The Intellectual Arrogance of the High-Functioning Drunk – Charlie B.

Where was I? I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me, and I would like to thank the Bemidji Area Hospital for making it possible. the last time I was in this neck of the woods I had a little problem and I had to interrupt my talk but for those that weren't there I'll start at the beginning I do have the privilege of serving as your trustee at large and my territory just as he mentioned is the continental United States the Virgin Islands Puerto Rico Hawaii and Alaska and in May I'll be going to Greece and Turkey I don't know how you figure that but it's a busy time and it's an happy time and I feel very blessed to be a part of this wonderful fellowship I love to talk to groups like this because well it's a little bit like preaching to the choir but I just love people that are in service You'll hear people say, you know, 5%, 10% of the people do all the work. Yeah, isn't it wonderful? I feel guilty sometimes for getting all this in return. The more you give it away, the happier it becomes. I absolutely feel guilty. We're taking up all this. I don't feel put upon at all. Well, to the story. i always like it when people say and they usually start by you know it's my responsibility to tell what it was like what happened and what it's like now i do that by sharing my experience strength and hope but on page 29 of the the big book it tells exactly why we do that And we do that each in our own way to show how we establish the relationship with God. And I find no quarrel with a beautiful spiritual fellowship that we have, and I would like to try to point out what it did for me and what it didn't do for my life and how it changed my life. I was born in Dallas, Texas. Actually, I wasborn in Highland Park, and those of you that know anything about Dallas I realize that immediately establishes me as a snot and a snob. You see, before I came along, my father had wandered into East Texas and he drilled a wildcat oil well and hit the Hawkins oil field. When I came long, living in Highland Park, we lived in a house where we had an upstairs staff, a downstairs staff, someone to drive the car, someone to cook the food, a yard staff. I want to tell you something. It's pretty easy to get used to that. It's not a half bad way to live. Early on when I was sent away to go to kindergarten, that sort of thing. I remember one day I brought home a paper and it had a gold star on it. And my parents went absolutely bananas over that. It wasn't like a good job. It was like what color pony do you want? I wasn't six years old when I discovered the way to get along in life. It was simply to collect gold stars and I set out the rest of my life to try to do that. And I went through grade school and high school and did well. I brought home gold stars as often as I could. My father had an ability and I had the same ability but I never told him. It's called eidetic imagery and eidetic imagery is a fancy word for photographic memory and so school was real easy for me but I never let on I felt like I was working hard for all of this unlike a lot of alcoholics I just felt secure I had a good time in school gosh, I loved girls right away I noticed they smelled better and they were more fun to be around I was sort of popular in high school but eventually it came that time when I graduated and it became important that I go away to college and my father had his Ph.D. in geology my mother had a master's in geology she had a brother that preceded me he was a geologist so they sent me away to the University of Oklahoma I wanted to become a petroleum engineer, fit right into the family business, all that sort of thing. I went to OU. Now, up until that time, I hadn't drunk a lot more than any high school student drinks. I'd had a few beers on the weekends with the guys, you know, and that sort OF thing. I remember the first real drink I ever had. I knew it was a real drink because it had an umbrella in it. And it was probably a vodka Collins, all this fruit, a little vodka. And that was really important to me. That was a transition in my life. Now, it wasn't like a lot of alcoholics describe. At the time, it didn't go down and just set me afire and things. It was just an act of growing up and becoming an adult, you know, a pimply little high school student drinking a drink with an umbrella in it. You know, I should have been thrashed. But that became important for me because I'd noticed My parents had done a lot of entertaining at the house, and they would have parties on the weekend, and all these exotic people would come, and it was just something mysterious would happen because after that first round of drinks or that second round of drink, the volume of the party would increase, and the laughter would increase. I knew that that was something about being from the time I was the littlest of children. I knew there was something important was happening there, and it was sort of a ritual of adulthood. Why couldn't I partake of this magic elixir they were having? It just looked so exciting. They had such a good time doing this. It was explained that, well, you can do that when you're older. So being an adult was going to be an important stage in my life, and that vodka column symbolized that as far as that was concerned. I remember the interesting people that used to come to the house. There was one guy in particular that always wore khakis and a fedora hat And he seemed more like a big kid to me than an adult because he liked to go out in the backyard, and we'd play pitch and catch and everything. Years later, I realized that was Howard Hughes. He used to drive by all the time back then. I found myself at the University of Oklahoma, and I started in and spent four years there and graduated with two degrees, not just one, but two degrees. One was a degree in psychology The other was a decree in history You add up your assets that you get from that And it qualifies you to do one of two things And one of those things is sell used cars And I didn't want to sell used cards But I had all these gold stars That are attributed during that time Including a Phi Beta Kappa A few things like that So I went on to school. Went on to school and got a master's in psychology. More gold stars. By this time, I'd been married and had