Lyle P. Lost His License and His Freedom Before Finding Sobriety in a Federal Cell

Hey, folks. My name is Lyle, and I'm an alcoholic. I came from Stockbridge, not North Florida, but it feels like it. You know, Stockbridge isn't that difficult a thing, but several years ago when I was going around to some of these conferences and I was being asked, they were having a problem with Stockbridge. And I show up, the flyer said Stockton, Georgia. Then the next one said Stonebridge, Georgia. It wasn't a big deal. I mean, I was sober, so I knew where I lived. But I was watching this, and I thought, huh. But the funniest one was over in England a few years ago when I was over there. And I looked at the flyer, and they had Stocking Bridge, Georgia, Stocking Ridge. and I thought well that's a stretch but the Brits were really curious they kept saying where is Stockingbridge, Georgia and I said well it's right across the state line from Pantyhose, Alabama laughter but anyway it's good to be here again I like the small group. I think it feels a little more intimate and a little more close. Anyway, thanks for asking me to be here tonight. I typically talk about the last three days of my drinking career, March 7th, 8th, and 9th. My AA anniversary is March 8th the date of my last drink and it was in 1990 so I've got number 2-8 coming up here in March assuming that I make it and what I find is telling the story as much as I do keeps those memories really fresh and those are three days that I never want to live through again not ever and I've often said they're like three days of the kennedy assassination where you know we talk about time everything was frozen in time when that happened and we remember where we were and what was happening and i've got three days of that where i can look at my watch on any of those three days and i know exactly what was taking place on that particular day at that particular time and it was a it was a real experience and horror for me. But thank God that I can look back on those, and I don't ever have to repeat those. I'm not sure I could. I don' t think I really could get through all of that again, so much of that as I look back upon it. I said that one time to a doctor. He was a very, very skilled, well-known, well thought of psychology your PhD and I said you know I could never not just the three days but the things that followed after that I said I don't think I could do that a second time and he said that's true of all of us he said those are rites of passage he said anytime we have any kind of an experience that requires deep extreme emotional or physical effort uh he said none of us um think we could ever surpass that or survive it or do it or repeat it a second Time he said talk to a doctor they could never tell you they could never pass all those medical exams once again or anything and I so it's a common shared human experience in that regard but on March the 7th I was in Fargo North Dakota and I thought it was just going to be another routine evening go out have some drinks and have a good time and so be it but an event took place the next morning on March 8th early in the morning that had never happened before, and that was that there was a crew of three airline pilots who were arrested for flying under the influence of alcohol, Boeing 727, 58 passengers on board from Fargo, North Dakota to the Twin Cities in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and I was the captain. I'm also very keenly aware that most of the speakers I hear in AA come to the podium. we tell a recovery story they leave and there's usually most of the time no reference to what they did either as a career professional living or job whatever was yeah there's no mention of that because it's not part of the recovery story and so when I bring up this thing about the airline pilot aspect of it it's because it was the thing that drove the publicity I was the first airline pilot ever arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and sent to prison for flying a commercial airliner under the influence. And it was a huge media event. This thing got on the news, and it stayed on the News forever. For weeks into months, I thought it would never, ever, ever end. And it's interesting now because I will see an incident like mine that occurs today. It's old news. It's not a big deal. There will be some guy's photo either on TV or in a paper. He gets pulled out of the line by TSA because they smell alcohol, and on day two of the news cycle there's no mention of it. It's gone. It's done, except for his life, of course, which is turned upside down at that point. But from a news standpoint, it's not a big deal. That wasn't the way it was with me in my situation. It was huge. The lead story every night on the national news and local news, three Northwest pilots. And it followed all the way through the trial, all theway through after the trial and some events that took place later. And I remember thinking, God, I don't think this will ever go away. And every time it was on the news, It was just like somebody was sticking me right in the guts with a red-hot poker. It had a huge effect on me. And then the late-night comics got it, and I'm in treatment, and I am listening to other patients. There were two TV sets at the treatment center, and I wouldn't go near either one of them, but patients are coming and telling me, and they're having these uproarious jokes about the airline pilot situation. The audiences are laughing, and they are having a good time. I'll tell you what that did, though. That really impacted and imprinted me very much. And so a couple of years ago when Tiger Woods goes through his thing and all of these jokes that seem to get manufactured, some of them quite humorous, are being sent to me, I would tell people, look, I'm not any goody-two-shoes. I'm no saint, but I know how that feels. I know why. I know that feels to be the center of the joke that everyone is laughing about. I said, beyond that, I know what it feels for my wife to see it and hear it and my children to see or hear it. And so I'm not on any kind of a personal crusade. I'm just asking you to please leave me off your mailing list for that sort of thing. If you want to engage in that and you think it's funny, by all means have at it. But I have a special feeling about that because I was there. and i still that registers no matter who the joke is about jay leno called me it's not as much of this stuff i'm not going to have a chance to go into tonight but jay len will call me in june of 96 and apologize to me and i had made his monologues for a good while at any rate that morning of march the 8th i walked off the airplane and i walked into the waiting arms of two airport policemen, FAA officials, and very highly placed Northwest Airlines people. And I knew exactly at that moment. I knew the die was cast. I knew what the outcome was going to be. It was absolutely clear. It was certain. It was fixed. It was very rigid. Northwest Airlines was the only major carrier at that point in time that did not have a program for alcoholic pilots. This program came into place in the mid-'70s, highly successful. 