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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – Unknown Speaker – HELPING THE YOUNG ALCOHLOIC – RS 01091.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-unknown-speaker-helping-the-young-alcohloic-rs-01091.mp3 Duration: 01:03:32
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…that I would like to make. First, we would like to ask that if there are any members of the press here today that they please respect the anonymity of the AA speakers. We would like for you all to keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are those of the individual speaker and not necessarily of AA as a whole. Down here they have an announcement that says if you see any of these third legacy buttons such as I have on, they are worn only by members of the present General Service Conference or former members of that conference, and we will be glad to answer any questions that you might have.
I assume that that's in regard to the General Service Conference because if you ask me how to get to some place in this building, I'm as lost as you are. Luncheon and dinner will be served in the cafeteria downstairs and the meals will be hot and moderately priced. There's a lunch counter and a snack bar on the promenade and it will open at 9 o'clock in the morning for juices and sweet rolls and will close one hour after the last being at night.
The lunch counter has a choice of ten sandwiches and the snack bar serves hot dogs and cold drinks. Tape recordings are being made of all the meetings that are held here. If you would like a copy of any particular meeting, you may leave your order at convention headquarters in room B down on the next level. The headquarters staff wanted me to announce that they were sorry that it was impossible for individual members to bring their own tape recordings in the auditorium, but they did want these meetings to be available to you if you would like to have them.
In the new revised copy of the Big Book of Alcoholics and Homeless, there is a complete part of about 12 chapters that is entitled, They Stopped in Time. And I think that that title should be the keynote of this meeting this morning because this is a panel entitled, Young People in AA. We have a panel of those speakers here for you today. After some talk, we will have a short intermission and a question and answer series.
At this time, I would like to turn the meeting over to our chairman for this workshop, Frank Valera from Florida. Thank you, Jim. The title of this workshop, although I think you would know it if you climbed all these stairs to find it up here, I want to congratulate you for bringing it all the way up with us and thank you. But the title is Helping the Young Alcoholics. As chairman, I am here to send you to learn from these speakers and find what we can do for the young alcoholics.
In West Palm Beach, Florida, where I come from, when I first came in AA, I was among the youngest that had come into AA down there. And at the time, I didn't feel particularly different than anybody else, but a difference somehow was made. So I am interested today to see as we go along in AA, as we get more and more people, as we find throughout the country that the expression is used that the bottom has been raised.
We are getting people into AA younger. What understanding do you have of the young alcoholics, both from the older AA members and the equally younger AA members? I can remember in West Palm Beach burying a 23-year-old boy whose chief trouble was alcoholism, although that wasn't on his death certificate. I also have known many people such as you have known who didn't take up drinking until they were 43 to 45 years of age and became alcoholics.
[00:05:07]
So we have a problem of youth and alcoholism, a problem, a subject, which I am sure will be answered very well by our three young speakers this morning. And from Evanston, Illinois, we will hear first Tiff. Thank you, Frank. I had my talk often out because I thought I was going to be so terrified I'd have to read it. But being with people that are members of AA as I am, it seems to have calmed me down, so maybe I can just give it cold.
The subject that I've selected today is are the problems of the young alcoholics really any different from those of the older alcoholics? Well, in my opinion, there is no difference whatsoever between the young or the older alcoholics. It's very difficult to even say that there are two classifications, but they come up in that way. Some people say that we must be different because of the varying conditions as we matured in our early adult years.
Well, I think if we give the century a little check, we'll see that repetition is dominant there. There was a war in the first part and a boom and a decline. And there were wars in the second part and another boom. And now we have the atomic and hydrogen bombs. These are conditions that affect the stability of humanity, but I don't think there's any effect on alcoholism. I think that we are alcoholics not because of varying conditions as we've matured, but just because it was in the temple, first of all.
Personally, I'm very happy I am an alcoholic. I never had any peace of mind or security or any happiness whatsoever before I came into AA. I started to drink at 17, and it just took that momentum. I could have qualified for AA any time after my 21st birthday, because that's when the drinking really took off. I've always wondered if a young alcoholic isn't ready to call it quits, that he thinks there's a little more fun left in the bottle.
Well, we suppose that the young person has any corner on a desire for a good time. I think everybody likes to have a good time. But I think there's a realization that we all learn to accept after we've been sober a few months in AA, and that's that for us there isn't any fun left in the bottle. It's all over. It's been a long time since there was any fun in drinking. And then we can go on from there to go on to do life without drinking.
And then the real fun begins because you can remember everything and enjoy it with your new friends who understand you. It's a marvelous thing to know what you've done the night before. I think that an awful lot of people believe that being an alcoholic wants to still have fun, because they think that the younger groups are all heavy drinkers, that the majority of their time is spent in that way, consuming as much liquor as they possibly can, but they never do anything else.
