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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – THE WHO I NEVER KNEW The Who I Never Knew – RS 06382.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-the-who-i-never-knew-the-who-i-never-knew-rs-06382.mp3 Duration: 00:57:57
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I had never met any of the speakers before today, so I know nothing about them. I didn't even volunteer for this job, I got a loving invitation. So we're all in this thing together. But it's been a wonderful conference. Without further ado, our first speaker is Fred F. from Detroit. Hi everybody, my name is Fred Forbes and I'm an alcoholic. I live in Wilmington, Delaware, and in case you've never heard of it, it's the first state slightly below Philadelphia.
They look at my name tag and they say, where's Delaware? But we do a good job. I'm very privileged to be here. I'm a very grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous and to have this opportunity to share and to be with John and Mickey and Jim. And I must say, as I look out, you're the best looking bunch of drunks I've seen in a long while. And I hope you all got a bed. I came to this blessed fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous on September 20, 1954, off of Skid Row in Philadelphia.
I had been warned four years previously by my father that I was, quote, an alky. That dirty, lousy word that he called me and pointed the finger at me. And I'd never heard it before and I didn't like it. And when he started to talk about my boozing, I knew what he meant. He was a very liberal gentleman. He was an Episcopal preacher that we affectionately called the bishop. And that, of course, makes me a son of a bishop and I've been called worse.
And it took me four years to drink myself out of everything that I had, a wife and three children. More importantly, my self-respect. I became a thief, a bum. This is the one I knew at that time. Our topic today is the guy I never knew, how he changed and what willingness, honesty had to do with it, and dedication. And I'm going to try to stick to those topics and weave what happened to me in between those items in my sharing with you.
My willingness started by not being willing to believe you people. After that session with the bishop, I did go through my first contact with AA. I went to St. James Street and I struggled up the stairs to the central intergroup headquarters. Before I did that, I did what any sensible alcoholic would do. I went over and had a couple of Boilermakers to make the trip. And when I get in there, and I have to be careful now how I say this, there was an elderly gentleman sitting behind a table.
And he didn't ask me if I wanted it for me or my wife or my friends. And he gave me the where and when, the meeting booklet. Told me that they were glad to see me and I got the hell out of there. And I went down, I opened up this booklet and I looked at it and all of you people met in churches and schools and places that I'd had my belly full of. So I said to hell with that and I never did anything. I never went to a meeting.
And as I said previously, it took me just four years to get rid of everything I had and almost get rid of Fred. When I came to you people, I had been a sexton in a Roman Catholic parish. And since we're dealing with honesty, I must tell you that I stole from the poor box because I was poor. I stole from the poor box because I was poor. I used the altar wine because I was thirsty. And I never missed at volunteering to sweep up the church on Monday morning after all those masses because that was enough change on the floor for Freddy to drink his lunch.
I think the thing that saved me in that deal was I got one free meal a day out of the good Monsignor Ryan. And I also had the old boy buttered up as most alcoholics should that if I got there at 7 o'clock and rang the bell for the first mass and I was still standing at 6, I would get paid in cash for that day. And that of course gave me my ability to drink. My family had left me.
[00:05:01]
My wife and the two little girls, age 3 and 5, had gone to a Catholic hospital and school where she was a teacher. My oldest boy of 7 was living with me in a furnished room under trying conditions and the welfare people were about to take him away. And I was forced to put him into an orphanage at that age. And I remember taking him on a streetcar and turning him over to the sister and saying, don't worry kid, the old man will get straightened out at least I can see on weekends.
And I think for Fred this was the beginning of honesty. I think that's the thing that broke my back that I lost my boy, my firstborn, and what I had come to. I had had a very successful early business career. I had been a leader at a very wet college, Gerald Brown, up in Providence, Rhode Island, where I never had a drink as a matter of fact. And harking back to those things brought back to Fred what I should be doing.
It's always amazing to me why we as alcoholics can't get the wheels moving upstairs after that first drink and do something about it, but that's what they call addiction. I had no conception at that time of the disease alcoholism. That it is a disease that we're not bad people but we're sick people. It took me some time to learn that and to agree to it and to do something about it. Finally, the thing that brought me around to you people was the fact that booze would not do for me what it used to do.
