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Source: DICOBE-00658 – Conway H – SPRINGTIME IN THE OZARKS – 1979-04-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00658-conway-h-springtime-in-the-ozarks-1979-04-15.mp3 Duration: 01:17:40
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Hi, everybody. My name is Conway H., and I am an alcoholic. I'm also a physician. I'm licensed to practice medicine and surgery in the state of Georgia. I'm married and I have a family. Now, you'll notice, though, that I say that I'm an alcoholic first. This is the way that I live, and this is the way that I conduct all of my affairs, and this is always the way that I start my talk. Because it's important for me for you to know that I realize that any time that I should ever forget that I'm an alcoholic, then I go back to what I was.
And I was the most lonely, miserable, lost, sick, sorry, suffering human being that you can imagine. And right now I'm one of the most nervous ones you can imagine. And Dave told me that little story, you know, and I want to thank you for that introduction. That's one of the most honest ones I've ever had. There are wonders for my humility. And I am sure any time I have any ego problems, all I've got to do is remember Dave S.
It seems like that you always give me what I need. And I especially feel that way this morning. There have been some tremendously significant events in my life that have developed over the past few days, some crises of one degree or another, some things that have given me all kinds of internal discomfort. And I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, because I'm with you people.
You are the people that took me in when literally no one else would have me. You loved me back to health and to sanity. You restored my soul and you gave me everything that I have today. And I owe it all to you. But by God's grace and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would not be here today. We're going to spend a considerable amount of time talking about that. But before we get into it, and I do want to start talking about miracles, there are a few things I do want to do.
Harold talked last night about having butterflies. I want to go on record, I have buzzards. I'm the last speaker, so anybody top it after me. I do want to thank the committee. I think they've done a tremendous job. There's an awful lot of work that goes into putting on a program like this. And it has really run smooth. From the moment we got here, I have really been impressed with the amount of time and effort that Harlan and Gene, the other members of the committee, from the time I walked into the room and there were flowers on the table and a little handwritten note saying, welcome and we love you, and things like that.
The little gift, the little dogwood blossom that was there. And the convention center staff itself has been great. And the previous speakers that we've had, I'm sorry I didn't get the privilege to hear them, but how about Bert and Carol and Bob and Juanita and Harold last night? How about a big hand for them? Applause And I especially want to thank the people that came with me that made all this possible.
John and Sue and Darcy. And I want to tell you about these miracles. They have a way of happening in my life. When I was asked to come be on this program, I accepted and then it was quickly pointed out to me that I was supposed to be in another meeting
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in another state even further west.
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Laughter And I didn't think that it was any way in the world possible for me to get from that… Laughter You all right, boy? Laughter To get over here. But to solve my dilemma, John and Sue and Darcy worked the things out. And with their tremendous help and giving their time and all to come and fly me over here in an AA airplane with an AA pilot and an Al-Nan stewardess and… Laughter I'm telling you, you just can't ask for much more than that.
But that isn't all of the miracles. You see, we left and we came over here and John was worried and he's very meticulous and he calls flight service and all these things about weather, you know, I don't know enough to worry about these things. But anyhow, there was a heavy fog that came in yesterday morning and came down over this area. And you know this little airport up here, it doesn't have all those new things, you know, and we also lost our radar.
I said, don't worry, it's going to be all right. We came right over the airport, the clouds parted, the plane came down and we landed. And then this nice gentleman drove up in his car there, walked out to greet us, Ralph W., who just happened to be there at the airport. So even our ground welcoming committee had been previously arranged. A coincidence. A coincidence. I'll say more about coincidences as we go along.
But suffice it to say that this particular moment in time that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, and I'll take that one step further, that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. And this is a wonderful way to live my life. I don't have to run and I don't have to hide and I don't have to lie and I don't have to cheat anymore. Because, you see, I have you people and a program called Alcoholics Phenomenal.
I was born and raised in Atlanta and I lived there all my life. I have a father who is a physician and my mother was a teacher and also a Sunday school teacher. I have an older sister. Now when I came along my mother realized that I wasn't the smartest thing that ever come this way. So she spent a lot of extra time with me. She taught me how to study and how to concentrate and how to get a lot out of a little bit of time and how to abstract material and all these things enabled me to go a long way.
She also instilled in me a very deep and a very strong spiritual foundation which I was to lose. I was to completely turn against the God of my childhood. But we had a very happy family, a very close family, a very warm family and I did all the things. I had a real happy childhood. I came along during the Depression and there wasn't a whole lot to go around and my daddy was one of those doctors that people paid and turned greens and chickens and eggs and things like that.
But I never ever remember wanting for anything. I guess one of the main things we had is the very close relationships and a lot of love. Somewhere about the age of 12 all of this was taken from me and my whole life began to change. My mother became quite ill with a form of progressive illness and I was to lose her and my team. My father was gone from home most of the time and my sister is quite older.
And this is where I first remember experiencing the feeling that I was different from other people. I was different from you. Oh, I could wear the same clothes, I had the same kind of toys or the same kind of hat or the same kind of baseball bat or whatever, yet me and my things were different from other people. I forgot to tell you about taking my first drink home
[00:10:00]
and that was when I was about five years old when I had the whooping cough. Now, whooping cough back then was a real serious illness and people that had it, you know, it were these spasms of coughing and a lot of people died from the whooping cough. Well, I remember it real well and I had these spasms all. One night I ran down the hall and I grabbed my daddy around his legs and I just stood there and my little body was just racking in these spasms of coughing and he put me in the bathroom and he stood me up on the sink and he poured out about that much alcohol and immediately the coughing stopped.
