Talking Child Abuse with Bill Murray

Bill Murray
Bill is the founder of the National Association for Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (http://naasca.org/), a non-profit organization focused on providing a voice and resources to help victims of child abuse. Bill broadcasts an online radio podcast at 5pm PST Sundays to Fridays. Bill is a survivor of sexual abuse and is 25 years sober from drugs and alcohol. Bill was sexually abused when he was 11 years old by a summer camp counselor; the abuse continued for three summers. The counselor was a photographer who used the young Murray as a model for thousands of frames of ographic pictures. The counselor also took Murray to Montreal's Expo 67 for two weeks, and spent that time trying to convince the then 14-year-old Murray to engage in sex, introducing him to other pedophiles. That period was terrifying; Bill was at his mercy, powerless and ashamed, all the while refusing to engage in sex. After that, Bill became an introverted problem student and kept his silence. Once Murray started prep school in a seminary, Murray confided the story of his sexual abuse to the priest, who took a "special interest" in Bill. Bill then spent the next couple of years of high school trying to avoid the pedophiles. Though struggles with drug and alcohol abuse forced him to drop out of his first attempt at college,
In his late 20s his girlfriend (and later wife), encouraged him to seek therapy, and to reveal to his parents that he had been sexually abused. That was the beginning of Bill’s healing and recovery process, some 25 years ago. Murray eventually found success in the television industry in Los Angeles, doing camera work, production and editing for popular sit-coms like The Golden Girls. In 1984 he also enrolled in a 12-step program to overcome his drinking problem.
 Bill Murray started NAASCA.org (National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) and has a rapidly growing listener base of 1500.