Bill Wilson, AA Pioneer and controversy
 

At the risk of raising a controversial subject I just wanted to point to something that I find interesting. A very reputable organization called "The World Science Festival" has put out many videos featuring some of the most preeminent scientists of our time. I would highly recommend their videos on you tube.

Recently they put out a number of brief videos relating to psychedelic drugs. There will be a longer video coming out on Friday that looks quite interesting.

Some folks with an interest in AA history may be aware of Bill Wilson's collaboration with researchers trying to help alcoholics through their study of LSD in the late 1950,s and early 1960's. Bill took LSD himself as part of this research. He did this long before the drug became part of the counter culture of the 1960's. He subsequently suffered a great deal of criticism for this. My belief is that much of this criticism is the result of 2020 hindsight seen through the lens the cultural revolution of the 60's. I believe Bill was a genuine pioneer and was seeking to find anything that might help the suffering alcoholic, even those who could not, or would not benefit by use of the 12 steps.

Well, there is some recent research that shows he may have been partially correct. There will be a video coming out on Friday through "The World Science Festival" site on YouTube that will touch on some aspects of this recent research regarding addiction.
Those with an interest in the subject may find it quite interesting.

haven’t watched any videos but have heard a couple of hour-long podcasts on our public broadcaster on the renewed interest and research into use of psychedelic drugs for purpose of achieving sobriety.
interesting scientifically, but listening to it i did have this reaction of “yeah right, let’s use one drug to stop another and use “high”to fix “drunk”and.....”

there were times before i got sober that i wasnt drinking. during those times i wasnt drinking i was smokin pot daily. i was still using a substance that masked the underlying issues.
ill check out these videos,though. they should be interesting.

This article was published this year, following a survey:

Naturally occurring and psychedelic drug–occasioned experiences interpreted as personal encounters with God are well described but have not been systematically compared. In this study, five groups of individuals participated in an online survey with detailed questions characterizing the subjective phenomena, interpretation, and persisting changes attributed to their single most memorable God encounter experience.

I find the conclusion interesting. But the problem I see, is that people who suffered adverse side effects, would be unlikely to note and respond to the survey, given the places of recruitment. And there are many puplished reports of adverse side effects.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...1-27888b4f1734

I agree that there are lots of problems with the idea that a "recreational" drug (a hallucinogen) can help alcoholism. On the other hand there is a renewed interest and research in this area so I'm withholding judgement until I see the results of the studies. My guess is that eventually only a very specific type of alcoholic and/or drug user will be found to be appropriate for this sort of intervention. But until I know more I'm going to try to keep an open mind.

Yes, Awuh, I’ll watch the World Science video, tomorrow, with an open mind, thank you for flagging it.

It’s not that long ago, that electricity, planes flying, FaceTiming, would’ve been considered utter, impossible, madness. So who knows what science can present us with next? An end to addiction, would be fabulous.

The video was a reasonably good discussion of some of the recent research on hallucinogens. Interesting that the supervised use of LSD with people suffering from alcohol abuse was found to be "associated with a decrease in alcohol misuse" (to use the words of the 2012 meta analysis abstract). Exactly what that means is important. IMO it's highly doubtful it will work as well as the AA program but it seems to me that Bill was on the right track when he participated in these very early studies. There might be a small subgroup for whom this approach might be useful.

Perhaps one day Bills association with this research will not be viewed as a stain on AA's founder, but rather as the work of a pioneer willing to go to "any lengths for victory over alcohol".

AA as an organization might begin to acknowledge this by releasing the full copy of the second letter from Bill Wilson to Carl Jung (in which Bill mentions LSD). A full copy of this second letter has never been released to the public.

Bill was seeking the truth when he got involved in this early research. It's time for AA's central office to let us know Bills full thoughts on the subject, at least as far as he disclosed them to Carl Jung. It's time for AA itself to walk the talk. Please join me in asking the AA central office in New York to release a full copy of the second letter from Bill Wilson to Carl Jung. They have it in their archives.

Hiding information about Bills activities seems inappropriate. Perhaps we should remind the AA leadership:

We are only as sick as our secrets.

we are not saints

Interesting. There's a quote in an AA room which I used to attend from Bill W saying that AA should evolve and move with the times. Ironically, some that attend that meeting are very closed-minded and resistant to change and some are outright dry drunks. They have sobriety only in the sense that they have abstinence from alcohol. I want more than that. I want an enjoyable life, not one that replaces one form of bondage with another.

