E270: The Most Owned, Least Understood Book in Recovery

A lot of people in AA have a Big Book. Fewer people know how to actually use it. Matt was one of those people for a long time — and he's willing to admit it.

In this episode Matt and Steve dig into what the Big Book actually is and what it isn't. It's not a memoir. It's not a devotional. It's not a loose collection of Bill Wilson's thoughts. It's a textbook — sequential by design, with chapters that build on each other deliberately. Read it out of order, rush through it, or try to go it alone and you'll likely miss most of what it's trying to teach you.

They talk about why the book works best when you go through it with someone who knows it — a sponsor, a Big Book study group, or resources like Joe and Charlie — and why the stories in the back, as valuable as they are for identifying with the problem, are not the instructions. The first 164 pages are the instructions.

Matt also recommends Writing the Big Book by William Schaberg — a deep dive into the original source material and manuscripts that gives you the historical context to understand what you're actually reading.

If the Big Book has felt confusing, inaccessible, or like something you had to get through rather than something you got to learn from — this episode is for you.

Find Sober Friends: Website: https://www.soberfriendspod.com Email: matt@soberfriendspod.com

Transcript

Matt: 0:00

The big book's been around since 1939 and a lot of people in AA have one. Fewer people know how to actually use it. I was one of those people for a long time. Welcome to the Sober Friends podcast. Yeah, we're here to talk about topics like that. Big book is one of those that is that can be a tough one. Steve, good morning. How are you?

Steve: 0:28

Great.

Matt: 0:28

What's on this topic?

Steve: 0:30

How are you doing?

Matt: 0:32

I'm good.

Steve: 0:35

Dot, Dot on this topic. Um, yeah, I mean, the big book can be confusing. Right?

Matt: 0:42

Very.

Steve: 0:43

Listen, I'm one of these people. And this has been not just, just not just AA. I mean, it's happened to me with, with religious stuff. Dude, as long as I got older and as I, I've actually studied some stuff, right? And then I've had the opportunity to look, to look objectively at things and that really be colored by my past or what other people have told me and try to have my own independent thoughts and positions. Um, and then you, we talk about it here and you talk about a lot too. It's like there's lots in the big book that I look, look at and I don't love these days. Which does not mean it's not helpful, which does not mean it's not what got me sober, which does not mean if somebody comes to ask me for help that I'm not going to use that because the truth is right now in my life, that is the only way I know how to help somebody. So if somebody is looking for my help, I will help them in that manner. If that's the path they want to take, and if they don't want to take that path, that's fine, but I'm probably not their guy, um, still can be supportive. But I just can't be the guy who takes them through another, another path. So it took, it took a while, right. And, and most people who come in will tell you that they could not really understand and make use of the big book until they worked with somebody who had done it already, right. That you sat down with someone who knew it and had an idea of how to use it, right? How to use it. And then you know, allowed them to help you because then that's what happens, right. You sit down like anything else. You sit down, you read something, everything is, you know, you interpret everything. You read and then you then you discuss it and you say here, here's what this, here's what I think this meeting or here's what this did for me or here's what I realized. When I got to this point, here's what I realized. You know, and then you have that feedback back and forth and, um, and I think that's a power of the big book, right. Is that we get to that point because, you know, what what is the big book? It's a sprinkle of a bunch of alcoholics, right. Bill, mostly, but telling stories about the alcoholics and how they recovered. And we can use that to our benefit.

Matt: 3:07

You're the person I learned the thought that this is a textbook from. You have said this a bunch of times. I don't see this as a memoir or a devotional or a collection of stories. And it's sequential by design. The chapters build on each other deliberately. So if you go in thinking this is Bill telling a life story or that it's loosely through, hey, I can read through the first 164 pages and get a good grip on this. That's not how this book works at all. And I read, I read this. First time I read it, I read through all 164 and I didn't pick up a lot of stuff. I needed some help.

Steve: 4:00

Yeah. I never read it on my own. I never did. I don't know why I think that because I had because I don't know. When I came in, it was like, I was just lost first of all. You know, when I first came in. And, um, and I just needed somebody to tell me. If somebody, if somebody told me to go home and read that book, I probably would have. But my sponsor at the time, I didn't tell me that my sponsor, what my sponsor did at the time was invite me to a big book study group, right? At his sponsor's house that there was a small group. It was four or five of us, right? And we, and we went through the big book that way. And it wasn't Joe and Charlie. We just read through the big book. Um, and that's how I went to the big through through the big book the first time. And then I actually had, while I was doing that, I also was meeting with my sponsor going through it one on one with him. So that's how I went through the big book. I'd never sat down and read the big book. I named up, even now, like up in I've 15 plus years over, I've never read the big book as a book through to through. I never sat down like, Oh, I'm going to start from the beginning and read the first 164. Like I'll go to it and refer to it and read certain pages that mean something to me. But even that, I do less today. Um, and I've, but I've done that many times, um, but I've never sat down to read it, cover to cover. Um, and, and I've always gone to big book meetings. I do like big book meetings. I used to go to,

Matt: 5:21

yep.

