District 7 Sunbeam
Volume III Issue 9
Welcome to the September issue of the District 7 Newsletter. This month, no
particular theme, just more random gleanings from here and there. Keep in
mind that some of this material is not Conference Approved and may not be
found in the Big Book. In those cases, please feel free to disregard it. As we say,
take what you need and leave the rest (which is also not in the Big Book).
Please consider writing a short (or even long) article that shares your experience
strength and hope with the rest of the District 7 newsletter readers. Send your
contributions, suggestions, and requests to be added to the distribution to:
[email protected]
– Jack S-O, Alcoholic Editor
District 7 Monthly Business Meetings are held at 7:30 pm on the
2nd Wednesday of the month at Christ the King Episcopal Church,
3021 State Route 213 East, Stone Ridge, NY 12484. If you’re a
Group Service Representative (GSR), please plan to attend and
represent your group. If your home group is not represented by a
GSR, why not volunteer to be GSR? Service is gratitude in action.
Step 9
Made direct amends to such
people wherever possible,
except when to do so would
injure them or others.
Tradition 9
A.A., as such, ought never
be organized; but we may
create service boards
or committees directly
responsible to those they
serve.
Concept IX
Good service leadership at
all levels is indispensable for
our future functioning and
safety. Primary world service
leadership, once exercised
by the founders, must
necessarily be assumed by
the trustees.
Mission Statement: The District 7 Newsletter is published monthly and is distributed as an
e-mail in an effort to be more eco-friendly, as well as to reduce postage and printing costs. Please
feel free to forward this e-mail, because we are unable to reach all our District 7 members,
especially at the group level. If you want your contributions to be included in the newsletter,
please e-mail us at [email protected] The District 7 Newsletter committee will
do its best to make this a valuable resource for communication, and to allow the members of our
District to keep in touch with each other, further strengthening the unity of our fellowship.
Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved HMB District 7
A.A. and Alcoholics Anonymous are registered trademarks® of Alcoholics Anonymous World
Services, Inc.
Some material reprinted from AA service materials with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.
September 2012
Page 1
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Trusted Servants
Bill W. and LSD
District Committee Member (DCM)
Ritch L.
Alternate DCM
Mike C.
Treasurer
Dan B.
Secretary
Barbara W.
Records
Kevin B.
Treatment
Guy K.
Cooperation with the Professional Community/Public Information
(CPC/PI)
William D.
Literature/Grapevine
Ruth Functions
Jay T.
Newsletter
Jack S.-O. [email protected]
Answering Service Liaison
Pat D.
Service Opportunities:
• Special Needs
• Bridging the Gap
• Corrections
District 7 Meeting Minutes 8/8/2012
One of the fascinating things discussed in the new documentary Bill W.
was issue of Bill’s experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD. I’ve
heard people say in meetings that Bill took acid, making it sound like he was
experimenting with a street drug. I recently read the following post by Glenn
C. in an online group that focuses on AA history:
[email protected]
This post answers those in the fellowship who may use the issue to criticise
our singleness of purpose, or to criticise Bill himself...
– Editor
Many AA historians have written about Bill Wilson’s experiments in taking the
powerful psychedelic drug LSD, beginning on August 29, 1956, and about the fact
that Father Ed Dowling also took LSD as part of those investigations.
As you note, an often morbid fascination with this topic seems to have arisen
because when people hear the term LSD, they all too often think primarily of the
use of that substance later on within the psychedelic drug subculture that developed
during the 1960s (involving Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, and a number of popular
rock musicians). And it is true that Bill Wilson at least seems to have been trying to
reproduce the experience of cosmic consciousness with the aid of the psychedelic
drug.
But the part of this story to which AA historians should be paying much
more serious attention, is that a man named Aldous Huxley was also a major
participant in the earlier, more scientific LSD experiments of the 1950s. There
was a whole circle of people involved, including Huxley, Gerald Heard (who was
interested in many of the same things as Huxley and Bucke), the psychiatrist Sidney
Cohen, and eventually Bill Wilson, Father Dowling, and one of the Duke University
parapsychology researchers.
Aldous Huxley was the author of The Perennial Philosophy (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1945), which was basically a more modernized version of
Richard Maurice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the
Human Mind, by someone who knew more about philosophy and theology, not only
in the area of Asian religions but especially in the history of Catholic mysticism:
Meister Eckhart was the most quoted figure in Huxley’s book, but he also had
numerous quotes from Aquinas, Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Catherine, Francis de
Sales, John of the Cross, and the Theologia Germanica.
(The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther published two editions of the
Theologia Germanica in the early 1500s, so there are strong linkages to one
important variety of Lutheran spirituality here too – remember that Frank Buchman
was a Lutheran pastor.)
