Alcoholics Anonymous Books

the elevator is broken.
the escalator is out of order

PLEASE USE THE STEPS!

they're numbered for a reason.

This is an excellent book with a lot of helpful information. The experiences it shares are excellent. It is also extremely well written!

This book was suggested reading by a drug and alcohol counselor, who seems to have an utmost curiosity in all things sober. I can't thank him enough. I knew there was something more needed in my life than the 12 step approach, and here it is. From page 24, Vincent A., "What helped me stop was the mutual support and practical advice rather than the 12 steps." This book is giving me added hope, greater awareness, and helpful, positive reading to the women I sponsor, (mentor). Thank you, Anne and I hope you continue to write. Brooke

This phenomenally well-researched book will be so helpful to anyone trying to get on top of a drinking problem because it offers a number of avenues for help. That is, it shows that there are a lot of roads to recovery, which is great because when it comes to dealing with excessive alcohol use, a one-size-fits-all solution is too narrow to accommodate everyone's needs.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this book delivers -- and provides the backup to make its points. The latest edition shows that Sober for Good has received the Outstanding Contributions to Advancing the Understanding of Addictions Award from the American Psychological Association; the Research Society on Alcoholism Journalism Award; the Distinguished Friend to Behavior Therapy Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies; and a National Health Information Award. In other words, because author Fletcher has really done her homework, millions with an alcohol addiction will be able to get help that previously eluded them.

Surely Anne M. Fletcher means well. Just as surely, she is living proof that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Ms. Fletcher's "Sober for Good" would be merely annoying if the subject matter wasn't so vitally important. But addiction is a life and death issue, and to publish a volume of work this injudicious is reprehensible. As someone who has intimate experience with addiction in more ways than I ever wanted, someone who has become more thoroughly educated on the subject than I ever dreamed would be necessary, it is imperative that I use this opportunity to caution anyone and everyone who reads this book. This book is dangerously misleading! Do not use this book as a guide. There are dozens if not hundreds of books out there that will provide you with well-researched, reliable, rational assistance in your search to find the answers to addiction. "Sober for Good" is NOT one of them. "Beyond the Influence," by Katherine Ketcham and William Asbury; "Dying for a Drink," by Anderson Spickard, Jr. and Barbara Thompson; even "Broken," by William Cope Moyers, are all superior sources for those who are hungry for information on this heartbreaking subject. I cannot stress this enough: Anne M. Fletcher's book is seriously flawed, alarmingly inaccurate, and potentially as deadly to the uninformed reader as the disease of addiction itself. The only value I can find in the work is as an antithesis to the solid body of hard-earned knowledge that does exist.

Everyone working a 12 Step program - regardless of what kind (ie, AA, DA, NA, etc) needs a copy of this book by their side. Bill W. wrote this many years after the Big Book came out, and he wrote it specifically to help people understand and work each of the 12 Steps. And what a masterful job he's done! This book should be required reading for everyone, but if you're lucky enough to be in recovery, you've got the perfect tool for helping you to get the most out of the 12 Steps.

I loved learning that one of my biggest problems was that I was driven by a hundred forms of self centered fear, all stemming from two core fears: either losing something I already had, or not getting something I demanded. How true! This book is filled with gems and discoveries that would take a lifetime for you to learn. The good news is that you can read it in a few hours!

Again, regardless of the type of 12 Step program you are in, get this book and read it as you work your steps. You will always be grateful you did!

Michael Z, Author of The Wisdom of the Rooms "A Year of Weekly Reflections"

A joy to read. Very informative. Twelve-step and twelve traditions, not just for alcoholics anonymous or recovery. Good for everyone.

Simply the best basic recovery and personal spirituality text of the 20th century. Universal spiritual principles explained in clear, concise language. This book is the basis for thousands of self-help, spiritual psychotherapy, and self-awareness works that came after. Wonderful, relevant & powerful spiritual philosophy of living one day at a time.

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Count me among the legion of AA members who think this book is a buggering mess. Bill Wilson wrote it while in the midst of a 5 year depression and it shows. Save for the essays on Steps 1 and 8, this book leaves most people more confused than enlightened.

I gave it two stars cause some of the Tradition essays have some good stuff if you're willing to wade into them.


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IT IS VERY HELPFUL TO READ A FEW PAGES OR A CHAPTER A DAY. IT WILL KEEP YOU ON A EVEN TRACK OF YOUR LIFE. IF YOU DON'T FIND YOUR ANSWERS HERE TRY THE BIG BOOK.

how this squirrel made it to the top god only knows, the miracle is aa works for a few of us, too bad the rest of you drunks are screwedStarbucks Assortment

I just finished reading this biography. I am so grateful for Bill and Bob and for me - they are a constant reminder that there is a Higher Power looking out for us.

So what if Bill was less than perfect? Yeah, I was a little surprised at some of the content of the book - but again I ask so what? Bill always said that Dr. Bob was the more "spiritual" of the two of them. He never claimed to be the saint that so many people in program seem to need to make him in order to ?????

Bill was an ordinary man with ordinary human issues - and he did his best with what he had. I believe that Bill would be amazed at the sainthood that seems to have been given to him since his death.

