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?