To understand the basis of what we have in common, and what they lost, we need only review two stanzas of one of their songs:

This worlds not all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
He that hath sooth'd a drunkards woe,
And led him to reform, doth know;
There's something here of heaven.

The Washingtonian that hath run,
The path of kindness even;
Who's measr'd out life's little span,
In deeds of love to God and man;
On earth hath tasted heaven.

Some 99 years later another fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous, was to include this sentiment in the pre-publication manuscript of their basic text.

We now move ahead to the year 1931 and see a young financial wizard who has tried several methods to recover from alcoholism. Finally, in desperation he places himself under the care of a Swiss psychiatrist by the name of Carl Jung. In the year that followed he learned all the workings of his mind and its quirks. Yet upon release from the clinic - he got drunk. He returned to Zurick and asked the noted man what else could be done. The doctor pronounced him hopeless.

After making this deathly pronouncement, he told Rowland H. that his only hope was to be found in the following prescription: "Spiritus contra Spiritum" - a phrase that meant that a spiritual life was the only remedy for a life of the spirits. Rowland returned to the U.S. and began to attend Oxford Group meetings to improve his spiritual life. He also began active work with other alcoholics, namely one called Ebby T.