Personally, it makes me feel safe to know that throughout all of Bill's experiences he managed to keep sober AND to share this so important message. This book clearly tells us that while Bill was at times struggling with his demons, he cared about other people (drunks) anyway.

So, he had affairs? Who am I to judge? Step 4 - asks me to make a fearless inventory of MY affairs - not of other people's -

Reading this well researched and written book only makes me appreciate Bill and Bob MORE - wow! they were actual ordinary guys who gave the world the most magical of gifts and for that I am grateful.

I read this book and I was disappointed beyond words. If you really want a great book about Bill W. I Suggest the book by Rober Thomsen, who
knew Bill Wilson personally (The title is Bill W.)

While Susan Cheever makes a valiant effort to use imagery and some carefully styled first person musings of Emily and Bill Wilson, her efforts fall somewaht flat. On the balance, this is essentially a retelling of "Pass It On." There are a few details at the end regarding Bill W.'s sexual compulsions that are common AA lore, and have appeared elsewhere.

For those interested in the history of AA, this won't offer much in the way of insight into the early days of AA and how the program worked. Entertaining at points, but difficult to read attenteively if you have already read other accounts of Bill Wilson's life.

Cheever's artistic touches didn't do much for me. I would rather she had put additional effort into her research, and brought a fresh telling with some new facts or insights.

A completist must have. For the rest...optional.

Two decades ago, I took up with a recovering alcoholic, and in a show of support, I attended several open Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. After a while, I had to confess that I found them really hokey. "That's because you are not an alcoholic," he replied. "If you were, you'd recognize the genius of the mind that created it. It's brilliant."

For the last two days, I've carried Susan Cheever's book about Bill Wilson around with me, reading, I must admit, compulsively. Cheever, whose father John's important fiction covers the period in which AA grew up, brings a literary eye to the development of a character familiar in American public life: the charismatic leader. If it's not perfect in every factual detail, it is rich in content about our society, addictive substances, and our own craving for a savior.

As in the lives of most alcoholics, there's a lot of pain. Surviving divorce in New England when it was rare, abandoned by a mother who remained nevertheless demanding, losing a sweetheart whose family had adopted him as their own--Cheever describes these events in Bill's early life in a sympathic but unsentimental way. She's less successful in blending the history of Vermont from colonial times to the present, but even with awkward flashbacks and forwards, this secondary narrative tells us a lot about the world that informed Bill's character. He was politically conservative, but doggedly independent; someone who with little tutoring found within himself both musical and engineering talents. He attended his family's Congregational church but failed to find the spiritual sustenance that he needed. His admission to a prestigious boarding school coincided with an impressive spurt in physical and mental growth, but he dropped out when felled by depression after his girlfriend died.

By the time he takes up drink, we are prepared for a daunting ride. To anyone familiar with the genre of drunkalogues, it's predictable, but Cheever keeps the story moving by putting Bill's various binges in personal and historical context. By the time he gets to his Akron meeting with Dr. Bob Smith, AA's co-founder, all the elements are in place. It's perhaps unfair that Bill W.'s story gets more attention than Bob S.'s, but, steady and conventional (once sober) are less compelling than mercurial and brilliantly insightful. If the latter gifts are more impressive, so are Bill W's weaknesses--his inability to give up the tobacco that eventually kills him, the depressions that leave him weeping publically, and the perpetual womanizing. Amazingly, he works out the Twelve Traditions that guide the organization while clinically depressed. The more successful he and AA become, the more he craves anonymity.

Especially if you're unfamiliar with the practices of AA, it's instructive to see how they developed from the experiences of these two men and their cohorts. I was surprised that Bill W. had a powerful (although perhaps drug-induced) conversion but that he remained determined not to define God for anyone else. If he lacked impulse control in some areas of his life, he exercised it in others where most popular leaders fail. Cheever is even-handed about Bill's long marriage to the former Lois Burnham, whose life's work supported him and helped establish Al-Anon for families of alcoholics. While some might write the two off as codependent, Cheever brings sympathy to this long alliance. Perhaps someone will write a book about the women of AA, but, as Cheever notes, it was born in a man's world, and many people thought only men could become alcoholics.

Finally, Cheever's book makes clear that Bill W. knew that AA was not the final solution for alcoholism. He saw a psychiatrist. He experimented with LSD and Vitamin B--the first in hopes of finding a shortcut to conversion and the latter as an fixative for chemical dependency. He missed the days when he could attend meetings himself without being recognized.

Ultimately, dying of emphysema, he desperately wanted a drink. I found myself thinking: Why not? But his caretakers refused him, perhaps thinking of the millions who would follow. He was still a drunk, but he was their drunk.

The A.A. story about your relationship with God is rather curious. The way that Bill Wilson tells the story, you must surrender yourself utterly to your Higher Power (Who is supposed to be God, but who might be a doorknob, a bedpan, a mountain, a motorcycle, a Group Of Drunks, or something else), and be His slave, and do His bidding every day forever after. In return, He will do some magic tricks and take away your desire to drink alcohol, and will also grant a few other wishes, starting with restoring you to "sanity" and taking care of your will and your life for you, and then removing all of your "defects of character" and "moral shortcomings".