It wouldn't stop my shakes in the morning. I'm one of those guys who had to have the morning drink and a good healthy belt. I'm one of the lucky alcoholics who never lost it. My God, if I'd lost that booze in the morning I think I'd have died. Because it was my friend or so I thought. And finally when I got to the point where it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, I threw in the sponge. I was in a little bar down on Island Road.
I had been living with a very kind black family who rented me a roll-away bed in their kitchen for 60 cents a night and I used to steal cold lime or beans from their refrigerator. I was in this bar and I'd had a beer and I was carrying a briefcase with me. I'll tell you what I had in the briefcase. I had a church missile and a bottle. It's a great combination. Gives you strength and courage. And two gentlemen came to the door both in plainclothes.
I was sitting with another man minding my own business at 7.30, getting ready to go to my janitor's job. This guy pointed right at me, he says, are you Fred Forbes? He said, I'd like to talk to you. And I said to myself, buster, one of my big deals from the bar has come through and I finished that beer and I went out to state cops in plainclothes. I had been picked up by my wife's request for non-support.
I was taken and fortunately for me, released at the alcoholic clinic in the Mills Building in the Philadelphia General Hospital and I was not put in a can. Now, previous to this, I'd had a meeting, my second meeting with a bishop, which I have to tell you about. When he told me that I was an alcoholic and I went and visited you people in the central service office and did nothing about it, I went into the great state of West Virginia and I did a survey in a newspaper job.
By the way, I'm a newspaper man or a huckster, whichever you choose, and I loved it. And I came back to Philadelphia after that job was over and I ran out of money, as most alcoholics do, and this is not a very pretty story, but I hope it will help somebody. And this was before you had the fancy numbers on the checks. And I walked into a savings bank outside of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania and I was weaving and poofing and I said to this guy, Hey, I've got to catch that bus. I left my checkbook behind. Give me about five checks, will you?
And God bless that man. He didn't even look up my number or my name. He gave me those five checks. And being a good alcoholic over the weekend to take care of myself, my family, you know who I put first. I cashed $150 worth of checks without even an account in the bank. Now that's not sane and that's not sober. They picked me up the next day. I can still feel the sergeant grabbing me. I went in and met my friend, the police chief, and I looked at him and I said, I know you. You go to my church.
He looked at me and he knew I was crazy. He said, let's leave religion out of this. Throw him a number five. And of course, the call went to the bishop and the bishop came in and I hadn't seen him in three years since he told me I was a drunk.
[00:10:08]
He had that beautiful Irish smile on the first thing he said to me. And by the way, I had also to face my mother, my stepmother at the time. He said, Freddie, me boy, I see you're still bending the elbow. And I said, yes. And then I said that great word that we say, but you'll just give me that lousy $150. We'll go pay those checks off and you know I'm good for it. And I'll be damned if he didn't shake his head and smile again at me and say, sorry, Freddie, can't help you.
And they left. And I went back and I sat on that bed. You knew what I said. I said, I'll be an SOB, my own father. Then some of that good Bible training that I had came through and it says very clearly in St. Mark's, if you know about it, I was in prison and he visited me. He visited me and he damn well left me. And of course, the best thing that ever happened. I met my sponsor at that hospital. I was not bad enough to keep.
They had only five beds. He said to me, listen, if you wait for me, I'll take you to a place where you can get some help. I had a quarter in my pocket, which was not both beer and bus fare, so I waited. He picked me up and I went up towards the northwest part of Philadelphia. And this man said some very nice things to me. He's still my sponsor. 42 beautiful years in this fellowship. He said to me, look, I've not always had this job, nor this car.
He said, these people know that I had a problem like yours. He didn't call me a drunk or an alky or an alcoholic. He said, where I'm taking you, these people will help you. And then he said the magic words that I hope I never forget. They'll help you if you want it and if you let them. And I don't think we as alcoholics can do anything for anybody unless we can get them to that stage where they want it and where they'll let us.
I've had many more failures in 12-step work than I have success. By this time I knew where we were. We were in front of Club 4021, which is maintained by members of AA. And I had the privilege of making up my mind and of walking in there, whether I had the guts to do it, and thank God I did. And I walked in there and a man stood up and came to the hallway and stuck his hand out to me. He said, my name is Tom.
