You know that bronze medallion you have tucked away somewhere – the one in safe keeping in your jewelry box, or at the bottom of your underwear drawer? Or perhaps you fondle it daily as it jingles and jangles against the heads of Washington and Franklin in your pant’s pocket?
Have you ever wondered about its origin? Certainly Bill W. wasn’t pounding out medallions back in 1938. He was busy authoring the Big Book and saving fellow drunks.
But there is a man — another Bill W., coincidentally, that is responsible for that bronzed disk that denotes so much to people in recovery. It is the first tactile acknowledgement of a personal achievement — a solid depiction of a resolve to dramatically change the course of one’s life. It could be argued that the atoms that bond together to form that medallion represent the bond of the recovery community — cohesive and strong.
Bill W., formally known as Bill Westman, a native Minneapolitan, designed that medallion that he debuted in 1973 at Minneapolis’ (now defunct) Leamington Hotel, and today gets passed from sponsor to sponsee as a symbol that a certain milestone has been reached, be it 24 hours of abstinence, 24 months, or 24 years.
Westman humbly tells the story of the medallion’s birth, and of his own rebirth. “I spent eight years failing at the program,” recalls Bill. “Each time I got a pin and I put it in a drawer. I had 12 of those damn things.” In 1969 Bill got the pin that stuck.
“It was the first one that worked,” he says, and he displays that pin in his house where he can see it every day. “It is a reminder of who I am, what I am, where I’ve been, and hopefully, where I’m going.”
Coincidentally — or not — Westman worked at the time at Wendell’s, a manufacturing company for marketing products and advertising specialties, that had been in the business of manufacturing coins, medallions, stamps and signs since 1882.
At the plant one day, Westman walking into a back room and found a boxful of antiqued bronze medallions, each with a large “AA” covering one side, and the Serenity Prayer on the other, “They were doing nothing but collecting dust and dirt,” says Westman, who, after finding that no one laid claim to them, started handing them out to people at the Pioneer House – a treatment center run by people in recovery — and at the workhouse, (i.e. jail).
They flew out of his hands like water for the thirsty. “People would call me at Wendell’s and want more medallions,” Westman recalls, “and one day the idea came to me that people all over the world could use these.”
When he ran out of the mystery medallions he found in the back room, Westman decided to refine the design. Intrigued with the notion of raising the center of the medallion to both distinguish it from legal tender and emphasize the anniversary year of the recipient (a day at a time really does add up!) Westman tinkered and toiled with the design, playing with various graphic ideas and verbiage.
He eventually arrived at the present day medallion: The raised circle with roman numerals depicting the amount of time off booze or drugs, surrounded by the triangle representing the cornerstones of sobriety — unity, recovery and service. Around the perimeter are Polonius’ famous words to his son Laertus in “Hamlet” as he sets off on his own, “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
“People would call me at Wendell’s and want more medallions,” Westman recalls, “and one day the idea came to me that people all over the world could use these.”On the flip side of the coin is the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” Thus Westman created the medallion that has been placed in the hands of recovering people the world over. It is passed from palm to palm at meetings, as those sitting around the tables massage wisdom and hope into its metallic fibers.
Today, millions of these medallions are sold and distributed worldwide.
“I was reading something in the Big Book,” says Westman, “One sentence says ‘nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.'” And so it was with Bill W. and the medallion.
Bill insists, 35 years after inception, that the making of the medallion sitting in your drawer, on your desktop, or in your pocket, was not a stroke of good luck or a breath of genius. It was divinely inspired. “I had three years of sobriety and experience in coining,” he says, “I guess I was the guy to do it.”
Right place, right time? That’s easy for a guy named Bill W. to say.
Julia Edelman is a former publisher / editor of The Phoenix Spirit. She is currently a marriage and family therapist and licensed alcohol and drug counselor. More info at her website.
This article first appeared in the September 2008 issue of The Phoenix Spirit. Westman passed away in June 2017.
Last Updated on October 19, 2024