| William Griffith Wilson |
Article Index for William |
Articles about Bill W. |
Website Links For Bill |
Information AboutWilliam Griffith Wilson |
|
William Griffith Wilson ( was the founder of Al-Anon , a group dedicated to helping the friends and relatives of Alcoholics . CHILDHOOD When Wilson was 10, his father left on a business trip that turned out to be a permanent absence, and his mother announced that she would be leaving the family to study Osteopathic Medicine . Abandoned by their parents, Wilson and his sister were left in the care of their maternal grandparents. Wilson showed some talent and determination in his teen years. He designed and carved a working boomerang after dozens of failed efforts. He taught himself to play the violin by dogged persistence, pasting to the neck of the instrument a diagram of the notes. At school, after initial difficulties, he found success in sports. But he experienced a serious depression at the age of seventeen when his first love, Bertha Bamford, died from complications during surgery. MARRIAGE, WORK, AND ADDICTION Wilson met his future wife Lois Burnham, who was four years older than he, during the summer of 1913 while sailing on Vermont's Emerald Lake; two years later the couple became engaged. Wilson was called into the army in 1917. 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, to little effect. '' 153.23 (June 14, 1999): p201+. "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."''Pass it on'' p 56. Bill and Lois were married on January 24, 1918, just before he left to join the war in Europe as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery''Pass it on'' p 54.. After an uneventful military service but much exposure to wine and beer, Wilson returned to live with his wife in New York, his dependence on alcohol now fully established. He failed to graduate from law school because he was too drunk to pick up his diploma.Cheever, 2004, p 91. Wilson became a stock Speculator and had success travelling the country with his wife, evaluating companies for potential investors. (During these trips Lois had a hidden agenda: she hoped the travel would keep Wilson from drinking.''Pass it on'' p 59.) However, Bill's constant drinking made business impossible and ruined his reputation. As his drinking grew more serious, starting in 1933 he had to be committed to the Towns psychiatric hospital three times under the care of Dr. William D. Silkworth . Silkworth's theory was that alcoholism took the form of an allergy (the inability to stop drinking once started) and an obsession (to take the first drink). Wilson gained hope from Silkworth's assertion alcoholism was a medical condition rather than a moral failing, 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 alcoholic insanity. CONVERSION AND TURNING POINT One day, an old drinking friend named Ebby Thacher phoned Wilson wanting to visit with him. Expecting to spend a day drinking and re-living old times, Wilson was instead shocked by Thacher's refusal to drink. "I've got religion," he said to explain his unexpected abstinence. Thatcher had been sober for several weeks under the guidance of the Oxford Group , an Evangelical society that, among other pursuits, sought to help drunkards achieve sobriety''Pass it on'' p 130. . Shortly after Ebby's visit, Bill was admitted to Towns Hospital to recover from another bout of drinking. According to Bill, 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!".''Pass it on'' p 121. He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity. He never drank again for the remainder of his life. Bill described what happened to Dr. Silkworth, who told him not to discount this experience. Ebby visited Bill in hospital and walked him through some of the basic tenets of the Oxford Group. Upon his release from the hospital, Bill was told to seek out and bring the message of his recovery to others as Ebby had done for him. A NEW SPIRITUAL PROGRAM FOR RECOVERY Wilson joined the Oxford Group and set out trying to help other alcoholics, but he had no success in helping anyone get sober. At this time, Wilson as also influenced by his contact with Carl Jung , and became convinced of the importance of having a ''spiritual experience'' strong enough to change a person completely''Pass It On'', pp. 381-386. Wilson visited Dr. Silkworth, who told him to stop preaching''Pass it on'' p 133. and to try talk to alcoholics about the grave nature of their disease, about the allergy and the obsession, and about Wilson's personal experience with alcohol. It was not long before Wilson had his chance to try this new approach. In 1935 Wilson made a business trip to Akron, Ohio . The venture fell through, and in a state of gloom and frustration he was tempted to drink again. He decided that his only hope in remaining sober was to help another alcoholic. So instead of entering a nearby bar, Wilson entered a phone booth at his hotel and started calling the phone numbers on a church directory he saw there. He eventually got through to Henrietta Seiberling, who was a member of an Oxford Group circle that had been searching for a solution to Dr. Bob Smith's drinking problem. Henrietta arranged a meeting between the two men. Dr. Bob had been unable to stay sober on his own, so he was skeptical that Wilson would be able to help him, but he agreed to give Wilson fifteen minutes nevertheless. Fifteen minutes turned into four hours as Wilson told Dr. Bob of the solution he had found. Not long after, Dr. Bob had his last drink -- a beer to help steady his hand to perform surgery. The new approach had worked so well that Wilson and Dr. Bob decided to try it with another alcoholic. Birth of AA The two men went to a hospital to talk to another alcoholic named Bill D. They used the same approach that Wilson had used on Dr. Bob. Bill D. sobered up and now there were three men carrying the new message of recovery. (Years later, this meeting was recognised as the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.) The three men then carried the message to another alcoholic, and so the fellowship began its growth. Wilson soon returned to New York and began to carry the message there. His efforts bore fruit and soon there was a second group in New York City. A manual of recovery In 1938, after about 100 alcoholics in Akron and New York had sobered up, the fellowship decided that a book would be the best way to promote their program of recovery; Wilson was chosen as primary author. The book was written to carry the message as a face-to-face meeting, and included the list of suggested activities for spiritual growth called the Twelve Steps . The title "Alcoholics Anonymous" was selected for the book, and the movement took on the same name. Leadership of AA After positive articles in '' Liberty '' magazine in 1939 and the '' Saturday Evening Post '' in 1941, AA began its rapid growth. But when Wilson and Lois made a cross-country trip to visit AA groups, they found a wide variety of practices and rules, such as groups with charismatic leaders and groups with no concerns for anonymity.Cheever, 2004, pp 171-172 and 186-187. Wilson began to form a vision for a purely democratic constitution that would allow no accumulation of money, power, or prestige within AA. Ten years later, these rules were published as the "Twelve Traditions." The AA general service conference of 1955 was a landmark event for Wilson in which he turned over the leadership of the maturing organisation to an elected board. LIFE AFTER AA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|