March 4
th is a special day to millions of people
in 12 step programs. It is the birthday of Lois Wilson who might, with great
affection, be called the most famous co-dependent. She was the wife of Bill
Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Ebby T., son of a prominent Albany family, first “carried
the message” to a very deteriorated Bill Wilson. The message Ebby brought to
Bill and Lois was that he had gotten sober through the help of the Oxford
Group, an evangelical Christian movement. The six steps of reformation that the
Oxford Group used were forerunner of today’s 12 steps.
At Ebby’s urging Lois and Bill began to attend Oxford Group
meetings and a few months later, on a trip to Akron, Bill reached out to
members there and met Dr. Bob Smith. From the date of their meeting--one
drinker helping another--we date the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Those early meetings were held in private homes. Wives
accompanied their husbands and took charge of the refreshments. While the men
coached each other through confession and repentance in the parlor, the wives
sat in the kitchen, confessing their own frustrations as they discovered the
common impact that alcohol had on their families.
To her dismay, Lois later wrote, Bill’s
sobriety didn’t bring the happiness she expected. While he was drinking, Lois
had played a central if troubled role in Bill’s life. Now, as he recovered she
felt less important. This resentment over Bill finally achieving sobriety
without her help troubled Lois. She and other wives, who had lived on the edge
emotionally and financially, realized that the 12 steps “could also work for
the wives”.
Every organization has history and myth. History tells us
that the very first meetings in which the wives of alcoholics began to study
the 12 steps began in San Francisco, but the myth, always more powerful, says
that Lois Wilson began the program in New York.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. All over the country,
as AA grew, it was women who often were first to seek help for their families.
Lois and other wives offered support and promoted a spiritual program. At
conventions Lois took the podium to tell her side of the Wilson family story,
sharing with humor the lengths she went to control Bill’s drinking and the
humiliation she endured as she realized she could not.
As Bill W. took on the role of father of AA, it added a nice
symmetry to have Lois as the mother of Al-Anon. Positioning Lois atop the
recovery pantheon was strategic; She was a doctor’s daughter, with a college
education. Lois gave a respectable face to a problem that was shameful and
secretive.
In 1957 Al-Anon gained broad public recognition when Lois
Wilson appeared on the Loretta Young television show bringing the problem of
alcoholism and its impact on the family directly into America’s living rooms.
But there is always danger when one is placed on a pedestal.
Lois was criticized because she couldn’t do in her own home what she advocated
for others: setting limits on bad behavior. While Bill did stay sober for many
years he was also a chronic womanizer. The fact of his adultery was made public
when in his will, he left part of the royalties from “the Big Book”, AA’s text,
to his last mistress.
It may be that in this very personal and painful way Lois
Wilson left us her finest legacy of recovery. Al-Anon with its mission of
respectability for families affected by alcoholism, has today more than 30,000
groups in 100 countries. She also, by her graceful life and the imperfection in
her marriage, gave us an embodiment of AA’s slogan, “Progress not
perfection”. Thank you Lois.
