xi-xii
Preface
This is
the third edition of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous." The first edition
appeared in April 1939, and in the following sixteen years, more than
300,000 copies went into circulation. The second edition, published in
1955, reached a total of more than 1,150,000 copies.
Because
this book has become the basic text for our Society and has helped
large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists a
sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the
first portion of this volume, describing the A.A. recovery program, has
been left untouched in the course of revisions made for both the second
and the third editions. The section called "The Doctor's Opinion" has
been kept intact, just as it was originally written in 1939 by the late
Dr. William D. Silkworth, our Society's great medical benefactor.
The
second edition added the appendices, the Twelve Traditions, and the
directions for getting in touch with A.A. But the chief change was in
the section of personal stories, which was expanded to reflect the
Fellowship's growth. "Bill's Story," "Doctor Bob's Nightmare," and one
other personal history from the first edtion were retained intact;
three were edited and one of these was retitled; new versions of two
stories were written, with new titles; thirty completely new stories
were added; and the story section was
xi
PREFACE
devided into three
parts, under the same headings that are
used now.
In
this third edtion, Part I ("Pioneers of A.A.") stands unchanged. Nine
of the stories in Part II ("They Stopped in Time") are carried over
from the second edtion; eight new stories have been added. In Part III
("They Lost Nearly All"), eight stories have been retained; five are
new.
All
changes made over the years in the Big Book (A.A. members' fond
nickname for this volume) Have had the same purpose: to represent the
current membership of Alcoholics Anonymous more accurately, and thereby
to reach more alcoholics. If you have a drinking problem, we hope that
you may pause in reading one of the forty-four personal stories and
think: "Yes, that happened to me"; or, most important, "Yes, I believe
this program can work for, me, too."
xii
Return
To Big Book Contents