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Lot Essay
"First Things First"
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, which has saved the lives of millions and millions of people since its publication in 1939.
This manuscript, the Ur-Text for that book, documents the corrections, suggestions and additions that were made just seven weeks before the final text appeared.
Here is one of the most amazing historical documents of the 20th century: the original “working manuscript” for the “Big Book” detailing how A.A. boldly moved beyond its origins in the Oxford Group (the Christian movement that initially inspired A.A.) by offering a profoundly non-dogmatic and democratic approach to theology (“Higher Power” and “God as you understand Him”). The manuscript also shows all the important suggestions taken in the final text (for instance, adding “We” to the 1st Step) and those deleted (“on our knees” from the 7th Step) along with the equally important and historically critical suggestions that were not taken.
A rare and invaluable document showing the collaborative evolution of one of the most important and inspirational books published in the 20th century.
William H. Schaberg (author)
Writing the Big Book: The Creation of A.A.
The founding document of peer-led recovery culture
Among the most consequential manuscripts of the twentieth century
Alive with handwritten revisions showing how a diverse fellowship forged their shared philosophy, including the Twelve Steps
Compiled in early 1939 during a brief but intense stretch of revision and debate among the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the manuscript represents the working text from which the “Big Book” emerged. The Library of Congress has classified Alcoholics Anonymous as one of the 88 “Books That Shaped America.” With more than forty million copies sold, the published work remains one of the most widely-circulated guides to personal transformation and recovery ever published—all the more remarkable for having been self-published by authors without prior experience.
Bill Wilson, together with fellow-member and right-hand man Hank Parkhurst, worked through this manuscript, with the urgency of men trying to articulate a life-or-death solution. Across its pages, in handwritten annotations, cross-outs, and marginal suggestions, the formative principles of the Twelve-Step program for alcoholics everywhere were hammered out. These edits reveal a process both collaborative and visionary: competing philosophies of spirituality and sobriety collide and are finally resolved into a publishable text.
Bill’s Story
Alcoholics Anonymous grew out of the collapse of Bill Wilson’s own life from alcoholism. By 1934 he had lost nearly everything—his career on Wall Street, his reputation, and his health. During what would become his final hospitalization before sobriety, he experienced what he later described as a “white light” moment: a powerful experience that convinced him that a spiritual component was essential to recovery. This was combined with the influence of the Oxford Group, a Christian movement that centered on surrendering one’s life to God and going through the steps of moral inventory, confession, and amends; the encouragement and example of his recently sober friend Ebby Thacher; and the guidance of Dr. William Silkworth, who explained alcoholism as a medical condition combining physical allergy and mental obsession. Crucially, Bill would discover that the only thing that kept him sober was trying to help another alcoholic, an insight that crystallized when he met Dr. Bob Smith in Akron in June 1935. Their conversation sparked the first successful partnership in recovery. As their small fellowship grew, Bill realized they needed a clear, consistent way to share what was working, which ultimately led to the writing of the “Big Book” and the formal birth of A.A.
The “forgotten man” of early A.A. history
Though not as well-known today as Bill Wilson, Hank Parkhurst was one of the most influential figures in the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. A charismatic former Standard Oil executive and a gifted organizer, he met Wilson in late 1935 when he got sober at Towns Hospital. He quickly became Wilson’s closest collaborator and the driving force behind turning the fledgling movement into something that could reach thousands of people. Wilson dictated much of the Big Book to typist Ruth Hock at Parkhurst’s Newark, New Jersey office—often within Parkhurst’s earshot. Parkhurst not only created Works Publishing to bring the book to market, he also edited large portions of the manuscript (his script is found throughout, more than any other hand), and coordinated the collection of the personal stories that form the second half. Parkhurst, Hock, Wilson and Dorothy Snyder drove together to the printers in Cornwall, New York and stayed to oversee the printing of the book and correct galley proofs. Wilson later characterized the stay as an unexpected additional expense, incurred after the printer objected to working with “the mess” of annotations. Hank’s energy, business instincts, and relentless persuasion were essential to getting the book written, funded, and printed.
