Sandy B. Drops The Rock

...and I'm an alcoholic.
Hi.
For Chuck's benefit, I have to correct the anonymity break that I made in the program.
And so we'll just call Sandy Beach the location of the meeting
when this gets back to GSO, and I'll start over again and say,
My name is Richard, and welcome to Sandy Beach.
I came into AA on Pearl Harbor Day in 1964,
and I haven't been drunk since my first meeting.
And I've been to an awful lot of meetings since that first night,
and I've done a lot of listening.
And I'm convinced deep down in my heart that I owe it all to not drinking.
that is
my opinion of why I haven't been drunk
since my first meeting
is that
but that's really not a miracle
because you know in jails and nut houses
those places there wasn't any booze
and I wasn't drunk either
so there took place the real miracle
for me anyway
it was three or four months
when one morning I got up
And I was happy with not drinking, and that's contrary to the definition of an alcoholic.
I mean, that is where it was all about.
So I think it's important to mention the not drinking part, at least I think so.
Where I came in, I had a very rough sponsor, and he emphasized it quite a bit.
but occasionally I get into some more intellectual meetings
and we get to a higher plane and so on down.
You know, there may be somebody new here
who hears about the spiritual awakening
and peace of mind and all of those things.
And I hate to break the news,
but this not drinking part really fits in there.
I thought maybe in the beginning you could work the steps
and then you'd have a spiritual awakening
and you wouldn't have a problem with drinking anymore.
And it's very difficult to have a spiritual awakening
when you're throwing up in the toilet.
It's a problem.
And so if you've been having trouble over the years,
you know, check your drinking.
it's just a suggestion like the rest of the program
funny about those suggestions
you notice in the 12 and 12
it's very carefully hidden
but in almost every step there's a little
sort of a cautionary flag
and it says something like
failure to properly take step 4
could be fatal
and there's one in every step
there's just little hints along the way
as to the things
and I remember my sponsor telling me
what do you think that means
when you see that alcoholism is fatal
and I've been sober about two months
and I said well I think
what that really means you see
is that there's a certain degree in the allergy
and there's a certain type of reaction that can set in for various people.
And what you have, well, they expire, is what you have.
And he said, I think you've missed the point.
What that says in there is Sandy's going to die.
That's what alcoholism is, fatal.
and he was always getting my name into the big book
and getting me into the steps
because I didn't want to be an Alcoholics Anonymous
and I sat around and approached this like a course on alcoholism.
I mean, it didn't apply to me.
I just was going to be able to pass a quiz
in case there was one given later on,
but I just didn't have enough evidence
to support the fact I was a real alcoholic.
I had, you know, run into some difficulties along the way, but certainly none to, you know, put me down at the bottom of the list in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I mean, that was quite a step down from the nut ward to come in here, but that's the way that it happens to some of us.
Before I forget it, I know I have a couple of things that have happened to me out here.
It's really been an amazing set of coincidences, running into old friends, running into new friends.
And I just, I have to tell you before, in case I forget at the end and I sometimes get all mixed up,
you will never know what I've already taken away from this meeting, I mean from this weekend,
and especially the meeting this afternoon that's going to help me with my children
and some work I've got to do.
And I just have to thank you now.
I'm going to take away much more than I'll ever give, and I want to thank you in advance.
And running into my friend Rocky from Laguna, who some of you may know,
who was, is, and always will be the world's greatest fighter pilot,
who had a
I remember 21 years ago
when he put me on restriction for drinking
even then he had a strange sign
over his door
in case there's any aviators around here
he didn't even have that sign right
it said there are old pilots
and there are bold pilots
but there's no humble pilots
you know
it was a strange way
I'm surprised any of us made the program
The Pope has been extremely kind to this convention weekend.
You may think with the name Beach that you're free from any connection with bingo games
and throwing down, but my mother's name was Brennan.
and my story
childhood has really been touched on
rather in detail
but I've got to go through it again
because it's a very important part
I
looked at step four
you know step four divides us into two
categories
and we are either
the guilt
oriented or the power
drivers as it says
and in either case
we use one of those two excuses
not to take that inventory
either we're so frightened
of what we're going to find
that we don't dare look
or on the other side of the coin
we simply say
all of my problems were caused by alcoholism
so the mere stopping of drinking will suffice
and I will return to my normal charming self
that I was before I started drinking.
And in my case, I really couldn't say that about myself.
I can say that I'm very glad that I'm an alcoholic
because I wasn't going anywhere before I started drinking.
I had, you know, I was sort of a loser then,
and alcohol just sped the thing along.
It just picked up momentum
because I was brought up in New England,
and I, in Connecticut, and my parents, I think, were like a lot of people up in New England.
They were trying to teach me to be the proper snob, that feeling of that section of the
country which sort of looks down on the rest of the country, the way it's located up there.
