Fired in a Blackout, Sent to Hazelden, Elected Abbot Sober — One Benedictine Monk’s Whole Arc – Fr. Hilary D.

And I am a grateful, recovering alcoholic. Good morning.
I like to say that I was born at an early age in a good Christian home.
But I have heard so many AA speakers say that, that I am no longer convinced that's the place to raise children.
Good morning.
I was drunk, but we did not believe that it was a moral wrong to drink in moderation.
And so looking back over my childhood, I would have to say that if anybody was given an education
in how to drink like a gentleman, how to handle the booze, it would be me.
Our home was filled with tender, loving care. That's true.
The God that was presented to me was...
He was a loving God.
He was presented to me through loving relatives and parents and brothers and sisters.
That's true.
I never feared God.
I lost him, I'll tell you that.
In 1938, my mother felt that I needed some more men in my education.
And so she sent me, as I say,
she sold me,
up the river to the tender mercies of the Benedictine monks at Cullman, and I never got away.
But things were lovely there, too.
This was a German community, and every housewife with the name knew how to squeeze the grape and make that German-type grape juice.
Only they made it out of strawberries.
And I got news for you all.
If you haven't tasted Cullman County strawberry wine, then you've just got the way you get to paradise.
I feel for you.
I don't want you to go try it.
But again, beautiful situation.
Classmates in somebody's home, a mother and father have a piece of cake and a glass of wine.
By 1941, I had come, I had fallen in love with the monks of St. Bernard.
And I was through two years of college, and I decided,
if they'd have me, I'd have to go to St. Bernard.
If they'd have me, I'd like to become a monk of St. Bernard.
And they voted me in for a year's trial.
And to my amazement, although I had been at St. Bernard four years by that time,
I only then discovered that the monks also knew how to squeeze that grape and make that German-type grape juice.
Not to be outdone by the housewives of Cullman County.
Yes, sir.
Now, I wouldn't want you to get the idea that there's 60 drunk monks,
in Cullman, Alabama.
There's none.
Most of them are lovely, normal people.
Again, it wasn't an everyday affair, but it was out in the open.
It was the acceptable thing.
On the great feast days for an hour in the afternoon,
a little gimmickly kite, homemade wine, homemade beer, pink lemonade for the pansies, you know,
and cheese and crackers.
Oh, I love it.
I tell you, it just didn't come often enough.
I mean, I just enjoyed it.
Now, it seems to me that right at that time, and I'm about 19 years old,
the alcoholic situation is beginning to make itself apparent.
Because years later, when I'm trying to get put back together again,
and an AA person who was a counselor said to me,
Father Hillary, how much did you drink?
I said, huh?
By this time, I'm getting a little bit honest.
He says, how much did you drink?
I said, well, and I heard some other speakers say it, and I identified right away.
I said, well, I just have to admit that I always drank as much as there was,
as long as there was anything to drink, as often as there was anything to drink.
I never knew, and this is the truth, I never had too much trouble with the morning drink
because I never had anything left.
Or if I did, I couldn't find it.
I always thought when you took the coffee out of the bottle or unscrewed the cap,
you were supposed to throw it away because you were not going to have any use for that anymore.
And, of course, that's not the way social drinking is done, but be that as it may.
At 19 and a half years old, 19 years old, we're having a Christmas party.
This is my first year in the monastery.
I've got to tell you this.
This one is the same kind of thing, except it's singing and skits, strictly from Squaresville.
But we didn't know that.
We didn't know any difference.
We thought it was just loads of fun.
And it was.
And we still do it.
And I still love it.
But this was going to go a couple of days before Christmas and maybe from 8 to 11 at night.
And we've said our prayers, and we're over there, and I'm there, first shots fired, having a great time.
Everything went well.
And the next morning, we got up at 4 o'clock in those years, went to prayers at 4.15,
and I was up.
I went to my prayers, did everything.
But long in the morning, the old man said, I know, he says, say, that's funny.
Something happened last night.
Surely that party didn't end till 11 o'clock.
Yet you know what?
This is me talking to myself.
I don't remember, blessed thing, after 9.30.
That's when Thorne got up and did the night before Christmas.
Must have been between 9 and 9.30.
Don't remember a thing.
What do I have?
Me and them.
If any of you are my persuasion, and some of y'all put your hands up, then you know what happened.
I began to slip around, try to find out what did happen.
And I found out nothing happened.
That to all intents and purposes and appearances, I was as normal as I ever was.
I stayed till the end of the party, helped clean up the dishes, carried the things back to the kitchen,
helped the old fathers to the chapel in their room, went to bed.
Nothing happened.
Well, I don't know what alcoholism is.
I know they say it is a disease.
I believe that.
