By Associated Press Writer Leanne Italie -- Tues., Sep 28, 2010
In 1939, about 5,000 copies of a book offering hopeless drunks a spiritual
path
to recovery through 12 steps were released by a fledgling fellowship of
alcoholics.
They called it "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred
Men
Have Recovered From Alcoholism."
Sales were dismal at first, but interest picked up in 1941 with help from a
story in The Saturday Evening Post and grew into a recovery revolution for
everybody from over-eaters and the over-sexed to gamblers and shopaholics.
More than 27 million copies of the so-called Big Book in more than 50
languages
have been sold, but little was known about how the manual where none had
ever
existed was conceived. Did AA's co-founder Bill Wilson, a fallen New York
stockbroker, really write much of it himself with the help of early
adherents?
Turns out the group's bible was heavily vetted, as reflected in a working
manuscript to be published Friday for the first time. Called "The Book that
Started it All," the document is filled with crossouts, inserts and notes,
presumably based on feedback sought from about 400 hand-picked outsiders who
included doctors and psychiatrists.
Some of the edits made it into print, especially in early chapters for
fragile
readers. Many others were rejected as the still-anonymous personalities
behind
the notes fretted over how to handle God and religion, a Higher Power
"bigger
than ourselves" and the influence of the Oxford Group, a religious movement
embraced by Wilson and his fellow founder, Ohio physician Bob Smith, but
later
considered a preachy hindrance in working with problem drinkers.
"The goal was to increase the likelihood that there would be fewer
distractions
and fewer reasons for throwing the book across the room," said Fred
Holmquist, a
student of AA history and director of the Lodge Program for the treatment
program Hazelden.
Hazelden's publishing arm was given high-resolution scans of the typed
manuscript by its current owner, an Alabama businessman. They show off the
mysterious edits and marginalia and are being published with commentary from
AA
historians. The manuscript passed to Wilson's widow, Lois, after he died in
1971
and has surfaced twice at auction since, including one sale for $1.56
million in
2004 to a California lawyer.
It's a rare glimpse into the inner-workings of an organization that was
shrouded
in mystery (some early members wore face masks when speaking in public) but
remains the dominant force in addiction recovery.
"The spirituality side is what enabled the movement to grow very rapidly,"
said
Nick Motu, a Hazelden senior vice president and head of the publishing
division.
"Had this been about religion, I have doubts it would have succeeded as it
had."
Striking that tone is evident throughout the manuscript, including this note
in
one margin: "We have said constantly the trouble with org (sic) religion is
that
they try to dogmatically pour people into moulds. So why should we give
specific
instructions in the book such as saying do this and do that? You can obscure
many alcoholics."
Walking the God tightrope has taken AA far over the years, with the book now
in
its fourth edition, circulating in China and Iran -- and in Russia and
Romania
before the fall of Communism, Motu said.
Founded in 1935, before addiction was truly understood as an illness, Wilson
believed "you can't tell drunks what to do. That was his genius," said Susan
Cheever, who wrote the Wilson biography "My Name is Bill."
Wilson's spiritual "inclusiveness," as Cheever put it, apparently struck the
right tone in a chapter for atheists and agnostics that made it through
vetting
with few changes. One telling sentence weighing a life in "alcoholic hell"
against being "saved" was edited to say "alcoholic death" or life "on a
spiritual basis."
Patrick H. of Las Vegas knows that chapter well. He's four years sober with
help
from AA, and he's also an atheist.
"I kind of have a cafeteria plan, where you take the things that work for
you
and discard the things that don't work," he said.
Among other accepted edits was a softening of the book's "directive" tone to
a
more suggestive one, especially in the early chapters.
"Do people like to be told they will be instructed," wrote one of the
editors in
red pencil as he nipped away at a passage discussing a solution in Chapter
Two:
"This volume will inform, instruct and comfort those who are, or who may be
affected."
The word "instruct" was dropped.
In Chapter Five, "How it Works," the opening line was: "Rarely have we seen
a
person fail who has thoroughly followed our directions." In the same red
pencil,
the language was changed in the book's first edition to "followed our path."
In the opening chapter, which tells Wilson's story, one commenter questions
this
sentence: "God has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we
perish."
The criticism? "Who are we to say what God has to do." The reference, at a
Dr.
Howard's suggestion, was changed to "Faith."