And I was sort of skinny and nervous, and I was running around going, God, it's hard
to be a snob when you're not as good as the rest of the people, and I was, I didn't want
to tell them that I was having a problem with this, and so I was going around with the little
Lord Fauntleroy suits and doing these little schools and all that, and if that wasn't
problem enough, then I was sent down to have my first encounter with the nuns. And I'm
sure that the receiver was just as broken as the transmitter, and maybe all the other
little kids didn't hear what I did, but boy, I'll tell you, that was a strange encounter,
because my memory tells me that it went something like this.
hello little boy
or are you in trouble
you're in serious trouble
and sit down
we're going to tell you all about it
it's about time you found out about the world
and the universe
and where you fit in
and where you're going
and I found out about original sin
and I found out about what happens
to people who aren't perfect
and I found out that I was having a terrible problem
and I picked up a buddy right about that time.
It was a companion that I brought in to Alcoholics Anonymous
and it took me seven years to finally release this wonderful friend
that stood by me all through the years.
It was called guilt.
I had this guilt thing.
It was sort of an innate guilt.
It was a guilt that I was born with.
It's primordial guilt.
I mean, I was guilty. I felt guilty about not knowing what God wanted me to do.
I felt guilty about having done whatever I did to cause God to not let me know what he wanted me to do.
And then I felt guilty about wanting to get rid of the guilt.
Because I didn't deserve to get rid of the guilt.
Because I really was guilty of all the things that made me feel guilty.
Other than that, things were going pretty good.
There was...
Until I heard about purgatory.
And I got a scorecard, and I got a pad and a pencil,
and I started adding up.
And by the time I was 12 years old,
I had around 85,000, 86,000 years to do in purgatory
on just the things I had thought about doing.
I hadn't even done them.
And I kept telling my brain,
you've got to stop thinking that stuff.
You've got to be good.
And my brain said, the only way I can do that is if you keep your eyes shut.
And I had the same problem around a pool today.
I racked up around 25,000 years to wrap this up.
Oh, anyway, what I had to do with all this was keep it a secret and never tell anybody
and never share because I really believed, truly believed, that nobody else had this
problem.
I really believed that all the other kids growing up and the other teenagers as I got
a little older, had life in their hands and they were just living it. And if they ever found out
what was really going on inside of me and what kind of a person I really was and what God thought
about me and what was the real truth about me, it would be awful. And I had to be very careful to
never share anything about myself with anybody. So I've always tried to be sort of the snob and
off away from people,
mostly because they frighten me.
If I was in a strange city
and standing on a sidewalk
and somebody came up and said,
pardon me, that's my spot,
I wouldn't argue with them.
I would say, fine,
probably is his spot, you know,
the way they do it in this city.
Well, I know, I would,
I had to do better than anyone
in order to feel equal.
It was a strange set of things, and people frightened me, mostly people frightened me.
I was afraid to make eye contact with people, and of course when I got drinking it became
even worse, but I just had that problem that the secret, the truth, was going to come out.
So I had a problem with the truth, I had a problem with God, I had a problem with people,
But other than that, I had a pretty happy childhood.
I have to say that in case my mother's in the audience.
Anyway, I ended up at the local university in New Haven.
I thought that was a local place, Yale.
And so I got out of there and everybody said, oh, that's a nice place.
So I got there and went into a large reception room one night
and had the normal feeling that I had when I walked into a room.
There was about 50 guys in there from all over the country and all dressed up.
And I had the feeling they all turned and looked at me and said,
what's that guy doing in here?
That's the normal feeling I had.
I could see in their eyes that hostility.
I could see rejection.
I could just see what they were thinking, and I was terrified.
I said, what if these guys find out about me?
And they were passing some drinks around, and I had been keeping some kind of a pledge.
I don't remember what it was for.
Probably to cut the sentence in half or...
I don't know.
And there was tremendous peer pressure to just conform.
I decided that's my thing, conforming.
I finally have accepted that as a way of life.
And, you know, I learned that in AA.
That's how you succeed in AA.
You conform.
You can smell the original thinkers in alcoholics.
So, I always conformed, and that's how I started smoking,
and I got a proof card, and then I had Y-ties this way,
and I got all these teenage kids, and that's what they do.
And then they come home and tell me about,
this is how they display their individualism,
and there's a strange paradox in that.
I haven't figured it out yet.
But the drinks came around, and I took a drink, whiskey off the tray, and I drank it.
And I sat around waiting for this thing to happen, that happens.
I had heard people talk about alcohol and how great it made you feel.
And alcohol had no effect on me.
I can remember waiting for this to happen.
And I stood in a room, and I was waiting and waiting, and there was nothing happening to me at all.
But the room was changing.
And the people in the room were changing.
And I sat there with this whiskey in my stomach,
and I started looking back into the eyeballs around the room,
and it was amazing how the hostility disappeared out of those eyes.
And it was replaced with kind of a warm look.
