Smile With Me, At Me
Personal Stories From The First Edition
AT THE age of eighteen I finished high school and during my last year
there my studies were dropping away to be replaced by dancing, going out
nights, and thinking of a good time as most of the boys of my age did. I
secured a job with a well known telegraph company which lasted about a
year, due to the fact I thought I was too clever for a $7.00 a week job
which did not supply me with enough money for my pleasures, such as
taking girls out, etc. I was not at all satisfied with my small wages.
Now, I was a very good violinist at the time and was offered jobs with
some well known orchestras, but my parents objected to my being a
professional musician although my last year in high school was mostly
spent playing for dances and giving exhibition dances at most of the
fraternity affairs. Now naturally I was far from satisfied with my seven
dollars a week wages, so when I came across a boy neighbor of mine on the
subway one night (by the way I read in the newspaper that this same boy
died four days ago) he told me he was a host in a celebrated Restaurant
and Cabaret, and that his salary ran $14.0 per week and he made $50.00 a
week in tips. Well, think of being paid for dancing with the carefree
ladies of the afternoon and receiving all that sum, and me working for
only $7.00 per. The following day I went straight uptown to Broadway and
never did go back to my old job.
This was the beginning of a long stretch of high-flying as I thought,
only to find out when I was forty-one years old to be very low-flying. I
worked in this restaurant until I was twenty-one, then we went into the
world war. I joined the navy. My enlistment pleased the owner of my
cabaret so much that he offered me a good job at the end of my federal
service.
The day I walked in to his establishment with my release from active
duty, he said, "You are my assistant manager from now on." Well, this
pleased me as you can imagine and my hat from then on would not fit.
Now, all this time my taste for liquor was constantly growing although it
was no habit and I had no craving. In other words, if I had a date and
wanted a drink with the girl friend I would, otherwise I would not think
of it at all.
In six months time I found I was too good for this job and a competitive
restaurateur, or a chain of the best well-known night clubs offered me a
better position which I accepted. This night life was starting to tell
and show its marks and together with the slump in that sort of business
at the time, I decided to apply for a job with a well known ballet master
who drilled many choruses for Broadway shows.
I was this man's assistant and I really had to work very hard for the
little money I received, sometimes twelve hours or more a day, but I got
the experience and honor which was just what I was looking for. This was
one time when my work interfered with my drinking. This job came to an
end one evening when I was drinking quite heavily. A certain prominent
actress inquired of Professor X, my boss, if I would be interested to
sign an eighty week contract for a vaudeville tour. It seems she could
use me as a partner in her act. Now, a very nice woman, Miss J. who was
office clerk and pianist for the boss, overheard the conversation and
told both Mr. X and Miss Z that I would not be interested.
On hearing this I went out and drank enough to cause plenty of trouble,
slapping Miss J. and doing an all round drunk act in the studio.
This was the end of my high-flying among the white lights. I was only
twenty-four years old and I came home to settle down; in fact I had to. I
was broke both financially and in spirit.
Being a radio operator in the navy, I became interested in amateur radio.
I got a federal license and made a transmitting radio set and would often
sit up half the night trying to reach out all over the country.
Broadcasting radio was just in its infancy then, so I began to make small
receiving sets for my friends and neighbors. Finally I worked up quite a
business and opened a store, then two stores, with eleven people working
for me.
Now here is where Old Barleycorn showed his hidden strength. I found that
in order to have a paying business I had to make friends, not the kind I
was used to, but ordinary, sane, hard working people. In order to do this
I should not drink, but I found that I could not stop.
I will never forget the first time I realized this. Every Saturday, my
wife and I would go to some tavern. I would take a bottle of wine, gin,
or the like, and we would spend an evening dancing, drinking, etc. (This
was fourteen years ago.)
I was practically a pioneer in the radio business and that must account
for people putting up with me as they did. However, within three years
time I had lost both stores, I won't say entirely due to my drinking, but
at least if I had been physically and mentally fit, I could have survived
and kept a small business going.
Now from this time up to about a year ago, I drifted from one job to
another. I peddled brushes, did odd jobs such as painting, and finally
got established with a well known piano company as assistant service
manager.
Then came the big crash of 1929 and this particular company abolished
their radio department. For two years I worked for one of my old
competitors who owned a radio store. He put up with my drinking until I
was in such a physical breakdown that I had to quit.
All this time my troubles at home were getting worse. My whole family
blamed my failure on the alcoholic question and so the usual arguments
would start the instant I came in the house. This naturally made me go
out and drink some more. If I had no money, I would borrow, beg, or even
steal enough for a bottle.
My wife fortunately went to business which was our only salvation. Our
little boy was six years old at the time and due to the fact we needed
someone to care for him during the day we moved in with my family. Now
the trouble did start, because I not only had my wife to face every
evening, but three of the elders of the family.