88, 92% success rate, not because pilots are superior, but because it's a very heavily complex, a lot of people involved, long-term monitoring. A lot of stuff goes on, and so it's an very successful program. As a matter of fact, CBS Sunday Morning had a program last December the 10th I was involved in about this program. It was about a ten-minute segment, and they were just in awe of the success rate of this program, wondering why AA in general didn't do it. And, of course, the guy that's doing the program doesn't have any recovery experience, doesn't understand what we do and how we do it and why we do It. But it was a very powerful segment. The Northwest had refused to go along with the rest of the industry. So every few years I would see a pilot get in difficulty. We all played and partied and had a good time. I mean, that's part of the culture. It's part of what we did. I didn't see anything, no problem with that. We all just, flight attendants, pilots, everybody just had a good time. But if it got out of hand and if Northwest heard about it, there was only one outcome and it was the same all the time. They were summarily terminated and they never came back. And when that happened every three, four, five, six years, those stories went right through the ranks of the pilots and flight attendants like lightning, like wildfire. We heard about it. Everybody was in shock. We knew the names, the places, the dates, the locales, the details as much as were related, and this thing caused a huge reverberation within the airline, the pilots and flight attendees anyway. And over the course of the 12 hours that day that I was detained and questioned, I had a million thoughts, and one of them was exactly that, that that's where my name goes. That's how I leave this airline, and that isn't who I am. It's not who I've ever been. It's Not What My Life Has Been About. But the idea that I'm leaving in this incredible cloud of shame and disgrace and dishonor was devastating. It was devastating, and it got worse as the days ahead of me unwound. I looked at that when I was in treatment, and I thought, why did I struggle so hard with that? and I think a lot of it was because I had raised three kids who were grown and gone and I was the guy in the family I was a standard bearer with these three kids all throughout their growing up years and to the point where they departed in adulthood that I talked about duty, honor, country character honesty, integrity do the right thing and in the aftermath of what I had just done their father who was on his way becoming the biggest disgrace in all of American commercial aviation. And the destruction I did in that industry and with my airline and the profession has never been equaled. There has never even been a close second to the impact that I had on all of that. And the personal example that I set rendered everything I had told them over so many years, all null, void, and hollow and meaningless. and that had a huge effect on me. We were detained for 12 hours that day. Much of it was like a surreal experience. I felt like I was out of body watching this happen to somebody else. It couldn't be happening to me. It couldn' t be happening to me and then that gut grinding reality would hit and I would look around at what was going on around me and it was all I could do not to get sick. We gave blood at two different facilities, and it Was at the second facility where a reporter happened to be and he saw two uniformed police officers and three uniformed pilots, and he followed up. He thought there may be a story there. That's how it broke to the public. Now, at that moment in time, I had no idea that was going to occur. The idea that all my peers at Northwest were going to know about this It was absolutely, totally devastating. I had no idea that this was going to be a public clamor and a media blitzkrieg that was just going to seem endless. I got back to a small commuter apartment after 12 hours of this, gave depositions to company attorneys, talked to Airline Pilot Association attorneys. and finally got back to this commuter apartment. I called home that night, and I got back, and I started to make the call. I thought, oh my God, I'm supposed to be home tonight. But the trauma had been such that I had not even thought about that. Barbara waited out here at the airport for four hours for me, and I didn't show up, and she was gone when I placed the call, and I did not know what to say. I just got out a very whispered message that there had been a disaster. I thought I had lost my job. I'd be home first flight in the morning I don't know why she didn't call me back having received a message like that but it was a gift I saw later because I was so sick at heart I just didn't want to talk about this got back to the airport the next morning was commuting in uniform I knew I'd never wear that uniform again not ever, I knew that it was done and exited the airport as quickly as I could because I knew a lot of people out there and I didn't want anybody to see me or stop me or talk to me. And as I exited, I saw Barbara parked off to the right, and I've never told this story, but what I haven't said that I felt like I had to climb over the curb to get in the car with her. I was so ashamed, I couldn't even look at her, and she and I had been married a long time. This is now Friday. This is March the 9th, 1990. And she pulled away from the curb, and i said in a really soft whispered defeated way honey i'm so sorry and she's got a very soft south texas voice and she said to me who better than i could possibly understand how you might feel this very moment then we drove home in silence again the gift that i saw later because i thought what wife realistically having learned that her husband had just trashed a 22-year golden career as an airline pilot and captain would not have said why did you stay you knew the northwest policy you've seen this before why didn't you go back to your hotel room she could ask any of those questions and i didn't have an answer for any of them she went to work and i went inside the house couldn't stay still did not want to even be in my skin i would have gotten out if i could and I picked the phone up and I called I didn't know who to call but I called a Ph.D. family therapist who gets involved in the story here shortly but I said I need to declare an emergency I need you to see it right away and so he cleared his calendar and I drove over there to see him I can still see the layout of the office the color of the walls where he was standing the good thing about what had happened was that this was it for me I was done I was finished. I was beaten. I was destroyed, completely devastated. So when I walked in, I just told him straight out what had happened. And he pulled back. He had kind of a stunned, shocked look on his face. And he said, God, Lyle, this is horrible. He said, absolutely horrible. I'm going to hear two comments on this Friday that I could not mentally process. and I heard the first one as he started around his desk and he looked at me and he said but maybe this is what had to happen and I had no idea why he would say that to me I had no idea why he would say something like that to me or what it meant really and he came back a few minutes later and he said I've just talked to a doctor on the other side of Atlanta he wants to see you at 6 o'clock tonight he said he's a very prominent doctor. He's a psychiatrist. He's recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict and he's certified in addiction medicine. I'd never heard of any such thing as addiction medicine did not know that existed or anything about it. We drove over to that doctor's office but I tell you what I did pick up on even as shredded and as emotionally destroyed as I was, I picked up on doctors don't see patients at 6 o'clock on Friday nights. I know that later the doctor who had made the appointment said to me he said based on your appearance he said I was so afraid you were a suicide that it was vital imperative that we get you over there as soon as possible I knew there was a sense of urgency about this Barbara and I drove over there I have no memory of that meeting I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for two days didn't want anything couldn't keep anything down but that memory of that meeting is just like an alcoholic blackout I've had a lot of those and I don't know if I talked to him for 10 minutes or an hour in 10 minutes I know that anytime he asked me a