And I know that they say the theory is that it's a mental obsession tied up with a physical compulsion to drink.
I know my definition of an alcoholic is somebody who drinks.
And gets in trouble because he drinks.
And drinks some more and gets in trouble because he drinks.
And drinks some more and gets in trouble because he drinks.
And drinks some more and gets in trouble because he drinks.
And you can get in trouble for other things,
but that's the difference between, in my book, an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic.
This one gets in trouble because he drinks.
Well, I'm going to talk about that.
I'm convinced today that whatever it is, I got it.
And I had it from the way it goes.
It's just a question of developing it to its full blossom.
I mean, I don't think it's normal at that age to have experienced what I experienced
without going to somebody and saying, hey, you know what happened to me last night?
Let me tell you.
But no, I don't know why I won't talk about that.
But I don't.
In my own mind, I say, well, now, that's funny.
I wonder what caused that.
And I made the astounding conclusion that it was the cheese.
You know, I can't eat cheese to this day.
I often wonder if somebody like any one of you could have come to me and say,
hey, kid, what you've just described is a blackout.
And for...
many people, that's a sighting, sighting sign that you've got it.
And that you're just one of the people who will never be able to handle alcohol.
I sometimes wonder if that had been done for me before my will was so badly damaged
and my brain so blasted, whether I could have been spared the agonies that would come.
I don't know.
And again, see, I used to worry about that early in the AA business.
And Judy would say, oh, hell, all the hell.
Really?
It don't make no difference how the jackass got in the ditch.
Just get him out.
I couldn't learn about it.
We were sent to Kansas.
And the Kansas monks, they all belong to WCTU.
They don't drink.
Want a bet?
That's where I'd get introduced to hidden drinking.
In that monastery.
Oh, Lord, you know, I don't...
Here I am.
I hope I'm not giving you all the wrong impression.
People don't join monasteries to become drunks.
They join monasteries as some kind of special Christian witness.
That's what it's all about.
But this kid, oh, dear Lord.
And I'm in Kansas.
They drink.
But it's hidden.
It's not the acceptable thing.
I never could classify myself...
If I were to classify myself as a bar drinker.
If I were to classify myself, it'd be as a kitchen house drinker.
And that's true.
Everybody's got a kitchen house in Alabama.
You go out and clean out the kitchens.
Come back here.
And you sell.
My drinking progressed in Kansas.
Whenever it was available, as much as available.
I...
It was right there.
I had a great time.
Came back to Alabama for four years of theology.
And guess what?
We got a new abbot.
And he done closed down the winery and the brewery.
And the monks of Alabama are now dry.
They don't drink anymore.
All of that.
You know, national prohibition has been proved to be a flop.
There's still some people who don't know that.
But it's written drinking now.
And that's not a good pattern.
Four years of theology and 47.
I'm called to orders.
And I got news for you.
If the Archbishop Tulin in 1947 had any idea
that Father Hillary was an alcoholic when he called him to orders,
he would not have ordained him.
The Catholic Church has got enough trouble without ordaining drunk monks.
But, you know, I guess I've got some control there.
And I don't know.
I say I don't have any trouble.
I'm teaching in the prep school in those years, associate principal.
I say I don't have any trouble because of drinking.
But that's not exactly true in my book.
I'm developing these frightful personality clashes with the boss.
Now, you can have personality clashes without being an alcoholic.
But in my case,
I do believe that alcohol was right there in the picture.
And that if it hadn't been for alcohol,
I could have resolved those clashes.
I didn't.
And I get a geographical cure removal before I know what it is.
I get sent to the southeastern mountains of Kentucky,
where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee come together.
What President Johnson declared a disaster area 15 years ago,
I knew it was a disaster in 51.
No, have mercy.
No, have mercy.
To me, it was two mountains away, 30 miles in that direction.
Three mountains that way, 40 miles.
Dry cabs.
The first morning there, our priest I'm succeeding says,
we go to Aunt Sally Coon's for breakfast.
She says Aunt Sally Coon is not a member of the church,
but Uncle Albert Coon is.
And that little house,
next door, belongs to you.
But I've got an arrangement.
They feed me whenever I'm here,
because you were riding the circuits.
Whoo!
Dear Lord in heaven.
And they take care of the house and the church,
and take care of your meals when you're home.
You can do what you want.
Well, we go over to Aunt Sally Coon's for breakfast.
Aunt Sally looks like nothing so much as Mammy Yoakum.
And I'm telling you the truth.
And she's a member of the Lottie Moon Circle.
And she's got this older priest broken in,
and she's not a priest.
She's not a bit happy with this new one coming.
Anyhow, we sit down at the breakfast table in the kitchen.
There's Uncle Albert, a lovely man in his 60s.
