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Source: DICOBE-00375 – Conway H – GULF COAST RNDP – 1982-11-12.mp3 File: dicobe-00375-conway-h-gulf-coast-rndp-1982-11-12.mp3 Duration: 01:11:47
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Hi, everybody. My name is Conway H. I'm a grateful alcoholic. I'm also a physician, and I'm the father of five wonderful children. But as always, I say that I'm an alcoholic. And this is always the way that I begin my talk. Because it's important to me for you to know that I place my disease of alcoholism above everything else in my life. Because I know that any time that I should ever forget that I'm an alcoholic, that I'll probably go back to what I was.
And I was the loneliest, the sickest, the sorrest, most miserable, suffering human being that you can imagine. But today, thanks to the love, the mercy of a kind and a forgiving God, the strength and support and love from people just like you, and the living program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't have to be ashamed of me anymore. 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.
And this, my friends, is the way that I live my life. And I also hope you noticed I said I am a grateful alcoholic. And I might add I am a very happy alcoholic. And I couldn't begin to tell you this morning of all the wonderful things that have happened to me. I couldn't possibly give to you the feeling that's in my heart this morning. It is literally about to burst with all the love, the warmth, the caring, the spirit that's here in this meeting this morning.
As I looked out my window this morning into the beautiful ocean with the waves the great awareness of the tremendous power, of the tremendous love that's present here in this universe. It was awesome. It's awesome. And I want to thank you for letting me come and be here with you this morning and share with you my experience, my strength, and my hope. Because you see, that's really all that I am, and that's all that I have to give is the sum total of my life experiences.
And that's what I'm going to try to do this morning. Before I forget my mammoth father, I want to thank you, the members of the committee, Chester, for having us here. It's a great honor to be asked to come and talk, and I really do appreciate it. It's the most meaningful time in my life for various reasons, and I'll tell you about as we go along. And especially of the fact that yesterday was commemorative of the 16th year of my sobriety.
I had my last drink November 13, 1966. Applause And so indeed, I'm very happy. I was born and raised in Atlanta, and I lived there almost all my life. My father was a doctor, my mother was a teacher. My sister was considerably older, but we had a very close, a very warm, tight-knit family. It was a very deeply spiritually oriented family, and the main thing that I remember was the love and the warmth that was there in the four of us.
We were all very close. I never ever really remember wanting for anything, not that we had so much, but just because there was so much closeness there. And this was to last me up until about the age of 12,
[00:05:00]
where somewhere along about the age of 12, I first realized or experienced the feeling or knew that I was different. I was different than other people. Molly talked about it last night. I was different from you. Not a feeling of superiority, not a feeling of inferiority, just different. Me and my things were different. I couldn't have the same kind of toys or clothes or games as you, but yet it was different.
I felt like I wasn't complete. I wasn't a whole person. You could all be in a room and be having a good time and be laughing and talking, and I came in and I didn't belong. Something stopped. Something changed. I didn't feel like that I rightly belonged anywhere. Now, I know my folks loved me. They loved me as much as any family did, but for some reason it wasn't enough. I took my first drink, though, when I was about eight years old, when I had the whooping cough.
Now, whooping cough was a real serious illness. A lot of people died from the whooping cough, but I had the whooping cough. I can remember it real well. It was a very significant event in my life. I probably almost died from the whooping cough, but I remember these thousands of coughing. One night it was real bad. I ran down the hall. I grabbed my daddy. I held him around his legs. My little body was racking with these thousands of coughs.
He took me into the bathroom. He stood me up on the sink. He reached up in the medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey, poured about that much. Now, this is important, significant, too. I come from a Southern Baptist traditional family, and Southern Baptists don't drink, Father. They don't drink. But we all have a little medicinal whiskey around. He poured out about that much alcohol and gave it to me, and immediately the coughing stopped.
You see, my very first experience with alcohol, it solved my need. It gave me relief. It stopped the cough, and I think that is interesting. I don't think it's got a thing in the world to do with me being an alcoholic, but I think it's interesting. What's significant about it, though, is a fact, and I remember it so well. This is something that happened 45 years ago. Forty-five and eight fifty-three.
I remember it just like it was yesterday. Something does happen. Those of us who have this condition, when alcohol is first introduced in our lives, it is a significant event, and most of the time we never forget it. How many times do you hear people talking about, in their drinking experiences, their very first drink? Where they were, who they were with, what they did before, what they did afterwards, what it was, how much it cost, and all the circumstances around that.
Now, you don't remember your first root beer or your first glass of buttermilk. Something happens. Something happens. I heard a fellow talk the other day describing his alcoholism, and he said he realized that he was born a half a pint below normal. I knew exactly what he meant. I knew exactly what he meant. That was normal. That's what you all felt like all the time. But anyhow, I had a very happy childhood.
