sparklinbluz

I am just curious how other people feel about the co founder of AA Mr Bill Wilson. I have been doing some research and although I know AA has helped many people what I am reading disturbs me. I have read in the forum about him being a cheater, lier, philanderer but yet the "big book" that he wrote is looked at like the bible. They go over it in AA like a bible study and believe it as so. Do people at AA really know about his narcissistic personality and what that disorder is all about. I hate to say it but all cult leaders suffer from this. The part about "wives" he didnt even let his wife Lois write because he didnt think she was capable of getting it right. Who better to write this than a woman who put up with his drunkness. He wrote what he wanted everyone to hear and what they hear to me is unreal. This is scary to me there is much more but I will stop here. I would put this up to bologna if there wasnt footnotes from the books he has written along with books written by people that knew him including Lois herself.

Pelican

I never met Bill Wilson, but I have met recovering alcoholics that have benefited from the program he helped create.

There are many programs for helping alcoholics get sober and begin their recovery.

Which one do you prefer?

alanonicnov2008

Yeah he was probably a jerk, and there are plenty of jerks in AA. People are people. As they say "Take what you like and leave the rest". It doesn't mean the whole program is wrong.

Didn't he have help from Dr. Bob on The Big Book? And much of The Big Book is personal stories...it's a simple program. Nothing brilliant. It just works. So be it.

sparklinbluz

Maybe I will stick to this forum and individual counseling to help me heal from my recent breakup from a 8yr relationship w/a A - I was thinking of going to a alanon meeting - maybe I will give it a try with a open mind. See if it is for me I am not sure if I like the fact that you can talk and noone says anything I have been to group therapy and it wasnt like that and I did grow from that. Does alanon have a big book too? If so did Bill write it?

CAPTAINZING2000

Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
Peter denied Christ (3 times!)
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
Mary Magdalene was promiscuous
the Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once...
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer....



Last perfect man they say, was hung on a cross.

KeepPedaling

That's a big long list of men.

barb dwyer

I think that we as a collective or a culture or whatever

stop expecting those who a Power Greater Than Ourselves uses
to bring beauty into this world

to also be saints.

Caravaggio was by far
the unsurpasses MASTER at capturing 'true light' in his paintings.
His ability surpassed teven Monet in that regard.

Caravaggio ... was banned from three countries
and killed a man over a new invention called an umbrella.
he used it to beat the guy to death.

But TO THIS DAY
no artist has been able to match him for perfect light.

Van Gough ate his own paint
Salvador Dali kicked his brother down the cement stairs nearly killing him
just to watch the pattern as he fell.

See what I mean?

Probably a more electrifying performer never existed than Michael jackson
and just look how horrifying his life was.

The very same pencil
that writes scripture
can be used to write obscenity.

it's just the pencil.

And that's how I look at all this stuff.

coffeedrinker

if i were to tell someone that this is how i think people should conduct themselves in life:

*always try and be honest; when you have hurt someone you apologize for it and try and change in the future.
*get outside of yourself, be humble, and believe that a force, or power, that is larger and greater than yourself has more wisdom than you do
*be reflective, try and get in touch with that power, that wisdom, and discover what about yourself holds you back from reaching your potential
*surround yourself with other positive, like-minded and good people
*reach out to others when possible, "witness" to them by your actions

i can't think that anyone would say "that's rubbish".

but if we say AA, people can bristle. there are pre-concieved notions, it's a cult, people that are in it are a little over-the-top.

but it's just good rules of the road, an action plan for living a full and honest life.

i hope you can get past your bias, and give things a good try. it just might change your life.

SoloMio

God uses people to do his work, and he doesn't necessary conduct a character analysis to screen people out. It might be partly BECAUSE Bill W. was a narcissist, philanderer, liar, etc etc that he was ultimately able to form this group that has helped millions of people out. Redemption takes many forms, and sometimes it can be one glimmer in a sea of scum that brings salvation.

