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Source: DICOBE-00604 – Charlie P – SESSIONS BY THE SEA – 1980-09-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00604-charlie-p-sessions-by-the-sea-1980-09-15.mp3 Duration: 01:17:56
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Thank you, Earl, Dr. and Ms. Cook, Father McGann, Conway, Tom, Millie, Ruth, and Billy Boy, I was pleased on our arrival to know that this gentleman here, this dedicated gentleman was going to chair this meeting. It was a blessing to me. As he said, we met many years ago and I know of who he is and I'm pleased. My wife Frances and I wish to express our gratitude for the quiet, goodness, and hospitality of the session by the sea. I've gotten so lazy and so comfortable that there were some doubts early on that I could be able to stand up here. But when I look out at all of you sober, and here I am half-way intoxicated on excitement and fried chicken, I feel a little out of place. But we all know who we are. There are no strangers among us and I feel rather comfortable. I used to think that I wasn't an early starter with booze. But after the fog cleared a little bit I remembered back some instances that occurred in my childhood days, and from that point I'll start.
When I was about six years old, and another little fellow about five, we came upon some home brew in a spring. And we took it and we drank it, and it made us swimmy-headed. And directly we walked up on the hill and watched the owner of the home brew just beat the daylights out of the man that stole it. And I thought that was pretty slick then, at six years old. And at about eight or nine, my older brother and I slipped into my grandmother's pantry and we took a gallon of blackberry wine out while she was away, and we drank it there in the backyard. And we got drunk and we got sick and he was puking and rolling around in the bushes and I thought he was in worse shape than I. And that was on a Saturday evening and another older brother had organized a penny poker game to have there in one of her rental buildings.
And somehow or other I got into that room, not into the game but into the room. And I was sick and stuffy and I wanted to go home but I was afraid to ask out. And they had an oil drum up against the door, and after they got settled into the game and I felt bad. But it wasn't long till the oil drum came forward and in stepped State Pooper, about six feet six, and he stood straddle-legged in the door. And I was shocked. And I thought well yeah I've been drunk this
[00:05:06]
afternoon and I'm caught in a poker game, I'm bound to be going to jail tonight. But while he was talking to us and telling us what he was going to do, I noticed the space between his legs and thought maybe I might be able to make it. So I did, I made a dash for it and went around the corner of the building and someone hollered stop or I'll shoot. Well I just had to stop. And I came on back and I stood there and as he continued to talk to him, I felt like that I was going to lose some kind of control. And he said to me, a little P., I'm going to give you two minutes to get up that hill. And about that time sure enough I did lose a little control and I felt this warm feeling down the front of my trousers, down to my feet. But not trying to be smart, just happy that he's going to let me go up on the hill. I said to him, Mr. Hedrick I only need one of those. And he let me out and I sloshed all the way up the hill. And that old gentleman is still living today and every time I see him or run into him it's always ha ha ha ha ha, he's still laughing about it. And to that point that was a catastrophe in my life. And a while later I stole two bottles of beer from my cousin's drugstore and drank them and climbed a telephone pole with an umbrella and jumped off. And that bruised me up a little bit and I felt a little guilty about that. And then my interest changed and I started pitching the ball around a little bit out there in high school. And the girls got me in a little trouble out there. And I got them in a little trouble out there. And it was long about the end of my high school that it was time to do something about the war and I was just tickled to death about it. I felt like I wanted to go over there and be some kind of hero. I didn't know what it involved or what they did over there but I thought I'd settle that when I got there. And I went down to the induction center with great enthusiasm and I remember they asked who all in here wants to go overseas and I just threw up both hands. And oh I regretted that months after. But they did, they gave me the infantry and I thought well yes I'm pretty tough, that's what I reckon I ought to be doing.
And they gave it to me. I found out it wasn't what I wanted but I got it. And went on overseas and got in a regiment with a bunch of old soldiers and they were tough drinkers. And I drank a little bit in high school there. I remember one time there we were having a St. Patrick's Day function and I was, I don't know whether I could sing, I don't think I could, they thought I could, anyhow I was going to be the singer. I was going to sing a song and I got a little too much of the dandelion wine and I had a terrible time singing Johnny Doughboy found a rose in Harlem. Tongue all just flipping every which way. That was embarrassing because I put it aside. But I knew a little something about it and got over there and something to drink over there was scarce. We'd get a few rations of beer, get two beers maybe once a month and we'd get it from those that didn't drink and get together. And some of the smarter boys, some of the chemists there knew the business about aqua velvet and orange juice and we put it all together. And that aqua velvet would do something for you now. You know you could drink it and get pretty floaty on it but you know you would blow soap bubbles for a week. So anyhow one night there in a preamble
[00:10:07]
tent we had a little bit and and I felt like it I was leading the cheers. And I looked up on the center pole and there was the bugle and I had played the trumpet a little bit and I thought well I'll take this down and blow a little something for the boys here in the tent. And I took it down and blew reveille at 12 o'clock at night. And we had a large pursuant just big and fat and he didn't sleep in pajamas. He didn't sleep in anything. But that reveille brought him out and he came over there running through the tent in toward me naked and I just laughed at him cause he was funny looking. Came over and he jerked the horn out of my hand and said you go to bed recruit. Well I didn't like that and I said you give me that horn back here nobody talks to me that way. And he left and some of the other fellas says you might as well take one of those M1's and go out here and end it because you don't have any future here. Well that shook me up a little bit but I made it through until they could get rid of him. And we experimented around there.
