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 5th 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.
