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November 2004

WHEN I WAS fourteen years old, my dad and I were walking down a country road in Indiana when I spotted an empty bottle, curved so it could fit snugly against you in your back pocket. That bottle spoke to me. From then on, I looked for curved bottles. Soon I found one and drank it. It didn’t take long for me to become a daily drinker. In those days, alcohol was hard to get, but I found a place where I could get a half-pint for fifty cents.

By the time I got married in 1935, alcohol had become the main object of my life. My wife, DeDe, said she could tell how drunk I was by the way my foot hit the first front step. In addition, my father-in-law owned a drug store and if I told him I had a pain in my stomach, he would dole out the paregoric, which was an opium derivative.

I would lie about how much money I spent. Then I’d feel guilty for wasting money and lying, so I drank to assuage the guilt. (Later in AA, I found out through the Steps about this cycle: drinking, lying, guilt, followed by more drinking, lying, guilt.)

When World War II broke out, I tried to enlist because it sounded like a great opportunity to drink (I’d heard about the weekend adventures of soldiers), but I was rejected because of a chest problem. I ended up going to work in a war plant that manufactured uniforms. It didn’t take me long to learn I could trade uniforms for cash, which I spent on booze. Then I made more drinking money from passing out custom uniforms for police and firemen. The plant kept me employed for several years, but I developed a desire for a change of scenery (commonly known in our AA program as a geographical cure).

I went to Chicago with a friend, and between us we worked three jobs. Eventually I was fortunate enough to get on with the phone company as a parts delivery man. The fellow who worked across from me in the supply area also worked nights in a gambling house in Cicero, Illinois, and he got me a job there, primarily because I owned a suit. The casino worked me as a “shill” who attracted men to gambling by betting at the craps tables and carrying on in a loud voice about how much I’d won and what good luck I’d had. I could have all I wanted to drink as long as I didn’t get drunk—a dream come true if you’re the kind of drunk I was. I held on for about a year before I got fired for—you guessed it—being drunk.

The war was ending, and I opened my own dry-cleaning business in Indianapolis, where I had grown up. My drinking progressed to the point that my wife had to call her girlfriend’s brother, who was a doctor, to give me shots of morphine to calm me down. He said I couldn’t keep drinking. I saw a psychiatrist who never came right out and said I was alcoholic, but he did say, “Apparently, you are one of those people who just can’t drink.”

Everyone around me said, “Quit drinking,” but no one was able to tell me how. I had an old friend in Florida who was a doctor, and I decided to travel there to see him about my problem. My wife insisted on coming with me. To this day, I don’t know how we got the money, but we found a little place to stay and I visited with my friend who said, “Gerald, I can operate on a brain tumor and be successful, but as far as helping a man with his drinking problem, I don’t know any way to be successful. You just have to quit drinking.” So I did, for two months.

We came back to Indiana, and I still couldn’t understand why some people couldn’t drink. I was bitter at the doctor, my wife, everyone! But during this time, I began to wonder why I couldn’t drink. What was the reason? My grandfather and cousins all drank—maybe it was their fault?

Then the psychiatrist I’d seen called me and asked if I’d go to a place called AA up in Chicago. So that’s how I got to my first meeting on November 4, 1947. I haven’t had a drink since.

It’s hard to explain the feeling I had. I guess the best way is to say I felt like I was home. I walked into that meeting room and a man put out his hand and said, “My name is Clem. Do you have a problem with alcohol? If so, don’t drink tonight and come back tomorrow.”

I’m grateful for anonymity, because later I found out that this man was a well-known writer for the Chicago Tribune. Had I known who he was when he stuck his hand out and said, “Keep coming back,” I probably would have felt as if I didn’t belong with such a high-falutin’ crowd!

I returned to Indiana, where a friend and I started an AA group with just three people. We met every day and discussed what was said in those Chicago meetings. Over time we met others and the whole time we talked AA and the Twelve Steps.

It’s now 2004 and I’m eighty-nine years old. I live in a retirement home with my wife near Austin, Texas. My doctor here found out I’m a member of AA and said to me, “You keep going to AA. Take every Sunday off from here and go to your meeting. They need you!” My life has been a pleasure to live because of AA and the many wonderful people in it.

Gerald R. (as told to Carolyn C.)

Austin, Texas

FROM “GETTING STUPID”

January 1996

Eventually I lost everything. I was in Orange, Texas, living in a junkyard in the back of what we referred to as the Chevrolet Motel. A friend of mine and I shared this Chevy with a dog, but it got so bad even the dog left. On a cold night in February, we were broke and we were hungry, and my friend said, “I know where we can get a cup of coffee and a sandwich for nothing.” We’d been panhandling all day and hadn’t made out too well. So we went to this meeting at a church down the road. I was having coffee and a sandwich when a guy came up to me and said, “Are you having a problem with alcohol?” “No,” I said, “I’m having a problem without it.” That was February 2, 1963, and I’ve been sober ever since.

I had a great sponsor. I asked him, “What do I have to do to stay sober?” He said, “Get stupid, throw out all your old concepts.” He told me to sit down, shut up, and learn to listen, that I had nothing to share but a drunkalog. He was deeply into the Steps, though Step and Big Book meetings weren’t around then. I followed that same path and in time I found a whole new way of life.

Phil L.

Malden, Massachusetts