The Big Book Unplugged: A Young Person's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous (Paperback)

~ Anonymous Anonymous (Author) "The Big Book begins like an old movie..." (more)
Key Phrases: Higher Power, Fifth Step, Alcoholics Anonymous (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author, a chemical dependency counselor, is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with more than 20 years of sobriety. He has targeted this guide specifically toward teenagers and young adults in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, with the hope of demystifying the basic text for young people who may be put off by the length or language. Alcoholics Anonymous, more familiarly called The Big Book, was published in 1939 and is now in its fourth edition. The Big Book describes the basic AA 12-step program, including the personal story of Bill W., credited with founding AA. In this clearly written manual, John R. devotes an interpretive chapter that corresponds to each of the 11 chapters in The Big Book. Although many of the chapters will be useful to adolescents in recovery, chapter four, "We Agnostics," will be particularly helpful to those who are uncomfortable with AA's spiritual component. John R. includes eight personal stories of recovering alcoholics from the 42 in the original text that, according to him, speak most directly to young people. He strongly suggests reading a chapter or a personal story in The Big Book before turning to the guide for assistance with the meaning or information provided. In addition to those in recovery, this guide will also be useful to their family, friends, counselors and teachers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

John R. says it best when he asks, "Know how to keep a secret from an alcoholic? Put it in the Big Book. For some reason, we alcoholics and addicts are reluctant to read the Big Book." Maybe it's because the book seems so big and was written so long ago, but for whatever reason, the wisdom in the Big Book remains a secret to many alcoholics, young and old.

Big Book Unplugged was written specifically for teens and young adults who are new to recovery. This straightforward guide will help young people discover the Big Book's hidden treasures while discovering common-sense advice, lots of personal stories and touches of humor.

John R. introduces the first eleven chapters of the Big Book and explains how a Twelve Step program works. He also introduces eight of the people whose stories are shared in the Big Book and hold special relevance to young people today Topics covered include:

• How to get past denial and resentment,
• How to make a plan of action to stay clean and sober,
• How to make peace with "religious stuff,"
• How to repair past mistakes and damaged relationships,
• How to tell other people about your addiction, and
• How to reach out to others.
  

A lively graphic design enhances the author's message and special care was taken to avoid jargon and slang that would quickly date it. Big Book Unplugged is compatible with the new fourth edition of Alcoholics Anonymous.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Hazelden; 1 edition (August 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592850383
• ISBN-13: 978-1592850389
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #153,434 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration for many, July 30, 2007

By	K. Mills "lovebug" (Cody, WY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I work in a substance abuse treatment center, and I have found that people that started drinking or using when they were young relate to this book easily. It puts things in simple terms and uses real stories to portray the points. I feel the language is foul at times, but the author does use it to make a point and relate to younger people. I'm buying this book for my father who has been sober for 15 years through AA, and is still working the program "one day at a time."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So Glad I found This One!, May 2, 2008

By	Passenger in the Lifeboat - See all my reviews

One of my teenaged children's observations when I share the experience, strength and hope Recovery has brought to me, is that I'm "not speaking teen language," so they don't always grasp what I mean. They know the Recovery journey has helped me, they mainly see it in my life, but the language makes it hard to translate to their own struggles, or to the struggles they see their friends experiencing. THE BIG BOOK UNPLUGGED does speak teen language (using some VERY clear language in fact, that may offend those to whom the book isn't geared, but speaks VOLUMES to its intended audience!), and is a clear, conversational format that picks the very best of the BIG BOOK of AA, and presents it in accessible language. Don't know why it took me so long to find this, but it's just what I have been looking for!

Stories remain very personal, the big players in AA are presented in a human, contemporary context, which emphasizes our similarities, even though these founders began "way back there," and I was pleased with the comfortable use of humor and honesty. The style and language are so easy to process, that I would also recommend this book for those who wouldn't exactly view themselves as a "young person" and yet have trouble processing the BIG BOOK, both in size (we call it BIG for a reason!)and content.

Having said that, I would wish maybe for a follow up book, or maybe a few more elements included in this volume, but then that would likely detract from it's slim, non-intimidating size. So overall, it's a great book and a great option!

