This story was written by Ethel M., one of the first female members of Akron Group 1 that met on Wednesday evenings at King’s School in Akron, Ohio. Though she didn’t get sober until May 1941, along with her husband Russ,

This story is actually the edited and re-titled version of the story “Traveler, Editor, Scholar” which was originally published in the First Edition.  A sizable portion of the beginning of that story was omitted from the second edition and there were a...

This story was penned by Jim B. who got sober in 1938, and was an member of Bill W’s original New York Group that met on Tuesday nights in Brooklyn. It was published in the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions of the Big Book,

This story is one of only a handful of stories from the First Edition of the Big Book that was retained for the Second Edition. It's about Joe D., an original member of the Akron Group, sometimes  referred to  AA number 5.

Women Suffer Too was written by Marty M., a founding female member of Alcoholics Anonymous and close friend of Bill W. Marty’s involvement in AA influenced her life of service in which she traveled around the country advocating the importance of treatm...

One of the more colorful stories from the very earliest days of AA, this story was published in the 2nd and 3rd Editions but omitted from the 4th edition for reasons unknown. If you’ve only read stories in the 4th Edition,

This is the 50th episode of the Big Book Podcast, and I'd like to thank the thousands of people around the world who have listened to this audio version of the 1st and 2nd editions of Alcoholics Anonymous. We’ve many more episodes to come.

“Alcoholics Anonymous Number 3” describes the meeting of Dr. Bob and Bill W. with Bill D., an alcoholic patient Akron City Hospital in late June 1935. With their help, Bill D. got sober and was a pioneer member of Akron Group 1,

Big Book Personal Stories - 2nd Edition

Bill Wilson wrote the 11th chapter in the fall of 1938, while still wrestling with other chapters of the book. Years later, in the book “Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age”, Bill admitted to having been secretly worried during that time about getting th...