Immediately. So you see, my very first experience with alcohol, it solved the need, it gave me relief and I could sleep and the rest of the family could sleep too. Now, I don't think I've got a thing in the world to do with me being an alcoholic, but I think it's interesting. What is significant of it is the fact that I remember it so well. Here's something that happened 45 years ago, 45 and 550, if anybody's having any trouble.
He took me in, he stood me up, and he poured out that much and I drank it down and immediately the coughing stopped. It is significant because I do believe that something happens to us in our lives when we are first united with this magic elixir called booze. How many times do you hear people relating their stories described in detail their very first drink? Now, you don't remember your very first root beer or Coca-Cola or anything like that, but we remember in detail our very first drink.
But I did have a happy childhood and up until about the age of 12. And then my whole life changed, as I said, just like in the fall of the year when all the leaves will begin to fall off these beautiful trees out here. And this happened in my life too. And then I began my search to try to find a place where I'll be comfortable, a place where I will be accepted, a place where I will belong, a place where I'll be needed.
Now, I know my family loved me. They loved me as much as they could. But for some reason or other, it wasn't enough. And I certainly didn't feel needed by anybody at that time. Alone and different. Well, I went on, I made real good grades in school, not because I'm so smart, but because my mother taught me how to study. I went through high school, and there was a little drinking in high school, no problem drinking, just typical teenage show-off drinking, and that was all.
I still pulled away. I joined many organizations and clubs and things, and trying to find the answer, and I couldn't find the answer. I never felt comfortable during this period of time. I came home late one Sunday afternoon, and by now my mother was completely paralyzed. And I went and I sat beside her bed, and she reached over and took my hand, and she raised up in the bed a feat she had not been able to accomplish for many months.
A beautiful smile came on her face. She said, this is my son. And then she died. That was a tremendous loss to me, tremendous loss to me. I was very close to my mother, and I could not accept this. And for many years I could not reflect on this without pain and guilt and all the things I should have done. But now that I look back on that, and I especially was thinking about her yesterday when we were driving over, and we looked up and saw the beautiful, beautiful, picturesque picture of the Christ, of the Old South, how she would have loved that.
And I think how privileged and how fortunate I was to have had such a beautiful lady for a mother, such a beautiful lady. But anyhow, I lost her. I went on, I finished high school, and I went to college. I moved out of my home. My father remarried after a while, and the home was quite uncomfortable, and I left. By now my sister had moved out of town, so I was even more alone. And I went on and went to college.
These were the early war years. There was a tremendous acceleration of pace. I did quite well. I finished my four-year curriculum in three years. My four-year curriculum in three years, and then I was accepted to medical school.
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Up until quite recently, I have not been able to talk about this too much, except to say that there was some things that happened in my life then that I wasn't able to share. I met and had known a beautiful girl named Jean. We were in sweethearts, I guess, in college. And she had some problems in her family, too, and we were married. Two waists, I guess, in the storm, but we loved each other very much.
They were two children, and then I lost her through a terrible illness, and I also lost these two children who were brought up by their grandparents and were taught to hate me because I was the one that was responsible for their mother's death. Now this young man and this young woman have come back into my life, and the only way that I can answer it is that the promises are true, because now I realize that God did something for me that there was no way in this world that I could ever have done.
This young man and this young woman now have come back to their father, and we have a wonderful relationship, and they love their daddy. Well, I still get very emotional, and I probably will as we go on, because that's part of it. Because I feel so good, my cup runneth over. And if we were to spend the rest of this morning talking about my gratitude, it wouldn't be enough, because I am so grateful.
Well, I went on, and after that I finished medical school. I went to Grady Hospital. During medical school, though, I drank more and more, and during the tragedies that occurred in that period of life, I found myself deep into alcohol. I drank so much that my grades deteriorated, and I fell from the upper tenths of the class down to the lower thirds. I finally graduated in the lower third of the class.
I don't know how low, Dave, they were kind, but it was pretty low. It was down there about the bottom, you know. But anyhow, I graduated, and then I went to intern at Grady Hospital. Now, that's a big city hospital there in Atlanta, and back then it was spread out all over three or four blocks, and there were double services, and it was the war years, and they only had four of us surgery interns for that whole Grady Hospital.
And that was, we saw an awful lot of folks. And if you'll get the picture now, I worked 36 hours on, I had 12 hours off, and we worked around the clock. There was seldom time to sleep, and we'd, you know, go from operating room table to operating room table, and they'd bring you a ham sandwich and a pint of milk or lemonade, and you'd keep right on working. I can remember standing at the suture line in an emergency room, and we had two real active emergency rooms, and just standing there putting in stitches 24 hours in a row, and not even being relieved except for anything for biological reasons.
This is important, because I stopped drinking during this period of time. First place, I was too tired. So when my 12 hours off came, if I went home, I'd go to sleep, go to bed. And also, by working with these people, they appreciated it. I wasn't much, but I was all they had, and they appreciated it. And now this, maybe, is satisfying some need in me, because up until now in my life, nobody needed me for nothing.
