What are the "bedevilments"?
In short:
- "Bedevilments" is on page 52 of the Big Book, in Chapter 4, "We Agnostics." It's the book's word for a list of eight troubles the writers had with living (p. 52).
- The list, in the book's order: trouble with personal relationships; couldn't control our emotional natures; a prey to misery and depression; couldn't make a living; a feeling of uselessness; full of fear; unhappy; couldn't seem to be of real help to other people (p. 52).
- Drinking isn't on the list. A page earlier the book says the members' stories, "Leaving aside the drink question," tell why living was so unsatisfactory (p. 51).
- In its place the list is part of an argument to the agnostic reader: the modern age drops ideas that don't work for ones that do, so why not do the same with these problems? The answer follows: "Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did." (p. 52) The context confirms what the list says and shows what it's there for.
The list in its argument
Pages 51–53 make one argument, in steps: 1. The world changes its mind when the evidence is in. Material progress in the last century came from the spirit of scientific inquiry (p. 51). People once thought a round earth preposterous; newspapers were afraid to print the Wright brothers' flight; thirty years later air travel was ordinary (pp. 51–52). 2. Are we doing the opposite about the spirit? "Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material?" (p. 51) The age is marked by the readiness to "throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new which does" (p. 52). 3. Then apply that to our own lives. "We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view." (p. 52) 4. The list. The eight troubles above, ending with a question: wasn't "a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was." (p. 52) 5. What they saw work. "When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God." (p. 52) They had been relying on self-sufficiency; when others showed them that "God-sufficiency" worked, they felt like the people who had said the Wrights would never fly (pp. 52–53).
Reading the list
A few things the text shows: - It's "we." The list is the writers describing themselves: "We were having trouble with personal relationships" (p. 52). The book doesn't present it here as a test for the reader or name it a symptom of anything. - It's about living, not drinking. The book sets drink aside on purpose in this stretch (p. 51). The list is what was wrong with life itself. - It ends with other people. The last item is that "we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people" (p. 52). The book's chapter on Step Twelve later says "To be helpful is our only aim" (p. 89). - It's offered as a reason, not a verdict. The chapter is trying to persuade agnostic readers, as the writers once were, to give the spiritual side of life the fair hearing the writers admit they never gave it (p. 50). It says plainly it is arguing: "we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable" (p. 53).
Does the context change the reading?
It confirms it. The bedevilments are what the list says: troubles with people, feelings, work, fear and usefulness. Read in its place, the list is one step in an argument that ends with the writers dropping self-sufficiency for reliance on God, the step they say they had resisted out of prejudice.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" (pp. 44–57), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt4.pdf
- Related: Do I have to be religious to work the Steps? · Does Step 12 require believing in God a certain way? · What does Step 1 say? Powerless over what?
- The full book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 4, "We Agnostics" | 51–53 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 7, "Working With Others" | 89 | 1939 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi).
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.