Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: I'm back in the States after being gone for five months. I've been mired in work and have had absolutely no time to transcribe conversations with Doc, Marilyn and their friends. I feel dreadful about this, but life happens. Actually, life happens while you're waiting for life to happen. I'm learning that as I grow older! 


I'm in awe of the weather on the east coast here in the States! I have been here since the week before Christmas and it has been unseasonably warm and quite nice, even though it has rained a lot. It still isn't as damp as England. I love this! I'm outside with just a tshirt and even wearing short trousers!

Being New Years Eve, I'm wondering what Doc, Big Dave and Rick are going to do. Maybe tonight they'll break their teetotaling ways. Once can only hope. All three of them had had problems due to their drinking in times past and all of them come from families where alcoholism runs deep. I get that. But that isn't MY background! And here I am stuck out living in a cabin in the woods with these three tee totaling musicians and their dogs and instruments.

 Doc was just talking about how every year his father would drink up their Christmas and nobody got any gifts. His dad's head hurt so bad that everyone had to be quiet and tiptoe around the house. Doc's dad was big and acted like a bear with a headache. And Doc would've kept up the family tradition if not for a few miracles.

Doc said, "As much as I hated my daddy, I was growin' up to be just like him. When he would walk across a bar, other men would point to him and say, 'there's a dangerous man.' That's what I wanted to be, a dangerous man. And I was workin' on it pretty well, but like my daddy, I found out that no matter how dangerous you are, you're gonna run into someone more dangerous than you."

"Plus, it's better to go to an AA meeting if I want to get together with my old drinking buddies. They have sober parties, and it's easier to stay sober if everyone else is..."

Big Dave added, "Yeh, I grew up the same way. Daddy and mama was always fightin'  over his drinkin' and fightin'. It weren't no fun for us kids. Not at all. Far as I'm concerned, alcohol ain't good for nothin' but pourin' on cuts."

Doc agreed. "I ain't taken a drink in years. I don't go to no bars. You can have a few shots of liquor and start lookin' for a fight. Liquor makes a angry man more angry... Do y'all have AA in England, Tondy?"


I assured him that we did, which he marveled at. looked over to Rick, who'd been sitting over in the corner quietly. He said, "i'm more peaceful than these guys. My dad taught us that you shouldn't go looking for fights, because there's always a fight looking for you. And you shouldn't think someone is being mean just because he's running his mouth. It might just be that he's ignorant and doesn't know any better. We were raised to just quietly slip out and go home if we could... or go stand by someone like Doc - let HIM be the target!

Doc and Big Dave got into a discussion of the nice cars and pickups that they'd had but had wrecked them due to drinking. Both of them talked about miracles that happened to keep them from getting killed. Doc had a couple of guitars that were destroyed by his automobile accidents. 

"I broke a good Telecaster in a fight once, hitting a guy what pulled a knife on me. He never knew what hit him. A Tele weighs like 9 pounds. It's a pretty good weapon. But if we'd all been sober, I'd still would've had that guitar."

Rick added that he threw up into a harmonica once. Well, actually twice. 

I have a lot of catching up to do with Doc, Big Dave, Rick, Marilyn and all their friends. I look forward to taking more pictures, recording more conversations and doing more blog posts than I did last year! And I guess I'll get a good start, because none of them are going anywhere to celebrate. Marilyn and her husband David are going to church! She said they want to start the new year with God and with taking communion...  I almost went with them, just to get out of the house, but then she said the communion at her church isn't wine, it's just grape juice.

Ok. I'll stay home, be safe, get some sleep and wake up with a clear head tomorrow. Could be worse.


 

Tondy: That's a pretty good idea, Doc about drinking hot sauce or mustard to get that burn that you like, instead of drinking liquor. I never heard of that. But, you seem to be hitting pretty hard on Alcoholics Anonymous. I understand some of your issues, but a lot of people are being helped by AA. Are you implying that people should not go to AA?

Doc: NO, Tondy! I ain't saying that. But I AM saying it ain't for every body, and some people cain't really go to AA, so if AA is the only way, then how is every one going to get help?

Like a cop. If a cop pulls over someone for drinking, or if the judge assigns someone to go to AA and they go there. Then they see the cop saying, "Hi! I am Sgt. Bill and I am an alcoholic." Do you think the cop can do that when he pulled half those people over for DUI?

Big Dave: Yeh, Tondy. I had to go to A.A., court assigned, which means either I had to go to A.A. or go to jail. I didn't want to go to jail again,so I went to A.A. I wasn't going to quit drinking, I just figured I'd cut back a bit. And, if the cop who pulled me over had been there, and said HE was an alcoholic, too, me and him would have been going round and round out there in the parking lot afterwards. He'd look like Popeye the sailor man when I was done with him.

