BY SUSAN CHEEVER
Second Lieut. Bill Wilson
didn't think twice when the first
butler he had ever seen offered him a
drink. The 22-year-old soldier didn't
think about how alcohol had destroyed
his family. He didn't think about the
Yankee temperance movement of his
childhood or his loving fiancé Lois
Burnham or his emerging talent for
leadership. He didn't think about
anything at all. "I had found the
elixir of life," he wrote.
Wilson's last drink, 17 years later,
when alcohol had destroyed his health
and his career, precipitated an
epiphany that would change his life
and the lives of millions of other
alcoholics. Incarcerated for the
fourth time at Manhattan's Towns
Hospital in 1934, Wilson had a
spiritual awakening--a flash of white
light, a liberating awareness of
God--that led to the founding of
Alcoholics Anonymous and Wilson's
revolutionary 12-step program, the
successful remedy for alcoholism. The
12 steps have also generated
successful programs for eating
disorders, gambling, narcotics,
debiting, sex addiction and people
affected by others' addictions. Aldous
Huxley called him "the greatest
social architect of our century."
William Griffith Wilson grew up in
a quarry town in Vermont. When he was
10, his hard-drinking father headed
for Canada, and his mother moved to
Boston, leaving the sickly child with
her parents. As a soldier, and then as
a businessman, Wilson drank to
alleviate his depressions and to
celebrate his Wall Street success.
Married in 1918, he and Lois toured
the country on a motorcycle and
appeared to be a prosperous, promising
young couple. By 1933, however, they
were living on charity in her parents'
house on Clinton Street in Brooklyn,
N.Y. Wilson had become an unemployable
drunk who disdained religion and even
panhandled for cash.
Inspired by a friend who had
stopped drinking, Wilson went to
meetings of the Oxford Group, an
evangelical society founded in Britain
by Pennsylvania Frank Buchman. And as
Wilson underwent a
barbiturate-and-belladonna cure called
"purge and puke," which was
state-of-the-art alcoholism treatment
at the time, his brain spun with
phrases from Oxford Group meetings,
Carl Jung and William James'
"Varieties of Religious
Experience," which he read in the
hospital. Five sober months later,
Wilson went to Akron, Ohio, on
business. The deal fell through, and
he wanted a drink. He stood in the
lobby of the Mayflower Hotel,
entranced by the sounds of the bar
across the hall. Suddenly he became
convinced that by helping another
alcoholic, he could save himself.
Through
a series of desperate telephone calls,
he found Dr. Robert Smith, a skeptical
drunk whose family persuaded him to
give Wilson 15 minutes. Their meeting
lasted for hours. A month later, Dr.
Bob had his last drink, and that date,
June 10, 1935, is the official birth
date of A.A., which is based on the
idea that only an alcoholic can help
another alcoholic. "Because of
our kinship in suffering," Bill
wrote, "our channels of contact
have always been charged with the
language of the heart."
The Burnham house on Clinton Street
became a haven for drunks. "My
name is Bill W., and I'm an
alcoholic," he told assorted
houseguests and visitors at meetings.
To spread the word, he began writing
down his principles for sobriety. Each
chapter was read by the Clinton Street
group and sent to Smith in Akron for
more editing. The book had a dozen
provisional titles, among them
"The Way Out" and "The
Empty Glass." Edited to 400
pages, it was finally called
"Alcoholics Anonymous," and
this became the group's name.
But
the book, although well reviewed,
wasn't selling. Wilson tried
unsuccessfully to make a living as a
wire-rope salesman. A.A. had about a
hundred members, but many were still
drinking. Meanwhile, in 1939, the bank
foreclosed on the Clinton Street
house, and the couple began years of
homelessness, living as guests in
borrowed rooms and at one point
staying in temporary quarters above
the A.A. clubhouse on 24th Street in
Manhattan. In 1940 John D. Rockefeller
Jr. held an A.A. dinner and was
impressed enough to create a trust to
provide Wilson with $30 a week--but no
more. The tycoon felt that money would
corrupt the group's spirit.
Then,
in March 1941, The Saturday Evening
Post published an article on A.A., and
suddenly thousands of letters and
requests poured in. Attendance at
meetings doubled and tripled. Wilson
had reached his audience. In
"Twelve Traditions," Wilson
set down the suggested bylaws of
Alcoholics Anonymous. In them, he
created an enduring blueprint for an
organization with a maximum of
individual freedom and no accumulation
of power or money. Public anonymity
ensured humility. No contributions
were required; no member could
contribute more than $1,000.
Today
more than 2 million A.A. members in
150 countries hold meetings in church
basements, hospital conference rooms
and school gyms, following Wilson's
informal structure. Members identify
themselves as alcoholics and share
their stories; there are no rules or
entry requirements, and many members
use only first names.
Wilson
believed the key to sobriety was a
change of heart. The suggested 12
steps include an admission of
powerlessness, a moral inventory, a
restitution for harm done, a call to
service and a surrender to some
personal God. In A.A., God can be
anything from a radiator to a
patriarch. Influenced by A.A., the
American Medical Association has
redefined alcoholism as a chronic
disease, not a failure of willpower.
As
Alcoholics Anonymous grew, Wilson
became its principal symbol. He helped
create a governing structure for the
program, the General Service Board,
and turned over his power. "I
have become a pupil of the A.A.
movement rather than the
teacher," he wrote. A smoker into
his 70s, he died of pneumonia and
emphysema in Miami, where he went for
treatment in 1971. To the end, he
clung to the principles and the power
of anonymity. He was always Bill W.,
refusing to take money for counseling
and leadership. He turned down many
honors, including a degree from Yale.
And he declined this magazine's offer
to put him on the cover--even with his
back turned.
Susan
Cheever, a novelist and memoirist, is
the author of "Note Found in a
Bottle: My Life as a Drinker"
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