Chapter 1

BILL'S STORY

(pp. 21-33)

During World War I, I was a young officer in the U.S. military. After spending time at a base in Plattsburgh, New York, I went with some other officers to a New England town where the people were very kind to us. They made us feel like heroes. They told us how brave we were for going off to war. During this exciting and emotional time, there were many celebrations in homes and bars. I discovered how much I loved liquor. Although my family back home had warned me not to drink, I began to drink regularly.

Once we arrived in Europe and began to fight the war, I felt very lonely and continued drinking to deal with my feelings. One time while I was in England, I visited Winchester Cathedral where I spent some time wandering around by myself. I saw these words written on an old tombstone:

“Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier
Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer.
A good soldier is ne'er forgot
Whether he dieth by musket or by pot.”¹

Looking back, these words seem like a warning to me about the dangers of drinking. But at the time, I didn't think too much about their meaning.

When I was 22 years old and the fighting was over, I finally went home as a war veteran. I was an officer, so I had been in charge of other soldiers. The men in my unit had followed my orders and given me their respect, so I believed I was a talented leader. Because of this, I felt sure that I could become the leader of a huge company back at home. My success as an officer made me confident that I would be a success no matter what I did with my life.

My early career as a stock market investor

I took a night school course in law, and got a job as an investigator for an insurance company. I was very eager to show the world how successful and important I could become. Because of the type of work I did, I had to spend time near Wall Street, where the New York Stock Exchange is located. This is an area where lots of bankers and investors work. Just by being around them, I became interested in what they did. Investing money in the stock market sounded exciting, and I knew it had helped some people become rich very quickly. Maybe that would work for me, too.

I started studying economics and business as well as law. I was already drinking regularly at the time and my drinking made it hard for me to study. I almost failed my law course. At one of my final exams, I was too drunk to think or write. I wasn't drinking every day, but my drinking habits still worried my wife. We had long talks about it. I would try to calm her down by telling her that the world's great geniuses had done their best work while drunk. She tried to be patient with me, but she knew I was making bad choices.

By the time I had finished my law course, I knew I wasn't meant to be a lawyer. I wanted to work on Wall Street as a stock market investor. Business and financial leaders had become my heroes. I felt sure I could make a fortune working with them.

My drinking habits and my false belief in my talents as a businessman put me on a path to failure and unhappiness.

But I didn't know that at the time. My wife and I saved up $1,000, which I used to buy some cheap stocks that were unpopular with other investors. I believed that they would rise in price and be worth a lot of money someday. I tried to convince my broker friends to send me out traveling. I wanted to inspect factories run by the companies whose stocks I'd bought. I believed that most people lost money in stocks because they didn't understand the companies they were investing in. I decided that I could become a better investor by doing research in person. My broker friends wouldn't pay for me to travel. So my wife and I both quit our day jobs, and drove off on a motorcycle. We had a sidecar stuffed with a tent, blankets, clothes, and three huge reference books on investing.

Our friends thought we had lost our minds, and they might have been right. I made a little money on my first few investments but not very much. My wife and I worked on a farm for a month so we wouldn't have to spend the tiny amount we'd earned from our investments. (That month on the farm was the last honest, hard work I did for a very long time.)

We traveled across the whole eastern United States in a year. At the end of it, I sent the research I'd done to my coworkers on Wall Street. They were so impressed they gave me a job. I even had an expense account—a bank account owned by my employer but controlled by me. I got to use the money in that account for travel, meals, and anything I thought would help me earn more money for the company. I succeeded in that job, and earned some large bonuses.

Wealth, success, and lots of liquor

For the next few years, I had plenty of money and got lots of praise from my coworkers and bosses. I believed I was living out my destiny as a successful leader. Many people listened to my advice about how to invest in the stock market, and we all made a fortune. This was in the late 1920s, when America seemed to be having one big, never-ending party. Drinking was an important and exciting part of my life. I went to jazz clubs filled with loud talkers and big spenders. I met lots of people who I thought were my friends.