Well, I do know a few people who are not alcoholics, and they don't drink at all. Occasionally they have a few drinks, and that's it. And I also know some people around my mother's age, and they spend all their time drinking. They go to bridge parties, and I don't think they play bridge at all. They just spend all their time getting as low as is possible. In my own opinion, that eliminates the idea that the young person drinks more than the older person.
The younger generation today, I don't think is as interested in drinking as they used to be. We, being members of AA, are associated with the heavy, very heavy drinkers and the alcoholic drinkers, so it's natural to form an assumption like that. I didn't want to bother with people that didn't drink nearly as much as I did. I didn't want to have fun with them. They all look down their nose at me, and why would I want to bother with them?
Our comparison has any place in AA at all, unless it's used constructively, unless we try to grow through comparing ourselves to a member that has a great deal of peace of mind
[00:10:02]
or security or something that we think that we'd like to have, too. I think any comparison is good. But I've often heard that how can the young alcoholic accept his alcoholism when listening to stories of much older members than he, who've been for many, many years, 40 years, of alcoholic drinking? How can he say, well, my story is so fond of that that I'm sure that I'm an alcoholic? I don't think that we are convinced of our alcoholism by listening to speakers.
In the first place, I think that it's good to hear as many talks as we can when we do catch glimpses of ourselves. But only through our own suffering, our own misery, and what we have been through ourselves do we actually know that we are alcoholics and not alcoholics. In my own experience, I've been in AA every three years in September. I've never seen a person come into AA by mistake yet. They all seem to have made the right decision when they get ready to come in.
So the fact that some have only had four or three, four, five years of drinking, that they have had enough trouble to want to see what AA, if AA has anything to offer them, well, then there's a very strong possibility that AA has what they want. When I came into AA myself, I didn't think I was an alcoholic. Why, no, that just couldn't be. But after I sobered up enough so that my mind was clear, it took about two or three months because I had been drinking for a long time.
Then I realized, yes, I was in the right place. I didn't think I was an alcoholic. And we're so glad that this gift from God has been given to me, a chance for me to normalize it. We have a number of young people who live in Chicago, and we like to get together on a social basis. It has nothing to do with the fact that we are a little bit younger than other people. We had a picnic about two weeks ago, and the boys all played baseball, and we had horseshoe games, and it was a tremendous success.
The family members were so cooperative and had such a marvelous time there too. But I think these groups are a vital thing, that they should be formed in all areas. We are less than three months old, and we have three new members. And we want to send really as much work as we should. I think you might say we have a lot to draw from in Chicago and obviously in our various suburbs. But I think that any area will grow very rapidly if they form a group like this.
What we hope to do is to go into the alcoholic hospitals, into the prisons, into the large open meetings as a group, put on a podium as a group from this young people's group. We all seem to have a lot of fun and work very hard at it. It's something that we all get a lot out of. We have a number of 19s. We have a number of 39s. That's our age span. We originally tried to set an age limit of 38, and it's, of course, all of 39s.
I think we were so hurt about the whole thing. We have no age limit at all. Anybody that wants to come to our gatherings is more than welcome. We're going to have a large dinner meeting, and at the dinner meetings we have two speakers who tell their stories and tell a little bit about what they want to do in AA. I feel that the young member has a double debt to AA because they have the advantage of intensified longevity on the program, a long time of leading this type of life.
So they have to do twice as hard and do twice as much because the debt is greater. This is the most wonderful gift in the whole world. I never thought that it would happen if I just was possible. Every day gets a little bit better than the day before, and an opportunity to come to a convention like this with thousands who have such understanding and love for each other, it's a wonderful, wonderful experience.
I just hope that I'm born for many years more, and God willing, I probably will. All previous generations, the alcoholics were at loss. There was no hope for them, and for the last 20 years there has been hope. We are all together and all with the same goal. We Are All Together and All with the Same Goal. I am very happy. Thank you very much.
[00:15:11]
Sure do. Thank you, Sis, for a lovely talk. I just want to ask you later whether that 39-year-old member has got gangbites or not. But, you know, Sis brings out a point and brings it out well. It is near and dear to my heart. I think all of us when we come in AA have felt for so long that we were one apart. Nobody understood us. Nobody had drunk the way we had drunk and nobody had lived the way we had lived.
We had secrets in our hearts, hidden bottles in our paths. We had opened tavern doors and gone into them when nobody else would go in. We had done the things that we were convinced in our subconscious minds that nobody else had done. I had a great relief myself when I walked into my first AA meeting. And I found a bunch of people who taught my language, as we say, who had done the things that I had done.
And the big thing was they were happy. There they were, people who had lived the life of fear and unhappiness, the life that I had taught myself to, not willingly. And here they were. They were obviously happy and they were sober, which was an amazing combination of things. And I think there's a big point that finally we see success in people. We who hadn't known success for quite some time. And we see people who are just like us.
