Pacific Group Meeting – Anthony H.

My name is Tony, I'm an alcoholic. It says here there's a light. Okay, ah, that's it. My name's Tony, I'm an alcoholic, it's good to be here. It's a privilege to be hier, as it is at every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And it's certainly a privilege to be asked to speak at a Pacific Group meeting. I want to thank Marilyn for asking me. I want to thank Clancy for the Pacific Group. I don't know if I got billing right but what is it like what happened and what is this like now well I drank for 15 years which is not long compared to some drinking stories I've heard but it was long enough for me and I suffered enough pain at the end to stop or to get help as you can tell by my accent I'm from across the water. I'm Welsh, which is a very good reason to be an alcoholic. The Celtic disease. That's what I heard when I first came into Alcoholics' Arms. And what happened was that I, ever since I was a little child from the age of four, I'll just fill you in about my background. When I was four years of age, born in South Wales, my first memories of school convinced me that I was from on the wrong planet. i certainly didn't know what anyone was talking about i had no friends no school kid friends i was the source of worry to my parents especially my father i was the only child my father used to say to my mother there's something very wrong with this boy which is not the best foundation for mental health or confidence he didn't mean any harm by that but that's what he said well i can remember him i can remember lying in bed when i was a kid and listening to to my father next door, whispering to my mother or talking about me. So I didn't have much confidence in myself. And I used to sit at the back of the class in school with my mouth open and I didn' t know what they were talking about. And that stayed with me right up through all the years, through my adolescence, which is a painful time for everyone, my adolescences, through my early adulthood, if I ever reached early adulthood. Right up until that first night in the Pacific Palisades meeting on December 29th, 1975. And I sat in that big room, and a man called Chuck C. got up there to speak. And I realized that I was not alone and that I'd somehow come home. I didn't take that in intellectually, I understood intuitively down in my gut that I'd arrived home. That something had happened to me, that something significant had happened to me to change my life. Now it sounds very simple, but that is exactly what happened. And it changed my life. When I left school I had no future at all. By a series of accidents I sort of stumbled into the acting profession and I became an actor and I thought that would fix me. And I thought if I could work hard and really achieve success then I would be fixed. the feelings inside me would go away and of course there were moments when they did seem to have receded then about the early 1960s I started drinking in real alcoholic way I was doing my military service or draft I didn't get into any trouble with booze when I started thinking the early 1960s it was the beginning of a rapid descent into what I describe can describe as hell and I worked in my profession I was I became a successful actor early on. I always worked, I was very little unemployed, but I worked harder than I was necessary really. I used to be ahead of everyone three hours a day, so we'd get to rehearsals three hours ahead of everybody else, seven o'clock in the morning, so that I could beat everyone at the game, so I knew all my business, I knew everything that was meant to be known, so nobody could cross me and especially directors, anyone in authority could even look at me in an odd way I get them and I knew my stuff I knew what I was talking about oh so I thought I knew a lot but it was killing me because I started getting quite successful in my job and the feelings got worse and worse and worst I don't want to dwell on that side of my life because that's something that uh was all part of it but a lot of extraordinary things started happening. In 1974, one of my big dreams was to come to America and I came to New York to do a play and I discovered the magic of the American bar they don't close like we do in England. I'd also discovered tequila. I've been in America about a year before here in California and I discover tequila and I love I love tequila, and it did things to my brain which really were a warm-up for this program. I went back to England in 1974, early 74, and I used to watch television, and I knew I was coming back to America to do this play. And I used watch television and I watched programs like Starsky & Hutchins. I remember saying to my wife when I was looking at one of these films, I said, I bet they all drink tequila. and she not being an alcoholic gave me one of those strange looks that they give you uh-huh she's one of these very peculiar ones you know, she drinks a glass of wine regularly at six o'clock every night pours the rest of it down the drain sometimes she pours it back into the bottle if she's poured too much she smokes two cigarettes a day and doesn't inhale I don't know what her problem is she's very strange she's not an alcoholic and I appreciate that because that's the way she is and I have friends who are not alcoholics and they still have puzzles and the old friends I've got a friend 30 years standing and we go out to dinner sometimes and they my wife and his wife and he they have a half bottle