Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [87]
“I will, Dick. I will. I’m just going to sit up for a few more minutes and watch the news. I’ll call you later on.” Dick nodded and went out the door. After Dick went home, I couldn’t sleep, so I started looking around for a bottle. Before long, I found one and downed it. I had hit bottom. Clancy and I stopped meeting regularly after that, and I began meeting with another Alcoholics Anonymous group in West LA.
I found that the shame of starting over again once I had been sober for a long stretch was a blow to my ego, a process that I did not care to repeat. It takes genuine humility to turn your life over to a higher power, and that may be why it is so difficult for some people to stop their destructive behaviors. Moreover, you can’t compromise. You can’t say, “Well, I’ve quit drinking hard liquor, but I’ll still have a few beers with the boys.” Half-measures are doomed to fail. I’ve heard of people who quit drinking liquor but literally drank Aqua Velva shaving lotion. Another lady chugged her perfume, all the while claiming that she hadn’t had a drink of alcohol.
Many people say, “I just can’t help it; I have to drink. I can’t get well.” I said that, too. The truth is, getting well is a choice. Yes, you can get well; it may take somebody bigger than you to help you, but people in far worse circumstances than yours have gotten well. You can, too.
It is not easy, especially when alcohol and depression are riding tandem on a person. According to the addiction expert Dr. Joe Takamine, the leading cause of suicide is depression; the second leading cause is alcohol. When those two cohorts gang up on the same person, the end result is often not pretty
During this time, I also met regularly with Dr. Pursch on an outpatient basis. By now Pursch’s reputation had grown even larger. Among his patients was Billy Carter, the brother of President Jimmy Carter, whom he had treated for alcoholism. Pursch affirmed that if I could stay sober, the rest of my life would come together. The doctor was right.
Finally, in October 1978, I laid down alcohol once and for all. My willingness to do so was not an act of willpower so much as a coming to the end of my own selfishness. I had always been self-centered, and because of my abilities or my intelligence or my fame, people had let me get away with it. When I began to see myself for what I really was, and had a group of fellow travelers who knew me for what I was—and were not impressed—I began to take baby steps toward getting well. Along the way, I learned that to truly keep something and hold onto it, you have to give it away.
After I had been sober for about a year, Dr. Pursch asked me if I would visit with Betty Ford, the wife of President Gerald Ford. Mrs. Ford was going through the same Navy recovery program that I had gone through with Dr. Pursch, and I was glad to offer her some encouragement. After completing her program at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Long Beach, Mrs. Ford talked to her friends about the need for a treatment center that emphasized the special needs of women. Her good friend Leonard Firestone encouraged Mrs. Ford to pursue her dream, and in 1982 they cofounded the nonprofit Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California, where untold numbers of people have found help in overcoming alcoholism and chemical dependencies.
Dr. Pursch later asked me to visit with William Holden, which I was glad to do, but Bill didn’t respond well. The Oscar-winning actor who had appeared in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Towering Inferno, and Network was more concerned about getting back to the set of a movie he was making than he was about taking seriously his own recovery program. Stefanie Powers, his companion at the time, tried to help him, and she meant well, but even she couldn’t find a way to keep Bill from walking out on the opportunity to get help. Bill eventually