Recording note: Maurice G. of Schenectady shares at the Orchard Grove group’s 17th anniversary on November 5, 1956, discussing drinking, family life, sponsorship and recovery. This edited address omits one third-party personal anecdote and a separate unidentified recording appended to the original reel. Unclear words are marked in the transcript and captions. The date is supported by contemporary group bulletins.
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Source: Maurice G. – Orchard Grove 17th Anniversary (Edited Address, November 5, 1956).mp3 File: maurice-g-orchard-grove-17th-anniversary-edited-address-1956-11-05.mp3 Duration: 00:54:41
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Well, congratulations on your 17th anniversary. It's a wonderful thing to see so many people here on an occasion which, in AA circles, is, of course, very important. When Henry mentioned the 17 years, I tried to figure where I was 17 years ago. But when it came to subtracting 17 from 1956, I couldn't make it. I don't know what year that was. Trying to subtract numbers like that makes me think of one time when… This is an AA meeting, all right, I can say that. Before the meeting, somebody said, do you think we ought to turn that fan off over there? And Henry said, no, we need it for ventilation.
And then a girl got up and turned it off, and he got mad, and I felt at home. It's the proper atmosphere. I'm going to take you back to the summer of 1944. I was working in a war plant up in Long Island. The war was on. It wasn't no experience for me because I had worked in a great many war plants. After I [unclear] AA, my wife and I listed them one time, and I had worked in 26 war plants in three years. I wasn't exactly a stable person. My wife at that time was working in Grasslands Hospital. We had five children, and somebody had to do something. [Unclear] in contact with many undertakers. And she said that by and large, they were pretty heavy drinking lads. And one fellow in particular, he used to come in there [unclear] all the time [unclear]. She noticed that he came three or four times sober, well-dressed, and went about his business [unclear]. The change was so noticeable that she commented on it to him. She said, gee, Mr. B., [unclear] these days, what's happening? And he up and told her that he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, she said, that's very interesting because I have a drinking problem. He said, do you drink? She said, no, I don't drink. My problem is home and bed right now. And George [unclear] jumping on the hearse and driving over to see me. And I've often wondered since just what my reaction might have been if I'd pulled back [unclear] and looked out and seen a hearse coming up in front of the house.
[Exchange unclear.] [Exchange unclear.] [Exchange unclear.] [Exchange unclear.] [Exchange unclear.] Huh? [Exchange unclear.] I feel like, something like the guy up at White Plains one night I was in a meeting and they called on this fellow to talk and he didn't expect that he'd get up and he said, well, gee, I never talked in front of a crowd before, but I can play a harmonica and he took it out and he played a harmonica. If I got a harmonica, I'd have to play it that way, get organized.
So, she said, no, don't you go over there. He's [unclear] to talk to anybody [unclear] drinking. He said, well, there's been a new group [place unclear] and I'll get a hold of the secretary over there and see what he can do. So, the secretary assigned the case to a [unclear] by the name of [name unclear] who was six weeks sober. He'd never been on a 12-step case. And he called me on the telephone. He said, my name is [name unclear] and he said, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, from a friend of yours and mine, I understand that you have a drinking problem, and I'd like to come down and talk to you about it. I [unclear] sober in the meantime, it was a few days later.
I said, now, wait a minute. Is this a practical joke? He said, I don't think so. Well, I said, I think it is, but I don't think the guy that told you that is funny. So, he said, well,
[00:05:02]
I'm sorry. And he hung up. Now, I didn't know that my wife was back at this. This was just a call out of the dark. So, he called [unclear] the next day and [unclear], yes, I heard you talking, call [unclear] back again. So, the next day, the guy called me on the phone again. I didn't like that either. I [unclear] him off somewhere or other. And the next day, he called me again. And [unclear], now, wait a minute. [Unclear], am I bothering you? [Unclear], no. Well, [unclear], don't bother me. And I hung up on his ear. Now, did I sound like [unclear]?
