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Source: Jim S – International Convention – St. Louis – Jim's Story (1955) – Date Unknown.mp3 File: jim-s-international-convention-st-louis-jims-story-1955-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:41:35
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My name is Jim S., and I think I can prove to your mind that I am an alcoholic. I drank pathologically for a period of about ten years. I realize that possibly many of you have drank for a much longer period of time, but in the ten years of my drinking, I think maybe I fell from maybe the fourth rung of the ladder suddenly to the bottom. So, today, our theme is to try to convey to you what God means to us.
Thinking back over my early childhood days, I happened to be born in a small town in Virginia, Virginia, having been exposed to a very strict religious doctrine, Baptist, possibly you all know, not the Baptist of this generation, but of the ones of the past. It was Sunday school in the morning, eleven o'clock service, B.Y.T.U. at six, services at eight, Wednesday fair meeting, and Thursday preaching. So, I was well-endowed with no doubt about that. All of that was apparently so well and so good until there came a time in my life that I was no longer able to accept the God of the good ministers of that day, the God of my mother, and also of my father, my mother being really a religious fanatic, and that she thought not only of her religion on Sundays, but apparently, as I can remember, during the whole of her waking hours.
I'd like to leave this thought and pick it up a little later on. I wish to tell you just a little of my bringing up in this Christian home. I remember at a very early age, the first deal that I remember was this deal of diverse youth. I remember turning to my mother and asking her, mother, will this man or will this woman go to heaven or will she go to hell? It was a great concern of mine. Along with a great deal of the other effects of the neurosis that my mother carries, I mean such things as lightning, the summer storms, she would close us in a dark room, pull the blinds.
I never remember my mother as a kid going to bed without first looking under the bed, although she'd been home all day. I remember as a man, after having been exposed to the elements, the first time that I was actually in a bad electrical storm driving along the road. I remember further the teachings of my mother before I was womanhood was concerned. Still they were all beautiful and they were all right and just.
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But I'm afraid somewhere along the line, either I misinterpreted it, or on the other hand, I attempted to carry out specific rules that I became a lone ranger. Because certainly my relationship to the outside is quite different from that of my associates. These are just some of the things that I remember from my childhood. Some of the teachings, some of the fears that I was introduced to very early in life.
I can remember my early days in grade school. I remember on an occasion, I don't know whether this was the first or not, but certainly on one of those occasions, I fought on my way home from school. And as I said, it was a small Virginia town, approximately just about inhabitants of past the 1500s. Everyone approximately knew everyone else. And some of the good neighbors say to my mother, your son was fighting on his way from school.
When I arrived home, if I got thrashed in the street, certainly I assure you, I got a genteel one when I arrived home. My mother, not going to raise a bully, you shall not wind up in a penitentiary. Looking back now on this thing, my mother fortunately is still living. I see my mother now again, being the neurotic that she was. But she herself had a very bad experience. Her father, who was more than half Indian, when she was a girl, approximately around 12 years old, killed a man with a shotgun. The old man never served a day for it, as they called it, justifiable homicide.
So my mother was the same girl that had gone through that horrid experience. And quite naturally, she was the one who had the most horrible experience of her life. And quite naturally, she didn't want that to happen, not to her boy. But she thought, if she could break me from fighting, that maybe I would never become angry enough to kill an individual. Not realizing the things that she was doing to her boy.
Later on, as I grew older, I realized that I'd gotten to the place that I had no longer the desire to defend myself. I remember on one occasion, the boy took a basketball, because I had tripped him accidentally, and threw it in my face, and I wouldn't fight. I don't know what I thought at that point. I know I became angry. Maybe I thought that if he would kill me, maybe he could eat me. But I say that to show you just some of the tears that I grew up with.
Soon, I was introduced to high school. There again, I found that I was out of tune with my fellow classmates. Even at the dances, I had a great deal of trouble, though I had taken the time to take dancing lessons. Unbeknownst to my parents, because of course, the good Baptists in those days, they didn't dance. But I can remember many times at a dance that I would attempt, always, not sometimes, but always, to cure a certain number of dancers.
Because I knew that if I was to ask a lady to dance with me, and she refused, there would have to be a hole in the floor.
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I remember one of the incidents that happened in the swimming pool. At that time, we were swimming naked, and a boy made a remark, I walked from the pool, and today I can't swim. But somewhere along in my high school career, I started to take into account of myself, and I realized that I was off the beam in many ways. I played and participated in a few of the athletics, that mostly against my mother's will, because she was always afraid that football was a little too rough.
