How long did the first members take to work the Steps?
In short:
- The Big Book never gives a timetable. But its instructions keep saying to take each Step straight after the last, and the earliest accounts describe days and weeks, not months or years.
- The very first members couldn't have "worked the Twelve Steps." The Steps weren't written until late 1938. Before that, newcomers got a spoken program of about six steps (Comes of Age, p. 160).
- In the Big Book's own accounts, A.A. number three made his decision on his third day in hospital and walked out that afternoon (p. 158). A Chicago man in 1937 spent two or three weeks in Akron and then went through the whole program with Dr. Bob in one afternoon of three or four hours (pp. 262–263).
- Some parts were never done quickly: amends were worked out slowly (p. 263), rebuilding a family took a long time (p. 83), and Steps Ten and Eleven are for life (p. 84).
What the instructions say about pace
Read in order, Chapters 5 and 6 keep moving straight from one Step to the next: - The Third Step decision "could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us" (p. 64). That effort is the inventory. - For the Fifth Step: "When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time" (p. 75). Waiting is allowed only when no suitable person is available, and even then "we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone" (p. 75). - After the Fifth Step, back at home, you take an hour to review your work and then go on to Steps Six and Seven (pp. 75–76). - Then, "Now we need more action" (p. 76): the amends of Steps Eight and Nine. Some can't be made right away, "But we don't delay if it can be avoided" (p. 83).
Chapter 7 assumes the same speed. By the helper's second visit, the newcomer may have read the book and be "prepared to go through with the Twelve Steps" (p. 96). Chapter 8, written to wives, says that a book or another alcoholic "has accomplished in a few weeks that for which we struggled for years" (p. 118).
What the first members actually did
Bill W. did it in the hospital. There he offered himself to God and faced his wrongs, and when his friend visited they made a list of the people he had hurt (p. 13). A.A. Comes of Age (1957) dates the hospital stay to December 1934 (Comes of Age, p. 13).
Dr. Bob had his last drink on June 10, 1935 (p. 180). Chapter 11 tells how he set out "one morning" to tell the people he feared and make the rounds of those he had hurt, coming home at midnight (p. 156). The Big Book doesn't say how soon after his last drink that was. Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980) says he started making restitution on the same day (ch. VIII).
A.A. number three, Bill D., met Bill W. and Dr. Bob in Akron City Hospital in June 1935. Chapter 11's account: "On the third day the lawyer gave his life to the care and direction of his Creator," and that afternoon he walked out of the hospital (p. 158). In his own story he puts his decision "in the next two or three days" (p. 189), and says they talked over his failings and "made a sort of an inventory" (p. 190).
The writer of "He Sold Himself Short," a Chicago man, first heard of the Akron group from his father in January 1937, turned it down, and came to Akron "Several months later" (p. 260); he dates that visit almost a year before the summer of 1938 (p. 265). Eight or nine members visited him before he was allowed to a meeting (p. 262). He stayed two or three weeks, and on the day before he went home Dr. Bob spent "three or four hours formally going through the Six-Step program as it was at that time" (pp. 262–263). That afternoon covered deflation, dependence on a Higher Power, inventory, confession, and a list for restitution. The restitution itself he would work out "slowly" (p. 263).
Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers (1980) describes Akron in those years. Newcomers spent five to eight days in hospital, made a "surrender" on their knees before they could attend a meeting, and "many of the steps—involving inventory, admission of character defects, and making restitution—were taken within a matter of days" (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, ch. VIII). It was written forty-five years later from interviews, so it's dated and used with care. Its account of Akron fits the Big Book's stories above, but its claim about Dr. Bob's restitution has no support in the Big Book itself.
There were no Twelve Steps yet
Bill W. tells in A.A. Comes of Age how the Twelve Steps were written for the Big Book. Until then members passed on "the word-of-mouth program" of about six steps (Comes of Age, p. 160): admit you're licked, take a moral inventory, confess, make restitution, help other alcoholics, and pray for the power to do these things. "This was the substance of what, by the fall of 1938, we were telling newcomers" (Comes of Age, p. 160). The twelve were drafted after that, in about half an hour by Bill's account (Comes of Age, pp. 160–161). So for the 1935–38 pioneers the question is how long they took over that shorter program, and the answer is days to weeks.
What doesn't happen quickly
The book is just as clear that some things take a lifetime: - Rebuilding a family: "there is a long period of reconstruction ahead" (p. 83). - Step Ten: "This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime" (p. 84). - The spiritual change itself is usually gradual, the "educational variety," and "What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline" (p. 567). (Appendix II was added after the first printing; see the sources.)
What the text doesn't settle
The Big Book never records how long anyone took from the first Step to the twelfth, and it never sets a pace. The accounts here are a handful of stories about a few early members, written later. What they show is a pattern of taking the actions at once, within days or weeks, while the effects and the amends went on for years. Anyone who says the first members took a year, or took one weekend, is going beyond what these pages say.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 5, "How It Works": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 11, "A Vision for You": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt11.pdf
- Personal stories, Part I, "Pioneers of A.A.": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_personalstories_partI.pdf
- Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience": https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendiceii.pdf
- A.A. Comes of Age and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers are sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapters 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 | 13, 64, 75–76, 83–84, 96, 118, 156–158 | 1939 |
| "Doctor Bob's Nightmare," Part I | 180 | 1939 |
| "Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three," Part I | 182–192 | 1955 (the story dates itself "nineteen years" after 1935, p. 188) |
| "He Sold Himself Short," Part I | 258–265 | story describes 1937 |
| Appendix II, "Spiritual Experience" | 567 | after the first printing of 1939 (it refers to "our first printing"); the Preface (p. xi) says the appendices came with the 1955 second edition |
| A.A. Comes of Age (Bill W.) | 13, 160–161 | 1957 |
| Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, ch. VIII, "The first group forms, in Akron" | — (our scan has no reliable printed page numbers) | 1980, read with care |
Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition. Comes of Age page numbers are from that book's own index, since our scan doesn't keep its printed pages.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book and the history books are © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.