Bill W. on "BALANCE

The following excerpts from a letter of Bill Wilson's was quoted in the memoirs of Tom Pike, and early California AA member.  Tom did not use the name of the person addressed -- perhaps because he was still living.

Tom said:
Here in part is what Bill Wilson wrote in 1958 to a close friend who shared his problem with depression, describing how Bill himself used St. Francis's prayer as a steppingstone toward recovery:

Dear ...
I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA ...

EBBY T.

Bill Wilson -- Ebby Thacher

The Man Who Carried The Message To Bill W.
By Walter L.

In 1960, at the Long Beach, California Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson wrote this dedication in an AA book that he gave to Ebby Thacher.

"Dear Ebby,
No day passes that I do not remember that you brought me the message that saved me - and only God knows how many more.

In affection, Bill"

It was Ebby who found relief from his alcoholism in the simple spiritual practices of the Oxford Group which was an attempt to return to First Century Christianity - before it was complicated and distorted by religious doctrines, dogma and opinions. The program offered by Ebby to Bill involved taking a personal moral inventory, admitting to another person the wrongs we had done, making things right by amends and restitution, and a genuine effort to be of real service to others. In order to obtain the power to overcome these problems, Ebby had been encouraged to call on God, as he understood God, for help.
Bill was deeply impressed by Ebby's words, but was even more affected by Ebby's example of action. Here was someone who drank like Bill drank - and yet Ebby was sober, due to a simple religious idea and a practical program of action. The results were an inexplicably different person, fresh-skinned, glowing face, with a different look in his eyes. A miracle sat directly across the kitchen table from Bill. Ebby was not some"do-gooder" who had read something in a book. Here was a hopeless alcoholic who had been completely defeated by John Barleycorn, and yet, had in effect, been raised from the dead. It was a message of hope for an alcoholic - that God would do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Today in A.A. History

Today in A.A. History:
June 17, 1935
Actual date of Dr. Bob’s last drink

Fragments Of AA History The Washingtonians

 
Washingtonians    check out how drunks tried to get sober and stay sober before Oxford group and then Alcoholics Anonymous.