The Obsession to Drink That Pervaded His Total Being – 1950 – Bill W.

Our first anniversary. As it's a special event, we have asked a special friend to speak to us tonight. To many of us, he's an old friend, and for some of you, we hope he will become a new one. Usually, the Kips Bay Group is a closed meeting for alcoholics only. Due to tonight's special circumstances, we Have opened the meeting to our families and friends. Our only request is that our guests respect the wishes of the group. Those wishes are as follows. What you hear here tonight, take it home with you. Who you see here and meet here, leave that knowledge behind. Anonymity is the spiritual backbone of our program. The purpose as written in the foreword of the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. We are not an organization in the conventional sense of the word. There are no fees nor dues whatsoever. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. We are not allied with any particular faith, sect, or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted. And now to our speaker. He has been called the greatest social architect of our century. The 12-step program he developed, America's greatest invention. His extraordinary energy and action were a major contribution to the success of our fellowship. Without that contribution, we would more than likely not be here tonight. Lord knows where I would be. It can be said of Bill that there were moments in his life, and he gave his life to those moments. Please welcome the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous to share some of those moments with us tonight. Please welcome Bill W. Bill. Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much. I'm sorry I'm late, folks. Well, it was a chance that we weren't going to even get here tonight. I understand some of you in the hall already know what has happened today, but it's come as a terrible shock. Let me read the telegram that we received at one o'clock this afternoon. Dear Uncle Bill, while it's addressed to William G. Wilson and the Alcoholic Foundation in New York, New York. Dear Uncle Phil, Dad slipped away peacefully at noon today at the Akron Hospital. We'll call you later with the funeral arrangements. I love to you and Aunt Lois And it's signed Sue and Bob Jr. Dr. Bob My partner, your friend, our friend Died today As I said, I wasn't going to come But Lois, my wife, said What better place could you come to Than a meeting of Bob's friends I also got a call from Ed Downey Father Ed Downe in St. Louis And he said, go It'll do you a lot of good He said, just don't talk about yourself. Talk about Bob. Talk about the beginning. Tell our story. Don't just tell your story. He said make it an Irish wake. And thinking about that I decided that I would come. I will share with you. So please if I'm a little out of kilt here just realize that I got some tragic news today. I did though on the way over take a minute to jot down a few notes to sort of commemorate the event of this group's anniversary and with your permission i'd like to get that out of the way before we begin the meeting we meet tonight to celebrate this group anniversary first anniversary on the life of dr bob smith we thank god that he has freed many of us out of bondage and we're here to tell all our friends about deep gratitude for all the help they have given us in this wholesale miracle of recovery and to share with them and with each other the sure evidence of God's grace among us. So much for speech making. We don't make speeches, we just tell our stories. Tonight though it'll be a little bit different. It'll be our story. Well let me see, where do I begin? I guess for us, for me anyway, the beginning was 16 years ago, 1934, the end of the summer, September. I was a patient up in Charlie Towns' hospital up on Central Park West. I had been a patient there before. This was my fourth visit, third time that year. And I was upstairs wrapped up in one of Charlie's canvas pajama tops. Do you remember the ones that tied in the back? and my wife Lois, she was downstairs she was talking to Dr. Swilkart and he was telling her what he had just maybe an hour or so before told me he was telling her that my drinking which had once been just a habit had now become an obsession and that my body at last had developed an allergy to the very substance that I craved and that I was dying and that i was an alcoholic he had this concept this theory after treating thousands of men like myself that mine was a disease a disease as any other disease and a disease that was sure to kill me if i was left to my own and it was his earnest suggestion that lois commit me into the rockland state hospital for the insane you could do that then as a chronic inebriate and he he wanted to do that because he knew i was killing myself but all i always could say is the doctor you don't understand i never met a man like bill who when he made his mind up could do anything why can't he stop this drinking and again