AA Big Book

AA Big Book

Alcoholics Anonymous was first published in 1939 and was subtitled The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism. It is the first text written about the experiences of the founders of the A.A. movement. This book tells the story of Bill W., one of the co-founders of A.A., and how the program worked in the early days of the movement. It is full of much timeless and practical wisdom and is the first standard (and some would say the only standard) text of A.A. and, subsequently, of 12 step programs.

According to AA, the 12 steps are a process that recovering alcoholics must follow to successfully achieve and maintain sobriety. Many of these steps mention God or a higher power, but they do not specifically apply to any single faith. Rather, they can be applied to any deity, or in the case of agnostics, the universe as a whole. While these steps are designed to be largely sequential, all of them are continuous and ongoing. Many of these steps are ideally taken with the help of a sponsor, an individual who has gone through the AA program and helps a new initiate as they navigate their newly found sobriety.

AA Big Book – 12 Steps

Each step is detailed in depth in the Big Book, but here is a general overview of all 12.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

 You can download the AA Big Book PDF using the link given below.