In the "Big Book", Alcoholics Anonymous, in the chapter "The Family Afterward", on page 135 (3rd edition), we read:

Whether the family goes on a spiritual basis or not, the alcoholic member has to if he would recover. The others must be convinced of his new status beyond the shadow of a doubt. Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.

Here is a case in point: One of our friends is a heavy smoker and coffee drinker. There was no doubt he over- indulged. Seeing this, and meaning to be helpful, his wife commenced to admonish him about it. He admitted he was overdoing these things, but frankly said that he was not ready to stop. His wife is one of those persons who really feels there is something rather sinful about these commodities, so she nagged, and her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of anger. He got drunk.

Of course our friend was wrong -- dead wrong. He had to painfully admit that and mend his spiritual fences. Though he is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgement. She sees she was wrong to make a burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured.

This sad story is supposedly an example of a man who is living the spiritual life of an AA member, while the rest of his family does not. And it is somehow supposed to show us a man convincing his family of his new sober status. By smoking and getting drunk. Go figure.

The man is addicted to tobacco and coffee, and is smoking himself to death. His concerned wife is trying to save him from lung cancer, but the anonymous author labels her "intolerant" because she "really feels there is something rather sinful about these commodities." Notice how the author groups coffee and tobacco in the same category, as mere "commodities," so that she will appear more intolerant. The author also refuses to look at the health aspects of smoking, or the stink, or the second-hand smoke, or the expense; he only says that she feels that smoking is "rather sinful."

Notice the powerful hidden assumption in this sentence: "He admitted he was overdoing these things, but frankly said that he was not ready to stop." Oh? Somebody can continue doing whatever he is doing just because he frankly says that he isn't ready to stop? When was the last time that you heard an AA fanatic accept that as a good excuse for someone to continue drinking? And, if the guy next door has a bad habit of molesting 10-year-old little girls, can he say, "Frankly, I know I'm over-doing it, but I'm just not ready to stop, right now"? And, if you catch someone robbing your house, can the burglar say, "I know I'm over-doing it right now, but frankly, I'm not ready to stop just yet"? Sometimes, the anonymous author, Bill Wilson, showed flashes of sheer genius for foisting a mountain of bull, untruths, and false assumptions on the reader with just a few cleverly-worded phrases, and this is one of those times.

When this allegedly "spiritual" AA member becomes annoyed at his wife's attempts to save his life, he throws an angry temper tantrum and drinks alcohol. Then he "painfully" admits that he was wrong, and "mends his spiritual fences." Bullshit. Even as he was on his knees, confessing his wrongs to God, he secretly grinned from ear to ear, and said, "I WON! I get to keep my tobacco addiction. I really scared the Hell out of the old bitch, and now she won't be bothering me about my smoking any more!" And she doesn't. He is now free to commit suicide by cigarette.

Then, this story says, his wife sees the error of her ways, and confesses that she was wrong to make a burning issue (horrendous pun!) out of his potentially fatal tobacco addiction "when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured."

That's a typical Buchmanite happy ending for a story: it ends with everybody confessing that they were wrong. Baloney.

And what "more serious ailments" were being "rapidly cured"? Obviously not his alcohol drinking, because he will use that as a weapon any time she threatens his tobacco supply. So just how is this guy "spiritual"?

What we are seeing here is not spirituality, but rather, the naked face of the Addiction Monster, that dark ghoul who says, "I don't care what the cost is, or who dies, I want my fix." Indeed, that ghoul is the same monster as the one who craves alcohol, and while it has been temporarily weaned off of alcohol, it is still alive and well, feeding itself with tobacco. And there is no way in Hell that it will tolerate someone cutting off its last food source. It will fight. It doesn't even care if its own host is dying from the effects of tobacco, it still wants its fix.

A big part of the message that the anonymous author is trying to sell us here is the idea that us good-old-boy AA members should be able to indulge in anything we want to, just as long as it isn't alcohol. Since we so nobly gave up drinking, we richly deserve life's other little pleasures. Both Bill W. and Doctor Bob were heavy smokers, so they said over and over again that smoking is an okay vice. Dying of self-inflicted emphysema, lung cancer, and heart disease is perfectly okay, and completely compatible with a spiritual life, just as long as you do it sober. (And Bill W. did eventually die from that "okay" vice -- from emphysema and pneumonia -- desperately, futilely gasping for another breath from an oxygen mask. Score another victory for the Addiction Monster.) The guy in this story is called "our friend", even after he throws his angry temper tantrum and gets drunk. His wife, on the other hand, is described as "one of those persons..." You know, one of those intolerant nagging bitches... Why, she drove him to drink; any guy can see that. Not!

