“…And the businessman slowly got stoned…” (Billy Joel, November 1973)

I both like and dislike the picture above. Today, January 8-2025, if I were in this picture now being sober, I would be holding a bottle of water or a cup of my favorite coffee. In fact, there were days and nights during my “drinking career” when that actually did happen… but not often… mostly never… maybe never… never.

Yep, old George would have lied… but in recovery, regardless of what your disease or a family member’s might be… we are taught early on to be “rigorously honest.” When I heard that phrase… well, the word rigorously attached to honesty… scared the you-know-what out of me. Through 27+ years of sobriety have I “always” been rigorously honest? I would love to proudly say, “Yes, I have.” However, I’m sure I’ve failed a few times, although I attempt to catch myself, and if I fail that test, I make amends to whomever as soon as possible. Hey… I’m human and still an alcoholic and always will be.

So, in the picture above, this is how an evening on the town with colleagues or clients would begin. Everyone looks great. Bright-eyed, smiling, holding that drink, telling jokes, trading war stories of our successes, embellishing how we won the day, etc. Even if you’re not an alcoholic or addict, I’m sure you can relate to some of this. The difference… you might be able to walk away from the drink… I could not. Without further ado…

The Story

(Yeah… it’s part of my story)

It was a miserable Monday afternoon during one of those muggy, overcast, humid, drizzling days in the summer of 1997, with temperatures hovering around 75 degrees Fahrenheit. My heart and soul were just as overcast. Heck, truth be told, they were as dark as the sky was when Katrina hit New Orleans. The date was August 25. I was working for a large medical manufacturing concern at the time, enjoying what I perceived to be the good life. I was a sales manager and had all the great perks that went with the job. I had worked the morning in our corporate offices in a suburb of Boston, then drove down to Worcester, Massachusetts to visit a client.

Now natives of Massachusetts pronounce Worcester as Wusta. Hey, they pronounce chowder as chowda. What a country! Subsequent to the client meeting, I ventured into an old Irish Pub (is there really any other kind?) for lunch near the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross. We drinkers have all been in pubs like this. Dim lighting, a whispered hush at the bar, sparkles of dust visibly floating in the air which is stale, smoke lingering from cigarettes not finished in ash trays, a juke box mournfully playing “Danny Boy” or “Four Green Fields.” The food is barely describable, but we never actually came for the food.

I had no other meetings for the afternoon. The calendar was clear. I had a flight out of Logan about 3:00 p.m. through Pittsburgh, then on to Atlanta. I had my afternoon and evening mapped out. Sit back, relax, eat and drink. I was on the road, away from home which was in Pennsylvania, so my company picked up the tab for three squares a day (and yes, drinks, too). I ordered a pint of Guinness Stout and a small tumbler of single malt scotch. No need to rush. Lots of good time to drink lots of good booze.

Needless to say, not in a million years could you have told me that this was the beginning of my last load; the last time I would be drunk; the last time I would black out in my hotel room.

I described some of the details on my trip to Atlanta from Boston and into sobriety in my memoir. For now, suffice it to say, I arrived safely but not soberly. Bluntly stated, I was hammered. I got behind the wheel of a rental car while intoxicated, stopped at a gas station, purchased two quarts of Bud (in Georgia they sell gas and beer at stations…go figure!) and then drove to my upscale hotel on the outskirts of Atlanta.

I could very well have killed someone or myself, but none of that entered my inebriated state of mind. After dumping my luggage in the room, I made my way down to the hotel lounge where I proceeded, by all indications the next morning, to get obliterated on alcohol. The local piano man was playing. I have a decent voice and had been here before. He welcomed me with a rendition of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel. I pulled up my chair next to those ivory keys and sang tunes with him until the barkeep asked for “last call.”

In my mind’s eye these many years later, I remember early in the morning, most likely between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., of August 26, leaving a voice mail for my sales rep telling him that I had just arrived in my hotel room and would not make that 8:00 a.m. client meeting he had scheduled in Marietta, Georgia.

A lie, but I needed some shut eye. I knew that I would have a severe case of the “Irish flu.” I told him to pick me up at about 10:00 a.m. and would continue the day from there. What a gem of a manager I was, eh?

Thus, it was at the end of that working day on August 26 that I finally ascertained I had a serious problem. I was still “hung” when I entered the lobby of this five-star hotel in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, around 6:00 p.m. Upon entering the lobby, I pulled out my plastic room key with the magnetic strip on the back, walked to the bank of elevators, and as the doors opened I took one step forward and stopped dead in my tracks. Immediately I realized I had no friggin’ idea where my room was located! I then sheepishly walked back to the front desk, approached the hotel clerk and embarrassingly told her that I had a late night last night, a rough day at work, and could not remember what my room number was or on what floor it was located. She looked it up and kindly said, “No worries. It happens all the time.” But I knew this to be another lie. It had never happened to me, and I knew why it had happened. I drank until I blacked out the night before. Only God knows how I got to my room that last night of drinking. It appears the old saying may be true that “God does take care of little children and drunks.”