Advent Journeys of Faith

By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

(Second in a series of four)

Now he can look back and be glad. It’s not that the journey is over, not by a long shot. It’s just that now he knows where he is going. And that feels good.

Joe shudders as he remembers how young he was when alcohol became the most important element in his life. It would keep center stage for many years, in high places and in low, in jails and on the streets, within and without his family circle. For those long, interminable years, brutalized by pain and loss, Joe held on to this one support – alcohol. And then it failed him too.

He was born into a wealthy family in Fall River, Massachusetts. There were four boys and one girl. “My mother died when I was 10,” he recalls. “She had been emotionally ill for years. Not having her around me because of her illness left a void in me. I know this. I didn’t know what I could do about it.”

Very soon he would learn.

Joe was sent to one of the finest prep school in the country – Phillips Academy in Andover. At the age of 15 – and doing well academically – Joe, along with his classmates, would get weekends off. It was one of those weekends he took his first drink of alcohol. “I got drunk that first time,” he recalls and then adds, “and every single time I ever drank after that, until I finally quit, I got drunk. Every time.”

Joe does not remember liking the taste, particularly, but the effect was great. “I could feel good at last about my mother and I could brush aside those painful memories of her illness.”

He got through Andover and Joe found himself entering the hallowed gates at Harvard. “This was not prep school. No sneaking around here. I could drink as often as I liked and I liked a lot. My goal was to stay out of jail and somehow maintain a ‘C’.”

There was no jail that first year for Joe but there was no “C” either. “I was drunk every day,” says Joe, who now lives in Atlanta. “I did my best to get by. I played soccer in goals so there was no running to do but after one year, they kicked me out.”

Joe headed for New York and took a job for a year. “I decided I would have to cool it so I could get back to school. A year later they took me back at Harvard. I tried to keep a low profile, but I could not stay away from the booze. And I found I needed it more and more often.”

Joe remembers a young freshman who loaned him money for booze at the time. “His name was Bobby Kennedy. He was a good, young, marvelously tough individual,” says Joe. “After I got sober I sent him back the money he loaned me. I needed to make those amends to him and to others.”

After two and a half years, in 1943, still without graduating, Joe left Harvard and decided to join the Marine Corps. “I loved the Corps and I really wanted my commission. I worked hard and stayed away from fights and brawls. I could not stay away from the booze, but I was careful. I wanted the commission.”

It was not to be. Three weeks away from being commissioned as an officer, Joe was found in a drunken slumber, passed out on a park bench. The commission was denied.

“Harvard denied me my graduation, the Marines denied me my commission, so I went overseas feeling I had nothing more to lose.”

Joe was wrong. There was pain to come he never dreamed would happen. He was sent to the Pacific but instead of fighting the enemy, he fought his way from bar to bar. “I don’t remember most of the trouble. It happened again and again while I was in a black out.”

The words “black out” hold terror for the alcoholic. They do not describe an unconscious state, but just a state of non-remembrance. Activities take place which just cannot be recalled. Men have killed in a black out and not ever remembered the incident.

In 1945, the Marine Corps, like Harvard, dismissed Joe from its ranks. Bearing an injury he received in a bar, he was released. “Five years later I would eventually get sober. But those years were generations of pain and hell I would never want to travel again. I was in jail 50 or 60 times. I was in the hospital 11 different times, mostly just to dry out. On two of those occasions I got treatment but I did not respond. I had one thought on my mind, I needed to get back to my booze. It was the only thing that helped the pain.”

Joe pauses in the story of his journey to talk about the pain of the alcoholic. “They say just don’t drink and you’ll be alright. They are wrong. The agony of alcoholism is that awful pain of personal feelings gone crazy. You are overwhelmed with feelings of guilt – what you’ve done, shame – what you are, depression, anger and the awful ever-present resentments. You resent everyone else for being everything you are not. And there is no way you can ever picture yourself becoming like them. You feel those agonies today and you know you will feel them tomorrow and the next day. On and on. There’s no end.”

In those five final years of active alcoholism, Joe drank everything, everywhere. “I was on the streets, unemployable. I moved around, staying ahead of the law. I drank whatever I could find. When there was no whiskey I drank paraldehyde – a mixture of ether and alcohol. After a night of that you could eat next morning when you woke up and not feel sick.”

In 1946, when Joe was merely 25 he turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for help. “It was a young organization then,” says Joe. “It had only 70,000 members. It has a membership of 3 million now. The problem was they had never seen anyone so youthful seeking their help. I had a problem too. Most of the ones I met were older and had been in jail over 100 times. I had only 50 jail terms so I figured I did not qualify for their program. I went back out for more.”

Joe had been raised Catholic and while he rarely attended Mass, he did not lose his faith. “The guilt was too much; I could not face God or church. I had been conning people for years, I had no liking for anyone, I could not even face myself, so how could I face God. But one day that would change.”

Just about that time Joe met a girl and fell in love. “I really wanted to have this happiness, so I tried to get my life in shape.”

He did to some extent. He and his girl were married in May 1948. Everything went fine – for one month. In June he was separated, back on the streets and even back to jail. It was the same old story. “That first drink did it, I could not stop and the black outs now came more quickly.”

In February 1949, Joe’s younger brother picked him up off the streets and brought him to the Washingtonian Institute in Boston. “They admitted me,” says Joe, “because the doctor who had refused admittance to me many times was off duty.”

This was to be the final bottom for this active alcoholic. “The man in the bed beside me died. I knew I wanted to live, I wanted my home, my family. I felt I was ready.”

After about eight days in the hospital, Joe’s wife came and took him home. His new journey to a sober life began. It wasn’t easy but as Joe would often be heard saying, “my worst day sober was better than my best day drunk.”

The first three months of his sobriety were very difficult. Joe found it hard to stay away from his old difficulty – the first drink. “The people in Archdiocese of Atlanta loved me and never let me feel alone. I was still unemployable. For those first months all I could do was keep a little job; picking up leaves and tidying up yards. It was tough and I kept wondering when it would get easier.”

After maintaining sobriety for three months, Joe felt it was time to pronounce his victory to others. His close friend in Alcoholics Anonymous listened and then reminded him of a fact he would never forget. He said, ‘Joe, get this straight, three months sobriety may be big stuff to you, but that’s not how we do it. For us it is a one day at a time program.”

“It was great,” recalls Joe, “because I heard what he said. It was the turning point. I knew I would be alright. I began to live the program one day at a time. I went on my knees again, I brought God into my life and I began once more to be able to practice my religion. But that message from that friend was the turning point.”

Joe went on to a successful business career in New England and in 1953 he moved south and prospered even more in the finance business. “Doors opened for me as I continued to walk this journey and live my new life. I have been blessed, the years have been happy. I really should have been dead before I was 30. My one day at a time program has been wonderful. The beauty of it goes on and one.”

Joe’s journey of faith continues. On March 1, 1984 he will have celebrated 35 years of sober living. And for Joe to be alive, as he constantly says, is a first class miracle.