he repeated he has a disease hard to understand harder to treat but a disease nevertheless and that he better follow her advice his advice lois of course was distraught and i was upstairs going over those words myself and i always just as distraut just trying to say why me you know typically alcoholic why me why did this happen to me i went back over my life and i could see certain events perhaps that brought me on the road to it but why me i i did not set out to be this way perhaps uh i had a look for a reason was the fact that my father had a problem with alcohol that was the reason for my parents divorce when i was eight years old my sister and i and my mother were abandoned by my father as a result of his drink. My mother left short. I was made to live with my grandparents, my mother's parents. My grandfather instilled in me at an early age a strong, strong desire to be number one. I guess the capstone of all of that was at 12, in my earnest rush to be number one, I invented or was in the record books as an inventor the first American boomerang. I had gotten a book from Grandpa when I was 12 on my birthday, that in passing it to me he said, you know, the Aborigines are the only fellow that can make a boomerang. And I just went after that tooth and nail to prove that I could be an equal to an Aborigine. And after six months of six-month power drive, I created the first boomeranger. It worked. From that day on, my grandfather started it off. I was the number one man, in his eyes and as far as he was concerned, in everybody else's eyes. Little did I realize at the time that I was setting up an emotional boomerang that was going to last me the rest of my life. The need to be number one in everything I did. So perhaps that was the reason for my turning alcoholic. I only drank for 17 years. Picked up my first drink when I was 22 in the Army. Stationed up in Massachusetts with my wife. 22, 17 years later I'm lying in a hospital bed an alcoholic made a fortune in those 17 years and lost it not much to my fault but some of it but a lot of it due to the crash in 29 that began the in and outs of the institutions because when that happened I also crashed and I was a hopeless drunk a lot o' problems with alcohol in and out of sanitariums drying out places, hospitals rest homes Lost everything we had Everything Now here I am, 39 years old And the doctor wants to put me in the hospital For the rest of my life Well, I begged Lois not to follow his advice When she came to see me I begged her to give me one more chance And God bless her, she did She brought me home to our home In reality, it wasn't our home It was my brother-in-law We were living rent-free over on Clinton Street In Brooklyn Heights Lois had a job in a downtown Brooklyn department store making $22 a week. Everything we had that was of any value had been sold long before this, and I was a chronic drunk. But she brought me home anyway, and she gave me that one last chance. In the next two months, I proved the doctor wrong. Totally, absolutely wrong. I didn't leave the house, but I got sober. Stark raving sober, I guess you'd call it, but I get sober. After two months of just staying inside that house I knew that the doctor had made a mistake. I was not an alcoholic. I was never drunk. And then Armistice Day, 1934, a beautiful, smashing day. Positively brilliant. I looked out the window after breakfast and seeing how great it was, I said to my wife, I said, honey, I want to play some golf today. This is perhaps the last good day of the year and I want you to play golf. I want her to get in a round of golf before winter sets in. I felt like a million dollars. and she tried to stop me as best she could she said, Bill, get stronger get stronger but I insisted and finally she relented and she gave me a few dollars and I went up to the attic and I dug out the old golf bag and walked down to the Staten Island Ferry the club was open in Staten Ireland actually it was my brother-in-law's club I could play and he'd pay but I walked to the ferry took the ride over and as I said it was a positively beautiful day and I felt like a million dollars On the other side, I boarded the bus to take me to the clubhouse. And on getting on the bus, I noticed a fellow that was carrying a rifle. Now, I don't know about you, but in New York, if I see somebody with a gun, I want to keep a good eye on them. So I decided the best thing for me to do is to sit alongside him. And after a few stops, I said to him, Hey, mister, where are you going with that rifle? And he just told me, he said, I'm going to a shooting match. As it turned out, it was at a gun club right next door It was a very golf course that I was going to play on. There was this gun club, and he was going to shoot that afternoon. Now, having been raised in Vermont, I fancied that I knew everything there was about rifles, and I began to tell him everything I knew. As it turned out, he knew a lot more than I did. So at the end of it, just to be