And I knew it. But they did, and they responded. And so maybe that was necessary for me. I don't know.
[00:20:00]
But I did stop drinking during this period of time. Then I entered into my specialty, and I forgot to tell you, I am a specialist. I'm a lady's doctor. And for many years, I was a first assistant to the stork. Now, I don't deliver babies anymore, and I haven't in a good while, and the reason for that is that because now I spend most of my time working with alcoholics and alcoholism, and this is the place where I belong, and this is where I'm the most comfortable.
But anyhow, I went on, and I finished my training, and after I finished the five years of specialty work there, I met another girl, one of the nurses there at the hospital, and I had been alone and different from other people and afraid, and I had had this tragic loss of these people that I loved. We fell in love, and after a while, we decided to get married, and we did, and I was drafted. Just about in that order.
They don't really draft doctors, though, but they send you a letter, and they say you better. And being the coward that I am, of course I did. Well, this was not a bad idea. We got married, and I was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and that's where they send all doctors to make soldiers out of them. But they haven't got any idea of making a soldier out of a doctor in the first place, Max, so this wasn't anything in the world except for six weeks vacation with pay.
And this pay thing was important, too, because all that time up until now, all we got was $10 a month and all the milk we could drink, and that was it. But now I'm an officer, I'm a gentleman, I'm entitled to a salary, I have somebody that loves me, somebody that cares for me, and I remember driving from Atlanta out to Fort Sam Houston, and boy, this is one of the happiest times of my life. And when I got there, you know, well, the shooting war had stopped, and so everything was real relaxed, and we really had a ball.
This was the country club of the Army, you know, and there was a party going on all the time around the clock. You never ever had to look for one. You're usually right in the middle of one the whole time. And it was very relaxed, and we outranked most of our instructors. Like, I can remember going to formation in the morning, and if it was raining, you'd take an umbrella, and… I could read the newspaper, you know, while you're standing up there.
It really was about the best way that I can sum up my Army career. As I know that most of you people have seen the picture show with a television sequel called M.A.S.H. Well, it's true. No, we worked hard, and we played hard. And don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of it. There are a lot of hard-working, dedicated Army docs that are doing a tremendous job, and that's great, but this was a lot of fun time, too, and I really enjoyed it.
When I finished my training, I received orders to go to Fort… I was to be in charge of a base hospital in Orleans, France. And I received orders to go to Orleans, France. Now, my wife couldn't go with me, so we were going to have to be separated again. I never did get to Orleans, France. I got all the way to Fort Dix. My orders were changed, and I was reassigned to Fort Eustis, Virginia. A coincidence. A coincidence.
Dig, whoever it is around here that's in charge of writing these things down, I want them to write it down. I don't believe in coincidences. Or as my mother used to say, there are no trifles in life. But it seems as if the commanding general's wife at a large Army base, Fort Eustis, was pregnant and expecting a baby. And I was the only one available to handle this military emergency. Well, I was sent from Fort Dix down to the Pentagon.
My wife met me in the Pentagon, and we drove down through that beautiful Shenandoah Valley, you know, and my whole world turned around. And the birds were singing, and the grass was green, and the sky was blue, and the clouds moved aside, and this was another one of the happiest times of my life. And I remember when we drove through those gates there,
[00:25:01]
and those MPs snapped to attention. I said, boy, that's a classy outfit here. From the moment I drove through those gates, I was the commanding general's wife's doctor. Now, wherever the commanding general went, the commanding general's wife went, the commanding general's wife's doctor went. We took the yacht out on the James River, commanding general, commanding general's wife, commanding general's wife's doctor.
We took the helicopters to New York for the weekend, commanding general, commanding general's wife, commanding general's wife's doctor. Everywhere the commanding general and his lady went, the little doctor went, too. And this is, again, a real swinging way that's been two and a half years in the service. I will have to say, though, she did have a nice baby boy who I am sure someday will be a commanding general, just like his father and his grandfather.
And this will have to go as my contribution to the defense of the United States. Thank you. Oh, we had a wonderful time. I really did like these folks, and I enjoyed Army life. If anybody had a job like mine, they would have to. And I almost stayed and went in the regular Army, but I didn't because of the filial obligation of duty or calling or whatever it was that I had to come back and go to work with my father.
Ever since my earliest recollection, I knew exactly what I wanted to do in life. And there's no way that I can relate or understand that the young folks now who are all going around trying to find where it's at or what's happening or who's doing it or what, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to grow up and be a doctor like my daddy, and I wanted to work with my daddy. And this is what I did.
And I finished that time in the service, and I came back to Atlanta to work with my father. And if you'll get the picture now, here I am, a native son, been to school here all my life. My father has a large practice, an excellent reputation. I'm known by almost everybody in the community, the ones I don't know, my daddy does know. So the members of the medical profession literally rolled out the carpet for me, and I was put on more jobs and given more assignments and more committees and teaching here and lecturing there.
