The happy warrior, and today hes here to discuss his new book, drunks an American History. Please join me in welcoming chris finan. [applause] thank you. Its a real pleasure to be here in california. I just happened to be visiting, and i didnt really know what to how to dress when i was coming out here from new york. So im wearing tweed [laughter] so im going to take it off. I just wanted you to see that i do, in fact, have a jacket. [laughter] i, i love history, and i have for a long time. I studied history in school, in graduate school. And what had always appealed to me as a historian was strong stories. And so my first book was a biography of alfred e. Smith, the first catholic to run for president , a poor boy who became the great reforming governor of new york and then would have been a great president , but he got wiped out by herbert hoover. And i love that story. I spent 20 years writing it, and i decided when it was done, id better hurry up on the next book or id be dead. The next one was about free speech, which we kind of all assume weve always had free speech in this country. We have a first amendment, and it isnt true, you know . For the first hundred years, there was a lot of censorship in america. And the freedom we have today a lot of remarkable people fought for to achieve. This story, though, is very personal in the sense that its still a history. Its not a history of me or my family, but i am the most recent of a long line of alcoholics going back at least to my great grandfather, and i got sober 30 years ago. So ive always been interested in the story of recovery. I read books, you know, the histories of Alcoholics Anonymous, but i i decided i really wanted to go all the way back to the beginning of American History and see what i could find out. And what i found out is that it is a fascinating story, and it starts very early in our history. But its not just, its not just a story that affects my family, you know . In fact, there are millions of people who are alive today. The estimates are between 25 and 40 Million People are in recovery in the United States. And so i wanted to tell a story that was meaningful for them as well as, you know, me and my descendants. Recovery in america really begins with the indians. The First Recovery movements are efforts by native americans to deal with the terrible consequences of the alcohol that they were given by white settlers and trappers. And it, they recognized early on that this was destroying them as surely as their displacement in in and other negative consequences of white settlement. But theres one indian in particular who particularly stands out, and thats a man named Handsome Lake. Handsome lake was a Seneca Indian who in 1799 had his last great binge. And i wanted to read to you a little about that binge because it sets up the rest of his story. In the spring of 1799, Handsome Lake, a native american, joined members of his Hunting Party in making the long journey from pittsburgh to their home near the border of new york. Handsome lake was a member of the seneca nation, one of six nations in the iroquois confederacy. He had been renowned for his fighting skulker but the skill, but ther quo the iroquois had been stripped of almost all of their land. He was a shadow of what he had been. He would later say that heavy drinking had reduced him to but yellow skin and dried bones. After stopping in pittsburgh to trade furs for several barrels of whiskey, the hunters lashed their canoes together and began to paddle up the allegheny river. Some of the party or drank whiskey, yelling and singing like deemptied people demented people. They picked up their wives and children who had accompanied them on the hunting trip and were waiting at a rendezvous. Everyone looked forward to being home in corn planters town named for its seneca leader. The joy did not last long. There was enough whiskey to keep the men drunk for several weeks. Handsome lake described the horror of that time. Now that the party is home, the men revel in strong try and are very quarrelsome. Because of this, the families become frightened and move away for safety. So from many places in the bushlands, campfires end up their smore. Now the drunken men run through the village, and there is no one there except the drunken men. Now they are beastlike and run about without clothing, and all have weapons. Now there are no doors in the houses for they have all been kicked in. So also there are no fires in the village and have not been for many days. Now the dogs yelp and cry in all the houses, for they are hungry. For several weeks Handsome Lake lay in a bed in the home of his daughter and soninlaw recovering from his drinking binge and consumed by thoughts of death. Handsome lake said now, as he lies in sickness, he meditates and longs that he might rise again and walk upon the earth. And then he thinks how evil and loathsome he is before the great ruler. He thinks how he is an evil ever since he had strength in this world and done evil ever since he had been able to work. Now it comes to his mind that perchance evil has arisen because of strong week. Now he continually thinks of this every day and every hour, yet he continually thinks of this. Then a time comes and he craves drink again. Now two ways he thinks, what once he did and whether he will ever recover. It was in this severely depressed state that Handsome Lake experienced a spiritual vision. As he looked outside the door of his hut, he saw three handsomely dressed native american men who were messengers from the great creator. And the message they delivered to him was that the indians must stop drinking, that drinking was killing, killing native americans and that Handsome Lake had been chosen to lead a religious revival built on sobriety. He recovered, he began a long journey, 15year journey from village to village in western pennsylvania among seneca villages and otherrer quo, the other iroquois tribes, and gradually his message was received, and he significantly succeeded