In 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous did not have a name or a good way to carry its message to the sick and suffering alcoholic. They considered a number of options, but the one that won out was a decision to write a book, and as it happens that solved both problems. The book has the formal name Alcoholics Anonymous, but very quickly that name got transferred to the movement itself. And no one refers to the book by that name any longer, we all call it The Big Book. The name is not an accident. Bill W., the primary author, had a strong business background and applied his experience to the problem of marketing. He reasoned that alcoholics were very cheap, so by making our book appear as large as possible it would be easier to sell alcoholics on the idea that it was a good deal. So they used thick paper and made the margins larger so that it would really be a Big Book.

The programs offered here are live recordings of a Big Book Study. They represent the views of one person, and so like many things in this program you can keep what you find useful and ignore the rest. The basic idea of these programs is to look to the text of the book itself as the primary source for understanding its message, but other sources are also considered in various places, such as Robert Thomsen’s biography of Bill W., Ernest Kurtz’s history of AA, AA literature such as Doctor Bob and the Good Old-Timers and AA Comes of Age, to mention only a few. These books are well worth reading to deepen anyone’s understanding of the history and message of AA.

I hope you find these programs valuable.