I Must Have This Thing

“…he commenced to present his conception to other alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must do likewise with still others.” p. xxi, Alcoholics Anonymous

I have this wonderful image of Bill W., long white hair pointed straight up like Doc Brown. He is wearing a long white shirttail nightgown. He is standing on an ottoman in the day room of some nuthouse surrounded by equally scraggly nuts also in long white shirttail nightgowns, man-hairy legs and feet bare. Bill is gesticulating wildly, proclaiming to the rafters and all the sad drunks the miracle he has found in giving himself to God—and to them—and they are listening to him, but not too seriously. Several of them wonder when the men in white will come for him with the butterfly net. Religious weirdo converted by some other religious weirdo seeking to make more religious weirdos who will go on to hatch even more religious weirdos, ad infinitum. One, big, ex-drunk pyramid. But this pyramid you don’t have to sink your life’s savings into like the condo or cruise or Herbalife pyramids. Keep your life’s savings and invest your life itself. This pyramid is solid and crystal pure. God the four-pointed foundation. Pointed toward God. God shining at the tippy top.

They say Bill had to learn a lot by trial and error. I heard recently that he went around yanking people off bar stools. “You must have THIS THING!” And his zealotry was a buzzkill. I imagine him being tossed out of bars often, landing on his wild head like Brainy Smurf. I’m sure it hurt, but not as much as it would have for him to bust through the window “sash and all” and splat on the sidewalk below, a fate to which he was dangerously close, not too long ago. But then there was God. “Listen fellas—then there was God!”

You must have THIS THING.

Over time, and lots of tossing I’m sure, he learned to handle himself and the drunks a little better. A non-pushy zealotry. All lit up by spirit laughing with the jittery drunks about the times they were all lit up with spirits. Gaining their confidence this way, through sharing their outrageous escapades, then laying the God thing on them once the laughter and bad boy connection had warmed them up.

The trick was not Bill saying, “You must have THIS THING.” But the drunk looking at Bill and saying to himself, “I must have this thing.”

-Michelle A.

If you’d like to talk more about Big Book focused 12 step recovery for compulsive eating and/or codependency, please feel free to email me at: BigBookBlogM@gmail.com

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