--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00004 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:12am \/To: RICH WARD (Read 1 times) Subj: Discussion of the Dieties On (15 Jan 96) Rich Ward was mumbling to CHRISTIAN HEDEMARK... RW> I never locked anyone out in 9 years (+-) in the echos, only saw it RW> happen once and not in recovery echo. However it did happen.... and I know why... now.... Tim.... ... I'm not available for comment.. --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00005 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:27am \/To: ALL (Read 1 times) Subj: History lesson On (15 Jan 96) Rich Ward was mumbling to CHRISTIAN HEDEMARK... RW> On (11 Jan 96) CHRISTIAN HEDEMARK wrote to RICH WARD... RW> Stick around some of us might put a few of the HISTORY of (12 RW> step/recovery) Echo messages in and you might enjoy them. AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY OF RECOVERY BBS & ECHO by: Achilles (04/88) Recovery was launched during June or July of 1986 in San Francisco by Bob Kovach. I'll have to check my files but I believe the exact day was July Fourth. As I recall, it was a BBS with separate message areas for A.A., N.A., Al-Anon, O.A., Smokers Anonymous and Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous. These were all 'open' meetings. There was also THE CLOSED MEETING. I never knew what Bob's criterion was for admission to The Closed Meeting, but I assume it was simply that one be a member of a 12 step fellowship...and of course, one is a member of a 12 step fellowship if one says one is. Admission to the closed meeting required the 'applicant' to complete, online, a form asking such questions as "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of a Twelve Step Program?". The ECHO was born on January 24, 1987. Bob says that the first link to be added was LINKS.BBS in Chico, California. I recall that the first message I saw from the outside world was from St. Joseph's Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. It seems Rick Ward was doing about the same thing at the same time on the east coast and before long the ECHO was Bi-Coastal (in San Francisco, we take that sort of thing for granted). Concurrent with the addition of the Twelve Step Echo, Bob added the AIDS/ARC Echo. AIDS/ARC grew much faster than the Twelve Step Echo and, I believe, in conjunction with St. Joseph's Medical center in Phoenix, Arizona, encompasses a network of Mini's (the BIGGER Boys). Everybody spent a couple of months saying hello and then we began to ask ourselves if we were a group/meeting. In July of 1987 I submitted the proper forms to our District Registrar to register the LOCAL A.A. 'meeting' of Recovery as a group. This coincided with the meeting's first anniversary. I received confirmation of this registration a couple of months ago. Over this past Christmass the Recovery Group hosted a meeting at an Alkathon in San Francisco. While this was not the first time the group had done this, it was the first time it was at a reasonable hour (the other time was 3am). Thus, I and a number of others met for the first time. After sharing with the absolute anonymity that this medium provides for more than a year...well, it was just plain giddy! xMessenger had already volunteered to be our treasurer and he had just received the first acknowledgement of the disbursement of our contributions from central office in New York. Thus, with some excitement and a little confusion, he gave our first treasurer's report. Members of the group had met before, to celebrate birthdays at chip meetings, and wore red carnations in order to recognize one another. I, unfortunately, never made it to one of the 'karnation kid' gatherings. However, the Christmass meeting proved to be the impetus for my election as secretary. By the time I had made up my mind to nominate Bob for secretary the group had made up it's mind on me. I seem to recall a strikingly accurate rendition, in pixels, of the sound of a locomotive whistle. The wording of your message causes me to question if there may not be some confusion about the distinction between the RECOVERY ECHO, the RECOVERY A.A. Group/Meeting and the Recovery BBS. The Recovery Echo meets at the Recovery BBS, as do the Recovery A.A. meeting (of the local, registered group), the Recovery N.A. meeting and so forth. The address of the Recovery A.A. meeting is (415) 441-2539 (you can only get there by modem). I am the secretary. xMessenger is the treasurer. Bob recently became seriously ill with complications from AIDS and turned the 'meeting hall' over to Tim S, who had been the assistant SYSOP (coffee maker?) for some time. To be honest, I don't know the exact proportions xMessenger uses to distribute the contributions, but I do know that our County District meeting's treasurer's report on February 2 shows a $26 