What's yours? We're glad to see you. We're glad to see you. Now I had a pair of pants, a pair of shoes with holes in it, and a shirt. And I had a three-day growth of beard and I assure you I didn't look or smell very well and I was rum-dumb. And this guy was glad to see me. They took me aside, they told me some things I didn't want to hear. They asked me that $64,000 question, can you go without a drink?
Must be my red socks. Can you go without a drink for 24 hours? And I said, hell no, no way. They said, let's try it for 24 minutes. Before you know it, I had four hours. Later on in the afternoon, after buying me coffee and a sandwich, they said we'd like to have you come back to a meeting. They only had three meetings in Philadelphia at night at that time. And then my sponsor turned around and gave me a dollar and I heard something else I never want to forget.
He said, we want you to come back to this meeting. He said, here's a buck, you've got a choice. You can come back here tonight and we'll try to help you further. You can go out in this Alaska for ten beers or a couple of hookers and we'll never see you again. The choice is yours. And thank God I made the right choice. I did drink, I did go back, I didn't drink. I heard two men and a woman speak. The woman and one of the men had exactly my pattern of drinking.
They had me come back the next day. And I was given a job, I was given a chance to drive an elevator in a hospital, the Jefferson Hospital, for 35 bucks a week and three square meals a day. This was the start of my willingness. Another thing that helped me, there were a bunch of older members in that club who helped me to survive on tough love. They said to me each day as I left there, remember you SOB, get back here today after this job, no place else and don't come back.
I came back here today after this job, no place else, and don't drink.
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And they checked up on me as I walked in. I never missed a day at that club for some 17 months. And I tell you the reason that I did, because you were the only people that wanted me, that cared for me. I learned an entirely different meaning of affection and love. You didn't give a damn what I looked like or what I smelled like. And I kept that elevator job, and then I got back through a tip from another guy in AA on the newspaper game, and then I was off.
That was the start of my willingness, and as I looked at these people, some of them nowhere near the education or the goodies that I'd had previous to becoming a drunk, I said, if those SOBs can do it, I can do it. And that's what kept me going. The honesty part of the program, I didn't bounce any more checks. I didn't have to steal from the poor box. I used my salary, and finally I'm one of the very fortunate people who got that family back and was able to educate them.
Now when we talk about willingness, I have a little gripe because I'm active. I love people who get up and say, hey, it's great to be in AA. Everything I have in the world today I owe to Alcoholics Anonymous. And you say, that's the guy I want for my chairman next week. Hey, how about it? Oh, I couldn't do it. Too busy. How about being the GSR? Oh, sorry, couldn't do it. That's what we mean by willingness, to give what we got back because it's our life.
Another thing that burns me up is people who put quarters in the basket. Of course, I'm a preacher, son, so I can always beg, but I say to these guys, hey, you didn't even pay for the damn coffee, put a buck in it, what's the matter with you? Silent offering. Remember that, that's part of willingness. Honesty is a tough one. I call the tenth step my safety step. You've got to be honest, and you've got to stay honest, and you've got to do what it says.
You've got to practice these principles in all your affairs or you'll get drunk. Believe me, you see it happen every day. I had somebody when I had about 20 years in this program who came to me. I had a very difficult domestic situation, and I, like many people, were playing around. This person with much less sobriety than I had pointed the finger right at me and said, Freddie, you're a nice guy, you do a lot of work in AA, how the hell can you stay sober and live so dishonestly?
Boy, that didn't shake me up. It would shake anybody up. I got the hell out of my car and went up to my sponsor. He says, that's right. I said, yeah, I guess it is, what do I do? He says, damn it, you get a legal separation, you take care of that wife, and then go do what the hell you want. That was hard to take. We make amends, part of our honesty. I have to share this with you, even though I'm married to a beautiful Republican.
And AA gave me her, she's the current delegate from Delaware, below Philadelphia. I'm a very active Democrat because I was privileged after I got sober to have become associated in work with the late President Kennedy. I spent 20 years in Washington, and I was privileged to be the delegate there in 1974. So if I see you and I look at you and I don't recognize you, I have to say drunk or Democrat. And it usually works.