a little boy. Well, what did I do then? I go to school that's what I do. I collect gold stars. Went to Harvard and got an master's in mathematics. Something almost practical. I've got four degrees and a little girl on the way by this time. So what did I do? Naturally, I went to school. Spent several more delightful years. Got a Ph.D. in general experimental psychology. Along the way, I was acquiring these gold stars and doing well. I won two awards for outstanding research, and I'm sure you're all familiar with my research. You probably have a copy of it at home. You don't? I'll send you one. My master's research, which I'd won an award for, outstanding research award that year in psychology in the United States, it was on the effect of ionizing radiation on bar-pressing behavior in a white rat. See, you've got a copy of that, I'm sure. I remember in 1963, I was asked by the International Congress of Psychologists to come to Moscow and present that paper on ionizing radiation, and I accepted. Within a week, I had a letter from the State Department saying that that was ill-advised, that they couldn't prevent me from doing that, but they didn't think I should, And you've got to realize, 63, the height of the Cold War. Naturally, with an incentive like that, I went right away. I didn't have interest or anything like that at the time. My instructions were to go to Helsinki, and they'd find me. And sure enough, I was met by two people at the hotel in Helsinki. We went the short distance to Leningrad and boarded a train, and off I go to Moskova, heading for Moscow. And got down there, and the night before I was to deliver my paper, the next day they came to me. Remember, this is the height of the Cold War. They said, you can deliver your paper, however English is not an acceptable language to deliver it in. And I pointed out that my Russian was a bit shaky. Don't laugh. I knew five words by that time. Four of them were for different types of vodka. I discovered that an umbrella wasn't a necessary component in a drink of vodka, and I opted to give it in either French or German. Those were the two languages I'd chosen to be proficient in because I knew I was going to go on for my doctorate, and you have to show proficiency in two special tools, which are usually languages. and they said, well you can give it in German so I wrote out a nice little translation that I can read and write languages very well I don't have a good ear for it I remember getting up and delivering that paper and being a little disappointed they seemed puzzled and I sat down to a rather quiet and mannered applause I just mentioned that years later I was in a bar in New York City called Sullivan's It's down on 8th Avenue, not far from where the conference meets. And I was having an opportunity to use my fluent German at that time, and I was talking to these two gentlemen, and they seemed to have a little difficulty understanding me, and I wasn't sure what they were saying. I was a bit disappointed, but I attributed that to their inability to consume large quantities of alcoholic beverages and understand anything. But we were playing that alcoholic game. You know, I buy them around, they buy me around. I buy them around, they buy me around. I thought things were going flawlessly when they got up and just sort of stumbled out in confusion. I think I was a little bit ticked because I believe they owed me a round at that time. You know, we keep track of those things. I remember the bartender coming over and saying, sir, what are you speaking? And I said, well, German, of course, to which he replied, they were speaking Polish. Whoops. I remember wandering out on the sidewalk that night, and I remember tears starting down my face. I realized that something was going wrong, and I didn't know what it was. I remember standing there for probably 15 minutes in just total confusion and walking off. But getting back to getting my doctorate in general experimental psychology, I'm sure you realize that research. You certainly have read that. That's the perception of geomagnetism in the Belgian homing pigeon. Earth-shaking research. I graduate with my doctorates in psychology, and what do I do? I collect gold stars. I went to school. I went to Oxford and did a post-doctoral. I lectured at Oxford, and spent a delightful year there. My son started grade school in England. Things were going well, but I was raised in this culture, and it's a culture that demands that you be productive in life and that you do something. I must admit, I was feeling a pang or two of guilt because in all this time I was living on generous checks from home. And I believe that my parents were at the stage where I believe they agreed that it was time to get a job. So I added up all the things that I was qualified in and all of my assets, and it came out to two things I could do. I could sell used cars or I could teach and it seemed to me that being a teacher has a bit more panache so I opted to teach and I sent out a number of VTi that's PhD talk for resume I sent a lot I sent on a number of them to a number of departments and I let some of the professional organizations. I went to a couple of the professional conventions and set up some interviews, and I set up five interviews to go talk. I remember the first one I went to. Now, during this whole procedure, I don't think I was still drinking alcoholically, but my consumption of alcohol was regular and steady. I was a daily drinker. I was a day-to-day drinker throughout my drinking career, but it was still at a sort of a manageable level, and I certainly enjoyed it. It had a relaxing influence on me. The first one I went to, I flew into a little town. I flew in to Columbus, Georgia because this town didn't have an airport. Rented a car and drove in to Auburn, Alabama, University of Auburn. My instructions were to go to the chairman of the department's office. I showed up there at 8 o'clock, observe I'm looking at my watch. That won't mean a damn thing. I don't pay any attention to my watch, I just ramble on until someone throws something or I sit down. I remember he looked up at me and said, well how did you find us? And I said well not surprisingly you're on the map. The interview started going downhill from there. and he said well you're teaching a class in four minutes i wasn't