"In September of 1948, I approached my Squadron Commander with the idea of giving a talk on alcoholism to the members of our Squadron. At first he looked at me as though my sanity had left me. I told him of the success I had had over the past two months or so in working privately with several of the other hard drinkers on the base, and he finally consented.
"In fact I had no idea how to present the program to this sort of audience, so when the day arrived and I had to stand up and address the other 159 members of my Squadron I was filled with great apprehension. I began by saying, 'I am an alcoholic and have found a way to live a useful life without having to drink alcoholic beverages.' The whole room broke out in uproarious laughter on the spot. They knew all about how much I used to drink ....
"[But] as my talk progressed, I noticed to my surprise that there appeared to be an interest in what I was saying .... After my speech was over, two people came up to me and quietly asked for my help. In the days that followed, two rapidly became four, and four became six, and six became eight. Something big was off and running, and I had no idea what was going to happen next, but knew that my part of the job was to go where I was being led. This was the beginning of an awesome responsibility in helping others to seek a better way of life."
Yvelin "Yev" Gardner was an important early New York A.A. member
Bill started taking these Air Force personnel to the little A.A. meeting on Long Island which he attended. He did not realize that one of the members of the group, Yev Gardner, was Mrs. Marty Mann's righthand man at the National Council on Alcoholism.
But one day Yev asked him, "Would you like to work with alcoholics full time?" When Sgt. Bill said yes, Marty used her connections to get Bill appointed by the Air Force to a fulltime position working with alcoholics at Mitchel Air Force Base. That was the beginning of Bill's career as alcoholism counselor.
Sister Ignatia, "Angel of Alcoholics Anonymous"
In 1951, Sgt. Bill was reassigned by the Air Force to teach at Kent State University, which is located right outside Akron, Ohio. He took advantage of this by driving in to St. Thomas Hospital regularly to have many heart-to-heart talks with Sister Ignatia, and observe the way she worked with alcoholics in the highly successful treatment program which she and the Akron A.A. people had set up there.
Sister Ignatia helped early A.A.'s work with alcoholics
at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio
at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio
Bill learned a number of additional valuable things about running alcoholism treatment centers from Sister Ignatia, which he was later able to put into practice when the Air Force reassigned him to working with alcoholics, this time at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