question I was as absolutely forthright and honest as I had the capacity to be at that moment in time I told him I didn't cut corners I didn' t try to cage answers I just said it straight out at some point in that interview Barbara was waiting in another room At some point in that interview, he looked at me and said, Lyle, you're an alcoholic. You need to get into treatment tonight. I had no reaction to that, and that was significant because I've hated alcoholics my entire life. Both my parents were alcoholics and died from this disease. I saw what happened to our family. I grew up in a native community. I saw it happen there. I saw the alcoholics when I flew around the United States, and I would be heading places in cities and I'd see them in the alleys in the doorways, passed out on the grass of a park, laying on a bench someplace dirty, filthy drinking out of brown paper bags. Those were alcoholics there was no way I was an alcoholic but I hated them because they were life's losers they took, they never gave they were non-hackers, they didn't achieve they didn' t accomplish they were bums but in the 24 hours since the arrest in a way I'll never really understand way down deep inside here all those dots got connected so when he told me that I was an alcoholic I already knew the one thing I swore I would never be, I knew and I said to him I thought you would probably tell me that and I'm okay with it but I just got home today please let me go home let Barbara just hang on to me let my mind uncoil so that I can absorb what's happened to me. Please. And he said, you need to get into treatment tonight. And I paused and I looked at him and took a breath and I said, okay. I look at that as probably my first lesson in willingness and so we left his office and drove back across Atlanta following a set of directions and I went into this treatment center with the clothes on my back. We made the final turn And I go there every Wednesday night now for another meeting. It's a different sign now, but every time I make that turn, I remember. We made the turn to go down the hill, and there was a sign there in the same location, a different sign. It said Anchor Hospital, a hospital for alcoholism and other chemical dependencies. And I stopped with the lights directly on that sign, and I'm looking at the sign, and I see the sign. and the reality is there and I'm thinking to myself my God what happened my life ends tonight in a treatment center for alcoholics it's over this is where my life is and I am sitting there wondering what happened how did this happen I have no answer I've got a little quick mini micro flashback over the years and the accomplishments and the achievements that I was so very proud of that i thought fleshed me out gave me a reputation they defined me things that i was very proud of and i it's like a giant eraser just went across the board i wasn't even sure as i sat there if they had actually occurred or what but they were gone and i remember sitting there totally devoid of any sense or feeling of value as a human being i had none no self-esteem. I had no value. Later, I saw a summarizing paragraph at the end of a long report one of the doctors in that treatment center had made on me and it said, given the history and background of this man, it was unlikely to believe he would ever be a productive member of society. I remember looking at that and I was surprised by that and i kind of flinched a little bit. I thought, God, that's a hell of a dismal conclusion to arrive at And then the second thought I had was, I was the one that gave him all the information. So we started down the hill into the treatment center. And for the first time that day, it occurred to me, this is March the 9th. One day after the arrest, my life is destroyed. We're driving into a treatment center and it is also my 27th wedding anniversary. and I said to Barbara hello it's been an anniversary huh she made the second statement that I couldn't fathom her process very softly she said it might be the best one we ever had and I could not fathом that there was no question in my mind based on what I had seen over all the years I've been at Northwest that I was through flying it was gone it was forever gone And none of the other situations that I had witnessed were even 10% as bad as mine was. So I knew that it was done, it was over, there would be no coming back from this. And I was grateful that she wasn't hysterically weeping and crying. And I was grateful for that, but I did not know how she could manufacture that thought at that moment in time based on what I knew had just destroyed my life. And so I didn't respond. Make a little mix-up here, a little stop and tell you that a few years ago, March the 9th rolled around. It was a gorgeous Georgia morning, about 9 in the morning. one of my sponsees pulled up the driveway into the house it's a long winding driveway i was surprised and i said what are you doing here he says that's march the 9th i've heard the story just want to pop in and wish you and barbara a happy anniversary i thought well that's pretty nice so we went inside barbora had coffee on it we're sitting around the table and conversation is very light cheery and he says um he says wow he said what's the secret for having stayed married so long and i didn't before i had a chance to come up with anything she looked at him and said i think it's mostly due to the fact that i could just never stand to admit i made a mistake so i've looked at this i'll go well there's some character defects i'm kind of grateful for the uh she could just Never Stand to Admit She Made a Mistake and i've often thought that of all the things that i should not have disclosed to her when When I first got sober, went into treatment, it was the idea that this is an ego-deflating program. And she likes that part real well. And so she considers that her 24-7 duty. And several years ago, I had spoken down the road here at Whitworth Women's Prison. It's about a three-hour drive from my house. And it's a pretty hard-looking bunch of gals, about 25 or 30 of them. They're all in these oversized khaki scrubs. Hardly any of them have any makeup on. Their hair is kind of messed up, and they've got tattoos and body piercings and kind of a tough-looking bunch of ladies. And so I'm at the podium, and I'm just getting started into the story, and one of us is sitting right over here to the right, and she just yells out. She goes, you're hot. And it just completely stopped me because I've never had that happen before. And I'm trying to regroup, and there's about two or three over here, and they yell out, yeah, you're hot. And so I finally collect myself, and I work through this story, and by the time I get home, three-hour drive, it's 1 a.m., or something, Barbara's sleeping, and the next morning we get up and we're having coffee, and I feel compelled that maybe she ought to hear about this and be a little bit aware of it. So I tell her, and she takes a sip of coffee and looks at me, and she says, they must have been locked up a really long time. Yeah. I've never considered her a master of the one-liner, but she comes up with stuff from time to time. I was talking to Jonas here about new cars and everything, and we had just bought a brand-new New Year's, December the 30th, we bought a new 2018 Honda. It's got all this technology on it. I know she's not going to read the manuals. I know her. I know how to run any of this stuff. The next morning, New Year Eve morning, I'm out having some coffee in the kitchen and I'm reading this manual. The car is about as far away as this thing over here. I read something and I go out there and I touch it and I make it work and everything. And I'm thinking, I'm going to have to show her how to do this stuff because she's not going to read the manual. So she comes