I no longer take part in Big Book groups on Facebook. Why? There is a nonplussing militancy at times. There is the attitude that, unless an idea is not contained verbatim in the first 164 pages of the Big Book, it is irrelevant at best and detrimental at most.
This attitude can also be expressed in an churlish way. For instance, someone might say, in response to an idea, for instance about calling a sponsor every day:
'Where is that in the Big Book?'
Now, that's not a question that the questioner wants an answer to. It's a rhetorical question, like 'Are you going out looking like that?' It seems to insinuate something like, 'That idea is not contained in the 164 pages of the Big Book. It's therefore bad.'
I've a lot more sympathy with the idea that, if an idea can be reconciled with what's in the first 164 pages of the Big Book, it's kosher AA.
Even that falls short, however. There is nothing about long-term sobriety, because no one had long-term sobriety. There is nothing about sponsorship beyond the initial stages of twelfth-stepping someone, other than a comment to the effect that our experience can be helpful. There is almost nothing about meetings, and certainly nothing about the service structure, the Traditions, and the Concepts, because they did not exist.
AA is a very broad church something, and, with the take-it-or-leave-it approach, there is much I will leave, but that is well and good. It would not do for us all to be the same.
That said, the Twelve Steps as set out in the Big Book are very helpful, and, each time they are taken, they are very helpful. Like a mirror, they cannot be worn out with use.