by Dan M.
After finishing The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, then The Twelve Concepts for World Service, Bill W.’s major work with the fellowship was coming to an end. He was now free of AA obligations and could pursue other interests for the first time in many years.
He became interested in the stock market again, pouring over the financial pages and researching companies. There are archives of his correspondence with his old friend, the financier Joe Hirshorn, all about the market and financial matters. He gave advice to friends and family, including his mother, who did very well with her investments.
In the early 60s, Bill became involved with a company called Energy Conversion Laboratories which was researching a cheap way to convert heat directly into electricity. The inventor behind the company was Stanford Ovshinsky, and he and Bill shared great enthusiam for the work. Although there was no single great breakthrough at the time, the research did lead to advancing the development of photovoltaic cells, as well as the technology now used in the batteries of electric cars, and re-writable CDs and DVDs. Standard Oil would later invest heavily in Ovshinsky’s company.
Another brilliant acquaintance of Bill’s was physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. They met in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Bill and Lois were vacationing. The two men took long walks together and found in each other a kindred spirit. Oppenheimer suggested that Bill come to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton to oversee some of the work being done there on the chemical composition of depression. Although Bill never took him up on his offer, it’s clear that he continued to make an impression as a serious thinker.
After his experiments with LSD, read Bill W. and LSD, July 2024, Bill stayed in correspondence with the researchers, Drs. Osmond and Hoffer. They believed that they were seeing progress in treating alcoholics, as well as schizophrenics, with vitamin B3, also known as niacin. Bill became very enthusiastic, setting out to inform the medical community as well as alcoholics in the program. Many who knew Bill said he could get so carried away he seldom spoke about anything else. There were AA members who resented his proselytizing. They complained that he was in violation of two of his own Traditions: six, lending the AA name to an outside enterprise; and ten, giving the fellowship an opinion on an outside issue. Accordingly, in the 1967 Conference, there was a recommendation that, “All inquiries pertaining to B3 and niacin are referred directly to an office in Pleasantville NY… and that Bill’s stationery carry an address other than GSO’s.”
Also in 1967, The General Service Board voted unanimously to accept the Conference advisory action and reverse the makeup of the trustees to a majority of alcoholics over non-alcoholics. Bill had been trying to get this changed for a decade. Other than speaking at conferences and conventions, his AA work was finally complete.
Next month: Bill’s farewell addresses.
More detail can be found in Pass It On — Bill Wilson and the AA Message, pp. 378-397, published by AA World Services.
Dan M.’s home group is Fremont Men’s Stag, which meets on Monday nights at 7:15 at Prince of Peace Church, 858 Washington Blvd and online: 187 927 449 pc: 774746