Bill's Story (Continued)
C: We'll be able to see the progression of the disease in Bill's Story. So let's briefly run though it and look for some points, that maybe would help us identify with Bill. We usually start on page two. On page two he says: (p. 2, par. 1) 'I took a night law course, and obtained
employment as investigator for a surety company. The drive for success was on. I'd prove to the world I was important. ' Well, I already identify with Bill Wilson. That's all I ever tried to do all my life, was lust prove to the world that I'm just as important as anybody else in it. He said: (p. 2, par. 1)
'My work took me about Wall Street and little by little I became interested in the market. Many people lost money--but some became very rich. Why not I? I studied economics and business as well as law. Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly failed my law course. At one of the finale I was too drunk to think or write. Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife. We had long talks when I would still her forebodings by telling her that men of genius conceived their beat projects when drunk...'
I have no trouble identifying with Bill Wilson. (laughter) Next paragraph: (p. 2, par. 2) 'By the time I had completed the course, I knew the law was not for me. The inviting maelstrom of Wall Street had me in it's grip. Business and financial leaders were my heroes. Out of this alloy of drink and speculation, I commenced to forge the weapon that one day would turn in it's flight like a boomerang and all but cut me to ribbons. Living modestly, my wife and I saved 91,000. It went into certain securities, then cheap and rather unpopular.
I rightly imagined that they would some day have a great rise. I failed to persuade my broker friends to send me out looking over factories and management-, but my wife and I decided to go anyway. I had developed a theory that most people lost money in stocks through ignorance of markets. I discovered many more reasons later on. ' We can begin to see the stubbornness of the alcoholic in Bill Wilson. Bill had developed a theory, this was back in the 1920's. The stock market was on a roll, similar to what it is today. (This was taped in February, 1987)
Nearly everybody who dealt in stocks was making money. You simply had to buy some stock, hold it a while. They went up in price. You sold them. You bought some more, held them a while, et cetera. Bill began to say, this really isn't the way to invest your money. HQ began to say, I think we ought to go out and investigate these companies. Find out how much money they're really making, what their assets are, what the stocks are selling for, and begin to make our decisions based upon actual fact, rather than pure speculation. Bill didn't have the money to do this so he went to people who had the money in the stock market, and proposed the idea to them.
They said, no, Bill, we don't need that. We're making all the money we need, and we don't need any of that kind of stuff. Now, Bill, being a good stubborn, hardheaded alcoholic, he said, well, I'll show them. I'll do it anyhow. So he and Lois took what little bit of money that they had, and they decided to go out and investigate all these companies on their own.
He said: (p. 2, par. 3: p. 3, par. 1) 'We gave up our positions and off we roared on a motorcycle, the sidecar stuffed with tent, blankets, a change of clothes, and three huge volumes of a financial (top of p. 3) reference service. Our friends thought a lunacy commission should be appointed. Perhaps they were right. I had had some success at
speculation, so we had a little money, but we once worked on a farm for a month to avoid drawing on our small capital. That was the last honest manual labor on my part for many a day. We covered the whole eastern United States in a year. At the end of it, my reports to Wall Street procured me a position there and the use of a large expense
account. The exercise of an option brought in more money, leaving us with a profit of several thousand dollars for that year.'
When Bill took this information back to Wall Street, and showed it to the same people, they said, oh, yeah, we see what you're talking about now. This is a hell of a good idea. Immediately, they put Bill on a payroll, gave him a large salary, gave him a large expense
account, and Bill had a profit of several thousand dollars for that year. He'd come from nothing, now to a person who had some means, and a person who had succeeded at life.