And another drink, and the people became immensely friendly.
And some people were saying,
Hello, come over and talk to us.
and I just couldn't believe what was happening to the world
just because I had a few drinks.
The world became what it should be.
The world became sort of the brotherhood of man
and there was this warm, friendly feeling
and I was at ease with myself, with the people,
with God, with the universe
and it was just marvelous.
And I had this peace of mind for about an hour
and I never forget that hour.
And that hour is very important in my story, because at the end of the hour, I started throwing up.
And during the night, I practiced throwing up.
And the next day in class, I sat in the classroom with a couple hundred people, and there a teacher was giving a lecture.
And I was sitting on my chair, and all I was trying to do was stay on the chair.
I wasn't trying to take notes.
I wasn't trying to listen to the teacher
because I figured if I broke my concentration,
I might lose my balance off of the chair.
And I got a smorgasbord of alcoholism.
I cannot say that I wasn't warned.
I got a little flavor of everything
that I was going to get in the years ahead.
I got a little taste of the chills.
I got some of the itchy skin.
You know how you itch and it goes all around
and it comes back down here
and you're doing this little jiggling around?
I had a couple of little spasms and some cold flashes.
Then I had some nausea gas came through the room,
and I felt a, hmm, not just doing that with my mouth,
just sort of a little smattering of everything I was going to get.
Like God was going to say, here it is, buddy.
This is what will help you make your decision which way you're going to go.
And I made that decision that night.
The crowd got back together, and they said,
Sandy, we're going to go out drinking again.
Do you want to go with it?
And my body, especially my stomach, said, wrong, no, veto, out, out, no, no, no.
All of us vote against it.
However, the brain was in charge of the package at that particular point in time,
soon to be
overthrown
but the brain
was in charge
and it said
wait a minute
fellas
we're going to
have to consider
this
wait a minute
we're growing
here now
we're going to
think this over
we're going to
be objective
about it
let's analyze
it
let's take a
close look
at it
from where
I stand
all this
little
being sick
and a few
of these
minor things
that have
happened to
you
when you
really calculate
it is a
rather small
price to
pay for that hour that you had last night? And I thought about that, and I thought about
that, and I said, boy, you're damn right. And I went back out and started drinking with
the boys. And, you know, that's the same story I told myself until I got into Alcoholics
Anonymous. That's a small price to pay for all the fun that I'm having from drinking.
and of course as the years went on
the hour got shorter
and the trouble got worse
and the equation still balanced
so the only thing that was improving
was my ability to rationalize
that was getting better
that's the one thing that alcohol seems to sharpen up
and hone and get down to perfection
so that it came to
one time I got through down here
in Nuevo Laredo.
Oh, boy, over the border,
gone for three days,
and blackout,
and woke up in jail down there
and had to be back on a base.
I don't remember the weekend,
but my teeth had been knocked out again.
I have an 0-10 fight record.
and so I had all this money gone
I had to face my wife
and come back where I'd been for three days
and it was just, you know
and my conscience
which was always there when my wife wasn't
would say
well, what do you got to say about that?
I said, I'm not saying anything on Sunday morning.
I've got to get back.
I need a beer and all this.
And I remember getting back, and I told my conscience,
wait until I find the guys I was with,
and we'll let them decide whether I had a good time or not,
because I didn't remember the whole weekend.
And I got together with them, and you know how you lead people through
when you don't want to tell them you don't remember.
Hey, you remember Friday night?
And they said, yeah, yeah.
And I said, yeah, we were here and there,
and then I found I was dancing on a table,
and I did some of these other tricks.
And I said, well, in your opinion, I had a good time.
And they said, yeah, oh, you had a marvelous time.
And secretly I thought to myself, well, thank God,
because I paid a hell of a price for that good time.
And I was now willing to balance the equation with a rumor
that I had had a good time.
And I had a terrible problem with the second step.
what do you mean
return to sanity
I've always thought
very logically
and carefully
terrible problem
with that step
I uh
somehow one Saturday
up at Yale
the guys were sitting
around drinking
and they said
let's join the Marines
and I said
alright
I don't have anything
else to do
we're out of beer
um
and uh
six of us
went down
and ha ha ha
and um
I was 14 years later
I got thrown out
I got thrown out of the Marine Corps
after I got into Alcoholics Anonymous
which is a strange story
that two years sobriety
and got passed over for the second time
and all of a sudden I'm a civilian
and I had six children
and I didn't have a job
and I was resenting it
and I sat around my house
and self-pity came in the window.
I don't know how it got there.
I was working the program perfectly.
And I said, I got cheated.
And I started talking to God.
I said, you know, what kind of a deal is this?
You know, it doesn't seem right.
It doesn't seem fair.
I remember how all these thoughts were creeping through.
And I guess I had been out about two months.
And I was reading the newspaper, and there was a small article in there about a plane crash.
And there was a team of officers in the Marine Corps that went around the country giving instructions.