Doc: That's right, Tondy. A cop would get jumped out in the parking lot, or even if he got up to go use the toilet. Cops aint real popular with people who been pulled over for DUI, and if the cop is an alky, too. Anyway do you know where a cop goes? A cop goes to F.O.P. [in the Sates, the F.O.P. is the Fraternal Order of Police, where police officers go to drink and relax away from the general public. Americans joke about how funny it would be if a Sobriety Check Point would be set up outside an F.O.P lodge! - Tondeleo] The cop goes to the F.O.P. and drinks all evening to try to unwind or forget his problems and then drives home under the influence, knowing nothing will happen to him, unless he is in a wreck but then his fellow cops will cover for him. So, a cop ain't really going to go to AA. There is a lot of cops with drinking problems. I know three or four what drinks. They call it going to Choir Practice.

A judge aint going to go either, for the same reasons. And doctors and school teachers don't want to go, because people need to trust them with their children or with their lives if it is a surgeon and you don't want a drunk teacher teaching your kids or a drunk doctor operating on you. These folks ain't likely to be willing to go to AA and say, "Hi, I am an alcoholic," and I don't blame them.

Then there is folks what work at night when the meetings are. They can't find a meeting. Folks what cain't drive or don't have a car cain't go. People without enough money for gas cain't go. So they is a lot of people with drinking problems what cain't go to AA.

Big Dave: And a lot of women won't go, because of the men. And some of them who want to get help can't go because their old man won't let them - and the old man won't go, or maybe he doesn't have a drinking problem, and figures she started drinking by herself so she can cut back by herself. And there's always the 13 Steppers that make some women not want to go to meetings.

Doc: Tondy, you didn't know what 13 Stepping is, when Big Dave talked about 13 Steppin' that girl. There is 12 steps to recovery in AA, and 13 Steppin' is when you find someone of the opposite sex, unless you are funny, then it is the same sex, and you start pickin' up on them to help them get "cured" quicker.

It is pretty easy to be 13 Stepped in AA because your self esteem is in the toilet, and it really helps you to want to come back to the meeting if someone is flirting with you, or thinks you're a catch. But after a while, if you're just there to get sober, you get tired of all the screw ups trying to hit on you.

Ain't no decent woman with a drinkin' problem wants to keep havin' unemployed rednecks trying to pick up on 'em. Hey, I faced that, ["Yeh, Doc, unemployed rednecks kept hittin' on you!" Big Dave interrupts] I mean, women flirtin' with me an' wantin' to come home with me, and I am not a good lookin' man or a rich one. But I am nice to most everybody, I usually have a decent truck and I play music, so that counted for something. Some people quit goin' to meetin's because of the 13 Steppers what goes to AA.

That is all I meant. What can a person do if they cain't go to AA? First, find some good people to hang around with. Stay away from the bars and the people you used to drink with. I say, "If you ain't gonna straighten up with me, I ain't gonna go to hell with you." If they cain't handle that, then they have to go. You flush that toilet and move on.

Number two is where do you find good people? For me, it was finding a little church where the people was real and serious about helping people. It weren't no big and uppity church what don't believe nothing. It was a Bible believing Church, one where Marilyn was going because the lady down the road went there and took Marilyn to church with her. Sometimes I drove her there myself and sat out in the parking lot in my truck. One night, I was waitin' out in my truck and one of the men came out and invited me in and he sat with me. That meant a lot.

The preacher was a working man and he preached his heart out and he preached from one end of the Bible to the other. I mean he covered more ground than a Weight Watcher's picnic! At the end he gave an altar call and I went up front and got on my knees and asked the Lord into my heart.

Big Dave: I done that once, too, but not at a church. I was in jail in Orangeburg, [South Carolina] for driving on suspended, no insurance, runnin' a red light and CDS with intent. I told the cop it was for personal use, but, that doesn't count. Anyway, I asked the Lord for help and He helped me. But I am not much of a church goer.

Doc: I ain't a choirboy, neither, but it's good to have some good people pullin' for you. Here is how you can find a good church. Look in the parking lot. Watch the people. If they are looking too snooty or it is nothing but big fancy cars, you might not feel too welcome.

If it looks like regular ordinary working people you might want to go in. Then inside, if the people sing out real loud, not self conscious, and the music is good, not funeral music, it is probably a good one, because the Lord will be there. In a good church, the preacher will preach from the Bible and will apply it to every day life so you can understand it, and the people will say "Amen, or "That's Right" or things like that, because they have experienced what he is talking about. It lets you know that they are free to be themselves. At the end, in a good church there will be an altar call or a chance to ask the Lord into your life.

