About Michael Willis, aka Mike W.
About 12 years ago I moved to NYC from California. I went to California from New York to go to college for art. Right before I graduated from school I almost died in a car accident. About 6 months later I walked into the double a and am very grateful I never tried to do any more research.
A few months after I got sober I started cooking professionally. After a little over a year I was offered a job in NYC and went across the country again to live and work in my home town, but with a completely new outlook.
Moving in sobriety is said to make people like newcomers again. I was looking for any group I could feel comfortable in and met a sober cook who told me about St. Luke’s. Unfortunately she called it this, which was its nick name, and it took me a little while to find The Greenwich Village Group.
Members of St. Luke’s took me in as family right away and pretty soon I met Mike W. through Irene M. Anyone recommended by Irene was a good person, I soon came to find out.
Feeling like a newcomer still from the move, I tried to find a sponsor right away. About 6 months and three women, all with over 10 years each, later, I was bereft that I could not find a sponsor who wanted to sponsor me.
One night, a night I hope to never forget, I was standing outside of St. Luke’s crying. Not mild mannered crying, but I-can’t-stop-crying-even-if-it-means-looking-ridiculous crying.
Mike W., in his quiet and loving way, asked me what was the matter. I sputtered something to the pathetic effect of, “No one will sponsor me. I feel like I have to go out and drink to prove that I am the newcomer I feel like I am to get someone to sponsor me. I have just had three sponsors in a row who all left me. I don’t know what to do.”
Mike W. held out his right arm, which, in the dark and with his signature overcoat, looked like he was inviting me to step into his heart and home.
“Come here,” he said quietly.
While he stood there and held me he said,
“Well I don’t know if I can be your sponsor, but I will never leave you.”
And there began my best ever sponsorship experience.
Mike W. and I had a lot on common. Things which were not so obvious on the surface, but we proved to be a good team and match for many years.
Mike W. taught me what it was like to rely on someone who was reliable. He was always as busy or busier than me, but he was honest about it and if I needed a call back he always would, no matter where he was geographically.
And when, almost 3 years later, I was packing up my New York life to go back to Northern California for what would be the most important job of my career, he reminded me that I could call anytime, still.
Mike knew about my career and its demands. And he was the first person in the double a to support me wholeheartedly in it. A professional cook is surrounded by a lot of alcohol and people who rely on mood- altering substances. Cooking is not a 40 hour week and, both because of his own profession and his not-so-secret love affair with fine dining restaurants and their chef-owners, he understood the pressure I was under more than anyone who was not in the field.
Mike never judged my choices or lack thereof.
In fact Mike taught me an invaluable lesson as my sponsor. One that I can say saved my life, then, and still.
Soon after moving back to NYC I met a woman I would date, who was also sober. Soon after we moved in together she became violent and I left her, our home, and the relationship. Unfortunately we shared St. Luke’s as a Homegroup, and although I stayed away from those meetings for a while, I went back one night when I felt safe enough to do so.
Mike was right there with me, as my witness and friend. In the course of the meeting it became apparent that St. Luke’s, as a group, was far from supportive, and was not, in fact, a safe haven for me.
But I was confused and scared and shaken and could not see the forest through the trees.
Mike became angry for me. And he said I was not to go back there. He was angry at the group too, and didn’t return for many years as well.
When we’re new in the double a, our self esteem is not yet fully formed. Many of us walk into the double a with negative self-esteem and it can take years to build up something that looks at all reasonable.
And anger is considered a dangerous emotion in the double a because it is said to “take out” a lot of people. Self righteous anger fuels a lot of rationalization for terrifically bad behavior in people who abuse mood-altering substances.
But Mike became angry for me until I could feel again and be angry myself. And he was always there for me so I was not just an angry mass free floating through space without direction. He supported and guided me, the way a great sponsor does, if you have the right one for you.
When someone knows your story they become part of you. They are your memory when you forget. They love you when you dislike yourself utterly.
Michael Willis was generous to a fault. His love and acceptance and words and guidance and love stayed me on a course sound and purposeful even when life turned itself upside-down and inside-out on me.
Knowing, loving, hugging, relying on, asking questions of, receiving guidance from and generally watching, listening and being around Michael Willis enriched my life and he will never stop inspiring me.
Thank you for your never leaving me, Mike W. I love you.
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