Oh you've heard of kickapoo juice you know where you take the coconut and put a little sugar in it and bury it for a day or two and let it move to the right and take it out and it'd make you home a little bit. And then they had a poison leaf there they called madding and you had to distill it. And I was impatient just then just like I still am. I couldn't wait for it to get down in the bucket and I'd catch a cup full of that juice and mix it with hot water and drink it was terrible.
But it would do a little something for you. So we just improvised and got along there in the mud and in the jungle. And I didn't know whether I was going to make it back or not a few times. I certainly was hoping. But finally the day came and I did get a chance to come back and the old ego that I look back and see now that latent ego began to rise in me and I thought that yes I'll be going back a hero and they'll be out there to accept me. And I felt like to literally that General Douglas MacArthur and myself had secured the peace for the people in the Far East. Now there were 16 million others there but didn't count really. Not my thinking. I was gonna get on with it. So I returned home and there wasn't any band out there playing and it was a cold day in February and I just got me a little something and well just sort of got drunk. And I had this girl there that I told it I'll marry you when I get back. Well you see when I got back the timing was all off. There was two or three couples there of them all wanting to get married at the same time and I wasn't going that away because I felt like I had some more oats to sow. And out in the jungle it wasn't very fertile ground for sowing oats. Monkeys and wild chickens. So I began to play around a little bit. I had these brilliant brothers that would always come up with these ideas and one of them wanted to date a girl there and it seems as though the basis that that could take place on were that her friend date your brother which is me. And he started putting the pressure on me. And I said I can't do that I have this girlfriend here that I'm sort of going steady and I don't want to do that. Oh she's a pretty girl you you come on just tell her something.
a girl, you come on, just tell her something, and he persuaded me, and I went to the telephone
[00:15:06]
and I called her, and I acted like I was sort of sick, you know, I sort of talk with a temperature, and I said, I believe I have a touch of dingy, but I didn't know what dingy was, I heard that they had it out there, but I didn't know what it was, and she was so sorry to hear about it, and I said, I think I'll go on in and go to bed, well I went home and I got dressed, and I took off, and a little later that night she came down to bring me some ice cream and candy, and of course she asked where I was, and my mother says, oh, he left out of here a little while ago, oh, that was bad there in a small community, there I was up there on Mountain Lake at a weenie roast with some other girl, and it got out, and I just felt terrible about it, and she let me know about it, how she felt about it, felt like an outcast, and I thought, well, I'll go down here and buy this ring and get this thing moving, and so I did, and went down and got the ring and got things moving, and her mother took over, and she started building on the plans, and it looked to me like that she just built them all out of proportion as far as I was concerned, and we had to go down and talk to the preacher, and I was out of place there, and the preacher says to me during the talk, he said, do you know the Lord? And I thought, well, you know, I usually had an answer for most things, I just thought, I said, well, my mother knows the Lord, but I don't know, but anyhow, I got over it with him, and we got on out in there to the wedding, and I had been drinking every night gin, socially, and she had asked me prior there to the wedding not to take anything during the ceremonies, and I wish she hadn't asked me that, but I thought, well, I ought to adhere to her wishes, so I was determined not to do it, and I went down there, and there they were, all these people laughing and happy and grinning, and I thought they were laughing at me, you know, for getting married.
I didn't know that they were happy that maybe you'll live happily ever after, you know how we are, how we think sometimes, and I was very uncomfortable, and my legs were stiffened up on me, and in his service, he had the Lord's Prayer, and he asked us to kneel, and oh, what a time it was, I just went all over the place trying to get down there, and all the time I was down there, I was wondering how I was going to get up, but she helped me up, and we got out of there, and my brothers had me a few bottles and some presents, and as quickly as I could, I grabbed one of those fifths and ran to the church basement around, and took about half of it so I could get my bearings, and we left on our honeymoon, the first leg of it, down to Richmond, Virginia.
My old buddy Ken and I looked over that hotel there that we honeymooned in not long ago, and we checked in the John Marshall Hotel, and I had my liquor, and everything was just going fine, and along about two o'clock in the morning, she awakened me and said, something's going on here, there's fire trucks running around every place, and all I had on was a pair of white shorts, and she had on a little flimsy negligee, you know how that is, and I got up there looking around, my head was all out of the world, I didn't know what world I was in, and I says, it is a truck, something's on fire here, and I says to her, you stand here, and I'll go out here and see what's going on, so I tripped out through the hall, and the place was full of smoke, and I decided I'd better go back and get her, so I went back and got her, and we went down, all down the stairs, down into the lobby, and I looked around,
[00:20:04]
and everyone down there was naked, or minding their neck, and I said, this is the strangest thing I've ever seen, and somebody, someone announced over there that there's an ammonia bar set up over here, and it clicked in my head that my liquor's up there burning, and I said to her, I gotta get back up there and get our money, so I rushed to the door, and the fire guard says, you can't go through, I said, I'm going through, get out of the way, and I rushed up through there, back to the room, and I walked in, and there was a little short, ball-headed man there, kind of scared me, standing there looking around with his hands in his pocket, and he says, what's going on?