Baseball was all right. The tracks were okay. She even went to the extent to get a good physician to sign a blank, in order that I may not participate in the military activities, the cadets of the high school. Because there again, she didn't want her boys to even think of becoming a soldier. But as I said, in high school, I started to take into a little inventory, and I realized that I had many, many deficiencies.
But it dawned on me that regardless of all of the inhibitions and the inefficiencies that I may have possessed, that I had one tool by which I could compete, and that was my brain. I never had too much trouble in school, as I guess I've been blessed with the causes. I don't know what it is to cram. I've never known even in college what it was to spend a continuously studying or a complete night, like many of my friends.
They have all night attempts to cram. But I realize now that Cigars had been kind to me in that department, and that there I could, if not excel, I could equal my fellow man. And I believe that I use that as a whip for the remainder of my time in high school through college, and even into my early adult life. I read extensively, many books. I offered always, at all times, seeking knowledge. I guess for a long number of years, I read on an average of three to four hours each day.
And thereby, I was fairly well informed. But getting back again to this theme of religion, and God, as I understand him, of the spiritual side of life, I eventually finished school, went into practice, and everything apparently was going along okay. My father, who was a rural physician, had moved to Washington, D.C. He built up a wonderful practice there. Aside from that, he had a mail-order medicine business going, and things were going along fairly well.
In 1928, the death of my father, I don't know just what happened. I know I had a deep love for my father, much more than that that I've ever had for my mother, up to my time that I was introduced to AA. I know at times that I actually despised my mother, because I held her responsible for my plight. But from the year 28, But from the year 28 to 30, it actually wasn't too bad.
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We apparently were able to survive the depression of 29. But in 32, things started to happen. We didn't make as much money. We had to skinch here and there possibly to keep some of the worldly goods that we were attempting to acquire. Then we were living in Washington. Something happened to us. A dead child was given to us. This being the second child, a boy, I had great hopes, as my father had had hopes in me, that I would have amounted to something.
And I had great hopes for my son. I realized that I had taken special efforts to support the boy's early training, his early education. I remember as most kids, when they get into class, they have their first fight. He ran into the house crying. And I asked him what the trouble was. He said, a big boy out in the street hit me. I looked out the window and I said, where is the big boy? He said, there he is, out there.
I looked out. They were about the same size. Well, I said, son, you have to go out. If he kills you, he certainly can't eat you. Because I was thinking back of my rearing, and certainly I didn't want to burden my son with the things that my mother had saddled me. And I believe to this point that he has grown, that I have been able to possibly do a fair job with him. But again, in 35, skipping a few years, a lot of things started to accumulate.
A lot of things started to snowball. Some of the things, some of these things, I was actually aware of. Others possibly were deep-seated in the subconscious. I know that at a very early age, I had been introduced to alcohol. That is, the booze of the prohibition days. The crime of the prohibition days. The prohibition days. The corn whiskers. The moonshine, and whatnot. But I realized in 35 that I wanted a drink.
I felt the need of a drink. And I can remember now, as plain as it was yesterday, that I'd go and steal my own whiskey. Eventually, when I asked me why I was drinking alone, I lied to her, under the pretense that I had a cold, that I wasn't feeling up to par. And the majority of you know the story from there on out. It certainly didn't stop there. I went on from that stage to the stage where I would bring my whiskey in the house, drink it, and hide the bottle.
Then came the accumulation of bottles I had to lie against. Because they weren't mine. They belonged to my brother-in-law, who happened to be living with them. They were his bottle. They weren't mine. I knew nothing about them. Then came the stage where I looked forward to the weekends to drink. It didn't interfere with my normal way of life. It didn't interfere with my family. It was my business. And if I chose to take a few drinks over weekends, it was my business.
But there again, it was just a matter of time. When the Saturdays drinking and the Sunday drinking terminated into Monday drinking,
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then came the time that I had to have the morning drink. And from there on out, I had to increase the morning drink until I was drinking a half a pint to get straightened out in the morning. Then there came the time that a half a pint wasn't even sufficient to get rid of the jitters. And of course, you all know what happened from there on out. I was just a prudential drunk for another day. It went from bad to worse until it got to the place that I drank daily, day in and day out.
Until in 41, an incident happened. That gave me a shock. A very dear friend of mine had been in the night before. He had paid me a bill that he had owed me. And on the following night, he came back and said, Jim, over our cocktail last night, I forgot to pay you for last night's subscription for my wine. I said, no, I said, you don't owe me anything. He said, yes, you remember? No, I didn't remember.
