Alcoholics Anonymous (1939)

Cover selected is "like" the cover I have. However, mine is an original edition without the "reproduction" line.

If you never quite knew what the bottom of the barrel looked like, this book will take you to hell and back. Thank God for that. ( )

Hard to call this book 'good,' but it's certainly functional. ( )

The basic text for alcoholics who are using A.A. as the basis of their recovery. It was written in simple prose (for the time; now some of the grammar and concepts are dated and need to be explained to younger members). It explains the disease concept of alcoholism, and outlines a basic spiritual program that enables alcoholics to keep their disease in remission with the use of a spiritual program. ( )

The very title - The Big Book - sounds so cheesy, so all-American [especially since at the time it was written the book really wasn't all that big and by today's standards its positively minute. It's only one volume, for Heaven's sake] that I'd sooner put faith in one of those Eat all your favourite fattening foods in huge quantities and Lose Weight Hand over Fist type books.

So when I was told I needed the Big Book to stop drinking I reluctantly purchased a copy and hied off the a Big Book meeting. It was unlike anything I've ever been to before and the book is nothing short of a miracle.

The author, Bill Wilson, was a hopeless alcoholic and non-practising Christian when he recieved divine inspiration and, having joined the Oxford group, bought the still-suffering alcoholic Dr Bob Smith to sobriety. The two men together founded alcoholics Anontymous in 1935.

One of Dr Bob's best friend was a Catholic priest, Father Edward Dowling, and he flirted with the church for many years without actually converting because, he said, AA could not be seen to ally itself to any one faith. Both Bob and Bill were Christians however, and the Big Book is a true reflection of the essence of Christ's teachings.

Surprisingly though, Jews and other non-Christians also see the book as being spiritual and encapsulating the messages of love central to their beliefs, while even athiests can recognise the humanist principals of treating others decently and doing the next best thing, and have no problem - after initial reservations - embracing the Big Book whole-heartedly.

To say a piece of writing is divinely inspired reeks of either anachronism or charlatanry: however, for a work to have save so many lives and to be all things to all men who really need it, argues the interception of a higher power. A wonderful work for everyone, not just alcoholics - not just addicts, unless your addiction is to living a good life. ( )