Military Alcoholism: Decades of Service and Decades of Drinking – Cappy T.

I'm Cappy, and I'm a big teddy bear. I'm Cappy. I'm an alcoholic. And I want to thank the committee for inviting me to talk here. Really a privilege for me to be anyplace sober. I'm married to a wonderful woman who's active in Al-Anon. And I'd like to have her stand up. Mary Ellen, please stand up I was getting ready to talk Up here in Lake Yale And I thought I better get a haircut And I went to the barber yesterday And I said, you know A little bit off the top, a little off the side I looked in the mirror after he finished and I said, my God, I'm back in the Army. But I totally got ready for you folks, appearance-wise, by the way. I want to tell you a little bit about how it was, what happened, and what it's like now. And I was born to great parents. And it's connected in New York. Biggest challenge in the first couple of grades in school school was learn how to spell it, you know. And I had a sister. And my dad was a very quiet guy. My mother was Canadian-French and she kind of ran the family. My dad was a very quiet guy, 6'7". Back in those days that was freakish. People just didn't see people 6'6". And I remember they used to ask him how was the weather up there and he spit and said a little bit wet, you Know. But I was ashamed of him because he was so tall and everybody was staring at him. He never said much, but he worked hard. And we always had something to eat. We always had clothes. I guess today some folks would say they were neglected or whatever. I never felt neglected. I know he loved me. And the reason I know you love me because he took care of me. My dad was a normal drinker. He'd have have a beer at noon if he was home. He'd have one in the evening. And he always gave me since I could, way back, as long as I can remember, gave me a little shot glass full of beer. And I always loved it. I always wanted more. And then I grew up. He still gave me, I get home from school or whatever and we have dinner. He gave me a bottle of beer, I drink the beer, that was it. But I always want more. Always always trying to sneak another bottle out. I never had any problems with it. Never had any money to buy beer. But when I got it free, or if I had enough money, I'd get drunk. And when I was in my teenage years, we used to go up to Lake George, New York, and I'd have maybe ten bucks on me, and the first night I'd drink it all up and I starved the the rest of the weekend. That kind of tells you something. I had a little problem with the booze back in those days. But I played basketball in high school, and the coach didn't stand for smoking, drinking, and so forth. So they kind of guarded it, kept me under control, we'll put it that way. But, I thought weird. You know, as a kid, I always sat in the back steps, nobody around. I just kind of lulled away the time. You You know, I was just kind of daydreaming and all that good stuff. And I just never mixed too good with the kids. I played a lot of sports, but as soon as the game was over, I went home. In high school, I ran for vice president of my senior class. I was telling someone last night, running for vice president of our senior class told everybody not to vote for me and was disappointed when I wasn't elected. it. That kind of thinking, you know, is weird. It's weird. Very moody guy. I talked to you for a month and not talked to your for three or four weeks. Got to be my senior year in high school. My mother kept asking me, where are you going to go to school? I said, I'm going to school. No problem. Do you apply to go the school? No, I didn't apply to go to the school. Are you gonna go to School? Yeah, I'll go to schools. The guy next door as a coach. Got me a tryout down at Seton Hall University. Went down there, tried out, got a scholarship and played basketball for Seton hall. Didn't have any money. My mom, I used to work all summer and I deposited them, you know, put the money in a bank and it was a joint account and my mother was on account. She sent me $5 a week and when that $5 ran out she said, say, you're now on my five dollars a week. That's kind of the lady she was. But I used to get drinking pretty good down in college because we used to have a kid that used to scalp our tickets. Each player got a couple of tickets to the game so we'd get him to scalp them and we'd give him a cut, you know, and we would get so much money. So we used to go out. Of course, in those days beer was like 15 cents a glass and it was pretty cheap. So we used to get found pretty good. And really, it was the first time I was exposed to the big city guys, you know, from New York. Seton Hall is right just outside of Newark and a lot of guys from Newark were playing ball with us. And they kind of showed me the ropes, took me to New York, put me on a subway and then got off the subway and let me find my way back, you know, that sort of thing. I met a woman beginning of my junior year and married her. And we had our first child in December of 1953. In the meantime, I got got a commission in the United States Army. I was in the ROTC program. And this lady didn't want to stay in the service, and I just confronted her and said, you know, I'm going to stay. If you don't want to say, don't