To make this mundane world sublime,
Take half a gram of phanerothyme

Osmond responded with a poem of his own…

To fathom Hell or soar angelic,
Just take a pinch of psychedelic

And so, the word was first used and has been ever since.  We mention Bill Wilson’s first usage of LSD, but he was not the first person connected with Alcoholics Anonymous to experiment with LSD as a form of treatment or therapy.  For that, we have to travel a bit earlier to Canada, which was at the forefront of LSD research at the time.

In 1953, Dr Humphrey Osmond, three years before he would coin the term ‘psychedelic’, and Dr. Abram Hoffer were having an evening conversation about alcoholics and delirium tremens.  They were curious about the possible effects that LSD would have on alcoholics.  At the time, they thought that perhaps since the psychedelic effects of LSD and delirium tremens experienced by alcoholics was similar, maybe artificially inducing these deliriums with LSD could have an effect on sobriety.  Osmond later writes, “This idea at 4:00 A.M., seemed so bizarre that we laughed uproariously. But when our laughter subsided, the question seemed less comical and we formed our hypothesis or question: would a controlled LSD-produced delirium help alcoholics stay sober?”  This is expanded upon in the book Pass it On.

“In 1954, Abram Hoffer and I, using LSD and mescaline [for] schizophrenia, conceived the idea that they represented something very similar to delirium tremens — that a good many people who really give up alcohol do so on basis of the fact that they’ve had an attack of D.T.’s and been impressed by them. We [thought] it might be a very good idea to give a person an ‘attack’ before he’d been completely destroyed. This was our original theory. We found, in fact, that this wasn’t quite how it worked. [It was] really not unlike Bill’s experience, which I later heard about — it gave a number of people pause for thought, not on the grounds of how terrifying it was, but how illuminating it was.” -Pass it On

And so, they chose two alcoholics, a male and a female, and administered 200mcg of LSD at the Saskatchewan Hospital in Weyborn.  Of these two, the male stopped drinking for several months, whereas for the other, it appeared to have no effect on her drinking.  Encouraged by these results, the doctors expanded their research to 24 alcoholics, but not any ordinary alcoholics.  For this study, they sought out the hardest cases and reached out to other hospitals and agencies in the area.  “We want your worst cases; we are not interested in mild cases that could recover through A.A. or through any other agency that you now have available.”  Of the 24 in this group,  they averaged uncontrollable drinking of about 12 years. Twenty had tried A.A. and failed. Twelve had been previously diagnosed as psychopathic. Eight had serious character or personality disorders, and the remaining four were borderline or actual psychotics. The results of the second study?  Outcomes were tracked from 2 months up to 3 years.  Of those in the study 6 reported either full abstinence or minimal drinking during that time, 6 had dramatically decreased their drinking, whereas the remaining 12 were unchanged in their drinking habits.  This study led to another, this time with 60 “very difficult psychopathic alcoholics” and that after a five-year follow-up, it was reported by Dr. Hoffer at a 1959 Josiah Macy Conference on LSD”… half of them were no longer drinking. You will not believe it, and I would not have, either. The results are very impressive…”

Dr. Hoffer was not the only one working with LSD and alcoholics. A more controlled trial directly involving integration between AA and psychedelics took place in the same hospital, this time by Sven Jensen.

“Sven Jensen, a psychiatrist working in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, published the first controlled clinical trial of LSD in alcoholism in 1962. He developed a program based largely on the principles of AA. The treatment included weekly AA meetings. During 2 h of group psychotherapy, those who were not already familiar with the AA program were indoctrinated mainly by the other patient’s discussion. Toward the end of hospitalization, the patients were given LSD. The dosage (routinely 200μg) usually produced an intense reaction in a nonalcoholic person; however, alcoholics were relatively resistant. Patients preparing for the LSD experience were told that it would not prevent them from drinking but would rather make them understand why they drink and what they could do about it. Of 58 patients who experienced the full program, and were followed up for 6–18 months, 34 had remained totally abstinent since discharge or stayed abstinent following a short experimental bout immediately after discharge; 7 were definitely drinking less than before; 13 were unimproved; and 4 were lost to follow-up. Of 35 patients who received group therapy without LSD, 4 were abstinent, 4 were improved, 9 were unimproved, and 18 were lost to follow-up. Of 45 controls, consisting of patients admitted to the hospital during the same period who received individual treatment by other psychiatrists, 7 were abstinent, 3 improved, 12 unimproved, and 23 lost to follow-up. By a chi-squared test, significantly more of the alcoholics treated with LSD were abstinent or improved at the time of follow-up than of those who received group therapy alone or of the controls.” -The History of Psychedelics in Psychiatry, David E. Nichols & Hannes Walter

