Chapter 9: It Might Have Been Worse
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Alcohol was a looming cloud in this banker's bright sky. With rare foresight
he realized it could become a tornado.
HOW CAN a person with a fine family, an attractive home, an excellent
position, and high standing in an important city become an alcoholic?
As I later found out through Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol is no respecter
of economic status, social and business standing, or intelligence.
I was raised like the majority of American boys, coming from a family of
modest circumstances, attending public schools, having the social life of a
small Midwestern town, with part-time work and some athletics. The ambition
to succeed was instilled in me by my Scandinavian parents who came to this
country where opportunities were so great. "Keep busy; always have something
constructive to do." I did work of all kinds after school and during
vacations, trying to find that which would appeal most as a goal for a life
work. Then there was wartime service to interrupt my plans, and an education
to be picked up after the war. After that came marriage, getting started in
business, and a family. The story is not very different from that of
thousands of other young men in my generation. It shows nothing or no one to
blame for alcoholism.
The drive to get ahead, to succeed, kept me too busy for many years to have
any great experience with social life. I would have begrudged the time or
money for alcohol. In fact I was afraid to try it for fear that I would wind
up like many examples I had seen of excessive drinking in the army. I was
intolerant of people who drank, particularly those who drank to an extent
that interfered with their on-the-job performance.
In time I became an officer and director of one of the largest commercial
banks in the country. I achieved recognized and national standing in my
profession, as well as becoming a director in many important institutions
having to do with the civic life of a large city. I had a family to be proud
of, actively sharing in the responsibilities of good citizenship.
My drinking did not start until after I was thirty-five and a fairly
successful career had been established. But success brought increased social
activities, and I realized that many of my friends enjoyed a social drink
with no apparent harm to themselves or others. I disliked being different
so, ultimately, I began to join them occasionally.
At first it was just that---an occasional drink. Then I looked forward to
the weekend of golf and the nineteenth hole. The cocktail hour became a
daily routine. Gradually, the quantity increased and the occasions for a
drink came more frequently: a hard day, worries and pressure, bad news, good
news---there were more and more reasons for a drink. Why did I want
increasingly greater quantities of alcohol? It was frightening that drink
was being substituted for more and more of the things I really enjoyed
doing. Golf, hunting, and fishing were now merely excuses to drink
excessively.
I made promises to myself, my family, and friends---and broke them. Short
dry spells ended in heavy drinking. I tried to hide my drinking by going
places where I was unlikely to see anyone I knew. Hangovers and remorse were
always with me.
The next steps were bottle hiding and excuses for trips in order to drink
without restraint. Cunning, baffling, powerful---the gradual creeping up of
the frequency and quantity of alcohol and what it does to a person is
apparent to everyone but the person involved.
When it became noticeable to the point of comment, I devised ways of
sneaking drinks on the side. "Rehearsals" then became a part of the pattern,
stopping at bars on the way to or from the place where drinks were to be
served. Never having enough, always craving more, the obsession for alcohol
gradually began to dominate all my activities, particularly while traveling.
Drink planning became more important than any other plans.
I tried the wagon on numerous occasions, but I always felt unhappy and
abused. I tried psychiatry, but of course I gave the psychiatrist no
cooperation.
I was living in constant fear that I would get caught while driving a car,
so I used taxis part of the time. Then I began to have blackouts, and that
was a constant worry. To wake up at home, not knowing how I got there, and
to realize I had driven my car, became torture. Not knowing where I had been
or how I got home was making me desperate.
It now became necessary to have noon drinks---at first just two, then
gradually more. My hours of work were flexible, so that returning to the
office was not always important. Then I became careless and returned
sometimes when I shouldn't have. This worried me. The last two years of my
drinking, my entire personality changed to a cynical, intolerant, and
arrogant person completely different from my normal self. It was at this
stage of my life that resentments came in. Resenting anyone and everyone who
might interfere with my personal plans and ways of doing things---especially
for any interference with my drinking---I was full of self-pity.
I will never know all the people I hurt, all the friends I abused, the
humiliation of my family, the worry of my business associates, or how far
reaching it was. I continue to be surprised by the people I meet who say,
"You haven't had a drink for a long time, have you?" The surprise to me is
the fact that I didn't know that they knew my drinking had gotten out of
control. That is where we are really fooled. We think we can drink to excess
without anyone's knowing it. Everyone knows it. The only one we are fooling
is ourselves. We rationalize and excuse our conduct beyond all reason.
