The Founder of AA Asks for a Drink in His Dying Moments

What can we take away from his flip-flop?

“When I turn one-hundred years old, I’m going to start doing heroin. And coke. And getting hookers!”

Most people have jokingly uttered a variation of this sentiment. Aside from it being bluster, I think the point is this: At a certain point, what does it matter?

We spend our lives working, exercising, worrying about cholesterol, trying to please people. An old person who’s gone rogue is a charming trope.

We wonder if we’d actually have that kind of desire, the courage to commission a cocaine dealer at the age of ninety.

Mostly it’s just a halfway funny thing to say, a denial of our futile existences, as well as a deflection of the impending sense of mortality we all feel, some more than others.

I said something similar to a friend of mine, something about how Orson Wells might have been on the right track in his lifestyle, when he interjected, “Kind of like Bill from Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“What?” I replied.

“Yeah, the guy who founded Alcoholics Anonymous asked for a drink on his deathbed. That’s the legend anyway,” my friend said, taking a sip of beer.

I found this an amusing anecdote, but likely an urban legend. It’s a little too convenient, too perfect. It seemed like a jab at the AA crowd, almost slanderous.

It’s true though. In her biography of Bill Wilson, titled The Real Bill W, Susan Cheever got access to the notes kept by Wilson’s hospice nurse.

Wilson had been a chain-smoker for decades, and now in his seventies he was dying of emphysema, experiencing regular coughing fits as his life was dwindling away in a fairly miserable fashion.

Wilson had passed a nearly sleepless night, lying awake hacking and straining to breathe before rousting himself at 6 a.m. on Christman morning, 1970.

He proceeded to ask his hospice nurse, James Dannenberg, for “Three shots of whiskey.”

Wilson was refused this request and threw something of a tantrum. He asked again three days later. Again on January 8th. And January 14th. And so on. He passed away on January 24th.

What to make of this? It’s not as funny anymore. Prior to this Christman morning Wilson had been sober for thirty years.

On the one hand it shows his powerlessness over alcohol, and his desire to drink being so ingrained that he would willingly invalidate his legacy of remaining sober and putting in all of that work, day, after day, after day.

On the other hand, he might have just summed up the situation and decided he wanted to get drunk and enjoy his last Christmas. Afterall, nothing really matters.

What were the consequences of relapsing at this point? A hangover? Permanent damage to his health?

It seems three shots of whiskey could lead to Wilson spiraling out of control. And again, you’d have to question if this was really a prohibiting consequence.

He probably wouldn’t be waking up in the ditch. He couldn’t make it to the ditch.

It seems likely that his family members would discover his altered condition and well up with emotion, a combination of anger and pity for the old man.

Well, who’s the one dying here anyway, you ungrateful little pussies, is what I would imagine, and giggle about, Wilson yelling at his born-again son-in-law, clinking drink in hand, now wearing a fireman’s helmet, You have to make everything about you, don’t you Scott, You’re out of the will!!! Now if you’ll get out of the way, I’m going to get an erotic massage and attempt to assassinate Richard Nixon. Hark! My slippers!

I suppose there is some dignity in Wilson remaining sober, although he was mentally spry, and made many requests for what I imagine he considered his “sweet” whiskey.

It wasn’t one moment of weakness. It wasn’t necessarily that he had the fortitude, it was just that his traitor nurse refused to give him any booze. You could argue that he relapsed on a technicality.

What I glean from this story is that addiction has a hold over some individuals that is more powerful than any faith.

And also, if I am paying a nurse a salary, they had better get me whatever I want, particularly if I’m of sound mind and it’s a legal substance.

I think it would have been justified if Wilson had murdered James Dannenberg with a kitchen knife, though that would have tarnished his legacy slightly more than the shots of sweet whiskey.

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