[nandm]

....an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
----Alcoholics Anonymous. page 44

Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson looked down at the falsely hearty, still shaking figure on the hospital bed. Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson looked down at the falsely hearty, still shaking figure on the hospital bed. Both men knew the torn feelings and the desperate hope that hid under that façade. Wilson had been sober six months; Dr. Smith for barely a week. The spectre of what they had once been stared back at them both, and they endured a moment of doubt. Had they bitten off more than they could chew?

The nurse had filled them in on some of the details of this case, Bill D., a prominent attorney, was a former city councilman and church vestryman. He was also, the weary nurse confided a “real corker.” This was his eighth detoxification in six months, and within minutes of entering the hospital he had physically assaulted two nurses, leaving both with black eyes.

The three men chatted for a while, and it quickly became apparent to Bill D. that his visitors knew what they were talking about, that they were real drunks who were not happily sober----an earth-shattering concept if there ever was one----and maybe he’d better listen up, see if he could learn something. But like most alcoholics, Bill D. was better at talking than listening, and he droned on and on about his drinking, his despair, and the utter ruin of his life.

Wilson finally interrupted, explaining that he and Dr. Smith had to give their “program” to someone else if they were to stay sober themselves. And so they had to know: was Bill D. really certain that he wanted it? Because if he wasn’t certain, he was doing something much worse than wasting their time----he was actually endangering their sobriety. They wouldn’t stay around and nag at him if he wasn’t ready; they would have to “be going and looking for someone else.’

Entranced by the clear-eyed enthusiasm of these two men eve as they spoke of their own hopelessness, Bill D. declared that Yes, he wanted the program. But when his visitors began talking about “a spiritual program” and a “Higher Power,” he shook his head. “No, no,” he said emphatically. “It’s too late for me. I still believe in God all right, but I know mighty well that he doesn’t believe in me any more.

Smith and Wilson were not about to give up on their first recruit. They told Bill D. they understood how he felt, and then they left, promising to visit again the next day. They did return, and over the next several days, they visited again and again. One morning they arrived to find Bill D. sitting up in bed, talking excitedly with his wife. During the previous night, he explained, “hope had dawned,” and he understood that “if Bob and Bill can do it. Maybe we can all do together what we could not do separately.”

A few days later Dr. Smith, the more conventionally religious of AA’s two co-founders, stopped by on his daily visit with Bill D., who would some years later be known as “Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three.” As they chatted, something in one of this first recruit’s remarks-----a bit of cynicism about help from “ a power greater” than himself----caught the surgeon’s attention, and he decided to confront him. “Young man,” Dr. Smith challenged in his resonant baritone. “Have you abandoned your God?”

Bill D. was not even momentarily taken aback. Calmly, but with a great deal of quiet pain, he answered: “Gee, no, Doc, I don’t think so…….but I sure feel that my God has abandoned me.”