Freaken Big Book Fundamentalists Hate Freaken Everything!

Big Book Thumper

By Bobby Freaken Beach

Big Book fundamentalists are the elite members of Alcoholics Anonymous. At least, that’s what they tell us. That being the case, it would not be unreasonable to expect that these defenders of the Holy Writ would be lovers and enthusiastic supporters of all things AA.

And yet, it is not so.

Far from it!

The shocking reality is that freaken Big Book fundamentalists hate freaken everything!!!

Big Book thumpers, as they call themselves really, really hate treatment centers, and are quick to attribute every non-BB slogan to these profiteers, whose main occupation over the past four or five decades has been to dilute the purity of AA’s message. This they have accomplished, supposedly, by directing folks to such non-spiritual activities as brushing their teeth, making their beds, eating properly, and avoiding old associates and dens of iniquity. Lordy!! The treatment center palaver waters down the AA message.

There’s more.

Horror of horrors, rehab center clients are directed to go to AA meetings, as many as 90 in 90 days. Why is this a problem? Because freaken Big Book fundamentalists hate freaken AA meetings!!

Huh??

How can that be??

Big book fundies do not see alcoholics as multi-taskers. Take the steps EXACTLY as directed by the book, OR go to meetings and DIE!! Here’s a typical thumper share – “I was told to go to 90 meetings in 90, and I did, and on the 91st day I drank!!” (Curiously enough, it’s never the 93rd day or the 87th.) Until I was walked through the book, line by line, by a Big Book sponsor, only then was I brought to the orgasmic spiritual awakening that deposited me into the sidecar of the Harley Davidson of a Loving God.

And then life became:

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that’s wonderful is sure to come your way
When you’re in love (with God) to stay.

Meetings, Crackheads, and Heathens

Surely it comes as a great surprise that Big Book worshipers loathe AA meetings, but if you doubt it, casually insert into a conversation the suggestion that: “Meeting makers make it.” Step back quickly, because the venom is going to come spewing forth. “We’re sober from the steps we take, NOT the meetings we make.” (Thank you, R2D2. Well put. There’s really no arguing with that – it even rhymes, FFS!!) One might wonder why this would be presented as an either/or, when the reality is that most successfully sober AA members do some sort of combination of both.

Thumpers seem to be not at all tortured by the cognitive dissonance that nags at normal mortals, when they find themselves being inconsistent. That’s a good thing because a lot of damn fundies have been to a damn boatload of freaken meetings!

Also high on the thumpers’ MOST HATED LIST are court referrals and non-alcoholic drug addicts, unless the particular Big Book aficionados in question are non-alcoholic drug addicts themselves. There are such creatures, perhaps visiting form Cocaine Anonymous, where AA’s book is used unaltered and rabid fundamentalism runs rampant.

From the perspective of the “Singleness of Purpose” fundamentalist, drug addicts will bring about the ruination of AA. There is no way of making an AA member of a non-alcoholic drug addict, don’t you know!

Let’s take your average drunk whose fun drinking began to produce serious consequences, then spiraled completely out-of-control. In spite of all of this, the alcoholic was plagued with an obsession to get more liquor. How could our guy possibly relate to some pariah whose fun drugging began to produce serious consequences, then spiraled completely out-of-control. In spite of all of this, the addict was plagued with an obsession to get more drugs.

See the enormous difference?

Big Book lovers also detest heathens, agnostics, freethinkers, and whatever else the ungodly call themselves these days. Of course, you need not be a fundamentalist to know that these guys are trouble. As the late, great Sandy Shores wrote in his magnificent treatise, The White Paper on Why Atheists Suck, the SOB’s were almost tolerable back when they kept their damn mouths shut. Their current endeavors in the quest for AA’s obliteration include prayerless meetings, the penning and publication of conference-disapproved literature, and the establishment and maintenance of websites that have become as popular as Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker in their prime! And without a single damn hymn, for God’s sake!

Why don’t they start their own God-hating program? Just don’t call it AA.

So how, you might ask, do these belligerent, Godless savages stay sober, and seemingly happy for decades, in some cases. The sober heathen horde are mere “hard drinkers,” of course – not “real alcoholics” like us. Freaken Big Book fundamentalists HATE “hard drinkers.” The damn posers are killing real alcoholics with their horrible example of staying sober on fellowship alone!

There is, for the fundamentalist, no middle ground – it’s Grace of God or self-will. What is your choice to be, ya damn belligerent heathen?

