The Twelve Steps Of Alcoholics Anonymous?Who Wrote Them?
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous—Who Wrote Them?
Dick B.
© 2010 Anonymous. All rights reserved
There Were Those Who Didn’t
Cofounder Dr. Bob: One who made it clear that he didn’t write the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous was cofounder Dr. Robert H. Smith (known as “Dr. Bob”). In his last major address to AAs—recorded in The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches: Their Last Major Talks (NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975)—Dr. Bob stated:
In the early A.A. days . . . our stories didn’t amount to anything to speak of. When we
started in on Bill D. [A.A. Number Three], we had no Twelve Steps, either; we had no
traditions.
But we were convinced that the answer to our problems was in the Good Book. [p. 13]
It wasn’t until 1938 [three years after A.A. was founded in June 1935] that the teachings and efforts and studies that had been going on were crystallized in the form of the Twelve Steps. I didn’t write the Twelve Steps. I had nothing to do with the writing of them. [p. 14—emphasis added]
“Cofounder” Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr.: Bill Wilson made it clear that his friend Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York, was the “wellspring” from which A.A.’s ideas had flowed. [See The Language of the Heart: Bill W.’s Grapevine Writings (NY: The AA Grapevine, Inc., 1988), 177]. Bill