The One Day at a Time Approach to a Tomorrow He Might Not Have – 1951 – Bill T.

You know, after a while the little boy says, Don't go in there, fella. Get your bottle and take it home and drink like a gentleman. Don't show up here. Get the pint, take it back. Take it home. And after a little while the guy says, Hey, fella, you're going to the liquor store too often. Better get yourself a fifth so you don't have to go there so often. So that guy just kept me busy. so I again each day I think of the things that have happened to me something must have happened or else I wouldn't be here if I could have managed my drinks I wouldn' t have been here I wouldn''t see my sponsor wouldn'nt have came for me so every once in a while I think about my episode at the hotel downtown that was a dangerous one well man I got high that night I took the boys out took the runny guy off the elevator went up and kicked the door on the justice door cut them out you know came back down and that old spinning door there just made it almost jump out the socket yeah throwed the cuspid doors and big brass cuspids all over come back you don't know nothing about it Yeah, and I wanted to beat this great big cop. The biggest cop was on the police force at that time. Yeah, a traffic cop down there. He used to work the high street. Named Big Mun. I guess some of you might know him. The biggest copper, I wanted with him. You know, I'm a bad guy. Boy, oh boy. So, when that guy called me that next day, he said, I overslept, you know, nothing unusual, you knows. He said, come here, Billy, I'd like to talk to you. short. He says, if I were you, I'd never take another drink. I said, why? Oh, then he went on to tell me what all that means. Boy, it makes you feel awful bad that you did all those things. Well, I watched my step. I didn't know that. 1921, that happened. Just continued it on. I remember we had, we'd get these new automobiles, you know, and I remember we got this 1931 Chevrolet, and they said you can hit the dirt with it at 70 miles an hour. Sure you could, you knew. I tore off one of the back on this thing. Well, I got the garage light to paint it. The paint in the box was the tire would have blowed. I still been in the area out there. Those are the kind of capers a man, that false courage a man gets, you know. Send me out on a hospital trip. Remember one occasion? I went out there and went way up around Hudson to bring a man home. I doubted a hospital or something exploded and he was in a bad shape. And I don't know, no wonder he didn't turn me in, but I couldn't hold my eyes. When I'd wake up, you know, by the car going off the road, it would wake me up. I had sense enough not to drive fast. But that's one time I was really scared. It didn't look like that I could make it to the garage. I was just that sleepy. I just wore out. Yes, you have those things. It makes you think back. You know, the thing about there's so many things happen to you when you're sober, when you get sober about three days afterwards, you know. You know I am, you'll know I'm busy, you'd know, writing up slips and all at once, low hand. Grab it and hold on there, fellow. Take your time, and I try to hold it, you don't I? Turn him loose and grab him again, you now. Those are, you kno, Boy, if we bought a bottle of Coca-Cola and gave you that way or an orange pop, what would you do? You'd be walking this street now trying to get a lawyer to sue the company. Those are the kind of things that makes me think about what I did, the punishment that I took. Thirty-some years ago. And I considered myself a smart cookie too. Oh yes, it wasn't nothing I didn't know. If you want to know something, ask me something, boy. Ask me something. I can tell you. Yeah. See Bill Tolliver. He can tell me. Yeah, I've got a good job. Somebody like me always got a pretty good job At the job, I was one of the first guys to open up the employment service. And they told me that I'd have a permanent job there as a man from Washington. but you know my drinking I didn't feel it was my drinking but he had a nice way to ease me out the guy knew I was an alcoholic he said look here Bill I'll tell you what I can do you know the country's wet now and they're getting ready to open up these state liquor stores and I'm going to get you a job as manager in one of them stores I said that's fine Now, we're going to give you a month's wages, which they did, so you can be ready to step in, you know, start your training period. Okay. And then, lo and behold, I got it all figured out. Now, you see, being the manager of that, I have to check all the breakage and everything. so I got me some of them filters when I was doing now the thing now they had it all set up as long as that there government stamp wasn't touched you could send it in as a loan boy I was going to break bottles like nobody I had it all planned never to buy no liquor so I didn't