And, you know, they were doing all these things about like I thought they should. All except, all except my father. And you know everywhere I went, he went too. And every time I wrote an order, he was right there looking over my shoulder to see what I wrote. And every time I turned around, he was right behind me. He was supervising everything that I did. It was just like he didn't trust me. And here I was, a young hero, returning from the wars, received the finest training the country had to offer, and I couldn't get…
I wanted him to go away. I was ready to put him out in the pasture, you see. You know, it was a… and I resented it. I did not realize until one day I was making one of these talks that it wasn't the fact that he didn't trust me. He wanted to be with me. This man loved me as much as any father ever loved a son. He just wanted to be with me. But anyhow, I resented it, and I turned away from him. And now my wife began to have children.
And I resented these babies. I resented these babies being born, coming in here and interfering with this romance I'd had with this girl that had joined with me to laugh with me and to be with me, to keep me comfortable and take care of all my needs and share with and all. And I resented these babies being born, and I resented her for having them, too. I guess I thought she did it all by herself. But you see what happens now.
I turn completely away.
[00:30:02]
And now, as I'm getting busy and working and going to all these committees and things, I begin to drink more and more and more. For a while, I didn't drink the nights that I was on call. Again, as I would go out and I'd see the other doctors drinking, you know, and having a drink or two, and I'd say, well, if it's all right for them, it's all right for me. And it is all right for them, most of the time.
But now, if you'll get the picture, you would go out and meet, have cocktails, go to dinner, go to the medical meeting, and then you'd go to the hospital or go home, and that was the drill for the night, at least once a week. Well, if I went out and we had a couple of drinks, to heck with the dinner and the meeting, let's go on with the drinking. And this is the way now that I'm beginning to live my life.
I turn away from the people that love me, and I begin to drink more and more and more. And as I do now, I begin to build up my wall of jealousies and tears and resentment, and the only thing that I can take comfortably back behind that wall with me is my bottle. This is the way now that I'm beginning to live my life, and there's absolutely no question in my mind at this point in time if when I stepped across that invisible but completely irreversible line into the disease of active alcoholism.
This is the point in which once you go across it, you don't ever come back. You don't ever become unalcoholic, and I don't care what the RAM report says. As one of our friends says, once a cucumber becomes a pickle, you don't ever go back to being a cucumber again. And now I'm well pickled. But as it will, I kept working, you know, and going on, and I was busy, and I was doing all this drinking, and anybody that was doing the things that I was doing, something had to happen to it.
And Monday morning, October the 1st of 1962, I had a massive heart attack. I was taken to the hospital, and for a while, I didn't know if I would live, and then they certainly didn't know if I would ever work again. I became very depressed and very bitter, and this is where I turned against my God. Why did you do this thing to me? Here I am, a young man who's worked all of my life just to get to this point in time where I can be of service to myself and others, to be cast down helpless here in this bed, not even able to bathe myself.
The height of indignity is not being able to bathe myself. Why did you do this to me? Now looking back over this, this is nothing in the world except the good Lord reaching down, grabbing me up, shaking me a little bit, sitting me back down and saying, Look, who are you, where did you come from, and where are you going? A wonderful opportunity to get out of this rat race. All excuses made and all expenses paid.
Plenty of time to get out, to recover, to change my life. I got no benefit out of it. I became very depressed, very bitter. Oh, I wouldn't even let them draw the blinds in the room, let the sunlight in. Too many cards and flowers. Leave me alone. Can't you see my grief? Leave me alone in my misery. Well, I didn't die. I left, and I went down to stay with my sister to recover, who by now had moved to St. Simon's Island.
St. Simon's Island is a little island down off the coast of Georgia that I want to tell you a minute or two about, because it plays a tremendous role in my recovery. If those of you who can, if you ever have the opportunity to go there, I want you to go. Now you go down through Georgia and down off the coast, you drive down across the river, and then the last bridge you cross over, you come to this beautiful little island.
And the first thing that you're impressed with is how green everything is. And then you're impressed with the massive trees, these tall and stately pines, and the great, the gigantic live oak.
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The live oak, you know, that's 10, 15, 20 feet in diameter and it has the large limbs, and the limbs go out. You know, each one of these trees is a picture within its own self. And the limbs go down to the heaven, and then they lift their branches up, and the Spanish moss dances up in the tops of these trees, and the wind blows, and there's music there. If you ever get a chance, I want you to go. And for some reason or other, and I don't know, and I never have had it explained, but I am able to be closer to the God of my understanding here than I have anywhere else.
But I'll tell you this, yesterday when I looked across those mountains, and I saw that magnificent statue, I had some of the same feelings, as if these grounds are hallowed themselves, and if you will, that God's presence is so real, that you can feel it as it comes into your very pores. Well, I stayed down there with my sister for a while. I got my strength back. I would walk along the beach, and I got strong.
I came back, I came back to go to work, and after a while I did, and I joined my father in the practice of medicine again. And then, you know anybody who's ever had any trouble with their heart is not supposed to get nervous. Anybody who's had any trouble with their heart is supposed to sleep every night. And everybody knows alcohol's good to dilate the blood vessels of the heart with. You're ahead of me.
And so there I was, I had tranquilizers to keep me calm, sleeping pills to make sure I slept, and alcohol to wash it all down with. Now, I don't think they meant for me to do it all at the same time, but I did, and this is where I feel like I'm qualified to speak as a drug addict, because I took everything that was out at that time after I thought it would make me feel better, except Myles Nervine and Lydia Pinkham.
