Plain Language Big Book: a brief analysis

The Plain Language Big Book is a controversial subject. This article does not seek to eliminate the controversy. It might in fact stoke it. But sometimes controversy is necessary on the path to unity.

My particular aim was to review the Plain Language Big Book against the original, to determine for myself whether (a) it does indeed achieve the stated purpose, namely to convert obscure passages into plain English for readers who struggle with the older and more elaborate variety of English used in the book Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) and whether (b) it has other virtues or defects.

The best way to do this is to select a short passage and perform a full analysis rather than to attempt to review the whole book. The devil is in the detail, and anything discerned in one passage will surely be present elsewhere, as anyone who reads the book with this document in mind should agree. The individual observations are examples or ‘tokens’ of general patterns that pervade the passage in question and the book as a whole.

The revised version (our main focus) is on the left. The original version is on the right. The commentary is contained in the rows that stretch across the entire width of the table.

When we wake up, we think about the 24 hours ahead of us. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to watch over our thinking, especially asking that our thoughts stay away from self-pity, lying, or self-serving motives. When we start the day this way, we can clear our minds and use our brains thoughtfully. Our thoughts will be on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of negative motives.	On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
Commentary: God directing our thinking has been amended to God watching over our thinking. The former means God is in charge. The latter means we are in charge and God merely watches. This fundamentally changes how we perceive the entire nature of our relationship with God. In this view, we are no longer servants of God but merely the object of God’s observation. There is no mention of what God does whilst watching over us. Will there be an intervention? A word in our ear? Or will God merely observe and ignore? The revised version is silent on this. Dishonesty has been changed to lying. Lying is typically the overt telling of untruths. Applied to motives, this has no meaning whatsoever. What the original line is really cautioning against is rationalisation: hiding bad motives beneath good ones. The notion of dishonest motives has a plain meaning. The notion of lying motives is nonsensical. Self-seeking has been changed to self-serving. These are simply different ideas. To seek is to desire something, to want something. It conveys the sense of grasping. This is quite different than self-serving which is about treating oneself as the object of one’s efforts, which covers more innocent territory as well as the sense of selfishness. Looking after oneself, for instance, would come under the heading of serving oneself, along with more morally questionable actions. Divorce has been changed to staying away from. Divorce implies entire separation and finality. Staying away from implies that those motives might still be there: just at a distance. The sense has been watered down considerably. Divorce also presupposes prior marriage: the implication is that we have been guilty of marriage to self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives. This implication is now erased: the pesky pests are no longer our spouses but are external menaces. The moral sense is thus lost in the revised version, along with the sense that we must undergo an internal alteration. The notion that God created us, ‘gave us brains to use’, has been eliminated. God is taken out of the picture, and our relationship with God is thus taken out of the picture, as well. A new idea is introduced: clearing our minds. To clear means to empty. In the original version, we are asked not to clear our minds but have our thinking directed. The original version of thoughtfulness has been replaced with a vacuum, with thoughtlessness, which is the opposite of the original. How, a cleared mind can do anything thoughtfully is unclear. The term ‘clearing’ is indeed used later, but the reference is to clearing from our minds what does not belong, not clearing our minds altogether. There’s quite a difference between emptying the bin in the kitchen and removing all of the appliances. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane has become our thoughts will be on a much higher plane. The act of placement (by our efforts and God) has been eliminated, but this is key: the revised version indicates the same result but effaces the God-driven process, which takes us from the lower plane to the higher plane. Wrong motives has become negative motives. The morality has been taken out of this completely—with the removal of the notion of wrong and its concomitant, right—and has been replaced with a sliding scale of negative and positive. What could positive and negative motives possible mean? Cheerful motives rather than gloomy motives? Are we supposed to do only cheerful things? I understand what wrong motives are, but I do not understand what negative motives are. I am a professional writer who has produced 20 million words for pay, I have three degrees, and I am a university lecturer, yet this rewriter’s work is opaquer to me at times than the corresponding material in the original Big Book. Let’s now look at the words that have been eliminated: Direct / divorce / seek / place / wrong. I do not believe for one minute that these have been removed because the reader will not understand these words and will understand watch over / stay away / serve / be / negative better. The work carried out on the text represents not pure simplification but a combination of simplification, explanation, and uncamouflaged addition, omission, alteration, and distortion. If this were an error, this should have been spotted by the people who commissioned this work. This ‘error’ is so pervasive and egregious, however, one suspects that the brief was not merely to simplify but to alter and that those who commissioned the book were pleased with the alterations.
When we think about our day, we may feel confused. We may not be able to decide which course to take. If this happens we ask our Higher Power for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.	In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.