number one in the conversation, I flew in what I knew about the artillery, having been in the artillery during the First World War. And lo and behold, I became number one the conversation, he was impressed. Now we were settling down for a very comfortable ride when all of a sudden the bus was rear-ended by a taxi cab. We had to unload to see the damage and it wasn't much, just a few bumps and bruises but nothing of any significance. But it was sufficient that the driver, the bus driver, had a way to make out a police report so they called for a replacement bus to continue the trip. While I was standing on the curb my newfound friend and i when he spots an old speakeasy across the street they said to me why don't we wait there he said it'd be a lot more comfortable and the driver can come first when they move us around i said sounded like a good idea to me so we crossed the street and we knocked on the door and they opened it up for us and we got in and sat at the bar and the bartender came up and said to my friend he said what do you have and he asked for a whiskey and ginger ale if i recall and a beer they said what would you like and i said just the ginger ale thank you he turned to me my newfound friend and he said you don't drink and i said no i don't think and then for some reason that i'm still to this day not quite sure why i decided to tell him my life story with alcohol blow by blow dollar by dollar hospital by hospital everything that i lost everything over the years that caused me pain and horror and and heartbreak, and just everything. And he listened. And when I finished, he said a wondrous thing to me. He said, you know, you're a remarkable man. And immediately I knew that he was an intelligent man because nobody, and I mean nobody, had a kind word to say to me in years. But this man could see through all of me and get to the very nub of it and see that I was a number one, a highly intelligent man. he said as I recall I have a number of friends that have had problems with alcohol much like your own and he said they're dead now or they're in prison or theyre in hospital or they are in skid row but you seem to have rebounded to have recovered and I think that's highly remarkable the more he talked the smarter he got in front of me it was just as I said nobody I mean nobody had had a kind word for me well good things have to come to an end And then the driver finally came and told us about the new bus, and we boarded and continued our trip. After a mile or so, I didn't want to let this fellow loose, as I said. I needed this affirmation. So I said, why don't you join me for lunch at my club? It was my brother-in-law's, but as far as he was concerned, it was my club. I'll stand you to lunch because you're not going to start shooting, as he had told me, until 2 o'clock, and I wasn't going to tee off until 1.30, and it was just a few minutes before noon. I said, why don't you join me? We'll have lunch, and at the end of lunch you can walk out the back door of the clubhouse and cross a small field and you'll be at the gun club in a matter of minutes. He liked the idea and he agreed. So when my stop came we both got off and entered into the country club. We were walking to the dining room when we were stopped by the manager and he said, can I help you? And I said no, we're just going for a bite of lunch. He said, oh, I'm sorry. I apologize, but the dining room is closed today in celebration of Armistice Day. We've given the staff the day off. But you can, if you'd like, you can get a sandwich in the bar. My friend said to me, will that bother you? And I said, no, not at all. I've already passed the test. I've gotten out of that saloon in one piece. I'm sure I could do it again. So we crossed over and went into the bar and sat up on the bar stools. And eventually the bartender came over to service and he said, what will you have? My friend again asked for a whiskey and ginger ale, and I asked for ginger ale. We ordered sandwiches. My friend, as I said, who was getting smarter by the minute, he said, you know, you're fantastic. He said, You're in a sea of alcohol. And there were bottles all over the place. I mean, it was just loaded with every type of liquor you could imagine. He said... You are remarkable. You're just absolutely a wonder because you're in an ocean of booze and it's still not pulling at you. I knew that I was cured. The doctor had made a mistake. I was so delighted. I couldn't wait to tell my wife. Well, we drank our drinks and we had our sandwiches and finally I asked the bartender for the bill so I could sign it so my brother-in-law wouldn't have any problems paying it. We were about ready to leave when the bartending came back when he put down two mixed drinks. One in front of me and one in front of my friend. And he said, Gentlemen, these drinks are on the house in celebration of Armistice Day. Without a moment's hesitation I reached over and I picked up mine and I drank it down. When I turned to my newfound