Bill Wrote the 12 Steps in 40 Minutes After His Wife Said You're Gonna Get Drunk - AA Speaker - Jay S.
Podcast: Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker PodcastPublished On: Fri Mar 20 2026
Description: The 12 Steps were written in 40 minutes on a cot under the stairs — but the ideas in them had been circulating for decades. This AA history talk traces every major passage in the Big Book back to the Oxford Group books Bill Wilson and the early members were actually reading. We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️ Sober-Sunrise.com Jay S. gives a deep dive into exactly where the Big Book came from, he traces specific passages from Alcoholics Anonymous back to Oxford Group literature that was on the bestseller lists in the 1920s and 30s, showing how books like "I Was a Pagan" and "For Sinners Only" and the teachings of Sam Shoemaker fed directly into the language Bill Wilson used. He walks through the night Lois Wilson stormed into the living room and told Bill he was going to get drunk because he'd forgotten the God that got him sober — and how Bill went to his cot under the stairs and wrote the 12 Steps in 40 minutes, stopping at 12 because it was good enough for the guy from Galilee. Along the way you get the real story of how the fellowship got its name from a wet brain at Bellevue who kept mumbling "anonymous alcoholics," and Sam Shoemaker's posthumous letter comparing the writing of the steps to Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. If you've ever wondered what the early members were actually reading and talking about, this is the talk. Jay S. from Redondo Beach, CA speaking on the topic of "How AA Really Started" at the 2000 South Bay Roundup - May 2000 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
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