Bill W.

Bill W.
Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous
Born	William Griffith Wilson (1895-11-26)November 26, 1895 East Dorset, Vermont
Died	January 24, 1971(1971-01-24) (aged 75)
Known for	co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
Spouse(s)	Lois W. (m. 1918)
Website	steppingstones.org/billsstory.html

William Griffith Wilson (November 26, 1895 – January 24, 1971), also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), an international mutual aid fellowship with over two million members belonging to 100,800 groups of alcoholics helping other alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety. Following AA's Twelfth Tradition of anonymity, Wilson is commonly known as "Bill W." or "Bill." After Wilson's death in 1971, his full name was included in obituaries.

Wilson's permanent sobriety began December 11, 1934. In 1955 Wilson turned over control of AA to a board of trustees. Wilson died of emphysema complicated by pneumonia in 1971. In 1999 Time listed him as "Bill W.: The Healer" in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

Wilson was born on November 26, 1895, in East Dorset, Vermont, the son of Emily (née Griffith) and Gilman Barrows Wilson. He was born at his parents' home and business, the Mount Aeolus Inn and Tavern. His paternal grandfather, William C. Wilson, was an alcoholic who never drank after a conversion experience on Mount Aeolus. Both of Wilson's parents abandoned their child (his father never returned from a purported business trip, and his mother left to study osteopathic medicine). Bill and his sister were cared for by their maternal grandparents, Fayette Griffith and Ella Griffith, in their house. As a teen, Wilson showed determination, once spending months designing and carving a working boomerang. After initial difficulties, Wilson became the school's football team's captain and the principal violinist of its orchestra. Wilson also underwent a serious depression at the age of seventeen following the death of his first love, Bertha Bamford, from complications of surgery.

Wilson met his wife Lois Burnham during the summer of 1913, while sailing on Vermont's Emerald Lake; two years later the couple became engaged. He entered Norwich University, but depression and panic attacks forced him to leave during his second semester. The next year he returned, but was soon suspended with a group of students involved in a hazing incident. Because no one would take responsibility, and no one would identify the perpetrators, the entire class was punished.