aware i didn't bring any notes or anything so they ushered me down there and i saw right away that uh that this was going to be a stressful situation because the entire faculty and all the graduate students were in that class and so i got up and told them probably more than they ever wanted to know about bar pressing behavior in the white rat and the effect of ionized It has radiation on it, on the same. And it ended up I taught six classes that day and went into the lab and showed that I knew how to hook everything up and use it. Later I found out that they had decided, psychologists being sort of weird ducks as you know, they decided to do a stress interview that day. I stood up to the stress apparently fairly well, but at 5 o'clock we were all assembled back in the chairman's office Listen, I remember them saying, the chairman saying, Dr. Bartell, I think you would really enjoy the city here. The azaleas are in bloom right now. Would you like to go out and see the azalea? Or would you rather come to my house for a cocktail? I thought, some choice. And not surprisingly, I opted to go to his house for cocktail. I don't know whether we observe how earth people out there drink, But after I'd slugged down about my third and was rambling on about my position on personality theory and emotion and learning theory and all these things carrying on, one of them said something very unusual. He said, you know, one of the things that we're most proud of here at Auburn is the fact that we do not allow the sale of alcoholic beverages within two miles of the campus. Well, scratch Auburn. I got up and excused myself, got in that rental car, took the first available flight out of Columbus, Georgia. Already alcohol is making important decisions in my life and I'm totally unaware of it. Totally unaware. Remember that next interview? It's at the University of Washington in Seattle. Went well. Next interview I had, now this was 1966, Next interview I had was at Berkeley in California. I want to tell you, in 66, Berkeley was happening. It was an exciting place to be. But I had two more interviews to do before I make a decision. Interestingly, I got a job offer from Auburn, Washington, and Berkeley. I go to the University of Southern California where I had a job interview lined up. I apologize that I didn't have Nebraska on the list, but I'd had enough of this part of the country at Oklahoma. I wasn't a Big Eight fan, I'm sorry. That was in the days of Bud Wilkinson, by the way. You don't want to hear what the scores were then. Let's see, Oklahoma went five straight years undefeated. Try that on for something. But Southern California was nice. I remember, God, I'd never seen legs like that and as much blonde hair. It was nice, I could run Norway a real run for blonde hair, but I guess it all came out of a bottle. But I have one more interview to make, and I flew in and landed at an airport called Moisan Field. That's the name of the airport in New Orleans, Louisiana. I take a taxi to go in, and I asked the taxi driver, I said, what time did the bars close here? Because it was in the evening, and he was confused by the question. He'd never heard of bars closing. I had found civilization. I went out to the chairman's office at Tulane University that day, next day. Get there about 10 o'clock and he welcomed me and he said, well, we'll go have lunch in the faculty dining room. So we eventually wandered over there about 1130 or so and I noticed grafts of wine on the tables. And I asked about that. I thought that was unusual. He said, well, that's one of the perks of teaching here That's free. At 1 o'clock that afternoon, I signed a contract to teach at Tulane University. Totally oblivious to the effect alcohol was having on my life. Making major decisions for me. I was unaware. Well, I'd like to stand here and tell you about an exciting and wonderful career of teaching. I enjoyed it. I loved everything about it. And one of the reasons that I was sought after and everything was that what they really wanted, particularly in that time, is the height of the era of publisher parish. This time I'd already published 77 times. And I was a known entity. And the ideal thing for them was that I teach a couple of classes, but mainly that I grind out three or four publications a year. I'm set up to do all this research. All my teaching obligation was simply on Tuesday and Thursday, and it just didn't happen. My research started gravitating to bar stools, bar stool to bar stool. And in my second year there, I got a letter from Stockholm in Sweden in the Physiology Committee of the Nobel Prize because of my research, and when the bird were considering me for a Nobel Prize and they wanted a copy of some of my data and everything, which I forwarded to them. Now, to me, that was intimate of winning it. I'm already thinking about learning a little Swedish so that I can thank the king properly when he gave me the Nobel. and I'm still waiting. At the end of my third year there at Tulane, I hadn't published anything. I was having difficulty making classes. I went into the chairman and said I didn't think things were going well and he agreed with me readily and I suggested that I take a sabbatical and concentrate entirely on my research and get things off the ground. He said, well, you haven't been here long enough to take a sabbatical with pay. And I said, can I take one without pay? That would be fine for me. I can support myself. And he agreed to it. I left Tulane that afternoon. The semester was over and I never went back. Something I love so much, teaching. I never went back. My research went on from barstool to barstools. I remember one year on my income tax return, I put down where it says occupation regular in 155 neighborhood bars. God, I was always fighting the internal revenue. They don't have a real sense of humor. They got mad when I put that down. I remember the next year, I put out wastrel. I thought maybe something Shakespearean would get their attention. It did. But during this time, things started happening to me. I made several investments that were paying off rather handsomely so I could sort of afford to do what I was doing. and my parents had passed away, and I had the wherewithal to do pretty much what I wanted to do. My wife came home one day with a guy that ran a radio