Sponsorship That Saved His Wife and His Life – Bill B.

Hi, I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic, and it's only through the grace of God, wonderful sponsors, a lot of meetings, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, that I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since April 8th of 1962. And for that, I will be and am forever grateful. It is, I guess, at least it is for me, rather difficult being the last speaker on the program. But as Father will remind us, the last shall be first. anyway the reason I'm nervous is my sponsor used to always tell me that the reason why we're asked to speak in Alcoholics Anonymous is so that everybody out there can take our inventory I don't know about you but that's what I used to always do and sometimes still have a habit of doing I mean, look at that old buzzard up there a good drink would kill the bastard you know, that kind of stuff I mean one look at him will tell you he's a damn drunk in the first place on and on but Burns Brady last night was talking about how if we do this too often it could become an ego trip well maybe for some other people it could but not for me. And of course, again, my sponsor used to tell me that I had so much humility, I was proud of it. Everybody talks about their sponsor. I have three. My first sponsor, Benny Michelson, who is the reason why I'm here today. He literally saved my life. He was a Jewish jeweler from Brooklyn, a little roly-poly guy that I probably would not have drank with even if he were buying, you know, that kind of a guy. But Benny saved my wife. He saved my whole life. And he was my sponsor for the first 31 years of my sobriety. And then Benny passed away. And then I got Jimmy Grennan, who Tom Burns reminds me so much of. He was from Brooklyn. Tom Burns and I have so much in common. I was from Brookland too. But you can tell by my accent, I was form South Brookland. And Jimmy was my sponsor for the next eight years. And then Jimmy passed away. and now I have Leo and Leo is very nervous but in all seriousness I know why I'm here and I have to remind myself of why I am here this morning otherwise with the kind of ego I have And I'll rapidly admit it. Right, Alice? Yeah, right. I know why I'm here. I'm hier for a very simple reason. I'm her for the same reason that Bill Wilson told Dr. Bob that he had come to Akron. I'm here because on Mother's Day in May of 1935 Dr. Bob Smith was dragged by his wife Annie to the Cybilline Gatehouse in Akron, Ohio to meet a rummy from New York named Bill Wilson and when they sat together in this gatehouse the first thing Dr. Barb did was look at Bill and say, look, everybody has tried something on me Doctors, psychiatrists, preachers. I mean, what do you think you can do for a drunk like me? And Bill Wilson simply looked at him and said, I did not come here to help you. I came here to help me. And that's why I'm here. If anything I say this morning can be of any help to someone, that's wonderful. That's God working. But I'm here because Bill needs to constantly remind himself who he is. I am a drunk. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a man with an incurable disease, who as Burns, my dear friend Burns, keeps reminding me, I can't arrest through a spiritual solution. And so that if I maintain my spirituality in proper order, I Can Stay Sober One Day at a Time. So that's why I'm here. And I appreciate very much, and it's about time I got around to saying thank you to the committee. Thank you to Linda. Thank YOU to my friend Jonathan. Thank you for everyone who gave me the privilege of being here this morning and it really is a privilege. So where do I go from here? First of all, this has probably been, and I don't say this just to be nice and phony, I say this because for me it's true. I've enjoyed this conference as much as I've ever enjoyed anyone before. I mean, the speakers, isn't that right? Yeah. I mean the speakers have been phenomenal, you know. When Bill Johnson got up Friday night and shared and he talked about having more new parts in him than a bionic man Help me realize that we can go through anything if we have the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in our lives. I mean, anything. I've gone through two bouts of cancer, and while it scared me, I was in the hands of God and AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I'm doing fine. And then the speakers on Friday, and I guess, you know, that three-hour workshop. Were many here for that? Yeah? It was fabulous, you now? I mean, it's really interesting to know what causes our disease, but it's much more soothing to know that there's a solution. And I used to think that if I could stop drinking, man, that'd be fine. But that's not really where it's at. The stop drinking just simply gave me a chance to get at my disease, which is all the character defects and shortcomings that I'll probably have until the day I die. But anyway, so that three hour workshop was terrific and then Friday night, a guy gets up here and tells my story Tom Burns, he told my story First of all, he married my wife's sister, figuratively speaking. Because when he talked about what he had done and his wife's reactions and all that, it was what my relationship with Bernadette was like. Also, my wife, like Tom's wife, she's been in Al-Anon for 42 years. and right now she's on a Caribbean cruise yeah but being in Al-Anon before she left she had an Al-Alan slip she was nice to me you know gotta get that in there when you get a chance, she's not here. And chocolate-covered cherries won't do anything for me, Tom. I can't get lucky, you know. I passed by your room last night, by the way. You should keep it down, you don't have to worry about it. You know. If anybody thinks that I'm making fun of Ellen, I am not. I totally agree with Father Pete when he said yesterday how much he loves Al-Anon. What a great program he thinks it is. Of course it is, it's our program It's the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that Lois adopted so that we can live in harmony and without Al-Alan, I doubt if Bernadette and I would be together We'll be celebrating 50 years of marriage next March I doubt if we'll make it but we're going to try and so what happened is AA and Al-Anon together built the bridge over which the two of us were able to walk and come back together again because neither Bernadette nor I knew anything about alcoholism she didn't know I was an alcoholic when we got married and I didn't know I was an alcoholic when we got married you know I was just having fun but anyway and then you know I'm trying to remember who it was now talked about how I guess it was Father Pete we talked about you know how wonderful it is to see so many young people coming into Alcoholics Anonymous today when I when I came into Alcoholic Anonymous I first came around in 1961 but I wasn't an alcoholic in 1961 it took me another year to become an alcoholic but I do remember when I came in AA in 1961 and I sat and I listened to you all talking I identified right away I knew my friend Marvin needed this program really badly so the first thing I did was get Marvin and bring him to my next meeting with me and told him to listen You know, the denial of alcoholism. But it's wonderful to see so many young people coming in today. The trouble is, though, that so many, and it's not just the young, come in and out, in and out, and what happens is it becomes an option that we always, we can think we can always come back, you know, and we may not be able to come back. I've known people that just have never made it back. It reminds me of that story that was in last month's Reader's Digest about this group of guys on vacation, and while on vacation they decide to visit a brewery. And while parading through the brewery on this