Indecision is not the same as confusion. Confusion suggests muddle-headedness. When facing indecision, one might be perfectly clear in one’s thinking but simply not know what the right thing to do is, tactically or morally. This illustrates the real problem with the whole exercise of simplification. This should ideally involve the replacement of incomprehensible words and phrases with comprehensible words and phrases that are precise synonyms. Anything that is not a precise synonym will produce a change in meaning, and a change in meaning confounds the purpose either of conveying the original message or helping the reader understand the original message. God has been replaced with Higher Power. Again, I do not believe that the phrase Higher Power is simpler for people to understand than God. The rewriter apparently finds the word objectionable so has decided to erase what the writer wrote and insert their own idea. Otherwise, this passage is good, but that is largely because the rewriter has not changed very much.
We used to get a hunch or an inspiration once in a while, but gradually these experiences become a regular part of our daily thinking. If we are new to spirituality, we may not feel fully inspired all day every day. Still, as time passes, we will find that inspiration will come to us more and more often.	What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
The notion of ‘having just made conscious contact with God’ has been eliminated. The rewriter has not simplified the text. They have erased ideas. Notice what they have erased: the reference to (a) God and (b) conscious contact with God. The rewriter’s intention is easy to infer, here. Note that God is the core of the AA programme, and the notion of conscious contact is key to Step Eleven, so key, in fact, it is part of the actual summary of the step on page 59. This point about conscious contact is also important because it indicates to the reader that, by taking the preceding steps, they already have conscious contact with God. This has not made it into the plain language version. The notion of being inspired (which is a description of an objective state of affairs) has been replaced with feeling fully inspired. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the text. If I am not inspired, that means that God has not inspired me, in other words I do indeed feel inspired, but the thoughts are not from God and are instead from the self, the ego, the devil, or whatever else can be used to describe any source of thoughts that are not from God. The original text is referring to self-deception. If you look at the original, you will see that someone who is not inspired takes absurd actions and has absurd ideas: such a person indeed believes they are inspired but is mistaken. The revised version instead refers to the subjective state of feeling inspired: not only, as indicated above, might one feel inspired but not actually be inspired; one might indeed be inspired but not recognise the fact that the thoughts that have come have indeed come from God. Thoughts that come from God will not necessarily feel either divine or sensational: they could be run of the mill, banal, and dull. Fact and feeling are uncorrelated. For a professional rewriter to make such an error is a little embarrassing. The rewriter then eliminates the notion of presuming we are inspired by God when we are not and the notions of absurd actions and ideas. This is not simplification. This is censorship. Lastly, the notion of reliance on inspiration (from God) has been eliminated. Censorship.
We usually finish praying or meditating by asking our Higher Power to show us what our next step will be, and we ask that we be given what we need to take that step. We ask for freedom from a desire to control our lives, and we are careful not to ask for anything that would benefit only us. We never pray for selfish reasons. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.	We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
The rewriter has not understood this passage. The prayer in the original version is that we be shown not what our next step is to be (right then and there) but what our next step is to be all through the day. A daily prayer for constant guidance all through day has been replaced with a prayer for a single step. This reduces the scope and ambition of the prayer to an absurd minimum. Presumably, according to the rewriter, after this directed step, we ‘take it from there’—no further reference to God is necessary. Self-will is a key term and notion in the book. Refer to pages 60 to 62. In that context, it is clearly about selfishness and self-centeredness, self-righteousness, bossing other people around, and playing God, attempting to run not just our lives but the whole show. The list of self-willed characters on page 61 includes those whose own lives are fine but are concerned with the nation. It is a huge, all-encompassing idea that covers essentially all human ills. This has been reduced to ‘a desire to control our lives’. The usurpation of God’s role in the universe has been replaced with the simple desire to control one small corner: our lives. The notion of causing trouble to others by colliding with their wills and going against God’s will has been eliminated. It might further be noted that there is arguably nothing wrong with taking responsibility for our lives and, yes, controlling our actions and affairs. The problem is not controlling our corner but stepping outside the bounds of that legitimate activity and attempting to control others and life itself. In fact, the programme asks us to exercise personal control, but now under new management, the aegis and direction of God. We go from being unable to manage our lives to competence and success. This represents a degree of control. Aside from misunderstanding the notion of self-will, the rewriter does not apparently understand the word ‘ends’, which means ‘purposes’, ‘objectives’, ‘outcomes’. ‘Reasons’ means ‘motivations’ or ‘causes’. ‘Ends’ lie downstream; ‘reasons’ lie upstream. To be a rewriter of a book, one should at least be able to understand the book one is rewriting. ‘Ends’ is not an obscure word, like ‘vicissitude’ or ‘denizen’.
If we do morning meditation, we might ask our partner or friends to join us if that makes sense. If we belong to a religion that includes morning services, we may attend those. If not, we may choose and memorize a few prayers that focus on the ideas we’ve been discussing in this chapter. There are many helpful books also. We may ask for suggestions from our faith leader.	If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