The Fellowship
The writing of the Big Book was not an uncontroversial project among early A.A. members. The Akron group particularly worried about introducing elements foreign to the group’s hard-won simplicity—the corrupting influence of money and publicity, and the shifts in power that might follow if one voice or region came to dominate the message. The hesitation is understandable when one remembers that before the Big Book was published, there were only two A.A. meetings in existence (in Brooklyn on Tuesdays and in Akron on Wednesdays) and that even Wilson had been sober for less than four years. Yet despite these anxieties, Wilson's impulse to share what had proven life-saving prevailed. The members moved forward pragmatically, attempting to balance these tensions by making the project as collective as possible.
Hank Parkhurst coordinated the collection of personal stories that form the second half of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once those were in and Wilson had finished his chapters, they distributed between 300 and 400 Multilith-printed copies to A.A. members and professionals such as doctors, psychiatrists, judges, and members of the clergy. For the A.A. members, the purpose was to solicit comments and critiques, and these suggested changes were then handwritten into a single Multilith—the present manuscript—in the Newark office by Parkhurst. Not all suggestions in the working manuscript were accepted into the final publication, making the manuscript an even more valuable snapshot of the process that went into creating it. And not all A.A. member concerns were assuaged by the collective effort. The personal story “Ace Full” is completely ex’ed out with a note by Wilson in explanation: “thought the book was [a] racket and so withdrew” (following p.141).
“You” becomes “we”
In the working manuscript, two fundamental elements of the A.A. philosophy visibly take shape. The first is that the very directive “you” or “they” statements that dominated earlier writing have evolved into the more measured and inclusive “we”. Taking the First Step as an example, what had been framed as a command—“admit you are powerless over alcohol”—is recast in the manuscript as:
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable." [bold is handwritten]
“We” becomes central to the idea that recovery is built on shared strength, rather than isolated willpower. On some pages the word “we” is carefully written in dozens of times.
This important editorial shift is credited to “Dr. Howard” a New Jersey psychiatrist known to Parkhurst. Howard called for the removal of “you musts” and “you shoulds” throughout. On page 12, the word “instruct” is heavily crossed out below the comment in red pencil, “Do people like to be told they will be instructed” and reply “OK” in another hand. At the close of Chapter Six, “Into Action,” to give just one example, the text has been corrected to read: “It works—it really does. ["Try it." deleted] / We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline ["you" deleted] us in the simple way we have outlined” (page 44).
“God as we understand him”
Second, the spiritual element is here elevated into something intentionally broad. It is a shift away from the specific Christianity of the Oxford Group that is crucial to the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous; rather than specifying that one must accept God and only God, it introduces the idea of a flexible Higher Power that is open to interpretation—God, “as we understand him.” Wilson had already hit upon this formulation—which he later called a “ten-strike”— prior to the Multilith. It was a way of treading the line between those who wanted a clearly religious document and those who preferred a more psychological framework.
However, the nuances are still being played out in this manuscript. The word “God” is sometimes softened to “Faith” or “Power.” The characterization of each individual in the personal stories as having “found or rediscovered God” is changed to “established his relationship with God” (page 17). Handwritten notes by Parkhurst at the end of the manuscript clarify this impulse: “the trouble with org. religion is that they try to dogmatically pour people into moulds. So why should we give specific instructions in the book such as saying do this and do that?”
The effect is not to displace traditional belief, but to open the language outward—so that those who understand God in familiar, Christian terms will recognize their own experience, while others can approach it more gradually.
The quotation from the first page about Wilson's beginning—the crystallization of Step Two in the Twelve Steps—was one of the last substantial additions made to the Big Book before publication. It was not part of Bill's Story in February 1939, but rather its first appearance is in the present document, handwritten in pencil as the conclusion of a lengthy re-working of Wilson's chapter. In manuscript it is double-underlined and heavily abbreviated, perhaps spoken aloud by Wilson as Parkhurst scrawled it down for him. It reads, “It was only a matter of being willing to bel[ieve] in a pwr gr[eater] than myself. Nothing more was req. of me to make my beginning. / I saw that growth could start fr[om] that point. Upon a found[ation] of comp[lete] willingness I might build what I saw in my fr[iend]. Would I hv it? Of c[our]se I would!”
