Who was Bill W.?

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Why: Step 1 of recovery is to call a spade a spade:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable

The 12 Steps were formed by Bill W. and Dr. Bob.

Answer: Bill Wilson! He lived 1895 - 1971. He achieved sobriety on December 11, 1934, and maintained it throughout the rest of his 36 years. Despite his success, he suffered from depression and compulsive behavior before and after his alcoholism.

During military training in 1917, Bill had his first drink - a glass of beer - at a local dinner for young officers. At another dinner party weeks later, Bill drank some Bronx cocktails and felt at ease with the guests and liberated from his awkward shyness. He wrote:

I had found the elixir of life ... Even that first evening I got thoroughly drunk, and within the next time or two I passed out completely. But as everyone drank hard, not too much was made of that.

Bill married his long-time lady love Lois in January 1918, just before he left to fight in WWI as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery. After his military service, he returned to live with Lois in New York. He failed to graduate from law school because he was too drunk to pick up his diploma.

He became a stock speculator and had success traveling the country with his wife, evaluating companies for potential investors. Lois later admitted she went along on these trips in the hopes that she could keep Bill from drinking. However, his constant drinking made business impossible and ruined his reputation.

In 1933-34, Bill was committed 4 times to the Charles B. Towns Hospital for Drug and Alcohol Addictions in New York under the care of Dr. William D. Silkworth. Silkworth's theory was that alcoholism took the form of a physical allergy - the physical inability to stop drinking once started - and an obsession or craving of the mind and the body - not only to take the first drink, but to drink more once he started.

Bill gained hope from Silkworth's assertion that alcoholism was a medical condition rather than a moral failing, but even that knowledge could not help him. He was eventually told that he would either die from his alcoholism or have to be locked up permanently due to Wernicke encephalopathy (aka "wet brain").

He met with a former drinking buddy who had "turned it over to God" (Step 3). Then he had a "Hot Flash" spiritual conversion - a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity - and decided he would stop drinking forever.

He and evangelical Christian Dr. Bob began working with other alcoholics and wrote the Twelve Steps together in 1938.

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: Despite his sobriety from alcohol, Bill maintained an addiction to nicotine his whole life. He continued to smoke even while dependent on an oxygen tank in the late 1960s. He died of emphysema and pneumonia on January 24, 1971.