And I would have taken them too if they'd come in samples. You know, taking those pills like that, you never have to worry about what to do with the empties. I would like to say a word or two about these pills, though, because I think it's the most dangerous thing. This is off the record. This is the most dangerous thing that faces most of us today, one of the most dangerous things. I am an addict.
I am a total addict, and I believe that I could get addicted to an empty gelatin cat soup if you told me it'd make me feel better. And I believe that the same thing happens to other alcoholics. And so there's no question in my mind that these other drugs, these mood elevators, these uppers, these downers, they even got one there called a tricyclic, makes you go all three ways. These are addicting to me, an alcoholic, and I believe they are to all other alcoholics.
And we all have a drug of choice. My drug of choice, ladies and gentlemen, is Scotch Whiskey. So I'm not going to fool around with any Elevil, or Melaril, or Transine, or Librium, or Cerax, or Valium, or you name it. If I'm going to go back to it, I'm going to start with the one that I want the most, and that's going to be Scotch Whiskey, but it's going to be a swimming pool full. Now, I am not telling any of you to stop taking the medicine that your doctor has you on.
This is wrong. Most doctors are well-meaning folks, and they'll do what we ask them to do most of the time. I am telling you that it is your responsibility to make sure that your doctor knows that your system cannot tolerate these drugs. We are the ones who are going to have to pay the price. It's not our doctors, and they don't mean to get us in trouble. It's up to us. But anyhow, I was doing all these things and taking all these drugs, you know, and they called me to come down to the hospital one night,
[00:40:02]
and they had a real bad case down there. It wasn't my case, and I wasn't on call, but it was a real bad emergency, and they called me in the middle of the night and said, we need you, would you come? And yes, I put on my coat, you know, and I got dressed, and I got in my car, and I raced down the expressway, you know, ego running wild. I'm a doctor on an emergency, sort of hoping a policeman might stop me, you know, and he'll give me the light all the way in.
Well, he didn't, but I pulled up to the emergency room door, you know, and I left the motor running and the lights on and the car door open, and I went in that emergency room, you know, some sort of a combination of Walter Mitty and Superman. Have no fear, Conway is here. Well, the case went real well, and everything would have been all right if I had kept my mouth shut, Dave, but you know no practicing alcoholic is going to keep his mouth shut.
So I had to tell them how lucky they were to have me down there. And I did. Well, the next morning when I came down to go to work, there were people around, a little group, and they were whispering to me, but yet they were looking at me. And as one of my friends said, they were looking at me sort of slong-shy. Now, whenever they're doing that, they're talking about you. And you know they're talking about you because you can feel it right here.
Well, it didn't take long, I got called down to the administrator's office and told no uncertain terms don't ever come back to this hospital under the influence. Well, I'd sobered up enough to keep my mouth shut, so I left and I went out and I got in the car and I drove on over to the office, but driving over there, I just got filled up with righteous indignation. Here I was, I wasn't on call, that wasn't my patient, but I went down there in the middle of the night and I saved that woman's life.
And here these narrow-minded, unappreciative people are talking about those two or three little drinks I had. Well, maybe I did have a sleeping pill or two, too, but narrow-minded, unappreciative, you see? Well, I pulled over and I reached up under the seat and I got that hot vodka bottle. My friends, there's nothing quite like hot vodka. That thing chills up my spine when I think about it, but it does have authority.
You know what I mean. Well, I went on over to my office and by then my father had heard the news and then I came up and walked down the hall and he came to greet me and he was a small man about my size and he had white hair and had the prettiest pair of gray-blue eyes and they always twinkled and he had a smile that just wouldn't wait a minute and he came up to me and when he did I saw the eyes mist and I saw the tears form and I knew what he wanted to say.
He wanted to say, go home, son. So he didn't. He came over and he put his arm around me and he said, it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. Well, as it often happens to us alcoholics, I kept getting promotions and falling up the fare. And I finally got put on the executive committee of the whole hospital. Now that's the committee who decides what they're going to do and who they're going to hire and who they're going to fire and how much money they're going to spend and what policies we're going to proceed with and so forth and this was quite an honor to anyone at my age at that particular time.
And they called me up. They asked me to come down and be sure to be at that meeting and it was in the dead of winter. They never call anybody else up, but they called me. And I don't know why yet. And if any of y'all do, I don't think I want you to tell me. But anyhow, they called me up to be sure to be there at that meeting that morning. And I got up and it was in the wintertime and it was real cold.
In the wintertime, and it was real cold, and I had on a suit, and an overcoat, and a hat, and a muffler, and gloves, and dark glasses.
[00:45:05]
This was before daylight. And I got in that meeting, and they had already started, and I went in, and they were all sitting around in these chairs, and I sat down exactly as I described, and every eye in that room followed me all the way over, and watched me sit down. And all conversation stopped. And once again, they were all looking at me, and I knew they were looking at me, and I didn't know what to do. I passed out.
Boy, this really shook them up, you know. They knew I'd had this trouble with my heart. They said, oh my Lord, he's dead. One big old fella handed me up in his arms, and going around, they were pulling my collar loose, you know, and putting oxygen over my nose, and there were bells ringing, and if they'd had a siren, they would have blown that, and here I was coming in and out of consciousness, you know, saying, please let it be a dream, please let it be a dream.
