Illustration · A printer’s stone with two pages of metal type locked in an iron chase, a proof headed “How It Works,” a stack of printed sheets and a tin of ink. The 1939 book was printed by the Cornwall Press in Cornwall, New York; this is not drawn from its shop or from a photograph.

New York · 1939

Having had a spiritual experience

AA’s first book promised a spiritual experience in its Twelfth Step. Its own stories told of more than one kind.

“God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.”

Bill W., on his night at Towns Hospital · “Bill’s Story,” Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939

Twenty-nine stories

When AA’s book came off the press in April 1939, its Twelfth Step read: “Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” In the manuscript sent out for comment a few months before, the experience had come “as the result of this course of action,” and the message went “to others, especially alcoholics.”

The book allowed for more than one kind. Bill W. wrote in his own story that God comes to most men gradually. “We Agnostics” told of a minister’s son in a hospital who tumbled out of bed to his knees and, in a few seconds, was “overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God,” and then added, “To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly.”

After the eleven chapters came twenty-nine stories, beginning with Dr. Bob’s. Read for how each writer’s change came, six tell of a single moment (three of them close calls, by this site’s reading), and four more of both a moment and a slow change. Seven tell of a slow change, and two of those say outright that it wasn’t sudden. “I didn’t experience any sudden change,” wrote the salesman. An educated agnostic granted that “with many members the change has been almost instantaneous,” and added, “This was not the case with me.” The other twelve don’t say whether it came suddenly or slowly. Their stories end as the writer joins, or say only that it worked.

Two years later the book’s new appendix said readers had taken the sudden changes told in “the first few chapters” for the rule (The educational variety tells that change). The stories at the back had told of slow ones too.

Listen Having had a spiritual experience About 1 minute

Sorted

How each one changed

Every personal story in the 1939 book, sorted by how its writer tells the change: in a moment, in a moment and slowly, slowly, or without saying which.

The sorting is this site’s reading of each story, with the line it rests on. Calls marked “close” could go either way. From the first printing of 1939. Quotations are short excerpts.

In a moment 6

The Unbeliever “God, have mercy on my soul!” The story ends there, on his knees.
The Fearful One “An hour later I awoke to a new world.”
Another Prodigal Story “Almost before I knew it, I was asking God to clean me up.”
A Ward of the Probate Court close “…in just eight days I left there a different person.”
Smile with Me, At Me close “That was enough for me—I started to understand.”
A Close Shave close “…a vital spiritual experience. This occurred in March, 1937.”

A moment and slowly 4

Our Southern Friend “Then comes a thought that is like A Voice.” Then: “But slowly a great peace comes to me.”
An Artist’s Concept “…suddenly, it seemed to me, I had the answer.”
A Feminine Victory close “Gradually, however, God began to clear my channels…”
Truth Freed Me! close “This unreality lasted until December 11th…”

Slowly 7

Traveler, Editor, Scholar “Gradually I began to understand.”
Riding the Rods “The going was sometimes slow…”
The Salesman “I didn’t experience any sudden change…”
Educated Agnostic “…the change has been almost instantaneous. This was not the case with me.”
On His Way “…the road to it is long and tedious.”
The European Drinker close “I seem to get strength daily…”
Home Brewmeister close “…my spiritual development which grows daily.”

Sudden or slow, not said 12

These end as the writer joins, or say only that it worked, without saying whether the change came at once or slowly. Dr. Bob’s own, “The Doctor’s Nightmare,” tells no spiritual experience, and says, “Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years…” “The Rolling Stone” says “a religious awakening was conveyed to me through some unseen force” while he was in the hospital, but not how fast.

The Doctor’s Nightmare
A Business Man’s Recovery
A Different Slant
The Back-Slider
The Seven Month Slip
My Wife and I
Fired Again
The Car Smasher
Hindsight
An Alcoholic’s Wife
The Rolling Stone
Lone Endeavor

More than one kind

Six of the twenty-nine tell of a sudden change, and four more of both a moment and a slow change. The other nineteen tell of a slow one, or don’t say.

For a closer look

Go deeper

What changed before the book was printed, what two outsiders made of it in 1939, and the man in “We Agnostics.”

Before the printer

Early in 1939 the alcoholics sent out four hundred copies of the book for comment (Loan copy, in By the Carload, tells what came back). In that manuscript, Step Twelve’s experience came “as the result of this course of action,” and the message was carried “to others, especially alcoholics.” By April it was “these steps,” and the message went “to alcoholics.” The spiritual experience itself didn’t change.

A copy of that manuscript also holds a story the printed book doesn’t, “Ace Full—Seven—Eleven,” by a former gambler who had no use for God. He kept going back to meetings and came to God slowly, and said so: “Now, I didn’t find God suddenly.”

A notable addition

Two outsiders wrote about AA in 1939. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the New York preacher, reviewing the book, called the members’ stories “a notable addition to William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience” (The book Ebby brought tells what James wrote).

Dr. William D. Silkworth, in the first medical paper about AA, printed that July, wrote that each ex-alcoholic “has had, and is able to maintain, a vital spiritual or ‘religious’ experience,” a change that “sometimes occurs with amazing rapidity, and in nearly all cases these changes are evident within a few months, often less.”

The minister’s son

The man in “We Agnostics” is the writer of “Our Southern Friend.” The details match: a minister’s son, a hospital (one for alcoholics, his own story says), the question “Who are you to say there is no God?” and a man tumbling out of bed onto his knees. Today’s book calls him a pioneer member and a minister’s son.

The chapter tells his night as a thunderbolt: “In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God.” In his own story the question comes like a voice, he gets down on his knees, and then “slowly a great peace comes to me.”

Sources

Alcoholics Anonymous. Works Publishing, 1939 (first printing, as reprinted): “Bill’s Story,” “We Agnostics,” “How It Works” and the twenty-nine personal stories. Fourth edition, AA World Services, 2001: “How It Works,” the Preface, “Pioneers of A.A.” and Appendix II, “Spiritual Experience,” first added in 1941.
Box 4-5-9, August–September 1989, “Big Book Celebrates 50th Birthday As A.A.’s Most Effective ‘Sponsor’” (aa.org), on the second printing of 1941.
The pre-publication manuscript of the Big Book, early 1939, as transcribed (“The Original Manuscript of the Big Book”): “How It Works” and “Ace Full—Seven—Eleven.”
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing, 1957. Appendix E: W. D. Silkworth, M.D., “A New Approach to Psychotherapy in Chronic Alcoholism,” Journal-Lancet, July 1939; and Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick’s 1939 review of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Pass It On. AA World Services, 1984. Chapter 11, on printing the book at the Cornwall Press.