The Plain Language Big Book

From Bill's Story as repurposed in the Plain Language Big Book: "It was a relief to know that most alcoholics have a hard time resisting drinking, even if they are able to control themselves in other parts of their lives.  This helped me understand my actions.  I wanted very badly to stop drinking, but it seemed like I just couldn't.  This is how most alcoholics felt."

In the history of the Christian religion for centuries mass was conducted entirely in Latin.  Great - preaching to an audience who didn't know how to read in a language they couldn't understand.  Good technique.  Makes perfect sense to me.  Then, the Bible was translated into English in an old-timey fashion - The King James' Version - so if you could read you didn't mind a lot of thou-s and thee-s and shalt-s and so on and so forth.  Again, very logical.  Why say "Don't do this" when you can say "Thou shalt not do this."  That's how most people are going to talk as they go through their day.  "Thou shalt not eat that cookie before dinner" and "Thou shalt brush thy teeth after eating that cookie I told thee not to eat."  And so on and so forth.

The uproar!  The outrage!  The apostasy!  We might as well be watching a partisan cable news show - or should I say "news" show? -  excoriate The Other Side.

So far I'm finding it to be very inoffensive.  It's almost as if someone asked me or any other A.A. member to summarize Bill's Story.  The words might be a little different, a little more modern, but the message doesn't waver.  The Daily Reflections - approved A.A. literature - is nothing more than ordinary people interpreting a literature passage in their own words.  Most of them I like or find blandly neutral and a few I don't care for.  So what?  I'm not a ten year old.  I can take what I like and leave the rest.