In Episode Four of AA Beyond Belief-The Podcast, we will speak with Thomas B. from Seaside Oregon. We’ll talk about his experience getting sober in New York during the 1970’s, an interesting conversation he had with Bill W.’s secretary Nell Wing, and the history of the Back to Basics movement in AA.
We will also get an update on the long-standing request for a Grapevine Book of stories from agnostics, atheists and freethinkers in AA.
Supplemental Reading
Back to Basics and Other Threats to AA , by John H., AA Agnostica, May 17, 2015
Clarence Snyder: Almost Co-Founder, by Bob K, AA Agnostica, September 15, 2015
Nell Wing, AA’s First Archivist, Dies at 89 , Markings Your Archives Interchange, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2007
Many Paths to Spirituality Pamphlet, Reviewed by Chris G., AA Agnostica, August 13, 2014
Many Paths Pamphlet, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
Grapevine Book for Atheists and Agnostics in AA, AA Agnostica, September 7, 2014
No Grapevine Book for Atheists in AA, AA Agnostica, February 18, 2015
AA Grapevine Seeks Stories from Agnostics and Atheists in AA, AA Beyond Belief, November 25, 2015
PRAASA 2015, AA Agnostica, April 12, 2015
The Anonymous People, Many Faces 1 Voice, A Faces & Voices of Recovery Campaign
More About Thomas B.
Sober from his primary drug of addiction, Colt .45 — preferably by the case lot — since October 14, 1972, Thomas is grateful for the full life he has experienced in recovery for over 43 years. He’s been active at the group level throughout his recovery and in 1978 was the co-chair of the first New York City Young Peoples Conference. He is a co-founder (with his wife, Jill) and current GSR of Portland, Oregon’s Beyond Belief group. Retired from a 30-year career in addiction treatment, he and a fellow Vietnam Veteran colleague, Vince Treanor, were instrumental in establishing the correlation between addiction and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder during the 1980s.
He’s been an active participant on AA Agnostica since early in 2012 and has had the following articles published:
- First AA Meetings (June 2, 2013)
- One’s Religion is An Outside Issue (July 28, 2013)
- A Fellowship of the Religious? (April 20, 2014)
- Book Review: A Freethinker in AA (May 21, 2014)
- Tradition Two: A Flaw in AA Service Structure? (September 28, 2014)
- Several Reports from the Santa Monica Conference
- Sponsorship in AA (February 22, 2015)
- PRAASA 2015 (April 12, 2015)
- Bill Wilson’s Experience with LSD (May 10, 2015)
- Why it Works, (August 16, 2015)
He and his wife, Jill, live in gainful retirement on disability in Seaside, Oregon with their dog Kiera, and two cats, Savannah and Elsa, writing and helping to expand secular AA throughout Oregon.
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