Now, politicians do funny things. I'm of the dick-tuck variety. I believe sometimes in dirty tricks as long as you don't get hurt. Several months ago, I was privileged to do my last campaign, I hope, as press secretary to a very marvelous guy who was running for governor. And we needed some information from the opposition. And because I am a newsman and I have certain credentials, I snuck into this headquarters, and I had the information right in my hand, and somebody asked me my name.
And I gave my name real quick, hoping they wouldn't recognize it, and out from behind the door came the present governor who defeated us.
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And he said, what the hell are you doing here? And I gave him some phony answer and gave him back his paper and hightailed it with the tail between my legs out of that place. Now, that bothered me. I tried to pull a fast one. I knew I had to apologize to that man. I wandered around for two days like a dry drunk, asked my wife. I talked to my in-town sponsor. And then I finally talked to my own sponsor.
He says, you son of a bee, go do something about it. And I had to. I wrote this man a letter and I called him up and I apologized. He's the present governor. But you people had taught me that I had to do that because I didn't feel right and I knew I had screwed up. That paid lots of dividends because, unfortunately, as a wild-ass Democrat, I landed in the hospital before the election and had to vote for my guy-absentee ballot, by the way.
But this man wrote me a letter, the man that I had offended, the man who was the present governor, and said, Fred Forbes, your health is more important than this campaign. Keep me informed as to your progress. Now, that's what happens by making amends. And, of course, for me, who was the major benefit of this, I could feel right. If you live in this program and you screw up, you know it. If you're an old SOB like me and somebody says to you, hey, you guys still go to meetings?
You bet your sweet life I go to meetings. I didn't understand all this dual addiction when it came around. I had to talk to people and learn about it. I had to say to these guys, yeah, I guess you got to talk about that, but remember, the main thing you're talking about is booze because I got a new person back there. Bring in some of your story, but I had to come to grips with this. If you're an old timer and you don't go to meetings and you don't participate, you don't grow.
That is willingness and honesty. What was my last topic? Openness, why should I talk about that? I will say just a couple of things about openness. I think we have gotten to the point in our lives where you don't hide the fact that you're a member of AA. Some people used to look at my button in an elevator and say to me, what's that? And I used to give them the phony deal, oh, that's a secret society I belong to.
Now I've gotten brave enough so I look at them and I say, that's Alcoholics Anonymous, can I tell you about it? Boy, they move right over the other end of the car. Early in the game, before I had two years of sobriety, somebody said to me after breaking my anonymity in the press room and made me really angry, and I knew I had to tell the truth that I was a drunk, nobody knows you're in, how can you do any good?
Nobody knows you're in, how can you do any good? Thank you for letting me share and God bless you. Thank you very much, Fred, from Wilmington, Delaware. He told me he was sorry he talked too long. Well, Fred, I'm sorry I said you were from Detroit. My program says DE, that's all I can think of. But I think the next lady's from Detroit. I knew there was something up there. And from Detroit, Michigan, we'll give you Mickey Debbia.
Hi, my name's Mickey and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Mickey. East Ferry's my home group. Universal love. And I'm from Detroit. I am from Detroit. I'd like to tell the newer people that it's really something when you become willing. I didn't even know I had accepted, I didn't even know I had been asked to speak here today.
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And I received a letter when I got home from Green Bay. We had a regional forum there. And I received a letter from Vinnie telling me that I was speaking on the panel. And some of the people right here in this room, I had talked to and wondered, how did they choose me? You know, how did they choose me? And to show you that I haven't been here very long. I haven't been here very long. Not very long.
And it finally dawned on me about a week later. No, it didn't dawn on me. Someone told me that they had asked me to speak. And I had accepted. I had accepted. So, I'd like to say that I'm truly a very shy introvert. But I want the newer people to know that in spite of those feelings, if you have them, that you have to go through things. You go through things because of this fellowship. And you have to give something back.
And somebody has to do it. Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to do it. After I fulfill this engagement and commitment, I'm going to put my shorts on and get with everybody else today. I found out that I haven't prepared anything. I've been getting feedback from a lot of people. But I wanted to touch just a second on honesty. And the thought came to me that the only person that I can truly be honest with is myself.
