Video Transcript: Lesson 11

In our last video, we looked at the Oxford group, an amazing move of God, with  Reverend Frank Buchman, that Lutheran minister out east, at least east from  here in Michigan, in the East Coast area, region, Pennsylvania, New York, that  whole area, and how God did a special thing that went from there to all over the  world, as far as Oxford, and how God used Reverend Buchman and many  others to bring the good news of The Gospel, but also principles and events and steps to help people coming to get out of their addiction to find Christ, and also  where Christ then set them free from what was hindering them, as I said before  the it, what it, whatever it is that was controlling them, and how the Oxford group provided that space and that environment for people to come to the Lord, come  to surrender, come to a new life, a new beginning. That group was the first big  step in forming other recovery movements. As we look at breaking the addiction  cycle, what we will soon find out is that the medic, the medics, the doctors, the  those in the medical profession, came to the conclusion that medicine does not  cure when it comes to addiction, it's part of it, but not all of it. Medicine helps to  understand the bodily function and also the physical and the chemical and so  on. But there's the spiritual side, where it all begins that they didn't have a grasp  on and still don't, because what people often do is today, send people who are  caught in their addiction to whatever it is, to one of the Anonymous groups, to a  Recovery Center, a recovery place, and every component in recovery works  together for the good of the addict, the good of the person who needs that  freedom, that needs that new beginning, that new start. Medicine is part of it, but there it begins with the spiritual part, and involves many other components with  it. Well, let's go back to Reverend Buchman, get back into the history so we  understand how the tools and the components of breaking the addiction cycle,  with God's help to begin with, work the how. We'll talk more and more about the  how of recovery and breaking the addiction cycle, how it works, why it works.  Yes, addiction is baffling. It will always be baffling. But with God's help today, in  this session and the next three sessions, this session, along with two more, we  will then discover how it all works. Well, it brings us to the 12 Steps and their  development thanks to Bill Wilson, or Bill W as he's called, and Alcoholics  Anonymous, it began the 1930s and Bill W began. He was struggling with  addiction. His problem was alcohol that was his. It his drug of choice that had a  grip on his life, body, mind, spirit, the whole nine yards and what Bill came to  conclusion was he could not do it on his own. He was going to die if he did not  find an answer. Eventually, he became a part of the Oxford group, and God did  rescue him, save him, thanks to Reverend Buchman and others, helped Bill W  to get on the right track with God and recovery. What happened here? Well,  when it comes to the exact history and the catalyst of where Bill said, you know,  yes, the action group is good, but there's something more. There's other things  that need to be done. The Oxford group was going in a brilliant direction, but it  was getting more into politics and government and other policy issues. That's 

really not where Bill W was at. He felt it had to be more. More of a fellowship, it  would be more of grassroots movements, where he was in the East Coast, New  York area, to then other places. So as the story goes, Bill W's friend Edwin  Thatcher, or nicknamed Ebby, E, B, B, Y, Ebby, and I'll have this reading material posted for this session so you can read it in full, as I nuance as I highlight this  for you, to walk you through the history, because with Ebby, he came to Bill's  house, knocked on his door, and prior to that, was a cheery phone call, and Bill  opened that door, desperate, still, Still struggling, yes, part of the Oxford group.  Good, yes, needing to come to Christ, yes, yes. However, there needed to be  more. And with Ebby, he brought Bill into the Oxford group, brought him more  and more into the recovery process. And Bill said, There's something about you, Ebby. Ebby said, I found religion. Bill said, great for you. What does that mean?  Yeah. Bill knew about Christ, but before he could really embrace Christ, Bill  needed a pre step, a first step prior to the full step of accepting Christ as Lord  and Savior and for him to begin to flush out all the wreckage of the past. Well,  Ebby said, Well, maybe you ought to start here and then go there. Here's what  he meant. He said, Maybe you should start with well, saying I need to accept  God as I understand him, a God of my understanding, so I can at least get a  sense of who God is. Now, let's be honest as believers and assuming, as you  are taking this course and and you're a Christian believer, and you're following  Christ, you want to be involved in ministry restorative justice, as well as recovery ministry, as well as other forms of ministry, in the same vein, you're saying,  Yeah, I used to have my days. I fear, I doubt I I'm so learning who God is in  experience, I know who he is in terms of the doctrine of God. I took that with  perhaps Dr Feddes and other and also other great teachers here with Christian  leaders Institute. But more importantly, how do I experience and discover God's  presence in my life. And whereas I deal with my life issues, and what am I  depending on, instead of God to solve and resolve my life issues? That's where  Bill W was at too. He's saying, Man, I don't know what to do. And the Oxford  principles. There are six tenets that I highlighted somewhat in the previous  section on the Oxford group. But to full review, the principles are these. First of  all, men, mankind. Men and women are sinners. Mankind. Second tenet, men  and women can be changed. The third Tenet, the third tenet was that confession is a prerequisite to change. I need to admit, see the catalyst as I have here in  the PowerPoint, Bill God had his hand on him. Secondly, his catalyst was Ebby  coming to the door saying, I found religion. But let's start with you understanding God as you understand them. Bill W and then the Oxford group became a part  of Bill's life, and Bill started to ask questions and began to write and began to  ponder and reflect and looking at these six tenets again, men, mankind are  sinners. Men, women are sinners. Men, men, women can be changed.  Confession is a prerequisite to change as the third Tenet, fourthly, the changed  soul has direct access to God. Direct access to God. Why? Because, as we'll 

