In The Spirit--not The Letter--of Alcoholics Anonymous (from Grapevine 2007)

Love, not worship, for the Big Book

"My friends (and enemies) had diagnosed the problem--I could not drink without getting drunk. They weren't telling me anything I didn't know. And they offered no solution except, "Just don't drink," or, "Stop when you've had enough." If I could have done that, I would have. I'd tried countless times to control my drinking and always failed. In the end, I reached that state of "pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization" described in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. A suicide attempt landed me in the hospital and a psychiatrist told me I should go to AA. So I made the call.

Two AA members twelfth-stepped me, and one of them gave me his copy of the Big Book as he left. "You can borrow this for a week," he growled, "and then you must get your own." And I did. At an AA meeting a week later, I returned his book and bought my own copy.

During their visit, I had asked the man with the book how AA worked. He had opened it at chapter five, shoved it in front of me and said, "That's how it works."

After he and his companion left that night, I sat down and read the book. The scales fell from my eyes. I'd known for years that there was something terribly wrong with the way I drank. Many people had scolded, lectured, demanded, threatened, pleaded, and implored me to "do something about your drinking." Heaven knows, I'd tried. I loved getting drunk--but I hated being a drunk. I felt humiliated, ashamed, guilty, mortified, and disgusted by my behavior during my binges.

"The Doctor's Opinion" explained a mystery that had baffled me for years--why couldn't I just get pleasantly high without descending into the chaos of uncontrolled excess? I read that I'd been in the grip of an obsession and, once I started to drink, I couldn't stop because the craving was more powerful than my good intentions and willpower. The book told how other men and women, similarly afflicted, had overcome the problem. I wanted what they had.

The chapter "There Is a Solution" says, "If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking--'What do I have to do?'" The logical answer to the question, "What do I have to do?" is "You must do this."

The Big Book answers this question tangentially; the Twelve Steps are suggestions that we are invited to follow, not commandments we must obey. The book points the way; it does not issue instructions. In chapter five, I read, "With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start." By following the Big Book's suggestions for twenty-one years, I have had a life truly beyond my wildest dreams.

I have copies of all four editions of the Big Book, including a facsimile copy of the original with its red and yellow dust cover. (An AA member would not have been very anonymous walking to a meeting with that under her arm!)

I love the Big Book but do not worship it. That would be idolatry. The book itself does not claim to be infallible. The writers acknowledge their limitations.

"Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly," they write. "We realize we know only a little," they caution. "God will constantly disclose more to you and to us."

"By no means do we offer [our approach] as the last word on this subject, but...it has worked for us," they say.

I've heard the Big Book referred to as a textbook, which I think is a mistake. I believe it is our basic text, which is not the same thing at all. The Big Book is a storybook. It says so on the title page--"Alcoholics Anonymous--The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism." A story does not give instructions; it is a narrative of experience, a work of inspired imagination. Bill W. wrote, in As Bill Sees It, "Most Steps are open to interpretation, based on the experience and outlook of the individual."

The Big Book is not sacred scripture; we have no "authorities" in AA who can impose their understanding of its message on the rest of us.

It is dangerous to make a fetish of the written word. As the Bible says, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

Laurie A.
Essex"

A counter to idolatry

The Fundamentals--In Retrospect (extracts from the Grapevine article - full version available via AA Grapevine website)
　
"September 1948

......As finally expressed and offered, they [the Steps] are simple in language, plain in meaning. They are also workable by any person having a sincere desire to obtain and keep sobriety. The results are the proof. Their simplicity and workability are such that no special interpretations, certainly no reservations, have ever been necessary. And it has become Increasingly clear that the degree of harmonious living which we achieve is in direct ratio to our earnest attempt to follow them literally under Divine guidance to the best of our ability.

YET, withal, there are no "shibboleths" in A.A. We are not bound by the thongs of theological doctrine. None of us may be excommunicated and cast into outer darkness. For we are many minds in our organization and an A.A. decalogue in the language of "Thou shall not" would gall us indeed.

Look at our 12 Points of A.A. Tradition. No random expressions these, based on just casual observation. On the contrary, they represent the sum of our experience as individuals, as groups within A.A. and similarly with our fellows and other organizations in the great fellowship of humanity under God throughout the world. They are entirely suggestive, yet the spirit in which they have been conceived merits their serious, prayerful consideration as the guidepost of A.A. policy for the individual, the group and our various committees, local and national.

We have found it wise policy, too, to hold to no glorification of the individual. Obviously, that is sound. Most of us will concede that when it came to the personal showdown of admitting our failures and deciding to surrender our will and our lives to Almighty God, as we understood Him, we still had some sneaking ideas of personal justification and excuse. We had to discard them but the ego of the alcoholic dies a hard death. Many of us because of activity have received praise not only from our fellow A.A.s but from the world at large. We would be ungrateful indeed to be boorish when that happens yet it is so easy for us to become, privately perhaps, just a little vain about It all. Yet, fitting and wearing halos is not for us.

WE'VE all seen the new member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsor-worship. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk and you know what usually happens. Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk too. He has been glorifying an individual instead of following the Program.

Certainly we need leaders but we must regard them as the human agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as individuals. The 4th and 10th Steps can not be too strongly emphasized here--"Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. . .continue to make personal inventory. . .promptly admit it when we are wrong." There is your perfect antidote for halo-poisoning.....

........ we have no V.I.P.'s nor have we need of any. Our organization needs no title-holders nor grandiose buildings. That is by design. Experience has taught us that simplicity is basic in preservation of our personal sobriety and helping those in need.
.......

Dr. Bob

Akron, Ohio"
(our emphases in bold print)

(thanks to the AA member who drew our attention to this essay)

The Fellas