catwalk, one of the guys was an alcoholic. They were passing by this big vat, and he leaned over to smell the beer, and he leaned over so far, he fell into the vat. So they rushed all the guys outside while the engineers tried to save him. And about a half hour later, his friend started knocking on the door and the engineer came to the door and he said, how's my friend? How's he doing? He said, I got bad news. Your friend died. He said oh my God, he died. He said did he suffer very much? He said I don't think so because he crawled out three times to take a pee before he finally drowned, you know. He thought he could always come back, right? Yeah. Anyway, as I said, I'm here to simply share my experience, strength, and hope. And you've heard so many terrific speakers, and if you're anything like me, you got an awful lot out of it. And so I thank them all. I really, I thank them all. And I'm trying to remember again because I have these senior moments who said it, but it's so true that when we speak, whether we speak from here, whether we share at a meeting, wherever we share, it's the language of the heart. You know, there's no BS. I mean, there is from time to time, but we try to leave most of it outside the door. and I should tell you that and it was wonderful to hear Father Pete talk about his relationship with Bill Wilson. You know, I had met Bill a number of times early on because Bill was with us until January 24th of 1971 when he finally passed away. He passed away by the way on their wedding anniversary, Lois and Bill's wedding anniversary 19 on 24th. And I heard him speak once at a, in New York they have this big dinner every year. It's now called the Bill Wilson Dinner. And it was in November of 1970 and he was so sick at that time because he died from emphysema and heart failure. And he only spoke for about three and a half minutes but it was just powerful to hear him speak. but through my wife being in Al-Anon I had the real privilege of getting to know Lois very well we were friends for god 15, 16 years before she passed away and when I hear the term speaking from the heart, language of the heart I remember sitting with Lois in the parlor one night and talking and we got on that subject I remember she smiled at me and she said, the problem with too many alcoholics is they're constantly thinking too much. They're constantly using their heads. And she said the problem With that is we really can't trust our heads. Our heads take us in all different directions. I don't know about you, but my head takes me in all directions. A maniac that lives in my brain has a lot of fun with me. I mean, he tells me to do a lot Of really interesting things. And it's very entertaining to just think about it. I mean, as long as I don't do anything he tells me to do, I'll be all right. And so Lois said, we should stop thinking with our heads. We should think with our hearts. She said, because our hearts never lie to us. And I knew what she meant. Because every time I was going in the wrong direction, this told me that. This never did. This said, oh, that's okay. You can do that. And my art of self-deception kicked in. Man, I could make all kinds of excuses for myself. Sober. I'm not talking about when I was drinking. And so today I really do try to listen to my heart because it never has lied to me. But anyway, when Burns talked about the disease of alcoholism in his three hour workshop and again last night it was so clear to me that it certainly ran rampant in my family. I mean way back both of my grandfathers were alcoholics from what I understand my great grandfather was an alcoholic, my grandmother was an alcoholic, six of my father's seven brothers were alcoholic my father was an alcoholic so I mean not to make excuses for myself but I didn't have a chance and I'm very privileged this weekend to have one of my sons with me who is just starting out on this journey and I want to thank so many of you for wrapping your arms around him and sharing with him and letting him know that he can find what we found and I have a younger son who's in the program. He's been in and out of AA six times, but he's back. And he said, Dad, this time it seems like it's different. And I said, I hope so. And I remember the first time when he called me up. This is probably six or seven years ago. And there was a room, he's in a room in New York City and needed help, so I went over to see him. And I walked in sitting on the bed. Room was a mess. Place stunk. And he looked up at me and he said Dad, why did you have to give this to me? You know how I felt. But anyway, so we know now through science. But as Benny told me, okay, so now you know. So now you knows how you got it. I mean if the doctor told you, for example, that the reason why you got cancer is because you smoked and you ate peanuts and you drank milk and you climbed trees and on and on. And that's how you got cancer. So, what difference does it make? You got it. The only thing that counts is what do you do about it? And for anybody that's new here today, that's the $64,000 question you have to ask and answer for yourself that I had to ask and answer from myself. I got it, what do I do about it? And I fought it, because I'd never met an alcoholic, they really wanted to be an alcoholic. I mean, a lot of them wanted to be drunk. I love being drunk. Again, Ben used to say to me, being drunk was probably the most wonderful thing in the world. I think it's great. I get that feeling. I'd be at a wedding and I'd get higher than a kite and have a good time and dance and then they'd serve the food. Well, hell, I didn't want to eat. I didn' t want to lose the feeling. But then you wake up somewhere and you've got to sober up. The sobering up is what killed me. I don't want to sober up anymore. I really don't. So anyway, how did I you know what was it like and then what happened and what's it like now? So I grew up in an alcoholic family you know every Christmas was tear down a tree day you know you go to one of those Irish wakes right father you didn't know whether you were going to bury the guy and a casket or six more once the bottle came out, right? And on and on and the screaming and the hollering. My father would have to break into his own house because my mother wouldn't let him in when he was drunk. He'd break in and she'd grab the carving knife and she chased him around the dining room table yelling for him to stop. My father was a drunk but he wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to stop, you know. And then we'd be dragged out of bed and over to Grandma's house and you're on, and this is the way I grew up. That didn't make me an alcoholic. Burns told me. You told me, you know. Anyway, I went away to a seminary. I was telling Father, I studied. I know you're smiling, Father, but he's looking at me like, you've got to be kidding. Anyway, I spent four years. I was going to become a Maryknoll missionary priest and go to China and save all the Chinese. Talk about an ego. Instead, in my fourth year, my spiritual director sat down with me. The spiritual director, you know, he gives you advice on how to go in life. Father Slattery. And he said to me, William, I think someday you might make a wonderful father, but not in this place. So I was launched upon the world. I came out and I got a job working for a newspaper in New York. The old New York Journal of America was then the largest evening newspaper in the world. I started as a copy boy and went to St. John's University. I was 18 1⁄2 years old, and through a series of breaks, I uncovered a big story, and they made me a newspaper reporter. Big deal. And for me, it was a big deal. I became a police reporter covering Brooklyn, Tom. Brooklyn. Wow, what a place. On the lobster shift, midnight to 9 o'clock in the morning, which is when everything