After coming to NA, we found ourselves among a very special group of people who have suffered like us and found recovery. In their experiences, freely shared, we found hope for ourselves.
Basic Text, Chapter 2, ‘What Is the Narcotics Anonymous Program?’
How long were you clean for when you participated in this endeavor?
Pete B: I had just gotten back from my only relapse, which happened after my original 3 weeks clean and lasted for a weekend. I came back to my Homegroup in Bucks County, Pa, and my friend George R. suggested I get more involved in the program. There were 2 weekly meetings in Hulmeville, about a mile from where I lived. The Sat night needed a coffeemaker, so took on that commitment. Sunday Steppers needed a Secretary, and I was willing and could type, so I took that one, as well. My first group conscience meeting, about a week later, that group decided to begin writing its own steps & traditions to be able to use NA literature (defined as anything written by addicts for addicts for the purpose of recovery). I was the group’s secretary and typist, so I typed it up and edited it for use in our meetings. So I had about 2 weeks clean when I started that activity. We met up with many on the World Literature Committee at the 1st East Coast Convention, after which I got involved in many more of the activities of the World Luterzture Committee. I had about 100 days clean then. Most of my free time, when I wasn’t working or going to a meeting, was spent working on the Basic Text project. I lived ate and breathed it for the next 2 years. When we hosted the 7th World Literature Conference in our house (George R. had just moved out, and Al R. still lived there with me), I had a year and 10 months clean. At that conference I was elected Vice Chair of the World Literature Committee, shortly after Page C. was elected chair. I was still in that role a few months later when the fellowship approved the Basic Text at the World Service Conference. We had a book! I stayed involved with world lit., and began working in earnest on the History of NA, which I did for the next 2 years, hosting history workshops at the World Convention in Milwaukee in 1982 and the world convention in NYC in ‘83. I also conducted these workshops at several other conventions, including the 2nd Volunteer Region convention in 1983 in Tennessee (there’s still a tape floating around from that workshop). In November, 1983, at the 9th World Literature Conference in Jameson, Pa, I was asked to serve as Secretary of World Lit. I did that for a few months, but was so “crisp around the edges” by then I had to step away from that level of service to pursue an opportunity I had to actually go through the 12 steps with a sponsor who had experienced all 12. By then, I desperately needed that experience, and felt that my work with World Lit was done for the time being. It was – but then I got to actually recover, which was brilliant. Very grateful for how it all played out. I think that pretty much answered the first question. I was just shy of 4 years clean when I stepped away from the literature work to begin my own journey through the 12 steps.
Marc B: I became involved in Lit ‘stuff’ well before the Text was seriously envisioned. I got to do some work on the Atlanta area newsletter, Rainbow Connection, not long after I found NA, in Oct ‘79. I can’t remember exactly when that happened, though. We started a newsletter in Ohio, also, I got heavily involved in that, with Jim Miller and some other Ohio NA ‘pioneers’. I got clean in Feb ‘79, so, it didn’t take long, probably around a year or so, clean.
Why did you decide to get involved?
Pete B: When my group decided, in group conscience, to begin writing steps and traditions. I was the group’s secretary and the only one with typing and editing skills. During those first couple years, the only times I felt calm and like I was okay was when I was doing that work. The rest of the time, my life was pretty much a shit-show. So it was a no-brainer, for me, to continue doing that work. It was my lifeline.
Marc B: I got involved in Literature stuff, because I realized that communication was the essence of that ‘one addict helping another’- and the printed word was the best venue to carry that message, without being face-to-face with someone seeking recovery. My first encounter with NA Lit was the initial 6 IPs and the LWB, and I was amazed at how direct and simple, those were. I also recognised the universality of the message, and how it was conveyed. When the ‘rumblings’ of developing our own ‘Big Book’-type of Literature, and the obvious need for further IP development became more widespread, I felt committed to that endeavour. I do feel that the level of commitment is directly proportional to one’s ability to actually recover, that is just my own personal observation and experience.
Which part of the text was the most difficult to put together?
Pete B: It wasn’t a specific part of the text. The most difficult part of the whole process was having to start from scratch after 4 world literature conferences and countless thousands of hours of work had gone into the draft of the text that came out of the 4th WLC in Santa Monica, Ca. There were a number of forces, the “old guard” of NA, who felt threatened by the work we were doing. They thought World Lit was making a power move or something. We were just trying to get the book done and out into the hands of addicts so they wouldn’t have to keep dying without knowing there was a way out. But, someone out there actually stole the manuscript – everything that had been worked on up to that point. It just disappeared. I learned about this when Al R. and I arrived in Warren, Ohio for the 5th World Literature Conference there. We just dug in and worked out tails off, ‘round the clock for 8 days straight, very little sleep involved, lots of rocket-fuel grade strong coffee, and a bank of IBM correcting selectric typewriters – first time I ever even saw an electric typewriter, but I got intimately involved with one that whole week. My fingers were practically bleeding at one point, but I didn’t care – we were determined to get that work done. After all our efforts in Warren, and then in Miami a few months later, we had an Approval Form ready to send out to the entire fellowship before the end of 1981 – a pretty remarkable comeback, after having to start over from scratch in June of that year. That was the most difficult time, in my memory.
