L
ike most rare-book dealers,
William H. Schaberg of Athena
Rare Books in Fairfield, Conn.,
focuses on a specific niche for his
business, following his passion and find-
ing what he calls “important works in the
history of ideas—the majority of which are
philosophy books.” Schaberg is known as
the go-to guy for authenticating first edi-
tions of works by Descartes, Locke,
Nietzsche, Spinoza, and more.
Schaberg’s literary passion for impor-
tant historical texts extends to what he
says is “one of the most significant spiri-
tual movements” of the 20th century:
Alcoholics Anonymous. In 2001, he pur-
chased at auction a multilithed prepubli-
cation copy of Alcoholics Anonymous: The
Story of How Many Hundreds of Men and
Women Have Recovered from
Alcoholism—the title commonly referred
to as the Big Book. That purchase
launched Schaberg’s investigation into
the early history of Alcoholics
Anonymous. Now, nearly two decades
later, he has published his own book:
Writing the Big Book: The Creation of A.A.
The Big Book, written by William G.
Wilson—aka Bill W.—and first published in
1939, laid the foundation for the 12-step
movement that revolutionized addiction
treatment and helped millions of people
get and stay sober. With more than 37 mil-
lion copies sold, the Big Book is one of the
bestselling works of all time. It has been
translated into 43 languages and was
named by the Library of Congress in 2012
as one of the 88 “Books that Shaped
America.”
Willson, who founded Alcoholics
Anonymous and was the visionary behind
the creation of the Big Book, was an invet-
erate drinker who underwent a spiritualawakening in December 1934 and devel-
oped a program that kept him sober for
the rest of his life. He then refined the
insights, ideas, and practices that became
AA’s foundational principles.
“First of all, he diagnosed the problem
as the alcoholic’s inability to refuse the first
drink,” Schaberg says. “Alcoholism wasn’t apsychological problem or a failure of will
power or a moral lapse of some sort.
Wilson’s solution to his understanding of
that problem was equally direct and sim-
ple. It was to guide the alcoholic—through
a 12-step program of recovery—toward his
or her own ‘vital spiritual experience.’”
When Schaberg purchased the multilith
copy of the Big Book at auction, his inter-
est in AA was purely practical. He wanted
to answer some basic questions about his
newly acquired book: How many had
been privately printed? Just how rare was
it? This eventually brought him to the AAarchives, which contain a veritable trea-
sure trove of previously unreported data.
“The tremendous amount of unmined
information I discovered was staggering,”
he says. “That led to my decision to write
a book covering just 18 months of AA his-
tory: from the first time they said, ‘Hey, we
should write a book!’ until the day the
book was actually published. It was amaz-
ing; the more I researched, the more great
details I uncovered.”
Schaberg was surprised to learn that
“the stories Bill Wilson always told about
AA’s early years were more parables and
myths than anything approaching histori-
cal fact.” In fact, he says, “the true story of
the evolution and founding of AA is far
more miraculous and inspiring.”
Schaberg meticulously details the
twists and turns of those early years and
shines a light on the formerly unacknowl-
edged importance of early AA member
Hank Parkhurst. “After Bill Wilson,
Parkhurst is without a doubt the most
important man in the formulation of the
program of Alcoholics Anonymous and
then the packaging of that program into a
book,” Schaberg says. “The Big Book
would never have been written and pub-
lished without Hank’s constant pushing
and prodding of Bill Wilson to get the job
done. And throughout this whole process,
Hank was always arguing for his own
point of view.”
Ultimately, Schaberg hopes readers
will find his history of the Big Book inspi-
rational, positive, and uplifting. And he
hopes that, in its own way, the book sup-
ports the work of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Who wouldn’t be proud,” he says, “to be
part of a movement with such wonderfully
human roots and such an amazingly
miraculous backstory?”Spotlight on
William H. Schaberg
WRITING THE BOOK ON
THE BIG BOOK:
A new history about the writing and publication of
the Big Book shines a light on the work of Bill W. and
the early days of Alcoholics AnonymousSponsored by Central Recovery Press