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Dr Bob Smith, AA co-founder
http://drbobshome.com
Dr. BOB and the Good Oldtimers
Chapter 5. The alcoholic in the Oxford Group
At the core of the program were the “four absolutes”: absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love.
(In 1948, Dr. Bob recalled the absolutes as “the only yardsticks” Alcoholics Anonymous had in the early days, before the Twelve Steps.
He said he still felt they held good and could be extremely helpful when he wanted to do the right thing and the answer was not obvious.
“Almost always, if I measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can’t be very far out of the way,” he said.
The absolutes are still published and widely quoted at A.A. meetings in the Akron-Cleveland area.)
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