I was an overachiever. I usually made the top of my class, real good grades, all that sort of thing, very much like mine did. I achieved, I got the recognition, not because I was so smart, but because my mother, being a teacher, taught me how to study, and that was what enabled me to get… I never ever felt like, though, I deserved the rewards that I achieved. That I got them by hook or crook, a deviousness, or they gave them to me because they liked me or something else.
I never felt like I really earned it, like I really deserved it. But anyhow, it enabled me to go a long way. During my early teens, my mother became real ill, and she died, and this was a tremendous loss. I was very close to my mother, and she had a progressive illness, and it was a tremendous loss. I became even more alone than I was before. My whole lifestyle disintegrated. I eventually moved out of the home.
My father remarried. And now, with this difference in me, the loneliness set in,
[00:10:00]
and I lived the rest of my life alone and different from other people, searching for a place where I belonged, where I could be accepted, where I could be loved and needed, where I could contribute. I didn't find this, of course, until I found a program called Colleagues Anonymous. But anyhow, I did many things, joined many organizations, and as I say, did rather well. I finished high school, and now I went to college there in Atlanta at Emory University.
And during my high school years and early college years, I met a beautiful girl. She had some family problems of her own, and our loneliness attracted each other, and she was the prettiest thing that you ever saw. She was a beautiful girl. And we fell in love, and it was a storybook romance. We got married, and we had two beautiful children. And I loved this girl very much. And I still love this girl very much.
But she, too, contracted a progressive illness. At first, she went insane, and then she died. Another great loss, a great tragedy. I not only lost her, but I also lost these two children. There was no way that I could take care of them, and they were brought up by her parents. We now, of course, are all back together, and we're very close. But once again, except for this brief period of time, I am alone and different.
Now, though, I enter medical school, and I have achieved a major goal in my life, and I begin to drink more and more and more. Perhaps due to this tragedy I've just been through. I don't know why. But alcohol now became the most important part of my life. I was drinking around the clock. This was progressive alcoholic drinking. I dropped from the upper top of the class down to the bottom of the class.
I finally graduated. I graduated, and then I was accepted as an intern at the big city hospital there, a big city hospital in Atlanta called Grady Hospital. This was the old Grady's, though, and it spread out over two and three blocks, and these buildings were built before 1900. The building there now is the new Grady. And it was wartime, and there were only four interns, four surgery interns for that whole hospital, and we really worked.
I loved it. I really loved it. We worked 36 hours on and 12 hours off, and for the very first time in my life, I'm providing a service to mankind. Now, I wasn't much, but I was all they had, and they appreciated that. Also, when the 12 hours off came, I was so exhausted, the only thing I was interested in was going and finding a place to go to sleep. So I stopped drinking. I stopped drinking during this period of time.
Now, this is important because I don't think this is anything in the world except a stopgap in my progression to the disease of active alcoholism. It takes two things to make an alcoholic, one with a condition and alcohol. You put the two together, and you get alcoholism. I stopped drinking. I finished my internship, and then I went into my specialty, and I am a specialist. I'm a ladies' doctor. And the next five years, I spend as a first assistant to the stork.
And this, too, I love, and it was great. It's a very rewarding, satisfying type of work, and you're there at birth and creation and all of these things, and most of the time, you're dealing with normal, healthy, and happy people, and it's a great way to practice, and it's a good field to be in. I don't do that anymore now, and I haven't in quite a few years, and the reason for that is now that professionally, I spend almost all of my time working in the field of alcoholism and drug abuse.
But anyhow, I finished my training there. I met and married one of the nurses there at the hospital, and then I was drafted. But they don't really draft doctors. They send you a telegram, and they say you'd better. And, of course, I realized what the alternative was, so I took them up on their offer, and they sent me to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and that's where they send all doctors to make soldiers out.
Doctors and, uh, to make soldiers out of them, but they never intended to make a soldier out of us either, so this, and the war had just ended, and everybody was celebrating the victory, and, and, uh, oh, it was wonderful, and I remember driving out to Fort Sam, we'd got there, you know, Fort Sam's known as the country club of the Army anyhow, and it was party time all the time, you never had to wait for Miller time, it was Miller time all the time, you know,
[00:15:26]
the nickel beer and the bingo games and, and all of these things, and nobody paid too much attention to uniforms and saluting and things like that, but, uh, I was really sort of disappointed, because I love the military, I, uh, I love parades and flags and uniforms and things, I cry at parades, and, and, and this is okay, I really do, it just thrills me, you know, in this, and, and I love, love the work there, I, I remember nobody got upset about anything, we didn't pay too, it was very light, very loose, uh, I'm sure some of you had other war experiences, but, uh, I loved it, I really did, I received orders to go to Orleans, France, uh, to be in charge of the base hospital, now, I never got to France, um, uh, one of the, we saw evidence of a coincidence last night at the drawing, well, a co- laughter another coincidence occurred, if you will, I never got to France, I got all the way to Fort Dix, was sent back down to the Pentagon and issued new orders and reassigned to, uh, Fort Eustis, Virginia, the transportation headquarters of the United States Army, well, this was great, because my wife could go with me, she met me and we drove down through that beautiful country, you know, and I pulled up to the gate there and the MPs came out and they stopped my car and I gave them my order, and, uh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I and they read them over and they stepped back together and huddled for a minute and came back and really gave me a little snappy salute, yes sir, and I didn't even know, I said, this is a really classy outfit here.