let the door hit you. That's how my self-centeredness and selfishness was rampant. But I stayed in the military and went to Japan. In Japan pan. Let me start by saying I was an action drunk. If it wasn't happening, I was making it happen. Every time I drank, I would be on the edge of disaster, every time. Not once in a while, but every time, and I'd walk out of a bar and then a big fight would break out or I'd be some other place and the police would raid it or whatever. I was always on on the edge of disaster. And he got so in the Army that, you know, Cappy's a hard worker. Man, he'll work hard. He'll work hours and hours and horas. Don't give him a pass, you know, that sort of thing. But I loved the Army. And came back to the States and had had various assignments throughout the country. And I went to Vietnam in 1966. I was with the 1st Cavalry Division over there, not that you care, but I just thought I'd mention it. A priest came into our organization. He was a chaplain for our organization, and I looked at him. You know, we can tell each other. We can really spot each other, there's no no question about it. And in fact, I was standing next to a guy and I went, oh dear. He said, what's wrong? I thought nothing. I knew the guy had a problem with booze. But I never said anything to him. And one night, one day it stopped raining and I was kind of sitting out trying to dry out a little bit. And the priest walked up to me and said, Kathy, could I talk to you a little better? And I said, sure. And he said, I just left Europe and I've got a problem with drinking. What do you recommend? And here's a guy, by this time I'm into my alcoholism pretty good. I'm not drinking over there, but I was about a month away from going on R&R to Bangkok and all I could visualize was a big glass full of ice, full of bourbon, and sitting in a hot tub of water. That's all I Could Visualize, and getting drunk. drunk. And he's asking me, what did you do about his drinking? And so I told him, I said, Father, you know, what you got to do is pray hard. You got to ask God not to let you drink. No, just kind of, you knows, give you the strength to stay away from the booze. See, that's a good idea. I said. Now you're going to say the rosary and I went through the whole thing with him. He said, thanks for your help. I think of that and I said my Lord. A drunk telling another drunk, and the drunk telling someone who had no idea how to, he couldn't stop drinking. He couldn't even recognize his disease, and then trying to give advice to somebody else. But when I look back a little bit, when I was in Japan in 1958, I can look back at that particular situation that occurred and realize that my alcoholism was starting and he'd go out of control. We had a son born over there. In those days, you took your wife to the hospital, left her, and you did whatever you wanted to do. I used to go out and get drunk. She was our fourth child. And I came back and we had a sun. She said, we had an unborn baby. We had an uncle who had a very serious problem. And I said, what's that problem? He said, he's got a tumor on his face. The cystic hygroma, they called it. And it was so big that it just kind of laid on the tray, on the cart they had them on. I said, look, I really don't want to discuss this now. I got someplace I gotta go. And I left that poor woman with a newborn son to try to figure out what to do. I got back and we discussed it a couple days later, and we had this son baptized, and in that case his life was threatened, he was in danger of dying, so the priest put him on the altar and offered him to God. And I look back on that, I had no feeling for for that. I didn't care what happened to that young little boy. I had nothing inside, I just didn't cry or do anything, I just didn t have any feeling for him. And I knew he needed a number of operations and I was very upset about that due to the fact that it might interfere with my career. I might have to miss work to be with my son. So I can look look back in that particular situation and know that my alcoholism was out of control. I mentioned I was in Vietnam, and I came back. I was gone for a year, and it took me two days to get home. I went back to Vietnam and spent 15 months over there as an advisor, and it Took Me Two Weeks to Get Home. Two weeks. And every morning I got up, I wanted to call my family. I said, I've got to call my family, I've gotta tell them where I am. By this time we had six children. I had a daughter born while I was over there. Had never seen her. Now a normal guy, father, would get home. I mean he'd rush home. Absolutely rush home and I didn't. I spent two weeks on the west coast getting drunk. and every morning I'd wake up and say I gotta get home I got to get home there's no question about it and I gotta call today I'm gonna call today and I have my first drink in the morning and I wouldn't call I wouldn'T call now 19 couple of years later I left that family and my I think most of the kids were there I had one son in college at that time, 1974. And as I left, my one son is retarded. He's educable. A great pal of mine today. But he asked me what I was going to do for a father. And I said, well, I'll be around. Again, no feeling inside. Matthew, the one that