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Bill took part in the landing at Normandy and the march across Europe. He witnessed the horrors of war: the tearing apart of life and limb, the incessant fighting day and night without sleep but for fitful naps in cold mud. He even saw the freeing of the tortured from concentration camps. When Bill entered the first concentration camp and saw the emaciated and the tormented, the pain was so great that he blacked out and wandered around lost for days. His mind could not handle this level of atrocity. Aer his discharge from the service, Bill became a prison guard, spending some time at the notorious and dangerous San Quentin penitentiary. He took part in the execution of prisoners. With a pained body and anguished mind, as well as two failed marriages and a life of isolation and sadness, he took to alcohol.
At times Bill would come to the office on unsteady feet with hardly enough strength to stand. Still he maintained that he was in control and needed no help with his drinking. One day, at age 68, he came into the session, having hit boom, and finally asked for help. He had awakened to find sleeping pills strewn on his table and couldn’t remember what had happened the past two days. He felt suicidal and finally saw that his life was out of control. Only then did he agree to join Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The first step in AA’s 12-step program acknowledges powerlessness against alcohol and that life has become unmanageable. The second step recognizes the existence of a “higher power.” The third accepts a willingness to develop a relationship with God in order to be healed. Bill admied his out-of-control, destructive paern and decided to begin a relationship with God. This approach was new to him because he had been an atheist.
Becoming an Active Participant in the Community
At AA meetings Bill heard stories similar to his own. The support he felt from like-minded people lessened his feelings of
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