A Wedding Disaster Turned Into Miracles
How AA Found Its Way into our Family
Seventy-Four years ago today, Jim and Rosemary Bridgeman were getting married. On the morning of their wedding, they were driving all over the snow-covered streets of Pittsburgh, in search of a wedding cake. Mom’s Aunt Helen, in from Butler, had insisted on providing the wedding cake. She brought cupcakes! Little did they know that she was years ahead of her time. I’ve been to weddings where the cake was cupcakes, and it’s become a “thing”. On January 13th, 1945, it was not considered a “thing”. It was a disaster.
Another disaster that showed up for their wedding from Butler was Uncle Jerry L. His other siblings, which included Mom’s mother, Helen, hadn’t seen him in a while. They took one look at the condition he was in — an alcoholic who was pretty far gone “into his cups”, as they’d say then — and said, “You’re not going to Rosie’s wedding in that condition!”
They took him to a nearby hospital, and had him admitted to the Psychiatric Ward. There were no detoxes or rehabs in those days. Drunks were stuck in psych wards of hospitals to dry out — some never made it out of there, some used the proverbial revolving door to the psych wards, showing up there again and again, until they were finally left to die in their own misery.
There was no known cure for the malady of alcoholism. But there was a fledgling outfit that had been around for ten years at that point, and had only gotten a name six years earlier. Alcoholics Anonymous had gotten started when a hopelessly alcoholic former wall street researcher had sought out another drunk to work with on a business trip to Akron, Ohio, and something magical clicked when he talked to a Doctor Bob Smith. His name was Bill Wilson.
Dr. Bob managed to get sober, then he and Bill started seeking out other alcoholics to work with, to see if the magic could happen again. They met a fellow named Bill D. in a psych ward of a local hospital, and the magic did happen. Bill D. walked out of that hospital a free man.
This sort of success working with hopeless drunks continued until there was about 100 of them, beating the alcoholic rap and staying sober, despite their hopeless condition. They were using some spiritual principles borrowed from a religious group dubbed “The Oxford Group”, that Bill W. had boiled down into 12 Steps.
They’d gotten together and, with Bill as the driving force and the primary author, had put the 12 Steps and the rest of their story of recovery from a once fatal malady into a big book entitled Alcoholics Anonymous, to share their message of recovery with the world. That big book became known, worldwide, simply as The Big Book, and became the beacon of recovery from alcoholism the world over.
But, in January of 1945, the spread of that message was still in its infancy. The message had, by then, reached Pittsburgh, Pa, less than a 2 hour drive from Akron, Ohio, and recovered drunks in Pittsburgh were doing the same thing that Bill and Dr. Bob had done ten years before in Akron. They would visit psych wards of hospitals to talk to the drunks there. The hospitals were thrilled to have them, and more often than not, they’d find a live one who was ready to adopt their way of life. Many an alcoholic walked out of those hospital psych wards free men, thanks to AA’s message of recovery.
Uncle Jerry became one of them, when a couple of AA fellows visited him in St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh, and Jerry got over his alcoholism, and carried the message to Butler, Pa, where he helped AA to grow and thrive into a vibrant recovery community.
Over the years, Jerry L. worked with a lot of drunks, and a number of them got over the drinking and into a new way of living, sober. Some did not make it — but, Jerry was known for his never giving up on a drunk, no matter how many times the fellow stumbled and fell back into his old ways.
One such man would play a crucial role of bringing the AA message to my immediate family. This man, whose name has been lost to time, left Butler for parts west, Southern California specifically, attempting what is known as a “geographic cure”. The idea is to get away from all the things and temptations that made you drink, and start over fresh in a whole new environment. It can work for a short time, but for real alcoholics, it never does, because the one thing that follows them wherever they go, is themselves.
Sure enough, this man did well in California for a time, started and built up a successful business in sales, but fell back again to his old ways, and eventually wound up selling out his share of the business to a partner, no longer able to hold up his end of it. His wife and kids had long since left him, at that point.
So he packed all his worldly possessions into a station wagon, and flush with cash from buyout, began to make his way back to Butler to start over again in his old hometown. Maybe he’d find those AA guys and give it one more try.
He stopped at a hotel after a long day’s drive, to rest up and refresh himself. After getting settled in his room, he went down to the restaurant for a bite to eat. He decided to have a glass of sherry with his dinner, and proceeded to have an alcoholic blackout, where he was awake and alive, doing things, but would never have any recollection of what he did in the blackout. Blackouts can go on for days, and his did.
When he came to, he found himself in Kent, Ohio, penniless and without a car. He had no idea how he’d gotten there, nor where his money or the car went to. He picked himself up, and managed to find work, a place to live, and began the slow process of rebuilding his life from scratch. As a hardened alcoholic, he knew the drill, and knew where it all would eventually lead — again. He also knew that he would never stop — he’d tried, and simply couldn’t get with the program. He never forgot that guy back in Butler, Jerry L., who never gave up on him. But he had long since given up on himself. What was the use?
He got to know a younger fellow in his favorite bar hang-out in Kent, a guy named Pat, smart as a whip but just as crazy as he was. They became great drinking pals, and as he got to know Pat, he figured out that Pat was actually the nephew of Jerry L. from Butler — small world!
He really liked Pat, and hated the idea of him becoming as hopeless as he was, himself. He saw an opportunity to “pay-it-forward”, and began telling Pat about AA. The original group was right up the road, in Akron. He took his new friend to the hospital where the AA’s brought new recruits to get dried out, and showed him around it. “If things ever get bad for you, like they have for me, this is the place to get started on a new way of life. I’ve seen it work for dozens of other guys. It never did for me, but you’re still young, and have your whole life ahead of you. Remember this place — it could save your life someday.”
He left it at that. He eventually went his way, and Pat never heard from him again. No one knows what ever became of this stranger, but in my family, he will never be forgotten. Pat’s drinking became worse, and he found himself on a bridge over the Cuyahoga River, contemplating jumping. He instead got his wife, Aunt Dottie, to drive him to the hospital his friend had shown him, where he got sober, got involved in AA, and never drank again.
Four years later, my Mom, Rosemary, went up to Akron for Founders’ Day with her parents, whom Pat had invited up to see what AA was all about. While there, Pat showed Mom the hospital ward where he detoxed and got sober. Mom got to meet Bill Wilson at the Founders Day event. A week later, she called Pat and said she needed help, he told her to get on a Greyhound to Akron and he’d meet her there. He arranged a bed for her at the same hospital, and she got sober. She had one relapse four years later, but remained sober for the next 44 years.
When I’d reached the end of my line, drinking and doing drugs, I reached out to Mom and admitted to her that I had a drinking problem. I never drank again. Three of my siblings are also in the program. Among us, we have about 135 years of continuous sobriety.
In our family, we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Uncle Jerry L., the unknown stranger who carried the message to our Uncle Pat, to Uncle Pat, and to our Mom, for showing the way to recovery. In my case, my brother Ken, who got sober right before I did, is also on my gratitude list.
To think, it all started 74 years ago, on January 13, 1945, when Uncle Jerry was too drunk to attend my parents’ wedding. If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t even be here.
