Occurrences of the Word “God” and Related Words in the Big
Book, and a Big Myth
By Ken B.
© 2012, 2013 Anonymous. All
rights reserved
This
article will address three topics: (1) the use of the phrase “God of our understanding”
in Alcoholics Anonymous and some historical background relating to it; (2) the
number of occurrences of the word “God,” capitalized pronouns referring to the
Creator of the heavens and the earth, and biblical and non-biblical descriptions
of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, on pages 1-164 of the fourth
edition of Alcoholics Anonymous
(2001)--often called “the Big Book;” and (3) a harmful myth that has been
floating around A.A. about the definition of the term “basic text” as it relates
to the Big Book.
1. The term "God of our understanding" does not occur on pages 1-164
of the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (2001). Please see the
attached file "The Term 'God of Our Understanding' Is Not in the Big Book
or the 12 and 12" for a detailed discussion.
A.A. cofounder Bill W. decided to write what he described as “the new version
of the program, now the ‘Twelve Steps.’” [Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of
Age (New York: Alcoholics
Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957), 162; bolding added]. A.A.
cofounder Dr. Bob's sponsee Clarence S. founded the third A.A. group in the
world in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 11, 1939. Clarence's biographer, Mitchell K.,
states:
Two years after the publication of the [Big] book [in April
1939], Clarence made a survey of all of the members in Cleveland. He concluded
that, by keeping most of the ‘old program,’ including the Four
Absolutes and the Bible, ninety-three percent of those surveyed had
maintained uninterrupted sobriety. [Mitchell K., How It Worked: The Story of
Clarence H. Snyder and the Early Days of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cleveland, Ohio (Washingtonville, NY: A.A. Big
Book Study Group, 1997), 108; bolding added].
Frank
Amos's summary of the seven-point “old program”--which he prepared for John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., in February 1938 (the month and year in which Clarence S. got
sober in Akron under Dr. Bob)--is quoted on page 131 of DR. BOB and the Good
Oldtimers (New York, N.Y.:
Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980). Interestingly,
there is no mention in those seven points of “God as we understood Him,” “a
Higher Power,” or “a Power greater than ourselves.” Rather, item #2 states:
He must surrender himself absolutely to God, realizing that
in himself there is no hope.
Dr.
Bob--whom A.A. cofounder Bill W. called “the prince of all twelfth-steppers”
because he, accompanied by Sister Ignatia, helped 5,000 alcoholics recover
between 1940 and 1950--stated:
I didn't write the Twelve Steps. I had nothing to do with
the writing of them. [The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical
Sketches: Their Last Major Talks
(New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975),
14]
In
speaking of a very significant “battle over the book,” Bill W. stated:
All this time I had refused to budge on these steps. I would
not change a word of the original draft, in which, you will remember, I had
consistently used the word “God,”
. . . We [i.e., Bill W., Hank P., John Henry Fitzhugh M.
(“Fitz”), and Ruth Hock] finally began to talk about the possibility of compromise.
Who first suggested the actual compromise words I do not know, .
. . In Step Two we decided to describe God as a “Power greater than
ourselves.” In Steps Three and Eleven we inserted the words “God as
we understood Him.” . . . Such were the final concessions to those of
little or no faith; this was the great contribution of our atheists and
agnostics. . . . God was still there in our Steps, but He was now
expressed in terms that anybody--anybody at all--could accept and
try. [Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 1957), 166-67; italics in original, bolding added]
Bill
W. states the following on page 12 of the fourth edition of Alcoholics
Anonymous:
My friend [i.e., Ebby T.] suggested what then seemed a novel
idea. He said, “Why don't you choose your own conception of God?”
The
paragraph in which the suggestion above occurs was part of a four-paragraph,
handwritten section of text that was inserted in the “printer's manuscript” of
the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous at the last minute as the Big Book was going to print. The four
handwritten paragraphs were not present in the so-called “Multilith Edition” or
“Original Manuscript” of which Bill W. states “four hundred mimeograph copies .