Well, you see, unknown to me, the reason I was reassigned to this post, the commanding general's wife was pregnant and expecting a baby. And I was the one chosen to resolve this military emergency. Well, from the moment I drove through those gates, I was the commanding general's wife doctor. Now, where the commanding general went, commanding general's wife went, commanding general's wife doctor went.
We took the yacht out on the James River, commanding general, commanding general's wife, commanding general's wife doctor. We took the helicopters to New York, commanding general, commanding general's wife, commanding general's wife doctor. Well, the commanding general and his lady went, the little doctor went too, you know, sort of like a mascot. And this is a wonderful way, you know, to be in the service.
I will have to say she finally 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. Well, I loved Army life, I really did. Anybody who had an assignment like mine would, and I probably would have stayed in the Army, except that this childhood dream or ambition or whatever you want to call it, I wanted to go back and work with my father.
Now, my father, my friend, as far as I'm concerned, then and now, the greatest mortal man that ever walked this earth, he was my hero, and still is, and my role model. Are you in this world if I could just be like that man was? He was the kindest, the gentlest, the softest individual I've ever known. First of all, I wanted to be a doctor like my daddy, then I wanted to come back and I wanted to be with him.
I wanted to be his son, and I did. I left the Army and I came back to Atlanta, and I came back to Atlanta to go to work. But if you'll remember, here I am, a native son, been there all my life. My father's got a large practice, an excellent reputation. I know almost all the doctors in town, trained at the city hospital.
[00:20:03]
The medical profession literally rolled out the carpet to welcome me back. And I was placed on more committees and given more duties and more assignments and teaching in the medical school and clinics to run and all of these things. Now once again, I loved it. By now my ego was out of sight anyhow. I thought they were doing about what they should. All except my father, all except my father. And you know, he had to supervise everything I did.
He was looking over my shoulder the whole time. He didn't trust me. I'd turn around real fast, I'd bump into him. I'd go down to the hospital in the middle of the night. I wouldn't be down there 15 minutes, but he'd be down there too, coming down there to check up on me. And I resented this. I resented it. It took me a long time before I realized what it really was. And thank God he never left my side.
One, because he didn't trust me. He simply wanted to be with me. For you see, he loved me just as much as I loved him. And the two things that he loved and enjoyed the most, one was the practice of medicine and the other one was me. And when he could have them both together, he didn't want me to sit in the unit. He was always at my side. Later on we'll see how important this was. But at that point in time, I resented it.
Here I was, a young hero returning from the wars, had the finest training the country had to offer, and I wanted to come in and take over and put the old man out in the pasture, you see. Also now, my wife started having children. And I resented this. I resented these babies being born, coming in here, interfering with my life and giving me responsibility and duties that I wasn't ready to achieve, to assume.
I resented these children for being born, and I resented her for having them. I guess I thought she did it all by herself, you see. But what you see now I have done is to withdraw from the only two people in this world that really matter to me. Alcoholics are perfect geniuses at producing this wall of isolation, especially from the ones that we love and we need the most. It's uncanny how we will turn out the people that we need the most.
But this is what I did, and along with that now, I began to drink more and more and more. And alcohol, once again, is being the most important part of my life. And this is, no question in my mind that this is the point in time that I crossed over that invisible but completely irreversible line into the disease of active alcoholism. Once you go across that line, my friends, you don't ever come back the other way.
Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You don't ever become un-alcoholic. And I don't care what the Rand Report says. As one of our friends says, once a cucumber becomes a pickle, you never go back to being a cucumber again. And I was well pickled. Quite candidly and just as honest as I can be, I would like to tell you that in this horrible part of alcoholism, that I did almost every horrible thing that you have ever heard of an alcoholic doing or have happened to.
The only difference between me and some of you and stories that you've heard are names, dates, times, and places. And I'm not proud of that. And I am certainly sorry for the people that I hurt along the way. And there were lots of them. But I'm not ashamed of it either. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I'm an alcoholic, that I have the disease of alcoholism. I was probably born that way. But now that I know what's wrong with me, it is my responsibility to do something about it.
But for a long time, I didn't know what was wrong with me.
