Chapter 4: Physician, Heal Thyself!
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Psychiatrist and surgeon, he had lost his way until he realized that God,
not he, was the Great Healer.
I AM A PHYSICIAN, licensed to practice in a western state. I am also an
alcoholic. In two ways I may be a little different from other alcoholics.
First, we all hear at A.A. meetings about those who have lost everything,
those who have been in jail, those who have been in prison, those who have
lost their families, those who have lost their income. I never lost any of
it. I never was on skid row. I made more money in the last year of my
drinking than I made in my whole life. My wife never hinted that she would
leave me. Everything that I touched from grammar school on was successful. I
was president of my grammar school student body. I was president of all of
my classes in high school, and in my last year I was president of that
student body. I was president of each class in the university, and president
of that student body. I was voted the man most likely to succeed. The same
thing occurred in medical school. I belong to more medical societies and
honor societies than men ten to twenty years my senior.
Mine was the skid row of success. The physical skid row in any city is
miserable. The skid row of success is just as miserable.
The second way in which, perhaps, I differ from some other alcoholics is
this: Many alcoholics state that they don't particularly like the taste of
alcohol but that they liked the effect. I loved alcohol! I used to like to
get it on my fingers so I could lick them and get another taste. I had a lot
of fun drinking. I enjoyed it immensely. And then, one ill-defined day, one
day that I can't recall, I stepped across the line that alcoholics know so
well, and from that day on, drinking was miserable. When a few drinks made
me feel good before I went over that line, those same drinks now made me
wretched. In an attempt to get over that feeling, there was a quick
onslaught of a greater number of drinks, and then all was lost. Alcohol
failed to serve the purpose.
On the last day I was drinking, I went up to see a friend who had had a good
deal of trouble with alcohol and whose wife had left him a number of times.
He had come back, however, and he was on this program. In my stupid way I
went up to see him with the idea in the back of my mind that I would
investigate Alcoholics Anonymous from a medical standpoint. Deep in my heart
was the feeling that maybe I could get some help here. This friend gave me a
pamphlet, and I took it home and had my wife read it to me. There were two
sentences in it that struck me. One said, "Don't feel that you are a martyr
because you stopped drinking," and this hit me between the eyes. The second
one said, "Don't feel that you stop drinking for anyone other than
yourself," and this hit me between the eyes. After my wife had read this to
me, I said to her, as I had said many times in desperation, "I have got to
do something." She's a good-natured soul and said, "I wouldn't worry about
it; probably something will happen." And then we went up the side of a hill
where we have a little barbecue area to make the fire for the barbecue, and
on the way up I thought to myself---I'll go back down to the kitchen and
refill this drink. And just then, something did happen.
The thought came to me---This is the last one! I was well into the second
fifth by this time. And as that thought came to me, it was as though someone
had reached down and taken a heavy overcoat off my shoulders, for that was
the last one.
About two days later I was called by a friend of mine from Nevada
City---he's a brother of my wife's closest friend. He said, "Earle?" and I
said, "Yes." He said, "I'm an alcoholic; what do I do?" And I gave him some
idea of what you do, and so I made my first Twelfth Step call before I ever
came into the program. The satisfaction I got from giving him a little of
what I had read in those pamphlets far surpassed any feeling that I had ever
had before in helping patients.
So I decided that I would go to my first meeting. I was introduced as a
psychiatrist. (I belong to the American Psychiatric Society, but I don't
practice psychiatry as such. I am a surgeon.)
As someone in A.A. said to me once upon a time, there is nothing worse than
a confused psychiatrist.
I will never forget the first meeting that I attended. There were five
people present, including me. At one end of the table sat our community
butcher. At the other side of the table sat one of the carpenters in our
community, and at the farther end of the table sat the man who ran the
bakery, while on one side sat my friend who was a mechanic. I recall, as I
walked into that meeting, saying to myself, "Here I am, a Fellow of the
American College of Surgeons, a Fellow of the International College of
Surgeons, a diplomate of one of the great specialty boards in these United
States, a member of the American Psychiatric Society, and I have to go to
the butcher, the baker, and the carpenter to help make a man out of me!"
Something else happened to me. This was such a new thought that I got all
sorts of books on Higher Powers, and I put a Bible by my bedside, and I put
a Bible in my car. It is still there. And I put a Bible in my locker at the
hospital. And I put a Bible in my desk. And I put a Big Book by my night
stand, and I put a Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in my locker at the
hospital, and I got books by Emmet Fox, and I got books by God-knows-who,
and I got to reading all these things. And the first thing you know I was
lifted right out of the A.A. group, and I floated higher and higher and even
higher, until I was way up on a pink cloud, which is known as Pink Seven,
and I felt miserable again. So I thought to myself, I might just as well be
drunk as feel like this.