I says, the building's on fire, but you stand still, I want to search you, and I started to frisk him, and I looked over, and I saw my liquor, and I let him go. I went over and got my liquor, took a big one, got my money, and there was a Kelly Green sweater of hers laying there on the bed, so I just picked it up and put it on me, and I went back downstairs and took my seat on the couch, and set my liquor right down here.
Now friends, I don't have very pretty legs, so I was sitting there drinking my liquor and my Kelly Green sweater and shorts, looking around to see what was going to happen, and soon I spotted a politician's wife from my own hometown over here, and all she had on was her brassiere and panties, and I says, uh-huh, I'll put that on fire, and if I ever need to use it, I'll tell him about his wife down here running around naked.
Well, they got that fire out, I think, and we didn't take any more legs, we came on back home, and I told all these people I'm going to run for Congress, or I'm going to do this, I'm going to be somebody, you can figure on that, but it didn't seem to work that way. I was on this steady diet of gin, and they got me some kind of a job down there, and I didn't want any job, I wanted a position, seeing who I was.
And that job involved working at night, and I never could figure out, for me, how I could be drunk and go in at twelve o'clock, and make it till dawn, just in there cold turkey. And that didn't agree with my character or my personality, and I didn't stay there long. Now, they didn't get a chance to fire me. They were close, but I whipped up something there and put it on them and told them I quit, I wasn't going to work for anyone like that.
And I took another job up here in a clothing store, and that didn't work out too well either. I was running the clothing store, and the bosses left one payday on some business trip, and the compulsion came on me to have a little something, and about eleven o'clock I just closed the store. And I reckon that caused, gave some kind of cause to dismiss me. I never went back to see whether it did or not.
But I began to deteriorate right fast there. It was surprising to me, and I began to suffer the self-pity, and I didn't know that it was self-pity, but I began to notice it, that people didn't appreciate what I'd done and what I'd been through. I still had a lot of wind about me, as I still do. And someone asked me to come out and emcee something out there, I don't know what it was, and I was getting pretty sloppy, and my wife didn't know whether I could do it or not.
[00:25:00]
But I'd heard of the old olive oil treatment, you know, and thought I'd try it, so I drank an old bottle of olive oil before I went out, and took me some of my liquor to test it, and then went out there and drank theirs, and I thought I did a beautiful job. Came back and she said, you did beautifully, and I said, certainly. And I felt that I'd found out some way how to drink and get by with it, and I was quite pleased with it.
And it wasn't long until they asked me out again, and I didn't have any olive oil, and I just ate a half a stick of butter, and went out and took me some drinks, and friends, it didn't work. They just sort of shoveled me out. And that was the last time that I did any performing in my pre-AA time. And I came to the place where I was unemployable, and I didn't know that word then. Oh, how thrilled I was when I got to AA and found out what unemployable meant.
I thought how I could have used that. Because right in that period of time when I thought my war nerves were bothering me, and they thought I was a drunken bum, there was a song that was sort of popular. Anyhow, every time you turned the radio on, it was something about saying, get a job, get a job, get a job. And I'd try to run out of the room or cut the radio off. And I had sort of boxed myself into a corner, and I was inadequate to carry on.
And my belief in myself had begun to slip. And she had cautioned me, threatened me. And I didn't have much to drink on. And I started experimenting again, and someone told me about Parry Gark. Oh, what Parry Gark would do for me. He would just quiet my war nerves. And make my head feel like a stone. And everything would just quiet, and I could look out and the trees would just move, and it didn't bother me.
And one weekend I had accumulated a supply, what I thought was a supply. You know, Parry Gark, you had to go around and sign for a little bottle of it. And I lived in a small town, there wasn't that many drugstores, so I had to make a few circuit runs and get someone signed in order to get the supply. And I had it on a Sunday afternoon. And I was just sitting there and taking it easy. And my brother came by and said, let's go swimming.
Well, it was all right with me to go swimming. Sure, we'd go swimming. So we all got ready and we went up to Honeymoon Lodge swimming. Well, now, in the meantime, I had been wanting to get away from that place. And I'd made several efforts, you know. I'd gone away on business. And there was always wanting to know what kind of business. And I was always not wanting to tell them. Hoping that they had sense enough to know that I had business in other cities.
And I used up all of our suitcases and all that was in the family. And I'd get out there and lose them and come back barefooted. In a T-shirt. In January. It's cold. And I used up all the suitcases and I think I finally got down to pasteboard boxes and twine and string. But while we were up there at Honeymoon Lodge and they were swimming, not I, because I knew the tricks. If you haven't got much, you don't get in a pool of water and start kicking around.
Because that takes the edge off of what you've got. And you've got to drink more and you're going to run out before you're supposed to. So I stayed out on the bank and held the watches and listened to the radio. And it came over the radio about…
[00:30:01]
my goodness, this is my chance to get away, I was in the reserves, and I went down and told them to just hush now, here, let me tell you what's happening, and they thought it was so bad, I had such a long face about it, but it felt good in here, wherever it was in there that I ever felt good. So we went on home, and I made a decision to stay straight in order, because I knew they'd be calling me soon, so I could pass the examination, and I was walking around there doing pretty good, and with my spirits up a little bit.