Marc B: In my opinion, based on the process and the outcome and the consequences thereof, the Traditions portion. I am always impressed, and dismayed, that the only thing that drew enough ire and interest, to warrant altering the approved Text, was those changes to the Tradition essays. No pushback on ‘god versus higher power’, no turmoil about gender terms, no need to argue about specific drug use, just the absolute need to change the portions of the Traditions, that addressed service committee’s responsibilities and accountability, and group autonomy within the. Those changes led to the controversies and divisions within our Fellowship, since then and ongoing. I do believe our Text, and Literature overall, is dynamic, and needs to be updated and revised at certain points. We, collectively, have grown and obtained more knowledge and insight, regarding ‘what works’, and more importantly, what doesn’t work.
Do you have a funny story about the literature process you’d like to share?
Pete B: Maybe not funny, per se, but one of those moments where I laughed in disbelief and knew there were greater forces than us helping us out, despite some of the dark forces from within the fellowship that we seemed to be contending with. In the spring 1983, I’d been working on the history for about a year, and learned a ton about the NA that existed before NA as we know it started in 1953. I wasn’t really looking for that information, but it kept finding its way to me. The one instance of that that really stands out in my memory – me and this girl I was seeing at the time we’re driving out to spend the weekend at Larry No’s cabin in West Virginia. He’d invited us out there. We’d stopped in Winchester, Virginia, for lunch, and came across this used book store. As we were browsing through the books there, I was looking for this one old book on low-blood sugar that I’d heard had a reference to early NA in it. I hadn’t been able to find that book anywhere, though I knew from my research that it existed. We hadn’t said anything about the book while we were in there, but this old guy, who presumably worked there, came up to me, reached up on the top of this shelf behind me, pulled down a book and handed it to me, with a gleam in his eye, and said “here, you might need this one.” It was the book I’d been searching for for months. The girl and I looked at each other, and it was like the theme from the twilight zone was playing in the background somewhere. I still get chills down my spine just thinking about that incident. I think I might still have that book.
Marc B: There are several and rides and stories from the activities during that process. My favourite is the one of me, Jim Miller and May Kay W., working on the chapter ‘Just for Today’, and editing it down to an IP, during an all-night review and rewrite session. The committee decided to rework it back into a complete chapter, but retain the IP as a valid piece of work. Charles K., declaring ‘Work the Steps or Die, motherfucker’, became a rallying cry, taunt, definitive statement, and tenet, not just for the ‘Literature Movement’, but the Fellowship, overall.
Why is the paragraph “Higher mental and emotions, such as conscience and the ability to love, were sharply affected by our drug use…” from the chapter ‘Who Is An Addict?’ repeated in the chapter ‘More Will Be Revealed’?
Pete B: I can’t really tell you why that statement wound up in both “Who Is An Addict”, and More Will Be Revealed. I guess it just fit both narratives. I didn’t work directly on the final edits of “Who is an Addict”, but the Phila Lit Committee that I was a part of did the final edit of More Will Be Revealed, the version of that that went into the Memphis Review Form (aka Gray Book). Oh, yeah; there’s kind of a funny story about that chapter. We had worked on Chapter 8 in the Bristol Lit Committee in Bucks County, and Phila had worked on Chapter 10. George R. chaired both committees and I typed everything up from both. George went to Memphis for WLC3 – I couldn’t go as I was desperately trying to hold onto a job. We were both living in Ivyland at the time. George called me when he got there and said, “Pete, I’m going to need you to come down here.” I told him I simply couldn’t, out of the question – “Why?” I asked. “I left chapter 10 on my bedside table, where I was reading it over last night. I need you to get it to me, somehow.” I promised I would get it to him. Fedex and UPS couldn’t get it there next day by then – it was too late in the day. So I drove out to Philadelphia airport, found a late flight to Memphis, found an honest looking passenger who was willing to take a package from a complete stranger (me) and deliver it to another complete stranger (George) in Memphis. That’s how chapter 10 got into the gray book. Our work in Phila Lit was thorough, and they didn’t make any other changes to it. And I didn’t need to spend 20 hours driving to Memphis to get it there.