of wine between them I went away to Cummins and they taste it my wife usually does the tasting she's the expert and she swirls it around in her mouth I thought what the hell is she tasting and then she looks away she goes a bit nutty yes, I think that's going to be okay they leave it very odd but anyway 1974 I came back to America I came to New York and I couldn't wait to get to those bars and I started my job, I started rehearsing and I turned up for my first rehearsal. There was a party the night before the first rehearsal day and I turn up smashed, drunk, out of my mind and insane and I told the playwright what was wrong with this play immediately I told everyone else what was ong with them there was one woman in that party who was an alcoholic and is an alcoholic and is a member of AA and she looked at me with one of those AA smiles The name is Mary, and I think it was because of her, through the grace of God and Mary, who really saved my skin. Because she didn't do the... She didn't lecture me, she just smiled at me a lot. And she knew I was a full-blown alcoholic as soon as she met me, and we started rehearsals and the play opened up. It was a very successful play, and she used to keep an eye on me, but she never told me anything about alcoholism. other people pointed it out to me and they said you know Mary's an alcoholic she's a member of AA Scarborough woman I said is that why she smokes so much because she'd have to smoke herself going crazy and they say she doesn't drink anymore what they were doing they were feeding me with this information and one night I took her out for a drink over in the pub or at the bar whatever and I didn't try to force drink on her but I knew that she was an alcoholic and I asked a few questions and then things got worse for me towards the end of my run in New York in 1975. I was very, very ill one night and I'd been smoking a bit of grass. That wasn't my booze was my thing but I was fairly drunk one night, and I've been smoking Acapulco Gold, whatever that is. The CIA and the FBI were after me and so I asked Mary, I said listen can you take me out tomorrow? Can we talk because I'm in bad shape? She says yeah. So we went out to lunch next day and she She told me all about alcoholism, she told me all about this program, but in a very simple, insulting way, she said you know, if you don't take the first drink, you can't get drunk which was very insulting to my intelligence and she said it's like getting on a subway from Park Avenue and going all the way down to the Bowery so you can get off any stop you like. I thought, what the hell is she talking about? She said, it's just like an elevator going from the top floor to the basement. You can get off at any floor you like I thought. What's she painting these pretty pictures for me? I said, I know that She said would you like to come to a meeting? I asked, no no. She said okay, and she smiled at me, she said well maybe you're not an alcoholic, I said I don't think I am, I've just got a problem with thinking. So I stayed dry for six weeks and it was okay and I felt quite comfortable. It's one of those deceptive things, the devil got into me, I stayed dried for six week and I really felt okay. I didn't want to drink, I should go to the bar, drink gallons of tonic water and diet pepsin and all that stuff but But I felt all right. And I had one scare. I'd been in the hospital in New York with a clot in my leg because my lifestyle was getting to me, and this doctor said, you're going to die one day. You're goingto die pretty soon. He said, how old are you? I said, I was 37 then. He said well you're gonna die soon. He said I don't think you'll make it until 40. And I got out of hospital and that didn't scare me. I went back to the booze. I went to drinking. I went everything else. But anyway, I got those six weeks dry under my belt and at the end of my last night in New Europe went to a party and I thought, well, I've got no problem with this now because obviously I'm not an alcoholic. I'd been able to handle it and I poured into my Diet Coke or whatever it was, vodka, tequila, whatever it was. I can't remember. And that was the beginning of... I don't remember much about that night. Remember nothing in fact. Next day I got on the plane and came out here to California. June 30th, 1975. And I stayed dry for a few more days. I was so shocked and disgusted with myself because I thought well, you know there's something wrong with me, but I stayed dry and I started work on a television thing. I was up at the beach here at Malibu and I saw this actress who said would you like a drink at the end of my first day's work? And I said no I better go home because I think I've got a problem with it. She said well she's you know we'll want just one it's only 5 30. I said what is it? She said tequila. And she added one of those coffee cups, polystyrene cups you know and I could hear the ice rattling around and then I said well just one. And six months later I woke up in AA and that was the worst thinking of six months of real hell I started hallucinating I spent time up on Trancas beach I didn't know where I was most of them I started talking to the sea and it started talking back to me and I really did hear voices and I started having quasi-religious experiences which is very strange because I was an agnostic and I saw uh I saw visions I really didn't see visions I went out of this trailer home one night up in Trancas, I think it was up in trancas no Paradise