Testimony- Part 2

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I’m not going to say that being closeted and wearing a false face drove me into alcoholism. That leaves out too many pieces of the puzzle. What I do think is that wearing a false face was a big-time contributor to my drinking every day. Even without the drink, hiding who you really are drives up the stress level. I remember the Anita Bryant controversy broke in the news while I was living in Evansville. Everybody—meaning the men—at Allen’s Lounge (my every day water hole) endlessly voiced their sentiment that she was right to castigate gays. They took up the “party line” that gay people were degenerate perverts, and so on, and so on. It was painful to listen to and I weakly tried to put in my two cents worth of counterargument, but I was too scared of being found out. Some speculating rumors about my relationship with my roommate had already circulated in the community when I first moved there. I’d had to work hard to dispel them and I didn’t want them resurfacing. So I didn’t have the courage to defend myself and those like me.

I went on hiding out, playing the role, trying to tell myself that my life was okay, even though I knew it wasn’t. What kind of life is it to pretend every moment that you’re somebody else? What kind of life is it to drink every day to numb yourself? What kind of life is it to sense there’s so much more, but never have the courage to reach for it? I went on like that for 13 years until the spring of 1980 when the man I had been with for 10½ years was murdered and then, a month later, my father died. The double whammy almost did me in. It was a very bad time, but Spirit brought me through.

When these double deaths hit, I joined the Baptist church in Evansville that my late lover’s family belonged to. The minister’s eulogy had comforted me. I went back the following Sunday to hear his sermon. It appealed to me intellectually, but there was some element missing. The fact that his church was near empty every Sunday, and the lack of amens to what he was saying from the few in the audience said that he wasn’t reaching them. But I kept going back because I was searching for some spiritual something. Eventually, I joined even though I knew this was not the church or liturgy that satisfied me, but I figured a little bit of something was better than nothing. I wasn’t looking for the church to help me stop drinking. In fact, I had resigned myself to being a prisoner of the bottle for the rest of my life. I knew, by this time, that I had a “drinking problem”. I just didn’t know what to do about it. At any rate, my membership in the Baptist Church was short-lived because several months after joining, I knew I had to leave Evansville.

There was nothing there for me in a career path. And I had long been struggling to make myself fit into the small town outlook and life. It had always been hard for I was a rebel thinker and Evansville was a sea of conformity. Over the years, it had gotten harder, not easier. Now, since my lover—who was my crutch, as well as my “beard”—was dead, and since there was no more blood family in Knoxville or anywhere else, I was free to go. The idea of freedom scared me; yet, it fascinated me. I decided to go to Los Angeles where my friend, Ron lived. I knew he would help me with the move. When I made the decision to move, I was a full-blown alcoholic, and indecision was my usual state of mind. Generally speaking, the addiction to alcohol wouldn’t let me make decisions with ease or clarity. But I did with this one. In January of 1981, I decided, and by May 5th, I stepped off the plane at LAX. That move, I sincerely believe, was Spirit’s pulling me to Unity Fellowship Church.

It would be five years before Providence walked me through its doors. When I got to L.A., I did try three or four churches—a Presbyterian, a Christian Scientist, and a couple of other Protestant. They left me unmoved and bored. I gave up on church. On Sundays, you could find me drinking at home or at a bar.

(end Part 2)