Bill Wilson Admits to Having Severe Depression, Years After He Had Supposedly Found The "Cure."

Bill Wilson also indulged in some pretty heavy duty denial about his mental state.
My favorite quotes are:

We have found nothing incompatible between a powerful spiritual experience and a life of sane and happy usefulness.

The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, page 130.

But dependence upon an A.A. group or Higher Power hasn't produced any baleful results.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 38.

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

an adulterer, but that he just couldn't stop himself.

So much for those wonderful 12 steps and removing bill w's moral shortcomings. Shit, I mean bill w's character defects.

I guess god® was ok with bill w. fucking other men's wives.

Hey Gunthar, I recently went on the Stepping Stones tour and sat at his desk and walked through their house and sat in the kitchen where all those AA'ers supposedly sat with Bill. The tour guide kept telling us how lazy Bill was.

He was such a loser in so many ways and yet he got all these praises from others as AA became successful. We all know he was a sexual predator with newcomer AA women ...the first 13stepper. We know he suffered for YEARS with depression and look LSD, even the tour guide told us that.

But it just makes me sick that AA got so big. Now that was Marty Mann's doing. Not Bill's , but it's a good letter to show the pro steppers how f ....up he really was.

I met with a neighbor there. Another fact is that Bill or Lois never got a legal permit for philanthropic use for their bullshit museum on a private road in a small town like Katona.

The 12 steps are a double edged sword that do not make you happy or spiritual. What confuses the issue is when you first come in, you find a place to not drink and make friends that don't drink. For awhile, it seems this deal REALLY WORKS! It is hard to say how many people eventually figure out that their life is dfferent simply because they no longer drink, but eventually the 12 step life gets depressing.
Of the few oldtimers that I know who stuck it out over 2 decades, over 50% were on anti-depressants. But nobody ever says "by the grace of Xanax, there go I". Then one has to choose, do I complain and lose the guru status I spent much time and energy on attaining along with many friends, or do I keep my mouth shut and keep chanting? Most either fade away keeping their mouths shut, and keeping the door open for another day, or they keep on chanting and maintain their self-esteem with sobriety time and impressing newcomers with memorized propaganda.
One final observation. I know quite a few longtimers, over 2 decades, by the time they get so sick of it all, they are so deep into it that it becomes VERY difficult to leave. AA is set up that all your friends, activities, and even the language you speak is all wrapped about "recoveryism". A couple years agho when I first was deprogramming, I remember how uncomfortable and intimidated I was hanging out with "normies". After 2 decades of AA, that is what the program managed to do to me. It really takes some effort and resolve to get out of that 'comfort zone' while you hear Bill in the back of your head telling you that you are signing your own death warrant.
I have no regrets about setting myself free. I feel fortunate.

Exercise may help ease depression in heart failure: People with heart failure who are also depressed may benefit from regular, moderate exercise, a new study suggests. Researchers found patients who exercised an hour and a half to two hours per week had slightly lower depression scores, which in turn were tied to a reduced risk of re-hospitalizations and deaths related to heart problems.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/08/01/exercise-may-help-ease-depressi...

Exactly Alkieanon, almost anything is healthier and more effective than "12-step treatment". Unfortunately at meetings almost everything is labeled an "old idea" that doesn't work, so you better "find a God" instead.

funny that's how I quit AA searched bill wilson depression, yea for orange. Of course my sponsor informed me it's not the messenger it's the message. tell that to Jesus.

The dogmatic assertions Bill made in 1939's Promises (of the 12 Steps being a cure all for all of life's problems) which 'will always materialize if we work for them,' are not only undercut, but also contradicted by the content of this letter. But as pointed out by Pennywise, the BB will never be updated or altered, and it's this refusal to change outdated dogma that makes AA a cult.
Like YM, once I could no longer even try to believe that the 12 steps could be an effective treatment (for anything) I was done. The process of deprogramming involves desensitizing myself to aa dogma - that's why I'm on this forum and that's also why I decided to go to a meeting last night! Quite a few months ago when I was telling my 12 step therapist that I was finding meetings acutely uncomfortable, it was recommended that I continue attending until they no longer bothered me. His argument was that the way I felt about aa was a mirror for what was going on in me. I sat through the meeting without feeling failure or guilt or anger or superiority or inferiority. Didn't share, because whats the point? As an atheist, I should never have been in there in the first place.

If found reading the BB book depressing enough.......writing it must have been truly awful.

Pity Wilson didn't do himself and the rest of the world a favour, when he stopped drinking, by filling his (acid popping ) sober time in with something else, other than inventing the stepper cult