Did You Know? Every
issue of this newsletter,
as well as those of most
other Districts in HMB
Area 48, can be found
on the HMB web site:
www.aahmbny.org
and click on the
Newsletters tab.
Back issues of the HMB
Area Newsletter are
also available there,
as well as details of
upcoming Area events.
There are no meeting minutes for this month’s meeting.
(continued on page 4)
Page 2
September 2012
September 2012
Page 3
District 7 Sunbeam
(continued from page 3)
The Original 6 Steps:
1. Complete deflation
2. Dependence and
guidance from a Higher
Power
3. Moral inventory
4. Confession
5. Restitution
6. Continued work with
other alcoholics
– Big Book, p. 263
Father Dowling, we must not forget, was an active participant in all this.
And during the latter 1950s, there was much more involved than just LSD. He and
Bill Wilson were two men working together on the further reaches of spirituality:
reading, talking with, and engaging in radical spiritual experiments with Aldous
Huxley himself, their generation’s famous equivalent to Richard Maurice Bucke.
These three gentlemen were not crazed young hippies in their teens and
twenties, with long hair and headbands and flowers in their hair, wearing love beads
and riding around in old VW minibuses painted with psychedelic designs. Wilson
and Dowling were in their late fifties and early sixties at that time, and Aldous
Huxley was in his sixties.
But Bill W. did insist that people needed to read Buckley’s book on Cosmic
Consciousness if they wanted to understand what he had really experienced, not
only at Towns Hospital, but also at Winchester Cathedral and the tomb of the
Hampshire Grenadier. And I would add to this, that one should also look at Aldous
Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy.
Why was Father Ed Dowling also involved in this? He was clearly over
on what was – in the Roman Catholic Church during the period before the Second
Vatican Council (1962-65) – the left wing of the Jesuits.
For famous examples, see the writings of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
SJ (1881-1955), a famous Jesuit paleontologist who was removed from his teaching
position for his ideas about the evolution of human spiritual consciousness.
Also see the figure of Cardinal Jean Daniélou SJ (1905-1974), a Jesuit who
wrote about figures like St. Gregory of Nyssa, who represented the same kinds of
ideas that Aldous Huxley was describing in his book on The Perennial Philosophy.
The Roman Catholic sociologist and novelist Father Andrew M. Greeley
says that liberal young Catholics studying at the University of Chicago in the period
before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) regarded Jean Daniélou as a great
hero. He showed them how they could continue to be faithful Catholics without
having to buy into all of the dogmatic and authoritarian demands of the people in
the Church hierarchy who were insisting on obedience to the Baltimore Catechism
and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Father Dowling’s students in Chicago loved him too, because he was a
representative of something very much like Cardinal Daniélou’s spirituality, a
spirituality based on feeling and the deepest intuitions of the heart, rather than overrationalistic theories about the mechanical application of doctrines and dogmas.
District 7 Sunbeam
HMB District 7 Treasurer’s Report
July 11, 2012
Suggested 7th Tradition
Contributions: (40/30/30)
Beginning Balance
$1,120.17
Income
District 16 (phone bill)
Young & Young at Heart
Just for Today
Income subtotal
Expenses subtotal
NOTE: These suggested
distribution percentages
were recently updated. See
Pamphlet F-3. Self-Support:
Where Money and Spirituality
Mix, page 13.
$286.03
$1,081.14
Prudent Reserve
Available Balance
September 2012
$247.00
30%
General Service Office (GSO)
P.O. Box 459
Grand Central Station
New York, NY 10163
$35.18
$182.04
$68.81
Ending Balance
Page 4
$107.00
$40.00
$100.00
30%
HMB Area Association
Rt. 30, #114
118 Polar Plaza
Amsterdam, NY 12010
Expenses
Verizon
Answerphone July
Answerphone August
40%
HMB District 7
P.O. Box 1654
Kingston, NY 12402-1654
September 2012
$500.00
$581.14
Page 5
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
Quote of the Week
Letter to the Editor
“Sometimes you don’t realize all you need is God
until all you have is God”
MY OPINION, for what it’s worth, based on other things I have read. Oh
my God! He actually reads something other than the Big Book? Bill was
concerned that some alcoholics might turn the Big Book into a holy relic.
The book is mostly opinion. This is why he continued writing. He did not
intend for the BB to be the end all. How about all the other literature that
AAs used to help stay sober prior to Conference Approved literature? i.e.
Dr. Bob used the booklet The Upper Room, which is strictly religious.
How many of us got sober using Hazelden’s One Day at a Time before
AA published their own daily meditation Daily Reflections? I hear some
groups in the South actually use the Bible at meetings. I thought AA had
no opinion on outside issues. Whatever floats your boat and helps you
stay sober. While not drinking, you may even find it helpful to go to a
meeting. Just MY OPINION. – Bob L.