[00:25:05]
I drank quite heavily during this period of time. I began to get in trouble. I began leading the life that so many of us have led during that. And anybody that was doing the things that I was doing and living the kind of life that I was living, something had to happen to. And it did. Monday morning, October 1, 1962, I had a massive heart attack. I was taken to the hospital, and for a while they didn't know if I would live.
And I certainly didn't know if I would ever be able to work again. I became very depressed. I became very bitter. This is where I turned against God. I cursed God. Why did you do this to me? I cursed God. I denounced God. Here I've spent all these years, all this time, all this money, just to now be of a place where I'll be of service to myself, to you, to mankind. Let me cast down here in the bed.
Help us. Why did you do this to me? I became filled with bitterness. I hated you and everything you stood for. Don't send me cards. I don't want any flowers. Wouldn't even let them draw the blinds in the room and let the sun light in. Leave me alone. It's a wonder I didn't kill myself. I did get better, though. And to recover, I went down to live with my sister, who had moved down to a little island off the coast of Georgia called St. Simon's Island.
And this is a very important little island, and it plays an important role in my recovery, then and now. And I want to take just a minute to tell you about it. I know many of you have probably been there, and those of you that haven't, I want to invite you to come. It's a beautiful little place, right down off the coast of Georgia, sort of south of Savannah. As you drive across the bridge and you enter onto the island, one of the first things you know is how naturally beautiful it is, how rich and green.
And then the trees, the tall and stately pines that rise majestically straight in the air many feet high. The great live oak. The great live oak, the personification of strength. These live oak trees are 10, 12, 15 feet in diameter, and I know you have some along the coast and here, and the Spanish moss is in the tops of the trees, and the wind blows and the moss dances, and there's a certain feeling of peace and serenity there that I have never found anyplace else.
You know that you are in a special place. It is as if this is a hallowed ground. You can feel it. Accompanying this is the serenity that I have never found geographically anywhere else, because I know when I am there that I am closer to my God than I am anyplace else. The only other place that even where it came close to it was when I spent some time and visited the Trappist Monastery in Conyers, right outside Atlanta.
There I saw the same feeling, but it was on the faces of the men. I don't know how to explain that, but I think you know what I mean. I know when I am there that I am where I am supposed to be. Just as this moment, I know right now that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I am fulfilling my destiny, being here with you people this morning, and that's a wonderful way to live. And I'll take that one step further.
You are where you are supposed to be this morning. Oh, you beautiful miracles. But anyhow, I stayed down there with her for a while. I got better. I came back to go to work, but you know anybody who is having trouble with their heart is not supposed to get nervous, and everybody knows that a heart patient is supposed to get a good night's sleep every night. A heart patient is supposed to get a good night's sleep every night, so I had sleeping pills to make sure I slept, and tranquilizers to keep me calm, and I washed it down with a pint of scotch every night.
[00:30:06]
Now, I don't think they meant for me to do that all at the same time, but I did, and this is where I enter into the world of living totally by chemistry, and all of my moods were chemically governed, and I took everything that was out. I really, I feel fully qualified to speak as a drug addict. In fact, my friends, I am a total addict. I could get addicted to an empty capsule if you told me it'd make me feel good.
And another thing was, you see, I had such an access to them, all I had to do was open a drawer, and I could reach down and pick up all that I wanted, you know, red ones, and green ones, and pink ones, and blue ones, and offers, and banners. They got a new one in their boat called tri-cycle, it makes you go all three ways. I took everything out except Miles Nervine and Liddy Pinkham. I would have taken them too if they had come in samples. I quickly learned not to fool with any of them unless it had a warning label on it, dangerous, maybe you had it for them, and don't fool with any of those unless they got a warning label. They don't have any kick to them at all.
I do want to say a word or two about these drugs, though, because I think it's one of the most dangerous things those of us who have problems with addiction face today. And that is a phenomenon known as cross-addiction or cross-policy. Because, you see, my brain can't really tell the difference of what it takes to make it feel good. We all have a drug of choice, but the effect is what we're trying to achieve.
I know that any time that I should ever take any mood-altering, mind-changing drug, I am interfering with the source of my strength, my sobriety, my serenity, my peace, my happiness, and my love. Just as much as that light is right there, if you cut it. So I'm not going to fool around with any of these other drugs. I'm not going to take any of that Melarel or Elevel or Transcene or Cerax or Librium or Valium or Cocaine or Quaalude or smoke any of those funny no-name cigarettes.
Because if I do, it's only a matter of time till I end up on the one that I want the most. And, my friends, my drug of choice, my drug, the one that I want the most, is Scotch Whiskey. And I say it with reverence. As far as I'm concerned, that's the finest thing the Lord ever put on this earth for man. It did everything in this world for me that I wanted it to do, up until the very last. And I know that it probably would now, too, for a very few minutes.
