NA Basic Text, Second Edition

[Ken E]

How common is the second edition NA basic text?

[Dan]

Never seen one.
Mine's a fourth.

[godsonmyside]

Its les common than the 4th, the 5th has been around 16 years, The 4th had a revised then the 5th, the 2nd is from late 70's not too many around, but some people do have them.

[Timebuster]

I have the third edition
got it in 86

[godsonmyside]

I'm sorry I was in correct, the 4th wasnt revised the 3rd was, the 1st was 83, 2nd 83 also, 3rd in 84 and revised in 86, 4th in 87 and 5th in 88. in 88 i owned the 2nd through 5th, no longer have them all, I have 3 copies of th 5th, give the gift of the basic text Life baby!

[namommy]

Is the 2nd edition the red one? My husband has a 3rd edition, I have the 5th. From what I am told, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd were written solely by addicts, the 4th was written by professional writers after they read the original, and the 5th was written by addicts then cleaned up by professionals. Not sure how accurate that information is though. I do know that the final version of the 1st edition was written in Ivy Land, PA. I know 3 of the people who were on the committee and 1 of them has his story in the basic text. Just an interesting little foot note.

[godsonmyside]

Cool, but to my reculection(I suck at spelling sometimes) but The copies I had were all the same color blue cover well black book, the 1st an 2nd I never saw the paper cover to, the 3rd revise is when the pros helped write the text in 86, of course you know that the paper back(the soft text) was issued in 87 with the 4th edition for institution purposes, they had to send out half of We do recover, because it was left out, what a mess that was!

[namommy]

My husband just told me that the 1st edition had the red cover. Then of course there was the 'baby blue' that edition caused a law suit. A couple of addicts got together and had a paperback, shortened version (without personal stories) printed up, and they were handing them out for free. The WSO filed a lawsuit against them and won. Somewhere around here my husband has the transcripts from the trial.

[godsonmyside]

That sound close enough for me. It's come along way since the little white book ah!

[Ken E]

This is the story the way I understand it: The Red Cover Edition was essentially a numbered promotional copy of the First Edition, printed and sold to finance the actual First Edition.

Prior to this, several meetings of the NA World Literature Conference, in coordinaton with several meetings of the WSC, produced a draft of the Basic Text, which was then approved by vote of individual NA Groups.

However, the Board of Trusties and the WSO Board of Directors esentially censored portions of this version, feeling that it was in conflict with some of the basic mechanics of the NA service strucure: Parts of Tradition Four and Nine basically said that NA groups were truly completely autonomous, meaning that no service committee or conference had authority to govern them.

So the actual First Edition of the Basic Text came out as an edited version, without these controvesial parts. This caused an uproar among the groups and the members of the Literature Conference, which resulted in the printing of the Second Edition, which is true to the original draft

However, this version did not last long either, and at the next WSC it was discarded and replaced with the Third Edition, which was still very similar.

The Third Edition was altered in 1987, by "professional editing, which, although fairly subtle in appearance, changed dramatically much of the Basic Text, which resulted in the Fourth Edition.

A lot of people were upset by this, and some of them began printing their own copies of the Third Edition, and this is what the WSO brought legal action against them for.

As I understand it, The Second Edition is the most true to the original draft, be that good or bad.

I really don't know enough about the fine points of all this to have an informed opinion, but I do know that what I have said is basically true, and I find it a little strange that I have never seen any of this mentioned in the Conference approved histories of NA that I have seen.

[aware]

from what I have seen the first and second additions are worth thousands of dollars on ebay. I would love to get my hands on a first addition!!

Aware

[GotItFirstTime]

I'lladd my 2cents worth here. I have a second edition in good shape. The first edition is around and they are usually $1000 -$2000 when found. The Red Book was the pre-first addition that was sent to all the groups for review. Granted I got clean in 1991 and the 5th edition was brand new then. It was the 3rd edition that was revised, 3 edition and 3 edition revised, I have one of each. I have never seen a fourth although I have heard of a few around. As well, I have had people claim they have a fourth yet what they really had was a 3 revised. It was the 3rd revised that dropped all reference to AA and drinking seperately. IMHO, The NA basic text 3rd Edition is the one we should have stuck then we would not be having all the external conversations about drugs vs alcohol and God vs Higher Power! Any ..... Any investigation into Jimmy K and his beliefs suggest that 2nd or 3 editions would have been where he would have left it!

[bcsister]

i wish they hadn't changed all references from "recovered" to "recovering".

the chapter entitled "we do recover" was kept, so why remove the word "recovered".
If I , as a result of working the steps of NA, have been relieved of my physical and mental obsession to use; if I have a working connection with my higher power and no longer suffer from a Spiritual disease, am I not recovered?
I will be an addict my whole life, and I have definitely RECOVERED from the hopeless state of active addiction.

[huntsober]

This concept is from AA...as your tone reads I agree with you.
The AA book reads loud and clear. We do recover and I am recovered. I do however live with a fatal incurable disease called addiction.

My book (NA Basic Text) has been messed up ever since NAW$ started writing with Hazel INC. writers. I still read the 1, 2, 3, and 3rd revised book because they were the only books writen by addicts for addicts. Sam Stone cheated us out of that concept and now it will never return. Just my 2 cents....