What Destroyed Me a Little at a Time Rebuilt Me the Same Way – Bill G.

I'm glad we got the money. And the water's free, huh? I'm gonna chase this golf ball around all day long, nothing in the light to do. You talk about a little bit at a time, you ought to go up there and watch those guys. It's remarkable what concentration can do. I talk a much better game than I play. But tonight I'd like to talk a little while, if I may, about a little bit at a time. I think it's very important and I think it's quite apropos of the growth of this group. I don't think any of us started out on our first drunk to get drunk all at once. I think perhaps we started... off with that one small one just to be a good fella. Like Helen and the good Chris, I never drank because I liked the flavor, but I did love the effect it produced. I liked it. Because I was a big skinny kid and it made me a badgerable tiger. And it seems that the one or two little drinks on a Saturday night soon blossomed forth into three or four, and a little bit at a time I discovered that I enjoyed this stuff. Yes. It gives things for me that nothing else could do. I happened to be in the furniture business. A more miserable business was never invented. And especially now. But it seemed that in the furniture business, the people who sell things, you must have a little drink to celebrate an excellent sale. By the same token, you must have the same little drink to drown your sorrows when there are no sales. Huh? Huh? Huh? So a little bit at a time... Instead of drinking both in celebration and depression, I drank all. And the little three quarters of an ounce developed into a big fifth. Well, it wasn't a fifth when I was a young man. Of course, I'm 50 now. That's a long while ago. But when I was a young man, during prohibition, we had flats that were about that long. The way. I was a dirty, stinking slob from the word go. I loved that because they'd have to come to me to get a drink. Well, the housey days of my youth passed very rapidly. And I often thought sometimes, unfortunately so too, because from the little bit of drinks that we had on Saturdays and on weekends, it developed into this long, steady grind of drinking all the time. So little by little, I developed a persecution complex. Yes, it seems that everyone was after me. My fellow business associates, they said I drank too much. And I was married to a very charming girl, and she expected me to bring home money on Saturdays. All that silly stuff, you know. It seemed that she was... She would hide the bottle. I belonged to a golf club over in Jersey in those days, and I didn't play much golf, but I spent a lot of time drinking their whiskey. And it got so bad, and I was just a young fella, that whenever I would go into the 19th Coast with a drink, everybody else would move down the other way. Then they asked me to resign. It seemed that I didn't pay my taxes. I had done the first of the month. A miserable bunch of people. So a little bit of time had began to filter through that I was no longer one. And I felt so sorry for Bill Green. Oh, I felt so sorry for Green. Because I knew I was a wonderful fella. You know? As I would shave in the morning, I'd look in the mirror, and I would say, Oh, Bill, you're a jock. Now, that's a hell of a way to go through life, whether you're an alcoholic or not. I'll be damned. So then I decided that I must try willpower. Not much willpower, just a little bit. All you have to do to stop drinking is precisely that. Stop. So you turn in your teas and your cards, and you go home and you break all the bottles, and you profess to all in Sunday that you are through with the foul stuff. Your halo is setting tightly on your head. And I didn't drink Tuesday, and I didn't drink Wednesday, and I didn't drink Thursday. I said, Well, there's nothing to this stuff now. So I went out and got drunk on Friday. This first picture that I'm painting for you, as I said, is in the halcyon days of my youth. Youth is something that, when you're old enough to know what to do about it, you can't do it anymore anyway. Oh. George, Bernard Shaw said, it's such a wonderful saying, it's too bad they have to waste it on the young. And that is true. I've been drinking about ten years, and it seemed that my drinking had progressed to the stage now to where I would drink to get sober. You see, you're in this half-bog all the time. And I met a bartender friend of mine, and he told me about this little drink in the morning. Oh, he was a lovely fellow. I loved him to vote. He was a most admirable young man. He gave me this prescription, and I think it was wonderful. As a matter of fact, at that time, it was the panacea to end all pain. You take a jiggle of gin, the drop of a white of an edge, and a dash of a drop of wine, and a dash of orange bitter. Now, can you picture this trembling drunk pouring out the drop of a white of an edge? Well, for a few mornings, I would get down at the bar, and he'd make this concoction for me, and it was wonderful. But it seems a little bit at a time, I dispensed with the edge. I didn't have the bitters handy, and I didn't have the bitters handy, and I didn't have the bitters handy, there were no small glasses, so I drank it right out of the bottle. From that point on, started my years of flight. 