Perhaps the easiest way to read The Big Book is to pretend that you are hearing old timey radio announcers, as if perhaps you are at a horse race from 80 years ago.
I had to get beyond the goofiness, as I might call it, of the text. To read it, as the book suggests, with the desperation of a drowning (wo)man.
Not to mention the meetings.
I just show up here, and then what?
Am I sober yet?
These people are so excited that I’m here, I thought. Jesus. What’s wrong with them? Their enthusiasm - and joy - was frightening to me. Like they were so desperate to get me to join their secret club. What is this program they’re talking about, these steps. These principles of living.
Further, I believed AA was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. The consequence, all those years, that was in the back of my mind. I didn’t want to be one of those people — the folding chairs, the bowing your head to pray, the holding hands, the tears, the bullshit. The chips?
Everyone seemed to know what was going on but me.
The God this, god that stuff.
Anything, I thought, anything but that.
Keep coming back, is the common refrain.
We don’t shoot our wounded, is another (intended to welcome someone back after a relapse).
Here is the passage that stopped me dead in my tracks and made me think, Oh my god they’ve been watching me, and shit, I might actually belong here:
“If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!
Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums — we could increase the list ad infinitum ” (p. 31-32).
This entire chapter, called More About Alcoholism, spoke to me. There is less spiritual stuff in this chapter — this part is essentially identifying the symptoms and describing, to a T, what my life looked like.
Taking a trip, alternately, not taking a trip.
As long as a drink was on the table, as long as I had this idea that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to drink, sometimes, ever, even just once. I could always find a reason.
The parts of the Big Book that I found most inspiring in the beginning were not the parts about working the program or the spiritual overhaul — it was recognizing that I was not alone in my desperate attempts to control my drinking, and not only was I not alone, but there was actually nothing wrong with me.
This was the body and the brain that I have this go-round.
Here, on earth, in this life, I’m not very good at drinking.
I used to do things like google the number of drinks appropriate for women. Two drinks a day. Okay, that’s fourteen drinks a week, I would think. What if I drank 10 of those drinks on Friday, and 4 on a Thursday?
Inevitably, I would drink something like 10 on that Friday, and then depending on what was left in the bottle of wine or champagne or if I had any beers left, I might drink them on a Saturday, and then I’d think, well, what if it was more like 17 in a week?
And by Wednesday I would have forgotten the whole thing.
The other part of The Big Book that was somehow very nebulous to me was the “program” that they were all working.
When I look back on it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that this part was so nebulous to me, because they are written right there in black and white.
There is quite literally a chapter called, How It Works. The beginning of this chapter is often read at the beginning of meetings, so again, it is a little unclear to me why this was so nebulous, but it was.
The other way to read the Big Book is to accept it in the context in which it was written. This book was sent — in the mail — to people. People read this book. People worked the steps through letters, before meetings were on every corner, in every city, on Zoom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I am wanting to highlight the parts of the Big Book that made me keep reading, because, frankly, there is a lot of the Big Book that makes me want to close it. Or throw it across the room, even (I’m thinking of the entire chapter called, “To the Wives.”)
In short, More About Alcoholism and How it Works were the two parts in the literature that made me stay. And my hope is I can share that with someone and that will help someone.
The 12 steps are a mainstay in pop culture, but there are also 12 traditions. The traditions are not talked about as much as the steps, of course, although they are sometimes referred to as “why it works.” By and large, the tradition that you will hear the most is the 3rd tradition: “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.”
The other traditions are largely about getting along, but the tradition that gave (and gives) me pause is the 11th tradition. The 11th tradition of AA states we maintain anonymity at the level of “press, radio, and film.” The two primary reasons for this, best I can discern, is to protect others’ anonymity (that I may inadvertently “out” someone) and to not become a “spokesperson” of AA, or to “promote” AA.
Unfortunately, in the early days, I found this tradition to be reminiscent of Fight Club and added to the feeling I had that AA was something of a cult. (Funny enough, Brad Pitt recently got in trouble for speaking out about being involved in AA.)
The argument I have most commonly heard about AA being a cult is that if it’s a cult, it’s not a very good cult, as there are no rules, only suggestions, your higher power can be anything in the world you want it to be (agnostics and atheists even find success in this program), and there is no hierarchy and there are no leaders.
But I struggle to understand this 11th tradition, as I find it to be directly contradictory to the 12th step: spreading the message.
And let me make this clear: in the Big Book, it reads like how to recruit other members. To recruit these members, however, we lead by “attraction rather than promotion.”
You are the only copy of the Big Book someone might ever see, you’ll often hear. Practice these principles in all your affairs.
Practicing these principles in all my affairs, to me, largely boils down to acting with honesty and integrity, staying in my lane, and acting out the serenity prayer: finding the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
The object of AA stories, which are largely distributed, but always with first name and last name, abbreviated, is to share 3 things: what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now. The beginning, middle, and end. The primary components of any story.
How is the 11th tradition not in direct opposition to the 12th step? What is the difference between promoting, and advocating?
AA is the thing, the thing on this long and winding road for me, that finally took me from a fucking flailing disaster to a honest-to-god grateful recovering alcoholic.
I attended a meeting a few weeks ago where most people were over a year sober, most over a few years, and many a few decades. This entire meeting, this whole hour, and not one person mentioned avoiding a drink.
We were talking about living life on life’s terms. Life being lifey, as they say. Accepting what is. Living an honest life. Facing our problems, rather than running from them.
There are a few other phrases that I found particularly helpful in the early days, while I sorted through things: look for the similarities and not the differences. Keep an open mind. More will be revealed. We are learning to trudge the road of happy destiny.
Perhaps the most salient phrase in AA when it comes to reading the Big Book is this:
Take what works and leave the rest.