soon discover when we admit, when we get honest with ourselves, as the Bible  says, come. Let us reason together. God says, Book of Isaiah. God says, I will  make your sins, though they are red as crimson, white as snow, get honest with  yourself. Why is it that we in the church don't get honest with our sins? That's a  whole other discussion, but you could just see where that that tends to go,  because let's Let's also get honest. In another point, many in the church are not  honest about their sins. They don't admit them. Everything is fine. Thank you.  Even though we're freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional, I'm fine means f i n e freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional I don't want, I don't want  anybody else to know my business. Perhaps that's cultural, and I imagine it is in  many, many cases. And we come together as believers, where we worship, but  we have no intention of sharing the person sitting next to us that I just overdid it  with alcohol the night before, or I just fill in the blank. Well, of course, Bill was  dealing with alcohol, so the changed soul after we admit, confess, has direct  access to God. God is right there. I already know what you did. God is saying,  Just admit it, because that unlocks the door for freedom and coming to Christ.  The fourth, excuse me, the fifth tenet in the Oxford group was the Age of  Miracles has returned. The Age of Miracles has returned. Now, let's also admit  that miracles have always been there right from from the get go, right from the  start, when it came to how God did the miracle of His grace after Adam and Eve. But what the Oxford group was reflecting on was, was how the church somehow lost that that sense of the miraculous, and now we can see the miracles happen  in the lives of people who are admitting, confessing and also coming back to  God with that direct access. And the final tenant in the Oxford group that Bill W  experienced was that those who have been changed must change others give  back so that attention where you have again those working in the fields of  psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of The day, Carl Jung, for example, who  was into therapy, they all, and also others in medicine, they all came in and said, Whoa. This is a blend. This is a collaboration, an integration of all the disciplines in a social setting, namely the church, if you will, because the church is God's  people, people who are believers, coming together saying, we need to admit.  We need God to change us. And Bill W caught that eventually, he still struggled  though Ebby was his good friend and helped him in the mid 1930s and  eventually, as Bill continued to write, he began to build what then became the  big book, as it's called, or Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, Bill Wilson did intend for  that big book to be that guidebook, that manual for alcoholics, anonymous, as  we know it today, at that time, is a treatise. It was his own story and how God  brought him out of alcoholism and into full devotion to Jesus, and also to healthy living. Because, as Bill W's story went, he continued to search experience the  steps of Oxford group, and then began to develop the 12 steps as we know  them today. Because, as Bill came to understand God's understanding, of  course, that was the God of the Bible. Eventually he had to process things, 

