📚 Why I Use the Big Book in My Recovery
As you read my posts, you’ll notice that I refer primarily to the book Alcoholics Anonymous—commonly known as the Big Book. I know many people have challenges with this text, especially since it was written nearly a century ago. So why do I make it my primary resource for working the Twelve Steps?
🤔 Isn’t the Big Book for Alcoholics?
Yes, the Big Book was written by alcoholics for alcoholics. So why use it for compulsive eaters?
In my story, you’ll hear how my first sponsor took me through the steps using her knowledge of the Overeaters Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (OA 12 & 12). I was able to recover using that approach, and I’m not dismissing OA literature whatsoever. It gave me a solid foundation.
But while my recovery was “good enough,” I didn’t develop a deep understanding of my illness. I didn’t grasp why I needed to continue working the steps or how to apply the principles to my daily life.
🔥 When My Recovery Leveled Up
Everything changed at a Big Book study weekend. That experience shifted my recovery from “good enough” to something central and life-defining.
I learned that the Big Book is the original Twelve Step text, and that all Twelve Step fellowships grew out of the ideas it presents. I saw how clearly it lays out directions for working the steps. My Big Book sponsor expected me to read the text, and we discussed it in detail during our meetings. Our focus was always on how to apply the directions in my life.
In contrast, my first sponsor encouraged me to read the OA book, but she didn’t read it with me. Aside from reviewing the Step 4 questions, we didn’t open the book together.
After that study weekend and ongoing work with my sponsor, I felt truly fired up about the program. The deep, meaningful spiritual awakening I experienced through the Big Book made it my first true love in recovery.
🧭 Different Paths, Same Goal
Maybe the difference between my first sponsor and my Big Book sponsor was more about personality and preference. I know there are OA members who base their recovery on the OA 12 & 12 and have deep, meaningful recoveries. My path just happened to be through the Big Book.
🧠 What About the Sexist Language?
Yes—the language is sexist and quite dated. So how do I reconcile that?
There’s a poem by Adrienne Rich that says:
“This is the oppressor’s language // yet I need it to talk to you.”
I identify as a feminist, as brown, and as a woman. Long before I joined OA, I understood that language matters. I knew it wasn’t mine, and I had to learn how to use it differently than the way it had been used with me—or against me depending on the situation.
When I encountered a book that referred to women as “the little wife,” I chose to look past the words and focus on the intent. I’ve had to do this in other areas of life too. For example, a colleague once referred to me as “mulatto.” I calmly explained the historical significance of the word, its roots in “mule,” and how it was used to dehumanize enslaved people. She was receptive and likely won’t use that word again. I could have been offended, and shuttered myself off from a relationship with her. I chose to look past the word to the person I know she is.
The difference between her and the authors of the Big Book is that she’s alive and can change. The authors can’t rewrite their work. But I believe they were doing their best with the language they had. As I studied the book, I saw places where they acknowledged their shortcomings and even asked readers to look past their limitations. I truly believe that if they knew better, they would have done better.
My sponsor even had a dictionary from the 1930s, and we’d discuss how word meanings have evolved. That helped me understand the text in its original context.
✝️ What About the Christian Language?
I get this question a lot: Isn’t the Christian language overbearing? Aren’t you being brainwashed?
I hope my posts on Step 2 help clarify that OA and the Twelve Steps are spiritual, not religious. My Big Book sponsor, LC, is agnostic. His conception of a higher power was truth, beauty, and justice. Mine started as nature and the qualities I’d want in a good friend. We both found solid recovery through these very different spiritual frameworks.
I was never pressured into a specific belief system—or even into spirituality itself. I was free to explore, question, and define my own understanding.
🏠 Is OA Really the Last House on the Block?
I’ve heard OA described as “the last house on the block”—the place people turn when nothing else works. I don’t believe that. There’s always another diet, another exercise program, another option.
I chose OA. And I chose the Big Book.
📌 Why I Use the Big Book
- Its explanation of the illness makes sense when I reflect on my history with food.
- The directions are clear and straightforward.
- I haven’t found contradictory messages in the book itself—only from people in the fellowship.
- It gave me a spiritual awakening that changed my life.
And finally, I hold onto this quote from the Big Book’s Appendix II (“Spiritual Experience”):
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” – Herbert Spencer
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