12-Step Fellowship Texts and Their Interpretation Today [7’53”]
Professor Wendy Dossett’s research has revealed that there is a difference between the formal language of the tenets (or texts) of the 12-step fellowship and the way they are interpreted by fellowship members today. She is struck by how conservative the 12-step fellowship is, as reflected by the first 164 pages of the Big Book (the programme of recovery), which has remained the same since the 1930s. She believes that it is very unlikely that this will ever change, as it is argued that the text has worked for generation after generation. It is better to keep it as it is and let people interpret the writings as they wish. She points out that the language of the Bible has been translated differently over time, but not the core Big Book.
Wendy argues that ‘you cannot understand any religious or spiritual group by only looking at their written sources. You have to have the ethnography as well.’ She points out that many people are anxious about 12-step fellowships because they think the writing is what it is. They don’t realise that there is a live and vibrant community around these writings that are reinterpreting the words—they are making it relevant to them and their experiences in the present day.
Wendy states the key message that she wants to get more widely known, including in professional and clinical circles, is the ‘diversity and creativity of people who engage with that concept and how they interpret it.’ These people are not just sitting back and accepting a 1930s concept—they are engaging with it, but bringing their own experience and interpretation to it.