The passage into which this section was added is the “kitchen table” scene in Bill’s Story, page 10 of the Multilith. That page bears four large question marks in the margins (two of which are erased) and references Dr. Howard.
Results
The manuscript opens with the Foreword, in which anonymity—one of AA’s foundational principles—is framed as an act of humility and protection. It proceeds into “The Doctor’s Opinion,” the now-canonical endorsement by Dr. William Silkworth, who described alcoholism as both a physical allergy and a mental obsession. From there, the pages move into “Bill’s Story,” his frank account of his collapse and redemption, and the seed of what would become a worldwide recovery movement. The mark-ups seen in later chapters—"There Is a Solution," "How It Works," "Into Action," "Working with Others," and more—show the text in active evolution, as the earliest members debated language, argued about tone, and wrestled with how best to describe a spiritual program without drifting into dogma.
Layered within the manuscript are the traces of competing visions—authorial, editorial, and communal. Some edits soften phrasing; others add lived experience to clarify the fledgling fellowship’s methods. The document thus captures the negotiations of a group attempting nothing less than the codification of a new way of life.
The final section, comprising nearly eighty pages of “Personal Stories,” records the experiences of early members, each testimony serving as both narrative and evidence. These accounts are among the earliest written records of recovery as a communal pursuit rather than an isolated struggle.
As an artifact, the manuscript is almost unique in its preservation of a genuinely collaborative act of important creation. It captures a text in flux—shaped line by line through the contributions, objections, and revisions of a small, committed band of individuals. Multiple perspectives and lived experiences are embedded in its pages, making visible the collective process by which the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous were forged. More than a manuscript, it is the working testament of a small group of people, working in near-obscurity, together discovering a language and method that millions of people now credit with saving their lives.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, which has saved the lives of millions and millions of people since its publication in 1939.
This manuscript, the Ur-Text for that book, documents the corrections, suggestions and additions that were made just seven weeks before the final text appeared.
Here is one of the most amazing historical documents of the 20th century: the original “working manuscript” for the “Big Book” detailing how A.A. boldly moved beyond its origins in the Oxford Group (the Christian movement that initially inspired A.A.) by offering a profoundly non-dogmatic and democratic approach to theology (“Higher Power” and “God as you understand Him”). The manuscript also shows all the important suggestions taken in the final text (for instance, adding “We” to the 1st Step) and those deleted (“on our knees” from the 7th Step) along with the equally important and historically critical suggestions that were not taken.
A rare and invaluable document showing the collaborative evolution of one of the most important and inspirational books published in the 20th century.
William H. Schaberg (author)
Writing the Big Book: The Creation of A.A.
The founding document of peer-led recovery culture
Among the most consequential manuscripts of the twentieth century
Alive with handwritten revisions showing how a diverse fellowship forged their shared philosophy, including the Twelve Steps
Compiled in early 1939 during a brief but intense stretch of revision and debate among the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the manuscript represents the working text from which the “Big Book” emerged. The Library of Congress has classified Alcoholics Anonymous as one of the 88 “Books That Shaped America.” With more than forty million copies sold, the published work remains one of the most widely-circulated guides to personal transformation and recovery ever published—all the more remarkable for having been self-published by authors without prior experience.
Bill Wilson, together with fellow-member and right-hand man Hank Parkhurst, worked through this manuscript, with the urgency of men trying to articulate a life-or-death solution. Across its pages, in handwritten annotations, cross-outs, and marginal suggestions, the formative principles of the Twelve-Step program for alcoholics everywhere were hammered out. These edits reveal a process both collaborative and visionary: competing philosophies of spirituality and sobriety collide and are finally resolved into a publishable text.
