in the Big Book that you can’t drink in Detroit!”
True. For that matter, neither did it say he couldn’t drink right here in Los Angeles. Or Dallas. Or Pine Gulch. But he had found what he was looking for: a loophole.
Another statement I sometimes hear from AA speakers is that, since they have never taken an inventory, Step Four isn’t necessary. Others say it isn’t necessary to write out our inventories. Some cite themselves as living proof that Step Five can be skipped.
If I don’t consult the Big Book, I might assume their statements were gospel. But the book says, “If we skip this vital step [Number Five], we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives Almost invariably they got drunk.”
Contrary to the advice given from the podium by some speakers, the Big Book repeatedly stresses the importance of writing the inventory: “making a list”…“setting it down on paper”…“We consulted our list of names.’’
From my own experience, I know I need the Big Book, not only to correct errors innocently planted by other members, but to bring into line my own misconceptions about what I thought the speakers were saying.
In listening to tapes of my own AA talks, I am often horrified at my incoherence and at the discovery that I did not say what I intended to say or what I thought I was saying. Then I pray that newcomers will not judge the AA program by what I have told them. God, how I hope they will read the Big Book!—not once, but many times.
Often, at meetings, I’ll hear a member tell a newcomer, “All you have to do is keep the plug in the jug.’’
The Big Book (pages 82-83) says, “We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough… There is a long period of reconstruction ahead… The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.” (Another implied must.)
Does one reading of the Big Book equip us with enough information to judge the validity of statements tossed out in an informal conversation or an extemporaneous talk?
The newcomer sometimes hears this statement from people that he, in his innocence, may consider experts: “Take what you like in AA, and forget the rest.”
Does it make sense to tell a newcomer, devoted to the alcoholic principle of “self-will run riot,” that his own sick, confused mind (which repeatedly got him drunk and into trouble) is the mind capable of judging what is good for him?
The Big Book suggests (page 98), “Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house.”
The new person may be looking for a way to drink without disaster and to get family, employer, creditors, and the law off his back. With that goal in his boozy brain, is one reading of the Big Book, or any part of it, likely to convince him of the nature of his illness, or to make clear the requirements of the AA recovery program?
Rereading of the book may be of great value even beyond maintaining personal sobriety. Because of the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, members are invited increasingly to participate in the activities of other organizations and agencies in the field of alcoholism. Some of these worthy organizations have as their proper goal the providing of housing, food, and other material assistance to various unfortunate persons, including alcoholics. Of necessity, these agencies must be supported by outside contributions, including tax subsidies. Unless AA members keep the AA name out of the operation, and serve the organization as individuals, they will create public misunderstanding as to the policy and purpose of AA.
Further, they will render it easy for the recipient of such services to assume he is receiving them as part of the AA program. Is this bad?
The Big Book, on page 98, says: “The minute we put our work on a service plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon our assistance rather than upon God. He clamors for this or that, claiming he cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for. Nonsense… We simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.”
The Big Book helps us explain to others where other aids leave off and AA begins. If that distinction is not observed by members, AA could become diluted and powerless to help the alcoholic.
As a writer, I am often amused at the reaction of other writers when they come to AA. When first sober, the writer frequently announces that he intends to donate his talent in a magnificent service to the Fellowship: He will rewrite the Big Book!
Unfortunately, his professional eye is focused more on achieving terse, flowing prose than on understanding AA principles. So the writer gets drunk before finding a better way of saying, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.’’
For some reason, those writers who remain sober get very busy in their own outside work and in various AA activities at the level of group, institutions, or general service. They seem never to have time to rewrite the Big Book. These sober writers do, however, seem to have time to reread it.
L.H., North Hollywood, Calif.
Promises, Promises
May 1981
I love the so-called promises in the paragraph that begins at bottom of page 83 and continues at the top of page 84 of the Big Book. I frequently quote one or another of them. I often mention them in an AA qualification.
That’s why I was pleased recently to receive a scroll containing “The Promises,’’ inscribed in beautiful calligraphy, as a souvenir of an AA dinner I attended. And then, as I admired the scroll, it set me to thinking. We are certainly hearing more about “The Promises” these days. I’ve seen them printed in AA newsletters and bulletins and AA convention programs. I’ve heard members ask, “Why doesn’t AA offer ‘The Promises’ as a wall plaque like the Steps and the Traditions? And maybe on a wallet card?”
Is this a trend in our Fellowship—this lifting the promises out of context and inscribing them in bronze? Are we sanctifying the promises?
If so, it troubles me. I view such a trend with alarm. Why?
Because, first of all, if we go back to the source and read the paragraph of the Big Book containing the promises, it is immediately clear that they were not intended to be set apart. They are not written as a separate element as are the Steps (page 59) or the Traditions (beginning page 564).
They are buried in the text (and within the context), and for a reason: They are part of a discussion of how to work the Steps. Not even all the Steps, really, but specifically the first nine. The paragraph in question follows a long description of the mess our alcoholic lives are in and advice on how to work our way out.
Second, these are not unconditional promises as they seem to be when set apart. Quite the contrary. They are a spontaneous, almost euphoric expression of the experiences of the authors with the rewards that can be expected “if we are painstaking about this phase of our development.’’ What phase? The working of the first nine Steps as described in the preceding twenty-four pages!
And how many of us have actually worked the Steps that way? How many of us, for example, in doing our Fourth Step inventory, have followed the example in the Big Book?—a written “grudge list” in three separate columns, analyzing the causes of each resentment and how it affects us. Not I. How
