PART IV
Luke 15:11 "The prodigal son returns."
"Once a pickle, never a cucumber again!"
"My name is Bill and I'm an alcoholic!" And, proud to say that I am a recovered(ing) alcoholic since April 25, 1979. Once I became an alcoholic, I could never become a social drinker again! Alcoholism is a disease and I am a victim of that disease. The reason that I am an alcoholic is the addictive drug/poison, ethyl alcohol. Diabetes is a disease also. A disease that impairs the ability of the body to use sugar and causes sugar to appear abnormally in the urine. As an alcoholic I must abstain from alcohol as the diabetic must stay away from sugar as much as possible and they take their insulin medicine. This is an analogy only. The two diseases are not synonymous in the least except that both are diseases and must be arrested on a daily basis. The alcoholic, like the diabetic, must take medicine on a daily basis.
A statistic that never changes in the alcoholic's world, not to be taken lightly, is a wake up call for anyone toying with the thought that time and a geographic change will alter their lives. I, personally, have traveled to various states and cities in the USA, have "escaped" to Saudi Arabia, because I heard that the arabs do not drink for fear of the consequences that will befall them and that their law forbids alcohol consumption. Don't believe it, there is drinking and alcoholics in every corner of the world.
The alcoholic has a tendency to blame family, job, where they live, any and everything, except themselves for their problems. It's called "DENIAL".
So here is the statistic. Out of forty two alcoholics, forty die, one becomes mentally insane…and one lives. I decided years before I surrendered that I was going to be that one, the one that survives!
This book is not only about Bill the alcoholic, but all alcoholics and the innocent victims of alcohol. It is about manslaughter, and your Constitutional Rights which is the law of the land. It is about the organized group mentioned above, protected under the guise of a product that was legitimized many years ago, although it is a drug and should require a prescription at the very least. They are able to wheel and deal as the untouchables at the expense of the multitudes who use alcohol for one reason or another. Let's add one more ingredient to this smorgasbord of "do gooders"…organized crime. Where there is alcohol, there is crime. Now the picture is complete, warts and all. I'll be generous and considerate, with tongue in cheek, and say for those who are attempting to make this a better country for the rank and file. The majority of politicians and the judiciary are not nefarious and culpable for the misdeeds of the others. It is the duty and obligation of John and Jane "Q" public to weed out the undesirables and elect those who will abide by our Constitution, as hard as it may be, to stand up to those who are entrenched in personal greed and have the power to control for so many years.
Let me elaborate on one other unobserved, or considered denial by those who are "social drinkers." It seems the uneducated and ignorant to what an alcoholic actually is, nonchalantly blame all alcohol-related tragedies on the "alcoholic." That is the classic absurdity, and so far from truth. I will not elaborate at length on this controversial subject since I consider my reader to be intelligent and well read. Many who consider themselves social drinkers have at one time or other found themselves inebriated and unable to function at their full capacity with all faculties in tact. In fact, I'm sure, since I have heard it said first hand, that our fellow social drinkers have driven their automobiles while under the influence…many times, and have gotten out of hand physically with their significant other more times that they care to admit. I will leave this argumentive and sensitive subject to propose a question. Have you ever read or heard, concerning an alcohol related tragedy, that a specific brand of alcohol, be it whiskey, beer or wine, or who the manufacturer of the product(s) responsible for the individual's drunkeness at the time of the grave adversity was ever identified? Of course not! Read on to find out the reason for this omission.
