AA: A Reflection of Bill W. Failed Self-Discovery

The sentiment that alcoholics should expect sobriety to be marked by long periods of struggle with their personal shortcomings is a reflection of Bill’s own struggles with depression. His decreased expectations for the quality of his own sobriety lead him to lower his expectations for others as well. Bill’s experiences with seeking help from psychiatrist lead him to a new understanding of the inventory process that is more psychological in nature. Also, in Bill’s mind, the method of substitution is adequate because he does not have the same faith in the ability of spiritual experience to address all of the alcoholic’s troubles.

This new version of Stepwork is no longer insists on spiritual experience as the answer to the problems of the alcoholic. Instead, it offers a solution that is social and psychological in nature. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and its brand of Stepwork effects the nature of the Twelve Steps within AA, and will also affect the practice of the Steps in all future Twelve Step fellowships.(StepStudy.org)

The Twelve Step Programs were all about Bill W.

It was a very self-centered program, one in which Bill W. wanted everyone to be just like him.

He struggled with the Twelve Steps, none of which helped relieve him of his depression.

Of course it never relieved him of his depression: the program forces people to look at themselves, to dwell on themselves, to try and fix something in their lives which can never be fixed: their flesh, their self-effort, the death within them that can never be taken away.

"Long periods of struggled with personal short-comings" describe every person who tries to make himself better. The task is just hopeless. Man does not need to be made better, but rather he needs to be given life, and that more abundantly. This crucial distinction mars the splendid life of grace and righteousness which God wishes every person to have in this life (Romans 5: 17)

This new version of Stepwork is no longer insists on spiritual experience as the answer to the problems of the alcoholic. Instead, it offers a solution that is social and psychological in nature.

In the "Big Book", Bill W. claimed that alcoholism was a spiritual problem. If alcohol abuse is a social and a psychological problem, then there is no need for a "Higher Power".

Of course Bill W. was a depressed.

Any life built on "not drinking" is not life at all.

The high incidence of suicide in AA should not surprise anyone, then, since even the "founder" of the program still plunged into severe bouts of depression.

Nothing will make a man sadder than focusing on himself.

StepStudy.org admits on its own website that the emphasis of "The Twelve and Twelve" differs considerably from the "Big Book". Why has no one in the meetings currently identify this outrageous disjunction?