station I had locally and announced that they were taking the children and leaving them. They were in love. And the psychologist came forward to me. Rather than spouting off, I said, well, let's be adult about this and sit down and talk. And I pointed out that perhaps they were being hasty and that all we needed was maybe a trial separation, and I would move out the next day. Boy, that was a mistake. I moved out, and two days later there was a bang on my door and there was process server at 5 o'clock in the morning, and they hit me for desertion of my children and I was being sued for divorce wow, made me furious I did the only thing a guy in my position could do I went to Hong Kong I was really confused before I left I told the attorney that represented me pay them anything they want in alimony I mean, that way they'll have a hard time getting married. But keep the child support to a minimum. And when I got back from Hong Kong six months later, everything was in the works. My child support was $2,000 and the alimony was zero. I was still enough of a businessman to know the alIMony was deductible and child support is not. I remember paying that all those years up until both the children became 18 I owed one last payment for my daughter my son was already away in school and my wife came by and said an interesting thing she said you know you've been rather noble about the child support why don't you skip that last check and I thought, whoa, and give her an excuse to say I didn't pay all my child support and I sort of thrusted on her and she left and my daughter looked up at me and said, you know, Dad, we've been living with you all these years. I don't think you really had to pay child support. Whoa! and you people you people had the audacity to talk about unmanageability when I found you well at the height of my At the height of my drinking, I had an apartment in San Francisco and one in New York City. I had a place in Hong Kong and one on London and a home in New Orleans, and that's where I lived. And to do that, attorneys had advised me you can never drink and drive, so I just basically gave up driving. I had drivers, and I hired enablers, and these were people to get me on and off of airplanes. And I thought I was a jet setter. It was interesting that the true jet setters would do anything to avoid my company. And I though I was having a good time and living the life that everybody envied. Eventually it came to that point, and I was the drinker in bar rooms and things. I liked the feeling of having tabs all over the world. and I could call up and have them buy around on that house. God, I was obnoxious. And there came a time when I could no longer physically make it. I had to give up my places and the rest of the world and I found myself in my house in New Orleans and four blocks from there is a neighborhood bar and I'd be transported to that home and that was it. And then there came a year of not knowing whether it was daylight or dark. Largely irrelevant to the lifestyle there anyway, but I couldn't keep track of time. I'd have to physically notice the sun. In the last year of my drinking, I did something really disastrous for a drinker to do. I decided to give up eating. and food would be prepared for me and I'd try to eat it but I just couldn't it became unpalatable I can understand these young girls with anorexia they don't feel hunger I was taking in enormous amounts of enormous amounts of empty calories if I had to go to the bank or do some sort of business I'd put myself on a maintenance schedule which was a court of Jack Daniels and I could maintain on a court in a day, and I thought to appear sober. And that led up to daily drinking. Well, once I gave it up for Lent. I remember for 24 hours I shook. I almost went into serious DTs, but that proved to me that I wasn't an alcoholic because I couldn't have possibly gone for 24 years without. I remember giving any thanks to any deity at hand and taking a drink. So I gave it up for 24 hours in a period of 22 years. That led to an afternoon, a morning that I woke up on December the 7th, 1987. And I started to get out of bed, and I couldn't. My legs wouldn't move. I reached down and felt them, and I had no feeling in my legs. So that's in a little panic. And I noticed how my breathing was labored. And heck, I used to teach physiology. I realized what was happening. My sympathetic nervous system was shutting down, and I was dying. And I really panicked because I was dying and there was no way for me i was alone my kids hadn't been around to see me in months and months no friends and i couldn't get to a bottle of whiskey i was gonna die without a drink i looked all over on the nightstand and there were from the night before a half glass of jack daniels and i sort of gave thanks i remember taking it and removing a cigarette butt i've always been neat. And it went down so well, and that was my last drink of alcohol to this day. I set the glass back down, and the panic started in again, and I'm having to concentrate on my breathing. It wasn't automatic, and when I heard the back door open, I realized it's morning and my maid had gotten there and I didn't want to cry out and appear pitiful so I waited and it was probably 10-20 minutes but it seemed like hours and she finally came in and said oh you're in bed and I said yes I've decided to stay in bed all day today I don't have anything else to do and then she said the magic thing well can I get you something And I said, yes, I would like two bottles of Jack Daniels, please. She said, two bottles, yes. She said whatever and she left the room. And I'm waiting and I'm waiting. About 20 minutes later she walks back in and she sets them down and neither one had been opened and I realized I don't know whether I'll have the strength to open it. I thought well when she's out of earshot I'll just break the top off of one i thought i could probably drink one and uh half of one before i die and it just seemed like a splendid splendid thing a splendid way uh it's obviously not suicide guy drank himself to death you know and i didn't have the courage to pull a trigger if i had a pistol but it seemed like the solution to everything the kids would be taken care of i'd be out of the way and about five or six minutes after that thinking i'm going to summon the strength to