Moments of Clarity

by Christopher Kennedy Lawford

  About Christmastime, we went to a friend’s house one night, and— mind you, I had not had a drink in twenty years—I opened the freezer and there sits a bottle of frozen vodka. I reached in without a thought and took a couple slugs. And I was off again.

  There’s a classic definition of an alcoholic: when an alcoholic takes a drink, you cannot predict what’s going to happen. And that was me, big time. After I got sober, my oldest son—who’s also now very much sober— said he used to be able to tell what kind of evening it was going to be by the way my car door slammed when I got home. I would have been up at the Cock and Bull drinking after work, and some nights I would be just fine, and some nights I’d walk into the house an angry and volatile guy. If we went out to dinner, I would be perfectly fine, or I would get on the waiter’s case, and my children would just cringe and want to hide under the table. It was completely unpredictable, and I had a clear recognition of that because all that time I was smoking marijuana, none of that happened. The instant I started drinking, the bad behavior came back. I had a really bad period of about eight days, and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but one particular night, at my wife’s birthday party, I turned into a monster. I ruined the birthday party.

  I got up the next morning, and that was my moment of clarity. I was embarrassed. I knew what I had done. It was the symbolic thing of ruining my wife’s birthday, who had been so loyal to me during all of my bad times. She had taken in my children, been a friend, really, to my four sons from my first marriage. She had stood loyally by me, and I had just treated her like dirt. I was just so ashamed. I’d never done anything as stark as that before. I woke up and I immediately knew this was not going to be a good day. I had ruined my wife’s birthday party. She was extremely angry, just gave me a cold look and went off to the kitchen. What was I going to say? I had no defense. There was no justification for my behavior. I was facing the stark reality that I hadn’t had a drink for twenty years—and after a few days of drinking I was right back where I had been. I thought, “You know what? I’m an alcoholic. I’m sick. And I got to do something.” If I was going to live—and apparently I was, because I didn’t have the guts to kill myself—I was going to have to do something.

  Mary is a friend of mine who’d been in recovery for a long time. I called her, and she took me to a mutual support group meeting that day— January 4, 1988. There were twenty- six sobriety birthdays that day. By the end of that meeting, I wanted to take an AK-47 and kill everybody in the room. I didn’t want to have anything to do with these people and all this talk about God. I had nothing but contempt for God and for organized religion. I was definitely not a joiner. I had been an individualist my whole life. I had learned, because of the cumulative evidence, that I had to take care of myself. Nobody else was going to do it. I had “friends”—a lot of friends, compatriots, admirers—but I never let anybody get close to me at all. Of course, part of it was the secrets I was holding on to, that I had never uttered one word about to anybody. I was invulnerable. But then I was not able to hold on to this facade I had created to protect myself, you know, the tough guy. I had destroyed my own image of myself, so there was nothing left. Who was I? Nobody.

  After that first meeting, I thought I’d never go back, but I did. Still, I was angry. So angry. I went to this men’s recovery meeting, and people would literally get up and move away from me. That’s the literal truth. I radiated such anger, and anger all comes from hurt, and I didn’t know that. I had no understanding that I was just a hurt and frightened little boy who just wanted somebody to love me and to be able to love other people. I had no inkling of that.

  It’s like William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Some people have this incandescent awakening. For me, it was very slow. Very slow. I saw a tiny ray of hope, something that I could hold on to. I saw all these other people and I heard their stories and heard that they had gone through the same stuff I had or worse, and it worked for them. That meant something to me. I’m a very practical guy. Don’t tell me about faith and some guy up there in the sky; show me the evidence. And I could look around and see these people from all walks of life who’d come from circumstances much more desperate than mine. And it had worked for them.

  Also, an old-timer said something to me. . . . I was saying, “I don’t want to be hearing this God crap.” He said, “I don’t believe in the same God you don’t believe in.” I thought that was a great line, and it helped me understand that I could pick anything to be a higher power, whatever worked for me. It was a recognition that my self-will had done nothing but get me in trouble and make me unhappy.

  I had achieved all this tremendous professional success, and I had four wonderful children and a fabulous life and a nice house in the richest part of Los Angeles, a mile from a beautiful ocean, and the sun shone every day. I cleaned up pretty good, and I could spread about fifteen minutes of charm, but underneath I was just so unhappy, with no clue as to how I could change that. But then I began to change a little bit after I spilled that first secret. I began to feel a little of the dirt go away. I always felt so dirty inside, and then I started to feel clean inside all the time. Even when I do screw up, I can see it and say, “Okay, there’s the five-year-old boy. But I’m not that little boy anymore.”

  About a month ago, I was hitting golf balls, just practicing, and up walks the psychiatrist that I went to during the period that I had that breakdown. He asked what I was up to, and I said I was going to make a commencement speech, not trying to preach to the kids, just tell them a few things that transformed me from being an abjectly depressed and unhappy person into being a happy guy, give them four or five rules that worked for me.

  He said, “Well, that’s kind of funny. I’m putting out a disc, my ten commandments for being happy. What’s on your list?”

  I said, “Well, the first thing is get rid of your secrets. That worked for me. Is that on your list?”