What are my qualifications to write on such a complex subject of the most misunderstood disease of alcoholism and the product alcohol? I am not an attorney. Unlike my experience in the legal field, I do have fifty, plus years, in the substance abuse field. Succinctly, I have been an alcoholic since the age of seventeen. It has been said that if a person who perceives to have a drinking problem, and is sitting on the fence about doing something about it, remembers their first drink, they probally are alcoholic. I can't find any facts that would substantiate such a statement, but in my case I do remember that memorable occasion. A friend of mine, and myself went to a neighborhood bar in Brooklyn, and were going to be initiated into the world of men by two Merchant Marine friends. I never had a drink prior to that experience which changed my life forever. The bartender was given the high sign that we were virgins to John Barleycorn. A "Depth Charger" was immediately ordered up for us and we were told it had to be chug-a-lugged. A Depth Charger consists of a shot of whiskey dropped, tumbler included, into a glass of beer. Because of a time constraint, we downed three, one after the other. When we left the bar, I was feeling no pain or any emotional pain I may have subconsciously or consciously been feeling for those seventeen years. As we walked down the street, on the way to a church play I was performing in, I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks and told the guys I needed a pack of cigarettes. I ran back to the bar and told the bartender to give me another depth charger…pronto! I was blitzed, knocked over scenery, told I wasn't to set foot in the church again, and had my first blackout, which is alcohol amnesia, among other consequences. From that night on, I frequented bars all over Brooklyn, primarily by myself, a loner, went to school hungover, hitting the bars Saturday mornings, waiting for them to open up Sunday at that magic hour, one in the afternoon, and was closing the bars, three or four A.M. No doubt about it folks, I was alcoholic from the very beginning.
My first hospitalization for alcoholism was Thanksgiving, 1947. About eight of us, my friends from high school, hitchhiked to Winsted, Connecticut to spend the holiday at a cabin owned by the family of one of the fellows. There, we split up into twos in order to find wood for the fireplace. I was teamed up with Artie, known for his love of booze. We were an excellent pair for what we wanted to do more than anything, especially, look for wood. Since the weather was of a freezing nature, and we thought a bottle of liquor would do the trick to warm us up, off to town we went. Bought a quart of Imperial whiskey and went back to the cabin area to enjoy a few drinks. We couldn't find the cabin we were staying at, so we broke into one and proceeded to down the quart. It didn't take us long to finish it, all of a half hour, if my recollection is correct. We then decided to climb up on a roof of an unfinished cabin to scout out our buddies. I don't remember much of what happened after that except Artie was sitting atop the chimney screaming his lungs out and laughing uncontrollably. And so was I! That's all I remember until I woke up in a room swimming in my own vomit with my head in a pail with it coming over my ears. I was told when we were found Artie was thrown into Highland Lake that was frozen over . After they got him down via a ladder, I, on the other hand, walked off the roof thinking I could fly and was knocked out when I landed. Because I was legless and so sick, they were able to get me to Litchfield Hospital where I stayed a few days until we all went back to New York. No one would ride with Artie or myself, so we were teamed up again, hitchhiking, until a Model T Ford picked us up. It was snowing as Artie and I huddled in the rumble seat under a stinking blanket that couldn't hold a candle to how we smelled. So, at seventeen I was well on my way into the quagmire of alcoholism. That little stint, which I experienced another alcoholic blackout and a concussion, didn't tell me a thing about alcoholism or I may have a problem simmering within myself. All that experience meant to me was that I had another tale to tell the gals and guys that was good for a laugh.
I arrived at the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous at the age of twenty nine. It took me twenty years beyond, after five years, three years and a number of sporatic months of, what we in AA call, "dry drunks", or, "white knuckled sobriety", to understand and accept what was being suggested to me by the understanding and caring people of AA and what the spiritual program of AA would eventually do for me.
That being said, I will put to rest an old wives tale about the alcoholic in the simplest terms that anyone can understand. Have you ever heard, "that all the alcoholic has to do is use "will power" to stop drinking?" Well, let me ask you something very personal, "have you ever tried will power when you had a case of diarrhea?" Try it sometime! If it doesn't work for diarrhea, it certainly will not help the alcoholic to stop drinking. Believe me!
Some members of Alcoholics Anonymous, when introducing themselves, prefer recovered and others, recovering. I personally use "recovered." The word has no bearing on anything. It is a matter of preference of the individual. My feeling is that anyone experiencing sobriety is following a spiritual path. Once alcohol is out of one's system, a spiritual journey has begun. For this alcoholic I have experienced that truism first hand. I could not manage my own life. I finally realized, after twenty years of trying to do it my way, using AA as a first aid station, abstaining occasionally for reasons other then for myself, that there was no way out, and that no human power could relieve me of my alcoholism. Terrifying loneliness finally brought me to my knees!