Because people don't want to hear what you think is honest. I can tell someone a lot of things about them into their inventory, but they don't want to hear it. It's true. It's true. And then I've also found out that I can tell a lot of people about me and the way I used to be. And it embarrasses them. It really embarrasses them. So I found out that just in this short 24 hours I've been here, that the only person I can truly be honest with is myself.
And to start accepting a lot of defects that are just surfacing. I thought it was enough. They keep coming. More and more and more. But I had this thing about, I had a confrontation with one of the members. She came up and told me that if I didn't like her, that I was to respect her. Now this was good for me because I discarded it as some people are sicker than others. But then when I got home, I thought about this and I didn't like her.
I truly did not like her, but I had to admit that before I could start working on which one of my defects made me not like her. And I thought about it and I said, in these few 24 hours I have been rationalizing that I'm working my program too good to say I don't like people. It would always be some kind of other reason. So now, that was honesty for me. That was really good for me. I couldn't understand how, well I'm going to say it, five years, going on six, all this time, that it's people I just don't like.
And I just couldn't believe that I could honestly, you know, honestly say that. But the willingness was being able to stand up here today. The willingness was, I guess, coming to this fellowship after 30 years of drinking and drug use. Drinking and drugging. And the skid row is in a mine up here. It's a crooked road, a crooked lane in a narrow mine. And I came in, in the 12 and 12, the fourth step, the self-loathing and the self-pity.
The self-loathing and the self-pity, that reverse pride, that's where I was, so it was like I was a great big walking wound, you know.
[00:30:06]
I'm honest about saying the things that I've done to get here because there might be some that have gone the same route, you know. I was a woman of the street for a while, and I don't hear that too much, but that's where I came from, you know. Even with the education, the drugs drove me out there. And then the alcohol was the last five years of my degradation was into that alcohol. And the alcohol was, it was the worst.
It was, I couldn't believe that I could function and do the things that I was doing. And the only reason I would continue to pick that drink up was because I wanted to be somebody else. I wanted to be outgoing. You hear it all the time, you know, the life of the party, outgoing. You know, I can do that today without anything, you know. I just, I'm amazed. And about openness, I just got that word straight yesterday.
I thought it was open-mindedness, and it just came to me. I had to read it, openness. I think I am open today. I don't mind telling anyone. I had a button from a young people's convention a few years ago. I don't know who gave it to me, but it said, keep the miracle happening. And I just thought it was so fantastic, you know, and I wore it to work, and I wear it quite often. And people would ask me, and I would tell them, you know.
But I find public information today, and I find that we have to tell people. It says at the level of press, radio, television, you know. But I let the people on the job know. I let the people in the, of course, people in the neighborhood already knew what I was. But now they know I'm getting better, and they know why. And that's really all I want to say. I told him to speak. I told Fred to speak a little longer.
So I'm very grateful to be here, and I know it's guiding you people. And I feel a lot of love today. So you new people, keep coming, because it gets better. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Nicky. And our next speaker, in spite of what your program might say, is Gary from New York City. Hello, everybody. My name is Gary Gatson. I'm an alcoholic. I'm 47 years old. I got sober 12 years ago on June 28, 1937.
That's when I was born. 1973. I am employed and self-supporting by my own efforts. I am legally married to a beautiful woman. My children are graduating or out of college, paid for. All of the above comes as a great surprise to me when I look back where I was 12 years ago. I also must say I am a member of the Greenwich Village Group in New York City. I'm amazed that I think half of the group is in this room.
The other half, of course, is next door. And us Manhattanites are far too sophisticated to say things like it's the best group in the United States or anything like that. There's a lot of groups in Manhattan. But, of course, the Greenwich Village Group is the most spiritually mature. It's south of 14th Street and west of Fifth Avenue. And if you're ever in the big city, please come join us. We love to have visitors.
I started my drinking very naturally and at a very early age because I come from an alcoholic family.
[00:35:03]
I didn't know it. I wasn't able to recognize that that was the case until I was in the program for some time. Not only is the physical consumption of alcohol, I find, a family disease, but, of course, the denial aspect of alcoholism certainly is. I was at a meeting today at the convention center, which all the speakers were non-alcoholics. These are people who are professional prison wardens with about a combined experience of over 100 years in big prison systems in Canada and the United States.