get that job but I did get another job with the state. And, you know, I drank there. And I will forget this poor innocent woman chose this very nice man, you know. She says, why can't you be a nice guy like Talbot? And Talbot couldn't even stand still, you know? I always had something I got to put a check on. She cut me down to pay the printing bills, you know $5,000, you know how she was a goalie and I always paid up to her, you know and she's very good. I get a $5 check $10 touch, you know, advance, you know. And she just thought I was crying, you know. So one day I had to, I needed money back, you know. I just figured, now look here, something has happened to me. I'll tell you what scared me. I went to lay down, you know, and when I got ready to get up, I couldn't get up. I just, boy, I've never been like this before. And as I say, I'm not I've just been on this bench for a long time. Go to get up, and I said, well, I better go on back home. Oh, boy. You know, I don't believe when you get like that and the old perspiration breaks out on you and you start to sting, and I believe you can run a skunk out of this hole. I could. Anytime a guy gets so he can't stand himself, go in the bathroom, and he has to run out himself. You know he's in pretty bad shape. Boy. I wonder what I did. But those things, that's there. So, how am I on this? You know, my last big binge was my son coming home from the Army. It was in November, so I decided I would celebrate his coming home. There wasn't nothing wrong about starting a week ahead of time, which I did. So when he got home, I was pretty well plastered. But the siege didn't end until about the 4th of January. And I sobered up, and about a week, I imagine, maybe not quite a week these alcoholic spasms come back on me. So I'm standing there looking out the window I run the conveyor there on the paint line the good year-end cramp looking out the window my hands draw up and I try to straighten them out they don't straighten then the quivering side of my legs go dead you know I got my feelings back into them it doesn't come then this slow creeping deadness comes then I get something around the old ticker then she then the thought comes to me this is the way a man feels when he's dying Especially when the lights commence to grow dim and dimmer. Yes, there's a God because you start to call on him. God again, please don't let me die. Don't let my life. Walking around the table and prayed to Paul because we have some material there that I might fall in. I asked a guy to bring me a glass of water. I'm a very sick man. He just laughed. brings an old cup that we have put them little paint brushes in just laughing I said I'm a sick man they take me down to the hospital once in there doctor came over and looked at me the nurse said we better do something for him see that's my second trip before that doctor the first trip I went in there And I tell you, this is a little numerous, you know. I'm laying in there and I'm pleading for him to don't let me die. And this good nurse comes up to me. I don't know what she's got in that old hypodermic needle. And I said, oh, no, please don't. Please. Oh, man, I pleaded to her not to give me that. It won't hurt you, Bill. You know why I didn't want it? After three months drunk, man. You're going to have no resistance. I didn' t have any. If I went to sleep, that was just curtains. And I knew that. I'll tell you what happened. A fellow up on Arlington Street there, on Arleton and Six, maybe Frank knew that guy. I know he knows the family. But anyhow, one Sunday, this guy was raving. Oh, just raving, she called the doctor. The doctor come out there and inquired my husband for me. He's just raved. He did. Goodbye. been a number of years ago still crying I didn't want that to happen to me and I knew it would happen to be so but after that you know as I say we all I'm going to quit but this particular time the last time the doctor was taken he said look here let's take him to the city hospital nothing can be did for this man jaw is going numb this guy is gone dead he said Bill is anyone at your house I said yes my children are there I said do you have money to pay for an ambulance I said yeah and they called Edwards and they came now I wonder this is something I'll never forget You know, when the ambulance pulled up and my three kids got to the door and opened the door and then they stood. And I said, where shall we put the dead? They pointed upstairs. After they'd taken me upstairs they came to the foot of the bed and those kids started to stare at me, looked at me. Not a word was passed. Nothing I could say. You know at times I could give her an excuse or say that I'm sorry, I would never do it again. Even a tear wouldn't come. Then they gave me a thought. I looked at my young daughter and I remembered her asking me for 50 cents. I told her, I just gave you a dollar a few days