Well, it wasn't any dream. Finally, when I woke up, they had me in an oxygen tent, and they had something hooked up to everything you can hook up something to. Everything. And then the nurses would come in, you know, and then the doctors would come in, and the doctors would come in, and they would listen to my heart, and they would look at the heart tracings, you know, and then they would frown. There wasn't anything wrong with the heart.
I was a medical mystery. I saw the mystery form. I went into the DTs. Oh, I heard things, and I saw things, and I hired people, and I fired people. I straightened out that entire 300-bed hospital, you know, and here I was running up and down the hall in that little outfit, you know, about here, and it was me, and then the nurses, and the nuns, and the orderlies, and the interns, and we were going this way and coming back that way, and it was Christmas time, and there was Christmas trees, and there was angels and cows, and some of it was real, and some of it wasn't.
It was all real to me, you know. Well, I woke up one morning, and I was getting ready to go home, because I knew it was almost Christmas, and I started getting my clothes together and putting my things together, and the nurse that was with me said, Well, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to go home and be with my children for Christmas. This is a hospital. It's not a jail. You can't keep me here, and I know my rights, and this is what I'm going to do.
She said, Well, will you talk to your doctors? I said, Yeah, get them down here. Well, they tried to reason with me, but there was no reasoning. Finally, they called my father up and said, You've got to come get him. You've got to do something with him. He's dangerous. He's disturbing the hospital. We can't keep him here any longer. So on Christmas Day, my father came to get me to take me to the local drunk hospital in Atlanta.
This is a man that loved me more than any father ever loved a son that I know about. This is a man that taught me more about medicine than I've ever read in any textbook. This is a man that taught me about love and about compassion and about always maintaining the respect and the rights of every human being. My friends, when I think of the pain, the heartache, the embarrassment that I caused this man, it's almost more than I can bear.
But bear it I will and share it I will because you are the ones that make it possible because you understand how this man felt when he took his son to the local drunk hospital.
[00:50:06]
I must tell you also about my experiences there in the hospital. I don't remember much about it because they did all the wrong things that you can do. They gave me more and more drugs and more and more medicine. I don't remember much at all about what happened. I lost my mind during this period of time. The things I do remember, none of them were pleasant. I remember being strapped down to the table all night long.
I remember being put in a straitjacket. I remember the screams. I remember the fears. I remember the pains in the back after the convulsions when I was strapped to the table. I remember the screams. I remember waking up and looking at my fingers and seeing the blood encrusted around my nails where I'm trying to claw myself out of the closet where I was hiding from whatever it was that was answering me.
I remember the screams. I remember the fears. And may I never forget it. May I never forget it. And of course that now is why I'm doing what I'm doing now and I promise you, I promise you that I am responsible for you and every other one of us that there is around. And I will do everything in this world I can, I promise you, in my life to keep you from going through what I went through. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing today.
And this is part of the reason that my life has unfolded so beautifully and so completely. I finally left that hospital though. I don't remember much about it. I don't remember leaving at all. And they sent me down to St. Simon's Island. They sent me. I couldn't even have found my own way home. But once again I went down to live with my sister. I stayed down there with her for a little while. I used to walk along the beach and I discovered the ocean.
I'd been there many times before but it was as if this were the first ocean that I'd ever seen or had ever walked. And something began to happen inside of me. And think about that. I became aware of the tremendous power, the tremendous force. Think about it when you hear the ocean roar, the mighty ocean roar. You can feel the power. But it is a controlled power. It is a divine power. And as the waves go out and the tides go out, there's no question in your mind that the next one's going to come back in.
And as I would watch the little birds and the fiddler crabs and the fishies, something began to happen inside of me. There's a beautiful little white church there that goes back many, many years ago. And I would stand in front of that church and I would look at the people. I wouldn't go in. I didn't need to. And I was filled with awe. I would sit underneath the great live oak. And I began to experience the peace.
The best way that I can describe this is the absence of fear. I have never known an alcoholic yet that wasn't scared to death. The absence of fear. It was as safe and secure as I must have felt when my mother held me in her arms. And I knew that as long as I remained there, that it was there for me. Oh, how I wished I could have embraced that oak tree and said, give me some of your strength, because I knew that it was there.
I stayed down there just a little while longer. I came back to go to work. And this was no small feat in itself, because once you go into the DTs, they all know what's wrong with you. And this is where my friends in the medical profession almost killed me. Almost killed me with kindness, because they covered up for me. And they said, Conway, we want you to come on back. They had a special meeting at the hospital and invited me to it. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have to say anything.
They said, hey, we want you to come back. We want you to go back to work, but keep it under control. Keep it under control. My friends, by now I'm a hopeless addict to the drug alcohol. I can't go over two hours at a time without taking a drink. Keep it under control.
[00:55:16]
Living in fear, the feeling of doom and impending disaster. The next step you take, you're going to fall off the cliff. The telephone rings. They've caught up with you. Somebody's after you. Avoiding your people. Keep it under control. Lying and cheating and hiding and running and doing all of the things that we alcoholics do. Keep it under control. Keep it under control. There was no control. There was no way I could do anything any different.