These drugs are dangerous. Now, I'm not telling any of you to stop taking the medicine that your doctor has you on. That's wrong. Our doctors are our friends. They're doing their best to keep us healthy and happy and all these sort of things and take care of us. But, I am telling you it is your responsibility to be sure that your doctor knows that you can't take these drugs. Let's not blame the doctors. It's our responsibility. We are the ones that have to pay the price.
Anyhow, I took a lot of drugs and I mixed them with alcohol and that's a terrible thing to do. But, even some interesting things happened. One of which, they called me to come down to the hospital in the middle of the night. They had a real bad emergency down there. I wasn't on call. It wasn't my case. I got up in the middle of the night just to respond to this emergency. Would you please come help us? I got in my car and I threw on my clothes and got in my car and I raced down the expressway, ego running wild. I'm a doctor on an emergency, you see.
And I pull into the emergency room and I leave the lights on and the motor running and the car door open and I go in the emergency room some sort of a combination of Walter Mitty and Superman. Have no fear. Conway is here. Well, I went in and I took charge of the case and it went real well. One of the last things that we lose is our ability to perform and our training skills. The case went real well. And I would have been alright if I kept my mouth shut. 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 at length.
[00:35:27]
Well, the next morning I came to work and people were around in little groups and they were talking to each other. You've seen them do it and you notice how their lips get real tight when they do that. And then they started, they were all looking at me. As one of my friends said, they were looking at me sort of slouch-eyed. Whenever they're doing that, they're talking about you. And I knew they were talking about me. I could feel it right down here in my stomach. And sure enough, they were because I got called down to the administrator's office and told not to ever come back to that hospital under the influence.
Well, I sobered up enough so I kept my mouth shut. And I went out and I got in my car and I was driving on over to the office and I got to thinking about this. Now Chester, I disagree with you. I think thinking is one of the worst things an alcoholic can do. But the more I got to thinking about this, I just got filled up with righteous indignation. Here I went down there in the middle of the night and I saved that woman's life. And these narrow-minded, unappreciative people are talking about those two or three little drinks I had.
Well, I reached up under the seat and I got that bottle of hot vodka. If there are any of you that have not experienced the thrill of drinking hot vodka, I don't recommend it. That sends chills up my spine right now. But it does have authority. If you ever get one of those to stay down, you're in control the rest of the day. The insanity of it all, the insanity of it all, I believed it. I couldn't see that I had done anything wrong. They were the ones that were wrong.
Interestingly enough, though, as it often happens to alcoholics, I kept falling up the stairs. I got put on the executive committee of the whole hospital. They called me up to come to the executive committee meeting and I told them I would. I remember it real well. It was very cold in Atlanta. It was in December, right before Christmas, and I got up and I got dressed. I put on a suit and an overcoat and a hat and a muffler and gloves and dark glasses. This was before daylight.
I went down to that meeting dressed exactly as I described. I opened the door and I went in the room. These are my peers. This is the head of surgery and the head of medicine and the head nun and the head of trustees. All of them are around there in these little fold-up chairs. I don't know what they were doing before I got there, but it all quit. That was the loudest silence I've ever heard in my life. I went over and sat down, dressed exactly as I was. I didn't even take my gloves off. They all turned and started staring at me, and I knew they were staring at me. I didn't know what to do, so I passed out.
Oh, Lord, that really shook them up. They knew I had that sorrow in my heart. They said, Oh, my Lord, he's dead. They knocked those chairs around and they picked me up and they pulled my collar out and oxygen over my nose, and here I was coming in and out of consciousness saying, Please let it be a dream. Please let it be a dream. It wasn't any dream. I woke up and they had me in an oxygen tent and they had something hooked up to everything you can hook up something to.
[00:40:20]
And the doctors came in and the nurses came in and they'd listen to the heart. They'd run the heart tracers and they'd frown. There wasn't anything wrong with the heart. I was a medical mystery. I saw the mystery for them, though. I went into the DTs. I saw things, heard things, hired people, fired people, running up and down the halls of that hospital, had on that little gown that doesn't quite, and it was me and the nuns and the nurses and the doctors and the orderlies, and we'd go down this way and we'd come back that way.
There were Christmas trees and angels and elves and reindeers. Some of it was real, some of it wasn't. But it was all real to me. I woke up the next morning and I realized it was Christmas, so I got up and got my clothes together and put them in my suitcase to go home. And the nurse said, What are you doing? And I said, I'm going home to be with my children. It's almost Christmas. She said, You can't do that. I said, Yes, I can. This is a hospital, not a jail, and I know my rights. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I know my rights and you can't keep me here. Well, they did probably the only intelligent thing they did during that whole hospitalization. They went and called my father. You've got to come get him, you've got to do something with him, you can't keep him any longer. He's dangerous, he's disturbing the hospital and the other patients. You must come do something with him. So on Christmas Day, my father came to get me to take me to the local drunk hospital. And it was a real experience.
