One Drunk to Another Suggestions Only
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THE TWELVE STEPS
Illustration · A member’s bookshelf at home, with a framed card of the Twelve Steps among the Big Book, the Twelve and Twelve and small daily readers. Not drawn from a photograph.

Suggestions Only

The Steps after the book

AA’s Twelve Steps have barely changed a word since 1939, but the ways members read, taught, printed, borrowed and argued over them never stopped changing.

“But here we must remember that A.A.’s Steps are suggestions only.”

Bill W., at AA’s convention in St. Louis, 1955 · Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, 1957

The Twelve Steps were first published in April 1939, in the fifth chapter of the Big Book, “suggested as a Program of Recovery.” In 1941 one word in Step Twelve changed. As far as AA’s published records show, none has changed since.

Nearly everything around them did. This piece follows the Steps out of the book: Akron’s reading list and pamphlets, beginners’ classes of a few nights, two little books members wrote and printed themselves, Bill W.’s second book about the Steps, the fellowships and treatment centers that took them up, and the long argument over God. Legacy ends with the study guides AA’s publishers turned down in 1977, and the Big Book weekends that grew up in the years after.

It’s built from AA’s own books, chiefly Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, The Language of the Heart, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers and Pass It On, with the early pamphlets, AA’s newsletter Box 4-5-9, historians of treatment and addiction, and the accounts of the groups and fellowships themselves. Where the sources disagree, these pages say so.

Start with 1 · Your second Bible

The Steps, year by year

  1. 1939In April the Big Book prints the Twelve Steps in its fifth chapter, “How It Works.”
  2. 1941In a new printing, Step Twelve’s “spiritual experience” becomes “spiritual awakening.”
  3. 1945Beginners’ classes give newcomers a short course. In St. Louis it’s four Thursday nights, the second, as the Grapevine reported, “trying to help clarify many of the 12 steps.”
  4. 1946In Minneapolis, Ed W. and Barry C. print Ed’s notes on the Steps as a small book, later called the Little Red Book.
  5. 1947At an AA member’s suggestion, patients at the federal narcotic hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, start a group on AA’s Steps.
  6. 1949Hazelden opens in a farmhouse at Center City, Minnesota, with lectures on the Steps.
  7. 1953Bill W.’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions comes out, and the Narcotics Anonymous known today holds its first meeting, in California.
  8. 1955At St. Louis, Bill reads a letter about a monk who suggested “good” in place of “God.”
  9. 1977AA’s publishers turn down study guides. Joe McQ. and Charlie P. are asked to present the Big Book to a home group, the start of their weekend studies.
  10. 2011Toronto’s Intergroup takes two agnostic groups off its meeting list. In 2017 it settles a human rights complaint over it.
  11. 2026AA approves a fifth edition of the Big Book. The Steps keep their words.

Walk through the years after the book

Each part has a short story, a one-minute audio stop, and a closer look for anyone who wants to go deeper. Read them in order, or start anywhere.

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