happens in Brooklyn anyway, by the way, you know. Covered the precincts. I covered the hospitals, Keynes County Hospital. That's probably where we met, Tom, you knows. It was a psych ward. And I advanced. I advanced, you now. You know, when we're young and we're energetic and God gives us talent, blesses us with it, and so I went. I mean, by the time I was 21, I was a byline feature writer for the largest evening newspaper in the world. Now that's the truth. And when I was 23, I Was The Obituary Editor For The Largest Evening Newspaper In The World. Now you probably don't know the difference between a byeline feature writer and the obituary. You do, you do. He's a former journalist. Drank his way out like I did. Anyway, it's... As a bylines feature writer, you're covering all the big stories. I mean, authoring Lucy down in Alabama who was thrown out of the university by George Wallace, the last execution at Sing Sing Prison, on and on and On. But then I got fired five times, all directly as a result of my drinking. First time I got hired, I was sent to cover a five-alarm fire in a Brooklyn aviator. And the city desk had a bunch of phone numbers to find me, you know. The last one on the list was my home. All the others were bars. And they found me in Monaghan Saloon. and I was, you know, pretty well gone but, you know, as they say when you're young and you can handle this stuff much better so I got in my car with a six-pack and a bottle and headed for Brooklyn headed for the Navy Yard and I'm driving and I was driving along this avenue called Atlantic Avenue remember Atlantic Avenue? The elevator runs overhead. I forgot it but it went back down underground and became a subway you know. 70 miles an hour, boom, right into the cement stanchion bust the steering wheel with my chest, motor lands in my lap. I wind up in Jewish hospital. And when I come to, you know, we come out of blackouts in the strangest places, you know. And if I forget any of this, Mark, you know, Mark knows my story so well. You can fill in for me, Mark. And they got this big rubber thing in my mouth because that part of my tongue I spit out, you know, when my teeth came down on it. And I fractured my jaw, broke six ribs. I was in a mess. And this doctor comes over to wire up my jaw, and he says, maybe we ought to give him some anesthetic. And the other doctor opens my eyelid and looks at me, and he said, this bum don't need a thing, you know. So they wire me up, and a week later I'm back at my mom and dad's house, Big Shot News reporter living with his mom and Dad, you now. And I'll never forget it. You know how drunks love to visit the sick and bury the dead as long as there's a bottle around, right? we're sitting around my mother and dad's living room and my father's passing the bottle around when it comes to me he grabs it and he says with that wired up jaw you shouldn't have any hard stuff you know so he hands me a bottle of Christian Brothers sherry wine and he said this will be good it'll ease the pain now if you start clogging enough Christian Brothers sherry wine through a wired up jaw you can get pretty drunk and you can't get pretty sick. And have you ever tried puking through a wire up jaw? As I've often said Alice the big pieces come out of your ears right? So I swore off Christian Brothers sherry wine. And I continued down the path of alcoholism, not knowing it. I'll just tell you a couple of other brief stories about my drinking. I got engaged a couple of times. Different girls, different times. And the last time I got involved, I was in a bar. I got to engage because my mother really liked this girl. I didn't particularly care for her. I liked her brother better. Not that way. No, no, no. no, no, not that way. We were drinking buddies and we were really good friends. And so he said to me one day, you want to meet my sister? I'll meet your sister. So I met his sister and you know, things happen. So he got engaged. Now I'm engaged to a girl that I don't particularly care for, but her father is a policeman. In fact, he's a police captain and he carries a big gun, you know. And he puts $1,500 down on the hall. I mean, he wanted to get rid of her, you know. So now I'm stuck. How the hell do you get out of this? You know. And so the opportunity arose, arrived, arose, arrived one night. We were invited to an afternoon wedding in New Jersey. And she said to me, I'll pick you up. I was then working Manhattan police headquarters. And she said, I'd pick you up and we'll go to a Jersey wedding. I'll pick it up at 10 o'clock. She said, don't drink, there'll be plenty over there. I said, okay, fine. So when she arrived, hell, I was three sheets to the wind, you know, got in the car and she had a friend of hers with her, never forget, Frances. Beautiful, beautiful girl sitting in the back seat. And I glanced at Frances and she was, oh man, wow. But she looked kind of lonely sitting by herself, you Know? And I don't know about you guys, but I always thought it was a sin for a good-looking girl to look lonely, you know. I found out that she was also engaged, but her boyfriend or fiancé was in the Army and in Germany at the time, you Know. So we started chatting. We got to New Jersey, and I found Outlight. Frances liked to drink like I did, and man, oh, did we drink. All I remembered during that wedding is Frances dragging me on the dance floor and my fiancé screaming at me that I was embarrassing her, Are you humiliating her? I should stop drinking. Now, I go on a blackout. I come to, I'm back in New York, in Queens, New York. I'm in a German dance hall and there's a big German umpah band playing. You ever hear an umpoh band? Umpah, umpaw, you know? And I'm the middle of the dance floor with Frances and there is a big crowd circling around us clapping their hands for the music, you now? And Frances is going wild. She takes off her jacket and she throws it up in the air so I figure it's part of the dance, so I take off my jacket and throw it up in the air. Frances takes off her blouse and she throws it up in the ear. So I took off my shirt and tie. And as we're doing it, people are clapping more and more and More. Finally, Frances takes off her skirt and she threw it up into the air, so I drop my drawers. And here I am dancing around in my skivvies when my engagement ring comes flying over the crowd. She broke it up. Broke off our engagement. So anyway, I got out of that one. See, that's the kind of self-centered, egotistical, arrogant S.B. I was and can still be, hopefully not as much today. So anyway I put my pants on, I went over to this other joint where they had a dance hall and I walked into the back room and there was a couple of really good looking girls sitting at a table and I asked one to dance, and like Tom, three and a half weeks later I eloped with her to Elkton, Maryland, and we got married. Well, actually what happened was a very sincere proposal. I was taking her home one night, and it was like around midnight, because I liked to get her home at midnight so I could have four more hours to drink by myself. And this night she said she didn't want to go home. I said, what do you want to do? She said, I'd like to stay with you. It had been so long since anybody said they wanted to stay avec me. I said, how about getting married? She said, fine. So we took off to Elkland, Maryland. She said she was hungry when we got to Elklands and so I bought her an eight cent loaf of wonder bread and a half a pound of bologna. And I bought a quart of four roses for myself and that's how we started off our happily married bliss. Yeah. Even Bernadette can laugh at it today, thank God, you know. Until, you But anyway, that's another story. So I was an alcoholic from the first time I picked up a drink, and I had no idea. I wound up – well, let me put it this