CAPTAINZING2000

I've even questioned his sobriety date. LSD was one of my favorite drugs. Not sure, I could be taking acid today and call my self clean and sober.

littlefish

Well here is my two cents:
Character assassination has infiltrated US politics to the point where we are now electing officials on the basis of their moral conduct and personal lives.

I don't agree with that. Clinton was a woman chaser but he kept us out of wars and brought the US economy to better fiscal health and wealth than many of the presidents before him. I don't see where his passion for women affected his performance as a president.


I feel the same way about Bill W. I have heard the rumors too.

As a member of AA no we don't have the wool pulled over our eyes and these kinds of reports about Bill W are nothing new to hear. BTW. no, the meetings are not conducted like bible studies: (just for your information).

As far as the "To the wives" chapter, try to see it in the context of the time it was written. Before legalized birth control, when divorce was a taboo....long, long before the women's liberation movement. The BB was written over 70 years ago: the writing style and some of the social norms are very different from today, but the message is the same and crystal clear.

What many of us do in AA meetings when we discuss the wives chapter: we simply replace the word wives with "partner". It works. It is all about partners anyway. The Big Book was written when the heterosexual relationship was the most common, now it is very different in AA.

I hope you consider too that attacks on Bill W's personage are usually covert attacks on AA in general and an effort to discredit the fellowship.

Freedom1990

How many AA meetings have you attended, out of curiosity?

I understand where you are coming from. Anger is a secondary emotion for me, that is, usually underneath the anger is either fear, pain, or both.

It's easier to feel that anger than to deal with the primary emotion.

A few months ago I let loose with my 21 year old daughter over the phone, while she was up in New York with her BF to attend the funeral of a 32 year old friend of his.

I said some very harsh, hurtful things, and I had consequences to deal with after that, including feeling like a pile of crap, hurting my daughter, and putting a wedge in our relationship.

The reality was, I wasn't angry with her, or even angry with him, as I was trying so hard to believe.

I had a tremendous amount of fear for her. But, I ran with the anger that surfaced a few seconds after I felt the fear, and vomited verbally all over my daughter on the phone.

I sincerely hope you are able to find healing in your journey. No one goes unscathed from the alcoholism of a loved one.

:ghug3

NoelleR

Let's remember folks that it's THE MESSAGE (not the Bible translation, but the AA message...LOL) and NOT the messenger.....


... 'n P.S. just in jest, mind you....in the last sentence, it should be...: The last perfect man they say, was hanged on a cross. ---pictures are hung; people are hanged.....

'n regarding Mary Magdalene, even the Catholic church, as a last hold-out, has finally (1963, I believe) admitted that she was NOT promiscuous and NOT a prostitute; these were just lies and rumors, spread by men, in the early church because women were seen as gaining too much power.

I'm an AA'er, but I certainly don't take the BB as holy writ. I've been to Bible studies, and I've been to BB studies, and the BB studies I've been to were nothing like Bible studies. Regarding the chapter To The Wives.....rememjber it's not titled For Us Wives or even For the Wives.....who better to suggest how an alcoholic spouse may need to be treated during his/her active addiction, and into the beginning of his/her recovery, but another alcoholic.....that's always seemed logical to me.....Al Anon got their book later. I never could figure why that chapter was even included; remember the BB was written by recovered alcoholics, for alcoholics, to show them that recovery was possible.....and here's a solution that worked for them


P.P.S. While I'm here I figure I might as well ask this question that's been rollin' 'round my brain for the past week or so. I 'know' that Bill W. was a narcissist and a liar; I've seen evidence, but was he really a philanderer (not also a cheater, as philanderer is just another name for a cheater).....? I've heard the rumors; I've read the gossip, even the biographies, but when it comes to his 'cheatin' ways, it all seems to be second- and third-hand (or more like--so-'n-so said....gossip and rumprs). I believe he was definitely a jerk, and probably a philanderer, but does anyone here know where to find evidence of this.......? ---THX


