Big Book For Dummies & The 5th Edition… Part 2

I had a very disturbing comment on my blog this evening, regarding my post about the Big Book For Dummies…and the 5th Edition, So I want to go back over the facts as I see them.

GSO is using money sent in by the groups to “translate” the 4th Edition into “plain language”. There are a few lies already in this statement. 1. The dictionary definition of translate means to “render in another language.” You can’t “translate” within the same language. In 2017, the US Government created “Plain Language” for government documents to be written in. Why is GSO affiliating with the Government? Do they have a contract to sell the Big Book to Federal Prisons? What is this really about?

GSO is taking this opportunity to dumb down our message, which has helped thousands of alcoholic men and women to recover, by claiming that we need to make the message available to illiterate people by dumbing it down to a 7th grade reading level. They have hired non-alcoholics to do the “translation”. Some of us feel this is preposterous. Some of us look to our By;aws and ask – “hey GSO, have you changed the Bylaws to reflect these actions?”.

If you do not believe what I am saying here then go an ask your GSR and your DCM. It is not my job as a blogger to give you evidence to support this, but this information has been obfuscated to keep most of AA in the dark about these actions. It was cleverly decided upon during the time in the last 2 years when no one was paying attention or taking much action – things were totally shut down when these items were decided upon.

It reminds me of when, in 1917, Congress passed the Federal Reserve act during “Christmas Break” when many of the representatives were at home with their families. This is just the same sort of lying, cheating behavior that GSO is performing.

Here’s what the Bilaws say “

Appendix E

BYLAWS of The General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc.

“…The General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous (hereinafter referred to as either the “General Service Board” or the “Board”) claims no proprietary right in the recovery program, for these Twelve Steps, as all spiritual truths, may now be regarded as available to all mankind. However, because these Twelve Steps have proven to constitute an effective spiritual basis for life which, if followed, arrests the disease of alcoholism, the General Service Board asserts the negative right of preventing, so far as it may be within its power so to do, any modification, alteration or extension of these Twelve Steps, except at the instance of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping with the Charter of the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous as the same may from time to time be amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Charter”).

      Members of the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous are hereinafter referred to as “Conference Delegates”.

      The General Service Board in its deliberations and decisions shall be guided by the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, hereinafter referred to as the “Traditions”

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

      The General Service Board shall use its best efforts to insure that these Twelve Traditions are maintained, for it is regarded by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous as the custodians of these Traditions and, accordingly, it shall not itself nor, so far as it is within its power so to do, permit others to modify, alter, or amplify these traditions, except in keeping with the provisions of the Charter.

Another lie in that statement is that WE should be doing the “translation”. Let the government do the translating – or whoever it is who feels it’s necessary to “translate” it. Then they can say they excerpted the book Alcoholics Anonymous – but please do not put our name on this “translation”.

I also took offense to what our DCM said about how the dumbed down version came about – because I have been involved in this since 2015 when it was first introduced. It came from an MSW in Canada in the form of a letter to his friend who was on the Board at the time. It was about the Inuit tribe in Canada. This MSW wanted a dumbed down book for the alcoholic Eskimos. The letter went straight to the Trustees and was never brought to the a group conscience of a District or an Area through a delegate – it actually went from top down. This is not how things are supposed to be done in AA.

Had this gone from the bottom up – the groups in that Area could have taken the responsibility of helping out the Inuit tribes – upholding the 1st Tradition – that “our common welfare comes first, and individual welfare follows close afterward.” Whereas now, the welfare of a small group of people is coming first – but that’s the new thing at GSO isn’t it?

GSO wants it’s welfare to come first, it seems to me, so they will act on whatever fad comes along that might get a little more income flowing in, regardless what it will do to AA as a whole.

There are only a handful of humans who identify has non-binary and yet they were able to get the Grapevine to change “men and women” to “people” in the Preamble. This is not what was meant to happen with our literature in using our Traditions.

In addition, our DCM also told us that GSO has taken offense to how Christian AA sounds and they want to take that out to be more inclusive. What the hell? In our book, it says that you are to choose your own conception of God – that is inclusive. I will tell you that when you want to quit drinking for good an for all because booze has kicked your ass hard enough for you to be willing to go to any length, then you set aside perceived differences like these.

I do have my personal take on all of this and I do believe it is the Rockefeller message coming through and occulting the plan of recovery outlined in the Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous – and I am entitled to my point of view because this is my blog and where I get to express myself wholeheartedly.

I personally recovered from Alcoholism using a 1937 dictionary to look up the words in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor at the time, was illiterate and learned to read using the Big Book to recover.

I am pretty sure this is about a few things – money being one of them. The staff at GSO has an unfunded liability for their pension plan. They lost quite a bit in the last few years when groups shut down and stopped sending in money, so they have been scheming to make more money. They hope to profit from this dumbed down plain english book.

My group believes that they are so deluded now that the groups need to have oversight over how the Big Books are Translated for a while to ensure the Message in the Big Book which is clearly that a Higher Power will solve all our problems, once we gain access to it, through the 12 steps, is actually getting “translated”. In addition, we were told a few years back that the 5th Edition would be changed to remove To Wives, The Family Afterward and To Employers as well as the gender-neutralization of the language in the Big Book.

Now we are being told that this is not going to happen – however I don’t believe what GSO says anymore. I have been reading the First Edition and I can see how they willy-nilly changed things in the Dr.’s Opinion that were never agreed to and were never foot-noted. My theories have been corroborated by my friends who are past Trustees and past Delegates who are getting the inside scoop from the office.

My group would also like to have oversight over new editions that are published until we feel that GSO is back on track. The 5th Edition is likely to bring in another $3 mil… I stated that I will be utilizing Power of the Purse, which the groups used to have, before the introduction of the Reserve Fund – GSO was fully self-supporting for 1 year but fear of financial insecurity has gotten the better of them.

Nowadays, I personally feel that we no longer need GSO. We have lost the copyright to the book and we have Anonymous Press – we could unify in our Districts and Areas and run AA ourselves without the corrupt board and staff.

Referring back to the bylaws: Our Traditions – were they used to make these decisions? Was God the ultimate authority in these decisions? Especially to remove the word God and the idea of a Higher Power from the Big Book for Dummies book because the idea of God is not a concept that can be translated into what is now known as “plain English” ? Have we thought about what happens when these dumbed down concepts get mixed into AA as a whole? Will this include all who suffer from alcoholism? Is this move going to effect AA as a whole? Is this really going to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers? Or is it going to divide AA into warring factions?

In the chapter There Is A Solution, in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous; it says “we have a way out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. That is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.” Not anymore.