I know these days, [unclear] in a similar set of circumstances, [unclear] contact. [Unclear], the report would be he's not interested. But this guy was a greenhorn. He didn't know any better. And so, the following Friday, I got drunk again. And Sunday night, I was sitting out in the back porch, shaking it off, trying to get ready to get to work the next day. And the doorbell rang. My wife was sitting out there with me and she went into the house. And came out and said, that man from AA is here again. I said, listen, will you go in and tell him to go away? I don't want to talk to him. Well, she's surprised I wish to talk to him. I don't know. Why don't you talk to him? I don't want to talk to him, that's why. Well, we've been married 25 years at the time. I didn't trust her. When she headed into the house, I figured she'd bring him out. I didn't want to see him. It was in August. I had a garden out back. And a lot of the tomato plants had grown up all about that high. So I ran down off the porch and I laid down back to the tomato plants. Well, I was right. She did bring him out. But they couldn't see me. And I heard her say, well, he must have gone over the back fence. And the guy said, I always remember the voice, he said, never mind, we'll get him yet. No, I didn't know anything about AA. I didn't know who they were. I knew vaguely there was some organization that dealt with alcoholics and they were prodding in on me. And I didn't know whether they were run by the government or what the hell it was, but they were after me, that I know. Well, that week I stayed sober. Could you help it? And the following Sunday night I was sitting in the front room and the guy walked right in, walked right over and shook hands with me. And well, I sat there and talked a while and he was pretty sure that he knew my type. I got going and he let me go. He didn't talk to me at all. I didn't give him a chance. So after a while he said, well, that's very interesting. I would try to tell him that only I drank some, but certainly not [unclear] anything like alcoholics. And he said, well, we're having a meeting tonight. Why don't you come up? We have a group of men up there, a few businessmen, a few professional men. I think you'll like it. Well, I said, all right, I'll go. I know no sooner had I said that than my wife was in with a clean shirt. And before you know it, she and I, and he and his wife, [unclear] the meeting. Well, it was at the YMCA.
I was a little bit leery. I said, this is some Protestant church outfit. I had four priests on my tail as it was, and I didn't want to get that other mob after me. But I went in and that was it. That was it. I haven't had a drink since. But I'll tell you about that part of it later, I think. In order to qualify to talk about the program, I ought to tell you a little bit more of the kind of drunk that I was. I've often heard it said that we're all alike. But that hasn't been my observation. Thank the Lord. We all have a common problem, but we're all kind of personalities. And I'm a common, ordinary, garden variety of drunk, the like
[00:10:06]
of which you've met many. I, I read a great deal in the literature that we alcoholics become alcoholics because we're trying to escape from something. Well, I don't know in the beginning when I was trying to escape from anything. I didn't start to drink until I was 30. I won't say I never took a drink. I did on occasion before that. But it was very seldom. If I went to a football game and they were passing a bottle around, I got in on the deal. If I went to a wedding and things of that kind, [unclear] by getting drunk. But that wasn't very often. By the time I was 30, I did start to drink.
And I've often thought back about it. And I can't recall that I drank because I wanted to escape from anything. I had a good job. I had a nice wife. I had five children. I owned my own home. I had good projects with the companies I was with. I wasn't sick. I always felt good. I was confident of my future. I wasn't worried about anything. And I certainly didn't start drinking because I was trying to escape from anything. Oh, later on in my drinking, when I got really bad, I did a lot of escape drinking. I couldn't [unclear], and [unclear] get drunk. But certainly that wasn't so in the beginning.
I drank. I often try to analyze myself to see if I can find out why I drank. But the only answer that I can come up with is that I used to like to get drunk. I used to love to get drunk. Put me up in front of a bar on a Saturday afternoon with a pocket full of money, and I took off and had a hell of a good time. The only trouble was I kept to [unclear]. And I got in a lot of trouble. I was the kind of fellow that, I remember I was always in brawls and violence before I wore glasses. When I put the glasses on, I put them on because I needed them [unclear]. But they turned out to have an unexpected value because nobody ever [unclear] me after I put the glasses on. Before that, I was [unclear] all the time. I remember there was a bar not far from where I lived.
I went over one Saturday. I remember throwing a $10 bill in the bar. And they gave me a [unclear]. And he said, he picked up the bill and he passed it back to me. He says, [name unclear], this is Saturday afternoon. This is my busiest afternoon. I do more business here on Saturday afternoon than Saturday evening. I do all the rest of the week. Now, he said, listen, you cause more trouble in a bar than any man I ever served. Will you take your money and go away? I get put out of bars before you even start a drink. Can you imagine what happened after I did start a drink? I was always in trouble in that way. I was always in trouble with cops. You walk up to a cop [unclear] and start talking to him and [unclear], you know you're going to get in trouble. I got in plenty of trouble that way. I never should have drunk at all. I was not a successful drinker. I remember one time, the company I was with at that time, a young man who was [unclear] vice president. He was probably 38 or 40 at the time, and he and I had been somewhat friendly, and I had just bought a new home, and I thought it might be a good idea to [unclear] [unclear]. And I remember he came. His wife couldn't come for some reason or other, but he drove up to the house, and I had everything all ready for him. I know he took a drink.
At this time, I hadn't got too far down the scale, and I remember that I made up three nice, I think it was [unclear]. And I had these tall glasses that I put up in the refrigerator with mint coming out of them, making impressions. So I spiked him pretty well, I remember that. And when he came in, I brought him in the train, gave him one, gave my wife one, and I sat down, and we kept sipping the drink. Well, he was [unclear] alcoholic, and he took his time drinking, and it took him a little while to get rid of that one. And when he finally did get rid of it, I went out, and I had another one.
