Bill Wilson was an incredibly entrepreneurial young man with tremendous potential. He was also a drunk who had hit rock bottom. Then an epiphany led him to enduring sobriety.
With his personal drive and fellowship with former drinking buddies, Wilson built a social movement and worldwide organization. Founded in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped millions of “friends of Bill” recover from alcohol addiction.
In this episode of Cold Call, Harvard Business School Professor Robert Simons joins host Brian Kenny to discuss the case, Bill Wilson: Changing the World. They explore how Wilson navigated life’s choices, transformed his life and those of others, and left a lasting impact on the world.
BRIAN KENNY: With nearly $470 billion in liquor sales in 2023, it’s hard to fathom that there was a time when the sale of alcohol was banned in the U.S. The prohibition movement which led to the nationwide alcohol ban from 1920 to 1933 was driven by a combination of social, religious, political, and economic forces. At first, prohibition drastically reduced drinking and alcoholism. But within a few years, it contributed to different patterns of riskier underground drinking with more concentrated alcohol. Following prohibition, rates of alcohol abuse and dependence increased significantly, prompting the American Medical Association in 1956 to officially declare alcoholism a disease. Today, about 29 million people over the age of 12 suffer from alcohol use disorder, with about two-and-a-half million actively participating in recovery. For them, progress happens one step at a time. Today on Cold Call, we welcome Professor Bob Simons to discuss the case “Bill Wilson: Changing the World.” I’m your host Brian Kenny and you’re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Podcast Network.
Professor Bob Simons is an expert on strategy and the creator of the course Changing the World: Life Choices of Influential Leaders. That’s perfectly appropriate for what we’re going to talk about today. Bob, welcome back.
ROBERT SIMONS: Hi, Brian. Good morning. Great to be here.
BRIAN KENNY: We were just chatting before we went live here about we’ve had you on a few times now to talk about cases from this course. We discussed Muhammad Ali. We discussed Madame Curie. Those are still two of our most popular episodes. Listeners, you can find those if you look back in the catalog.
Today’s case, for me, was in some ways almost more remarkable than that because the person that we’re going to talk about today didn’t have the same sort of fanfare that Muhammad Ali had and Madame Curie had. He’s not a household name, but his story is absolutely remarkable and compelling. Thank you for writing it and thank you for being here to talk about it.
ROBERT SIMONS: My pleasure. I look forward to our discussion of a figure that many, many people don’t know, but has had a huge impact on the world.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. I think people are probably going to look him up, even after we’re done here. Let me ask you to start by telling us what drew you to Bill Wilson’s story? I should say, because I didn’t really say it explicitly in the introduction, but Bill Wilson is the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
ROBERT SIMONS: Yes.
BRIAN KENNY: Alcoholism is something that touches almost everybody’s life in some way so this is a person they need to know about. What drew you to his story and what made him a compelling figure for a case?
ROBERT SIMONS: Brian, as you know, the course that I teach with the modest title of Changing the World, we try to study people who have made a significant impact in the world, and try to understand the choices they made in their lives that allowed them to rise to positions of prominence. Our students I think are quite captivated by learning about these people.
We, as a matter of policy, went back and tried to look at analyses of the most important people in history. For example, we went back to Time Magazine or Life Magazine, the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Icons of the 20th Century, 100 People Who Changed the World. These are the titles of the kind of lists we examined. In every one of those lists, Bill Wilson’s name was prominent. Although if you asked, I suspect, the man on the street who Bill Wilson was, most people would not know the name.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, yeah. I thought it was remarkable, in the beginning of the case, you talk about how he knew he was destined for greatness. In the beginning of the case you’re like, “Okay, well, maybe he is.” But then as you read the case you think, “Man, this guy is about as far from greatness as it gets.”
ROBERT SIMONS: Yes.
BRIAN KENNY: How do you think he was able to have that premonition about himself and then eventually live up to it?