Terrible reputation. I remember entering this hospital, but I never remember leaving the hospital. They did all the wrong things that you can do. This is where I lost my mind. You see, they gave me more and more drugs. I don't really remember much at all about what happened. I don't even know how long I was there. And I never remember leaving. I had some sort of vague recollection of going out a door, of floating, that type of thing.
And the other experiences, the things that were there, that I do remember, none of them are pleasant. I remember being strapped down to a table all night long with a little peephole in the door and they would come by and just look in at you every now and then. I remember the screams. I remember the horrible sensation. I remember being held. I remember being placed in a straitjacket. I remember being cuffed to the bed. I remember the pain in the back after the convulsions.
One night the convulsions were so severe, the nurse called the doctor in charge and said, what must we do? We can't stop the convulsions. The reply was, listen, my friend, the reply was, let him die. He's a hopeless alcoholic. Let him die. That was not without some compassion. I remember the screams. I remember the fears. There are times now I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll be drenched in sweat. I was in the D.T.'s name of convulsions for 10 straight days.
Finally I left the hospital. They sent me back down to St. Simon's Island to live with my family.
[00:45:00]
I must have been sort of like a zombie when I got down there. I had no mind of my own. I couldn't even have found my own way home. And the only thing that I was capable of doing, which is very little, was taking care of myself. And I would go out and I would walk. I would walk along the beach. I would walk along the shore and something was beginning to happen. Just like this morning as I looked out into this massive stance of water, became aware of the tremendous power present.
As you feel the pull of the tide, there's no question in your mind as the tide goes out that it's going to come back in. And yesterday as we walked along and saw the little sandpiper and even the fishes in the sea or the birds as they came in flight of a beautiful gull as it dove for its meal. These things didn't just happen. Something was beginning to happen inside of me. I became aware of the tremendous power, of the tremendous force, a divine force, a controlled power.
I stayed down there with her a little bit longer. I remember especially sitting underneath the great oak tree, becoming aware of the feeling of peace that I had never known before. The same sensation, I guess, that I must have felt when my mother held me in her arms, the security. The best way that I know to describe it is the absence of fear. Fear, the one great common denominator of all alcoholics.
I have never known an alcoholic yet that wasn't afraid. I have never known an alcoholic or an al-anon that wasn't afraid. The one great common denominator. As long as I was there, I was safe, I was secure, but I didn't know how to use it. I left, I came back, came back to go to work, but I didn't know if I'd have a job or not. And this is where my friends in the medical profession almost killed me with kindness.
They'd been covering up for me for a while anyhow, and they said, We want you to come back, we want you to go to work, but keep it under control, keep it under control. I should never have been allowed back in that hospital. And if they had not allowed me to go back in that hospital, I might have gotten well sooner. But thank God I didn't hurt anybody. Thank God that father of mine was always with me.
I don't know if I could have did that. But anyhow, you know what happened. I resumed drinking, taking drugs, went back down to the hospital. They stopped me, sent me home. I received a registered letter in the mail. I was fired, publicly humiliated, disgraced, banned from the hospital forever. Once again, I went back down to the St. Simons. This is where I was first introduced to AA. My sister called them, they came out and talked to me, invited me to a meeting, and I went to the meeting that night.
I went to that meeting the only way that I could go, just as high as the Georgia Pines. And that's okay. And thank goodness nobody there stopped me and sent me home and said, Alcoholics Anonymous is just for sober alcoholics. If I had been rejected that time, I'd not be alive today. Now, I don't remember a whole lot about what happened there. They started a talk, and after the meeting was over, they gave out some poker chips.
I picked one up. Everybody else did. I did, too. I would have picked one up of every color if I hadn't, you know. I went home and showed it to my sister, and I knew what would happen. 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, just to get them off my back. Because they were talking about what they were going to do with me, and they meant for keeps.
[00:50:02]
This was my ticket out. I went to some meetings, and several people tried to help me. I wouldn't let you help me. I wouldn't let you see how miserable and how rotten I was inside. No, I don't need you with all your phony smiles and handshakes and easy does-its. I don't need you. Leave me alone. Once again, isolation. One night it got real bad, and this fellow came out to the house to talk to me, and he's now my sponsor.
And I, too, want to say a word about sponsors. It is an extremely important part of my program, and I think it's very important for everyone else. I still am very close to my sponsor. I practically lived with him early on in my recovery, but now I am still constantly in touch with him, and I think this is an invaluable aid, and I wouldn't take anything in the world for it. I love this man very much, and he loves me, and I know that.
And it's a great part of our program. So I heartily endorse it. This guy came out to the house, and he's real big. He's bigger than you are. He's 6'5", weighs 250 pounds, and he's a finger-pointer. And he came in, and that hand was coming down, and he was pointing that finger, and he was taking my inventory like it has never, ever been taken before or since. And we discussed all kinds of things that night, too much of which we can't go into here.
