IN 1935, WHEN Bill Wilson and Robert “Dr. Bob” Smith created AA, both were members of a then-popular Christian revival movement known as the Oxford Group. The steps were based on the Oxford Group’s principles of surrender to God, confession, restitution for harms done, prayer, and service to others through proselytizing. But AA soon split off from the Oxford Group, which had been founded by a controversial preacher named Frank Buchman.
