Great idea! I’m currently working through the Big Book with my sponsor so would love the added commentary and reflection…count me in too!
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[quote=“SinceIAwoke, post:14, topic:190208”]
Plain Language Big Book - A Tool For Reading Alcoholics Anonymous
[/quote]Description
The Plain Language Big Book is a tool to help readers understand the book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ and has been written to present the original ideas and same spiritual message of the Big Book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ in simpler language. It covers the core content of what is the “abridged version” (the edition without personal stories) of the original Big Book.
This particular item is sourced from America and therefore deliveries have been difficult to forecast. However, we are expecting a substantial delivery very soon with the aim of sustaining healthy stock levels for the future. Apologies for any inconvenience. i tried getting one but got this reply
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Happy New Years Eve everyone! 
To get this sober party started, I’ve decided that this week we will read the intros and doctors opinion.
For anyone without a big book or if you would prefer to read it online, it can be read online here: The Big Book | Alcoholics Anonymous
I’m going to leave all comments in this thread for each chapter instead of making different threads for each one and we will see how it goes.
Once I post the readings, it will be open for anyone to comment on the readings. I do ask that everyone participates and shares their insights, experience, strength or hope from the readings as truly working together is how not only can we be of service to our fellows, but we can also have the opportunity to expand our views a little more.
Each Wednesday evening, I’ll post up what the new weekly reading is. Once the chapter is oficially assigned, its open for everyone to comment on. Again, I’d LOVE to see everyone participate!
Thank you all for being here with me on this beautiful journey. 
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There’s so much in the doctors opinion I could comment on.
It’s so incredible to me that on his third round of treatment, just by sharing his experience, strength and hope with others how many lives were touched and so rapidly. I’m so grateful for this because these founding fathers have touched mine deeply too. There’s not a single doubt in my mind this program is divinely guided. It came in at exactly the right time to truly help many others who needed it and it continues to do so today.
When it’s discussed that our bodies were sick too, that’s absolutely been my experience. Because it was. Alcohol was slowly over the years beginning to shut my body down-though I never realized that was a factor. I just knew I wasn’t well, and the doctors had no idea why. The alcohol played the biggest role in this and I had no idea that was the case.
When they talk about the allergy, I have also found this to be true. I will never react to alcohol like a “normal” person. They can have a few sips and leave it. They don’t get sick and keep on drinking. Or get prescribed a medication for their health and quit taking it because they can’t drink on it. Alcohol and I have never truly played well on any level. It spells it out SO clearly in this chapter where it says, “These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all”. This is absolutely true.
This chapter also said, “More often than not, it’s imperative that a man’s brain be cleared before he is approached, as he then has a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer”. It took me two years to have the fog start to lift to my eyes and have the clarity and acceptance of what this program could offer me. I still had my alcoholic thinking and had no tools to help me. I no longer had my typical coping mechanism, but I also didn’t know how to live better. Yet I still thought I knew best. I had to get to a new low in sobriety where I finally realized I was the only common denominator in all of my problems. I can hear that song by Taylor Swift, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me” but it’s really so true. I honestly had NO idea how twisted my thinking and mindset really was.
This chapter discusses in more clinical terms the insanity of drinking, from a doctors view and what it’s like for us. For our families. And from a viewers perspective of how difficult it still is to walk away from it-even as it takes everything from us. I have an appreciation for this chapter today because it also helps me to remember this with other alcoholics I’ve loved in my life who I’ve wanted to just “get” it at various times. That’s never how it works. We have to want it for ourselves and surrender to what’s being asked of us to do to get to live a new life. Not everybody gets to. But this book really does give us an opportunity to do so, should we choose to take it.
And, because of this program as well as understanding it now first hand from my own experiences, I can love the shit out of those who struggle with it themselves too instead of judging them and wanting to control it for them. I can’t carry that weight. My job is now just to love them anyway and carry the message where I can to light the torch for the next person who wants to grab it.
