Clinton Street, in the apartment Dr. Burnham had built for his wife on the second floor. The doctor, who had remarried in May of 1933, had moved out. Lois continued to work at Macy’s, where her weekly salary in 1933 was $22.50 plus a one percent commmission on sales.
This was the darkest period of their life together. “Sometimes I stole from my wife’s slender purse when the morning terror and madness were on me. Again I swayed dizzily before an open window, or the medicine cabinet where there was poison, cursing myself for a weakling. There were flights from city to country and back, as my wife and I sought escape. Then came the night when the physical and mental torture was so hellish I feared I would burst through my window, sash and all. . . . A doctor came with a heavy sedative. . . . People feared for my sanity. So did I.”
There were still times when Bill would go on the wagon or make other determined efforts to stop drinking. Once, Lois obtained a three-month leave of absence from Macy’s, and they spent the summer at the Vermont farm of Dr. Leonard Strong Jr. and his wife, who was Bill’s sister Dorothy. All summer, Bill worked hard on the farm. But as soon as they returned to Brooklyn, he resumed drinking. He and Lois had long discussions about it; he was making a desperate effort to quit.
By late 1933, they both were losing hope; all efforts had failed; and they had been particularly disillusioned when he had started drinking again after the summer at the farm. Besides Lois and her father, Bill now had only two other people who still stood by him: his sister Dorothy and her husband, who, like Bill’s mother, was an osteopath. Often, Dr. Strong would treat Bill for his terrible hangovers, and they would discuss Bill’s problems.
It was Leonard who finally arranged for Bill’s admission to Charles B. Towns Hospital on Central Park West, a facility for treating alcoholics. In 1933, it was very expensive, and Leonard paid the fee.
Towns was run by Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, the man who would have such a profound influence on Bill. “As I came out of the fog that first time, I saw him sitting by the bedside. A great, warm current of kindness and understanding seemed to flow out of him. I could deeply feel this at once, though he said scarcely a word. He was very slight of figure and then pushing 60, I should say. His compassionate blue eyes took me in at a glance. A shock of pure white hair gave him a kind of otherworldly look. At once, befuddled as I was, I could sense he knew what ailed me.”
1. It was estimated that more than a million Americans held stock on margin during the summer of 1929. See Frederick Lewis Allen, “Only Yesterday,” Harper and Brothers, 1931.
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