into the kitchen and I said, and I'm all kind of spun up about this, and I says, hey, you want me to take you out to the new car and show you something? She looked at me and she says, can I keep my clothes on? And I thought, I didn't know she could remember back that far. That's a long time since I tried to get your clothes off of you in the car. But I just almost fell over. I said, God, that is really cute. That's really cute, can I keep my clothes on? At any rate, I was born in Wichita, Kansas in September of 1938, so I'm looking at the big 8-0 coming up here in September. It's a big number, got here really, really fast. And I still feel like I'm in my 50s and I'm still deer hunting and climbing trees and flying and hunting and fishing and doing all that stuff. And I'm going to ride the train as far as I can. I used to say, I've still got all my parts and they all work. And now I've had to add the word phrase most of the time now. So it all depends on what we're talking about. But anyway, I grew up in a World War II housing project on the southeast edge of Wichita. not a very pretty place economically depressed area but those it was literally happy days days of the 50s and i have wonderful great memories of growing up in that environment like i said it was economically depressed it wasn't a very petty place we were all the same and we were always stretched and strapped and way behind and everything we owned was used and beat up third tape patched wired but those were wonderful memories that i have of plain view and we had no gangs we didn't have any drive-by shootings we didn'T have any school incidents rarely did i ever see a police car on any kind of a call out there we just it's very diverse community blacks whites uh there was hispanics out there in the small native american segment and everybody got along we all just really got along well and i was part of the native american section i'm a mixture of several different things but the two parts that really really love they just can't wait to go to the bar with me are the irish and comanche parts and so usually i'm going to have some kind of an entertaining evening one way or the other i very seldom ever have just kind of a ho-hum nothing happening evening And I used to think that that was fine with me. You know, we get a chance to go out and pick our parents. But, you know, I loved the Irish part because I knew where the live Irish places were around the United States. They have these authentic live Irish bands. And I knew the songs. I had the albums. So I would get to layover point. Man, I'd change clothes and boom, I had hit one of these places where I was in Boston at the Black Rose or Matt Cain's in Washington, D.C., another place in Chicago, other places. And I would get in there and I would just, man, I'd sing along and have a good time. And I literally would not leave that place until the band left and I'm going out the door with them. And I love that stuff. And I often said that, you know, other times maybe the other part would kick in. Maybe the mood would be different or the locale would be differently. and I would think to myself, maybe I'll just have a few drinks tonight and go out and kill some white people. So, you know, just never knew how it was going to strike me or hit me. And I had grown up in my native culture in Wichita and Oklahoma, pow-wowed all over those places and was a dancer and spent a lot of time in the native community and have gone back since I got sober again. I was active until I left there on the Marine Corps. and I'm dancing again and I am active in Native American sobriety programs, none of which existed when I was growing up there were no Native American programs that I was aware of and I saw an awful lot of drunken Indians and I know that there were traditional Indian people almost last Saturday night I was up on a reservation two hours north of Seattle Swinomish it's a very small reservation i was up there a lot of sober indian people up there and it was a joy to be with them but uh when i was 14 the alcohol really did its it peaked out with my parents and they got a divorce and i make it a point never to go to the podium without thanking my parents for the good stuff they gave me they weren't drunk all the time and before it climaxed And when I was 14 and all of this damage was done, in the good days before all that happened, they taught me and my sister, who's two years younger than I am, some good stuff. And we've still got it today. And so I don't blame my parents for my alcoholism. I'm aware of genetics and a lot of the other medical scientific stuff because I'm involved in a lot of that. But I'm an alcoholic because not only of the genetics, but I chose to drink. that I'm indebted to my folks for the good stuff they gave us before all of that came about. They got a divorce, and that really hit my sister and I hard, really had an impact. And within about three years, each of those parents had been moved and divorced two more times, and I didn't get along too well in blended families. I bounced back and forth as I was going through school. Names had changed, faces had changed. I don't remember any of them. but I graduated when I was 17 and most of the people from my particular area didn't go to college they usually went to work at Boeing, Beecher, Cessna one of the other aircraft factories Wichita is known for it's called the air capital of the world and usually that was the modus operandi they married a little sweetheart and off they go to Boeing, beecher cessna and I didn't wasn't interested in that didn't have a girlfriend anyway and was going to join service about that time one of my buddies came back from the Marine Corps right out of boot camp, and I was impressed. And he and I sat in a bar for several hours one afternoon drinking as he regaled me with his horrific stories of what Marine drill instructors do to their recruits in Marine boot camp. And I'm just listening. I'm hanging on every word. I've just turned 18, and it's probably an early indication of how skewed my thinking could be because I thought, man, I just can't wait to go do that. And within a couple of days, I've signed on the line and off I go into Marine Corps boot camp. You know, I hear a lot of stories. A lot of speakers say, you know, I never fit in and I took that first drink and it was magic and that's true for them. It's not, neither of those things are true for me. And I often think, you know, we hear speakers and if I'm sitting there even at 28 years, almost 28 years sober, I could still pick out tons of differences. I go to these conferences and I listen to speakers all weekend. I go, I didn't drink like that. I didn' do that. But when I listen to the alcoholism and the source of the disease and the process and the things that happen to these people and the effect that it all has, I always hear my story. Facts and circumstances aside, you know, we drink differently, we behave differently, we do things differently, but yet we're all the same. And I hear that when I'm listening in the stories. And I also hear what recovery does, and I share that as well. but at any rate I went into the Marine Corps and once I got over the initial shock of it I settled in and I loved it it was very a Marine Corps boot camp is not like the other services and I mean no disrespect to the other service but Marine Corps boot camp stands alone and it is extreme very extreme and I loved it and I settled in and for the first time in my life I experienced camaraderie, this esprit de corps, this band of brothers, this inextricable bonding of one Marine to another. I had never seen that before or experienced it before and I loved it and I decided this is where I belong and this is what I was going to stay and I excelled. I always excelled and we had 70 of us in this platoon and