He's Catholic.
And down here is Uncle Albert's son.
He's about 35, 36, a state trooper.
Always got on a pair of shorts.
Kid over here, 19, that's all he's got on.
One over here is 16, and me and the other, priest.
Conversation's a little difficult, but sitting there in front of me
is a nice glass tumbler full of water.
Beads on it, looks good.
September hot weather.
I take it up.
Three great big swallows.
But you all have seen the atomic bomb glass.
My eyeballs turned around.
I couldn't catch my breath.
My ears went in and out.
I couldn't hear anything.
I couldn't see.
I didn't say anything.
Uncle Albert had one.
The other priest had one.
And the trooper had one.
The two kids stayed with him.
But after that breakfast, we stepped in high over the weeds, going back to the breakfast table.
And I said to the priest,
what in God's holy name was in those glasses?
He said, moonshine, 120 proofs.
I said, for breakfast?
He said, anytime you need it.
Then I had arrived.
Ooh.
Can't tell you everything.
We haven't got time.
But...
I was there
three and a half years, and I'm telling you
I came to love the mountains of Kentucky
and I was an expert on moonshine.
I'm not going to tell you because it would
discourage some of you weaker people.
My career in drinking
was awesome.
That I first met AA.
The priest I was replacing said to me,
do you know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous?
I said, no, I don't know anything about it.
He said, well, there's a small group that's just been
started here in our town.
I've been instrumental working with them.
And he said, none of the members of your congregation
really, but some of the spouses are.
And maybe you'd like to work with them.
And that's not...
He's not saying anything bad.
I said, yeah, sure, I will.
So I went.
About eight men.
Beautiful people.
They gave me the big book to read.
They gave me the Who Me?
They gave me the 13 questions.
They gave me a clergyman who looks at Alcoholics Anonymous.
I read the whole thing, everything.
Said, lovely program from my brother Tom.
They built up my resentments
before I knew what a resentment was.
They wouldn't let me go to the closed meetings.
I went to all the open meetings.
They wouldn't let me go to the closed meetings.
I'm convinced today
that if it's true, and I think it is
to some extent, that you can't fool
one alcoholic about another one,
that the topic of those closed meetings
in Barbago, Kentucky in the 50s was
what are we going to do with that young priest
at the end of Pine Street who walks like a duck,
who smells like a duck, who cracks like a duck,
and who doesn't know he's a duck?
I got to her.
The first time I ever got invited
to talk to a convention
was over in Mississippi some years ago.
And the way I got there
was as follows.
I was sitting at the desk one morning
and I opened up a letter.
And it was from my sponsor Tom Peay,
the district attorney in the next county.
It's a copy of a letter
that he sent to some man named Woody
in Jackson, Mississippi.
And it reads something like this.
Dear Woody,
we will be happy to speak at the Mississippi
State Convention of AA
on such and such a date.
He will be happy to speak at any meeting
because we'll be there from the early bird meeting
until the last shot is fired on Sunday.
Sincerely, yours, Tom Peay.
I read that letter.
I said, now they've torn the sheet.
I can't
I cannot
go over there to
Jackson, Mississippi
and stand up in Bishop Giroux's backyard
and say my name is Father Hillary
and I am an Alzheimer's.
Because you see Mississippi
also figures in my story.
I cannot do it.
I just can't do it.
I have been taught in AA
that I had to have an honest
desire to be staced over.
That I would go to any length.
And I said, I cannot go.
Then the mind says, you can go
to Mississippi.
See, who was it in his
pride and arrogance
as a friend of AA
went to a tri-state
convention in Kentucky in
1953
and told all the alcoholics
how to do it as a friend
of AA?
I used to have a hang-up
about friends of AA.
I've gotten over that
and I know we need all the friends
we can get
and I'm in favor of them.
But I'm not a friend of AA.
I belong.
And as the thought came to me,
he says, you can't go to Mississippi
but you know, it says something
about making amends wherever you can.
And looking back,
this is one of the things too
that I really get the hot flushes of
when I think about that tri-state convention
in Kentucky and me standing up there
talking, arrogant, proud,
oh dear God in heaven.
I said, maybe go to Mississippi
and make some amends.
We'll be the same people,
the same breed of people.
And I did.
And I was happy I did.
I got out of Kentucky.
I say, I didn't get any trouble
about drinking,
but I drank
and it progressed.
In Kentucky it got to where
I had to have it.
I didn't have to drink it every day
but I didn't feel secure
if it wasn't where I could see it.
At least open up the closet
and see it was dry up.
Didn't y'all feel like that?
So I got back to Alabama
and I was dean of the college
and opportunities for drinking
whenever they were there,
I was there.