I recall reading, perhaps in the articles found on this site, of the work of New Zealand professor of psychiatry Duog Selman and his team of researchers. They peer reviewed the LSD research involving Bill and concluded that there was evidence that a single dose may have been helpful after all, stating also that more research was required.

From the Susan Cheever book, "My name is Bill"

LSD was new and legal at the time Bill took it..

Bill reason for dropping acid may have had more to do with finding a way to quit smoking then helping another alcoholic.

Initially Bill loved acid and recommended everyone take it.

There were grumblings from others within AA but Bills felt since he'd he'd stepped down from his leadership role he was entitled to live life the way a normal person wanted.

Timothy Leary initially approached Bill asking to be included in Bills acid experiments. Leary had already experimented with acid at Harvard University but with disastrous results.

By the end of 1959 Bill had stopped extorting friends to take acid and ended his own experiments.

Those close to Bill made a god of AA. After all, it had saved their lives and they sometimes made a god of Bill.

After a while because Bill was not a god, or even a saint, but a human being with his own struggles, these men became disappointed. Then they became furious. Beginning with Hank Parkhurst's defection and continuing with Clarence Snyder of the Cleveland Ohio group who had angrily asked for a financial accounting.

Bill Wilson's career is characterized by the fury and sense of betrayal of many of the men who worked with him.


Susan Cheever book My Name is Bill
pg. 244

Early on I thought Bill was a saint in chapter 2 of his life. Later I came to understand he is just a man like the rest of us. Back in the day they experimented on everything. Can I judge yesterday from today?

That said, should we try those drugs just because he and others did back in the day? Isn't that a cop out of clean and sober living. It is to me. Maybe I'm just been sober awhile and worked for it. Why cheapen living life on life's terms.

IMO putting Bill or Dr. Bob up as some sort of sacred saintly person is a mistake. I'm sure they both had plenty of flaws and they knew it. All one needs to do is read Bill's introduction to As Bill Sees It he notes that:

"Of course all this material reflects my personal viewpoint on AA's way of life. As such it is bound to have its limitations and imperfections"

The program is not the person. The program of AA stands on it's merits not on the personality of it's founders.

Very well said AAPJ

My reading has never suggested that to be the case. Do you have a reference for this Ken?

Yes, as I understand it, Bill did not respond to Leary at all.

My impression is that he took it even in the very early 1960's but never after it had become illegal.

No, of course not. My reason for starting the discussion is only to put some events of AA's history into a context in the light the current research.

I would be quite interested in reading the original research of Abram Hoffer and Humphrey Osmond if anyone knows where to find it.

My reading has never suggested that to be the case. Do you have a reference for this Ken?

Just because he had turned over AA to it's own membership didn't mean that he was any less concerned about helping alcoholics that he had ever been. He also wanted to help himself.
More specifically, he many have been looking for a way to stop smoking. Although is emphysema didn't slow him down until the 1960's he could already feel constrictions in his lungs. Most of all, Bill was a believer, a zealot, a man who thought there were answers to all problems. After all , hadn't he found one for the worst problem that medicine even knew? At heart what drew him to **Trabuco was the promise of a new cure.
pg. 240
S. Cheever - My Name is Bill

**Trabuco College - where LSD experiments were taking place


Yes, as I understand it, Bill did not respond to Leary at all.

Around the same time, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert experimented with LSD at Harvard with disastrous results, Initially, Leary had approached Bill, asking to be included in his experiments but by this time Wilson had withdrawn from experimenting with LSD. Soon after, LSD was outlawed.
pg. 241-242
S. Cheever - My Name is Bill

As others have mentioned the drug was fairly new at the time Bill started tripping and not illegal. Initially Bill may have been looking for a way to stop smoking but after he heard from Aldous Huxley about those who took the drug and who had an epiphany Bill got to thinking. Perhaps acid might help the alcoholic experience what he felt in Towns Hospital many years before.

Bill first took acid in 1956 and loved it. H e urged everyone he knew to try it.