was so sick in Japan, big guy now, he asked what he was goingto do for his friend. I said, I'll be around. And I moved into a one-bedroom apartment, one-room apartment in Alexander, Virginia, about four blocks away from the railroad yard down there, the old railroad yard, not there anymore. It was fall, it was October, and I had the windows open, and noise was driving me nuts. I couldn't believe what in the world was making so much noise. And I went for two weeks like that until I discovered the railroadyard. I didn't even know I was four blocks away from a railroad yard. But on the morning of November 22nd, 1974, which is my sobriety day, I rolled out of bed. I couldn't do it anymore. I could not do it any more. I knew I was dying. I was throwing up blood. I had jaundice, dropped foot. Physically, I couldn't do it. Mentally, I could not do it Spiritually, I couln't do i And I knew I was going to die. I asked the God of my understanding at that time Which is a punishing God To help me stop drinking. And I haven't had a drink since. And a great load was lifted off my shoulders And I was on my knees First time I was up on my knee for years Years and years and a great load of this lifted off my shoulders. And see, I was very blessed, very fortunate because God had allowed me to hit my bottom big time. And I was also blessed knowing at that time I just knew that I had received a very precious gift. A very precious gift. gift. And I don't know what, I don' t know how that happened. I guess God put it there obviously. But I have a very precious gift. I still feel that way and I can do everything to keep that gift. I had been picked up for drunk driving about like I picked up for drunk drive on November 22nd or November 2nd, I'm sorry and then the 22nd I stopped drinking but they put me in a paddy wagon on November 2rd and I was sitting there saying you know, I win the army November 2, 1954 1954. And here is November 2nd, 1974 on the back of a paddy wagon handcuffed. What happened? And it kept coming back to me, booze, that's what happened. Booze. So they put me in a program, an ASAP program, and one of the requirements was go to Alcoholics Anonymous. So I didn't I didn't go to Alcoholics Anonymous until after the 22nd of November. But I went to Alcoholic Anonymous, and I knew that you knew. I just knew it. I just new that you know what was going on with me. And again, I'm very blessed that that happened. I had that feeling that you new. And I was doing pretty good for about 30 days because, you know, I stopped throwing up blood, and my feeling in my foot came back, and I could operate it again, and I felt pretty good. So they know that mental deal goes through your mind like, maybe it wasn't that bad. No, maybe it was not that bad, maybe I'm all well now, my stomach feels pretty good, I don't get pains all the time in it, I used to get numbness in my head always through my shoulders at night, coming home from work, and I said, I wonder if everybody feels this way when they're drinking. But that went away. All that stuff. I had myself a sponsor at Home Group. Big book group, thank God. And I went to my sponsor and I says, you know, I don't know if I've got a problem. And he said, well, what you can do is write down a list of things that terrible things that happen in your life and if alcohol is associated with those just you know you got a problem with alcohol now you can try to get a solution to that or you can just ignore it and stay with the problem and once i made that list and looked at that that list of stuff i said i got a pro a big problem because that was bankrupt rough in every aspect of my life, monetarily, spiritually, and mentally. So I came to realize that we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanageable. I took that step. And the second half of the first step got me into the second step, the insanity insanity part, because I heard someone say one time that the real insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. And I sure was guilty of that, for sure. And one of the steps for me, in a way, that opened the door, and it tells us it's the foundation of my program, and always the third step. It took me a long time to do the third step because I still had this punishing God, this fearful God. But coming to a lot of meetings and listening to your stories, I knew it was a loving and forgiving God because you wouldn't be sitting here now if he wasn't, I don't think. I think the worst punishment he could give me or anyone is to let us stay out there. So I took the third step with my my sponsor. We said the prayer together on our knees and I told myself, I'll never go any further. I am not going to write down all those things that I've done in that fourth step. I'm just not going do it. I' m not going reach into the dark corner of my mind and pull out those things I've told myself that I'd never tell another human being. I'm not going to do that. There's no way I'm going to do it. So then I started getting squirrely and all the resentments started coming back and the anger started coming back and I went to my sponsor and said what do I do? He said well Kathy you take the fourth step and the fifth step or you'll probably get drunk. I said well I've read the Hazleton