The Big Book: A Divine Solution for Alcoholics
My name is Matt and I am an alcoholic. I have recovered from alcoholism and haven’t had a drink in 14½ years all thanks to AA, getting a home group, a sponsor and working through the Twelve Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book. It’s easy to overlook sometimes, but a massive factor in my recovery is that my sponsor and the other old-timers at my home group believe passionately in the Big Book, as I have come to as well.
When I started reading the Big Book on a daily basis, the identification was overwhelming and powerful. I was one of those people who read its pages, was persuaded, seized upon it and gratefully followed its suggestions. After just a few weeks of sobriety, it suddenly dawned on me that if the explanation of my devastating illness in the chapter More About Alcoholism was true, then it followed that I could and would recover if I took the Twelve Steps exactly as they are laid out in the Big Book, which is how my sponsor took me through them. I am so grateful for a no-nonsense sponsor who always keeps it simple and always brings me back to the fundamentals and principles in the Big Book.
At meetings, the people at my home group really made the Big Book come alive. I know a lot of people in AA who feel the same way. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard someone share their story and say something like: “the Big Book seemed to describe exactly how I was feeling, but was never able to put into words myself.”
Like many others, I happen to think that the Big Book is a work of divine inspiration. It describes me, the hopeless alcoholic, perfectly. Thankfully, it also offers a way out, a solution in the Twelve Steps. The struggles that Bill W and the pioneers went through to get it published also mean that the Big Book was forged in adversity, it was fought for and toiled over, and the latter chapters describing their hopes for the AA fellowship are indeed prophetic and visionary.
So, like many others, I think it is a huge mistake to tamper or tinker with the Big Book. It’s sad to say but I think that those who wanted to change it, and those who thought it merited change, are suffering from a lack of gratitude.
Our Just for Today card gives me two instructions: “I will learn something useful” and “I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration” which means that I don’t need the Big Book dumbed-down. Instead, if I don’t understand something, or I’m not sure, I can ask my sponsor, look it up in a dictionary or check it further in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions or one of the AA history books or other many pieces of AA literature available.
I don’t just encourage fellow AAs and the people I sponsor to read the Big Book. Sometimes non-alcoholic friends in my community or workplace have come to me worried about a drinker in their circle. I have shown them the Big Book, often highlighting and suggesting they read the description of the moderate, heavy drinker and real alcoholic in There Is A Solution, or the four stages outlined in To Wives. This has resulted in people coming to AA and finding recovery.
Recently I have asked myself whether my own recovery would have been as electric, as profound or as rich had I merely read some lame imitation of the Big Book? I simply don’t believe it would have. I am so grateful that I wasn’t sponsored using some easier, softer, watered-down version and I for one wouldn’t dream of sponsoring anyone using anything else other than the original basic text. I would be selling the newcomer short.
The Big Book contains facts about my experiences before and after drinking which are irreplaceable and unshakeable, and it makes promises like “the most satisfactory years of my existence lie ahead” which have come true. Each time I read and re-read the Big Book, I get new and unfolding revelations which help keep me sober and make me more useful to the still-suffering alcoholic who walks into the meeting.
Matt D
Road to Recovery Group, Plymouth