This story also features some very bad amateur psychology: "...her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of anger." No, it didn't. He chose to become angry because he felt that his tobacco addiction was being increasingly threatened by his wife's persistence, and he didn't want to give it up. He chose to throw a big angry drunken temper tantrum, to tell his wife in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to give up his beloved drug addiction, and if she pressed the point, he would get drunk, just to spite her. His actions said, "If you don't let me smoke all I want, then I'll drink myself to death, and it will be your fault." And he succeeded in his game of brinkmanship. He defeated her so totally that she never criticized his smoking again, and she even confessed that she was wrong to have even tried to get him to quit smoking. Score one more victory for the good old boys club.

This story is so stupid, so tragic, and so vicious, that only someone who has totally pickled his brain with too much alcohol for too many years could possibly think that this is a good story to put in the Big Book as an example of an AA member living a spiritual life while his wife doesn't. But, alas, that's what happened.

What's also rather amazing is how many AA members think that The Big Book is received wisdom, the indisputable Word of God, as given to Bill Wilson. I guess their brains got pickled too. (Well, unless that part about us good old boys being able to indulge in anything we want includes the right to bed the entire Swedish bikini ski team... Maybe it is divine wisdom.)

There is little doubt about who the anonymous author was: It was Bill Wilson. Several of the other early AA members helped in the preparation of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous", but Bill Wilson was the guiding light, the editor-in-chief, and the author of most of the non-autobiographical chapters. That book clearly shows that Bill Wilson was insane. Not just a little bit crazy, but genuinely insane, clinically diagnosable, most likely paranoia with delusions of grandeur, and a giant messianic complex.

He was insane while he was drinking: he was suicidally drinking immense, almost superhuman, quantities of cheap rotgut whiskey or gin, one or two or even more fifths of it per day. Then, while hospitalized for detoxing for the fourth time that year, December 11th to 18th, 1934, after yet another drinking-to-die binge, while getting Dr. William D. Silkworth's hallucinogenic belladonna cure at New York's Charles B. Towns Hospital, he "saw the light" and got religion. It seems like his spiritual experience and miraculous conversion came in time to save his liver, but not his brain.

The story above would have us believe that a spiritual life consists of smoking oneself to death while ignoring the pleas of a concerned wife. And that the way to convince your family that you are now sober for life is to throw drunken temper tantrums. That is simply crazy. (One can only imagine what Bill Wilson's real home life must have been like, since he was a chain smoker, just like the guy in the story. Just how autobiographical is this story, anyway?) The choice of that story for inclusion in the Big Book, especially in that context, is such clear evidence of something terribly wrong with Bill's mind that it is hard to ignore, and the other AA members have had to go out of their way to manage to ignore it for sixty years. (And to not change it in three editions?)

As further evidence of Bill Wilson's insanity, consider this quote, and it's absurd stilted style:

We were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: "God, I offer myself to Thee -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!" We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.
AA Big Book -- p. 63.

This guy really does think he is writing a new Bible. The anachronistic "Thou"s, "Thy"s, and "Thee"s are ridiculous. This book was written in 1938, not the year 938, and Bill wasn't Amish. The infantile masochistic grovelling before an authoritarian God is just plain sick, and the escapism is insane: God will take away all of your difficulties, and solve all of your problems, and you will be a happy slave forever.

And Bill really doesn't know what he is talking about when he begs God to be relieved from "the bondage of self". Bill doesn't understand that you do not loose your ego, your selfhood, just by wishing it would go away, or by begging God to make it go away, or by saying that you are surrendering to God. It isn't that easy. If it were, everybody would be doing it.

Remember the old Zen problem, "How do I get rid of my last desire, the desire to be free of all desires?" The wish to be released from the bondage of selfhood reinforces and strengthens the self. It's a genuine Chinese finger trap; the harder you try to pull your fingers out, the more tightly the trap holds them.

And what does Bill have in mind for himself, once he has been released from The Bondage of Selfhood? Death? He refused that; that was exactly the thing he fought to avoid, at the start of his spiritual experience. (See below.) In the Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi religions, release from self is a kind of voluntary death that ends up making you into something greater: you die and expand into or dissolve into and merge with the universe, or with God (or both).

