IAN's story...
I was born in Melbourne, Victoria during 1928 with what was the nearest thing to a silver spoon in my mouth. I was the eldest child in a loving family of five children and pointedly my parents were teetotallers. My father was a strong churchgoer but my mother was an atheist. I followed my mother. One problem was that each of my siblings suffered from various disabilities that required considerable attention, which left me as the only one that appeared to be okay; hence I tended to be left to look after myself. I was an avid reader and a good student at school, neither of which attributes enamoured me to my fellow students, especially as I was not interested in sport except long distance swimming. I was very jealous of my time-spent swimming and refused to swim for my school because I reasoned it would take away the enjoyment. This ethos has of course put me at odds with the world ever since; I have always preferred ‘cooperation’ to ‘competition’.
Early in my life my grandfather was a great influence especially when it came to the telling of stories. He was born in a tent in the centre of Ballarat in Victoria in 1860 and became a miner. Later he worked the Little Hundred and Eighty mine at Bendigo and later still installed the first automatic telephone exchange in Australia. In 1854, his father, my great grandfather, had fought as a miner at the Eureka Stockade. I spent many happy hours as a child listening to my grandfather’s stories and when he died he left me his collection of Australian literature, which, unfortunately, I later lost in cyclone Tracy in Darwin. Listening to his stories I sometimes yearned to have been born during those times. Even then pastures on the other side of the fence looked greener. However, it was during my time spent with my Grandfather that I gained a passion for storytelling.
At the age of sixteen I began work in an architect’s office in Melbourne. For the first year I studied at RMIT at night. This was to pick up subjects I required to enter my architectural studies. For the three years after that I studied at RMIT full time. Finally, I studied at Melbourne University for two years, as the degree in architecture had just been re-instituted. During this whole period I worked during my vacation periods back at the office in which I originally began. The senior design partner called me his one and only protégé and early in my career, even before I graduated as an architect, I won two bronze medals from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects for a couple of houses I designed. After the second award, one of the partners in the office took me for a celebratory drink, for by this time I was drinking, and told me that I had the biggest inferiority complex he had ever seen and I was the bloke who least needed it, but I did not understand what he was talking about.
Finally, I gained a Diploma in Fine Art from the National Gallery in Melbourne (1950) and my degree in architecture at Melbourne University in 1952. On graduating I spent the next twelve months working in pubs in New Zealand and on my return married a friend of my sister. When I left for NZ at twenty-four I was eight and a half stone wringing wet, but when I returned I was ten and a half stone. My future wife told me I went away a boy and came back a man. I realise now that that was not really the case as at sixteen somebody had told me that the best buildings were designed in beer on a bar counter and I took this idea up with gusto. Because of my alcoholism, I was still acting like a sixteen year old when I arrived at the doors of AA at the age of fifty-five.
My first drink was given to me by Mr. R.M. Ansett of airline fame in the Mitre Tavern in Melbourne. When I finished it he kicked me in the butt and sent me home but the effect from that drink was electrifying and the next day I could not wait for lunchtime to come around to imbibe again. I realise that there were no red lines for me to cross—I was alcoholic from the start. And under the influence of this alcohol my behaviour became increasingly erratic. When my degree course in architecture was completed our professor called me and my fellow students together and told us we were now free to practice on the unsuspecting public, he then looked at me and said, ‘and heaven help anybody who gets you’. It was some years later that I discovered that at the time he knew that I was dux of my year. But as it turned out in many ways his comment was prophetic because as time wore on my behaviour became increasingly irresponsibly.
When I went to New Zealand for my after university trip most of the time was just a fog. I was fond of saying, “You do all sorts of things in other people’s countries you would not do in your own.” It was heaven for an alcoholic to be working behind a bar, surrounded by grog. I could just take it off the shelf or where ever but eventually, I had to return to Australia but not before my father sent me a ticket home.
After my wife and I were married, we moved to Hamilton in Victoria where my old firm in Melbourne set me up in a practice. After five years and two kids, Karen and Andrew—Peter was later born in Horsham—we all moved to Horsham, 130 kilometres north of Hamilton but a world apart as far as friendliness, heat and drinking went. Horsham borders the Mallee, which has a reputation as a wild drinking area exacerbated by long hot summers and short sharp winters (Rainfall 375mm). I lived and worked in Horsham for about twelve years then we decided to go to Darwin where I had been offered the job designing a large Naval radio station. So it was off to Darwin.
