SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: BILL W STORY EDITION
| 5 Things [About Bill W's Story | Matt Andersen Shares His Story | The Anyone Anywhere Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for a gorgeous sunrise. I’m grateful for being selected as “guest of the day” at the O’Hare Westin. I’m grateful for the way the sun comes up on tough days. I’m grateful for what comes out of the tough days. I’m grateful to be sober today.
The Bill W. Story Edition
Welcome to the Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. This is like a train that’s been scheduled to arrive for a while. I have previously announced the “Tell Your Story Like Bill W Challenge.”1 What is this? One of the most impactful things I’ve done in sobriety is write my story like Bill W wrote his in Chapter One of the Big Book.
I’ve written extensively about Bill W, his path to sobriety, the nature of the spiritual experience that reshaped his life. I’d read Chapter One of the Big Book, “Bill’s Story,” many times and thought, “well, okay, that’s an interesting story and the principles sound like something I could get behind,” but that was the extent of my adherence to those principles, and when those newfound principles went up against the well-honed, alcoholic juggernaut in my brain, well, it’s not surprising who won.
I wrote about this very recently, so I’m going to avoid repeating myself (mostly), but I think the reason that being tasked with writing my story, in the style of Bill’s, changed so much is that it forced me to really examine Bill’s alcoholism very closely. It’s easy to dismiss a story from 80 years ago, and there are lots of other logical reasons to deem that story not really applicable to someone’s struggle for sobriety today. The revelation came after I had outlined Bill W’s story and then was laying my own story on that outline—it was like the opposite of the OJ Murder Trial, the glove fit perfectly.2
Anyway, once my story got fit to the Bill W. outline a lot of things became very clear. Also, the rest of the “Instruction Manual” made a lot more sense and suddenly seemed actionable. So, that’s why I’m pushing this so hard, this relatively straight-forward exercise really does have life-changing capacity built into it. That’s why I’m excited to launch our first story this week, written by none other than
who writes The Spittoon here on Substack:
His story is down where yours could be: in the Sober Library. Matt’s story is great, and if you’d be interested in sharing yours, we will accommodate you! I’m hard at work on a rewrite of mine and we’ll have others to announce soon. I hope yours is one of the ones we’ll feature up here soon.
1. Bill W Tells His Story
Listen to Bill tell his story (and he was in Iowa no less)
2. Bill W Reads “How it Works”
I sat in so many meetings and wished this could happen for me. I can still barely get through listening to it without tears.
3. Jane Visited Bill W’s House!
You can read about her trip to Stepping Stones and seeing the table where Bill and Ebby had dinner.
4. Here’s a Really Great Documentary about Bill W
5. This is a Cheap Allegory
For what, I’m not really sure.
For us, reading and writing have been a big part of recovery and sobriety. We thought we’d start sharing some of our favorite books on the topic of recovery, addiction and general happiness and telling you how they helped us! If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions or if there are some books that you’d like to chat about, well, we’d love to do that with you. 3
Now, here’s something new. You may have heard me mention something about writing your story in the style of Bill W’s: and this is where we are going to do it. If you want to write your story and share it, I’ll be happy to put it here for other folks to read. If you’d like to record yourself reading your own story (I highly, highly recommend this), I’ll put it here, too.
And here’s the newest edition to The Sober Library:
My Story (Like Bill W's Story): Matt Andersen (9.3.23)
Rebellion ran high in the Utah town where my friends and I grew up… There were those of us who saw the red-bricked, steepled buildings of Mormonism as prisons rather than sanctuaries. No smoking. No drinking. No coveting thy neighbor's ass. No tattoos. In our minds, we were barred from all the different experiences being human brought—not protected from them. We searched high and low for escape.
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We’re ready to go and hope you can join us this Tuesday! It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else we haven’t figured out yet. We’ve been reading the “Stories from the Back of the Book,” and they are all so great. It’s a fun way to learn more about the Big Book and reading these stories out loud is a little like listening to the legends of AA share.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
I’m not completely in love with that name, so if you have a suggestion, I’m listening.
I was a young lawyer, sneaking watches of that trial with my lawyer buddies, there were 5 hands that smacked heads when Chris Darden handed that glove to OJ.
Seriously, write a book review (or we might expand into movies!) and we’ll probably put it up.
 | A guest post by
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Thanks for having me aboard!
Writing in that style gave me a different perspective on some things I hadn’t thought about before. I highly recommend it and look forward to the next one.
I am willing to do this only if I can say things like “bees knees” and describe men as “definitely not the dumbest guy in the Deke house.”