break that top the back door opens i hear all this commotion and my two kids coming in the room it was a long time later that i realized she had called him and my son spoke to me like no son should ever speak to a father he said get out of bed you're going to the hospital and I said why and then he said these words Cindy and I think you have a problem with alcohol I got two bottles right there logic hits me I say it's Friday the doctors won't be in town I promise to go Monday I swear I'll go Monday it was easy to make that promise I was going to be dead by then and he said I'm not giving you that option get out of bed and I started crying and I'm my heritage is principally German and you know, you never show emotion in front of your children they're certainly not a stranger you know when we got married my family was, you may now shake hands with the bride and he says, what is wrong with you? And I said, I can't get out of bed. My legs won't work. Besides that, I had wet the bed and I didn't want my children to see that. Pride probably kills more alcoholics than anything else. False pride. And he didn't give me that option. He walked around and jerked back that sheet. He reached down and picked me up like you'd pick up a rag doll. I was just amazed at his strength. And told his sister, pack him what he might need. And I was sort of rudely taken outside and thrown in the back seat of a vehicle and off I'm trundled and I'm taken to a hospital and I go to an emergency room and there they're doing all the things that emergency rooms do. You know, they've got to weigh you and take your blood pressure and take your temperature and check your credit. All that medical stuff. And I'm confused, and I know they're weighing me, and it got me in a big sling affair that sort of jacks up off the... I later found out that they'd gotten a scale from the morgue that they used to weigh bodies because I couldn't stand on a scale. And the nurse calls out my weight, and she calls out 105 pounds. I said, that's ridiculous. I've weighed 185 pounds since I graduated from high school. She called it out again, 105 pounds and then things got hazy on me. You know all that time I knew I was losing a little weight but it was like if I eat Saturday it'll come back and I didn't notice that gauntness. Today I weigh about 150 pounds and that's all my frame will take. boy I lost calcium, I lost muscle tissue I lost everything during that time and why I didn't die I don't know neither here nor there but I remember waking up in a room and I looked around well at least it's a private room these are the things that were important to me and a nurse came in and she said oh you're awake I'll go get your doctor and the doctor wandered in and he's a neighbor of mine And she says, Charles, I've talked it over with your two children. And we are going to transfer you to a center for alcoholic rehabilitation. And I said, why don't you prescribe antabuse and I'll go home? Because between the time the nurse left and the doctor got in, I remembered that critical factor. I had two bottles of Jack Daniels waiting on me at home. and the only thing I had to do was get to them some way and she said oh I don't think you should I don' t think you have a choice in this I said well at least let me spend the night we'll talk about it in the morning I thought that would give me enough time to think up some real good arguments and be very persuasive and she says oh really how long have you been here I said oh four or five hours she says you've been here ten days whoops another one of those So I thought, boy, she's going to be stubborn I'll just go ahead and let them transfer me And I'll escape from that spot Another mistake I enter what you folks call treatment They put me in a magic place called detox Now I haven't had a thing to drink In ten days And I go into detox And they weren't particularly pleased And I certainly wasn't And I noticed a few people would come in for three to five days and leave detox. I was in detox one week. I was on detox two weeks. At the end of my third week of detox, I didn't know what was going on, but my life signs were going all over the place. And I was dying. They had pools up on what day I was going to die. And detox gave up. And they were trying to get me back to the other hospital and they didn't want to accept me. I later found out that it's a very poor form to die in a hospital. You know, they feel like they're somehow responsible for that and they don't want that responsibility. I know there are a lot of great treatment centers, and this place was, boy, it was money-oriented, I'll tell you. But they decided to wheel me down the road and down the hall to that magic place that was referred to as group. Now, I'm mobile by now. I'm really plotting escape. I was in a wheelchair. I could make about two revolutions on those wheels, and I'd fall over in exhaustion. I knew the elevator was about 110 feet, but I was trying to work up the energy. If I could get to that elevator and get downstairs, I could bribe someone and get me a taxi, and I was out of there because I had two bottles of Jack Daniels. I was frank with them. Why do you want to go home? I've got two bottles de Jack Daniel's waiting on me. They wheel me down and wheel me into this room And it's a big black man sitting there He's an ex-NFL player He played middle linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys And I'm thinking, boy, I hope he's got a sense of humor And he asked me an embarrassing question He said, how would you describe your drinking? and I allowed that I was a heavy social drinker. He said, well, how much do you drink daily? And I thought, you know, if I tell him the truth, I average two quarts a day. He might think that's alcoholic behavior. I'm just eccentric. So I had two quarks sounded suddenly like an awful lot to me, So I said, only four pints a day. It sounded like less. I'm going way too long. I'll try to speed this up. Well, the upshot of the deal is I'm in there week after week after week. You're doing magic things and stuff. And they've got these things hanging on the wall that are called Steps and Traditions. And I read those steps, and I think, well, that's all right for you folks. But one of the things I didn't mention is that my parents were very, very religious, and their