And just one day, I stepped out of the basement during this time, and looked up in a bush, a tall bush there, and thought about, well, if I had one drink, I could take it. Did any one of you ever decide you could just take one, and you have? Well, I'm glad I don't want to be alone in this. So I went up and asked her, is there anything downtown you need? You see, in a small town with one liquor store, and all the church women running around, passing, seeing who's going in and out, I needed a little something to go in with, and if she wanted anything, that would allow me a brown bag, and I could get, if she didn't want it or not, I could get some celery and stick it out the top, and go by the liquor store, and I had an old schoolmate working there, and I'd holler in something to him, and look around, and let on, like, well, I'm not going in there after any whiskey, and kind of work my way in, because I couldn't hear him, and get in, and I did on this time, and I set my bag down on the counter, and started to ponder, what will you do here now?
And I decided that I hadn't had anything of any quality in a long time, and I decided to get a quarter Virginia Gentleman. So I did, and I put it in a bag, and walked out, and just waved, like I didn't have anything but celery and groceries. Strange how we do. Now, they drug me off of the courthouse steps. I'd go to sleep there, and dragged me into jail. Well, that was all right, because I was in another world, and knew nothing about it. But when I was sober, I hated to walk out of the liquor store, and meet Mrs. Brown there from the church, and have a liquor, you know, bottle. And one time I did that, and I had taken precautions, and put the pint in my back, behind my belt, and walked out of the liquor store, and one of my mother's friends, just a few steps, well, how are you this morning? I stood there, and talked to her a little bit, and began to change my position, and in a little bit, that pint slid down my right leg, and broke the bottom out of it, and I kept talking to her, wondering how I was going to get out of this. And finally, I told her that I had to go, and I just lifted my leg up off of that bottle, and bitter adieu, and walked on out there. And there's other people looking around, and I act like nothing ever happened. We'll go to some things, won't we? But, I got this liquor, and I took it back home, and I set it down in the basement, and I took her groceries up there, and told her that I was going to work up on those windows on the third floor. I had to get that done before I went away from here. So I went down there, and got me some tools, and took me a big drink, and went up there, and was beating around on the windows, and they didn't need beating on, but I had to do something, because to kill some time for when I went back down after the next one, you see, but I wasn't going to take any next one, but circumstances had worked around to where I had that full bottle down there, and nothing wouldn't hurt me. And so in a little while, I went back down, and I got it, and went back up, and worked a little bit, and went back down for another.
And I took it, and I raised up, and puked right straight against the wall. Well, this was a real shock to me, because I'd never puked that soon after starting. Now, if it'd been two or three weeks, why, then it'd been something else, and that was strange. So I stood there, and I slobbered, and I said, I'm going to take another one, and I did, and I just had to just work and muscle it down to hold it. I didn't understand it, but I went on back upstairs, and was working there, and I started to think about, well, what's wrong here? And I said, well, that's expensive whiskey,
[00:35:00]
and some of the older boys have said that you ought to pour the first teaspoonful of a good whiskey out, because that's poison. And I said, that's trouble, that whiskey, I should pour a little of that out, but I've got that all settled, that'll work out. And I went back down a little later after another, and I took it, and I straightened up, and I began to heave with a gusto. And I had a record of loud heaving, and I didn't like it. It always drew so much attention. It would alert the community. They'd come out and say, well, now, what's he going to do this time? But I was in such a state there that I didn't know what was going to happen, and I said, I've got to get out of here. And I got out, and I started in sort of a canter, or a gallop, around the house, puking. And on about the third turn around the house, my lower intestines broke loose, and I couldn't quit anything. And on top of all of this physical disorder, I had tremendous fear.
Maybe I'm going to die, and I don't, I came forward to die this young because I got too much to do. And I was literally scared to death and physically entrapped. But I couldn't stop running. And on one of the turns around the house, there she stood waving me in. And I said, I can't come in, I'm dying. And around and around I went, and I knew that some of the neighbors were out there watching, but I couldn't do anything about that either. And on one of the turns around there, a little later, there stood the doctor. Come on in. I can't come in. And on another turn or two, he was standing out there with his arm and caught me. And got me in there, and I laid down on the couch on this sun porch, just a complete wreck, and in a terrible mess. So they sit down there, and he says, what happened to him? And she says, I put Epicate in his liquor.
And I looked at her, and I tried to study what she was talking about. And then she said to him, but I'm not ever going to do that again. And I thought a little bit, and I thanked her. Because you see, I had about come to the conclusion that my drinking days were over. And I reasoned that maybe they weren't, since she put something in there to poison me. Well, it tore my war nerves up, and I was scheduled to report down to Fort Eustace. And I was all nervous, and I went down there, and they examined me, and my pulse was 134. And they said, what's the matter with you? I said, oh, they gave me a going-away party up there for a lift. And they
[00:40:07]
couldn't get them down. They gave me some goofballs, and so they sent me home for 60 days, and it just tore me up. I had to go back there and hide somewhere. You know, I had to go back there and be in place so when they sent for me. So I went back, and I was determined I was going to be ready for them this time. So I went to a family doctor, and I said, could you give me something for my nerves? And he says, certainly. He gave me a bottle of something orange about this tall. As soon as I smelled it, I knew what it was. Because you see, along about that time, I'd taken a lot of tablets. I felt like I never had a degree in pharmacy or something. I knew quarter grain, half a grain, yellow jackets, and blue heavy, and all. Yeah, I knew all about it.
