Original Six Steps

From "Bill Wilson and how the A.A message reached the world":

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

2. We made a 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.

Although those steps had helped in the recovery of New York and Akron alcoholics, Bill felt the program was still not definitive. "Maybe our six chunks of truth should be broken up into smaller pieces," he said. "Thus we could better get the distant reader over the barrel, and at the same time we might be able to broaden and deepen the spiritual implications of our whole presentation."

Pass It On, p.197