ago. Do you think I'm made out of money? And the same thought came to me about just when I go out I'd meet some guy. He said, I'd like to meet a friend of mine here from Chicago. Well, hello, Jim. I'm the big Joe, big Bill, you know. And I'll spend ten dollars on that guy. But I wouldn't give my wife a dollar. Probably I'd get two or three from her. I make out and I'm broke. I take them up and say, I'll give her sixty dollars. And she says, now you see, honey, I'll get you my money. I got forty bucks. Thanks, darling. Yeah. And he come back and said, honey, you better let me have two dollars because I didn't want to go downtown, bro. That's the kind of conniver I was. You know what I wanted to happen? My wife wasn't there, but when she came, I was hoping she would say, take that man out of here. I don't want him. Take him away. My conscience was ripping me just that bad. This time, for some reason, I knew I wasn't going to die. What I didn't know was, I was going to be an invalid. I was gonna be a guy in a wheelchair. And I could see my wife coming in, coming up the steps in the evening after doing her day work and rolling me inside. I could the neighbors coming by and saying, How do you feel, Mr. Tolliver? So shortly after he came, the doctor came. He examined me. And he asked me, did I chew or did I smoke? I said, yes. He says, that's your problem. The nicotine gets into your bloodstream and that's like water and oil in a hose. Then my wife says, doctor, tell him about that whiskey. And the doctor says, a little drink won't hurt him. So, you know, oh, sorry for Bill, John, now I'm laying there and I say, you don't have to worry about me. I'll never take another drink as long as I live. Two weeks later, I died again. I died more times, I guess, than any individual. So what happened? I got out I'd go around places guys would have a drink oh I'd be like didn't you hear about man that liquor likes to kill me why I wouldn't take a drink I ain't all the tea in China man don't don't mention whiskey to me no mm-mm my friends said no Bill you quit now you quit yeah so one day I came down got off the bus you know I'm going up Main Street. I ain't going on Howard Street. But I don't know what happened, but I got that little funny taste, you know, and my mouth got a little shaky, you know. I said, I believe I'm going to have to take a little drink. You know, the doctor said it wouldn't hurt me. Sure enough, started on. Now I want to tell you something. You know we often say about going around these bars, but that's what started me off real good. I never will forget this. I went in this, down at the American Legion then was on the corner of Fiddle and Howard. So I went in there and I got me a couple. I was thinking, cool, this gal comes in there, woman rather, rather attractive woman started talking. And she says, you know, do you know my husband? I said, no, I don't believe I do. She said, he's a bellhop up there, man. I said that young kid yours? Sure. You know, come at me kidding, I said you might be earlier than You know, I said, how old are you? He said, I'm 45. I said oh my God. I said to him, he said, what are you going to do when he gets 45? You know you can't care on a conversation like that on coke. So I, so much as me if you double too, you know. Boy, my family liked to foul out when I fell in that joint. And you know, I drank for about two weeks, and that was the fastest two weeks I believe. I mean it did me more damage than I was just completely going haywire. In other words, I couldn't sleep without a drink. I had to have one to eat, and after having it, go to work. So just about a day or two before that, I was in the bar, and I happened to look into the mirror, and it seemed like the old mirror talked back to me, and he said, As long as you live, you'll have to have a drink of whiskey. And that was so true, so true. I just had to have it. Then he says again, You know, you're nervous, I had a Lee hat on. He says, You bought your last Lee hat. You've got your last job. If you lose this one, you never get another one. All that and the policy. And the worst part of it, it seemed to me I'd seen myself a time. I'd see myself on Howard Street and on this particular cold night, somehow or another it was one of those stoves with ice and glass all in it, and I could see the red light. I'm outside and I look in and I see all the warmness. I break in this place not to feel but to keep warm. That's what I've seen. Now, I never hear anything about Alcoholics Anonymous or anything, but on a Monday morning I see a fellow that I know pretty well, and I stopped this guy. I said, Hey, come here, fellow. I said do you go to Alcoholics Anonymous? He says, Why, do you have a drinking problem? I don't have no great problem, but I see that you're sober, and I just figured that you might have sort of an alcoholic problem. You know, I mean, you might block