I don't know whether my capacity
is getting better or worse right then.
I'm not sure.
I really think it's doing both.
But after some, how many years at home,
I guess about five,
this business is really getting
so that the boss man
is aware
that I've got a drinking problem.
I've proved myself.
At eight o'clock in the morning,
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,
that I'm not drinking too much.
I was in the office all,
every time at eight o'clock in the morning.
I was bushy-tailed,
I wasn't so bright-eyed many months.
And many months I'd have been better off
if I hadn't been in the office.
But you see,
you all have helped me to develop
the sweet personality I've got now.
I was not always this way.
The boss man wasn't about
to talk to me about whether
I was drinking too much or not.
Man, if he had just opened his mouth
the smallish way,
he'd have got it one, two,
and the kiss was so quick, it'd have made...
I mean, I knew
what so-and-so was doing,
and why didn't he do something about that?
Don't talk to me about my problem.
Go get that one and do something about that.
Then come back to me.
And so he doesn't.
I get another geographical cure removal.
That's what I get.
This time I get sent to the delta of the Mississippi.
Now, if you all think the delta of the Mississippi
is down in southwest Louisiana,
you've mistaken.
The delta of the Mississippi begins in the lobby
of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.
And it proceeds downriver
forty miles on the Mississippi side,
twenty miles on the Arkansas side,
and you come to Yazoo City.
And I tell you, those people down there in the delta,
they don't know the Civil War
was lost.
They don't even know it was fought.
They couldn't go home.
The Mississippi was gone.
Gone to bones.
Lord have mercy on my poor soul.
I had thought I had come
surely upon heaven.
All I had to do was pick up the telephone
and say, Mamie?
She said, Be right there, Father.
One of my priest friends says,
Father Hillary, when you tell him that,
be sure to tell him Mamie's the bootlegger.
Oh, Lord.
I'd have to go get it.
Mamie would bring it.
Put the full ones in, take the empty ones out,
and send me a bill at the end of the month
because I'm such a good customer.
Oh, Lord have mercy
on my poor soul.
You know, I've read, and they say,
an alcoholic comes apart
spiritually,
mentally,
and then physically.
You put him back together again in reverse order.
You can get him back together
physically
in comparatively short time.
But it takes a much longer time to put him together mentally
and a much,
much longer time to get him together spiritually.
But it was in Mississippi
that I began to come apart
spiritually
and a little bit mentally.
I never did come completely apart
physically, but you know, that's the experience
of many of us, I think.
You wives who have a lot of people, you know.
He's finally fallen out of the bed,
and you say, Thank God.
We're going to have a quiet night.
And in an hour, he's up and running again.
Lord have mercy
on my poor soul.
Anyhow,
I fooled myself.
I said, You know, I can control this.
I can quit anytime I want to.
And then that little still voice says,
Well, why don't you try?
I said, I'm going to.
Let's come in.
I'm going to make a great job of this session.
I'm not going to take a drink
for six weeks.
And I don't.
But you know what I do.
The first time somebody sends me a press
and the parish knew by that time
if you really wanted to see
the pastor's heart
jump for joy and face
light up with glee,
give him a fifth of whiskey.
Any kind.
Doesn't make a difference.
Cheap.
Expensive. Doesn't make a difference.
So the first one somebody brings me,
I put it up on the shelf.
That's for Easter Sunday.
And then Easter Monday.
And then Easter Tuesday.
And Easter Wednesday.
Easter Thursday.
Easter Friday.
And I get forty bottles all lined up.
And come Easter, I start.
You see, I've got control.
I never made it through the forty,
but, oh Lord, it makes me...
The blackouts are beginning
to come again.
And people are beginning to say something.
My friends in the clergy
go to a forty hours devotion
and, you know,
I got a little chill.
Somebody speaking mentioned about
losing the cars.
Normal people don't lose
automobiles.
They cost too much money.
You lose the keys,
but you don't lose the car.
Ideas just all occur.
Then you have to lie to the garage.
What garage?
I don't know what garage.
Oh, Jesus, God.
Stop in this position.
I'm coming.
What are you going to do?
Suppose you were the steward
in the Methodist Church,
the elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Suppose you're on the parish council
and you discover
that the pastor
is a drunk.
You gonna tell him?
Especially in the Catholic Church
where the priest still signs the checks.
You gonna tell him?
Well, you're looking at a cat
that got bailed.
Three of the noblest men
who came to me in Mississippi
and confronted me
with the problem.
Said, Father Hillary, we love you very much.
We think you're an excellent pastor.
You've done great things for the church here,
but we can't have
going on what's been going on.
You cannot deny that at the wedding reception
ten days ago,
you were drunk.
And they had a few other instances.