Steve: 5:21

I used to go to two of them and I just felt like, especially early on in my sobriety. And when I say early on, I'm talking even when I was five and ten years sober, like I really consider that early on, that it was helpful. The more I was in the big book, right? And I always used to say, you know, I got a big book meetings and then I work with a sponsor and I'm in the big book working with a sponsor. And like, so I'm always in the big book. I'm always working on it. And then when I did that, I felt like my program was really, really solid. And as I, you know, had less opportunity to work with sponsors and, you know, I go to one big book meeting pretty much nowadays. You know, I'm not in as much as I used to be. And did, I have had a guy recently come up to me and ask me to go through a big book with him. Not a newbie. Just somebody who wants to go through it with somebody different and

Matt: 6:14

I

Steve: 6:14

I've offered to do that. And we haven't figured out the time yet. But he reproached me a couple of weeks ago and said, Hey, I think, I think it's about time we do that. So what probably do that? Right? And that'll get me back in it. And I'll sit down and I always like doing it. I always like doing it because it just gets me thinking again, it gets you just really reminding me like, how I got sober, right? How I got sober. What steps did I take? What do I need to do? So, but there is, like you said, there is a way, right? It is written in an order that allows us to get through to the solution, right? Which is what they present, right, to find a power greater than ourselves that will restore us to sanity. That's the solution, right? And then how we do that is we follow the steps. And Bill does a great job of laying them out. He really does. And in a manner that gets you through there. But I don't think you could do, I don't think many people could do that on their own by reading it over like, Oh, yeah, here's what I need to do next, right? Here's what I need to do. And here's what I need to do. I do need, I do think that you need help when you go to that in order to really make it effective.

Matt: 7:31

Help is good if you do it by yourself, you have, I don't have a better term for this than diseased mind and you got to where you got to in the program, you got to where you got to with alcohol use disorder and it's tough to get out of that by yourself. If you could, you would have, and the book can have lots of old lingo in it and maybe tough to absorb, I really think that's where having some type of help, there's a there's a bunch of different ways. I think the easiest way is what you touched upon, going to a big book meeting. I'm going to identify that for you if you don't know. There are a bunch of different, when you, when you look up AA on the internet or a little schedule book, every meeting is not the same, there are different types of meetings. There are ones that like you've seen on TV where somebody goes to a lectern and they speak, or there are meetings where people just discuss a topic, not too far off from what we're doing in this podcast. And then there are other ones where it's a devotional or prayer meeting or a 24 hour day meeting 12 and 12 and big book meetings, where the most common format is you read through the chapter. You go around the room, everybody picks a paragraph or two and you read through a chapter, then you pause and then there is discussion time where generally you're sharing about what you learned, what you read. If you've got something, you can, you can share in anything, but that's how it works. I think that is a great starting point. If you don't feel comfortable with the big book, go to big book meetings because you're going to have people who have gone through it, you're going to at least get through a chapter where somebody is going to explain it well, at least that's what works really well for me.

Steve: 9:37

Yeah, not only in just in the same description of meetings, then there's different, and I want to make it too complicated for anybody, but then there's different big book meetings, right? So my point is go go find a big book meeting that you like the format. I mean, I know I know a big book meetings out there. I know one not too far from me that what they do is you get to read, you get to read a portion, I don't know if it's a sentence or whatever, and then you get to share on that sentence or

Matt: 10:05

I

Steve: 10:06

find that to be agonizingly a slow way to go through the big

Matt: 10:10

Sure

Steve: 10:10

book.