I didn't remember prescribing anything. I don't remember giving him anything. The following morning, I went to this friend's home. He had just been in the hospital for a few days. The following morning, I went to this friend's home. He had gone to work, talked with his wife, checked the medicines was okay. But I said to Vi, something has to be done. It was all right for me to lose my automobile. It was all right to remember having been in a tavern or at a party at 11 or 12 o'clock, get home at 4, not remembering where I'd been, what had transpired.
Those were bad enough, but this was too much. I knew then that I had to do something about my drink. And it was at this point that I sought the aid of psychiatry. I signed myself into a hospital, a mental institution. It was at this time that I sought help from the clergy. But none of them could give me the answer. The psychiatrists had told me that I was basically dishonored, that I may have known.
I may not have been cognizant of it at the time. The clergy told me that I was too far away from God. But they couldn't tell me how to find God. The general practitioners only said that I drank too much, I should moderate. Not one of my good friends had told me that I would have to leave it alone completely, that I couldn't drink it at all. They didn't tell me that. They only knew possibly a little something about the dipsomaniac, the individual that drank periodically.
It brought me over a bend. But the latter part of 1941, after I realized that there was no hope for me, brought me over a bend. But the latter part of 1941, after I realized that there was no hope for me, I came to the conclusion that maybe my environment was responsible. Most of my friends were drinking, possibly much too much. I wasn't the only one that was actually in trouble. There were many of us.
Many of us would go to parties and weren't able to drive home. I realized also that I had to close my office. I had no other alternative than to secure a job. So I went to one of my good friends who secured a position with the full civil service region. I worked there a while and I drank, I believe,
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more because I had a steady salary. All I had to do was to put in those seven hours or eight hours. The rest of the time was mine to drink. I was assured of the salary. Then came the time, I think around September of 1941, that the full civil service region was decentralized, to Winston-Salem. That was joyous news to me. I remember I went home and told my wife, if I have this thing licked, I'm going to Winston-Salem I'm going to Winston-Salem.
Winston-Salem is a dry city. I won't be able to secure whiskey there. I'm the drunk and I'm sincere. I'm sincere. I had lived in a town where I could get whiskey after hours. I had known practically every bootlegger within five miles of my residence. I didn't know why it didn't dawn on me that there'd be some bootlegging in North Carolina. But it didn't. I said, if I ever got this licked, for all it is good, we'll make new friends.
There will be a new environment. And I will be a different man. Because remorse at this point had just about beat me to death. Not only had I mistreated my friends, my home, the agony that I had brought upon my children, the grim agony that I had thrust upon my wife, because at this point she no longer would go out to social gatherings, because I had went to her house, and you know what I mean, to all of her friends every time I got drunk.
And if it wasn't that, I had to be called back to the car and beg someone to drive this drunk home. And when I got home, she said, lift me out of the car and drive Sunday morning, if it should happen to be Saturday night, in front of the house in a drunken stupor in an automobile. So long since so long since she had developed sense enough not to go anywhere with me. But at this point in my drinking, she was my worst enemy.
And not only would abuse her, but I would fight her. I think she's a wonderful woman to have put up with it as long as she is. Of course eventually she got tired of it. She did something about it. But she was not on top of things. But uh, we're going to Winston-Salem. Everything is going to be alright. We're going to start life anew. We're going to make these new friends. And we're going to live once again as human beings.
I went to Winston, I stayed for I went to Winston, I stayed for about a month or six weeks. Because I went on ahead, secured a home, beautiful house, big eight room house, beautiful garden, little swimming pool. And I said, I know Vi and the children will really enjoy this. I couldn't do this thing wholeheartedly. I refused to drink whiskey. But I did drink beer, plenty of it. But for some reason I've never been able to drink enough beer to actually affect me too much.
So after about six weeks, I wrote Vi and suggested that it was about time that he and the kids make some tracks further south. And it happened to be just around Christmas time. And it happened to be just around Christmas time. It never dawned on me that he needed some money. So I mailed a little token on possibly a couple of weeks prior to this. So I mailed him a lousy twelve dollars.
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She Had a Job in Washington, and that she thought, for the time being, that it was best that she remain there, for the sake of the children and their schools, inasmuch as they were familiar with the school system there in the district. And you can imagine what happened then. I drank for far less reason, but that, in my mind, was a genuine reason. And I drank more than I'd ever consumed in Washington.
It was there that I started to even hemorrhage. You know that I lost a great deal of time from work because of my drunken spree. But I made some good friends there. I drank to the point in Winston-Salem that I was reinvestigated in the government center. But like an alcohol, we are a true group of individuals. We know the right people, and we apparently do just the right things at the right time. And when that investigation came up, that's fine.