way. Alcoholism leaves no stone unturned in our lives. And I can say ours because I've shared this with so many of you. it invades every aspect of our life it did with me it invaded my job life I had this terrific career going for me I mean, I had a city editor that loved me until I started really screwing up and Eddie Mehar, God rest his soul he was an alcoholic who had stopped drinking on his own and turned out to be the angriest man I had ever met in my life You know, you take the booze away from an alcoholic and you give him nothing back. I mean, he's going to get angry. In fact, then he was so angry, he was the only man I knew that could string together 17 profane words and make a perfect English sentence, you know? And so he kept firing me and rehiring me, firing me. I wound up as the obituary editor. That's the guy that comes in at 3 o'clock in the morning and his job is to call up funeral homes in New York and find out what well-known people dropped dead that night And then you write their obituary editor, the obitury for the paper. It's called The Last Bio. But I was too busy over at Moochie's Saloon. The Journal of America was surrounded by seven joints, and I was in them all, but Moochies mainly. And so what I used to do is I used tear the obituaries out of other newspapers, you know, paste them up and send them into the composing room. This is before, you now, computerized journalism. and so I was constantly getting notes in my mailbox from the city desk saying we want fresh obits you know, we want people who died last night not last week, you know and I made a mistake being too drunk one night and I sent in one that a guy had died two weeks ago and I knew I was going to get fired so I quit I got a job working for a magazine my career as a newspaper writer lasted eight and a half years I got a job working for a magazine that lasted three and a half years traveling all around the country interviewing famous people and covering big events and all that kind of stuff I wound up in Las Vegas covering a political convention and my deadline was Thursday at 11 o'clock and I got there about Monday and started drinking and never made the convention and so come Thursday morning I'm sitting in the bar at the Riviera Hotel knowing I'm going to get fired because that didn't cover the story and what does a drunk do when you know you're going to get fired? You have a couple of drinks right? So I'm drinking and there's a guy next to me and he said that he had been at the convention so I bought him a couple of drinks, we got to a table, I sat down I interviewed him and between what he thought he remembered and what my creative imagination conjured up, I wrote a hell of a story I called it into the magazine they called me back at 2 o'clock that afternoon and said it was one of my best pieces they printed it and got sued for 3.5 million dollars yeah and I believe it was settled out of court and and I quit what are you doing? I quit I mean I didn't want to get fired it would look bad on my record and then I got a job in the public relations business in New York of course every PR man I had ever met was a drunk right Jerry I mean excuse me Jerry and that lasted six months so I can trace the progressiveness of alcoholism in my job life in my married life I married a wonderful Italian girl no alcoholism in her family she was as sweet as kind, as loving, as understanding as anybody could be and I took her down this terrible, terrible elevator called alcoholism right into the basement drank up two homes wrapped up eight cars we wound up living with our four children in the basement of her mother's house and it wasn't a finished basement the kids slept around the walls and Bernard and I slept on two cots behind the wall Berner. That's where we wound up. And I hated, I hated that house because to get into the basement, I had to pass by the dining room, go to the stairs going down and I had a mother-in-law, her mother, who I came to hate with a passion and then came to love as much as anybody I had ever loved in my life. Because Mama was always sitting in the dining room. No matter, it seemed no matter what hour I came in, it'd seem Mama was always there saying her prayers. Now you've known people like this, Father. She had a stack of prayer cards like that. She had two prayer books and two sets of rosary beads. And she was always praying. I know now, she told me, that she was praying for me. She was there seeing what I was doing to her daughter and to her grandchildren. And this woman never said a word to me. but yet when I would pass her I would curse her I would scream at her and I would say to her stay out of my business I don't need you in my business and she'd just keep praying keep praying mama prayed me into Alcoholics Anonymous so anyway and my spiritual life went bankrupt I had once believed that there was a loving God that he wanted to help me And I kept praying to him and praying to them and praying to him. And then the prayers became those old foxhole prayers. Waking up in flea bag hotels in New York City. Later on coming to in doorways and praying. And finally, I came to the realization that God wanted nothing more to do with me. So I stopped praying and I walked away. What happened one night is I was in a 3rd Avenue bar and I was sharing with this with somebody the other day and I'm talking with this guy probably 20, 30 years older than me with a huge bulbous nose you know a lot of Valerie Derelicts get these huge bulbus noses and we're having this very intelligent conversation probably about how to make atom bombs or something like that and I didn't realize I'm looking at Bill somewhere down the road you know and he left and I was there by myself and I looked around and I remember this so clearly and I remembered I got scared I was always getting scared now because I was you know I had no more money and the only money I had was what I borrowed and because by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I owed say four finance companies three banks two loan sharks and my Aunt Jenny and Aunt Jenny was the only one that would wait and wouldn't charge me any vigorous, you know. And I came to the conclusion that night that I was crazy. That there was something had gone on and the reason why I was here and doing all the things, doing them over and over and on over again that I didn't want to do was because I was going to die. Because I was just crazy. And I became home. No. I met my wife at the hospital because one of our children was sick. Had to be taken to the hospital. And on the way home that night we stopped at a Chinese restaurant And my wife says I ordered eight drinks all at one time. I was a greedy pig when I drank, you know. I didn't order them one at a time. And she said she did something that night that used to bother me. I didn'T mind when she screamed and howled and complained. You know, I figured that was part of it. But every once in a while she'd look at me and she'd always get me in those unsuspecting moments and she said to me, why are you doing this to yourself? And I had no answer. I had not answer. And she says, why do you constantly do this? And that is when I said to her, I think I am crazy. I think if I am not crazy, I am going crazy. Now, you should never say anything like that to my wife because she is a woman of action. She called up our family doctor who wanted no part of me anymore. He just told her that I was a drunk like my father. But he said maybe he does need psychiatric help, and he gave her the name of a psychiatrist. And the following Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in front of Dr. John Brancato because I wanted help. I really did. I was scared. I wanted to help. I knew there was something desperately wrong in my life. But I got prepared to see this psychiatrist. I