contribution. Rick Gaudio has volunteered to be our archivist. Bios! Bios! My address and that of Bob Kovach are listed as contacts with central office in New York. The members of the group mail their contributions to xMessenger. When the echo began I must confess I found it more colorful...we had Duck Herder, Anonymous, Powerless, Coffee Maker, Bears (and Lions and Tiggers) and so forth. I strongly disapprove of the mundaneness of using such uncreative monikers as the names on our birth certificates, and this has nothing do to with anonymity. It was just more....colorful. It seems there is an unmistakable trend towards conformity developing but perhaps my being in San Francisco makes me more sensitivity to this than most? Date: 26 May 94 21:03:00 Public From: Tim Spofford To: Alan (aka Vulcan) Subject: Hi there ! -Again - Hello Alan! Sunday May 22 1994 22:22, Alan (aka Vulcan) wrote to All: A(V> Meanwhile I found another USA echo ....Recovery.......? what's the A(V> difference apart from the absence of reference to the 12 steps ? Sometimes not a hell of alot. History time (revisionist, undoubtedly): WARNING: This is a long and potentially boring message. In 1986 there was MEETING. I gather, although it was a few months before I got here, that the participants sought to run it as one (a meeting, that is). I'm fairly sure there's at least one person still active from MEETING; maybe he'll chime in. On January 25, 1987, Bob K (first sysop of Recovery BBS in San Francisco) and Richard Ward (at the time a sysop in Washington DC but now in Long Beach, California) forged a link and created RECOVERY Echo. It was, or tried to be, guided by AA principles but was not seen as a meeting, format-wise, but merely a place for people to share their experience, strength and hope around their struggles with, and recovery from, alcoholism. At that time, it was almost exclusively AA, although I no longer remember whether it was explicitly such. In any event, it gradually came to encompass people from a number of other fellowships. MEETING and RECOVERY co-existed for a few, maybe six, months, but alot of messages were cross-posted to both echos, RECOVERY grew and MEETING didn't, and eventually it faded from sight. I think there may have been some hard feelings for awhile between the two groups stemming from differing philosophies and such (having more to do with fidonet networking issues than with "program" issues) but that part of the history is probably lost. In, roughly, 1989, Jim A founded OAsis BBS in Oakland, California, and at the same time, OASIS Echo, both primarily for people in Overeaters Anonymous. Both still exist, although Jim eventually turned OAsis BBS over to its current sysop, Michael J, moved to Washington, DC, and as far as I know is now out of the online recovery community. Bob E, a sysop from Florida, started 12_STEPS echo, basing it on daily postings from 24 Hours a Day (not an AA book, but written by an AA from his neck of the woods and, in this country at least, widely used by AA groups in some parts of the country. Florida, apparently, is one of them). Bob E dropped out of sight and Joe Jared (a sysop from, first, Orange County and later Oakland, California) and I (who had taken over Recovery BBS when Bob died, before I moved from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, leaving Recovery BBS in the capable hands of its current sysop, Rich G - are you getting the idea that some of us in this country move around alot?) Joe Jared and I picked up 12_STEPS echo and, in consultation with the 10-15 participants at the time, developed the current format, the echo rules that we still use, and got it on the Zone 1 Backbone. (RECOVERY Echo had been on the backbone from the beginning, from long before it was called The Backbone). Around this time, things were getting particularly uncomfortable for alot of people in RECOVERY. How to put this delicately? A number of the articipants and alot of the messages related to issues that, while coming from Anonymous" programs, had nothing or little to do with substance abuse, in whatever form (including Al-Anon/NarAnon), and tended also, from the perspective of some, o carry with it alot of blaming and rage. As a result, a group of sysops (primarily) whose primary program was AA decided that there was a need ("a want"?) for an echo that was more closely focused on recovery from alcoholism, based on the big book and the 12 steps, and started SIP_AA. Marge Clark and Joe Jared were the founders, but Joe was involved more as an echomail coordinator (a term that has vanished from the fidonet lexicon because it became obsolete with the evolution of the backbone to its current form). Marge was the first moderator. Joe facilitated the organization of a number of other SIP echos (SIP stands for Singleness in Purpose), many of which are still active: