"I am interested in information on the genesis of the Seaman's Club and the interest of the Alcoholic Foundation and funding questions and/or relationships with other organizations during this period is fascinating."
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See p.357 of Jay Moore's book spells out the financial picture.?Rockefeller people contributed over $7,150 to "AA Seamen" from 1944-1948.?
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These were "loans" later forgiven; Moore details JDR Jr's dissatisfaction w/ whatever arrangements were made in the background. It looks like a grift: why did this small group ask Rocky for so much money?
The Rockefellers?bankrolled?the entire deal -- not that I have any problem with that. There doesn't appear to be ANY proof AA ever "paid back Rockefeller loans"? -- that's just AA rumor.
Not "saved" -- CREATED.
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Alcoholics Anonymous and the Rockefeller Connection: How John D. Rockefe...
This book straddles the divide between personal story and period history. In his finely researched account, Jay ...
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I don't have any more information than Moore's book. , But it seems like "A.A. Seamen's Club" was another of Bill's entities -- e.g. Highwatch Farm -- that got money from outside sources using the AA name. How Bill Wilson was connected -- he certainly owned "Highwatch Farm" but structured it so that his creditors couldn't seize the property, for his old unpaid debts -- remains unclear.?AA Seamen's was logically receiving?US govt funding (let's be honest), how much Bill W. personally profited we cannot guess.
Despite Bill's claim in 1947 (and earlier?) that AA was "fully self-supporting," it is documented that the?Rockefeller people were giving this AA entity money as late as 1949 (when it was restructured into yet another shell). I can only guess this special purpose vehicle was funded in part by the US govt.?See?Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Volume 8 (1947) p.502:?"The A.A. Seamen's Club further expanded its activities by giving talks on the subject of alcoholism, with the help of the U.S.S. Educational Division, at marine hospitals, schools, union halls and Seamen's Y.M.C.A.'s."
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U.S.S. was funded by the US govt, no doubt about it:
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United Seamens Service
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"I posted pamphlet separately. Below is a short announcement from Feb 1946 GV announcing the pamphlet available at the Seaman's Club ... and the only detail given was that there was a 5 step version of the steps and the full 12 steps. Next is March 1946 GV article with 5 Steps listed."
A couple of points must be clarified.?
1) There are reports online that Bill Wilson kept the upstairs room at the Club until the 1960s, that he stayed overnight there, i.e. it was his personal crash-pad. Did he pay rent -- how was that arranged???
2) Look carefully at the Seamen's Pamphlet, again. The 12 Steps are re-written! The whole gist is "We Seamen are different!" which presumably justifies changing the Steps. (I'm not agreeing with that; you can rationalize it however you like.) Who was responsible for that -- tenant of the upstairs room?
3) In fact, Bill devised different Step programs after the Rockefellers' 12-Step Program failed to meet his expectations. Later, he would claim the so-called "Six Step Program" came from the Oxford Group (False). But there is absolutely no period record of any "Six Step" program in the Oxford Group -- despite one vague and unsubstantiated comment by Clarence in the 1980s -- and none of the 1935-9 Pioneers' stories report any such make-believe. By contrast, several drunks' stories in the 1939 edition definitely allude to a course of 'Four Steps', so that could have been Bill's excuse. There's also nothing whatsoever in Dr. Bob's archive; it's Bill's muddle. What is absolutely certain, in the 1948-53 period, Bill himself (and no one else) provided different versions of his own abbreviated program.
Earl Treat's story, which dates from c.1953 (not 1937), begets an 'historical revisionism' :? everyone has been baffled ever since.?With this 1946 Seamen's Pamphlet and one earlier example, the shortened version must have been conceived in that nerve-wracking 1939-1940 period, when the Big Book was 'rotting in the warehouse' (a failure, he thought). The oldest example comes from a talk Bill W. gave to the press in Philly.
Apparently, the first recorded iteration of a 'Six Step Program' dates to March 1940 (uncredited to Bill W., the source) in M.W. Mountjoy¡¯s article from
The Philadelphia Record 4/1/1940.?
"Here are the steps we took toward recovery: (The following is a summary):
(1) "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable,
(2) "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
(3) "Admitted to God, as we understood Him, to ourselves, and to another human being the nature of our wrongs.
(4) "Made a list of all people we had harmed and made direct amends wherever possible.
(5) "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him.
(6) "Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs."
So thank you for posting this additional example, from ~5 yrs later. Similar 12 Steps, but altered in strange ways.
