You Nurse a New Man Along and Watch Him Grow and You Don’t Have to Worry About Higher Power Anymore – Bill G.

About This Speaker Tape

Bill G. opens at the 3rd Annual Tampa Bay Roundup recalling the 20th anniversary convention in St. Louis, then paints a word picture of himself as a young Irish Catholic boy who never cared for the flavor of beer but loved the effect. He drifts from stealing bicycles and opening mailbox letters, through military academy, into the retail furniture business where every salesman was a two-fisted drinker. Marriage, two children, and a prosperous partnership with a friend named Bernie can't hold him — the morning gin-and-egg-white concoction at his bartender friend's bar turns him into a daylight drinker.

He walks out on his wife, drives west with twin-bed cabins so he has one bed to sleep in and one to throw up in, opens a store in Seattle, and goes bankrupt in 20 months. Nine months later he is back in New Jersey on a Lincoln Park bench in his Stacy A. shoes, trades them at Cheap Charlie's for 75 cents and canvas slippers, splits two bottles of muscatel with a bum who then steals the second bottle, and ends up at the Salvation Army bailing newspaper for 95 cents a week under an Envoy who won't let a dog stay out in the snow.

After a hemorrhage on the living room rug in November 1939, and later a second run after Dr. Lubin's five-dollar needle, his wife drags him to A.A. through the Helen McHugh Studios and the Roseville Athletic Club. Charlie steps on his hand when he reaches for a cigarette butt; Joe threatens to punch him if he doesn't shut up; Stoney with the diamond horseshoe pin tells him not to worry about being jobless. He gets sober January 4, 1947, starts the Clinton Hill group, and works with a hundred drunks to get one recovery — old Boxcar Jimmy Frazier.

The turn comes one morning five years in when he watches a city sparrow take a bath on a stunted oak outside his basement window and learns to pray. He closes on the Salt Lake City locusts and seagulls, the Chautauqua circuit taking him to Canada, Australia, London and Paris, and the moment when you nurse a new man along and watch him grow like a green bay tree — and you don't have to worry about Higher Power because He's sitting right in front of your eyes.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction at the 3rd Annual Tampa Bay Roundup; Bill recalls speaking at AA's 20th anniversary in St. Louis
• 3:00 Pitcher of beer on the Green family dinner table; as a boy he loved the effect, not the flavor
• 7:00 Retail furniture business and the morning gin-and-egg-white concoction that turned him into a daylight drinker
• 13:00 Dissolves partnership with Bernie, loads the car and drives west with twin-bed cabins — one to sleep in, one to throw up in
• 17:00 Bankrupt in Seattle in 20 months; sells $60,000 in receivables for ten cents on the dollar
• 21:00 Lincoln Park bench in November; trades Stacy A. shoes at Cheap Charlie's for 75 cents and muscatel
• 26:00 Salvation Army flop, Fels-Naphtha soap, World War I cots, bailing newspaper under the Envoy
• 33:00 Jersey City Medical Center in restraining sheets; wife asks if he'll try AA; November 1939
• 38:00 First AA meeting at Helen McHugh Studios — tiptoes out and invents the table-with-rye-and-white-rock story
• 48:00 January 4, 1947 — Roseville Athletic Club, Charlie steps on his hand reaching for a cigarette butt; the bird bath sparrow five years later teaches him to pray