Bill W. - Temptation and Reports of Infidelity

Temptation and Reports of Infidelity

Though Wilson alluded to unfulfilled temptation in an account in the Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book" ("There had been no real infidelity," he wrote, "for loyalty to my wife, helped at times by extreme drunkenness, kept me out of those scrapes."), biographers Francis Hartigan, Matthew Raphael, and Susan Cheever cite claims that Wilson had sexual contacts outside of his marriage.

Francis Hartigan, AA biographer and personal secretary to Lois Wilson, in his book states that in the mid 1950s Bill began an affair with Helen Wynn, a woman 22 years his junior. Bill at one point discussed divorcing Lois to marry Helen. Bill eventually overcame the AA trustees' objections, and renegotiated his royalty agreements with them in 1963, which allowed him to include Helen Wynn in his estate. He left 10 percent of his book royalties to her and the other 90 percent to his wife Lois. In 1968, with Bill's illness making it harder for them to spend time together, Helen bought a house in Ireland.

Personal letters between Wilson and his wife Lois spanning a period of more than 60 years can be found in the archives at Stepping Stones, their former home in Katonah, New York, and in AA's General Service Office archives in New York.