Marc B: I’m not sure why that ‘passage’ got repeated, but it does fit well, in those places. Perhaps an elaboration on the ideas presented could be done in a future revision. I’m convinced that nothing that went into the process- whether that is the Gray Book product, the writing and compilation that occurred prior to the Grey Book creation, the Basic Text process- from beginning to ‘end’, the IP developments- was superfluous, or irrelevant. Everything had, and still has, a purpose, which is that simple, but vital, task, of carrying our message of recovery. I can only hope that future generations of members can revise our Literature with the focus on what our collective experience is. Our disease is universal, we all suffer the same result, the differences are relatively ephemeral- different ‘time lines’, different places and situations, but the ultimate ‘jails, institutions, and death’ are the harsh reality of our unchecked disease. Our recovery affords a life free from those destinations, and allows us to live a life worth living, we do recover- as our collective experiences demonstrate. We should focus on that, and avoid the outside influences of money, property, prestige, and also that of allowing compromise on our basic message of abstinence and reintegration with the society we have been estranged, removed or in conflict with, during our active addiction. The Steps lead us on that path, from desperate loners to productive members of the society. That will look different, to different people, in different places, and times, but the message is clear and simple and attainable, if we follow the path that has been defined for us, and the experience of those who came before can help us to understand and achieve that.
Do you feel participating in the literature process affected your recovery? How?
Pete B: Working on the Basic Text had a profound impact on my recovery. It kept me clean those first two years – I don’t know if I would’ve stayed clean otherwise. Sometimes, I felt like I was being given an unfair advantage, as I got to read many of the words that went into it in their rawest form, as input that came in all shapes and sizes, written on all kinds of material. I would type it up, it would go get cut and pasted in workshops until it turned into what would be the words of the Basic Text, and I got to type it a number of times in its various forms. Those words spoke to me as I typed them. They got into my psyche, which was still bedeviled by a lot of insane thoughts and crazy notions, but those words were far more powerful than my crazy thoughts. I knew those words would save me, and save many more addicts who didn’t even know they were addicts yet, just like I didn’t know until my first NA meeting. There was a very powerful force behind the creation of that book, and I got to be a part of that force for over 2 years. I knew that I had been blessed to be in the right place at the right time with the rights set of skills to be an active participant in that process. There’s a line from a song by Paul Simon, called Duncan, where he says “I was playing my guitar lying underneath the stars just thanking the lord for my fingers – for my fingers.” That line gets me every time – I felt like my fingers allowed me to participate in something I probably wouldn’t have, otherwise. My social skills were so burnt out early on, I couldn’t really be part of a lot of the other work going on – I had a real bad case of social anxiety then – but, safe behind a typewriter, I could contribute. Thank God for my typing skills!
Marc B: The involvement in the Lit process, had me make a deeper commitment to recovery. I’ve often said that once I decided to put all my ‘eggs’ in the NA basket, I had a vested interest in how well that ‘basket’ got handled. I understood the value of the printed word, and that was an integral part of the process of recovery, at least in my observation. I had already seen the lunacy of trying to be in control of every aspect of my life, and also trying to be a diverse as possible. Once I surrendered to the fact I had to focus on my recovery, in order to live any sort of meaningful life, that allowed me to let go of the reservations and manipulations. I also made many mistakes, bad decisions, selfish choices, and created a lot of turmoil and discord, not necessarily always intentional, but always with repercussions. Once I committed to NA recovery, the need to restore the damage from the aforementioned disease-driven wreckage, had me utilising the Steps to recover from my disease and ‘right those wrongs’. I am a firm believer that an addict, seeking recovery, can demand conditions, for their unconditional surrender- that means complete abstinence, making a self-assessment, acting upon the results of that assay, making the corrections indicates and pursuing a life in the ‘real world’- and repeating that process as often as needed or indicated. There is no ‘The End’ after the Steps, no diploma or gold-leaf engraved certificate of completion. It’s simply ‘work the Steps, or die, motherfucker!’, or as some of us altered that pearl of wisdom- ‘work the Steps, and live, motherfucker!’.
What do you feel is the most important thing for people to keep in mind about our Basic Text?
Pete B: Most important thing for people to remember about our Basic Text? As important as that text is, and it truly is, nothing is more important for that newcomer at their very first meeting than your own experience, strength and hope, in your own words. Don’t quote the basic text to them. They don’t even know what it is. I didn’t want someone quoting a book at me when I was new. When George reached out to me in my first meeting , all I knew was this cat was for real, he kindly reached out to me, he was willing to listen to me, and he shared the truth from his own experience. That got me to come back. The book is important, but to the newcomer – You Are the Book. Be authentic and honest and just be yourself. Later, they can read the book, but at first, they might not even be able to read. So – Be the Book. Bring it to life. Live it. I hope that helps.
Marc B: The most important thing about our Literature, is to read it, and comprehend it. I don’t think there is any more succinct and direct statement I can make, about Literature. We crafted it, to be the way to carry our message, to anyone, anywhere, and that is true now, and will be for as long as I can see. Once one reads it, it should change them, if it doesn’t initially, they should read it again, and again, until it does. And then, read it again. A few more times.
A huge thank you to Pete B and Marc B for your gracious participation and contributions.