it. And he says, if you have a problem, why, I'd like to talk to you. I started to say, all right. He comes and says, you better talk. I forget I was out over the weekend, you know, and I had this big Sunday, and I'm a little nervous. I've been up on Arlington and got myself a couple shots. He said, well, how about coming down and see you? I said, sure, sure. Come down. He said. Well, I'll be down tonight. I said. Oh, no. Not tonight. That's it. I got to watch. Boy, that's one thing I couldn't carry. Somebody had it the next morning. I didn't have it. So I said no, don't come. So not tonight. He said well, what about tomorrow night? Well, I said, that's my wife's prayer meeting night, Tuesday night. I said what about the Wednesday night? I said that's pay day, you know, I've got to go to town and pay my bills. Then they come to me, I only had a couple more nights left. So these two guys came, one sat on one side, one sit on the other. And the other fellow gets the most of their talking. all through his talk, every once in a while it was my pattern also. Then he would ask me such questions as these, did you ever pray? Why sure I prayed. He said I don't mean a prayer like you pray but I mean a sincere prayer. For instance he says to me that you say the Lord's prayer, you ask him to give you this day your daily bread and he gives it to you. And he adds so much more. Did you ever think of thanking? No. I've never heard anybody make such a suggestion of thanking. I was all here to give me prayers but I've never until then heard of thanking him. He says, well you try it out. Then he says to me, do you think you could stay sober for one day? Oh, I just jumped right up. Sure, sure, sure, you know. And he said, that's all that's necessary. Boy, that guy. He said, you can't get drunk tomorrow if you wanted to. Yesterday, you can do nothing about it. He made sense. Then he told a little story. He told him about me and his wife walking down the street, and they seen a guy was playing imaginary baseball, just throwing it, you know, kicking it, just kicking it. And his wife said, Hey, you see that guy there? He says, Yes, I see him. She said, Won't be long before you'll be catching for him. You know, and I had seen the guy down on Harbor Street doing exactly the same thing. Then he asked me, would I go to a meeting with him on Sunday? I went to this meeting. Now, this man that led the meeting had spent about $45,000, his wife's and his mother's money. And I followed that guy. I even crawled in the same dirty shoes she crawled. I walked up the same filthy stairway. She needs the same bootleg joint, just following this guy. Now, some would say, Dr. Guy, what impression did you get out of a man having $45,000 and you have 45 cents? It left us both in the sane condition, broke. and he'd worked up sure he was going to get such as a vice presidency or some type anyhow the job paid quite a bit of dough so while he's getting his tuxedo pressed he decides that he would go in Stone's Grill and have a drink but when he got in there the little fellow wrapped up tagged him on the side of the head said don't do that get yourself a pint and take it home with you then just before you get ready to come down to the Mayflower, take yourself a slug. He took the fine home, but he never made it to the mayflower. If men of that intelligence needed a program and they had their troubles, children like me would have the same thing. Then I liked about what my sponsor says one day, because I've always figured what am I going to do when my brother comes? What am I gonna do on my birthday? What I'm gonna do on Thanksgiving? By living this one day it eliminated that. Because he said you don't know whether you're gonna have a Thanksgiving. You don't know whether you're going to have the tomorrow it's the best thing to do tonight when you go to bed when the good Lord hangs out of his stars and everything for his tomorrow ask him to include you in it well I followed that fellow's pattern I haven't had any trouble of course I've had a few desires for a dream but I know this Talbot never wants to drink he wants a quart he gets a quart he wants two quarts you know I go to the hospital I visit that hospital and I see some fellow reason why I go to that hospital the last thing nice father says to me when you get sober take this message to someone else then you'll stay sober you know I've tried that and boy would you don't know what man's life is going to save as I say there have been times you know that I feel pretty bad myself and it seems like when I get the hunch to go to that hospital, my burdens are lightened and things happen. And that little prayer of faith is so true. You know, when I came in here, I was a doubtful Joe. Now, I hear these guys say, I did so-and-so one guy, it's a friend of mine. Now, that guy's lying. Says a friend o' his came up and says, you know, my car was out of