succeeded in significantly reducing the amount of drinking that there was in the nation. So significantly that often the whites, who had been very disdainful of the indians, recognized it. And it was perpetuated after his death. But he knew by the time he died in 1815 that he had accomplished his mission. So Handsome Lake was a pioneer of recovery. About the same time, a white Recovery Movement had also gotten underway. It didnt have an outstanding leader like him, but it was much bigger. It was a national movement, and it revolved around persuading people to sign a pledge that they would not drink alcohol. And by the time, by the 1830s millions of people in america had signed this. And significantly reduced the incidence of alcoholism in the population. But this Recovery Movement had very little to do with alcoholics. The assumption was at that time that alcoholics were pretty much lost people, that alcoholism was incurable and that the best you could hope for was that the alcoholics would die off and that a new generation of sober people would not create any more alcohol you cans. Alcoholics. There were some alcoholics who disagreed with that approach, and a group of them in baltimore founded a group called the Washingtonian Society which was dedicated to reaching out specifically to men who had a problem with drinking. Men and women but, obviously, many more men. And this movement would become the First National movement to help alcoholics. Delegates from boston began to spread out around the country, and a major meeting was held one of the most important early meetings were held in new york. In 1841. The Methodist Church on green street in new york city was packed on the wintry evening of march 23rd, 1841. New yorkers had been hearing reports from baltimore that a group of drunks had gotten themselves sober and had launched a movement to save the lives of alcoholics. The reformed drunks were members of the Washington Temperance Society and called themselves washingtonians to identify their struggle against the slavery of alcohol with the nations war of liberation from british despotism. There was some trepidation among the advocates about inviting even sober drunks to address one of their meetings. They feared that the tales of debauchery would offend the middle class audience. But the full pews of the Church Revealed the enormous curiosity to hear their stories. John h. W. Hawkins, an unemployed hatter, was the first to speak. Hawkins would become the washingtonians greatest orator, but he had made his first speech only a few weeks earlier. At age of 43, he was not a young man, and his nose was too large for a handsome one. He had large, expressive eyes and dark, bushy eyebrows. As he spoke in the green street church, his audience was struck by the simplicity and sincerity with which he told about his nearly miraculous recovery. They were also moved by his passionate commitment to saving the lives of alcoholics by getting them to sign a pledge not to drink alcoholic beverages. If there is a man on earth who deserves the sympathy of the world, it is the poor drunkard, hawkins said. He is poisoned, degraded, cast out, knows not and knows not what to do and must be helped or he is lost. I feel for drunkards. I want them to come and sign the pledge and be saved. Suddenly, hawkins was interrupted by a voice from the gallery. Can i be saved, a man asked . I am a poor drunkard. I would give the world if i was as you. Yes, there is, my friend, hawkins replied. Come down and sign the pledge, and you will be a man. Come down, and i will meet you, and we will take you by the hand. A minister who was present later described the scene for William George hawkins, johns son and biographer. There was silence as the manmade his way to the stairs and began to descend. Your father sprang from the stand and met the poor man literally halfway, escorted him to the desk and guided his hand as he signed his name. Then such a shout broke out from the friends of temperance as must have reached the angels above. More drunks now came forward, five or six others of this miserable class and some 30 or 40 others well known as hard drinkers and drunkards. The reverend john marsh reported. News of the between street meeting soon spread through the city. The washingtonians addressed immense meetings in the largest churches every night for the next two weeks. 3,000 heard them in city hall park, more than 2,500 signed the pledge. The victory was now gained, marsh said. The work of redemption among the poor drunkards had commenced. Men like hawkins took to the road and visited practically every community in the United States and spread the message of redemption for alcoholics. They convinced people to come to meetings where they heard other drunks like themselves talk about how they have been drunks, how they got sober and what their lives were like after they got sober. And these men in turn went out and got more men. And many of these were the most degraded people in the city. They were people in the streets, they were people sleeping in stables, and they were brought back to respectability by with the help of these washingtonians. The washingtonians made a remarkable impression on americans. They couldnt believe that these men, almost lazaruslike, were being lifted from their diseased state and returned to normalcy. And it became a huge fad. Thousands joined the washingtonians who werent alcoholics at all, but wanted to support the work of the organization. And it seemed like the country was on the verge of a major breakthrough in how to treat alcoholics. The problem was it couldnt sustain its enthusiasm. The thousands who were members of the association who werent alcoholics after a while got tired of listening to the alcoholics talk about their stories, and they left the organization. And the men who were left behind didnt have sufficient organization to be able to sustain their movement. But they had made a tremendous are impression on one group of people in particular, and