And they were looking at our disease from a viewpoint that very few of us look at. I heard things that just curled my socks. One of the gentlemen who's speaking says that their statistics, their surveys have shown that 80% of inmates in Canada and the United States, and I guess by extension throughout the world, are in there essentially because of booze, booze and drugs. And we all know that they go through the door and out the door one side and back the other.
One fellow called it life sentences on the installment plan due to booze. And they were all talking about the same thing, the family aspects of the disease. I had that. I started drinking easily and naturally. I remember the first present I ever bought my mother with my own money when I was about 14 years old. It didn't strike me as strange at all. As a 14-year-old kid, I bought my mother my first present with my own money, and it was a hammered aluminum cocktail shaker with six glasses and a tray.
And we celebrated her birthday by the two of us sitting in front of the fireplace. We lived in Butte, Montana at the time, drinking nine-to-one martinis that I admit. Booze to me was liberation, emancipation, being grown up. Fred talks about being the son of the bishop from Philadelphia. I started out to be a very straight arrow, responsible kid. You know, grew up in the 50s and earlier than that in Colorado and Montana.
What else do you do? And I went into the ministry, went to seminary in Philadelphia, an Episcopal seminary there. I was there that I started experiencing the physical consequences of our disease most acutely. I've had some intimations of it before, but I was awfully young and healthy. But by the time I got into my middle 20s and I was in seminary there in Philadelphia, I was drinking at least a quart of liquor on a daily basis, and I started to experience blackouts and very uncharacteristic behavior.
I started finding myself in places I didn't want to be, with people I didn't know, doing things I didn't understand. But I never made that connection between booze and what was happening that I didn't like in my life. Instead, what I did is I started to more and more retreat into myself. I harbored this belief that there was inside me a devil. Sometimes I called it that jokingly, but sometimes I just didn't know what it was.
But I felt that there was something intrinsically evil in me that I could not eradicate that would cause me to do these things. Why? Why? And I doubled my efforts. Maybe that's how I got into that ministry channel to begin with, is trying to be the expert, perfect person to overcome this fear of myself that I had. And still these things have happened. I look back on them now. Now they're ludicrous.
Many of those events are ludicrous. But at the time, when you're 26 years old and you're trying to be a baby priest and super responsible, you know, the Episcopalians are either Presbyterians who drink or Catholics who get married. It depends on how you look at it. And, you know, there I was. I had a lovely wife. I had an adorable little baby son. I had been working and slaving away at two or three jobs to get there since I was in high school.
And I would go out on a student preaching engagement. I remember once on a Sunday morning I was at a podium, a pulpit about this high in Conshohocken, PA,
[00:40:07]
if any of you have ever been there, a little place called St. Stephen's Church. And my notes fell off the pulpit. I just went over right after them. And I was hanging on from the edge of this colonial pulpit by my heels, you know, with the cassock and the surplus over your head. I looked like a mushroom upside down. Picking these papers up off the floor and then somehow, I guess because I was young and had some strength, I was able to hustle myself back up and went on with the sermon, you know, and it's like nothing happened.
In my mind, nothing had happened. I remember very curious expressions on the congregation as they came out shaking my hand. When I thought back, you know, I let myself react to that later on in the day. I was terribly humiliated. But by that time, it was a hot summer day and I'd had more than a few drinks and the insulation was there. But that sort of stuff, and that was a comic part of it, you know, the sort of things happening in my life drove me more and more into myself.
A lot of people say, you know, like Mickey did, that they're basically sort of shy people. I don't think I'm shy. I don't think I started out to be shy. I was a kid who grew up in the West, you know, and Western kids, my own kids are Western kids. You know, they're disgusting, you know. They grow up with this blasé expectation that every door in the world is going to be open to them. My daughter and son have no more shyness reserve and self-consciousness than the cat does.
