December in A.A. History—day unknown

In 1938, in the midst of one of Bill W.’s “imaginary ulcer attacks,” a “depressive snit,” and a severe case of self-pity (“Poor me! Poor Bill Wilson!”), he wrote the Twelve Steps. Later he recalled that he “relaxed and asked for guidance, then picked up his pencil and [a] cheap yellow tablet” to begin writing:

    The words kept right on coming.… I didn’t seem to be thinking at all as I wrote. The words just flowed out of me and I’ve come to believe that these Steps must have been inspired.

     His most likely source, however indirect, was his own experience. At least eleven of the twelve steps can be found in the first two drafts of his story [right: “The Strange Obsession,” his earliest draft, May 1938] for the book that would eventually become the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

    This "First draft", the “original” Twelve Steps, as reverse-engineered by William Schaberg in Writing the Big Book on p. 458, are shown below (column 1), alongside the Twelve Steps from The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous (column 2), and those published in the first printing of the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous on April 10, 1939 (column 3). Differences are highlighted, with edits from version to version indicated as deletions and additions:

	First draft	Original Working Manuscript	Alcoholics Anonymous, 1st Edition, 1st Printing
1.	Admit you are powerless over alcohol—that your life has become unmanageable.	Admit you are Admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that your life has our lives had become unmanageable.	We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.	Come to believe that God could restore you to sanity.	Come Came to believe that God a Power greater than ourselves could restore you us to sanity.	Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.	Surrender your will and your life over to the care and direction of God.	Surrender Made a decision to turn your our will and life our lives over to the care and direction of God as we understood Him.	Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God and direction as we understood Him.
4.	Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.	Make Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself ourselves.	Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.	Admit to God, to yourself, and to another human begin the exact nature of your wrongs.	Admit Admitted to God, to yourself ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of your our wrongs.	Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.	Be entirely willing for God to remove all your defects of character.	Be Were entirely willing for that, God remove all your these defects of character.	Were entirely willing that ready for to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.	Humbly, on your knees, ask God to remove your shortcomings—holding nothing back.	Humbly, on your our knees, ask God asked Him, to remove your our shortcomings—holding nothing back.	Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings—holding nothing back.
8.	Make a list of all persons you have harmed, and become willing to make complete amends to them all.	Make Made a list of all persons you have we had, harmed, and become became willing to make complete amends to them all.	Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make complete amends to them all.
9.	Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.	Make Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.	Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.	Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it.	Continue Continued to take personal inventory and when you are we were wrong promptly admit admitted it.	Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.	Seek through prayer and meditation to improve your contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for you and the power to carry that out.	Seek Sought through prayer and meditation to improve your our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for you us and the power to carry that out.	Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.	Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, try to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all your affairs.	Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, try we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all your our affairs.	Having had a spiritual experience awakening as the result of this course of action these steps , we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Summary: “First draft” vs. Original Working Manuscript

• Throughout, changed 2nd person present tense to 1st person plural tense (i.e., “you come” to “we came”, “you make” to “we made”).
• In Step 2, changed “God” to “a Power greater than ourselves”.
• In Step 3, changed “Surrender” to “Made a decision to turn”, and added “as we understood Him” to “God”.
• In Step 6, changed “for God to” to “that God”.
• In Step 7, changed “God” to “Him”.

Summary: Original Working Manuscript vs. Alcoholics Anonymous, 1st Edition, 1st Printing

• In Step 1, changed “Admit” to “We admitted”.
• In Step 6, changed “willing that” to “ready to have”.
• In Step 7, removed “on our knees” and “—holding nothing back”.
• In Step 11, added “as we understood Him” to “God”.
• In Step 12, changed “spiritual experience” to “spiritual awakening”, “this course of action” to “these steps”, and “to others, especially alcoholics” to “to alcoholics”.