I went to Clark, the community butcher, and I said, "Clark, what is the
matter with me? I don't feel right. I have been on this program for three
months and I feel terrible." And he said, "Earle, why don't you come on over
and let me talk to you for a minute." So he got me a cup of coffee and a
piece of cake, and sat me down and said, "Why, there's nothing wrong with
you. You've been sober for three months, been working hard. You've been
doing all right." But then he said, "Let me say something to you. We have
here in this community an organization that helps people, and this
organization is known as Alcoholics Anonymous. Why don't you join it?" I
said, "What do you think I've been doing?" "Well," he said, "you've been
sober, but you've been floating way up on a cloud somewhere. Why don't you
go home and get the Big Book and open it at page fifty-eight and see what it
says?" So I did. I got the Big Book and I read it, and this is what it said:
"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path."
The word "thoroughly" rang a bell. And then it went on to say: "Half
measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point." And the last
sentence was "We asked His protection and care with complete abandon."
"Complete abandon"; "Half measures availed us nothing"; "Thoroughly followed
our path"; "Completely give themselves to this simple program" rang in my
swelled head.
Years earlier, I had gone into psychoanalysis to get relief. I spent 5 1⁄2
years in psychoanalysis and proceeded to become a drunk. I don't mean that
in any sense as a derogatory statement about psychotherapy; it's a very
great tool, not too potent, but a great tool. I would do it again.
I tried every gimmick that there was to get some peace of mind, but it was
not until I was brought to my alcoholic knees, when I was brought to a group
in my own community with the butcher, the baker, the carpenter, and the
mechanic, who were able to give me the Twelve Steps, that I was finally
given some semblance of an answer to the last half of the First Step. So,
after taking the first half of the First Step, and very gingerly admitting
myself to Alcoholics Anonymous, something happened. And then I thought to
myself: Imagine an alcoholic admitting anything! But I made my admission
just the same.
The Third Step said: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to
the care of God as we understood Him." Now they asked us to make a decision!
We've got to turn the whole business over to some joker we can't even see!
And this chokes the alcoholic. Here he is powerless, unmanageable, in the
grip of something bigger than he is, and he's got to turn the whole business
over to someone else! It fills the alcoholic with rage. We are great people.
We can handle anything. And so one gets to thinking to one-self, Who is this
God? Who is this fellow we are supposed to turn everything over to? What can
He do for us that we can't do for ourselves? Well, I don't know who He is,
but I've got my own idea.
For myself, I have an absolute proof of the existence of God. I was sitting
in my office one time after I had operated on a woman. It had been a long
four- or five-hour operation, a large surgical procedure, and she was on her
ninth or tenth post-operative day. She was doing fine, she was up and
around, and that day her husband phoned me and said, "Doctor, thanks very
much for curing my wife," and I thanked him for his felicitations, and he
hung up. And then I scratched my head and said to myself, What a fantastic
thing for a man to say, that I cured his wife. Here I am down at my office
behind my desk, and there she is out at the hospital. I am not even there,
and if I was there the only thing I could do would be to give her moral
support, and yet he thanks me for curing his wife. I thought to
myself---What is curing that woman? Yes, I put in those stitches. The Great
Boss has given me diagnostic and surgical talent, and He has loaned it to me
to use for the rest of my life. It doesn't belong to me. He has loaned it to
me and I did my job, but that ended nine days ago. What healed those tissues
that I closed? I didn't. This to me is the proof of the existence of a
Somethingness greater than I am. I couldn't practice medicine without the
Great Physician. All I do in a very simple way is to help Him cure my
patients.
Shortly after I was starting to work on the program, I realized that I was
not a good father, I wasn't a good husband, but, oh, I was a good provider.
I never robbed my family of anything. I gave them everything, except the
greatest thing in the world, and that is peace of mind. So I went to my wife
and asked her if there wasn't something that she and I could do to somehow
get together, and she turned on her heel and looked me squarely in the eye,
and said, "You don't care anything about my problem," and I could have
smacked her, but I said to myself, "Grab on to your serenity!"
She left, and I sat down and crossed my hands and looked up and said, "For
God's sake, help me." And then a silly, simple thought came to me. I didn't
know anything about being a father; I didn't know how to come home and work
weekends like other husbands; I didn't know how to entertain my family. But
I remembered that every night after dinner my wife would get up and do the
dishes. Well, I could do the dishes. So I went to her and said, "There's
only one thing I want in my whole life, and I don't want any commendation; I
don't want any credit; I don't want anything from you or Janey for the rest
of your life except one thing, and that is the opportunity to do anything
you want always, and I would like to start off by doing the dishes." And now
I am doing the darn dishes every night!
Doctors have been notoriously unsuccessful in helping alcoholics. They have
contributed fantastic amounts of time and work to our problem, but they
aren't able, it seems, to arrest either your alcoholism or mine.
And the clergy have tried hard to help us, but we haven't been helped. And
the psychiatrist has had thousands of couches and has put you and me on them
many, many times, but he hasn't helped us very much, though he has tried
hard; and we owe the clergy and the doctor and the psychiatrist a deep debt
of gratitude, but they haven't helped our alcoholism, except in a rare few
instances. But---Alcoholics Anonymous has helped.
What is this power that A.A. possesses? This curative power? I don't know
what it is. I suppose the doctor might say, "This is psychosomatic
medicine." I suppose the psychiatrist might say, "This is benevolent
interpersonal relations." I suppose others would say, "This is group
psychotherapy."
To me it is God.