Preface to the 4th edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, issued on Nov. 2001, 2nd paragraph

"Because this book has become the basic text for our Society and has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists strong sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume, describing the AA recovery program, has been left untouvhed in the course of revisions made for the second, third, and fourth editions. The section called "The Drs. Opinion" has been kept intact, just as it was originally written in 1939 by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, our Society's great medical benefactor."

I also seem to remember at a business conference about 2 yrs ago, a motion being put to the groups, that came from WSO, that the writings of Bill W never be revised or changed in any form. That motion was passed unanimously at the Area level, and I'm sure was passed by the delegates at the Conference.

Is the BB outdated? Sure it is, in some ways. It was written in the late 30's. But when I read it it touches my heart still.

Love, cheri

like gammy said if its not broken dont fix it . 70 years of saving lives . pretty good track record for me . god bless you wagon

As I said ... this was forwarded by my friend with 44 years of sobriety in AA. He is very active with CPC (Cooperation with the Professional Community) and InterGroup.

I feel that the tendency to think of Bill's early writings as a sort of infallible holy scripture is something that even he would not have approved of.

I found the observations in both of the following Grapevine articles noteworthy.
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Interview With the Author of "AA Taught Him to Handle Sobriety
Third in a series of articles on authors of Big Book stories

Bob P. is the author of "AA Taught Him to Handle Sobriety," the final story in the Third Edition of the Big Book. A Grapevine staff member interviewed Bob by telephone at his winter home in Idaho.
If you had the opportunity, would you write your Big Book story differently?

I don't think so. I hadn't read that story for maybe fifteen years, and a few months ago I was in a meeting where the person chairing closed by reading the last few paragraphs of my story. I didn't even realize it was my story when he started to read because I hadn't read it in so long. And as he read it, I thought, "My God, that's good!" [Laughter] So I went back and read it again.

I think the only thing I'd change is to say, as we do to the newcomers, "It gets better all the time." I'd like to have expressed that more than I did, but probably everybody'd say "Oh bull!"
It's a good message to hear, that long-term sobriety is possible and that things do get better. How long have you been sober now?

Thirty-three years. Out here in Idaho, there are a lot of young people, and to them I'm some sort of icon because of thirty-three years' sobriety. But I go to other parts of the country where, hell, that's not so much. I have a friend down in Florida who has fifty-four years, and he looks at me as a newcomer.
How did your story come to appear in the Big Book?

It was published first in the Grapevine, and then Dr. Jack --Dr. Jack Norris, who was [Class A] chairman of the board of trustees at that time--he read it and he said, "Let's put that in the Third Edition." And he'd heard me talk, and he knew I always talked about how to handle sobriety. But I was really shocked when my story was put in with the stories of those who'd lost everything. I didn't feel that way at the time.
Did you think you were in another category?

I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for AA, but I was in such denial. I was so arrogant and self-centered and egotistical when I came in that I didn't think I'd lost anything. But I've since realized that I was absolutely at the bottom. In fact, I miraculously survived what is almost always a fatal illness or problem--esophageal varices or esophageal hemorrhaging from cirrhosis of the liver. After I'd been sober maybe ten or fifteen years, I went to the same hospital in Greenwich where I'd been hospitalized for this bleeding in the latter days of my drinking. I was having a minor operation--getting a mole removed or something--and when I went to do the intake, I gave my name to the woman in charge, who was a nurse, and she looked up at me and said, "I remember you." I said, "How could you remember me?" She said, "You were in the west wing, on the fifth floor, with internal bleeding." I said, "You must see hundreds of people in and out of the hospital with this thing." And she said, "Oh no, they all die."
At the end of your story you talk about being addicted to fantasy, and you say that in sobriety you've been able to embrace reality. But have there been times during your thirty-three years when you were less than thrilled to be embracing reality?

Not really, though I've had all the usual things that happen to you in life--my parents have died and things didn't always go the way I planned. I always loved the idea that "life is what happens while you're making other plans." But I've never failed to find some good thing to be thankful to God about. Maybe that sounds awfully Pollyanna-ish, but that's the honest-to-God fact of the case. I was especially blessed by being a trustee and then by being the general manager of the General Service Office for ten years. What an incredible experience that was.
Since leaving your position as general manager, what kind of AA activity have you been involved with?

