Nothing changes,Thank God.early AA, at least on the West Coast, was full of raucous men and women bursting with the physical energy

Full disclosure: I grew up with a stepmom, Wynn, who had been fully prepared to marry Bill. He disengaged himself but put her "story" in the second edition of "Alcoholics Anonymous," in which the accounts of recovering alcoholics were included for the first time. She married my dad, her fifth husband, as a sort of consolation prize. Wynn was a wonderful woman, but I saw AA then from the point of view of a prissy, still-sober teenager, watching members bicker about whether taking an aspirin for a headache constituted a "slip," listening to stories of their friendships with a Personal God — "I told God to have you call me today," my stepmother would say after I moved out of the house. (And what could I possibly say? Maybe she had, and maybe He did.) But they didn't worry much about sex. ...
So I want to say for the record (and you won't find it on "Grapevine," or any other AA publication) that early AA, at least on the West Coast, was full of raucous men and women bursting with the physical energy that drying out brings. I speak now for Wynn (the Wynn I knew), who wrote "Freedom From Bondage" in the Book, and who, though she had five husbands, considered the high point of her life her amorous connection to Bill.
Wynn stood on our front steps one bright Christmas morning enthusiastically kissing a different handsome AA swain as others crowded past them, pushing inside to a party, where they would drink tomato juice and laugh like banshees, delirious with joy. They had found God (as they understood Him), and as long as they stayed away from booze and aspirin, they were okay; they were in the clear. They weren't ashamed of sex; they gloried in it.
"MY NAME IS BILL", Carolyn See, The Washington Post, February 27, 2004, page C02.

Bill Wilson just didn't want to be bothered with the hard work of resisting temptation.

Bill Wilson just didn't want to be bothered with the hard work of resisting temptation. Like so many other phony gurus, he lived a life of hypocritical irresolute self-indulgence, preaching "spirituality", "absolute purity", "rigorous honesty", and self-sacrifice to others while indulging in all of the pleasures of the flesh himself — with the sole exception that he does appear to have finally quit drinking alcohol after it nearly killed him.

"Founder's Watch" committee.

The impression that he was a ladies' man seems to have come from the way he sometimes behaved at AA gatherings. When Bill wasn't accompanied by Lois (or later, Helen), he could often be observed engaged in animated conversation with an attractive young newcomer. His interest in younger women seemed to grow more intense with age. Barry Leach, who knew Bill nearly thirty years, told me that in the 1960s he and other friends of Bill's formed what they came to refer to as the "Founder's Watch" committee. People were delegated to keep track of Bill during the socializing that usually accompanies AA functions. When they observed a certain gleam in his eye, they would tactfully steer Bill off in one direction and the dewy-eyed newcomer in another.

Bill Wilson cheated on his wife Lois with many different women, both before and after sobriety.

Bill Wilson cheated on his wife Lois with many different women, both before and after sobriety. He even cheated on her while she worked in Loesser's department store to support him. "I'm going to a meeting" was often a double-entendre when Bill Wilson said it. Bill actually invented the old A.A. tradition of Thirteenth Stepping the pretty women who come to A.A. meetings seeking help for alcoholism. (First you teach them the Twelve Steps, and then you take them to the bedroom and teach them the Thirteenth Step....)

“hot flash” experience—the event resulting from his call for help to the “Great Physician” and his vision

How many times have you heard that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is God-given, was divinely-inspired, or was accurately characterized in the article by a Chicago judge: “Why We Were Chosen?” Or that Bill Wilson was guided by God when he penned the famous “Twelve Steps?” On the other hand, how many times have you heard the expression: “A.A. is spiritual, but not religious?” Or heard that A.A. requires a belief in a “higher power?” Or heard that A.A. is about “not- god-ness?” This book doesn’t address those questions. It is not about the nature of A.A. Nor about the place of the Creator in today’s program. Nor about whether AAs are a chosen bunch. It’s an account of the many ways the Creator seems to have touched the life of Bill W. and, through him, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Did He impact Bill W.’s life and hence A.A. itself? You will meet a Bill W. you haven’t met in the dozen or so biographies of his life. You’ll look at events in Bill’s life you’ve probably never heard of— whether inside or outside of A.A. You will see how many times Bill seemingly had a conversion or religious experience, whether he called it that or not. You will see how many times religion and church and clergy impacted on Bill’s activities, whether or not he impacted on theirs. You’ll note the details about Bill’s decision for Christ at the Calvary Rescue Mission and his belief he had been born again. You will see the many examples of conversion experiences that Bill might have run across, just following his own “hot flash” experience—the event resulting from his call for help to the “Great Physician” and his vision that he had been in the presence of “the God of the preachers.” Was Bill Wilson converted? Did Bill Wilson become a born-again Christian? Did Bill Wilson truly believe in the one, true, living God? Were all of Bill’s frequent references to Almighty God a manifestation of what he really believed? God knows the answers. They’re His special province. Not mine. But you will have the opportunity to focus on a new question about the part our Creator may really have played in the life of Bill Wilson and in the worldwide Fellowship which began in Akron in 1935 and of which Bill was co-founder.

