One Drunk to Another Number One Man
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Illustration · The back of a Vermont village hotel on a winter night, with one lamp lit on the ground floor. Bill was born “in a room behind a bar” in his grandmother’s hotel at East Dorset. Not drawn from a photograph of it.

Number One Man

Meet Bill

A boy who had to be Number One, a Wall Street drunk, and a co-founder of AA who spent his sober years learning to step aside.

“He was a tremendous egotist. But he recognized this, and I believe that the triumph of his life was his victory over himself and his becoming truly humble.”

Lois W., his wife · Pass It On, 1984

Bill W. was born in 1895 in East Dorset, Vermont, “in a room behind a bar.” His parents parted when he was ten or eleven, and his grandparents raised him. At eleven or twelve he spent six months whittling a boomerang to prove his grandfather wrong, and decided he had to be Number One.

He had his first drink in 1917, as a young army officer, and made a paper fortune on Wall Street in the late 1920s. By 1934 he was broke, and his doctor had told his wife, Lois, that he might have to be locked up.

He was sober from December 1934 until he died. With Dr. Bob S. he started Alcoholics Anonymous, and he wrote most of its book. Then, at the height of it, he spent eleven years in and out of depression. He went to séances, took LSD, and campaigned for a vitamin. By the accounts of three later writers, there were other women. Sick for years with emphysema, he died on his 53rd wedding anniversary, January 24, 1971.

This is his story in seven parts, from a whittled boomerang to a white marble stone. It gives most room to the years the site’s other pieces don’t cover: before 1934, and after 1939. It’s built from AA’s own histories, Pass It On, AA Comes of Age and the Big Book, and, where they’re silent, from later biographers and newspapers, named each time. Where the sources disagree, or only one witness says something, these pages say so.

Start with 1 · The boomerang

His life at a glance

  1. 1895Born November 26 in East Dorset, Vermont, in a room behind the bar of the village hotel his grandmother ran.
  2. 1906His parents part, and his grandparents Fayette and Ella take him in.
  3. 1912The girl he loves dies, and he sinks into a depression that lasts three years.
  4. 1917Takes his first drink, a Bronx cocktail, as a young army officer at New Bedford, Massachusetts.
  5. 1918Marries Lois Burnham in Brooklyn on January 24, and sails for England in August.
  6. 1929Loses his paper fortune in the October crash.
  7. 1934Ebby T. visits him in late November. In December he has his last drink.
  8. 1935Meets Dr. Bob S. in Akron, Ohio, in May.
  9. 1939The Big Book comes out in April. That same month he and Lois lose their home.
  10. 1941Buys a house of their own in Bedford Hills, New York, later named Stepping Stones.
  11. 1944–55Depression, on and off, for eleven years.
  12. 1955At St. Louis, in July, hands AA over to its members.
  13. 1956Takes LSD for the first time, in Los Angeles.
  14. 1965Sends AA’s doctors the first of three papers on niacin, a vitamin.
  15. 1971Dies January 24 in Miami Beach, on his 53rd wedding anniversary.

Seven parts and Legacy

Walk through his story

Each part has a short story, a one-minute audio stop, and a closer look for anyone who wants to go deeper. Read them in order, or start anywhere.

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