I went back down to the hospital. They stopped me. They sent me home. The next day in the mail I received a registered letter that I was fired. Not to ever come back to that hospital again. Perfectly humiliated and disgraced. Once again I go back down to San Simon's Island. This time on a vacation. Can't keep having heart attacks, you know. And once again I went down there and I experienced the peace and the serenity. And I knew that there was more in this life for me than the way that I had been living it. But I didn't know how to find it.
This was where I was first introduced to AA. My sister asked me if it would be alright to call them. And I said, yes. You call them. Come out here. Because you see, I knew by now they were wondering what they were going to do with me. And they were talking about for keeps. And I said, yeah. So they did. They called this big old tall fellow. Came out to the house. Had his head all shaved like Mr. Clean. And he came out to talk to me, you know. And he sat down and he told me we were going to have a meeting that night. And he said, would you go? And I said, yes sir. I would have done anything.
And I went to that meeting that night just as high as the Georgia Pines. It was the only way I could go. It was the only way I could go. And thank goodness nobody sent me home. But I went to that meeting that night. I don't know much about what happened. There were a bunch of y'all there. And some fellow got up and talked a little bit. And after it was over they gave out some poker chips. I don't know if y'all have them. They had some poker chips that had AA written on them, you know.
Had several different colors. Several people took them. I took one too. I would have taken one of each color if I thought it would have helped. I went home from that meeting and I went in and I woke my sister up and I showed her that poker chip, you know, knowing full good and well. And as soon as I left the room she called back to Atlanta. Our problems were solved. He joined AA. I didn't join AA. I used AA. I went to AA for all the wrong reasons you can go. I went to AA purely and simply to get them off my back. And that was it.
But I did go to some meetings. I left there after a while and I came back to Atlanta. I came back to Atlanta and I had to keep this up. I kept going to some of these meetings, you know, and I didn't stop doing anything else. Several people tried to work with me, but I wouldn't let them help me. I wouldn't let you know me. I wouldn't let you know how miserable and how rotten I was inside. No, I don't need you with all your phony signs and symbols and handshakes and smiles. I don't need you. No, leave me alone.
I didn't bother anybody much. I wobbled a little bit and my eyes crossed, but I didn't bother anybody. Obviously I got nothing out of it. Finally one night things got real bad and my wife called this fella who's now my sponsor to come out in the house and talk to me. He's a real big guy. He's 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs about 250 pounds and he's also a finger point. He came in the house that night and that finger was coming down. And he was telling me all about it. We know what you're doing and you're drinking and you're going to hell.
about it we know what you're doing and you're drinking and you're going to the meetings and this is a program of honesty Howard this is a program of honesty and you're not being honest you're taking these drugs and you're doing this and you're doing that and by now you know I I was well let's police
[01:00:06]
say I was feeling no pain and I got quite indignant at him coming in my house and talking to me this way so I rose up all five feet and I said now listen here here I am a man with two college degrees car two cars in the carport bank account two different banks upstanding citizen and member of this community and he said what'd you say well I thought that sounded pretty good so I went back through that again he said he said you remember that when a sheriff comes out here to get you I hadn't reckoned on that but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing because I said now wait a minute I said I'm in called you to come out here and talk to me we can never ever really help anyone unless they want our help but I didn't say don't try because he said you're right but he was dejected and he turned his head and he walked towards the door and immediately I realized I had the advantage in this situation so I just like a little feisty dog I nip it in on his heels every way he'd slow down I'd get him again boy I finally I backed him up in the corner there the kitchen and I stood him up there and and it must have been something sort of like David and Goliath you know finally I said why do you do this you do this because you hate me now listen because this is where this man brought me the 11th commandment I refer to the 13th chapter of the book of John the 34th verse where it is written a new commandment that I give unto you love thy brother I love one another because he said no Conway it's not because I hate you it's because I love you because I love you I wish that I could say that I stopped drinking at that time I didn't it was two days later two days later I went to the living room of the house room that we seldom use and there for just a few minutes the fog lifted my mind became clear and I became completely and entirely willing to completely surrender and turn my will and my life over to the care of God as best that I could at that time I fell on my knees and I said God help me now God help me now oh I've done that many times before God do this to me and God get me out of this please God if you do this to me I won't do that anymore many many prayers and promises and pleading please God help me now I promise you I won't do that anymore no show me the way as a child as a baby no pleadings no promises a simple earnest cry from the heart for help help me now immediately I thought started thinking about this doctor that I'd heard about that lives down in South Georgia some of you I'm sure knowing I called him up and I went down there to live with him he said come on down I stayed with him for a little period of time but in addition to him there were you people and you'd always wanted to love me but now I was ready for you to love me you took me into your heart you took me into your home you didn't ask me who I was or where I'd come from or what I'd done it didn't make any difference you knew that I was lonely you knew that I was afraid you knew that I was sick you put your arms around me you lifted up my spirit you gave me everything that I have in this world today you literally loved me back to health and to sanity and my friends I want you to know I need that just as much today as I did that November some years ago for with your love and your strength there isn't a thing in this world that I can't do and I know it and
[01:05:06]