They just walk in, open up the refrigerator, drink down three gallons of milk and eat everything in there and walk out. I was that way. I was that way. But booze reinforced that little spark of negativity that I had in me, and I was driven more and more and more and more into myself. Well, we know the story of what happened. I had a clerical career which, shall we say, was meteoric. A brief and dazzling blaze of glory across the sky that ended up about three and a half, four years after my ordination date, finding me on the streets of New York on the bum.
I was living in a free flop over in Brooklyn Heights that somebody had given me because I didn't have enough money to pay for it. I had a job, so-called a part-time, as a room clerk in a seaman's hotel down on the waterfront. Nobody knew where I was. I had run away from home as an adult and left a wife and two children and a profession and all of my family and friends, and I was incommunicado for about nine months.
It was the happiest period of my life up to that time. People who are not alcoholic do not understand, do not understand, they think that poor soul on the street, how miserable, how awful they must feel. No. It was a delight. Nobody was off my ass. Nobody could find me. I had no responsibility of any kind, and I had absolutely no intention of changing those facts whatsoever. Then these stupid idiots out of my past started riding in on their white horses, searching through Manhattan to find me, setting up job opportunities for me, you know, and good old Gary, you know, I could never say no to a good deal ever.
I was bopping along with them and really wishing they'd go away, but they found me another job. So I found my way from Montana to upstate New York, and that went boom-o like that, and there I was back on the streets of New York. But this time I'd learned my lesson, and I had made a vow that I would never, ever be penniless on the streets of New York again, and I've learned how to use people, places, and things.
I must say, after having problems with depression and anxiety up to that point, …and anxiety up to that point, a lot, and being hospitalized for it several times, and that point on, those left me. I was able to do that from the age of 28 to the age of 35.
[00:45:03]
I think of it as I sort of hit my bottom at 28, and it was all icy and slick down there, and I kind of slithered around for eight years, until finally it just wore out. The liver went, the spleen went, the heart went, and I had to stop drinking, because something very wonderful happened to me that I really resented. It came an awareness, a very quiet sort of still voice inside my own head, came to me one day that said, no matter what, it was better for me to be alive than dead.
And I had to that point, from the time that I was in my mid-twenties, I'd never, I suppose you'd say for the previous ten years, I'd never felt that way. But I knew that I couldn't drink anymore. The doctors had told me. I had tried to prove them wrong. It's very hard to prove the doctors wrong on this point. The diagnosis usually holds. And I couldn't get it down. I had to desperately have it in my system.
I'd tried all of the chemistry lessons that I had been taught or invented in the past, from trying to mix galliano with milk, because I could no longer take the scotch in the milk. And then the galliano was a little too tart, so I used to mix the milk with the beer, and then try it through a straw and all of this sort of thing, and then nothing was working. I couldn't drink. I couldn't stop drinking. I had to desperately have it in me.
And I had to stay alive for some reason. And it was a hell of a mess. At that moment, talking about the openness to let people know where we come from, I had a friend named Bert, who had been one of my close drinking buddies for a number of years in New York, who had paid me a call about six months before I reached this point. And I didn't want to see Bert, because he just sort of rang my doorbell on the apartment and walked in the door.
And I really didn't know what he was up to, because the last time I'd seen Bert had been really a disaster. I mean, I'd had to really refurnish the apartment after he left. And I was sitting on tetherhooks. Mickey was talking about, you know, sometimes people don't want to hear our stories. I didn't want to hear Bert's that day at all. And Bert started to tell me his story and said that he was coming here to make amends.
And I said, oh, there, there, Bert, that's okay. You know, you never really were that way. And he got really mad and he stood up and he said, look, you silly son of a bitch, I don't care whether you like what I have to say or not. They told me I had to come here and do this. I did it. It's over with. If you don't like it, you can shove it. And he walked out the door. But in my hour of need came the awareness that Bert had mentioned AA.
And I thought, with typical alcoholic approach, if they could help Bert stop drinking. And he's so much worse off than I am. Maybe if I went there for a couple of meetings, they'd help me get through this. And I did. I went to my first AA meeting on May 28th, 1973, in Chelsea Riverside, which is in the basement of St. Stephen's Church on West 69th Street in Manhattan. And I walked into there and there was a table, a beginner's table, and I sat down.