So I controlled this orange stuff, and they sent me back to Fort Meade, Maryland here. And I went in, and a drunk Navy doctor examined me and said, go on through, you all right. And they immediately made me a criminal investigator for the western part of Virginia with headquarters in Richmond, and he gave me a pistol, automobile, and a driver, and a two-way radio. And I began to smoke cigar. Friends, this was the worst time I ever had in my drinking experience. I just couldn't be sober at the right time, and I couldn't get drunk and be comfortable for having to sober up and meet the colonel over here. And I'd gotten so far, my equilibrium had gotten out of kilter, and I scuffed up my shoes, and I was just in a sort of bad way. But I was staying away from headquarters, and when I'd wear that gun, it'd fall clear down on my leg, and I couldn't stand anything tight on my stomach. And finally, they decided to have a conference over there, and I was supposed to be there for this some learning thing, and I had to be there. I said, well, I got to get sober. I'd been going over there drinking and taking a box of garlic powder, and one day the colonel said, I'd rather smell the rotgut than the garlic powder. Now, I thought he didn't know. I felt terrible about that, standing there at attention. In the process of me trying to get straight, I was walking up and down the street there in front of my rooming house, and I had a nice room upstairs and a mold hole in the basement. And I thought I would walk this off, and I was walking up and down the street. And friend, this is a beginning of my things. Seeing things was right there. And on one turn down, I looked over against the building there, and there was crawling three beautiful snakes. As beauty goes in snakes, they were pretty. They had a beautiful green, and orange, and black, and they were crawling along. And I thought, well, now this is strange.
Snakes here in the city. I said, but I'll just kill them anyhow. I reached down to the flower bed and grabbed the brick and threw it over there and missed them about this far. Couldn't understand that. So I took another one and threw it and missed them. And I thought, well, well, I always could throw pretty good. And this landlady, she was very busy. She was standing there on the porch looking at me. So I reached down and I got another brick. I'm going to get them all three at once.
And I missed. And the brick bounced back out here and hit someone's car. And she said, what are you doing? I says, I'm trying to kill those snakes over there. And she peered over and she looked And she peered over, and she looked, and looked, and looked, and said, I don't see any snakes over there.
[00:45:02]
And I looked back, and then the thought hit me, well, maybe what I've heard about snakes may be coming to pass. So I ran to the mole hole, and I was pretty nervous. And I went in a little restroom down there, and looked in the mirror, and that scared me. And I backed out of there, and turned around, and there stood a huge bunch of wild horses running through the room, rubber monkeys in the jail, jumping from bar to bar, stealing my cigarettes.
And I smoked cigarettes then, I couldn't afford to smoke a pipe. You could get a butt anywhere, but a pipe's a lot of work and a lot of trouble. And there was a rubber monkey, a rubber man, laying over in the other bunk at this particular time, and he was laughing at me, talking to this monkey, telling this monkey to go over and steal my cigarettes. Say, he won't see you. And I took that jail cup, and I beat that rubber man, I thought to where he couldn't talk.
And he just lay there and grin at me, and look up at the monkeys and see what they were doing. And I would smoke those cigarettes, and on one occasion, I remember smoking a cigarette, and I was watching it, and it began to melt away, fade away, and then my fingers began to go. And then on up here to my arm began to go, and I thought, well, I better change that. And I put it over here in this hand, and it started to melt away, melt on back up here.
And I just dropped it because I didn't know what was going to happen, and it just sort of faded away. And while I'm talking about these things, I remember the army of ants that were attacking me from the far corner of the cell. While I was laying on the side with my hands like this, and if I had any shoes, I could have made a barricade, and I did, on this occasion, put my shoes up there to kind of hold them off, using a little strategy, and looked around, and they're just coming right up on over the shoes after me.
And I remember another instance where I had been in hallucinations for two or three days, and I was laying there on the second floor room, looking at the window, and suddenly a horse stuck his head in the window. And he was a gentle-looking horse, and I remember how long I laid there and tried to figure out, are your legs that long, or are you standing on something? Just seemed like hours and hours trying to figure out whether that horse was standing on some kind of a table, or whether he was a horse that had two-story legs.
And I believe in that same time, I had a sister-in-law that had right much mouth. I loved her. She was a good-natured and good-hearted person, but she'd just talk about anything, and always giving reports on me. Oh, he's gone somewhere now. He's out in Tennessee. He came back in barefooted from Tennessee, been gone a month. That was true. I came back in, and I was hitchhiking and barefooted, and a fellow picked me up on a motorcycle. I'd never been on a motorcycle.
But, you know, I was willing to try anything to get to the next town, maybe I could get a little something. And you had one of those things you hold there, and he got me another town, and he was doing his thing with it,
[00:50:01]
whatever it was, going from side of the road, side of the road, and I was sick enough. And we got on and off in this little town of Whitfield, and he got off, and I couldn't get off. I said, would you mind breaking my hands loose from here? They'd frozen on them. But yes, I walked in, and in the summertime, the highways get hot when you're barefooted. And they were hot that time, and I came in, and she reported about it.