These results were astounding, with 58% of those who took LSD and integrating with AA staying sober for 6-18 months of follow-ups vs only 11% staying sober without LSD.  In addition, an interesting side effect happened in this study: over 90% of the lsd group stayed in AA, whereas 50% of the non-LSD group dropped out of AA.  Being informed of success rates like these are having an effect on Bill, who is passionate about helping those whom AA doesn’t seem to be working.  The AA secretary, Nell Wing, reports

“There were alcoholics in the hospitals, of whom A. A. could touch and help only about five percent. The doctors started giving them a dose of LSD, so that the resistance would be broken down. And they had about 15 percent recoveries. This was all a scientific thing.” -Pass it On

During the summer of 1966, after thirteen years of research in this area, Dr. Hoffer published the statistics relating to the more than eight hundred hard-core alcoholics who had been treated in the Canadian LSD program.

“When psychedelic therapy is given to alcoholics using methods described in the literature about one-third will remain sober after the therapy is completed, and one-third will be benefited. If schizophrenics and malvarians are excluded from LSD therapy the results should be better by about 30 per cent. There are no published papers using psychedelic therapy which show it does not help about 50 per cent of the treated group….Our conclusion after 13 years of research is that properly used LSD therapy can convert a large number of alcoholics into sober members of society…. Even more important is the fact that this can be done very quickly and therefore very economically. Whereas with standard therapy one bed might be used to treat about 4 to 6 patients per year, with LSD one can easily treat up to 36 patients per bed per year.”

What’s interesting to note about Dr. Hoffers comments, is that he’s suggesting that treatment, which at the time was anywhere from 30-60 days on average for an alcoholic, can be shortened to 10 days with LSD therapy with increased outcomes over the longer stays.  At the time of today’s writing, the average length of stay for an alcoholic or addict seeking treatment is anywhere from 30 to 90 days of residential followed by encouragement to attend 12-step meetings.  Unfortunately, two years after Dr. Hoffer released his study, in 1968, LSD would be scheduled in the US as a schedule I drug, meaning it has no approved medical value.  By 1971, the United Nations made a similar move and scheduled LSD.   Any possible chance for a shorter term, higher success rate treatment program hinted at by Dr. Hoffer involving LSD was now officially over.

There is a bit of history that may help to understand the changes that were occurring within AA as a whole and how it affected later decisions for Bill Wilson.  Beginning in the 1940s, Bill Wilson, struggling now with major depression begins to seek outside help for his solution: Father Ed Dowling, a Jesuit priest and spiritual mentor, who informs Bill that his depression is related to a lack of spirituality or the need to satisfy a spiritual thirst, Dr Harry Tiebout who suggests that Bill’s problems stem from “both in his active alcoholism and his current sobriety he had been trying to live out the infantilely grandiose demands of “His Majesty the Baby” (Not God, by Ernest Kurst) and finally 5 years working with Dr Frances Weeks, a Jungian therapist who believes that Bills issues are his inability to separate the needs of AA with his own personal ones.

“Highly satisfactory to live one’s life for others, it cannot be anything but disastrous to live one’s life for others as those others think it should be lived…The extent to which the AA movement and the individual in it determine my choices is really astonishing. Things which are primary to me (even for the good of AA) are unfulfilled…So we have the person of Mr. Anonymous in conflict with Bill Wilson” – Soul of Sponsorship

How other members of AA, and even Bill himself, viewed him seeking psychiatric help for his depression were not positive.

