When Joe and Charlie get together, they can explain recovery in a funny and humorous way. They interact well together as they deliver a strong message.

Joe McQuany and Charlie Parmley, a team of two men (who died in 2007 and 2011, respectively) known as Joe and Charlie who met in 1973 and spent the next three decades spreading their interpretation of the Big Book.

These two Southern gentlemen are credited with making the program literature accessible to many who might have otherwise found the language archaic, obtuse or just downright confusing. As Larry Gaines, the CEO of the Kelly Foundation—an organization dedicated to recovery from addiction that Joe McQuany launched in 1978—“People often say that it took Bill and Bob to write the Big Book but it took Joe and Charlie to explain it.”

While most download their Joe and Charlie “Big Book Comes Alive” talks from one of many AA-related speaker sites (such as XA-Speakers), others get hip to the Joe and Charlie way by attending special AA meetings formatted around their book studies.