come up on the 13th week trail instructors called out three names of the top guys that are going to be private first class my name was the second one called i was surprised i had no idea but i was immensely proud and i couldn't take my eyes off of that red bordered stripe that i had on my arm and i got to tell you that as a private first glass you do not run the marine corps however i could not get i thought man i've got 67 of my buddies that are still slick sleeve privates and I got that stripe. And we go to Camp Pendleton, and we draw a guard duty. My buddies are out in the rain walking post with an M1 9 1⁄2-pound rifle on their shoulder, and I'm inside a Quonset up nice and dry and warm because I gotthat stripe, and I am acting corporal of the guard. And I look over in the corner, and I see a First Lieutenant's uniform over there. It has got a silver bar on it. And I remember looking at that and thinking, by God, you know, at the rate I am moving, generals can't be that far away. I am sticking around, so I am staying. four and a half years into my Marine Corps experience I'm still doing well I get called in by my commanding officer he said there's a brand new program out called Marine Aviation Cadet he said you're the only guy in the unit whose entry score, which at that time was called a GCT is high enough for you to go over and test for that program and I was interested I'd always wanted to fly but that wasn't anywhere on my lifetime reality scope because pilots as far as I knew had to have college educations and they didn't come out of a World War II housing project. They didn't came out of the Native American segment. They didn' t come out an alcoholic home, but he said I can go test and I went over and tested and it was an all-day thing and I passed. And he said there's another thing that you need to know. This is an 18-month program. He said statistically plus or minus half don't make it. And he says the other thing is you're coming in the back door because you tested and got in the program. He said 98%, 99% of the rest of the people will be coming in from the civilian side and they've got to have two years college minimum just to come in the program. And those will be the folks you'll be in there with. And I could do the thinking. I thought if half don't make it, and I'm starting off so far behind on an educational basis, huge deficit, I'm in a good position not to be one of the ones that don't Make It. And I wanted to try. I said, I want to try, and he said, okay. I went home to Wichita. They were having a powwow. I was going to Pensacola the next day. and they called for a special honoring dance for me because I was leaving for Pensacola the next day and I went out and led it and I was really heavily impacted by that because all the way to Pensacolo I thought there's no way I can come back to this native community and tell them I'm back early because I flunked out I washed out I couldn't hack it I'm not going to be a pilot I was driven with that for 18 months and there were four phases of flight training at that time and through each of those phases I was the number two guy and I never got cocky I never thought I had it made I never though I was going to make it and I watch my buddies wash out weekly sometimes daily and every time one of them walks away from me with a sea bag over his shoulder he wants to fly as much as I do but he's washed out and he's not going to realize that dream I thought someday that will be me and I kept pushing the last six months I left Pensacola and I drove to Beeville, Texas for advanced jet flight training six more months to go. I'm not talking much about my drinking because I don't have time watching the clock up here a little bit. I don'T have time to do a big long drunk-a-log. I could spend the entire hour telling about drunken misadventures that I had, the things that happened to me and it's right with everybody else's. I drank a lot and a lot of things happened but I dodged bullets for the biggest part of my life. I dodzed those bullets sometimes barely but I dodge them and I got in fights. I had a lot of blackouts. I lost cars. I woke up places I didn't know where I was or how I got there. I had two DWIs up in Minnesota, separated about five years ago. My mantra was, ah, it could happen to anybody. I've got a good Indian buddy who talked. I listened to him tell his story. He said he was in court for the sixth time, six DWI, before he realized that that did not stand for drinking with Indians. but i've got i've got a long checkered history of drinking but i managed somehow or other duck and dodge the bullet until all the wheels came off at one time um i'm drinking but i'm always in a hard drinking environment first i'm a young marine i'm supposed to be tough and hard and be able to drink hard and i did and then later i'm going to be a fighter pilot same thing there then an airline pilot eventually You know, this is a chronic progressive disease. We don't all progress at the same rate. But towards the end, you could see me pulling away from the rest of the crowd. My drinking was increasing. Theirs was not. But it took a while. I went into this flight training thing. And the last six months, I'd gone to Texas. And I get into Texas the first night. I'm drunk, reuniting with a bunch of my buddies. We go to the officer's club. We just get blasted. They said, let's go into town. There's a little old-fashioned drive-in there, and we've got an inside edge with these good-looking South Texas girls because we're going to be hot shot jet guys, commissioned officers, and they know it. And I said, okay. So I went in with them. They immediately went after a carload of girls. I hung back. I was never all that aggressive or gutsy with the gals, but I was drinking a lot. And I'm looking up there, I can see the driver sort of. I'm Looking at an angle. I can't really tell, but i'm rehearsing some things to say because I'm going to walk up there And I go up there, and I've got this really several things that are way above my norm. And I'm thinking, gosh, I've Got Some Good Stuff. She may just take her clothes off sitting there. And so I go out to the car, and she looks at me, and She Was Pretty. And everything vacated. And I am standing there now. I've GOT NOTHING. And she looks up at me like I was supposed to say something. And she had brown eyes. And I was looking at that, and said, You've GOT PRETTY BROWN EYES or something like that. And I WAS DRINKING A LOT, AND I WASN'T PRACTICING MY TALKING. And they kind of came along, and she looked at me just like I stood there and peed on the side of her car. And I was so embarrassed, I turned around and walked away. I thought, I'm not going back. A little while later, she gets out to go in the ladies' room, and I'm standing where I could really get a good look at her, and she had a cute little butt. She had turquoise shorts on, I remember that, and pretty little legs. And I'm thinking, golly. And I actually had an AA thought. I didn't know it was an AA though. I recognized it about 29 years later. But she's walking, and I'm looking, and I'm thinking, God Almighty, I want what she has, and am willing to go to any lengths to get it. And I did. I had a chance encounter with her the next day. I had her buddy with me. She had a girlfriend with her. Told me her name was Barbara. Let me buy her a cup of coffee, and we began to date on her 25th birthday. I don't mean her 20th birthday, on February 25th, 1963. She pinned those gold wings right over my chest, right over my heart, put two gold bars on my shoulders and i'll tell you hollywood couldn't have been a better day god i had i i i had completed and i'd done well all the way through now i could go home and we did we went back to wichita for three weeks she went and stayed with my sister as the leave was coming to an