finally said concerning Sam:
Having now accounted for AA’s Steps One and Twelve, it is natural that we should ask, “Where did the early AAs find the material for the remaining ten Steps? . . . The spiritual substance of our remaining ten Steps came straight from Dr. Bob’s and my own earlier association with the Oxford Groups, as they were then led in America by that Episcopal rector, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker. [The Language of the Heart, 298]
And Bill even called Shoemaker a “cofounder” of Alcoholics Anonymous. [See Dick B., The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, Newton ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1992, 1998), 137.]
There is another and far more important story pertaining to Garrett Stearly, Sam Shoemaker, and Bill Wilson. [Reverend Garrett R. Stearly was a member of the church corporation at Shoemaker’s Calvary Episcopal Church.] Our Oxford Group friend, James Draper Newton, who has been aligned with Buchman, Shoemaker, and the Oxford Group since the early 1920’s, has repeatedly reminded us of two conversations he [Newton] had with Stearly. According to Newton, Stearly twice told him:
Bill Wilson asked Sam Shoemaker to write A.A.’s Twelve Steps. Shoemaker declined. Shoemaker told Bill that the Steps should be written by an alcoholic and that Bill was the one to do it. [See Dick B., The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works, new, rev. ed. (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1992, 1995, 1998), 127-28. This statement was made to me several times on the telephone and in person by James Draper Newton of Fort Myers Beach, Florida]
So Sam Shoemaker did not write the Twelve Steps even though he was