And they started going around the table and I heard myself say, my name is Gary, I'm an alcoholic, what do I do now? The first time I had asked anybody for help with anything since I had asked Betty Lou Doll what the answer was at the Spanish exam when we were sophomores in high school. And they told me. And that began for me the pilgrimage of sobriety. Now, today, I was walking over to this meeting up the street here and I met my friend Nancy from New York.
And we started talking. And she was telling me where she was coming from and I was telling her where I was, how I was feeling. And I became aware that the way I feel today is full of fear and anxiety and self-pity because I'm having little problems with my work. But it's different than it ever has been before. This time I know that the jig is up. This time I know that no good will come of this. This time I am convinced that not only will I'm going to lose this big client,
[00:50:04]
but there will never be any other client after that client. I will have to live through my wife's efforts alone. I figured out how we could do it. She's due for a raise at the end of this year. And I do this in my head in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Overwhelming evidence. Since I walked in that room, and I say this because I know in my heart that what you get when you come to the rooms of AA is sobriety.
Period. That's all it guarantees. But there are some lovely fringe benefits that can come along too from time to time. My wife Eileen says that sobriety doesn't promise you the goodies, but it gives you the opportunities that if any goodies are due to come your way, you can enjoy them. It doesn't predict your behavior like booze did. Well, since coming into this program, I have been able to train myself for a new profession and practice it.
I have been able to resolve an impossible personal situation, marital situation, through the friends and help of the program, one of whom is sitting here today, and I thank him for that. I have been able to build a life. I have been able, being essentially a very isolated, loner-type person, to find around me a fellowship of hundreds, and close friends counting in the hundreds. So I have all of this experience, this sober experience, to teach me that my higher power and the strength of this fellowship will sustain me no matter what happens, and therefore there is no reason for me to drink no matter what happens.
My sobriety can be unconditional, and yet my head, left to its own devices, bringing me back and back and back into this fear. For me, the voyage of sobriety is to steer by the rocks of fear and self-imposed doom, and we have all the tools to do it, if only we'll stop and use them. To that I have to be open. Openness to me means being open to change. I've learned, because people have told me, my sponsors and my friends, that the only thing that I fear, because of where I'm coming from, is that things will be different.
And it's true, I was perfectly comfortable walking the streets of New York when things were a disaster for me. I knew the scene. I knew what was happening. I knew what to expect. I'm perfectly happy being in impossible situations if I know what they are. The only thing I'm afraid of is not that terrible things will happen in my life, but that things will change. And it's the fellowship of AA that gives me the opportunity to live with change, to be open to change in my life.
I don't know where it was. I suppose it was when I started to shut down in those early years, when I felt that there was this evil thing in me, that I became terrified of the world that I knew changing around me. I also became terrified of the consequences of my behavior, and usually for pretty good reason. But this fellowship, the tools of the program, tell me how to live with that change, how to tolerate change in my life.
And the tools for me that are the key ones, of course, are the third step and the tenth step. What makes it work for me is thinking about what Bill says in step three. The more we become willing to depend upon a higher power, the more independent we actually are. Therefore, dependence, as AA practices it, is really a means of gaining true independence of spirit.
[00:55:00]
I find that the self-defeating attitudes stay out of my life if on a daily basis I try to take a few moments of each day and say, with the rest of the fellowship, as it says in the big book, God, I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you wish. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties and victory over them. May bear witness to those at help of your power, your love, your way of life.
But change for what? It's when I feel uneasy in my own skin, like I did today when I was sharing with Nancy, that I have to come back to what Bill says in step ten. It's a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. I'd never want to admit that, you know. The things that disturb me are them. It. Never me. But then, too, we have to go on beyond that, I think, at least I do.
I mean, it's a spiritual axiom that something's wrong with me. I have to change, but change for what? Bill says, as Bill sees it and in some other things that I've run across, things like, in my first six months of sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. No one responded, but that kept me sober. It wasn't a question of their giving me anything. Stability comes out of giving, not of receiving.
Thus, I think it'll work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we can find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and consequent demand. Let's hack away at these chains, begging God's help. Then we shall be set free to live and to love. We shall then be able to 12-step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety. That's why I and Fred and Mickey and all of you keep coming and keep coming back.
Thank you very much. Thank you.