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Excerpt of transcript : Episode 2 - Foreword to 1st Edition Alcoholics Anonymous
AgnosticAA_Episode_2_Transcript.pdf
Speaker Mike Z
Hey, it's Mike Z with the Agnostic AA. And this is episode two of an agnostic reading of the Big Book. It's
basically a step study. So we are on the foreword to the first edition. So let's just get started.
You know. Oh, I meant to say last time, and I didn't, but, you know, hopefully you're reading along.
You have your own book, and you are, you know, underlining as, I suggest, and or anything that you find
interesting or have questions about, of course. Feel free to leave questions in the comments and I'll respond
with my opinion. Which, by the way, that's all that this is, is my opinion of my experience with the big book,
the 12 steps, all, of course, from an agnostic point of view.
So anyways, foreword to the first edition. This is the foreword as it appeared in the first printing of the first
edition in 1939. We have Alcoholics Anonymous, or more than 100 men and women who have recovered
from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. So. Right, right there. I have noted a sponsor told me
this, that that's a lie.
It wasn't a 100. At least not when they first started. The collective of writing the book, it was mostly written by
Bill W with some others input. But Bill was primarily the writer. There was like 30 or 40 when they started,
like in 1937 or something. But by the time they got to publication, by the time they were writing the foreword,
I suppose, there was 100.
But the reason I point that out is there's a lot of, you know, wonderful ideas in the book. But a lot of it is a bit
exaggerated. And, full of hyperbole. So just enough, I, I, you know, read the book with a grain of salt and find
the value that you can find in it. And of course, I'm going to proceed now with my agnostic point of view.
Blah blah, recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. It's interesting that they said
recovered. That is, you know, goes back to the original argument that, that we had in the last episode. And
we'll have again, are we recovered or recovering? As always. You know, I kind of subscribe to the statement
in the book later where it says we have a daily reprieve based upon our spiritual fitness.
Now, spiritual, you know, that's based upon my, emotional sobriety, my, stability, etc.. Moving forward to
show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. That's, of course,
in italics. And of course, when they use italics, that means they want us to pay special attention to it. I have
that underlined.
They're going to show us in the book how you know, how they did it and and what worked for them.
For them. We hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. I
have that underline. It was illustrated to me, by various sponsors..
AgnosticAA_Episode_2_Transcript.pdf
Episode 1 - Agnostic AA Big Book | Episode 3 Agnostic AA Big Book