And what a wonderful feeling they can belong on this earth again. What a wonderful feeling it is. I saw the point that I'm thinking of. One, and I'm glad to see you here today in this fine crowd. We not only have the young people here, but we've got people of all ages. And the thing is that I hate to hear, personally, when somebody comes up and says to a new member, Gee, I'm glad to see you and stick with it. I sure wish I'd come in at your age.
Because it immediately points out the difference. Here you get this wonderful feeling of belonging. Here this drunk has done the same things you've done. And you don't care whether the guy is 92 or 42 or 22. The fact is that he's the same. He's died. And then he says, stick with it if you can. I wish I had gotten in at your age. Boy, would I be today. And of course my reaction somewhat is, maybe I should go out and drink a few more years until I get to be his age.
But I know I'll never make it. And I think it's a very good point, Fitz. The male speaker on our program tonight, or this afternoon, this morning, they say this is a 24-hour program, but you don't have to cover it that fast. This morning, July 1st, 1955, in St. Louis, we have from New York, Joe. Good evening, friends. My name is Joe Reince. And I am, without destiny, an alcoholic. To me, that was the most important decision that I have made in my life.
It's the decision that I made that brought me here to St. Louis. I'm here for one of two reasons. The first reason being that I am reckoning with an alcoholic. The second, hoping that I might say something to help another alcoholic. Because I know what this program means to me. Being a young alcoholic, I had this thought in my mind at one time that I was too young to be an alcoholic. And I was too young to be an alcoholic.
And I had this thought in my mind at one time that I was too young to be an alcoholic. I often say now, I wonder how stupid a person has to get, but that certainly was my thought. The one thing I do like to remember is that alcoholism is a disease. So as I know, I certainly was happy to hear that I had a disease. I was convinced, thoroughly convinced, that I was nuts and that I belonged in a slacker factory.
And to get back to the progression part of it, I should start in saying, I commenced A8 when I was 28 years old and I now have acquired almost three years of sobriety. I started drinking when I was 16 years old. And right here when I look back, I can see the progression. I quit school because I wanted to go to work and make my own money.
[00:20:03]
I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey. I went to New York and got a job as a bellhop at the age of 16. There, I believe, was the start of my drinking. And I'd like to say right here, I can remember well as though it were yesterday, that I found some very important things in alcohol. Number one was the core of courage. I certainly found that right from the start. When I had a few drinks in me, I wasn't afraid of members, I wasn't afraid of bosses or anyone else.
So I know that I did find some courage. And through my drinking right there, after one year with that hotel, I had lost my first job. I went back to Bayonne and again it seemed that I started right here, wrapping my life around alcohol. In Jersey, you can get your driver's license at 17. And I remember looking forward to that day because I was promised a job driving deliveries for a liquor store. I did get the license and I did get plenty to drink.
And right here, I can certainly look back and say that alcohol was for me all the way. In Jersey, I had to be 21 years of age to drink at a bar and it was another dream of mine. Hoping for that 21st birthday because I walked by the tavern to see the people in there and I used to say to myself, boy, it'd be great to be a man and to be able to be in there with the men. Well, at the age of 18, the war was on.
I wanted to go into service for one reason. I knew that the men in service would serve drinks regardless of age. I had asked my father to sign for me to let me go into the Army. He wouldn't do it. I saw an ad in the New Jersey paper which stated men must be 18 to 21 years of age. And the one thing that I noticed was that I didn't have to have parents consent. So I joined the New Jersey State Guard.
I got the uniform and I was right. I didn't have to worry about being 21. I was served in almost any tavern that I went into. Here, not knowing this, I didn't hear of blackouts until I commenced AA. But at the age of 18, I was given my first warning. It was in a Camden County court in Jersey. While I was in the State Guard, getting back to camp this night, I was told all this in a Camden County jail.
I didn't remember any of it. That, I borrowed a car. The state police gave chase, fired shots at the car, halted us, and locked us up. I didn't remember any of this. Here I know I was lucky. None of us got hurt. I can remember well the judge warning me that his exact words were, go, he says, and I'll warn you now. You're a young fella. Right now you show signs that you cannot handle alcohol. I advise you to leave it alone.
They were giving us a sentence. I was scared and thought I wouldn't drink again. But when I got back to camp, they were restricting the first chance I got. We were out getting drunk again. That was the only bad trouble I had while in the Jersey State Guard. I served my year, and here was a year of infantry training. When I got out, I was welcome to this for the morning drink. Well, I was welcome to this for the morning drink at the age of 18, 19.
I started back driving trucks and drinking. It compressed with me so much that by the time I was 22 years of age, after having a year of infantry training, I was rejected by the U.S. Armed Services due to alcoholism. They didn't tell me that then, but I know well now. I knew then that I had the problem. And then my job of driving trucks all through the war, and I had a choice, being home, of getting almost any kind of a decent job.
