Not-God: a history of Alcoholics Anonymous

903 Pages·1979·2.2 MB·English

by  Ernest Kurtz

Not-God : A History of Alcoholics
title:
Anonymous
author: Kurtz, Ernest.
publisher: Hazelden Publishing
isbn10 | asin: 0894860658
print isbn13: 9780894860652
ebook isbn13: 9780585307572
language: English
subject Alcoholics Anonymous--History.
publication date: 1979
lcc: HV5278.K85eb
ddc: 362.2/9286
subject: Alcoholics Anonymous--History.
Page iii
Not God
A History of Alcoholics Anonymous
Ernest Kurtz
Page iv
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the
following:
Excerpts from Bill W. by Robert Thomsen. Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc. Copyright 1975 by Robert Thomsen. Reprinted by permission of
the publishers.
Excerpts from Alcoholics Anonymous. Copyright 1939, 1955, 1976 by
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Excerpts from Twelve Steps And Twelve Traditions. Copyright 1952,
1953 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Reprinted by
permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Excerpts from Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. Copyright 1957
by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. Reprinted by
permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
The "A.A. Preamble," copyright © 1958 by the A.A. Grapevine, Inc.
Reprinted by permission.
Copyright 1979 © by Ernest Kurtz
First Published 1979
Expanded Edition First Published 1991
Appendix B First Published by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., San
Francisco, in AA: The Story, by special arrangement with the
Hazelden Foundation.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the
written permission of the publisher, Hazelden Educational Materials,
Box 176, Center City, Mn. 55012.
ISBN 0-89486-065-8
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-88264
Printed in the United States of America
Page v
To
G.H.
with gratitude
Page vi
ABOUT THE BOOK
Not-God is a fascinating, fast-moving, and authoritative account of the
discovery and development of the program and fellowship that we
know today as Alcoholics Anonymous.
Easily readable, Not-God contains more anecdotes and excerpts from
the diaries, correspondence, and occasional memoirs of A.A.'s early
figures than are heard in a hundred A.A. meetings. Kurtz traces the
interesting debts that A.A. owes to such persons and groups as the
psychiatrist Carl Jung, American philosopher William James, Akron
social matron Henrietta Seiberling, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as
well as the Oxford Group of Frank Buchman, a few Irish-American
Catholic priests, and fundamentalist religion.
Beginning with the well-known visit between the sober Ebby T. and
the drunken Bill Wilson, Kurtz documents Wilson's spiritual
awakening (or "hot flash" as the first fifty A.A.s called it), his desire
to tell other alcoholics what he had discovered, and his ever-growing
conviction that to stay sober he must work with other alcoholics.
The story relates the importance of the Oxford Group to the
development of A.A., the painful writing of the Big Book, even the
problems caused over the years by Wilson's unofficial status as "Head
of A.A.," and the fight involving the A.A. Board of Trustees. All is
told in the context of two important points: Wilson and the first
recovered alcoholics were keenly aware of their own limitation as
alcoholics, andmore importantthey discovered a health and wholeness,
a maturity, as sober individuals within the fellowship of A.A.
Ernest Kurtz was given full and complete access to the archives of the
General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York. His
unhindered research, coupled with extensive interviews of surviving
early members and friends of A.A., has resulted in an account with
documented accuracy.
Not-God clearly details the slow but unswerving development of a
program of recovery for alcoholics, and it carries the message that
Alcoholics Anonymous as a program and fellowship has to give to the
United States of America in the middle third of the twentieth century.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ernest Kurtz received his Ph.D. in the History of American
Civilization from Harvard University in 1978 and came to the study of
history after professional experience in both religion and psychology.
He is on the faculty of the Rutgers University Summer School of
Alcohol Studies, and holds the title of Adjunct Research Scientist at
the Center for Self-Help Research and Knowledge Dissemination at
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Page vii
First of all we had to quit playing God.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62
Page ix
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Part One: The History
Introduction 3
I 7
Beginnings: November 1934-June 1935 The Limitations
of the Drinking Alcoholic
II 37
First Growth: June 1935-November 1937 The Limitations
of the Sober Alcoholic
III 59
Independent Existence: November 1937-October 1939
Finding Wholeness in Limitation
IV 83
Prelude to Maturity: October 1939-March 1941 Needing
Others The Era of Publicity
V 111
Attaining Maturity: 19411955 The Limitations of
Alcoholics Anonymous
VI 135
Responsibilities of Maturity: 19551971 Alcoholics
Anonymous and the Wholeness of Limitation.
Part Two: The Interpretation
Introduction 157
VII 161
The Larger Context of American History
VIII 175
The Context of the History of Religious Ideas
IX 199
The Meaning and Significance of Alcoholics Anonymous
Appendix A 231
Appendix B 251
Notes 307
Bibliography 409
Bibliography Index 423
General Index 428