whack and I didn't have no car. and said, this guy had a, he was going to get a new car. I said, if this was a good price to do, he'd let me have. And, you know, that guy said, come on, didn't you pay me any time? I said I don't believe that to myself. That's why I say I cry today. One night up here at the St. Thomas' fool. And I was going down to the arm bar that day, and a fellow walked up to me, patted me on the shoulder, said, hey Bill, if you want a car, come on out. You don't have to worry about the notes or anything like that yet. You know when this guy would tell me about sad and tears of driving through that land, what did he think I was, a sissy? Here's a guy tells me I'm trying to build a place to have a business and he tells me take it up with the good Lord ain't that it, he's the contractor I've done my mortgage in my home to get your money take it out with the Good Lord look here Bill if you don't get it whatever he does you'll find out it'll be good you know what happened to me about a month after that I had a stroke and I didn't work all last year and if I hadn't if I'd have got that building I'd lost everything I had and also that boy of mine would have been running a pool room he went on to Kent State and got an education he's got a good got a great job You don't see these blessings overnight or two years or three years. You know, I walked these streets for three years with dizziness, looking to drop most any time. There's always a guy in A.A. would tell you to keep on walking, there ain't nothing you can do about it. So true. so true get ready to get on a bus and I'd get so dizzy I'd step back couldn't cross the street not for two months after I got sober but three or four years I can tell you that I had to but it was always good it was better than I had before you know you know you have to sometimes do some kind of circumstances it looks bad but the good things can happen to you. I'm not saying this just to be a braggart or anything, but I'd like to tell you to hold on when you have the faith to hold On. It might take three years or four years. But the things I'm telling you sound silly, but it's a fact. Now, take for instance, my boy called me up one morning, wired me one day, said, send me $100. I don't have no $100, but the fact that he wired me for a hundred dollars is the reason I have my gas station I called the guy to lend me a hundred dollars to Friday then I went upstairs and I called up, I seen this gas station, then I called up this friend of mine, he says anytime I can do you a favor he said you just call me and the man happened to be a friend, a fellow that was really able to do the favor. He says, how much money do you want, Bill? I started to say $5,000. Now, you see, you've got to be truthful because the thing had only cost me $3,000, Bill, and I told him $3.000. He said, yes, Bill. Sure and get it. I said, I'll be over there if you don't come after me. He said, I'll bring it to you. He says, every morning I'm going home. He lives outside of Washington. He's at his home. He said I'm coming home then I'll bring it for you. I told my wife my wife, do you believe that? I said I certainly do. I tell some of the boys this aircraft. Say, you believe that? Man, you are nuts. And they went around and laughed. You know, he's going batty. This is as batty as a guy can be. I had to go in, man, you're crazy. Now, you tell me, you telling me, look here, that somebody's going to fly here from Washington, D.C. If you said he was going to meet you someplace with a man flying here in an airplane, till then you three down, you just as crazy as these men. Well, you No, he got me to believe him a little bit. So Monday came. Yes, my wife's just on. Say, I'm getting a little too long. I'll be right off. So when Monday came, my wife, you know, she's on. You know how women are. She says, have you heard from your friend yet? I said, no, I haven't heard from him yet. So she had to go in the basement, and so just then my phone rang, and I must have got an extension, and I answered the phone. She said, Bill, I'm in Pittsburgh. And he said, where will I meet you when I get back? I told him it's amazing. He came. When I came down, she asked me again. I said, yeah, she'll be here at 12 o'clock. Now I left. She ain't here no more. So we came in, I brought the gentleman out to the house, you know, and he sat down. And they, uh, we talked just before they got ready to leave. He asked for a book, and then took out his pen and checkbook, and wrote a change. I didn't ask him about how much it was. I told him it was an inch and a half. He did. She liked to pay me for 6,000 bucks. so that's the way I got married now the thing what I want to tell you about going to the hospital that man had a business worth 22 million dollars he was the son who was to take it over and he was a mining engineer he was a very bright man but he was a confirmed