Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00096 – Sandy B – DROP THE ROCK – 1976-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00096-sandy-b-drop-the-rock-1976-06-15.mp3 Duration: 00:58:10
============================================================
I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Just for Chuck's benefit, I have to correct the anonymity break that I made in the program. And so we'll just call Sandy B. the location of the meeting when this gets back to GSO, and I'll start over again and say, my name is Richard, and welcome to Sandy B.. I came into AA on Pearl Harbor Day in 1964, and I haven't been drunk since my first meeting. And I've been to an awful lot of meetings since that first night, and I've done a lot of listening, and I'm convinced deep down in my heart that I owe it all to not drinking.
That is my opinion of why I haven't been drunk since my first meeting. But that's really not a miracle because, you know, in jails and nuthouses, those places there wasn't any booze and I wasn't drunk either, so there took place the real miracle for me anyway. It was three or four months when one morning I got up and I was happy with not drinking. And that's contrary to the definition of an alcoholic.
I mean, that is where it was all about. But I think it's important to mention the not drinking part. At least I think so. When I came in, I had a very rough sponsor, and he emphasized it quite a bit. But occasionally I get into some more intellectual meetings, and we get to a higher plane and so on down. And, you know, there may be somebody new here who hears about the spiritual awakening and peace of mind and all of those things.
I hate to break the news, but this not drinking part really fits in there. I thought maybe in the beginning you could work the steps and then you'd have a spiritual awakening and you wouldn't have a problem with drinking anymore. And it's very difficult to have a spiritual awakening when you're thrown up in the toilet. It's a problem. And so if you've been having trouble over the years, you know, check your drinking.
It's just a suggestion like the rest of the program. It's funny about those suggestions. You notice in the 12 in 12 it's very carefully hidden, but in almost every step there's a little sort of a cautionary flag that something like failure to properly take step four could be fatal. And there's one in every step. It's just little hints along the way as to the thing. And I remember my sponsor telling me, what do you think that means when you see that alcoholism is fatal?
And I'd been sober about two months. And I said, well, I think what that really means, you see, is that there's a certain degree in the allergy and there's a certain type of reaction that can set in for various people. And what you have, well, they expire is what you have. And he said, I think you've missed the point. What that says in there is Sandy's going to die. That's what alcoholism is fatal.
And he was always getting my name into the big book and getting me into the step because I didn't want to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. And I sat around and approached this like a course on alcoholism. I mean, it didn't apply to me. I just was going to be able to pass a quiz in case there was one given later on. But I just didn't have enough evidence to support the fact I was a real alcoholic. I had, you know, run into some difficulties along the way, but certainly none to, you know, put me down at the bottom of the list in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I mean, that was quite a step down from the nutboard. To come in here, but that's the way that it happens to some of us.
[00:05:03]
Before I forget it, I know I have a couple of things that have happened to me out here. It's really been an amazing set of coincidences, running into old friends, running into new friends. And I just, I have to tell you before, in case I forget at the end and I sometimes get all mixed up, you will never know what I've already taken away from this meeting, I mean, from this weekend, especially the meeting this afternoon that's going to help me with my children and some work I've got to do.
And I just have to thank you now. I'm going to take away much more than I'll ever give, and I want to thank you in advance. And running into my friend Rocky from Laguna, who some of you may know, who was, is, and always will be the world's greatest fighter pilot, who had a, I remember 21 years ago when he put me on restriction for drinking, even then he had a strange sign over his door, in case there's any aviators around here, he didn't even have that sign right.
There are bold pilots and there are bold pilots, but there's no humble pilots, you know, there's a strange way. I'm surprised any of us made the program. The Pope has been extremely kind to this convention weekend. He has, you may think with the name B. that you're free from any connection with bingo games and so on down, but my mother's name was Brennan. And my story as childhood has really been touched on rather in detail, but I've got to go through it again because it's a very important part.
I looked at step four, you know, step four divides us into two categories, and we are either the guilt-oriented or the power drivers as it says. And in either case we use one of those two excuses not to take that inventory. Either we're so frightened of what we're going to find that we don't dare look, or on the other side of the coin we simply say, all of my problems were caused by alcoholism so the mere stopping of drinking will suffice and I will return to my normal charming self that I was before I started drinking.
And in my case I really couldn't say that about myself. I can say that I'm very glad that I'm an alcoholic because I wasn't going anywhere before I started drinking. I had, you know, I was sort of a loser then and alcohol just sped the thing along. It just picked up momentum because I was brought up in New England in Connecticut and my parents, I think, were like a lot of people up in New England. They were trying to teach me to be the proper snob.
