an A.A. meeting that sobriety took hold.
7CROSSING THE RIVER OF DENIAL
She finally realized that when she enjoyed her drinking, she couldn’t control it, and when she controlled it, she couldn’t enjoy it.
8BECAUSE I’M AN ALCOHOLIC
This drinker finally found the answer to her nagging question, “Why?”
9IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE
Alcohol was a looming cloud in this banker’s bright sky. With rare foresight he realized it could become a tornado.
10TIGHTROPE
Trying to navigate separate worlds was a lonely charade that ended when this gay alcoholic finally landed in A.A.
11FLOODED WITH FEELING
When a barrier to God collapsed, this self-described agnostic was at Step Three.
12WINNER TAKES ALL
Legally blind but no longer alone, she found a way to stay sober, raise a family, and turn her life over to the care of God.
13ME AN ALCOHOLIC?
Alcohol’s wringer squeezed this author—but he escaped quite whole.
14THE PERPETUAL QUEST
This lawyer tried psychiatrists, biofeedback, relaxation exercises, and a host of other techniques to control her drinking. She finally found a solution, uniquely tailored, in the Twelve Steps.
15A DRUNK, LIKE YOU
The more he listened at meetings, the more he came to know about his own drinking history.
16ACCEPTANCE WAS THE ANSWER
The physician wasn’t hooked, he thought—he just prescribed drugs medically indicated for his many ailments. Acceptance was his key to liberation.
17WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
This young alcoholic stepped out a second-story window and into A.A.
PART III They Lost Nearly All
1MY BOTTLE, MY RESENTMENTS, AND ME
From childhood trauma to skid row drunk, this hobo finally found a Higher Power, bringing sobriety and a long-lost family.
2HE LIVED ONLY TO DRINK
“I had been preached to, analyzed, cursed, and counseled, but no one had ever said, ‘I identify with what’s going on with you. It happened to me and this is what I did about it.’”
3SAFE HAVEN
This A.A. found that the process of discovering who he really was began with knowing who he didn’t want to be.
4LISTENING TO THE WIND
It took an “angel” to introduce this Native American woman to A.A. and recovery.
5TWICE GIFTED
Diagnosed with cirrhosis, this sick alcoholic got sobriety—plus a lifesaving liver transplant.
6BUILDING A NEW LIFE
Hallucinating and restrained by sheriff’s deputies and hospital staff, this once-happy family man received an unexpected gift from God—a firm foundation in sobriety that would hold up through good times and bad.
7ON THE MOVE
Working the A.A. program showed this alcoholic how to get from geographics to gratitude.
8A VISION OF RECOVERY
A feeble prayer forged a lasting connection with a Higher Power for this Mic-Mac Indian.
9GUTTER BRAVADO
Alone and unemployable, he was given two options by the court, get help or go to jail, and his journey toward teachability began.
10EMPTY ON THE INSIDE
She grew up around A.A. and had all the answers—except when it came to her own life.
11GROUNDED
Alcohol clipped this pilot’s wings until sobriety and hard work brought him back to the sky.
12ANOTHER CHANCE
Poor, black, totally ruled by alcohol, she felt shut away from any life worth living. But when she began a prison sentence, a door opened.
13A LATE START
“It’s been ten years since I retired, seven years since I joined A.A. Now I can truly say that I am a grateful alcoholic.”
14FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE
Young when she joined, this A.A. believes her serious drinking was the result of even deeper defects. She here tells how she was set free.
15A.A. TAUGHT HIM TO HANDLE SOBRIETY
“God willing, we … may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day.”
IThe A.A. Tradition
IISpiritual Experience
IIIThe Medical View on A.A.
IVThe Lasker Award
VThe Religious View on A.A.
VIHow to Get in Touch With A.A.
VIITwelve Concepts (Short Form)
PREFACE
THIS IS the fourth edition of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous.” The first edition appeared in April 1939, and in the following sixteen years, more than 300,000 copies went into circulation. The second edition, published in 1955, reached a total of more than 1,150,500 copies. The third edition, which came off press in 1976, achieved a circulation of approximately 19,550,000 in all formats.
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 A.A. recovery program, has been left largely untouched in the course of revisions made for the second, third, and fourth editions. The section called “The Doctor’s 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.
The second edition added the appendices, the Twelve Traditions, and the directions for getting in touch with A.A. But the chief change was in the section of personal stories, which was expanded to reflect the Fellowship’s growth. “Bill’s Story,” “Doctor Bob’s Nightmare,” and one other personal history from the first edition were retained intact; three were edited and one of these was retitled; new versions of two stories were written, with new titles; thirty completely new stories were added; and the story section was divided into three parts, under the same headings that are used now.
In the third edition, Part I (“Pioneers of A.A.”) was left unchanged. Nine of the stories in Part II (“They Stopped in Time”) were carried over from the second edition; eight new stories were added. In Part III (“They Lost Nearly All”), eight stories were retained; five new ones were added.
This fourth edition includes the Twelve Concepts for World Service and revises the three sections of personal stories as follows. One new story has been added to Part I, and two that originally appeared in Part III have been repositioned there; six stories have been deleted. Six of the stories in Part II have been carried over, eleven new ones have been added, and eleven taken out. Part III now includes twelve new stories; eight were removed (in addition to the two that were transferred to Part I).
All changes made over the years in the Big Book (A.A. members’ fond nickname for this volume) have had the same purpose: to represent the current