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Physician Heal Thyself! -- Dr. Earle M., San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
(p. 393 in 2nd edition, p. 345 in 3rd edition.)
Earle had his last day of drinking and using drugs on June 15, 1953. An A.A.
friend, Harry, took him to his first meeting the following week, the Tuesday
Night Mill Valley A.A. group, which met in Wesley Hall at the Methodist
Church. There were only five people there, all men: a butcher, a carpenter, a
baker, and his friend Harry H, a mechanic/inventor. He loved A.A. from the
start, and though he has been critical of the program at times, his devotion
has remained constant.
Described in his story heading as a psychiatrist and surgeon, he was
qualified in many fields. During his long career, he has been a prominent
professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and an outstanding clinician at the
University of California at San Francisco. He was a fellow of the American
College of Surgeons and of the International College of Surgeons, a diplomat
of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, board-certified
psychiatrist, vice-president of the American Association of Marital and
Family Therapists, and a lecturer on human sexuality.
He was raised in San Francisco, but was born on August 3, 1911, in Omaha,
Nebraska, and lived there until he was ten. His parents were alcoholics. In
Omaha they lived on the wrong side of the tracks, and he wore hand-me-down
clothes from relatives. He was ashamed of this, and could not begin to
accept it until years later. He revealed none of this in his story. Instead
he talked about how successful he had been in virtually everything he had
done. He said he lost nothing that most alcoholics lose, and described his
skid row as the skid row of success.
But in 1989 he wrote an autobiography by the same title, which reveals much
more of his story.
During his first year in A.A. he went to New York and met Bill Wilson. They
became very close and talked frequently both on the phone and in person. He
frequently visited Bill at his home, Stepping Stones. He called Bill one of
his sponsors, and said there was hardly a topic they did not discuss in
detail. He took a Fifth Step with Bill. And Bill often talked over his
depressions with Earle.
In a search for serenity Earle studied and practiced many forms of religion:
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and ancestor worship.
He has long been a strong advocate for the cross-addiction theory, and
predicted that over time we would see the evolution of Addictions Anonymous.
When he was sober about ten years, Earle developed resentments against
newcomers and began a group in San Francisco for oldtimers. It was called
The Forum. He wrote a credo for it designed of ten steps for chemically
dependent people. He felt that addiction represents a single disease with
many open doors leading to it: alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, etc.
Most of the Forum members were also devoted A.A. members.
He also established a new kind of A.A. group, which used confrontational
techniques. Some A.A. members disliked it intensely, while others seemed to
gain a great deal from it.
Many alcoholics make geographic changes when they are drinking. But Earle
seems to have made his after achieving sobriety. He has lived in many
places, both in this country and abroad, traveled around the world three
times, and attended A.A. everywhere he went. He also married several times.
In 1968 he divorced his first wife, Mary, whom he had married in 1940. She
once told him she had great respect for him as a doctor, but none as a human
being. He admitted that he'd had affairs during the marriage, even after
joining A.A. His relationship with their only child, Jane, who was a very
successful opera singer, was strained, but he gave her an opportunity to air
her feelings in his book. She wrote that when she received the gold
medallion at the International Tchaikovsky Voice Competition in Moscow in
1966, a high honor, her father did not attend. Some people told her that it
was not easy for him to see her become such a success -- to be so in the
public eye. She added that their paths were still separate, but she did not
ever totally close a door because he WAS her father.
In the 1960s he was experimenting with encounter and sensitivity awareness
groups, which were then in vogue. At one of the encounter marathons he met
his second wife, Katie, and within a year they were married and soon moved to
Lake Tahoe. They lived separately except for two brief periods, and after a
few years were divorced.
Later he accepted a job with the U.S. State Department at the University of
Saigon Medical School, in Korea. He spent five years there, after which he
returned to San Francisco, hoping to rekindle his marriage to Katie.
In September 1975 he moved to Hazard, Kentucky, to work at the Hazard
Appalachian Regional Hospital. There he met his third wife, Freda, thirty
years younger than he was. Freda came from a truly humble background. She
was the daughter of a miner who had died of black lung disease. She and her
six brothers were raised in a typical two-room coal miner's house in Hazard.
During his relationship with her and her family he was able to put to rest
some ghosts concerning his Nebraska background. This wonderful family helped
him to re-evaluate his memories of Omaha.
In 1978 his feet began again to itch again. He accepted short-term job in
Napal. When he was offered a long-term assignment Freda and his stepsons did
not want to leave Kentucky. Disappointed, he returned to Kentucky, and
obtained work as a gynecologist in a family planning clinic, and also
lectured to medical students on human sexuality at the University of
Louisville Medical School. When he moved again, this time to Kirkland,
Washington, Freda again refused to leave Kentucky. They were divorced soon
after. They remained friendly and talked to one another on the phone about
twice a year.
From all his travels, he always seemed to return to the San Francisco Bay
Area. In 1980 he accepted a position as medical director of the Institute
for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. There he met his
fourth wife, Mickey. She was a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute. He
described her as a vibrant, open, honest, direct woman without pretense,
non-threatening, sexually on fire, lacking in prejudice, and tolerant about
all aspects of life -- including human sexuality. She was already an Al-Anon
member when they met, having been married to an alcoholic. She also made
contributions in the field of alcoholism and recovery at Merritt Peralta
Chemical Dependence Recovery Hospital in Oakland, California. They married
and remained together until her death in 2000. His book is dedicated to her.
I talked to Earle on July 27, 2001. He told me he still gets to an A.A.
meeting almost every day. His eyesight is not too good, but otherwise he is
full of vim and vigor. Form his voice, I would have taken him for a man of
40. He missed the A.A. International Convention last year because of
Mickey's ill health, but he hopes to attend the one in 2005.