end i called her and said you're going back to texas i've got orders to california let's go get married so we ran down to new kirk oklahoma stood in front of a justice of peace march the 9th 1963 we got married march 9th coming up here will be 55 years so she's she's ridden through a lot of stuff with me because she can't stand to admit she made a mistake i love that we get to el toro she was the youngest wife in the squadron 20 years old pretty little gal gosh and so wholesome and sweet not a pretentious bone in her body she is just who she is she's instantly pregnant which I thought was part of my Marine Corps obligation and we had a little boy eight days later we had another one you guys carefully nope we're just horny Protestants she goes home to Texas I go to Vietnam these two little babies we're one of the first jet squadrons into Vietnam flying out of a place called Chu Lai 50 miles south of Da Nang Typical Marine Corps operation. Right in the middle of enemy territory, Marines in foxholes around the airport perimeter. And we're living in sand, eating sea rations out of little cans, living in tents. We don't have air conditioning, don't having any ice cubes except when we debrief after a mission. No creature comforts of any kind, 110 degrees. and we're flying off of a little abbreviated airstrip requires genesis takeoff to get airborne for combat operations. We're all carry qualified so our return, our recoveries are going to carry our resting gear. I was one of the 28 of the finest men I'll ever have the experience of a lifetime to be with and we acquitted ourselves extraordinarily well over there. 28 of the finest pilots I've ever been with and I'll never have that experience again in this lifetime. Put in for regular commission, I know full well that the Marine Corps will not give a regular commission very competitive at that time to an officer who has no college. It doesn't happen. I got a regular commission. And I look and I go, that's what I'm supposed to do. That's what I've always been expected to do, that is what I have expected of me, that s what others expect of me. To go above and beyond, to push hard and succeed, not to go into a bar in Fargo and become the biggest pariah in all of American commercial aviation. But that's what happens when I become alcoholic, and sooner or later I lose control, and I can't call shots any longer. My intentions, my actions don't match my intentions. That's not what I intend to do, but that's What I Do because when I start to drink, I don't seem to be able to find a way to stop. After I came back from Vietnam, I had a very, very well-respected military resume. I had lot of really good stuff on my military resume and I stayed in the Marine Corps for another two and a half years and I finally got out because I didn't want to be gone for four to six years away from my wife and little kids. And that was a painful decision to get out. Three weeks later I was in class at Northwest Airlines and had a career there for 22 years pretty much matching my Marine Corps operation. I wasn't known to be a drunk and a screw-up. I had a great reputation as a pilot, and I loved the job. I loved going to work. It was fun. Barbara wanted a daughter, and so we put in for an adoption. And we had a struggle because we had the two biological boys, and we fought hard for 14 months. We bring this little Indian girl home, named her Dawn. She was 17 days old when we brought her home, and she was the prettiest little thing I've ever seen I had the two boys but I quickly learned what daughters do to their dads and she took over my universe she became the center of it I loved that little girl all the way through and so did her brothers she could not have gone to a better home when she was 17 she ran away from home I don't know what happened I don' t know if I had not been drinking if I had seen it I just don't know i had put off being a captain for two years because i wanted to be home with my daughter until she graduated high school and went to college and that was a sacrifice for me but i wanted to be there with her and as she's coming up on graduation i went to chicago and took a special written test the afternoon the barber took me to the airport that day she took her stuff and ran away and left a note and i found out about it the next morning when i called home and i panicked I was scared to death, and I blurted out to Barbara where to go and who to call and where to look. My little girl was gone, andI didn't know what was happening to her. I got on the airplane. It was a two-hour flight home, and something happened to me on that flight I'm not aware of. I don't remember feeling anything on that fight, but when I got off, I hated her beyond any capacity I thought I possessed to hate anyone or anything. And, I mean, it was white hot, and l told Barbara, I said, I don' t care if she dies in the streets. She'll never come back to my home, and I never want her name mentioned again in my presence ever. Within two days, every physical thing she'd ever owned in my home was gone to goodwill. There was no trace she'd never lived in my own. I went to the bank, andI tore up her adoption papers. I wentto an attorney and gave him $500 and disowned her. I tried to annul the adoption. I couldn't. In the midst of this activity, this whirlwind, tornadic activity, in a way that's only insanely amusing, I looked around and I thought, I don't think Barbara's handling this too well. She probably needs a therapist. And so by the luck of the draw, I got in the Yellow Pages, and that's where this Ph.D. guy came from, and he was a good therapist. We saw him twice a month for two years. One time he was trying to get me to talk about my daughter. I made a statement that absolutely painted me, and I don' t remember ever having formed the thought before it flew out of my mouth. And I looked at him and I said, I'm going to tell you something, Doctor. I said I would rather hate than hurt. he said you survived a childhood doing that if you continue to destroy you and everything he said to us came true the alcohol quit working for me i no longer wanted to go out with the crews all i wanted to do excuse me was get to the layover point get to liquor store get a bottle of booze and go back to my room and drink and that's what i did and i can go through a bottle Of booze pretty quick i would get there i knew where every liquor store was and every layover spot that we had and how long it took to get there and get back I would come back, lock the door turn the TV set on I wouldn't go to the door if a crew member docked I wouldn' answer the phone if they called I sat in there and I drank and I could no longer ever I could never from that point on ever recapture the relief that alcohol has always given me from that moment on it was like I had a fire in my belly and I'm throwing gas on top of it as I began to drink up came the hatred the bitterness, the self pity the martyrdom, this long list of things that I had done for this little girl and look how she had repaid me. And that just fueled and fueled and fuelled and I drank and by the time I got to the bottom of the bottle, I am emotionally exhausted. I'm tired. And the next night in a different town, I will do it again and again and Again and again. And I never got the relief. Not ever again. That's pretty much where we were when this arrest took place. I went into the treatment center i didn't want anybody to know who i was or what i was it was a week before anybody knew the color of my eyes and about day two of treatment it's all over the tv now they know now they know but the good part about all this was i went into treatment and i was hoping that what they were telling me worked this was an aa 12-step treatment center i had nothing else to bank on count on or try except what they Were telling