If it ain't got that, it probably aint gonna be strong enough to keep your interest or change your life very much. That's my opinion. When I am traveling, I try to find a Pentecostal church. Good music, good preaching and full of flavor. Pentecostal churches are like what boogie woogie is to music.

Going to a lively church will help you find forgiveness and strength to overcome alcohol or anything else you are battling.

Then there is thinking different than you did before. You can't think good things about getting drunk and be able to stay sober. You gotta see drinking as your enemy and being sober as your friend. I used to think I had wasted a Friday night if I didn't get drunk. Then, I changed my thoughts to thinking I had wasted a Friday night if I DID get drunk. Every Friday night I could stay sober was a victory and I hated losing.

You got to get rid of that "stinkin thinkin." That's an AA saying and it is true. So is this one; "you need to get a check up from the neck up."

I had to learn to stay sober because we are like 20 miles from the nearest AA meeting that I liked and I did not always have the gas to go there or had to play somewhere. Now, I try to not play in bars, and I never, ever take Marilyn to a bar. Never. Nothing good would come of it. She is a good girl and good looking, and in a bar that means that someone would put his hands on her and then old Doc would think he was a cop and it would be a replay of the old days which aint nobody wants.

Stay outta drinking places if you are going to stay sober! If we play a festival or a party or BBQ, then we bring some soda's and tell people we aint havin' nothing stronger than that and they is usually ok with that. Even the biker parties we have played at. They understand and respect that and is always respectful of Marilyn.

Big Dave: Yeh, she's a nice girl and don't need to be dangled in front of idiots. It's just asking for trouble. Doc's right about that, Tondy. Don't go into a bar with anything or anyone who could get you drinkin' too much or fightin' and don't carry much money, maybe a $20, and don't carry any real weapons. Doc is a champ on improvised ones, though.

Tondeleo: In the last post Doc gave some family history of his relatives in Scott County, VA, and the alcoholism that he says is in the blood. He talked about his first tastes of whiskey and how it affected him, and how he began to quit drinking. Here is more from that same interview. His friend Big Dave had dropped over by this time, so he added a few comments.

Doc: Ok, Tondy. Here is something what I learnt about alcohol what is important. First, it's got nothing to do with how much you drink whether you is an alcoholic or not. It's either in your blood or not. Like for me, the first drink of whiskey was like the heavens opening up. It was like I had tasted it before and had been lookin for that taste all my life, even though I was only 12 or 13. I took that drink of Jack Daniels and on the inside I thought, "YEAH! This is it! It's what I been lookin for!" It didn't taste like something new. No, it was like meeting a old friend. That is a danger sign, I learnt later.

Big Dave: It wasn't like that for me, was it Doc? I didn't like the taste, but I wanted to get drunk. And it didn't take too much to do it. I could get drunk on three beers back then. But you always held your liquor pretty well.

Doc. Right. I could hold my liquor better than any of you all. I drank maybe half of that fifth an really didn't feel anything but more alive. Ready to go. Ready to get in a fight or go steal something, but I did not feel tipsy or any of that. No, and that is a bad sign too. If you get drunk on two beers, you aint no alcoholic. You may be a problem drinker later on, but you aint no alcoholic. Big Dave would drink till he was stupid and it weren't that far of a trip for him. Maybe a sixpack.

A alcoholic gots it in the blood, like the tolerance is already there. They all said of me that I could hold my liquor and I could. I was the one they got to drive when every one else was passin' out and pukin. But not me. That is a bad sign too, Tondy.

Big Dave: Doc, you used to get drunk and wake up with cuts and bruises and have no idea what happened! You'd try to right some wrongs and end up getting thrown out or locked up for the night. That was regular for you, when we were in our 20's. Tell Tondelo about it.

Doc: Big Dave is right. That's another one what I had. That is blackouts. Like it don't mean faintin.' It means drinkin' a bit and then not knowing what you done while you was drinkin. I done that a fair bit. One time, I had a bottle of Scotch an the neighbor's boy, this was down Mount Olive, North Carolina, came over. I had taken a few drinks, and when he came over I asked him to take me for a ride. I remember that much.

The next day he called me an' said "Doc, I aint comin' over no more. You scared me. It was like it wasn't you, but someone else inside of you."