friend, he didn't look smart anymore. He had the dumbest expression I've ever seen on a human being. And all he could say to me was, Mister, you've got to be crazy. Absolutely crazy. After what alcohol has done to you, for you to take that drink, you must be insane. And all I could say was, you're right. I am insane. I am crazy. That night, my wife found me in the area where there's a space between the outside door and the inside door of our home. I had fallen, apparently cut my head, and I was bleeding, passed out. Still clutching that bag of unused golf clubs. I didn't play golf that day. I got drunk and proved that Dr. Right. The next morning, full of remorse and pain and self-pity, I knew what I was. I knew that I was an alcoholic, and I'd be one the rest of my life. And I guess when I died and they pulled the grass over my head, I'd... I'd a dead alcoholic and there was nothing I could do about it. But I also knew that would be damned before I die in some insane asylum. I decided then and there that I would drink myself to death or get the Dutch courage that I needed to take my life. And that's what I set out to do. For the next several weeks, I begged, borrowed, and stole the dollar bill it took to get the three little bottles of gin that it also took to getting me over the edge, to get me drunk. Day in and day out, I sat in that empty house in Brooklyn drinking myself to dead, occasionally writing angry letters to franklin donald roosevelt telling what a lousy job he was doing running the country letters i want to show you right now he never replied to i don't think lois ever mailed them but that was my future and that was my end i couldn't care less that's how ebby found me abby t some of you might know from the room got a call one day old ebby my school chum he said hey bill this is ed can i come over to see you oh abby please please do i hated to drink alone i truly did here was my old pal coming over to share an afternoon we could reminisce and talk about the old days and it would be wonderful i said oh please come over ab and he said he'd be right over and i And I then did what I consider to be a very heroic act for a drunk of my nature. I dug out the one little bottle of gin that I had sequestered behind the commode in the downstairs jar. And I put that on the kitchen table. And because I remember that Ebby had a kind of a sour stomach, I also rescued a can of pineapple juice from one of Lois' pantry shelves. And I took it and I put it on the table and waited for my friend, looking forward to a splendid afternoon. Because I was sure he'd bring a jug to me. We'd have a great time. And while I was waiting, I was trying to recall an event that friends of ours, friends of Eben and I, had passed on to me about him being in a kind of a scrape not too long ago, maybe a month or so before his call today. It seemed that Eben, one of his binges, had run his car into somebody's living room up near Albany. When he climbed out of the wreckage, there was a woman sitting on the sofa and he said to her, Madam, would you please get me a cup of coffee? We all laughed about it because she got the cops instead. I must ask him when he comes. How did you get out of that scrape, baby? I'd like to know for future reference. That was a real, real bad scrape. I must have asked him. Well, I didn't have long to wait. There was a knock on the door and I went to answer it. And as soon as I opened it, I took one look. I knew that something had changed. There was something different about him. He was clean, for one. His suit was nicely sponged and pressed. He had a blocked hat. His shoes were shined, and he was clean-shaven. I knew how I looked. I always knew how i looked. I had a pair of baggy trousers, wearing an undershirt, three or four day growth of beard. I used to go around with my brother-in-law's house slippers on. They were a size and a half too big for me, so I couldn't walk exactly. I had to slide around the house. Lois used to love that. She would say to friends, he polishes linoleum wherever he goes. That's how I looked. Well, we set a few pleasantries in the parlor, and finally I said, Eddie, let's go back to the kitchen where it's a lot warmer and where I knew the gin. I also happened to notice, by the way, that he wasn't carrying a jug. He was empty-handed. Hmm, maybe he's broke. Well, he followed me back and we sat at the kitchen table and we shared a few more pleasantries and finally, both of us are eyeing the bottle of gin and the can of pineapple juice. I said to him, Ed, how would you like a little drink? And I reached over and I started to pour one out and he said, no Bill. He said, not thank you, not today. I said, you're not drinking? I said you are, in the water wagon, Ed? He said no, I'm just not drinking today. So what happened, old friend? This is news to me. He said well I guess you could say I got religion. Oh my God, I thought, I've let a religious nut in my house. Then I realized, well that isn't such bad news because