0 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Here is how it Works., March 14, 2007

By	Zulu Warrior "71RoadRunner" (Antelope, OR) - See all my reviews

1. The Twelve Steps do not work as a program of recovery from drug or alcohol problems.
o The A.A. failure rate ranges from 95% to 100%. Sometimes, the A.A. success rate is actually less than zero, which means that A.A. indoctrination is positively harmful to people, and prevents recovery. Some tests have shown that even receiving no treatment at all for alcoholism is much better than receiving A.A. treatment:
o One of the most enthusiastic boosters of Alcoholics Anonymous, Professor George Vaillant of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), showed by his own 8 years of testing of A.A. that A.A. was worse than useless -- that it didn't help the alcoholics any more than no treatment at all, and it had the highest death rate of any treatment program tested -- a death rate that Professor Vaillant himself described as "appalling". While trying to prove that A.A. treatment works, Professor Vaillant actually proved that A.A. kills. After 8 years of A.A. treatment, the score with Dr. Vaillant's first 100 alcoholic patients was: 5 sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking.
(Nevertheless, Vaillant is still a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. anyway, to "get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer." That is cult religion, not a treatment program for alcoholism.)
o The A.A. dropout rate is terrible. Most people who come to A.A. looking for help in quitting drinking are appalled by the narrow-minded atmosphere of fundamentalist religion and faith-healing. The A.A. meeting room has a revolving door. The therapists, judges, and parole officers (many of whom are themselves hidden members of A.A. or N.A.) continually send new people to A.A., but those newcomers vote with their feet once they see what A.A. really is. Even A.A.'s own triennial surveys, conducted by the A.A. headquarters (the GSO), say that:
X 81% of the newcomers are gone within 30 days,
X 90% are gone in 3 months, and
X 95% are gone at the end of a year.
That automatically gives A.A. a failure rate of at least 95%. But the GSO does not count all of those people who only attend a few meetings before quitting -- they don't qualify as "members". (That amounts to "cherry-picking".) If we included them, then the numbers would be much worse.
And also note that the claimed five percent of A.A. newcomers who are still left after one year is exactly the same number as the usual rate of spontaneous remission among alcoholics -- five percent per year. That is, in any randomly-selected population of alcoholics, approximately five percent per year will finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they will just quit drinking. And the Harvard Medical School says that 80% of those successful quitters do it by themselves, alone, without any "treatment program" or any "support group".
If we subtract the normal spontaneous remission rate for alcoholism of five percent per year from A.A.'s claimed success rate of five percent, we get zero for A.A.'s real effective cure rate.
A.A. does not actually make anybody quit drinking; it just takes the credit for the people who were going to quit anyway. A.A. is just taking the credit for peoples' efforts to save their own lives.
o The Twelve Steps are actually a hopelessly bad program for recovery:
X Cult religion is not a good cure for alcoholism, and A.A. most assuredly is a cult religion.
X One of the biggest problems with the Twelve-Step program is the learned helplessness caused by the First Step, where people are taught to confess that they are "powerless over alcohol." This leads many people to believe that once they have a drink, that a full-blown relapse and total loss of self-control is inevitable and unavoidable. So some people go on suicidally-intense binges, thinking that it is pointless to try to resist temptation.2 --
X Step Two is just as bad: it teaches people that they are insane, and that only a Supernatural Being can restore them to sanity -- which means that they are helpless, and cannot heal themselves.
X Then Step Three teaches a lifestyle of infantile narcissism and passive dependency, where A.A. members turn control of their wills and their lives over to "the care of God as we understood Him", and then they expect God to take care of them and run their lives for them, and solve all their problems, and wait on them hand and foot, and do all of the hard work for them from then on...
"Let Go And Let God"
is their official motto, their lifestyle, and their approach to problem-solving.
X Then Steps Four through Ten induce guilt in the members by forcing members to make lists of all of their sins and flaws, and "defects of character" and "moral shortcomings", and confess every intimate dirty little secret to another A.A. member who isn't even ordained clergy, or even sworn to secrecy.
X In Step Eleven you are supposed to "channel" God and receive psychic work orders and power.
X Then Step Twelve tells you to go recruiting, to draft more alcoholics into this madness.
o There is also experimental evidence that the A.A. teachings about powerlessness lead to binge drinking. In a controlled study of A.A.'s effectiveness, court-mandated offenders who had been sent to A.A. for several months were engaging in five times as much binge drinking as the no-treatment control group which got no A.A. "help".
o A.A. boosters and propagandists constantly repeat the Big Lie that A.A. works great, and A.A. with its Twelve Steps is the way that everybody recovers: