Real People of the Big Book - looking at the individuals behind AA folklore

John Henry Fitzhugh "Fitz" Mayo (1898-1943) is the person whose sudden spiritual experience is described at the end of We Agnostics:

“Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?’’ While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:

“Who are you to say there is no God?’’

This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.

Thus was our friend’s cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. Save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.

Fitz was an early New York AA member, and author of the Big Book story Our Southern Friend. He lobbied unsuccessfully for a purely Christian interpretation of AA's recovery program (see William Schaberg's Writing the Big Book). He was a childhood friend of the self-described 'militant agnostic' Jim Burwell, and helped bring him into AA. They are buried a few yards from each other in their MD hometown.

Read a biography of Fitz Mayo here: https://storiesofrecovery.org/history.htm#Fitz