A Business Mans Recovery
Personal Stories From The First Edition
THE S. S. "Falcon" of the Red D. Line, bound from New York to Maracaibo,
Venezuela, glided up the bay, and docked at the wharf in the port of La
Guayra on a hot tropical afternoon early in 1927. I was a passenger on
that boat bound for the oil fields of Maracaibo as an employee of the X
Oil Company, under a two year contract at a good salary and maintenance.
There I hoped to buckle down to two years of hard work, and save some
money, but above all to avoid any long, continued drinking that would
interfere with my work, because that had cost me too many jobs in the
past.
Not that I was going to give up drinking entirely; no, such a step would
be too drastic. But down here in the oil fields with a bunch of hard
working, hard drinking good fellows, I, too, would learn how to handle my
liquor and not let it get the best of me again. Such an environment would
surely do the trick, would surely teach me to drink moderately with the
best of them and keep me away from those long, disastrous sprees. I was
still young, I could make the grade, and this was my chance to do it. At
last I had the real answer, and my troubles were over!
Red and I, who had become bosom shipboard companions on the way down from
New York, stood at the rail watching the activity on the dock incident to
getting the vessel secured alongside. Red was also on his way to
Maracaibo to work for the same company, and we agreed that so long as we
were going to be here overnight, we might as well go ashore together and
look the town over.
Red was a swell fellow who might take a drink now and then, who might
even get drunk once in a while, but he could handle his liquor and did
not go to any great excesses. Thousands of other fellows like him, who
have been my drinking companions from time to. time, were in no way
responsible for the way I drank, or what I did, or the way liquor
affected me. So off we went, Red and I, to do the town-and do it we did.
After a few drinks we decided there wasn't much else to do in town except
to make a round of the "cantinas," have a good time, get back to the ship
early and get a good night's rest. So what harm would a little drinking
do now, I reasoned. Especially with one full day and two nights ahead to
get over it.
We visited every "cantina" along the straggling main street of La Guayra,
and feeling high, wide and handsome, Red and I decided to return to the
ship. When we rolled down to the dock we found that our ship had been
berthed off from the wharf about thirty feet and that it was necessary to
take a tender out to her. No such ordinary method would satisfy Red and
myself, so we decided to climb the stern hawser hand over hand to get on
board. The flip of a coin decided that I would go first; so off I
started, hand over hand, up the hawser.
Now even a good experienced sailor, perfectly sober, would never attempt
such a foolhardy feat and, as was to be expected, about half way up the
hawser I slipped and fell into the bay with a loud splash. I remember
nothing more until next morning. The captain of the boat said to me
"Young man, it is true that God looks after drunken fools and little
children. You probably don't know it, but this bay is infested with
man-eating sharks and usually a man overboard is a goner. How close you
were to death, you don't realize, but I do."
Yes, I was lucky to be saved! But it wasn't until ten years later, after
I had time and time again tempted Fate by going on protracted benders
that I was really saved-not until after I had been fired from job after
job, tried the patience of my family to the breaking point, alienated
what might have been many, many good, lasting friendships, taken my dear
wife through more sorrow and heartaches than any one woman should bear in
a lifetime; after doctors, hospitals, psychiatrists, rest cures, changes
of scenery and all the other paraphernalia that go with the alcoholic's
futile attempts to quit drinking. Finally I dimly began to get the
realization that during twenty years of continual drinking every
expedient I had tried, (and I had tried them all) had failed me. I hated
to admit the fact even to myself, that I just couldn't lick booze. I was
licked. I was desperate. I was scared.
I was born in 1900, my father was a hardworking man who did the very best
he could to support his family of four on a small income. Mother was very
good to us, kind, patient, and loving. As soon as we were old enough my
mother sent us to Sunday School and it so happened that as I grew older I
took quite an active interest, becoming successively a teacher and later
Superintendent of a small Sunday School in uptown New York.
When the United States entered the World War in April 1917, I was under
age but, like most other youngsters of that period, wanted very much to
get into the fray. My parents, of course, would not hear of this but told
me to be sensible and wait until I was eighteen. Being young and
restless, however, and fired by the military spirit of the times, I ran
away from home to join the Army in another city.
There I joined up. I didn't get into any of the actual hostilities at the
front, but later, after the Armistice, served with the United States
forces occupying the Rhineland, working my way up to a good
non-commissioned rank.
While serving abroad I started to drink. This, of course, was entirely my
own choice. Drinking by a soldier during those times was viewed with a
degree of indulgence by both superiors and civilians. It seems to me, as
I recall it now, that even then I wasn't satisfied to drink like the
normal fellow.
Most of the United States Army of Occupation were sent back home in 1921
but my appetite for travel had been whetted, and having heard terrible
stories of Prohibition in the United States, I wanted. to remain in
Europe where "a man could raise a thirst."
Subsequently I went to Russia, then to England, and back to Germany;
working in various capacities, my drinking increasing and my drunken
escapades getting worse. So back home in 1924 with the sincere desire to
stop drinking and the hope that the Prohibition I had heard so much about
would enable me to do it-in other words-that it would keep me away from
it.
I secured a good position, but it wasn't long before I was initiated into
the mysteries of the speakeasy to such an extent that I soon found myself
once more jobless. After looking around for some time, I found that my
foreign experience would help me in securing work in South America. So,
full of hope once more, resolved that at last I was on the wagon to stay,
I sailed for the tropics, A little over a year was all the company I then
worked for would stand of my continual drinking and ever-lengthening
benders. So they had me poured on a boat and shipped back to New York.
