Oral history interviews: George P on Indianapolis AA, and more

(conducted at C&L in 2017, with Bob E)

I went to my first AA meeting shortly after Thanksgiving of 1974.  I had my last drink in June of 1977, so I was not a fast learner. 

But the reason I went was pretty much the same reason Bob mentioned.  My wife was packed up and ready to go.  My employer was ready to let me go.  And they both said I needed to go to AA.  And they’d been putting lots of pamphlets around. 

So I went to my first meeting, and intermittently went off and on, and went to one treatment center, and then finally to a municipal court alcoholic treatment center, went to Fairbanks Hospital in 76, got bathed in AA there. 

And then I went to municipal court alcoholic treatment center for 90 days.  And it was a meeting a day.  So I didn’t learn quickly,  but I learned pretty thoroughly, that if I was gonna stay sober, I needed to go to AA.  It took root, finally, in June of 77. 

I could tell you a lot about people who were instrumental.  The impetus was not from me.  It was from my employer and from my wife.  Ultimately, it came from me.  My wife divorced me, and my employer fired me.  My sponsor was really hardcore.  He was a hardcore, hardcore AA guy.  

I was in Indianapolis.  We’d go to the Carvel Club at 46^th and Carvel.  He would drop me off there in the morning, at 7 o’clock, I'd go to a 7a.m. meeting, and he’d come back by at noon.  He owned a construction company.  We’d have lunch there at the club, we’d go to a noon meeting, he’d come back by,  we’d go to a 530 meeting, then he’d take me to the halfway house where I was living.  That’s basically what I did--I hung out at the club, and I went to as many as 3 meetings a day.

I remember one time, early on, I said, "I’m gonna talk at 33^rd and Meridian."  He said, "No you’re not."  I said, "Yeah, I’m supposed to do what I’m asked to do in this program."  He said, "Call Homer back and tell him you’re not talking.  You got nothing to say.  Shut up, just get there, clean the ashtrays, do what you gotta do."

I worked through the Steps continuously.  The first three years I was in the program, I think I was always working a Step with my sponsor.  But I had a problem trying to figure out how to practice these principles in all my affairs.  I was great around people in AA--it was the only place that i felt whole.  It was the only place I felt accepted, the only place I felt welcome.  I still have that--I feel at home in meetings.

I think Steps 3 and 5 are the two that stood out for me early on, because deciding to turn my will and my life over the care of God--I didn’t want to relinquish control.  I mean, I had messed everything up, I was out of control, but it was hard for me to relinquish control.  And 5--I mean, for me to entirely surrender was monumental, and 5 was just so cleansing.  It was incredibly cleansing.  I did it with a clergyman, a friend, United Methodist--it was a confessional, just not a sacramental confession. 

You know, making amends was hard, but that came later, and I made some mistakes in making amends.  That’s a humbling process, but fortunately, that didn’t come right away.  

I got sober in 77.  I left Indianapolis in 95.  There were a whole lot more speaker meetings, I mean a whole lot more.  Maybe my perception was skewed, because my sponsor did not like discussion meetings.  He didn’t like them.    He thought they were touchy feely.  He thought people threw out random bulls--- that had nothing to do with anything.  He wanted a meeting.  We didn't talk about anything but alcoholism.  No cross addiction.

You know, something else, Bob, that really has changed--John S and Linus N were the two men I  give credit for my sobriety--I mean, they just would not give up on me, either one of them.  They both made sure that they took me on 12 Step calls, and 12 Step work was a big deal.  

I remember one time, you talk about getting shot at, I got a call from central office--"This guy’s called for a 12^th step call," so we went to make the call, at 23^rd and Illinois, on top of the liquor store.  The guy told us to come in, he’s pointin' a revolver at us, he’s drunk out of his mind.  We had to talk him down.  He didn’t know who the f--- we were, what the f--- we wanted, he didn’t remember calling a 12^th Step call, that kind of stuff.  I was taught that I had to give this away.  I had to do 12^th Step work.  If i wanted to live, if i wanted to stay sober and live, I had to give it away, even if it meant going to 23rd and Illinois.  