I had a fair education, and I could have picked my job. But still, I stuck to truck driving because I could be on the road and stop and get a drink whenever I wanted to. Here, between these ages, 18 and 25, I got into plenty of trouble. Drunken driving, charges, and fights of all sorts. I was locked up many times, and it was just the same thing. My family was in pretty well in Jersey. They could get me out of a jam, and it was always a warning that I'd be thrown into a food scout if I'd enter.
Something about my thinking, but I was never afraid of the force. So I just continued to drink. I also heard in AA that we had the clutch,
[00:25:02]
and I know I had the clutch, and that clutch was my father. My father was retired from the F.O. Standard Oil in Jersey, and I guess at a young age I had a silly idea that the both of us would live well on his pension, because I went into retirement along with him. And the only time I worked then was when I needed money. I could always get a job driving the clutch. And here my family, my father, I believe, would have spent anything.
He saw me going to the dogs. He knew that alcohol had me. But yet, there was nothing they could do. I could work when I wanted to. And I can remember all the members of my family, it seems, that they always wanted to help children. The old saying, I guess it's typical with most alcoholics, you're a nice fellow when you're sober, but you're a son of a bee when you're drinking. Well, I heard that, I guess, millions of times.
And I do believe that as long as my father was alive, as long as I had that clutch, I had no responsibility, I don't think I was going to do anything about it. Although I did at many times give it thought, hoping that I could do, and wanting to do something and not wanting to do something. Anyhow, the family had all warned me, my father particularly. He always worried about me. I was one of eight children.
The other seven were all married, settled down, had their families. And they all, my father seems to worry about me. Well, anyhow, my drinking went along for these years, just the same as his day in and day out drinking. Well, a day did come where Joe had to start to do a little worrying. My father, I bring this out because in my story, it shows how stupid I had gotten on alcohol, that I put alcohol before everything.
My father was taken into the Bayonne Hospital. He wasn't expected to live. I was told this by one of the head nurses that I knew well. That my father wouldn't live through the night. I was told this by the doctor. Seeing that I was single and retired, I had plenty of time. The family thought that it would be a good idea that I stuck close to the hospital this night because they didn't expect my father to live.
But this afternoon, my father was semi-conscious and he reached in his wallet. I was sick and shaken. And he handed me, I don't know, 30 or 40 dollars. He says, go on, get yourself something to eat. And I did. I left the hospital. Had all intentions of coming back. But the same old story, once I started, I couldn't have it stopped. While I was in the tavern drinking, I had thought of my father. I thought my father was on his deathbed.
I could hear the nurses talking to me. It was those who were there saying that they didn't expect him to live. But I still stayed in that tavern. I didn't remember leaving the tavern. Because all I know was Joe got blind drunk. And the next morning I went home. I couldn't understand why, but I saw the family. They were all mad. And this time they all said, Joe, you stupid Lois. We never want to see you.
We don't want to have nothing to do with you because my father died in the hospital that morning and they had found out I was out getting drunk instead of going on a bedside. But after my father was buried, it seemed the family was willing to forget again. All of them tried to do something for me. I was the only one it seemed that they were worried about. And it was here, when we got back from the funeral, that I was told my father's will was read off and in his will it stated everything to be turned into cash and each will be divided amongst eight children.
So that meant I was going to get a couple of thousand dollars. My eyes were all boxed up to that couple of grand. And here again was the promise. Only they were a little different this time. I knew that I had to do something, but I had in my own mind, I was completely convinced, in the physical condition I was in, that I wouldn't be able to work again. I didn't think anything could help me. So I went on drinking.
I didn't think I was out of time. I don't think I wanted to stop drinking anyhow. And I promised the family that I was going to straighten up and do something about myself. I'll go away for a weekend and when I come back, I'll hospitalize myself and I'll really start to do something about my problem. But they didn't know that I drew a thousand dollars out of the bank to go away for a weekend. And off to Bud Lake, New Jersey, I went.
This happened to be the first time that I'd ever been out of the bank for a weekend. In New Jersey I went, just happened to be, what I hope to be, my last lunch almost three years ago.
[00:30:03]
I can remember getting off at Rayhon in Bud Lake, and Bud Lake was a place that I know well, I know it just as well as I do say home in New Jersey. We owned a summer home up there, I used to go up there and work every summer, and I used to go up there for the simple reason I'd be away from the family. I drove to Foxtel in the winter months, and in the summer months I went to Bud Lake and worked up there.
I was away from the family, I could drink the way I wanted, I had no bosses. Well, I wound up back in Bud Lake for my last drunk, and it was a Lulu. It was a year and a half, and out of that year and a half I can still only put together about six months of it. I worked in three different places, I got three different income tax statements, I don't even remember working in them. And it was here that I had hit my bottom.
