Bill W.

Bill Wilson (1895-1971), the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, never saw himself as a saint. In a biography that is admiring without being hagiographic, first-time author Hartigan, one-time assistant to Bill's wife, Lois, reveals a man whose accomplishments seem all the more extraordinary because his demons were so strong. A depressive, a chronic womanizer, a man who could not quit smoking even as he choked to death from emphysema, Wilson was, according to Hartigan, motivated by real spiritual sincerity and purity of purpose when it came to AA. At 39, on the edge of death from alcoholism, Wilson was ""struck sober"" in an incandescent moment when he felt surrounded by divine presence. Inspired by the Oxford Group, a Christian movement that sought to kindle such experiences, the famous 12 steps that Wilson developed led to gradual spiritual transformation. This approach was built not on white light but on Wilson's bone-deep sense that life without a higher power was unmanageable. Wilson was born in a small town in Vermont to parents who divorced and scattered, leaving the boy to be raised by loving grandparents who could not assuage the permanent wound to Wilson's self-esteem. After the death of his high school girlfriend, the handsome, talented Wilson fell into an almost catatonic despair, a foreshadowing of the depression and self-doubt that would descend on him even at the height of his fame. Frank about Wilson's experiments with LSD, religion and psychotherapy, this unofficial bio will do much to help a wide readership appreciate how Wilson exemplified the way in which weakness can lead us to exhibit extraordinary strength. (Mar.)