I have home groups in Connecticut and Idaho and in Florida, and I still go to at least three meetings a week, sometimes more. And I'm sort of a convention freak. I love to go to AA gatherings--I got into that habit when I was at GSO and was going to them about every other week.
Do you have a sponsor these days?

I've always had a sponsor. In fact I've survived three sponsors. The one I have now is still around--it's "attitude of gratitude" Hal M. down in Washington. I'm his sponsor and he's my sponsor. I had a wonderful sponsor out here, a past delegate from Idaho, lived down in Twin Falls, a fellow named Joe C. He died five years ago. He had less sobriety than I did by ten years or more but I picked him because he was the most devoted, loving, caring AA that I'd ever met. He was taken away with galloping leukemia about thirty days after he went to the doctor. And during that time, I told him, "Joe, you've helped teach so many people how to live and now, by God, you're teaching us all how to die." And he did. He was optimistic and full of gratitude and peace and love up until the time that he died. He was still going to AA meetings two days before he died.
Do you have sponsees?

I do but I'm not a very good sponsor because I'm kind of impatient and irritable with newcomers. I always think they should do more than they do. But there are a number of people I've been able to help get started in AA, and then I turn them over to somebody else or they turn themselves over to somebody else. Part of the reason for that is that we have two homes so I don't have much real continuity with sponsees.
In thirty-three years have you noticed any great changes in the way AA is going or the way meetings are conducted?

At my last talk at the General Service Conference, I bore down heavily on the fact that the biggest enemy of AA at that time was its growing rigidity. I still think it's much more rigid than when I came in, and a hell of a lot more rigid than Bill Wilson ever envisioned it.
What would be an example of increasing rigidity?

I was particularly ticked off at that time by the rigidity of the General Service Conference itself. For example, some people were unhappy about the fact that at the end of the chapter in the Big Book "To Wives," there are two paragraphs that refer to Al-Anon for those people who want that kind of help. One man said we couldn't do that because it was affiliation. This thing was debated for an hour on the Conference floor as to whether it was proper within our Traditions to have a paragraph in the Big Book referring to Al-Anon. They finally compromised by directing that the offending mention be put in a size smaller type and moved down two inches! Really!
Speaking of the Traditions, what was your impression of Bill W.?

Well, he's so clouded now in sainthood.
Did he have any non-saint-like aspects?

Bill was a driven man and absolutely determined to get his own way. But he was always very humble and he always leaned way over backwards to give credit to everybody else. He was a great example, really. You know when he was called the founder of AA, he always insisted, "Oh no, I'm just the co-founder." And he always called the guy who carried the message to him --Ebby T. --he always called Ebby his sponsor, even though Ebby never could stay sober. But yes, he was a persistent son-of-a-gun in getting AA the way he thought it should be --for example, changing the ratio of alcoholics and nonalcoholics on the General Service Board. He fought that one for years and years and got his way in the end. Of course, I think he was right--the majority of the trustees really should be members of AA and take that responsibility.

On Bill, I loved one thing that Dennis Manders said --Dennis was a non-alcoholic who came to work at the General Service Office in the mid-forties. Dennis said that when Bill concluded his speech at the 1955 General Service Conference, he said, "Now AA is in your hands and I will step down," and he dramatically left the stage and started down the steps that led down off the stage. Dennis used to say, sort of laconically, that it took Bill quite a few years to actually make that last step.
It has been noted that a lot of old-timers are no longer going to AA. Do you have any thoughts on why old-timers drift away?

It's kind of the nature of the disease, isn't it? You get everything going great, and then the old ego comes back and you think, "I don't really need those meetings." On the other hand, I know ever so many people in my generation of AA who are still enthusiastic about going to meetings. I guess I tend to know more of those kind of people than I do the others--maybe that's why I tend to be more optimistic! In Greenwich, where I'm very active in local AA, there are a number of people at the meetings who were there when I came in. So there are other old-timers, if you want to call them that, who feel the same way I do about the importance of AA in their lives.
Have you ever gone through a period where you got ticked off with AA or bored with it?

