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Copy of the Baltimore Prologue / Old AA Preamble |
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This is the text of an old preamble that used to be used at AA Meetings. It was found floating around USENET. From what we can tell it was never "official" AA literature. If anyone can give us a better idea of where it came from, please write and we will pass it along to the other readers.
We received this note in regard to this on 3/2/00 - Thanks Bill !
That preamble, or one similar, was in use at the old "Waterfront Group" in San Pedro, CA. when I first started to come to meetings in 1965. Many longshoremen and merchant seamen attended that group. It was pretty rough and rowdy, but many stayed sober. I do not know if the the group still exists. It was held in the maritime union hall. I used to attend with my sponsor Lyle. By the way I just talked to my sponsor last week. He is 80 years old and 38 years sober. Still goes to 4 meetings a week. He is the reason I am alive today. Peace and God's Blessing - Bill H.
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Lost track of when we received this - Thanks Jim !
The AA archivist for Montreal told me that it's called the "Baltimore
Preamble" and came into existence around the same time our present
preamble was first published in the Grapevine in 1947. - Jim T.
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We received this note in regard to this on 9/12/00 - Thanks Phyllis !
It is always a pleasure to be able to contribute something, anything to a discussion of the saving grace of AA. I read with interest your selection of an old AA Preamble, and one person suggested that it might be the Baltimore Prologue. (To this day, we begin meetings in Baltimore by reading the 12 and 12 plus the "prologue" rather than the "preamble." ) In the beginning, the following was read at the opening of the meeting, nothing else, just this. The oldest group in Baltimore is the "857 Club," which I was fortunate to find in early sobriety. That's where I met "Sonny" Sonnenleitner, the grandsponsor to hundreds of newcomers. He passed away this past July, age 93. ( 53 years sober ) He got sober in 1947, and could still recite this word for word. What a power of example! - Phyllis S.
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We received the following information on 08/01/04 - Thanks Tom E. !
Found at:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/247
THE HISTORY OF THE WILMINGTON PREAMBLE
The Wilmington Preamble has long been surrounded by controversy and discussion of such has sparked many a debate almost from its inception in the early years of Alcoholics Anonymous. The history of our fellowship has mostly been passed from member to member over the expanse of many years; member whose very disease has a tendency to distort one's memory. Inaccuracies may prevail. The following is in no way an attempt to dispel those controversies, but an effort to establish an accurate history of the birth of the Wilmington Preamble and to keep it's true history alive for the enlightenment of future generations. Documentable corrections are welcomed.
The Wilmington Preamble's birth ties in with one of Wilmington's earliest members, Shoes L. Shoes joined the Wilmington Group and got sober in May of 1944.The following month in June, Shoes was Chairman of the group and in charge of getting speakers for their meetings. There was at this time a sportswriter in town covering the horse races at Delaware Park. His name was Mickey M. and Shoes asked him to speak at the group's meeting. Mickey replied that he wasn't much of a speaker but that he would write something appropriate. He reportedly went back to his room at the Hotel Dupont and wrote the Wilmington Preamble as we know it and it was read the following Friday night.
Being a sportswriter, Mickey M. covered events in other towns, and while in Baltimore covering the races at Pimlico gave the same preamble to the Baltimore Group which they also adopted as their own. Where it was actually read first is the subject of many debates but one fact remains clear, that this "Preamble" was widely accepted in Maryland and Delaware long before World Service sanctioned the shorter A.A. Preamble that is more universally accepted today.
THE WILMINGTON AA PREAMBLE
We of Alcoholics Anonymous are a group of persons for whom alcohol has become a major problem. We have banded together in a sincere effort to help ourselves and other problem drinkers recover health and maintain sobriety.
Definitions of alcoholics are many and varied. For brevity we think of an alcoholic as one whose life has become unmanageable to any degree due to the use of alcohol.
We believe that the alcoholic is suffering from a disease for which no cure has yet been found. We profess no curative powers but have formulated a plan to arrest alcoholism.
From the vast experience of our many members we have learned that successful membership demands total abstinence. Attempts at controlled drinking by the alcoholic inevitably fail.
Membership requirements demand only a sincere desire on the part of the applicant to maintain total abstinence. There are no dues of fees in A.A.; no salaried officers. Money necessary for operating expenses is secured by voluntary contributions.
Alcoholics Anonymous does not perform miracles, believing that such powers rests only in God.
