THIS fourth edition of “Alcoholics Anonymous” came off press in November 2001, at the start of a new millennium. Since the third edition was published in 1976, worldwide membership of A.A. has just about doubled, to an estimated two million or more, with nearly 100,800 groups meeting in approximately 150 countries around the world.
Literature has played a major role in A.A.’s growth, and a striking phenomenon of the past quarter-century has been the explosion of translations of our basic literature into many languages and dialects. In country after country where the A.A. seed was planted, it has taken root, slowly at first, then growing by leaps and bounds when literature has become available. Currently, “Alcoholics Anonymous” has been translated into forty-three languages.
As the message of recovery has reached larger numbers of people, it has also touched the lives of a vastly greater variety of suffering alcoholics. When the phrase “We are people who normally would not mix” (page 17 of this book) was written in 1939, it referred to a Fellowship composed largely of men (and a few women) with quite similar social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Like so much of A.A.’s basic text, those words have proved to be far more visionary than the founding members could ever have imagined. The stories added to this edition represent a membership whose characteristics—of age, gender, race, and culture—have widened and have deepened to encompass virtually everyone the first 100 members could have hoped to reach.
My experience is that I do not necessarily have anything in common with anyone because I am the same sex or ethnicity. No one has ever said to me, “Hey, here’s Gavin. He’s male. You’ll get on like a house on fire. I bet you’re really similar. He like tripe and computer games. Do you?”
The real diversity in AA does not lie in any of those labels. With regard to being gay, for instance, my friend Eddie said, “I drank alcoholically, not homosexually.” It is the alcoholism and solution that bind, and these are indiscriminate not just with regard to sex, ethnicity, and other uninformative labels but with regard, startling, to personality type. The depressed and the cheery, the lazy and the industrious, the credulous and skeptical, the atheist and the pious, in fact all of the scales of real differences between any two people. The two co-founders, Bill and Bob, were utterly different in life experience, temperament, culture, and personality, and both were very extreme in their particular ways. By the time these two were sober, the maximum diversity had perhaps been achieved. Everyone that has joined since then is perhaps somewhere in between.
While our literature has preserved the integrity of the A.A. message, sweeping changes in society as a whole are reflected in new customs and practices within the Fellowship. Taking advantage of technological advances, for example, A.A. members with computers can participate in meetings online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world. In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.’s share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics. Modem-to-modem or face-to-face, A.A.’s speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity.
Online meetings are great in many settings. I do not find online AA meetings anything near as interesting and valuable as face-to-face ones. For me, the ratio of benefit is that one face-to-face AA is worth about half a dozen online meetings.