For decades, tormented alcoholics have taken comfort in the clear, soul-penetrating language of AA's "Big Book," which serves as a guide down the path to sobriety. Now they're publishing the original manuscript, with all the edits. Confusion ahoy, alcoholics!

Forget what you know about a mushy "Higher Power," drunks! The upcoming "4.5-pound, $65 manuscript, titled 'The Book That Started It All'" includes the entire messy editing process that went into making the Big Book. Fox News would have been outraged.

The editors softened Step 7 of AA's renowned 12 Steps for example, by deleting a phrase that evoked church worship. "Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings - holding nothing back," became "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings."

In the first chapter, a sentence that read "God has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish," was edited to replace "God" with "faith," and a question was added: "Who are we to say what God has to do?"

Doesn't publishing all the edits defeat the point of making edits? Who are we to say?

[WaPo]