Bill had gleaned from William James and from Dr. Silkworth (page 197)
Bill’s first three steps were culled from his reading of James, the teachings of Sam
Shoemaker, and those of the Oxford Group (page 199)
The newly published biography of Lois Wilson underlines the Oxford Group source—one which we will call part of “the rest of the story.” See William G. Borchert, The Lois Wilson Story: When Love Is Not Enough (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2005):
Dr. Shoemaker was to play a significant role in Bill Wilson’s spiritual development and
his writing of Alcoholics Anonymous, which became known as “The Big Book,” p. 156.
These principles, which Bill developed into AA’s Twelve Steps to recovery for millions
of alcoholics around the world essentially incorporated and expanded upon the Oxford
Group’s ‘Four Absolutes’ of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, p. 239.
Borchert then lays out what he calls the “first draft of the Twelve Steps.” Notably, that draft shows how Bill phrased his Steps with “God” in the Second Step, “God” in the Third Step, and “God” in the Eleventh Step before the great compromise where Bill placated atheists and agnostics by substituting “Power greater than ourselves” and “God as we understood Him” for “God”–just before press time! See the event as Bill Wilson described it in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: a brief history of A.A. (NY; Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957), pp. 166-67.