My wife and I had always encouraged our children to bring their friends home
at any time, but after a few experiences with a drunken father, they
eliminated home as a place to entertain friends. At the time this didn't
mean much to me. I was too busy devising excuses to be out with drinking
pals.
It seemed to me my wife was becoming more intolerant and narrow-minded all
the time. Whenever we went out, she appeared to go out of her way to keep me
from having more than one drink. What alcoholic can be satisfied with one
drink? After every cocktail party or dinner party she would say she couldn't
understand how I could get in such a drunken stupor on one drink. She of
course didn't realize how cunning an alcoholic can be and the lengths to
which he will go in finding ways to satisfy the compulsion for more and more
drinks after having had the first one. Neither did I.
Finally our invitations became fewer and fewer as friends had more
experience with my drinking pattern.
Two years before I joined A.A., my wife took a long trip during which she
wrote me she just couldn't return unless I did something about my drinking.
It was a shock of course, but I promised to stop and she returned. A year
later, while we were on a vacation trip, she packed up to go home because of
my excessive drinking, and I talked her out of it with the promise I would
go on the wagon for at least a year. I promised, but within two months, I
began again.
The following spring she left me one day without giving me any idea of where
she had gone, hoping this would bring me to my senses. In a few days an
attorney called on me and explained that something would have to be done, as
she couldn't face returning to me as I was. Again I promised to do something
about it. Broken promises, humiliation, hopelessness, worry, anxiety---but
still not enough.
There comes a time when you don't want to live and are afraid to die. Some
crisis brings you to a point of deciding to do something about your drinking
problem---to try anything. Help you once continually rejected, suggestions
once turned aside are finally accepted in desperation.
The final decision came when my daughter, following a drunk of mine that
ruined my wife's birthday, said, "It's Alcoholics Anonymous---or else!" Of
course, this suggestion had been made before on a number of occasions, but
like all alcoholics I wanted to handle my problem my own way, which really
meant I didn't want anything to interfere with my drinking. I was trying to
find an easier, softer way. By now it had become difficult to visualize a
life without alcohol.
However, my low had been reached. I realized I had been going down and down.
I was unhappy myself, and I had brought unhappiness to all who cared for me.
Physically I couldn't take it any more. Cold sweats, jumpy nerves, and lack
of sleep were becoming intolerable. Mentally, the fears and tensions, the
complete change in attitude and outlook bewildered me. This was no way to
live. The time for decision had arrived, and it was a relief to say yes when
my family said they would call Alcoholics Anonymous for me---a relief, even
though I dreaded it, feeling that this was the end of everything.
Early the next morning a man whose name I knew well, a lawyer, called on me.
Within thirty minutes I knew A.A. was the answer for me. We visited most of
that day and attended a meeting that night. I don't know what I expected,
but I most certainly didn't visualize a group of people talking about their
drinking problems, making light of their personal tragedies, and at the same
time enjoying themselves.
However, after I heard a few stories of jails, sanitariums, broken homes,
and skid row, I wondered if I really was an alcoholic. After all, I hadn't
started to drink early in life, so I had some stability and maturity to
guide me for a while. My responsibilities had been a restraining influence.
I had had no brushes with the law, though I should have had many. I had not
yet lost my job or family, even though both were on the verge of going. My
financial standing had not been impaired.
Could I be an alcoholic without some of the hair-raising experiences I had
heard of in meetings? The answer came to me very simply in the first step of
the Twelve Steps of A.A. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol---that
our lives had become unmanageable." This didn't say we had to be in jail,
ten, fifty, or one hundred times. It didn't say I had to lose one, five, or
ten jobs. It didn't say I had to lose my family. It didn't say I had to
finally live on skid row and drink bay rum, canned heat, or lemon extract.
It did say I admitted I was powerless over alcohol---that my life had become
unmanageable.
Most certainly I was powerless over alcohol, and for me, my life had become
unmanageable. It wasn't how far I had gone, but where I was headed. It was
important to me to see what alcohol had done to me and would continue to do
if I didn't have help.
At first it was a shock to realize I was an alcoholic, but the realization
that there was hope made it easier. The baffling problem of getting drunk
when I had every intention of staying sober was simplified. It was a great
relief to know I didn't have to drink any more.
I was told that I must want sobriety for my own sake, and I am convinced
this is true. There may be many reasons that bring one to A.A. for the first
time, but the lasting one must be to want sobriety and the A.A. way of
living for oneself.
