Magnificent Desolation (21 page)

Cliff had been doing mostly feature films, but he seemed fascinated with my story. “I realize that this is an important story,” he told me, “and one that might do some good.” Cliff had a close relative who had battled alcoholism, so although the story touched only briefly on alcohol, Cliff understood that my depression had to be closely linked to my drinking. We talked further about the idea that with all of NASA’s technology, one element still could not be totally programmed—the astronaut. “I want people to see you as a real human being,” Cliff said. The movie was scheduled to air on the ABC network on May 14, 1976.

When I left Beverly Manor, to help control my depression and my craving for alcohol, the doctors admonished me about possibly destructive behaviors. Dr. Schneider explained that it could take five years or more to get the effects of alcohol fully out of the human system. Even going to a hospital and being put under anesthesia could send my body into a tailspin. Most addiction experts believed that ninety days
was the minimum time necessary to make headway against the disease. I had been sober for only twenty-eight days.

They also prescribed a lithium compound drug intended to help control my mood shifts. Drug treatments rarely seemed to help me deal with depression. Maybe they’d have been more effective if I hadn’t chased them with Scotch.

In early October I was in New York, where I had lunch with movie producers Rupert Hitzig and Alan King. I realized that Rupert was the creative force behind the company producing
Return to Earth
, and Alan was the businessman. We ate in the Rainbow Room, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, sixty-five stories over Manhattan. “We thought you’d feel more at home eating one thousand feet above sea level,” Alan quipped.

I was still flying high back in California when I received a letter from Universal Studios, rejecting the movie treatment for my new science fiction story, “Encounter with Tiber.” The rejection brought me back to earth with a resounding thud. When I told Beverly about it, she may have sensed I was close to the edge. She encouraged me to come home with her.

Four months after we met, I moved in with Beverly at her Barry Avenue apartment. Whether moving in with her was a knee-jerk response to my divorce from Joan or to the disappointment over the “Tiber” rejection, I can’t say for sure. But it was definitely a rebound relationship. She was a strong woman, with a controlling nature, and she quickly took possession of a lot of the details of my life that I no longer cared to deal with, or had chosen to ignore. And she liked to drink.

Beverly and I were married on New Year’s Eve 1975, at a Mexican resort in Cabo San Lucas. It was a tumultuous marriage from the start, although we had some good times, too. We traveled quite a bit, especially throughout 1976.

I was still working periodically with the National Association of Mental Health, and production had started on the TV movie of
Return to Earth.
The tie-in was a natural. I had visited the set only once, as had my former wife, Joan, but I had read the script and was looking forward
to seeing the debut of director Jud Taylor’s movie rendition of my story. In addition to Cliff Robertson, the movie starred Shirley Knight as Joan, and Stefanie Powers as Marianne.

On March 25, 1976, I spoke in Long Beach at a meeting of the Mental Health Association of Los Angeles County aboard the docked ocean liner
Queen Mary.
As in most of my talks for NAMH, I encouraged the audience to change their image of people seeking help for depression and other forms of mental illness.

“Superb accomplishments don’t make people superhuman,” I told them, “and America’s placement of astronauts on a pedestal was probably to be expected, but was unrealistic. We’re not all that superhuman.” I also admitted to the audience that I had been hospitalized for alcoholism. “I’ve decided not to cover things up this time,” I said, noting that for too long I had tried to keep matters quiet when I first suffered depression.

People shun help for mental illness for three reasons, I told the crowd. First, they may be afraid they’ll get locked up. Second, they think it will cost them every penny they have for treatment. Third, they think job opportunities will be denied them and that their neighbors will laugh at them. Unfortunately, all of those things still happen today, but they were more likely to happen if a person admitted to depression and alcoholism in the mid-seventies. This was one of my first public admissions regarding my problems with alcohol. The relatively small crowd was not surprised; most of the people attending the meeting were well aware of the link between alcohol and depression. About six weeks later, however, the response would be quite different.

O
N
M
AY
8, 1976, I attended the “Operation Understanding” banquet at the Shoreham Americana Hotel in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA). I had achieved less than a year of sobriety at this point, and several people cautioned me against going public about my alcoholism. No doubt they were not only worried
about the repercussions such public exposure might have in my life; they were also concerned that I had not been living sober long enough. They were right.

But this was the first time that a large group of celebrities planned to declare themselves publicly as “controlled alcoholics” in a campaign to encourage others afflicted with alcoholism to seek help for their drinking problems, and I wanted to be a part of it.

It was an amazing evening. The excitement in the air was almost palpable as twelve hundred people sat around banquet tables in the Shoreham ballroom. Although familiar big-band music played in the background, everyone sensed that this would be unlike any other event they had ever attended. Something special was about to happen.

When the house lights dimmed, a two-tiered dais was illuminated on the platform at the front of the huge hall. For the next twenty-five minutes, CBS television network vice president Thomas J. Swafford and entertainer Johnny Grant introduced a most unusual assortment of dignitaries. The fifty-two people included Arkansas congressman Wilbur D. Mills; entertainer Dick Van Dyke; Garry Moore, best known as the host of the popular
What’s My Line?
television show; Robert Young, known to millions as television’s
Marcus Welby, M.D.;
Sylvester J. Tinker, the chief of the Osage Indian Nation; as well as an airline captain, several sports stars, Broadway and recording stars, a surgeon, various Hollywood movie and television stars, a member of Great Britain’s House of Lords, prominent leaders from the spheres of business, religion, labor, journalism, the armed forces, and, of course, me. Each person on the dais was greeted with tremendous applause.