religion was atheism. And from a little boy on, I was taught that religion was for those that didn't understand. We live in a world of cause and effect and for every independent variable there's a dependent variable and it's a matter of measurement and precision and that religion was for the superstitious and we were not that and I looked up at that and I saw that word God and it seemed like every other word was God and I knew it wasn't for me so it was alright for you they started transporting me to these magic places where this cult held forth, and this cult was called Alcoholics Anonymous. I liked you folks. You were a bit overly solicitous, but you were friendly, and you got me coffee, and you talked to me, and you smiled. There was something about you that I liked, but I thought, you know, bless their hearts. They really believe this stuff. That treatment sitter said one other thing. They said, you know, in order to get out of here, you have to get a sponsor. And some of you lovely people would come by that treatment center and tell us your little stories, and I liked that. And a guy came through that was a graduate of Harvard, and I thought, boy, he's good enough for me. So I asked him to be my sponsor. For all the right reasons, he said yes, and I'd ask him for all the wrong reasons. His name was Skye. It was a common thing in that place. Every week they'd wheel me up to this place and they'd say, we think you're making remarkable improvement. Now I've been there 50-something days by now. However, we think he can profit from another week's stay with us. And by the way, you owe us $9,000 some odd dollars for this past week, and I'd write him a check. And it always varied between $8,000 and $10,000 each week. and a substance abuse technician said do you want to be here the rest of your life and I said why as long as you give them that money you're going to be there the rest OF YOUR LIFE so the next Friday it was the same sort of thing and they said by the way you owe us X amount of dollars and I'd love to pay you but I'm absolutely broke the next day I graduated with high honors and I'm so relieved I'm in a taxi and I am packing remember I had a black garbage bag I don't know where my suitcase was gone and I put all this stuff in there and Iam putting in a plastic wash bowl and I'am putting it in a urinal don't laugh those things cost me $58,000 I was taking them home I'm taking them home well I'm going to get this taxi you see and go home with those and it's about 9 o'clock in the morning and Sky shows up and gives me the first real first step, get in the car well it becomes an adventure me and Sky he takes me to two meetings that day He takes me to this wonderful place that he called a central office. Seemed way too impressed with all the stuff they had there. Showed me the books and told me about conference approved and so on and on and finally at 10 o'clock that night we got home. I'm thinking about those two bottles. And Scott wants to come in and see where I live, check everything out. And we go in there and I eventually get back to my bedroom and the bottles were gone. I'd been wiped out. There had been a thief there. I noticed that VCRs, TVs, everything else was still intact, but every bottle of booze in the house had been... Obviously, the guy owned a bar and restocked. And this started my road towards sobriety. Every day it was the same thing. Sky would show up before I woke up. next thing I knew I had five months of sobriety I went to a meeting that night I had played with these steps first I was working like merit badges hell, I'll do two a week and I go to this meeting it's called a 449 meeting guess what their subject is usually and that night the moderator Your chairman's talking about the higher power. And to the ears of an atheist, I was actually an agnostic. It was irrelevant to my lifestyle anyway. I don't know whether you've heard that, but they'd say things like, John would say, my higher power, whom I choose to call God. Like if you call it anything else, you're some kind of ninny. And then Mary over there would say my higher power, who might choose to called Jesus. and I'd think, God, that's being specific. And I had made you my higher power because Sky wouldn't get off my butt until I got a higher power. So I'd made the group my higher Power. I knew that you as a group were stronger, could pick up heavier things, but... That was about it. I didn't even share that night. You know, with my photographic memory thing, by this time I had doused down and Bill Wilson's passed it on, and Dr. Bob and the good old-timers, and boy, I loved to share. I'd give you a paragraph out of one and a paragraph out of the other, and you must have liked it too because you'd say, well, just keep coming back, Charlie. Okay, I speak a little French and German and English, but I didn't speak AA very well. And then that meeting that night, I was discouraged. By this time, I had five months. It was five months to that day. I'd gone out and bought myself something because you didn't have one of those little chips to reward for five months. They didn't there. I bought myself a Cadillac automobile. You told me to change everything. I'd always been Charles. I became Charlie. I'd already driven other products and I never liked General Motors products so I went and bought a Cadilac. I'm changing all these important things, you know. Everything's superficial I was doing. But I got grumpy during that meeting I go out and everybody says Well, let's go to Shoney's And have coffee and pie And I did coffee and tie pretty well I enjoyed that The meetings after the meeting But I was grumpy And I said No, I don't think so I didn't have anything in mind I got in the car And I says You know, I'll go over to the French Quarter This was on the West Bank Had to go across the river I go over the French quarter and just have a real nice meal. Kick back, I keep telling me I've got to eat better so I had to drive a ways and I drive up on the Mississippi River Bridge you know, the highest, longest double cantilevered some kind of bridge in the world you know that Chamber of Commerce crap and I start up on the ramp and it's two and a half miles across this bridge and this bridge is the heaviest traveled in the state. It averages something like 120,000 cars a day. I get about 200 