"The B. W. Movement."

In one dark moment I even considered calling the book "The B. W. Movement." I whispered these ideas to a few friends and promptly got slapped down. Then I saw the temptation for what it was, a shameless piece of egotism.
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age, William G. Wilson, (1957), pages 165-166.

Bill Wilson would like to crowd God out

Last night, Bill Van Horn & Mickey came over and got me & we picked up Bill Dotson[3], who now lives near King School, & we went out to Stow where I led the little group in a meeting — It was just like old times at T. Henry's — Every one felt they could get up and talk & you could feel that we were really gathered together in His Name & we had the real fellowship of the "Holy Spirit" that was left in the world, so we would never "be comfortless" — Bill Dotson said he had been to Albany, Georgia to speak. I told him that I had your letter & they were so glad to get news of you & spoke of you in the meeting.

I feel very sure that God has His Guiding Hand on our works, It looked for a while as if Bill Wilson would like to crowd God out but we know that it is up to us to seek more & more of God's power to help other people to know this way of Life & our fellowship. You certainly are doing your part & thank God, all those who have glimpsed the real vision are doing theirs. The joy of it is, to me, that those who have only been offered "the stone," are so eager & grab at the "bread," that we know we have to offer — as you say, it is appalling how little they have been offered by the would be "elder statesman" — but the 12 steps & the fact that, as Stanley Jones say, wherever man opens his mind to God, He reveals himself — they have helped the groping AA's — who have been denied so much of the real "bread" — & given the "stone" of Bill Wilson's designs.

But, Clarence, I have made one big whale of a surrender of Bill & his schemes — & all thought of him & the possibilities of what harm he could do just left me in the most amazing way. I don't have to try to "not think of him" again, I just don't — He is completely consigned to God by me & I know He can handle him — We will be closely knit — even with his taking the money & trying to take the book. I am sure he will need our pity & compassion because he has put himself apart from the real fellowship — more and more I see that the 16th Chapter of Luke that I read in answer to my asking to understand Bill & what he was doing, illuminated the situation — He has put himself with the "children of darkness" — he has his henchmen & ingratiates himself with those in the dark — Let us keep ourselves "children of the Light" & keep serving God, instead of "Mammon." Bill has made his choice — Read the chapter over.

I heard talk in Missouri 2 years ago about his connection with Sheen[1] but I don't imagine it is so. He imagines himself all kinds of things. His hand "writes" dictation from a Catholic priest, whose name I forget, from the 1600 period who was in Barcelona Spain — again, he told Horace Crystal[2], he was completing the work that Christ didn't finish, & according to Horace he said he was a reincarnation of Christ. Perhaps he got mixed in whose reincarnation he was. It looks more like the works of the devil but I could be wrong. I don't know what is going on in the poor deluded fellow's mind. He must be wistful. He asked Bill Dotson[3] if he knew where I was & Bill said "on Park Ave" & he said "Have you seen her"?

I learned from a Texas friend that a Chaplain in the prisons said the only way they really reached prisoners was thru Alcoholics Anonymous, even for the non alcoholic — so besides such things as that, Bill & his schemes pale into insignificance for us — I am sure. We can stand by & see him claim the "glory" if we can keep the "power" to help transform lives — Thank God, you & so many others are still doing that.