I’m sooooo grateful to be reading this and have a solution in my life today. I remember this insanity all too well and I don’t miss that life today. I too have been blessed to witness this program work just like Dr. Silkworth did. Any I’m thankful it exists.
I can’t wait to hear your reflections on this chapter!
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I just wanted to mention in here too my Daily Reflections & Daily Readings thread has been changed up for 2025 to be just the Daily Reflections posted, allowing for open commentary on the daily writing. If this is anything anyone is interested in, please join me there! (Scroll to the bottom for the new style of postings/reflections)
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I am humbled to contemplate what grew from two people in conversation on evening. The numbers of printings, the numbers of books made available, the ever increasing count of groups and members, these definitely can be taken as evidence of the divine guidance that shaped our society, our fellowship.
The Doctor’s Opinion is absolutely the best sales pitch for the AA program. The bewilderment that we all went through, and that the world still experiences in dealing with us is balanced by the unvarnished presentation of the facts. There are not a lot of words or paragraphs devoted to the phenomenon of craving, but those words and sentences were what grabbed my attention like a slap in the face. My drinking buddy and I used to joke about the “inter-beer interval” and how that got shorter and shorter the longer the drinking lasted. We were crudely describing craving. I suspected for years, maybe since I started drinking, that my experience of alcohol was different from other people’s, and upon reading this chapter with the intention of getting sober, I finally knew what it was - craving. This is why I cannot safely drink - once I start, I know I will be drinking to satisfy the unscratchable itch, and I will never ever catch up to it.
I am profoundly grateful to live in an age when the whole world knows that thing you do with an alcoholic who wants to stop drinking is to get that person to an AA meeting. It’s just a basic fact, like washing your hands after using the toilet - it’s the thing everyone knows to do. AA as the treatment of choice for alcoholism is accepted as a true fact. AA helps people like us when nothing else will do the job.
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What I have found interesting after doing some research on the Oxford Groups is their origin and how this ministry brought the spiritual element of a higher power and the theory of resentment and amends and when merged with the medical findings, shared experience, strength and hope created a winning formula for alcoholics like me.
As you say @SinceIAwoke getting an alcoholic to a meeting is and should always be the first step which I believe brings the doctors realisation that Some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics into play at the earliest opportunity.
These chapters of the book bring me such a relief and comfort that there is something medically wrong with me, like a peanut allergy or another lifelong condition. I am not weak, useless, mentally deficient in some way. I have an illness that can be managed and well controlled for life if I do what needs to be done to manage it.
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I can relate to much in this chapter. Certainly the feeling that somehow what happens to me when I drink must be different to normal drinkers. Once that warmth and lightness starts I want more and more, and even when I start feeling dark and heavy I still think that drinking more will get me back to the nice feeling even though it just takes me further away. And the fact I can repeat this experience over and over and still think / feel / hope it will be different this time, it makes absolutely no sense. In other areas of my life I don’t behave like this, even at my worst I’ll make some mistake or misjudgement 10 times and then get it. But drinking too much is in the hundreds of times. Clearly with the medical knowledge we now have, it is not a literal allergy, but there must be something.
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I had reservations on whether I was an alcoholic or not when I started AA. My alcoholism developed late in life and I honestly thought the people in those rooms were going to teach me how to drink responsibly again. Like I needed a reset of sorts. Reading the Doctor’s Opinion smashed my theory.
This statement from the reading is so profound to me:
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.
That’s exactly how my life became. Alcohol (and drugs) were my “normal” life. Constantly chasing the feeling of that first drink (or drug). Now, sober me is astonished by my old thinking. The ole saying “I went to AA for my drinking and stay for my thinking” applies to me, that’s for sure.
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Thank you all for your insights and contributions on our first week! They were all very helpful for me. I absolutely love seeing what others share and what comes up for them as we read it. Everything is better together!
This week, we are reading chapter one, Bill’s Story.
