01/09/2026
Man did not "invent" the 12 steps. Jesus introduced the principles of recovery to us on a hillside in Galilee over 2000 years ago. The Oxford Group used them to develop a Biblically-based recovery program. Bill W and Dr. Bob broke it down into the 12 steps. That model still works today for dozens of recovery fellowships. It's good to be grateful to our predecessors for laying out this life-giving program, but never forget where it came from. Read Matthew 5:3-20.
In 1934, doctors gave Bill Wilson two options.
Lock him in an asylum.
Or prepare for his funeral.
There was no third choice for a “hopeless drunk.”
Inside a New York hospital, Bill lay shaking — only 39 years old, but destroyed by alcohol. Once successful. Once respected. Now unable to pass a bar without trembling.
His wife, Lois, had heard every promise. He meant them all. He broke them all.
Then Dr. William Silkworth said something radical:
Bill wasn’t weak.
He wasn’t immoral.
He was sick.
Alcohol wasn’t a habit — it was an obsession of the mind and an allergy of the body. And medicine had nothing left to offer.
For three nights, Bill faced the truth. Then something broke.
Not faith.
Not courage.
Surrender.
“If there is a God,” he cried, “I will do anything.”
What followed, Bill said, was peace — the craving gone. For the first time in years, he felt free.
He left sober.
Staying sober was harder.
Months later, alone in an Ohio hotel lobby, the urge returned. He knew one drink would kill him. Desperate, he searched for another alcoholic — not to save them, but to save himself.
That search led him to Dr. Bob Smith.
Instead of preaching, Bill told the truth.
The lies.
The fear.
The madness.
Dr. Bob heard his own soul in another man’s story.
Two broken men talked for hours at a kitchen table.
Dr. Bob took his last drink weeks later. He never drank again.
Together, they discovered something medicine had missed:
One alcoholic talking to another could succeed where everything else failed.
They called it Alcoholics Anonymous.
No punishment.
No lectures.
No hierarchy.
Just honesty, connection, and the refusal to face darkness alone.
Bill Wilson was once given no chance.
He created a third option.
Not asylum.
Not death.
Connection.
That option has saved millions.