The Sufis say, "Die before you die, and live forever."

But Bill refused that; he wanted to be freed from selfhood, he said, but he didn't want his ego to die. Bill talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. He can't; he doesn't even know what the words really mean.

The rest of chapter 9 of The Big Book, "The Family Afterward", features more strange, tortured thinking about how the family and Father should function after Father gets sober.

Look at this text, and see if, starting at the second paragraph, it isn't a fair description of a man going insane:

As each member of a resentful family begins to see his shortcomings and admits them to the others, he lays a basis for helpful discussion. These family talks will be constructive if they can be carried on without heated argument, self-pity, self-justification or resentful criticism. Little by little, mother and children will see they ask too much, and father will see he gives too little. Giving, rather than getting, will become the guiding principle.

Assume on the other hand that father has, at the outset, a stirring spiritual experience. Overnight, as it were, he is a different man. He becomes a religious enthusiast. He is unable to focus on anything else. As soon as his sobriety begins to be taken as a matter of course, the family may look at their strange new dad with apprehension, then with irritation. There is talk about spiritual matters morning, noon and night. He may demand that the family find God in a hurry, or exhibit amazing indifference to them and say he is above worldly considerations. He may tell mother,who has been religious all her life, that she doesn't know what it's all about, and that she had better get his brand of spirituality while there is yet time.

When father takes this tack, the family may react unfavorably. They may be jealous of a God who has stolen dad's affections. While grateful that he drinks no more, they may not like the idea that God has accomplished the miracle where they failed. They often forget father was beyond human aid. They may not see why their love and devotion did not straighten him out. Dad is not so spiritual after all, they say . If he means to right his past wrongs, why all this concern for everyone in the world but his family? What about his talk that God will take care of them? They suspect father is a bit balmy!
AA Big Book -- Chapter 9, pages 127-8.

Parts of this are, of course, ludicrous.

The first paragraph describes a family where everyone becomes a good little Buchmanite and confesses everything in family meetings. Bill Wilson had no children, so he had no experience with abused children. He does not have a clue about how abused children of an alcoholic will never get together with Father for a happy confession session. They will think, "Anything you say can and will be used against you the next time Father gets drunk, so don't say anything, ever." So these happy little family talks are as unlikely as snow in July, in Texas.

Paragraph two suddenly does a huge about-face. It does a complete logical disconnect. It begins, "Assume on the other hand," which leads us to think about what would happen if the family does not cooperate and become good little Buchmanites. But no, the paragraph features all of the horrible things that will happen if Father has had a "stirring spiritual experience": The family will become increasingly concerned about father's obvious monomaniacal obsession with religion -- "He becomes a religious enthusiast. He is unable to focus on anything else" -- "There is talk about spiritual matters morning, noon and night" -- and the author dismisses the family's apprehension with "They may be jealous of a God who has stolen dad's affections."

Yep, the author, Bill, is nuts all right. Clinically certifiable.

Speaking of nutty attitudes about father's new sobriety, the chapter "To Wives" also contains a real jewel. Bill wrote the chapter himself, in spite of the conceit that it appears to have been written by a woman, perhaps his wife:

"As wives of Alcoholics Anonymous, we would like you to feel that we understand as perhaps few can."
page 104.

Bill didn't trust his wife Lois to get it right, so he put his words into her mouth:

"Another feeling we are very likely to entertain is one of resentment that love and loyalty could not cure our husbands of alcoholism. We do not like the thought that the contents of a book or the work of another alcoholic has accomplished in a few weeks that for which we struggled for years."
page 118.

Reading between the lines, we can see that his wife, Lois, was very unhappy with his maniacal obsessive behavior. She admitted, in her own book, Lois Remembers, that she got fed up, and said, " Damn your old meetings!"

Bill was still capable of noticing that some people thought father was nuts -- back in chapter 9 of The Big Book, "The Family Afterward", it says "They suspect father is a bit balmy!" -- but Bill was apparently incapable of taking their concerns seriously. He dismissed their suspicions as just part of their "jealousy" or general worrying.

The next line in the book reads, "He is not so unbalanced as they might think." Then Bill proceeds to rationalize father's behavior. "Many of us have experienced dad's elation. We have indulged in spiritual intoxication."

