The Original First Edition Big Book Stories
In Alcoholics Anonymous, the tradition of storytelling has been a prominent part of the program from the beginning. The Big Book contains many stories that speak to both the inevitability of pain that the active alcoholic suffers and the possibility of healing within the pain. They believed their drinking to be hopeless but were able to find hope as seen in their personal stories.
Through storytelling, they develop a message of hope and a way of passing on that hope. This process leads them on the path to a new way of life and they discover that this new way of life can be learned as well as taught by sharing their story in a general way, “what they used to be like, what happened and what they are like now”.
As stated on the title page of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous is “The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism”. In the personal stories each author shares in their own words how they each reached their respective bottoms and the way they established a relationship with a God of their own understanding or Higher Power.
This is the main object of the book as stated in “We Agnostics” (page 57 in the first edition) “Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem”.
The first one hundred sixty four pages of the book suggest a twelve-step program which when thoroughly and honestly followed is the path to a spiritual experience.
The second half of the book, "Personal Stories", is made up of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches. It is my hope that the short biographies and original first edition personal stories presented in this book will be enjoyable and holds an inherent value to the reader. The historical significance of each story is that they represent a period of time that is now lost; and these stories are a primary source of documentation for this period of time.
I have added a short biography and informational material about the author at the beginning of each story that provides additional insight into who these earliest AA pioneers were and where they came from.
Through storytelling, they develop a message of hope and a way of passing on that hope. This process leads them on the path to a new way of life and they discover that this new way of life can be learned as well as taught by sharing their story in a general way, “what they used to be like, what happened and what they are like now”.
As stated on the title page of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous is “The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism”. In the personal stories each author shares in their own words how they each reached their respective bottoms and the way they established a relationship with a God of their own understanding or Higher Power.
This is the main object of the book as stated in “We Agnostics” (page 57 in the first edition) “Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem”.
The first one hundred sixty four pages of the book suggest a twelve-step program which when thoroughly and honestly followed is the path to a spiritual experience.
The second half of the book, "Personal Stories", is made up of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches. It is my hope that the short biographies and original first edition personal stories presented in this book will be enjoyable and holds an inherent value to the reader. The historical significance of each story is that they represent a period of time that is now lost; and these stories are a primary source of documentation for this period of time.
I have added a short biography and informational material about the author at the beginning of each story that provides additional insight into who these earliest AA pioneers were and where they came from.