From the start I liked everything about the A.A. program. I liked the
description of the alcoholic as a person who has found that alcohol is
interfering with his social or business life. The allergy idea I could
understand because I am allergic to certain pollens. Some of my family are
allergic to certain foods. What could be more reasonable than that some
people, including myself, were allergic to alcohol?
The explanation that alcoholism was a disease of a two-fold nature, an
allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind, cleared up a number of
puzzling questions for me. The allergy we could do nothing about. Somehow
our bodies had reached the point where we could no longer absorb alcohol in
our systems. The why is not important; the fact is that one drink will set
up a reaction in our system that requires more, that one drink is too much
and a hundred drinks are not enough.
The obsession of the mind was a little harder to understand, and yet
everyone has obsessions of various kinds. The alcoholic has them to an
exaggerated degree. Over a period of time he has built up self-pity and
resentments toward anyone or anything that interferes with his drinking.
Dishonest thinking, prejudice, ego, antagonism toward anyone and everyone
who dares to cross him, vanity, and a critical attitude are character
defects that gradually creep in and become a part of his life. Living with
fear and tension inevitably results in wanting to ease that tension, which
alcohol seems to do temporarily. It took me some time to realize that the
Twelve Steps of A.A. were designed to help correct these defects of
character and so help remove the obsession to drink. The Twelve Steps, which
to me are a spiritual way of living, soon meant honest thinking, not wishful
thinking, open-mindedness, a willingness to try, and a faith to accept. They
meant patience, tolerance, and humility, and above all, the belief that a
Power greater than myself could help. That Power I chose to call God.
A willingness to do whatever I was told to do simplified the program for me.
Study the A.A. book---don't just read it. They told me to go to meetings,
and I still do at every available opportunity, whether I am at home or in
some other city. Attending meetings has never been a chore to me. Nor have I
attended them with a feeling of just doing my duty. Meetings are both
relaxing and refreshing to me after a hard day. They said, "Get active," so
I helped whenever I could, and I still do.
A spiritual experience to me meant attending meetings and seeing a group of
people all there for the purpose of helping each other; hearing the Twelve
Steps and the Twelve Traditions read at a meeting; and hearing the Lord's
Prayer, which in an A.A. meeting has such great meaning---"Thy will be done,
not mine." A spiritual awakening soon came to mean trying each day to be a
little more thoughtful, more considerate, a little more courteous to those
with whom I came in contact.
To most of us, making amends will take the rest of our lives, but we can
start immediately. Just being sober will be making amends to many we have
hurt by our drunken actions. Making amends is sometimes doing what we are
capable of doing but failed to do because of alcohol---carrying out
community responsibilities such as community funds, Red Cross, educational
and religious activities in proportion to our abilities and energy.
I was desperately in earnest to follow through and understand what was
expected of me as a member of A.A. and to take each step of the twelve as
rapidly as possible. To me this meant telling my associates that I had
joined Alcoholics Anonymous; that I didn't know what was expected of me by
A.A., but that whatever it was, it was the most important thing in life for
me; that sobriety meant more to me than anything in this world. It was so
important that it must come ahead of anything.
There are many short phrases and expressions in A.A. that make sound sense.
"First Things First." Solve our immediate problems before we try to solve
all the others and get muddled in our thinking and doing. "Easy Does It."
Relax a little. Try for inner contentment. No one individual can carry all
the burdens of the world. Everyone has problems. Getting drunk won't solve
them. "Twenty-four hours a day." Today is the day. Doing our best, living
each day to the fullest is the art of living. Yesterday is gone, and we
don't know whether we will be here tomorrow. If we do a good job of living
today, and if tomorrow comes for us, then the chances are we will do a good
job when it arrives---so why worry about it?
The A.A. way of life is the way we always should have tried to live. "Grant
us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the
things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference." These thoughts become
part of our daily lives. They are not ideas of resignation but of the
recognition of certain basic facts of living.
The fact that A.A. is a spiritual program didn't scare me or raise any
prejudice in my mind. I couldn't afford the luxury of prejudice. I had tried
my way and had failed.
When I joined A.A., I did so for the sole purpose of getting sober and
staying sober. I didn't realize I would find so much more, but a new and
different outlook on life started opening up almost immediately. Each day
seems to be so much more productive and satisfying. I get so much more
enjoyment out of living. I find an inner pleasure in simple things. Living
just for today is a pleasant adventure.
Above all, I am grateful to A.A. for my sobriety, which means so much to my
family, friends, and business associates, because God and A.A. were able to
do for me something I was unable to do for myself.