I said, we're not going to the bishop over this
because we know,
watch this,
that we know
with the grace of God
a little will power
and some prayers
you can get over this.
And I believed him.
That's the tragic thing.
I believed him.
And what they should have done
is gone right straight
to the bishop in Jackson
and say,
Bishop,
you'd better come up to show.
Because you've got a drunk monk up there.
And I said,
Father Hillary,
we're not going to the bishop over this.
You cannot deny that at the wedding reception
ten days ago,
we're not going to the bishop in Jackson
and say,
Bishop,
you'd better come up to show.
And I said,
Bishop,
you'd better come up to show.
Because you've got a drunk monk up there.
And it's not going to get any better.
It's going to get worse
until somebody intervenes.
Because somehow or another you break
that vicious cycle
of drinking and getting in trouble
because you're drinking
and drinking some more
and getting in trouble
and I got a little notice
that he's on his way to Dallas
for a meeting and he's going to stop
in this city overnight.
It's not what I've done,
it's what has he found out
that I have done.
He comes with his aide-de-camp
and we have an Italian supper,
we have anti-anti-anti-pasta,
we have anti-anti-pasta,
we have pasta,
we have four kinds of meat,
six kinds of vegetables,
three kinds of pie and two kinds of cake.
We have three kinds of wine with dill
and we have drinks after dill
and I don't touch a thing.
Next morning he says,
he's getting ready to go
and I catch his aide-de-camp
and I say,
what does the boss want here?
He said,
didn't he speak to you last night?
I said,
wouldn't we be all together?
He didn't say anything, no.
He said,
I've nominated you
as the president of the college.
And the boss man is chairman of the board
and chancellor of the college
said before he acted on the recommendation
he thought he'd like to interview you himself.
He said he told me this morning
that he was well satisfied
and he was going to accept
the recommendation of the board.
You know,
I never had any trouble with the second step.
When they told me
that a power greater than myself
could restore me to sanity,
I said, I know I do have patience,
but the new people who come in
say insane me.
I told them I was so happy to find it out
I couldn't see straight.
I had to be nuts
and I was delighted to find out
that I was crazy.
Imagine with what I told you,
yes, I do get the bid
to be president of the college.
In my arrogance, my pride,
I told these people whether or not
I got a drunk pastor.
You don't think they'd invite a pastor
to be president of the college.
That'll show them.
And I accepted.
Certainly I'll be president of the college.
They gave me a grand and glorious
send-off from Mississippi.
I know now they were saying,
thank God he's gone.
I must say that I've been able
to make amends in Mississippi
and today I can show my faith.
Really.
I'm grateful for that.
The three men who came to me
as they should have done,
one has gone to glory,
but before he did,
and the other two, all three of them
are my friends, thank God.
I deeply appreciate that.
I went over to Coleman as president of the college.
Convinced in my arrogance.
Oh, I did say this.
Hillary, you know,
you've maybe got a little problem with drinking
so let's not drink so much.
Anything but scotch.
I hate scotch.
I remember once I decided
I'd read some ways you couldn't get drunk on beer.
So while it was
right for being, I'd drink nothing but beer.
I got news for you.
I can get drunk on beer.
That's the truth.
I got that article clipped out somewhere
as I glued it on my wall in my drinking days
that you can't get drunk on beer.
I can get drunk on beer.
Well, I don't know why, but I can.
They always said you can't get enough in you.
I can.
Man.
I got news. If you really like to have a career
where drinking is just there,
get to be president of a college.
Morning, noon, and night.
Just any time.
And if you want to be a great host,
you know, serve it yourself so that when you serve
them one, you can get two in the back.
You can get a marvelous reputation
for hospitality.
You won't let anybody else take care of it.
You're going to give them the service yourself.
Oh, Lord.
I make it for about a year, year and a half,
and then, man, it does begin to come apart
at the seams.
And you know, I keep thinking nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
And I think it's true.
The last one who knows he's an alcoholic
is the alcoholic.
His wife knows it. His dog knows it.
His boss knows it. His kids know it.
Everybody knows it. He doesn't know it.
And he doesn't think anybody else knows it.
He just knows it.
And,
it's like the lady went to the doctor,
and he says,
what's wrong?
She says, well, it's kind of embarrassing, doctor.
He says, well, I'm a doctor.
What is it?
She says, well,
a pious gas.
But she says, fortunately,
it doesn't smell,
and it doesn't make any noise.
He says, oh, let me take these three times a day
for two weeks and come back.
And she did, and two weeks she's back, and he says, well, how's everything?
She says, doctor, it's not a bit better. In fact, it's worse. Now it stinks.
He says, thank God we've got your sinuses cleared out. Now we're going to work on your ears.
