威廉·格里菲斯

威廉·格里菲斯·威尔逊（英语：William Griffith Wilson，1895年11月26日—1971年01月24日），也被称为Bill Wilson或Bill W.，是匿名戒酒会（AA）的创始人之一， 在全球拥有超过二千万会员的国际互助组织，属于大约一万个团体，协会，组织，合作社和酗酒者合作，帮助其他酗酒者实现和保持清醒。

William Griffith Wilson (November 26, 1895 – January 24, 1971), also known as Bill Wilson or Bill W., was an American businessman who co-conceived and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), with fellow co-founder Bob Smith.

AA is an international mutual aid fellowship with about two million members worldwide belonging to AA groups, associations, organizations, cooperatives, and fellowships of alcoholics helping other alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety. Following AA's Twelfth Tradition of anonymity, within the organization Wilson is commonly known as "Bill W." or "Bill". After his death, with his prior written permission, his full name was included in obituaries.

Wilson's sobriety from alcohol, which he maintained until his death, began December 11, 1934. In 1955, he turned over control of AA to a board of trustees. He died in 1971, and in 1999 Time listed him as "Bill W.: The Healer" in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

Early life

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 sister, Dorothy, was born in 1898. His paternal grandfather, William C. Wilson, a hotelier and second-generation marble worker, was an alcoholic. Influenced by the preaching of an itinerant evangelist, some weeks before, William C. Wilson climbed to the top of Mount Aeolus, had a spiritual experience and quit drinking.

Wilson's parents divorced in 1906. His father left for western Canada, and his mother left soon after to study osteopathic medicine in Massachusetts. He and his sister, abandoned by their parents, were raised by their maternal grandparents, Gardner Fayette Griffith and Ella (née Brock).

By 1908, Wilson had met Mark Whalon, a fellow East Dorset resident who was nine years his senior. Whalon became Wilson's closest childhood friend, and introduced him to the world of ideas. Whalon continued to be a confidant, counselor, and emotional support to Wilson, even after Wilson became world famous, and as of Whalon's death in 1956 was still Wilson's best friend. Wilson later wrote of him, "He was a sort of uncle or father to me."

Wilson became the captain of his high school's football team, and the principal violinist in its orchestra. He dealt with a serious bout of depression at the age of 17, following the death of his first love, Bertha Bamford, who died of complications from surgery.

Marriage, work, and alcoholism

Wilson met his future 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 he was soon suspended with a group of students involved in a hazing incident. No one would take responsibility, and no one would identify the perpetrators, so the entire class was punished.

Pancho Villa's incursion into the U.S. in June 1916 resulted in Wilson's class being mobilized as part of the Vermont National Guard, and he was reinstated to serve. The following year he was commissioned as an artillery officer. During military training in Massachusetts, the young officers were often invited to dinner by the locals, and Wilson had his first drink, a glass of beer with little effect. A few weeks later at another dinner party held at the Joseph Grinnell Mansion in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he drank some Bronx cocktails and felt at ease with the guests and liberated from his awkward shyness. "I had found the elixir of life", he wrote. "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."