The Thirteenth Way Out

The book was finished before its name was. The title members favored in 1939 was "The Way Out" — until Fitz M. went over to the Library of Congress to investigate. He found exactly twelve books already titled "The Way Out." When word was passed around, Bill wrote in 1946 (A.A. pamphlet P-17), the Fellowship "shivered at the possibility of being the" Thirteenth Way Out — and Alcoholics Anonymous became the choice instead. Bill saw what the name carried: "That’s how we got a name for our book of experience, a name for our movement and, as we are now beginning to see, a tradition of the greatest spiritual import." The second-choice name prints the absence of names on the cover. And the book's opening pages made it a request (Big Book, p. xiii): "we urge each of our Fellowship to omit his personal name, designating himself instead as “a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.”" There was no Tradition yet. There was a title, a superstition about thirteen, and a decision that turned out to be doctrine.