Needless to say when word got back to the membership of AA there were grumblings. But Wilson had given thirty years of his life to service. He wasn't planning to stop doing service, but he didn't see why he should continue to be held responsible for the feelings and spirit of an organization for which he, specifically, had decide to lay aside responsibility.

Still by the ended of 1959 he had stopped extorting friends to take LSD and ended his own experiments.

Around this time Timothy Leary approached Bill asking to be included in his experiments but by then Bill had stopped experimenting with the drug.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bill tripped from time to time throughout the sixties.

Is the word here supposed to be exhorting?

Extorting is a whole other can of worms :lol:

Bill's Experiment Was In A Clinical Setting
 

Found this which puts in context...His first time was at a VA hospital. This was way before Timothy Leary "discovered" it. Bill essentially went to any lengths and his intentions were good. He was trying to fid a way to help other alcoholics get that spiritual experience.

On August 29, 1956, Bill Wilson took LSD in a laboratory setting. “When Bill took LSD, use of the drug was legal. He first took it as a participant in a medically supervised experiment with Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley in California.” (Hartigan, p. 178) To return to the point of the early paragraphs, this was a full ten years before Timothy Leary’s “turn on” revolution. There was no incense burning, no Jefferson Airplane on the stereo, and it is highly unlikely that Bill was wearing bell bottoms and a tie-dyed t-shirt.

In a very real sense, LSD wasn’t LSD yet.

Its use was limited to hospitals, clinics, labs and universities.

“Here, then, is one clear reason why Bill Wilson experimented with LSD: he was seeking still further ways of helping alcoholics, specifically those alcoholics who could not seem to attain sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous because, apparently, they could not ‘get the spiritual’.” (Collected Kurtz, p. 42) Support for this research came from a surprising source. When one of his parishioners expressed concern to Sam Shoemaker, the reverend consulted his superior, Bishop Pardue who “declared himself ‘in utmost sympathy with what (Bill) is doing.’ The bishop, Shoemaker reported to Wilson, ‘is convinced that the biochemical factor is of the greatest importance…half our problems are bio-chemical and do not go back to sin and cannot be wholly governed by prayer’.” (Collected Kurtz, p. 43

For those interested, below is a link to an article by Ernie Kurtz about Bills LSD involvement. Kurtz had unrestricted access to the AA archives and was one of only a handful of people who could make this claim. As a result his perspective is uniquely valuable. One of the things Kurtz had access to was Bills second letter to Carl Jung where Bill talks about his LSD experience and his thoughts about the drug.

It took me a very long time to get a copy of this letter. It's in the AA archives in New York city but unfortunately my requests for access to this valuable piece of history were turned down. Its considered "restricted". I was forced to spend a great deal of time to obtain another copy but it was worth all the effort. It's a prize :) . IMO It should be available to the membership, but that's not my call.

Here's the link to the Kurtz article:
http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr...akes%20LSD.pdf

I find it interesting that AA considers the letter "restricted". What do they have to hide? Don't they fully understand the idea that we are only as sick as our secrets?

That said the contents of the letter are unlikely to change my opinion of the AA program. Bill was an imperfect person. So what? The AA program's value has nothing to do with the personalities and possible character defects of the founders.

Thank you for this excellent resource. I've puzzled a lot about Bill Wilson over the years and over what possessed him. The article does shed some light on Wilson's psychological motivations.

Bill Wilson is a strange enigma to me, so it's not a surprise that his program would also seem strange to me. His foray into LSD, even though explained away in the article as "being of another era," must be at least curious to the most devoted AA member today. He wanted people who could not believe in the spiritual to have a spiritual experience by any means possible, so he could help them in his own limited way. And that is to his credit... kind of.

He apparently could not see that he could help more alcoholics if he widened the scope of the program, rather than trying to squeeze all alcoholics, even if it might require drugs to do it, into his spiritual philosophy, and stranger still when one realizes that spirituality is not necessary in treating alcohol abuse.

It is a hopeful sign that equally successful secular programs like SR are available today. Secular defined as not anti religious, but inclusive of all beliefs or lack of beliefs, and even more hopeful that many of those who have been helped by AA can recognize this.

When I got sober in 1993 there was no internet. All I learned about AA was from those in my immediate AA circle.

I think it was around 2005 or so I learned from another member that Wilson had experimented with LSD.