Cove it was and Paradise Clove and I walked out when I came back in and I said to these people in this trailer I said I've just been through the Milky Way because I looked at the stars and they came right down to me I thought I'd be touched by God and I was in hell and what happened to my wife my wife left me she went back in christmas 1975 back to england to let me die and get on with my life or whatever i was choosing to do she didn't know what was up she didn'T know what WAS going to happen uh she'd had enough she was tired and exhausted and she never nagged me she was born for alanon but she never nag me she never said anything she never got in my way she used to cry sometimes quietly on her own that used to really get me she WENT back christmas 75 and i went off to arizona in the blackout and i stayed in some hotel down there and i had visions of becoming country Western singer, believe it or not. I sat in this bar listening to Tom Feehaw singing Old Dogs Watered Melon Wine or whatever that was. Oh and Billy Holiday, yeah those good stuff, Billy Holiday. I played this over and over in this barn. These people get fed up with me and they throw me out of the barn. I went up to my room in a pretty dirty lousy hotel and I wrote on a piece of paper, I met myself in Phoenix Arizona. I thought that would make a good country western song and i i put it on top of the wardrobe it's probably still there i ought to go back and see if it's still there because in fact that was the irony of that was that i did meet myself in phoenix arizona i came to terms with something and i got back on uh december 27th i drove back my poor car was wrecked because i you know sort of speeded back and i was falling asleep at the wheel and all that was going on i got back to to my apartment in West, you know, Wilshire Boulevard and it was the loneliest Saturday night that I've ever spent, December 27th. And I went down to the Beverly Glen Market and I bought my bottle of tequila and orange juice and I was, whatever I was going to do, I was just going to drink myself into the ground or dead. I didn't want to go on, I was so tired and I were so fed up with myself and sick and sick to death with myself. And I, as I was standing in the line-up waiting to pay the cash at the cash register, this this woman who was standing in front of me, and she said to the man behind the desk, she said, no, it's a disease now, alcoholism. And I thought she'd been planted there. I didn't know who she was. She looked at my brown paper bag, you know, the drunk old skeleton brown paper back. She has a disease. They say it's progressive as well. I didn' t know who he was. I didn''t know who her name was. But anyway, I got back to my apartment, and it was the beginning of the end of everything. And I felt that loneliness, the loneliness of an alcoholic. I don't know, maybe other people did, but that loneliness that I certainly felt was the loneliness of the alcoholic. That deep, gnawing, burning loneliness. And I looked across the square of the outside department and the shadows were getting longer, it was 5.30 in the afternoon and I wanted to die and I felt like dying and I thought the saddest I've ever felt. I felt all those country western songs. The phone rang and somebody invited me to a party up in Beverly Hills and I went to this kind of nice house, I remember, I don' t remember much about it and I was under the piano most of the time arguing with someone who later came to this program and somebody said I think it's time you went home and my agent was there and I stood on the doorstep of this house and I said somebody's stolen my car he said no they haven't stolen it he said you drove up here and then you drove off he said we came and got you don't remember us now he said well you left your car outside your apartment in the middle of the street, with the radio on and the lights on. He said, you don't remember? I said no. I said, I know one thing, I'm an alcoholic and I need help desperately. I said I'm finished. And what had happened at that moment is instead of eucalyptus trees outside this house it all flashed before me. Mary in New York flashed for me and the really thing like Nancy said in the first speaker the car, the thing that really got to me the thing who woke me up was that I could have killed somebody I didn't care in the end whether I was going to die or not. I couldn't care less. But I could have killed somebody. That was that deep shame that I could have actually killed somebody, I mean, the total madness of really driving blindfolded in the blackout. And I said to this fellow, I said, I'm an alcoholic and I need help. And he took me back to his house because something had happened, some little pilot light went on in my head. And I started to sober up from a lot of booze that night, from a load of alcohol that night. I started feel sober. My head started clearing very rapidly. I went back to his house up in Benedict Canyons and when I sat there at Ed's house, he looked up the number in the book of AA and I talked and I said it's over, I'm finished. And I said I don't care anymore what happens to me? I said, I just want to get the heat off. I said really want to get this monkey off my back and I was using those terms that I later heard in AA. I may have heard them somewhere else but I talked about the monkey in my life. And he looked at me, he said I know what you mean. I can't stop drinking and I've got to stop. So on the Sunday I sat in my apartment thinking