me and hoping that it would work so i went after i went after it hard i wouldn't go near the tv sets out in the rec room i wouldn'T so I'm I'M IN THERE WORKING I'M READING AND DOING STUFF THAT NONE OF THE PATIENTS DID BECAUSE THEY'RE OUT IN THE REC ROOM DURING REC HOUR I'M NOT OUT THERE I DON'T WANT TO SEE THE TV ONE OF THE WAY THAT A WEEKS OF THE DAY THAT I ENTERED TREATMENT THE PATrient CAME AND TOLD ME THEY JUST ANNOUNCED NORTHWEST AIRLINES HAD TERMINATED ME AND THE FAA is issued an emergency revocation of all your flight certificates, and you've lost your FAA medical because of your alcoholism. I'm completely stripped now of everything. I have no education to fall back on. And all of it was fair. All of it wasn't fair. It was appropriate. Everything that happened to me was fair, but what's not fair about this disease is I bring it to Barbara and my kids and my friends and my family and anyone who has a loving attachment to me gets to suffer as a result of what I bring to the game. I put it on the table, they all get a piece of it. And that's the tragedy in my view. Now what happens to me? I walked into a group room the first week not intending to talk or not to talk and I started talking about my daughter. That's counterintuitive to me. I broke down and cried and I don't cry. I never cry at my parents' funerals. but shortly thereafter I got a hold of Barbara and said let's put the family back together again the staff there were no visitors or phone calls and the staff said if you can make that happen we'll give you a day room we'll waive the policy I walked in there one day the two doctors had said could I come please come watch this and I walk into the room and they're standing off to the side my little girl's there and I don't recognize she's small I don'T remember her being that small it's been two years I walk over there and put my arms around her telling her how much I loved her to how much I hated her, and in her arms was a little baby, a five-month-old daughter. My daughter got married, and I didn't even know her last name. I wish I could tell you that life has been great since then, but her life is a mess today. She's going to be 48 in September, and for 29 years now, excuse me, 31 years, her life has just been one mess after another, not alcohol or drug related, and that I know of. But I have to accept it because I can't change it. I went through six legal crises in treatment. They were having to come take me out. None of the attorneys on the day of the arrest knew anything about this. The final one occurred when they take me on a treatment, and they tell me a doctor was there. I thought, oh, this has got to be a victim. I've never had a doctor. He said, the federal grand jury's just indicted you. You're looking at 15 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, and an attorney's coming in sending us $50,000. We went broke 30 days. I grew up that way now I've taken Barbara with me and I don't have the money he said I have to ask you if you're going to hurt yourself and I said no and I went back to my room and I don't remember collapsing but I was crying for the second time in treatment with my head next to the carpet and I thought God I can't do this is the sixth time I have nothing left I can even do this one more time not even one more please help me and I slept. I had many life-changing experiences in treatment because I bought into this thing, because I bought into it. I get out and I'm quickly in a heavily publicized three-week trial. We drew the toughest judge in the Minnesota Federal District who had strong feelings about this case and rightfully so and I didn't begrudge him any of those feelings because I'd been involved in a horrific betrayal of the public trust. Had an amazing story with an attorney I don't have time to go into. Wanted to plead guilty, and he talked me out of it for reasons that made sense. So I said, I'll be found guilty when I am. It's okay. We go through this three-week trial. The jury goes out, the jury comes back. I know what that probably means. I'm the captain. Everything comes to me first. I stand up. The verdict is guilty,and he flinches, and I reached over and patted him. I said, it's okay, it' s okay.We go back a month for sentencing. Guidelines were in place 12 to 18 months. I knew I was going to get 18 months because I was the captain. However, a day and a half before, the judge changes his mind and tells the attorneys, I'm going to up the ante. I can go all the way to 15 years, and this judge had strong feelings about this case, and I knew that he was going to really hit me hard, but I have an advantage because I'm the only alcoholic, and I'm in meetings during the trial, and i'm learning this thing called acceptance. I know what it means to be powerless over what he is getting ready to do and that i have to accept whatever it is that comes to me and i walked in there that day i was the first to stand and i'm so scared i still don't know what i'm going to say as i stand up and i talked about being grateful to be sober i was grateful for what had happened in my family that i i accepted responsibility and had from day one couldn't change anything i'd give him my personal effects to barbara because I said, I think you'll have us let away in handcuffs for the cameras. The judge made an amazing thing. He actually, there was a miracle that happened that morning in the courtroom. He sentenced me to 16 months, two months less under the guidelines, blew everyone away. No one understood what had just happened. Later, he told my attorney, I changed from the bench. I'd been in treatment with the federal judge, says we never change from thebench. You'll talk, but he says when we come in, the sentence is set. and other judges around the country were corroborated that he changed from the bench that morning because he told my attorney I was going to sentence Lyle to four years in prison. And I changed as I looked at him and listened to him. The other thing he said was this, I'm going to let you three men remain free until your appeals are exhausted because this is the first time this law has ever been used and it wasn't designed for pilots. The other two said okay. I said no, I'll go to prison now. Why? Because I've learned in here about life on life's terms the appeal could keep me out for a year year and a half but eventually it's going to be denied 98 are denied and i knew that i have remembered something from high school said a coward dies a thousand deaths a brave man only one and i wasn't going to watch the sun go down every year every night for a years and i was going to die and i said i'm not going to dying another death because i'm one day closer to what's going to take place i said i'll go now and i told my kids i said the only way i can come out the back doors to go in the front and i'm doing it now so on december the 5th of 1990 34 years of the day that i'd entered marine back boot camp i entered atlanta federal prison as inmate 044 78-041 i don't tell prison stories i had a lot of experiences in there they don't have anything to do with my recovery but what i have learned in recovery and the implementation of all 12 steps when i need to use each of those steps for the purpose for which They were designed. I do a pretty good job, and they held me in good stead, and I used those in that prison to deal with the circumstances, situations, people, and experiences that I had in there. I spent 424 days in there in the prison system. One time I had said that, and a guy came up to me after the meeting. He said, 424 Days. He goes, he said, man, that's nothing. He said I was out there 18 years. And I looked at him and grinned, and I said, well, you win. and 424 days was a long time the judge had put sanctions on me on top of everything else that made it absolutely impossible i would