. . were made and sent to everyone we could think of . . .” [Alcoholics
Anonymous Comes of Age, 165]. For a very extensive analysis of the suggestion
“Why don't you choose your own conception of God?” see Appendix 1: “Why
Don't You Choose Your Own Conception of God?” in Dick B. and Ken B., Pioneer
Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous: God's
Role in Recovery Confirmed! (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications,
Inc., 2012), available in 6" x 9" format from Amazon.com (http://mcaf.ee/c02zd), in Kindle eBook format from
Amazon.com (http://mcaf.ee/3l0e7), and in other eBook formats.
The 29 personal testimonies of early A.A. pioneers contained in the
"Personal Stories" section of the 1939 edition of Alcoholics Anonymous spoke about the “old,”
highly-successful(!) Akron A.A. “Christian fellowship” program which A.A. cofounders
Bill W. and Dr. Bob began developing together over the summer of 1935. Bill
W.'s “new version of the program” did not exist! 22 of those personal stories
in the first edition were not included in the second edition published in 1955.
And four more of the original stories were not included in the fourth edition
published in 2001. Thus readers of today's Big Book are receiving very little
information about the “old program” for which A.A. claimed a 75% success rate
up to the time up to the time the second edition was published in 1955. [See
“Foreword to Second Edition,” Alcoholics
Anonymous, 4th ed., xx]. If one wants to see the many
testimonies to the roles played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in
early A.A.'s astonishing successes among "seemingly-hopeless,"
"medically-incurable" alcoholics, check out: Alcoholics Anonymous:
The Original 1939 Edition (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2011) with a
23-page Introduction by Dick B.: http://mcaf.ee/pkj5l
2.
Here are some facts about the number of times the word “God,” capitalized
pronouns referring to the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and biblical
descriptions of the Creator of the heavens and the earth occur on pages 1-164
of the fourth edition of the Big Book:
·
The
word "God"
occurs 135 times on pages 1-164. [This figure includes related
word-forms, including "God-consciousness" (p. 13), "God's"
(pp. 24, 25, etc.), "God-sufficiency" (p. 52), "God-given"
(p. 69), and "God-conscious" (p. 85).] If one chooses to
omit/disqualify "for God's sake" (p. 24) and "the God of
reason" (p. 54), that would leave 133 occurrences of the word “God” which fairly
clearly refer to the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
·
Capitalized
pronouns
referring to the Creator of the heavens and the earth (i.e., God) occur 81
times on pages 1-164; i.e., "He," "His,"
"Him," "Thou," "Thy," and "Thee."
·
Biblical
descriptions of the
Creator of the heavens and the earth (i.e., God)—other
than the word "God"—occur 16 times; i.e., "Creator," "Maker," "the
Father," and "the Father of Light."
So
there are 232 occurrences of the word "God" and related words on
pages 1-164 of the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (or 230, see above). I have attached
three documents providing all of the actual occurrences of the words and
phrases just discussed. In addition, I have attached a document containing the 41 occurrences of non-biblical descriptions
of the Creator of the heavens and the earth (i.e., "God") on
pages 1-164 of the fourth edition of Alcoholics
Anonymous for your review.
3. There is a myth that has been floating around A.A. for a long time
that needs to be put to rest. The myth relates to the common/standard/approved
answer to the following question:
What is the “basic text” for Alcoholics Anonymous?
I recently
asked a medical doctor that question. He was here in Maui spending time with my
dad (pen name “Dick B.”—www.DickB.com) and me in order to learn
more about A.A. and its history. If I heard my dad correctly, he said that this
doctor had three years of sobriety but had been around “the rooms” of A.A. for
more than 20 years. His answer to my question was:
The first 164 pages of the Big Book.