That feeling of that section of the country which sort of looks down on the rest of the country. It's the way it's located up there. And I was sort of skinny and nervous and I was running around going, God it's hard to be a snob when you're not as good as the rest of the people. I was, well I didn't want to tell them that I was having a problem with this and so I was going around with the little Lord Fauntleroy suits and in these little schools and all that and if that wasn't problem enough then I was sent down to have my first encounter with the nuns.
And I'm sure that the receiver was just as broken as the transmitter and maybe all the other little kids didn't hear what I did but boy, I'll tell you, that was a strange encounter because my memory tells me that it went something like this. Hello little boy. Boy, are you in trouble. You're in serious trouble. And today I'm going to tell you all about it. It's about time you found out about the world and the universe and where you fit in and where you're going.
And I found out about original sin and I found out about what happens to people who aren't perfect and I found out that I was having a terrible problem and I picked up a buddy right about that time.
[00:10:00]
It was a companion that I brought into Alcoholish Anonymous and it took me seven years to finally release this wonderful friend that stood by me all through the years. It was called guilt. I had this guilt thing. It was sort of an innate guilt. It was a guilt that I was born with. It's primordial guilt. I mean, I was guilty. I felt guilty about not knowing what God wanted me to do. I felt guilty about having done whatever I did to cause God to not let me know what he wanted me to do.
And then I felt guilty about wanting to get rid of the guilt because I didn't deserve to get rid of the guilt because I really was guilty of all the things that made me feel guilty. Other than that, things were going pretty good. Until I heard about Purgatory. And I got a scorecard and I got a pad and a pencil and I started adding up and by the time I was 12 years old I had around 85, 86,000 years to do in Purgatory.
On just the things I had thought about doing. I hadn't even done them. And I kept telling my brain, you've got to stop thinking that stuff. You've got to be good. And my brain said, the only way I do that is if you keep your eyes shut. Had the same problem around a pool today. I racked up around 25,000 years to rack it up. Oh. Oh. Anyway. What I had to do with all this was keep it a secret. And never tell anybody.
Never share because I really believed, truly believed that nobody else had this problem. I really believed that all the other kids growing up and the other teenagers as I got a little older had life in their hands and they were just living it. And if they ever found out what was really going on inside of me and what kind of a person I really was and what God thought about me and what was the real truth about me, it would be awful.
And I had to be very careful to never share anything about myself with anybody. So I always tried to be sort of the snob and off away from people mostly because they frightened me. If I was in a strange city and standing on the sidewalk and somebody came up and said, pardon me, that's my spot, I wouldn't argue with them. I would say, fine. It probably is his spot, you know. The way they do it in this city. Well, I know.
I had to do better than anyone in order to feel equal. It was a strange set of things. And people frightened me. Mostly people frightened me. I was afraid to make eye contact with people. And of course when I got drinking it became even worse. But I just had that problem that the secret, the truth was going to come out. So I had a problem with the truth, had a problem with God, had a problem with people.
But other than that, I had a pretty happy childhood. I have to say that in case my mother is in the audience. Anyway, I ended up at the local university in New Haven. I thought that was a local place, Yale, until I got out of there. And everybody said, oh, that's a nice place. I got there and went into a large reception room one night and had the normal feeling that I had when I walk into a room. There's about 50 guys in there from all over the country and all dressed up.
And I had the feeling they all turned and looked at me and said, what's that guy doing in here? That's the normal feeling I had. I could see in their eyes that hostility. I could see in their eyes that hostility. I could see rejection. I could just see what they were thinking.
[00:15:04]
And I was terrified. I said, what if these guys find out about me? And they were passing some drinks around. And I had been keeping some kind of a pledge. I don't remember what it was for. Probably to cut the sentence in half or… And there was tremendous peer pressure to just conform. I decided that's my thing, conforming. I finally have accepted that as a way of life. And, you know, I learned that in AA. That's how you succeed in AA. You conform.
You can smell the original thinkers in alcoholism. So, I always conformed. And that's how I started smoking. And I got a crew cut and I had Y-ties this way. And I got all these teenage kids and that's what they do. And then they come home and tell me about this is how they display their individualism. And there's a strange paradox in that. I haven't figured it out yet. But the drinks came around and I took a drink of whiskey off the tray and I drank it.
And I sat around waiting for this thing to happen that happens. I had heard people talk about alcohol and how great it made you feel. And alcohol had no effect on me. I can remember waiting for this to happen. And I stood in a room and I was waiting and waiting. And there was nothing happening to me at all. But the room was changing. And the people in the room were changing. And I sat there with this whiskey in my stomach and I started looking back into the eyeballs around the room.