We were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: "God, I offer myself to Thee -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!" We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.
A.A. Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 63.

Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances!
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 100.


I can't help but notice that the last time I heard about that particular bargain, the Higher Power's name was not spelled "G-O-D", it was spelled "S-A-T-A-N" or "D-E-V-I-L". You were supposed to sell your soul to the Big Horned Creature with the cloven feet in a Faustian trade for getting your list of wishes granted, and then you ended up being a sycophant slave of that Scaly Creature, doing His Will forever after, and living in His "new and wonderful world" that features faulty air conditioning...


"Yes, Satan, I will surrender myself to you utterly. I will worship you and love you and give you my soul, and be your grovelling servant for all of eternity, in trade for you granting me this list of wishes right now -- starting with the wish that you making me quit drinking. ...And then you have to take care of my mind, my will, and my life for me, and restore me to sanity, and remove all of my 'defects of character'..."
One thing that the preachers told me about that Evil One is that he is very clever and lies a lot. They say that Old Beelzebub, the Lord of the Netherworld, isn't above claiming to be, and appearing to be, God or the Angel of Light or some other Higher Power, while he bargains with you...

And a church that starts off by instructing you to lie and deceive -- "Fake it 'till you make it" -- "Act as if" -- "Don't tell the newcomers..." -- "...lure the reader in..." -- "Don't raise such issues, no matter what your own convictions are." -- "Dole out the Buchmanism 'by teaspoons, not buckets'..." -- is highly suspect. Did Jesus tell you to lie to the newcomers, and tell them that the program never fails, to get them to join the church? Was it Jesus or Satan who was called "The Great Deceiver"?


"Yes Higher Power, I will lie for you, and practice deceptive recruiting for you, and tell the newcomers that God is 'a Group Of Drunks'...

So I can't help but wonder, if you sell your soul to -- "turn your will and your life over to" -- Bill Wilson's vague Higher Power, or his "God as we understood Him", who can be anything from a doorknob to a bedpan to a "Group Of Drunks" to a "god", well, just who or what are you really dealing with and giving your soul to?


"Come on, hurry up. Sign the contract. Abandon yourself to me utterly. And would you quit looking at my feet?"
Just a thought...


Come to think of it, if "God" can be a "Group Of Drunks" in Alcoholics Anonymous, and "God" can be a "Group Of Drug addicts" in Cocaine Anonymous, why can't "God" can be a "Group Of Devils"?

I have not read it yet. However, what I have reviewed I think it will help me to better understand the Big Book.

I've been a great fan of the big book since I've gotten sober, this gave me more insight to it. I've bought quite a few and have given them away.

This is an exhaustively annotated AA Big Book, for all who want definitions of words, sources of citations, etc... fascinating if slow reading...

I am very pleased with this product, and candidly it was much more than I expected. The author obviously did his research homework.

In the Family Afterwards, Chapter IX, the author of the Big Book, descibes the recovering father as discovering a new treasure and states "He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitiless lode, which will pay dividends only if he mines........"

The Handbook is a valuable resource to me because I am interested in continuing study of the Big Book. I would recommend this book to others willing to follow through on the references contained in this valuable work.

I commend the author for his effort.

Shipment was timely , the book was in excellent condition

Marital difficulties
Wilson was serially unfaithful to his wife Lois. Wilson 's affairs with women caused controversy and concern within AA and it was common knowledge in New York AA circles. His interest in younger women increased with his age, and caused Barry Leach and other friends of Wilson to form a "Founders Watch". People were assigned to keep an eye on Wilson during the socializing that followed AA functions and to separate and steer away those young women who caught Wilson's interest. Wilson, like many in his generation, could be sexist, but he was also "capable of treating the women who worked with him with dignity and respect". In the mid 1950s he began an affair with Helen Wyn, a woman 22 years his junior, "in duration, intensity and scope" this was different from his other affairs. Wilson at one point discussed divorcing Lois to marry Helen. Wilson with determined perseverance was able to overcome the AA trustees objections, and renegotiated his royalty agreements with them in 1963, which allowed him to include Helen Wynn in his estate. He left 10% of his book royalties to Helen and the other 90% to his wife Lois. In 1968 with Wilson's illness making it harder for them to spend time together, Helen bought a house in Ireland.

Alternative cures and spiritualism
In the 1950s Wilson experimented with LSD in medically supervised experiments with Gerard Heard and Aldous Huxley. With Wilson's invitation his wife Lois, Father Dowling, and Nell Wing also participated in experimentation of this drug. Later Wilson wrote to Carl Jung, praising the results and recommending it as validation of Jung's spiritual experience. (The letter was not in fact sent as Jung had died.)

At a parapsychology meeting in the 1960s, Wilson met Abram Hoffer and learned about the potential mood-stabilizing effects of niacin. Wilson was impressed with experiments indicating that alcoholics who were given niacin had a better sobriety rate, and he began to see niacin "as completing the third leg in the stool, the physical to complement the spiritual and emotional." Wilson also believed that niacin had given him relief from depression, and he promoted the vitamin within the AA community and with the National Institute of Mental Health as a treatment for schizophrenia. However, Wilson created a major furor in AA because he used the AA office and letterhead in his promotion.