Guide I've heard the big book I've gone over that chart in a big book. I've done all that stuff, and I don't understand it. I'll be honest with you. I do not understand it." He said, "...Well, do you have a pencil and paper?" I said, "...Yeah." He said,"Write down the things that bother you." I said,"How far back do you go?" He said,'How far backwards does it hurt?' How far back does it hurts? So I sat down, after a time of course. I started writing that stuff down. And I reached into the dark corner of my mind and I pulled out that stuff that I told myself I'd never tell another human being and I wrote it down I did the best I could and I think that's all the program asks you to do is do the best you can but it's the first time in my life that I cut away all that facade and all that bull that I held up there so many years all that false pride and looked at me me. The self-centeredness, the selfishness, all those things that I had. I still have a lot of, by the way. And wrote it down. And started looking at me. Well, then I told myself that I'd do the fourth step, but I'll never do the fifth step. You know, the steps are numbered. You take them in order. So, you know, nobody's going to get me to take the So my sponsor asked me how I was doing with the fourth step. I said, well, I finished it. God, I told him. And so we went to Blackstone one time in April. Spring retreat. I took the fifth step. And I had all this stuff written down. And when we finished, he said, are you really finished with this thing now? I looked at the two or three things I left out and I said no. And I told them. And see, I'm so grateful that I did that. I'm so thankful that I got all that stuff out because I've seen people who have four or five, six years of sobriety who leave something out of that fourth and fifth step on purpose and get drunk. And they get drunk." So I took the sixth step and the seventh step with them. And it comes to the amend step, aid step. stuff. I have a lot of, you know, I was in the Army for 27 years. I have a lot of folks that I will amends to. I have a lot of folks I will amends to because they jeopardized their careers for me. They compromised their principles for me, covering for me. Give you an idea what my attitude was. I had an organization and a battalion over in Europe and my My ex-o overheard a conversation between the general I worked for and another guy, his deputy. And they were saying, what are we going to do with Trowbridge? And I don't know what we're going to deal with him. He's kind of running wild. Doing all right, but he's... Excuse me, I have a little mosquito about him here. He's got to run wild. What are you going to go? What are we doing? Blah, blah, blah. on. I talked, and my ex-husband came back to me and said, gee, I don't know. They're on to you. And my attitude just typifies an alcoholic, for me in a way, an alcoholic's attitude. I said, they can't prove nothing. Don't change. Don' t stop drinking. Don Don't do anything right, just they can't prove nothing. And that was my attitude. That was my Attitude. Now, they put me under investigation, and the guy that was investigating me was... I drank with him. So I took care of that. But I don't know how I got out of the Army with the record I had, because every step I took, every time I drank, as I mentioned before, I was on the verge of trouble. I was in a verge of trouble. So I want to amend to a lot of people in the military. And I used to run into them eight years after I got out, about ten years after I was sober. And my sponsor kept telling me the key to the ninth step is willingness. You've got to be willing to make the amend. That's the key. And I found that's true because I've run into people unexpectedly and I had the willingness to make amends to them. I'm so grateful for that. I thought my sponsor was probably the smartest guy in the world. He had the most wisdom of anyone I've ever met. Until I started reading the big book, and most of the stuff he was telling me was right out of the big book. He had experience, obviously, but he gave this stuff out of the big book. And so again, I'm very grateful for that. The tenth step, I do kind of spot check during the day. I'm retired now, but when I was working, you know, you get real busy. And I used to get real dizzy. Instead of just sitting down quietly and figuring out what was causing all this turmoil in me, I'd just keep telling myself, I didn't have time. I don't have the time. I don' t have time to do all that. And it ended up bad. I had eight years of sobriety and I was looking for a job. I was going to work for an industry. I mean, I ruined about three or four relationships, business relationships during that time. I mean through my ego, through my self-centeredness and I may have menaced at people, but you know it tells us sometimes words can't, you just can't make amends for them. There's some things you say that just hurt people to the quick, hurt them deep. And I was famous for that. the 11th step you know a few couple years about 3 or 4 years ago I looked at that 11th steps I must have read it about 500 100,000 times I guess and realized it said pray only for knowledge of his will from the power to carry that out that's what it says and that's what I