There was an old timer in Indianapolis who had a Bill Wilson type house.  He’d take a lot of guys in and sober em up.  I never was one.  He had a big old rambling house down on Broadway Street, around 22^nd and Broadway, no, 32^nd and Broadway.  He’d take in 5 or 6 people.  He had a lot of AA meetings in his house.  

Everybody was convinced AA was where i needed to go.  My boss sent me to a psychiatrist.  My psychiatrist told my boss, basically he was ahead of his time, he said, "You know, this guy is alcoholic.  He’s gonna lie to me.  I’m no good for him.  He needs to go to AA."  

I remember one other thing--the one thing my sponsor required of me, I probably did the first decade I was sober:  either went to Pendleton Reformatory or Putnamville to the penal farm Thursday night.  I went to Putnamville just about every single week.  Sunday nights i went to Pendleton Reformatory.  That was just not something that was left to chance.  My sponsor said, "You go to a place where people are incarcerated and bring them some hope, even if all they want is to get out of their cell for a donut and a cup of coffee."  

Oral history interviews: Bob E on the 318 Madison Group and more

(interview conducted at C&L, with George P, 2017)

July of 1977, I had my wife call my dad, and he came over and did a 12^th Step call on me.  She was packing her bags at the time, and I was pretty sure I was going to commit suicide.  And I had known about AA most of my life.  I had decided I was never going to do that.  I don’t know where it came out of my mouth to call him.  

The next day, I was at a meeting here.  A man by the name of Hubert S gave a lead and basically told my life story.  And I thought they’d been spying on me.  I really liked the meetings.  They told me if I was serious I would go to a meeting every day, and I basically did.  I didn’t get 90 and 90, but I bet I got 85.  I liked the meetings.  I liked the stories.  I liked the people.  I liked the fact that I felt welcome.  There weren’t all that many places where I felt welcome at that point in my life. 

The problem was, what do you do the rest of the hours when I’m not at a meeting?  The first solution was in those days you could smoke in the meetings.  And there was a group of people that would come early, and another group that would stay late after the meetings.  So I would come early and stay late.  So that would cover about 3 hours a day.  

It was the other 21.  And that was a problem until it dawned on me that maybe I ought to think about or try to do some of the things these people talked about.  "You want to be happy, act as if you’re happy.  You want to be friendly, act as if you’re friendly."  And I would do that, and it would help.  It would help.  I could alleviate some of that craving, and some of that sour thinking, by doing those things.

Technically, my dad was my first sponsor, but he traveled a lot in his job, and he loved me too much--he wouldn’t be harsh.  Mel H respected my dad, and I think he just decided that i was going to be his pigeon.  The first time through the steps, I did the steps when Mel told me and how Mel told me, because I was afraid of him.   He was just the kind of guy that i wanted to be like.  He had integrity, faith, and serenity.  He was comfortable in his own skin, and I think he judged himself spiritually rather than materially.  He as the most humble man you can imagine.

We didn’t sit and read the book together.  He might tell me some nights to go home and read a particular part of the book, or read it again, and I would do that.  

With the Steps, two stand out in the first year of sobriety.  Step 2, Came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity came about when Mel made me start praying, and the compulsion to drink went away.  And the other was Step 5, where I just completely opened up, and just told what I  was, what I thought, what I felt--when I didn’t hide anything.  I remember walking home from that, and I had a sense that not only had a great weight been lifted off my shoulders, but I had burned a bunch of bridges back to drinking.  I couldn’t really say "Just kidding, let’s go to a bar."  Those are the two that stand out early for me.

There weren’t near as many meetings then as there are now.  There was a meeting here every night, and five of  the seven nights were speaker meetings here.  There were some other meetings not located here, but this was the only club.  There was a huge meeting out at St. Mary’s Hospital.  They kind of required everybody who went through their treatment program to go to that meeting, and that was a speaker meeting too.  

