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(10)
THE INDEPENDENT BLONDE
The
lady was blonde, self-supporting, and self-suffi-
cient. Then she began slamming doors, kicking shins,
and waking up in psychopathic wards. At last the
day came when all this changed.
I
HAVE TO TELL you a little of the way I lived before
I got into A.A. so you can see why I made the choice
that I did. I started drinking at the age of seventeen,
but I was in trouble with myself long before that. I
never got along at home, and at the age of thirteen
I stepped off and decided I'd go out for myself. I decided
that no one loved me and I didn't love them, and I was
going off and make myself independent.
My father brought us up to give no quarter and seek
no quarter, and that was just the way I lived. I gave
nothing, and I took nothing. I suppose I lived mostly
for pleasure, or what I knew of pleasure, which to me
was just going out at night. I worked all day, and went
out and stayed out at night. That was about as much
as I knew about life. I rebelled against everything
I'd ever heard as a child, and I lived to suit myself.
I never thought
much about settling down. I thought anyone who got under
the dominance of another human being was pretty foolish,
but when I was twenty-nine I did get married. I was
never
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THE
INDEPENDENT BLONDE
trained
to live with anyone else, and I took on a pretty big
job I wasn't capable of handling. After I was married
I was in much more trouble with myself and I drank a
great deal more, but now I had someone to blame it on.
All my life I had blamed everything that ever happened
to me on someone else, and I usually could find someone.
Now I have a husband. If I was drinking worse now, it
must be his fault.
One night I was
out drinking by myself, which I didn't do as a rule.
I sat in a bar drinking martinis for a long time, and
somewhere on the way home I fell down in the street,
and a cop came along and picked me up and took me to
St. Vincent's Hospital. They pronounced me Drunk and
Disorderly and took me over to Bellevue.
When I came to
the next morning, I was in the psychopathic ward. The
doctor who tested me and asked me a few personal questions
was a psychiatrist. I asked him to call up where I worked
and tell them I wouldn't be in. I thought they'd just
give me my clothes and let me leave quietly. They told
me that I was not able to go out on the street alone,
that I was not a responsible citizen. They said someone
would have to call for me. To someone is arrogant as
I was, who is taking care of herself, that was kind
of rough.
I thought I would
never get in such a situation again, and I thought the
way to get over it would be not to drink. I was so naive
that I thought that would be possible—by just wishing
not to drink! I didn't take a drink for three months,
but on New Year's Eve everybody was drinking, and about
two-thirty in the morning I started. In about one hour
I was drunker than anyone there. I kicked someone in
the shins and
533
ALCOHOLICS
ANONYMOUS
slammed
the door on his fingers. I knew I shouldn't be drinking,
and I was scared to death. I was in real trouble. I
didn't know why I was drinking, and I didn't know why
my behavior had changed so. I thought if I left my husband
things would be different. I thought I would be different
if I could live by myself again. Which I did—and proceeded
to drink worse than ever before.
Then I decided
that I was in trouble because I was living in New York
and everyone knew me, and I used to drink too much with
people, and maybe I didn't know the right people.
So I moved away. I never thought about changing myself,
I always thought about changing people, are changing
places.
I went down to
Virginia, of all places, to stop drinking. I was down
there one month when I bumped into a fellow I knew from
Greenwich Village who was on the same army post. We
were glad to see each other, and he invited me out,
and I said "Oh, I can't go out. I don't drink anymore."
I really thought if you didn't drink, you couldn't go
out! And he said, "Oh, that's all right. Come on
over to the Club and have a few beers." And I said,
"Well, that I can do." About midnight that
night, when they wanted to close up the Club, they announced
that if anybody was missing his companion, she was in
the ladies' room, passed out. That was me, in my brand
new environment, with the right people!
So I left there
and went to another army post, where some Red Cross
workers took me out on a date with some British officers.
I got drunk with the British officers, and I don't need
to tell you what I told the British officers, I being
Irish. I left the next day, tell-
ing
my boss that I needed a very serious operation, and
he agreed with me. I never had the courage to wait to
be fired. I left every place I'd ever been. I ran away
from life. I never knew myself until I got into A.A.
I had heard about
A.A. about a year before I came in, but I thought it
was some organization that helped you out financially,
and I was always too independent for that. But on June
1, 1945, I had lost all of that kind of independence.
I had been drunk for nine days, sick and alone and desperate.
They didn't have to tell me that alcoholism was a sickness.
When you take a bottle and lock that door and go in
by yourself, that is death.
This day I decided
to give up. I don't know why you give up one day and
not another—I have never been able to understand that.
I had suffered on drunks before, but as they explained
it to meet in A.A., that particular day I hit bottom.