Then Bill admits that father isn't quite right in the head, but says that it is okay, because it is just a passing phase. And, Bill states that father's return to sanity depends on the family not annoying or irritating him:

If the family cooperates, dad will soon see that he is suffering from a distortion of values. He will perceive that his spiritual growth is lopsided, that for an average man like himself, a spiritual life which does not include his family obligations may not be so perfect after all. If the family will appreciate that dad's current behavior is but a phase of his development, all will be well. In the midst of an understanding and sympathetic family, these vagaries of dad's spiritual infancy will quickly disappear.
AA Big Book -- Chapter 9, page 129.

But if the family won't do things his way:

The opposite may happen should the family condemn and criticize. Dad may feel that for years his drinking has placed him on the wrong side of every argument, but that now he has become a superior person with God on his side. If the family persists in criticism, this fallacy may take a still greater hold on father. Instead of treating the family as he should, he may retreat further into himself and feel he has spiritual justification for so doing.

Though the family does not fully agree with dad's spiritual activities, they should let him have his head. Even if he displays a certain amount of neglect and irresponsibility towards the family, it is well to let him go as far as he likes in helping other alcoholics. During those first days of convalescence, this will do more to insure his sobriety than anything else. Though some of his manifestations are alarming and disagreeable, we think dad will be on a firmer foundation than the man who is placing business or professional success ahead of spiritual development.
AA Big Book -- Chapter 9, pages 129-130.

Then Bill admits that he and his friends have been acting crazy, and says that the fix is just to embrace a different set of irrational beliefs -- just change your opinion of God's plan for you, and everything will be fine:

Those of us who have spent much time in the world of spiritual make-believe have eventually seen the childishness of it. This dream world has been replaced by a great sense of purpose, accompanied by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives. We have come to believe He would like us to keep our heads in the clouds with Him, but that our feet ought to be firmly planted on earth. That is where our fellow travelers are, and that is where our work must be done. These are the realities for us.
AA Big Book -- Chapter 9, page 130.

Let's see... "Spiritual make-believe dream world" has been replaced by "a great sense of purpose", that is, by a different flavor of megalomania, or delusion of grandeur. We have come to believe that "God wants me to save the world, He really does." And this sense of purpose is "accompanied by a growing consciousness of the power of God in our lives." So what's the big difference? One spiritual make-believe or another, Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum... Shall I have chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla delusions today? Decisions, decisions...

Supposedly, God wants you to have your head in the clouds, but you have to keep your feet where the "fellow travelers" are. Are the "fellow travelers" the alcoholics who have not yet been converted to the AA religion? Bill is indulging in vague terminology again, making up more euphemisms, but that is probably what he means. The phrase "fellow travelers" does not appear again anywhere else in the Big Book, so it is simply undefined. Typical. And that terminology, "our fellow travelers", implies that the unsaved alcoholics are somehow already the property of AA.

"And that is where our work is; we have to save all of our fellow travelers by making them just as nutty as we are."

Bill finishes by saying, "These are the realities for us."

Hmmm... That is not necessarily reality for anybody else...

Bill Wilson's behavior meets the criteria for "Delusional (Paranoid) Disorder, Grandiose Type," as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Edition, (DSM-III-R,) which is the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association:

Grandiose Type. Grandiose delusions usually take the form of the person's being convinced that he or she possesses some great, but unrecognized, talent or insight, or has made some important discovery... Grandiose delusions may have a religious content, and people with these delusions can become leaders of religious cults.

Age at onset. ...average age... between 40 and 45.

Impairment. Impairment in daily functioning is rare. Intellectual and occupational functioning is usually satisfactory, even when the disorder is chronic. Social and marital functioning, on the other hand, are often impaired. A common characteristic of people with Delusional Disorder is the apparent normality of their behavior and appearance when their delusional ideas are not being discussed or acted upon.

Predisposing factors. ...severe stresses...

Diagnostic criteria for 297.10 Delusional Disorder

A. Nonbizarre delusions...
B. Auditory or visual hallucinations, if present, are not prominent.
C. Apart from the delusion(s) or its ramifications, behavior is not obviously odd or bizarre.
D. [few or no] Major Depressive or Manic Syndrome episodes...
E. Has never met criterion A for Schizophrenia... [no prominent hallucinations or bizarre delusions.]