about AA and thinking about getting sober, which is very dangerous for an alcoholic to think too much. So I'm very fortunate to be alive and here tonight. However, I didn't drink that day and next Monday morning I phoned up the Westwood Los Angeles office which was on Westwood Boulevard, the western office and an elderly lady answered the phone, her name was Dorothy and I said, my name's Tony, I'm an alcoholic and I need help. She said good. I said, she said, do you want somebody to come around and see you? I said no, no I didn't want anyone in a dirty raincoat coming around to see me a bottle in the bible so I drove my car into Westwood and I parked it down by some down over those old railroad tracks that used to be there and as I was walking across I thought well maybe I'm making too much of a big deal of this alcoholism you know I'm an actor, I'm dramatising my life too much you know calm down and this other voice that went on simultaneously in my head said just get your ass to that meeting and do something for yourself for once in your life just move now it was a big deep voice like something out of a radio show and I walked up the street and I phoned the office and I walk up the stairs I believe the office has moved now but I walked upstairs and I woke up to this room and there was this elderly lady called Dorothy Dorothy. And she was everything I needed to meet at that moment, and the artist wasn't what I expected. I expected to see people lying on the floor with six days of growth on their chins, like a weary willy, you know? I expected an AA. I thought people would all hold hands together and say, you can go out and drink on Thursday, and then we'll come out with you, and you can drink on Saturday. That's how I thought it worked. I didn't know what it was. I had no idea that it was the beginning of a whole change in my life. So So I sat in this room and Dorothy talked to me. She said, I'm finished, I've beaten them, I feel terrible. She said that's good. I said I feel awful. She said That's wonderful. I said, Can't go on. She said. That's Wonderful. And I looked into her face and thought she's either crazy or she's probably a Salvation Army woman who's going to bring out the tambourines. I didn't know what it was but I didn' care. And I said What do I do? She said Well you go to a meeting tonight. And she told me that she was there because her husband had nearly died and he was in the motion pictures business, and AA had saved his life. And she wasn't actually a member of AA herself, she was just there looking after the phones, because she wanted to pay tribute to AA, and because of her husband. She wasn't allowed to stay on in the office, unfortunately, as the years went by. But she was so grateful to our colleagues, none of this was done for her family, for her life, and for her husband, that I stood up to go, and she said, somebody will come and get you tonight, give me your phone number. and as I stood up I knew she was going to zap me with the the bad word God but I knew it and I wanted her to do something because I wanted something I wanted some help I wanted someone I wanted power to come into my life I knew that much I didn't know anything up here but I new something had to come in to me to help me or something had to come out of me to help and she said why don't you just come home and rest and trust in God and I something welled up in me and I knew it was over The jig was up and I just grabbed her and I hugged her, and I didn't like touching people at all. I didn'y like anyone coming near me. And I felt very emotional and I got out on the street and as I was walking back from my car the most remarkable thing happened, and it lasted a couple of seconds, I can't remember but I remember the details of it, a big voice said, It's all over, now you can start living and don't forget one moment of it because it's all been for a purpose. Now get on with your life. And I think that, I know then what that was, I have no theories about it, but it was the presence of a power, God. I don't understand it to this day, but I believe and I've tried to figure it out, that it is the best part of myself, the very foundation of my being. That came out of me and was part of the essence of life that is in all of us. I'm no theologian so I can't explain that. But what happened at that moment is that the craving for alcohol left me at that moment about 11 o'clock in the morning 7 29 9 75 let's never come back so a miracle was at work in my life from that moment on so much so that i called into a catholic church in ohio street and i saw a priest walking from the church back to his office like can i talk to you mom he said yeah sure come on i said i've just found god he said congratulations and here he said well something's happening is i don't know what it is what happened i said an alcoholic i've just joined the year i think he said that's great he said i said is it religious as well well, if you found God, you shouldn't have any problem with that, whether they're religious or not. I swore something's happened. He said, well, that's good. He said you've been had by God. I said, what do you mean? He said well it's been, you've being had by god. He said You've been surrendered somehow. He said like being seduced. It's like being had in sexual terms. I said really? I looked at him he had that little kind of collar on. I said Really? He said Yep. He said That's what it was. He said but you know he said AA is a great organization. he