The Life of Bill Wilson
AA officially marks its beginnings from the date of Dr. Bob’s last drink. On June 10th 1935 Bob was shaking from the effects of a binge as he took a beer from the hand of Bill Wilson to steady his frayed nerves. Then off he went to perform surgery on some poor, unsuspecting soul. As a proctologist, Dr. Bob likely operated on the man’s bottom that day and I’ve always appreciated God’s sense of humor present in that scene. Some of us hit bottom when we look in the mirror and see the ass we’ve become staring back at us. Bob likely looked at the real thing that day and maybe saw himself staring back. Whatever horrific vision he was gifted with, Bob never drank again.
As you read this, we’ll be marking the 69th anniversary of that seemingly insignificant event. But we’re not always privy to God’s plans and he had “more to reveal” to Bill and to Bob as well as to the millions of drunks and addicts who’d follow in their footsteps. M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author of The Road Less Traveled calls the founding of AA “one of the two most significant events of the 20th century.” But at the time, neither Bob nor Bill grasped the significance of what was happening. What happened for them that day was two men joining together to help one another - not in the founding of AA but in practicing the principles of the Oxford Group.
Bill had sobered up in the Oxford Group in New York and Dr. Bob and his wife Ann had been active members of the Akron branch for nearly two years. A Lutheran minister named Frank Buchman had started the Group and in the summer of 1935 it was at the height of its prominence. Known as A First Century Christian Fellowship, the Group took the life of Jesus as its model for bringing about “life-changing” on a worldwide scale. Changing lives by removing those things that blocked God’s grace from coming into a person’s heart, this was the Group’s basic formula. Surrendered members shared their faults with another, made amends for harms done, practiced morning meditation by listening and writing down the thoughts that came to them from God. Their living a life of radical forgiveness and making themselves of maximal service to their fellow man was patterned after the personal qualities found in Jesus. Those qualities were seen as: Absolute Honesty, Absolute Purity, Absolute Unselfishness and Absolute Love.
At first, Wilson fell in love with the Group. He had found the sense of belonging and fellowship that had eluded him all his life. Purpose and meaning were restored and he tapped into the energy that came with his found sense of spiritual connectedness. In his exuberance, he said, “On the platform and off, men and women, old and young, told how their lives had been transformed by the confession of their sins and restitution for harm done, and their dependence upon God for his guidance in all things. Travelers came from abroad reporting how God had claimed one country after another. … Little was heard of theology, but we heard plenty of Absolute Honesty, Purity, Unselfishness and Love. Confession, restitution, and direct guidance from God underlined every conversation. They were talking about morality and spirituality, about God- centeredness versus self-centeredness; they were talking about personal conversion and the conversion of the whole world. ‘Everybody, good and bad, needed changing,’ they said.
“Lois and I could certainly understand this. To have found a group of people so dedicated, so sincere, so confident, so eager, and so alive – well, in Lois and me this was manna from heaven...Our enthusiasm knew no bounds. Heaven was our destination, and the world was our oyster. We plunged headlong into the feverish activity about us. The life-giving water was wonderful, and we splashed joyously for some time.”
That time lasted about a year for Bill. He spoke at Oxford Group meetings up and down the east coast. He worked closely with Rev. Sam Shoemaker the Group’s leader in the United States and Wilson attributed all he knew about spirituality and the formulation of the Steps to Sam’s teachings and guidance. But while the Group wanted to “change” everybody, Wilson only wanted to “change” alcoholics. After the Oxford Group meetings, he and the other alcoholic members of the New York Group would meet at Stewart’s Cafeteria for “a meeting after the meeting.” There they’d discuss how sobriety was working in their lives as they practiced the principles of the program.
But soon tensions increased between Wilson and the Group. There were frequent relapses among the alcoholics and many didn’t fit the ‘High Society” profile of Buchman and the Group. The incident of a drunk hurling a boot through one of the stained glass windows at Calvary Church did little to further endear them there. Wilson himself was singled out as “not being maximal” meaning the depth of his surrender was questioned and Group members were discouraged from attending the meetings he and Lois conducted weekly in their Brooklyn home.
Back in Akron, however, the alcoholics and the Oxford Group members fared considerably better. While Wilson had separated from the Group within a year, Dr. Bob and the Akron contingent stayed tightly bound for nearly three. When the New York group and a splinter faction from Cleveland urged the Akron alcoholics to separate from their Oxford Group friends, it was a painful parting.
The reasons for the final separating of the ways were many but a few stand out:
- Buchman’s foolish remark about Hitler was interpreted as being “pro-Nazi” by many and had caused the Group to lose much public support.
- Many of the newer alcoholic members, particularly in Cleveland, were Roman Catholic and the Church was preparing to forbid its members to belong to so Protestant an organization.
- Wilson had never liked Frank Buchman and he personally struggled with Christianity.
When the break came, Wilson did not want his new program associated with the Oxford Group’s then tainted reputation. For that reason, all references to the Group and to the Four Absolutes were carefully expunged from the new book they were busy writing and even erased from the corporate memory that was being formed. For many years, few in the program knew of its Christian roots and its ties to the Oxford Group. When Wilson wrote, “we will not regret the past nor wish to close the door on it” he obviously didn’t have the Oxford Group in mind.