Around this time, my drinking became even more serious. I started drinking non-stop all day and almost every night. If my friends begged me to stop, we would fight, so eventually I started drinking alone. Inside our beautiful apartment, my wife and I would fight, too. I had not cheated on her with other women. I was loyal to her, and being drunk all the time kept me from cheating. But she was unhappy with my behavior.

Then, in 1929, I started playing golf, and became obsessed with the sport. My wife and I began to spend lots of time in the country so she could watch while I practiced playing. Many people play golf and drink at the same time, which was part of the reason I loved it so much. I was drinking every day and every night. It was fun to wander around fancy, exclusive golf clubs that I'd dreamed about as a young boy. My skin became very tan, and I was spending my money almost as fast as I could earn it. But my habits were having some nasty effects. I was drinking so much that I began to feel jittery in the morning.

Suddenly, in October of 1929, the stock market became unpredictable and unstable. Prices rose and fell all day long, and stock market experts like me were under a lot of stress. After one of those stressful days, I went to a hotel bar to get drunk but then returned to the office. It was eight o'clock, five hours after all stock market work had stopped. A machine called a ticker was still printing out information about stock prices. One of my stocks had gone from $52 per share in the morning to $32 that night.

All the money I'd made was suddenly gone.

The newspapers printed stories about men committing suicide by jumping out the windows of tall bank buildings. That disgusted me. I would not jump. Instead I went back to the bar. My friends had lost several million dollars since ten o'clock that morning—but so what? Tomorrow was another day. As I drank, the urge to be a successful businessman came back to me. I believed I would make it through this crisis somehow.

A new start in Canada

The next morning I called a friend in Montreal. He had plenty of money left, so I decided to move to Canada to work for him. By the following spring, my wife and I were living just like we had in New York. We had a lovely home and plenty of money. I felt like I had won a huge battle, all by myself. But my drinking caught up with me again, and my generous friend had to fire me. This time we stayed broke.

We went to live with my wife's parents. I found a job, then lost it because I started a fist fight with a taxi driver. For the next five years I didn't have a steady job, and I was drunk almost all the time. My wife had to work in a department store to pay our bills. She would come home exhausted to find me drunk.

Liquor was no longer something I wanted. It became something I needed. I made my own liquor—called “bathtub gin” since it was created at home, often in bathrooms—and drank it constantly. Sometimes I was able to sell some of my stocks to earn a few hundred dollars. Then I would pay my debts at the bars and restaurants.

This went on and on, and I began to wake up very early in the morning shaking violently. If I wanted to eat any breakfast without feeling shaky, I had to drink a glass full of gin and six bottles of beer. There were many signs that I was becoming very sick, but I still thought I could control my situation. And there were a few short periods of time when I did stay sober. These periods of time helped my wife feel hopeful. But gradually things got worse. Our house was taken by the bank, my mother-in-law died, and my wife and father-in-law became sick.

After all that terrible news, I got an exciting business opportunity. It was 1932 and stocks were very cheap, so I was asked to buy some stocks with a group of investors. If it went well, I would make a ton of money. But before the deal was done, I decided to spend several days getting very drunk. After that I was told I wasn't welcome in the group of investors anymore. The business opportunity was gone. I had ruined my chance to take part in it.

That experience made me see that I was in a terrible situation. This had to stop. I realized I could not take a single drink or I would just keep drinking. I decided I was done drinking forever. Before that, I had made lots of promises to stop, but I had never done it. This time, my wife believed that I would actually do it. I believed it, too.

Shortly after that I came home drunk. I hadn't even tried to resist drinking. Someone had pushed a drink my way, and I had taken it. Was I crazy? I began to wonder if I was, since I seemed to have absolutely no control over my own actions.