“Bill believed that his depressions were perpetuated by his own failure to work the AA steps…”I used to be rather guilt ridden about this…I blamed myself for inability to practice the program in certain areas of my life.”-Pass It On

According to Francis Hartigan, author of the biography Bill W, when it got out that Bill W was seeking psychiatric help, she writes

“The reaction for many members was worse than it had been to the news he was suffering from depression…As these members saw it, Bill’s seeking outside help was tantamount to saying the A.A. program didn’t work.”-Bill W, Francis Hartigan

It is important to state that AA, the organization, is not against seeking outside help and encourages it if necessary.  But that doesn’t always mean that its members are quite so accepting.  And unfortunately, it appears that Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was beginning to experience an ever-growing dogma that was entering the rooms of AA.  The dogma being that “AA and only AA is the solution”, apparently even for depression.

So, whatever the reasons for his decision to take LSD, Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, made the decision.  And, like many of our members of Psychedelics in Recovery have experienced, on August 29, 1956, with set and setting and 3 guides present, took his first intentional usage of a psychedelic and entered the strange place of being both a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and…something other.

Under the supervision of his sponsee and friend Tom Powers, Gerald Heard and Dr. Sidney Cohen, psychiatrist, Bill Wilson takes LSD for the first of many times, and the effect was nothing less than profound on him.  Here are some of the statements made in regard to this first LSD experience.

“At 1:00 pm Bill reported “a feeling of peace.” At 2:31 p.m. he was even happier. “Tobacco is not necessary to me anymore,” he reported. At 3:15 p.m. he felt an “enormous enlargement” of everything around him. At 3:22 p.m. he asked for a cigarette. At 3:40 p.m. he said he thought people shouldn’t take themselves so damn seriously.” My Name is Bill, Susan Cheever

“Bill was enthusiastic about his experience; he felt it helped him eliminate many barriers erected by the self, or ego, that stand in the way of one’s direct experience of the cosmos and of God. He thought he might have found something that could make a big difference to the lives of many who still suffered. Soon, he had a group of people — psychiatrists, ministers, publishers, and friends — interested in further experiments with the substance. Far from keeping his activities a secret, he was eager to spread the word. (Secrecy was never Bill’s strong point. His candor, certainly an important part of his great charm and credibility, also had its drawbacks. As Nell said, if you did not want something to be publicly known, you were well advised not to share it with Bill. In a word, he was open about his own affairs and those of others.)” -Pass it On

In a currently unpublished letter to Carl Jung described by Don Lattin below, Wilson writes that his LSD experiences are similar to the original “white light experience” back in the Townes Hospital years before.

“I discovered a second Wilson letter to Jung. In that letter of March 29, 1961, Wilson writes at length about his experiments using LSD to help members of Alcoholics Anonymous have the spiritual awakening that is central to the twelve-step program of recovery. 

‘Some of my AA friends and I have taken the material (LSD) frequently and with much benefit,’ Wilson told Jung, adding that the powerful psychedelic drug sparks ‘a great broadening and deepening and heightening of consciousness.’

Wilson told Jung that his first LSD trip in 1956 reminded him of a mystical revelation he had after hitting bottom in the 1930s and winding up in a New York City hospital ward for hardcore alcoholics. ‘My original spontaneous spiritual experience of twenty-five years before was enacted with wonderful splendor and conviction,’”-Distilled Spirits, Don Lattin

Within a few months of this first session with LSD, Bill Wilson now does his first group LSD experience where everyone participating took lower doses of LSD.  Present is Bill Wilson, Tom Powers, Dr. Betty Eisner (therapist) and Dr. Sidney Cohen (who was the researcher present for Bills first experience the previous August.)  Later Betty’s husband Will, who didn’t partake, arrives, and tries to connect with Bill about their mutually shared struggles with depression.  Followed is some of the notes taken by Betty and compiled for an unpublished book entitled “Remembrances of LSD Therapy Past.”