Bill’s Story
Alcoholics Anonymous grew out of the collapse of Bill Wilson’s own life from alcoholism. By 1934 he had lost nearly everything—his career on Wall Street, his reputation, and his health. During what would become his final hospitalization before sobriety, he experienced what he later described as a “white light” moment: a powerful experience that convinced him that a spiritual component was essential to recovery. This was combined with the influence of the Oxford Group, a Christian movement that centered on surrendering one’s life to God and going through the steps of moral inventory, confession, and amends; the encouragement and example of his recently sober friend Ebby Thacher; and the guidance of Dr. William Silkworth, who explained alcoholism as a medical condition combining physical allergy and mental obsession. Crucially, Bill would discover that the only thing that kept him sober was trying to help another alcoholic, an insight that crystallized when he met Dr. Bob Smith in Akron in June 1935. Their conversation sparked the first successful partnership in recovery. As their small fellowship grew, Bill realized they needed a clear, consistent way to share what was working, which ultimately led to the writing of the “Big Book” and the formal birth of A.A.
The “forgotten man” of early A.A. history
Though not as well-known today as Bill Wilson, Hank Parkhurst was one of the most influential figures in the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. A charismatic former Standard Oil executive and a gifted organizer, he met Wilson in late 1935 when he got sober at Towns Hospital. He quickly became Wilson’s closest collaborator and the driving force behind turning the fledgling movement into something that could reach thousands of people. Wilson dictated much of the Big Book to typist Ruth Hock at Parkhurst’s Newark, New Jersey office—often within Parkhurst’s earshot. Parkhurst not only created Works Publishing to bring the book to market, he also edited large portions of the manuscript (his script is found throughout, more than any other hand), and coordinated the collection of the personal stories that form the second half. Parkhurst, Hock, Wilson and Dorothy Snyder drove together to the printers in Cornwall, New York and stayed to oversee the printing of the book and correct galley proofs. Wilson later characterized the stay as an unexpected additional expense, incurred after the printer objected to working with “the mess” of annotations. Hank’s energy, business instincts, and relentless persuasion were essential to getting the book written, funded, and printed.
The Fellowship
The writing of the Big Book was not an uncontroversial project among early A.A. members. The Akron group particularly worried about introducing elements foreign to the group’s hard-won simplicity—the corrupting influence of money and publicity, and the shifts in power that might follow if one voice or region came to dominate the message. The hesitation is understandable when one remembers that before the Big Book was published, there were only two A.A. meetings in existence (in Brooklyn on Tuesdays and in Akron on Wednesdays) and that even Wilson had been sober for less than four years. Yet despite these anxieties, Wilson's impulse to share what had proven life-saving prevailed. The members moved forward pragmatically, attempting to balance these tensions by making the project as collective as possible.
Hank Parkhurst coordinated the collection of personal stories that form the second half of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once those were in and Wilson had finished his chapters, they distributed between 300 and 400 Multilith-printed copies to A.A. members and professionals such as doctors, psychiatrists, judges, and members of the clergy. For the A.A. members, the purpose was to solicit comments and critiques, and these suggested changes were then handwritten into a single Multilith—the present manuscript—in the Newark office by Parkhurst. Not all suggestions in the working manuscript were accepted into the final publication, making the manuscript an even more valuable snapshot of the process that went into creating it. And not all A.A. member concerns were assuaged by the collective effort. The personal story “Ace Full” is completely ex’ed out with a note by Wilson in explanation: “thought the book was [a] racket and so withdrew” (following p.141).
“You” becomes “we”
In the working manuscript, two fundamental elements of the A.A. philosophy visibly take shape. The first is that the very directive “you” or “they” statements that dominated earlier writing have evolved into the more measured and inclusive “we”. Taking the First Step as an example, what had been framed as a command—“admit you are powerless over alcohol”—is recast in the manuscript as:
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable." [bold is handwritten]
“We” becomes central to the idea that recovery is built on shared strength, rather than isolated willpower. On some pages the word “we” is carefully written in dozens of times.