Shirkers, Scourges, and Treasonous Founders

When it comes right down to it, Big Book fundamentalists hate most AA members. They are slackers and shirkers with their open-disgusting meetings, 12 + 12’s, fellowship social clubs, and human power-generated so-dry-ety.

Shockingest of all shockers is that freaken Big Book fundamentalists LOATHE AA literature!! And yes, I mean the conference-freaken-approved stuff. Thumpers DETEST The 12 + 12 ! It confuses newcomers and distracts them from the simple solution and clear-cut instructions presented in the 1939 text. Living Sober is even worse – having  killed more real alcoholics than Moderation Management AND cigarettes!! Should you dare to mention this Scourge of Satan while amidst a group of the pious, be prepared for them to start flopping on the ground like Pentacostals when the spirit enters. They may even start speaking in tongues, but not in a good way.

That damnable tribute to human power lobbies for attending meetings, avoiding situations that might provide the temptation to drink, a balanced diet, exercise, and all sorts of craziness that could cut into your praying time. Thumpers would be shocked that the 1940 Akron Manual offered similar human power prescriptions, right in the heart of AA at its finest!!

How could you let that freaken happen, Dr. Freaken Bob??!! Fortunately, freaken AA fundamentalists ABHOR reading, and are unlikely to have this sacrilege disturb their peace.

Here’s another stunner! Big Book freaken fundies HATE Bill Freaken Wilson!!!

Wilson got WAY too liberal in much of his thinking. Nothing p-o’s a fundie like liberalism and inclusivity. And political correctness. There’s WAY too much damn political correctness. Thumpers knock the intelligence of AA’s principal architect in order to set up this narrative – “Bill wasn’t smart enough to write life-saving literature like Alcoholics Anonymous. God used him as a conduit.” Freaken fundamentalists DO like the notion of a “divinely inspired” Big Book.

Immutable. Precise. Unarguable.

The Unkindest Cut of All

Yes, Brutus, the unkindest cut of all comes when Big Book fundamentalists start knocking the Big Freaken Book itself!!

Say it isn’t so.

It is so, for there are parts they do not like, and edits they do not like. Big Book Lovers can’t stand the word “suggested!” I mean, they really HATE it to the point of making up stupid definition like: “In a 1939 dictionary, a suggestion was defined as ‘a subtle command.'” Not even close to being true, but cuter that the inane analogy: “I suggest you pull the cord on your parachute.” Honesty is okay up to a point, I guess, but in the quest to save souls, fundies grant themselves some latitude.

At the suggestion of a local psychiatrist, “Dr. Howard,” the book was edited to tone down some of the preaching. Big book enthusiasts DETEST toning down the freaken preaching. Hence, they frequently refer to the more perfect earlier version of the perfect book. Big Book thumpers see themselves as “bringers of truth.” As such, they seemingly exempt themselves from the book’s injunctions against speaking down from moral and spiritual hilltops. There are “no lectures to be endured.” Nonetheless, “sit down and shut up! The lecture I’m going to give you might save your life.”

I’d find these fundamentalists extremely annoying, were I a lesser man. As it is, their desperate grasp at self-esteem is quite pathetic.


Bobby Beach is a long-sober, non-fundamentalist member of AA. He is particularly a fan of the secular AA movement, and his psychiatrists report that he is doing quite well of late.


 

58 Responses

  1. Jim F. says:

    This article is funny, and squares perfectly with my own experience. SADLY these self-proclaimed reformers of A.A. don’t realize that it’s the flexibility and nondogmatic approach that A.A. has adopted through trial and error is precisely what makes it work so well for many people. Like the old saying goes, if you want an alcoholic to tell you where to go, tell them what to do. The steps are guides to progress, which are suggested as a program of recovery. There are NO musts!

  2. John the Drunkard says:

    Strangely enough, for all their hatred of the Treatment Industry, most, if not all, the ‘stars’ of Olde Tyme Bigg Booke are themselves ‘professionals.’

    Joe McQ, Wally P, Dick ‘B’ack to Basics etc. etc. ALL ran or worked for treatment centers.

    • Bobby Beach says:

      The list goes on and on. One Hell of a lot of the most THUMPING of conference speakers, the ones pimping book-binding. t-shirts, etc., have rehab employers. Several of them find anonymity inconvenient, best left to the little people.

  3. Eileen M says:

    Geez Louise Freaking Bobby Beach.

  4. MikeB says:

    This is superb and could be the funniest thing I’ve read this year, or would be if it weren’t so terrifyingly accurate.

    It perfectly sums up why I stepped away from meetings eight months ago, expecting when I did so to be drinking again by now if the fundies were to be believed.