And it was amazing how the hostility disappeared out of those eyes. And it was replaced with kind of a warm look. And another drink and the people became immensely friendly. And some people were saying, hello, come over and talk to us. And I just couldn't believe what was happening to the world just because I had a few drinks. The world became what it should be. The world became sort of the brotherhood of man.
And there was this warm, friendly feeling. And I was at ease with myself, with the people, with God, with the universe. And it was just marvelous. And I had this peace of mind for about an hour. And I never forget that hour. And that hour is very important in my story. Because at the end of the hour I started throwing up. And during the night I practiced throwing up. And the next day in class I sat in the classroom with a couple hundred people.
And there a teacher was giving a lecture. And I was sitting on my chair and all I was trying to do was stay on the chair. I wasn't trying to take notes. I wasn't trying to listen to the teacher. Because I figured if I broke my concentration I might lose my balance off of the chair. And I got a smorgasbord of alcoholism. I cannot say that I wasn't warned. I got a little flavor of everything that I was going to get in the years ahead.
I got a little taste of the chills. I got some of the itchy skin. You know how you itch and it goes all around. And it comes back down here and you're doing this little jiggling around. I had a couple of little spasms and some cold flashes. Then I had some nausea gas came through the room. And I felt a… And I was just doing that with my mouth. Just sort of a little smattering of everything I was going to get.
It's like God was going to say, Here it is, buddy. This is what will help you make your decision. Which way you're going to go. And I made that decision that night. The crowd got back together and they said, Sandy, we're going to go out drinking again. Do you want to go with us? And my body, especially my stomach, said, wrong, no, veto, out, out, no, no, no. All of us vote against it. However… The brain was in charge of the package at that particular point in time.
Soon to be overthrown. But the brain was in charge. And it said, wait a minute, fellas. We're going to have to consider this. Wait a minute. We're grown here now. We're going to think this over. We're going to be objective about it. Let's analyze it. Let's take a close look at it. From where I stand, all this little being sick and a few of these minor things that have happened to you, when you really calculate it,
[00:20:01]
it's a rather small price to pay for that hour that you had last night. And I thought about that. And I thought about that. And I said, boy, you're damn right. And I went back out and started drinking with the boys. And, you know, that's the same story I told myself until I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. That's a small price to pay for all the fun that I'm having from drinking. And, of course, as the years went on, the hour got shorter and the trouble got worse and the equation still balanced.
So the only thing that was improving was my ability to rationalize. That was getting better. That's the one thing that alcohol seems to sharpen up and hone and get down to perfection. So that it came to one time, I got through down here in Nuevo Laredo. Oh, boy, over the border. Gone for three days. Then blackout and got up, woke up in jail down there and had to be back on a base. I don't remember the weekend.
But my teeth had been knocked out again. I have an 0 and 10 fight record. And so I had all this money gone. I had to face my wife and come back where I'd been for three days. And it was just, you know. And my conscience, which was always there when my wife wasn't, would say, well, what do you got to say about that? I'd say, I'm not saying anything about that. I'm just saying, well, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, what do you got to say about that?
I'd say, I'm not saying anything on Sunday morning. I got to get back. I need a beer and all this. And I can remember getting back and I told my conscience, wait till I find the guys I was with and we'll let them decide whether I had a good time or not. Because I didn't remember the whole weekend. And I got together with them and you know how you lead people through when you don't want to tell them you don't remember.
Hey, you remember Friday night? And they said, yeah, yeah. And I said, yeah, we were here and there. And then I found I was dancing on a table and I did some of these other tricks. And I said, well, in your opinion, I had a good time. And they said, yeah, you had a marvelous time. And secretly I thought to myself, well, thank God because I paid a hell of a price for that good time. And I was now willing to balance the equation with a rumor that I had had a good time.
And I had a terrible problem with the second step. What do you mean return to sanity? I've always thought very logically and carefully. Terrible problem with that step. Somehow one Saturday up at Yale the guys were sitting around drinking and they said, let's join the Marines. And I said, all right. I don't have anything else to do. We're out of beer. And six of us went down. Ha, ha, ha. It was 14 years later I got thrown out.
I got thrown out of the Marine Corps after I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. Which is a strange story. Two years sobriety. And got passed over for the second time and all of a sudden I'm a civilian. And I had six children and I didn't have a job and I was resenting it. And I sat around my house and self-pity came in the window. I don't know how I got there. I was working the program perfectly. And I said, I got cheated.
And I started talking to God. I said, hey God, what kind of a deal is this? Doesn't seem right. Doesn't seem fair. I remember how all these thoughts were creeping through. And I guess I had been out about two months and I was reading the newspaper and there was a small article in there about a plane crash. And there was a team of officers in the Marine Corps that went around the country giving instructions.
