The Harder They Fall (7 page)
Read The Harder They Fall Online
Authors: Gary Stromberg
I have a wonderful, magical woman in my life today. It’s the love affair
I’ve always dreamed of—Siamese twin to the kind of friendship I’ve never been able to maintain. I’m learning to listen. I think that’s a big part of my growth. I always said my kids were my best work. The fact is I learn from them every day. Life 101. But it’s only possible because I have a relationship with myself and with my Higher Power. There was a time when my lady and I combined made for one healthy person: her! I think that’s changed somewhat. I know it has.
I did several years of analysis. That old Freudian “we look at the relationship with the mother” school of introspection. My guess is the first time I was breastfed, instead of getting all warm and fuzzy and secure, burping and drifting off to sleep, I was probably one of those babies that immediately worried that the breast once removed was never coming back. It’s a fear-based thinking that may be hardwired into some of us. So at some base level, if I love someone, it’s in my psyche that I’m going to lose them.
Overcoming that hidden terror is a big thing. And to deal with it you have to, well, deal with it. That means not medicating it. The gift of recovery begins with clear vision, which means brighter sunlight, more magnificent sunsets, and last but not least, a real clear up-close-and-personal view of your own personalized horror film. Once we get a good look at all that fear, we can go to work on it.
We’ve only just begun
To live
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we’re on our way
Before the rising sun
We fly
So many roads to choose
We start out walking and learn to run
And yes we’ve just begun
Sharing horizons that are new to us
Watching the signs along the way
Talking it over just the two of us
Working together day to day
Together
And when the evening comes
We smile
So much of life ahead
We’ll find a place where there’s room to grow
And yes we’ve just begun
To live
We’ve only just begun
To live
—“We’ve Only Just Begun”
I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.
—Abraham Lincoln
(U.S. congressman)
W
HEN COMING UP WITH THE
idea of writing a book about celebrities in recovery, we decided we wanted to find recovering people in five different categories: music, film, sports, literature, and politics. I was familiar with likely candidates in the first four, but I had no real sense of whom I might find in the political arena. Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, was sober, but she had appeared in previous books about sobriety and was just a bit beyond the age group we were seeking. While watching TV one evening, I came across a program featuring Bill Moyers interviewing congressman Jim Ramstad of Minnesota. I had never heard of Jim, but during the course of the Moyers interview, he started expounding upon legislation he was working on regarding the treatment of alcoholics in this country. He also mentioned that he is in recovery himself, which really got my attention. I sent an e-mail to his congressional office and almost immediately received a warm response. After a quick exchange of messages, I was invited to come see the congressman, and a meeting was arranged.
I was met at the Washington, D.C., train station by Drew Peterson, Jim’s well-organized and accommodating press secretary, and given a brief ride to Jim’s office in the Cannon House Office Building, passing the Capitol along the way.
I was immediately ushered into the congressman’s office, where I was heartily welcomed. Jim was dressed in casual attire: dark-blue
crew-neck sweater over a yellow-collared shirt. Khaki trousers and cordovan loafers completed the outfit.
His handshake was strong and firm, and he looked me right in the eyes when I introduced myself. Jim’s face is that of an All-American—ruggedly handsome and distinguished by a crease in his lip that makes his mouth appear to smile, even when it’s not.
The walls of Jim’s office are what you would expect from a congressman. Photos adorn one entire wall. But prominently centered on his very large, dark, wood desk was a copy of
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
. This is a small volume of daily meditations for people in recovery from alcoholism, which he says he reads every morning. He picked it up and held it as if it were sacred.
I could tell Jim was eager and completely willing to tell me his story, one he has told countless times in his twenty-two years of sobriety. The only request I made was that I wanted to hear his
feelings
about the events he would share with me. I was needlessly worried that, being a politician, he might be cautious about sharing his private thoughts.
When talking to another alcoholic about alcoholism, I am almost always struck with how personal and familiar the conversation seems. Talking with Jim was no exception. He was very relaxed and easily recounted his story. I think he felt the same way toward me. We know who each other is and the bonding is rapid.
When he ended our talk, Jim told me he would do “anything” to help me with this book. I knew he meant it.
As far as I’m concerned, I waive my anonymity about my alcoholism. Actually the press breached my anonymity for me on July 31, 1981, when I woke up in a jail cell in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, under arrest after my last alcoholic blackout, for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and failure to vacate the premises.
I happened to be at the time a young state senator. I had just finished the first year of my first term in the Minnesota state senate. And I went to South Dakota with some Viking football players to roast a former Viking named Neil Graff, who backed up Fran Tarkington as a quarterback for a number of years, to raise money for youth sports in Sioux Falls. I was doing a favor for a supporter who had campaigned for me and was a good friend. We went down to speak and attend a fund-raising dinner.