    Unfortunately, my message that by sticking to the AA principles of decency, honesty, thoughtfulness and not picking up the first drink indeed leading to the sunny uplands without the requirement to poison my mind several times a week with religious bigotry or alcohol now goes unheard, while those who poison the minds of newcomers with the behaviour described above, often multiple times in a day (the two who mainly drove me away regularly attend three local meetings every Saturday and two on Sunday, while often doing three around the county every Tuesday) continue to drive newcomers and long time members away with their cognitive dissonance and misreadings of what their beloved book actually says.

    When active in AA i would regularly joke with my sponsor that the reason you could open the book at random and get the answer you need to what’s troubling you is that the book simply restates the same thing about 160 times. It may have been dictated by God but certainly wasn’t proof read by anyone who ever passed an exam in English comprehension or with any knowledge of how to structure an argument. In fact, I would heretically like to suggest that it was actually written by a salesman, since it relies on the circular logic and table thumping I was taught on courses when I worked in financial services during what is now fondly described here in the UK as the great financial mis-selling era. I didn’t play then and I don’t buy it now.

    This blog, and a few other resources, are now my weekly meeting, and once again I say thank you for helping to keep me sane and sober.

  5. bob k says:

    I keep going back to look at the incredibly rich facial expression of the guy holding the Big Book on the Thumper t-shirt. My late mother would have said, “He looks like the cat who swallowed the canary!” I can’t begin to describe all that the smug look implies. It’s ineffable, perhaps. Another good word—not “bowdlerized,” but another delicious word nonetheless.

    With apologies to Bobby Beach, and no disrespect, that thumper’s face may be the best part of this week’s presentation.

  6. Tim B. says:

    *freakin’

    • Bobby Beach says:

      Freaken

      Term Used For The ‘F’ Word
      ‘Shut The Hell Up You Freaken Jerk’

      The Urban Dictionary

      It may be different in Kansas, Dorothy.

  7. Arthur S. says:

    Ya, well the problem is when an atheist recovers it undermines the theistic members. “If you didn’t need god to recover then you’re not a real alcoholic.”

    People commit suicide and no one bats an eye; take away the Lord’s Prayer and people lose their minds.

    • kharrisma says:

      “Amen” to that! 🙂

    • Mike O says:

      Even more insulting than the notion that the heretic is “not a real alcoholic” is that they’re “not really sober”, as sobriety is ONLY the SPIRITUAL CONDITION reached after the thorough, honest and successful completion of the 12 STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (always spelled out fully as “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS”). These pious turds think that there’s is “real sobriety” and all others is merely “dry” time being wasted on “dry drunks.” It’s perhaps the most unctuous part of the underbelly of rabid, Big Book Thumper AA culture and its many iterations. It’s all John Wayne style “more sober than thou” mythology.

      • Ngaire says:

        Yes it’s a very annoying and dangerous message that they carry, unfortunately.

        It drives people away I’ve found.

    • Ngaire says:

      The term “Real Alcoholic” is in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. It has nothing to do about whether you believe in GOD or not, it has to do with uncontrollable drinking.

  8. Arthur S. says:

    A church is an divinely ordained assembly and those individuals who feel ordained by God. There are those in AA who call themselves “real alcoholics” or 1%’s; through adversity they have been ordained.

    They speak of “truths”. Be wary of these people.

  9. kharrisma says:

    I dunno… I took it for what it seemed to me to be: a caricature, on over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek exaggeration of something that, while not all-pervasive by any means, nevertheless does exist. I’ve not been around in AA for all that long, but I have already seen examples of what is described in the article. I live in a rural area where there are no secular AA meetings. I’d dearly love to have an alternative to the God-dominated meetings that are the staple around here… but even as they are, they have managed to keep this drunk sober for almost 2 years now.

  10. life-j says:

    Hmm, all bets are off on what’s going to come of it when someone writes a piece like this. In part because while there is a core group of readers here who know perfectly well where Bob is coming from, and know him well for the many great articles and books he has written over the years, someone who isn’t familiar with the site may not know what to think. It should be obvious that it is satire, and that some of the responses are bound to be satirical too, but it is evident that it is confusing to some people. Some readers are bound to not know Bob, nor for that matter, myself. Drew a lot of response, though. I guess it’s good with a bit of variety. We are not a glum lot, supposedly.

  11. Bob B. says:

    Sounds like someone is having a bad hair day (lol).

  12. Annette says:

    Ok the article struck me as juvenile, however that white paper scared me shitless! I attend mostly traditional meetings and try to stay clear of anyone self-righteous. I’m not a big fan of the Lord’s Prayer but I tolerate it, because I need meetings to stay sober. My one freethinking meeting is only once a week. But that white paper, yikes!

