Saturday, February 23, 2013

What Is "the Basic Text" of the Alcoholics Anonymous Society? A Response

Aloha!

Thank you for the update. I continue to see the importance of being aware of the "Big Myth;" i.e., that the Foreword (of which there are actually four in the fourth edition), "The Doctor's Opinion," the "first 164 pages," and "Appendix II: Spiritual Experience" are "the basic text" of Alcoholics Anonymous Society. The "Big Myth" is contradicted by:
 
1. A number of the basic meanings of the word "text" in a good dictionary (e.g.: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/text); i.e., the word "text" usually means a book or a manuscript--i.e., the whole thing, not just a portion. 

2. The words on the front cover of the dust jacket of the hard back version of the fourth edition of the Big Book (2001)--the first thing that many people would see when they look at a new copy of the current edition of the hard back edition of the Big Book with its original dust jacket on it; i.e.: 

Alcoholics Anonymous 

This is the Fourth Edition of the Big Book, the Basic Text for Alcoholics Anonymous

(Again, the whole book is "the basic text.") 

3. The second paragraph of the first page of the Preface in the fourth edition (p. xi) states in part: 

. . . this book has become the basic text for our Society . . . 

Food for thought for those who want to know. 

Dick B.'s son, Ken
 

On Friday, February 22, 2013, an A.A. member wrote to Dick B.’s son, Ken: 

This morning at _____ AA [meeting,] I was attacked by someone when I repeated below. This man apparently is not a careful reader. I kept quiet and will not leave any future AA meetings without repeating below statements including Bill W to Henrietta D at lunch and the “golden text for the A.A. program” and myself.  

Note that, on the same occasion, Bill Wilson and Bill Dotson—A.A. Number Three—both tied their release from alcoholism to the “Lord.” They both said they had been “cured” by the “Lord.” And Dotson said the expression was “a golden text for the A.A. program” and for him. [See Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., 191]

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