I didn't believe him. He said I had gotten my snub nose 357 [a powerful pistol with a 2" barrel - Tondeleo] and had stuck it in my waistband and had told him to take me around to the different bars in Goldsboro because I wanted to find someone who was picking on someone else or a man hitting a woman and I was gonna teach him a lesson. I didn't remember ANY of that, Tondy. Then he said for me to look at my bottle of Scotch. I did, and guess what - it was empty!

I didn't know anything about what he said, but I knew it was full at the beginning of the evening and now it was empty. That's called a blackout. If you are having blackouts you are a alcoholic. You need to find a reason strong enough to get you to quit drinking right now.

Big Dave: Tell 'em about AA. I took you to the one at Sacred Heart over in La Plata. You went there and to one in Indian Head for a while. You liked that at first.

Doc: I told Tondy about that before you got here. Like I said, I went to AA to get help, and it did help some, but it aint enough. Or aint enough for me. First, cause they said that you should come to AA on any night what you usually would drink. I never drank on any kind of schedule. Mostly when I played music, but if I showed up at AA instead of at my gig, I would have been homeless!

My second problem was that not everyone who drinks a lot is a alcoholic. Some is just problem drinkers. Big Dave would be in that group. It's not in their blood, it is just a bad habit or a social thing for them. And guess what happens? Now they is problem AA'ers! They used to drink every night and neglect their family and now they is at AA every night and neglecting their family!That ain't no good.

Big Dave: What got you to quit? I remember you told me at the time, but I didn't really care because I was thirteen stepping that girl [apparently an insider joke, because of the way Big Dave and Doc laughed and punched each other's shoulders - Tondeleo] - what was her name? - back then and I didn't care why you quit. It was just less competition for me! I was glad you dropped out!!!

Doc: It was having to introduce yourself as an alcoholic and telling yourself that every day. I did not need to hear that, especially coming out of my own mouth. "My name is Doc and I am an alcoholic." "Hi Doc."Just Doc with no last name. Aint nobody s'posed to use last names there. That is a good thing to say when you is still gettin' drunk and are lying to yourself about it. Like they say, If you have problems because of alcohol, you have an alcohol problem." That is true enough.

But I did not want to keep confessing that about myself, no sir. If I did, I woulda kept acting like that! So I began to confess "I am Doc Stevens. I got a last name. I live sober and right. I am a man and I take 'sponsibilty for my choices. I choose to live right and be a zample to every one I meet not just today but every day. And I need the Lord's help to do that."

That worked for me and still does.

Here is my last gripe with AA. They say to pray to the God of your understanding. Well, the God of MY understanding is what got me in trouble! My understanding aint no God. In jail they said that anything could be our God - a light bulb or even our locker! I would have to be double drunk and on the floor to believe that! No, it is not the God of my understanding, but God as I understand Him.

See, Tondy, I got my grandaddy's old AA books, and the new ones has changed it. They prayed to the real God, and so do I. He can help a man and bring him up from the gutter. But a light bulb or a locker cant do nothing for no one. I asked the Lord up above for help and He helped me. He saved my soul and saved my life.

But they did not want to hear the easy answer because it might offend someone if you say "I asked the Lord into my heart and he gave me a new heart and a new mind and a new life and reason for living. You might want to do it too." You can curse in them meetings and say the Lord's name in vain but you aint supposed to say it like He is the answer, because if you do, you ain't cool in their world. Only if you get up there and cuss as much as you can when telling what a bad guy you used to be.

Well, I am ashamed of what I used to be. I am ashamed of my days of darkness and all that I did so I didn't want to tell them all the dirt. I went to AA for a while and it did help some people. Just not for me.

Do I still get tempted? Well YEAH! But I aint tempted to going back into my darkness and hurtin' my loved ones. I drink other things. Sometimes a bottle of hot sauce will do the trick. I like to drink Jamaican Pepper Sauce.

One thing I drink now, and this aint no lie, I drink mustard. I drink it right out of the bottle like I used to do with whiskey. I like hot mustard, not that yellow French's mustard. My mustard of choice right now is called Chipotle Mustard. Silver Spring Chipotle Mustard. Marilyn found it up there at the Safeway in Bryans Road. It comes in a squeeze bottle. I carry one of those with me and I squirt it into my mouth when I want that burn that I like so well. I might drink one of them little bottles in a evening if we are out playing music. And I pray to the Lord for strength and He helps me.

Put this on the blob, Tondy. It might help someone to beat whiskey so it don't wreck their life.

Tondeleo: You can download the A.A. "Big Book" on the Internet at www.aa.org/bigbookonline A.A. has helped members of Doc's family and members of my family and several of my mates to get help. Doc's opinion above is just his experience and is strictly his opinion.

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.