  He said, “No.” This was the guy who I had gone to all that time, but I never breathed one word about the sexual molestation that had ruined my life. Not a word. I had no chance of getting well with him, because I never told him my secret.

  I had always had this sense of forced independence. If I was going to make it, I had to make it on my own, because nobody had ever helped me. I had never allowed anybody to help me because I was so distrustful of making myself vulnerable. And I didn’t want anyone to discover the shame and the guilt I felt. Now I know—what do I have to be afraid of? I’m completely happy today without having to prove anything to anybody. I can be the authentic Karl, and what a relief. All those years, I had to prove that I’m a man, I had to prove that I’m a big shot. That’s over. I’m just a guy who has found a way to be happy. I don’t know why we’re put on this earth, but I know enough to know that that would be a good start.

  Larry Kudlow

  A conservative economist, Larry hosts the CNBC show Kudlow & Company and is the economics editor of National Review Online. He also runs his own consulting firm, Kudlow & Company. During Reagan’s first term, he served in the Office of Management and Bud get, and later became a senior managing director at Bear, Stearns & Company, until his addictions got totally out of control. He’s not somebody you’d necessarily expect to see in this book, which is why I’m glad he’s here. I asked him how he wanted to be described, and his words apply to me and just about everybody else I know in recovery: “I’m a guy who still works to stay sober a day at a time. My principal line of work is sobriety, and that’s what I do. That’s my main mission.”

  W

  ell, the great news for me is that hopelessness is something in the past. I am hopeful and optimistic. In fact, people in my professional life are staggered at how optimistic I always am

  about things. What they don’t understand is that I know all about hopelessness. My whole experience as a drunk and a cocaine abuser—until I surrendered finally, on my knees, having lost everything except my wife—those were the hopeless days. I held a
prominent Wall Street job for many years and I made a name for myself, and I drank and snorted myself out of that job.

  Toward the end I was invited out to a lodge in beautiful Pebble Beach, California, to give a speech. Fantastic! They gave us this magnificent room, where you look out on the Pacific Ocean and the golf course and all that gorgeous weather, and I will never forget this. We were there a couple of days, and all I saw was a black shade being pulled down. I did not see the beautiful ocean. I did not see the beautiful sunshine. I did not see the eighteenth hole or whatever. All I saw was a dark black shade pulled down.

  That metaphor was with me for quite some time; I’m sure there are a million meanings to that, but I think it had a lot to do with hopelessness. My life was coming to an end, and I could not stop. That was my hopelessness bout, which probably lasted for at least a year and maybe more than that, back in the early nineties.

  Then I got sober and I spent six months in Hazelden, and when I got out, the only job offer I had was from a very dear friend of mine outside of San Diego. But I was hopeful. In Hazelden I developed hope and a certain amount of optimism, and I think the key to all of that was faith. At that time, the faith was not manifested in a particularly religious God. It was just faith in the spiritual program. Now, I am a full-fledgedcard-carrying member of the optimists’ club. I figure, any life, any country, that gives me this kind of second chance, puts me on the air for an hour or so a day—it has got to be just the greatest life, the greatest country in the world. So I am very hopeful and very optimistic, but I do always remember the black shade being pulled down.

  I think my moment of clarity came near the end, and it was my growing recognition that I was not in my right mind. The only thing in what mind I had left was how far I had fallen, how awful it was, how low my bottom was, and how close I was to being a homeless bum on the street. I was staggered by that. Staggered by how bad it had gotten. I had a Wall Street partnership, and that was gone. Then I was a senior magazine editor, and that was gone. I had a lot of television work as a commentator, and the trouble with TV is if you don’t show up, they put somebody else on. They do not wait for you, and that is a handicap for an alcoholic and a drug addict. That was gone, it was all gone.

  I would go out on a binge for many days at a time. I’d walk around, wearing a nice pinstriped suit, but I’d be wearing it for three, four, five days at a time. And I remember actually having homeless people looking at me like I was weird and looking back at them and realizing, “That could be me,” or at least that’s where I was headed. That was pretty scary, and I do not pretend that I understood it at all.

  But it was occurring to me that this had gone so much further than I ever thought it could. I had been in and out of recovery programs. I used to go out and then come back in, so I thought I knew the limits. I just had no idea how far it could go. That was my first burning bush, when I realized that this was really serious and really a problem. I was failing, I was dying, I was gone. There was no more Larry Kudlow.

  When I went away to Hazelden, which was a godsend, the first few weeks I was angry at myself, at the world, at everybody else for what had happened. I began to realize through some mentoring and tutelage that if you take your will back every time, if you exercise these selfish actions every time, then you are the problem. I was the problem, not you or her or Wa ll Street or The McLaughlin Group. I was the problem. These were self-inflicted wounds.

  I look back with the benefit of a decent sober mind-set, and I believe God saved me. I believe that. I absolutely believe that. I have no idea how, nor do I know why, but He kept me alive and He eventually led me to a point where I surrendered to Him, to Hazelden, and to a program of recovery. I am a Catholic convert, which is different from my recovery experience. I have adopted that religious faith as well as my spiritual program faith. I have no idea why He led me there. I just know He did it. It was His design, not mine. Faith is a mystery. How it was that I finally surrendered is a mystery. This whole thing is a mystery to me.

