(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 46th 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
33rd 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 12th
step call," so we went to make the call, at 23rd 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 12th Step call, that kind of stuff. I was taught that I had to
give this away. I had to do 12th
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 22nd and Broadway, no, 32nd 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."
