Bill W.

William Griffith Wilson (November 26, 1895 – January 24, 1971), also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was an American businessman who co-conceived and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), with fellow co-founder Bob Smith.

AA is an international mutual aid fellowship with about two million members worldwide belonging to AA groups, associations, organizations, cooperatives, and fellowships of alcoholics helping other alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety. Following AA's Twelfth Tradition of anonymity, within the organization Wilson is commonly known as "Bill W." or "Bill". After his death, with his prior written permission, his full name was included in obituaries.

Wilson's sobriety from alcohol, which he maintained until his death, began December 11, 1934. In 1955, he turned over control of AA to a board of trustees. He died in 1971, and in 1999 Time listed him as "Bill W.: The Healer" in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

Early life

Wilson was born on November 26, 1895, in East Dorset, Vermont, the son of Emily (née Griffith) and Gilman Barrows Wilson. He was born at his parents' home and business, the Mount Aeolus Inn and Tavern. His sister, Dorothy, was born in 1898. His paternal grandfather, William C. Wilson, a hotelier and second-generation marble worker, was an alcoholic. Influenced by the preaching of an itinerant evangelist, some weeks before, William C. Wilson climbed to the top of Mount Aeolus, had a spiritual experience and quit drinking.

Wilson's parents divorced in 1906. His father left for western Canada, and his mother left soon after to study osteopathic medicine in Massachusetts. He and his sister, abandoned by their parents, were raised by their maternal grandparents, Gardner Fayette Griffith and Ella (née Brock).

By 1908, Wilson had met Mark Whalon, a fellow East Dorset resident who was nine years his senior. Whalon became Wilson's closest childhood friend, and introduced him to the world of ideas. Whalon continued to be a confidant, counselor, and emotional support to Wilson, even after Wilson became world famous, and as of Whalon's death in 1956 was still Wilson's best friend. Wilson later wrote of him, "He was a sort of uncle or father to me."

Wilson became the captain of his high school's football team, and the principal violinist in its orchestra. He dealt with a serious bout of depression at the age of 17, following the death of his first love, Bertha Bamford, who died of complications from surgery.

Marriage, work, and alcoholism

Wilson met his future wife Lois Burnham during the summer of 1913 while sailing on Vermont's Emerald Lake; two years later, the couple became engaged. He entered Norwich University, but depression and panic attacks forced him to leave during his second semester. The next year he returned, but he was soon suspended with a group of students involved in a hazing incident. No one would take responsibility, and no one would identify the perpetrators, so the entire class was punished.

Pancho Villa's incursion into the U.S. in June 1916 resulted in Wilson's class being mobilized as part of the Vermont National Guard, and he was reinstated to serve. The following year he was commissioned as an artillery officer. During military training in Massachusetts, the young officers were often invited to dinner by the locals, and Wilson had his first drink, a glass of beer with little effect. A few weeks later at another dinner party held at the Joseph Grinnell Mansion in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he drank some Bronx cocktails and felt at ease with the guests and liberated from his awkward shyness. "I had found the elixir of life", he wrote. "Even that first evening I got thoroughly drunk, and within the next time or two I passed out completely. But as everyone drank hard, not too much was made of that."

Wilson married Burnham on January 24, 1918, just before he left to serve in World War I in France as a 2nd lieutenant in the Coast Artillery. After his military service, he returned to live with his wife in New York. He failed to graduate from law school because he was too drunk to pick up his diploma. Wilson became a stock speculator and had success traveling the country with his wife, evaluating companies for potential investors. During these trips, Lois had a hidden agenda: she hoped that the travel would keep Wilson from drinking. However, Wilson's constant drinking made business impossible and ruined his reputation.

In 1933, Wilson was committed to the Charles B. Towns Hospital for Drug and Alcohol Addictions in New York City four times under the care of William Duncan Silkworth. Silkworth's theory was that alcoholism was a matter of both physical and mental lack of control: a physical "allergy" resulting in a compulsion or physical inability to stop drinking once started), and a mental obsession (craving to take one first drink again). Wilson gained hope from Silkworth's assertion that alcoholism was a mental and medical condition, but even that knowledge could not help him. He was eventually told that he would either die from his alcoholism or have to be locked up permanently due to Wernicke encephalopathy (commonly referred to as "wet brain").

Formation of Alcoholics Anonymous

In November 1934, Wilson was visited by an old drinking companion, Ebby Thacher. Wilson was astounded to find Thacher had been sober for weeks under the guidance of the evangelical Christian Oxford Group. Wilson took some interest in the group, but shortly after Thacher's visit, he was again admitted to Towns Hospital to recover from a bout of drinking. This was his fourth and last stay at Towns under Silkworth's care and he showed signs of delirium tremens. There, Bill W had a "White Light" spiritual experience and quit drinking. Earlier that evening, Thacher had visited and tried to persuade him to turn himself over to the care of a Christian deity who would liberate him from alcohol. He was also given belladonna, which causes hallucinations. According to Wilson, while lying in bed depressed and despairing, he cried out, "I'll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!" He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity. He never drank again for the rest of his life. Wilson described his experience to Silkworth, who told him, "Something has happened to you I don't understand. But you had better hang on to it".

Wilson joined the Oxford Group and tried to help other alcoholics. They did not get sober, but Wilson kept sober himself. During a failed business trip to Akron, Ohio, Wilson was tempted to drink again and decided that to remain sober he needed to help another alcoholic. He called phone numbers in a church directory and eventually secured an introduction to Bob Smith, an alcoholic Oxford Group member. Wilson explained Silkworth's theory that alcoholics suffer from a physical allergy and a mental obsession. Wilson shared that the only way he was able to stay sober was through having had a spiritual experience. Smith was familiar with the tenets of the Oxford Group, and upon hearing of Wilson's experience, "began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness that he had never before been able to muster. After a brief relapse, he sobered, never to drink again..." Wilson and Smith began working with other alcoholics. After that summer in Akron, Wilson returned to New York where he began having success helping alcoholics in what they called "a nameless squad of drunks" in an Oxford Group there.

In 1938, after about 100 alcoholics in Akron and New York had become sober, the 'fellowship' decided to promote its program of recovery through the publication of a book, for which Wilson was chosen as primary author. The book was given the title Alcoholics Anonymous and included the list of suggested activities for spiritual growth known as the Twelve Steps. The movement itself took on the name of the book. Bill incorporated the principles of nine of the Twelve Traditions, (a set of spiritual guidelines to ensure the survival of individual AA groups) in his foreword to the original edition; later, Traditions One, Two, and Ten were clearly specified when all twelve statements were published. The AA general service conference of 1955 was a landmark event for Wilson in which he turned over the leadership of the maturing organization to an elected board.

In 1939, Wilson and Marty Mann visited High Watch Farm in Kent, CT. They would go on to found what is now High Watch Recovery Center, the world's first alcohol and addiction recovery center founded on Twelve Step principles.

Wilson strongly advocated that AA groups have not the "slightest reform or political complexion". In 1946, he wrote "No AA group or members should ever, in such a way as to implicate AA, express any opinion on outside controversial issues – particularly those of politics, alcohol reform or sectarian religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one. Concerning such matters they can express no views whatever." Reworded, this became AA's "Tradition 10".