there isn't a thing in this world that I was trying to do without it there wasn't all a bed of roses down there though this doctor does believe in withdrawing and I withdrew with just withdrewing second day I was there he came to my room and he said we're going to a meeting tonight I said dr. John going to a meeting I can't even put on my pants we went to a meeting that night there I picked up the white chips that enable me to go on to the blue chips that I have today there are many things that happen down there I don't have time to tell them all to you one I will though that this man had come up from Savannah his wife had died after a long illness he had many years in our program and he came up and he and I rode to what we call an Eaton meeting an Eaton meeting down in South Georgia about 50 miles away we rode together and we weren't talking he told me later on he didn't know what to say but anyhow what was going I knew I had hope I knew that I could get well but I didn't know how to find my God I didn't know if I'd ever be able to find God again I didn't know how I was completely spiritually empty finally I turned to him and I said Cornel I don't know if I'll ever be able to find my God again he turned to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said Conway God knows where you are these were the only words that he and I spoke on any time trip the next morning I went down dr. John's den I was alone everyone had left I've been alone most of my life I had a cup of coffee and I went over to some double doors and I was looking out and I became aware of the warmth of the sunlight and it completely penetrated me and passed through me from head to toe and accompanying that was the instant knowledge and I knew so then and I know so now and no one will ever be able to change me that at that moment I was within the presence of God and that as long as I remain so it would not be necessary for me to take a drink or a pill again I was free my friend few people receive such grace as this I have never wanted a drink or a drug of any kind as long as I remain so within the presence of God and as I look out here on your beautiful faces you know faces are just like flowers they speak a language of love I feel the same penetration to my deepest being that I am within the presence of God I left there after a while I came back I came back to Atlanta to go to work I went back to work with my father and you know short while I was back working with him I even got to be a member of that same executive committee I passed out in that my home's a happy home now and my children are becoming happy children again and I'm busy and I'm working and I'm going to AA meetings and I did everything you told me to I didn't speak a word in AA for over a year I don't think and I'm really basically I'm very shy but I set up a lot of chairs and I emptied a lot of ashtrays and I made coffee and I got there and I opened that meeting place up and I stayed and I shut it up and I enjoyed the fellowship and I did everything that you told me to do and I call my sponsor God bless him I love him and he calls me the same big guy you know once twice three times a day and we still have this relationship that I have only found in the presence of Alcoholics Anonymous the thing that makes us work is the love that we share and I'm gone from home most of the time I'm still gone from home most of the
[01:10:02]
time but I came home late one Sunday afternoon you know and my children were out in the yard they were playing catch and they were throwing the ball around I saw them throwing the ball all around you know and they probably haven't seen me in two or three days I've been busy working and I you know I left before they got up or they were in bed asleep before I got home that sort of thing I went out on the back steps and I looked down you know and they were throwing the ball around they stopped and they looked up at me the three of them and they saw I'd changed clothes and they knew that I was going back out and they said hi dad what are you doing I said well I'm getting ready to go to a meeting and I saw him look at each other and I saw him look back around and he looks up at me and I knew what they were thinking come on out and play with us dad come on out and be with us come on we haven't seen you much go put on your jeans and come on out and let's play I didn't say that they said have a good time daddy I love you daddy I'll see you in the morning daddy well I got my car and I drove on over to the meeting but I had to stop because I realized what these children were telling me these were the children that I had abused these are the children that I had mistreated these are the children that cried all night where's daddy what's wrong with daddy what's the matter with our daddy mama these are the children that had to help their mother pick me up and put me in bed these are the children that were ashamed to have their friends come to the house these are the children that cried what's wrong with our daddy why don't we have a daddy why didn't daddy ever come to the school or please don't let daddy come to the school have a good time daddy I love you daddy I'll see you in the morning daddy why because he's going to an AA meeting they've got a daddy now they've got a daddy they not only love I'm trying to get through this but they respect you see they always love me they know where I am and what I'm doing I called home a little while ago they send you their love and their thanks for giving them back a father that they're proud of and they want to thank you I especially want to thank you for the fact that this father of mine lived long enough to see me back in the medical profession where I'm recognized not only in my trained specialty of obstetrics and female surgery I still do some female surgery but recognized in the field of alcoholism and drug rehabilitation he never could say AA though it was always AAA but he was proud of me too and this little girl I know we'll forget one day and I was in the living room of the house there and I was looking out the window and a school bus parked down at the bottom of the hill and she was walking up from the school bus up the hill she's a she's a pretty little girl blonde hair and a ponytail and and well she never will be Miss America but to her daddy she's pretty same the world just tightly clenched tears streamed down her face making big blue circles on her dress just quivering because on the school bus they called her daddy a drunk
[01:15:15]
This gives me the right and the privilege to say, thank God for my disease of alcoholism that led me to drug addiction. To you beautiful people, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, what do I have today? I have more today than anyone can possibly imagine. More love than I could ever fill up, and it seems like the more I have, the more I need. Material possessions far beyond my ever needs or desires. I'm a happy alcoholic. I'm a successful alcoholic. I'm a very grateful alcoholic.
There is so much that I would like to share with you. The fact that I'm not alone anymore, the wonderful things that have come to me, the rewards in my life, the bounteous blessings only through this program would it have been possible. It would be possible for a drunk doctor from Atlanta, Georgia, to be in Eureka Springs, to enjoy all the love that was here in this room and for this meeting. And as I look out over the tops of those mountains and I see the statue, the awareness of the presence of God. And to this God of mine I say, how great thou art. Thank you and God bless you.
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