The other night, at a BB meeting I attend, we read Bill’s Story. The next day a man who was there walked up to me and talked about that reading. He said how impressed he was, because of the passage where Bill and Ebby were sitting in Bill’s kitchen, as Ebby told Bill about the solution he had found to his drinking. The reason was that we were sitting in the church’s kitchen as we read this.
That thought has come back to me again and again, since he spoke to me. I thought back to my growing up and even when I came in. I came in at a time when it was common for members to still gather in kitchens, often after meetings. I often met my sponsor in his kitchen to talk about things relating to staying sober.
But the one thing I thought most about is the theme of that incident. Ebby. He was so important and so instrumental at the inception of AA. Yet, like Moses, he couldn’t enter the promised land. He never did get any time in sobriety. He faded into the background and into drunkenness, as Bill progressed in sobriety and with Dr. Bob founded the program. Except for Bill’s efforts to constantly mentioning him as his sponsor, Ebby would have been but a footnote in AA history.
I went back and reread Bill’s words before the kitchen scene. He describes his final decline into the quicksand of alcohol and I thought how much this must have described what happened to Ebby. It was a description of the illness that is alcoholism. I thought maybe that Ebby’s inability to stay sober is perfect. Along with the success of Bill and so many others, it gives us a warning; a wake up call. Yes, we can get sober, but it takes a lot more than just coming into the program and stopping drinking.
Ebby was only a few weeks away from a drink, when he met with Bill. Though he passed the message onto Bill, he hardly had a grasp of the Oxford Movement, as they knew it then. We see similar things today, where some come in and are able to make the commitment necessary and then those who come in and hang around for a while and slip back out.
I’m not picking on Ebby. I have a great deal of sympathy for him. More, empathy. It takes one to know one. He was definitely one of us. But he is a caution to think about. He’s a reminder, as are others, that I still have alcoholism. There is no cure. Just a daily reprieve. I pray that I will stay vigilant and seek the power I need from the group and my Higher Power.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today.