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We're going to be talking a lot about the Big Book of AA. If you've never heard it, there's a wonderful,

wonderful tape that Bill Wilson did about how the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written.

And it's very wonderful and very funny. He had heard that some people were starting to iconize the book,

sort of hold it sort of up as a holy book and take it sort of in really nitpickingly literal.

And he tells the story about the writing in the book, which is a historical story.

I mean, it's these guys trying to get paid.

I mean, they basically were trying to make money.

They were selling stock certificates in a corporation that wasn't incorporated.

And they kept, like, writing a chapter and showing it to people and saying, can we have the money? And they'd say no. And they'd write another chapter. There was a riot. And they kept like writing a chapter and showing it to people and saying, can we

have the money? And they'd say no. And they'd write another chapter. It was a riot. And one of

the descriptions, if you get a chance in AA comes of age, there's a wonderful description, probably

my favorite description of Bill sitting down and writing chapter five. They had written the first

four chapters. And then he got together

with a bunch of guys, and there was no formal six-step program that was like on a sheet

that they had been using.

He sat down with a group of guys, and they boiled down what they had been doing in the Oxford

group to basically six steps, and they said to Bill, you're going to have to write this thing now. I mean, the time has come, you're going to have to write this thing now i mean the time is coming you're going to

have to write how it works

so he went off to actually codify the thing and write it

...