And that was the team that I was on. And they were all killed. And if I had had my wish, of course, I would have been on the plane. And I can remember sitting there feeling rather foolish. That was the first thing that came over me. And I remember, and I tried to make a joke out of it. And I said, listen God, if you had just told me. I mean, if you had just told me. I really didn't like the Marine Corps at all anyway.
And I just disregard all of what you've been hearing this morning and the past few days. And it's funny because things do happen to us. And then we have to stay sober and let some time go by.
[00:25:00]
And then all of a sudden the reason for it happening. But only if we're not drinking. Only if we're not drinking. I look back on that incident and I go, gee, suppose I started drinking. I would have been down at the bar with the other losers who wouldn't be reading the paper either and we'd all be going. Isn't it unfair how these things happen to us? And so it is a good lesson for me that that incident did happen.
But anyway, this crowd got in the Marine Corps and it was a terrible ordeal. And I soon found that I was not fit physically or mentally to carry on the duties of an infantry officer. And so I signed up for flight school. That looked like the only logical alternative to my dilemma. And I spent the next 12, 13 years flying around in various kinds of jets and I don't know, I really don't remember a lot of it.
But the, I do remember this, that the Marine Corps was kind of my hobby. You see, a hobby is something that you give about two hours a day to. And then the rest of it was being an alcoholic. Because this disease was progressing right on schedule. When I read Marty Mann's Primer on Alcoholism after I got sober, I thought she had been following me around because I just fit the page-by-page description of her book to a T and it ruined my uniqueness.
It was a terrible setback to read that book. But I, I did spend time in various spaces around here. I was in Southern California for a year or two and overseas and so on down. But all those things are kind of background music to being an alcoholic. Those parts of our stories are interesting and so on down. But to me, what I like to remember is what was going on inside of me. What was I thinking about when all this was happening?
Mostly what I was thinking about was being afraid. Mostly what I was thinking about was that somebody's going to find out about me. Somebody's going to find out about the real me. And I loved alcohol because it sort of quieted these fears. And it gave me a chance to be somebody else. And I would be loud and laughing and carry on and pretend. I always pretended that everything was all right. It was critical to pretend that everything was all right.
I had been taught growing up that it was a sign of weakness to ask for help. That that would be a very vulnerable thing to do because it's a dog-eat-dog world. And if you ever ask for help, then the people out there would know that there was a chink in your armor. That there was a crack in the wall. And they would attack this weakness and would come right in. And so it would be very dangerous to ask for help.
And a real man solves his own problems. A real man in the American dream pulls himself up by his bootstraps. None of this stuff going around sharing and all of these things. You know, and I learned this I don't know where from books. I learned it from movies. I learned it from what I thought other people were saying. And you know, the cowboy movies are kind of like that. You have a western hero. He lives out in the desert alone with his horse.
And whenever there's trouble in town, they call on him. And he comes in and he has those black gloves on. He goes into the bar. Has a couple of drinks. He says, where's the trouble? They point out the trouble. He walks over. He shoots the guy. And the townspeople go, we love you, we love you. And he runs back out in the desert with his horse. And now there's a real man. That's a real man. That's a real man.
And you know, I think about that now. It's really weird to live alone in the desert with a horse. The whole thing about that is that was a strange thing to want to be. You know, to be like that. And I never understood things. I would hear songs. There's a song out now that I think alcoholics could well use as a theme song. It's called, I Did It My Way. I could have latched onto that when I was drinking, boy, you know.
I don't care what the rest of the world says, man. I did it my way. I'm here in jail, but I got here on my own. Everything's all right, man. I did it my way, you know. Then I would hear songs like, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. I remember the first time I heard that. I said, that must be for weird people. That must be, that's a strange thing to be popular. People who need people are lucky.
People who need people are weak. It just didn't fit into my lifestyle, you know, being a real man. Mostly I was afraid. Mostly I was afraid. That was what I remember about being an alcoholic, was being afraid.
[00:30:01]
Terrified of the truth. Terrified of the very thing that could set me free from all these fears. But I didn't know that, so I just went along doing the best I could. I feel, I like the word victim. I really do. It appears in the grapevine occasionally. I think it's in, I don't know, step four or five. We're victims, and we really are. Victims of my character defects. Victims of the way I was put together.
And all of these underlying problems that displayed themselves in alcohol. And all of these patterns that had me going off in a self-destructive manner. I didn't know how I got that way, and you know, I just, that's the way I was. And I had to live with it, and I used alcohol, and that seemed to be the best way out. I can remember before I got into daily drinking what a terrible problem it was to get through a day.
