History of Alcoholics Anonymous - 1934 Bill Wilson Sober

1934 Bill Wilson Sober

Bill Wilson was an alcoholic who had ruined a promising career on Wall Street by his drinking. He also failed to graduate from law school because he was too drunk to pick up his diploma. His drinking damaged his marriage, and he was hospitalized for alcoholism at Towns Hospital four times in 1933-1934 under the care of Dr. William Silkworth. On Wilson's first stay at Towns Hospital, Dr. Silkworth explained to him his theory that alcoholism is an illness rather than a moral failure or failure of willpower. Silkworth believed that alcoholics were suffering from a mental obsession, combined with an allergy that made compulsive drinking inevitable, and to break the cycle one had to completely abstain from alcohol use. Wilson was elated to find that he suffered from an illness, and he managed to stay off alcohol for a month before he resumed drinking.

When Ebby Thacher visited Wilson at his New York apartment and told him "he had got religion," Wilson's heart sank. Until then, Wilson had struggled with the existence of God, but of his meeting with Thacher he wrote: "My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, 'Why don't you choose your own conception of God?' That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last." When Thacher left, Wilson continued to drink. Thacher returned a few days later bringing with him Shep Cornell, another Oxford member who was aggressive in his tactics of promoting the Oxford Program, but despite their efforts Wilson continued to drink.

The next morning Wilson arrived at Calvary Rescue Mission in a drunken state looking for Thacher. Once there, he attended his first Oxford Group meeting, where he answered the call to come to the altar and, along with other penitents, gave his life to Christ. Wilson excitedly told his wife Lois about his spiritual progress, yet the next day he drank again and a few days later readmitted himself to Towns Hospital for the fourth and last time. While at Towns Hospital under Silkworth's care, Wilson was administered a drug cure concocted by Charles B. Towns. Known as the Belladonna Cure, it contained the deliriants Belladonna and Hyoscyamus niger, which cause hallucinations. It was while undergoing this treatment that Wilson experienced his "Hot Flash" spiritual conversion. While lying in bed depressed and despairing, Wilson 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. Wilson described his experience to Dr. Silkworth, who told him not to discount it.

Thacher visited Wilson at Towns Hospital and introduced him to the basic tenets of the Oxford Group and to the book Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), by American psychologist and philosopher William James. Upon reading the book, Wilson was later to state that the phrase "deflation at depth" leapt out at him from the page of James's book; however, this phrase does not appear in the book. It was James's theory that spiritual transformations come from calamities, and their source lies in pain and hopelessness. James's belief concerning alcoholism was that the cure for dipsomania was religiomania. Upon his release from the hospital on December 18, 1934, Wilson moved from the Calvary Rescue Mission to the Oxford meetings at Calvary House. There Wilson socialized after the meetings with other ex-drinking Oxfords and became interested in learning how to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. It was during this time that Wilson went on a crusade to save alcoholics. Sources for his prospects were the Calvary Rescue Mission and Towns Hospital. But of all the alcoholics Wilson tried to help, not one stayed sober.