My wife did everything for me she possibly could. First she got in touch
with a well known psychiatrist and I went faithfully to him for a few
months. This particular doctor was such a nervous individual, I thought
he had the St. Vitus' dance and I really thought he needed some kind of
treatment more than I did. He advised hospitalization from three months
to a year.
Well, this was all out of order as far as I was concerned. In the first
place I had an idea that my wife wanted to put me away in a state
institution where maybe I would be stuck for the rest of my life. In the
second place, I wanted to go, if anywhere, t o a private institution and
that was far beyond our financial means. In the third place, I knew that
that would be no cure, because I reasoned that it would be like taking
candy out of a young child's reach. The instant I would come out a free
man I would go right back to old Alky again. In this one thing I found
out later I was perfectly right.
What I thought and wanted at the time was "not to want to want to take a
drink." This phrase is a very important link in my story. I knew this
could only be done by myself, but how could I accomplish it? Well, this
was the main question.
The point was always that when I did drink, I wanted all the time not to,
and that alone wasn't enough. At the time I felt like a drink, I did not
want to take it at all, but I had to, it seemed. So if you can grasp what
I mean, I wished I would not want that drink. Am I nuts, or do you get me?
To get back to the doctor. If anything, these visits made me worse, and
worst of all, everyone told me I wanted to drink and that was all there
was to that. After going to as many as six or eight other doctors, some
of my own friends advised my wife to make her plans for the future as I
was a hopeless case, had no backbone, no will power, and would end up in
the gutter.
Well, here I was, a man with much ability, a violinist, a radio engineer,
a ballet master, and at this point took up hair dressing, so that added
one more to the list. Can you beat it? I knew there must be some way out
of all this mess. Everyone told me t o stop my drinking, but none could
tell me how, until I met a friend and believe me he turned out to be a
true friend, something I never had until this past year.
One morning, after one of my escapades, my wife informed me I was to go
with her to a public hospital or she would pack up and leave with our
boy. My father, being a physician for forty years, put me in a private
New York hospital. I was there ten days an d was put in physical shape,
and above everything else put on the right path to recovery and happiness.
My friend first asked me if I really wanted to stop drinking, and if I
did, would I do anything no matter what it was in order to? I knew there
was only one thing left to do if I wished to live and not enter an insane
asylum where I knew I would eventually wind up.
Making up my mind that I would, he said, "Fine." And went on to explain
the simple steps to take. After spending an hour or two with me that day
he returned two days later and went into the subject more thoroughly. He
explained he had been in the same hospital with the same malady and after
taking these steps after his discharge, had not taken a drink in three
years and also there were about sixty others that had this same
experience. All these fellows got together on Sunday evenings and brought
their wives and everybody spent a very pleasant time together.
Well, after I met all these people, I was more than surprised to find a
very interesting, sociable, and friendly crowd. They seemed to take more
interest in me than all of my old fraternity brothers or Broadway pals
had ever done.
There were no dues or expenses whatsoever. I went along for about
fourteen weeks, partly keeping these ideas, and so one afternoon I
thought it would do no harm to take a couple of drinks and no more.
Saying to myself, "I have this thing in hand now, I can be a moderate
drinker." Here I made a fatal mistake. After all my past experience,
again I thought I could handle the situation only to find out one week
later it was the same old thing. I repeated the same thing over again and
another week again.
Finally I was back at the hospital, although I went under protest. My
wife had expected to take two weeks vacation in the country with me, but
instead had to use this money for the hospital expenses. During my one
week stay, I held this as a grudge against her. The result was I got
drunk three days after I was discharged from the hospital. And she left
me for two weeks. During this period of time I drank heavily, being upset
not only over her absence, but perfectly at sea as to how I could ever
get back on my feet and make a new start again.
There was no mistake about it there was something that I failed to do in
those simple steps. So I carefully went over each day as best I could
since my first drink after the fourteen weeks of sobriety, and found I
had slipped away from quite a few of some of the most important things
which I should do in order to keep sober.
Certainly I was down now-ashamed to face my new friends-my own family
giving me up as lost and everyone saying, "The system didn't work, did
it?"
This last remark was more than too much for me. Why should this
fellowship of hard working fellows be jeopardized by me? It worked for
them. As a matter of fact, not one who has kept faithfully to it has ever
slipped.
One morning, after a sleepless night worrying over what I could do to
straighten myself out, I went to my room alone-took my Bible in hand and
asked Him, the One Power, that I might open to a good place to read-and I
read. "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see a
different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and
bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this
death?"
That was enough for me-I started to understand. Here were the words of
Paul a great teacher. What then if I had slipped? Now, I could understand.
From that day years ago, I gave, still give and always will give time
everyday to read the word of God and let Him do all the caring. Who am I
to try to run myself or anyone else?
Contact:
The Legacy Group of Alcoholics Anonymous © 2005