The Original Six Steps of A.A.

Prior to Bill Wilson's composition of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, early A.A. groups used a program that Bill Wilson later described like this:

"Although subject to considerable variation, it all boiled down into a pretty consistent procedure which comprised six steps. These were approximately as follows:

  1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.

  2. We made a preliminary moral inventory of our defects or sins.

  3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.

  4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.

  5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.

  6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.
This was the substance of what, by the fall of 1938, we were telling newcomers."

— Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of A.A. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1957, page 160.

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