Henrietta Seiberling was the woman who introduced Bill Wilson to Dr. Robert Smith

Henrietta Seiberling was the woman who introduced Bill Wilson to Dr. Robert Smith, and was directly responsible for starting the whole Alcoholics Anonymous organization. It was Henrietta who answered the phone on that fateful evening in Akron, Ohio, in the spring of 1935, when Bill Wilson was at the Mayflower Hotel and afraid that he would relapse, so he was calling around to find another alcoholic member of the Oxford Group to talk to. Bill telephoned Rev. Walter F. Tunks, who was one of the staunchest Oxford Group members in Arkon, and Tunks referred Bill to a fellow who referred Bill to Henrietta Seiberling and Dr. Robert H. Smith, two other Oxford Group members.

Henrietta arranged an appointment for Bill to see her friend Dr. Bob the next day (because Dr. Bob was already passing-out drunk that day). Then, the next evening, Dr. Bob didn't drink while talking with Bill. Henrietta was so impressed that she arranged for Bill to stay in Akron longer and longer, just to help keep Dr. Bob sober. Bill ended up staying for all of the summer of 1935, living rent free and happily unemployed, getting free food and cigarettes and spare change from somewhere. Bill and Bob started their "Alcoholic Squad" of The Oxford Group during that time, the "anonymous bunch of alcoholics" that would eventually become Alcoholics Anonymous.

Henrietta Seiberling really loved Bill Wilson in the summer of 1935, and considered him a "God-send" for his help in sobering up Doctor Bob. So what made her hate him so much later on? Well, Henrietta says it was Bill Wilson stealing the money, and trying to steal the book. That is, stealing the Big Book publishing fund, and the copyright of the Big Book. Henrietta Seiberling isn't alone in that opinion: Doctor Bob's daughter, Sue Smith Windows, also says that Bill Wilson took the money and set up his own company, outside of the fellowship, and fraudulently copyrighted the Big Book in his own name, as the sole author, without the knowledge or permission of Doctor Bob or any of the other Akron members, and without the permission of the book's co-authors.

Bill Wilson appears to have been trapped in outer darkness from December 14, 1934, when he had his vision of God, to the very end of his life.

Now, I don't think "thrown into outer darkness" is too strong of a description of Bill's predicament. Bill Wilson appears to have been trapped in outer darkness from December 14, 1934, when he had his vision of God, to the very end of his life. Everything he wrote was insane, and he grew darker and more depressed, and more depressing to others, as he aged. Five years after he wrote the Twelve Steps, he went into a deep clinical depression that lasted for 11 years. He was so sick that all he could do was sit in his office and hold his head in his hands all day long. Lots of days, he just didn't even bother to get out of bed — he just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling all day. His ravings in his book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which he wrote in the middle of that period of depression, 13 years after the Big Book

Cigarette smoking. Bill smoked himself to death, and died of emphysema and pneumonia

After the initial rush of health that comes from quitting drinking, many people become more aware of the harm that smoking is doing to their bodies. They start to feel very depressed when they realize that they are still sick and addicted, and might die from it. But Bill wouldn't talk about that, because he was a totally addicted cigarette smoker who never quit. (Remember, we started this web page with the "spiritual" story of how Bill or one of his buddies wouldn't quit smoking.) Bill smoked himself to death, and died of emphysema and pneumonia, while telling people that smoking was okay. Bill didn't tell people to quit smoking if they felt depressed and discouraged, and wanted to feel better. He just told them to practice the Twelve Steps more. Bill was insane.


Continuing with that quote, Bill said that something bad will eventually happen in your life. I agree. It's Murphy's Law. Something bad will always happen, eventually, sooner or later. Bill said that you won't be able to handle it unless you do Bill's Twelve Steps. I disagree. There is absolutely no evidence that the Twelve Steps make you better able to handle those nasty blows and hard knocks that life can deliver, and Bill offered us no evidence of that, either.

Then, in another verbal shell game, more slick double-talk, Bill arbitrarily declared that we surely have a chance if we switch to doing all twelve of his steps, and if we also receive the grace of God. Yes, and I surely have a chance of winning the lottery, if I buy a ticket. But how much of a chance? There is not necessarily any connection between doing Bill's Twelve Steps, and receiving grace from God, but Bill deceptively linked them together in one sentence, as if he had a special exclusive wholesale distribution arrangement with God — as if God would give you His grace only if you were willing to do all twelve of Bill Wilson's Steps. What incredible arrogance. That's Bill's insane delusions of grandeur, again. That's "The patient thinks he has a special relationship with a deity", again.