Some mentions of God became "God as we understood him," and the famous "We"
at
the beginning of the first step was added later at the suggestion of one
among
five or six to make notes on the manuscript, including Wilson himself.
In the seventh step, where Wilson and his collaborators indicate to their
readers that they "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings," a reference
to
doing so "on our knees" was crossed out and never made it into print.
There were other slippery slopes.
In the heavily edited second chapter is a note warning against saying AA
members
who have "found this solution" would be "properly armed with certain medical
information" to quickly win over other drinkers.
"Doctors are a jealous lot and don't like this," one note says. "I have had
to
ask WHAT MEDICAL INFORMATION? Why not cut?"
The risky phrase was changed to "properly armed with facts about himself
..."
While some critics question whether AA really works for most, Cheever said
Wilson would have hated the idea of forcing it down the throats of anybody,
including prison inmates or court defendants, against their will.
"He understood that very well," she said. "He said over and over and over
again
that never works."
___________________________________________
ONLINE COPIES AT:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fea_lifestyles_aa_s_big_book
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5htW8eaaHKr5-SYUScZ005bWC9p
4wD9\
IH4SHG3?docId=D9IH4SHG3 [23]
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++++Message 6913. . . . . . . . . . . . font used in Big Book
From: Janis R . . . . . . . . . . . . 10/1/2010 12:23:00 PM
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I have a sponsee who is a bit of an expert in fonts. She has found a font
called "Kaufman" established in 1936 that looks identical to the capital
letters you see in the first edition of the Big Book. I haven't seen that
anyone has sent this information in, but if I missed it and everyone already
knows this, I apologize. I can send a link to the font if anyone is
interested.
Thanks,
Janis
Janis S. Raley
Director, Dallas Intergroup Assn.
214-887-6699
"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or
misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."
Robert Louis Stevenson
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++++Message 6914. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: font used in Big Book
From: Dougbert . . . . . . . . . . . . 10/1/2010 9:15:00 PM
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Janis,
I am a graphic designer and you got it right . . .it is Kaufman. A very
popular
font during the art deco phase in the twenties.
dougbert
- - - -
PHOTOS OF THE DROP CAPS
(courtesy of Larry Holbrook, along with photos of the fonts)
KAUFMANN in First Edition, Ninth Printing, 1946:
http://www.laurenceholbrook.com/AAHistoryLovers/FirstEdition.htm
PARK AVENUE in Fourth Edition, First Printing, October 2001
(AAWS made a switch to this different font at that time):
http://www.laurenceholbrook.com/AAHistoryLovers/FourthEdition.htm
- - - -
From GC the moderator: if you Google for Kaufmann and Park Avenue, it seems
to
be easy to find sites where you can download copies of these fonts for a
small
fee (these are presumably better quality versions of these fonts). But there
are
also sites noted on Google where they say that you can download copies of
these
fonts for free:
KAUFMANN:
http://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts-k.html#Free%20Fonts
http://www.searchfreefonts.com/font/kaufmann.htm
http://www.hdicon.com/fonts/kaufmann-bold-bt/
PARK AVENUE:
http://www.fontemple.com/free-download/8788-Park-Avenue-BT.html
http://www.fontstock.net/8966/parkavenue.html
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++++Message 6915. . . . . . . . . . . . Encore Performances of Grapevine
Play (75th Anniv. International Convention)
From: jaxena77 . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/28/2010 6:36:00 PM
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PERFORMANCE DETAILS AT: http://www.spirit-sf.org/
Sunday, October 17, 2010 -- 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm
"In Our Own Words: Pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous"
Final Two Performances
Tickets Available Online
$15.00 in Advance/$20.00 at the door
($1 convenience fee per online ticket purchase)
And in between the two performances:
4:00 pm AA/Al-Anon Meeting
AA Speaker - Nicole D. - Oakland, CA
Al-Anon Speaker - Liz M.
==============================================
I am writing today with a request for your service and assistance. This
July, a
group of the San Francisco fellowship performed an original play during the
75th
Anniversary International Convention in San Antonio called In Our Own Words:
Pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous. The play was enthusiastically received
during
the convention, and our two performances were seen by over 700 people.
However,
we turned away almost that same number, many of them from members from
Northern
and Central California.
Since our performances in San Antonio, I have received many requests from
members throughout California, asking us to bring the show to their area.
However, the cast is made up of volunteers, who have jobs and personal lives
and
service work to fulfill, and it is impossible for us to tour the show, much
as
we would like to. Our solution was to perform the play two more times, and
to
do our best to spread the word to members throughout Northern and Central
California.