Stopping and starting again

I tried to stop drinking again. I was able to stay sober for a pretty long time, and I began to feel very confident that I could stop drinking. I decided I was finally strong enough to quit for good! I had beat my alcoholism. Then one day I walked into a cafe to use their phone. Very soon after that, I found myself beating my fists on the bar, drunk, and wondering what had happened to me. As I brought the cup of whisky to my lips, I promised myself I would do better next time. But I figured I might as well get good and drunk then. And I did.

I'll never forget the guilt and hopelessness I felt the next morning. I didn't have the courage to keep fighting to stay sober. I also woke up feeling shaky and jittery, like I had so many times before. My brain was going a million miles a minute. I was convinced that something terrible was about to happen to me. The sun was barely up, but an all-night bar was open and I drank at least 12 beers as quickly as I could. My nerves finally began to calm down.

Then I looked at the morning paper, and saw that the stock market had crashed again. I felt like I had crashed my life. The stock market would recover someday, but I felt like I never would. That was a hard thought. I wondered if I should kill myself. But I thought no—not now.

My mind felt hazy and I decided that drinking gin would clear it up. So I drank two bottles and forgot everything.

Even though I spent the next two years drinking as much as I possibly could, my mind and body kept me alive somehow. My choices made me feel full of shame, but I couldn't stop myself. When I woke up in the morning feeling shaky and confused, I would steal money from my wife's purse to buy more liquor. I wondered again and again if I should kill myself. I thought maybe I could jump out a window or overdose on prescription medicine … but I was too scared. My wife and I would go to the country, hoping a change of scenery might help me change my behavior. But it never did.

Then there was a night when the physical and mental pain was so hellish I felt sure I would jump through my window, glass and all. I dragged a mattress to a lower floor in case I actually did jump. My wife called a doctor, who gave me a sedative: Medicine to help me calm down and get some sleep. The next day, I started drinking gin along with the medicine. That combination of things nearly killed me. People in my life were afraid for me, and I was afraid for myself. I couldn't really eat anything while I was drinking, so I was 40 pounds underweight. My life was in serious danger, and I knew it.

Learning about alcoholism at the hospital

My brother-in-law was a medical doctor. He worked with my mother to get me into a well-respected hospital that treated alcoholics. I was given more sedatives to calm my body and mind, and eventually my brain stopped racing. Various therapies and a little exercise helped me feel better. Best of all, I met a doctor who explained what was happening to me. He said that my behavior had been selfish and foolish, but I was also very sick in both my mind and my body. He said to me that it wasn't all my fault that I kept going back to drinking. He explained that most of his patients had gone through similar struggles.

It was a relief to hear that most alcoholics have a hard time resisting drinking, even if they are able to control themselves in other parts of their lives. This helped me understand my actions. I wanted very badly to stop drinking, but it seemed like I just couldn't. This is how most alcoholics felt. Knowing this gave me hope, and I felt like I was finally strong enough to get sober. For three or four months, everything went well. I got some work, made a little money, and believed my new knowledge could solve my drinking problem.

But it did not. The day came when I drank again. After that, my emotional and physical health got much worse and I went back to the hospital. I felt sure this would be the end for me, and that I would die. The doctors told my tired and desperate wife that I was at risk for a heart attack during my morning attacks of the shakes. They also said that my drinking might cause permanent brain damage. They expected one or both of these things to happen within a year. I would either end up unable to speak, or unable to live and sent to an early grave.

Everything they told my wife made sense to me. I already knew I was destroying my life, and welcomed the idea of dying. I remembered coming home from World War I and feeling sure I would be a huge success. I felt deep shame at how terribly I'd behaved. I was out of options, and felt like I was trapped in a corner. I thought about my poor wife and how happy we'd been in the past. I wished I could apologize and make things better with her, but it seemed like it was far too late for that.

I can't find any words to describe the loneliness and despair I felt during this time in my life. I felt like there was no way to escape my awful situation. I was powerless, and believed that alcohol would always control me.