But whilst in Horsham my drinking really began to accelerate. I was working hard and playing hard. My practice spread ever further. I had offices in Portland (on the coast), at Hamilton, Horsham and Mildura (on the River). (Portland was 640 kilometres from Mildura.) Eventually, I got my flying licence to be able to get around my practice. The Wimmera Aero Club parked a Cessna 172 at Horsham primarily for my use. Eventually, I got a commercial licence and was licensed to fly the Cessna single engine fleet, Tiger Moth, and an Aero Commander (twin) among others. I must say I could write a book about my flying exploits alone. Quite often when I flew I was drunk. I would fly somewhere, get on the grog with my clients, then wobble off home or where ever I was going. On one visit to a small town on the Ouyen Highway where we were building a church I had designed I spent the morning in the pub with the Vestry of the church. After lunch I left there for Mildura and as it was a beautiful day I trimmed the aircraft out and sat back. I suddenly woke to see some silos in front of me I had not seen ever before. I realised I had been asleep for three quarters of an hour and to add to the confusion, during that time the wind had changed and I had not the vaguest idea of where I was. Finally I called Mildura and they guided me in.
But, because my behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic I found myself spending more and more time with psychiatrists, one of whom, when I carried on despite the application of sodium pentothal (a truth drug), told me that I was ‘bullshitting him’ and I was a pathological liar. He then went on to explain that what I was talking about bore no resemblance to what was going on around me, in fact I had lost touch with reality, a clinical definition of insanity. On three other occasions during the sixties I was checked out at the Plenty Hospital in Melbourne for a tumour of the brain, always as a result of behaviour problems, and each time the doctor told me that when I arrived he thought I was a text book case and on at least five occasions I was hospitalised for varying periods in psychiatric hospitals. One of those, Ward North One at Royal Melbourne was, I am quite sure, the model for One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest. I have come to realise, although not so long ago, that all of this was due to my alcoholic drinking which at the time seemed to escape the ken of my psychiatric consultants. As I have learned since being in the AA programme, once I began drinking, my life was all down hill. I said I would never drink in the morning, I did. I said I would never drink during work hours or whilst driving, but I did. I would never abuse my wife, but I did. About twelve months before I left Horsham, I tried to commit suicide three times in as many weeks. After the third arrival at the intensive care ward of the Wimmera Base Hospital it was decided to lock me up for my own good and I only escaped being certified through my father’s influence with the Mental Hygiene Authority in Victoria. Soon after this in 1968, and much to my Dad’s chagrin, we left for Darwin. We all know that Darwin is the alcoholic’s finishing school, but what amazed me was that they did not notice that I was mad.
One of the first things that happened on my arrival in Darwin was that my wife left me. I came downstairs on Sunday morning after a heavy night and she was sitting on her suitcase in the carport. I asked, “Where are you going?” and she replied, “I am leaving” and she did. Gradually the kids left for various parts of Australia. Later, after I became sober they returned and now it is a great joy to me to know that they love and respect me, trust me, and look to me for advice from time to time. And my ex-wife and I are better friends than we ever were.
As I said earlier, I went to Darwin to design a large radio station for the Navy. After I finished that and the mail exchange in Darwin, I took over the remote area work from a Chinese architect friend of mine who was later killed in cyclone Tracy. This remote work meant that I travelled all over the Northern Territory. I lived for extended periods in Katherine, Alice Springs, Tenant Creek and Groote Eylandt. During my stay in Katherine I was involved in the strike in which the Aboriginal pastoral workers walked off the cattle stations in the Victoria River District in 1972. On another occasion, whilst roaming around the Tanami Desert a friend and I came across a group of Pintubi’s (Aboriginal desert people) who had never before seen whites. But, primarily I lived and worked among Aboriginal Peoples on outstations in Arnhem Land, where family groups returned to their own country to escape the influence of the ‘white man’, especially his grog. These were by far the most enjoyable times in my life up until then. The Peoples taught me about the bush, how to live with it, how to live off it, and how to be at ease wherever and whenever I was. The acceptance I learned from these wonderful Peoples has stood me in good stead during my sobriety. In return I helped them build ‘whirlies you can stand up in’ (houses) and all sorts of infrastructure. On Elcho Island I convinced the authorities to allow the People to build their own new school, which they did and made a bloody good job of, in fact it set a precedent for later work. Of course I was still an alcoholic, and as there was no grog in any of these Outstations, I would, when the idea came into my head, travel hundreds of kilometres to the nearest watering hole and proceed to write myself off for one, two or three weeks.