For Wilson, spiritualism (communicating with the spirits of the dead) was a life-long interest. One of his letters to his spiritual adviser Father Ed Dowling suggests that while Wilson was working on his book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions he felt that spirits were helping him, in particular a 15th century monk named Boniface.[18] Wilson believed that the living could communicate with the dead and kept a "Spook Room" in his basement, where he along and others would conduct seances with a Ouijiboard, as well as experiment with automatic writing. Despite his conviction that he had evidence for the reality of the spiritual world, Wilson chose not to share this with AA.

I've been a "friend" of Bill and Dr. Bob since Christmas 1990, and have read a lot of material, both "conference approved" and other, and this book is probably the best biography of Bill W. that I've come across. I have to disagree with the reviewers who gave this work a low rating... I do not see this biography as a "hatchet job" or any sort of attempt to demean or diminish the memory of Bill Wilson.

Bill was not saint, and he never really sought sainthood. If some hold him to saintly standards or infallible behavior, those depictions were\are pressed on him.

Hartigan successfully describes Bill's childhood, young adulthood, service years, marriage and the early years of AA's struggles in great detail. Until I read this book, I knew from other readings that Bill had many faults, but I did not fully appreciate the depth of his alcoholic behavior, and its effect on both Bill and Lois. I also did not appreciate the severity Bill's lifelong struggle with deep depression.

This biography also does a good job putting context and details to Bill's lesser known "adventures" which folks hostile to AA use to discredit Bill and the AA program.

Bill experimented with LSD, starting in the 50's and into the 60's... starting when the drug was legal and being investigated for psychotherapeutic potential to help alcoholics and schizophrenics.

Bill actively promoted niacin for alcoholics, dragging the AA name into this promotion, but it was out of enthusiasm and hope to help the still suffering alcoholic. He was called to task for this, and the AA name removed from such endorsements.

Bill was unfaithful to Lois and maintained long term relationships outside his marriage. This biography, written by the personal secretary to Lois at the end of her long life, makes no excuses for this behavior, but does add context.

I came away with greater appreciation of Bill Wilson, the man, who overcame many serious problems to help create an organization that has helped many thousands of people live better lives.

This is an amazing bio of Bill W.

I've read pass it on and afew other AA related books, nothing has held my interest with such awe as this wonderful book.

This book gives you a better understanding of Bill. Everyone has there own opinion.

The author went to work for Bill W's widow. Eventually this book resulted, after both were dead.

The book provides a much needed perspective. It is clear on Bill's early atheism (which he called agnosticism) and helps focus how AA is a spiritual program and not a religious one and wny.

Over and over again it explains the forces that were being reacted against. If you've listened to Bill and Charlie (they are available for free on the internet as mp3 downloads for ipods and similar products -- or your computer), this fills in the gaps.

For example, everyone knows about Bill as a womanizer in his later years. What people do not know is that about the time he turned forty, his wife decided that she was done with sex. She was older than he was, went through menopause and retired from sex. No wonder that has he got into his fifties he started thinking of her more as a mother figure and less as a wife figure.

In a modern hospital, such as where my wife works, everyone knows about "banana bags" (IVs that are yellow from the b-vitamins, especially niacin, used routinely on alcoholics who have serious problems because of bad diet) -- but I never knew that started with niacin for alcoholics.

Or the rumors of financial misuse -- at complete odds with poverty and the audits -- now I know how they started and how they kept going.

I'm not an alcoholic (well, I've never had a drink, so I'm at least a very dry alcoholic), though I've sent a number of clients to 12 step programs, until recently I did not have the slightest idea what they were about.

With this I understand what makes AA different from every other program out there, why it found that balance and how it was shaped and touched by the personality of its founder.

The book is an easy read, and gripping. I finished it over a weekend, along with other projects and preparing and teaching a Sunday School lesson.

It was interesting, complex, consistent and had a basic appreciation and fondness for the subject.

I'm not sure how it plays inside AA, but from the outside I find myself admiring Bill W and AA a great deal from having read this book. Heck, I even got started on the "Big Book" (I've read about half of it so far).

If you've gotten to this page where the book is advertised, it is probably worth your while to buy it. I got my copy at half price books for six dollars. They had a bundle of them. Used copies in excellent to new condition abound.

Buy it, read it, think about it. Well worth the read.

Of late, I have been doing a lot of research work and writing on the differences in religious views, religious background, and religious influences on A.A. co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. In that connection, I have found myself turning more and more to Francis Hartigan's account and quoting portions of it in various contexts. The Bill Wilson story itself has been hacked around in so many ways, many of them inaccurate, that I look for the tidbits that show the author's real familiarity and lack thereof with the subject at hand. In Hartigan's case, I found his recital of the "spiritual experience" by Bill's grandfather, Hartigan's details on Lois Wilson, and Hartigan's accurate observations on Bill's decision for Christ at the Calvary Rescue Mission to be most refreshing and quotable. Among the plethora of recent books on Bill's life, I believe this Hartigan biography and the Bill W. Autobiography from the "Bedford Papers" as reported by Hazelden to be two important resources for learning A.A.'s historical, spiritual background. Dick B.