alcoholic He'd just as soon as get on a boat and go around the world, he used to stay home. What happened to this man was this. When his father died, his uncle took over. Then his uncle died, and it fell to his lot to take the business because he knew the business. But he knew his condition that he wasn't able to have. so he came to St. Thomas Hospital as I walked in the door he got up to a fellow and he walked over to him he says I don't think I'm going to make it I don' t think I'm gonna make it he says one thing I know I can't drink whiskey and he walks over to me he says I don''t think I am making it I don ''t think I'm making it I said oh yes you will you've got it linked you said the right thing right over there he said you can't drink whiskey in that tent so we sat down and we talked but I didn't know this when that man got back to his home in Pennsylvania I mean business in Pennsylvania his sister and brother erased that name of the president off the door everything that belonged to him in that office was wheeled out into the aisle way. And the thing that I told him is what some other individual told me in AA. Have faith and God will take care of this situation. You don't have to worry. Sure enough, that fellow, the government sent him to Germany for a year. When he come back in some way or another I think he has about four or five minds now his business is of the type he don't even have to have a salesman to sell his coal because some of these big firms are using it just as fast as he can get it out to him now I don't say to tell you these things that that it's a Mr. B but whatever it is hold on to it because you'll make the grace. Financially, of my own, I don't have five bucks. Just a fact. If I were to pay my debts, I can't even pay them. But I make it just the same. Yes, I do. We'll have chicken tomorrow. God knows whether we'll have money but we'll be able to have something. The reason why I'm having chicken tomorrow the little youngsters from England. Chicken over there is about 90 cents a pound, and them little fellows are really eating because they lived out of the commissary, and it's very expensive. Now you take those people, and my son would tell me they eat one egg every week. One pound of meat can last them for a week. So that's the type of diet they had, but they didn't have it because they were with the United States government. His house rent cost him $150 a month. That's the way they take over Americans. So now I've talked and I really hope that I've given someone some good. Now what I want to bring, you know, when I worked at that aircraft, there was a guy every Sunday and I'm shaking like nobody's business, and this guy didn't drink. He'd have a fifth of whiskey in his car, and I'd ask him for it. For a while, I'd pay him the price what he paid in the liquor store. So one Sunday, that boy got wise to himself, and he shook that whiskey bottle at me like this. I said, you want that whiskey? If you don't, I'll buy it from you. He shook it at me and said, what is it worth to you? When I got to, I paid that guy $6.50 for that pip to whiskey. But what that guy don't know, I would have paid him $20 for that bottle of whiskey. Just as easy as I would, $6, that's how much. So today I'm going to ask you what is this program worth to you. Figure it out. To me, it's worth everything. You are the most important person I know of, is you. Anything that I get, I must get it from you. It has been a period of time in my life that I thought the old buck got it, but I have to see you to get that buck. And if I want to spend that buck, I've still got to come back to you. Regardless of how much I have, if I wanna chew the clothes, I've till got to ask you. As long as I can keep that other man in front of me, worship him in the spirit of doing unto him as I would have another man to do unto me, I'll make it. regardless of who he is or where he comes from or his station in life God made every man when I say equal he gives seasoned guys a different job one might be a mechanic the other might be a floor sweeper but every one of them is an important person you are important you know this program has made me feel I couldn't really I want to tell you this. I appreciate everything I'm in the business, I mean appreciate it now. I do and I want thank you Cole for inviting me down here and I can go back and tell Eddie, you know that boy Eddie Bracken, you know he worked for me for a while and he went around and told people all I said him was a peanut butter and crackers. I did, too. That's what I fed him. He got glad he'd always come in to come up when I didn't have that before. Then he said to me if I come out and did anything about it this time next year I'll have a a groundhog for my mailman. Now, that wasn't very nice, but I tell you one thing. If my sponsors hadn't came by, I probably wouldn't have had a groundhole for a mailman, thank you.