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Bill Wilson, a failed businessman who struggled with alcohol addiction, became sober through a rehab program and founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with other recovering alcoholic businessmen. He wrote the Big Book, which serves as a guide for new AA members, and established the 12-step program and 12 Traditions. Wilson believed in anonymity and became known as “Bill W”. He and his wife Lois also founded Al-Anon for relatives of alcoholics. Wilson died in 1971, but AA continues to help recovering addicts.
Until the year 1935, Bill Wilson was one of many failed businessmen who found solace in excessive alcohol consumption. Wilson was said to have been too drunk to graduate from law school, eventually deciding on a career in the speculative and volatile world of stock trading and speculation. The early days of his marriage to Lois Wilson were filled with infidelities and desperate measures to obtain cheap bath gin or rotgut whiskey during the Prohibition era.
Although Bill Wilson made several half-hearted attempts to quit drinking, it wasn’t until he entered a controversial rehab program that he became truly sober. Wilson viewed this period of rehabilitation as a spiritual awakening, the equivalent of a Damascus road experience for a confirmed alcoholic. Through personal and professional association with other recovering alcoholic businessmen, Bill Wilson co-founded the organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous or AA. Although Wilson himself was from New York, the first real AA meetings were held in Akron, Ohio.
While Bill Wilson was in Akron, Ohio on business, he felt very tempted to grab a drink. Convinced that his only hope for sobriety was to talk to another alcoholic, Wilson contacted a local doctor named Dr. Bob Smith. Dr. Bob, as he would later be known to all AA members, heard Wilson’s account of spiritual liberation from alcohol and found sobriety himself. This concept of a recovering alcoholic seeking guidance and support from a more experienced sponsor is still a very important part of the AA philosophy.
Bill Wilson, along with several other Alcoholics Anonymous, took it upon himself to write a book that would serve as both a guide for new AA members and a largely autobiographical memoir of his experiences with alcohol addiction. This book, credited only to “Anonymous,” is known in AA circles as the Big Book and contains many of the traditions and recovery steps prescribed for new members of local AA chapters.
AA’s original principles included six steps that all recovering addicts must follow to maintain their sobriety, but these steps were later expanded to the well-known 12-step program. Alcoholics must admit that they are powerless when it comes to alcohol and are encouraged to make amends with anyone they may have offended while under the influence. There are also 12 Traditions, which generally provide spiritual and organizational rules for individual AA chapters to follow.
Bill Wilson believed that complete anonymity was a critical step in the shared recovery process, so he became known to most AA members as “Bill W”. His continued participation in the AA organization has become somewhat controversial, mainly due to his adherence to spiritualism and his ongoing struggles with other addictions, including tobacco and serial infidelity. He eventually stepped down from an active leadership role in AA as the organization became more accepted by the general population.
Bill Wilson and his wife Lois, who founded Al-Anon for relatives of alcoholics, eventually moved into a house known as the Stepping Stones. During the late 1960s, Wilson’s emphysema worsened and he finally died of the condition in 1971. Wilson’s personal life may have been a contradiction between the sacred and the profane, but his organization Alcoholics Anonymous has continued to to help recovering addicts maintain their sobriety.
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