But I resented this, and I rose up all five feet, and I said, Now listen, you don't have any right to come in my house and talk to me this way. Here I am, a man with two college degrees, two cars and a carport, a bank account in two different banks, an upstanding citizen. He said, What did you say? I thought that sounded pretty good, so I told him all that. He said, You remember that when the sheriff comes out here.
I said, You don't have any right to come in my house and talk to me this way. I did not ask for your help. We can never, ever really help anyone unless they want our help, unless they will open the door. But I didn't say, Don't try. He knew I was right, and he hung his head and started walking to the door, and I said, Well, I've got to go, you're right. Immediately I knew I had the advantage in this.
The table had turned, and I was just like a little feisty dog, and I'd nip him as he walked in and out. I drove him up into the door. We stood there some sort of a combination of probably like David and Goliath. I said, Why do you do this? He said, You do this because you hate me. He looked at me, and he said, No, Conway, because I love you. Because I love you. Now, this is really sort of out of character for this individual.
Never has done it, he says, before or since. But I guess it was exactly what I needed. Here I am standing there in my kitchen, and there's a six-and-a-half-foot giant standing there, and he loves me. I wish that I could say that I stopped drinking then, and I didn't. It was two days later, November the 13th. I walked into the living room of the house. I was all alone. My family had all gone. They had to leave.
They had to leave for their own safety and their own sanity. And there my moment of truth came about. My brain became as clear and capable of sane, orderly, and rational thought as it has ever been before or since. And I think really that this is probably the only time in my life that I have ever been 100% honest. I was able to see me as I really was. I was able to completely destroy and dissolve all the falseness, all of this facade, to dissolve this ego and become completely ready to surrender, to surrender, to completely surrender.
I fell on my knees and I said, God help me. That's all.
[00:55:01]
God help me. A simple but a sincere cry for help. Of course the cry was heard. Immediately I thought of this doctor. I went down and I lived with him in his home. In addition to him, there were people there just like you. You took me into your hearts. You took me into your homes. You knew that I was lonely. You knew that I was afraid. You knew that I was sick. You didn't ask me who I was or where I'd come from or what I'd done.
You put your arms around me. It wasn't all a bed of roses, though. This doctor does believe in withdrawing and I withdrew as just withdrewing. The second day I was there he came in my room. He said, we're going to a meeting tonight. I said, going to a meeting? I said, Dr. John, I can't even put on my pants. We went to a meeting that night. There I picked up the white chips that enabled me to go on to the blue chips that I have today.
From that point on, my friends, my life has really turned around. There are so many other things that happen. Time will not bear us going into them. There are several that I must share with you, though. One of which is standing there in Dr. John's den. Once again, all alone, in a beautiful November morning. And I was looking out into a little grove of pine trees. I was all alone. I've lived most of my life alone.
As I looked into the little grove of pine trees, I became aware of the sunlight as it filtered through the pines and came through the panes in the door and then engulfed my body with a sudden surge of warmth and of energy and the instant knowledge accompanying it that I knew that I was within the presence of God. And that as long as I remained so, I would never ever have to take a drink or a drug again.
I was free. My obsession, my compulsion was completely removed. My friends, from that moment until this moment right now, I've never ever had the slightest desire or have I had a drink of any kind or a drug. Completely removed. As long as I remained so, I would never ever have to drink again. Stayed down there a little while longer. I left. I came back to Atlanta. I joined AA this time. I got into the meetings.
I'd been into the groups. I became an active, participating member of Alcoholics Phenomenal. I'd been talking at AA for a long time. I basically am a very shy person and this is a difficult thing for me to do. But I went to the meetings early and I set up the chairs and I answered the ashtray and I made the coffee and I began to do all of the things that you told me to do. I would have done anything that you told me to do at that time.
And gradually my life began to be better. My home began to be a happy home. My children were happy children. Eventually I got back to work and I got back on that same hospital staff that I was banned forever. In fact, I even got to be a member of that same executive committee that I passed out in that time. And would you believe, chairman of the board of trustees? So many wonderful things had happened to me at that time.
I became very visible in the medical community as a recovered alcoholic. And this is very important to me. Everybody knew me when I was the drunk Dr. H. I certainly want them to know me now as I am the sober Dr. H. I am not ashamed of my disease of alcoholism and I am very grateful and proud of the fact that I'm a recovered alcoholic. And I want the world to know it, my friend. And this is the way that I live.