Never! I've never been bored with an AA meeting in my life. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I've never been bored in my life. I heard one kid say about something, "Oh, that's boring." Well, I don't identify. I don't even know what he meant.
You've had an adventure for the last thirty-three years, that's for sure.

I'll be seventy-eight next month, and the last fifteen years have been the best of my whole life. Every day I find the joy of living exuberantly. I was out running this morning and I went three miles up the valley with a fifteen-degree wind-chill factor and the dawn was so glorious and the scenery was so glorious and my beloved wife was with me--she was walking and I'd walk partway with her and then run. We have a great home out here and our children are around us and they're fine and you know, life is so good. The point is, I'm younger, more vigorous, more healthy in every way, and living a far, far better life than I did when I was forty-four years old.

One of our neighbors was just emerging from her house this morning to drive to Boise to get a plane. And this gal said, "My God, I can't believe it" when she saw us. It was cold and it was dark and she was just bundling up for her drive, and here these old codgers were walking and running up the road! It becomes a lot more important the older you are.
You get stiff if you don't move. There's a lesson in that.

As Helen Hayes once said--you know she was a pretty old dame --"If you rest, you rust."
Is there any particular sobriety tool that you find helpful?

It's difficult for me to single any one thing out. I still read the Grapevine regularly. I read the Hazelden "Twenty-four Hour Book" every morning and have for thirty-three years. I read the Big Book at least once a year, and I always discover new things in it, and the "Twelve and Twelve" too.
Do you use the Eleventh Step?

Every single morning when I'm running.
What do you do?

I go through everything that I have to be grateful for, and I ask God to deliver me from the bondage of self and I ask that I be of maximum service to God and my fellow man. Then I try to do the layout in my own mind of what I'm going to be doing during the day.
AA really gives us a plan for living, doesn't it?

What I've always talked about in meetings, and wrote about in the Big Book, is the fact that AA is not about stopping drinking. Anybody can stop drinking--the problem is to stay stopped. And as far as I know, the only way you do that is to change your inner self--to effect a new psychic transformation, if you will, a spiritual transformation. In Alcoholics Anonymous we find a real reason for living and a kinship with a Higher Power and a new joy in life that we simply didn't know in our drinking days--or, in my case, even before I drank. That's what AA is all about.

BOB P.
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A Doctor Speaks Volume 57 Issue 12 May 2001

George E. Vaillant, M.D., joined AA's General Service Board as a Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee in 1998. He is professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, director of the Study of Adult Development, Harvard University Health Services, and director of research in the Division of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital. The author of The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, a comprehensive study of alcoholism, George lectures widely on alcoholism and addiction and is one of the foremost researchers in the field.
In an article about alcoholism in Harvard Magazine, you were quoted as saying that 50 percent of the people brought into emergency rooms with fractures are there as a result of alcohol, but that blood-alcohol levels are never checked. It made me curious about the way medical professionals view alcoholism today. Can you tell us something about that?

What happens in emergency rooms is actually much more dramatic than that. Probably 50 percent of all the people brought into emergency rooms had blood-alcohol levels over .25--which is enough to make any nondependent person comatose, not just prone to accidents. And even though this is a clear biochemical fact staring doctors in the face, no referral is made--nothing is done about it--because when it comes to treating alcoholism, the medical profession feels so helpless, so without hope. And for a doctor, feeling powerless is reason enough to put his head in the sand.
Why do you think that feeling persists?

You have to remember that very few doctors have ever seen a recovered alcoholic. If you're recovered, you don't have any reason to tell your doctor you're an alcoholic. And if you're not recovered, you go back to see him a hundred times, so you're forever etched in his memory. Consequently, doctors overcount the failures and have no knowledge of the successes. They don't understand that 40 percent of all recovery has probably occurred through Alcoholics Anonymous.
What could be done to change that?

The two simplest ways that I know are both within the power of the Fellowship. One is to take your doctor to open meetings so he or she can see for themselves these well-dressed people in nice suits who look like anybody else and have been in recovery for years. It was terribly important for me to get inside of open meetings and see sober alcoholics for myself because they're terribly inspiring.

