Bill W.

Bill Wilson was, first and

foremost, an alcoholic in

recovery.

He was a stinking, rotten drunk

who, by some divine grace, was

granted sobriety, was empowered

to bring to the world this

fellowship, this message.

But I think, like any gift of

this magnitude, simply to

protect him, he was not granted

the full knowledge of what the

price would be.

He was spellbinding on his

own story anytime I ever heard

him.

And I think everybody else had

that same sense because I think

what people realized they were

listening to was the founding

myth, I guess would be... it was

not myth.

It's reality, simply a story of

a founding, and that's what this

was.

And it was endlessly wanted and

effective.

One day I was sitting in a

brokerage shop, and I fell into

a conversation with a man who

proved to be an heir to a great

fortune.

And I began my sales talk on how

cheap securities work, how a

syndicate ought to be put

together to gather these things

up.

And he fell in with the idea.

And I was to be the manager.

Moreover, I was to have 1/3

interest.

Well, by the time we got that

far in the conversations, they

discovered about my drinking.

So, they came to me, and they

said, "look, bill, we know you"

got a real liquor problem.

Would you be willing, during the

life of this thing, to sign an

agreement that you will not

drink, that if you do drink,

your interest in it will be

"ended?"

You know, the curious thing is,

I really believed that I could

stay sober when the incentive

was so great.

The work began.

Money came in.

We began to buy securities.

But now see what happened.

One day some old business

acquaintances called me up.

They said, "bill, we hear you're

sober."

They said, "well, won't you go

over in Jersey and do a piece of

work for us?"

I said, "sure."

That evening we put up at a

small hotel, and one of the boys

brings out a jug.

And I said, "well, what you got

there?"

"Why," they say, "that's

applejack, Jersey lightning."

"No. No, thanks.

No, I'm not drinking.

I can't handle it."

They fall to playing cards.

Every now and then, the jug

comes my way.

With ease, I say, "no, thanks,"

because I can see my name on

that contract.

So, quite easily I say no...

Until about 10:30,

perhaps.

Something occurred within me.

And if that could be ever fully

explained, we would completely

comprehend the mystery of this

obsession of drinking.

"Why, bill Wilson, in all your

drinking, in Europe and the

states, never in all your life

have you had any applejack, not

one single drink of Jersey

"lightning."

And that idea began to take hold

and possess me so that when that

jug was passed to me, a curtain

had fallen between me and

reality.

So, I said, "thanks very much.

I will have one little shot this time.

It couldn't hurt me at all."

You know, at the end of the

last century, they were talking

about the most important people

in the century.

From my personal perspective,

there's not a more important

person in the 20th century than

bill Wilson.

I'd be a dead man without him.

He had probably 30,000

wonderful opportunities not to

go forward with a.A.,

discouragements that an ordinary

man would have taken as

sufficient.

But he was not that sort.

He was not an ordinary man.

He looked like one and... well,

he was tall, he was rather

good-looking, in a dignified

sort of way, but by and large he

didn't seem someone you would

say, "well, here's a Beethoven

or here's a whatever."

But he was an absolutely unusual man.

There's no question about that,

in my opinion.

[ "Unaccompanied cello suite" by

His father left immediately,

and his mother would soon

follow.

She left bill and his sister,

Dorothy, with her parents to

become a doctor, never to be

fully a part of his life again.

Well, back in those days,

there was as much or more stigma

bon divorce in a small yankee

town as there was on being the

town drunk... almost.

So, at 10 years of age, I heard

the gossip of the neighbors.

I began to feel different.

I began to feel that I didn't

belong.

Then, too, I was awkward,

physically awkward, pretty

homely, just like I am now,

except then I cared much, and

now I don't care a damn.

And then this fierce desire to

win out over these handicaps

took possession of me.

My grandfather, seeing this

trait in me, wanted to encourage

it, so he was always proposing

the impossible.

One day he said, "uncle."

Clarence's fiddle is up there in

the trunk, but, Willy, I don't

think you got any ear for

"music."

Right up to that trunk, out with

the fiddle, put a chip on it for

a bridge, get some wire strings

at the grocery store, and I

fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, until I

drove him just nuts, a desire so

fierce that it turned into what

the medics call a neurosis, an

obsession... to be what?

The first violin of the high

school orchestra.

And bill would often tell

this story.

And he always did instants,

something that became

very characteristic of his life

from that day forward... maybe

it already had been... but what

he called power drives.

He would set his eye on

something, and he would work

like a fiend to get it done.

He got to be president of the

class, captain of the baseball

team, first violinist in the

orchestra.

But there was still one thing

missing from his life.

I'd had a terrible

inferiority about gals until

finally the minister's daughter