[unclear]. And [unclear] brought it in, and we drank that. Well, by the time I got through with that, of course, I got two double-headers in me, and I took a shot when I was out in the kitchen. So by the time he gets through with that, by now, I come in, and I say, Hey, Phil, I drink a quart right here. Hey, Phil, have a drink.
[00:15:01]
Making an impression on the Vice President. Before we get through, we get in a fight. Back in my house. My wife says, I come down the stairs, you're rolling around the floor, you're punching him, he's punching you, I'm punching him. After that, he never called me Maurice. He always called me Mr. G. That was a friendship he never developed. I kept drinking these quarts and got into a lot of trouble. I not only had trouble outside, I had trouble at home.
I heard a lot of people say, well, as bad as they got, they never took a poke at their wife. Well, I got that bad, I did take a poke at my wife. And it didn't turn out very well. I had three daughters at the time I'm talking about. They were in high school and I had a boy who was on the football team. So between the four of them, they could handle me all right. And every time I'd start throwing my weight around the house, I used to get licked.
I'd come [unclear] and I'd be all black and blue. [Unclear]. It wasn't until I got to AA [unclear] the problem [unclear]. I remember one night, uh, coming home, I'd been drinking wine. Wine made me very ugly. Uh, I got through the whiskey stage. I drank whiskey for quite a long while. And then when I ran out of money, I started drinking wine because you got a lot of mileage out of wine. And, uh, but it made me ugly.
And I, this happened, I, I told this one time, they put it in the grapevine, I didn't read it out in the grapevine. Uh, I was coming up the walk and, uh, feeling nasty, as they say. I remember saying to myself, uh, if she hasn't got dinner ready, I'll raise hell. And if she [unclear] got it ready, I won't eat it. So when I get into the kitchen, she had the, uh, creamed codfish and baked potatoes. That's a good dish around New England where I come from.
Skims and all, you know. Uh, it looked kind of messy, but it tasted good. When I get in there, she had that ready for me, and I said, uh, what the hell have you got there? She says, you know what I got there. I says, what do you think I am, a pig? And she says, yes, you look just like one. So she got up and I chased her out and I grabbed her. I chased her out and she got up the stairs and I [unclear] the codfish Up the stairs after, and about that time the family is going into action and, uh, they get me down on the dining room floor and [unclear], you know, and they will pound the hell out of me.
And I remember, she's up on the stairs and she says, [unclear]. That's the way things went around my house. I was always getting licked. And my wife was only about this big. I can't see it. I have night blindness. I always had it. And when I would come in with an ugly look on my face, uh, some of the kids down there [unclear] and the house was in the dark. She had the advantage on me then. And, uh, I'd be probably yelling, you know, the way I would yell.
I wouldn't dare yell here the way I used to yell at home. You could hear me way down to the park. Oh, yeah, come on, you know. And, uh, I'd be around there stumbling around until finally I'd get tired and I'd go to bed. It was a [unclear] time [unclear]. [Speech unclear.] I, uh, I remember another occasion, uh, of my experience as a [unclear]. My wife reminded me of it since I got an AA. One night she said to me, uh, do you know that this is the anniversary of the coronation of the Pope?
I said, no, all I know is the, uh, [unclear] anniversary. Oh, she said the Pope was crowned so many years ago. I don't know whether it was. Don't you remember that night? I said, no, I don't remember that night. And she rephrased my memory. It seems that I get home about five or six in the clock, five or six o'clock in the morning. And I turn on the radio and the coronation ceremonies are going on in Rome and the music is coming in.
And I get overcome with a surge of religion. I get very religious. So I go up and I say, come on, get up. Get the kids up, [unclear] the Pope to be crowned. And she said, wait a minute, I've got to go to work tomorrow. I said, stop that, stop that. Now, you can neglect their religious education if you want to, but I'm not going to neglect it.
[00:20:01]
Come on, get them up. Well, they get up, you know, and they're all downstairs and nobody's listening to the music. We've got all about that by now and we're in an argument. And I took a poke at [unclear]. One of my daughters hit me right in the head with a bottle, soda bottle. And I got a scar here [unclear]. So the night the Pope got crowned, [name unclear] got crowned, see. I have it here to remind me of it.
Every once in a while when I'm down about AA, I just feel this little scar up here. That's where I'd be if I started back at stuff again. Well, after I [unclear] AA, of course, as I look back at my experiences, I recall many other things that showed how far down I was going. In the beginning, I handled my drink all right, although I didn't have a long, successful drinking career. I degenerated into being a first-class liar.