This book offers a life preserver for someone who is drowning in alcohol. The reader can accept or reject it. I accepted it and it saved my life. I have been sober for 10 years, one day at a time.

This book is meant to take at face value read it like you read a text book. It is meant and used widely as a text book, and if you can relate to what you read you can gain help from it. Do not complicate it by trying to read between the lines it is very straight forward and to the point. Keep it simple, and take it easy.

Want a new life? Read it! Read the black bits, don't put anything into the white bits and find a freedom you never imagined you could have.

the big book is one of the most obtuse, poorly written and edited books ever assembled. This is a book designed to do nothing more than glamorize AA and the faith healing based Program it created. it is of absolutley no value to anyone who is interested in sobriety who is not in aa, or anyone who is still capable of critical thinking. the author of this review is a ex-aa drone, and is a fully recovered alcoholic. 4 years sober. 3 years out of that perpetual sicknesss cult.

This path is not for everyone- it is for those who believe that they must have a Calvinistic, dualistic, Christianity inspired method to cope with their addiction.

However, many of the premises of this book are simply hogwash. To wit:

1. "One drink, one drunk." This has been proven false numerous times in double blind tests. The truth is, it's the heavy drinker's *beliefs* about alchohol's presence and its effects that counts.

2. The "progressive" nature of the "disease." For most people, this just ain't so- even for most of those with heavy drinking problems.

3. AA is the "last house on the block." Not so- there's numerous ways to "get sober."

There has been much behavioral research since this book was first published. While some *may* benefit from such groups for a short time, the notion that people have a *disease* which is "arrested" by associating with people who have drunk too much is not borne out by what data there is.

I know I will get much responses from people claiming the "program" "helped" them, but for every one of these, there's another person that said and DID, "I don't want substances to control my life, and I don't want crazy people to tell me what to do."

This is an excellent resource for sponsors. Even someone with a number of years of sobriety can learn a lot about how to best work with a new sponsee. It also helps in working the steps yourself!alcoholi

If you honestly want to be set free from the addiction of alcohol this book is an excellent resource. It simply teaches both the sponsor and the sponsee how to apply the proven 12 step process as a way to enter into recovery. With God's help and this book you are free!

First let me say - I have read this book and think it is excellent. It is helpful to me as a sponsor and as a sponsee. The first part talks about what sponsorship is about and also what it isn't. The first half of the book is for someone looking for a sponsor and what they should look for. The second half of the book is for Sponsors and has some good guidelines for being a sponsor culled from the experience and wisdom of numerous people besides just the author. I was a little skeptical at first because it is not AA literature, but it is a Hazledon book which is acceptable. Being a sponsor in AA is not a professional role, so having a book like this can be helpful because what most people know about being a sponsor they learned from their sponsor. As AA as a community continues to evolve and grow, and old timers die, it's good to have additional wisdom for guidance. This is just my opinion, I do not speak for AA.

Your interpretation of the 12 Steps is sad. Good luck on your dry drunk.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who attempt to dissect and dispute the success of Alcoholics Anonymous, of which sponsorship plays a vital part. Alcoholism is a deadly disease. Because of the anonymity of the twelve step programs, no "success rates" can be researched or documented with any validity or reliability and cannot be taken seriously. However, members of AA are not particularly interested in proving anything to anyone, except to be a living example of the program.

This book explains clearly and succinctly how sponsorship works in leading sponsees through the twelve steps. The benefit of being a sponsor enhances one's spirituality even more than actually doing the twelve steps. I can honestly say that the twelve steps have saved my life and being a sponsor helps me keep which has been so generously and freely given to me.

I do not believe that Mike McF has any personal experience with the twelve steps, other than perhaps observing meetings. Recovery does not lie in attending meetings and attempting to dissect the steps intellectually. No wonder his understanding of the steps is so skewed and hateful!! The steps must be experienced. Being powerless ends the battle that is so self-defeating and it opens the door to finding where we truly have power. Seeing others with years of successful recovery (stopping drinking is not successful recovery because as Bill Wilson says "our alcohol is but a symptom.....we must get down to causes and conditions") is inspiring. I believe that a casual observers unfortunate distorted explanation of what a higher power really is in one's life indicates the desperate need to find a higher power. And really working the program, not just attending meetings and analyzing why it could not possibly work, shows an incredible change of lives that is inspiring to me, always.

Having a higher power is part of the human condition throughout the centuries, and those who have found it have greatly enhanced and rewarding lives. A major part of sponsorship is leading a sponsee through the steps so that they may find a higher power for themselves. This book does an excellent job of explaining when to move to the next step and overcoming roadblocks. Please do not take a reviewer seriously who is determined to "prove" that Alcoholics Anonymous does not work. It is annoying for us who have seen the miracles for ourselves and I pity those who waste energy attempting to prove this wonderful program wrong.

As always it is good to have these books for our Monday Night Group. I was having trouble ordering them locally so went to Amazon and had them available and priced well. I like the size. They are easier to store in our file cabinet. We give these books to new members of our group.

This Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book is core for living -----and for living with our families. The hidden (and usually not talked-about in meetings) problem, though, is that more than 80% of A.A.'ers go home to a still-drinking spouse/child/elderly parent. Learning how to deal with all that is often critical to helping to maintain a sober and more sane daily life. The million-selling Getting Them Sober: You Can Help! (Getting Them Sober) book (endorsed by 'dear Abby' and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale) gives literally hundreds of practical and effective ideas on just how to do that.

It was common knowledge among the old-timers that Bill never finished--or even attemped to finish--the 9th step: He claimed the statute of limitations ran out... This is somewhat obvious by noting the tense change in his story in the original book--at the time of its writing he did not claim to have made amends--only that he was "supposed to set right the wrongs". He never achieved "the promises", or any regular peace of mind, and spent the remainder of his life chasing many other solutions, including LSD therapy, to battle the terrible depressions he suffered. It's interesting that, in this book, Bill claims that the 6th step "separates the men from the boys", when it is almost always the 9th step that takes that something extra to accomplish (apparently, it was too much for him). Further, note the copyright--the year after Bob died. It is likely that Bill didn't dare print this nonsense while Bob was around. This book is just Bill's thinking, and is not the consensus of the folks that really worked the program, as the original text is. He was a great salesman, but a very poor example of how to live--his sobriety was as a result of essentially living in the meetings, rather than that of leading a spiritual existence. This book is just his neurotic ramblings, and was written for the sole purpose of generating income for him. Too bad it has distracted so many from the original message.

This book is very helpful in enriching your life if you are in a 12 step program and suffer from an addiction.

I have tried to follow the 12 steps and 12 traditions for many years, but haven't really known what they are before I began working them with a sponsor. He keeps me honest -- and honesty is a necessity in any program designed to change lives. Without honesty, we refuse to accept the need for improvement or change -- and thus we don't change -- we stay in the "bad old place" which has become our virtual prison -- and condedmns us to a life of living hell.

Anyone who knows the misery of being trapped in a compulsive lifestyle which guarantees pain and often leads to death -- will find that honesty and perserverance in following the steps leads to a miracle of transformation. Transformation into a life of freedom from addiction through a life changing spiritual experience.

The AA 12 and 12 are the first in a number of incarnations of these steps focused on various addictions. Alcoholism, gambling addiction, drug addiction, compulsive over eating and many other addictive diseases are addressed and arrested by these steps as they are applied in particular ways for individual types of addiction.

This book is worth following, adjusting the language to fit the particular disease confrunted by the reader. It is, however not a self-help book. It does not work as only an educational tool -- if it did we would not need others' help. No, each person's transformation is definately associated with systematic group participation and one-on-one support with a sponsor. The relationship dimension of this process is accentuated by the descreption of the process by one of the co-founders of AA. Bill W. writes of this spiritual program in practical terms -- as this is the way it works -- it has worked for me and others. Try the process and see if it works for you.

Yes, read and study the book -- but join with others in the process of working the steps if you expect the process to be continuously beneficial to you. One of the secrets of success of those who follow the steps is the concept -- we are helped by helping others. The only way to avoid addictive behavior is by helping others onto the spiritual wagon with the destination of traveling the road to recovery, helping others on the way.

Bill H.

For the perfectionist, this book will assist you in proving your point as practically every word written in AA literature is cross referenced.

This derivative work infringes on A.A.'s copyright regardless of what the author claims. I found that this book was of very little value when trying to understand the message contained in the Big Book.

Reader from New Jersey is misinformed. AA World Service owns copyright to Third Edition only. The first and second editions are part of the public domain and may be used by anyone. Please refer to AA Service Manual for more information on this.

This book has been a "God-send" in working with others. As a previous review states "not to be used by newcomers...", I strongly agree and would not recommend this book to someone new to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous! This has been the most helpful aid in my recovery in helping others as well as myself. The Concordance has also been extremely beneficial in protection from "Big Book Thumpers" aka bleeding deacons. This book is no more of a copyright infringement than a concordance to the Bible. My Sobriety Date: October 26, 1985 IT WORKS!

This book should not be used by newcomers to get the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a guide to further study of this amazing text book. Stephen told me before he died on January 6, 2000, that he had obtained permission from GSO to continue his work on this book. He was working on the Concordance to the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (with permission) when leukemia finally took him from us. He lost a lot of money on these books, but he made thousands of friends for life. He died a very happy and peaceful man and an excellent example of the program found in the text used to create this concordance.

This whole sordid pathetic tragic Oxford Group mess was the mother of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bill Wilson did not accidentally join the Oxford Group. Rather, his old friend, Burr & Burton Seminary high school alumnus and drinking buddy, Ebby Thacher, who, in 1934, was one of the enthusiastic new converts to the Oxford Group, and temporarily sober, was actively recruiting, and he was out to get Bill Wilson to join the cult.

How Ebby had ended up in the Oxford Group was: He was on trial, in court in Vermont, about to be sentenced to six months in jail for habitual public drunkenness, when two Oxford Groupers, Rowland Hazard, who was another alcoholic, and Cebra Graves, who was the judge's nephew, came to Ebby's rescue. They asked Judge Graves to give Rowland Hazard custody of Ebby. Rowland would take Ebby to New York City and use the "religious cure" on Ebby. Both Judge Graves and Ebby agreed. Soon, Ebby was a happily babbling convert of the Oxford Group, mindlessly slinging slogans with the rest of them.