“When I talked to Tom about his coming out…the idea of all of us taking 25 gamma experimentally to see what would happen. Since all of us had had it at least once — in larger doses, it would be interesting, I thought, to see what the small dose would do… So unconsciously or rather half consciously I probably had hopes of help from Tom either in the problem area or in the integrative…

But when W.W. (Wilson) walked into the den…I knew this was his session…

Sid was waiting for us in his office at the hospital and there were warm greetings to Tom and Wilson. At 12:20 we took the drug…Wilson had taken 50 gamma — the rest of us 25. When offered the little blue pills and was told by Sid to take what he wanted, he said — ‘Never say that to a drunk,’ and took two…it was 35 minutes later when he said he felt stirred by the music, and 10 minutes after that when he began talking. Throughout the session he rarely would admit feeling the drug or its action, but about the time he started talking quite a bit in a more relaxed way his face changed, he looked much younger, and the tension began to go.”

“Tom and I took alternating roles of therapists; Sid for the most part sat very quietly. I felt pulled in different directions at times by the three of them…the problems seemed to be in the mother-father area from the masculine aspect. Sid was very open to the whole thing…and I felt that many of the things which were said to Wilson he felt were said to him, too. And Tom seemed to identify a great deal with the problem and at one point cried. Wilson came close only twice — once in relation to his mother and once with his father, I believe. I kept having the feeling that my role was that of therapist — this wasn’t my time to experience the drug, and then I consequently examined myself as to whether this were a defense against the drug…”

“…Gregorian Chants, and these moved Tom profoundly. He seemed to take onto himself the suffering of humanity and particularly with respect to a mental hospital…I think he actually was open to the surrounding suffering and as such felt it. This is important with respect to where we hold our massive LSD experiments…”

“I hesitate to enter into the dynamics of the problem(s) as they were uncovered. I do think that there were two important parts, though — Wilson’s experience of himself as unloved — and the perception that it was not through himself but because of his parents that this occurred…It was interesting to see how the therapy went — at times I felt that Tom jumped too many levels and lost Wilson; at times he felt that I was off the beam…”

 “At about four or shortly after Wilson seemed to be coming out and rebuilding his defenses (but one can still get through, Tom — as we found at dinner: both Will and I did.)…Sid had to go to a military ball, and so we decided to leave. Now that the session was over, I suddenly began to feel the drug — four hours after I had taken it. (Both Tom and I had full LSD reactions 5 hours after the drug had been administered.)…I really didn’t feel that I should drive, but Wilson is ticky in LA and Tom wasn’t in much better shape than I. So I crawled down San Vicente concentrating on all aspects of driving and had a terrible time figuring out where to go…But we finally made it to Tali’s, and while we sat drinking and talking the drug really hit me. The color and room approached and receded in waves — it was just like the first time I had had the drug from the sensory aspect — the slugging on the back of the head, the nausea, etc. And I knew I was in for a bad reaction because there wasn’t the concomitant freeing experience.”

 “I felt progressively worse as we came home — and since the sitter had to leave almost immediately, I was projected like a missile into the domestic situation. Nothing was done that should have been done, and everything was a mess, which I tried to keep from Tom and Wilson (the old perfect hostess operating) and I felt worse and worse and worse…But I couldn’t put a name or reason to it — there didn’t seem to be anything related to my suffering…I had to retire to the bedroom…I sobbed and sobbed in terrible anguish over — I didn’t know what! And I still don’t really. Tom suggested that it might have been a reaction from the session since I was carrying a heavy load of masculinity — one of me and three of them…”

 “So — Will came home and we had drinks — hard and soft — and talked and talked. And then to the Miramar for dinner where Will really got through to Wilson a couple of times on the bridge between them of depression. I got through to him once, too, although Tom didn’t think we could do it… And we talked about trust, and the difficulty is that Wilson doesn’t trust anybody: he can’t let them close because he doesn’t trust himself — that he may kill them, in effect. Because those of us with ‘paranoid’ tendencies will kill before being killed, and the ‘depressive’ will kill himself first. And I think that is all there is to different psychiatric classifications in this area. And perhaps there is only one: the ego when attacked will defend itself to the death. And this violence and basic urge to kill (basic to the ego, not the self) is so appalling to the ‘depressive’ that he shrinks back and turns the point of the weapon toward himself while the ‘paranoid’ on the other had tries to rationalize it and make a pretty picture of it for society or whoever to see…”

“And when we got home at one or after I was still so disturbed and upset and in such suffering I cooked until 3 and soon I felt peace and release and back to creative reality again. Cooking is a sacrament; I never knew before.”