I used to lie so often. I developed such a false world of living that I can't remember [unclear] certain things that are in my memory, [unclear] they actually happened, or whether they were these things I used to talk about. I got fired from a job one time. It was a very good job, and I developed a very complicated story, explaining how I got fired, or how I didn't get fired, but explaining how I left.
And I told that story so often that I finally got to believe it myself. And it wasn't too long after I was in AA that I finally get up one night and I said, hell, I used to tell the story about coming to a disagreement with the new management. [Speech unclear.] Everybody in the audience had probably been fired. That's my good thing about AA. You know, [unclear], it's just like the lights getting turned off, [unclear].
It was the same way with getting fired. But I remember this sort of thing happened. One time, I was on my vacation up in Boston, and when the three weeks were up, I was too drunk [unclear] I knew that I couldn't get back to work. So I sent a wire ahead that will be detained until Wednesday. We'll explain. I got in Wednesday morning, and this was the story I told. Now, it didn't happen at all, but I remember reading Hitler's book, and then he said, if you tell a lie, tell a big one.
[Unclear], because they'll believe [unclear], but they won't believe a little one. So that sounded all right to me in my frame of mind. So I made up this story. My brother-in-law and I had gone out to see the Red Sox play, and on the way back, driving across the city, we went across on Massachusetts Avenue. [Speech unclear.] And when we came out, John got out of the car. John had had a [unclear] beer, and a fellow stepped out in front of him, [unclear] the car, and he knocked him down.
And we picked him up, and we drove directly down to the Boston City Hospital and brought him in, and they found out that the fellow's skull was cracked, so they held John because they smelled the beer on him. And John was in the police station, and [unclear], the fellow was in serious shape [unclear], and I had to wait around the next day to raise the money to get him out. Now, that was the story, I thought.
And that's a good story, and they believed it. But the aftermath was about three or four years later, I was up in Boston one time, and John and I went out, and we [unclear], and [unclear], John, whatever happened to that guy you hit [unclear]? Well, I had visualized that. [Unclear], and I know that the only chance you're going to get a lie like that is to believe it's true and really recreate the conditions, and that's what I had done.
In my memory today, there are many other things like that, and I can't tell you what ever actually happened to that. I remember going from the [station name unclear] to my house, which was about a mile and a half, and there was a shortcut where I could go up the railroad track about a half a mile and cut through [unclear], which made it shorter. Now, I have very vividly in my memory lying on the track.
The track was at one level, and the path beside the track was at a lower level, and the bank went down like that, and there were clinkers there. And I can remember lying on that bank, and every once in a while a train going by me three or four feet up above my head. I can very vividly remember. Now, whether that actually happened or whether it was in the DTs or hallucinations or not, I couldn't tell you.
I had the DTs. I had them more than once. I had hallucinations. I had all that sort of thing, and it was a frightening experience. I, since I've been in AA, and I look back at some of these things,
[00:25:01]
frightening. Until I was 36, I said I was a normal fellow, and I've been in AA a dozen years now, and I've been normal since I've been in. I can go out and make a good living today in some competition. I'm a normal man, and in my youth I was. But there was a period in there of about 15 years, I can't understand it. It seems like a dream, a nightmare. I know what that second step means. I came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and sanity is as used in that step, at least the way I interpret it.
It doesn't mean the crazy nonsensical things that I did when I was drinking, such as [unclear]. That's all right. But you put a quart of whiskey in Eisenhower, and he'll act like a jackass too. I don't mean that. I mean in my sober intervals. I wasn't drunk all the time. Nobody's ever drunk all the time. In the year before I came into AA, I had three different three months periods of sobriety. Three months is a long while to be sober for an alcoholic.
And in those times I wasn't normal. My attitude on life was awful. I had gotten to the point I was antisocial, I didn't like people. Now that's not by nature. I do like people. But in those, in that period, I didn't. I had to be, I isolated myself from the rest of mankind. I developed a frightful antagonism to the rest of the race. Now, it all came from my drinking. I have a, my analysis of the problem of the alcoholic, Now, this is my own.
Probably many others have the same view of it. However, it's not orthodox. [Unclear]. There isn't any such thing in AA really as any orthodoxy. There's nobody in AA that's going to tell you what's what. They can give you their version of what they think is what's what. And it may be right or it may be wrong. [Unclear] I thought so five years ago. I don't think so today. We can change our mind in AA, nobody cares.
It's frequently done. But the way I think of it is this. And I repeat this as strictly my own view. I think the basic component in the alcoholic is physical. It's not the only component. But I think it's basically that. There's something in my system that when I put alcohol into it, something happens to me that doesn't happen to my brother. I have a brother three years younger than I. We have the same mother and father.