that was doctors. Doctors who, up til that point, had never thought to help alcoholics because they didnt think they could be helped now began to see that alcoholics could be saved. And began to create institutions, inebriate homes, they were called, or inebriate asylums where these men sometimes came while still working in the city but came home to these awe sigh lumbars asylums to be around other alcoholics and to mountain their sobriety maintain their sobriety by living together. By the end of the 19th century, in fact, there was a tremendous, there had been a tremendous development of assistance for alcoholics. But that didnt last either. Because Something Else had really grabbed the attention of the american people, and they and it seemed to provide a perfect answer to alcoholism, and that was prohibition. It seemed that if we could just ban alcohol, we could solve the problem with alcoholics because they couldnt get drunk anymore. It was so simple. And it was so cheap. So at that point, there were some state institutions were being established. We could save some money, we could close those institutions, and the problem would disappear. Finish of course, thats not what happened, although in the early years of prohibition there was a decline in alcoholism and a decline in deaths from alcohol. Alcohol found its way back into american life, the alcoholics found the alcohol, and the problem just worsened, you know, year by year until by the time Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in 1935, it was a truly hopeless, hopeless prospect more alcoholics. Today weve all those of us who are sober have been the beneficiary of a new wave of reform that really began with aa but is now, you know, well established in medical institutions and private institutions. And weve made tremendous progress. For a long time into the late years of the 20th century, there was still an argument about whether alcoholism was a disease or not or whether it was really people just didnt have Strong Enough willpower to be able to resist is. We dont have that debate anymore today. It is widely accepted. Nobody is particularly bother ored about the use of the word bothered about the use of the word disease anymore. Call it a disease, call it an illness, call it a disposition, we do understand that alcoholics need help. And they are getting it. We know today something that was not, had been forgotten from the 19th century which is thatting alcoholism can be that alcoholism can be treated, that people can live long and happy lives who are alcoholic, and that also is a lesson that was hard, was hard won. And finally today, there is a Global Community of people who are in recovery. As i said earlier, millions and millions of people in recovery who are ready to help others to achieve sobriety and to help themselves stay sober. So this is a story, this is a happy story, a story with a happy ending. Theres still tremendous suffering from alcoholism. Its estimated that around 90,000 people a year die from alcoholism. Another 60,000 die from drug overdoses. Theres still terrible suffering particularly in light of the opioid epidemic. But so many have been saved, and so much progress has been made, and i just wanted to finish by reading you the epilogue which is about my family. My father told me the same story many times when i was growing up. My grandfather mike sat him down at the Kitchen Table of their modest home in a harddrinking steel town in western pennsylvania. I dont know how old my dad was at the time, maybe a navy recruit on leave during the last days of world war ii or a theater student attending college on the g. I. Bill. He may even have been a disk jockey by then. Mike was not much of a talkinger, but he was determined to make an impression on his son. His father was an alcoholic and died young leaving mike to raise two brothers and a sister. All three were heavy drinkers. So was mike. He put a bottle of kesslers whiskey on the table, and he poured two large drinks. Raising his glass, he looked my dad in the eye. You drink too much, he said. Mike was right about my dad, and if he had lived long enough, he would have seen right through me. When he died, my father and i got drunk on shots and beers in a dark neighborhood beer around the corner from the funeral home. So my grandfather never knew that he had started something. My father continued to drink, often having his first martini of the day at 10 a. M. Following his radio show. But he was haunted by what alcoholism had done to his family, and the stories he told me were warnings. I was completely i wasnt completely surprised when he finally quit drinking. That decision changed his life. He was not a bad man, but he had been a selfish one. Then he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and started to repair the damage that he had done to his wife and children. He tried to help others. He was like scrooge on christmas morning. In his own words, he took his head out of his ass. I watched his progress without with understanding it because i was struggling with my own alcoholism. Then i quit drinking too. And it all began with a story. Mike introduced my father to the family ghosts, and he passed them along to me. Later i told our story so often that my sons begged for mercy. But stories can inspire as well as warn. From the time of Handsome Lake and the washingtonians, sober drunks have shared their stories with people like my dad and me. They have shown us that we are not alone and introduced us to a Worldwide Community of people who are living happily without drugs or alcohol. They have told us how their lives were saved. Today we number in the millions, and our story grows louder with every retelling. Thank you. [applause] id be happy to answer any questions or hear any comments. Sure. Yeah, thank you so much [inaudible] from my reading of history, it seems that the tolerance of alcoholics behavior has reduced dramatically over the last 150 years. I mean, for example, civil war generals who were wid