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 $14.00 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 follow-
ing 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 restauranteer, 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 ca n 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?