We were brought up in the same general background. We had the same sort of education. We started off in life more or less together. And we both started to drink about the same time. He still drinks. He's got a big job with a big company and a very high salary and he's a successful man and very normal. He can drink once in a while and he can get high once in a while. [Unclear]. But in the early days when he and I were drinking the same amount, things were happening to me physically that weren't happening to him.
And we don't know [unclear] it is. There are various theories. You'll hear in AA about as far as they'll go as to say that we're allergic to alcohol. And even that's [unclear] the word allergy, I think. But we know from our own experience that when we take alcohol in our system, something different happens. Whether it's metabolism or whatever, it doesn't make any difference. All we know is that it's there.
So I always say there's something wrong with that gizzard. And let it go at that. Now, with that to start with, as I went along with my drinking, in no time at all I was getting physically very sick as a result. I remember one time this same brother came to visit me. This was when I was all in the very early stages of my drinking. He lived in Canada and I lived in New York. And when he came down he brought a quart of whiskey with him.
And we had a few drinks sitting in my kitchen, like three apiece maybe. And I took the bottle and I said, do you have another one? And he said, no, I don't care for any. I've had enough. I said, you don't mind if I take one? He said, no. And I drank it. I poured out a drink and I drank it. And then the problem came up. He didn't show any signs of getting to bed, and I didn't want to drink another one in front of him, but I wanted one.
[00:30:00]
I did maneuver it eventually so that he went along to bed, and I pretended to go to bed. I went up to my own bedroom, and I waited for a while, and I thought he was asleep. And then I went downstairs, and I finished the quart. In fact, I even went out and had a few more. I was kind of tired. So the next morning, when he got up, he came into my bedroom and said, you going to the city? Well, I said, no, I think I'll wait for a later train. He sat on the edge of the bed, and he said, get up.
I said, what do you mean, sit up? I want to talk to you. So I sat up. He said, what's the matter with you? I said, what do you mean? He said, you're still drunk. Well, I said, I had a little extra. He said, I know what you did. I know what you did. I heard you go out. Now, that was years ago. Now, there were circumstances which were very embarrassing to me, and I remember thinking it over afterwards.
I said to myself, there's something different between him and me. This wasn't any occasion for getting drunk. This wasn't a football game. This wasn't hanging around a bar. This was the case of a brother myself that I hadn't seen for a couple years. And I knew when I took that last, that extra drink that I shouldn't do it. I remember [unclear], I think at that time, there is something wrong with me.
Now, that was years before I got into any serious trouble with my drinking. I mentioned that only as an illustration, but I think the physical component of this thing is very important, certainly in the beginning. Now, as I went along with my drinking, and I began getting sick, up until the time that I began getting sick in the morning, I was really sick in the morning. It didn't make any difference.
I had a job in the city. I lived out in Westchester County. And if I drank at night, it didn't seem to make much difference as long as I got out of the job and did my work. But as time went on, I was too sick in the morning to get into work. And then I had to start drinking during the day. I had to get something to start me off in the morning. And it was awful trying to hold down a job and drink. So, of course, then the nervousness set in. The lying set in. The guilt complex set in.
When I first began to drink, I would come into the office and say, oh, did I get drunk Saturday? Did I do this? You know, like it was funny. Like high school kids do. Well, I was in my thirties then, and it didn't cause any ripple of amusement that I could see. And after a while, as I began getting sick and taking time off of work, then, of course, I changed. I didn't tell anybody I was drinking around the office. I covered it up.
And then things really began to get bad. And eventually, after many warnings, I got fired. Now, I had a wife and five children at that time, and it was a good job for a young fellow, a very good job. Well, of course, then I began to get panicky. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go for a job, because I figured that no matter where I went, they'd check back, why did he leave? So I didn't know what to do. There was a period that I had enough money then so that I was able to go along a good part of the year without working.
And I drank most all that time. Now, that's the sort of thing that non-alcoholics can't understand. Why should a man, [unclear] circumstances, with a wife and five children, with a good job, with all [unclear], obviously caused by his drinking, why should he continue to drink? But a normal person would say, well, you know why. That was escape drinking by that time, and it was a frightful experience.
I didn't drink for fun then. It's all right to [unclear] things that happened when I was drinking. It's a good thing to do that, I think. But it was a horrible experience for me. I did get a job after that year, worked for the government. And it was a good job, but I didn't think it was a good job, because it only paid me about a third or a quarter of what I'd been making. And I thought I was doing the government a favor to work for them.
I had a three-month appointment, and I got drunk a couple of times in that three-month appointment. I was supposed to be at a certain place and do certain things, and of course, when the three months ran out, they didn't renew it for me. Then a frantic period set in, and then the war came along, and then I [unclear] the war plant type of work that I told you about. But after I [unclear] AA, I didn't know what to expect in AA.
