BEDFORD HILLS, N.Y. -- At least once a year, Bill T. gathers up a few of his fellow Alcoholics Anonymous members and makes a pilgrimage from Florida to honor those who saved him from a life of drunkenness.
The 56-year-old stopped drinking in 1990 and he likes to visit the former home of the co-founder of AA, Bill Wilson, and his wife, Lois.
"I like to come up here because it carries the message," Bill T. said during a visit in July to the brown-shingled Dutch colonial. "There's a connectedness."
Bill T. can sit at the kitchen table where in 1934 Wilson sat and drank gin with pineapple juice as a newly sober friend sparked his quest for a way out of alcoholism.
He can see the desk, marred by cigarette burns, where Wilson later wrote "Alcoholics Anonymous," better known as "The Big Book," and set out the 12 steps and other principles that have helped millions.
AA is an informal society of recovering alcoholics who help one another stay sober by following a 12-step, spiritual approach. An estimated 2 million members attend community meetings where they share their personal problems and triumphs.
Many visitors are AA members, who use their first name and last initial in public to preserve their anonymity. For many, the Wilsons were miracle workers, and visiting their home, called Stepping Stones, is tremendously moving.
"If you're sober in AA, you have this second life you never thought you'd have. It's very moving to see the books and the people and the things of interest that went into making Bill and Lois who they were," said Tim H., 62. "It's like learning about your Dad when he was a boy."
Bill Wilson died in 1971 and Lois Wilson _ who founded Al-Anon, the organization for alcoholics' relatives _ set up the Stepping Stones Foundation in 1979. She died in 1988, and the house is maintained to look like it did when she and her husband lived in it. >>. Read Complete Article
Source : www.washingtonpost.com
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DIARY OF A PSYCHOPATH
The Other Women
by A. Orange
Bill and Lois in Paris, in 1950.
(That is the woman whom Bill ignored because she was too much "like a mother".)
Bill Wilson taught that he was "powerless" over every urge or craving he ever had, no matter whether it was a thirst for alcohol, cravings for cigarettes, greed for money, the desire for self-aggrandizement, the temptation to lie, or the urge to cheat on his wife Lois by having sex with all of the pretty young women who came to the meetings. That's an interesting excuse for cheating on your wife, one of the more novel ones, but it doesn't wash.
Notice how such an "Admission of Powerlessness" is really just a veiled excuse to continue such behavior: "I can't quit jumping on all of the pretty young women at the meetings, because I'm powerless over my sexual urges. So I guess I'm doomed; I'll just have to keep on enjoying all of the cute young babes because I don't have any control over the situation..."
Bill Wilson was habitually unfaithful to the wife who was supporting him, both before and after sobriety. Bill was such an outrageous philanderer that the other elder A.A. members had to form a "Founder's Watch Committee", whose job it was to follow Bill Wilson around, and watch him, and break up budding sexual relationships with the pretty young things before he publicly embarrassed A.A. yet again.1
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 W., A Biography of Alcoholics Anonymous Co-Founder Bill Wilson, Francis Hartigan, 2000, page 192.
Susan Cheever reported the same thing in her biography of Bill Wilson, although she tried hard to downplay its importance, using standard stereotypical alcoholic Minimization and Denial to claim that it didn't matter much and wasn't any big deal:
Many people in A.A. worried that Bill Wilson's sexual behavior would be discovered and reflect badly on the movement. Whether or not they were necessary, self-appointed "Bill watchers" usually stayed close to him at meetings and conferences to prevent him from interacting with attractive newcomers in a way that might appear unseemly.
My Name Is Bill; Bill Wilson -- His Life And The Creation Of Alcoholics Anonymous, Susan Cheever, page 225.
What kind of a healer or leader is that? You have to follow him around and watch him, to prevent him from sexually exploiting the newcomers?
Also notice how Susan Cheever totally ignored and avoided the important issue of the harm done to the women alcoholics who got used by Bill for his sex games and self-aggrandizement. Susan Cheever wouldn't touch that issue; she only wrote about how some silly worry-warts unnecessarily fretted over Bill's behavior, worrying that it might "reflect badly on the movement", and "might appear unseemly". Susan Cheever writes as if the women in recovery didn't matter and didn't have any feelings worth worrying about, and their recovery, their health, and their continued sobriety was of no consequence, not even worth mentioning. The women whom Bill Wilson used and exploited were treated like irrelevant objects both in Bill's sex games and in Susan Cheever's mind.
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.
So just how was Bill's behavior an example of a life "lived on a spiritual basis"? Besides the fact that he hypocritically yammered the words "God" and "working selflessly" all of the time, and held séances and played with Ouija boards, just what was "spiritual" about William G. Wilson?
(HINT: "spiritual" and "superstitious" are not synonyms.)
PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY
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