Corey moves into the chapter everybody references and nobody quite reads closely enough, opening with the irony that people say they don’t know how it works while sitting next to a book with that exact title. He slows down here more than usual, reading the Twelve Steps themselves one at a time and translating each into plainer language as he goes, turning our will and our lives over becomes turning my thoughts and my actions over, a searching and fearless moral inventory becomes the same honesty required to untangle a box of crossed wires.
He spends real time on the word all in Step Eight, not some of the people harmed, not the convenient ones, and on half measures availing nothing as the line that ends every excuse for an easier, softer way. The back half pulls from the original manuscript draft, the version before it went through more rounds of revision, and holds it up against the final printed text to see what changed and what the earlier, blunter wording was actually trying to say. It closes on the three pertinent ideas the whole program rests on: that the drinker can’t manage his own life, that no human power could have relieved it, and that God could and would if sought.
A study offered in the spirit of one alcoholic sharing experience, strength, and hope with another.
Read along at home. Reach out any time at wave@dailyripples.com.
Big Book study | How It Works | the Twelve Steps | half measures avail us nothing | made a list of all | the original manuscript | recovery literature | experience strength and hope | addiction recovery
Disclaimer: This Wave Book Study is an independent recovery study offered free of charge as a teaching aid. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (A.A.W.S.). Passages read and discussed are drawn from the book Alcoholics Anonymous (“The Big Book”), © A.A.W.S., Inc., and are used here for educational and discussion purposes with attribution. This study is not a substitute for the Big Book itself. We’d encourage you to get your own copy and read it. A.A.W.S. has not reviewed or approved this content, and the views expressed are those of the host alone.