I had never read anything about it. I had never read any of the literature. But there was one very good thing for me. I knew that I was an alcoholic. I didn't hesitate to admit it. I was glad to know it. I was glad to know that I was an alcoholic, because I could see that the program had a solution for the problem if I was interested. I learned that much the first night.
[00:35:00]
I remember the first fellow that talked, he gave a story which was remarkably close to my own. He was my age. He had five children. He was Irish. There were many things in common, and as he told the story, I was entranced. And after the meeting, I talked to him, and I told him how I had tried to stop drinking. I told him how I drank whiskey for years, and then stopped that, and then I drank wine, and then I got off the wine, and all I ever had to drink before I came into AA for a period of about three years was beer and ale, which was true.
I said I was trying to stop drinking. And John said to me, no, you weren't trying to stop drinking. You were trying to stop getting drunk, which is a different thing, and it was a different thing. He was the first one that ever pointed it out to me that I wanted to drink, although I didn't want to keep getting drunk and getting into all that trouble. And he said to me, if you're an alcoholic, and he said, we're going to leave that entirely for you to decide.
If you're an alcoholic, you're going to find out that you can't take one drink, no matter what it is. There's something different about you physically that you can't take it [unclear], because if you do, all these other things are going to happen. I want to bring up one point again in connection with my thinking that the physical component is probably the most important part, or at least an important part, of our overall problem.
That it's imposed upon many types of people. We're not all the same. Some people in AA are much more emotional than others. We're all emotional. We're a pretty emotional lot. But some are much more so than others. And if they happen to have the combination, then [unclear]. I mention that because I've seen many people who've come in the way of AA and after a short time seem to be able to level off and resume a normal place in society and do a good job of it.
Now, the chances are they were that way before they started to drink. And after they started to drink, the type of experience developed that I've already outlined here in my case. But once they stopped drinking and started back to work, realizing what my problem was, it didn't take me long to level off again. Now, there are a great many people that aren't that fortunate. I'm not criticizing. That just happens to be their makeup.
They were probably very unstable people in the beginning. That goes back, probably the psychiatrist would say it goes way back to their childhood. Now, if you take a very unstable emotional person and whip this physical component and let him do the drinking, he really gets hurt very badly, even probably more than I. And it takes him longer to get straightened out again. He can get straightened out all right.
I've seen many, many cases of it in AA. It took a long while, but by degrees, if they continue in the therapy and continue in their association with members of Alcoholics Anonymous, they will gradually level off and be all right. They will be more stable than they were before they ever started to drink. But that emotional factor is something on which there could be a great deal of disagreement because of the various types of people involved.
It wasn't until after I got an AA that I realized how unstable that I was. I would have resented it very much if anybody had told me then that I was unstable. But one evidence of instability or let's say emotional immaturity that I've become cognizant of since I got an AA is a sensitivity to criticism. I was always sensitive to anybody pointing out anything wrong with me. My wife, we've discussed this many times since I've been an AA.
She said, Morris, there were so many times there were things that you weren't doing right, not in connection with my drinking. I would want to mention it to you, but you'd always blow up. You wouldn't take any criticism. Now, of course, that's a sign of emotional immaturity. And I think probably, basically, it goes back to your childhood when you were afraid of getting a slap if you admitted to something.
If somebody said, did you do that? I know my father was the old school, and if I did something, he said, did you do that? And I'd say, yes, I got a slap in the [unclear]. So the next time he asked me, I said, no, I didn't do it. You know, the kids learn. So I think basically it was probably, well, you'd have to stay after school if you get caught. You're always going to be punished for things [unclear].
And the result was you're likely to develop a defense against it. Now, that's my own [unclear] analysis of it. I don't know whether that's good enough. At least that makes sense to me. So I know I was very, very sensitive to criticism.
[00:40:01]
And after I get in AA, and that same thing happened, the AAs always help me. I mean, they're not very delicate around AA. They'll say to you, what the hell is the matter with you? Do you think you know all the answers? Well, I mean, that's the way they're likely to put it. I remember one time speaking about how delicate they are. I was in a meeting one time, and a fellow said to me, I'd get pretty well acquainted.
We come home, the guy says, my teeth needed to be fixed. He said, when did you get your teeth fixed? You know, where the hell can you go to have people come up and say, when did you get your teeth fixed? Well, I needed them fixed. So I went and got them out. Otherwise, if I hadn't got AA, I'd probably still have them, and I'd have been a lovely specimen. I'm going to give you an idea about something I told [name unclear] [unclear], [unclear] about the type of thing I used to do.
I was living out in Tarrytown, and I used to commute, and in those days, we just had to have a ticket, just show the conductor like that, you know, [unclear]. Just open it, and he didn't have to flip anything off. Well, I'm coming up this train this night drunk, and it was the later train that I usually came on, and the conductor came through, and I didn't like his looks, for some reason, really. And he said, do you have a ticket?