    • bob k says:

      There’s more on the White Paper here: The Watering Down of AA.

      Also somewhat juvenile, as Bobby Beach has a bit of the “HOLY SHIT – LOOK AT THIS!!!” style of a stupefied teen. We also would have accepted “puerile.”

  13. Guy H. says:

    Good article. Christian book thumpers are the most dishonest of all. We thought we could find an easier, softer way and they did; blame everything on God. These are the Christians who save 25 seats for themselves at the meeting so the newcomers can stand. Demanding that AA be all inclusive is their way of saying it’s OK to Christianize a non-religious Org., It isn’t. They use the phrase “My higher power” like a gun pointed at the non-believer. They need to be rooted out.

  14. Russ says:

    I’ve been a member of A.A. for somewhere around 50 years and have seen all manner of fundamentalist madness at meetings,everything from members insisting we must pray to Jesus, a Bible on the literature table and physically pushing people out of the meetings who dared to question such behavior. Here, where I’ve lived for most of those years the BB thumpers, for the most part, have gone on to form their own meetings because they couldn’t abide sharing recovery with “queers, crack pots and fallen women” (not to mention atheists,agnostic and the homeless)…and you know what… I don’t miss them one damned bit.

  15. John M. says:

    People, people, people…when I came into AA 11 1/2 years ago, Rule 62 was one of the first things my fellow AAers impressed upon me — don’t take ourselves too seriously!

    But please do take Rule 62 seriously.

    Nice job, Freaken Bobby. Always look on the bright side of life! (Not funny either?)

  16. Myrna says:

    What a great read, LOL, and as funny as it is, it’s so true, alcoholics are just weird that way. ROFLMAO.

    Loved it!

  17. Darrell D. says:

    I go to AA and maybe it will help someone to stay sober. I would never tell someone how to do it because I don’t know what keeps me sober. I know what I did but don’t know what it was. Was in fellowship, meeting, coffee after the meeting, just spending time with people that did not want to drink at that moment did not care if they were alcoholic or not did they want to stop drinking nothing else. I now have 52 years of sobriety and I also don’t do any chemicals. Do I like AA as much today as I did in 1966? No I don’t, but I don’t like anything as I did in 1966. AA worked for me and now I go to AA to try and help someone else I owe. Maybe I can and maybe I can’t. I just go and share my experiences not my opinions about you.

  18. Beth H. says:

    I would like to know where and how the author meets all these people if they don’t go to meetings. Seems like it would be easy enough to stay away from them unless there are few choices in the area. There’s an adrenaline high from righteous indignation and I’m not seeking it.

    • Bobby Beach says:

      I have been to over 4,000 traditional AA meetings. I participate in large 10 or 12 Facebook groups and interact with people in recovery all over the world. I go to LOTS of meetings.

      • Anry says:

        Over 10 years sober, with that many meetings. Congratulations! I can’t think of 10 days, atm. I must check our FB ‘ blogs. I don’t go to meetings, for all the above mentioned nonsense. I have no energy left to bitch nor do I want to hear it. It’s a shame really……

  19. Steve B. says:

    Good article. AA got started as a part of the Christian fundamentalist group the Oxford Group. So it’s no surprise that Oxford’s religiosity lingers on in AA. And that’s why it’s been necessary to start secular AA meetings. Several people commented that they didn’t like this article. I know I did.

  20. Lon M. says:

    If one wants to keep getting along with his or her friend, it has always been considered wise to put a damper on religion and politics. AA, as practiced by the majority of sober alcoholics, happens to be saturated with religion, and to a lesser extent, politics. The trap is that both religion and politics are belief systems generated and nurtured by non-rational fundamentalist convictions that are indoctrinations unsupported by demonstrable facts. BB thumpers who become authoritarian through such belief systems are simply wrong. There is no cause and effect correlation between their unproved or disproved beliefs and their successful sober living. Certainly there is a body of fact-supported information which can and does lead to sobriety, including their own sobriety; but it helps immensely to understand that, if one were to understand and practice evidence-based critical thinking.

  21. Bob K. says:

    I found the essay to be quite amusing – I’d be very surprised if that wasn’t the intent. Pure satire, I’d say. Perhaps the problem is that the mocked behavior is so real. I cross paths with a number of BB fundamentalists, and they spend a lot of time hand-wringing over the state of AA—court referrals, outspoken freethinkers, “hard drinkers,” meeting makers – everything in the essay.