500 miles down the road, no one knows Bill Green. That's it. I must leave. I sold my business, loaded my car with Canadian clubs, and a railway. I didn't stop at 500 miles. I went out to Seattle. I couldn't go any further, because that's the end of the line. I went into business out there, and in 20 months, I was a banker. I felt awful sorry for Green then, because now I had entered into the sick state. I would get so sick, boys and girls, that when I would get a room in a hotel, I would always get twin beds. I'd have to get a new one. One to sleep in, one to puke in. You see, I was the high type. I was the high type. It took me nine months to get from Seattle, back to Newark, New Jersey. I went the long way, by way of San Diego. I would drive a little, drink a little, puke a little. I got back to Newark. I had $50, a beat-up Oldsmobile, no whiskey. Now, I felt so sorry for myself. No one had had it as miserable as Bill Green. I'd been rocked. Lied. Cheated. I was living in a very slimy world. And it was all their fault. And I told it to myself regularly, but I was beginning to doubt it a little bit too long this time. And I woke up one morning, and the Oldsmobile was gone, and so was the $50, and I'm standing in the middle of my wardrobe. I was like, I've got to get out of here. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I have a pair of dungarees with the fanny that was out, a blue shirt, and a pair of Stacey Adams shoes with no stock. And I'm sitting on the end of this bench down there in Lincoln Park. And another bum came along, and he says this, Oh, Slim. Slim, Hey, he says, that's a fine pair of shoes you have there. Well, right away, boys and girls, I could tell you that this fella knew class when he saw it. I like this boy. Yes. And I started to tell him of my former exploits. Well, he seemed to want to concentrate on the shoes. In 1939, shoes were bringing 75 cents in pawns. And so we went down in pawn shoes. Two bottles of Sneaky Pete and a pair of canvas relievers. This is November. Nothing that I would need. I was gone. So you see, a little bit at a time, I'd gone down to the bottom of the barrel. Not all in one. But 25 years. 25 years and a lot of money and a lot of heartaches and a lot of stuff. And sitting there on this bench, this bum and I, telling each other the wondrous things we had done. And he loved me and I loved him. And there's no love like one drunken bum for another, believe you me. As I looked off into the sky and the snow, I started to fall. And did you know it's getting cold on this bench? And I turned around, and the bum was gone. The dirty dog took the other bottle with him. But it seems, in that half-lit world that you live in when you don't have home or substance, there's always a little bit of love. Always plenty of company. Misery loves company. Another guy came along and said, if you don't get off that bench, you're going to freeze to it, and you'll get in the morning and you'll die. I'd always hated to think about dying, because I was such a lovely fellow, I knew they'd miss me on earth. What do you say we get down to Sally? Well, I didn't know who Sally was, but I knew in my present condition that she wouldn't receive me. I'll tell you that right now. No, he said we'll get down to the Salvation Army. I want to tell you right now, that's a pretty fine organization. I hope none of you have to resort to it as a means of food and shelter, but they're a wonderful people. They're an understanding people. They have a deep love of God that we that walk around in our daily business world never will understand. They give just for the glory, they give giving. Wonderful things. And they took us in, and they gave us a bed, and next morning they put us out in the bailing room. But, you have never lived until you've been in the Salvation Army bailing room. There's a room on this side, at one end there's a big steel bar into which you can sit, and at the end of the bar, you pour endless miles of newsprint. At about 800 pounds worth, you step on the trigger, this big thing throws up this bail, and you start all over again. And for that labor, we receive 95 cents a week in our room and board. A magnificent sum for one so dirty as I am. But like all drunks, when they start to sober up, for real, I looked around me and I saw all these other bums, and I, gee, I knew I was head and shoulders over those guys. Now, I'm going to work hard and apply myself and advance myself in this humble job. I worked hard for two weeks out there. Finally, I got promoted to be the helper on the truck. Now you get two bologna sandwiches, a container of cold coffee, and you get out in the open. Three