stopped at Fred Funk's bar on the way and had a few, you know. So by the time I got to the psychiatrist's office and sat in the chair in front of his desk. By this time I weighed about 310 pounds. I laid my belly on his desk He told me I looked like Porky Pig with a hangover And the guy looked at me very straight and he said, why are you here? And I said because I think I'm going crazy or I am crazy. And he said why? And I began to tell him why. That I was constantly doing things that I didn't want to do anymore. I was breaking promises and on and on And then he stopped me and he said to me, do you drink? And of course he knew I drank. I was breathing on him, you know. And I said yes and he said tell me how much you drink. I said well, you know, I have a few. I mean every speaker that spoke this conference only had a few, right? And he said what does that mean to you? Is that like a few on the weekends with the boys? I says yeah, that's right. He said what is that like a few beers? I said yeah. Did you ever drink on a Monday or a Tuesday? I said, yeah. Do you ever drink on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday? I say, oh yeah. He says, aside from beer, do you ever drink any rye? I says, yeah Do you drink any vodka? I ask, yeah Do you have any gin? I answer, yes He says he never drinks any wine. I say I don't drink Christian Brother Sherry wine anymore And I swear, this is what he did. And I was to be given the opportunity later on to come back and thank him. But what he said was, What he did is he's trying to paint a picture of a 27-year-old guy who drank every day in the week anything he could get his hands on. And then he said to me, Bill, do you know what an alcoholic is? And I straightened up, pulled my belly off his desk, and I said, I certainly do. and I described the guy on the Bowery pick a lint out of his navel because that to me was an alcoholic it was the only alcoholic I had known because in my family no one ever called anybody an alcoholic he couldn't handle it or drank whatever, never and then he said to me that's an alcoholic in the final stages of his disease he said that person wasn't born on a Bowerty he was born maybe in a place like you a nicer place, who knows and through the use and abuse of alcohol, he wound up on the Bowery. And then he began to talk to me about the disease of alcoholism. Now this is in 1961 when many people, right? Father didn't know that much about it. And this guy, I found out he was a colonel in the Air Force and he knew all about alcoholism and as he began a talk, I suddenly started getting teed off. I began to think to myself, here I come to see this guy out of the goodness of my heart with a little pushing from the bride, you know. Because I want help. And now he's insulting me by insinuating that I'm an alcoholic. I got to tell you, I really did get mad. And his lips kept moving but I wasn't hearing. The last thing I heard him say was that if you are an alcoholic, Bill, I can't do anything to help you. But I know some people who can. And he went through his Rolodex. They had Rolodexes back then, you Know. And he wrote down a phone number. He handed it to me, and he says, if you really want help, call these people up. And it was the intergroup office of Alcoholics Anonymous in New York. So I said, okay, and I left. Went back to Fred Funk's, had a few more shooters, you know, and then went home to break the news to my wife, which is tough. I mean, how do you tell your wife that some nut doctor thinks you're an alcoholic? I mean that's tough, as if Bernadette by this time didn't know, you Know. So I sat down on a cot next to hers, behind the oil burner. And I said, this doctor said to me that I'm an alcoholic. She said, what, what? He said he thinks I'm an alcoholic, but wait a minute, you've got to understand what he means by an alcoholic and then you know how we like to paraphrase things? And he did say some of these things by the way. I said he said that alcoholics are usually very intelligent people. Right Tom? But the most important thing is they're very sensitive people, I said, Bernadette. And he told me that what happens is when an alcoholic gets upset, they have to reach for a drink. So he told him to tell you to stop yelling at me from now on and to tell your damn mother to lay off me too. And she kept saying, What else did he say? What else Did he say?" And I said,"Well, he wants me to go to something called Alcoholics Anonymous." Then she smiled and she said, "'If you go to AlcoholicsAnonymous, I'll stop yelling.'" So I went over to New York. It was a Saturday afternoon about 5 o'clock. Went over to new york, walked into the integral office of Alcoholics Anonymous. There was a guy sitting at the desk, volunteer, you know, good-looking fellow like Bill over there, you know, all well-dressed and his name was John actually and he stood up and shook my hand. He says, do you have a problem with alcohol? I said no but there's a psychiatrist back in Queens that thinks I do and he sent me over here. He said oh would you like to go to an AA meeting? I said, sure. Now, I thought you made an appointment, you know, like a week from Tuesday, you know if you're free, you kind of thing. And he said, good. He said, how about tonight? He said oh, I'm too busy tonight. It's a Saturday night. What the hell, I have nothing to do but drink. He said that's okay. And he gave me his card. He said anytime you want to go, just give me a call and we'll go to a meeting. I said okay, fine. I looked at the card. No kidding, folks. It said John so-and-so, vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank. and I was running short, you know. I needed to get to know this guy real bad, you know. So I said, okay John, where do you want to go? I'm with you. That's how God wrote me in. You know, God works in very strange ways. That is how he wrote me in. John took me to an AA meeting all the way out in Long Island called Garden City which is a very high brow kind of town, you know. And Saturday night meeting. Back in those days, everybody got dressed. Right, Father? Everybody got dressed. You know, a woman put on nice dresses, men wore their jackets and ties. They had a meeting Saturday night. And I'm trying to hide the shine in the back of my only pair of good pants. And after the meeting, they, you know how we gather around the newcomer, right? They gathered around me. Where are you from? You know. Where do you live? And they gave me a pamphlet. Back In those days they had pamphlets with all the meetings on them. And I said, I live in Richmond Hill. And I say, well, your meetings are on Tuesdays and Saturdays. You should go to home group. Well, I couldn't tell them that I'm not going to go to Richmond Hill because I'm liable to bump into somebody I know. You know, I don't want anybody to know I was going to Alcoholics Anonymous. I never stopped to think at 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon they'd see me urinating on their hedges, you know. But go to Alcoholic Anonymous." So I went three miles out of my way to the Woodhaven Group and I stayed around for about three months and I didn't drink that much. And I found out later on it's better to come to meetings not drinking. And so anyway, after three months, I came back, sat on my cot next to Bernadette, and I said to my wife, I said, I'm glad I went to AA because I learned something. Now this is after losing these jobs, losing these homes, losing this cause. She said, what did you learn? I said I learned that if I ever kept on drinking the way I was drinking, someday I could have a lot of trouble. remember the exorcist the head spinning around that was burned up she said what are you going to do now I said I'm only going to drink beer so I went out at night and drank beer until it gets up to here you got to