The Conversion of Bill W

de Dick B.

This is the account of Bill Wilson's religious training as a youngster in Vermont; his study of the Bible; the involvement of his grandparents in the East Dorset Congregational Church located between their respective homes; Bill's own experience in the church, its Sunday school, and its revival meetings. It also points to Bill's extensive religious training during the four years he attended nearby Burr and Burton Academy. There Bill attended daily chapel with its sermons, Scripture reading, and worship. Like all students at Burr and Burton, Bill attended Manchester Congregational Church. Bill took a four-year Bible study course. And he became president of the school's YMCA. Back of it all was his repeated hearing of his alcoholic grandfather's conversion on a mountaintop and the grandfather's deliverance from alcoholism for the rest of his life. Then follow Bill's dark years when he turned his back on God due to the unexpected death of his girl friend Bertha Bamford. Years later, in the last throes of his alcoholism, Bill's doctor (William D. Silkworth) told Bill that the Great Physician could cure him. Shortly, Bill's Burr and Burton friend visited him, told Bill of his own decision for Christ at Calvary Rescue Mission, and caused Bill to observe that his friend had been reborn. Bill went to the Calvary Rescue Mission to get what Ebby had received. Bill went to the altar, made his own decision for Christ, wrote that he had been born again. And, then, sinking into a brief drinking spree and a deep depression, Bill decided to call on the Great Physician. He staggered drunk into Towns Hospital. He decided to ask the Great Physician for help. He cried out to God. He had a spiritual experience very very similar to the one his grandfather had described year before. It was a "white light experience." Bill sensed the presence of God and observed, "So this is the God of the Scriptures." After reading a study of conversions and recovery from alcoholism and consulting with Dr. Silkworth, Bill was convinced his white light experience was valid. He never again doubted the existence of God; and, like his grandfather, Bill never drank again. His message to the many he sought out is recorded in A.A.'s own basic text on page 191: There Bill said that the Lord had cured him of his terrible disease and that he just wanted to keep talking about it and telling people. And that is what he began doing long before he fashioned the Twelve Step program several years later and based its precepts on what his friend, Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker (whose church ran the rescue mission) had taught him of the Christian life-changing program Shoemaker espoused. Bill thereafrter called Shoemaker a "cofounder of A.A." These and many many more are the facts that most AAs and most scholars have never heard. The book itself provides new illumination for those who want God's help and need to know how Bill Wilson actually sought it and received it.