Ebby received a "Guidance" that he should get Bill Wilson to join the Oxford Group. He worked on Wilson for a month, telling him that he had "got religion" and didn't need to drink any more. Bill didn't want to hear it at first. Bill thought that Ebby was just crazy:


I pushed a drink across the table. He [Ebby Thacher] refused it. Disappointed but curious, I wondered what had got into the fellow. He wasn't himself.
"Come, what's this about?" I queried.
He looked straight at me. Simply, but smilingly, he said, "I've got religion."
I was aghast. So that was it -- last summer an alcoholic crackpot; now, I suspected, a little cracked about religion. He had that starry-eyed look. Yes, the old boy was on fire all right. But bless his heart, let him rant! Besides, my gin would last longer than his preaching.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William Wilson, Chapter 1, Bill's Story, page 9.

William Wilson (left) and Ebby Thacher (right)
The last known photograph of Ebby Thacher


Ebby and his friend Shep Cornell described the Oxford Group program to Bill Wilson, and Wilson immediately disliked the sound of it, because Ebby and his friends were pushing an irrational cult religion that demanded that people stop thinking and just "have faith":


Ebby and Shep C. were now asking him to give up the one attribute of which he was the most proud, the one quality that set a man above the animals -- his inquiring, rational mind. And they wanted him to give this up for an illusion.
... what they were asking him to do represented weakness to him. How could a man so demean himself as to surrender the one thing in which he should have faith, his innate, inquiring mind? ...
It might be the last arrogant gasp of alcoholic pride but, miserable and terrified as he was, he would not humble himself here. On this point he would go out swinging.
Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz, page 18, and
Bill W., Robert Thomsen, pages 213-214.
Bill supposedly vowed to resist such an anti-intellectual program to the bitter end, but within two weeks, under the influence of alcohol withdrawal, delirium tremens, and the hallucinogen belladonna and other drugs, Bill Wilson gave up his "innate, inquiring, rational mind", and "surrendered", and was "changed" into an irrational true-believer Oxford Group cult member who then went on to insist that all other alcoholics must also give up their reason, logic, and rational thinking.

What happened was: After many months of suicidally-intense binging, knowing that death was near, Bill reconsidered Ebby's answer to alcoholism. And he told Ebby that he was reconsidering things. So Ebby set him up and then knocked him down.

Ebby set him up by first getting him to go to an Oxford Group meeting at Sam Shoemaker's Calvary House in New York, where, even though drunk, he was talked into coming forward and "giving himself to God". Then the Oxford Groupers sent Bill back to Charles Towns' Hospital in New York for detoxing (again, for the fourth time in a little over a year), where Ebby and other Oxford Groupers ambushed Wilson while he was at his weakest -- sick and detoxing and tripping his brains out on alcohol withdrawal, delirium tremens, and a drug cocktail containing morphine, barbiturates, megavitamins, henbane, and even the very toxic hallucinogenic drugs strychnine and belladonna.

Ebby Thacher, Rowland Hazard, and other Oxford Groupers "tag-teamed" Bill Wilson, working on him in shifts, until they succeeded in "changing" him. After 2 or 3 days of alcohol withdrawal and round-the-clock hallucinogenic drugs and Oxford Group coaching, Bill Wilson broke down and became a true believer.

And the conversion worked extremely well. As the expression goes, Bill not only took the bait, he swallowed it all, hook, line, and sinker. Bill Wilson was so completely taken in that he was a raving true believer for the rest of his life, even after the Oxford Group asked him to leave, because he was spending all of his time with alcoholics, and not enough time doing "the will of God", as the Oxford Group saw the will of God (which really meant 'obeying the orders of the Oxford Group elders').

And, sadly, Ebby, the "cosmic messenger" who converted Bill Wilson to Buchmanism, would relapse after two years of sobriety, and go back to being a chronic drunkard, and would die of complications from alcoholism and cigarette smoking. Later, Bill Wilson wrote that Rowland Hazard didn't stay sober, either.24

So neither of the two people who enthusiastically recruited Bill Wilson for the Oxford Group and taught Bill "the spiritual program for achieving sobriety" actually found lasting sobriety in that program. As is typical of cults, the recruiters gleefully declared that they had the panacea, even while the program wasn't actually working for them.

Ken Ragge, in his book More Revealed, describes Bill Wilson's conversion this way:


At Towns [Hospital], he was given the standard treatment, barbiturates and several hallucinogens, including belladonna and henbane, until "the face becomes flushed, the throat dry, and the pupils of the eyes dilated."
After several days, Ebby came to see him. While there is no record of what was said, it is recorded that after Ebby left, "Bill [Wilson] slid into very deep melancholy. He was filled with guilt and remorse over the way he had treated Lois [his wife]..." Evidently, Ebby had done something to provoke it and, knowing the five C's, it is easy to put together what happened.
Ebby was sent to Wilson in a Guidance session. He won Wilson's "Confidence" through "humble confession," eliciting a confession from Wilson. Apparently, Wilson confessed to something he had tremendous guilt over; the way he had treated Lois. Ebby was able to use this to give Wilson a "vision of the hideousness of his own personal guilt."
Now the time of "Conversion" was upon Wilson. In what appears to have been a drug- and stress-induced hallucinatory breakdown, Wilson found "the programme of His Kingdom." From that day forward, Bill Wilson never drank again.