now all this liquor is mine. I don't have to share it and I'm sure it will outlast any rantings and ravings he might have about whatever religion he picked up. So I said, what religion have you found Ed? And he said very matter-of-factly, he said, I guess you'd call it the religion of common sense. i had never heard of our lady of the common sense so i dug a little further i said what do you mean common sense well he said bill i don't know if you realize how much of a grip alcohol had on me and right away i knew i wasn't going to tell him about what i knew i said no i said you you have a problem with alcohol oh yeah he said a very very severe problem but just a little over a month ago he says i was in a judge's chambers and they were getting ready to throw the bucket and lock me up. I had gotten into the one scrape too many, and my family wanted me off the street. And while I was in that chamber, friends of ours, and he mentioned their names, and they were friends of mine too, and he said also a perfect stranger. He mentioned his name, and it was a stranger to me also. He said these people came to that hearing, and the strangest stood before the judge, and she said, Your Honor, turned him over to us. I think we can help him solve his problems. They're members of the Oxford group, Bill. Have you ever heard of those? And I had. I said yes, I know a little about them having read some articles and some stories over the years in society columns. A bunch of fancy dams that got together to overcome whatever drinking or drugging or gambling problems they might have. But it was a subject that I didn't want to know that much about, so I said, I don't know that much. He said, well, he said, I got involved with these people. The judge had nothing to lose, so he just turned me over to him. And after a while, listening to him, I took certain ideas peculiar to them, and I put it to work on my drinking problem. And it seems to have done the trick for me. Well, if you're in for a penny, you're in for pound, but I say, well what are those ideas, my friend? And he said well, number one I had to get honest with myself for the first time in my life and take a look at what alcohol had done to me. And then he said I had to talk it over with somebody else in strict confidence, now I want to show you that, in strict confidence I had a talk it out with somebody and then he says I had become willing to make up for all the harm that I've done with my drinking and with other things. I'll be doing that the rest of my life Then also, he said, I had to also become willing to help people like myself. And when I heard that old Bill Wilson was holed up over in Brooklyn drinking himself to death, I said to my friends, let me take a crack at it. And that's why I'm here today. Well, I was offended. I said, wait a minute, Ev. I don't know who gave you that idea that I was drinking myself to death. But you're wrong. I might be having a couple of bad spots here, but I'm certainly not doing that. Well, it's all right. I could be mistaken, he said. And I said, well, is that what you picked up, all the ideas? He said, no, there was one other. And he says, I know it's going to jaw you, Bill, but I have to tell you this nevertheless. I know where you stand on this issue, but I had to also come up with asking God for help to do those other four things to keep me straight and keep me on the beam. i had to ask whatever god i could come up with for help and i know that jarju and he was right and i said to him thank you but no thanks and we got up and i walked into the door and i saw him off so much for a pleasant afternoon with my friend ev the idea somebody coming into my house and talking about some personal arrangement with a god was just absolutely ridiculous. I'm an engineer by training, and I do allow for the natural order of things, and I can conceivably consider a supreme consciousness, but the idea of some personal deity that you can help overcome life's problems was absolutely ludicrous. So much for my friend Eddie. I went back to drinking. But a funny thing happened over the next couple of days. I couldn't get the sight of Ebby out of my mind. He became another obsession. All I could do was think of him sober and me drunk. I knew what I was, but I kept saying there's something wrong with this picture. What's wrong? And eventually I realized I should be sober because I was the number one man. I was number one in everything. I should have been sober. I He should be the one talking to the likes of Ebby. There's something wrong about this. And the obsession grew and grew and grow until finally I began to realize, realization I guess you'd call it, a moment there, some brief moment. I began realize that had I cancer and Ebby showed up and he told me about a cure for cancer that was in the hands of some, quote, great physician, unquote. I would have followed him on my hands and knees to wherever that physician was located had I cancer. And yet I had a disease much like