yards up on that bridge and I hear a voice commanding voice and the voice says, 49. And I thought 49? Why are the bridge police behind me on their loudspeaker? I look in Riverview Mara and there's no one there. in fact the bridge is absolutely empty I drive another 200 yards or so and I hear it again, 49 radio in the car is not on anything and the cold sweat breaks out on my forehead, I'm realizing that I'm having an auditory hallucination but what's the relevancy of 49 I drive on and it's just singing through my head and I'm keyed up and I'm excited about it it's not exactly fair It's just wonderment. I take the first available exit off this expressway, and that was Camp Street. I'm going down to a big boulevard called Canal. When you cross that, the names change and become French names. I'm on Camp Street, the street lined with all wino places. And all of a sudden, I notice the lights are brighter than they normally are. It's a 24-hour town, but there are more people on the streets and things, It's exciting. My heart's pumping, and I look up ahead on Canal Street itself about a half a mile away. There's this Sheraton International. When I'd get a snoot full there and my driver was gone or I couldn't get someone to drive me, I'd just crash in a hotel for a while. So I was familiar with all the hotels. They were sort of familiar with me, and I said that's the solution. It's a little late. It's 930, and when I get into a restaurant, I'll have to bribe the maitre d' and things won't go well. And I'll just check into the sheriff's and go up and have room service, have something to eat, watch a little TV. I'm tired. I was everything that the living sober says. I would halt to the maximum. And it sort of made me happy to think about that. And so I get down to Canal Street, and I've never seen so many people at that time of night in buses and things. It takes me a good five minutes to fight my way around into the motor entrance. And I get there, and a guy comes up, and I give him a $20 bill and say, take care of the car. I'm checking in. And I walk through the side door there, and the big electric doors go whoop, whoop. I walk into it, and there's a huge atrium to the right and to the left there are all these leather seating areas around oriental carpeting. And it's just a buzz with people and a hive of activity and excitement. and up there's a mezzanine and there's a big player piano it's one of those Yamaha grand pianos and I swear it's Gershwin himself playing Rhapsody in Blue over to the right in that big atrium area is a wraparound bar and it was the gaiety and happiness of those cocktail parties of my youth and I swore I could hear the glass the cubes tinkle in that glass and it sounded like fine Barbarian crystal. And all of a sudden the relevancy of 49 came to me, just in an instant. And that $49 is the price at any Sheraton International at that time of a liter of Jack Daniels whiskey room service. i thought i never thought i was going to maintain somebody i knew that one thing i was doing was billing insurance it wouldn't take a half a day it might take a day and a half or two days before i die i realized i was relapsing not ask sky and say sky it says in here that we've got to redouble our spiritual effort that we'll come to that time when we cannot avoid that first drink I said what does it mean redouble your spiritual efforts and he says it means pray your rear off get in immediate contact with your higher power well fine my higher power is having coffee and pie across the river at Shoney's but you had told me an interesting thing I found it charming you'd say borrow my higher power so just as an experiment I thought now that would be exciting I'll do that I'll try that And I said it out loud, real loud. In fact, people in that lobby turned around and looked at me. I said, not the prayer of a beautiful prayer like a serenity prayer, the elegance of that, or even the sincerity and the absolute beauty of the alcoholic prayer. God help me. Instead, I said the prayer for a spoiled child. I said all right, God, if you exist, you'll stop me. For a moment there, I had real fear. I thought a bolt of lightning might strike me down or the earth would swallow me whole, but nothing happened. And I said, you see? I walked across that lobby with real purpose. I got up there and they had the velvet ropes up. You know, it's a quarter to ten, and I've got to wait in line. They've got three people registering people, and I couldn't figure it out. finally I get up there and it's next and I'm ready and I throw down not a green and not a gold but a platinum American Express and lay a gold Sheraton on top of that and say I want a room on the 42nd floor see the 42rd floor is the floor of all suites I knew about they had a private bar up there where you could drink free, free hell it was included in the bill some way but I was already thinking about Bloody Marys the next day and she looked up little girl probably pulling a double I remember her hair was matted on her forehead and she said sir do you have reservations I said no but these are my credentials and point us the cards she said I don't know who you think you are but there's no room at the end and a feeling came over me a feeling of warmth a feeling that I'd never experienced before when Scott talked to me later about this he said you felt the grace of God and I looked at her I got this silly grin on my face and I said you know what she said what? I said there's a higher power and his name is God and without hesitation she reached down and picked up the house phone and said give me security I got a live one at the front desk I grabbed up those cards, and I took off. And I got that card just as he was getting ready to park it. And I gave him another $20 bill and said, I couldn't get a room. Isn't that wonderful? I said, the whole city's filled. There are no rooms available. He said, yeah, the Republican convention started today. I said whoa, another oops. It turned out that there was no rooms available anyplace within 100 miles of there. I got in that car and beat it back across the river and got there where some of them were still nursing coffee, and I saddled in and didn't say anything to them. I had a feeling like I didn't want it to ever stop. Two days later, I told Sky about that, and he said, well, I