said I know a little about it but you just do what they tell you and I got back to my apartment and later that afternoon I poured what beer or whatever I had in the fridge I poured it away that afternoon the phone rang and later that morning the phone ringing somebody called Don on the phone he said my name is Don I'm an alcoholic is that Tony yes yeah so I hear you you need help us yeah if you had a drink I said no he said because we're devious sons of bitches all of us and he put the phone down he said i can't take you to meet somebody else for him. About an hour later, somebody else called George. George C., I'll never forget it. He said, my name is George, I'm an alcoholic and your name is Tony? I said yeah. I said, I think I'm an alcoholic. He said good, I am going to pick you up. What's your address? I told him. He says good, I'll pick you at 6.30 and he put the phone down. I thought damn, I can't stop him coming now because I've got to go. The cunning mind was still working, you see. I still wanted a way out but I knew it was over. I knew I had to go through this. At 6. 30 that night, the bell rang downstairs and I went down and there was George. He was everything I expected. He had a light blue jacket on, he smelt of aftershave lotion and he looked like a Southern Baptist. And he had steel grey hair and crooked teeth and he had his girlfriend with him. She chewed gum. She said, Hi honey. I sat in the back of their car and I forgot I'm in with the loonies now the moonies. or he drove up over sunset and I could see the back of his grey head and he talked about the ego and he'd never shut up for the whole they talked about bottoming out I didn't know what he was talking about but I knew something and I thought I'm really in with the crazy people now but I don't care I do anything they ask me to do I don' t care anymore we put him in the car park of the Pacific Palisades group at a big meeting out there that's my home group although I live in London now and as I got out of the car there was an elderly fellow walking ahead and he was an actor i'd worked with he's quite an old man and uh he was walking ahead down into the main meeting and i said to george what what's he doing here he's an alcoholic i said is he really i said i just worked with him he said well he's not a colleague like you so went down and bob was in the room and somebody came up to me a woman is introduced to me and her name was laverne and george said this is tony he's got 24 hours she said that's fantastic and she jumped all over me I thought, this is promising. Bob came over and said, hi Tony. He said, we worked together last year for one day on the publicity thing. I said, hey. He said come on, I've got to... I said what are you doing? He said I'm an alcoholic. I said oh. I said I think I am. He said good. And I went and sat down and this old actor came up and said hello Tony. He said how are you? He said there's a chair waiting for you. I'm glad you made it. He knew. I said did you know? He just gave me that smile. He said yeah I knew you were an alcoholic all right. I sat there and the first speaker was this Dr. Don from Palos Verdes and he looked like everything I dreamed of from The Lost Weekend. He had blank black hair and his face looked like he'd been walked into a truck. His name's Don and I'm an alcoholic. I thought, there's a real alcoholic there. And I'd always loved the word alcoholic. I was in a play once, a television play some years ago before I stopped drinking my last year before something and i actually said this thing and i said i'm an alcoholic in this play and i sent to the director of the space that's a great word alcoholic i'm a narcoholic and i was saying it in this case i think that 12 stepped me about 18 months later because i looked at this guy i thought there he is this is the man and he talked about uh he talked about his car being alcoholic he only had one headlamp and uh you know and only one windshield I talked about drinking vodka or whiskey out of his ski poles I thought these people were crazy and then we had a coffee break and the next guy that got up was a man called Chuck C and he was amazing and he said my name's Chuck I'm an alcoholic and he says by the grace of God I'll have 30 years sober this January I thought he must be suffering from brain damage how could anyone have 30 tears But what happened that night was that I sat between Bob and George, and a whole education came to me. In a flash. They talk about near-death experiences. Well, I think maybe this is what I was going through in another form. Because I don't know how, because I'm no intellectual giant. I'm not intellect at all. I am not too smart. But something happened to me, something rushed through my head, something rushed into my consciousness which told me everything I needed to know for those moments and really saved my life because I realized that everything I'd been looking for had come to me that moment that I'd finally come home and I don't know how I grasped that I'm only glad I did that I came home and I didn't even get my act together because I'd be trying to get my acts together all my life and Chuck C said that night he was brought up to outsmart everyone and outwit everyone and he ended up in the squirrel cave my father said that to me God rest his soul my father was an alcoholic I believe and he said you know how smart then before they can outsmart them you get them before didn't get you don't trust anyone and my father said all those