When you have a disease you usually go to a doctor for a prescription but when you have the most common serious and often fatal chronic illness known to man, alcoholism, what a doctor can suggest is a book to read and meetings to attend. Unlike many serious illnesses that respond to drugs, alcoholism responds only to the alcoholic’s will to recover. The realization that alcoholism can be treated by a series of self-help steps is the spark of absolute genius that animated the creation of AA and the twelve steps to recovery as explained in the Big Book of AA. At Sotheby’s on June 18th, an original annotated multilith copy, a working draft of the Big Book, was sold for more than $1.5 million to a collector from California. He now owns that which, to retain its power, must be given away.
Those who attend AA meetings know that it is not the quality of the surroundings that make the meetings work. It is the shared belief in the steps and the individual’s surrender of their will to a higher power that enables participants over time to reestablish control over their lives. Millions of people have regained their sobriety in AA. For them it is the steps and the support in recovery that fellow AA members offer that is essential. For them historical artifacts are unimportant. Nevertheless this draft of the original Big Book is important to AA and should belong to them. Let’s hope that in time it finds its way there.