And that was the team that I was on.
And they were all killed.
And if I had had my wish, of course, I would have been on the plane.
And I can remember sitting there feeling rather foolish.
That was the first thing that came over me.
And I remember I tried to make a joke out of it.
And I said, listen, God, if you had just told me, I mean, I really didn't like the Marine Corps at all anyway.
And I just disregard all of what you've been hearing this morning and the past few days.
And it's funny because things do happen to us.
And then we have to stay sober and let some time go by.
and then all of a sudden the reason for it happening.
But only if we're not drinking.
Only if we're not drinking.
I look back on that incident and I go,
gee, suppose I started drinking.
I would have been down at the bar with the other losers
who wouldn't be reading the paper either
and we'd all be going.
Isn't it unfair how these things happen to us?
And so it is a good lesson for me that that incident did happen.
But anyway, this crowd got into the Marine Corps, and it was a terrible ordeal,
and I soon found that I was not fit physically or mentally to carry on the duties of an infantry officer,
and so I signed up for flight school.
That looked like the only logical alternative to my dilemma,
and I spent the next 12, 13 years
flying around in various kinds of jets
and I don't know,
I really don't remember a lot of it.
But the,
I do remember this,
that Marine Corps was kind of my hobby.
You see, a hobby is something
that you give about two hours a day to
and then the rest of it was being an alcoholic.
Because this disease was progressing right on schedule.
When I read Marty Mann's Primer on Alcoholism after I got sober,
I thought she had been following me around
because I just fit the page-by-page description of her book to a T
and it ruined my uniqueness.
It was a terrible setback to read that book.
But I did spend time at various places around here.
I was in Southern California for a year or two.
and overseas, and so on down. But all those things are kind of background music to being
an alcoholic. Those parts of our stories are interesting and so on down. But to me, what
I like to remember is what was going on inside of me. What was I thinking about when all
this was happening? Mostly what I was thinking about was being afraid. Mostly what I was
thinking about was that somebody's going to find out about me. Somebody's going to find
out about the real me. And I loved alcohol because it sort of quieted these fears. And it gave me a
chance to be somebody else. And I would be loud and laughing and carry on and pretend. I always
pretended that everything was all right. It was critical to pretend that everything was all right.
I had been taught growing up that it was a sign of weakness to ask for help,
that that would be a very vulnerable thing to do because it's a dog-eat-dog world.
And if you ever asked for help,
then the people out there would know that there was a chink in your armor,
that there was a crack in the wall,
and then would attack this weakness and would come right in.
And so it would be very dangerous to ask for help.
And a real man solves his own problems.
The real man in the American dream pulls himself up by his bootstrap.
none of this stuff going around sharing and uh all of these things this you know and i i learned
this i don't know where from books i learned it from movies i learned it from what i thought other
people were saying and you know the cowboy movies are kind of like that you have a western hero he
lives out in the desert alone with his horse and whenever there's trouble in town they call on him
and he comes in he has those black gloves on he goes into the bar has a couple of drinks he says
where's the trouble
they point out the trouble
he walks over
he shoots the guy
and the townspeople go
we love you
we love you
and he runs back out
of the desert
with his horse
and um
and now there's a real man
that's a real man
um
and you know
I think about that now
and I want
it's really weird
to live alone
in the desert
with a horse
it's uh
the whole thing
about that is um
That was a strange thing to want to be, you know, to be like that.
And I never understood things.
I would hear songs.
There's a song out now that I think alcoholics could well use as a theme song.
It's called, I Did It My Way.
I could have latched onto that when I was drinking, boy, you know.
I don't care what the rest of the world says, man, I did it my way.
Well, I'm here in jail, but I got here on my own.
everything's all right man i did it my way you know and uh then i would hear songs like people
who need people are the luckiest people in the world i remember the first time i heard that i
said that must be for weird people that must be that's a strange thing to be popular people who
need people are lucky people who need people are weak
uh it just didn't fit into my lifestyle you know being a real man uh mostly i was afraid
that was what i remember about being an alcoholic was being afraid terrified of the truth terrified
of the very thing that could set me free from all these fears but i didn't know that so i just went
along doing the best I could. I like the word victim. I really do. It appears in the grapevine
occasionally. I think it's in, I don't know, step four or five. We're victims, and we really are
victims of my character defects, victims of the way I was put together, and all of these underlying
problems that displayed themselves in alcohol, and all of these patterns that had me going off
in a self-destructive manner.
I didn't know how I got that way.
And, you know, I just, that's the way I was.
And I had to live with it, and I used alcohol,
and that seemed to be the best way out.
I can remember before I got into daily drinking,
what a terrible problem it was to get through a day.
And how I got into daily drinking,
you know, we don't intellectualize,
I don't think, the morning drink.
I don't think we're reading the New York Times,
and we go, hey, look at there, everybody drinks in the morning.
