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from AA Box 459 2006 vol 56 #6
the Message of Sobriety
to Bill W.
On a September day in 1934, a worried man named Ebby
T. stood before a judge in Bennington, Vermont, while
being admonished for a drinking escapade that had led to
his arrest. Ebby would be permitted to go home, but he
was to return to the court on Monday after solemnly
promising the judge he wouldn’t drink over the weekend.
In the meantime, a new friend named Rowland H. was
ready to appear in court to take responsibility for Ebby.
What neither the judge nor Rowland knew was that
demons inside Ebby were screaming for a drink. At the
family summer home twenty-five miles north in
Manchester, he had bottles of ale stashed in the cellar and
he couldn’t wait to get at them. When he reached home
he raced to the cellar to end the agony that was tearing
him apart.
But as Ebby started to open a bottle of ale, he was
stopped cold by a rush of guilt. He had promised the
judge he wouldn’t drink and he had to keep the promise.
After a fierce struggle, he took the bottles over to a neighbor.
Doing this gave him peace, and it was his last attempt
to drink for two years and seven months.
This action may also have been one of the greatest victories
in A.A. history, because Ebby was the man who carried
the Oxford Group principles and a promise of sobriety
to A.A. co-founder Bill W. If Ebby had started drinking
again that weekend, it’s doubtful that he would have kept
his court date or been given another chance by the judge.
It is unlikely that he could have maintained the sobriety
that enabled him to call on a besotted Bill W. a few
months later. Despite the drinking troubles that overtook
him later, Ebby was a hero during those critical months
when he sponsored Bill.
Ebby, though not mentioned by name, has a starring
role in Bill’s Story in the Big Book.
Bill describes him as
the old school friend who called him up in late
November, 1934, while Bill was deep into another bout
of drinking at his home in Brooklyn Heights, New York.
Ebby was “fresh-skinned and glowing” when he arrived
at Bill’s home.
“He was sober,”
Bill remembered. “It was
years since I could remember his coming to New York in
that condition. I was amazed. Rumor had it that he had
been committed for alcoholic insanity. I wondered how
he had escaped. Of course he would have dinner, and
then I could drink openly with him. Unmindful of his
welfare, I thought only of recapturing the spirit of
other days.”
Ebby had come not to drink but to pass on the principles
he had learned from Rowland H. and two other
members of the Oxford Group in Vermont. Now living in
Calvary Mission, in lower Manhattan, Ebby had heard of
Bill’s troubles and was carrying the message, as group
members urged him to do for his own benefit. Bill resisted
at first, but came to accept the principles and eventually
to have the spiritual experience that would change his life
and the lives of countless others.
But Bill couldn’t have done it without that visit from
Ebby. A.A. members who study the history of the
Fellowship agree that Ebby was a wonderful and caring
sponsor.
Ebby T., whose formal name was Edwin, was born in
Albany, New York, in 1896 and died in Ballston Spa, New
York, in 1966. He spent one of his high school years with a
minister’s family in Manchester, Vermont, where his own
family had a summer home. That was when he would
have best known Bill W., who grew up in East Dorset,
seven miles north, but attended high school in
Manchester. Ebby always remembered Bill as an outstanding
pitcher on the local baseball team.
Ebby may have sipped wine on family occasions, but
he had his first real drink in 1915, at age nineteen, when
he walked into Albany’s Hotel Ten Eyck and ordered a
glass of beer. At about the same time, he went to work in
the family business. By the time the firm closed in 1922,
he was getting drunk frequently. Later on in the 1920s he
worked in the Albany office of a brokerage firm. Bill was
also a broker in New York, and it’s likely they had mutual
friends in the business. (It was while visiting a brokerage
office in 1934 that Ebby heard about Bill’s troubles and
decline.)
Bill, in his own story, mentioned the time he and Ebby
had chartered an airplane to complete a jag! This happened
in January 1929, when Bill stopped in Albany on his
way, by rail, to Manchester, Vermont. Ebby had been
hanging out with pilots at the local airport and suggested
they both fly there, since Manchester was opening a new
airport. After a rough air trip over mountains, they arrived
drunk and disgraced themselves before the local dignitaries
who were on hand to greet them.
By 1932, Ebby’s family was glad to see him move to
Vermont, where his drinking brought further troubles and
arrests. He was living in the family summer home when
Shep C. and Cebra G., two Oxford Group members, targeted
him as a likely prospect for their program. He resisted
at first, but became more amenable when another
escapade landed him in court in Bennington.
He also met Rowland H., who became his temporary
guardian and supplied what A.A.’s would today call
sponsorship. After some weeks, Rowland took him to
New York and helped him find lodging at Calvary
Mission. Ebby carried the Oxford Group message to Bill,
and then moved in with Bill and Lois after Calvary
Mission closed in 1936. By 1937 he was back in Albany
working in a Ford factory.
Ebby would later cite tensions at work as a main reason
why he resumed drinking in 1937. His life then became a
nightmarish succession of binges followed by short periods
of sobriety. He held jobs briefly and sometimes performed
5
well for short periods of time. During World War II, for
example, he worked as a Navy civilian employee and was
well-liked by his superiors. For months at a time he lived
with Bill and Lois. Bill tried to help Ebby, but nothing
worked. At times, Ebby even became homeless and
walked the streets.
A.A. members never stopped trying to help Ebby,
however, and in 1953 a New York member named
Charlie M. bought Ebby a ticket to Dallas for treatment
at a clinic run by Searcy W., an early member. After initial
troubles, Ebby found sobriety in Texas and stayed
there for eight years. He also found steady employment
for several years. Grateful people went out of their way to
meet him or hear him speak. One couple hosted him for a
few months at their sheep ranch, and loved every minute
of his visit. The sober Ebby was a charming, agreeable
person who made friends easily and quickly, but there
was also a drinking Ebby who surfaced again toward the
end of his Texas years. He returned to the New York area
in late 1961, and stayed for a time with an older brother.
In the meantime, health problems were closing in on him,
and it was becoming clear that he could no longer live
independently.
Bill W., who had consistently helped Ebby with occasional
checks, again came forward to ease Ebby’s problems
in his final years. He started a fund for Ebby’s care
and invited friends to contribute to it. In early 1964, Bill
also found a home for Ebby at a rest farm in Galway, near
Saratoga Springs, New York. Bill drove Ebby up to the
farm in May 1964 and turned him over to Margaret and
Mickey McP., both A.A. members who cared for a number
of alcoholics in their 19th century farmhouse.
There couldn’t have been a better place for Ebby’s last
years. He became popular with the other residents and
awed them with his ability to work the difficult
New York
Times
crossword puzzles. He also had visits from his family
in Albany, only twenty-five miles south of Galway.
One morning in late March 1966, Ebby couldn’t come
down for breakfast. He was rushed to the nearby
Ballston Spa hospital, where he died on the morning of
March 21. The cause of death was emphysema, the same
ailment that would claim Bill’s life five years later. At
the time of his death, Ebby had been sober more than
two years.
Bill and Lois were on a trip to Mexico, but returned
quickly for the funeral in Albany. In death, Ebby rejoined
his family at the Albany Rural Cemetery north of the city.
It is difficult to find Ebby’s grave in this hilly, heavily
wooded cemetery with numerous winding roads, but
some A.A. members do take the trouble to visit it. With
gratitude, these A.A.s are acknowledging Ebby’s role in
sponsoring Bill W. and setting in motion the process that
helped millions find sobriety. As with the grave markers of
Bill W. and Dr. Bob, there is no mention of A.A. on his
headstone. |