A Business Man's Recovery
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 opporunity 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.