Maybe "old school" recovery will help your journey. If you're missing something in your quest for recovery, or with your current addiction treatment plan, it might be you need to get back to basics, or "old school" type of recovery. We bring you in touch with that here with interviews with founders of the programs themselves, and other old timers as well.
Recovery started the day Bill Wilson reached out to Dr. Bob because of his desire not to drink again. Back at this point in history, alcoholics just died. There was no "recovery". All the US had back then was "wet farms" where someone suffering from this disease would go to die - their brains turned to mush, i.e., why they were called
Recovery started the day Bill Wilson reached out to Dr. Bob because of his desire not to drink again. Back at this point in history, alcoholics just died. There was no "recovery". All the US had back then was "wet farms" where someone suffering from this disease would go to die - their brains turned to mush, i.e., why they were called "wet brain" facilities. Yes there was a small number of men who were able to put together a few months through the Oxford Group church - but like Bill found out at 8 months of sobriety - something "more" and "different" was needed. Understand that there was no "treatment" back then either. The government tried to respond to this problem with Prohibition. The church literally would go town to town having men "sign the pledge" or go on the "wagon" saying this was "of the devil" - but that didn't work either. Psychiatry called it mental illness. Medical doctors just threw up their hands. So the very roots of the idea of "recovery" started with the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. As the program grew, things changed. At one point Bill found himself blacklisted out of his own program. So what we're trying to do here in this category is to connect you with the "old school" of AA - or how things were in the beginning. If you are needing more in your tool kit for recovery, contact us.
As AA grew in size, things changed. Bill at one point was taken off the Grapevine, or the AA newsletter, and even banned from speaking at conventions. This was because of a difference of opinions mostly - separating the program into "old school" and the newer members. At the same time, more and more addicts were knocking on their doors
As AA grew in size, things changed. Bill at one point was taken off the Grapevine, or the AA newsletter, and even banned from speaking at conventions. This was because of a difference of opinions mostly - separating the program into "old school" and the newer members. At the same time, more and more addicts were knocking on their doors. Finding something "different" was needed, the program of Narcotics Anonymous was created. So in this section, we want to bring you more of that history where AA and NA overlap, as well as what happened to NA where Jimmy Kinnon, the founder, found himself locked out of his office one day. Why? We try and bring you "old school" NA in this category.
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As alcoholics started gaining long term sobriety for the first time, a new group of people came into existence. This created a whole new world as the disease gained medical attention. As the first woman got sober, she then created the National Council on Alcoholism - which in turn created the field for the treatment of alcoholism and e
As alcoholics started gaining long term sobriety for the first time, a new group of people came into existence. This created a whole new world as the disease gained medical attention. As the first woman got sober, she then created the National Council on Alcoholism - which in turn created the field for the treatment of alcoholism and even the idea it was a "disease" and not a moral failing, or spiritual problem. As addicts started also gaining recovery, so too did the idea of study and treatment come into existence. The world changes and we have the creation of new drugs - some promising to treat the disease with others saying it was something else entirely. In the 1990's, new 12-step programs were created such as Overeaters Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, etc. At the same time, a whole new field comes into being not tied to 12 step philosophy at all. Some new treatments claimed there was no such thing as a "disease", while others claimed to have a "cure". All these new voices creates a very confusing time in the world. At the same time, the original "old timers" have died, or have now become very old. We didn't have the cameras or recording equipment we have today, so a lot of the history is lost or in danger of being lost. This is the same problem many native Americans are dealing with - how do you preserve the history and traditions to pass onto the younger generation? Since not many can "live off the land" as the elders did, the young need to find a way to adapt old traditions into a new world. So what we're doing here is trying to preserve as much history as possible, as well as connect younger people back to the "old school" ideas so they can find what works for them in this modern world of today.
Here we'll connect you to interviews, books, videos, and as much history as we can about Bill Wilson and the other co-founders of AA. This includes Lois Wilson, who created Alanon for the wives to get support to help their husbands' newfound recovery.
While Jimmy Kinnon is considered by most to be the founder of Narcotics Anonymous, there was actually 10 men who started the program as we know it today. Before Jimmy, there was a whole other NA that started in NY, and then folded. Here we cover not only the history of NA, but also that of Naranon - created by Bob Barrett's wife.
Roy shunned being photographed or recorded, so all we have is his headstone. But we'll try and cover what we can about Roy here, and as much of the history of SA, and the off shoots of SA, such as Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, etc.