When I finally left the hospital, I felt like a broken man. I stayed sober for a while out of fear, but the moment I took a single drink I was back to my old habits. On Armistice Day 1934—the anniversary of the end of World War I—I got drunk and stayed drunk. Everyone in my life felt sure I would drink myself to death this time.

I had no idea that in a few short weeks, I would be introduced to a whole new way of living. A way of living full of peace, relief, and even happiness. Soon, I would be thrown into something I call “the fourth dimension of existence.” When I got to this fourth dimension, I would finally be free. My life would feel completely different to me in magical, spiritual new ways. I was experiencing those darkest hours that come right before the dawn.

I would feel like I was starting to live for the very first time.

A visit from a friend

Near the end of November 1934, I sat drinking in my kitchen. I thought about how I had enough gin hidden around the house to keep me drunk through that night and the next day. My wife was at work. I wondered if I could hide a full bottle of gin near the head of our bed. I knew I would need it before I woke up the next morning.

My thoughts were interrupted by the telephone ringing. I heard the cheerful voice of an old school friend through the phone. He asked if he could come over to visit me. And he was sober! It was years since I could remember hearing him sober, so I was amazed. I'd heard rumors that he was arrested and ordered by a judge to get treatment for his alcoholism. I wondered how he had escaped. I imagined that he would come over for dinner, and then I could drink openly with him. I wasn't thinking at all about my friend's health or well-being. I was just thinking of having fun with him like we used to do. I thought of his visit like being rescued. I felt like I was lost in the desert all by myself and dying of thirst. He was a pool of clear water that appeared suddenly to save my life.

The door opened and he stood there, looking healthy and happy. He seemed very different, though I couldn't figure out what had changed.

I pushed a drink across the table to him. He refused it. I felt disappointed but curious. I wondered what had happened to change him. He wasn't acting like himself.

“What's going on?” I asked.

He looked straight at me and smiled. He said, “I've got religion.”

I was shocked by this news. I thought to myself, “Well, last summer he had been a crazy alcoholic. Now he's just as crazy about religion.” His eyes were wide and sparkling with excitement. I expected him to start giving me a long, passionate speech about finding God.

But he didn't. Instead he told me how two men had come to his court hearing, and convinced the judge that he didn't need to go to the hospital against his will. These men said they had a simple religious idea and a practical program of action to help alcoholics get sober. They offered to help him stop drinking. That was two months ago, and he hadn't had a drink since then. It worked!

He had come to tell me about his experience and I was shocked, but interested. Before he arrived, I had felt hopeless about my own drinking. Now I was curious. He talked for hours, and memories from my own childhood came back to me. I could almost hear the sound of the preacher's voice as I sat in church on Sundays. I remembered how my grandfather felt about religion. He believed that there was some great mystical force working in the world, but he didn't want the preacher to tell him what that force was or how it worked. He wanted to make up his own mind about God and religion. He didn't respect the people who went to church regularly and did exactly as they were told by the preacher. Remembering all of these things made me feel uneasy.

Then I remembered that day at the Winchester Cathedral in England, when I saw those words written on the gravestone. And I started to wonder about my own relationship with religion.

I had always believed in a Power greater than myself. I was not an atheist. I didn't think many people were true atheists, because believing that no Higher Power existed would be so hopeless. It would mean that the universe came from nothing and existed for no reason, which is dark and depressing. I respected the great scientists of the world, and all of them believed that nature followed certain rules and laws. Things like gravity, motion, and other scientific laws worked in predictable ways. Everything worked in harmony. Because of this, it seemed to me that there must be a Power greater than myself. A Power that was guiding our world in some way.

So I believed there must be a God, but I had not made myself think about God's power or ability to help me. I didn't like or trust preachers, ministers, and religions. And if anyone started talking about a God who was made of love and strength, I felt angry and uncomfortable.