I think I'll get some vodka and join the high society.
I don't think it happens that way.
I think it happens maybe the way it happened to me,
which was I was sitting around Squadron somewhere in the middle of the afternoon
having my usual problem, which was time.
The clock had stopped on the wall.
I had looked up there and it was 3 o'clock and my body was saying,
hey, it's time to leave.
there's raw nerve endings down here
there's the stomach that's on fire
we have problems
we have an emergency down here
and the brain is going
forget it man
we've got another hour and a half
we're going to stay here
we've got work to do
there's a colonel standing over there
you can't just get up and walk out
and the body's going
you're going to have to reconsider
the body was sending things up
finally one day the body
and all the nerve endings said
listen we've taken a vote down here
and we vote that you leave now, right now.
Not 4.30, right now.
And I'm going, can't do it.
I'm sorry, I'd like to accommodate you guys,
but we've got to hang in here.
And the body said, wrong.
Take a look at your right arm.
And I remember looking out at my right arm
and a big spasm went like that.
It was just a...
And there was a message
a message came up
it was like a warning
and it said
that's just a warning you
now get the hell out of here
we don't care if you have to lie
we don't care if you have to cheat
we don't care what you have to do
but you're in trouble
if you don't get out of here
and so I said
well I'll think it over
and I thought it over
and I came up with some reason
and then left a little bit early.
You know, I compromised, put the time in half.
But I was getting out of there because I had to have a drink.
There was no two ways.
I saw the trembling start.
I saw some of the things that were going to happen.
And yet I had to pretend that it wasn't happening.
I had to pretend that everything was all right.
And I remember going into the bar after driving over there,
just shaking and sweating and just knowing that the booze was almost here.
And I walked up to the bar and the bartender said,
yes sir
and I said
oh I'm not in a hurry
why don't you wait on him
and
and all of these
components of my body
are going
what is wrong with that man
what
what is he doing
because my eyes
were to
had given the show away
my eyes could see the alcohol
right over here on the bar
about six feet away
and they had sent the word down
to all of these parts
that needed the alcohol
and it was like the dog
on the Alpo commercial.
You ever seen Ed McMahon?
They don't let that dog eat
for about three days
and they hold that bowl
of Alpo up there
and that thing is shaking
and they go,
man, I can hardly wait.
He knows in just a second
that everything's going to be all right
and that's what was going on
inside of me
and here's this guy saying,
oh, that's all right,
wait on him,
I'm not in a hurry
and I started to take a cigarette out
and I saw somebody looking at me
and I suddenly realized I couldn't light that cigarette.
And then I said,
well, I guess my friend was going to be a little late,
so why don't you go ahead
and give me a triple vodka martini on the rock while I'm waiting for my friend.
And then everything inside knew it wasn't going to be long now
and I got both hands on that thing
and took three big swallows and put the glass back down
and then stepped back from the bar and waited
and waited for that magic to happen,
I waited for my higher power to go around.
And it all started in my legs, which had been so rubbery.
And they worked out all night.
I used to get up in the morning like I'd been in a marathon.
I don't know what my legs were doing.
They just went muscle spasms, tightening all night.
And suddenly this alcohol, vodka, went down through those legs.
And I was standing there just as solid and comfortable.
I remember feeling how that felt when it came up through there.
Then it came into the stomach.
and it was like a cold foam that puts out fires
and it just came racing through that stomach
and I just went, oh, God, does that feel good.
And then it was moving out towards those fingertips
with the speed of light.
It just went down and out
and all of a sudden I just felt, ooh.
And I looked over.
And I looked over at the guy who had been looking at me
when I was reaching for my cigarettes
and I looked him back in the eye
and I took a cigarette out
And I said, he thinks I've got a problem lighting this cigarette.
And I took a match and very slowly brought the match in.
Hello there.
And I felt full.
I felt good.
I felt good because I was almost there.
I was almost there.
There was just one last little thing to be taken care of.
And that was the brain.
That was the last thing that got taken care of by this vodka.
and this was the brain that had been so distorted
and was so confused
didn't know it would go this way, that way
and couldn't make decisions
and the day was so confusing and terrifying
and all of a sudden the vodka just rushed up my neck
into my head and it just went
and I took another look in the mirror
and here was a guy standing there
without a problem in the world
looking around
And I remember standing there, and I would say to myself,
I wonder what had me so upset when I came in here.
I must really have a high-pressure job.
I must really be into, you know, wow, isn't it lucky that I have alcohol?
Isn't it lucky that I have this to help me through what I have to go through every day?
isn't that lucky and little did i know who was what and what was who i look now about alcohol
you know alcohol is kind of like reverse insurance if there's any insurance salesman here this is a
new policy that we could create for alcoholics reverse insurance this is his concept works like
this a guy works very hard for his money and then he takes some of the money each day and he goes
into a liquor store
and he hands the money
over to the guy
in return for a guarantee
that his tomorrow
will stink.