I went through everything I had, clothes and everything, nobody in Bud Lake wanted anything to do with me. I wounded back to Rayhon, New Jersey, and it was here in Rayhon, New Jersey, in my own hometown, that I hit skid row. I was on the skid stair along the waterfront, I don't know how long, it was quite a few months. And the only thing that seemed to bother me while I was on the skid stair then, I knew a lot of people, hand handling was easy, I could get my money to drink, and there was one thing that did bother me.
As far as my brothers and sisters, that didn't bother me at all, being dirty and filthy. But the thing that did bother me was when I saw my nieces and nephews, I didn't want them to see me in the condition I was. I knew I was cheap, in my mind I was a drunken bum, a hopeless drunk. And all through these times while I was on the skid stair, I had two thoughts in my mind. The one thought was, where, when, and how can I get the price for the next drink to carry on the next drunk?
The other thought in mind was, a typical thought, many alcoholics that are down, and you can't live with yourself, and you thoroughly expect it, and actually you suicide. While I was up on top of the Bayonne Bridge, I don't know how many times, many times, to jump off. I can certainly say, but for the grace of God, I guess I would have been over the side. I know I suspected enough, and I was sick enough.
Here, while I was on the skids in Bayonne, I had often thought of A.H., because I criticized A.H., and I did a lot of criticizing. I had a twin brother in A.H. for almost three years, to the day that I can remember. And I just know now, the thing, it used to really bother me why I criticized him so much. Because I knew he was doing well, was with his family, and he had his self-respect back, and he was doing fine.
And I often wondered, why do I criticize him? Why do I try and tear him down to my level? Today I realize why it took me a long time in A.H. before I did realize why I felt that way. My twin brother had something I wanted, and that was sobriety, I guess. Only I didn't know how to get it. Today I'm glad he let me go to the depth that I did go, because I was a stubborn Irishman. I was a guy that wouldn't listen to nobody.
And when I was on the skids there long enough, when he had thought I'd keep my head against the wheel long enough, my twin brother did come looking for me. He brought me to Staten Island to my sponsor. My sponsor took me to a doctor. I can remember now, it took me about 13 weeks before I picked up my first cup of coffee with one hand. I couldn't tell you what I saw or what I heard at my first meeting.
What I heard, rather, but I can tell you what I saw. I saw sober people, I saw people at work. They weren't condemning me. They were trying to help me. And that brought me back. It was true to speak that I had found hope. Hope that if these people could stay sober in AA, I could. To me, those people threw a challenge at me. It was a simple challenge. Maybe I can return that challenge to someone. What each and every speaker in AA was saying to me was that if they could stay sober in AA, I could.
And if I can do it, anybody can do it. Thank you. Thank you. Sure thank you, Joe. And if I ever heard anybody illustrate a point that I was trying to make before you did it, I ask you all out there, whether you're 23, 33, or 73, if you're alcoholics, Joe's depth that he went to, if you want to call it that, his drinking life, the grief he came to, was it much different than yours? Did youth play such an important part or an important difference?
[00:35:00]
Does it make him any different, an alcoholic, than perhaps you are? I think the difference is more or less there in our minds in that there isn't a difference. Which is what I was trying to say before. And now we have somebody from the show me state, that's the state you're in, Missouri, from out of St. Louis here, out in the county. And it's a pleasure that we hear from you. Can you hear me? It's too bad.
Thanks. Well, they say that there are many different opinions in Alcoholics Anonymous, if they're alcoholics, and I'll make a fine example of that. I don't think that there's absolutely no difference between the younger and the older alcoholics. I'm happy that Kip has given us the definition of a young alcoholic, and I qualify. But I do think, of course, that the basic problem is the same, that there is poison to an alcoholic at any age, and the young alcoholic, as well as the old alcoholic, cannot leave it alone.
So I think there are some aspects of the problem in a younger person that cannot make his stopping drinking any more difficult than it is for the older alcoholic, but just a little bit different. First of all, there is the problem of, I haven't been drinking for 15, 20, 30 years. How do I know that I'm an alcoholic? Now, this comes up because very few people just admit that they're alcoholics. It is not a happy discovery.
And when I was thinking about identifying myself as an alcoholic early, I made up a list of questions that I thought would be profitable to ask myself, and if one could answer yes to a number of them, I'd start worrying about your drinking in earnest. First of all, I think the mere fact that you do worry, anybody worries about their drinking, is an indicator that they have something to worry about.
Then, when I, these questions that I refer to, I don't mean every drinker has a bad night. I mean the best drinkers in the world, and I know that many of them do have certain nights, and they don't come up with their performance records, I would say. But what I mean is if these occasions are frequent or habitual, then you have something to worry about. I would say, do you feel lonely when you drink?