Matt: 10:11

is

Steve: 10:12

I find I've gone to that meeting several times and I'm like, this format does not work for me. It works for a lot of people. And I get you can talk to that big book and that chapter in detail. But to me, it's that agonized. I just, it just doesn't work to me. The one we go to, we, we, we basically chapters, except for when we get into how it works and then we split it up some. But otherwise, and then, and I know some people who don't like that because they find we read too much. And that we should split our some of our chapters in half at least so that we can, especially when you get down to, you know, working with others like that's a long chapter to read. So you know split in half a lot of people out of the different. So my point is there's different ways big book meetings do it. So, and then just a final one, I, I used to go to a big book meeting that would read cover to cover. Right. And what that, what I mean by that is that once you get into the stories, you were in the stories. And I didn't like that one because there's like 39, 39, 40 stories. That means you were in the stories for the better part of three quarters of a year, right. And you never went back to 164 for that time. Well, you know, for those first pages and that I didn't like it either. So anyway, so there's different formats. So go find a format that works for you, go find a well attended. Big book meeting, sit in them, and then the other thing you have to do with those meetings, you have to attend those meetings regularly. You're not skipping around. You can't show up every two, three weeks, because you're not getting you're going to be missing pieces of the of the books. So you got to find that meeting. Make it one of your meetings. And for me, I've always done that again, one of my ways to do it is I have my set meetings, I have two set meetings. I have always had a third meeting that I go up to, and this been going on for last, I know, probably 10 years almost. I have a third meeting that always looks I always like to have three meetings in a week. But that third meeting changes it, but I committed at meeting for like two years. So I get to know the people, I get to know the format, I get to know everything about it. And I become part of that meeting. And then after that, I start thinking, okay, maybe it's time for me to go look for another meeting. And that's how I found my meetings. And that's how I found my once a new man, right? That's how I find I go to a once a new meeting that I really like. And truthfully this year, I'll be coming up on two years for that meeting. I don't think I'll go find another meeting because become one of my favorites. And, but, you know, who knows I never say I never say never. So, but you go to a good big book meeting, and it will help you, it will help you. And then the other thing, if you're if you're working a 12 step program, if you are working that if that's if that is your choice and recovery, I would encourage you to follow the program. Right, you can take it piece by piece and we get that we tell you all the time, take what you want, leave the rest, you know, we're very supportive of that on this podcast, you know, as long as you stay sober, as long as your life is okay, do what you need to do. But if you're choosing the 12 step program as your major path to sobriety, then you then you should work it the way it's designed.

Matt: 13:39

Right.

Steve: 13:39

And that's also to get a sponsor and have you help. Right. So, that's also by all the way in. Am I encouragement would be buy into the program, buy into the big book, go through it. And I've seen plenty of plenty of people do it this way. And then decide, then decide a year or two into your sobriety, if you want to keep going that way. But now you have some sobriety in your belt, you've had you have, you've created this fellowship. And and now you understand the big books. Right. You understand what it's saying. You, maybe by this time you have some pieces of it that you like and don't like and you can pick and choose what pieces fit your your journey and what pieces don't fit your journey. But I think if you try to do that too early, you'll be shocking yourself all over the place, you're, you know, the likelihood of success for most people, not all people. Most people, it's going to be less because, you know, sometimes I think we, you know, Janet, becomes one of these things. We start lying to ourself, oh, A, A is not working for me. I'm going to try something else. Next thing you know your relapse you're out there. And then you got a question like, is that really true? Is A not working it or am I not working to program any program. Do I not want recovery bad enough to stick with any programs? So that's the honesty part that we all have to deal with regardless of our programs.

Matt: 15:08

I think that's great advice. Take it as is the big book and go in and try it out as is then makes some decisions later and give it some time just because you don't, you don't know enough yet. And if you could pick and choose and do it yourself you, you wouldn't be in this place. wo you are at AA. Nobody goes to AA. Nobody comes out of college and says, you know, AA is going to be part of my 10 year plan. That would be considered failure for many of us. It did for me. So you end, you don't go to AA, end up in AA.

Steve: 15:44

Right.

Matt: 15:44

By, by design. So use the book as it's written, at least at first, with some help, so you can figure out what does work. In general, the 12-step scaffolding works pretty well if you choose to follow it. And I think part of the difficulty is that the writing is complex. The writing is outdated. And there are a lot of cultural topics that Bill talks about that are not politically correct today. I also find that some of his writing is, is challenging because he changes tense and he, he argues against himself without even knowing it at, at times that he goes back and forth and then he makes the argument he was making an argument against earlier in the same chapter. Which I think is why it's helpful if you have a sponsor or somebody knows the book well to do it with them so that they can walk you through those aspects of why, why there is a tense the way it is. Why Bill talks the way he does. At least that's, that's helpful for me knowing the why. I would also say one of the things you should do. Don't skip the preface and the forwards. They are really, we, we do that as its own meeting at the beginning when we circle back in our Monday night, big book meeting that we do the preference, preference preface and the forward because it sets up what you're going to read. There is purpose to it.