And that's
that's the option
that we purchased there.
I was in there
every day going
is this the right stuff?
Oh yeah,
you're going to be
rotten tomorrow.
This is it.
Good.
And as long as I drank that
I would have to be back
to buy another bottle.
As long as I drank that
I had finally gotten
to the point where
the reason that I was drinking
was because I'd been drinking.
that was the reason that I was drinking
I needed the booze to calm down the thing
I needed a booze to settle down the nerves
I needed it, needed it
and there was no choice
and so I had to become a daily drinker
I did it kind of a strange way
I started having withdrawals in airplanes
I started flying around in jets out of Cherry Point
and I can remember several times
getting in Crusaders
and I probably hadn't eaten in three or four days
and I would get in there
and I couldn't remember how to start it.
I would just sit in there
and I said,
you shouldn't fly.
I mean, you know.
That thought occurred to me
and I realize now why I thought that.
I didn't trust the pilot of the plane that I was in
which was me
I had the feeling I was too valuable to go up with what was left
but I remember a couple of times flying around
and I would have heart palpitations
and then I'd lose my vision
I would just have just enough to see the instrument panel
and I would say that vision has to come back
it has to come back
And I would fly around up there waiting for it.
Flew around a couple of times with my hand on the injection seat.
And I said, by God, if I go out, pass out, I'm just going to pull this thing and fly out of it.
And, you know, you just can't keep that up very long.
So I finally went to the doctors.
And that I do only when I realize the mortician is waiting out there.
It's the only reason I would go to a doctor.
That's the last place that I want to go.
but I did. And to make a long story short, after two weeks in Pensacola, Florida, after I had
gone through very extensive physicals, they left it up to the psychiatrist to decide what was wrong
because they couldn't find anything physically wrong. And of course, I had lied and I had told
a few stories. And the psychiatrist said, this man is suffering from a childhood fear of airplanes.
We recommend that he no longer fly.
And I had my wings taken away, and boy, that was worth getting drunk over for years.
I mean, it was a terrible experience to go through.
And so the Marine Corps had to decide what to do with a guy in this shape.
And I was amazed when I got a set of orders to go to the Federal Aviation Agency School in Glencoe, Georgia,
to become an air traffic controller.
And now I was in charge of bringing planes in in bad weather when they couldn't see the runways.
So I feel very grateful that nobody died and things like that.
And I was into my last year drinking, and now I was drinking around the clock.
I was overseas, and I was in charge of one of these units,
so I passed on the real controlling to other people,
and I just sat around and drank and didn't eat.
And I lost about 35 pounds that year from malnutrition
and just sort of stayed in a quonset hut and sat around
and didn't really go out much and didn't talk to people.
And life was a very terrifying year to just be alone.
And I can remember one time I still had to rationalize.
and I had passed out on a Saturday noon,
and the package store closed around 3 o'clock for inventory.
And I woke up, and it was about four minutes to three,
and I was out of booze, and I needed a drink desperately,
and I had left a little message to myself.
Don't run out of booze.
I remember seeing that little note.
And I said, a lot of good that did.
And my hands were shaking, and I went to put my shoes on,
and I had taken them off with the knots still in them.
and I had run through what you run through over in Japan.
You're always stepping in those banjo ditches,
and the knots, the leather had shrunk when it dried,
and I had a fork in my hand, and it was trembling.
It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
I had 90 seconds to go, and I'm working with the fork in my hand.
I thought I was going to have a heart attack on a Saturday afternoon
in a little Quonset hut trying to get the shoelaces off of these things.
And finally I got on my bicycle and rode over to the guy.
I was just locking up when I got a bottle of vodka and came back and poured it down.
And it calmed down things a little bit.
And I went, oh, boy, am I glad that problem's over.
But my conscience had to talk to me.
And my conscience said, wait a minute.
Since you're a grown man, you're 33 years old, captain of the Marine Corps,
you've got six kids, you're from New Haven, you're a wonderful guy and all that,
and you're standing around on a Saturday afternoon with a fork in your hand
trying to undo knots and everything.
Your life is a mess.
You've got to do something about it.
I remember I couldn't get this out of my mind.
I had to take action.
I was being forced into action.
So I sat down and I honestly tried to see my way out of that,
and I think I did.
I went over to PX and bought a pair of loafers.
and came back and really thought I had made progress.
I thought I had solved a problem, and I felt good about it.
It was strange.
But I was sent back from there to Quantico to become the next Commandant of the Marine Corps.
I was in one of these career schools, junior school, stepping stone, moving right up the ladder.
And I was at junior school one day when my body stood up as if to ask a question.
I had no intention of standing up that day.
And I went into a grand mal seizure.
And that caused a lot of consternation.
People looked around, who is that guy?
What's his name?
And everybody's going, let's see.
Well, I just moved up the ladder.
