{"id":3101,"date":"2013-01-01T14:34:18","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T19:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/gl\/?p=3101"},"modified":"2021-02-17T01:09:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T06:09:12","slug":"bill-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/2013\/01\/01\/bill-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lecture Date: April 9, 2013<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bill Wilson\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/63745334?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1100\" height=\"620\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/umwwebmaster.wpengine.com\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2012\/11\/Bill-Wilson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-47591 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/umwwebmaster.wpengine.com\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2012\/11\/Bill-Wilson-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Bill Wilson\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2012\/11\/Bill-Wilson-200x300.jpg 200w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2012\/11\/Bill-Wilson.jpg 399w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a> Born behind a hotel bar in East Dorset, Vermont in 1894, Bill Wilson grew up with a severe drinking problem. In solving it for himself, he found a way to solve it for others, and he ultimately cofounded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. Although his name is not famous\u2014he resisted any personal publicity while he was alive\u2014Wilson, who died in 1971, was one of the most influential men of our time. \u00a0Although he improved the world, he was not a saint. He responded to the difficulties of his life in ways that were profoundly human and flawed. \u00a0His rugged, heart-breaking childhood, his unconventional fifty-three year marriage to Lois Wilson, his experiments with LSD and vitamin therapy, his friendship with Aldous Huxley, and his final longing for the whiskey he had \u00a0so successfully forsworn are all part of his extraordinary life story.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"color: #b81237;font-family: MuseoSlab;font-weight: 900\">Speaker: Susan Cheever<\/h2>\n<p>Susan Cheever earned a B.A. degree from Brown University and has taught at Brown, Yale, Hunter College, Bennington, and elsewhere. A prolific author, she has written several biographies, including studies of Louisa May Alcott and the Bloomsbury Group, which included Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Other non-fiction works include <i>Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction<\/i>; a remembrance of her celebrated father, novelist John Cheever, titled <i>Home Before Dark<\/i>; and a personal memoir,<i>Note Found In A Bottle<\/i>. Also the author of five novels, she has written for <i>The New Yorker<\/i>, <i>The New York Times<\/i>, and <i>Newsday<\/i>, among other publications. Her work has been nominated for a National Book Circle Award, and she is a Guggenheim Fellow. Of Cheever\u2019s study of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Judy Collins has written that it is \u201ca stunning and moving book [that]\u2026illuminates Bill Wilson\u2019s brilliance, his eccentricity, and his humanism in a way that brings the whole movement to life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lecture Date: April 9, 2013 &nbsp; Born behind a hotel bar in East Dorset, Vermont in 1894, Bill Wilson grew up with a severe drinking problem. In solving it for himself, he found a way to solve it for others, and he ultimately cofounded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. Although his name is not famous\u2014he resisted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3],"class_list":{"0":"post-3101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-lectures","7":"tag-3","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bill Wilson - Great Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/2013\/01\/01\/bill-wilson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Wilson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lecture Date: April 9, 2013 &nbsp; Born behind a hotel bar in East Dorset, Vermont in 1894, Bill Wilson grew up with a severe drinking problem. 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