Welcome to Decoding the Big Book, a special limited series of the Sober Friends podcast.

Researched and sourced from writing the big book by William Sheaberg, the purpose of each episode is to provide context and history for each chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, followed by a

reading of the chapter from the fourth edition. Each section is marked by chapters, so feel

free to skip ahead to what you're interested in and leave the rest. The forward in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is a crucial piece of literature that sets the tone for the entire book.

It is the first thing you see when you open the book and was the last thing that was written.

The Ford is set apart from the rest of the book with Roman

numerals, indicating its significant importance to the overall message of AA. Bill Wilson, one of the

co-founders of AA, was looking for a prominent person or organization to write a preface endorsing

the program of action highlighted in the big book, and because of this,

the publishing was delayed. Bill Schaberg, the writer of writing the big book, from his YouTube channel,

discusses who Bill Wilson had his eyes on.

One reason for the delay was that Bill Wilson was desperate to get some famous person to write

a glowing endorsement of Alcoholics Anonymous as a forward or as a preface to the big book.

And his primary candidate for this was Henry Ford.

Henry Ford was a hugely famous,

they called him a super dry.

He wasn't just a temperance guy,

he was a super dry guy.

And Bill just chased Henry Ford

all over the place left and right

for months and months and months before the book came out,

trying to get him to write a forward for this book.

...