chase it down with something I was off to the races April 7th 1962 this 28 year old guy came to at the Margarita Hotel on East 27th Street and East 23rd Street in New York, where the police station is now. It was in an old flea bag hotel. And I could hardly get my head off the mattress. It was a buck for the room, a buck and a half if you wanted a sheet, you know. So I never got a sheet. Because I had vomited in my sleep. Thank God I had not choked on it. And it was caked because I had a beard. And I walked into that old bathroom and I looked myself in the mirror. I had done this before. You ever do this, you know, when you're coming off one? And you see what you really look like? I think it's so important for all of us to remember that picture every time we think about doing it again. And then to think about what got us here. You know, how God, through his wonderful graces, gives us this unearned gift of sobriety. And again that's why I'm here this morning to remember that. And then I crawled out on the window ledge and this is what Tom reminded me of the other night when he was looking to jump off the bridge but afraid of hitting the rocks and I crawlled out on the window wedge and there was an air shaft in New York they build all these buildings close together you know and there were air shafts in between buildings and I was on the 8th floor and there was an air shaft and there were a lot of telephone lines crisscrossing the air shaft and I couldn't find a clear spot to jump I was afraid I might hit a wire in the way down and hurt myself as I was telling my son the other night that I didn't want to die, I just did not know how to live and so I crawled back in went downstairs and Murphy the black porter gave me a couple of beers and that got me home. And then I told my wife that she'd be better off without me and I was about to walk out when the telephone rang in my mother-in-law's apartment. And it was a guy that I had met a year before at an AA meeting, a guy named Joe and he had heard I was in a lot of trouble again and he called me to see if he could help me. And he asked me if I would like to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and you reminded me of that, Father. When you talked about they're out there, don't wait for them to call. Go get them. And Joe knew, and he came and got me. He called me up, and that's how the grace of God came into my life. And the following night, April 8th, 1962, he and Jimmy Grennan, No, Jimmy, another Jimmy. And Benny came and picked me up and brought me back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And through the grace of God, I haven't found it necessary to take another drink since. I've got to tell you, though, that I wanted to drink more than I wanted to breathe because I had all of this stuff piled up in my life. I had in addition to all the debts, $57,000 in debt. I now had two DAs looking for me on bad check charges, because I wrote out a lot of bad paper. And we had seven judgments against us, gas company, electric company, telephone company. And I was so afraid. And the only way I was able to face this was to drink, you know, temporary relief. And now you were saying to me, don't drink, but face it. But you said to me I didn't have to face it alone, that you'd be with me. And you were. You never let me down, and I'm not trying to be melodramatic. You'd never let my down. Benny, who became my sponsor, I did everything he asked me to do. I don't know why. Maybe it was because he said to me that first night, he said, Bill if you don't drink, you got a chance. And that's all I wanted was a chance, I didn't think I had a chance anymore. Burns talked about it. Tom talked about it. Father talked about it. Bill talked about it. We have to give each other hope. That's what a 12-step call is all about, to give another drunk hope. And Benny gave me hope. And because of that, I did whatever he asked me to do. He said to me, there's no way you can stay sober being the kind of person you are. You have to change. You have to undergo a complete change. That's the only thing you've got to do in Alcoholics Anonymous, change everything in your life. Simple as that. And then he showed me how. He took me through the 12 steps of AlcoholicsAnonymous and introduced me to this beautiful life. So that's what it was like and that's what happened. Now what is it like now? With the 12 Steps in my life, with being active in Alcoholics Anonymous, was staying with you, making a lot of meetings. I made sometimes two meetings a day the first three years of my sobriety. I found this new way of life. And I also found out that there's only one way to keep it. Then he said there's только один способ чтобы оставаться sober, и это единственный способ чтобы остаться sober. There are no two ways. And now I believe that because when I was sober eight and a half years and was very successful in terms of the world, you know, money, prestige, all that stuff. I almost got drunk. I almost Got Drunk. I wasn't making as many meetings, and the meetings that I was making now, I was just stopping by to make sure they knew I was still around, you Know? I don't know if any of you know how that goes, but... And I wound up instead with bleeding ulcers. and in the hospital Benny came to see me and he threw the big book on my desk and he says here's a new book I'd like you to read sometime and I read it and from that point on I've been very, very active in Alcoholics Anonymous because I was about to lose what I had and I'm selfish enough not to want to do that I was sober about a little over a month when Benny said it's about time you find a job I was afraid to leave that basement because I was safe in the basement and during the day I would go to Benny's jewelry store I would sit in the back room with him watching him repair watches and rings and all that kind of stuff and we'd talk AA all day and at night we'd go to a meeting and then we'd bring it back to home I was afraid to get out there during the day by myself but he said it's about time you look for a job I did what he said, I got in the bus got on the subway, went over to New York and I had a whole bunch of doors slammed in my face because even in a city of 9 million people an alcoholic can build up a reputation so I came back home that night walked into the oh by this time, a month and a half since sobriety my mother-in-law's tenants upstairs on the second floor moved out and we moved upstairs. Now my wife and I and four kids were living in a four-room apartment and it was like a castle. So I come home from New York that night and I'm really uptight. I walk in and there's a beautiful chocolate cake sitting on the table. My wife had baked it and I said, can I have a piece? And she said, no, I baked it for Al-Anon. I got my first resentment in AA. That's all I needed. Alcoholics don't need much, right? We don't Need Much to Get Upset. I said, you baked that whole damn cake for Al-Anon? You won't even give me a piece? And she said, it's for Al Anon. I said okay. I went into the refrigerator because I knew there were three cans of beer my brother-in-law had left over when he came to Zia's but they were gone because my sponsor's wife was my wife's sponsor in Al-Alan and she had told Bernard if there's anything around, hide it. She hid it. I started screaming at her, you don't trust me anymore. Of course she didn't trustme anymore. She hadn't trusted me in years. Trust me anymore but she got so upset she just reached in the closet threw the three cans of beers at me and she said go ahead. I went into the little parlor we had the parlor was so small you could sit down in a chair and reach out and touch the other wall then the phone rang as I was about to pop open a can of beer there was a guy calling me to go on a 12-step call with him. Now, if that's not