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Bill's Story

Feb 22, 2023, Bill's Story - Discussion Leader is Michael R

Snippets from participants (summarized unless " " are noted)

• I related to the egotism, the mixing of drugs & booze and that I was a dry drunk also.
• I also "discovered liquor" like in Bill's story.  What a genius statement Bill states when he said "men of genius" and "drinking was taking an important exhilarating part in my life".  If found the same to be true for me also "and it suited me just fine". 
• I enjoyed reading this. I've been sober for 18 years and an atheist the whole time.  There were alot of things in Bill's story that I have forgotten and had underlined the first time I read through it.  We're all just trying to figure out, why we are here, how we got here and how we can read this book together.  I think that we have enough in common in this group that we can weave our getting this book together.
• For me, I see on page 8 the words "No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity.  Quicksand stretched around me in all directions.  I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master."  I underlined bitter morass, and highlighted quicksand.  What this is, part of Step 1.
• Bill's story is just like a speaker meeting. Not everyone is going to identify.  If I don't identify with this story to much, it doesn't matter - there are plenty of other stories.
• I like this reading and it kind of leads the groundwork of how we share.
• I related to the despair. I remember many evenings where I just felt like why go on? Why continue?  It was just going to continue on forever. I was able to find help with another person and found my way to AA and it provided a solution for me.
• I appreciated the reading. It gets a little white light experience in the next half of this, but that's his story.
• The first time I read this story, my sponsor told me to read the first pages and underline what I identified with.  I thought,  what the hell am I going to identify with some middle-aged white guy from the 30's? I read it the first time and said "whatever". He told me to read it again and actually take in what is going on.  What I could identify with was the up & downs.  I don't know how many times over all my years that I had the same up & downs. I could pull myself up each time, but when I fell, I fell harder and lower.  This continued on till I finally said, I am done.  That's what I identified with.