[Some
people might also include the Preface in the fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (“the Big Book”), the
four Forewords, the chapter titled “The Doctor's Opinion,” and/or “Appendix II:
Spiritual Experience” in their answer.]
The
problem with the claim that “the first 164 pages of the Big Book is ‘the basic
text’ of Alcoholics Anonymous” is that it is NOT true. It is a myth!
If
one looks up the meanings of the word "text" in a standard,
college-level dictionary, most of the questions would be answered. But for the
purpose of exploding this myth, one only needs to look at the front cover of
the dust jacket of the hardback fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The front cover states:
Alcoholics Anonymous: This is the Fourth Edition
of the Big Book, the Basic Text for Alcoholics Anonymous
In
other words, according to the front cover of the Big Book’s own dust jacket, it
is the whole book—from cover to cover—that is “the basic text” for Alcoholics
Anonymous!
If
that isn't clear enough, one may go to page xi of the Preface of the fourth
edition of the Big Book for clarification:
. . . [T]his book has become the basic text for our Society
. . ."
So
again, it is the whole book that is “the basic text” for the Society of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
The
original “Big Book”--i.e., the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (which
had a copyright date of April 10, 1939)--was 410 pages. It contained 10 pages
of “front matter,” 396 pages of “main text,” and four pages of “back matter.” The
chapter titled “The Doctor's Opinion” was included in the “main text,” and its
pages were numbered 1-9. “Chapter One: Bill's Story” began on page 10. Chapter
11, “A Vision for You,” ended on page 179. The “Personal Stories” section, containing
29 personal testimonies from early A.A. pioneers for whom A.A. claimed a 75%
success rate among those “who really tried” and “thoroughly followed our path,”
began on unnumbered page 181 (with Dr. Bob's personal story beginning on page
183) and ended on page 396. (The “Personal Stories” section was 215 pages long.)
At the end of the book, there was a single appendix about the Alcoholic
Foundation, which began on unnumbered page 397 and ended on page 400.
In today's fourth edition (published in 2001), the “front matter” of the book is
32 pages long and includes “The Doctor's Opinion.” The “main text” of the book
consists of eleven chapters (including “Chapter 1: “Bill's Story”--which now
begins on page one), spread over 164 pages, and the “Personal Stories”
section—which now begins on unnumbered page 165 and ends on page 559. The “back
matter” of the book consists of seven Appendices (pages 561-73) and a final,
unnumbered page titled “A.A. Literature.” It is the whole book—i.e., all of the
“front matter,” all of the “main text,” and all of the “back matter” (taken
together)—which makes up “the basic text” for the Society of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Why are these details important? First and foremost, because the whole book, Alcoholics
Anonymous, is “the basic text” for the Alcoholics Anonymous Society; and
the Big Book itself says so! Second, because vitally-important testimony illustrating
the roles played by God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible in early
A.A.'s astonishing successes are contained in the “Personal Stories” section of
the Big Book--beginning after page 164 of the fourth edition. For example, have
you seen the last line of Dr. Bob's personal story?
Your Heavenly Father will never let you down! [p. 181]
Have
you seen this statement by A.A. cofounder Bill W.?
. . . "Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me,
curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about it
and telling people." [p. 191]
Have
you seen this statement by A.A. Number 3, Bill D.?
Bill [W.] was very, very grateful that he had been released
from this terrible thing, and he had given God the credit for having done it,
and he's so grateful about it he wants to tell other people about it. That
sentence, "The Lord has been so wonderful to me, curing me of this
terrible disease, that I just want to keep telling people about it," has
been a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.
Enjoy!
In GOD's love,
Ken B.
PS: Please check out the International Christian Recovery Coalition. It is FREE
to become a "Participant": www.ChristianRecoveryCoalition.com. And please check out the
"Christian Recovery Radio with Dick B." show, the "Russell S.
Talks," and other Christian Recovery resources, available at: www.ChristianRecoveryRadio.com.
.