dollars a week. A little bit at a time, I progressed until I became a driver. Utopia. I didn't have to sleep in the dormitory when there were 200 anymore. I slept in a room with absolute privacy. There were only six. Living? Living? For that, I received five. Five dollars a week. Well, I don't have to tell you what happened because no drunk can stand prosperity. So I ended up back out in the street. Only this time I had a pair of shoes and a fellow had given me a size 46 gabardine suit. I have since developed into a 40 long, but a 46 is just a little big for me. I wondered what to do then. I didn't believe in God because I knew God was something that had been cooked up for public consumption. Mass appeal. You gotta have something to keep the dummies in check. Nice vicious thinking, yeah? This boy's gone places. I did. I went from store to store and from door to door and slept on the bridge. I drank Bezos, Jurok, candy, sneaky, shoe polish, anything that had an alcoholic content. Why I didn't die, God only knows. I didn't wash for a week. I didn't run in. Just a dirty, filthy, slimy thing that came out from under a flat lot. How God in his wisdom let such a thing live. Only he knows. You have no sense of responsibility, no moral code, no sense of ethics, nothing. Just a filthy, half-dead, stinking thing in a half-dead world. I made the rounds at the city hospital. So finally, one day, on the broad market street, and I ran into my child bride, a lovelier girl God never endowed with life and breath to breathe in me. Why she stayed with me for over a quarter of a century, I don't know. I don't know. Peter, what in the hell happened to you? My, uh... Hello, my. I don't feel well. I've been a bad boy. My girl was raised very tenderly and gently in the parochial school of New Jersey. She had never had to work as a young woman. She ended up slinging hash in a dime hash house to support my daughter and herself. She took me to a hospital. The doctor said, let him try AA. AA? Ha! I don't feel well, Ma. I... I'm... I'm sick. You're sick, all right. I stayed there ten days. I promised her I'd go to an AA meeting. Now, I want you to get this mental picture of this maniac that they turned out of this hospital. Here's a guy who's been a drunken filthy bum for over two years. Here's a man that has descended to social scale from having his own business down to the gutter. Here's a guy that is just hanging on the edge of life who's been given another chance. Yes, I'll go to an AA meeting. All right? Whoosh! Whoosh! No, I just want to get out of the hospital. I want to go home. She takes me home, buys me a $15 suit, and I went out and got a job working for her. I was working for a guy that used to work for me. A night scout. An awful night scout. Every Wednesday night, I'd get down to the meeting. I'd look in. Some guy's talking about the grace of God. I'd go home. On the way home, I'd stop and have one, two, three, four. I'd go home, and I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. I'd go home. Well, how was the meeting? Oh, the meeting's all right. It's just not for women. You know, they have a lot of old bums there. Next to the speaker's table, they have another little table, and they've got a bowl of cracked ice on the table and a bottle of rye and a bottle of scotch. You see, already in my mind, I'm planning how I can drink a little bit without getting caught. Cover! Doctor, is that insanity? I asked her. She said, well, what is all that stuff for? Why did they just put that there to test? So when I'd come home and she'd kiss me and tell me that she smelled liquor on my breath, I'd tell her I'd just been testing. And I did test a little bit at a time until I came home one night about two o'clock in the morning, drunk as a goat and twice as stinky. I'm pounding on the door demanding an entrance. I demand my marital rights. So big blob, he hasn't done anything for the last five years in particular to the household. Now he wants in. My wife opened the door and I fell in. She said, well, what happened to you? I drew myself up to my full height and I looked down at her. My wife's only about five foot two. I said, madam, they put me to the test and I have failed. I don't have to tell you I slept on the street that night either. And so ends the sordid part of my story. I'm going to tell you what I did. I was a little bit drunk. I was a little bit drunk. I was a little bit drunk. I was a little bit drunk. I was a little bit drunk. I was a little bit drunk anyway. I can't tell you why I'm doing that, because I'm not drunk. Not a pretty thing. I don't enjoy telling it only for the fact that I'd like to remember the humble Earth from whence I sprang. I don't want to ever forget it, because three quarters of an ounce of whiskey can plug me right back in. I'd like to take the few remaining moments, if I may, and tell you a little bit about the romance of recovery in AA. seen through my eyes. I think it's a beautiful story. It's