wouldn't tell anybody about that for a while. He says, we've got work to do, and it's called Working the Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is prescribed in the first 164 pages of the big book, and I was ready to do it. I read them, and i read them with new eyes, and they made sense, made perfect sense to me, and that embarked on the life. I'd made one mistake in getting Sky as a sponsor at that time. He was active in service. Think of your own sponsors. I said, how did you get here? Remember the first job he gave me. I'll just be brief about this. He said, you know where we keep the ashtrays in the Woodland Group? I said yeah. That was back when everybody still pretty much smoked. He said they need new ashtray. He says you call yourself a scientist, write a paper on ashtays. Well that sort of ticked me off. but i ended up going to three three libraries that day two university libraries and an industrial business library and i had all the information on everything that contained ashes including funeral urns i had every material they were made out of and i typed up a paper with 32 pages long and i believe it had 19 items in the bibliography and i remember the next day i got in the car and I handed that paper to Scott. I says, there's your paper. And he looked at it and threw it in the back seat and said, good, go buy 12 of the best for the group. Whoops. I bought some ashtrays. By God, they were venetian glass. I'd show him. I got in the car the next night that that meeting met and he said, all right. he said, you know where they keep them? Yeah. He says, you've got to slip them back. We're going to get there early and don't let anybody see you. Don't tell anybody where they came from. I said, well what's the point? Why would I buy them? He said, it's going to be hard but I'm going to try to teach you something of being spiritual. He said it doesn't count if someone else sees you. He says you're doing this because they need them and because you can but if you take credit for it It wipes the slate clean. He said, you ought to do that every day. This guy said another thing to me just before I had nine months. He said,"You know, if anything happens to me, Charles, you have to get another sponsor within 24 hours." I said, nothing's going to happen. He said,'I'm not saying that something's going to happen to me. I just want you to promise me you'll get another." I said,"Why?" He says, because you cannot stay sober alone. None of us can. Next day he went to Lafayette to visit a past delegate named Bobby B. And he didn't wake up that morning. This guy died. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him. I couldn't have sat sober without him. And four hours later, I called an old guy that I knew and asked him to sponsor me, and he agreed to do it. A guy by the name of Aronofsky in Dallas, Texas. David said he would. If I thought I had someone in service before, I really hit someone then. And the rest has just been a wonderful, wonderful trip because of people like you in rooms like these. I got more and more active in service, and I started carrying the message into prisons and did it. I remember one prison in particular I was going into, they had some trouble with another group that went in, and an attempted escape had occurred, and so the warden had had enough of this, and he said, strip search them all if they come in and come back. I showed up that night, and he says, well, you can't come in. We're having a strip search. I said, that's all right. Strip search me. I'll never forget. They did that for four months straight, and I didn't miss a single night, weekly night in doing that. And I think the guard was a hell of a lot happier that was having to strip search me than I was when the warden changed his mind. He says, you're not going to give up, are you? And I says, no. He said, okay, you don't have to be step-search anymore. And just went on a wonderful road, a wonderful Road of Discovery, the usual things, little jobs on committees and things and just never saying no, alternate GSR, GSR on up eventually to the DCM level and then to the area level. and there was that time that I woke up and had won the stood for delegate received same I remember the first first I was panel 45 and there I was in New York the night before it was to happen and I remember being awfully nervous awfully impressed with the importance of this job And I couldn't sleep. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and I had prayed so intently, God, don't let me screw this thing up. At 3 o', I sat bolt upright and said, Forgive me. This thing, this fellowship, this spiritual movement, larger than any one person and certainly larger than me. And I've run way over, andI'm sorry. I'm five minutes over. And I said, just let me know you're well. Fell right to sleep in Manoma. One last thing, if you'll indulge me. Because I owe Bemidji. At the end of that time, I was staying over an extra day and after everybody left, it suddenly was very lonely and I called the intergroup office which is still located in the old Flatiron building and I said I'm at the corner of Broadway and 49th. There's a meeting around here It starts about 4 o'clock. And they said, well, there is one, but you're from out of town. I said, yeah. And they say, well it's not really in the best of places. I said why don't you wait at the church right around the corner and they'll have a meeting at 7 o' clock. They said no, I want to go. And I sort of insisted. They were trying to be nice to me and everything. They said, Well, you'd have to walk several blocks. I said No, that's all right. And they asked, Where are you from? I said New Orleans. They said Oh, hell, you can walk down there. Got my streetwise pass. So I went down to that meeting, and it was one of these things of deja vu. And I walked and walked, and the more I walked, I said, God, I know this neighborhood, but I never walked from that angle before. And I got out, and there's a walk-up, push button, circle and triangle, buzz, buzz. And I opened the door, and I suddenly looked back at a corner across the street, across the block and what was there? Sullivan's Bar, where I'd stood eight years before I found this program with tears running down my face not knowing where to go and it was right across the street. Thank you. applause