You know, people were moving up in seniority.
And there's a lot of Marines right now who are lieutenant colonels and colonels
who never would have made it without me.
They only looked good because they were standing next to me.
On their own, they had nothing going.
But next to me, they looked so great.
We'd say, God Almighty, are we fortunate.
So I ended up at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, and I was sent up to the tower where all the
VIPs go to find out what could have caused this convulsion.
I was there about 24 hours when I went into the DTs, which explained what caused the convulsion,
and I was immediately removed from that section of the hospital, and I came to, I don't know,
a week or two later, back in that place where there's no doorknobs, and they take away all
sharp objects. And I came through in a bed with sides on it, like a crib. And someone
wrecked the bed that I was in. And I remember being back in there. And you ever been back
in there? Were there any clay class people, basket weavers? Okay. And they wouldn't give
you matches and you had to keep a cigarette going. There were three of us back there trying
to keep his cigarette going 24 hours a day.
One guy would smoke,
and the other guy would lie over there
and try and rest.
And there was a fourth guy,
it was a Navy captain over here
way over in the corner.
He couldn't get in on this.
He had to keep his cigarette going
all by himself 24 hours a day.
And I remember looking over and I said,
now there's a guy whose life is unmanageable.
There's a guy with a real problem.
I'm all right.
And a corpsman came around a few weeks later,
and he said, all you drunks, fall in.
Right face.
And I was at an AA meeting,
and I really hated that,
and I told the guy afterwards,
I said, listen, if I ever run into a guy with a problem,
I'll send him around.
It sounds like you've got some answers here.
And he said, let me ask you one question.
which one of us is going to go home tonight to his family
and which one of us is going to put his little blue bathrobe on
and go upstairs and get locked up like an animal.
And I really resented him.
I resented the truth very much.
And that was before the Navy had its alcohol program.
We were just all mixed in with the other people.
And, boy, alcoholics were down at the bottom of the line.
I mean, schizophrenics looked down at it, and neurotics looked down at it.
You know, they would find out I was an alcoholic, they wouldn't talk to me anymore.
They'd just walk away, and the pecking order soon set in.
I realized that the position that I had skyrocketed to at that moment in time
was low man in a nut ward, you know.
The other mental patients were looking down on the alcoholics.
And you know what those damn people used to say?
I'll never get over this.
These are the people that are locked up in a mental institution.
At group therapy, they used to turn to us alcoholics and they said,
do you know what they used to say?
They used to say, you know what you guys ought to do?
You ought to stop drinking.
You know what I mean?
Wow.
Wow.
You know, the next time I heard that was in AA.
Anyway, I'm very grateful that the corpsman marched me down there
because even though I did have another drink
and went into a brief encounter for about a couple of months
and really got desperate and dialed operator and said,
please help, help, and a huge guy showed up at my house.
And he walked in and he said, hi, my name is Bill, and this is a 12-step call.
I talk, you listen.
it was sort of a strange relationship
that got started right there
and it was my house
and he just sort of
and he just came in
and he said okay
here's what we're going to do
you're the wife
get over here
you sit down here
and okay
now this guy's going to be busy
for six weeks
and we're going to be going
to a meeting every night
is there any booze in the house
oh there is
and I watched him
he's poured it all out
and I'm going
Uh, sir, could I ask some questions?
Would you like to hear about me and everything?
No.
And we went to a meeting, and I'm in an AA meeting,
and I'm sitting there.
My first AA meeting, I've been sober seven hours.
Do you remember seven hours?
Sitting on the hands, and I'm going,
I think maybe there's some booze in the mellows.
There has to be some booze somewhere.
And I spent the whole night, couldn't find any.
And he had told me when we got out of the car,
okay, you, don't drink,
and I'll pick you up tomorrow night at 7.30.
Goodbye.
And he drove off.
And now I had a problem.
And he was so big and so mean-looking,
I decided to postpone my drink until the next night,
until I got rid of him.
And he came back, we're off to a meeting again.
And we come back, and I started to tell him
how busy I was
I had a social schedule
and all that
and he said
okay don't drink
I'll pick you up tomorrow
at the same time
and all of a sudden
time was going by
and lo and behold
I had been sober
for 30 days
and I started hearing
things at meetings
the alcohol was coming
out of my system
and to make a long story short
in the next two or three months
what I really heard was
there was certain nucleus
of people in AA that I identified with.
And they had a sparkle in their eye
and they had a smile on their face
and they had a zest for living
and every single one of them said
that they got it from the 12 steps.
They got it from the 12 steps.
And it seemed to work like this,
that you had to not drink
in order to work the 12 steps
so that you won't drink.
That was what had to be done.
it wasn't just not drinking.
We had to fix all the things that were wrong
or odds are I was back to drinking.
And so I got a hold of the 12 steps
and took them all around 45 minutes.
I was very fast, very fast.
Went right through them
and sat there waiting for the spiritual awakening.