I said, I don't have a ticket. So he said, have you got a ticket? I said, yes. He said, show it to me. I said, no. One of those ugly drunks. So at Yonkers, the train stopped a little bit extra, a little longer than usual, and the next stop was, a couple of stops, was Hastings. And the conductor came by, and he's got two cops with him. So he walks up very triumphantly, and he says to the cop, there he is.
And the cop says, have you got a ticket? I says, yes. [Unclear] show the conductor. [Unclear] show him. So they throw me in the can. Well, I knew the chief of police down there when I worked that one out. I don't know, six or seven weeks later, I'm coming up on the same train. And the same conductor comes through, and he wants to see my ticket. [Unclear] show [unclear] the ticket. At Yonkers, he stops at Hastings.
The two same cops come on. Want to show the ticket? No. And I land in the can. I'm sitting there saying, well, I guess I'll show that guy. That stuff really stretches out your thinking, doesn't it? Well, that was the kind of thing that I was doing, anyway. Well, I wanted to say one or two more things about how the program has worked for me. I know, in one of my early meetings, I heard a fellow from the Bronx talk who had been a policeman in the New York City Police Force, [unclear], and he said that in the first year he was in AA, he paid off something like $3,000 [unclear]. Now, that impressed me. That was the kind of thing I like to hear.
That was about what I owed. I think I owed a little more than that, but the fact that he was sober and had paid off some bills, that impressed me. The spiritual part of the program, that didn't create any impression on me at all. But if I could pay off my bills, then I figured things would be all right. But as I went along, these sayings in AA, the teachings of AA, the steps of AA, they're kinds of repetitions. They began to sink into me. I thought at the beginning that 12-step work was quite dramatic. I read the papers about how the AAs would get up at any time of the day at night and go out to help somebody. That's all right in the books. It doesn't turn out that way after I get into AA.
You get them up late at night, they'll see you in the morning. At least that's the way it is around Schenectady. We'll work on them, sure, but as regards to galloping out on a white horse as a hero, it didn't turn out that way with me. I thought it was that way in the beginning, but I found out as I went along that there was much more to it than that. In that connection, I think it was an experience I had not too long ago. We have a fellow in Schenectady that's been around AA for about 10 years. He very rarely comes to a meeting, and I think then it only comes because, well, he just doesn't have anything else to do that night. That might be uncharitable, but I think that's what it probably is.
And for some reason or other, he's taken a shine to me. I took him to a lot of meetings, and I've given up on him for the time being, at least I don't think that I can do anything for him. But he has the unhappy habit of calling me up about half past four or five o'clock in the morning. I can say, hello, [name unclear], this is Bernie. Well, not too long ago, he called me up, and I said, do you know what time it is, Bernie? He said, no, what time is it? I said, it's 4.30 in the morning, and I hung up. Well, the next day, not that morning, but the following morning, just before I'm going out to work around 8 o'clock, the telephone bell rang, and I picked it up then, and I said, hello? He said, oh, [name unclear], this is Bernie.
[00:45:19]
Oh, I said, hello, Bernie, I'm glad to hear from you. You seem to be all right today, I won't hang up on you. He said, no, you're goddamn right, I'm hanging up on you. They'll teach you tolerance. But I found out, and this is one of the very difficult parts of the program for me, but one of the most beneficial, and that is that in working with alcoholics, we, if we do it honestly and sincerely, that we're giving of ourselves in a charitable way to help somebody that needs it.
It happens to be that that somebody isn't always a nice guy. Well, we weren't nice guys either, and somebody had to help us. My wife taught me a good lesson in that. Some years ago, when there was a fellow that I had known on my drinking days who came around AA, and it was quite a problem, he'd be sober for a while, and then he'd get drunk. And on one occasion, I had spent some time one evening with him when I came home, and I was all worn out because he was a very irritating, exasperating drunk. And I said to my wife, that's the last time I'm ever going to go out to have anything to do with him. And she said, wait a minute, Morris, you think he's exasperating? I said, yeah, she says he never was half as bad as you. You don't have to sleep with him.
She said, you ought to be lying in bed at two o'clock in the morning with a hard day's work to do ahead of you and have a husband come home like you to do with raising hell and climbing into bed and barking and ugly and so forth. And she said, you did it to me for years. She said, now don't you go around telling me that you're not going to go working with this guy because he exasperates you. She reminded me one night I came home, we were living in a house in [place unclear], a great big house, so big that nobody else was living in it. I mean, nobody was leaving. And we lived in the kitchen that winter. We had a [unclear] stove there, and I could keep that going. I wouldn't try to heat the rest of the house, it was impossible. And it was cold up there in that bedroom. And I came home one night drunk. It was so cold that I just walked right upstairs and got into bed with my overcoat and hat and everything else on.