Since I'm still alive, I prefer to use the photo from my first time on national TV, the Sally Jesse Raphael show, for my pictures for now. I go into the history of Prostitutes Anonymous here, as well as my own personal history. For reasons best explained in my memoirs, the early members of PA who are still alive, are wanting to keep th
Since I'm still alive, I prefer to use the photo from my first time on national TV, the Sally Jesse Raphael show, for my pictures for now. I go into the history of Prostitutes Anonymous here, as well as my own personal history. For reasons best explained in my memoirs, the early members of PA who are still alive, are wanting to keep their anonymity at this time because of the lack of privacy one finds on the internet these days
I was lucky enough to come into recovery while there were people still alive who were part of the early days of AA when Bill Wilson would bring new members into his house. I also was fortunate enough to come into recovery while Jimmy Kinnon, and the original men who created Narcotics Anonymous, were still alive. In 1987, I launched my own 12-step program to help people exit the sex industry. To do this, I sought out as many living founders as I could of other 12-step programs, as well as people who were part of the early founding days of these programs, to create a "mentor board" to aid me in ideas to create this program. The 1990's was a time when there were literally 100's of 12 step programs, so I sought out as many of those founders as possible to pick their brains and become part of this "mentor board" I had created. Since I came into recovery myself about 1984, I was also hearing a lot of contradictory messages. It seemed like every other day I was hearing on the news that some new drug, or program, or therapy, had been created. So I personally entered a very confusing time for myself. To try and sort things out for myself, as well as for the benefit of this new program I'd created, I started diving into the history of recovery itself as a movement. At the same time, I embraced new ideas with an open mind. Then people started to die. Archives went up in flames. We didn't have the recording equipment back then we have today so finding actual recordings of people like Bill Wilson or Jimmy Kinnon are very rare. I doubt a video of Roy K. the founder of Sexaholics Anonymous, even exists as he shunned being recorded passionately. Roy created the first program that dealt with sexual addiction - so there's a lot of history there. Being also partly native American, I could see how they're trying to preserve their history for a new world and we share this common problem of recording the old ideas for the newer generations right now. I had been on TV, radio and doing live appearances from 1986 to about 1992 and everything I had was recorded on video or audio tape. Only I didn't know tapes will degrade over time, and with heat. Moving in Las Vegas during the summer, I lost crates full of those tapes. In trying to go back to get copies from the source, I realized no one was thinking about preserving these for historical purposes so they're just gone. While someone born in the year 2000 probably has their whole life on their cell phones, the history and knowledge of "old school" recovery is one I feel needs to be preserved for the younger generation to find. I was lucky enough the people I sought out were still alive to talk to me back then, but most of them are gone now. While there is a library that is archiving the history of the prostitution/sex trafficking movement, I haven't found one yet focusing on the subject of recovery. So for me, part of what I feel is "carrying the message" is trying to gather together, preserve, and transit what I can find on "old school" recovery to connect to people who haven't even been born yet so they can find what they need when that time comes. My goal here is to preserve as much as I can here, and then you can see what's of use to you or not. If you have any history you'd like to share with us, please connect with me so I can do that. We have a lot of audio and videotapes that need to be digitized, as well as scanning of old books and flyers, and we need to make them "findable" on the internet. So if you'd like to be a part of this project, please also reach out. I personally have been in recovery since 1984, but my official "clean date" is 1/3/85. I have found great wisdom and value in "old school" recovery that has proven it works by the lives of those I've seen it work for, and in myself as not many people with my history live as long as I have statistically. I saw a study once claiming someone with my history was in the highest mortality rate of anyone in recovery - so I had something like a 5 percent chance of living past 40 according to it. As I will die soon however, we're losing the oral history of these "old timers", so that's why I want to create something for the younger generations to still find when the time comes. We don't have any big corporations wanting to preserve our history, so we have to do it for ourselves. Welcome to "old school recovery".
Jody W. - website host/creator
Here we will connect you to face to face as well as online/virtual meetings. We try and point out which meetings we've been told will have "old timers" associated with them.
Here we connect you to face to face as well as online/virtual meetings. We will try and point out which meetings we've been told "old timers" tend to hang out.
Sites such as "in the rooms" host virtual meetings from different fellowships. So here we try and connect you to sources where there are "combo" or "hybrid" meetings of different fellowships.
While Sexaholics Anonymous was the first program created to address sex addiction, many found the definition of "sobriety" too strict. This created off shoots. So there are multiple programs set up to address sex addiction. We'll try to connect you to all of them here, so you can check out all of them.
While the industry itself is not limited to just prostitution, to connect with the courts where prostitution is still illegal - we call ourselves "Prostitutes Anonymous". However, there are people who seek recovery, but they don't view this as a "profession" So we connect you to both PA and "Exit the Game" here so you can find the support that works best for you..
The world, so too recovery, has changed over the years since the 1930's. Here we try and connect you to other recovery resources that are not 12 step programs. Some are supplemental, while others are in opposition. But we also are documenting the evolution or history of recovery, so those resources are part of what we want to help you find connection to.