cancer. It was killing me. But I wouldn't do anything about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was definitely insane. But I had to check this out. I made a living as an investigator, as a security analyst. I could analyze this Oxford group I could take a good hard look at them and see perhaps if they could help me I could do it on the QT nobody would have to know perhaps Lois, but nobody else maybe Ebby, if you saw me there but I would go over to where they met and I'd observe them and if they had something for me perhaps I'd take what I want and leave the rest behind so I told Lois about my idea one evening and she And God bless her, she helped me. The next day we cleaned me up. And finally that afternoon, with the few dollars that she gave me, I took the subway into Manhattan to check out the Oxford Group. They used to meet over at the Calvary Mission on 23rd Street. Some of you might remember the place. And I, coming up out of the subway, realized immediately that I had made a great mistake. I'd taken the subway over from Brooklyn. And I went over to the west side of Manhattan, sort of the east side where the mission was, which happens to be also the longest stretch in New York from the east to the western. And because it was early, I decided, well, it isn't too bad. It wasn't a bad day. I'd walk over. I had plenty of time. I'd just walk over the few blocks and be there in plenty of times for the meeting. After a few blocks of walking, though, I found myself looking into the windows of some of the saloons that I passed by to see perhaps if there were somebody there I might know. there was. I continued to walk until finally, in desperation, because I was getting closer to the mission, I crossed the street to one of my favorite watering holes. I looked in that window and there was nobody there that I knew, so I decided perhaps I was missing something. I'd step inside to take a really good look. I stepped inside and I looked around and again there was no one there I knew. So I thought, why don't you wait? Perhaps somebody is going to show up. And I waited. I don't know about you, but if you're going to wait saloon you should have a drink because otherwise you look conspicuous so i asked for a beer i drank it and then i asked another beer another beer in a shot to go with it before you know it i forgot any plans i had for an evening that hadn't even begun yet i went into my usual blackout so much for meeting god in manhattan but as also as my customer meanwhile i came out of the blackout i found myself talking to a man with a very heavy accent as he determined after a minute he was a fisherman from a finnish sailboat the fishing boat i'm sorry it was a sail maker and i realized that he was a fisherman but i was in town to talk to fishers and men this was mistake i said well mister come with me we're going to meet god because i had a few dollars in my pocket he came with me we could drink later we got down to the mission the services had already begun tex francisco was at the door and he he bartered from coming in because we were too obviously drunk and push was coming to shove and i was getting ready to get my usual beating when ebby showed up and besides that the situation he said to text i'll sponsor them in i'll sit on them if they act up i'll scoop them and get them out of there and i got into the mission for those again recall the giant the smell was overwhelming these lads have been living in their clothes for years. Their bottle wastes were an integral part of their body. Urine-soaked trousers, the smell of alcohol was pervasive. The boiling pot of coffee up front was a big, big pot of beans. I can still recall it today. It was overwhelming. Me and my Brooks Brothers soup. Well, I sat amongst them, and everybody got us a plate of beans and another coffee, and I drank. And all of it was the beans or the coffee or the alcohol, but I eventually began to mellow out. I began to realize that these weren't a bad bunch of boys. They were just a little further down in their luck than I was. As they mellowed out, apparently I went into another one of those blackouts because what happened after that was retold to me by Ebby the next morning. It seems that in my blackout, halfway through somebody's witness, I got up with the fin and came forward to accept Christ. Before I know it, I was singing old camp songs, playing the tambourine and jumping for Jesus and giving testimony myself about the evils of alcohol. And again from Ebby's mouth, everybody sat in wonder with me. I had them spellbound. When he told me that the next morning, I was absolutely mortified because I knew I didn't believe a word of whatever it was I said. I just knew that I could never go back to Manhattan again. The idea of some drunk coming up and saying to me, you were great the other night at the mission. It appalled me. I also realized that this was really the onset of the insanity of alcohol, and I was on a downward slide that would never, ever, ever