The Spiritual Experience Appendix of the Big Book

The spiritual experience appendix of the Big Book is Appendix II, found on pages 567 and 568 of Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition. It was added after the first printing because many readers came away believing that recovery required a sudden, dramatic encounter with God, and some were quietly giving up when nothing like that happened to them. The appendix settles the question. What the book actually calls for is a 'personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism' (page 567), and that change shows up among us in many different forms.

The appendix names two broad varieties. Some of us have the quick, dramatic kind, the 'sudden and spectacular upheavals' described in the book's first chapters (page 567). Most of us have what the psychologist William James calls the 'educational variety' (page 567), a change that develops slowly over a period of time. To the fear that only the lightning-bolt kind is real, the appendix answers plainly: 'Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous' (page 567). Slow counts. Gradual counts. If we are changing, we are having the experience.

Why Appendix II Was Added

When the Big Book was first published in 1939, stories like Bill's sudden hospital experience left a powerful impression. Many alcoholics concluded that they had to receive an immediate, overwhelming awareness of God, with their whole outlook transformed on the spot, or they were not really recovering (page 567). We can imagine what that belief did to the newcomer who prayed, worked the Steps, and felt no thunder. So the appendix was written to lift that burden, and the book itself expects us to need it; a footnote on page 25 sends the reader straight to Appendix II for the full explanation. Sudden transformations happen, and they happen often, but the appendix says they are by no means the rule (page 567). Nobody is disqualified for waking up slowly.

Sudden or Slow: The Educational Variety

The educational variety is so gradual that we are usually the last to notice it. The appendix observes that friends of the newcomer often see the difference in him long before he sees it himself (page 567). Then one day he realizes that his whole way of reacting to life has changed, and that he could hardly have brought that about alone. What takes place in a few months of this work, the appendix says, could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline (page 567). That is the quiet miracle most of us live. We stop wanting to drink, we start telling the truth, and the people around us see it first. Page 25 calls this the great fact for us: 'deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe' (page 25).

The Personality Change Sufficient to Recover

Whatever the pace, the substance is the same. The appendix tells us that with few exceptions, members discover an inner resource they never suspected they had, and they come to identify it with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves (pages 567-568). Most of us regard that awareness as the essence of spiritual experience, and our more religious members call it 'God-consciousness' (page 568). Notice how this matches Step Twelve: 'Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps' (page 60). The awakening is the result of the work, not the entrance fee. We do not wait until we feel spiritual to begin; we begin, and the change comes. And since what we really have is a 'daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition' (page 85), the experience is not a trophy we win once. It is a condition we keep by continuing to grow.

What the Book Asks of Us

The appendix closes with remarkable generosity. It says most emphatically that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. The only thing that can defeat him is an attitude of 'intolerance or belligerent denial' (page 568). Then it hands us the short list: 'Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable' (page 568). We do not have to believe anything in particular today. We only have to stay open. The appendix ends with Herbert Spencer's warning against 'contempt prior to investigation' (page 568), the one attitude that can keep a person in everlasting ignorance. If we refuse to slam that door, then sudden or slow, loud or quiet, the change will come. And the appendix promises it is enough to recover.