And we alcoholics run around making a terrible noise and creating an awful stink
and thinking nobody can hear and nobody can smell. You know, the green tongue syndrome.
Anyhow, the day came, I got to go, the day came, and it was a horrible thing, actually.
The president of the college was supposed to make a speech at 8 p.m. after dinner.
In the presence of the assembled faculty,
the Board of Governors,
the Board of Directors,
the Board of Trustees,
just namely important people, and they were there,
on the state of the college.
And I made that speech at 8 o'clock.
The only thing is, the last thing I remember was 4 o'clock in the afternoon,
taking one more drink to steady my nerves.
I made that speech.
And this morning, I'm walking around that campus with my throat figuratively slit from ear to ear,
and I don't even know I'm dead.
I noticed a Satan coolness on the campus.
I did notice that.
But alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful alcoholics.
It dawned on me about 24 hours later that I really couldn't remember that speech.
Well, that brought the hot flushes on with a bang, you know.
Dear God, I knew I was in trouble by the time I remembered,
but that memory didn't come right away,
that I couldn't remember the speech.
So I got about six big projects going on.
I walk into the chairman of the board's office, the abbot,
and I give him a song and dance.
And he's looking at me, he was a marvelous man.
I get all through.
He says, sit back in the chair, Father.
He has something to say to you.
I said, all right.
He said, we had a meeting in the Board of Trustees yesterday.
I said, you did?
I wasn't here.
By that time, I'd gotten myself elected to the Board of Trustees.
Couldn't fire me.
He said, I know you weren't here, but we had a quorum.
I said, what was on the agenda?
Big, bold, brassy, nasty, mean.
He looks at me with sorrow in his face and his eyes,
and he says, there was only one thing on the agenda.
What was it?
Your resignation.
I still haven't come down.
Well, is it effective in June?
That was December, last December, five years ago.
He said, no, we've prepared the document.
It's effective instantly.
You cannot stay here.
You have disgraced yourself.
You've ruined the name of the college.
You've disgraced the priesthood.
You cannot stay here.
You've given public scandal.
I will help you try to find a job anywhere in the United States,
teaching, whatever you want to do.
But what I wish you'd do, mister this,
is go somewhere and get some help with your drinking problem.
He doesn't even know the word alcoholism.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was my bottom.
I don't know whether it's high or low.
I haven't yet had a chance.
Don't tell me about it.
Don't tell me about hearing the telephone when you stop ringing
and answering the door when there's nobody there
and watching the television when it's not turned on
and seeing things come under the door
and chasing them out of the room
and leaning over the commode on your knees.
Don't tell me.
Not being able to stay in the bed.
Not being able to get up.
I couldn't tell this for a long time.
I really, really give me a chill.
These people who stand up and say,
I've been in jail in every one of the states of the Union.
I've only been in one.
Wouldn't you think that, you know?
I needed to be there.
I never felt resentful about it.
I never would talk about it.
Even for a year after I got sober,
I never admit I was in jail.
But a poor, suffering alcoholic one night,
was cursing his wife because she'd thrown him in jail.
And I felt it might do him some good
if he knew that I had been there in the same jail.
You know, it so shocked him
that he forgot to curse his wife.
That's carrying the message.
I thought a little bit too far,
but anyhow, I carried it.
Wouldn't you think that's got me, huh?
I like that.
And I got news for you.
I'll never have to go back again.
I'll never have to go back
to jail again,
as long as I stay with you.
And that may not seem like much to you.
And of course, we laugh, you know.
You have to laugh to keep from crying.
We get to laughing in Cullman,
and if we're laughing too much,
Juby will say,
All right.
Let's not forget the vomit.
Whoo, basically, I've been there too.
I don't believe there's anything that says
high bottoms and low bottoms is drugs.
I think you keep on far enough.
Because I am convinced, right at that point,
if I had not said yes
to the second part of his question,
there was no doubt about it,
I was out, I was gone.
There was no way I could say no.
I could have said no to the second question.