And how I got into daily drinking. You know, we don't intellectualize, I don't think, the morning drink. I don't think we're reading the New York Times and we go, hey, look at there, everybody drinks in the morning. I think I'll get some vodka and join high society. I don't think it happens that way. I think it happens maybe the way it happened to me, which was I was sitting around Squadron somewhere in the middle of the afternoon having my usual problem, which was time. The clock had stopped on the wall.
I had looked up there and it was three o'clock and my body was saying, hey, it's time to leave. There's raw nerve endings down here. There's a stomach that's on fire. We have problems. We have an emergency down here and the brain is going, forget it, man. We've got another hour and a half. We're going to stay here. We've got work to do. There's a colonel standing over there. You can't just get up and walk out and the body's going.
You're going to have to reconsider. The body was sending things up. But finally one day the body and all of the nerve endings said, listen, we've taken a vote down here. And we vote that you leave now, right now, not 4.30, right now. And I'm going, can't do it. I'm sorry. I'd like to accommodate you guys, but we've got to hang in here. And the body said, wrong. Take a look at your right arm. And I remember looking out at my right arm and a big spasm went like that.
And there was a message, a message came up. It was like a warning. And it said, that's just a warning, you know, get the hell out of here. We don't care if you have to lie. We don't care if you have to cheat. We don't care what you have to do, but you're in trouble if you don't get out of here. And so I said, well, I'll think it over. And I thought it over and I came up with some reason and left a little bit early.
You know, I compromised, split the time in half, but I was getting out of there because I had to have a drink. There was no two ways. I saw the trembling start. I saw some of the things that were going to happen. And yet I had to pretend that it wasn't happening. I had to pretend that everything was all right. I remember going into the bar after driving over there, just shaking and sweating and just knowing that the booze was almost here.
And I walked up to the bar and the bartender said, yes, sir. And I said, oh, I'm not in a hurry. Why don't you wait on him? And all of these components of my body are going, what is wrong with that man? What is he doing? Because my eyes were had given the show away. My eyes could see the alcohol right over here on the bar about six feet away. And they had sent the word down to all of these parts that needed the alcohol.
And it was like the dog on the Alpo commercial. You ever seen Ed McMahon? They don't let that dog eat for about three days and they hold that bowl of alcohol up there. And that thing is shaking and they go, man, I can hardly wait. He knows in just a second that everything is going to be all right. And that's what was going on inside of me. And here's this guy saying, oh, that's all right. Wait on him. I'm not in a hurry.
And I started to take a cigarette out and I saw somebody looking at me. And I said, suddenly realized I couldn't like that cigarette. And then I said, well, I guess my friend was going to be a little late. So why don't you go ahead and give me a triple vodka martini on the rocks. While I'm waiting for my friend. And then everything inside knew it wasn't going to be long now. And I got both hands on that thing and took three big swallows and put the glass back down and then step back from the bar and waited and waited for that magic to happen.
I waited for my higher power to go around. And it always started in my legs, which had been so rubbery. And they worked out all night. I used to get up in the morning like I'd been in the marathon.
[00:35:01]
I don't know what my legs were doing. They just went muscle spasm tight all night. And suddenly this alcohol vodka went down through those legs. And I was standing there just as solid and comfortable. I remember feeling how that felt when it came up through there. Then it came into the stomach and it was like a cold foam that puts out fires. And it just came racing through that stomach. And I just went, oh, God, does that feel good.
And then it was moving out towards those fingertips with the speed of light. It just went down and out. And all of a sudden I just felt, ooh. And I looked over. And I looked over at the guy who had been looking at me when I was reaching for my cigarettes. And I looked him back in the eye and I took a cigarette out. And I said, he thinks I've got a problem lighting this cigarette. Then I took a match and very slowly brought the match in.
Hello there. And I thought, oh, I felt good. I felt good because I was almost there. I was almost there. There was just one last little thing to be taken care of. And that was the brain. That was the last thing that got taken care of by this vodka. That was the brain that had been so distorted and was so confused. Didn't know it would go this way, that way. And couldn't make decisions. And the day was so confusing and terrifying.
And all of a sudden the vodka just rushed up my neck into my head. And it just went, please. And I took another look in the mirror. And here was a guy standing there without a problem in the world looking around. And I was standing there and I would say to myself, wonder what had me so upset when I came in here. I must really have a high-pressure job. I must really be into, you know, wow, isn't it lucky that I have alcohol.
Isn't it lucky that I have this to help me through what I have to go through every day. Isn't that lucky. And little did I know who was what and what was who. I look now about alcohol. You know, alcohol is kind of like reverse insurance. If there's any insurance salesman here, this is a new policy that we could create for alcoholics. Reverse insurance. This is, this concept works like this. A guy works very hard for his money and then he takes some of the money each day and he goes into a liquor store and he hands the money over to the guy in return for a guarantee that his tomorrow will stink.
