What It Was Like

I was a teenage alcoholic so I never drank normally. I spent great amounts of time in drunk tanks, the 5th floor of Harborview and was treated medically for alcoholism at the age of 16 in 1949. I always was a booze fighter, a violent drunk and everyone knew this about me. Actually I was a good fighter until the booze caught up with me. Then I started getting beat up.

My dad was a gambler and that is the reason we were very poor. He gambled like I drank. I left home when I was 16 and lived with an Italian family in Rainier Valley. I was deeply ashamed of my folks, brothers and sisters. I had a tremendous need to be successful, and success for me was based on making money one way or the other. There never was a question of ability with me; it was a question of my drinking.

I was fired from a number of jobs because of drinking. Eventually I was blackballed from the operating engineers. I was sober a couple of years before they would hire me back to work in heavy construction. Once I was rehired, I worked at that profession until I was 11 years sober.

All during my drinking there were periods where people went out of their way to help. Some of that help was forced on me through the courts. I did seek psychiatric help but that option was eliminated due to economics. There was no insurance; it was cash and carry back then. Aversion treatment prices were $250 for ten days and that solution does work for some people.

I got picked up for public drunkeness the 3rd time in one month with 30 days already hanging over my head. I told the judge that I had been drafted; he thought that was a wonderful solution. About four or five days later there was a knock at the door Officer Wolfe said, "If you think you pulled a fast one on the judge you´re wrong." So the next day I went down and volunteered for the draft. It was 1953, and I was 19. That is how I became a paratrooper. I jumped out of planes because I got an extra $42.50 per month. It was always economics. Base pay was about $55.00 per month, so it almost doubled my salary. It was an extra weekend drunk in Nashville.

I came out of the service in 1955 with an honorable discharge. I have always felt good about that because at my last court-martial the psychiatrist, first sergeant, and company commander went to bat for me. I was supposed to be discharged on a certain date but instead I had been in Nashville, drunk..

I went to a Russian wedding in 1961. I was 26 years old, and my boss´s daughter was the bride. They wanted me at the wedding, but I could not get drunk. Guess what happened? I knocked down the groom and roughed up my wife. I called AA the next day, and Ward came to my home. We went to meetings all over the area because there weren´t a bunch of meetings in one area. After 90 days I responsibly called Ward and told him that I was going to drink. I thought he would beg me not to turn away from AA, but instead he told me, "go ahead." It finally stuck when I was 27 years old.

I went to my first AA meeting Monday night at Medina. On Tuesday night I got three phone calls. That´s what impressed me, that´s what brought me back to AA, those three phone calls. You would be surprised how many people came back to AA because of a phone call. Somebody cared. It was extremely difficult for me and what saved me was going to an awful lot of AA meetings with my sponsor, Ward, and other guys who were far better off than me. I went to work out of town the first seven months because I was blackballed out of the operating engineers in this area, so I had to go to work in Port Angeles and Packwood. I was sober a year and was in Packwood. Not drinking was starting to grind on me and they did not have AA meetings in Packwood. At that point, I understood that I was spiritually weak, and if there were not changes in my life, I would not make it.

It was about Thanksgiving 1963 that I started becoming involved in metaphysics, going to church and taking my boys to church. Some healthy changes started taking place. I got involved in meditation. It took about a year of practice, but I reached a point where I could block out all negative thoughts and put something positive in their place. I started to understand that I was going to be all right, and I could go any place in the world and not get drunk.

Alano Club of the Eastside History Before it was the Alano Club, it had red velvet drapes, and was a hair salon run by a very colorful man who was trying to stay sober. When the AAs were talking about starting the Club, I was against it because I had seen what politics had done to the Seattle and Fremont clubs. But in the end, I was wrong.

Eventually my wife, Tufia, went to work at the Alano Club so I was hanging around and helping out. At the 25th anniversary of the club, I remembered that I was not for the Club when it got started. To be proven that you are wrong again is healthy.

What It´s Like Now

I am 67 years old. Since July 8, 1962; my sobriety date, AA has always been good. I am just one of the fortunate guys who feels good about not drinking. I never drank normally so I don´t know what it´s like having fun drinking; but I do know what it´s like to have fun sober. My sister and other members of my family have also taken to sobriety.Life is not complicated We people who are alcoholics cannot make the same mistakes as other people, specifically anger and resentments. I have had to learn how to control my temper over the years.

My boys were one and three when I stopped drinking. Then we had another boy a year later. He killed himself nine years ago due to alcohol and cocaine. He was special because he was born a year after I stopped drinking. He liked the ladies, the booze, and the cocaine. And you know, he was a good guy. He lacked something I had, and I still feel guilty. He was 32 years old when he died and when I was 32 years old I had five years of sobriety. The other two boys don´t show any sign of alcoholism. It was during that time that I started sponsoring Joe W. That told me that God, as I understand him, puts people in my life at the right time. That is also the time that I started as the secretary for the Friday noon meeting at the Alano Club. It was probably the most difficult time in my life . AA Then and Now

The difference with AA then and now is the sheer size. The size dictates change. Anytime a new person came into an AA group, everyone rallied around that person. We gave them phone numbers, did whatever was necessary to help them. There was a tremendous amount of 12 Step work for us, and that is what kept us sober. It was not unusual for someone to be living at my house, helping them with money, a job, etc. The first ten years I was sober, I never went to an AA meeting alone. I always had a new person along for the meeting. The big difference today seems to be that the new person kind of gets lost in the shuffle.

In the 60s, anonymity was stressed a tremendous amount. There are people I have known for 40 years, and I still do not know their last names.

Most of us were married when we came to AA. Consequently our spouses went to Alanon. When I made a 12 Step call I would bring my wife with me to make the call on the spouse. There was not a lot of separation between AA and Alanon. But you´ve got to remember, we were small. We were a tight bunch and did a lot of things together socially. There is separation now because of the sheer size of the programs.

Alcoholism is more complex now because of all the other drugs. Back in my day nobody talked about drugs. If they did they were run out of AA meetings. Period! But that was 40 years ago. There was a reason why we felt like that then. We had found something that was working in our lives. We didn´t want to take a chance on letting anyone screw it up. In about 1964 an article came out in Harpers Magazine titled "AA: Cure or Cult?". There was a big controversy about it. Should we string this guy up or what? As it turned out he had gone through treatment and AA meetings and was not happy with the Higher Power end of things. We found out at that time the best thing to do was let it be. And of course, it went away.

In Closing

I cannot emphasize enough that I cannot hide behind my sobriety date. I have to keep doing the work, participating in AA meetings, and continuing to sponsor people. I am positive about my sobriety. There are certain things that work, and we know what they are now: working the steps, having a home group, providing sponsorship and studying the Big Book. When we are in a meeting, we don´t know who doesn´t know the basics, so it´s our responsibility to repeat the basics.

Today we spend too much time talking about what we used to be like. We don´t spend a lot of time talking about what we are like now. Early in sobriety I heard what my life could be like at a meeting down at the Big Hall from a man from the Renton Group. He saved my life by sharing what his life had become. He gave me hope.

Interviewed by Lora B., Eastside Alano webmaster. Written by Dick S.