the grace of God, I don't know what is. Eddie Moylan from the Woodhaven group, he came by and picked me up. We went down to Sunnyside into this cold water flat. Woman and a couple of little kids and I never will forget they were running around in underpants. They had runny noses and she was crying, red-eyed. And this huge colossal guy was bent over, passed out on the kitchen table. and Benny and I took him to Keynes County Hospital and got home that night. Didn't think about having a drink. And that's what happened. That's how it happened, and I grew up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was sober seven months. As I say, I had a tough time. I finally got a job, but there wasn't much of a job. As I said, we had four kids, And seven months later, I was offered a job in Nashville, Tennessee. Moved down to Nashville. A friend of mine knew someone down there. They offered me a job and moved down there, and we rebuilt our lives in Nashville. Nashville, TN. Lived there six years. Had a bunch of kids. I came in Alcoholics Anonymous with four, and we wound up having five more. Well, a lot of things begin to work again when you sober up. You know, what the hell? And Thanksgiving, we just found out we're having another grandbaby. That'll be our 23rd. Somebody said we're trying to populate the earth. I don't know what the hell. Just spreading love. Anyway, lived in Nashville for six years and giving enough of an opportunity. I got a job in Cleveland, Ohio, lived there for two years, and then came back to New York, started my own business. And now I want to tell you, by wrapping this up, my God story. We all have a God story, right? God does for us what we can't do for ourselves, but he does more than that. I found out early on in Alcoholics Anonymous, of course Benny told me, that God never, he loves us so much and you were saying that so well God loves us so much, he'll never give us in sobriety more than we're able to handle but he'll also give us so many things when we're unable to handle them and that's my God story I began to get jobs nice homes and stuff of course I was able to come to work, I was able to pay the rent and I made my meetings I was active in Alcoholics Anonymous and so on and so forth. Anyway now we come back to New York and I wound up through an investment banking friend of mine who was putting together a company meeting three guys who were starting a talent management and film production business and I had been involved in that in Nashville I was actually a public relations man for a big insurance company, but because I had so much time on my hands working for an insurance company I got involved in the country music business promoting artists and things like that. And I loved all that. And I was writing all the time. So when I came back to New York I met these three guys and I became a partner and the four of us put together a talent management and film production company called Artist Entertainment Complex And this was in the early 70s. And we began to make movies. Man, it was just a glorious time in my life. And I was active in Alcoholics Anonymous, so I wasn't too concerned about the business that we were in. The first movie we made was called Kansas City Bomber. I don't know if anybody ever saw that. It was about the roller derby. I mean, some people of my color hair might remember that. And it starred Raquel Welch. and to be with Raquel Welch on the set when she was wearing this black tight fitting leather pants it's like having a spiritual awakening I'm sorry about that but that's well no, like you say just because you're on a diet you can still look at the menu then a friend of mine Peter Morse, he's a wonderful novelist. I'm sure you've read some of his books. He and I had been reporters together back in the heyday of journalism. And we had both covered the Knapp Commission. Remember the commission? Well, do you remember? Of course you don't. But anyways, investigation of dirty cops in New York. And one of the guys that blew the whistle on dirty cops was a guy named Frank Serbico. And so Peter went over to Switzerland because they tried to kill Frank a couple of times. And they got Frank's rights and came back and wrote a book. By this time, we were in the film business. So I said to Peter, I said, look, why don't we make a deal? We'll do the movie. So we got Dino De Laurentiis to put up the money. We bought the rights to Peter's book and made a movie called Serpico. And then one night, one of my partners was reading Life magazine. It was just a one-column story in life about this guy that he was homosexual. and he robbed a bank in Brooklyn to get money for his lover's sex change operation. And he said, that make a movie? Well it wasn't in my venue but it made a hell of a movie. It was called Dog Day Afternoon so some of you may have seen that. And then it was my turn I thought. So we used to bounce all these ideas around in our office over martinis and Mike Hoke. And so I said, I'd like to make a movie about Alcoholics Anonymous. And the three of them looked up and said, what? And they weren't drunks. They were just really nice guys. And I got a little bit upset because they didn't want to do it. And by this time we were so successful that we were on each other's nerves and so we broke apart. And everybody in their own directions. One guy bought a bookstore. Another guy became a director. And another guy is still producing. And I set up my own business. and I thought that I knew everything at this point you know we don't lose our ego, I don't know about you but I didn't lose my ego in fact it became inflated again I was going to make a movie about Alcoholics Anonymous so I can save the world like I was gonna do in China I never thought small I mean I don' think we should think small but small and alcoholically are two different things you know and I was thinking big and alcoholicaly Anyway, I went through all of my assets trying to put this thing together. I wrote a script, went out to Paramount. Peter Guber, who was running Paramount at that time, was going to make it. He read the script while my wife and I spent a weekend in Vegas, came back, and Peter said, I love this movie, we're going to made this movie about this drunk running the streets of New York, running naked up and down hotel rooms, screwing every broad he can find. I said, wait a minute. I said that's not the movie. He said, I know. We've just got to rewrite it a bit. And I said, no, no. See, Lois had given me permission to do this. And I promised Lois one thing, that I would tell the truth of the story. And I told Peter, no this is a spiritual movie, Peter. He said we don't make spiritual movies here. They suck. So I walked away. And I had to go back to work. You know, I had to make a living. And so I started doing, you know, corporate films and stuff like that and put this film on the back burner. Now my guard story. Someone, who was it that we were talking about? I guess it was Karsten about Joe Lepiccolo, right? Yeah. There's a guy named Joe LEPICCOLO in Westchester County, New York, ran a place called the Casa Serena, which is a dry-out place for drunks, you know. And I used to go up there every Friday for a spaghetti dinner. And I love being around drunks, you know. And where else can you do club stuff work but in a rehab, right? It's fantastic. And I was up there all the time. And Joe and I became bosom buddies. And so did Ed, the cook, and I. A guy named Ed. He was a big, tall guy. And pushed in face. And, you Know, because he had been in about 116 fights, losing 115, you know. And so Ed asked me to be his sponsor. So I became Ed's sponsor. And, you know, when you're sponsee-sponsee, you get close, right? And you share everything, right. And so I shared all my stuff with Ed and he shared all his stuff with me. So