The 20 Most Misunderstood, Misinterpreted, Mistakes

On the cover of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous it states that this is our basic text. So the Big Book is a text book rather than a novel. So many people are handed a Big Book by a sponsor and told to read it. Might as well be reading a book on Greek Philosophy! You read a novel, but you study a text book. Study means refer one sentence to another, look up words you don’t know the meaning of, you discuss what you have studied, you write about it, you refer other AA text to the Big Book. You tear apart and digest the words to understand the message that is trying to be conveyed. Every text book has a message it is trying to pass on. The Big Book is not written about you the reader it is written about the experience the first hundred members had. Your job or journey is relating their experience and message to your own. The closer you can follow what they did the more you can expect similar results. Too many newcomers are trying to figure out what the writers are trying to tell them and what is written about me the reader. The message is not about what they wrote about you the reader the message is about what they wrote about themselves. What they did and didn’t do. What worked and didn’t work for them. What they thought right and wrong. The results of their experience good and bad. It’s all about them not you. The beauty of it is that I can look at their journey, their thinking and their mistakes apply that to my life, my own experiences that are similar to theirs and have a true spiritual awakening as a result. You can easily find yourself in their experiences.