The second is to twelfth-step your doctor--not to teach him about alcohol or Alcoholics Anonymous, but to give him a list of names that motivated patients could call. Doctors aren't experienced enough in their practices to find recovering alcoholics, so recovering alcoholics must either say "I will talk with patients," or give doctors referrals. What medical professionals need is a list of referral sources, clearly typed, and some success using those referrals, so they have hope rather than hopelessness.
How did you, a nonalcoholic, get to know AA?

I was working for an alcohol clinic where it was a condition of employment. I had to go to a meeting a month. In addition, half the staff were recovering alcoholics, and they were the first people whom I'd met at Harvard in ten years who knew anything about the disease.
Is there any movement afoot to establish that kind of requirement for medical students today?

For the last ten years, medical students in many medical schools have been required to go to one or two AA meetings, due in large part to the activity of AA's CPC (Co-operation with the Professional Community) committee. But the problem is that in your first two meetings, there's so much going on that you don't always get the feeling of, "My God, these people are recovering." It's more about learning what a terrible disease alcoholism is and not about realizing that the people in the meeting are the same people you see in your emergency room with the fractures.

What people are only slowly learning is that you can teach medical students anything that's noble and good about people and they get it right on the exam. But where medical students learn how to be doctors is on the hospital wards and in the emergency rooms, where they're working with residents. And interns, for very good reasons, hate active alcoholics with a passion. Therefore, the educational program has to begin again after residency. And that really is something patients can do for their doctors--not by teaching them about AA, but by telling their stories and offering whatever suits them of the Twelve Steps. And, as I said, by giving them a number to call when the roof is falling in.
You said about 40 percent of the people who remain abstinent do it through AA. What about the other 60 percent? Could we in AA be more open, more supportive of these?

Yes. You know, if you're batting 400, it's all right to miss a few. I think the fact that AA knows the answer to an extremely complicated problem is probably all right.

But it doesn't hurt at the level of GSO for AA to have humility and understand that 60 percent do it without AA. It's also true that most of those 60 percent do it with the AA toolbox: their spirituality doesn't come from AA; their support group doesn't come from AA; and what I call "substitute dependency" doesn't come from AA. But they still use the same ingredients that AA uses.

And I don't think there's anything that the other 60 percent are doing that AA needs to learn from, except: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If you meet someone who has stayed sober for more than three years and they're pleased and boasting that they did it without AA, thank your Higher Power for another recovery. You know, there's "little" sobriety, being dry, and there's sobriety with a big S, which includes humility and not thinking that you're the center of the earth. So if someone is doing something without your help, good enough.
What have you discovered about AA since becoming a trustee? Or as you put it, what if anything has made you say, "Aha!"

I'd never seen the General Service Manual before, and to me as a nonalcoholic, it is a great piece of world literature, like the American Constitution. It is a great contribution to human thought.

I've also learned something about spirituality. Every time there is a board weekend, I arrive thinking, "Oh my God, this is another weekend I'm not with my family." Then I spend the next two days bathed in love and acceptance that is not from my being anyone special. So I've learned another definition of spirituality: we are each like the beautiful wave that's about to crash on the beach, saying, "This is it. This is forever." Then a voice from behind says, "Don't worry, son. You're not a wave; you're part of the ocean."
There is still a great deal of debate about the role of addicts in AA. What are your views on that?

This is a terribly important question. AAs should focus on alcoholism. They're right. They've got enough to do, and there are enough alcoholics to go around in the world that they should never fear for their primary purpose.

But because there are a lot of people with mixed addictions, it's important for individual groups that can tolerate them to be tolerant and inclusive. There are some groups that welcome white, middle-aged Protestant males. And that's okay; they should be there, even though the rest of AA may regard them as hopeless dinosaurs and politically incorrect. And there are other groups that tolerate people who spend a little bit too much time talking about their $5-million cocaine habit and not enough time talking about alcoholism. And that's the wave of the future. There are increasingly fewer alcoholics. So some groups are going to have to change.
What are some of the other challenges that AA faces?

I think there are two, really. One is to come to some meaningful terms with the individuals who are frightened that AA is a religion. This will involve some work and growth in AA to incorporate its diversity without losing its traditions. This is in keeping with the question of keeping the first 164 pages that Bill W. wrote in the Big Book and at the same time including contemporary stories about things some groups might be horrified by.

