Ebby T.
The man who carried the message to Bill W.
By Walter L.


In 1960, at the Long Beach, California Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson wrote this dedication in a AA book that he gave to Ebby Thacher.

"Dear Ebby, no day passes that I do not remember that you
brought me the message that saved me—and only God knows how many more.
In affection, Bill"

    It was Ebby who found relief from his alcoholism in the simple spiritual practices of the Oxford Group, which was an attempt to return to first-century Christianity – before it was complicated and distorted by religious doctrines, dogma and opinions.
    The program offered by Ebby to Bill involved taking a personal moral inventory, admitting to another person the wrongs we had done, making things right by amends and restitution, and a genuine effort to be of real service to others.
    In order to obtain the power to overcome these problems, Ebby had been encouraged to call on God, as he understood God, for help.
    Bill was deeply impressed by Ebby’s words, but was even more affected by Ebby’s example of action. Here was someone who drank like Bill drank—and yet Ebby was sober, due to a simple religious idea and a practical program of action.
    The results were an inexplicably different person—fresh-skinned, glowing face, with a different look in his eyes. A miracle sat directly across the kitchen table from Bill.
    Ebby was not some "do-gooder" who had read something in a book. Here was a hopeless alcoholic who had been completely defeated by John Barleycorn, and yet had, in effect, been raised from the dead. It was a message of hope for an alcoholic—that God would do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
    Bill continued to drink in a more restrained way for a short while, and then was admitted to Towns Hospital December 11, 1934.
    (It was at Towns Hospital that Bill W. earlier had met Dr. Silkworth, author of "The Doctor’s Opinion" in the book Alcoholics Anonymous.)
    Ebby visited Bill there on December 14th and essentially helped him take what would become Steps Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
    But that boost" from Ebby’s visit wore off and that night Bill’s feeling of hopelessness deepened and a terrifying darkness yawned in the abyss. As the last trace of self-will was crushed, Bill said to himself, with neither faith nor hope:

"I’ll do anything, anything at all!
If there be God, let Him show Himself".

Bill’s spiritual experience

The Conference-approved biography Pass It On quotes Bill as describing this experience:

        "What happened next was electric. Suddenly, my room blazed with an indescribably white light. I, was seized with an ecstasy beyond description. Every joy I had known was pale by comparison. The light, the ecstasy—I was conscious of nothing else for a time. Then, seen in the mind’s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit, where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. In great, clean strength, it blew right through me.
        Then came the blazing thought, ‘You are a free man.’
        I know not at all how long I remained in this state, but finally the light and the ecstasy subsided. I again saw the wall of my room. As I became more quiet, a great peace stole over me, and this was accompanied by a sensation difficult to describe.
        I became acutely conscious of a Presence, which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world."

    Ebby had carried to Bill with great care and dedication the message of the Oxford Group, the message that recovery from alcoholism was possible using spiritual principles, but only if it was combined with practical actions.
    Bill Wilson never took another drink, and left Towns Hospital to dedicate the rest of his life to carrying the message to alcoholics.
    Ebby, however, took a different path, one that caused him to have a series of relapses. The man whom Bill Wilson called his sponsor could not stay sober himself and became an embarrassment.
    There were periods of sobriety, some long, some short, but eventually Ebby would, "fall off the wagon," as he called it.
    More revealingly, Ebby referred to his periods of sobriety as, "being on the wagon." For an AA to regularly use this sort of language is an indication that the commitment to sobriety is temporary in nature. If there is an "on the wagon" then there is an ‘off the wagon" too. And that was the on/off cycle of Ebby’s drinking.

Tasting life from the silver spoon

    Ebby was born on April 29,1896, into a prominent and well-to-do family in Albany, New York, with roots going back before the American Revolution. His grandfather started a railroad wheel manufacturing business in 1852 and became the main supplier of wheels for the New York Central Railroad, as well as Mayor of Albany. Two other members of Ebby’s family were also mayors of Albany, including his older brother, "jack."
    One of New York State’s most beautiful parks, located on the Helderberg escarpment southwest of Albany, was donated by the widow of Ebby’s uncle, John Boyd Thacher and is named after him..
    Ebby’s full name was Edwin Throckmorton Thacher, and he can be said to have arrived in the world with "a silver spoon in his mouth." It is possible that because of his upper-class origins, with servants waiting on him and the respect brought by his family name, Ebby developed the attitude that life should always be easy for him. He was "entitled," it seems.
    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 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 AA’s 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 program.