And that's, that's the option that we purchase here. I was in there every day going, is this the right stuff? Oh yeah, you're going to be rotten tomorrow. This is it. That's good. And as long as I drank that, I would have to be back to buy another bottle. As long as I drank that, I had finally gotten to the point where the reason that I was drinking was because I'd been drinking. That was the reason that I was drinking.
I needed the booze to calm down the thing. I needed a booze to settle down the nerves. I needed it, needed it, and there was no choice. And so I had to become a daily drinker. I did it kind of a strange way. I started having withdrawals in airplanes. I started flying around in jets out of Cherry Point. And I can remember several times getting in Crusaders and I probably hadn't eaten in three or four days and I would get in there and I couldn't remember how to start it.
I would just sit in there and I said, you shouldn't fly. I mean, you know. That thought occurred to me. And I realize now why I thought that. I didn't trust the pilot of the plane that I was in, which was me. I had the feeling I was too valuable to go up with what was left. But I remember a couple of times flying around and I would have heart palpitations and then I'd lose my vision. I would just have just enough to see the instrument panel and I would say, that vision has to come back.
It has to come back. And I would fly around up there waiting for it. Flew around a couple of times with my hand on the injection seat. I said, by God, if I go out, pass out, I'm just going to pull this thing and fly out of it. And, you know, you just can't keep that up very long. So I finally did, went to the doctors. And that I do only when I realize the morticianer is waiting out there. It's the only reason I would go to a doctor.
That's the last place that I want to go, but I did. And to make a long story short, after two weeks in Pensacola, Florida, after I had gone through very extensive physicals,
[00:40:02]
they left it up to the psychiatrist to decide what was wrong. Because they couldn't find anything physically wrong. And, of course, I had lied and I had told a few stories. And the psychiatrist said, this man is suffering from a childhood fear of airplanes. We recommend that he no longer fly. And I had my wings taken away. And, boy, that was worth getting drunk over for years. I mean, it was a terrible experience to go through.
And so the Marine Corps had to decide what to do with a guy in this shape. And I was amazed when I got a set of orders to go to the Federal Aviation Agency's school in Glencoe, Georgia, to become an air traffic controller. And now I was in charge of bringing planes in in bad weather when they couldn't see the runways. So I feel very grateful that nobody died and things like that. And I was into my last year drinking.
And now I was drinking around the clock. And I went overseas and I was in charge of one of these units. So I passed on the real controlling to other people. And I just sat around and drank and didn't eat. And I lost about 35 pounds that year from malnutrition and just sort of stayed in a Quonset hut and sat around and didn't really go out much and didn't talk to people. And life was a very terrifying year to just be alone.
And I can remember one time I still had to rationalize. And I had passed out on a Saturday noon and the package store closed around 3 o'clock for inventory. And I woke up and it was about 4 minutes to 3 and I was out of booze and I needed a drink desperately. And I had left a little message to myself. Don't run out of booze. I remember seeing that little note. And I said, a lot of good that did. And my hands were shaking and I went to put my shoes on and I had taken them off with the knots still in them.
And I had run through what you run through over in Japan. You're always stepping in those banjo ditches and the leather had shrunk when it dried. And I had a fork in my hand and it was trembling. It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I had 90 seconds to go and I'm working with the fork. I thought I was going to have a heart attack on a Saturday afternoon in a little Quonset hut trying to get the shoelaces off of these things.
And finally I got on my bicycle and rode over. I was just locking up and I got a bottle of vodka and came back and poured it down. And it calmed down things a little bit. And I went, oh boy, am I glad that problem's over. But my conscience had to talk to me. And my conscience said, wait a minute. Since you're a grown man, you're 33 years old, captain of the Marine Corps, you've got six kids, you're from New Haven, you're a wonderful guy and all that.
And you're standing around on a Saturday afternoon with a fork in your hand trying to undo knots. Your life is a mess. You've got to do something about it. I remember I couldn't get this out of my mind. I had to take action. I was being forced into action. So I sat down and I honestly tried to see my way out of that. And I think I did. I went over to PX and bought a pair of loafers. And came back and really thought I had made progress.
I thought I had solved the problem. And I felt good about it. It was strange. But I was sent back from there to Quantico to become the next commandant of the Marine Corps. I was in one of these career schools, junior school, stepping stone, moving right up the ladder. And I was at junior school one day when my body stood up as if to ask a question. I had no intention of standing up that day. And I went into a grand mal seizure.