Even after years in recovery and with all my sober experience, I’m still
amazed by my tendency to put so many things before God. Many times
I’m convinced that the new car, that perfect job, or that relationship will
be the answer, and that my life will finally improve and I’ll be happy.
AA is not a program
of self-improvement;
it is a program of selfacceptance.
– My Favorite Alcoholic
My stubborn reliance on this myth can be pretty disappointing. I’ve been
reminded in meetings that anything I place above God will be taken from
me, and given the nature of life – how all things change – this has often
proved true. It’s painful when it happens, but the good news is that it
always leads me back to God.
The greatest gift I have today, and the one constant source of strength and
hope in my life, is my relationship to my Higher Power. My Higher Power
has the answers and solutions to the problems I face and has a deeper love
and caring for me than I’ll ever comprehend. When I’m connected to God,
there are no worries, no wants and no needs. When things get stripped
away, as they will, and all I’m left with is God, it’s then that I remember:
all I ever needed is God.
Peter K. from Fresh Start has been doodling in Google+. Here is his
illustration of the phrase: “It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom
the rest of us had hit to the point where it would hit them.” – 12 & 12
page 23
The bartender says: “You
know, we have a drink
named after you.”
The grasshopper replies:
“Really? You have a drink
named Eddie?”
Upcoming HMB Area 48 Events:
9/15 10/13 11/18 10/26 -28
A grasshopper goes into a
bar and hops on to a bar
stool to order a drink.
Fellowship Day
Area Assembly
Area Fellowship
24th Annual Northeast Women to Women Conference
What do you think? Do you have an illustration, photo, cartoon, poem,
or other art that you can share with the rest of our readers?
Page 6
September 2012
September 2012
Page 7
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
HMB Area:
Hudson, Mohawk,
Berkshire
Saturday, September 15, 2012
9AM – 3PM
Hosted By the Eastern Cluster (Districts 1, 2, & 18)
Location:
Heard in a meeting: I’m
happy to be at a meeting
of AA, fully clothed and in
my right mind.
St. John’s Episcopal Church
146 1st Street (at Liberty St)
Troy, NY 12180
Tentative Agenda
9-10 am:
Meet and Greet (Coffee, pastries, etc)
10:00 am:
Area Committee Meetings (which includes District Committee
members - BTG and Grapevine will select committee chairs for 2 year
terms starting January 2013)
GSR Orientation for any and all GSR’s and
anyone wanting to learn about “the most
important position in AA”
11:15 am:
Workshop on Traditions 3 and 4
12:15 pm:
Lunch
1:15 pm:
Contact:
Page 8
Area Business Meeting –
Reports by Area Officers, Area Committee Chairs, DCM’s
[email protected]
518 366-5631
September 2012
September 2012
Page 9
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
AA History in August
24th Annual Northeast Woman to Woman Conference
A WORKSHOP WEEKEND BY AND FOR SOBER WOMEN IN RECOVERY
SAVE THE DATE
October 26-28, 2012
Heard in a meeting,
to start the Serenity
Prayer:
Who made the rivers
and saved our livers?
Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel
1000 Spring Street
Elizabeth, NJ 07201
SPEAKERS * MEDITATION * WORKSHOPS
SATURDAY NIGHT BANQUET & MORE
TO BE PLACED ON OUR MAILING LIST
EMAIL: [email protected]
REGISTRATION MATERIALS WILL BE MAILED MAY/JUNE-2012
Committee meets the following Saturdays at 3:00 pm at:
New Life Christian Church - 12 Prospect Street, Bloomfield, NJ
(Feb. 4 & 25, March 10 & 31, April 21, May 19,
June 16, July 7, Aug. 18, Sept. 15 & 29, Oct. 13)
2012 Conference Committee Contacts:
Chair:
Barbara B.-R.
[email protected]/973-819-5564
Co-Chair:
Anita C.
[email protected]/201-306-4960
Sept 1
1939 - First AA group founded in Chicago.
Sept 11
2001 - 30 Vesey St., New York. Location of AA’s first office is destroyed during the
World Trade Center attack.
Sept 12
1942 - U.S. Assist. Surgeon General Kolb speaks at dinner for Bill and Dr. Bob.
Sept 13
1937 - Florence R, first female in AA in NY.
Sept 13
1941 - WHJP in Jacksonville, FL airs Spotlight on AA.
Sept 17
1954 - Bill D, AA #3 dies.
Sept 18
1947 - Dallas Central Office opens its doors.
Sept 19
1965 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes “Alcoholics Can Be Cured Despite
AA”
Sept 19
1975 - Jack Alexander, author of original Saturday Evening Post article, dies.
Sept 21
1938 - Bill W. & Hank P. form Works Publishing Co.
Sept 24
1940 - Bill 12th steps Bobbie V., who later replaced Ruth Hock as his secretary in
NY.