  If someone comes to me for help, I help them. Or I try to. I give them advice, but I am not a proselytizer. You know what they say, “When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears.” Down through the years, I’ve worked with a bunch of men in recovery. Some have worked out and others have not.

  Outside of the fellowship of recovery, I get a lot of letters and e-mails from people who are aware of me or know my story of recovery. They ask things, and I almost always tell them that I go to a mutual support group and they should too. I do not really give any advice other than “Go to a meeting and keep your ears open.” People may come up to me, as they often do, maybe on the street or after I have spoken someplace. They come up to me and they know my story and this and that: “Oh my God,

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  look what you did.” I just douse that claim as soon as it pops up. I am not a hero. I am just a guy that went through bloody hell and then started climbing back, literally one step at a time. I avoid giving advice, I avoid prospecting, I avoid congressional hearings. But I try to be there for people.

  That’s one of the cool things about recovery. You get knocked around so much that you kind of learn to deal with up, deal with down. Life is up and down. You can’t obsess about it. I am a hard worker and I show up, but my whole career has changed in sobriety. I’m a professional broadcaster now, and I write a column or two. That is totally different from what I used to do. I worry periodically about X, Y, and Z, but I don’t fight it. I always accept it. Do you guys want to fire me or push me aside? Okay, it will be what it will be. Whenever something is off center, when there’s something worrisome creeping in, I pick up my meeting schedule and pick up my phone call schedule and pick up my reading schedule; I retreat deeper into recovery. That is what I do. I just do it. It is my instinct now, and it serves me very well. I have come to believe that the recovery fellowship saves me from myself because self is the problem. Things still go wrong—quarrels, uncertainties, jobs, people knifing me behind my back. Let’s get real, broadcasting is not your most laid- back business. But whenever stuff gets to me, I go deeper into my recovery, increase the meetings, increase the phone calls. More prayer. Faith really sustains me.

  Lou Gossett Jr.

  Lou’s first acting job was in the film A Raisin in the Sun, with Sidney Poitier, after he decided to ditch the chance to play pro basketball. That was in 1961, and he’s worked steadily ever since. He was one of the stars of the huge miniseries Roots, and he won an Academy Award for his work in An Officer and a Gentleman. Lou is one of those people who has tremendous presence—not just his physical stature (the guy is big!) but his energy too. When I asked him to participate in this book, he said yes right away and welcomed me into his home, where he had hit bottom and his life was transformed.

  I

  was afraid that I was inadequate as a man. I was afraid that once I got sober, I would not be hip enough. If I got sober, the fun would be over. I would be out of the mix. In fact, it is the opposite. You are in

  the mix, maybe because God is in charge now. Everywhere I go, when people are doing something halfway decent in music, in movies, in sports, in businesses, they seem to be going through a spiritual shift. Maybe it is the planets, but there are more of us than there are of them. Numbers cannot be taken advantage of.

  My biggest moment of clarity before the true moment of clarity was when I was in Capetown, South Africa. I had been offered movies in South Africa for different reasons, but I would not go during apartheid. As soon as I heard that Mandela was out of jail, that changed. I coproduced a film called Inside, about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (formed in an attempt to heal the wounds after apartheid).

  I was cold sober at the time, but it was very new. What happens when you are recently sober is what they call the “pink cloud”—everything is wonderful and you’re doing missions and you’re saving people’s lives. On top of that, everybody was celebrating because Mandela came out. I meet Mandela, meet all of
these people, and I am in this great spiritual mood. At the same time, I came into sobriety with a package, with resentment against racism, and that resentment was kind of strong. I am going through my life and all the lives of all the black people who died before fifty, including my father, who drank so much. I have come there to play this character who had to have the same resentment, and so I had opened up those wounds, to prepare, and I was really in a terrible state.

  I was looking out at Robben Island, where Mandela spent twenty- seven years in prison, and I burst into tears, because there is absolutely nothing that ever happened in my life to compare to what that man went through and what his people went through. I said, “What am I doing? I should be very grateful.” It was a clear day, a blistering day, and I must have spent a couple of hours there reflecting on what had happened on this land, how much blood was shed because of apartheid and how much this man had lost—the prime of his life, in a cell, beaten, starved. Nothing like that ever happened to me, and I started thinking about the drinking and the drugs, and the resentment. “What the hell am I doing? Why did I get to the point of abusing myself? I did worse to myself than any person, white or black, did to me.” Then I felt a kind of calm, and the resentment eased, and I just got rid of it.

  Now my life is devoted to those people who are caught in the same trap, who want to prove how tough they are by basically shooting themselves in the head—which is what drugs were in my life. For me it was the resentment of knowing that somebody did something very bad to me, and I was so pissed off I took drugs and some more drugs to show them how bad I was, how mad I was—I mean it’s insane. It does not make you feel better, but the insanity makes you think that you have won over on them. Every thought is a resentful thought, every thought was a fucking thought—“fuck this, fuck that.” And then came that moment of looking out at Robben Island, the moment that led me to understanding the anger and made it go away.