Chapter Thirteen

Past, Present and Future

After bragging to the folks back in Baton Rouge about my successes in “big time” TV, I was reluctant to leave a Boston unemployment line for gainful work in my adopted hometown. The wife du jour was in Boston College Law School and our two newly adopted sons were doing well in New England.

Returning to Louisiana meant reuniting with the children of my first family after nearly a decade of geographic separation. More scary was the prospect of confronting a tragedy that was unfolding in the life of my oldest son.

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I’ve been asked many times why I continue to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings after nearly four decades of sobriety. There are many reasons, none of which relate to a burning desire to pick up a drink. But one reason is Peggy.

With my career on hold in March, 1981, I was working as a part-time reporter for a small syndicated news service when my daughter, Sherri, called in near hysterics. My son, Michael, had been arrested in a New Orleans suburb as he fled the scene of a vicious rape. I tried to calm Sherri, though barely able to control my own emotions.

After hanging up, I did what eleven years of AA meetings taught me. I called another alcoholic. Peggy’s office was two blocks away. We attended the same meeting in a Boston suburb and rode the same train into the city most days.Educated at one of New England’s “Seven Sisters” Ivy League colleges, she was as different from me as could be.

But we shared a bond that defines Alcoholics Anonymous. Regardless of differing backgrounds, members feel deep-rooted obligations to one another. Hearing the agony in my voice, Peggy told me to meet her in ten minutes at the gate of Granary Burying Ground, a historic 250-year-old cemetery that serves as a quiet refuge in the midst of Boston’s downtown hubbub.

Sitting on a bench near the burial tomb of Paul Revere, I unleashed grief over my narcissistic failures as a parent and my inability to show Michael the kind of love he needed as a child. She listened patiently and non-judgmentally.

Her willingness to drop everything and rush to my side personified the Higher Power that is the essence of AA’s success. I haven’t seen Peggy in more than twenty-five years. But others like her give me good reasons for my continued presence at meetings.

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A phrase in Alcoholics Anonymous states, “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” The so-called Big Book from which the fellowship derives its name was written in 1939 by an ex-drunk known the world over as “Bill W.” It is a guide to sober living. I don’t believe I’m committing heresy in saying that I deeply “regret the past.” Otherwise I would be devoid of a conscience.

It is necessary for me to remember with “regret” that Mike and his sisters were witnesses to appalling incidents like my arrest on Christmas Eve, 1969, when I went into a drunken rage in our home. I don’t dwell on the image of Glenda and the children bailing me out of jail on Christmas morning. Nor do I recycle other insanities. However, I cannot afford to forget those times when alcohol controlled my life.