thrilled me. I like it. I hope you do. It seems that this particular Sunday, I'm lying flat on a pile of rug. I know I'm going to die because I'm hemorrhaging. You put your hand up to your ear and you take it away and see blood there. It scares you. And you wipe your eyes and you see blood there. That scares you, too. I knew this was it. Oh, God, if I could only try that AA. My wife says, I don't know. Yes, yes, I must try AA. That's the only thing for me. And so we called up the Al-Anon Club and knew it. Here's the thing. We're in a corner drugstore. She put the nickel there. It stood right there. Dialed the number. The guy answers the phone. He says, Al-Anon Club, Louie speaking. Right away, I knew it was the phone he did. He told me who he was. Why, I said, this is Mr. G. No, he's asking. I said, yes. I said, this is B.G. Well, where are you? Told him. Did you marry her? Yeah, I'm not working at it, though. Boy, he said, would you like to come up to the club? Yes. You got a car? No. Well, get in the bus and come on up. And up we go. And we get up there. And the Al-Anon Club in New Jersey, at that time, in 1940. 1945 was a big mausoleum. Thirteen steps leading up into it. There is a barn. And we walked up, and here was this great big guy, about six foot two, and as red as a house, smoking a pipe. Hiya, boy. My name is Charlie. This guy I don't want to talk to. I want to see Louie. Well, that's all right. Meet Joe. Joe is a guy about so broad, brown from the sun to the color of this margine table. Seems he was a keeper of the greens at a golf course somewhere. How are you, he said. What is the name? I'm not going to tell you. Well, he says, my name is Joe. This is Charlie. Meet Frank. Well, I'm the fellow. You don't know how sick I am. Everybody's laughing. The guy with the pipe is blowing that smoke in my face. He's killing me. They take me in to see Louie. This is Louie. This guy needs a drink. No, no. Don't drink. Take him into the coffee bar. We go into the coffee bar. Give him some coffee. No, Charlie. I want to tell you. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Shut up. Charlie, Joe. Listen. Upstairs. Meeting upstairs. Joe's on one side. Charlie's on the other. The girls have swept up my child bride and taken her off into another room to tell her the facts of life. They're very not mine. Over in Jersey in those days, the girls sat on this side and the boys on that side. I looked over at my wife and I waved. She looked over at me and waved back. They've been talking to her, you see. And the meeting starts. I'm... Joe is here, Green is there, and Charlie's over here. I say to Charlie, do you have a cigarette? Never use them. Do you have a cigarette? Don't smoke. You see what a vicious fate had done to me? Sixty thousand people in AA at that time, and I'm sitting between the only two skiffs that don't smoke cigarettes. The first scooter got up, and he started way back at the Boer War. And he brought us all the way up to the White Cliffs of Gilbert. He took us back into the African campaign. And I said to Charlie, what the hell does this have to do with me? And he says, shut up. Shut up. The second speaker. Oh, a most poignant story. A fellow had a withered left leg. Andy Chapman Burke. He had a lovely wife and two beautiful children. It seemed that he'd just purchased a new electric stove a month before Thanksgiving. She had Thanksgiving dinner cooking on this new electric stove. He had one of his cronies ring the front doorbell. He and two of the other fellows, when she went to answer the bell, took stove, dinner, and all. What else could I do? Oh, that made me feel good. I looked over at my wife and said, I never did that. I never had a stove that was worth a damn. They passed the bat. I have never had a stove that was worth a damn. I have never had a stove that was worth a damn. I have nothing that remotely resembles mine. As it goes by, I go, oh, I felt bad. I said to Charlie, I must get out of here. I can't stand it. He hangs right on me, and this Joe's got, I can't move a muscle. I hope he's beginning to turn over inside, and I'm banged. Finally, the last speaker was Stoney. Many of you have heard him. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. I heard Stoney years ago. Stoney, with his five-carat diamond ring and his diamond cigarette lighter and his big Cadillac convertible, says, if you're not working, don't let it bother you. I don't have a shoe marquee, and this guy's telling me don't let it bother you. Finally, the meeting is over, and they tell me, take a few pamphlets. I get pamphlets. Buy him the book. The book's clean. That's a lot of scratch in our family. Buy him the book and make him read it tonight. All right, bought him the book. Fellas, I'll see you next Sunday. Now, I must have been the only schnook they'd had there in a month. We'll see you tomorrow night. Homeward off. Me to the right. I'll see you tomorrow night. No, sit up in that chair and read that book. I can't