Do you feel that your drinking is different from other people's? Do you realize that other people are having just a fairly good time out of it? They're loosening up and things are getting funny and everything like that. But with you, you still don't feel a feeling of companionship with the people with whom you are drinking. Then you have, you are different, you have something to worry about. Does your personality change when you drink?
I suppose we all know people who are quiet and subdued when they're sober and who become rolling balls of fire in one way or another when they're drunk. I think that's an indicator. Do you suffer remorse the morning after? Now, normal drinkers, they have hangovers, and they're not glad they have headaches and things like that, and they think, oh, well, I shouldn't have had so much the night before.
But I'm also having a terrible, terrible feeling of remorse that I don't think normal drinkers ever understand. His conduct may not have been too different from those who were accompanying him the night before. You drink before you go out, because you're afraid somebody might not hand you a drink the minute you walk in the door. Or you drink after the party when you come home by yourself, because nobody gave you enough while you were there.
Do you black out? I, the first woman I ever met, an alcoholic anonymous, told me that she realized that she had to stop drinking because she went to a party and she blacked out once. Well, that was kind of a shock to me, because I thought, this is really too bad, since I black out practically every time I drink, I suppose I'm beyond repair. Do you drink early? Early is before the, shall we say, the accepted drinking hours.
[00:40:03]
You wake up and have to have a drink to get started in the morning. Or do you drink a good deal alone? Now, this is not completely reprehensible. I know a great many people who like to have a little drink every once in a while by themselves. But alcoholics drink chronically and they drink alone a good deal of the time. Are you frightened at the thought of stopping drinking? Is the idea that you might never be able to take another drink really frightening you?
Now, it's not just a hack or you think it would be embarrassing, you really care that the idea of not taking another drink ever. My thought on the matter of the younger alcoholic is that his age intensifies one of the big problems of an alcoholic, that is, immaturity. Alcoholics, as a rule, no matter what age they are, are immature. Well, the younger alcoholic is not only immature to his alcoholism, but he is immature.
He's one. And he suffers from a lack of experience that a lot of times aids the remedy. He is, shall we say, his sense of values hasn't held. And he is liable to be cheap-minded. He wants to be part of the crowd. I say that because I think it is more an accepted thing that young people, the younger years of your life, at a time when you are supposed to have fun, you're not supposed to have too many responsibilities, and everybody looks upon you as that sort of a golden age where you are.
I say that because I think it is more an accepted thing that young people, the younger years of your life, at a time when you are supposed to have fun, you're not supposed to have too many responsibilities, and everybody looks upon you as that sort of a golden age where you are still kicking up your heels. And part of the fun today, as well as years ago, part of the fun and a big part of today's fun is drinking.
Yet again, I may be, in fact, I'm sure I am influenced by my own experience, but I can truthfully say that I can't remember any such occasion, and I don't remember very few occasions which I tend to go in which liquor does not play a part as the entertainment from anything that kicks up or down. And part of being a young person is that you want to do just as the rest of the people do, and you want to be a good fellow, and good fellows drink.
Good fellows hold their liquor. Of course, he doesn't, but he keeps on trying. And a lot of times, the youngest people who are not alcoholics are thoughtless. They're not trying to, they don't want to hurt the alcoholic. They don't realize what goes on in his mind. They don't know the suffering that liquor is bringing him, and they tease him and they say, come on, let's have another drink. So I don't mean that only younger alcoholics run into this problem, but with the younger ones, it's sort of a matter of trying to succeed at drinking all the available whiskey.
And of course, young people think that they have lots of time for everything. I mean, you're young, you don't have to do that right now. I mean, you can always stop drinking tomorrow, which is a big fallacy. Of course, alcoholism is a progressive thing. And with that philosophy of thinking that you can always stop drinking tomorrow, and before you know it, you are in trouble, and in big trouble. I know that I myself, although I can't claim the face of any of you, thought that I had plenty of time to stop drinking, and still did when I got to the stage when I couldn't by myself.
Yes, there is one disadvantage, you might call it, in a young person, which is also an advantage, too. That is that he is often physically able.
[00:45:14]
He doesn't have a terrible shake, always. These are generalities, I admit that, but it is true in a great many cases. Younger people snap past it. On the other hand, there are definitely the obvious advantages of stopping drinking when you are young are self-evident. I mean, why go all the way to hell if you can stop halfway? Younger people today have the big advantage that there is more publicity about alcoholism as a disease than about AA. People are becoming concerned about the disease, and they are writing about it, they are speaking about it. I'm sure many of you have seen the last Saturday Evening Post, which has an article about the family group associated with AA.
