Review
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Back to Basics members say the program works for
them, it gives them pracical ways to stay sober. -- The Day
Newspaper, New London, CT Oct. 13, 2002
Just a note of gratitude for all your efforts with Back To Basics
Book. -- Maeve-email August 21, 2003
We are very pleased with this program and have had great success
with this "new" approach to the twelve steps. -- Phill R.-email
December 20, 2001
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About the Author
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Wally Paton is the author of Back to Basics--The
Alcoholics Anon-ymous Beginners Meetings and How to Listen to
God--A Guide for Successful Living Through the Practice of
Two-way Prayer. He is the originator of the Back to Basics
Beginners Meetings, which have grown to more than 2,500 groups,
and produced more than 150,000 recoveries since its
reintroduction into the Twelve-Step community in 1997. This
original 12-Step meeting format was a phenomenal success during
the 1940s and 1950s, but had become an all but lost piece of
history until Wally rediscovered it.
Wally started his 12-Step spiritual journey on October 30,1988.
The following year, his sponsor told him, "If you don't know
where we came from, you'll never know what a miracle this program
truly is." Wally took this challenge to heart and set out to
learn all he could about the early days of the Twelve Step
Movement.
In the spring of 1993, Wally was in Washington, DC conducting
research for his first book, But, for the Grace of God, which
dealt with the explosive growth of the Twelve-Step movement in
the 1940s. While sorting through some archival materials, he
came across a 20-page pamphlet, published in 1944, which
described in detail how one of the local groups was taking
newcomers through the Twelve Steps in four one-hour sessions. In
his subsequent travels throughout the United States, Wally found
many reprints of this pamphlet along with various formats for
conducting Beginners Meetings. In addition, he interviewed more
than one hundred "old-timers" who had recovered in the 1940s.
Many told him the Beginners Meetings had saved their lives, and
they were disappointed when the meetings were replaced with other
formats in the 1960s and 1970s.
Wally researched the Beginners Meetings for two more years. Then
in the fall of 1995, Wallys spiritual advisor challenged him to
stop talking about the four one-hour sessions and start doing
something about them.
He said, "Wally, if you're ever going to learn how to fly, you
have to get out of flight school and climb into the plane." This
was a y proposition for someone who had a phobia about
speaking in public. But Wally walked through the fear and started
conducting the Beginners Meetings.
But, for the first year, Wally "flew the plane" right into the
ground. Even though he thought he was being true to the original
program, he had inadvertently incorporated some material from the
1970s into the Beginners Meetings, and as a result, he wasnt
seeing the recovery rates that had been achieved by the Twelve
Step pioneers.
Then in March of 1996, Wally met James Houck. At the time, James
was 90 years old and had been a sober member of the Oxford Group
for sixty-one years. Bill W. and Dr. Bob S. also were members of
the Oxford Group before they founded Alcoholics Anonymous in
1939. James was the last person alive who had attended Oxford
Group meetings with Bill W. and knew, from first hand experience,
the spiritual roots and the fundamental principles of the "Big
Book" and the original Twelve Step program.
James provided Wally with three missing concepts from the
original program that allowed him to successfully "fly the
plane." They were: (1) the verbal Fourth Step (moral inventory),
(2) the expanded Ninth Step that included forgiveness as well as
restitution, and (3) the written Eleventh Step (prayer and
meditation). He supplied Wally with a four-page pamphlet, written
in 1938 by a person who had attended Oxford Group meetings with
Dr. Bob. This pamphlet, titled "How to Listen to God," provided
clear, concise directions on how to conduct two-way prayer.
Since that eventful meeting in 1996, Wally and James have been
traveling across the United States carrying the message of the
Twelve Step pioneers at Back to Basics and How to Listen to God
seminars. They have personally taken over 15,000 people through
the Twelve Steps and have witnessed countless miracles of
recovery al
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