What is interesting about this session and how it may relate to our group, Psychedelics in Recovery, is in regard to childhood trauma.  Bill Wilson, now with over 20 years of continuous sobriety from alcohol and under the effects of LSD begins to speak of his mother and his father “Wilson’s experience of himself as unloved — and the perception that it was not through himself but because of his parents that this occurred” and later the conversation shifts into distrust “And we talked about trust, and the difficulty is that Wilson doesn’t trust anybody: he can’t let them close because he doesn’t trust himself”

What is never mentioned in the Big Book, nor the Twelve and Twelve of AA, is Bills childhood.  Even Bills Story begins when Bill is about 20 years old and so we are left to start with that.  In later years, biographies have come out detailing more of his unique childhood.  Bill himself almost never speaks of it.  An unpublished first version of Bill’s Story written in 1938 begins with a simple sentence.

“When I was about ten years old my Father and mother agreed to disagree and I went to live with my Grandfather, and Grandmother”-Bill’s Story, unpublished version 1938

Later biographies expand on that simple sentence and put more light into the difficulties of Bill’s relationship, or lack thereof, with his parents.

“Then it was that Mother told us that Father had gone for good. To this day, I shiver every time I recall that scene on the grass by the lakefront. It was an agonizing experience for one who apparently had the emotional sensitivity that I did. I hid the wound, however, and never talked about it with anybody, even my sister.” – Pass it On

His father took a job out west and never returned.  Later, as a result of the divorce, Bill’s mother dropped him and sister off to live with their grandparents so she could move to Boston and study osteopathy.

“Although Bill and Dorothy loved their grandparents, who were very good to them, they felt abandoned. Bill was especially devoted to his father and badly missed him after he moved to the West. . . . The separation made him feel set apart and inferior to youngsters who lived with a mother and father.

And now Emily, too, went away from East Dorset. Leaving Bill and Dorothy in the full-time care of their grandparents, she moved to Boston to go back to school — specifically, osteopathic college.”- Pas it On

During the formation of AA and its later decades, little was known about childhood trauma and how that can affect someone for years.  But apparently it has affected Bill.  Whereas this was apparently something that he rarely discussed, he now discusses it with 3 others who are undergoing an LSD therapy session together.  Alcoholics Anonymous has done wonders for many who have struggled with alcoholism and addiction.  But, at the time of its writings there was essentially no such thing as trauma therapy.  Bill Wilson has experienced several years now of working with a Dr, a Jesuit Priest and a Jungian Therapist as described in several paragraphs earlier.  It is interesting to note that only one of these, Dr. Tiebout, acknowledges anything suggesting that his childhood may still be affecting him.  Unfortunately, it’s not very empathetic…” he had been trying to live out the infantilely grandiose demands of ‘His Majesty the Baby’”

It would be assumed in the decades prior to the LSD experiences that Bill Wilson probably attempted to do step work on his depression and perhaps even his difficulties of his childhood.  And so, we should look there for answer.  In the AA literature, we are encouraged to do a personal inventory of wrongs done.

“Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.”

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.

Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.” -Alcoholics Anonymous

For many people who have experienced childhood or adult trauma, physical, emotional, sexual, or spiritual abuse, abandonment, addictive parents, or dysfunctional upbringings and who enter into AA, we are also faced with this 4^th step inventory and some of its suggestions.  There has been many a well-meaning sponsor who is trying to help a member directly out of the book who has made the following suggestions “I’m sorry that you were abused as a child, but the best we can do is pray for them and look at our own faults in the situation.  Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened?”

The previous is not to criticize AA nor its tremendous benefit that it has brought many millions.  It is simply to say, that for some of us, simply reworking the steps is not enough to handle some of our deeper difficulties, especially with the more recent understandings of the effects of trauma, neglect, abuse and shame.  And, it is possible, that even for Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, the steps were simply just not enough.  And it just very well may be, that for the very first time, while under a low dose of LSD, Bill Wilson uttered a variation of the words “perhaps my difficulties did not begin with me…”

And for the next several years, Bill Wilson continued to experiment with LSD, along with his sponsee Tom Powers, Father Ed Dowling his Jesuit priest friend and spiritual mentor, Sam Shoemaker (the leader of the Oxford Group in America), his wife, AA secretary Nell Wing, and many others in AA.