things but he never acted like a big softy like all our dollars are but he tried to be tough you know and he tried to make me tough I wasn't I was a big softly I was just mush inside and after the meeting I remember I looked for my checkbook I thought I've got to pay these people because I now knew that I was absent that absence from me were craving to drink something had happened in that one night now being a quick study in many ways I thought I better not trust this too much I was taken over after the night and I met Chuck C and he said I just introduced him and he was told that I had 24 hours on a sober day he put his arms on my shoulders he said Jesus keep coming back he said because we get better than better he said we are suffering from a seemingly hopeless disease we get better than better he said God love you and all that he gave me a hug and went on my way next night I was in 2 plus 2 in West Los Angeles in Westwood Boulevard. And I saw God is love on the church window, the metal window and that really put me off. And what really crucified me was the word hope. I got very depressed and I wanted to leave and Bob who's sitting here tonight said came back with me so you don't have to leave and he came back and sat with me and listened to me uh he doesn't like my telling him telling these stories but anyway he helped me a great deal that night. He made me laugh and I think within my at the end of my second week I was at Roday and I heard Clancy speak speak, so in two weeks of supply I heard Clancy and I heard Chuck Z. And they had such impact on me that I realized that this was the best thing that could have ever happened to a person like me. And free. Didn't have to pay for it. Most amazing education I've ever had. And the years have gone by and the days have gone away and they've turned into months and years i don't know how this works i know that it works extremely well but it is like the kingdom i guess that we've been looking for in peace and spirit i don t understand it because what i put into this program and into this life is nothing compared to what i've got back i've been given an abundance and these last few years it's like something has slipped away from me like um i keep thinking those rocket ships that go off you know and they jettison parts of themselves as they escape the earth's orbit it's like parts of some kind of ballast keeps slipping away and i feel lighter i don't understand it i don' t have to strain for it i go to meetings and i hope i'm helpful i hope I carry the message in my imperfect way i'm in a profession where there's a lot of competition there's there's a lot of drinking, a lot drugs at the table. But I'm having the best time of my life. I'm havin' the very best time in my life and I can't, I cannot take credit for it. I feel like I cannot credit for him. Somebody said to me over there, you should. I said well maybe. But I got here because I had nothing, nowhere else to go. What's that green light for? Is that it? No. I haven't, I had nowhere else the go. And I came to America in 1974 looking for fame, fortune and a big pot of gold. And I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. Much to my surprise it was the last place I ever intended to come to. So it's been an amazing journey. The weird and peculiar thing I get about my life now in a strange way and I can't really describe it is that in a stranger way it's none of my business. I get out of bed in the morning and I am not a deeply religious person, I don't know what I am. Sometimes I have a lot of doubts, sometimes I think maybe there's nothing there at all but then I check out and I think well how have I stayed sober for 18 years? Through groups like Al-Khalihtan, The Pacific Group, through people like Clancy, through Jack Seed, through Bob, through all of you, but how? so I don't analyze anymore try not to anyway and just accept because I said to some of them when I got sober I said why did it happen they said why not so for my not very smart brain that's a good enough answer why not screen light to stare him in the face I don' t really have much more to say except that I'm immensely grateful I don´t want to go on talking because if I run out of I am so grateful this is the best thing that's ever happened to me it's the best think that's never happened to alcoholics and I go back over the years and hey my spiritual home seems to be in Los Angeles I live in England that's okay I come back here and I my car drives itself now I seem to I know it so well yeah this is my spiritual homely nicely old friends here that I haven't seen for some years so clancy at the beginning and it's like a whole history what i find is incredible is the longevity is the actual continuity the continuity i saw my old friend tommy yesterday and it was the continuity so many of us could have died and so many are dying at the moment not knowing what's killing them and i'm glad that night when i was able to identify myself as an alcoholic when i read those 20 questions and i got 19 of them right And I cheered. I thought, yes! I've identified the X factor. I've identified the brand mark. Drunk. And it's like a medal. My drinking years are all part of my sobriety. I wouldn't have missed it. I don't want to go back there, but I wouldn' t have missed it for the world because I've been given two lives. Not much more to say. Except I thank Thank you very much. I thank Marilyn, I thank Clancy, I thank you all for a wonderful life. God bless you all. Thank you.