But during this time of hallucinations, I remember she was standing out this window all night long, just standing out there, carrying on a conversation with somebody, talking about me up there. Oh, he's going crazy, no telling what else he's going to pull, what kind of a smart thing. On and on. I'd get up there and holler, why don't you hush up and go on? She wouldn't do it. Next morning, I said, I'm going to see the preacher and see if he can't give me some help.
And I went up the street, all the way up the street. And she and my brother was dodging, hiding behind the trees, talking about me. And I'm going out here and getting the rock, throwing it at him, trying to get him away from me. Got up there in the preacher's office, and sitting there talking to him, and they came in the basement, and he's down in the basement, standing there talking about what he's trying to…
He's trying to calm that preacher. So I sit there, and try to get him to keep quiet, and the preacher looked at me, and said, something's mattering. And I remember another instance, and I didn't recall it until about two years ago. I was in real bad straits and had no liquor, and I had a lot of bottles in the basement. Did you ever go try to pour off a drink? Well, that's what I was doing, I was in terrible shape, and I pour and pour and pour, and you know, you couldn't get it, drink it anyhow.
And I turned and came out of there, and there wasn't anyone around there that I knew of. And someone said to me, you're headed straight for hell. And I looked around, and there wasn't anything but a bird dog following me. Well, I walked on around and sat on the front porch, and that dog walked on around and laid down right in front of me. I sat there and watched that dog for a little bit, to see if he was going to say anything else.
He didn't. And I said, I better get away from here. And I got up and started down the road, and I said, now there's one thing you've got to do. You've got to never mention anything about that dog talking to you, because that'll get another set of papers on you. And you know, my family handled me pretty well, they were pretty well organized. They'd sign me into one of the institutions right regularly.
No tapering off, one of the state institutions. Because my mother somehow had it figured out that, even though some of my family wanted to put him in one of these hospitals where they taper him down, she had it sort of figured out that if it's one thing that boy don't need, he don't need one more drink. So she leaned toward the state institutions. And I was there, I made about all in the state, and learned a lot of things.
They called them then institutions for the insane. Today they have other names. Alcoholic Rehabilitation Department of the Virginia State, so and so, wherever. If someone had said detox to me then, I thought that would have scared me, because I thought that would have been another form of DTs. But I'm glad they have all these things now to take care of the people, I'm really glad we've progressed. But I saw many of those things, and that was a part of my sickness.
Well, she sent me away. She sent me away. And I didn't believe it. I didn't believe she'd do it. I went back to my mother's, and it was terrible. And they found a place for me in an old lady that couldn't hear too well in her home. And I was upstairs, and I was free just to do what I wanted to do up there. And, of course, I'd get drunk, and I couldn't stay on the bed very well.
[00:55:02]
Somehow or other, I would just wind up under the bed. In fact, that wasn't too bad, really, because when I'd wake up under the bed and hit my head on the springs, I felt secure. I felt pretty well, you know, knew where I was. But while I was up there, I decided to do something about my drinking. And I went to see a doctor, and I said, can you give me anything to stop me from drinking? He said, certainly.
And he gave me a box of tablets, and I took them away. He directed for about 15 minutes. And then I took them away. They should be taken. And it was amphetamine, and it stimulated me very well. I never saw such a change in my brilliance. I just became really what I thought. I didn't tell anybody that. I thought I was real intellectual. So I went down and bought me a $3.49 Bible. Went back up and read the book of Mark.
And I had about 25, 10-milligram amphetamine in me. My usual number was about 37 a day before I started taking the half grain of phenobarbital to go down at night. Someone said it was hard on your heart. They were hard on your undershirts, because when you perspire, all your undershirts turn brown. Right powerful medicine. But I went down and preached a sermon on the book of Mark to this old lady, and she thought it was so beautiful.
She said, your mother's going to be so proud of you. I said, that's right. I decided to go down to church down there, try to get this woman back. You know, I didn't particularly want her back. I just wanted the community to see she's wrong and I was right. But went down there and wasn't long until they was calling on Brother P. to pray. And I'd read some prayers or something. And they said, now I'll pray for you.
And I prayed to the congregation. And they said, you're doing so well. Well, I don't know. Something happened there, and I changed my formula. I was selling some kind of shoe polish or something. Got me a car. And I was just driving around dressed up, going to church, coming in, taking pills, and just doing well in the community. I wasn't getting in jail on pills. You see, I was very, very good at that.
I remember about taking the pills. One time I was walking along the street and it was time for a goofball. And I had one in my pocket, and I just flipped it up and caught it in my mouth. I didn't do it for anyone's benefit but mine. I just wanted to say, yeah, you can still do things like that. But I had to leave. I had to leave on business. And I went down to Richmond and got in trouble down there with a railroad detective and got in jail.
And I was in bad shape there, and the boots had worn off, and I was in jail. One of the policemen came by that was there when I was a criminal investigator, saw me and recognized me. What are you doing in there? I said, I don't know. I'm having my war troubles. He got me out and took me to the medical college and gave me to an intern. He took me up on top and said, what do they usually do for you when you get like this?
I said, they give me about that much pyraldehyde in a glass. He says, isn't that right much? I said, no, not for me. He gave it to me. And I saw a green telephone over here. I said, may I use your phone? He said, certainly. So I called the president of the Baptist World Alliance, and I told him what they were doing to me, asking if he couldn't give me some help. And he said, certainly, I'll have someone down there.
