Tondeleo: Doc used to be quite a hard drinker. He says it runs in the family and that for as long as he has ever been able to find out, hard drinking and fighting and cheating goes way back in the family tree on both sides.
Doc stopped drinking around about the time he took the job of raising Marilyn, his niece when she was nearly eleven years old. What does he do now to deal with his desire for alcohol? Here is what he says, as best as I can understand him.
Doc: Yeah alcohol pretty much runs in the blood in our family. Mama was a Falin from down Scott County Virginia. On Clinch Mountain. In Clinchport. Some in Gate City where my great grandaddy ended up. His name was Andrew Jackson Falin. He was wrote about in that book Trail of the Lonesome Pine what became a movie in the 1930's. He was the one in that book called Jack. He was a black Falin. Had black hair. Red Falins has red hair.
We got Falins, and Hortons, my great grandma was a Horton, kin to Johhny Horton the singer who was also a racist and I aint, That is my mom's dad's side. My grandmother on her mom's side was a Taylor from Kingsport, Tennessee and also was Carters, of the Carter family which sing and where June Carter is of.
My grandaddy was Gideon Falin and he was a drunk like his daddy, but he done better for himself and moved outta there and wouldn't never let any of us meet our people down there because he said they wouldn't do us any good. Later I learnt he was scared we would start acting like he did and his kin when he lived down there. I heard the stories, and he wrote down a lot of them in his diary and he wrote down his life story when he got older. He was good at that, which is odd for a Falin or any other mountain man. He even wrote some when he was drinking and it sounded like me when I was drinking, when I read it after he died.
Alcohol done our family no good. Even getting out of Clinchport, my Grandaddy went back to drinking and lost everything, then sobered up and got on his feet. He worked at Bethlehem Steel and coulda been a Vice President when he was 39, but got drunk and didn't show up for the interview! Then he got drunk because he was so mad at himself for doing that. He stayed drunk most of the time from 39 years old to 43 years old. He got canned and then a friend in the Masons got him a job at Western Electric, but he would have no retirement because the job there was a favor. He only went back to drinking one more time and was hospitalized. But then he never went back to it. So that was good. His two brothers both was musicians like he was, but died broke and alone and drunk as I heard it. One of them named Garland Falin died in Coos Bay, Oregon in a hotel room with nothing to show of his life.
They was all talented but alcohol did them in. As for me, the first time tasted alcohol at 12 maybe 13. It was beer and I didn't care for it. Drank some wine and it was ok. But then one of my friends gave me some Jack Daniels and BLAM! It was like the heavens opened, Tondy! It tasted familiar, but I aint never had it afore!
I liked how it burned going down. I started drinking it right from the bottle and wouldn't let any of my friends have any of it. They didn't much like it cause it was too strong. I drank about half the bottle, I think. We had that liquor hid out in the woods because one of my friends stole it from a house where he played music for a party. He stole it and hid it out there.
Well, the next day I got wanting more so I went out there by myself and drank as much of that Jack Daniels as I felt like and it was like that was what I was born to do with my life! I tried some Southern Comfort and J&B and some Johnny Walker Red and I liked 'em all!
So I was just born with it in my blood. I wished there was whiskey coming out of our spigot and not water. Not to get drunk so much but to be able to taste that burn.
Well, long story short, it didn't do me no good either. When I drink whiskey, I become a defender of the weak, if you know what I mean. I hate bullies when I am sober, but if I have had a few, and then I see a man being mean to a woman or picking on a little guy, I am right there in the middle of it, which aint too smart. I aint no cop, but I think I am when I have had a few.I think I am a big cop!
I aint the best fighter in the world and only weigh 190 to 205 depending on how much I been eating, but after two or three shots, I am pretty mean, and fast and don't put up with no BS if you know what I mean.
When the chance came to take care of Marilyn, I had to cut all that mess out. Now I tried that AA which is Alcoholics Anonymous. It was ok, but I got tired of saying "My name is Doc and I am an alcoholic" and then having them all say, "Hi Doc." We would then try to all top each other's stories about what a jerk we was when we was drunk.Every meeting, you have someone stand up and tell how drunk he used to get, or she if it was a woman, and after while you get to enjoy telling the story and you don't want to be boring so you add to it to get the laughs.
But after a while I had a revelation. How am I ever gonna get better if I keep announcing to myself and to other people that I am an Alcoholic? You can hypnotize yourself to become whatever you say you is and you will be that.
I said in one meeting, "I am Doc Stevens. I used to be a Alcoholic, but the Lord done delivered me from it, and now it is in my past, under the blood of Jesus and you can do that too, if you want. It aint me what done it but Him. The power came from Him so the glory will go to Him."
Well, they weren't ready for THAT one! No sir! I coulda said anything I wanted but that was too strong a drink for them! My sponsor told me that it was very good that I found help in religion, but that I needed to just cooperate and fit in. Cooperating and fitting in is what got me into trouble in the first place, so I decided I was not going to do that. I only went a few more times after that. But I am still sober.