Morning services is narrower than morning devotion. Devotion would include private practices, e.g. reading through the Liturgy of the Hours if you’re Catholic or saying the lengthy morning prayers from the Siddur if you’re Jewish. You might do the latter collectively if you have a minyan handy, but you can say the prayers at home or wherever you are. Service and devotion are not synonyms. The rewriter has misunderstood attend to. Attend to means do. The rewriter thinks it means go to. They have changed the broad idea of morning religious practices to the narrow idea of going to a religious service. With religious observation beyond service attendance, therefore, we are apparently off the hook. Principles is not the same as ideas. Principles have a procedural or moral aspect to them. Ideas are simply propositions. The rewriter has remove the notions of procedure and morality from the passage. The rewriter has apparently decided that we should not be quick to see where religious people are right and that we should not make use of what they offer. These lines have simply been eliminated. More egregious censorship.
As we go through our day we pause if we feel upset or filled with doubt, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show. We say to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire as easily, because we are not burning up energy foolishly like we did when we were trying to control everything in our lives without help from a Higher Power.	As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
The notion of humility has been removed. Apparently the rewriter thinks we should not be humble. Humble in relation to what? Well, God, Whose position we usurp in a state of self-will (see page 62). It is easy to see why humility has been removed: if someone wants to get rid of the idea of God, getting rid of the idea of humility (which presupposes humility in relation to something greater) is a jolly good way of keeping the reader off the scent. The rewriter has decided that readers of the Big Book do not know what excitement is and cannot for the life of them imagine how the notion might be conveyed more simply so has apparently decided to omit it altogether. It is there in the original, of course, because self-will often comes with excitement, as indicated above: the person who thinks they are inspired when they are not. There appears to be a pattern of the rewriter simply omitting items whose presence they do not understand—or, worse, do not agree with. The notion of ‘arranging life to suit ourselves’ has been reduced to ‘trying to control everything in our lives’. Note the change from ‘life’ (which is everything) to ‘our lives’ (which is limited). Observe that the notion of selfish objectives, suit ourselves, has been eliminated, and we are left merely with the controlling action. A curious addition has been made: without help from a Higher Power. Firstly, ‘a’ Higher Power implies a plurality. The rewriter is apparently polytheistic at best, in outlook, and believes that there are many gods, so, if one has a higher power, that is merely one of many—a god in one’s pocket, so to speak, not a Supreme Power but a conjurable genie. God has gone from being the Director of our thoughts to our little helper. In the rewriter’s vision, we are in charge, and ‘a Higher Power’ is serving us, helping us, not the other way round.
It works—it really does.	It works—it really does.
We alcoholics struggle to obey rules when we are left on our own. So we let God help us find the rules we need to lead better lives.	We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
Being undisciplined is a broad concept: sometimes it refers to being unwilling or unable to follow not just others’ rules but also others’ direction. But it also refers to unstable or erratic behaviour and an inability of the individual to follow through on their own decisions, resolutions, commitments, and obligations, a tendency to follow emotion and impulse rather than system and direction. This is erased entirely in the revised version with the narrowing of the focus. In the second sentence, God has gone from being Disciplinarian to helpmeet. God does not tell us what to do and give us the power to do that (and maybe even force us by various means to stay in line) but merely helps us find out something called ‘rules’. But that’s not what Step Eleven is about: it is about seeking God’s will, namely what God wants us to do in each situation. Rules have nothing to do with this. In fact, the Big Book uses the word rules relatively rarely. There are places where the writers indicate that we are not to run our lives by rule, and the notion of rules as a positive element of the programme is limited to just a very few specification occasions. Even in those cases, the sense is more one of principle than rule; note how, when a rule is given as a positive injunction, the word ‘principle’ could be adequately substituted. This is not normally the case with rules, proper. For example (in Step Nine), the book says that it does not wish to lay down any rule at all. In Step Five, by contrast, the book suggests the rule (aka principle) that we be hard on ourselves. In Chapter 7, the text says, ‘Here no specific rule can be given’ and ‘Obviously, no rule can be laid down’ before advising in one specific context: ‘So our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there.’ Chapter Eight gives us ‘Live and let live is the rule.’ Otherwise, no stated rules. The Traditions also caution against rules (remember the infamous ‘Rule 62’). Rather than rules, we generally have principles and God-reliance. Rules, in AA, are a bit of a dirty word. This is a very important point: our reliance must be on God (e.g. page 164), not on rules that God helps us find. The Step is about daily discernment, not finding a set of rules, once and for all, and then we are good to go. The rewriter simply has not understood what they have rewritten. The rewriter has also added something: the notion of living better lives. The purpose of Step Eleven is doing God’s will. Whether our lives are better is neither here nor there. They might be; they might not. But that’s out of the scope of the paragraph. God’s purpose has been replaced with our purpose. In the rewritten version, Step Eleven is dead on arrival. One suspects that the rewriter is not an AA member, had never previously read the Big Book, has never been taken through the Big Book by a sponsor, has not spent thirty years studying the book on a daily basis with others, and has not taken hundreds of people through the Big Book, and does not believe in God.