The next morning, I just about put this detective out of commission there because I thought he was wrong. And he had several spots on his face, and he was seeing very little out of one eye. And I thought, they're going to really get me. But this young preacher stepped up there, and he took my part. And the judge said, yeah, you can go on back home now. You'll be all right. And I went on back home. I was continuously in the headlines, and I didn't want to be in the headlines.
You know, I just wanted to be alone. Just sleep out there under the bridge, which I did many times. And I'd write comfortably, slept in glass and rock. But I was more comfortable in, you know, setting someone's bed on fire, like I did one time. This old lady, I set her bed on fire. She was quite a joker. And I had a little money and bought me some whiskey and was reading some Western novels. Went to sleep with a cigarette in my hand like this.
I used to sleep with a cigarette in my hand, like this, and you know, I didn't learn until after I came in AA, you should never hold a cigarette between these two fingers, it should be through these, it won't turn loose through these, it's too late, but it dropped off there in a little smoke, and she come running up there and said, ah, you set my bed on fire, and I thought we were still on a joking basis, I didn't see any fire, I said, ah, this old bed's on fire when I got in it,
[01:00:17]
and she looked, I looked around, there was some smoke, so I got up and went out there and got a glass of water, and while I was out there, there was the police, the fire truck, and the neighbors out there wiping their hands on the apron, watching to see if it was going to burn, and I had some liquor there, and I took the full pint, ran down back step barefoot and hid in the weeds to watch it, and all I saw was a policeman stick his hand out and pour the rest of my fifth out, and I wanted to kill him, but didn't, but all of these things happened, and it's incumbent on me, as the book says, to tell you and let you know about me, but in some way in here, God began to make his move on me, and he sent this unique program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I didn't know anything about out to get Charlie P., and they drug me in, and I didn't want to be there, such a mess, and there's some people where they were talking, I love you, and I'm an alcoholic, and all this stuff, and I finally got in Roanoke to the meetings there, and the first night there was a lawyer standing up there, and I'd known this lawyer when I was a child, he was in my hometown, and he was talking about stealing, embezzling money, stealing coal off a truck and selling it, and I said, oh, my goodness, about 40 people in that meeting, and he was a lawyer and I was law-oriented, I said, it's got to be some kind of police in here, and they're going to get him for what he's talking about, and they're going to get me for being in here with him, and I'm not even drinking, now, you see, that sounds sort of far-fetched, but that's the way I was 25 years ago, and I walked out of that hall, and I was going to get out of there, I didn't want to listen to that, and someone came out and called me, oh, so glad to see you, how are you, what did you think of the talk, I said, isn't he saying a little too much in there, oh, no, that's the way we talk in here, all right, I left, wasn't planning to come back, but circumstances had me hemmed in, I think I had an 18-month stint at hard labor as another treatment plan, so I had to stay there, and they kept talking and talking and saying all this stuff, I'm an alcoholic, I ain't no alcoholic, I didn't want to be one of those things, and I thought, well, maybe one time I'll get a chance to get to the rostrum, and sure enough I did, on Monday night, they gave me a chance, and I got so enthused about the opportunity that I got drunk on Friday night and missed my turn, but I straightened up there and got back and got in line again, and they asked me again, and I said, here we go, my chance to get them straightened out, and I made the talk, and after it was over, I was standing near the front, and this big fella came down and laid his arm down over my back and looked me in the eye and said, I love you, and I thought, my lord, I got enough trouble, but I found out what he was talking about was something else, and then we had a man there that was a director, I thought he was a director, I thought he was a leader, I thought he was doing pretty good, and he told me, he called me up and said, I want you to go on a 12-step call down in the southeast, he said, take Homer with you, and I said, alright, cold night, I went and got Homer, went down there, and remind me of the old picture we see, the drunk on the bed and two sitting here, except I wasn't sitting, I was walking on the floor telling this man how to get straight, he wasn't paying attention to me because he was taking goofballs and drinking beer, he was going out to see his landlady every few minutes, but it didn't bother me, I had a message to carry, old Homer had a month's sobriety, less than I did, and every now and then I'd ask Homer, Homer, you know what I'm talking about here, Homer would say, yeah, and I literally thought I had changed that man around down there that night, and we went on home, and the next morning, the director called up, and the poor man had died, and that just wrecked my whole future,
[01:05:12]
I thought, well, they'll be coming after you because you done talked that man dead, he said, I want you to be a pallbearer, I said, I can't be a pallbearer, he said, what's the matter, I said, I don't have a suit, he said, you get one and you be there, and I was sort of afraid of him, I reckon, so I borrowed one off of a drunk blind man who was in the same quarter as me, went down there and got over with him, came back, oh, just down real low, and my friend, the drunk blind man wanted to know if I'd burned a hole in his suit, no, he said, you sure, yeah, I finally had to take the suit and lay it down on the bed and rub his hands on it to see, I don't believe this is worth it, but finally then, I stayed sober for nine months, and I was doing very well, I had been elected to the executive committee of the Easy Does It Club, which wasn't much club, me nine months being on the executive committee, you can imagine, I was on the steering committee of the central group, the only one in the city, and I was walking around there just up to here, and I'd met a major general out there in the city that I knew during the war, and he says, come to Washington to see me, and I said, alright, I got to thinking about it, and I thought, well, I need to go up there and see him, so I boarded an airplane and flew into