So every mention of alcoholism and AA is a chance for a younger person to read about it and know about it and perhaps get help a little bit sooner. Then, of course, a younger person is malleable. I mean, he's not so set in his ways as he is if he gives himself time to go on and drink for years more. And a younger person generally has not lost so much through drinking. He doesn't have the terrific time back to fake, although he can lose a great deal in five minutes. I'm not saying that, but generally, if you want to call it the bottom, is generally higher for a younger person simply because he hasn't had a chance to get so far down.
As for helping younger alcoholics, well, there is a problem. It's a problem with any alcoholic. It's a problem with younger alcoholics because young people are accustomed to taking advice from others with a grain of salt. They want to find out for themselves. And as anybody knows who has ever tried it, it's almost impossible to help an alcoholic who does not want to stop drinking. However, I would still recommend trying to help the younger alcoholic because I think the sooner that that help is offered, even if he doesn't take it at the time, as soon as he may come back to it, possibly it will take them. It does sometimes, not always.
But I don't think there's any reason to bring this story. It's certainly a worthwhile effort, and for that reason, perhaps he may come back to the help that you have offered sooner than otherwise. Now, I myself, I was like Joe. I was not exactly glad to find out that I was an alcoholic or admit that I was an alcoholic, but I was relieved because I thought I was crazy, and that, of course, was sensible.
I heard about Alcoholics Anonymous several months before I actually came in, but I was insulted at the mention and curious at the idea that I might be an alcoholic, but that sort of thing does stick in your mind, and you can't help but going back and think about it after it's once been brought up. And so, if I was trying to help the younger alcoholic, I think this is what I would do. I would mention to him that alcoholism is a disease, in case this is a new idea to him.
Because nobody regrets or loathes it more than an alcoholic does, I honestly don't think. And the fact that it may be a disease and not just purely insanity or wrong-headedness on his own part is sometimes helpful to a person. It was to me. I would also dwell on the fact that, though the disease cannot be cured, it can certainly be arrested, and it is the responsibility of the alcoholic himself to arrest it. Nobody else can do it for him, and there is no sense in going back and saying, I have a disease, I can't do anything about it, because that is not true.
Alcoholism can be arrested, and you can live just as normal a life as anybody else, except that you must remember always that you cannot take it loose. I would also mention the prognosis of the disease, which is eventual death. And although I don't think it would scare a person to stop drinking, I think he has to scare himself.
[00:50:04]
And I would also mention the fact that although alcoholism is a disease, it is not a disease like diabetes or TB or that sort of thing, because diabetics don't roll in the gutter, and tubercular patients don't get into automobile accidents and that sort of thing. Alcoholism, although a good deal of the stigma has been taken from it, and people do try to understand, alcoholism makes its victims do what can be the most timeless way called socially unacceptable things.
I would, of course, say that it is almost impossible for an alcoholic to stop drinking without help. It has been done. I did it myself for a while. But it is not a lasting thing, generally. It wasn't with me. If there does come any particular stress or strain, if you have only yourself to lean upon, it is awfully hard to stand up against it, and that's what I've found. And I would, of course, bring in, as is done here, AA.
Perhaps AA is not the only answer to the problem with alcoholism. For all I know, there may well be other types of help available that I don't know about, but it is one that works for a great many people, and I do know that. And that the young alcoholic can find it, just as the other speakers have said. People who understand him, who have been through the same thing, they can erase that feeling of loneliness and distance and bring him a happiness that he didn't think possible, the happiness that I have found.
I, myself, am very grateful to be here. I have about the same length of time in AA as the other speakers, and I'm grateful every day. I'm grateful that while I was drinking, I didn't actually maim or kill myself, as I might very well have done. I'm grateful I didn't maim or kill anybody else. And more than anything, I have one little boy now, and if anybody can claim to see another on the way, a boy, I hope. And I'm so grateful that these children will never have a chance to see me as I was four years ago. I thank you all for listening.
Thank you, Susan, very much for a nice talk and for another point of view on the young alcoholic. And I think Susan brings up in her talk a somewhat different point of view than we have heard from the rest of us so far. And in just a moment, we are going to have an intermission of five minutes, and then we are going to have a question and answer period. And I feel that that is where we can get a lot more meat out of this question of the differences, if there are any, between the young alcoholic and the older alcoholic, as well as what we can do for the young alcoholic coming into Alcoholics Anonymous today.
And these young people are up here. It will be your opportunity to ask them. Of course, you have already heard I have a point of view on the thing that there isn't so much difference. In fact, I think the difference, when I look back on it, mainly came when I was drinking. When I was 15 years old, I went on a five-day drunk in Cuba. I had a lovely time, but not many other 15-year-olds that I knew had been on five-day drunks in Cuba. And as Joe reported here a few minutes ago, he could hardly wait to get to be 21 so he could go in and drink with the rest of the men.