“He invited many of his closest associates to join him in the experience. Those invited included Father Dowling, who accepted, Dr. Jack, who did not, and Sam Shoemaker. Bill reported to Shoemaker: “You will be highly interested to know that Father Ed Dowling attended one of our LSD sessions while he was here recently. On that day, the material was given to one of the Duke precognition researchers, a man now located in New York. The result was a most magnificent, positive spiritual experience. Father Ed declared himself utterly convinced of its validity, and volunteered to take LSD himself.”-Pass it On

“As word of Bill’s activities reached the Fellowship, there were inevitable repercussions. Most A.A.’s were violently opposed to his experimenting with a mind-altering substance. LSD was then totally unfamiliar, poorly researched, and entirely experimental — and Bill was taking it.”-Pass it On

Although Bill was encouraged and outspoken to his friends about the potential benefits of LSD therapies, he limited his public talks about the subject, perhaps knowing how controversial the subject was.  Perhaps the closest he came to trying to convince the greater AA community to remain open to new research comes from these 1959 comments in the AA grapevine.

“We have made only a fair-sized dent on this vast world health problem. Millions are still sick and other millions soon will be. These facts of alcoholism should give us good reason to think, and to be humble. Surely, we can be grateful for every agency or method that tries to solve the problem of alcoholism — whether of medicine, religion, education, or research. We can be open-minded toward all such efforts, and we can be sympathetic when the ill-advised ones fail.”-Bill Wilson, March 1959, Grapevine.

In the end, it appears that AA, the organization, was not willing to endorse anything as controversial as psychedelics as an adjunct therapy for alcoholism, no matter how successful the research seemed to show.  For them, it was, and perhaps is still considered…an “outside issue” and there it should remain.

Although it is unknown when Bill Wilson last used LSD, it is suggested that it probably occurred in the early 1960s.  Bill Wilson, discouraged with the resistance in accepting psychedelics despite the apparent positive results of research, put more and more attention on the less controversial research in large doses of Niacin in reducing cravings for alcoholics and having an effect on depression.  Abram Hoffer, pioneer in the work with alcoholism and LSD, was also experimenting with Niacin (which is not a psychedelic).  Since Bill himself had started using large doses (1000mg) of Niacin and found that it dramatically reduced his depressive mood symptoms and cravings for alcohol that kept recurring despite being sober, he then launched his own case study with 30 AA members. He found that in the first month, 10 patients recovered. By the second month, 20 patients were mostly symptom free.  Bill noted that patients “… showed prompt and usually spectacular recovery from sometimes long-standing depression, exhaustion, heavy tension and even troublesome paranoid behavior.”

Apparently Bill Wilsons use of psychedelics was not limited to LSD.  In a September 1960 letter to Humphrey Osmond, Aldous Huxley writes of a meeting with Bill Wilson and another lesser known psychedelic

“…Yesterday I lunched with Bill Wilson who spoke enthusiastically of his own experiences with leuko-adrenochrome and of the successful use of it on his ex-alcoholic neurotics. This really sounds like a break-through and I hope you are going ahead with clinical testing. Do you have any of the stuff to spare? If so, I’d be most grateful for a sample. It might relieve my tension-pains in the lower back, as it relieved Bill’s aches and those of some of his friends. I wd like too to be able to send a few pills to Laura, who has some of Bill’s symptoms— tension, then exhaustion, and then tremendous drive to overcome the exhaustion.”

No more information is known of Bills usage of the rare psychedelic leuko-adrenochrome and his work with other alcoholics.

In 1968, Bill Wilson published a pamphlet entitled “The Vitamin B-3 Therapy” in which he claimed that those in his trials were now showing a 71% recovery rate after 2 years.  Alcoholics Anonymous actively discouraged Bill Wilson to linking any of these studies with Alcoholics Anonymous, despite their possible  potential for helping alcoholics, informing him that he needed to not use AA letterhead in any of his letters regarding Niacin therapy.  Historically, and perhaps understandably, AA has been reluctant to change any of its program, its materials, or its simple message.  Any suggestions to add, subtract or change (outside of simple edits) any of its source material or its program of recovery has always been met with resistance, both within AA the organization and among many of the members worldwide.  A common sentiment is there is no need to change something that works so well for them, regardless of if it works equally well for everyone else.