Deep-seated resentments

    Despite his failure to follow through after his vital visit with Bill, Ebby still seemed to feel he was not recognized adequately for his contribution to the start of AA.
    His employer for many years in Texas said that Ebby, kind of thought the world owed him a living, to a certain extent. He thought he never got the recognition that he should have had. That stuck in his craw for years.
    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 program.
    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 AA members devotes substantial discussion to the AA program and the application of the Twelve 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 program before then, but even at that time, there were still substantial doubts about his sincerity.
    Earlier, in 1947, Ebby’s sister-in-law received a letter from him, 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."
    Ebby drifted in and out of sobriety, and in and out of AA, with many AA members trying to help him regain a more stable sobriety.
    The person who was ultimately successful was Searcy W., who had established a hospital for alcoholics in Texas. Early in 1953, Searcy had asked Bill what he would like to see happen in AA, and Bill said, "I would like for Ebby to have a chance to sober up in your clinic." Several months later, it came to pass, and after a short slip in 1954, Ebby remained sober for seven years.
    In 1961, Ebby’s girlfriend died and the next day Ebby got drunk. He apparently still believed that his sobriety was conditional on having the right woman, and now she was gone.
    Ebby moved back to New York and lived for the next two years at several places, one of which was at his brother Ken’s home in Delmar, a suburb of Albany. He had emphysema—the same disease that caused Bill’s death—and was in poor health, his weight having dropped from 170 to 120 pounds.
    Ebby eventually came to Margaret and Mickey McPike’s farm outside Ballston Spa, New York, in May, 1964, and it was under their loving care that he finished the final two years of his life, dying sober on May 2l, 1966.
    While at the McPike farm, Ebby never even attempted to get something to drink, although he also never attended AA meetings. Still, AA visitors were frequent and AA principles were in constant evidence, permeating the entire atmosphere at the farm.
    Dr. Bob said that the AA program boiled down to love and service and that was the essence of Margaret and Mickey McPike, who helped more than four thousand persons to recover from alcoholism.
    Ebby was one of them.
    AA’s agree that no matter what happens to them, the most important thing is to not pick up that first "sucker drink."
    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 program 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 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 program requires us to deflate at depth.
    If Ebby had been recognized as the founder of the AA program, 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 program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
    There are many others who achieve periods of sobriety yet relapse from time to time. They are not to be condemned, but welcomed back into the Fellowship. Their experience is a lesson to others that alcohol as an enemy is indeed cunning, baffling and powerful. If anyone might be inclined to feel smug or superior, he or she should be grateful that they have not gotten that bad—yet.
    If there is a higher power, then by implication there is a lower power. And the lower power can never win—unless we give up. Despite many slips, Ebby never completely gave in to the lower power and always came back.
    He ran the race, he kept the faith, and eventually died sober. Ebby deserves to be honored for carrying the message of spiritual recovery to Bill and for acting as his sponsor. Whatever Ebby’s problem may have been with sobriety, Bill was always grateful to him— as we all should be.
    Bill said, in "The Language of the Heart, "Ebby had been enabled to bring me the gift of grace because he could reach me at depth through the language of the heart. He had pushed ajar that great gate through which all in AA have since passed to find their freedom under God."

Ebby Thacher’s Eulogy
By Bill W.