    Bobby’s satirical attack may have been on a “condition” that’s all too real.

    • Roger says:

      I tend to agree, Bob, I too found the essay quite amusing, all in all. But, of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem with these fundamentalists and that is something that cannot, and should not, be ignored.

      And that’s precisely why I posted Bobby Beach’s article.

  22. Jim says:

    Thanks for being an example of why this article was written.

  23. Dan L says:

    If only we had an Inquisition to keep things pure like we had in the “Good Old Days”. The Inquisition could police meetings and raid the ones that were straying into discussions about life and sobriety. Everyone should know by now that AA is not about recovery or sobriety. It is about AA which is everything neither more nor less. AA has to be done right or it should not be done at all. If you can recover from a seemingly hopeless condition without the direct and personal intervention of the AA God (John Calvin) then you were never “alcoholic” in the first place. Somebody has to stop the heavy drinkers from getting into AA and because their superior cognitive abilities are stealing all of the good sobriety. This leaves the TRUE Elite Alcoholics flopping around on the floor like dying fish murdered by heavy drinkers. Only an Inquisition can save us.

  24. Eileen says:

    Uhm, Bobby, It seems that you Do find BB Fundamentalist extremely annoying despite not being a lesser man.

  25. RussH says:

    An article condemning haters which is itself a diatribe of finger pointing condemnation. Yecch.

    • Bobby Beach says:

      It’s satire—that’s how it works.

    • Bobby Beach says:

      Glad you recognized “diatribe”—that’s EXACTLY the vibe I was going for. I am SHOCKED by fundies’ loathing of AA. All that’s missing is “Fear” and “Las Vegas.”

      • Melinda says:

        That I do agree with – fundies do seem to hate everything. Man, lately I have met fundies who don’t even REALISE they’re fundies!!!

  26. Glenn L. says:

    As soon as I see a bowlderized word like “freakin” I know I will be reading a piece written by one of those unfortunates who are constitutionally incapable of rigorous honesty.

    • Bobby Beach says:

      TEN BONUS POINTS FOR “BOWLDERIZED,” GLENN L.!! FREAKEN AWESOME WORD!! Two point deduction for misspelling.

  27. Jack says:

    I would like to read “The White Paper on Why Atheists Suck.” Can’t seem to find it?

  28. Mark C. says:

    Religiosity, Conformity and Authoritarianism = Big Book Fundamentalism. “Holy War” against the infidel is part and parcel of that religious ideology. That is the overall, dominant rhetorical situation in Conventional AA.

    Might we add Totalitarian? I think so.

  29. Ngaire says:

    Big Book Thumpers AND The Big Book like to try to Evangelize People.

  30. Megan says:

    I will get my panties in a bunch when fundamentalists kill people. A most viciously dangerous fundamentalist distortion of A.A. is “don’t go to a therapist or psychiatrist” and “get off all medications”. I know of six suicides directly related to vulnerable people taking (or being emotionally coerced to take) that dangerous advise. Seeing a therapist/psychiatrist is suggested in at least 6 places in the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”. Warning that A.A. is no replacement for working with a doctor is spelled out in pamphlets “The A.A. Member—Medications and Other Drugs” and the more recent excellent “A.A. for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues – and their sponsors”. Fundamentalists hate those pamphlets almost as much as the recent “God Word” pamphlet.

  31. Mike S. says:

    I’m a lapsed Catholic. Had religion shoved down my throat by an alcoholic father and Christian Brothers, and Priests. When I went to AA I followed it as well as I could. I heard them say AA is not affiliated with any sect or denomination and then they said a prayer from the Christian Bible. I got sober — it saved my life and gave me a code to live by. Now I stand silent as they say the Our freakin’ Father.

    I’ve noticed several others stay silent now. When there is a majority I will, in Leonard Cohen’s words, “try to fight the system from within.”

    I’m not perfect, you are not perfect, the universe is not perfect, AA is not perfect. Fundamentalists try to shrink understanding to their low-level thinking. Thanks for your thoughts. Makes me feel more at home in AA. Illegitimi non carborundum.

  32. Melinda says:

    Hey honey – don’t get your panties in a bunch because someone disagreed with you. The fellowship is big enough for all of us losers. PMSL.

    • Al says:

      “Honey”, it’s not a matter of ‘agreeing’ or not. She is talking about the proclivity of fundies to fancy themselves as superior to mental health professionals, and give deadly ‘medical advice’. Like other uneducated but self-satisfied groups, they reject any scientific progress since 1939.

      I used to work down the street from a rehab facility. The patients had to sneak into our pharmacy for even aspirin!

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