things had to move through. And eventually he came into relationship with Dr  Robert Smith, or Dr Bob, as he's known today. And then as well, in Akron, Ohio,  where they came together and they wanted that they were two drunks that were  trying to help each other to stop drinking. And the more they worked on it, the  more they. Came to understand that, okay, there's something that needs to be  more boots on the ground, grassroots, something that will become a movement  from here to there, from us to other people, from one drunk to another, helping  others recover with support. And therefore the steps were born with the help of  Dr Bob with Bill Wilson. And happy to say that these steps can be summarized  in these 12 statements. Number one, be honest. Be honest, admit. Secondly,  have faith. Thirdly, trust God. Fifth or fourth, rather the fourth statement about  the fourth step is insight. Then step five, integrity. Step six, acceptance. Step  seven, be humble. Step eight, willpower. Step nine, forgiveness. Step 10 is  where there's conservation and also. Step 11, accomplishment and step 12, it  has to do with a new lifestyle, a new lifestyle where, again, God is directing your  life and you're giving back. Well, those statements to summarize, the steps  reflect the steps themselves, which are as Bill W developed them and wrote  them, and it was truly a miracle. God. God just poured His Spirit upon Bill, and it  just flowed out in record time where Bill wrote. Step one, we admitted again,  back to the Oxford group, those who admit, those who confess, will have access to God. We admitted we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. Step two, came to believe that power greater than ourselves  could restore us to sanity. Step three, made a decision to turn our will and our  lives over the care of God as we understand him. That's Trust. Trust. Step four,  here's the insight. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of  ourselves. Step five, we admitted to God, to ourselves, to another human being,  the exact nature of our wrongs. Step six, we're entirely ready now to have God  remove all these defects of character goes back to integrity. In Step seven, Bill  wrote, we humbly asked him, God therefore, to remove our shortcomings.  Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. The  wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life, amen. And so. Step  seven, we humbly asked him to remove the shortcomings only God can do it. I  cannot do it. Bill said, God, you can. Step eight, we made a list of all people we  had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all to amend, to add  life, to make it right in the lives of others who I have harmed, or again, those  who I've had resentment towards who harmed me, and where we can make it  right with each Other. So he made a list. Get ready. Number nine. Step nine  made up to recommend to such people wherever possible, except when to do  so would injure them or others. Step 10, here's the here's that, where it  becomes the lifestyle starts to take hold. We continue to take personal inventory, going back to Step Four to step 10, to continue to take personal inventory, and  when we were wrong, promptly admitted. It Aha, going back to step one to step 

four, now to step 10. All included in there are the practices of admission,  confession, and also integrity and Direct Trust, direct access to God, giving  turning it over to God, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, verbally to him. There's  power in words. Continue to take personal inventory. Here's what, here's what.  I'm wrong. God and Bill saw that that flow, that process, in step 11, was sought  through prayer, meditation and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the  power to carry that out. And Step 12, having had a spiritual awakening as a  result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs, mean in all of life's areas, every sphere of  life. And so that then brought Bill W to a place where, again, by God's power, the Alcoholics Anonymous book, The Big Book where these steps were then written  and, of course, explained all from Bill's experience, his treatise began to spread  like wildfire, and now, as we know, all over the world, all over the world, from the 1940s when it really got going right through today, where it's everywhere, and  eventually you have other adaptations. And also want to highlight as well, the 12 traditions. There are 12 traditions that Bill W and Dr Bob formed as well. They  began to see that the 12 Steps were the foundation. It bring us to the true  foundation, who is Christ Himself. And later on, there were some things that that  Bill and and Dr Bob experimented with that, that having to do with other other  things and other treatments, or the drugs and so on, that were not not healthy,  we still deal with our brokenness. Bill will be the first to tell you, if you're still alive today, I'm not perfect. I tried different things, as far as recovery, to really maybe  adapt or whatever, but truly going back, because he tried some things at LSD  and with Dr Bob and those things in the 1960s did not fares too well. But prior to this, in the 1940s and so on, and really going right on through the rest of his life,  still working the 12 Steps and helping another drunk to get sober, another drunk  to get sober, and so on. And that multiplied everywhere. And there are other  adaptations, because other people who are not struggling with alcohol  necessarily, but struggling perhaps with cocaine or with heroin, fentanyl, glue,  other things. People were into many other things, as we know, opioids of other  forms, painkillers, other substances. And they said, Bill, we we need something  that will specify, that will that will then help us to really zero in on that before we  can get into all my other life issues. Because, of course, Bill was specific about  alcohol and other people wanted to get specific about cocaine, gambling,  emotions, sex, everything about the human experience that can become a drug  of choice. And so what followed after, eventually was narcotics, anonymous  gamblers, anonymous emotions, anonymous and so forth. Sex addicts,  anonymous. There's so many different forms. And what they did is they took the  12 steps that I just stated, that Bill wrote verbatim, and they adapted it for other  things, even with Dr Les Carter, who is a Christian psychiatrist, part of the  minerals and Meijer clinics that have been well known here in the United States,