ever fly again a year after i got out of prison he lifted those sanctions and another story that i don't have time to go into not one chance in 10,000 that he would do that and yet he did it the faa said if you want to fly again you'll start with a private license which i had never had i came out of the marine corps was instantly given a commercial ticket with an instrument rating. None of my pilot buddies thought it was possible to start from literally, from the ground up and regain four licenses. But I've learned in here to do things one day at a time. And I said, I'll do one license at a Time. Ten and a half months later, I'd pass the writtens on all four licenses, difficult, difficult difficult. But I know how to work. I'm willing to work, I will do what needs to be done. But there's a flying component that goes with each of those four licenses i'm back working in the treatment center i'm working at anchor hospital in the counseling department i'm making fourteen thousand dollars a year and i am grateful for that job i am grateful to have fourteen thousand dollars a year but i can't do the flying ten thousand dollars twenty thousand something like that i can't do it that's a deal breaker by that time a northwest pilot gets a hold of me guy knew he said you didn't know it but i got a flight school i want you to come up here and live with me and my family and go through the school free and get your tickets back i went up there had to check in with the minnesota department of corrections because i'm under 13 conditions of probation i spent 44 days up there with that man and his family flying and when i'm not night flying i'm in an aa meeting up there because that's where i belong that's Where I Go i got four licenses back up there in 30 days it was rained out 14 had two tickets one morning by 11 15 i don't think that's ever been done before i came back with four tickets in my pocket but i knew that i would never fly again on this and not on american soil my name is emblazoned with the northwest flight 650 incident everybody in american commercial aviation knew my name 30 days later the licenses physically arrived in the mail and I get a phone call from the head of the pilot union at Northwest. Grievance had been automatically filed because of the termination. I had not activated the grievance because it said Northwest was justified and fair in terminating me. I will not fight the termilation. He said, this is the best phone call I've ever made because three hours ago John Dasberg, who is the president and CEO of Northwest Airlines, a man I'd never even seen, made a personal decision to bring you back pitching full flight status at Northwest typically if a pilot's airline is even mentioned on tv or in the paper he's done he has he is done my airline had been on the news egregiously drugged through the mud for weeks and months and the president of the airline is going to disregard that and allow me to come back and fly airplanes and when i thought about that even further i thought the courage that takes is beyond extraordinary because if I go back and relapse the board of directors will kick him out so fast he won't have time to pack his desk after all the publicity I've had alcoholic in the headlines prisoner convict felon and he lets me do it a second time he's out of there why would he dare take that kind of a risk and I had many many conversations with him and talked with him about that and yet he did it anyway excuse me i went back there was a very emotional back to work signing agreement i'd never be a captain again i said that's okay i've been a captain and northwest now had a program and i'm part of that but now at least i'm going to get part of a retirement i'm gonna be able to take barbara at least part of the way and that had been a knife in my heart that she rode all the way with me to a big zero at the end of the road. I went back, and now I'm going to be the best employee they've ever had. I never lost sight of that fact. I always had a good reputation as a pilot, but now I want to be the best employee. I never want John Dasberg ever to have an ounce of regret about his decision to bring me back, and I'm certainly the most visible employee on the property. I'm coming up on my last year at Northwest. Speaking of United Airlines, I get another phone call late at night, woke me up. Same pilot. He says, John Dasberg knows you're coming up one your last year. He's just changed your back-to-work agreement. He thinks when you come home for your last years, you should be a 747 captain. I laid there, unbelievable. I never thought anything would surpass my return to Northwest. and it was like god was up that room was very dark barbara was next to me i didn't even know she was awake it was not god was looking down and smiling and winking and saying every time you think i've used my miracles up i'll show you one more and i can't i thought man i can wait for the next one so i went back and i checked out and i spent my last year as a boeing 747 captain flying a mega million dollar airplane all over the world 18 flight attendants 400 people completely totally trusted, given back that golden gift that we lose trust only because I'm a member of AA. I am no one special. The best part of my story is I get no credit for it. All I did was suit up and show up. The rest of it happened, and I didn't have the power to orchestrate any of it. I couldn't stop what was coming from the moment of the arrest, and I couldn'T manufacture the miracles later. i retired september of 1998 satisfied that i'd done a good job within about one or two days my attorney calls me he said i just had a phone call from judge rosenbaum who's now chief judge minnesota federal district says in 16 years on the federal bench he has never supported a petition for pardon which i had never considered but he will support yours if you want to make the attempt He wrote a three-page affidavit that is so powerful from an emotional standpoint that if I had to stand here and read it to you, I would have tears in my eyes by the time I got to page three. Two years later, after all the paperwork had gone in, I walked in and there were eight phone messages telling me I just received a presidential pardon. My chances of winning the Powerball lottery are better than getting a presidential Pardon. Here came the reporters all over again. What's the big deal? Here they come. But that pardon is mega life-changing for anybody with a federal felony conviction. Day two of treatment was a Saturday. We went to an outside meeting. My head was down, so ashamed. I listened to them read the promises, and I perked up momentarily. I thought, oh my God, is there anything to this? And then they got to that part that says no matter how far down the scale we've gone, and I quit listening because I thought it might work for him or it might look good for me. It might work with her. But I'm going too far down. And I'll tell you, in the time that I've been up here, about an hour and five minutes, you haven't heard 30% of the miracles that I got to live through. And I thought my story would take about five minutes the night of the arrest and days afterwards. Five minutes to tell my story. What a nice problem to have. I'm gonna close with something that I like because it illustrates life as I've come to kind of see it and it simply says this I do not wish you joys without a sorrow nor endless day without the healing dark nor brilliant sun without the restful shadow nor tides that never turn against your bark I wish you strength and faith and love and wisdom and goods gold enough to help some needy one I wish you songs but also blessed silence and God's sweet peace when every day is done my Comanche name is Yetzit the Nub but you know me as Lyle I'm an alcoholic and I want to thank you for my sobriety applause