And that caused a lot of consternation. People looked around. Who is that guy? What's his name? And everybody's going, let's see. Well, I just moved up the ladder. People were moving up in seniority. There's a lot of Marines right now who are lieutenant colonels and colonels who never would have made it without me. They only looked good because they were standing next to me. On their own, they had nothing going.
But next to me, they looked so great. We'd say, God almighty, are we fortunate. So I ended up at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. So I ended up at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, and I was sent up to the tower where all the VIPs go to find out what could have caused this convulsion.
[00:45:01]
I was there about 24 hours when I went into the DTs, which explain what caused the convulsion, and I was immediately removed from that section of the hospital, and I came to, I don't know, a week or two later, back in that place where there's no doorknobs, and they take away all the sharp objects, and I came through in a bed with sides on it, like a crib, and someone wet the bed that I was in, and I remember being back in there, and you ever been back in there, were there any Clay class people, basket weavers, okay, and they wouldn't give you matches, and you had to keep a cigarette going, there was three of us back there trying to keep a cigarette going 24 hours a day, and one guy would smoke, and the other guy would lie over there trying to rest, and there was a fourth guy, it was a Navy captain over here in the, way over in the corner, he couldn't get in on this, he had to keep his cigarette going all by himself 24 hours a day, and I remember looking over, and I said, now there's a guy whose life is unmanageable, there's a guy with a real problem, you know, I'm all right, and a corpsman came around a few weeks later, and he said, all you drunks fall in, right face, and I was at an AA meeting, and I really hated that, and I told the guy afterwards, I said, listen, if I ever run into a guy with a problem, I'll send him around, it sounds like you've got some answers here, and he said, let me ask you one question, which one of us is going to go home tonight to his family, and which one of us is going to put his little blue bathrobe on, and go upstairs and get locked up like an animal, and I really resented him, and I resented the troop very much, and that was before the Navy had its alcohol program, we were just all mixed in with the other people, and boy, alcoholics were down at the bottom of the line, I mean, schizophrenics looked down at it, and neurotics looked down at it, and you know, they would find out I was an alcoholic, they wouldn't talk to me anymore, they'd just walk away, and a pecking order soon set in, and I realized that the position that I had skyrocketed to at that moment in time was low man in a nut ward, you know, the other mental patients were looking down on the alcoholics, and you know what those damn people used to say, I'll never get over this, these are the people that are locked up in a mental institution, at group therapy, they used to turn to us alcoholics, and you know what they used to say, they used to say, you know what you guys ought to do, you ought to stop drinking, you know, wow, you know, the next time I heard that was in AA.
Anyway, I'm very grateful that the corpsman marched me down there, because even though I did have another drink, and went into a brief encounter for about a couple of months and really got desperate, and dialed operator and said, please help, help, and a huge guy showed up at my house, and he walked in and he said, hi, my name is Bill, and this is a 12-step call, I talk, you listen. It was sort of a strange relationship that got started right there, and it was my house, and he just sort of, and he just came in, and he said, okay, here's what we're going to do, you're the wife, get over here, you sit down here, and okay, now this guy's going to be busy for six weeks, and we're going to be going to a meeting every night, is there any booze in the house? Oh, there is, and I watched him, he's poured it all out, and I'm going, sir, could I ask some questions?
Would you like to hear about me and everything? No. And we went to a meeting, and I'm in an AA meeting, and I'm sitting there, my first AA meeting, I've been sober seven hours. Do you remember seven hours? Sitting on the hands, and I'm going, I think maybe there's some booze in the, no, there has to be some booze somewhere, and I spent the whole night, couldn't find any, and he had told me when we got out of the car, okay, you, don't drink, and I'll pick you up tomorrow night at 7.30, goodbye, and he drove off.
Now I had a problem, and he was so big and so mean looking, I decided to postpone my drink until the next night, until I got rid of him, and he came back, we're off to a meeting again, and we come back, and I started to tell him how busy I was, I had a social schedule and all that, and he said, okay, don't drink, I'll pick you up tomorrow at the same time,
[00:50:06]
and all of a sudden, time was going by, and lo and behold, I had been sober for 30 days, and I started hearing things at meetings, the alcohol was coming out of my system, and to make a long story short, in the next two or three months, what I really heard was, there was certain nucleus of people in AA that I identified with, and they had a sparkle in their eye, and they had a smile on their face, and they had a zest for living, and every single one of them said that they got it from the 12 steps, they got it from the 12 steps, and it seemed to work like this, that you had to not drink in order to work the 12 steps so that you won't drink.