In early 1974 I travelled through East Asia and spent several months in Japan. I stayed in a Zen monastery in Kyoto for some time, and then travelled from peasant farm to peasant farm for a couple of months. I loved those people and I well remember the wonderful vistas, which were actually Japanese paintings come to life. It was also during this time that I became interested in Buddhism, something that has considerably influenced my life since becoming sober. After I returned and on Christmas Eve of that same year cyclone Tracy struck Darwin. Two close friends were killed. I got one of these friends—a neighbour, whose wife had been killed—to hospital on Christmas morning where I was confronted with a Polaroid photo of my architect mate Freddy Yu and asked to identify his body. I then found his wife who could not speak a word of English lying on the floor with her two small boys. A passing doctor told me she was quadriplegic. Later I arranged an interpreter and she was subsequently taken to Sydney. Actually, I knew everybody in the hospital at the time for in those days we all knew each other. And so the day went on… About six months later I rode a horse and walked through Arnhem Land for six weeks on my own, living off the land, and trying to come to terms with the shock I had experienced during the cyclone.
I had one beautiful Aboriginal friend at Elcho. She was about forty and never married. She and I used to sit on the rocks, eat oysters, and trade stories. The Island was a tropical paradise until some Uniting Church clown decided to introduce Kava in an effort to stop alcohol drinking. As far as I have heard they haven’t woken up since. But Dell and I used to swim in the blue waters. My daughter Karen was adopted by the same community and called Wahrina (trans: little red berry) because she has red hair.
But all good things come to an end and so it was for me. My boss—the Director of the Department—retired and a ‘paper shuffler’ who considered that my prime purpose in life was to generate paper replaced him. After three months I, along with many others of my colleagues, left the organization. Actually, it was suggested that I leave as my usual day consisted of getting up and drinking four cans of beer, going to work and on the way picking up a packet of Panadol which would last me until 10am at which time the R.S.L Club was open and that was me for the day. After leaving and for the next three years I did nothing but drink and drug. One of the legacies of my psychiatric experiences during the sixties was that I got onto prescribed drugs. This later led to the abuse of LSD, magic mushrooms, and dope. I was still involved with these when I first came to AA.
In 1981 my daughter returned home from Perth and found me in a complete mess. I had hardly eaten for some time, had not washed nor washed any of my clothes and was in an almost vegetative state. Initially she abused me, then got me to my doctor who told me I had two months to live unless I stopped drinking and a had only a fifty-fifty chance of living even if I did. Whist he was telling me this all I could think was: ‘I wish you would hurry up as the Parap is open.’ The Parap was the pub across the road and that is all his threats meant to me. But he would not let me go until I promised to stop drinking. He told me how I would not see my kids grow up or my grandchildren. He told me how they would suffer and eventually somewhere, somehow, he happened upon that slim piece of hope I still had, so I promised. But I would have nothing to do with this AA business despite the fact that I knew nothing about it, I had never heard of it, and so my lone sobriety began, but after two months I crashed and finished up in AA. I arrived at my first meeting with my daughter on one arm and old Claude F.’s daughter on the other and they said, “Sit there and listen!”
After two years of AA, almost to the day, I drank again. Looking back I think it was a forgone conclusion in that I was leading up to it and it just needed a trigger. I had intellectualised the entire programme; consequently, it came as no surprise when, on New Year’s Day a friend, who I was going out for the day with, told me that she could not make it, as her daughter was ill, and so I picked up a drink. When she read her note, those two years of not drinking welled up in me and made me realise I was now just too good for this world for by this time I did not drink, smoke or drug so I bought a flagon and a packet of cigarettes and woke up three days later. My new flat was a shambles—empty flagons and cigarette packs were arrayed everywhere. The place was a mess but I was worse. Even so I had this voice in my head saying, “Ian, get up and start again.” I am glad to say I did after almost forty years of alcoholic drinking. From that day until this I have not picked up a drink containing alcohol and that day was the 4 January 1984.