SIP_SLAA, SIP_NA, SIP_ALANON, and others. RECOVERY gradually evolved into and was generally accepted as...although I don't know if it was ever formally designated as such...a place where people from all the other echos and fellowships could, if they wished, gather and chat about things generally, although always with the idea of "practicing these principles in all our affairs." Alot of us hang out in more than one of the echos. Among the people whose habits I know best, for example, Marge C is here, in SIP_AA and in RECOVERY; Rich G is here and in RECOVERY; I'm here and in SIP_AA but haven't carried RECOVERY for years; etc. etc. etc. RECOVERY's current moderator, Rich W (the same person as the Richard Ward who co-founded it - I think he also was "Rick" in there some place - although there was another moderator, Ron A, in between Bob K and Rich, and I did it also on an interim basis for a short period), is here, and has my permission...not that he needs it...to tell you (and me) how full of shit I am about all the above. I know this is a *very* long answer, and not necessarily even a very responsive one at that, to your short question. Somebody else asked me a couple of months ago to get some of this history down for the record and I didn't do it at the time; I guess your message flipped the right switch. Oh yeah, SIP_AA also goes to the UK... there are several semi-regular participants from over there. Tim If I had a tunnel like yours to help pay for, I'd drink too. GEcho 1.02+ + Origin: Recovery Northwest, Portland - 28.8 v.fc - os/2 (1:105/99) * * * * * * Addendum: (First evidence of multi-fellowships on Recovery Echo) To: Tom Baughman From: Rick Ward Submitted: 14 Aug 89 19:25:00 Subject: Echo Moderator Recovery echo is not a meeting and echos are not democracies. It is a forum for all persons using any 12 step program as a tool in living life to it's fullest. We, Bob K 125/9 - George C 103/602 - Jeff B Burrell's Ball Park up in Wash. state - Leonard ? in Hawaii - Mario ? on Cape Cod and about 20 other bbses in between, carried RECOVERY and MEETING (which was an AA meeting more or less guided by Penny P ((P2)) of VA and San Franc..) for quite sometime and MEETING just never made it. In those days we had to pay the phone bill ourselves (NO STARS to carry the echos) and it ended partly because the same message would be posted in both echos by the same person and that just double the traffic etc etc....... Before I get carried away .. I think it was Jeff B of Burrell's Ball Park (how's that for those who freak-out about anonymity) who first mentioned Ron to me and the echo. Rick Ward, 109/133 Msg#: 3675 Date: 01-02-95 10:08 From: Tim Spofford Read: Yes Replied: No To: Wannabe Free Mark: Subj: Recovery.RUL Hi Wannabe... On Thursday December 29 1994 (11:34), Wannabe Free wrote to Rich Ward: RW>> discovered my 12 step BBS and put me in touch with the late Bob K. RW>> who had started the RECOVERY BBS in San Francisco and soon there RW>> after Bob and I were echoing (2 echos MEETING & RECOVERY) back and WF> Wow, I didn't realize that Bob K. was one of the first Echo WF> participants. Although I do remember him bitching about all the effort WF> involved. I first met Bob K. via the Recovery BBS and later met him in WF> person. He was my first sponsor. I wish there had been more time to get WF> to know him better. This was a bulletin on Recovery BBS when I was its sysop. It was adapted (with the addition of the first paragraph) from an obit written for a San Francisco newspaper by Coffeemaker, an early participant in this echo: Bob Kovach February 2, 1944 - January 12, 1989 Bob founded Recovery BBS and was its sysop for the first two years of its existence. He also was co-founder and moderator of both the RECOVERY Echo and the AIDS/ARC Echo. Bob celebrated life every way he knew how. Through electronics and personal contact, with love and patience, he helped a great many alcoholics to wellness. He accepted his AIDS diagnosis with grace and fought his disease with courage and humor. Even when he was too tired to lift a finger his eyes shone with the experience, strength, and hope of someone who had faced fear, pain, and death and had in his spirit conquered all. In the later stages of AIDS dementia, when he didn't even know where he was, his spirit still shone with the grace and kindness that was an inspiration to those of us who knew him. One of my favorite "Bob stories" involves the next to the last time I saw him. He was in the hospital with his third pneumocystis battle and I stopped by unannounced to see him. He had, as it subsequently turned out, only a few weeks left with us but as I cruised into his room I found him using his time to hear a new sponsee's fifth step. (No, it wasn't you. ) I've little doubt that he considered that among the very best ways that he could put what was left of his life to good use. -!