You don't need to leave A.A. or any other 12 Step program or even a treatment program just because you are a Christian. Nor do you need to flee to an exclusively Christian Fellowship, Christian Treatment Program, or Christian-Track Program just to believe or profess your beliefs in connection with your own recovery. You're the boss. You need all the help you can get. We've long needed a guide that will use history to help you in your recovery--whatever your choice of fellowships, groups, recovery programs, or treatment programs. The original Akron A.A. "Christian fellowship"--with its emphasis on reliance on the Creator of the heavens and the earth, acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, Bible study, prayer, guidance, fellowship, and witness--is nothing to be buried, to be hushed up, or to be afraid of mentioning. It's a part of recovery history--the most important part, the part that set A.A. apart in the 1930's as a cure for the "medically-incurable," an alternative to medicine, hospitalization, and clergy-dominated ideas. It embraced them all, but stood for the importance of a Society that took these ideas and let drunks be the message carriers. You can do this too and probably better if you know your history. Include this guide book in your reading. Include it in your recovery. Include it in your fellowship or group. Include it with any other recovery program: secular, Christian, or rational. It's history. It tells you what worked. It tells you how you can choose to use it today if you wish. It will help you understand words and phrases and ideas that came from historical roots. And it doesn't bash other ideas or fellowships. It seeks to inform all and urge them to include history in their curriculum. This is a guide to history that has not been available before. It's a guide that will supplement and not replace. It's a guide for you!