be the same again. I was finished. And he didn't argue. He left. He said, you had me convinced. Going out the door, he said, Bill, you hadn't me convinced, I thought you hadn it. And I sat home, really feeling sorry for myself, both at work. And then I realized something that I hadn't realized earlier that morning. When Lois was going off, I reached into my trousers' pocket and I took out money. And I turned it over to her. I realized that I had never done that in years. I never came home with money. I spent every dime I had before I'd come home. I'd be dead broke. I couldn't go buy a bar with a dime. Probably something did happen. What it was, I don't know. But I knew that if I was ever going to pull myself back from the abyss that I was on, I had to find out. I decided I would get sober. I would sober up and go back to the Oxford group and really take a good look. Now, how do you get sober? With my experience, you go into town's hospital. My brother-in-law paid, always paid, the $125 it took for the five days to sober me up. Well, I don't know about you, but if you're going to get sober, you should get drunk first. No sense going into the hospital with a hangover. What a waste of $125. five dollars. And it seems I was foolish enough to give my money away to my wife. I only had six cents, a penny and a nickel. And they took a nickel to get in on the subway so I realized you can't get drunk even in Brooklyn on a penny. So what I did do is I got dressed and I went out and I scrounged around a few of the stores in Brooklyn Heights until I came up with the one store that would give me credit. And actually it was Lois's credit. It won her tick. I got four bottles of beer. Drank two right away because I was very thirsty. While I'm trying to get one away on I was told we were to exchange human tickets, so I drank that. And then wound up finally walking into Townsend's Hospital, waving the one bottle of beer over my head that I had left, spotted Dr. Silkworth in a drunken state, said to him, Doc, I found the cure. He took one look at me, took one looked at the bottle, and he said, I see you have, my boy. You know where your bed is. Go upstairs and get into it. I knew where my bed was. I went upstairs, undressed, finished the bottle of beer, and went to bed. Three days later, free of sedatives, free of alcohol, I lay in that bed full of remorse now. Self-pity, anger, rage, total, absolute humiliation. I realized that I had just done another terrible thing. I had no intention of checking out the Oxford Group, broke a silver. No intention. I had just cost my brother another $125, and I also cost my wife not to speak to me. What a terrible, terrible thing to do. Well, I looked up, and standing at the door was my friend, Eddie. And the first thing I said to myself was, here's a fellow that practices what he preaches. I heard the staff mention how cold it was when they were coming in on shift, and here is my friend come out in that cold to see me. And all I could say was, here's a fellow that really works this program. And all of a sudden he goes, gee, Bill, I'm sorry to see you in here again. I really thought you had it the other day, but I guess it was a mistake. If you need any help, please don't hesitate to give me a call. He turned to go and said, wait a minute, Abby. What was that little neat formula you had that you got from the Oxford people that got you sober? He said, simple. You get honest, you talk it over with somebody else, you make up for the harm you've done, help other people and you ask God for help whatever God you can come up with to do those four things he mentioned the G-O-D word again and I said thanks but no thanks I still gagged at the idea of a personal God what a joke, what a waste I lay in that bed and the evening wore on it got darker and darker in that room until finally all this total darkness and that bed of pain I sank into one of the worst depressions of my life and I was no stranger to depression but this was one of them I kept going down and down until finally I felt that I was at the bottom of a pit a deep dark pit and then for one brief moment again one of those moments that Pete mentioned when he introduced me for one briefly moment my proud obstinacy left me and I found myself crying out, more in anger, I think, than in pain. If there is a God, let him show himself to me right now. I will do anything, anything. Let him show itself to me. The room lit up in an intense white light and I was caught up in ecstasy that words cannot describe. in my mind's eye it was as if I were on a mountaintop and a wind, not of air but of spirit flowed through my body and it burst upon me that I was a free man the obsession to drink left me that obsession that absolutely pervaded my total being left me eventually the ecstasy subsided and now I found myself back in that hospital bed but this time surrounded in the presence a presence of pure joy. And I realized, this number one man, that I was a part, if only a tiny part, of