This can be read in your book or online here:
The Big Book | Alcoholics Anonymous https://search.app/94Jcq5M3RXhkHzRJ9
Once you’ve read it and feel ready to share what your reflections are on the reading, please comment below any time!
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I had my first meeting of our Plain Language Big Book study group tonight. The glossary on pages 9-10 gave me the words that I have been searching for over 19 years - to describe what happened the afternoon of April 7, 2005.
Vital spiritual experience: A powerful emotional event that allows an alcoholic to feel connected to a Higher Power. It also changes an alcoholic’s attitude about drinking.
So grateful for these words tonight.
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Love this!!
This chapter reminds me of the insanity of my alcholism. And, it also shows how we can end up drinking without our own permission. The powerlessness. The misery. The fact that we don’t want to be that person, but knowing isn’t enough. And neither is trying to lock ourselves away…we still manage to find ways to drink.
It also speaks of spirituality. I’ve always had these notions and prejudices against religion, so I wasn’t open to a spiriual connection. I didn’t understand it, it was honestly SO foreign to me. So I could relate to the part and giggle when he talked about how his booze would outlast any rant. But, there was no rant. Just a thought proviking idea and perception. Someone sharing what worked for him. AA is where I found my connection to my higher power. And I see god work in the rooms constantly. I got to create my own conception of god, and that freedom gave me exactly what I needed to connect a higher power.
The line on page 11 where he said, “Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he’s ever known!”
This stood out to me the most, because this is exactly how it is for me. I was on the path to death. Some people may think it’s dramatic, but this IS a killer disease. I lost my dad to it and COUNTLESS others. I was on a direct path to death. Working this program and these steps has given me far more than I’ve ever dreamed of-and it has only just begun. I went from a path of certain death & destruction to one of sobriety, enlightenment, life, and love. I get to help others today and be a source of light in their lives. I get to show others there IS a way out. Just like happened for Bill. He saw it was possible and he followed that same path to the light. Sharing this has helped countless others, such as myself, because of that meeting.
I am grateful to have this program of recovery and this recovery “bible” that shows me who I was, who I can be and how to get there.
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I could relate to Bill’s story on so many levels. Before my drinking (and drugging) got out of control, my husband and I were making a lot of money flipping houses. Him the contractor and me handling the business end. We made a great team. Then the housing market crashed. We still had our house, a rental house and a beach house. Our summers were spent at the beach house living a lavash lifestyle, drinking and drugging until it all came crashing down. Eventually sold the beach and rental houses, but thankfully maintained our home. The drinking didn’t stop there though and continued on a few more years with some sobriety time mixed in. Obviously nothing stuck thinking I could get under control.
Finally, addiction started to impact other areas of my life including my job. That’s when I went into the rooms of AA. But I struggled with the concept of a higher power. Then someone pointed out this statement in Bill’s story.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.
Wow! What a profound statement. I only had to be willing to believe and that was a game changer for me. I didn’t have to understand it all right now. In time, my version of a higher power would form and change.
What I love about this program is that all I need to do is follow a few simple suggestions and stop trying to complicate this shit out of everything.
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This is a perfect share that hit me right in the heart. Thank you!!
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“Faith without works is dead”. Intention without action is empty. I tried for years to get by on “good” intentions, not often meaning to cause harm and disavowing any responsibility when I did, since I “didn’t mean to”.
And oddly enough, the actions that reveal our faith are simple and effective when repeated enough. My counselors in outpatient used to talk about how alcoholism is largely learned and can be unlearned, but only through repetition of speech, thought, and action. In my experience, they are right. When I act contrary to my impulses, I generally feel good about it and stronger.
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Alright friends, we are in the 3rd reading session of the year!
This week we will read chapter 2, there is a solution.
You can find this online here:
Thank you all for your contributions so far and for helping to keep me sober today.
Please share what reflections you have as you read the chapter below this week!
The next chapter will be posted next Wednesday.
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