Grandiose Type
Delusional Disorder in which the predominant theme of the delusion(s) is one of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationship to a deity or famous person.

DSM-III-R, pages 200-203.

That fits Bill Wilson so well that it is uncanny. Bill Wilson had such an outrageous inflated opinion of himself and his importance that he even wrote this about himself in the Big Book, talking about the time in the hotel in Akron, Ohio, when he was debating about whether to relapse and have a few drinks, just before he met Doctor Bob:

"But what about his responsibilities -- his family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well, ah -- yes, those other alcoholics?"
--Big Book, Chapter 11.

They would not know how to get well? They would not be able to figure out how to quit drinking without Bill Wilson telling them? Nobody else in the whole world knows how to quit drinking but Bill Wilson?

Yes, Bill was genuinely insane, and he showed us that over and over again in the Big Book and his other writings. And he even went on to become the leader of a religious cult. He's literally a textbook case.

Bill is also a candidate for "292.11 Hallucinogen Delusional Disorder," which has as a major characteristic "Organic Delusional Syndrome developing shortly after hallucinogen use," which in turn often includes "Ritualistic, stereotyped behavior, sometimes associated with magical thinking." (Pages 146 and 110.) Bill Wilson was a raving lunatic from the day that he got Dr. Silkworth's hallucinogenic belladonna cure and saw God.

A clinical interview manual adds this information about Grandiose delusions:

Content: Messianic abilities
Patient's Explanation: Chosen, reborn, special reward for accomplishments
Patient's Expectation: Future admiration, acknowledgement as leader of mankind
Patient's Reaction: Preaching, helping, healing
The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV, page 137.

An interesting note on page 139 is that Grandiose delusions can be seen in substance-abuse disorders. Bill had two possibilities there: first off, the obvious alcohol abuse. And second, the use of an extremely toxic hallucinogen, a mixture of belladonna and henbane.

Consider Bill's messianic complex. Immediately after he flipped out and saw God, while getting Dr. Silkworth's belladonna cure, he began collecting alcoholics, starting home churches, and trying to convert people to his way of seeing things. The funny thing is, he does not seem to have ever considered just handing the other alcoholics over to Dr. Silkworth so that they could also get the belladonna cure and see God too. Bill Wilson only considered converting everybody to his own viewpoint. When you think about it, that is extremely arrogant: Don't trust other people to see things for themselves; they might screw it up; just get them to see things your way.

That is more than just arrogant, it is a fair description of megalomania, or delusions of grandeur.

In fact, Bill Wilson wrote the Twelve Steps so that members would exactly follow his prescribed course of action, and do exactly what he said. He had no intentions of cutting anyone any slack, or giving them any flexibility in their program of recovery. It was only the stubbornness of the other early AA members, after a long and loud screaming contest, that forced him to write a preface to the Twelve Steps that said that they are only a suggested course of recovery. Bill wanted them to be a requirement. But Bill got his revenge: In later chapters, he wrote that you will relapse unless you follow the Twelve Steps. "If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking." -- Chapter 6, page 72.

Current sponsors do it Bill's way, which becomes yet another bait and switch stunt: "The Twelve Steps are only a suggested program for recovery." But soon, the story is, "You will die if you don't do the Steps."

Oddly enough, Bill Wilson didn't even have a viewpoint to call his own the day after his vision. One of his friends in The Oxford Group, either Ebby Thatcher or Rowland Hazard, gave him William James's Varieties of Religious Experience to read, and that is where he got the idea of "deflation at depth," of having life-altering spiritual experiences while in great despair, while in great pain and utter hopelessness. Then, Rowland told Bill about the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung suggesting to him substituting religious mania for alcoholism. And then Ebby converted Bill to Buchmanism, via The Oxford Group Movement. They indoctrinated Bill in all of the standard beliefs and tenets of Buchmanism. Bill absorbed all of that, and then set out to convert the world. In his mind, he was the only one with all of the answers, and he felt that God had chosen him for that messianic mission. He was literally out to save the world, and he said so. He felt that saving all of the alcoholics was just the first step in world conquest.

And his followers have made good on that commitment, cloning the Twelve-Step program into a couple of hundred other groups that will supposedly cure everything imaginable, which makes everyone in the world a condidate for twelve-step salvation.