And this is the way that I live my life, and now my whole world, it turned back up, and I got real active, I'm active in AA, I'm active in the medical profession, back in other organizations, I'm gone from home most of the time, I remember real well, coming home late one Sunday afternoon, and my children were out in the yard playing catch, and I went out to change clothes, I was going to go to another meeting, and I went out to speak to them before I did, and they were throwing the ball around, and they
[01:00:18]
saw me there on the steps, and they stopped, and they said, Hi, Dad, where are you going, what are you going to do? And I said, I'm going to a meeting. I saw them look at each other, and then I saw them look back around. And I knew what they were thinking. Why don't you come out and play with us, go put on your old clothes, we haven't seen you for a few days, Dad, and go get your old clothes and come out here and be with us, come share with us, Dad. They didn't say that. They said, have a good time, Dad, I love you, Dad, I'll see you in the morning, Dad. Well, I went out and got in my car, and I drove on over to my meeting, and then I just got overwhelmed when I realized what these children were telling me. These were the children that I had abused. These were the children that I had mistreated.
These were the children that cried all night. Where's Daddy? What's the matter with Daddy? Is Daddy sick again? Why don't we have a Daddy like the other kids do, Mom? These are the children that had to pick me up and put me in bed at times. These are the children that were embarrassed to have their friends come to the house. Have a good time, Dad. I love you, Dad. See you in the morning, Dad. Why? Because he's going to an AA meeting, they've got a Daddy now. As long as I live, I'll not forget seeing Scuba stop in front of my house.
My little girl come down the steps, and she's just about seven years old, I guess, and a long blonde ponytail and real pretty blue eyes, and she's a real spunky little girl, and just the apple of my eye. Immediately I knew something was wrong, and I could see the tears streaming down her little cheeks, and then I could see the little blue spots on her dress. She came into the house and dropped her books. When she saw me, she came and jumped on my lap and just sat there and saw. When finally she could talk, I looked down and said, What's the matter, honey? She said, On the school bus they called you a drunk all the way home. She's a big girl now, and we're very close. Not too long ago she wrote me a letter. To the dearest Dad in the world, I am so very proud to be your daughter, and I love you with all my heart. Susan, can you possibly understand what that means to me? I'll never forget the look in that child's eyes. But for the grace of God.
What does that mean? A gift we didn't deserve. I didn't deserve all that. I don't even deserve to be alive. And now all the many wonderful things that have happened to me in my life since that time. Recognized not only in my trained field of obstetrics and gynecology, but also in the field of addiction. It has been my opportunity to literally go all over the world to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, because as I say, if I'm an expert, that's the only expertise that I have is my experience, my strength, and my hope. To come to be able to be with you this morning, to feel the overwhelming presence of the God
[01:05:12]
in me. And I look into the eyes, the windows of the soul that indeed reflect the beauty of the God inside. All that, my friends, is where God has so cleverly concealed himself within one of us. All we have to do is to realize that. Just to realize. Getting very active, very busy. I'm gone from home still most of the time. The last three years I've lived alone. The same little girl is taking care of me. And then, May of this year, God once again came into my life in such a dramatic fashion, realizing in me a loneliness that I wasn't aware of, an emptiness that I had concealed, a void that I had adjusted to.
You know how it says, NAA, when you live and work this program, it gets better and better and better. And then you get to the point, it can't get any better. And it does. And on St. Simon's Isle, I met my beautiful wife, who shortly after we started going together, realized as I did, too, that we no longer wanted to be alone, and that we could travel this road of beautiful, happy sobriety, fulfilling our destiny hand in hand. My friends, from that moment on, once again, my life is unbelievable. You see, these things give me the right, the privilege to say, thank God for this thing. This difference in me that I first realized when I was about 12 years old, that led me to the disease of alcoholism, to drug addiction, to the program of alcoholic phenomena. You beautiful people. Because, you see, without that I wouldn't have what I have today. I wouldn't be what I am today. Only after you have experienced the terror of the dark and the lonely night can you fully appreciate the joy of the morning. Is there one of you that do not feel the beauty of the joy of this morning? You see, I'm a happy alcoholic. I'm a successful alcoholic. And I'm a very grateful alcoholic, because I know that my success directly depends on my humility and my gratitude. I know where the source of my power is. The power, the strength, the beauty in my life comes to me through you people. You people. God moves in mysterious
[01:10:02]
ways his wonders to perform. And are we not all living examples of that? Each and every one of you is a perfect creation. Each and every one of you is a miracle. Oh, you beautiful people. Just remember, you are the only one of you that God has. And what a wonderful opportunity that we have to carry the message of his overwhelming love, because he has fulfilled my life with abundance. He has replaced this feeling of doom and despair with the underlying knowledge that all is well. All is well. And that, my friends, is the way that I live my life. A happy alcoholic, a successful alcoholic, a grateful alcoholic. To each and every one of you, I want to say thank you for letting me come and share with you today. To each and every one of you, miracles. I want to say God bless you. And most of all to this God of ours, I say, how great thou art. Thank you.