This time I was really through. I promised my family and friends, who
helped me get along while looking for another job, that I would never
take another drink as long as I lived-and I meant it. But alas!
After several successive jobs in and around New York had been lost, and
it isn't necessary to tell you the cause, I was sure that the only thing
that would enable me to get off the stuff was a change of scenery. With
the help of patient, long-suffering friends, I finally persuaded an oil
company that I could do a good job for them in the oil fields of
Maracaibo.
But it was the same thing all over again!
Back to the United States. I really sobered up for a while-long enough to
establish a connection with my present employers. During this time I met
the girl who is now my wife. At last here was the real thing-I was in
love. I would do anything for her. Yes, I would give up drinking. I would
never, never do anything to even remotely affect the happiness that now
came into my life. My worries were over, my problem was solved. I had
sown my wild oats and now I was going to settle down to be a good husband
and live a normal happy life.
And so we were married.
Supported by my new found happiness, my abstinence this time lasted about
six months. Then a New Year's party we gave started me off on a long
bender. The thing about this episode that is impressed on my mind is how
earnestly and sincerely I then promised my wife that I would absolutely
and positively this time give up drinking-and again I meant it.
No matter what we tried, and my wife helped me in each new experiment to
the best of her ability and understanding, failure was always the result,
and each time greater hopelessness.
The next step was doctors, a succession of them, with occasional
hospitalization. I remember one doctor who thought a course of
seventy-two injections, three a week, after two weeks in a private
hospital, would supply the deficiency in my system that would enable me
to stop drinking. The night after the seventy-second injection I was
paralyzed drunk and a couple of days later talked myself out of being
committed to the City Hospital.
My long-suffering employers had a long talk with me and told me that they
were only willing to give me one last final chance because during my
short periods of sobriety I had shown them that I could do good work. I
knew they meant it and that it was the last chance they would ever give
me.
I also knew that my wife couldn't stand it much longer.
Somehow or other I felt that I had been cheated-that I had not really
been cured at the sanitarium even though I felt good physically. So I
talked it over with my wife who said there must be something somewhere
that would help me. She persuaded me to go back to the sanitarium and
consult Dr. --, which thank God I did.
He told me everything had been done for me that was medically possible
but that unless I decided to quit I was licked. "But doctor," I said, "I
have decided time and time again to quit drinking and I was sincere each
time, but each time I slipped again and each time it got worse." The
doctor smiled and said, "Yes, yes, I've heard that story hundreds of
times. You really never made a decision, you just made declarations.
You've got to decide and if you really want to quit drinking I know of
some fellows who can help you. Would you like to meet them?"
Would a condemned man like a reprieve? Of course I wanted to meet them. I
was so scared and so desperate that I was willing to try anything. Thus
it was that I met that band of life-savers, Alcoholics Anonymous.
The first thing Bill told me was his own story, which paralleled mine in
most respects, and then said that for three years he had had no trouble.
It was plain to see that he was a supremely happy man-that he possessed a
happiness and peacefulness I had for years envied in men.
What he told me made sense because I knew that everything that I, my
wife, my family and my friends had tried had failed. I had always
believed in God even though I was not a devout church-goer. Many times in
my life I had prayed for the things I wanted God to do for me, but it had
never occurred to me that He, in His Infinite Wisdom knew much better
than I what I should have, and be, and do, and that if I simply turned
.the decision over to Him, I would be led along the right path.
At the conclusion of our first interview, Bill suggested that I think it
over and come back to see him within a few days if I was interested.
Fully realizing the utter futility with which my own efforts had met in
the past, and somehow or other sensing that delay might be dangerous, I
was back to see him the next day.
At first it seemed a wild, crazy idea to me, but because of the fact that
everything else I had tried had failed, because everything seemed so
hopeless, and because it worked with these fellows who all had been
through the same hell that I had been through, I was willing, at least,
to have a try.
To my utter astonishment, when I did give their method a fair trial, it
not only worked, but was so amazingly easy and simple that I said to them
"Where have you been all my life?"
That was in February, 1937, and life took on an entirely different
meaning. It was plain to see that my wife was radiantly happy. All of the
differences that we seemed to have been having, all of the tenseness, the
worry, confusion, the hectic days and nights that my drinking had poured
into our life together, vanished. There was peace. There was real love.
There was kindness and consideration. There was everything that goes into
the fabric of a happy normal existence together.
My employers, of course, the same as the writers of these stories, must
remain anonymous. But I would be very thoughtless if I did not take this
opportunity to acknowledge what they did for me. They kept me on, giving
me chance after chance, hoping I suppose, that some day I would find the
answer, although they themselves did not know what it might be. They do
now, however.
A tremendous change took place in my work, in my relationship with my
employers, in my association with my co-workers and in my dealings with
our customers. Crazy as the idea seemed when broached to me by these men
who had found it worked, God did come right into my work when permitted,
as He had come into the other activities connected with my life.
With this sort of lubricant the wheels turned so much more smoothly that
it seemed as if the whole machine operated on a much better basis than
heretofore. Promotion that I had longed for previously, but hadn't
deserved, was given to me. Soon another followed; more confidence, more
trust, more responsibility and finally a key executive position in that
same organization which so charitably kept me on in a minor position
through the period of my drunkenness.
You can't laugh that off. Come into my home and see what a happy one it
is. Look into my office, it is a happy human beehive of activity. Look
into any phase of my life and you will see joy and happiness, a sense of
usefulness in the scheme of things, where formerly there was fear, sorrow
and utter futility.
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005