When the last person was introduced, Thomas Swafford announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are recovered alcoholics.”

The room exploded with even more thunderous applause as the audience rose to its feet in one motion. This was the first time in history that such a large group of public figures had identified themselves as alcoholics. Of course, prior to that event, rumors had swirled for years about certain individuals in the room, but now here we were, admitting
to the world that we needed help to win the battle of the bottle. In his remarks, NCA’s president, John MacIver, said, “I am more than a little awed. It is given to very few of us to be present at one of those moments when you know history is being made. This event will do more to reduce alcoholism’s stigma than anything ever attempted. This is a historic occasion. It should dispel once and for all that alcoholism does not happen to nice people.”

The intense emotion we felt in the room all evening long reached a peak when recovering alcoholics in the audience were invited to join those on the platform. Hundreds of men and women rose, as those of us on the platform gave them a standing ovation.

Afterwards, in an impromptu news conference, I told the media how I had begun drinking more heavily during my bouts of depression. “Some people may look down their noses at an astronaut who admits he has suffered from depression or alcoholism,” I said, “but there are benefits and good feelings derived from standing up and being counted.” I talked briefly about how astronauts were often thought of as “supermen” by the public, and that NASA did its best to support that image. “No career field is immune from alcoholism,” I emphasized, much to the chagrin of some of my former colleagues in the military and in the space program.

Operation Understanding was a signature event. More than thirty years later, Robert J. Lindsey, president of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, recalled it as a milestone in American history. “Without question, Operation Understanding was the most critically important public event in our field to reduce the public stigma and misunderstanding of the disease of alcoholism that stands in the way of people seeking help.”
¹²

With pleasant memories of Operation Understanding still running through my mind, a few days later, on May 14,
Return to Earth
aired and garnered strong ratings. Millions of people watched the movie and empathized with Cliff Robertson’s portrayal of me. Suddenly I was famous
again—this time for completely different reasons. Many people were favorably impressed that an astronaut would admit to his personal struggle with depression, and would seek help. To me, that made it worthwhile. Producers Rupert Hitzig and Alan King received a special award for the film presented by First Lady Rosalyn Carter and the National Association of Mental Health.

B
UT WITHIN A
few months of making a public statement in Washington, D.C., that I was a recovered alcoholic, I began drinking again.

Eventually, Dr. Flinn recommended that I enter a twenty-eight-day period of detox and rehab at St. John’s Hospital, in Santa Monica, since there was no such program at the UCLA facility where Flinn practiced. While at St. John’s, I met Dr. Joe Takamine, a lean, sandy-haired doctor of internal medicine who later became an addiction specialist in California, well known for treating a number of Hollywood celebrities. Unfortunately, I didn’t take this program seriously, and after a few days, I simply walked out of the hospital and walked all the way home. The rooms were not locked, so I just left.

After another round of low times, Dr. Flinn arranged for me to be admitted a second time to St. John’s to try the program again. This time I stuck it out. Although it was not a mandatory part of the program, I attended several weekly meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous that were held at St. John’s.

While I was there, Dr. Takamine cautioned me, “You may not be responsible for your disease, but you sure should be responsible for your recovery—and that is your choice. There is only one real reason for relapse,” Dr. Takamine told me. “You want to … and you choose to do so.” I couldn’t disagree with him, but I also couldn’t find within myself the power to say no to a drink.

Because of my military background, the St. John’s counselors recommended that I meet retired Navy admiral Bud Scoles, a leader in the West Los Angeles Alcoholics Anonymous group. I hit it off immediately with Bud, and he not only encouraged me to attend AA meetings,
but offered to become my first Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. The sponsor’s role could take many forms: friend, mentor, motivator, counselor, or simply someone to check up on you to make sure that you weren’t sprawled out alone in a drunken stupor. At one time or another, Bud served in all of those capacities for me.

Bud got me going to more meetings than I could count. A typical week included a Wednesday noon stag meeting at Uncle John’s Deli in Santa Monica. Thursday nights found us at an AA workshop, followed by a speaker, at the Brentwood Presbyterian Church on San Vicente. Friday nights I attended an AA meeting at St. Augustine’s church on Fourth Street. Saturday nights I went to an AA meeting at the Senior Citizens’ Center on Ocean Avenue. A Sunday night stag meeting met after supper at a different person’s home each week. This meeting was not open to general attendance, but included Bud, Bob Palmer—who would later become my second sponsor—Dick Boolootian, a Ph.D. who taught at a local university two high-profile lawyers, and me. On Monday nights I attended meetings at Ohio Avenue in West LA. Bud’s plan, which I later learned is basic Alcoholics Anonymous procedure, was for me to attend ninety meetings in ninety days. At each meeting there were men and women (except at the stag meetings) who were somewhere along in the process of staying sober. Some had been sober for only a few days, others a few years, still others for decades. The striking characteristic at almost all of the meetings was the encouragement and positive reinforcement we all gave to each other. The Alcoholics Anonymous groups truly became like a church or a family for many people, myself included.