And she says, what's the matter with you? You might at least take your hat off. So these exasperating drunks is part of the problem. What are you going to do, just work with the nice drunks? The ones that will do you good are the exasperating ones. If you take an easy 12-step call, as you will on occasion, and the fellow walks right into AA and he stops drinking, that's going to make you feel good, sure. But that isn't the one that does you really good. That just kind of satisfies the ego.
I met a fellow here tonight, an old friend of mine from New York, who came into AA, and he had a little trouble [unclear]. But he was a relatively easy case, sure. But what about these tough ones? They're sick. They're sick people. And they may have wives, and they may have families. They may not be here. They may be someplace else. But the fact that they have these exasperating qualities is no reason why you can't be patient with them.
I can get smug every once in a while, [unclear] everybody else can. But it's a bad sign. When it's inconvenient for me to work on an exasperating drunk, then I say to myself, G., why don't you be honest with yourself? You're still [unclear], inside. It's very important, I think, that we get acquainted with ourselves. And I'm not talking about the social aspects of our living. I've often thought that I was at my worst point in my drinking long before I got down social. I was at my worst point when I still had a good job, when I had all the money I needed, and when I could do any damn thing I wanted.
I was much worse then than I was later when everybody called me a bum. Because I was selfish, I was self-centered, and I did what I wanted. And there wasn't any Christianity in me at all. But after I got down there and I began to do a little bit of suffering, I began learning.
[00:50:02]
And there's always this silver cloud on the lining, I think, [unclear], that in all those years of drinking, it wasn't all a waste. The suffering, it did you good. At least it did me good. And I've had my own children tell me that it did them good, too. One of my daughters told me, Daddy, she said, I'm glad that it happened. Because she said, before you began to drink, she said, I was old enough that I was a little snob. We lived in a very nice home, and we had a maid, and we had a big car, and I thought I was better than the other girls at what the school. And she said, it's a good thing for my soul that you dragged us down the way you did.
Now, that came from one of my own daughters, and she's got seven children [unclear]. And that connection, I might say, I [unclear] a little picture here, I had it taken. There they are. There's Mama, and myself, and the five kids, and four in-laws, and twelve grandchildren. See, that's what happens if you're in AA, they're all together. I'll just tell you one or two more things about my family, and I'll call it a night there. I was a very bothersome, troublesome drunk, and the effect of it on my family was something, of course, that always concerned me.
But my wife is a religious woman. Really religious. Not pious, I don't mean that. But she said to me, Morris, if it wasn't for the church, you would have driven me crazy. It pulled me through, and it pulled the girls through. The boy, [unclear] the three girls, was the one that seemed to take the brunt of it. Every boy wanted to be proud of his father. I think more so than the girls. He wanted to have a father to look up to. And here I was an unknown quantity to my boy. When I was right, he loved me. And when I wasn't right, he hated me. And he was this poor lad, he didn't know what to do.
He was in high school. I'm talking back now about a year before I came [unclear] AA, a year and a half. He was skipping class. He wasn't getting good marks. He was a bright boy, and he had done well in school. So my wife was very much concerned, and she took him to a psychiatrist at Grasslands Hospital. And the psychiatrist interviewed the boy, oh, six or eight times. And he said to him, Mrs. G., there's nothing wrong with that boy except his father's drinking.
Well, it wasn't, say, a year after that that I joined AA. And then he went into the service. And he was away for a couple of years. And all the time he was away, of course, when he would write home, he would put a separate little slip of paper in, is Pop still all right? And, of course, she'd write back and say, yes, he was all right. Well, of course, that helped him. Now, he was only a kid. He was 17 years old when he went in. But he saved enough money when he was there to buy me the watch. And I wouldn't sell it for a million dollars. That's the boy now. He would get back from the service. He went back and finished high school. He went to college, to a tough technical school, and he graduated. And he's a successful engineer today, all right? And he has two nice children.
Now, that boy is a normal boy today. But what would he be if I kept drinking? Or what would the baby, the young fella who's 25 today, who thinks this old man's a good guy, where would he be? We don't like to think about those things. But if you're a drinking alcoholic and you've got a family, you'll raise hell [unclear] and you'll leave [unclear]. And you can't get away from it. It isn't nice to remind you of those things, but if you happen to be here tonight and you're still drinking and you've got a family, you better think of it, because you're going to leave your mark on them. And you'll accomplish something too if you believe in those things.
So AA straightened me up. I'm adjusted with my family and with the rest of the world. I've got myself back into the church where I belong. I was out of that quite a little while because I was too smart or too cowardly to go, but I'm straightened out in that respect. I'm a normal person, and I can thank AA for it. And the good God for it. Applause