One Drunk to Another A Daily Reprieve
Watch The Kitchen Table
FLOUR 2
Illustration · A kitchen counter on a winter morning: a crock of sourdough starter bubbling up nearly to its rim, four small jars of it spooned out and tagged to give away, and on a board at the left a loaf baked from it, one slice cut. Not drawn from a photograph.

Daily Reflections · December 8

Service

In June 1935 an Akron lawyer agreed, from a hospital bed, to hear out two drunks for their sake; before July was out he was calling with them on the man who became the fourth.

Today’s reading

The reading for December 8 in Daily Reflections, AA’s book of short readings by members. Its passage comes from Alcoholics Anonymous, the Big Book, page 89: the second paragraph of “Working with Others,” the chapter on Step Twelve.

This page doesn’t reprint it. Read it free at aa.org, then come back for the asks.

Read it at aa.org

Themes and asks

  1. What it gives back

    The passage comes near the start of the Big Book’s chapter on Step Twelve, and it lists what working with other alcoholics gives the one who does it. Nearly everything on the list is other people.

    • When has helping someone else done more for you than for them?
    • Whose recovery have you had a front-row seat for? What has that meant to you?

  2. Not alone

    Loneliness is on the passage’s list too, and for a reader in 1939 with no group nearby, that was a large promise.

    • Who would notice if you went quiet for a week?
    • Who sits on the edge of your group? Could you sit with them this week?

  3. Work at home first

    In the reflection, a member puts the work on themselves ahead of the work with others.

    • Where are you trying to fix someone else when your own house needs the work?
    • What has your own recovery given you that might be of use to someone newer?

  4. Starting on the bed

    Read beside today’s title, Bill D.’s story suggests that service can start on the day you’re helped. He agreed to listen for the sake of the two men who were coming to see him, and within weeks he was at someone else’s bedside.

    • Who has let you help them lately? What did it do for you?
    • What are you grateful enough for that you can’t help talking about it?

Behind the words

A golden text

Today’s passage is the second paragraph of “Working with Others,” the seventh chapter of the Big Book, the one given to Step Twelve. (December 4 quotes the line the chapter opens on.) In the loan copy, the draft sent out for comment early in 1939, the paragraph began, “The kick you will get is tremendous.” The people a reader helped would “come back to life.” The book printed that April put it more quietly. The paragraph before it changed too. The draft told its reader, “Remember they are fatally ill.” In print, fatally became very.

The book’s writers had seen the work pay off, beginning with a man on a hospital bed. On June 26, 1935, as he dated it, Bill D., an Akron lawyer, came to in City Hospital, in for the eighth time that year by his own count. His wife, Henrietta D., told him two drunks had a plan to quit, and that part of it was telling another drunk. He would be “a real stinker,” he thought, not to give them a short hearing if it would cure them. The two were Bill W. and Dr. Bob S.

Henrietta remembered him coming home on the Fourth of July, the date Pass It On gives too; in Bill W.’s telling of 1954, he called for his clothes the day after their first visit. Either way, he never drank again. A week or two after he came home, as Bill D. told it, he heard Bill W. tell Henrietta over lunch that the Lord had cured him of a terrible disease and he wanted to tell everyone. Bill D. thought he had his answer. The sentence, he said, became “a sort of a golden text for the A.A. program and for me.” Before July was out he was on the other side of a hospital bed, calling with Dr. Bob and Bill W. on Ernie G., who became the fourth.

An Akron member remembered that Bill D. “never drove a car, but he went to meetings every night.” When a Cleveland member asked him why he went to them all, he said, as Vi S., the member’s wife and a member herself, remembered it, “that’s how I stay sober.” He fought the plan for a General Service Conference at first. Then he heard Bill W. out, and in 1951 he went to the first one as Ohio’s first delegate.

He hadn’t cared to write his story for the book in 1939. Pass It On says Bill W. got him to record it in 1952, as Bill D.’s health was failing. He died in Akron on September 17, 1954, and the story went into the Big Book’s second edition the next year as “Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three.” Near its end he says he still goes to meetings because he enjoys them and the people there, and because he is still grateful.

More on the first call on Bill D.: Working with Others, in You Had to Be Sponsored. On the man on the bed and Akron’s first group: 855 Ardmore, in I Just Work Here. On his change of heart about the Conference: A standing vote, in Rule 62.

From the bed

Bill D.’s years after City Hospital, as his own story, Bill W., Pass It On and Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers date them. The tags and short lines are this page’s.

  1. June 26, 1935On the bed

    Comes to in City Hospital, Akron, and agrees to hear out two drunks, for their sake.

    How many stays that year? Eight in six months, his own story says, and Pass It On agrees. The nurse’s count ran lower: four in six months as Bill W. wrote it in 1954, six in four months as Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers has it.

  2. July 4, 1935Home

    Leaves the hospital, as Henrietta and Pass It On date it. Bill W. told it as the day after their first visit. He never drinks again.

  3. A week or two onAt lunch

    Hears Bill W. thank God out loud for his cure. Bill D. takes it as his golden text.

  4. Late July 1935At the bedside

    Calls on Ernie G. in City Hospital with Dr. Bob and Bill W. Ernie becomes the fourth.

  5. 1951In service

    Goes to the first General Service Conference as Ohio’s first delegate, after fighting the plan.

  6. 1952On the record

    His health failing, records his story at Bill W.’s urging.

  7. 1954–1955In the book

    Dies in Akron on September 17, 1954. His story goes into the Big Book’s second edition the next year.

Threads

Each one opens the calendar with its days lit up.

Sources
  • Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book). Works Publishing, 1939: “Working with Others”; fourth edition, AA World Services, 2001, for “A Vision for You,” “Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three” (Bill D.’s story, first printed in the second edition, 1955, with Bill W.’s account of the first visit from the Grapevine of November 1954) and the page numbers (the reading cites page 89).
  • The pre-publication manuscript of early 1939 (a loan copy), from a transcription. “Working with Others.”
  • Pass It On. AA World Services, 1984. Chapters 8 (Bill D. in City Hospital, and July 4, 1935) and 22 (his story recorded for the second edition).
  • Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers. AA World Services, 1980. Chapters VII, “A.A. number three arrives” (with Henrietta D.’s memories); VIII (Ernie G., the fourth); XIX (Vi S.’s memory of Bill D. at every meeting); and XXVII (Ohio’s first delegate).
  • The Language of the Heart. AA Grapevine, 1988. Bill W., “He Kept the Faith (Bill D.),” November 1954.
  • Daily Reflections. AA World Services, 1990. December 8 · aa.org

Something wrong here? A date, a name, a quotation? Let me know

Daily Reflections is AA’s book of readings for every day of the year, each written by a member about a favorite passage from AA’s literature. A Daily Reprieve gives each day questions to sit with and the story behind its words.

Printed from One Drunk to Another, an independent AA history · onedrunktoanother.org/today/december-8/