Summary:

The above should be self-explanatory.

If the above is too long to read or too much to digest, I understand.

Here’s the plain language version:

This rewritten version is not a simplification for readers who struggle with complex grammar, archaisms, or long words but a combination of simplification and explanation, plus uncamouflaged addition, omission, alteration, and distortion.

The explanations are sometimes based on a misapprehension of the text. The additions, omissions, alterations, and distortions have nothing to do with fancy language or plain language. They apparently represent an attempt to eliminate God altogether, replace God with an individual, one-of-many higher power, and recast the role of God—the Director and Disciplinarian—as one’s little helper. The morality has been stripped out and replaced with the notion of positive and negative, and the objective has switched from doing God’s will to having better lives (defined, I supposed, by our own subjective impression of what is ‘better’). Conscious contact with God, as a phrase and notion, has been eliminated entirely.

There is some evidence of lack of competence in the rewriting—the failure to understand the difference between being inspired and feeling inspired and the failure to understand the difference between attending to something and attending something, which rather suggest that the rewriter suffers from the same difficulties reading English that the rewriting exercise itself is supposed to compensate for—but something else appears to be going on as well. Additions might be justified as explanations for obscure passages, but omissions of whole ideas or sentences do not simplify or help the reader understand the original text (which is the stated purpose of the Plain Language Big Book).

If the infelicities described above are errors, why were they not spotted by those who commissioned the work, who, one presumes, comprised more than just a couple of people?

Is it possible that the additions, omissions, alterations, distortions, and plain censorship were part of the brief?

I will leave that as a rhetorical question.

If the book is not withdrawn, I would suggest it be ignored.