How is the The Original Manuscript different from The Big Book?
How is the Original Manuscript different from the First Edition of the Big Book? How and why was it changed?
The Original Manuscript refers to the pre-publication "first draft" of the Big Book. The ideas in it are basically the same as the Big Book as we know it now, but the tone was different. Unlike the modern wording where the experience of the first members is passed along as suggestions for a recovery program, the manuscript took the tone of an instructional book telling people what to do.
The reasons given for the change from the more forceful wording was that the membership realized that alcoholics as a group tend to dislike being told what to do. The manuscript was re-written to change the instructions to suggestions to make it easier for the newcomer to accept.