But I am convinced to this day,
and you'll never convince me differently,
that if I had said no
to the second part of that question
if I would be alive today
it would be a miracle
and if I would be alive
I would probably rather be dead
I'm convinced of that to this day
I have no idea what let me
say yes to the second part of that question
I don't know whether I was so sick and tired
of being sick and tired
I don't know whether I hated myself so bad
that I just couldn't stand it
and I got sent to Hazelden in Minnesota
there are no such things as
AA treatment centers
you know that
there are many gold plated house traps
and we got lots of them in the south
in the Carolina and then in Georgia
where they'll just dry you out
and turn you loose to run again
but Hazelden
all they did
eight out of ten of the people there
were recovering alcoholics themselves
and all they did was to take you through
in three weeks they told me
the first five steps of AA
ha ha
the second day I was there
they said now father
we're not going to call you father anymore
maybe you know
you're just nothing
you're not there
period
that young man this morning said
you know he was nothing
may I identify with him
ooh lord
said
don't plan on three weeks for this program
I said oh no
I reckon I'll get it in two
they said oh no
we need to be on the way
I said what
they said yes
we found out that for doctors
lawyers
Indian chiefs
undertakers
college
doctors
professors
salesmen
takes three or four times as long
I said why
they said because you people keep up
such a terrible facade
it takes a long time to get behind there
and find out where the real father Hillary lives
you know I'm one of the slowest learners
they ever had
they kept me on step one
six weeks
three meetings a day
every time I went to see that man
I said you ain't got a check
go do some more reading
three meetings a day
three meetings a day
three meetings a day
three meetings a day
God has mercy
when I tell newcomers
go to meetings
go to meetings
I mean it
I'm sure I hold the record
nine weeks
three times a day
how many meetings is that
seven times nine is sixty-three
three times that
is a hundred and eighty-nine meetings in nine weeks
I do believe I hold the record
I remember one man stood up there
and he says
about a hundred and twenty of us there
every walk of life
he says you are all the dumbest alcoholists out there
ever put breath into. That made me so mad. By that time I was beginning to get convinced
I was an alcoholic, but to be dumb on top of it, that was too much. He said, I'm sincere.
He says, here you are, sitting here in this treatment center, getting something that you
could have gotten in any AA club room in the country, but you're too damn dumb. You have
to come up here and pay for it. You know he was right. He was absolutely correct. He
was absolutely correct. I love a convention. I really do. I like them better when I don't
have to talk, because I have no phone. I don't get so nervous. I don't sweat so much. But
where it's really at, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, is right back there in the
man-com in Alabama, in my home group. That's where it's really at. And I believe that I
can come to all the conventions in the wide world, and I'd love to, but if I ever lose
that, or somebody said, I hadn't heard that before. They said, stay in that group like
a banana with a bunch, or else you're going to get peeled. That was a new one for me.
I hadn't heard that.
Anyhow, I got to the fourth step. Finally got to the fourth step. Sexton's fearless
moral inventory. I made it. Took it to the man. He says, hell, you've made an immoral
inventory. He says, you've done it again. It said, made a moral inventory. You've made
an immoral one. And he was right. I had made an immoral inventory. It said, make a moral
inventory. So that was another two weeks.
I got there in that fifth minute.
You know, say, admit it to God, to ourselves, to another human being, the exact nature of
our roles. Ooh, boy. You get all through, and the man says to me, he was another priest.
Now, Father, if you believe alcoholism is a disease, when you go back to Cullman, you're
going to tell people you're an alcoholic. Man, when I told you, the thing I wanted the
most in life was the priesthood in St. Buddy. And here they've had me nine weeks trying
to get something done.
I'm through this thick skull. And I said, that's a serious question. I have a hurry.
I said, you know I can't go back to Cullman. First of all, I'm not going to tell people
I'm an alcoholic. I'm from the South. We don't run around with signs on us. Look out for me.
I've got tuberculosis. If you go to the hospital in the South, they'll ask you what you're
there for. That's your business. No, I'm not going to tell anybody. And I said, furthermore,
I can't go back to Alabama, to Cullman. He says, why can't you go back to Cullman? I said,
you know why I can't go back to Cullman. He said, why can't you go back to Cullman? I said,
he said, well, you run around with women. I said, no. He said, did you embezzle the
college's money? I said, no. He said, why can't you go back to Cullman? I said, because
I was drunk in public. Because I gave scandal. Because I destroyed the good name of the college.
Because I destroyed the good name of the priesthood. Because I destroyed.
He said, Father Hilary, you know, the bank president of Cullman might have lost a job
while we're drinking, alcoholism. But nine times out of ten, he'd have to go back to
Cullman, not as bank president, but to pick up the pieces. He said, when are you going
to stop running? Certainly you've got to go back to Cullman. I said, all right. I give
up. I'll go back to Cullman.
Now, you convinced the boy.
You convinced the boy to come back to Cullman. You know, they did. I used to say that if
I ever got back on the board of trustees, that I was going to look up the minutes when
the agenda was, shall we let Father Hilary return to the college? You know, I thought
that was pretty smart, see? But I've got something more to tell you.
I'm back on the board of trustees. I'm the only monk who was ever elected three times
and forced to retire twice. And I sure as hell get forced to retire third time. And
my sponsor tells me, I've got to tell you this. I don't walk too.
You see.
