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?