And Bill only faked humility; he actually wanted the Alcoholics Anonymous organization to have the name "The Bill W. Movement", but the other alcoholics just wouldn't have it:

At one point Bill considered "The Bill W. Movement" -- the ego had not been totally deflated -- but he was quickly talked out of that.
Bill W. by Robert Thomsen, p. 285.

The author here, Robert Thomsen, has a way with a phrase himself. To say that Bill W.'s ego had not been totally deflated is so cute that it is funny.

This is Robert Thomsen's description of Bill W.'s spiritual experience that occurred December 14, 1934, after three or four days of getting Dr. Silkworth's belladonna cure, which included detoxing, going through DTs, and getting large doses of vitamins, morphine, belladonna, henbane, barbiturates, tranquilizers, and other unnamed psychoactive drugs:

His fingers relaxed a little on the footboard [of the bed], his arms slowly reached out and up. "I want," he said aloud. "I want..."

Ever since infancy, they said, he'd been reaching out this way, arms up, fingers spread, and as far back as he could remember he'd been saying just that. But always before it had been an unfinished sentence. Now it had its ending. He wanted to live. He would do anything, anything, to be allowed to go on living.

"Oh, God," he cried, and it was the sound not of a man, but of a trapped and crippled animal. "If there is a God, show me. Show me. Give me some sign."

As he formed the words, in that very instant he was aware first of a light, a great white light that filled the room, then he suddenly seemed caught up in a kind of joy, an ecstasy such as he would never find words to describe. It was as though he were standing high on a mountaintop and a strong clear wind blew against him, around him, through him -- but it seemed a wind not of air, but of spirit -- and as this happened he had the feeling that he was stepping into another world, a new world of consciousness, and everywhere now there was a wondrous feeling of Presence which all his life he had been seeking. Nowhere had he ever felt so complete, so satisfied, so embraced.

This happened. And it happened as suddenly and as definitely as one may receive a shock from an electrode, or feel heat when a hand is placed close to a flame. Then when it passed, when the light slowly dimmed, and the ecstasy subsided -- and whether this was a matter of minutes or much longer he never knew; he was beyond any reckoning of time -- the sense of Presence was still there about him, within him. And with it there was still another sense, a sense of rightness. No matter how wrong things seemed to be, they were as they were meant to be. There could be no doubt of ultimate order in the universe, the cosmos was not dead matter, but a part of the living Presence, just as he was part of it.

Now, in place of the light, the exaltation, he was filled with a peace such as he had never known. He had heard of men who'd tried to open the universe to themselves; he had opened himself to the universe. He had heard men say there was a bit of God in everyone, but this feeling that he was a part of God, himself a living part of the higher power, was a new and revolutionary feeling.

-- Robert Thomsen, Bill W., 1975, pp. 222-223.

The AA book Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (1957) describes Bill's experience this way:

All at once I found myself crying out, "If there is a God, let Him show himself! I am ready to do anything, anything!"

Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. I was caught up in an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It seemed to me in my mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay there on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness... and I thought to myself, "So this is the God of the preachers!" A great peace stole over me.

Baba Ram Dass (the former Professor Richard Alpert) had this to say about people who have spiritual experiences:

Don't be psychotic: Watch it. Watch it.

That psychosis business is an interesting business. If you go through the doorway too fast, and you're not ready for it, you're bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness.

You may land anywhere and lots of people end up in mental hospitals. The reason they do is: They went through the door with their ego on, and:

"Wow! I've been invited to the wedding feast.

"I mean dig me! Sam Jones!

"Sam Jones in Heaven! Sam Jones standing on the right side of the Lord. There's the Lord, and there's Gabriel and there's Sam Jones."

They don't understand that you gotta die to be born. That only when you have been born again do you enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So, they've gone in on the first round and what happens is they go on a huge ego trip, and it's called the Messianic Complex. It's called Paranoia, Delusions of Grandeur.

-- Baba Ram Dass, Be Here Now, 1971, pp. 97-98.

As you may have guessed from the above quote of Ram Dass, I am not dismissing Bill Wilson's spiritual experience as just a drug-induced hallucination. No way, Jose. Being a good child of the sixties, I believe that you can get real spiritual experiences in quite a variety of ways, including fasting, chanting, meditation, yoga, sitting zazen, or consuming various herbs, fungi, or other organic chemicals. And some people even manage to do it with funny stuff like dancing, surfing, or making love, or --extremely dangerous-- delirium tremens. To me, anything that works is valid.