A whole lot of people were made liars of that were telling the truth. Then, eventually, in the time that I could no longer stay in Winston, I had to come back to Washington. I had to come back to my old man, sir. My wife and I went back together. We no longer, at this point, are paying note on a few pieces of property. We're now reduced to a room and a kitchen. We cook in this room. We sleep in this room.
We entertain in this room. We're reduced to that at this point. She's watching two of our children are found out to her mother in the country, and she's attempting to do something for the elder girl that is with her. Once again, we're going to lick this thing together. And once again, I was a complete failure. It was at this point, in July of 44, that we finally decided, with the aid of the District of Tony, or commonwealth, as we call it, that I should go and live with my mother, and that I should not molest my wife under any circumstances.
This thing actually grieved me, because I'm still deeply in love with my wife. But I'm forced into this thing. Until eventually, I guess, I got in some pretty serious trouble about it. I guess I brooded about it a little too much. But I'm an alcoholic. I'm not able to face life as the average individual. The men live with their wives by the thousands. They're able to give them up. They're able to substitute something else.
I wasn't. Even though I wasn't a fit husband, and I knew that. But I still felt that she was giving me a raw deal by leaving me out in the world all by myself. Nothing but a little kid. So I was 40 years of age. I had a payday on the 23rd, the 25th of November being my birthday. Of course, I had to celebrate, and I couldn't go back to work the 24th. And I had to take off the 25th, because that was my birthday, and I had to celebrate.
But this happened on the 24th. I don't know, again, how I arrived at this destination, whether it was by cab, whether I had crawled, walked, or by streetcar. But I remember meeting my wife on the corner of 8th and Valley, just leaving this home,
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this room, this gas stove. The following morning, at the arrangement in the court, a very stern judge was now deceased, was presiding over the case. And for some reason or other, he turned to my wife, and he said, Madam, what have you to say? And she said, Yes, Your Honor, my husband is a fraudulent. But I really think he's gone nuts. I think he's gone crazy. He said, If that is your opinion, I will abide by it.
I will commit this man to a hospital for mental observation for 30 days. Instead of the hospital, I was thrown in the city jail, and I remained there. I think it's quite a thing. But I saw the psychiatrist was an intern that came and took a Wasserman test. Approximately on the 25th or 23rd, I believe, of December, I was brought back into court. My good wife had decided, through the efforts, I guess, of my mother and some of my relatives, to decide anyhow that she didn't want to prosecute me.
So, of course, the case was now passed, and I was released. Again, I became a hero. My wife had fixed me this great favor. I felt once again that I should have to leave, and I did. There had been transportation going from the city of Washington to Seattle, Washington, there to do court. Well, I decided that that was a long way from Washington, D.C. But at least if I couldn't do anything about my problems there, certainly I would be a long way from Washington.
Because at this stage, I believe that I had lost just about all of my faith. I had just about reached the point of desperation where I actually just didn't give a darn about what happened to me. If death would have come in those days, I would have been glad. I didn't have the guts to take my own life, but I thought of it as a way to do it. But to make a long story short, I went to Washington. I gladly worked my way back to a poor mill in Clarenton, Pennsylvania.
An incident happened there in Clarenton that made me very ashamed of myself, and once again I thought of my home and of my family. We've been led apart of March to the 1st of April of this year, 1945, Easter Day. And prior to Easter, I had made up my mind that I was going to send some money for my wife and an outfit for my later daughters at Easter time. But there's one thing that I hadn't taken into account, that I had to pass a liquor store after I got my pay envelope before I reached the post office.
But I never got that check. My daughter never got that Easter house check. A quarter ago last year, I went, I made another couple of weeks, and then I came back home. And there's where I found my sponsor, where I found a God that I can understand. In that age, I learned that God is not up there, not an old gray man with a beard, with a stick to beat us every time that we make a mistake, but he is a loving God, that I
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can talk with him, that I can rely on him, that every day when I reach the crossroads, that I can know that he is there, that if I become mentally confused, that I know that he is there, and I know that whatever my problem might be, that it can never be larger than the God that I understand. It's a beautiful thing to come in a age, to get the basic knowledge, where we realize that we must be honest with ourselves and sincere, but somewhere along the line, something else creeps in, and we know for ourselves that behind all of the miracles that we see pass on in our age, is a kind and loving God.
As it was said here in this convention, that he will never leave us, that certainly we shall have to leave him, and God bless you all.