Steve: 17:23

Yeah. I mean, just, just do the book. Right?

Matt: 17:26

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 17:27

Right. And I agree. Don't, don't, don't, don't skip that part. Just going back to the doing the book as, I have the, as, as it's, as it's written, as it's set up, I have this thing and my wife and I, like, we go out to restaurant, especially a nice restaurant, that's, you know, something better than a really casual stuff. And I see a dish on the menu. I'll look at it. And my wife will often look at a dish and go, Hey, can I change this? Don't put this in there. Don't put that in there. And I always say, I want to taste that dish the way the chef thought it would be meant to be presented and put it out there. Like, you know, the chef, you know, especially when you're in a good restaurant and you just chef is, you know, known. This is somebody who's got good schooling. I want to taste it. Why did he put this dish together this way? Now, if I go back to that restaurant and then maybe I ordered the same dish, then maybe I'll make a change after that. Right? So, and like, that's just the way I am. I want to try that. So it's the same thing with the big book, like, I want to try it the way it's supposed to be worth because trust me, there is a time where I would look at something and we talk about prejudice before what is a Herbert Spencer?

Matt: 18:42

Contempt prior to investigation.

Steve: 18:44

Contempt prior to investigation. I spent my life doing content prior to investigation. Now, that's not going to work. No, that's not going to be, no, that's not good enough for me. Oh, I'm better than that. Whatever that thing. Contempt prior to investigation. Today, I've decided that I need to not have content prior to investigation. That I need to look at stuff. Bill Wilson created this book even with all of its flaws. I think there's flaws. People, other people think this is perfect. Created a book and created a program that has worked for millions of people. Love it. Hate it. Call it a call call it whatever you want. It's worked for millions of people and it has changed millions of lives. And I'm witness to some of those lives in daily action by the people I meet every day. So I get it. We talk about all times with a lot of big book hate out there. I certainly not one of those people because I see what this big book has done for literally, am I morbid, literally hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life, from all economic, starting points of life, literally from people who are living outside in abandoned cars and have built up their lives to have a decent, semi normal life, whatever that might look like. So I honestly think that find somebody, use it. And then also take your time, take your time through it. Right? That's the other thing. Don't, don't hurry through this book. And that's again, that's why you have a good sponsor. If, you know, I don't want to step on anybody's toes. I don't think I'm a perfect sponsor. But there's, there's no hurry to get through this book. You just, you sit down, you read it, digest it. Ask questions, challenge it and then try to figure out, you know, what, what does, what does it mean and, you know, the most important thing is like, how do you use that in your life? Right? That's what we're all trying to figure out. How do we take this book in this program and then use it in my life to make my life better?

Matt: 21:14

That's the mistake I made. I looked at the big book as something I had to get through because it was a prerequisite

Steve: 21:20

and it's

Matt: 21:21

not. It's a companion to what you're learning and anything in recovery there is a journey, there's never going to be a destination. You don't have to check the box on a bunch of stuff. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that you just don't do things because Matt said, well, it's a journey, I can take my time. It is all on your intent

Steve: 21:46

is. Right.

Matt: 21:47

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, don't rush it. Take things in the course that they should be taken. And if that takes you a lot of time, that's okay. It depends on the why behind that.

Steve: 22:04

Always the why, always the mode of, always, listen, one of the things I've come to realize is, it's something that a word that's been up in my head, just my head, for some reason. And the last several weeks is honesty, right. And the fact of what that means, right. And that honesty within myself, it's all about am I being honest with my motive and my intent and what I really want to get out of the situation. So that's the key.

Matt: 22:35

Yep.

Steve: 22:35

Honest with yourself about your intent in question. And in order to do that, you have to question you have to, you have to look at your intent, you have to question your intent. And then you have to be critical of your own intent. And you want to know something else. The other thing that happens is you can't do all of that work on your own.

