"I won't go into detail about my life when I was drinking, but I will tell you it wasn't a pretty sight. I didn't function morally, spiritually, physically or mentally--I was a bum on the street and I didn't have a place to live or eat. And to think now that I have all the blessings in the world. . . .

"To give you an idea of the difference between Hazelden then and now, back then there was a priest named Nicholas J. Finn who came in to do Fifth Steps. Now, they have spiritual care professionals on staff who do nothing but Fifth Steps. There was just one building and seven or eight patients in 1949. There was a staff of five--Ernie and Lloyd the aides, the caretaker, Ma the cook, and Lynn Carroll the chief counselor. I was relatively young--I am 82 now and was 32 then--so the patients there were all older than me. They're all gone now.

"I'll tell you an amusing story from those early days. There was a fellow from Chicago who came to Hazelden; he was a well-to-do guy. He came by ambulance--all the way from Chicago--and his entire wardrobe consisted of one sock on his left foot. Boy, they talked about him for years. And you know, he recovered.

"There was no acceptance of the alcoholic in those days. Pat Butler hired me in 1952 to contact industry and business leaders--labor leaders, business owners, doctors, and anyone who might be willing to send alcoholics to Hazelden. The reception I got then was terrible. I went to one of the big businesses in the Midway area of St. Paul and I asked to talk with the personnel manager. He was there talking to a labor leader and they both wanted to hear what I had to say. I asked them what they did if they had alcoholic employees, and he said they don't have an alcoholic problem. 'If we have one we just get rid of them,' he said. I said, 'What if you have an employee with 20 to 25 years experience? Isn't that a pretty hefty investment?' They said, 'No, no. We just get rid of them.' That's how most employers solved the alcohol problem in those days.

"One of the most satisfying things about a Twelve Step program is helping people along the way. The recovering alcoholic is uniquely qualified to help the suffering alcoholic.

"One of my passions was to belong to a private country club. I achieved that because I sobered up. When I was drinking, I couldn't afford to play golf--I couldn't afford clubs. But now I belong to a private country club, believe it or not. That's exciting, boy! That's pretty fancy to me. It's just one of the benefits. I've got a place in Arizona, and I have a condo on a golf course in Inver Grove Heights. I've got things I never thought I'd have. There isn't anything that my wife and I don't have that we want. Our needs and wants are pretty modest, but we have everything we want, and that's a miracle to me. Certainly, Hazelden got me started. What would've happened to me if I hadn't gone to Hazelden? I don't know. I might have killed myself or somebody in an automobile accident.

"I say thank God for Hazelden, and I mean it sincerely from my heart. When you think of the changes it's made to hundreds of thousands of lives, it's amazing. You have to realize that one alcoholic--one person addicted who becomes straightened out--affects so many people around him. And their happiness revolves around that recovering person."

Published in The Voice, Winter 2000