Immediately, after coming back to AA I became frightened. For ten days I spoke to no one; did not answer the phone or the door. I was just terrified. When my fear left me it was replaced by a deep depression. Earlier I had read of how Bill Wilson used to treat his depression by walking and saying the Serenity Prayer so I did the same. I walked and walked and walked. I saw parts of Darwin I did not know existed. At midday each day I would arrive at a little café in the Mall in Darwin that AA had colonised, would have a cuppa and some toast, a talk with my friends then off again. After four and a half months of this I lost my depression. But unfortunately it did not last and have been on anti-depressants for some years now and this situation will probably be with me for the rest of my life.
Of all the things I did do as I returned to the fold was to get a sponsor who introduced herself by saying, “Ian, you do the steps to get well, not get well and do the steps and they are numbered from one to twelve. Who are you to change them.” I worked through these steps for the first time to the best of my ability and did step twelve just before moving to Perth. But I was thoroughly shat off because I had not received my promised ‘spiritual awakening as a result of doing these steps’ as it clearly states in Step 12. I felt little different from when I started so I harassed AA members around Perth asking why ‘awareness’ was not enough; I knew these things but when it comes to the crunch I do the same old thing again. Eventually, I was working in an architect’s office in Bunbury and of course going to the meetings. One Friday evening at the CWA hall after the meeting a woman came up to me and said, “I liked what you said tonight Ian.” And, I heard myself say, “Thanks very much.” I could have shouted for joy for all my life it seemed I had been trying to accept a compliment gracefully and here was I, perilously close to sixty years of age, doing it with no prompting at all. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I saw it as the first indication of my spiritual awakening. Later, after being advised by my sponsor, I read in Addendum 2 of the Big Book (pp. 569-70), that for many of us the spiritual experience is in the form of a psychological change and that is how I have seen its many manifestations for me down through the years since.
During my early days in the programme I had many difficulties, not the least of these was trying to develop a concept of God in which I could have an honest faith. After about six years of often white-knuckle sobriety, a problem occurred involving another AA member that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I remember thinking to myself ‘if that is all AA is I want nothing to do with it’ and so I decided to go to the John Barleycorn hotel and write myself off. Fortunately, as I was getting dressed I remembered that the North Beach meeting was on at 10.30 so went there instead and poured my heart out to Molly. It had a cathartic effect, and made me look closely at where I was and resulted in me seriously revisiting Buddhism. I suddenly saw something I could have faith in, not a god, but my own potential spirit. I have always felt that any sobriety I have managed to jag began from that point in time.
Over the years I have developed my programme on the premise that, I believe that the reason I drank as I did was that I could not cope with life and wished to in actual fact drink myself sober. But I never achieved this goal. I was alcoholic from the start. It says in the Big Book that alcohol is a symptom of our disease (page 64). Consequently, I need to follow the AA programme to keep my disease in remission which in turn provides me with the choice of whether I drink alcohol or not. The compulsion is removed. To maintain this situation I try to keep the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions in my life—the former for my own self development and the latter for my corporate development or how I relate to others—I attend meetings often and regularly; and I make myself available to help other alcoholics, whenever they ask. So far, through these three simple procedures I have kept my alcoholism in remission and I hope this state of affairs will remain. I believe that the AA programme is not mystical or complex—it is self-help at its best.
Finally, my attitudes have changed. I have always said that I am in AA to live, not live for AA. Accordingly, apart from being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I have fulfilled many of my dreams such as returning to University over a period of twelve years completing my Bachelor of Arts (Honours), a Master of Arts in literature and communication and my doctorate (Ph.D). My thesis is entitled The Bureaucracy and Aboriginal Peoples in the Northern Territory and I am currently working on a publication form. I have also begun a new career designing graphics on my computer for various academic books, researching for a history of the Northern Territory, and have a wonderful partner with whom I share an interesting life.
I wish you all well in your quest.
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