The man known as Bill W. As a young artillery officer in the Vermont National Guard, he developed an obsession with alcohol, and eventually found a cure for his excruciating shyness: “I had found the elixir of life,” he later wrote.
His initial joy quickly turned to an uncontrollable obsession, and after marrying, serving in World War I, and attending law school (where he was too drunk to graduate and thus failed to receive his diploma), he enjoyed moderate success as a stockbroker, but was periodically hospitalized for alcoholism. Eventually, fears of professional ruin and impending death motivated him to make short-term commitments to sobriety, but always ended in relapse.
Sometime in 1935, Bill had a bad business trip to Akron and felt the urge to head straight to the hotel bar. Desperate to get sober, Bill thought his only hope was to talk to other alcoholics. A call to a local church put him in touch with a surgeon and fellow drunkard remembered today as Dr. Bob. The two met and quickly formed a friendship that led to both of them getting sober.
This simple process of helping yourself by helping others became the template for Alcoholics Anonymous: a grassroots, free, decentralized fellowship that doesn’t demonize alcohol and keeps a sincere desire to stop drinking as the only requirement for membership.
Nearly 90 years later, millions of alcoholics around the world have found the key to recovery and a deep, abiding source of peace in the clear, unwavering principles of AA. As Bill W. himself said:
“Now my brain is no longer driven by impulses of euphoria, grandiosity or depression. It has been given a quiet place in bright sunlight.”