Bill Wilson died 2 years after the publication of this alternative cures Vitamin B-3 pamphlet.  It was reported by Ernest Kurtz, author of Not God, that at the end of his life Bill Wilson was asked what he wished to be remembered for.  Bill responded, much to the chagrin of millions of recovery members, not with the co-creation of Alcoholics Anonymous…but with his work with Niacin therapy.

“At the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens.

There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.

My schoolmate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies. We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment. I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them. I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my ability.

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.

My friend promised when these things were done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential requirements.

Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all.“

-Alcoholics Anonymous, pg 13-14

Seemingly as a result of these “steps” or workings, he has a tremendous spiritual experience, later referred to as the “White Light” experience.  He writes of it in the book on page 14 and in later writings, expands on it.

“These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound. For a moment I was alarmed, and called my friend, the doctor, to ask if I were still sane.” -Bill Wilson, page 14, Alcoholics Anonymous

His comments on the experience are expanded upon in Pass it On

“Suddenly, my room blazed with an indescribably white light. I was seized with an ecstasy beyond description. Every joy I had known was pale by comparison. The light, the ecstasy — I was conscious of nothing else for a time.  Then, seen in the mind’s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit, where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. In great, clean strength, it blew right through me. Then came the blazing thought ‘You are a free man. ‘ I know not at all how long I remained in this state, but finally the light and the ecstasy subsided. I again saw the wall of my room. As I became more quiet, a great peace stole over me, and this was accompanied by a sensation difficult to describe. I became acutely conscious of a Presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘must be the great reality. The God of the preachers.’”-Pass it On

For many of us reading this section of the Big Book, it seemed pretty apparent.  Bill Wilson has just worked what would eventually become the equivalent of the 12 steps.  As such, he has a spiritual experience.  As an interesting side note, so profound was this experience that the original 12^th step was written as “Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our lives.” Later, when others didn’t seem to have such profound spiritual experiences as Bill describes, the wording was changed to “Having had a spiritual awakening…”  Is there more to this story that wasn’t told?  Perhaps so.  In an earlier page, Bill Wilson mentions that at the Townes Hospital he received what was called the Belladonna Treatment.

“Under the so-called belladonna treatment my brain cleared”-

So what is the belladonna treatment and did it contribute to the “white light” experience?

Charles Townes, the founder of the Townes hospital details his detox methods in a 1917 pamphlet called “The Alcoholic Problem considered in its Institutional, Medical and Sociological Aspects”

“I found in my early investigations in this matter that, in treating alcoholism, we had to deal with the narcotic effect of alcohol and not its stimulating effect. The definite treatment which we carried out is based on this medical formula:

• Tincture belladonna 62.0 or 15 ij
• Fluidextract xanthoxylum
• Fluidextract hyoscyamus. aa 31.0 or 15 j

We administered the above mixture hourly by the mouth in capsule, beginning with a minimum dosage of 6 drops. The dose is increased or decreased according to individual tolerance, and, as the action of belladonna can be easily noted by the extremely dilated pupil, dryness of the throat, and flushing of the skin, with ordinary thought and care, in the short interval of administration, there is never any necessity for bringing about extreme physiological action of this drug that is, delirium.

The physician who is not thoroughly familiar with the alcoholic would find it most difficult to differentiate between alcoholic delirium and belladonna delirium. He may distinguish between them by the fact that alcoholic delirium is always preceded by extreme tremor, while belladonna delirium is not. It would be easy in a chronic alcoholic to have a combination of the two conditions to deal with, and it would be very difficult for the inexperienced physician to diagnose such a condition intelligently.

