The Call That Started Alcoholics Anonymous – Ebby T.

About This Speaker Tape

Vermont, 1934. Ebby T. is moping around a vacant house, alone with a colony of bats and a bottle, unable to climb past the third rung of a ladder. He is a man caught in the wreckage of his own making until two "power crazy" heavy drinkers from the Oxford Group drop in to tell him that Ebby Thatcher has run his life long enough and it is time to turn it over to a Higher Power.

He describes the "octopus" of alcohol and the gritty reality of the relapse—the pride of a lost sobriety record and the "little old bell" that never stops ringing. Ebby recounts the phone call to Bill Wilson, a friend from his barnstorming days, and the subsequent subway walk where Bill admitted he wanted whatever Ebby had. From the mission houses of New York to a desperate flight to Dallas to escape a "blanket of despair," Ebby’s voice is one of a "greybird" who knows the terror of the mental drunk.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction to the historical significance of Ebby T.'s call to Bill W.
• 2:15 Ebby T. describes his isolation in Vermont and the bats in his house.
• 4:30 Discussion of the Oxford Group's influence and the concept of turning it over to a Higher Power.
• 8:15 The story of the 'barnstorming' flight with Bill W. and the landing in East Dorset.
• 11:00 Bill W.'s first visit to the mission and his attempt to speak while drunk.
• 14:30 Ebby T. reflects on his recurring slips and his time in the Dallas county jail.
• 17:45 Analysis of 'wrong thinking' and the mental state that precedes a relapse.
• 21:00 The story of Charlie M. sending Ebby T. to Texas to save him from New York.
• 25:30 Second speaker begins; describes his life as a derelict in a tin shack on the Trinity River.
• 28:15 Laughter: Joke about the Kansas City drunk and the trip to heaven.
• 31:00 Discussion of the General Service Board and the 1954 meeting in Brownwood, Texas.