And if you read those lines carefully, you will see that Bill was actually saying that the strength comes from receiving the grace of God — "that grace of God which can sustain and strengthen us in any catastrophe" — not from doing Bill's Twelve Steps, but Bill still wanted us to do all twelve of his Steps anyway.

Bill would not let even Lois, who was dying to do so, write the chapter titled "To Wives."

Bill would not let even Lois, who was dying to do so, write the chapter titled "To Wives." After all, she was the wife who had endured Bill's drunken years and the houseful of alcoholics he was trying to wrestle into sobriety. "I have never known why he didn't want me to write about the wives, and it hurt me at first," she said.
Getting Better Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, Nan Robertson, pages 70-71.

Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood:

Alexander Lowen describes the development of a narcissistic personality disorder in a way that is reminiscent of Bill Wilson's childhood:

All of us are vulnerable to being hurt, rejected, or humiliated. Yet not all of us deny our feelings, try to project an image of invulnerability and superiority or to strive for power. The difference lies in our childhood experiences. As children, narcissists suffer what analysts describe as a severe narcissistic injury, a blow to self-esteem that scars and shapes their personalities. This injury entials humiliation, specifically the experience of being powerlessness while another person enjoys the exercise of power and control over one. I don't believe that a single experience shapes character, but when a child is constantly exposed to humiliation in one form or another, the fear of humiliation becomes structured in the body and the mind. Such a person could easily vow: "When I grow up, I'll get power, and neither you nor anyone else will be able to do this to me again." Unfortunately, as we will see, such narcissistic injuries happen to many children in our society because parents often use power to control their children for their own personal ends.
Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., pages 76-77.
And Bill's completely unrealistic picture of the alcoholic's family life is explained by denial:


The narcissist faces the risk of being overwhelmed by feelings and going wild, crazy, or mad, should his defense of denial break down. This is especially true of anger. Every narcissist is afraid of going crazy, because the potential for insanity is in his personality. This fear reinforces the denial of feeling, creating a vicious circle.
Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., page 155.
That also explains Bill's strange attitude about anger. Bill insisted that you couldn't be angry at all — no matter what the reason — that it was very "unspiritual" to be angry about anything:


It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us in A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William Wilson, page 90.
And Dr. Lowen explained the suppressed anger this way:


The need to project and maintain an image forces the person to prevent any feeling from reaching consciousness that would conflict with the image.
Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., page 48.
That also gives us one cause for Bill Wilson's chronic, crippling, and long-lasting fits of depression:


Suppressed anger is a leading cause of depression.
Anger, Controlling the Fireworks, www.baptisteast.com/ANG001.htm
And another cause for the depression is that narcissists tend become depressed whenever someone contradicts their grandiose delusions. Bill certainly had enough to be depressed over. He could see with his own eyes that his so-called "spiritual program for recovery" had almost a 100% failure rate.


Narcissistic need is tremendous. Just as sharks must continually swim to keep from drowning, Narcissists must constantly demonstrate that they are special, or they will sink like stones to the depths of depression.
Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D., page 130.

Unless the subject of the conversation is how great they are, Narcissistic vampires will become visibly bored. One of the main reasons Narcissists wear expensive watches is so they can look at them when someone else is talking.
Besides boredom, Narcissistic vampires have only two other emotional states. They're either on top of the world or on the bottom of the garbage heap. The slightest frustration can burst their balloon and send them crashing to the depths.
Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D., page 136.

Bill having a nasty problem with delusions of grandeur. Bill Wilson's life in the period of 1930 to 1934 was like this:

His hangovers and hallucinations were becoming more frequent. He panhandled and stole from his wife's purse. He would ride the subways for hours after buying a bottle of bootleg gin, talking gibberish to frightened strangers. He threw a sewing machine at Lois and stormed around their house in Brooklyn kicking out door panels. She called him a "drunken sot." He would be sober for days and weeks and then settle into bottomless bingeing. He barely ate. He was forty pounds underweight. His dark, withdrawn periods alternated with delusions of grandeur. Once he told Lois that "men of genius" conceived their best projects when drunk.
Getting Better Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, Nan Robertson, pages 42-43.
Nan Robertson implied that Bill Wilson's delusions of grandeur disappeared after he quit drinking, but Bill's writings do not show that. Neither does the rest of the literature about Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Big Book clearly shows that Bill Wilson was insane

The Big Book clearly shows that Bill Wilson was insane. Not just a little bit crazy, not funny crazy, but really crazy, genuinely insane, clinically diagnosable. Mr. Wilson was suffering from paranoid delusions of grandeur and a messianic complex, or a narcissistic personality disorder — or perhaps some crazy combination of all of them.