I wanted this feeling.
They all talked about it,
the peace of mind,
that marvelous feeling that comes in.
and it really didn't happen
but on the other hand
I was glad I read through that book
at least I had seen all the words
in the twelve steps
and there came the time
as I worked through the first
and the second
that I came to the one
that gave me the most trouble
which was the third step
because when I got to that step
I was suddenly confronted
with God again
and I suddenly had
a childhood fear
explode inside of me
and I called my sponsor
and I said
is this step referring
to the God
or
I mean you know
the real God
I mean the one
the one there
and he came over
and I told him about
the emergency that I had
and we had to do something
about this
and he sat down
and burst into hysterics
which he always does
with my problems
I don't know what he does
his problems. My problems are always funny to him. He sat down and, oh, you've got the
God problem, huh? And I'm going, I've got a God problem. You don't know the God problem.
I've got 275,000 years minimum to do in purgatory, and you turn my life over to him. He's the
one who gave me this. I was this big. I'm not turning my life over to him. We've got
There's a problem here.
He said, wait a minute.
You don't have to understand anything about God at all to turn your life over.
He says, we're going to go.
You're kind of a weird case.
You have a lot of problems.
We're going to have to do something a little bit different.
He says, I'll tell you what we'll do.
Why don't we have you turn your life over to whatever will take it?
And then we'll have the miracle.
And I like the miracle part.
I heard about the miracles in AA.
And I said, we will have the miracle?
And he said, yes, I'll guarantee you a miracle if you will do that.
So I said, okay, I'm going to go along.
What's the miracle?
He said, the miracle is that the management of your life
will no longer be in the hands of an idiot.
That is the miracle.
So I stood back,
rather skeptically
watching this whole procedure
felt like I'd been had
turned my life over to the group
and I said you guys want to
go ahead I'll do anything you suggest
you got it
I'll watch
but boy you're going to hear from me
because you know
and I'm here tonight to report
geez you're doing a nice job
I'm very satisfied with this
and it's from that
that I came to understand
who God is
my own God
It came to me through the difference
Between turning my life over
And not turning it over
God to me is the difference
Between living a life with and without God
I don't have to understand God
I just want a God who understands me
And that's what's happened
And I know that he understands me
He accepts me for all my faults
And all the problems that I have
He says, you're alright, you're doing fine
Don't drink, go to meetings
you know
we're hanging there
everything's alright
and I'm going
I'm glad to hear that
I'm like a little boy
he wanders off
and you know
we want our mother
to come running home
we've been scared by a dog
and my mother says
it's alright
and you know
that's what happens to me
and I run out there
and I have a big problem
like I'm running in
and my spouse says
it's alright
and I go
are you sure
and he says
yeah
it's ok
ok
that's good enough for me
if you say it's alright
it's alright
you know
and all that's happening
is that something's changing
inside of me
and the second it changes
the world's alright
the world's alright
and you know
if there's anybody new here
and I hope there are
some new people
there's one last thing
that I think you have to do
in order to have
the miracle of AA take place
all you have to do
if you're new
is don't drink
turn your life over to God
and get rid of
all of your old ideas
that's all we ask
that's all we ask
that you do
when I heard about
all my old ideas
I realize now that all of my old ideas
was my whole game plan for living
my whole plan
everything, every conviction, every attitude
every prejudice, everything that I had
about the world are my ideas
and it was like carrying around a 150 pound
rock
but it was my rock
it was mine
I put this thing together
this was the real me
was this rock.
And I came in here
and it was like I was in the ocean of alcoholism
and A.A. threw me a life preserver
and I'm hanging on to that rock.
I'm not going to let that thing go.
This is my rock.
And they're yelling out there,
drop the rock.
No, man.
You can't drop the rock.
I'm hanging on to a life preserver
and the boat's gone along
and I'm going under with the rock
and hanging on
and I got the thing
and they're going,
hey, drop the rock out there.
I was down under
and everybody's going,
it's great up here,
come on up.
I said, how do I get up?
They said, drop the rock.
And I'm like,
hey, I don't want to drop the rock,
it's mine.
And,
And so finally one day, I don't know, something terrible happened.
It took my attention away and I dropped it.
And I was terrified.
Who knows my route?
And while I was looking down there, I was like a water skier.
I came up on the top of the water and I'm going,
what the hell do I want that rock for anyway?
And you know, that's it.
Why we want to hold on to those old ideas with a death grip, I'll never know.
It's one of the paradoxes in AA.
And so if you're new, I hope this happens to you,
and I want to be sitting out there next year, the year after that,
whenever it takes place, because this is how I'll know about God even more.
I want to be out there when you, some new person out there,
standing up here, and you've got that sparkle in your eye,
and you've got that whole vitality going about Alcoholics Anonymous
and you're looking at some new guy and you're saying,
drop the rock.
It's the greatest.
Thank you.