Matt: 22:57

No,

Steve: 22:58

you need to, if you're going to be questioning that, you need to have somebody that, and it's going to be a therapist, this is where you could be doing some of this work outside of a A if you're working, if you're in therapy, right. You can be doing some of this stuff with a therapist if you're in therapy. You can be talking about your intent, you can be talking about your motives. Hey, this went on, you know, I don't like my motives, whatever it might be, right. Whatever it might be. But if you're, if you're talking about the program of A, that's where a sponsor or something like that is helpful to you. And that's where you've got to be honest. Like one of the things I've been pretty good with my stuff and I don't share every little detail of my life with everybody. But I'm pretty honest with my stuff. I put my, I put my life out there in my meetings. I just feel like that's what works for me. I do. You know, when I do that, you know what happens to me? I get phone calls from guys, I get phone calls from guys. They check in on me. Hey, what are you doing? How's it going? How you feeling? How's that thing you were worried about that going, okay, like I get phone calls from guys and just just to make sure. And then I'll go, oh, yeah, that was just, you know, I reached out to somebody the other day about something that they said. And he said, oh, yeah, that was a weird share. And I didn't get into them. But he's shared the same stuff. You know, it's about him struggling with having close friends and stuff like that. And I always don't like, I could be your friend. I mean, we got to, we do a lot together. We were at the, we were at the events yesterday together. But I always tell him, I could be your friend. You know, so it's not a weird thing because I know he struggles with that. But that's what happens, right? So I can check in on him and people can check in on me. And how you doing? And then, you know, and you learn that because we've gone through the big book for me, I've gone through the big book, which has allowed me, right? So what happens is we get up to that fourth step in the big book and we have to do this, this deep dive into my own actions and my own, you know, moral history, if I will. And I started trying to figure out this stuff like who am I? What, what, what drives me? I mean, I, I found out what drove me. I out what drove me when I did that. And so if it's not pretty,

Matt: 25:30

No,

Steve: 25:30

pretty, some of it was, but some of it wasn't pretty what drove me. And it took a lot of time. And some of it, I'm still working on it. Like I still work on some of that stuff because I'm still being driven, driven by some of those things that aren't the best version of me. But I'm a human being. And, you know, I'm,

Matt: 25:49

mm-hmm.

Steve: 25:50

I'm

Matt: 25:50

Yeah.

Steve: 25:50

impacted by my environment and I'm impacted by my close relationships with other human beings and all of those things. So I give myself a lot of grace now. But the beauty is, and this is the beauty of the big book for me in this program is I have self-reflection now. I can look at myself and go, yeah, here's what I'm doing. And then literally, I ask myself sometimes, do I want to change that? Sometimes I go, "No, I don't want to change it." Even though I feel like I should. I go, "No, I don't want to change that right now." And if it's not too damaging, this is what we always talk about. One of the methods out there of recovery these days is harm reduction. And again, I don't want to get off topic with the big book. But there's a whole big thing about harm reduction. And if anybody, you're not familiar with that term, it's about not complete sobriety or abstinence, it's about harm reduction. It's about staying alive, especially with some of the drugs out there, about keeping people alive while they continue to work on themselves. So I always look at that in my context, I was never a drug user, and especially an IB drug user where I felt like,"Oh, this next high can kill me." Like, I was never that person. But I certainly have behaviors that could not be the best for my relationships.

Matt: 27:31

That me too.

Steve: 27:32

Right. I have to think about, "Well, what do they bring?" Sometimes they'll behave, and they bring me some joy once in a while. It's just complicated, because life is complicated. And I listen to plenty of people who seem like they don't struggle with these kind of things like I do. I'm not sure that's true, because we always talk about, "I'm always comparing my insides to their outsides."

Matt: 27:55

Yep.

Steve: 27:57

And I understand that now. I understand that completely. When I look at somebody like,"Ooh, I wish I had what they had." And then I go, "Yeah, I'm sure they got some shit going on that I don't know about."

Matt: 28:06

Oh, I'm silly.

Steve: 28:07

So. But anyway, so that's the big book for me, right? It's like, "It's... It is literally the things that have changed my life. That's as simple as it could be, which is why we talk about it, and why it's the number one thing we talk about on here. It's because it's the number one thing that changed our lives to something that I could just tell by the people around me that they like. Forget about me. That the people around me like, that my kids like, my grandkids like, my wife likes. So that's good for me, that I can continue to do that.

Matt: 28:52

I think that's a great tell. When people can... Either they're commenting on it, or you see that how they interact with you is more positive and that it's changed. I'd love to know from you how things have changed and how you have gotten better reading this book. If this is something that was a challenge upfront, is it still a challenge? Are you perplexed by it? Or do you have this down and you have a method? You can email matt@sobrfriendspod.com. The website is soberfriendspod.com. Steve, have a great rest of your day.

Steve: 29:30

All right, Matt. Have a great day. Go Huskies.

Matt: 29:33

Go Huskies, and see you later.