he wrote what was called the anger workbook. You might look it up, of  amazon.com, the anger workbook. And the anger workbook as an example  gives, He then developed a 13th step. So there are 13 steps to having victory  over anger, of course, adapted from the 12 Steps of recovery of Alcoholics  Anonymous. And these adaptations have been very, very good. But then there  were also 12 traditions that complemented and that Bill W and Dr Bob felt were  needed to be observed and also practiced. Years as people came together in  support groups, that was, that was the modus operandi. That was how they did  it. Dr, Bob and Bill W therefore had the 12 Steps. They had the desire to be  sober and to really work those 12 Steps. And as they say in recovery, it works if  you work it, it won't. If you don't, of course, it all depends on God's power in you, and are you going to surrender or not? Sounds like sanctification after  justification. The sanctification is Jesus chisel out, flush out all my wreckage, all  of my shortcomings, remove them, Lord. And so the method became what is  now well known today as the support group, Dr Bob and Bill W just got together  as two people that turned into five people, 10 people, and then other groups of  other 5, 10, 15, 20, people and so on. And groups began to pop up like popcorn  everywhere. Well, we are the 12 traditions. The first tradition that they wanted to  have, alongside of the 12 steps that they implore, they they encourage, exhorted to the to the alcoholic as the main focus. Point of reference was this. Number  one, the common welfare comes first. First tradition, the common welfare comes first. Second tradition, there is one ultimate authority, which is a loving God.  Third tradition, the desire to stop drinking is the only membership requirement.  Because with the Oxford group, you be you, there was membership in the  Oxford group, coming through the Oxford group, that was a change that Bill W  and Dr Bob eventually supported, they endorsed. Said, there's really no  membership. It's just come as you are attendance. Keep coming back so again.  The third tradition is the desire to stop drinking is the only membership  requirement. Fourth tradition is that each AA group is autonomous, except in  matters affecting all groups. And so they said, you know, each group needs to  be its own thing, but collectively, as there's a need to address issues, will help  each other. The fifth tradition, each group's primary purpose is to carry the  message to those still struggling with alcohol. Tradition six, Alcoholics  Anonymous, AA does not give money endorsement or prestige to organizations  outside the group's mission. Step or excuse me, the tradition seven. Tradition  seven, each group must self support and decline outside contributions. Tradition eight, the core of the group meetings is non professional peer support. Peer  support. Therefore, as I said earlier, Carl Jung, as Dr Jung, who was the founder of Jungian psychology and psychiatry methods and so forth. He then directed a  lot of people when the Oxford group got going. And of course, now you actually  AA to this form of peer support, because they he recognized Dr Jung, for  example, recognized that that this was working in addition to, or even better 

than one on one therapy. Okay, tradition number nine. There's no central  organizing body. There's no corporate office. There are central offices to support  AA groups you'll find each community today. So as far as big books, alcoholics,  anonymous books and other materials, you'll find at a central office in your  community, but there's no corporate office much like a bank or any other  corporation having a headquarters in New York City or in Detroit, Michigan or  what have you. Tradition 10, AA, Alcoholic, anonymous remains ah, political  many politics is not our focus here at all, with no opinion on outside issues,  tradition, 11, personal anonymity of members is deeply important. I'll say it  again. Personal anonymity of members is. Is deeply important members, in the  sense that, yes, there's no membership, but those who choose to become part  of an a group on a regular basis, you know, we're we need to have anonymity.  Finally, tradition 12, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of the traditions placing  principles above people. Finally, again, tradition 12, anonymity is the spiritual  foundation of the traditions, placing principles above persons for personal things and preferences. So with these traditions, Dr. Bob and Bill W have effectively put the 12 Steps along with these traditions to build a framework for a peer support  movement that led to an international movement of not only Alcoholics  Anonymous, but also many other spin offs, as I like to say, and adaptations of  the 12 Steps with other foci, other another focus, other foci, other things, to help  others deal specifically, with substance, other substances, other things, other  behaviors most effectively, because what Dr Bob and Bill W didn't realize was  they built another foundation that brought what the Oxford group was doing to a  new level, and also miraculous level For many, as many in AA have said, and  other anonymous groups, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, saved  my rear end, they'll say, but also, but then they'll say, those who are believers  Jesus Christ saved my soul. Next session, we're going to see how God brought  the 12 Steps now into a Christ centered, more Christ centered framework, over  20 years ago.