I knew that wars had been fought over religion, and people had been killed because of their religious beliefs. This made me feel sick. I even doubted if the religions in our world had truly helped people at all. When I fought in World War I, I saw people do brutal, awful things again and again. This made it seem like the Devil was the one controlling human life.

But my friend told me honestly that God had helped him when he could not help himself. Like me, he had felt totally hopeless and unable to control his actions. Doctors had told him it was impossible for him to get sober and healthy again. A judge wanted to lock him up in a hospital so he couldn't hurt himself or anyone else. Just like me, he had given up completely. But when he connected with God, he was filled with hope and the courage to live and try again. He had gone from wishing he was dead to living a joyful, healthy life. He felt like he had been saved from his own death. When he was drinking he felt like he was living in a garbage dump. Now, his life was better than he ever thought it could be.

By connecting with God, he realized he was not alone. He was not the only person or force guiding his actions. And that was such a relief to him. Knowing he was not alone had saved him from hopelessness.

I was amazed. I began to wonder if religion was more important and useful than I had realized. Maybe God could help people who could not help themselves. Maybe God could guide them toward strength that they could not find alone. My friend's story showed me that miracles were possible. He was a miracle himself, sitting across the kitchen table from me.

Looking at him, I realized that he hadn't just changed how he thought and felt. He had changed his entire being. He was a completely new and totally different person. He was a better, happier, healthier person.

Even though I could see all of this, I still felt some doubt. I had never fully embraced God before, especially a God that was connected to me on a personal level. I didn't like that idea. When people talked about God using terms like “universal mind” or “spirit of nature,” I felt more comfortable. The idea of God as a loving ruler of everything didn't make sense to me. (I have talked to many people who felt the same way.)

Then my friend suggested something that might help me. He said, “Why don't you create your own idea of who—or what—God is?”

That simple question changed everything for me. All of my fear and doubt melted away. I felt like I had been living in the shadows for years, and could suddenly step into the sunlight. It was a miraculous moment.

I realized that I didn't need to suddenly become a man who went to church every day and had total faith in God. I just had to be willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. That was the only thing I needed to do to begin moving away from my drinking problem. I just needed to accept that I was not the only person or force guiding my life. If I let myself believe that a Power greater than myself existed, I could start recovering. Then, one day, I could be as healthy and happy as my friend.

At that moment, I thought again about that day at the Winchester Cathedral in England, when I saw the words written on the gravestone. When I was there, I needed and wanted God to be part of my life. I was willing to believe in a Power greater than myself, and that Power had come to visit me. God had been with me in that graveyard. But soon after that, I let myself get distracted by the activity of daily life. I let go of my connection with God, and I had not tried to find it again.

My conversation with my friend made me feel determined to connect with God again. This time for good.

The long road to recovery

I returned to the hospital, where I was treated for possible signs of delirium tremens (the shaking that happened to me in the morning before I started drinking). While I was there, I made a silent agreement with God. I asked God to care for my health and well- being, and promised that I would listen for God's direction. I thought long and hard about all of the hurtful decisions I had made, and I asked God to forgive me. I had never been able to forgive myself, but when I made this agreement with God I finally felt forgiven. It was like I had been carrying a huge weight on my shoulders, and God took that weight away from me.

I have not had a single drink since that day.

My old school friend visited me at the hospital, the same friend who had come to my house to tell me that God had helped him get sober. I explained my own struggles with drinking. Together we made a list of people I had hurt, and also people who had made me angry. I told my friend that I wanted to talk with every person on the list and admit that I had been wrong. I promised that I wouldn't blame these people or criticize them during our conversations. I just wanted to make things right between us, if I could. This would be part of my process for getting sober.

My friend asked me to do something else, too. He suggested that I silently explore my new relationship with God. If I ever felt doubt or confusion, he said I should sit quietly and ask God for direction and strength. If I prayed, I should not pray for myself unless I was asking for wisdom I could use to help other people. I needed to learn to trust in the Higher Power, and I needed to be less self- centered. These things would take practice. But my friend told me that practicing them and creating a relationship with God was all I needed to stay sober.