Fortunately enough, back in, at that time, Florida didn't have any driver's licenses, and I always, whatever age I was, I said I was 21. And when they asked for a driver's license, I said, in the state of Florida, it doesn't happen. And I found that the price of whiskey used to be a little bit cheaper then, but for 50 cents, why, you could get your drink without too much more discussion on the problem. My biggest problem then was to find nice girls to go out and do some sensible drinking.
Of course, what I considered sensible drinking was drinking. I mean, I was running into the ginger ale and lemonade crowd, and I'd say, well, at least have, you know, have something, sip something. I wanted somebody that didn't want to dance all the time.
[00:55:06]
So I believe that there are great differences for the young alcoholic when he's, I was about to say practicing alcoholic. I can assure you I was a professional. I didn't practice that whatsoever. But there necessarily should follow, as I think Susan brings out, that when you come into AA, there also will be differences because of the age factor, even though I'm trying to make the point that they aren't very great.
Now, we're going to have that five-minute intermission, and after that, while you can all raise your hands and we'll try to answer your questions to the best of our ability, and while you're smoking a cigarette or saying hello to people, try to think of a question that really means something to you about helping the young alcoholic. Thank you. I'm going to put a drink in your water here. How you doing, Jim?
Can we have the meeting come to order, please, so we can get on with the questions officially? A lot of people came up and asked them unofficially in between times, and those don't count. I'm going to repeat the questions that you asked me so that everybody will know what we're trying to discuss. And we're going to try to stay on the topic as well as we can, I hope. And we shall take turns asking the speakers here, or if one speaker feels that he or she has a particular answer, write down there, Ali. We sure want to know it.
And if you've got anything burning inside of you, any desire to express an opinion on how to help the young alcoholic, we sure would like to hear it. I mean that sincerely. And I know that you all have questions, because as I said in the short five-minute intermission that was ten minutes long, there were a number of questions asked up here besides, you know so-and-so in West Palm Beach. So will somebody please break the ice?
… Susan, let me repeat the question. This is like television and radio. This is being recorded, and of course we can't pass the mic around, so I'm going to have to ask the question again. It's directed to Susan, and the gentleman has asked out of all the limitless material we're getting on alcoholism and alcoholics these days, briefly, how is it being accepted by the young alcoholic? Well, I… We're not going to restrict that. The gentleman says let's not restrict it to the young alcoholic. How is it being received by all the young folks, all the young drinking people?
Well, I think there's a great deal of interest and acceptance, I would say, just as any problem that has been sort of stuck in the closet for a long while and is now, and then is brought to the light. Young people are interested to know what is true about alcoholism, and they're interested in relation to their own drinking, and those who are not alcoholics are interested in finding out what is the matter with some of their friends, I suppose, and the ones who are alcoholics.
I suppose. And the ones who are alcoholics, they realize that the symptoms described and the help available apply to them.
[01:00:00]
They may not want to admit it right away, but they are naturally interested since they are certainly the subject of it. And the larger the dissemination of this information and the more frequent, the better off young people are and the more interested they are, I think. Thank you, Susan. And that reminds me, along that subject, a fellow just came, a young chap just came up here from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in between times.
Reminded me of the summer I spent at the University of Wisconsin, where you can drink fast and clearly, and I loved it. But some of the courses I took, you could see that I was getting nuts at the point. One was social pathology, that deals with when you're going nuts from the social angle, and the other was the psychological, abnormal psychology. That's when you go nuts, really. Anyway, that was two of the three courses I chose.
This guy got up, the professor got up in social pathology, and they had a chapter that particular day on drinking. And he had written a book, incidentally, so he got up and repeated what he had written in the book, the fact that if you drank at a certain time regularly, whether you were an alcoholic, well, now, to me, Saturday night wasn't Saturday night unless you were fried. I mean, I had heard of people who were sober on Saturday nights, but they usually were parents of people like them.
So he came to tell me that because I like to go out every Saturday night and go dancing, I was just kidding him, and have a bunch of drinks, that I am an alcoholic? And he said, yes, sir, you are. And I looked around at all my young classmates, and we all sort of grinned at how crazy that guy was. But it goes in with that thinking that we have the definition there, maybe sometimes the definitions are wrong, because I still disagree with the guy now that I turned out to be a genuine alcoholic, that if you get drunk every Saturday night, it might be just a social manifestation.
But the thing is, I think that the young people are getting more accurate information all the time. Yes, sir? I wonder, I know that you were one of the first faculty of education, formal public education, I don't think you're alcoholic education, but do you believe that not to AA, but to educate at the public level, whether that be grammar school, high school, or college, that more formal learning in the books on the disease of alcoholism helps the young alcoholic recognize his symptoms?
The question is from the gentleman, do we believe that by the teaching of alcoholism, of the disease, and what the symptoms are and the various manifestations in our public schools and in our colleges and our high schools and things like that, will a young alcoholic become more aware of the fact that he is an alcoholic, or is becoming one, or what have you?