we knew all about the film. I let him read the script and so on and so forth. Ed asked me to speak for his first anniversary, so I did. And at the end of that, he comes over to me and he says, I made a decision about my life. Now he's sober a year. He said, I'm going to go to Hollywood and I'm gonna become a movie star. I said, Ed, have you talked this over with your sponsor? And I said, you know, Ed was, you know, he was like the character actor type, you know. He wouldn't be a leading man kind of thing. And he said, yeah, I've talked it over and this is what I want to do and I don't have any responsibilities yet. I think he was divorced from his third wife or something. And so off he goes. And he says, before, can I take your script with me just in case I bump into somebody out there that wants to do it? I never believed this when I'm telling the story. I don't. But it's true. So Ed takes my script with me out to Hollywood, and I forget all about it. One night, Bernadette and I are watching television, and we're watching Archie Bunker, you know, all in the family. And two cops arrive at the Bunkers' household. You know who one of the cops was? Ed. another night we're watching the junkyard show, Red Fox Sanford and Sons and two firemen arrive to put out the fire in the junk yard you know who one of the firemen were? Ed what Ed is doing, he's running all over Hollywood knocking on producers doors finding out what they're doing and auditioning and getting these small parts and I'm enjoying it I mean, I really am. It's great to see somebody, you know, make it like that, you know, not big parts, but one day I get a call from Ed, and he's really angry, really angry. And he says to me on the phone, he says, they're trying to steal your movie. I said, what are you talking about? He said, there's somebody out here trying to make this movie about AA that you wrote. I said Ed, anybody can make a movie about Alcoholics Anonymous. He says, yeah, but you got special permission from Lois and blah, blah, which was true by the way because in doing the research for this film Lois, you know, and I as I say became very close and I spent, I still have about 14 hours I was telling Dick the other day of taped interviews with Lois where she shared with me some of the most intimate things in their lives together including the day that Bill threw a sewing machine at her in their dining room. And so there was a lot of, you know, that stuff. And so I said, calm down, Ed. He said, well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I said fine. Now I'll tell you what happened. Ed found out that there was a company named Garner Deschaux, James Garner and Peter Deschaud, that were trying to make a movie about Alcoholics Anonymous for five years. They had gone through five writers and couldn't come up with a script that they liked or that Warner Brothers or Hallmark liked. Ed befriends Mary Ann who is James Garner's secretary. This guy was an operator and he says if you don't have a script yet, here and he gives her my script and Mary Ann takes it home and reads it. That's the kind of person Mary Ann is. She and I became very close friends and that's just the way she is. There are people like that. There is so many wonderful people in this world if we give them a chance and she reads it and she loves it she calls up Jim Garner she says hey you ought to read this and she sends it over to him Garner thinks that Bill Borchardt is another writer that his partner hired to do a new script so he sends it over to Pete and Pete says I never heard of this guy before what the hell are you doing with this script he says well Mary Ann got it from some guy that walked in he says we're in trouble we shouldn't even be reading it and Garner says and they both told me this on the set Garner said read it So Peter reads it. The following Saturday afternoon, Bernard and I had just finished lunch in our home in Ryan, New York. And the phone rings. And it's Peter Deschaux, James Garner's partner, calling me. And he says, is this Bill Borchardt? I said, yeah. He said, I'm in trouble. He said I have a script of yours that we like, we've read without your permission. and he said we've been trying to do a movie about Alcoholics Anonymous for the last five years and you've come the closest to it he said but you wrote it as a feature and we're doing this as a Hallmark Hall of Fame two hour television movie would you be willing to rewrite it for television and I said well I'm kind of busy right now but if you give me ten minutes I hung up the phone I told Bernadette and then we cried in each other's arms because this was not Bill Borger this was his higher power who now apparently said I think Bill is ready to handle this it's that simple God only gives us stuff when we're able to handle it now that is not anything but the truth may sound like other stuff but that's exactly what happened that I befriended a drunk cook in the Casa Serena rehab who went to Hollywood to become a star and put my script in the hands of a secretary who got it to two producers who called me up and got me back involved anyway, that's the guard story now, Jimmy Woods became Bill Wilson the name of the movie by the way was My Name is Bill W and starred James Woods, James Garner and Jo Beth Williams. It's difficult to get now but it's in all the public libraries and every rehab that I know in the country has a copy and if you live near a rehab I'm sure they'll be glad to make you a copy if you'd like to see it. James Woods became Bill Wilson and he won the Best Actor Award that year for that role. And James Gagner played Dr. Bob and Jo Bath played Lois. Jimmy comes down to Richmond, Virginia where we shot it shot it on location in Richmond because we turned Richmond into New York and Akron, Ohio and he says to me I'd like to go to an AA meeting now Jimmy read every book there's to read he became, he's a perfectionist plus the fact that his first wife was an alcoholic so he went to Al-Anon so he loved this program and he wanted to play this role so I take him to a meeting Pete and I took him to an meeting and we're sitting in Richmond at night back in those days you could smoke in meetings Jimmy gets a cup of coffee, puts it by his foot, lights a cigarette and knocks over the cup of coffee. And this elderly gentleman sits next to him, sitting next to them, pats him on the knee and says, that's alright son, I was nervous at my first meeting too, you know. And he lights up. That movie now, by the way, has been translated into 11 languages and just to be part of it has been something in my life. So that's my God story. And I have one other very quick closing guard story. It's my mother-in-law. We're now living in Nashville. Mama's very happy. We're back on our feet and doing well. We're having another baby. She comes down to take care of Bernadette and her children. And one night, Bernadett's in bed, the children are in bed. And Mama's getting ready to say her prayers. and I'm going into the den to do some writing and she comes in and she sits next to me on the couch and mama and I had become pretty close at this point and she starts talking to me and she says you know Bill all of my life I've been doing all this praying and I've read all these books I read the New Testament and I see about all the miracles that Jesus did and I read about the apostles and all the miracle that these did and about all these saints and all the miracles and she said I've often wondered what it would be like to see a miracle and then mama put her hand on my shoulder and she says and now I have and that's the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm staring at it now every one of us is here through the grace of God and the miracle of Alcoholic Anonymous and thank you for letting me to share that this morning Thank you.