I had to turn my disease over to the care of the God of my understanding, totally surrender to the fact that alcohol conquered me, remove my self centerness (ego deflation in depth) and ask for guidance. That was never in me to do prior to my surrendering. It is because of that spiritual conversion, from the extreme depths of despair and desperation, drowning in the quicksand of insanity, that I was able to recover to become a productive and respected member of society. Without a Higher Power and the Twelve Step program of AA to guide me every step of the way, there was no way out of what is often referred to as… "self will run riot."
The theme of my story, simply stated is, "keep coming back", meaning, no matter how many relapses, commonly called "slips", the alcoholic must keep giving AA a chance to take hold. We have a saying, "if you don't get AA, AA will get you." It took this alcoholic, from 1959 to 1979, twenty horrific years of sinking deeper and deeper into the blackhole of chronic alcoholism, experiencing just about every "yet" that awaits the alcoholic. I was actively drinking myself to a premature death or into a mental institution as a "wet brain", which I would eventually become. Just one more victim of the addictive drug/poison, ethyl alcohol.
What and who convinced, or made me stop drinking? That is the sixty four thousand dollar question everyone asks. What is the answer to "making" a loved one or a friend or an employee stop drinking? Once the realization that nothing or nobody can stop the alcoholic from drinking , we can and should move on with our own lives. I had to make the ultimate decision to stop, for myself only. Not for my family, which I had lost by the time I actually stopped, or the job, which I did not have and was unemployable, or for anything other than myself. This sounds very egotistical, but if we all, and this means you the reader, alcoholic or not, does not consider yourself as number one, whatever you are attempting to do for yourself, your efforts will be in vain and short lived.
In my case, taking into account throwing away two educations, one a scholarship for a physical education teacher to join the Navy, and after being honorably discharged, I was recalled back into the Navy for the Korean conflict. I was given another opportunity for a college education via the G.I. Bill. It took eight weeks of attending classes for commercial art and design, after being accepted by a prestigious New York art institute, drunk, and in a mocus state each night I went, to pack up my art material and leave the school.
My many detoxifications in five star alcohol hospitals to the bottom of the barrel state hospitalizations, incarcerations in jails, both in the Navy and as a civilian, DWI's, I was court ordered into the T.A.S.C. program which is the acronym for Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime never meant anything to me. I just didn't care about my life and the lives of the people around me. I was the center of the universe, a champion manipulator always shooting the angles to get out of one scrape after another. My life was like a revolving door of misery, trouble and disaster waiting for me with every twist and turn I took.
After losing a family of seven children and a wife, getting fired from jobs, failing in business, automobile accidents, and being a patient a number of times in detox and rehabs, I finally ended up on the New York Bowery, living in a two dollar a night "chicken coop." I was asked to leave this "posh" six story cesspool of degenerates because they didn't want my element down there. While living at this rat infested dump I almost killed a man because he reached into my pocket to steal a few dollars. To add misery to injury, I was being charged with the murder of the executive director of a major television network program. I thought nothing of taking a lie detector test without an attorney… not very smart, but passed without a doubt that I didn't commit the crime. Another serious situation I was involved in, and was arrested for, was the act of discharging a weapon in a friend's house while we were both drunk and completely out of our minds. He told the officers that I fired at him and they hauled me off to jail. I was into the quagmire of alcohol so deep that I just couldn't get out, no matter how many times I tried. Twenty years to be exact.
I was a walking volcano and I erupted many times during my active alcoholic years. This intelligent, creative and very athletic kid, before the age of seventeen, when I took my first drink, a "depth charger", a shot of booze dropped in a glass of beer and chug-a-lugged, became a menace to society, a wild and unpredictable animal who became institutionalized because of the addictive drug alcohol. I could go on and on with the horror stories, war stories as we call them in AA, but I can tell you in a heartbeat, terrifying loneliness brought me to my knees! Maybe you will be able to identify with my feelings of loneliness if you saw the movie "Jeremiah Johnson", 1972, starring Robert Redford. Sound too simple? Ask any alcoholic and they will probably tell you the same thing. Alcoholism and loneliness are synonymous. You can't have one without the other if you are in the throws of chronic alcoholism. Not one, or all of the above traumatic events that I experienced could hold a candle to the "terrifying loneliness" I experienced.