see, Mom. You sit there and read it. What are you going to do? I'm going to make a nice pot of coffee. So the night passes. I read a little, drink a little, puke a little. Very sad beginning. Finally, somehow, ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. Ten days later. I recognize food for what it is. I begin to feel alive again. I was sober for the first time in my life because I had a desire for sobriety greater than any other desire I had in my whole life. Yes, meetings and more meetings and more meetings. Charlie and Joe and I learned to stay away from the pipe. and all that. Uh-huh. I even got another job working for this same guy. And lo and behold, three months went by. And they gave me this little pin that I've worn from that day to day. And they said, Bill, get up and say a few words. We had about eight people in the group then. And I looked at these eight. And I... Mom, I'm glad to be here. And I sat down. And the applause was tremendous. Because I was so pleased. Never happened to me again. At six months, I had begun to speak a given meaning. At six months, my halo was killing me. My ermine cloak had smothered. I used to look down and wonder what the hell the little people did for a living. I didn't walk in. I sweat. You see, all that I had accomplished in six months was to bribe. I was as dry as dust. And just as useless. Yes. One night we went into the club. Jack Sullivan said, Bill, we're short of speaker. Will you say a few words tonight? Of course. Yes, I'll say. Isn't that beautiful? The meeting started and I didn't see Jack anymore. They called on the first speaker and it wasn't Bill. And they called on the second speaker and the third speaker. And the meeting was over. How about that, huh? I brought my heart to the party and nobody asked me to play. That taught me the most important lesson that I have ever learned in my entire life. You know what that is? AA doesn't need Bill Green. But I need AA very desperately, very sincerely, very humbly. Not all at once. Because you can't get it all. Just a little bit at a time. They told me, you got to get out and work a little. You got to give a little. They told me that giving was living. Living was loving. And loving is God. We had an anniversary. We had an anniversary. We had an anniversary. And I forgot to catch. Didn't seem that so important anymore. I was very grateful for a year's surprise. It seemed that You don't have to worry about God because he's sitting right in front of your eyes. You get a warm blow down in your belly sometimes. You try it sometimes. Wonderful experience. It seems that you get just a little sobriety. You get just a little humility. Not much, just a little. Not the humility of sackcloth and ashes, but the humility of a humble man. A man that's glad he's alive and can sleep. You get just a little tolerance. Not too much, but just enough to sit and listen to the other guy. Somewhere along the line, you stop and wonder if you've forgotten how to pray. I divorced myself from the church when I was 21. I thought about it. I spoke to Father Joseph. I told John McNulty about it. Now the Montaigneuses know. Don't worry, Bill. You'll develop an awareness of God. How? Why? I don't know. One morning I awoke. We had a basement apartment and it faced right on the sidewalk. And outside of our bedroom window, there was a little bush about so high. This particular morning, there was a little city sparrow taking a bath. On this little bush. The weight of this tiny creature's body caused the branch to rise and fall. Isn't that a wonderful thing to see? Isn't it? An awareness of God. Yes. You're aware of the sunset. You're aware of the blades of grass. You're aware of food, cooking, and so on. You're aware of the sun. Odors come easily to your nose. You delight in walking down the street. You see someone you know. The first thing that enters your mind is, What is that girl? I know about that guy. You find that big people discuss ideas. Average people discuss things. And little people, they just talk about people. And you realize that if you put this all together, you get a little humility, a little tolerance, a little honesty, a little sincerity. You get a little prayer. You get a lot of A.A. Thanks very much. Stand by for a message which follows in about 30 seconds. Well, America. America. That is it. Yes. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to present to you my friend, Fred B., the sinister minister. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. By the grace of God, and the help of a lot of people, I haven't had a drink since a year ago last February. I like to pull rank on old Doc Don here. He's dry since November, but I'm dry since February. So I can pull a little rank on him, which I like to do. Those few months makes me feel important. This making this year, incidentally, didn't come easy. It took five years of serious trying in AA to make one year, and about ten years of fooling around to make the one year.