try to do and the 12th step I try to keep my hand out for the other alcoholic and I've had a spiritual awakening You know, if you had taken a picture of me coming to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and recorded my language, you know that I had a spiritual awakening. I've changed through God, through God. God of my understanding. Those six children I have are doing great. Mary Ann and I have 13 grandchildren. I've never been the best father in the world I don't think I've been the worst and I used to have an awful lot of guilt about that tremendous amount of guilt that I wasn't going to do enough for my kids and the only thing I can say is that I did the best I could for what I had to work with at that time I guess that's still the situation situation. See, when I was drinking, I never, before I got sober, I had two girls and four boys. I never held my little girls and told them I loved them. Never. Ever. And since I got sobre, every chance I get, I tell them I love them. And I hold them. My oldest son I just went over to China and they just adopted two Chinese babies. I called them aside and I saw them about a year ago and I said, you know, I'm so proud of you. So very proud of your family. I'm proud of all of you to do that. To sacrifice. You went through to do it. Now he's the same guy before I went to Vietnam the second time I told him you'll never ever get in college, Michael. Ever. You don't work hard enough. you're not smart enough blah blah blah and he graduated with honors he showed me thank God he showed I just feel I have a very I've been very fortunate in Alcoholics Anonymous I've had wonderful people that have guided me have loved me have loved me well. Loved me when I didn't love myself. Showed me tough love when they needed to show me tough luck. I don't know, when I got sober everybody sat in the same seat at their home group. You probably can relate to that a little bit. You'd walk in and everybody had their seat. Now before you're aware of that, once in a while you'd get in one of their seats. And you'd be sitting there and all of a sudden you knew somebody was behind you. And you kind of glance like this around and there's old Tom or somebody standing behind you and you get up and give them your seat. Then you walk into a restaurant if the restaurant was crowded and a guy with a lot of sobriety walked in, you gave him your seat. There was no question about that. No question at all about that so we showed an awful lot of respect for the old timers. One thing that really confused me when I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because I was born and raised a Catholic I used to tell a priest in confession and I swore 500 times and I don't know it was a good guess I guess I used to confess about ten sins. If I did them or not, I'd just confess them. So swearing was a big thing for me. I really tried to... I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and these guys were on the podium I'm saying, God help me. God got me sober. God, oh, God, this, God that. I mean, you know, telling folks how great God was, how they worked in his life or her life. And then I kind of, you know how you're new, you kind of hang around and it kind of gets the group, you now. And here's all this F words and GD and this and that. And I said, I don't understand that. How can they get up on a podium, thank God for everything, and blah, blah, and do that? I couldn't understand it. And of course I realized then, I realized they're human, of course, like me. And I used to get involved with that stuff too. You know, you get a bunch of guys together, especially at work. And can you top this? And off goes the language. So I really try to watch it. Well, I think I've about had it. It's been wonderful to be up here and talk with you folks. I don't do this very often. Very, very seldom do I get up and talk. And I'm so honored to be here to talk. So honored. And I say this a lot in my home group and some other folks. Folks, I know I have a very precious gift of sobriety. I know that. I've known it, as I mentioned before, for the very first time I got sober. Not many people can say that, I guess. I never hear a bunch of people say that. Very precious gift. Not many People get it. We're very, very blessed to have it. That's my personal opinion. I know I can stay sober if I keep working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was telling somebody last night I feel like a rookie. I really feel like a rookie and I hope I keep that feeling I hope I I can keep that feeling until the day I die because that means I'm teachable I guess I just feel like a rookie but I'm so blessed to have that feeling of that I have a very precious gift and I you know I know I just know this hit me about four years ago I just know that when I die the God of my understanding is going to say you know I gave you a very precious gift of sobriety what did you do with it? What did you do with that gift? And I want to tell them I did the best I could. Just the best I could and I know that God didn't get me sober so I can sit home and watch TV every night under that but I know I just want to be able to tell the God of my understanding that I did the best I could. Thanks very much for listening.