"If There Is a God, Will He Show Himself?"

"If There Is a God, Will He Show Himself?"

Throughout his life Bill must have told the story of AA's early days and his own personal story hundreds of times. His description of his spiritual experience and the events leading up to it was very consistent, although at times he focused on different aspects of the story, probably to suit his audience. This chapter includes several versions of Bill's spiritual experience, as related by Bill. The first was presented to a group in Chicago in 1951.

Everyone in this audience has had his great hour of realization. Every alcoholic here has come to the identical path that I did, the realization that I was utterly unable to go on living; that I was in the grip of an obsession which my own resources could not break. How well I remember my first realization of that stark dilemma. It was in the summer of 1934. I lay in Towns Hospital in New York. The good doctor there at my other visits had been encouraging but now he sat speaking to Lois downstairs. And she was inquiring, "Why, oh why, can't he get well, Doctor? His willpower is strong enough in other things. Why can't he break this insanity?"

And the doctor proceeded to explain to her that my obsession was indeed the master of my will. And it condemned me to go on drinking against anything that I could do or that medical science could do that he knew of. So Lois, like every wife here, had her hour of realization that I was hopeless.

Then came an interval of a few months. And during that period a friend of mine who had been released of his obsession by the grace of God came to visit me. And over my kitchen table where I sat drinking while Lois was at work, he related the simple formula which has now flowered into our Twelve Steps of recovery. And that simple essence was, you remember, that he admitted that he couldn't manage his own life. That he had got honest with himself as never before. That he had made a confession of his character defects. That he had tried to sweep away the debris of the past and was mending his broken relations with others. And then he told me of a new kind of giving that demanded no rewards. And then, rather hesitantly, because he knew my agnosticism, he said that to do these things "I asked God's help." Thus spoke one alcoholic to another in a kitchen basement on Clinton Street in Brooklyn in November 1934.

I rebelled against his idea of God. But somehow, the memory of that conversation could never escape me. He didn't stay long; presently he was through--leaving me to my thoughts. And in no waking hour after, could I banish what he said from my mind. There was no new principle that he had annunciated; of course there wasn't. But why did these simple precepts stick when poured into me by him?

Well, you and I know as I didn't realize then. We know that he impressed me because he presented a spectacle of release. We knew that I was impressed; we know now that I was impressed because he was another alcoholic. He spoke my language. And so a realization came that maybe there was hope.

At length I returned again to the hospital to be cleared up. The doctor put me to bed. I wasn't yet in such a bad way. Three days later, free from sedative and alcohol, I looked up one morning out of my depression and saw this friend standing in the door. I feared he would evangelize me, but no, he didn't.

He said he heard I was there--just came to pay a friendly visit. I asked him once more what the terms of his release were. Quite simply he stated them, and again he took himself away. Well, when he had gone my depression deepened, until it seemed that I was in the bottom of a pit.

For you see I still rebelled against the idea that there would be a God who could save me; who could enable me to do what I couldn't do myself. But presently my rebellion ceased and in an agony I cried out, "If there is a God, will He show Himself?"

And then came an experience which, of course, is the great event of my whole life. I had a very sudden experience in which it seemed that the room lighted up. I was caught into a great ecstasy. It seemed as though I were on top of the mountain and a great wind blew. And I knew it was Spirit. And at length I found myself still on the bed, now surrounded by a Presence. And I thought to myself, "So this is the God of the preachers."

You yourselves have had exactly the same kind of things happen to you, excepting that it took longer. But all of you sitting out there are now conscious that there is a Higher Power. There is One on whom you can depend.

So I pondered there, after this experience. I thought about the very simple terms on which it had come. I thought about its profound simplicity and yet its deep mystery. For indeed, I did feel released. And it seemed to me that other alcoholics could find a kindred experience.

And I began to sense that one alcoholic talking to another might do what no others could to open the way for the grace of God. So I commenced to work with others. And nothing happened. A succession of failures there was for six months. Meanwhile, my first friend began to stumble and fall by the wayside and would not be picked up and set right.

Excerpted from Dr. Bob and Bill W. Speak by Michael Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick is coauthor with William G. Borchert of 1000 Years of Sobriety and author of the first book under the Legacy 12 imprint, We Recovered Too. He is one of the leading historians and speakers in the field of alcoholism, specializing in the development of the Twelve Step movement. He owns what is possibly the largest audio archive related to the Twelve Step movement ever assembled: more than three thousand original reel-to-reel recordings of the voices of the men and women who pioneered the Twelve Step movement.