It seemed simple, but that didn't mean it would be easy to do. Making these big changes was overwhelming. But as soon as I started making these changes, my life was transformed. Lying there in the hospital, I felt like I had finally won a long and difficult battle. Then I felt a deep sense of inner peace and a surge of confidence. It seemed like I was standing at the very top of a mountain, and a strong, clean wind was blowing through me. God comes to some people slowly, but my own experience connecting to that Higher Power was sudden and very powerful.

For a moment I was scared, so I called my doctor¹ into my room to explain what was happening and how I felt. He listened quietly as I talked.

Finally he said, “Something has happened to you that I don't understand. But you had better hang on to it. Anything is better than the way you were.” (My doctor now sees many people who have had experiences like mine.)

Bringing a message of recovery to more alcoholics

While I lay in the hospital, I thought about the thousands of hopeless alcoholics in the world. If I could help them like I had been helped, they might find hope again. Then they could help even more alcoholics recover and get sober. I imagined a network of alcoholics connecting with one another. Help and hope could spread through them.

When my old school friend had talked to me in my kitchen, he told me that what mattered most was helping other people. He told me that part of my healing process was to work with others like he had worked with me. Sharing experience, strength, and hope with other alcoholics was the only way to survive the pain and challenges of recovery. Alcoholics who didn't help other alcoholics would eventually drink again. And if alcoholics drink, they will eventually drink themselves to death. Helping each other and working together would keep us hopeful and alive.

My wife and I decided that we would spend all of our time working with other alcoholics. This was easy to do since my old coworkers didn't believe I would stay sober. I couldn't get a job for about a year and a half. I was still pretty sick during that time, and also struggled with some difficult feelings. I felt sorry for myself, and sometimes I felt frustrated with my new life. Once in a while it got so bad that I came close to taking a drink. As soon as that happened I would find another alcoholic to talk with, and that kept me sober. Whenever I was feeling overwhelmed or angry, all I had to do was go to the hospital and work with another alcoholic. Helping others get sober helped me stay sober. Doing that helped me feel stable again. It works when nothing else does.

By talking and working with other alcoholics, I began to make some important friendships and build a community. It's wonderful to feel part of a group that understands what I've been through. They understand because they've been through it themselves. Together, we all feel real joy to be alive. The work we've done has saved families from destruction, helped fix broken relationships, and kept people from losing their jobs. I've seen people follow this program and finally feel able to rebuild their lives. In fact, I can't think of any kind of trouble or misery that the members of our Fellowship couldn't deal with together. We meet as a group or one on one. We welcome any new people who want to join the program. We are growing quickly into a large, strong community.

An alcoholic who is actively drinking is a difficult person to love. We know this from experience. The community of recovering alcoholics that we created has dealt with situations that were stressful, funny, and sometimes deeply sad. One poor man committed suicide in my home. He could not, or would not, see our way of life.

The work is hard, but we actually have a lot of fun doing it. Some people might be shocked to hear a group of sober alcoholics joking and laughing together, but the humor keeps us sane. And underneath it is a strong dedication to healing, and dedication to each other. We must have faith all day every day—in each other and in a Higher Power—or we will never survive.

Most of us feel like we have created an ideal place and life together. We feel loved, understood, and peaceful whenever we are with the members of our Fellowship. And we know that every day, alcoholics across the world are having talks like the one that took place in my kitchen all those years ago. We are connecting with each other in a widening circle of peace, acceptance, and healing that touches more people every single day.

Bill W., co-founder of A.A., died January 24, 1971.

¹This means, “In this grave lies a soldier from Hampshire whose job was throwing hand grenades. His death was caused by drinking too much beer. Good soldiers like him are never forgotten, whether they die in battle or because of their drinking.”

¹This is Dr. Silkworth, whom you read about earlier.