    In his seventieth year, and on the twenty-first of March, my friend and sponsor "Ebby" passed beyond our sight and hearing.
    On a chill November afternoon in 1934 it was Ebby who had brought me the message that saved my life.
    Still more importantly, he was the bearer of the Grace and of the principles that shortly afterward led to my spiritual awakening.
    This was truly a call to new life in the Spirit. It was the kind of rebirth that has since become the most precious possession of each and all of us.
    As I looked upon him where he lay in perfect repose, I was stirred by poignant memories of all the years I had known and loved him.
    There were recollections of those joyous days in a Vermont boarding school. After the war years we were sometimes together, then drinking of course. Alcohol, we thought, was the solvent for all difficulties, a veritable elixir for good living.
    Then there was that absurd episode of 1929. Ebby and I were on an all-night spree in Albany. Suddenly we remembered that a new airfield had been constructed in Vermont, on a pasture near my own hometown. The opening day was close at hand. Then came the intoxicating thought: If only we could hire a plane we’d beat the opening by several days, thus making aviation history ourselves!
    Forthwith, Ebby routed a pilot friend out of bed, and for a stiff price we engaged him and his small craft. We sent the town fathers a wire announcing the time of our arrival.
    In midmorning, we took to the air, greatly elated— and very tight.
    Somehow our rather tipsy pilot set us down on the field. A large crowd, including the village band and a welcoming committee, lustily cheered his feat.
   The pilot then deplaned. But nothing else happened, nothing at all. The onlookers stood in puzzled silence. Where were Ebby and Bill? Then the horrible discovery was made—we were both slumped in the rear cockpit of the plane, completely passed out!
    Kind friends lifted us down and stood us upon the ground. Whereupon we history-makers fell flat on our faces. Ignominiously, we had to be carted away. The fiasco could not have been more appalling. We spent the next day shakily writing apologies.
    Over the following five years, I seldom saw Ebby. But of course our drinking went on and on.
    In late 1934 I got a terrific jolt when I learned that Ebby was about to be locked up, this time in a state mental hospital.
    Following a series of mad sprees, he had run his father’s new Packard off the road and into the side of a dwelling, smashing right into its kitchen, and just missing a terrified housewife.
    Thinking to ease this rather awkward situation, Ebby summoned his brightest smile and said, "Well, my dear, how about a cup of coffee?"
    Of course Ebby’s lighthearted humor was quite lost on everyone concerned. Their patience worn thin, the town fathers yanked him into court.
     To all appearances, Ebby’s final destination was the insane asylum.
    To me, this marked the end of the line for us both. Only a short time before, my physician, Dr. Silkworth, had felt obliged to tell Lois there was no hope of my recovery; that I too, would have to be confined, else risk insanity or death.
    But providence would have it otherwise. It was presently learned that Ebby had been paroled into the custody of friends who (for the time being) had achieved their sobriety in the Oxford Groups.
    They brought Ebby to New York where he fell under the benign influence of AA’s great friend-to-be, Dr. Sam Shoemaker, the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church.
    Much affected by Sam and the Oxford Group, Ebby promptly sobered up.
    Hearing of my serious condition, he had straight-way come to our house in Brooklyn.
    As I continued to recollect, the vision of Ebby looking at me across our kitchen table became wonderfully vivid. As most AA’s know, he spoke to me of the release from hopelessness that had come to him through the Oxford Groups as the result of self-survey, restitution, outgoing helpfulness to others, and prayer.
    In short, he was proposing the attitudes and principles that I used later in developing AA’s Twelve Steps to recovery.
    It had happened.
    One alcoholic had effectively carried the message to another. Ebby had been enabled to bring me the gift of Grace because he could reach me at depth through the language of the heart.
    He had pushed ajar that great gate through which all in AA have since passed to find their freedom under God.

Half Measures

    If there are those among us who harbor the notion that half measures can bring true sobriety, a look at the life of Ebby Thacher should be enough to shatter that folk illusion.
    That life also offers us a fresh look at gratitude—gratitude expressed in Bill W's loyalty to Ebby, a man who deeply resented Bill most of their adult lives. Bill freely called Ebby "my sponsor" in spite of Ebby’s seeming inability to grasp the AA program and find stable sobriety.
    And Bill remained a friend for life—right up to the delivery of Ebby’s eulogy, which is included in this tract.
    Bill remembered—as we all should remember—that without the God-given presence of Ebby Thacher, there could have been no Bill W. as we know of him today.    
    There are many such lessons for all of us in this capsule biography of Ebby, which we have prepared for whatever help it may offer to the strengthening of your
own sobriety.
    We hope you enjoy it.

Yours in recovery,
The Harrisburg Area Intergroup
Archives Committee

 

Our many thanks to Walter L., who authored most of this pamphlet from material synthesized from the following sources:

Alcoholics Anonymous. published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, New York, N.Y.

Ebby—The Man Who Sponsored Bill W, by Mel B , published by Hazelden.

Language of the Heart. AA World Services.

Lois Remembers. Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Virginia Beach, VA.

Pass it On. AA World Services.