Even before the Ice Age, belladonnas were used world-wide in religious ceremonies. The drug promoted babbling trances in shamans and other human oracles...
Belladonna had two salient advantages for the cure specialists. Because it annulled morphine's mental clarity and euphoria by replacing it with a drowsy, babbling disconnected stupor, it became established in science as a morphine anti-toxin (artificial Autotoxin), providing a conceptually elegant framework for ridding the body, once and forever, of every addiction-promoting substance. And belladonna had the important advantage of keeping patients comatose: they wouldn't even think of sneaking out of the ward, being entirely occupied in talking to their ancestors, and flying through the sky with weird animals.
Flowers in the Blood: the story of opium, Dean Latimer and Jeff Goldberg, page 247.

The way Bill described it, Bill went to Towns Hospital and the Oxford Groupers indoctrinated him while he was detoxing and...


At the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens.
There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.
My schoolmate [Ebby] visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies [i.e., he confessed his sins to Ebby]....
I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. ...
My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. ...
Simple, but not easy; a price has to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Lights who presides over us all.
These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William Wilson, Chapter 1, Bill's Story, pages 13-14.

In the A.A. book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age (1957) Bill Wilson described his experience this way:


All at once I found myself crying out, "If there is a God, let Him show himself! I am ready to do anything, anything!"
Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. I was caught up in an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It seemed to me in my mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay there on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness... and I thought to myself, "So this is the God of the preachers!" A great peace stole over me...

This book is so large, so comprehensive in the details it relates, and so thorough in its discussion of the relationship between Bill Wilson and his real spiritual teacher that many of its comments still seem to remain unnoticed. But the book, revised in the second edition, gives you some extremely useful spiritual history and tools. It reviews almost every book that Sam Shoemaker wrote. It covers the relationship between A.A. Cofounder Bill Wilson and the clergyman who taught him most of the Step material. It shows precisely the Shoemaker ideas and language that can be found in the Twelve Steps and the Big Book. It reports Shoemaker's talks to AAs at two of their International Conventions--St. Louis and Long Beach. It reveals the extensive findings of the author and his son at the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, Texas where the vast number of Shoemaker papers are lodged. In the second edition, it gives a great picture of Sam Shoemaker in action after he took his second major church rectorship--in Pittsburgh. Wade through it. Get informed. And see how much about A.A., Bill Wilson, and Sam Shoemaker you never knew. I recommend it highly.

This book is a tough chew because it covers so many items in such great depth. It details some of Rev.Sam Shoemaker's life. It covers his personal relationship with A.A. and Bill Wilson. To make a knowledge of Shoemaker writings much easier, it specifically reviews almost every Shoemaker book written from 1921 through the year A.A.'s Big Book was published. And it touches on those published thereafter which commented on A.A. or contained repeat and relevant materials. It lists the dozens of words and phrases from Shoemaker writings that can be found in the Big Book, Twelve Steps, and A.A. materials. And, in its body and appendices, it covers the astonishing body of Shoemaker treasures Dick unearthed at the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, Texas; at Shoemaker's two Calvary churches in Pittsburgh and New York; in Shoemaker's books and articles and sermons; in Sam's personal journals--never before seen or reported; and in the minds and memories of those friends who knew and worked with Sam. The particular treasure was the Pittsburgh section. Dick went back to Pittsburgh and interviewed the "golf club crowd" which Sam had rounded up and put to work in the Pittsburgh Experiment, businessmen's prayer meetings, and other unique outreach. These old-timers were alive and kicking and gave their reports on Sam and his methods with lots of enthusiams. There's plenty more. But I wanted to report that I've learned much much more in the last few years about the Rev. Sam Shoemaker that every A.A. ought to know. For it was to Sam that Bill turned and asked if Sam would actually write the Twelve Steps--Sam humbly declining.

During my high school and early college years, I was a member of The Rev. Sam Shoemaker's congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I got to know him and his family quite well. He was, without doubt, the most dynamic and holy man I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Since that time, I have spoken with many alcoholism counselors as well as A.A. members -- all (who knew anything about the history of A.A.) had only positive things to say about the role "Sam" played in helping to develop the "12 step" program. Now, having said that, let's get to the book itself.

I found this book to be a very extensive and, I believe, thorough account of the influence of this one Episcopal clergyman (and the God who obviously directed him) on the wording of the twelve steps. I would highly recommend the book to anyone who would like to know more about the early development of A.A. and the clergyman working behind the scenes during that development.

Bill W. called Rev. Shoemaker a co-founder of A.A. He said most of the ideas in the 12 Steps came from Rev. Shoemaker, and he actually asked Shoemaker to write the 12 Steps, but Shoemaker declined, saying they should come from an alcoholic. Shoemaker's books, articles, and talks from beginning to end were about faith, prayer, and the Bible. This book helps to bring the A.A. roots and the Bible into focus