AA existed for four full years before the Steps were put in their final written form. During that time there was a program and it was sobering up alcoholics. In part, it consisted of the Four Absolutes - honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love - from the Oxford Group, the evangelical Christian movement out of which AA was born.

In those early days of AA there was no talk of "suggestions". The basic points of the program, were regarded by all the older members as directives, as indispensable essentials; they were passed on to newcomers as "instructions".

When Bill first formulated the Twelve Steps, he conceived of them, too, as instructions, not as suggestions. When the idea of presenting the Steps as suggestions came up, Bill for a long time flatly opposed it. Finally - and reluctantly - he agreed. In "Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age" he related how this concession enabled countless AA’s to approach the fellowship who would otherwise have been turned off AA - and back to active alcoholism. Bill went out of his way to avoid controversy. Still, we wonder if his feelings about the decision to present the Twelve Steps as suggestions were a bit stronger than he let on in public after the compromise. Clearly, the language introducing the Twelve Steps in chapter five of the Big Book lays the foundation for a set of solid directions, not merely a few suggestions.