And after I was a year sober, some people started a young people’s meeting on Friday night that I went to regularly for years, and that was a great group you’ve probably heard me talk about the old 318 Madison meeting.  It just had a different tone--you know, hardcore.  If you didn’t like what somebody said, you told them.  Many of the people who were regulars there, close to 40 years ago and then down to about 20 years ago, because the meeting lasted a long time, are still sober today.  It was a wonderful location.  It was filthy.  It was on a block where one year there were 3 murders.  We were standing around outside talking one night, and somebody yelled “f--- you"--pow, pow, pow.  So we said, “Let’s meet over at Burger King.”

Perhaps the single most interesting conversation I’ve ever been in, in my life, was in that room right there after a meeting, where me, a prominent local surgeon, and a secretary treasurer of the Nashville Tennessee Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club sat for well over an hour, talking about Greek philosophy.  Now where else can that happen? where else?  

Oral history interviews: Bob M on C&L and more

(conducted at C&L in the second floor meeting room, I believe in November 2016.  Bob celebrated 50 years of sobriety in the room downstairs about 11 months later--October 2017!)

I heard that they had an AA meeting at the community center, and I needed it then.  But, you know, I had no idea.  But I was curious about it.  I remember being curious about it, but I was afraid to check it out.  I was only 17, 18 years old--my senior year.  I was already having trouble. already was into major trouble.

Anyway, I’m not sure how long they continued to meet at the community center.  I think the group split, and the original group went down to the little building right next to the Bell telephone building,  down at the corner of 5^th and Court.  I think the original group met there, and the group split off around the time Joe came in.

And they started meeting at Harpo's tavern, down on Division Street.  There were two doors to Harpo's.  I knew Harpo's well.  As you faced it, the door to the right took you into the bar downstairs.   The door to the left took you up some enclosed stairs, and they had an AA meeting upstairs.  It was a pretty good-sized hall. 

AA used to be so hard to find.  It was really anonymous.  They kept it anonymous, and you can understand why:  the stigma was something else.  And even after a person would get sober, a lot of times they’d lose their job.  If the lawyer found out they were in AA, they’d fire them--couldn’t have "drunks" working for them.

But anyway, they used to have dinners, I think once a month they had a dinner above Harpo's, and then in 66, Joe bought this place, and it was a mess.  He was a carpenter, and a darn good one, and he started working on it, and they started having meetings here.

Finally, at the tail end of my drinking, I was so ashamed that I wouldn’t go home, and I was out there.  This friend finally told my wife that her mother had been sober for 15 or 20 years.   She was one of the first women in Evansville. This was quite a wealthy family.  She finally told her, and she gave her Joe H’s telephone number--not her mother’s, Joe Hayden’s telephone number.  But she got it from her mother.  

Shortly after that happened, I finally hit bottom.  I had called her and said "I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I gotta try something; I’m dying out here."  Winter was coming on.  It was October.  I'd been on the street once before, and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to make it.  I had acute alcohol poisoning,  and I was close.  I almost died.

Anyway, I called her and told her I had to try something.  She said, "You really mean that?"   And I said, "Yeah, I’m dying out here."  And she said, "If you really mean that, come on home."  I hadn’t seen her in 5 or 6 months, and she said, "However, there’s gonna be two guys from AA."  She called Joe, and Joe said, "Are you calling for help, or is he?"  And he said, "If he ever calls for help, I’ll be there.  Call me any time, day or night."  

As it turned out, he couldn’t come that morning.  It was a Sunday morning.  He was a devout Catholic, very active in the Catholic Church, and he couldn’t come.  But two guys came who couldn’t have been two better guys for me.