A year ago in August, August the 20th and 21st, the monks of St. Bernard elected me
the seventh abbot of St. Bernard Abbey and the chancellor of St. Bernard College. That's
what this ring and this chain is all about.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go back to Cullman.
I'm going to go back to Cullman. I'm going to go back to Cullman. I'm going to go back to Cullman. I'm going to go back to Cullman.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, says something very special. I'm serious about the monks of St.
Bernard. That says something very special. I know. What's it been like? My seat will never
be. For one year, my birthday in A.A. is January 14th, 1968. I didn't really get to A.A. after all the agony I'd been through until January
of 1968. I didn't really get to A.A. after all the agony I'd been through until January
the 14th, 1969. I was dry after that year. I didn't even take a drink. But that pride, that arrogance, it hadn't gone. I looked in the
phone book when I got back to Cullman. There wasn't any A.A. listed. Wasn't in the newspapers. I said, see, there's none here. A non-alcoholic priest who loved me very much used to
keep saying to me all during that time, it took me about six months to get back to St. Bernard and Toto, he said, aren't you supposed to be doing something, aren't you supposed to be going to meetings or something?
Isn't there something you're supposed to be doing in that A.A. program? I said, yeah, read the big book. I said, I do that. I read the 24-hour day book. I talked to anybody who wants a little trial stepping. Yeah. I'm sure he saw something that I didn't. I was at the end of my rope that I couldn't have stayed on.
dry alone much longer
and one day in January of 1969
he walks up to me with a piece of paper
and I won't give you the language he gave me
but he says for your information
AA is alive and well in Coleman, Alabama
it has been for ten years
call this number
since I got there
it's in the phone book
and it's in the newspapers too
but what makes me stupid
I am stupid
that's all there is to it
the thing that I resisted the most in AA
the thing I resisted the most
was you all
the people of AA
which are really AA
AA without you is a dead letter
a program of recovery
has got to have somebody recovering in it
and I resisted that for a solid year
I couldn't
couldn't
couldn't
couldn't accept it
and that makes me so mad
if I've got any resentments today
that's one of them
that I wasted a whole year
before I found out
you all
and my goodness
it's been marvelous
little bitty things
what's it's been like
I've told you
I've told you the beginning
I'm not going to go through
all the things it's been like
the fact that
AA has given me back the priesthood
and given me back
the monastery
the monastery
you know my wildest dreams
is enough for me
oh but they've been little bitty things
you know what
the last five years
I haven't lost my teeth once
I used to lose them
every time I got close
wake up in the morning
and feel it after gone again
make me so mad
I couldn't see straight
I often wonder why
I didn't leave them home
I think psychologically
if I didn't leave them home
I'd left my teeth on the dresser
it would have said
you're going to get drunk
and I never intended to get drunk
in my life
I never intended to get drunk
I think it would have said to me
I've had those teeth
down at the bottom of the Tennessee River
and died down there in Guntersville
pick them up in the morning
the Pullman County
before I went out of business
had my name and address
just regularly
send those teeth back
haven't lost them in five years
I haven't sat on my eyeglasses
once in the past year
the last five years
I sit on them regularly
every two weeks
I didn't do it on purpose either
but there they were
and I'd sit on them
after two years
I ran into my optometrist
he says
hey father
you got a new eye doctor
I said
you know better than that
little things
well
I'm going there
you know
what it's been like
in the big book
which is dear to Christianity
and Judaism alike
in the New Testament part of it
there's a story about
Jesus
and a fake family
that he loved very much
two sisters and a brother
down at Bethany
Martha and Mary and Lazarus
whatever the going got real rough
you'd see in the scriptures
that our best daughter would go down
and spend a little while with them
weekend
he was away
and he got worried
that Lazarus was sick
and the apostles were surprised
because here he was
curing everybody else
ain't you going to go down
and see Lazarus
no
Lazarus dies
and he gets that word
and then he's going down
to see Martha and Mary
Martha's waiting for him
big time rabbi
great healer
do it for everybody else
how many times
we fed him
how many times we put him out
and look what we get for it
nothing
can't you hear the woman
can't you hear the sarcasm
the resentment in her
Lord if thou hadst been here
my brother had not died
Martha then he blew it
I bet she didn't know
how close he was
but she gets there
because
our Lord looks at her
and he says
thy brother will live again
believest thou this
and all the sarcasm
all the arrogance
is out of Martha
and she says
yea Lord
I do
on the last day
I believe
he wants to know
where they buried him
and he goes out there
Martha's back up see
she's been down
but she's got to get up again
she can't stay up
down that long
and
she says
roll the stone
of the tomb away
and she says
Lord
he has been buried
four days
and by now he stinks
ladies and gentlemen
I submit that
I stink
and that I know
what Lazarus felt like
when he walked out
of that tomb
thank you