We adhere to no particular creed or religion. We do believe, however, that an appeal for help to one's own interpretation of a higher power, or God, is indispensable to a satisfactory adjustment to life's problems.
Alcoholics Anonymous is not a prohibition or temperance movement in any sense of the word. We have no criticism of the controlled drinker. We are concerned only with the alcoholic.
We attempt to follow a program of recovery which has for its chief objectives: Sobriety for ourselves; help for other alcoholics who desire it; amends for past wrongs; humility; honesty; tolerance; and spiritual growth.
We welcome and appreciate the cooperation of the medical profession and the
help of the clergy.
The Old Baltimore Prologue - 1946
Alcoholics Anonymous is a group of people for whom alcohol has become a
major problem and who have banded together in a sincere effort to help themselves and other problem drinkers recover their health and maintain sobriety.
Definitions of alcoholics are many and varied.. For brevity we think of an alcoholic as one whose life has become unmanageable, to any degree, due to the use of alcohol.
We of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the alcoholic is suffering from a disease for which no cure has yet been found.. We profess no curative powers but have formulated a plan to arrest alcoholism.
The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees in A.A.
Activities are supported by voluntary contributions of the members.
Alcoholics Anonymous does not perform miracles, believing that such power rests only in God.
We adhere to no particular creed or religion. We do believe, however, that an appeal for help to one's own interpretation of a Higher Power, or God, is indispensable to a satisfactory adjustment to life's problems.
Alcoholics Anonymous is not a prohibition or temperance movement in any sense of the word. Neither have we any criticism of the controlled drinker. We are concerned ONLY with the alcoholic. From the vast experience of our many members we have learned that successful membership demands total abstinence. Attempts at controlled drinking for the alcoholic inevitably fail.
We attempt to follow a program of Recovery which has for its chief objectives, sobriety for ourselves; help for other alcoholics who desire it; amends for past wrongs; humility; honesty; tolerance; and spiritual growth.
We welcome and appreciate the cooperation of the medical profession, the clergy and the public in general.
One explanation of this preamble ( below ) was in "The AA Grapevine" of February, 2001
"A few months after the Grapevine published the Preamble in June, 1947, Ollie L., Dick F., and Searcy W. decided to beef it up for the drunks in Texas. "We worked on it, passed it around, and agreed on this version, " says Searcy W. "It's now read by groups throughout the state." It works for Searcy. He's been sober 54 years."
Old Preamble
We are gathered here because we are faced with the fact that we are powerless over alcohol and unable to do anything about it without the help of a Power greater than ourselves. We feel that each person's religious views, if any, are his own affair. The simple purpose of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is to show what may be done to enlist the aid of a Power greater than ourselves regardless of what our individual conception of that Power may be.
In order to form a habit of depending upon and referring all we do to that Power, we must at first apply ourselves with some diligence. By often repeating these acts, they become habitual and the help rendered becomes natural to us.
We have all come to know that as alcoholics we are suffering from a serious illness for which medicine has no cure. Our condition may be the result of an allergy which makes us different from other people. It has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently cured. The only relief we have to offer is absolute abstinence, the second meaning of A.A.
There are no dues or fees. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Each member squares his debt by helping others to recover.
An Alcoholics Anonymous is an alcoholic who through application and adherence to the A.A. program has forsworn the use of any and all alcoholic beverage in any form. The moment he takes so much as one drop of beer, wine, spirits or any other alcoholic beverage he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain sober for all time. Not being reformers, we offer our experience only to those who want it.
We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree and on which we can join in harmonious action. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our program. Those who do not recover are people who will not or simply cannot give themselves to this simple program. Now you may like this program or you may not, but the fact remains, it works. It is our only chance to recover.
There is a vast amount of fun in the A.A. fellowship. Some people might be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity but just underneath there lies a deadly earnestness and a full realization that we must put first things first and with each of us the first thing is our alcoholic problem. To drink is to die. Faith must work twenty-four hours a day in and through us or we perish.
In order to set our tone for this meeting I ask that we bow our heads in a few moments of silent prayer and meditation.
I wish to remind you that whatever is said at this meeting expresses our own individual opinion as of today and as of up to this moment. We do not speak for A.A. as a whole and you are free to agree or disagree as you see fit, in fact, it is suggested that you pay no attention to anything which might not be reconciled with what is in the A.A. Big Book.
If you don't have a Big Book, it's time you bought you one. Read it, study it, live with it, loan it, scatter it, and then learn from it what it means to be an A.A.
