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The Back to Basics
program continues to evolve. Based on what has been observed and/or
described at the various Meetings and Groups throughout the world, Wally
P. has seen a pattern emerge. The people who are most successful at
"life changing," i.e. taking newcomers through the Twelve
Steps and witnessing the miracles, are those who have sharing partners,
are members of a local Back to Basics Home
Group and are involved in yearly Back
to Basics conferences.
These three levels of involvement can be summarized
as follows:
The Beginners’ Meetings were an integral part
of the "original" A.A. recovery program. But, during those early days additional
measures had to be implemented to achieve a 75 percent recovery rate, and we believe these
same measures are necessary today. James H. has provided us with a great deal of
insight as to "How it Worked" in the 1930's-1940's when we were so successful.
We are now trying to reintroduce the same support structure that was used by our A.A.
pioneers. This support structure consists of three levels:
Sharing Partner - (two people–once a
day)
Each person who goes through the Back to Basics Beginners’
Meetings (either the one month or the one day program) is asked to share his or her
Guidance with other person (a "sponsor," spiritual advisor or sharing partner)
every day. This practice is part of a daily Eleventh Step, which is essential for
maintaining long-term, contented sobriety.
Back to Basics Beginners' Meeting or
Guidance Meeting - (typically 6-18 people–once a week))
Everyone who is involved in Back to Basics needs to belong to a
local Group or Team. The purpose of the Group is to save lives by taking newcomers through
the 12 Steps in the weekly one-hour Beginners’ Meetings and/or by sharing Guidance at
Eleventh Step Meetings. The Eleventh Step Meetings have a variety of names but most of
them follow a very simple format:
Read pages 85-88 (Step 11) from the "Big
Book"
Practice a "Quiet Time" (typically five
minutes) so that anyone who hasn't done so, can write down his or her Guidance from God.
Share Guidance with the rest of the Group.
It has been our experience that the local Groups or
Teams function best when they have less than 20 members. When a Group gets larger than
that, members can "hide out" and not get the maximum benefit from belonging to a
B2B Home Group. In the original "Chicago Plan" which was in effect during the
1940's-1950's, a Group split into two Groups as soon as it reached 20 members.
Back to Basics Conference
(typically 150-300 people–once a year)
This yearly event is similar to the Back
to Basics Conference held in Clare, MI on September 17-18, 1999. Actually,
this was the Second Annual B2B Conference for the Clare area (the first one was held in
October 1998).
Please review the Back to Basics
"Workshop" web page for more details on the yearly B2B Conferences
We continue to ask for feedback from those of you
who are actively involved in the Back to Basics movement, as to
what is working, and more importantly, what is not working in your area. Now that there
are over one thousand Meetings and Groups and tens of thousands of recoveries, we need to
know how we can be of further assistance to you and your life saving efforts. Also we need
to know how to best utilize this web site.
Please keep in mind that Faith with
Works Publishing Company is a non profit enterprise with
four part time volunteers. Our resources are very limited. Because each
of us is employed (except for Wally P. who is temporarily out of work),
each of us can only devote a few spare hours per week to this life
saving work. We will continue to do our best to keep up with the
e-mail requests for information and we will try harder to keep this web
site up to date.
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