Many of the core ideas that AAs adopted were ideas that were covered in depth by many different books and materials they read. Anne Smith recommended reading at least one book on the life of Christ a year for a while, commenting that even more would be better. Dr. Bob’s daughter confirmed that Dr. Bob read these. They included: Jesus of Nazareth: A Biography by George A. Barton, The Life of Jesus Christ by The Rev. James Stalker, Studies of the Man Christ Jesus by Robert E. Speer, The Jesus of History by T. R. Glover, The Manhood of the Like most SCP channels out there, Dr. Bob presents all SCPs in a direct and informative way. However, instead of simply presenting the SCPs details right away, he presents a fictional scenario where that the SCP in question is a part of, often in a horrific and tragic way. After this, the facts of the SCP are presented. Dr. Bob's face is always obscured. Either by physical objects or shadows, the latter sometimes applying even when a light source would directly illuminate his face. The process of this phenomenon is currently unknown. For the next two and a half years [After January, 1933], Bob attended Oxford Group meetings regularly and gave much time and study to its philosophy. . . . He read the Scriptures, studied the lives of the saints, and did what he could to soak up the spiritual and religious philosophies of the ages (p. 56).

In February 2005, Bob was interviewed and selected for the position of Chairman of the Group. His first year as Chairman was “a really good year”. He learned to understand the system and work with the Scottish Executive. Bob particularly emphasises the collaboration with patient representatives: Bob frequently spoke of God as a God of love. He summarized A.A.’s ideas as being, in their essence, “love and service.” During the next few years, he developed two distinct phobias. One was the fear of not sleeping and the other was the fear of running out of liquor. So began the squirrel-cage existence. Staying sober to earn enough money to get drunk, getting drunk to go to sleep, using sedatives to quiet the jitters, staying sober, earning money, getting drunk, smuggling home a bottle, hiding the bottle from Anne who became an expert at detecting hiding places. If early AAs wanted to know God’s instructions on faith, believing, prayer, study of His Word, forgiveness, healing, deliverance, love, restitution, service, resentment, fear, selfishness, dishonesty, their literature was replete with road maps to pertinent sections of the Bible and teachings about these things. Smith was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he was raised, to Susan A. (Holbrook) and Walter Perrin Smith. [1] His parents took him to religious services four times a week, and in response he determined he would never attend religious services when he grew up. He graduated from St Johnsbury Academy in 1898, having met his future wife Anne Robinson Ripley at a dance there. [2] Education, marriage, work, and alcoholism [ edit ]After those long disastrous binges, when Dr. Bob was forced to face his father he had a deep feeling of guilt. His father always met the situation quietly, “Well, what did this one cost you?” he would ask. Oddly enough this feeling of guilt would come, not because he felt that he had hurt him in any way, but because his father seemed, somehow, to under- stand. It was this quiet, hopeless understanding that pained him. Dr. Bob’s daughter told the author that her father frequently stayed up late into the night studying the Bible (Dr. Bob’s Library, p. 13). Robert Holbrook Smith (August 8, 1879 – November 16, 1950), also known as Dr. Bob, was an American physician and surgeon who founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Bill Wilson (more commonly known as Bill W.). While he was Lead GP for Cancer, Bob wanted to find out what GPs thought about existing cancer services and so he started visiting local practices:

To this very day, A.A.’s basic text speaks of the alcoholic’s need to change. Early AAs were given specifics on what they were to change from, where to obtain the power to change, and what they were to change to. Dr. Bob's Nightmare". Alcoholics Anonymous: the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (PDF) (4thed.). New York, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. 2002. ISBN 1-893007-16-2. OCLC 408888189 . Retrieved 14 February 2012. Then, towards the end of 2004, the Scottish Cancer Group, which had been in existence since about 2001, was going through some changes. It had previously been chaired by Anna Gregor, the Scottish “Cancer Czar”, someone, in Bob’s words, with a “clear view on where cancer services should be going”: Throughout Bill Wilson’s leadership in A.A., he talked much of his famous “hot flash” experience. He pointed to William James’s book The Varieties of Religious Experience as a validation of what had occurred to him. It is fair to say that neither Dr. Bob nor most AAs ever had anything like Bill’s experience. But their reading did define for them what it meant to be converted, to have a conversion experience, to experience the presence of God, and so on.Around that time there was agreement to re-jig the Scottish Cancer Group, and the Chairman’s position was advertised internally through the three Scottish Cancer Networks.”

While Bob was pursuing his practice visits, Sue Ibbotson was setting up “Specialty Liaison Groups” for all the major cancers. For example, there were concerns about the breast service at the time in Fife. Sue set up a breast group and Bob, significantly a GP and not a breast surgeon himself, became the group’s Chair. He recalls how, at the first meeting, he discovered that the breast surgeons from the two Fife hospitals hadn’t even met before, so he was able to introduce them. Moreover, one could not, as Dr. Bob said, claim he had read an immense amount of Oxford Group literature, without having read many Shoemaker books. Shoemaker was the most prolific Oxford Group writer, was in touch with Oxford Group people in Akron, and was a close friend of Bill Wilson’s. Therefore, though the following were the Shoemaker books the author found in possession of Dr. Bob’s family, there must have been many others: Children of the Second Birth, Confident Faith, If I Be Lifted Up, The Conversion of the Church, Twice-Born Ministers, and One Boy’s Influence. There were also popular Shoemaker pamphlets, titled Three Levels of Life and What If I Had but One Sermon to Preach? His first discovery in his search for the facts of life on the campus was that joining the boys for a brew seemed to make up the greater part of after-class recreation. From Dr. Bob’s point of view it was the major extra-curricular activity. It had long been evident that whatever Rob did, he did well. He became a leader in the sport. He drank for the sheer fun of it and suffered little or no ill- effects. His years at Dartmouth were spent doing exactly what he wanted to do with little thought of the wishes or feelings of others—a state of mind which became more and more pre- dominant as the years passed. Rob graduated in 1902 …“summa cum laude” in the eyes of the drinking fraternity. The dean had a somewhat lower estimate. At the end of most of his videos, the antagonistic SCP that was the focus of the video may appear before Dr. Bob, though the Doctor will always appear to ward them off, outsmart them or even fight them off single-handedly. Early A.A. was not about “relationships anonymous.” Whether they read the Bible, the Ten Commandments, or the Four Absolutes, AAs were given much instruction on how to behave in accordance with God’s will. This is true today in only a very limitedThat they might have the answer to his drinking problem never entered his head, but he thought it could do him no harm to study their philosophy. For the next two and one half years he attended their meetings. And got drunk regularly! Then one Saturday afternoon, Henrietta called Anne. Could they come over to meet a friend of hers who might help Bob.