Lois Wilson shared her insights into
Ebby in her biography, Lois Remembers, and stated that while Bill wanted
sobriety with his whole soul, Ebby appeared to want just enough sobriety to
stay out of trouble. In addition, Lois said, ‘Beyond that crucial visit with
Bill, Ebby seemed to do very little about helping others. He never appeared
really to be a member of AA. After his first slip, many harmful thoughts seemed
to take possession of him. He appeared jealous of Bill and critical, even when
sober, of both the Oxford Group and AA.’ Lois felt that it was important that AAs
know why Ebby was not considered the founder of AA. Ebby carried the message to
Bill, but he never followed it up with the years of devoted action needed to
develop the AA programme.
Another AA who had known Ebby in Texas said that, ‘Ebby held
a deep resentment for Bill, Dr Bob, and others, because he felt he was more the
founder of what was to become AA than anyone else’. In the author’s opinion,
this resentment may be the reason for his repeated ‘slips’ in the programme.
Ebby also had the idea that he needed the right woman and an
ideal job in order to stay sober. The implication is that if he didn’t have the
perfect woman and the perfect job, he couldn’t stay sober. And he didn’t stay
sober. AA members know that sobriety has to be sought without any conditions,
that we have to be ‘willing to go to any length to get it’ and that ‘half
measures availed us nothing’.
Some of Ebby’s own letters bring to mind Lois’s observation
noted earlier, that Ebby seemed to be ‘around’ AA, but never really ‘in’ it.
Typical correspondence from AAs devotes substantial discussion to the AA
programme and the application of the Steps to their own lives. Ebby’s letters
avoid these topics and are significant for what they don’t say. In 1954, Bill
wrote that Ebby now, ‘shows more signs of really joining AA than ever before.’
The implication is that Ebby had shown less commitment to the AA programme
before then, but even at that time, there were still substantial doubts about
his sincerity.
Earlier, in 1947, his sister-in-law received a letter from
Ebby, and she wrote back suggesting that the answer to his problems was to
devote himself to helping others and then continued, ‘But as I read your letter
this thought is far from your mind, and you are again concerned with the petty
and material affairs of your surroundings and the bickerings and by-plays of
your associates, with the thought still deep in your mind that you have been
persecuted and discriminated against by others, while the real facts might well
be that it is your own ego that is at fault.’
Our problem as alcoholics centres in our minds, in having an
entire psychic change as a result of taking the actions set out exactly in the
Twelve Steps. It is said in the rooms, ‘If you do what we did, you’ll get what
we got.’ Ebby was unable, for whatever reasons, to put the AA programme of
action into his life on a regular basis.
All of his life, Ebby was overshadowed by the recognition
and success of his father and grandfather and in his own generation, by the
accomplishments and respect given to his older brothers. This may have
developed in him a sense of ‘never being good enough’ so familiar to
alcoholics. It is also likely that his privileged childhood accentuated the
sense of self-importance and self-focus that the AA programme requires us to
deflate at depth.
If Ebby had been recognised as the founder of the AA
programme, it would have given him respect and recognition far surpassing
anyone in his family. After Bill received the message of recovery from Ebby, he
devoted the rest of his life to helping other alcoholics. If Ebby had been
willing and able to take similar actions of love and service, he would have
been a co-founder with Bill Wilson. But he would not, or could not, do the
day-to-day work with others needed to bring AA into a concrete reality.
Rather than realistically looking at his own shortcomings in
establishing AA, Ebby wallowed in resentments, the greatest obstacle to
sobriety and the number one killer of alcoholics. Perhaps Bill was thinking of
the example of his sponsor, Ebby, when he wrote the many strong statements in
the Big Book condemning resentments. For whatever the reasons, Ebby never
seemed to give himself completely to the simple programme of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
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