The second challenge (and this may be more important to me as a class A trustee) is to convey to the world what an extraordinary organization Alcoholics Anonymous is--not only in its ability to cure alcoholism but in its ability to conceptualize the fact that we're all one planet.

Just as an example, groups that are supposed to know about human beings and to be peaceful--the Christian church, the psychoanalytic movement, and the peace movement--are constantly splintering and fighting with each other. And somehow for sixty years, AA has kept two million very diverse individuals, who in their past lives were often a lot less peaceful than the Christians, the psychoanalysts, and the advocates of peace, working together for a common good.

I'm not sure that's a challenge to the Fellowship, or necessary to keep people sober. It's simply to me a challenge that people appreciate the depth of this message, which is expressed more in the Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts that in the Twelve Steps.
When you spoke of religious skeptics or of those fearful that AA might have a religious agenda, were you thinking of professionals in the field of alcoholism, or alcoholics themselves?

Oh, both. Alcoholics, because of the shame, are enormously sensitive to exclusion. So to say, "If you want what we have, you have to believe in a higher power; you have to be spiritual, or you have to fake it till you make it" is enormously threatening to some people. They're still at a point of self-absorption; the idea of depending on a power greater than themselves is something they're going to have to learn. Think of it this way: there are a lot of things parents believe, like the value of working hard and completing an education, that make no sense to an eighteen-year-old. And for some alcoholics, spirituality is like one of those things that you learn when you get older. AA has to constantly remind itself that it needs to meet people where they are and that it can only make loving suggestions.

Bill W. spells out very clearly that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion. And he makes it clear that there should be nothing about AA that excludes anyone who's a suffering alcoholic. But how you get people who've grown up in one tradition to understand how the world looks to people who've grown up in another takes ongoing discussion. Universality is very hard to achieve. And AA, in its effort of world unity, is constantly having to evolve. It's not a question of changing. It's a process of growth.

The beauty of AA is we can have these dicussions and still give each other a hug before we walk out of the room. My sponsor was a DCM and was really big on the 3rd legacy. AA is truly a democracy, where everyone is allowed to vote and voice their opinion, and the minority voice is heard.

I appreciate this post. It allows me to think about things that I don't always think about, and lets me form my own opinion. Thanks Hanuman...

(((everyone)))

Love, cheri

Sorry Doll,

I sometimes forget not everyone has the sponsor I have...I learned some of this early. And your not ignorant, I am. Forgive me.  

The group you attend is a separate entity from other groups...if it is your home group you attend business meetings and vote on group and district business. Normally a group business meeting, or group conscience, votes on things like how to spend the money donated...do we buy big books, how much are we spending on coffee, what are we paying in rent. Also voted on would be how your group stands on district issues...should we pay an answering service, do we need to print up lists of schedules,etc. This group conscience is also a place where things get discussed thoroughly...should the meeting be opened or closed, smoking or non smoking, do we allow children to attend with thier parents...The discussions can be heated sometimes, but normally everything gets voted on. If you vote on something where your opinion is the minority opinion, you should be asked if the minority would like to be heard. After the minority opinion is heard, they ask if anyone would like to change thier vote. If someone says yes, the vote is taken again, sometimes after the minority is heard the motion goes the other direction. It is an awesome display of of being governed by an higher power, as the 2nd tradition states.

Your group is represented at a district level by a GSR, or group service representative. The GSR will bring any district business to the group, talk to the group about it, and takes the groups vote, not thier own personal vote, back to district. If the issue being voted on is a district issue, the groups have decided what the decision is. However, the district may have motions to vote on from Area, normally the state you live in. This is where the DCM, or district commitee member, comes in. The DCM will recieve information and motions from area that need to be voted on and taken back to Area. The DCM informs the GSR's about the information, the GSRs inform thier groups, the groups vote, and it goes back up the line to area and then to the delegate, who goes to NY and votes for the area at WSO, world service.

My district also uses our DCM as the liason between the groups and with the community as a whole. We also have commitees set up for treatment, literature, CPC, and public relations, but the DCM is kind of the person who holds that all together. If they didn't, we as alcoholics would come up with great ideas that we think might work, but may go against a tradition.

And that is what the 3rd legacy is...the service structure of AA.

Love you, cheri