the universe ruled in justice and love by a loving, compassionate, personal God. And all I could say was, so this is the God of the preachers. This is what they've been talking about all these years. Eventually, I have one of these inquiring, rational minds, Eventually, the mind began to say, My God, Bill, this is the green daddy of all hallucinations. This was that slide into madness that Dr. Silpert talked about. This was the end. And I became so frightened that I got the nurse and I asked her to get Dr. Simplert, and she did. He came and sat alongside my bed, and I told him what happened to me. And he listened. And finally, I don't know where the courage came from, I said to him, Doctor, is this it? Am I going insane? And after a few minutes, his brow furrowed and he looked up to me and he said, No, my boy. No. I've never witnessed what has happened to you. But I've read about it in books and it does sober up drugs and I can tell you it's all you got. I saw you a short time ago and I wouldn't have given you a tinker's damn for your life but something has happened and you better hang on to it because again, it's already happened. And he left, and I slept like a baby. The next morning, I told him what happened, and he went out and came back a few minutes later, and with him he brought a book called A Variety of Religious Experiences by Dr. James, the Harvard psychologist. He said, Bill, you'll find what happened to you in this book. It's the toughest book I ever read, but I devoured it. Absolutely devoured. And then I did discover what had happened to me, the cash value of my experience, I call it, the scientific truth. This doctor had chronicled a number of experiences, some the illuminating type that I have, the sudden one that overcomes people. And then he also went on to illustrate the gradual experiences that other people have over a period of time through the help of other people or in fellowship or in service. They all undergo a transformation, a conversion. But the one thing that they all have in common, the one key ingredient is a state of calamity. They're all in a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness before anything like this can occur. And this is what happened to me. I had had this sudden, illuminating experience. And then to the great alcoholic, I said, but why me? Why did this happen to me? And then I realized my drinking had so isolated me that it was as if I were in a cave. And my friend, Ebby, who first my family over the years, and my wife in particular, stood outside that cave asking me to come out. and I couldn't get out. I couldn t find my way out. And finally, Eddie, he showed up outside the cave and finally after having been a captive in a similar cave, he entered mine. He knew the way. He took me by the hand and he led me out. One cave dweller helping another, one alcoholic helping another. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. I wanted help other people like myself. I left the hospital, I joined the Oxford group, and I came forth. And in the next six months I talked to thousands of drunks, and nobody, I mean nobody, listened to what I had to say. I couldn't sober up a soul. Because I was convinced that if anybody had an underdog experience like mine they had to be on top of a mountain, have this bright light and the wind and air go through their body. They ran away from me, all convinced that what had happened to me more of an hallucination. Some of them used to jokingly say, Bill, tell us what you were drinking that day so we can avoid it. That was my total experience. Finally, in desperation, I went back to see Dr. Silkeris and he told me, after I asked him the advice, he said, Bill, I first said to him, I'm sorry, why can't I help people, Doc? I said, my friend can help me, everyone can help мне, and I can't help others. Why can't they do that? And he said、Bill, I'm going to give you some advice. You can take it or leave it. I've listened to you talk to some of our patients here, and I want to suggest that you lay off the God business. Don't talk about God to a drunk. Talk drunk to a drug. And if you make the connection, one alcoholic talking to another, talking about the lines and the losses and the deceit and the pain and the anguish and the heartbreak, once you make that connection, then talk about the spiritual program. but make the connection first. I began to do that, and they stopped running away. Nobody got sober, but they stopped running away, and then friends, family friends, began to say, hey, when is Bill going to go back to work and get Lois out of that damn department store? And I heard it, and I realized that they were right. I wasn't any good in the drunk business, so I began looking for some action down on the street, and finally, I heard of a deal going down in Akron, and I cut myself in for a piece of the action. But folks, before I go to Akron, I've got to stop for a few minutes and take a break. I'll see you in a few moments. Thank you very much.