Sept 30
1939 - Article in Liberty magazine, “Alcoholics and God” by Morris Markey.
Other significant events which occurred in September, but for which we do not
have a specific date:
1930 - Bill wrote 4th (last) promise in family Bible to quit drinking
1939 - Group started by Earl T. in Chicago.
1940 - AA group started in Toledo by Duke P. & others.
1940 - Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases gives Big Book unfavorable
review.
1946 - Bill & Dr. Bob both publicly endorsed National Committee for Education
on Alcoholism founded by Marty M.
1946 - First A.A. group in Mexico.
1948 - Bob writes article for Grapevine on AA, “Fundamentals In Retrospect”.
1949 - First issue of A.A. Grapevine published in “pocketbook” size.
Every happening, great and
small, is a parable whereby
God speaks to us, and the art
of life is to get the message.
– Malcom Muggeridge
From http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/
Page 10
September 2012
September 2012
Page 11
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
More AA History
It’s Not in the Big Book!
I hear a lot of opinions in meetings. If someone offers an opinion, I feel free to
take it or leave it. It may or may not support my recovery, and it may actually
be contrary to the AA program as described in the Big Book.
A common slogan we hear all the time is “Easy Does It.” But does it, really?
What does the Big Book say?
Half measures availed us nothing. Page 59
God, if You are who You
say You are, please help
me. Thank You. Amen
We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the
past. Page 84
I learned this little prayer
in rehab from an elderly
nun. She said this was a
good place to start. I’ve
found it so...
...a manner of living which requires rigorous honesty. Page 58
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to
any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps. Page 58
This above all: To thine
own self be true.
And it must follow, as
the night the day,
Thou can not then be
false to any man.
– Shakespeare
From Hamlet: Polonious
speaking to his son
Laertes.
We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.
With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be
fearless and thorough from the very start. Page 58
So the Big Book suggests Easy Does it - But Do It!
Another common suggestion heard in meetings is Think the Drink Through
or Remember Your Last Drink/Drunk. Do these suggestions really help avoid
the next drink? Again, what does the Big Book say?
Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental
defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither
he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His
defense must come from a Higher Power. Page 43
We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness
with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation
of even a week or a month ago. Page 24
Page 12
September 2012
September 2012
– Editor
Page 13
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
The Knots Prayer
The Grapevine Corner
Dear God: Please untie the knots that are in my mind, my heart and my life.
Remove the have nots, the can nots and the do nots that I have in my mind.
Erase the will nots, may nots and might nots that find a home in my heart.
Release me from the could nots, would nots and should nots that obstruct
my life.
And most of all, dear God, I ask that you remove from my mind, my
heart and my life all of the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen.
– Anonymous
“Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are,
ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a
realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin.”
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., March 1962
From: “What Is Acceptance”
Best of the Grapevine, Vol. 1
“We must never be blind sided by the futile philosophy that we are just the
hapless victims of our inheritance, our life experience, and our surroundings –
that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for us – We have to believe
that we can really choose.”
AA Co-Founder, Bill W., November 1960
From: “Freedom Under God: The Choice Is Ours”
The Language of the Heart
September Anniversaries & Celebrations
Did you know?
The words sponsor
and sponsorship do not
appear in the main text
of the Big Book.
9/2 Carl celebrates 5 years at the Breathing Easy Group, Blue Mountain Reformed Church
9/6 Denny celebrates 20 years at New Freedom Promises Group,
Lomontville
9/25 Vivian celebrates 9 years at Just for Today in Ellenville
9/27 Andre celebrates the Big 1 at Kingston Young People’s Group
Meeting News
9/17 Monday Night Women’s meeting 20th Anniversary
St. James Methodist Church, Kingston
6:30 Eating - finger foods
7:30 Meeting
Open to all!
Page 14
Copyright © 1944-2012. AA Grapevine, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprints by
Permission Only.
Daily Grapevine Quote
http://www.aagrapevine.org/
Earlier this year, Grapevine launched a new free service for the fellowship. Every
day, a new quote is published on:
www.AAGrapevine.org
and sent out as an e-mail. Each quote is drawn from the deep well of classic
Grapevine stories dating back to 1944. Start your day with an inspiring passage
from Grapevine Quote. Don’t forget to tell your group and friends. Point your
browser to:
www.AAGrapevine.org
look for the Daily Quote box, and click on the Sign up for the daily e-mail link.
Woodstock Womens’ Group
Sundays 10 AM - 11:30 AM
Needs a baby sitter. Pays $25
September 2012
September 2012
Page 15
District 7 Sunbeam
District 7 Sunbeam
The phrase that is
guaranteed to wake up
the group: “...and in
conclusion.”
–Unknown
GOD
Group Of Drunks
Good Orderly Direction
Great Outdoors
Give Over Distress
Page 16
September 2012
September 2012
Page 17