NoelleR

CAPTAINZING2000

There was his long time affair with Helen Wyn who received a 10% of royalties from his books etc. Biography of Bill Wilson | Bill includes Helen Wynn in his estate | Event view

getr345

I don't think it matters so much how he may or may not have lived his personal life what matters is how his vision for AA literally changed the lives of millions of people, any bad he may have done has been FAR outweighed by the good his legacy has provided, how many people can say that? What I personally find most fascinating (interesting/ironic) about Bill W is the fact that he got sober but actually died from addiction to smoking cigarettes, which to this day is welcomed in AA like some perfectly acceptable addiction that really need not be addressed like all the others in the life of the addict, I think this is a mistake, and a paradigm that someday will change and when it does people in recovery circles will look back in disbelief that smoking was not only accepted but actually PROMOTED in recovery, treatment, AA, whatever...

Freedom1990

And your point would be what?

I think it's already been established that he was far from a saint.

CAPTAINZING2000

It was in reference to NoelleR


No one got into AA on a winning streak and very few of us become saints after being in AA. We're human and prone to make mistakes.

freya

How I feel is that, insofar as its affecting my personal choices and my overall respect for and gratitude to Bill W. for his contributions to humankind, it is none of my business who Bill W. slept with or how Lois W. chose to handle that, and it is most certainly not at all relevant to any analysis of the path to recovery outlined in the 12 Steps.

From Chapter 5 of Alcoholics Anonymous (1st Edition):

"No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints..........We claim spiritual progress rather then spiritual perfection." (emphasis added)

I guess I'm not seeing what's so hard to accept or to understand about that (unless, maybe, if one happens to know a lot of perfect people -- or perhaps to be one oneself)......or why I would expect it to be true of everyone in the world except for Bill W.

As far as I know, Bill W. never held himself out as an exception to those statements.

So far (that'd be 50 years) I have yet to encounter a perfect human being.

My opinion is that it would be, therefore, both extremely stupid and astonishingly petty of me to expect perfection of any human being or for me to use imperfection as an excuse to dismiss the good that any individual has to offer.

Furthermore, the attempt to discredit someone's position or ideals on the basis that that person him/herself fails to live up to them is a logical fallacy (specifically the Ad Hominen Fallacy) which only intellectually dishonest thinkers try to get away with using deliberately and for which only lazy, sloppy thinkers fall.....I strive to be a very careful, honest and rigorous thinker, so, hopefully, I won't be going there.

I think that everyone -- including me and you -- has biases and less-than-thoroughly-enlightened attitudes and behaviors related to the era and culture in which we live. Again, I have no good reason to assume that Bill W. was an exception to that rule. Thus, I am not particularly shocked by and find myself unable to get too worked up over the obviously-tinged-by-misogyny elements of early program (both AA and Al Anon) literature (...although I will admit that I do amke some effort to avoid those particular pieces if I am PMSing or in a similarly "b*tchy state!!)

I think that it is extremely problematic the way that our culture (talking Western, primarily Judeo-Christian culture here) separates sexual morality from all other "moralities" and judges sexual failings -- or even supposed sexual "failings" -- so much more harshly and hysterically than it judges most others.

I guess that about covers it for me.

freya

freya

The supposed Al Anon "equivalent" of the Big Book is How Al Anon Works (and, no, Bill did not write it! LOL).....personally I think Paths to Recovery is better. (Bill didn't write that one either; actually, it's rumored to have been written primarily by Mary Pearl of North Little Rock, AR -- who is a self-described Big Book Black Belt Al Anon and, thus, a thorn in the side of Conference Approved Literature Control Freaks.) Also, given what you've written on this thread, if you are looking for a daily reader, my guess is that you'd be best avoiding One Day At A Time and maybe starting out wth Courage to Change....or, if you have alcoholism in your family of origin, Hope for Today.

freya

freya

This is just a totally amazing, startlingly beautiful, incredibly wise post!

Just thought it deserved more than a click on the "Thanks" button...Thanks so much, SoloMio!

freya