When does one become an alcoholic? How do we know when to throw the towel in so that we can turn our lives around? Has that question ever entered your mind? I'll bet it has. First and foremost, the simple equation is, if you have crossed the invisible line, you don't control alcohol, it controls you. If alcohol is interfering with any area of your life, be it family, job, health, losing contact with friends, becoming a loner, losing interest in activities you enjoyed participating in, stopped going to church or temple, fender benders, car accidents, an occasional DWI/DUI (driving while intoxicated/driving under the influence), finding yourself getting in trouble with the law and ending up behind bars for the first time and, of course, there are many other signs along the way that we in AA call "the yets" that tell us its time to ask ourselves, "am I powerless over alcohol, so much, that my life has become unmanageable?"
When the "honest" desire to stop drinking finally hit me like a Mac truck, I was spirtually, physically and mentally bankrupt. I had hit my bottom! I was told that some things around me and relationships with people may not get better, but I will get better. That is, if I was willing to "take the cotton out of my ears and shove it my mouth." Listen and act on the suggestions of the members of AA, if I took my medicine AA prescribes in the spiritual Twelve Steps, get a sponsor, continue attending meetings on a regular basis, get involved, and join a group, set up and stack chairs, make coffee for the group, and eventually did something I tried to avoid for many years, I finally got up and spoke in front of a group and told my story. When this alcoholic gets up to speak, the first words are, "I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic…" followed by, what it was like before picking up that first drink, what is was like while I was drinking and what it's like today. That's it in a nutshell. A simple program for complicated people. Love and service is the name of the game. Nothing more, nothing less.
The life I led as an active Jeykll and Hyde alcoholic is something everybody must give a lot of thought and come to a conclusion of what the addictive drug/poison ethyl alcohol is capable of, and how it deprives, and strips a person of their "Spiritual Being." After reading the capsulation of my story, and the devastating consequences I experienced by the use and abuse of alcohol, ask yourself, "why, since 1979, have I not had a brush with the law, except for a speeding ticket while driving my daughter to the airport, and haven't encountered any of the negative and traumatic experiences I had while actively drinking?"
I retired from the Department of Defense with two Superior Performance awards and a Letter of Commendation by my Commanding Officer. The Superior Performance awards were the highest awards the Navy rewards their civilian employees with. Met a great gal who is my best friend and soul-mate, got remarried, and have a wonderful fulfilling marriage. I moved from the Bowery and another choice hotel, "the Hotel Honda" and the woods where I holed up for a time with some pretty strange characters. I now live in a country club in full view of a golf course. I have friends, am financially independent, two cars that are paid for and many more benefits that I have accrued since being sober… alcohol free. My story is not unique. There are multitudes of alcoholics who are as fortunate, with a peace of mind beyond their wildest dreams, as I have in my sobriety. Ask yourself, "why, and how can millions of alcoholics be so self destructive while drinking alcohol, and when they stopped drinking, their lives made a complete turnaround?"
Being an alcoholic, I just don't talk the talk, I have walked the walk. That's a familiar saying, but true. Love and service is what it is all about. I hold AA meetings at the local jail for the inmates,and have volunteered my services at hospitals and institutions. I have facilitated groups for DWI/DUI's in New York and Florida, and I became an alcohol counselor. There you have it, a thumbnail sketch into the throws of alcoholism and the ultimate remedy for recovery from this devastating and crippling disease.
HOW IT WORKS
FROM THE "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous; Chapter five
Rarely have we seen a person fail who thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.
At some we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all our earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with alcohol-cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power-that One is God. May you find Him now!
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
**12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed, "what an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:
a. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
b. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
c. That God could and would if He were sought.
Author's note: The publication of this volume does not imply affiliation with nor approval or endorsement from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.