ROBERT SIMONS: Well, it’s a very interesting question because he was a tormented soul on many dimensions, as you know reading the case study, through his life. But he was, on the other hand, I think a man of great potential. He was highly intelligent. He had natural ability, charisma. He was very hard-working. He did very well in school after he got over his initial self-doubts. I do think this is an issue and our students wrestle with this, if you believe in fate or if you believe in God, you could actually think that he really may have been chosen or predestined to do what he did in the world. Certainly, his wife Lois, who we’ll talk about, and Bill himself really did feel through his life and his early struggles that, at the end of the day, he really was going to make a difference in the world.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, Lois is a really remarkable person. We will talk more about her, but she stood by his side through thick and thin, for sure. Bill had a really tough early childhood, a really tough upbringing. Can you maybe describe that for us a little bit?
ROBERT SIMONS: This is very sobering for our students. He was born, small town in Vermont. His parents at an early age decided that they did not want either him or his sister. They literally dropped the two kids off at the grandparent’s house, left them on the doorstep, and drove away. Bill didn’t see his father for 10 years. His mother moved to Boston, and made it very clear to Bill that they weren’t interested in seeing him again and had no attachment to him whatsoever.
I think this sowed just tremendous self-doubt, insecurity in him as a young man. Later in life, he suffered from depression. It’s hard to know to what extent this came. I do think in many ways, it did maybe create a sense of empathy in him for the struggles that other people were going through.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, yeah. We’ve talked in some of the other cases that we’ve discussed. Also, I did a case about Martin Luther King with Bill George. Bill talks about crucible moments. I feel like many of your cases have crucible moments that are wedged in there. For Bill, this came out in the form of almost a vision that he had, that he calls a “hot flash.”
ROBERT SIMONS: Yes.
BRIAN KENNY: Can you describe that?
ROBERT SIMONS: Well, he was basically sent to the hospital, Townsend Hospital, one, two, three, four separate times in absolute broken down alcohol state. He was on the verge of being committed to an asylum for the rest of his life. He just thought he could not be saved. Apparently, he said that his room was overtaken. He asked, he said, “If there’s a God, let him show himself now.” His friend had advised him, who had basically fought his way through alcoholism. This friend Thatcher had advised him that he should reach out for help. Bill claims that a white light completely engulfed the room and he felt like he was standing on the top of a mountain, wind was flowing by him. He emerged from that room literally a changed man.
After that moment, he never drank again. People read different things into that story. Certainly, he was taking hallucinogens as part of his recovery, that may have contributed. But it depends what your beliefs are as to whether this could really be some kind of divine intervention.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. This follows on years and years of momentary recoveries and relapses.
ROBERT SIMONS: Yes.
BRIAN KENNY: Recoveries and relapses.
ROBERT SIMONS: Yes, yes. Over, and over, and over again. Promising to do better, failing. Promising to do better and failing. He would disappear for days on end with these drunken binges. He lost every job he ever held. He had had great promise, accumulated wealth, he lost it all. He lost everything. Was just at the absolutely bottom of where he could be in life, it was just an absolute train wreck.
BRIAN KENNY: This may sound familiar to some people who are listening who have loved ones who have experienced this illness. Let’s talk about Lois for a minute. Can you maybe just describe their relationship?
ROBERT SIMONS: Lois is the unsung hero in this story.
BRIAN KENNY: For sure.
ROBERT SIMONS: If it had not been for Lois, there would be no Alcoholics Anonymous today. She, in the early years, supported him. He studied to go to law school and actually completed the course. But she had to get him up in the morning, and dress him, and clean him up. She worked odd jobs, and worked at Macy’s and stores, trying to earn enough money to keep the family afloat. She discovered the only way they could survive was she gave him an allowance. She saved every penny she possibly could, but he again would be drinking. She stood by him, brought him back to Vermont, tried to dry him out again, and again, and again. Then after his epiphany if you like, as you describe it, she then was at his side as he founded the early chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous. And really was a co-partner in that entire endeavor, although she doesn’t get the credits for doing so.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Let’s talk about Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s what he is known for having established. Can you maybe describe a little bit, the thought process that he had and the way that he set it up? He made some very important d