We are being presented by The Spirit of San Francisco, a service
organization
that serves members in San Francisco and the Penninsula. There are two
performances scheduled that day, to accommodate those who may be traveling,
at 2
PM and 6 PM. An AA meeting is being held at 4:00 pm, so that members can
come
to the play and stay for the meeting, or come to the meeting and stay for
the
play. The theater is very large and can accommodate 500 people for each
performance.
We are asking your help to PASS IT ON! Please post and if possible, copy and
share with your members and group representatives. We are hoping that
announcements can be made at meetings as well. Anything you can do to help
will
be greatly appreciated, by those of us in this project, but also those
members
who have not had a chance to see this production.
Tickets are on sale, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Proceeds
will go towards The Spirit of San Francisco, future recovery productions and
donations to our San Francisco Central Office and GSO in New York.
I have electronic (pdf) and email versions of the flyer available if you
would
find that a more convenient way of sharing this information. Please email me
at
inourownwords.sanantonio@gmail.com
(inourownwords.sanantonio at gmail.com)
More information and advance tickets purchase can be found at
www.spirit-sf.org.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email me.
Thank
you for your service.
In Love & Service,
Jackie B.
Author, In Our Own Words
==============================================
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++++Message 6916. . . . . . . . . . . . Amazon edition: Original working
manuscript of the Big Book
From: Shakey1aa@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 9/30/2010 3:06:00 AM
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Is Amazon the best place to purchase it? From John Moore, Shakey Mike, Jared
Lobdell, Glenn Chesnut, dougbert, and Chuck Parkhurst
- - - -
From: John Moore
(contact.johnmoore at gmail.com)
Got mine today! It is a beautiful volume. High resolution scans of every
page
including all the penciled markings ... a wonderful job of printing.
I got mine for $40.95 and free shipping from Amazon.
John M
South Burlington, Vtermont
- - - -
From: (Shakey1aa at aol.com)
Thanks for the heads up on the cheaper method.
- - - -
From: dougbert8@yahoo.com (dougbert8 at yahoo.com)
> Hi group,
>
> If you Google for:
>
> The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of
Alcoholics
Anonymous
>
> and go to the Amazon.com site, you will be able to purchase it for $40.95
instead of the normally given price ($65.00):
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Book-That-Started-All-Manuscript/dp/159285947X
>
> dougbert
- - - -
From: "J. Lobdell"
(jlobdell54 at hotmail.com)
MAYBE -- THEY SAY IT'S OUT OF STOCK AND HAVE NOT CHARGED MY CARD FOR THE
ORDER I
SENT IN LAST WEEK NOR OTHERWISE ACKNOWLEDGED THE ORDER
- - - -
From: "Chuck Parkhurst" (ineedpage63 at cox.net)
Amazon is listing this item as "sold out." Has anyone actually PURCHASED
this
book DIRECTLY from Amazon and can attest that it was EVER available through
them? Amazon has shown the book's "page" for weeks as coming soon, even
AFTER
it was available from the main retailer
In Service with Gratitude,
Chuck Parkhurst
- - - -
From: Glenn Chesnut (glennccc at sbcglobal.net)
Jared and Chuck,
Amazon accepted my order which I sent in on Sept. 28, and as of today (Oct.
2)
they are no longer saying that it is out of stock. I suspect they're getting
that low price by waiting until they have enough orders to do a very large
mass
printing, which lowers the per unit price.
And John Moore (above) says that he has received his copy, and the Amazon
printers did a really good job. Amazon has always done a good job at
printing
and selling our Hindsfoot Foundation books and we've never had any
complaints
from those who bought them there: http://hindsfoot.org
But I haven't yet actually received the copy I ordered from them of the
original
working manuscript, so for now, caveat emptor and all that.
Glenn
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++++Message 6917. . . . . . . . . . . . Washington Post article on newly
published Big Book manuscript
From: Bill Lash . . . . . . . . . . . . 10/1/2010 10:14:00 AM
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/21/AR2010092106
531.\
html [24]
=============================================
AA original manuscript reveals profound debate over religion
By Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, September
22,
2010
For millions of addicts around the world, Alcoholics Anonymous's basic text
-
informally known as the Big Book - is the Bible. And as they're about to
find
out, the Bible was edited.