I decided to call up A.A., but I didn't know that the
Clubhouse didn't open until noon. So I kept drinking
and calling up, and drinking and calling up. Finally,
I got someone on the telephone, and I told her I was
in trouble and asked what I should do. The girl asked
me if I could walk. And I said to myself, "My God,
how understanding! Somebody who knows that you couldn't
walk and why you couldn't walk!" I said to her,
"I don't know, I haven't tried." She said,
"Well, the only reason I ask is, if you can't we'll
come over to you." And I reared up in all my arrogance
and I said, "You'll never come to me, but I'll
go to you!" It took me until four o'clock that
day to get there.
I never shall forget
how comforted I fell that there
was
a building, there was a place, there were people who
were interested in what was wrong with me. I walked
in that door and the girl asked me my name, and I said,
"I'd rather not give you my name." She said,
"We don't care if you haven't got a name,
just so you have an alcoholic problem!" Well, I
was put to shame, and I told her my name. She assigned
me to another girl who took me upstairs. I looked into
this girl's eyes, and I thought, "If only my eyes
would ever be that clear again, then I'd be grateful
for that alone." Little did I ever think that many
more things would happen to me than clear eyes.
The first thing
I learned that day was that if I never took another
drink I would never have another problem with alcohol.
That went over in my mind like a Victrola record. I
had never thought about that first drink. I had schemed
and stolen drinks, but it was never the first one. And
here I had a very simple problem—one drink, and that's
all I was able to understand.
About seven o'clock
someone came over to this girl and asked her to speak
at a meeting in Brooklyn. I was scared this girl would
leave me. It was the first time in my life I ever had
needed someone, and I knew it. I looked at her
to see what she would say. She looked at me and said,
"Would you like to go to Brooklyn?" I don't
like to go the Brooklyn when I'm cold sober! But I wanted
to stay sober, and I went to Brooklyn. I don't know
who spoke first, last, or what, but someone got up and
said he had been in Bellevue thirty-five times. I thought,
"Oh, my God! I'll look likes St. Cecilia here!"
I was so glad to be able to tell this dark secret that
I had had for eight years
that
I nudged a man alongside of me and said, "Mister,
do you know I was in Bellevue once?" He said, "Okay,
girlie, you'll get the program." I guess he figured
I was just another psycho!
The next day I
started back for the Clubhouse. On my way over, that
thick head of mine started saying to me, "I don't
know that you're such a drunk. I think you're far too
dramatic about this whole thing. Why do you have to
go over there with that bunch of people?" I was
walking along a Bowery sort of street, with music playing
and those awful neon lights all around, and suddenly
a little man started to follow me. Not the kind of man
that follows nice girls. And suddenly I said to myself,
"Listen , Toots, there's something the matter with
you when a guy like that follows you, and you better
get over to the Clubhouse and find out what it is!"
I always like to say that on my second day I was "wolfed"
into A.A.
I heard that I
had to make amends, and do something good for someone—that
I was too self-centered. I thought of a girl friend
who had a brand new baby, and she used to like to get
drunk on Saturday night. And I thought, "That'll
be it. That'll be good." I called her up and told
her I'd mind the baby while she went out and got drunk.
That's how much I knew about doing good! The next day
I called my boss and told her what had happened to me
and asked her if she would take me back to work. It
was the first time in my life that I ever showed any
sort of humility, that I ever asked anybody for anything.
And I went back there to work. I learned that going
back and facing something unpleasant, regardless of
how tough it is at the time, is a lot easier than running
away.
I went to meetings every night in the week, because
I'm that kind of person. I either do a thing or I don't
do it. I didn't have to give up very much, because my
life before A.A. was very empty, very lonely, and very
superficial. Then I was always afraid of being a sucker,
for some unknown reason—I always thought people were
taking advantage of me.
One day a call
came in to the clubhouse for someone to go out and do
a Twelve Step job. And they looked at me and said, "How
long are you in?" and I said, "A week or so."
And they said, "Oh, you can't go. You have to be
sober three months." And then I realized that here
I had spent all of my life afraid that people were trying
to get something out of me, and I had nothing to give!
Now I was in an organization where they needed someone
that had something I didn't have; someone who was sober
three months, who had some sort of stability; someone
that had kindness in their hearts for other human beings,
and compassion for their suffering. I had to wait until
these people gave it to me so that I could go out and
give it away.
Then I began to
have trouble with myself, and I went to see Dr. Silkworth
and he explained to me what honesty was. I always thought
honesty had something to do with telling other people
the truth. He explained that it had to do first with
telling myself the truth. I spent most of my
life worrying about myself, thinking that I was unwanted,
that I was unloved. I've learned since being in A.A.
that the more I worry about me loving you, and the less
I worry about you loving me, the happier I'll be.
I discovered a
fellowship of human beings that I'd
never
seen before. I learned how to have self-respect through
work that A.A. gave me to do. I learned how to be
a friend. I learned how to go out and help other people—there
was nowhere else I could have done that. I have learned
that the more I give, the more I will have; the more
I learn to give, the more I learn to live.
539
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