That was what had to be done. It wasn't just not drinking. We had to fix all the things that were wrong, or odds are, I was back to drinking. And so I got a hold of the 12 steps and took them all around 45 minutes. I was very fast, very fast. Went right through them and sat there waiting for the spiritual awakening. I wanted this feeling, they all talked about it, the peace of mind, that marvelous feeling that comes in, and it really didn't happen.
But on the other hand, I was glad I read through that book. At least I had seen all the words in the 12 steps. And there came the time as I worked through the first and the second that I came to the one that gave me the most trouble, which was the third step. Because when I got to that step, I was suddenly confronted with God again, and I suddenly had a childhood fear explode inside of me. And I called my sponsor and I said, is this step referring to the God? I mean, you know, the real God, the one there.
And he came over and I told him about the emergency that I had and we had to do something about this. And he sat down and burst into hysterics, which he always does with my problems. I don't know what he does with his problems. My problems are always funny to him. He sat down and, oh, you've got the God problem, huh? And I'm going, I've got a God problem. You don't know the God. I've got 275,000 years minimum to do in purgatory.
And you turn my life over to him. He's the one that got me for this. I was this big. I'm not turning my life over to him. We've got a problem here. He said, wait a minute. You don't have to understand anything about God at all to turn your life over. He says, we're going to go. You're kind of a weird taste. You have a lot of problems. We're going to have to do something a little bit different. He said, I'll tell you what we'll do. Why don't we have you turn your life over to whatever will take it.
And then we'll have the miracle. And I like the miracle part. I heard about the miracles in AA. And I said, we will have the miracle? And he said, yes, I'll guarantee you a miracle if you will do that. So I said, okay, I'm going to go out. What's the miracle? He said, the miracle is that the management of your life will no longer be in the hands of an idiot. So I stood back rather skeptically watching this whole procedure.
I felt like I'd been had. Turned my life over to the group. And I said, you guys want to go ahead. I'll do anything you suggest. You got it. I'll watch. But boy, you're going to hear from me because, you know, and I'm here tonight to report. Jeez, you're doing a nice job. I'm very satisfied with this. And it's from that that I came to understand who God is my own God. It came to me through the difference between turning my life over and not turning it over.
God to me is the difference between living a life with and without God. I don't have to understand God. I just want a God who understands me. And that's what's happened. And I know that he understands me. He accepts me for all my faults and all the problems that I have. He says, you're all right. You're doing fine. Don't drink. Go to meetings. You know, hang in there. Everything's all right. And I'm glad to hear that.
I'm like a little boy who wanders off and is, you know, and all we want is our mother. Then we come running home. We've been scared by a dog. And my mother says, it's all right. You know, that's what happens to me. And I run out there and I have a big problem. Like I'm running in and my wife says, it's all right. And I go, are you sure? And he says, yes. Okay.
[00:55:02]
Okay. That's good enough for me. If you say it's all right, it's all right. You know, and all that's happening is that something's changing inside of me. And the second it changes, the world's all right. The world's all right. And you know, if there's anybody new here, and I hope there are some new people, there's one last thing that I think you have to do in order to have the miracle of A.A. take place.
All you have to do, if you do, is don't drink. Turn your life over to God and get rid of all of your old ideas. That's all we ask. That's all we ask that you do. When I heard about turning over all my old ideas, I realize now that all of my old ideas was my whole game plan for living. My whole plan, everything, every conviction, every attitude, every prejudice, everything that I had about the world are my ideas.
And it was like carrying around a 150 pound rock. But it was my rock. It was mine. I put this thing together. This was the real me, was this rock. And I came in here, and it was like I was in the ocean of alcoholism, and A.A. threw me a life preserver. And I'm hanging on to that rock. I'm not going to let that thing go. This is my rock. And they're yelling out there, drop the rock. I'm hanging on to the life preserver, and the boat's going along, and I'm going under with the rock and hanging on.
I got the thing. And they're going, hey, drop the rock. I was down under. Everybody's going to scream up here. Come on up. I said, how do I get up there? They said, drop the rock. I said, hey, I don't want to drop the rock. It's mine. And so finally one day, I don't know, something terrible happened. It took my attention away, and I dropped it. And I was terrified. I said, here goes my rock. And while I was looking down there, I was like a water skier.
I came up on the top of the water. And I'm going, what the hell do I want that rock for anyway? And, you know, that's it. Why do we want to hold on to those old ideas with a death grip? I'll never know. It's one of the paradoxes in AA. And so if you're new, I hope this happens to you. And I want to be sitting out there next year, the year after that, whenever it takes place, because this is how I'll know about God even more.
I want to be out there when you, some new person out there, standing up here, and you've got that sparkle in your eye, and you've got that full vitality going about Alcoholics Anonymous, and you're looking at some new guy and you're saying, drop the rock. It's the greatest. Thank you.