Newsday Article/Health & Discovery Section

[Guest guest]

I wanted to copy an article appearing in Newsday today - but it wasn't listed when I went to the Newsday.com site, which I don't understand because all other articles were listed. Entitled "New Tales of Recovery Highlight AA Big Book", it is about the latest edition of the Big Book which came out over the last month or so. The first 164 pages remain the same, as usual - there are new stories.

"The first half remains unchanged in this fourth edition. New and different is the second half, devoted to personal stories of recovery. The 42 tales include that of a gay person, for the first time, and also more from young people, women and minorities..."

"...Now professionals will have a book that could appeal to more of their increasingly diverse clientele. Many of these people felt unmoved by the tales in previous editions of traveling salesmen and wayward husbands...'If your tring to get younger people, you want it in their terms'...[said an asshole, who is a drug abuse program supervisor, blah blah blah]. "

"The updated edition will help, 'because it is always hard to reach youths, who are immature and think their immortal', he said...The new stories of recovery include those of an American Indian woman, a baby boomer court-mandated to treatment, a black woman who sobered up in jail, a disgraced pilot, two teenagers and several 20-somethings".

It's not too difficult to see that AA is reaching for a younger crowd. They have added drunkalogs which a greater number of persons may be able to relate to (a new "hook" to reel more of 'em in), but fact is, the basic tenets of the program haven't changed a bit and aren't likely to any time soon.

Janice

Janice Schneider La