I also learned that Wilson while in the hospital had been under the influence of belladonna a drug known to cause hallucinations. And his buddy Ebby Thacher had been to the hospital attempting to get Wilson to turn himself over to God and free him from alcoholism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/health/20drunk.html

All of which leads me to believe it's possible Wilson's spiritual experience was a result of the drug. Of basically being as high as a kite.

Which doesn't change the fact he helped start AA and millions are grateful. However it does help explain why the 12 steps may not provide a spiritual awakening for all.

Still, this doesn't mean one can't get sober in AA without a spiritual awakening... because many do.

Yet, I understand why there are those in AA prefer to keep such a discussion and/or Wilson's flaws as a man under wraps.

Although, I'm not sure that's possible today.

When I got sober in 1993 there was no internet. All I learned about AA was from those in my immediate AA circle.

It was years later I learned from another member Wilson had experimented with LSD.

I also learned that Wilson while in the hospital had been under the influence of belladonna a drug known to cause hallucinations. And his buddy Ebby Thacher had been to the hospital attempting to get Wilson to turn himself over to God and free him from alcoholism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/health/20drunk.html

All of which leads me to believe it's not unreasonable to think Wilson's spiritual experience was a result of the drug. Of basically being as high as a kite.

Which doesn't change the fact he helped start AA and millions are grateful. However it does lead me to understand why the 12 steps may not provide a spiritual awakening for all.

Still, this doesn't mean one can't get sober in AA without a spiritual awakening... because many do.

But I understand why some in AA prefer to keep such a discussion and/or Wilson's flaws as a man under wraps.

However, I'm not sure that's possible today.

As a non believer when I arrived, that is exactly how I saw AA, and that is how I would define secular. it is still the same today, everyone is welcome regardless of belief or no belief.

When we get into the possibility of including more options in the AA program, quite a few are included in the big book but unfortunately, for the type of alcoholic they were dealing with, these ideas were rarely, if ever, successful. In a way it was part of the diagnosis.

Interestingly it seems Bill was pretty easy going about the program and even watered it down a bit in an effort to be more inclusive. Bob and Clarence took a much more spiritual approach and were considerably more successful. Cleveland AA was so successful that many people thought that was where AA started.

It is a shame to judge Bill's medically supervised LSD experiments by the standards and knowledge of today. It gets pretty close to character assassination, a polite form of murder to knock him for doing what he did in the times in which he lived. In fact he may have been well ahead of his time, and in any case those experiements were going on with alcoholics all around the world at the time.

The concept of using psychodellic drugs to bring on mystical or conversion experiences is still current in the world of psychiatry. Some experts believe, like Jung, that the only solution for extreme cases is some kind of conversion experience, and they have been trying for years to bring this about through medical means. Their efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but a recent peer review of Bill's case showed that a single dose of LSD may have had a positive effect. More research required they say.

One hopes that any volunteers for future research will not be subject to the level of criticism that Bill has been.

Here's my testimony ....

I've never been a big thinker, figure-outer, analyzer or interpreter ...

more of a direction follower.

If I need to think about every damn thing, then I'm not ready.

I've known many, many smart people in AA ...

most of them are long gone.

:a043:

I think it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that because Bill was given a hallucinogen in his hospital stay that this "caused" his spiritual experience. But it's important to understand the distinction between a “hallucinogenic” and "psychedelic" drug. There are three forms of hallucinogenic drugs.

1) Dissociatives "produce a feeling of being unreal or totally disconnected from oneself, or a kind of derealization in which the outside world seems completely unreal".

2) Psychedelics, like LSD "can produce "the warping and distorting of shapes and surfaces, and strange alterations incolor. Some people see repetitive geometric shapes. Some people may experience what they believe to be higher spatial/temporal dimensions" People who take psychedelics claim on some occasions that the drug put them in contact with God, the Infinite, or some other kind of divine realm".

3) Deliriants, like belladona are not at all like psychedelics; they produce a state of delirium in which drug takers fall into a stupor, or a state of complete mental confusion.

Bills white light spiritual experience in the hospital is not consistent with with belladona, which is not a psychedelic. :)

I could not agree more Gottalife. Unfortunately the character assassination seems to be the reason that the AA is so sensitive about all this.

It seems appropriate to echo AAPJs question