Welcome to Decoding the Big Book, a special limited series of the Sober Friends podcast.

Researched and sourced from writing the big book by William Sheaberg,

the purpose of each episode is to provide context and history for each chapter of the Big

Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, followed by a

reading of the chapter from the fourth edition. Each section is marked by chapters, so feel

free to skip ahead to what you're interested in and leave the rest. Bill's first attempt at writing the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was his own story.

In the first edition, it was on page one, which was a second page one after the doctor's opinion.

From the second edition onward, Bill's story starts the book

after Roman numerals for the forwards and the doctor's opinion. Bill had a purpose in writing

the first two chapters of the book. Bill's story, and there is a solution. He wanted to convey

that a decision had to be made about one's

drinking. He started with a chapter presenting the first 100's understanding of alcoholism and wrote

an outline for both the problem and the solution for recovery. He used himself as the true story of the alcoholic and the steps he took to recover.

Bill Wilson had to work on this story a lot. We don't know why, but he rejected his first pass

of this chapter. Bill's second attempt ran on 12,000 words and was not even completed.

The third attempt at Bill's story was written with some help from Hank Parkhurst,

as were some of the other chapters.

Bill would arrive in the morning at the office for Hank Parkhurst's company,

honored dealers in Newark, New Jersey.

Bill would come in with his yellow legal paths and everything scratched out

and stand behind Hank's secretary Ruth Hawke.

Bill would then start talking from his notes, and Ruth would type everything out.

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