Please note that none of those means gives you any guarantees at all; most of the time, none of them, including drugs, really works for getting a spiritual experience. It takes a lot more than just an exercise or a dose to produce such an experience. The person's mind set is critically important, and setting is probably critical too. "Mind set" may include years of preparation, or even a lifetime of accumulated karma. (Some people would say "many lifetimes.") And then there just seems to be an element of luck. (Or, if you don't like the word "luck", then maybe cosmic good fortune, or good karma, or grace, or something.) Anyway, when it happens, it is great.

It seems to me that Bill Wilson certainly had a real spiritual experience; it was totally life-altering: He changed from a drinking-to-die alcoholic to a life-long tea-totaller in just one evening. That was a very strong vision. He was taking a strong enough dose: just delirium tremens alone can have you tripping your brains out, and when you add three or four days of consuming belladonna and henbane on top of it, you have a dose sufficient to have you hallucinating pink elephants of any color or stripe you wish. The accumulated brain damage from his years of drinking is also an unknown factor, and adding the morphine, tranquilizers, barbiturates, megavitamins, and unspecified other psychoactive drugs just seems like frosting on the cake, and Heaven only knows what all they did. I'm certainly not surprised that he was tripping.

But as Ram Dass has pointed out, there are some inherent dangers in forcing an experience before its time, like paranoia, delusions of grandeur, and a messianic complex. He should know. Lots of people were getting a little funny on LSD back in the sixties. (Okay, maybe a lot funny.) So it isn't like we haven't seen it before. If Bill Wilson had been a young friend of mine back in the sixties, I probably would have said to him, "Bill, you've gone and gotten all hung up in a crazy messianic complex. Why don't you take another hit of that Purple Dome, and this time, come down normal?"

(I didn't say that it would be great advice, I just said that that's probably what I would have said. And from what I read, Bill Wilson did try LSD back in the fifties, to see if it was any good for treating alcoholism. Apparently, he didn't think so. But that's another story.)

"Damn Your Old Meetings!" That is the title of chapter 8. Lois's book is also pretty pathetic: it was probably ghost-written for her, because it came out in 1979, long after Bill's death, and when she was also very old and frail. The Lois Remembers book parrots much of the party line in the Big Book, including the "jealous of God" story:

Slowly I recognized that because I had not been able to "cure" Bill of his alcoholism, I resented the fact that someone else had done so, and I was jealous of his newfound friends...

God, through the Oxford Group, had accomplished in a twinkling what I had failed to do in seventeen years.

Lois Remembers, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1991, page 99. ISBN 0-910034-23-0

All I can say is: What pathetic, brain-damaged tripe. Any normal wife would be overjoyed to see her husband cured of a deadly disease. But not in the weird world of AA. There, the wives are all jealous of God.

Belladonna:
Belladonna is an atropine powder derived from the leaves and roots of Atropa belladonna, a poisonous Eurasian plant popularly known as "deadly nightshade." Henbane is a similar plant in the same family. Another well-known member of the family is Datura, popularized by Carlos Casteneda in The Teachings of Don Juan.

All of the plants in the nightshade family get you high the same way: they are all deadly poisonous, and they poison you so much that you end up in a state where you have one foot in the grave and one foot in the land of the living. And you hallucinate your brains out. (Dosage is critical. Overdoses are fatal.)

One friend who did Datura said, "If you are going to do it, get three of your biggest, strongest friends to lock you in a closet for the duration, because you are going to be completely out of your head, totally disconnected from reality. Whatever you imagine becomes real. If you think of being in a sailing ship, then suddenly, you are. You can look out the porthole, and you can look around and see every piece of wood in the ceiling and walls all around you. It is all totally real."

Fortunately, I passed on that particular one. My friend had the shits for three months after drinking some tea of Datura, and he got off easy. Other people blew out their livers or kidneys. The stuff is just unbelievably toxic. Every part of the plant, including leaves, stems, flowers, seeds, and roots, is poisonous. Don't mess with it.

DSM-III-R == Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition Revised. Published by the American Psychiatric Institute, Washington, DC. 1987. ISBN 0-521-34509-X (casebound); ISBN 0-521-36755-6 (soft cover).

The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV, Ekkehard Othmer, M.D., Ph.D. and Sieglinde C. Othmer, Ph.D., American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1994. ISBN 0-88048-541-8

Last updated 29 May 2001.

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