As was customary for me in those days when I went out of town, when I thought I was safe, I would drink—abuse alcohol—as I did for twelve long painful years. And that particular night was my last alcoholic blackout: I haven’t had one for the last twenty-two years, three months, and thirteen days since I got sober. Because I was a public figure in Minnesota, the press breached any anonymity I had. And that was very liberating for me—very freeing actually. At the time when it happened, I wanted to be dead and was sure my political career was over. You know, who’s going to vote for a drunk who embarrasses himself and his family and friends and constituents as I did. But instead, it was just the beginning of a whole new way of living. A life of sobriety and a healthy, productive life-style, which I had never known before. A life of honesty, where I am the same person publicly as I am privately. That arrest became the greatest thing that ever happened to me, the greatest moment of my life. It was a blessing, and I believe it was God’s way of showing me that I was an alcoholic and that I did need help.
For twelve years, my family and those who loved me had suggested, based on incident after incident, whether it was a DWI, ending up in detox, or embarrassing friends and family at social functions, that I look at my alcoholism. I had two great uncles who had died of alcoholism: one on my mother’s side, one on my father’s side, both men I respected. One was a doctor, the other a very successful business person. One uncle died on skid row after losing everything, and the other uncle died in a state mental institution.
These were my images of alcoholism, and the last thing I ever wanted to be was an alcoholic. And for twelve years, I was a practicing alcoholic. So you see why it was a blessing that the good Lord brought me to my knees in that jail cell on July 31, 1981. For the first time, I admitted my
powerlessness over alcohol. My life had obviously become unmanageable. I couldn’t see it until that day in my jail cell. Because I had tried to quit. I had quit for eleven months once. Lied my way through an outpatient and nighttime treatment program. This time was different. In that jail cell, I felt physically lighter. I felt a connection to my Higher Power that I had never felt before.
I always thought spiritual awakenings were fabrications of evangelical spin masters. But I realized that day I was having a spiritual awakening. I had been a crisis Christian all those years I was drinking, and my spiritual life had gone to hell in a hand basket. All I was doing was politics, and then on the side on weekends, I was a binge drinker. And I was afraid of looking bad in those days. Because of political concerns, I would limit my drinking to only in the company of very close friends, or when I was out of town. Well, Sioux Falls was out of town, and I was with some of my closest friends, so I thought I was safe. But I had so many blackouts—just hundreds of blackouts. So I was grateful that I was able to take that first step in that jail cell.
Through high school I was a student athlete, never drank at all, was very straight. Same in college. I was active in student government, president of my fraternity, student senator at the University of Minnesota. I worked hard at my grades. I was very successful in school and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. I wanted to do well to get into a good law school, and so I stayed away from drinking until my senior year. That spring I was introduced to alcohol for the first time in my life. I was at a Polynesian restaurant in downtown Minneapolis with my girlfriend and another friend, and I tasted a Polynesian rum drink and loved it. I drank the whole thing and ordered another and another, and during that first encounter got inebriated. And literally my girlfriend and the other friend carried me out of the restaurant. Thus, the very first time I drank, I blacked out, and for the next dozen years was a binge drinker. There were times I’d drink and function, but towards the end, the blackouts were recurring quite frequently.
The summer after graduation from college, I went on active duty in the Army. During basic combat training, I got back into physical shape. When I left Fort Bragg and basic training, and came to Fort Myers, we had weekend
sprees. It was over here in Georgetown, on active duty, that I started on my heavy drinking again in some of the saloons with friends. Again, the pattern was to start drinking and not quit. I could tell my ghastly story but don’t want to bore anybody. My story is similar to those commonly heard and to the ones I hear every week.
Yet I wasn’t aware I was drinking more than my friends or that alcohol affected me differently. I didn’t think of myself as an alcoholic. I thought I could control it. Once I quit for eleven months and was sure I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was very ignorant of the nature of the disease. On the plane coming back from Sioux Falls after my release from jail, I asked a former Viking, a drinking buddy, “You mean all those times that we would party, you remembered everything the next day?” And he said, “Yeah.” … “You never blacked out and forgot whom you talked to or insulted?” He said, “No, I really didn’t.” And the guy sitting next to him said the same thing. Well, they’re not alcoholics. They’re still to this day two of my dearest friends, and they’re normal healthy drinkers. And that’s when it hit me between the eyes—the waking up in the jail cell coupled with that conversation, asking them about their drinking experiences those twelve years that I’d associated and partied with them, that really hit me. “God,” I recall saying, “I really am an alcoholic.” That conversation brought it home.