The Life of Bill Wilson
Bill was 22 when he first tasted alcohol. His grandfather had taken the pledge and Bill had heard stories of how whiskey had destroyed several members of his family. He managed to stay away from it throughout his adolescence and his later schooling, but the
Army proved another matter.
As a newly commissioned Army officer Bill was stationed in nearby Massachusetts. He, along with the other officers, was invited to a “high society” party hosted by the
Grinnells, forbearers to the fire safety and sprinkler company that still bears the family name. An alarm may well have sounded in his mind as the insecurities of his youth returned to him the moment he entered the party. He felt awkward and insecure, unbearably self-conscious. Wilson recalled, “ For the first time in my life I saw a butler.
Again came that terrible feeling of inadequacy, that shy inability to speak more than two or three words in a row. It was overwhelming. But that night someone handed me a
Bronx cocktail. (Gin, orange juice and equal parts sweet and dry vermouth.) Liquor had killed off a lot of my relatives and I had been repeatedly warned against it. Still I took this first drink, and then another, and another. Ah, what magic! I had found the elixir of life! Down went that strange barrier that had always stood between me and people around me and I drew near to them. I was part of life at last. I could talk easily, I could communicate. Here was the missing link.”
That missing link would chain Wilson to alcohol for the next seventeen years. Following a short tour of duty in Europe, Bill caught the tail end of the First World War and added brandy to the growing list of drinks he’d taken a liking to. When he returned to the
States, he set out to make his fortune on Wall Street riding the boom years of the 1920’s stock market. Bill was still staying just a length ahead of an alcohol problem that was fast catching up with him while he climbed the enticing ladder of economic success. During prohibition, Bill became adept at making bathtub gin and fermenting dandelion wine at home but he frequently couldn’t wait till it had fully fermented and he often became ill. Lois was growing concerned about his drinking and began an endless series of explanations for his drunken and erratic behavior to her worried family. Lois suffered three entopic pregnancies that finally resulted in the removal of her ovaries in 1923, leaving the couple childless for the rest of their lives. Bill’s drinking continued to increase and as co-dependents are prone to do, Lois felt responsible, “I could not help feeling guilty,” she remembered.
Following the surgery Bill vowed he would stay sober for an entire year but he could only put together sixty days at best. Years of arguments, bar room fights and arrests for drunkenness followed. There were frequent separations when Lois would leave him hoping that would bring him to his senses; but, of course, it never did. His grandiosity, however, progressed right along with his alcoholism. When the market was good, he rented an additional apartment immediately next door and broke through the walls so he could have more room. He bought a Harley-Davidson and took off with Lois in a sidecar racing up and down the east coast in search of stock deals and investment opportunities he could bring back to his Wall Street backers. He desperately wanted to prove to his wife and to his friends, that he was still that Number One man. Bill later wrote, “I was drinking to dream great dreams of greater power.”
In 1929 his world crashed right along with the stock market. “Sixty thousand dollars in debt and without money or sobriety I was discredited everywhere. People knew all too well what I was becoming. Finally I slid down into a state where I was drinking…to numb the pain, to forget.” In 1930 he had an opportunity to recoup his financial losses when they moved to Montreal but by then he had begun morning drinking and he was soon fired. That same year Lois’ mother died and Bill missed the funeral. The family was supported almost entirely on Lois’ small salary from Macy’s. The next few years found him panhandling, frequently bedridden, writing scathing and often incomprehensible letters of criticism to President Roosevelt. He was reduced to stealing money from his wife’s purse to go and get drunk. Bill would go on 2 to 3 day binges, eating little or nothing, and suffered long and frightening blackouts. He showed signs of brain damage, experienced regular bouts of DT’s and was both impotent and frequently incontinent. He became cross-addicted to sedatives as he waged a losing battle with insomnia and thoughts of suicide became frequent companions whenever he stared at himself in the mirror.
During 1933 and the year following, Bill had four admissions to Town’s Hospital seeking treatment for his alcoholism. At first, Dr. William Silkworth had some hopes for Bill’s recovery. He noted that Wilson was bright and highly motivated. He remained sober five months following his first treatment. After that, the relapses came quicker.
Silkworth prepared Lois for the worst telling her of Bill’s hopeless physical allergy to alcohol coupled with his mental obsession for drink. He counseled the couple and told them what would likely become of Bill in a very short time. The good doctor had no way of knowing that Bill would soon receive a call from an old school chum that would change his life and the lives of millions of hopeless alcoholics.