Washington and went over to see him, he asked me, he says, can you cut that hard liquor like you used to, and I said, well, I can't cut it quite as bad, he said, come on, let's go get a drink, went down there and got two drinks or something, and that wasn't my way of drinking, I said, I got to go, he wondered about that, but I had to go because I saw a bar back up ahead where I could do some real drinking, and got in serious trouble, well, not serious trouble, I went into a nice hotel and was in two or three, you know how you go down the line, and finally I was on the street, and all I had was a yellow shirt and a belt, and walking along the street so tired and sick and weak, and they were so heavy, and I just walked in there and laid them on a drum, and walked out and felt so relieved, and finally somebody got a hold of me and sent me back to Roanoke, and there's where God says this is it now, and I said to him, there's some people here staying sober, show me how they're doing it and help me to do it, I don't want to do it anymore, and from that day forward, I began to look at people and say, yeah, you're in bad shape as I am, and you know, we've got something in common, and I began to try to love them and pray for them, and this was fine because I still had a lot of people to kill, it's hard to do, but I did it, and as time went on, nothing real big happened overnight, time and putting the butt in the chair and just holding on, I began to heal, and I began to know about God, I began to learn about God, and I began to try to work the steps, and a fascinating thing struck me one day while going through the steps, I found God's name in there four times directly, four times indirectly, and four times it speaks of high morality, and I said, this is a God thing, and God, you must be real, and all the time I kept searching for you in the darkness of the night, in the top of the steeples of churches or on some cloud, and I never found you, and you're right here, you've got to be right here with me, and the love began to gel a bit, and I began to depend on him and trust him, the God that is talked about in our big book, the God that Millie read about in the fifth chapter, and he began to change my life, and one day I didn't want any more tablets, and I didn't want any more things to take in me to change me, it was comfortable as a wife, and I began to ponder and wonder, God, you've given a great thing here, these people are not just born, this is the class of your society because you said you left 99 of them and went out to get the black one, and here we are, and we're going to make it because your power and your attention and your love is with us, and thank you for it,
[01:10:03]
and I began to pray and I began to enjoy the act of praying and thinking and meditating, and I began to look at the mountains with clear eyes and see, God, that is your creation, and see how the trees grow and the flowers bloom and the colors, that's your creation, and we people around here are your love creation, because you have said that I created you in my image, and I made you for myself, and it must go together that whatever you made that's so close to your heart, you must love, and you're my God, and you're the God they're talking about, and you're the one that holds the spirit that we have together, and I love you, God.
What a turnaround from the times when I butted my head against the steel bars, never thanking God for anything good at all, much less anything bad, and he taught me how to thank him and to appreciate the pain and the bad things that's talked about in our principles and in our book. And I was amazed when I could say, thank you, God, that I'm in this fix, or that I'm sick and my stomach hurts and my head's dizzy and I'm not well.
Thank you, because you've said to me that this is my way of teaching you, and you have said for me to be thankful for all things and you did not specify, and I would pray don't let me miss the blessing that you have for me after this thing that I don't like. But I know that you know what you're doing, and you're going to look after me, just let me yield and let me say yes to you. And I found out that yes, he'll stand at the helm of my heart and my soul, and he will direct my course when everything's blown up outside, just be quiet inside, because that's where he lives.
And what a blessing that is to me to know and to have that peace. And you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you keep coming to such gatherings and such experiences as this, and one day at a time, don't you take that thing, it'll change you. And one day at a time, you put yourself in the atmosphere with your brothers and sisters that can talk to you common, and can share these burdens that we didn't talk about to preachers and other people.
And one day, you'll know the peace, and you'll know that God is, and that God will be, I'll count briefly, a blessing or two. I've puked one time in 24 years. Having been in jail in 24 years, I have the things that I need to live with, the material things that I once sought so diligently, thought it was success. Missed the boat. I've come to find out now that those people that have those $45,000 Cadillacs, and wives who wear minks with the diamonds and all of the things, in most cases those people are successful failures.
And I've found out that the true success is in my seeking and in my finding. In my seeking and in my finding and in my doing, the will of God, that's crucially clear. And one day, after I had married my first wife the second time, and reared my two daughters,
[01:15:08]
and saw the last one married, it was dissolved. It wasn't made in heaven, because if you remember, when the minister asked me if I knew the Lord, I didn't know it. But he turned it around, and I have the love of my daughters and the respect, and my prayers have always been for her. She's a fine lady. And I was single for a long time, and I was lonely, the loneliness that Tom and others spoke of. And I said, God, you know, I made a mess of the other marriages.
Will you, in your time and your way, give me a companion of your choice, of your pleasing? I don't want to take a chance on me doing the selecting. And in his time and in his way, out from the Al-Anon, came this beautiful lady into my life, with no strings attached. And she's with me tonight. And we've been blessed by God for eight years, and we live now in his direction and his protection. And we try to live in the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous and of the Al-Anon program.
And what a pleasure it is and what a joy to mingle with you important people. You people who have more love stored inside of you than most any I know. Let A.A. and let God make it shine for you. Thank you.