tells how Dr. Silkworth came to an understanding of Alcoholism and its treatment and how Dr. Silkworth helped him. First by preparing Bill to receive the message, then by providing him a medical detox and professional assurance, and then giving him the advice that enabled him to carry the message to the other AA Co-Founder Dr. Bob Smith, Transcribed from Historic Sound RecordingsThe text is a direct transcript of the talks which are available at Audible.com/historyofrecovery
Download or read book The Soul of an Octopus written by Sy Montgomery and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK “One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.
Download or read book Harry Tiebout written by Anonymous and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-02-03 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of writings by Harry Tiebout, one of the first psychiatrists to describe alcoholism as a disease, are seminal documents in the history, treatment, and understanding of alcoholism. One of the first psychiatrists to describe alcoholism as a disease rather than a moral failing or criminal activity, Harry M. Tiebout was also one of the first to wholeheartedly endorse Alcoholics Anonymous as an effective force in the struggle against compulsive drinking. This volume brings together, for the first time, some of Tiebout's most influential writings. Many of these pieces--from explorations of the therapeutic approach to alcoholism to instructive discussions of the act of surrender so crucial to recovery--are seminal documents in the history, treatment, and understanding of alcoholism. Together, they represent the significant contribution of one man to the countless lives shaken by alcoholism and steadied with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, psychiatric intervention, and the foresight and commitment of doctors like Harry Tiebout.
Download or read book Not God written by Ernest Kurtz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-03-26 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating, account of the discovery and program of Alcoholics Anonymous, Not God contains anecdotes and excerpts from the diaries, correspondence, and occasional memoirs of AA's early figures. The most complete history of A.A. ever written. Not God contains anecdotes and excerpts from the diaries, correspondence, and occasional memoirs of A.A.'s early figures. A fascinating, fast-moving, and authoritative account of the discovery and development of the program and fellowship that we know today as Alcoholics Anonymous.
Download or read book Sobriety Without End written by Father John Doe and published by . This book was released on 2022-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 Reprint of the 1957 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Father Ralph S. Pfau, also known as Father John Doe, was the author of Sobriety Without End, Sobriety and Beyond and the Golden Book series. He is believed to have been the first Roman Catholic priest to enter Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He took his first drink about a year after his ordination. By 1943 he was sufficiently worried about his drinking to investigate A.A. He experienced nervous breakdowns and spent time in sanitariums. He was twice relieved of his parish. Even after achieving sobriety, he continued to be plagued by depressions. He learned about AA when calling on a parishioner who was thought to be dying but was just passed out from alcohol and drugs. Pfau noticed a copy of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous on the shelf. He borrowed and read it. He stopped drinking. Later he read pamphlets on AA left by a member in the church. With the approval of his Archbishop, he devoted himself to helping other alcoholics, particularly alcoholic priests. He traveled more than 50,000 miles a year to address meetings, conduct retreats and help individuals. For the next 25 years, despite severe problems with depression, he never took another drink. For a short time he continued to take medications prescribed by his doctor and by Mayo Clinic. He threw them away after discussing the problem with a doctor familiar with alcoholism. In this popular successor to Sobriety and Beyond, the author freely discusses the everyday problems that beset the paths of the unwary. Serenity is the key to long-term sobriety, and Father Doe explains how to get it, nurture it and keep it for a lifetime. Father Doe believes that by continually growing both mentally and spiritually we strengthen our sobriety and prepare ourselves to deal with all the challenges life has in store for us.
Download or read book Understanding the Twelve Steps written by Terence T. Gorski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1991-04-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interpretation and guide to the 12 steps of Acoholics Anonymous.
Download or read book The Spirituality of Imperfection written by Ernest Kurtz and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-12-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I Am Not Perfect is a simple statement of profound truth, the first step toward understanding the human condition, for to deny your essential imperfection is to deny yourself and your own humanity. The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times. Who are we? Why so we so often fall short of our goals for ourselves and others? By seeking to understand our limitations and accept the inevitably of failure and pain, we being to ease the hurt and move toward a greater sense of serenity and self-awareness. The Spirituality Of Imperfection brings together stories from many spiritual and philosophical paths, weaving past traditions into a spirituality and a new way of thinking and living that works today. It speaks so anyone who yearns to find meaning within suffering. Beyond theory and technique, inside this remarkable book you will find a new way of thinking, a way of living that enables a truly human existence.
Download or read book New Light on Alcoholism written by Dick B. and published by Good Book Publishing Company. This book was released on 1999 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dick B. is a writer, historian, Bible student, retired attorney, and active recovered member of A.A. He and his son Ken devoted many years to researching the role, life, writings, and contributions of Rev.Samuel M. Shoemaker to Alcoholics Anonymous. The quest took Dick B. to Shoemaker's churches in Pittsburgh and New York, to the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, Texas, to Hartford Seminary, to Princeton University, and to the family and friends of this great Episcopal rector and preacher. In all, Dick B. has published 33 books on the history of early A.A.
Download or read book God Save Texas written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.