This important editorial shift is credited to “Dr. Howard” a New Jersey psychiatrist known to Parkhurst. Howard called for the removal of “you musts” and “you shoulds” throughout. On page 12, the word “instruct” is heavily crossed out below the comment in red pencil, “Do people like to be told they will be instructed” and reply “OK” in another hand. At the close of Chapter Six, “Into Action,” to give just one example, the text has been corrected to read: “It works—it really does. ["Try it." deleted] / We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline ["you" deleted] us in the simple way we have outlined” (page 44).
“God as we understand him”
Second, the spiritual element is here elevated into something intentionally broad. It is a shift away from the specific Christianity of the Oxford Group that is crucial to the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous; rather than specifying that one must accept God and only God, it introduces the idea of a flexible Higher Power that is open to interpretation—God, “as we understand him.” Wilson had already hit upon this formulation—which he later called a “ten-strike”— prior to the Multilith. It was a way of treading the line between those who wanted a clearly religious document and those who preferred a more psychological framework.
However, the nuances are still being played out in this manuscript. The word “God” is sometimes softened to “Faith” or “Power.” The characterization of each individual in the personal stories as having “found or rediscovered God” is changed to “established his relationship with God” (page 17). Handwritten notes by Parkhurst at the end of the manuscript clarify this impulse: “the trouble with org. religion is that they try to dogmatically pour people into moulds. So why should we give specific instructions in the book such as saying do this and do that?”
The effect is not to displace traditional belief, but to open the language outward—so that those who understand God in familiar, Christian terms will recognize their own experience, while others can approach it more gradually.
The quotation from the first page about Wilson's beginning—the crystallization of Step Two in the Twelve Steps—was one of the last substantial additions made to the Big Book before publication. It was not part of Bill's Story in February 1939, but rather its first appearance is in the present document, handwritten in pencil as the conclusion of a lengthy re-working of Wilson's chapter. In manuscript it is double-underlined and heavily abbreviated, perhaps spoken aloud by Wilson as Parkhurst scrawled it down for him. It reads, “It was only a matter of being willing to bel[ieve] in a pwr gr[eater] than myself. Nothing more was req. of me to make my beginning. / I saw that growth could start fr[om] that point. Upon a found[ation] of comp[lete] willingness I might build what I saw in my fr[iend]. Would I hv it? Of c[our]se I would!”
The passage into which this section was added is the “kitchen table” scene in Bill’s Story, page 10 of the Multilith. That page bears four large question marks in the margins (two of which are erased) and references Dr. Howard.
Results
The manuscript opens with the Foreword, in which anonymity—one of AA’s foundational principles—is framed as an act of humility and protection. It proceeds into “The Doctor’s Opinion,” the now-canonical endorsement by Dr. William Silkworth, who described alcoholism as both a physical allergy and a mental obsession. From there, the pages move into “Bill’s Story,” his frank account of his collapse and redemption, and the seed of what would become a worldwide recovery movement. The mark-ups seen in later chapters—"There Is a Solution," "How It Works," "Into Action," "Working with Others," and more—show the text in active evolution, as the earliest members debated language, argued about tone, and wrestled with how best to describe a spiritual program without drifting into dogma.
Layered within the manuscript are the traces of competing visions—authorial, editorial, and communal. Some edits soften phrasing; others add lived experience to clarify the fledgling fellowship’s methods. The document thus captures the negotiations of a group attempting nothing less than the codification of a new way of life.
The final section, comprising nearly eighty pages of “Personal Stories,” records the experiences of early members, each testimony serving as both narrative and evidence. These accounts are among the earliest written records of recovery as a communal pursuit rather than an isolated struggle.
As an artifact, the manuscript is almost unique in its preservation of a genuinely collaborative act of important creation. It captures a text in flux—shaped line by line through the contributions, objections, and revisions of a small, committed band of individuals. Multiple perspectives and lived experiences are embedded in its pages, making visible the collective process by which the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous were forged. More than a manuscript, it is the working testament of a small group of people, working in near-obscurity, together discovering a language and method that millions of people now credit with saving their lives.