That’s the way I found it.  You couldn’t find it.  They did have a number in the phone book, but how many drunks do you know who are gonna look in the phone book for AA?  We had an answering service, and that's the way we tried to carry the message.  Some people, usually families, would call, and we would tell them, "Well, if this person calls and expresses a desire, call and we’ll come," and we'd make 12th Step calls through that.  That was about the only way to carry the message.

Joe was very interested in trying to carry the message, trying to get the word out, and we had all kinds of projects that we would do.  Half this group took doctors, and another half took preachers.  We’d call on them.  Joe was very active in trying to get the message out, and consequently, he was not popular.  

That was the split.  They wanted to keep it anonymous.  They did keep it anonymous for a lot of years.  When I started, there were three meetings here a week:  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night.  Monday night was closed, and they had an Al-Anon meeting upstairs here.  It had been two bedrooms up here, two little old bedrooms, and that’s where they had it.  But eventually, they tore the wall out and made it one room.  But Al-Anon would meet on Monday night, and they met on Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock. 

Kenny B and I started a meeting on Wednesday morning, at 11 o'clock, at the same time the Al-Anons met, for people working nights.  But there were only about four of us that attended that meeting.  Kenny and I, and a man named Gene C was a great guy.  He was unemployed at the time.  He lived on Pigeon Creek in a houseboat, or he had, and they’d run everybody off of Pigeon Creek.  Gene--he had no education, hardly, but boy, he was a skilled carpenter and a great guy.  

And a guy named Eddie--Eddie’s still around, and I can’t think of Eddie’s last name, but Eddie comes to this meeting occasionally.  He’s been sober a good while.  He had a slip, but he’s been sober a good while.  He’s one of the few guys I’ve ever known that had a slip with a lot of sobriety, and was able to make it back and stay sober.  

Most of the people--if they had any length of sobriety and then slip, it takes them.  Quick.  I had a friend up in Tell City who'd been sober maybe 28 years.  He went back out, and he was dead within 14 months.  Unbelievable.  

The ones who slip--mostly they quit going to meetings.  They forget a day at at time.  This is the only place I ever heard of a day at a time.  And that’s all you got, really.  In my opinion, once you quit working a daily program, you’re in trouble.  It’s just a matter of time.  At least that’s the way I feel about it.  That's one of the main reasons I keep coming back--for my own sobriety.  However, I do feel a debt of gratitude, too.  Someone was here when I got here.  

A lot of people have gotten sober, and they’ve left.  Most of them leave and go to church, get real active in church, and get holier than thou, and they forget where they came from, in my opinion.  Some of them died sober, but most people, if they quit a daily program, it's just a matter of time--they’re gonna relapse.  At least, that’s been my experience.  

I was really active in service work when I first got sober, and anything Joe asked me to do, I’d do.  I started a meeting out at old Clearview Mental Hospital.  It didn't last very long--they shut the hospital down.  And I’d been locked up in that darn place--that’s why Joe asked me to start a meeting out there.  The year before I got sober, I got locked up out there.  I was there two weeks and conned my way out.  Supposed to be there a month.  

But anyway, the next meeting that I know of was on Sunday night here.  We started a Wednesday morning meeting, then we started a Sunday night meeting, and it was a 12 and 12 meeting.   It was a small meeting.  At one point we had a good group coming to that.

And then we just slowly added meetings every night.  From a period of '67 until about '72, '73, I believe it was '72 that this group split.  This group was humongous by then.  We were meeting every night, and the only closed meetings were Monday and Wednesday.  Monday was a speaker meeting.  Well, so was Wednesday and Friday.  And they were all speaker meetings.  Wednesday and Friday were open speaker meetings. 

At that time the neighbors didn’t want us here.  The neighbors were upset that we were here.  You know alcoholics, especially recovering alcoholics, are loud, laughing, carrying on.  And we’re meeting here three nights a week!

And to have a key to this place was really an honor.  There were just a few of us that had a key.  So I think we’ve lost some things.  But I also think we’ve gained a lot of things.  And I think as long as we stick with the Traditions, we'll be okay.