The length of time over which this belladonna mixture is continued depends entirely on the individual patient, but it is given continuously and unremittingly, day and night, until we get a complete and perfect bowel elimination.  We find that when we have a certain characteristic of elimination–a dark, thick, green mucous stool-there is a complete and definite physical change established. When this is followed up by a dose of castor oil, we have only to resort to temporary stimulation of the patient with a moderate amount of strychnine or some similar stimulant, possibly the giving of a stomachic of rhubarb, sodium, and capsicum, the careful supervision of diet for a few days, and within the period of a week, unless the case is one of old chronic standing and horribly depleted physically, we realize a definite medical result. The patient is unpoisoned and is physiologically free of his former craving.

Immediately on the admission of an alcoholic to the hospital, we first ascertain whether we have a case of chronic alcoholism. If we have, we immediately put the patient to sleep, for we have found that no patient can sleep and have delirium tremens. It makes no difference how long a period he may have been drunk, we do not deprive him immediately of the alcoholic stimulant he has been taking. We alternate with his alcohol a sedative, which is composed of

• ..8 percent
• Each fluid ounce represents Cm. or c.c.
• Chloral hydrate…..1.5 or gr. xxiiss
• Tincture hvoseyamus. 3.0 or 11 xlv
• Tincture ginger .. .. 1.0 or M xv
• Tincture capsicum ……. 0.25 or m ii×
• .sufficient to make 31.0 or f3 j

We repeat this sedative at reasonable intervals until we are able to produce sleep, avoiding, of course, the bringing about of any unfavorable condition; but this we are not very likely to get, giving the treatment as advised. We use catharsis very freely in our treatment here.  We employ the compound cathartic pill, USP standard with blue mass; and we give from 2 to 5 pills, with 5 to 10 grains of blue mass, at intervals of from fifteen to twenty hours the first two or three days, as may be indicated in our study of the case.  In giving the belladonna mixture, you may be sure that you will neither produce any unfavorable intestinal irritation nor get any cumulative action of the belladonna. No patient who comes to us full of alcohol need experience any of the results growing out of arbitrary deprivation.

The entirety of this pamphlet may be found under the resources section of our website.  In a nutshell, the belladonna cure or treatment, consisted of several things, including 2 dissociative psychedelics, belladonna and henbane, which were administered every hour, day and night for an average period of 50 hours.  With most dissociative psychedelics one of the effects is that it lowers the walls of resistance and opens one up to thoughts and beliefs heretofore inaccessible.  Ketamine, for example, is a dissociative psychedelic and there are currently low dose ketamine assisted therapies, where the patient uses small amounts of ketamine and has a therapy session.  For some this allows them to access traumas and thoughts that were previously blocked.  In greater doses, ketamine has been shown to have some effects on treatment resistant depression.  As an interesting side note, Bill Wilson struggled with depression for many years, including much of his sobriety.  Its apparent in the history of AA that during its first several years Bill Wilson is anything but depressed.  Later it does return, but for the first several years it appears his depression is lifted.  Because of the limited amount of information about the belladonna treatment, we are left with several questions:  Did administration of 2 low dose dissociative psychedelics in conjunction with concurrently working the equivalent of the Oxford group steps of Surrender, Confession, Restitution, and Guidance cause or contribute to his White Light experience?  Did this conjunction become the single anchor point of his sobriety, giving him enough to maintain long term abstinence for decades?  And, did these psychedelics contribute to temporarily shifting Bill Wilson from crippling alcoholism and depression into hope and purpose, lifting his depression long enough to catapult his life from ruin into successful creation and meaning?  We cannot say.  If you ask our members, some will say yes, others no, still others aren’t sure.  As mentioned before, psychedelics in recovery tries to avoid dogmatic truths.  What is truth and what is myth? Maybe both can exist simultaneously.  We allow all forms of belief in our group. As mentioned earlier, there was a reason that the wording of the 12^th step was changed from “spiritual experience” to “spiritual awakening”.  Is it possible that the reason many later folks didn’t have a tremendous spiritual experience even though they had worked the 12 steps was because they were missing a part of what Bill Wilson experienced, his unintentional but prescribed usage of psychedelics during detox?  Can a single psychedelic experience increase the changes of long-term sobriety in conjunction with other therapies? Who knows. 

Perhaps if we travel a bit forward in time a bit, we might find at least a hint of a possible answer.