Wilson was insane while he was drinking: he was suicidally drinking immense, almost superhuman, quantities of cheap rotgut whiskey or gin, one or two or even more fifths of it per day — "Drinking to Die" is what A.A. calls it. In the Big Book, (chapter 1, page 5, 3rd edition) either Bill Wilson or Joe Worth wrote in Bill's Story:
"'Bathtub' gin, two bottles a day, and often three, got to be routine."


The Prohibition-era "Bathtub gin" was infamous for being poisonous. It was occasionally contaminated with methyl alcohol ("wood alcohol"), which is terribly poisonous, and causes immense neural damage, if not blindness and death.

Even ordinary uncontaminated ethyl alcohol kills brain cells. Every big drunk where you wake up with a hang-over kills roughly 100,000 brain cells. Then malnutrition and thiamine deficiency can lead to a horrifying condition called Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome where you suffer such massive brain damage that you lose your short-term memory and ability to learn or remember anything new.

The A.A. saying is, "John Barleycorn promises us insanity or death." And it's true.

Even Bill Wilson himself reported that problem. Bill recorded a set of autobiographical tapes before his death, which the Hazelden Foundation then used as source material to write an "autobiography" of Bill Wilson. Bill quoted Dr. William D. Silkworth as saying, in midsummer 1934, that he had originally had some hope for Bill, but...


"But his habit of drinking has now turned into an obsession, one much too deep to be overcome, and the physical effect of it on him has also been very severe, for he's showing some signs of brain damage. This is true even though he hasn't been hospitalized very much. Actually I'm fearful for his sanity if he goes on drinking."
Bill W., My First 40 Years, Bill W., page 116.

Bill Wilson felt entitled to quite a number of mistresses over the years, and even gave ten percent of Lois Wilson's inheritance to his favorite one,

(Well, unless that part about us good old boys being able to indulge in anything we want includes the right to bed the entire Swedish bikini ski team... Maybe it is divine wisdom.)
{And that joke isn't so far off: Bill Wilson felt entitled to quite a number of mistresses over the years, and even gave ten percent of Lois Wilson's inheritance to his favorite one, Helen Wynn, after Lois spent so many years working to support Bill while all that he did was steal more money out of her purse to go buy more booze.}

Bill Wilson died January 24, 1971, of emphysema and pneumonia.

And Bill W. did eventually die from that "okay" vice — from emphysema and pneumonia — desperately, futilely gasping for another breath from an oxygen mask. He didn't quit smoking until it was far too late for him, and tobacco had destroyed his lungs.
Score another victory for the Addiction Monster.

Francis Hartigan, Lois Wilson's private secretary, wrote:


By the time Ebby Thacher died in 1966, a victim of emphysema, Bill had been trying to quit smoking for more than twenty years. He'd also known since the early sixties that he had emphysema himself. Smoking had begun to impair his health in the 1940s, in the form of frequent colds and chronic bronchitis, and his breathing was noticeably labored from the mid-1960s onward. Yet even when his breathing became so problematic that he needed frequent doses of oxygen to get through the day, he smoked.
A number of visitors to Stepping Stones during Bill's last years report witnessing scenes in which Bill would be trying to decide whether to have more oxygen or another cigarette. Inevitably, the cigarette won out. Bill was thought to have finally quit smoking early in 1969, by which time his bouts with bronchitis had become struggles with pneumonia, but several people confirm that he was still smoking even after most everyone thought he had quit. He hid cigarettes in his car, and for as long as he was still well enough to drive, he smoked.
It seems beyond comprehension, but the evidence is inescapable. ... [Bill Wilson] literally smoked himself to death.
Bill W., A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Co-Founder Bill Wilson, Francis Hartigan, page 208.
Bill Wilson didn't bother to print a retraction, to warn his fellow A.A. members about tobacco, when he found out that he was dying. Bill was far too egotistical to admit that he had been wrong.