- GEcho 1.11+ ! Origin: Recovery Northwest - 503/297-1485 - V34/FAX (1:105/99) --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00006 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:27am \/To: ALL (Read 1 times) Subj: History lesson 2 Date: 07 Jun 95 18:35:01 Public From: Tim Spofford To: Bill McVay Subject: Thanks, y'all > You must have started networking pretty early in your sobriety. > Seems to me we have been typing at one another for years. I ran into Bob K., whom I had known pretty well in the halfway house we were in together, on the street in the Castro one day when we were both about ourteen months sober. He told me he had started "an AA BBS". What the f*ck is a BBS, I asked. He tried to tell me. I didn't get it. But one thing led to another and I managed to figure out how to get my dumb terminal to dial up Recovery BBS in, as best I can figure out, October 1986. (Recovery BBS went online on July 4, 1986.) One thing led to another. == GEcho 1.11+ Origin: Kirkland, WA, V34/FAX: 206-827-9613 (1:343/261) Date: 13 Jul 95 From: Marge Clark (116/3000) To: Tim Dill (102/541) Subject: history2.txt thanks for passing that along, Tim. there's one thing that I would add to it, that Tim's msg skipped over, as far as the history of sip_aa is concerned... Recovery BBS, in SF, had (probably still has, I dunno) an extremely active LOCAL AA conference. At one time they were a recognized group, sending their financial contributions to GSO and the locals, etc. Prior to my involvement in the recovery echoes, they had been asked to let their private conference go national. A group conscience was held, and the members of the group voted No. (I'm not sure when that happened, or under the auspices of which sysop; Tim S. would know.) When the thought of making sip_aa a national/international echo, readily available to any of us who wanted it first surfaced, I knew that *I* wanted all the crew from San Francisco involved. The best way I could see to pull them in was a melding of Joe Jared's little SIP echo, and the local AA area on Recovery (by this time Rich G. [our favorite Alanon]) was the sysop. A new group conscience was held by the members of the group, and they very kindly and graciously sacrificed their virtual 'closed meeting' for the good of us all. I am totally convinced that had the group conscience vote gone the other way, and we lacked the participation of the SF crew, we never would have gotten off the ground. At that time, the requirements for 'boning a new echo were in some ways harder to meet. As I recall there had to be at least 25 systems showing in the seenbyes and a minimum message traffic far greater than some present backbone echoes have. Got to the minimum goals very simply and easily (albeit expensively ;-) I offered to deliver the new echo on my dime to any sysop that would agree to carry it. We met our minimum requirements in less than three weeks ;-) I drafted the echo rules; Tim S. rewrote them extensively; the 'we bring ourselves to the clearing with us, it is our struggle that makes us whole' was lifted from a message from The Moose in the echo, and the rules were put out there for discussion, approval, and rewriting by those members currently active in the echo. backtracking again, just a bit. When we were in the process of groping our way toward the decision that we did want/need an AA-only echo, several of the 'recovery sysops' were involved in netmail discussions of the who and how of it. It was Tim who told me that they (the mysterious 'they') had decided I should be the moderator. years later, I asked him how come me? (I had less sobriety by far than any of 'em.) the answer? "We thought it would be good for your sobriety!" he was right! ;-) and there you have it...the rest of the story. ;-) --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00007 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:31am \/To: MARGE CLARK (Read 1 times) Subj: Hi ho... On (18 Jan 96) Marge Clark was mumbling to Tim Dill... MC> I thought I heard Tim Dill (1:102/541.2) say: ->> Stay tuned to the echo for rumours ;-) MC> piffle, they ain't rumours, tim, they's FACTS! I'll deny the facts and cop to the rumours it's more FUN that way ;-) Hugs Tim... ... I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!! --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00008 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:35am \/To: HARRIET LEVY (Read 1 times) Subj: 1996 On (19 Jan 96) HARRIET LEVY was mumbling to TIM DILL... HL> Ugh...it's raining here. Lots and lots of gray rain. Washing away HL> all the pretty snow. :-( It's been raining here too ;-( Mega Hugs Tim... ... Decloaking from lurker mode for this brief message...... --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00009 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:38am \/To: LINDA GLOVER (Read 1 times) Subj: Hi ho... On (19 Jan 96) Linda Glover was mumbling to Tim Dill... LG> Well, Gawd I hope so :-)!!!!! Welcome to Fido-place, where the whiles of lonely hearts meet and sometimes fall in love.... ;-) LG> > ... If God took acid, would he see people? LG> Probably...love it!!! and Buddha would see through his "Window pane" navel.... Tim.... ... Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS.. --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00010 Date: 01/22/96 From: TIM DILL Time: 09:49am \/To: MARGE CLARK (Read 1 times) Subj: 6 years ago today On (19 Jan 96) Rich Ward was mumbling to Marge Clark... RW> On (18 Jan 96) Marge Clark wrote to Tim Dill... MC> how neat! (the cake, however, wasn't what I had in mind by celebrating MC> ;-) RW> Now Marge don't you know how easily Tim BLUSHES? And Rich has seen me do it.. now I recall you saying something along the lines of me "not blushing that easily" a while ago..... Can you retract that statement? Remember I am the one with the archives here ;-) Shall I repeat your folly hmmmmmmmm? (Don't take that seriously, I did NOT archive that particular message) I can hear the sigh of relief from here ;-) Tim.... ... Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey --- PPoint 2.00 * Origin: Nuclear Waste Software /*\ We Glow Too! (1:102/749.2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00011 Date: 01/22/96 From: JANE KELLEY Time: 07:22am \/To: CHRISTIAN HEDEMARK (Read 1 times) Subj: Bill W. Sobriety Date CH>JK>I've never discriminated against those who use other drugs. To do so s CH>JK>to condemn someone and we are taught not to do this. CH>The way I see it is.... there, but for the grace of God, go I. Yup. And I used to hear discrimination from those who were piously sitting there smoking a cigarrette and drinking coffee with sugar in it. It was okay to ingest a couple of legal drugs but not okay to talk about giving up those that were illegal or harmful to one. * SLMR 2.1a * All hope abandon, ye who enter messages here. --- JCQWK * Origin: The Moody Blues BBS, Graham, WA (360) 893-3101 (1:138/155) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00012 Date: 01/21/96 From: GUIDO Time: 11:44pm \/To: CHRISTIAN HEDEMARK (Read 1 times) Subj: Bill W. Sobriety Date -==- Hi Christian.. CH>I am considering that, and trying to utilize the full documentation CH>(only conference approved) of the original 12 step program. consider reading pages 102-103 of "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age"... that's where Bill Wilson discusses more about Tradition Three... he knew back then that there were going to be a lot of different types of people coming into the rooms and strictly wanted to stress to everyone that only wach individual had the right to determine if they were a member of AA and not the members of AA... CH>I do get defensive about protecting AA for the Alcoholic seeking CH>recovery, but so many alcoholics have some drug use in their background this is true and in the above mentioned book Bill also states that the "pure alcoholic" would be few and far between... and that was back in the mid to early 50s... CH>The only requirement is "a desire to stop drinking". I think a lot of people get this confused and start reading things into this that aren't there... it is easy to sway the thinking of those new to AA, because they haven't been around enough to know and read about a lot of things... CH>I am not cross addicted, so I have no personal issue here. I don't consider myself a cross addicted person either, but I don't feel it is fair or right to refuse the person who is sincerely seeking a better way of life... what if those who were around when I first came in refused me AA on the grounds that I didn't have a sincere desire to stop drinking???.. take care, __-==-__ --- * WR 1.31 # 675 * I tried to contain myself...but I escaped! * Origin: Ruby's Joint BBS 904.777.6799 (1:112/129) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 231 RECOVERY Ref: D1T00013 Date: 01/22/96 From: RAIN Time: 02:14pm \/To: HARRIET LEVY (Read 1 times) Subj: 1996 -> Ugh...it's raining here. Lots and lots of gray rain. Washing away -> all the pretty snow. :-( Our snow was definitely not pretty by the time it washed/melted away. Wasn't even remotely snow-colored, either. It's cold today, but sunny & pretty, and I am going to spend my birthday quietly with a meeting, some cheesecake, a lapful of kitten and the tube. Carol's funeral is tomorrow, and will be jammed to the walls with the many friends of Bill and Lois who loved her and still love Mike. They became sort of surrogate parents for a lot of younger AAs here--didn't try to, it just sorta happened. That's quite a legacy, if you ask me. --- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11 * Origin: Louisville Hot House (1:2320/180.0)