After being hidden away for nearly 70 years and then auctioned twice, the
original manuscript by AA co-founder Bill Wilson is about to become public
for
the first time next week, complete with edits by Wilson-picked commenters
that
reveal a profound debate in 1939 about how overtly to talk about God.
The group's decision to use "higher power" and "God of your understanding"
instead of "God" or "Jesus Christ" and to adopt a more inclusive tone was
enormously important in making the deeply spiritual text accessible to the
non-religious and non-Christian, AA historians and treatment experts say.
The editors softened Step 7 of AA's renowned 12 Steps for example, by
deleting a
phrase that evoked church worship. "Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to
remove
our shortcomings - holding nothing back," became "Humbly asked Him to remove
our
shortcomings."
In the first chapter, a sentence that read "God has to work twenty-four
hours a
day in and through us, or we perish," was edited to replace "God" with
"faith,"
and a question was added: "Who are we to say what God has to do?"
Wide range of addictions
In the years since the Big Book was first published, AA's 12-step program
has
been adopted by millions of people battling a wide range of addictions, from
drugs to food to sex to e-mail. It has been embraced by the authorities in
the
Islamic republic of Iran and the former Soviet Union and retooled by groups
ranging from Chabad (for Jews) to Rick Warren's Celebrate Recovery (for
evangelical Christians).
"If it had been a Christian-based book, a religious book, it wouldn't have
succeeded as it has," said Nick Motu, senior vice president of Hazelden
Publishing, the world's largest purveyor of materials related to addiction.
Hazelden is publishing the 4.5-pound, $65 manuscript, titled "The Book That
Started It All" (the original was called, simply, "Alcoholics Anonymous").
But the crossed-out phrases and scribbles make clear that the words easily
could
have read differently. And the edits embody a debate that continues today:
How
should the role of spirituality and religion be handled in addiction
treatment?
They also take readers back to an era when churches and society generally
stigmatized alcohol addicts as immoral rather than ill. The AA movement's
reframing of addiction as having a physical component (the "doctor's
opinion"
that opens the book calls it "a kind of allergy") was revolutionary, experts
say.
"We didn't have any knowledge then about the brain. Today we know there is a
neurological component, we know there are spiritual, psychological and
environmental components," said Joseph Califano, founder of the National
Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
Califano said "virtually every rehabilitation program" in the country today
includes a requirement to join an AA group. "The concept of the 'higher
power'
was important because it made the whole spiritual aspect available to
Catholics,
Jews, others," he said.
While the Big Book describes addiction in a way that was complex for the
time,
the 75-year-old movement has changed significantly as well. In addition to
AA
meetings, mainstream treatment today includes psychiatric treatment, group
therapy, even nutrition. And despite objections from some secularists,
experts
generally believe that "there is a significant spiritual component for the
overwhelming majority of people" coming out of addiction to alcohol and
drugs,
Califano said.
The question was - and is - in what way? The notes in the margins of the
manuscript make clear there was disagreement, and even Wilson was torn.
A sometime stock speculator from Vermont who wrestled with depression as
well as
alcoholism, Wilson didn't attend church and had "the classic white flash
experience" of a universal spirituality that gave him the strength to become
sober, said Sid Farrar, Hazeldon's editorial director. Later in his life, he
experimented briefly with LSD and parapsychology.
"Wilson was divided, too," on how to talk about God in the Big Book, Farrar
said. "But it's not generally known that there was a debate about religion."
Analyzing the scribbles
Much remains unknown about how the manuscript was edited - and by whom.
Hazelden
said it hasn't had the resources to analyze the handwriting in the margins.
Historians of AA and addiction treatment will not begin analyzing the
scribbles
and debating who wrote each one until the manuscript is published next week.
Motu said Wilson sent his original book to about 300 recovering addicts,
religious leaders and doctors, among others, but some think the writing
visible
in the margins belonged to a small number of commenters.
The Big Book was first published in 1939, and the only things that have
changed
through four editions are the personal stories of recovery added to the end.
The
manuscript - which Hazelden says is the only one in existence - was stored
for
nearly 40 years in the New York home of Lois and Bill Wilson.
In the late 1970s, Lois Wilson gave the book as a gift to a friend in
Montreal,
who kept it private for decades. It was put up for auction in 2004 at
Sotheby's,
who sold it for $1.56 million. At the time, there was a flurry of criticism
from
historians who said it was a major document that should be available to
scholars.
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