Bill Wilson died January 24, 1971, of emphysema and pneumonia.

In addition, there is now a lot of evidence that smoking makes all cancers worse, even if tobacco didn't cause the cancer in the first place. Tobacco smoke contains something like 50 different carcinogenic chemicals, and just the restriction of blood flow in the capillaries that tobacco causes makes it harder for the body to get blood with white blood cells and antibodies to the cancer, to attack and kill the cancer. Tobacco also cripples the immune system, which would also like to kill the cancer.

Doctor Bob died of prostate cancer, while puffing on those cigarettes to the bitter end.

Score another victory for the Addiction Monster.

"anonymous" author Bill Wilson labels her "intolerant" because she "really feels there is something rather sinful about these commodities."

The man is addicted to tobacco, and is smoking himself to death. His concerned wife is trying to save him from emphysema and lung cancer, but the "anonymous" author Bill Wilson labels her "intolerant" because she "really feels there is something rather sinful about these commodities."

Notice how the author Bill Wilson grouped coffee and tobacco in the same category, as mere "commodities", so that the wife would appear more intolerant. Bill also refused to look at the numerous health aspects of smoking, or the stink, or the second-hand smoke, or the expense; he only said that she feels that "these commodities" are "rather sinful." Bill implied that the housewife was just an intolerant uptight killjoy Puritanical nag.

Notice the powerful hidden assumption in this sentence: "He admitted he was overdoing these things, but frankly said that he was not ready to stop."


Oh? Somebody can continue doing whatever he is doing just because he frankly says that he isn't ready to stop?

When was the last time that you heard an A.A. recruiter accept that as a valid excuse for someone to continue drinking alcohol?

Francis Hartigan, the former secretary and confidant to Wilson's wife, Lois, has exhaustively researched his subject,

When Bill Wilson, with his friend Dr. Bob Smith, founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, his hope was that AA would become a safe haven for those who suffered from this disease. Thirty years after his death, AA continues to help millions of alcoholics recover from what had been commonly regarded as a hopeless addiction. Still, while Wilson was a visionary for millions, he was no saint. After cofounding Alcoholics Anonymous, he stayed sober for over thirty-five years, helping countless thousands rebuild their lives. But at the same time, Wilson suffered form debilitating bouts of clinical depression, was a womanizer, and experimented with LSD.

Francis Hartigan, the former secretary and confidant to Wilson's wife, Lois, has exhaustively researched his subject, writing with a complete insider's knowledge. Drawing on extensive interviews with Lois Wilson and scores of early members of AA, he fully explores Wilson's organizational genius, his devotion to the cause, and almost martyr-like selflessness. That Wilson, like all of us, had to struggle with his own personal demons makes this biography all the more moving and inspirational. Hartigan reveals the story of Wilson's life to be as humorous, horrific, and powerful as any of the AA vignettes told daily around the world.

wives were called in Japan? The Chrysanthemums. Wives were invited to open meetings - well, not invited, but tolerated, and they definitely did parti

wives were called in Japan? The Chrysanthemums. Wives were invited to open meetings - well, not invited, but tolerated, and they definitely did participate!

Dr. Bob, as a doctor, believed in being cautious and advising people how to evaluate ideas and solutions

Dr. Bob, as a doctor, believed in being cautious and advising people how to evaluate ideas and solutions, to weigh them carefully - have everyone in agreement before taking action. Bill believed in putting the goal forward and aiming for it. No matter who liked it or who didn't like it: aim for that goal. Bill always thought way ahead. Dr. Bob was the monitor, evaluator, the ground level, the supporter of Bill's ideas, even perhaps not always agreeing with the timing of an idea. Another miracle! A perfect match! A wonderful partnership, indeed. Yes, Dr. Bob was the right person to balance Bill. His view was, Keep it simple. Bill had vision; that was one of his gifts - he could see the road ahead.

James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" was very meaningful to him, as it was to many AAs both in those early years and since.

I always think how Bill was so much like the philosopher and writer William James. Both Bill and James were spiritual, though not necessarily deeply religious; they were also both pragmatic New Englanders. Bill had a way of talking about a deep faith inside himself the way James did. Bill liked to read about different interpretations of what God was like. He was very philosophical, and James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" was very meaningful to him, as it was to many AAs both in those early years and since.