Michelle37

Has changed...and I don't know how or when this happened. I picked up the book last year, in August, the first time I blearily entered this program with little or no brains left to speak of. My husband read it. I did not. (My sponser at the time wasn't really so much into the BB as she was into the fellowship of AA...so I wasn't really forced to learn what the book had to offer beyond the preamble and How it Works, you know what I mean?)
So here's the scoop. For those of you who don't know I had a relapse with my drug of choice, and my husband found out and all hell broke loose! I had to figure out what had caused this relapse and why I had gone back out with nearly a year under my belt. The answer was simple...I didn't really have a program, I had a year long coffee party!! So, I went off in search of a sponser with a little more than two years and a pot of coffee to offer...and HP struck again in a big way. I found a lady with over 20 years sobriety...and today I'm working hard on my very first written step one in this program. I talk to my sponser every day, and she has held my hand through some very difficult times already...and has done so with this program as her guide and therefore as mine.
And in this process I discovered a remarkable thing. The Big Book, that blue hard cover thing that I would intermittently hide from company and use as a paperweight...yeah, that thing...its got some really amazing stuff in there!! My sponser has me reading the Big Book daily, and lately I've felt like I am reading about Michelle in it's pages. It's actually both amazing and incredibly creepy!!
Given this, I decided that I'd like to get to know this Big Book a little better, so I'd like to ask you all something. What are your favourite pages/passages in the Big Book? Please let me know, so I can read them too, and continue this amazing journey through this text. Also, if you wanted to include why they are important to you, and at which time in your sobriety you found them most applicable, that would be awesome!!

Thanks so much in advance for sharing your experience, strength and hope with this recovering addict/alkie.

Michelle.

Dan

The personal stories.
And among them, current favorites are My bottle, my resentments and me, page 437, and Listening to the wind, page 458, 4th ed.

Of the first 164 pages, chapter five is an almost daily read

Cathy31

Michelle
It's so great to hear of your progress.The big book is so awesome - I also love the personal stories - in particular Crossing the River of Denial is my favourite, I feel like it tells my story. I actually gave it to my mom (non-A) to read and she cried cause it described my - and my sisters - stories so well. And the endings are always happy!
Keep up the great work!
Cathy31
x

wantneeda

good for you for all your work, yes the BB is our 'bible' of recovery. Everything we need to know is in there.
my favorites, oh there are so many...
pg 449, "And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today."
pg 552, " If you have a resentment you want to be free of..."
pg 62, " So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. they arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so." ya Dan ALL of chapter 5 How it Works.
Step 3 prayer on page 63.
A friend of mine from the states sent me a soft cover that i cherish. I carry it with me. I read it on the bus, at work on breaks, at night before i go to sleep....
I thank God for Dr Bob and Bill w!!
keep up the good work!
hugs, Wendy

Jaguar0425

My favorite story is the one about the jaywalker. It's on page 37 & 38. Early on I became frightened at the thought of NEVER being able to drink again...the whole "One Day at a Time" thing hadn't sunk in yet. Once scared I began to question if I really was an alcoholic. It was suggested to me that I read the BB. When I read that story I KNEW without a doubt that that was me.

lulu70

Chapter 11, "A Vision for You." In particular, the last 3 paragraphs:

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you--until then.

Sometimes I get a little bit uncomfortable with the male-dominated and deistic language that is so prevalent in the Big Book. But then I read those paragraphs and remember that they were writing what they knew. Even they knew the program of AA would grow and evolve. These words speak to me because they tell me that this program is as much mine as it is anyone else's. I can make it work for me no matter what I personally believe, as long as I am willing to what it takes and stay sober one day at a time.

CarolD

The final paragraph on Page 43 allows me the freedom and serenity I sought for many years.


Super thread...Thanks!