Ask a Sober Oldster #5: Ray Cocks

"I feel the person I was is someone I know intimately but isn’t me now. The monster lies dormant, though, and could be very easily awakened."

Sari Botton and The Small Bow

Oct 17, 2023

This monthly interview series is a collaboration between Oldster Magazine and The Small Bow, A.J. Daulerio’s excellent newsletter about sobriety and mental health, and will appear in both newsletters. Learn more about this collaboration in this Oldster podcast/videocast episode.

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75-year-old Vietnam veteran Ray Cocks in his favorite meditation position. Illustration by Edith Zimmerman.

Ray Cocks graduated high school in 1966 and enlisted in the US Army. His service included eighteen months in Vietnam during the war. After his honorable discharge from the military he worked in the trades—carpenter, roofer, auto mechanic—until 1990 when PTSD-related issues precipitated radical life changes. Since that time he returned to college and eventually earned a BA in music. In 2014 his attendance at a conference addressing veteran incarceration led him to the first of several retreats and conferences for veterans. He has since returned to Vietnam four times on peacetime reconciliation visits with other veterans.

How old are you, and how long have you been in recovery?

I’m 75 years old, and have celebrated 31 years of recovery.

How did you get there?

In 1969, I got out of the service, and was in and out of college. I had been having nightmares. After my daughter was born in 1972, I had a particularly bad nightmare in which I was with a bunch of other men and we had ripped someone to pieces. I was left holding the person’s heart and liver. It really disturbed me, and so I mentioned it to a psychology professor. He pointed out to me that the heart and liver are powerful archetypal symbols in the mythological realm. As a result of our conversation, I became fascinated with that train of thought, and got hooked on psychology, dream work, astrology, and mysticism.

What I didn’t know then was that I was a drunk. Everyone around me drank and did drugs—marijuana, psychedelics. The 60s were crazy! Anyone who remembers the 60s couldn’t have been there.

In 1990, twenty-one years after I returned from Vietnam, my abuse of substances, primarily alcohol, rendered me unemployable. I was faced with the choice of: change or die. It got to the point where even my alcoholic coworkers were telling me I needed to chill out.

Ray Cocks giving an astrology reading at Rough Draft Bookstore in Kingston, NY.

I woke up one morning and realized that all I wanted to do was drink. That was after years of drama and confrontations with the police, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. And then I realized I had to do something. I called my doctor and he put me in detox.

I get to detox, and the nurse asks me, “Why do you want to stop drinking?” I can’t think of an answer, and she suggests, “Is it because you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired?” And I say, “Yes! That’s it!”

I got sober on December 7th, 1991, the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day.

What are the best things about being in recovery?

The best thing in recovery has been the complete shift of consciousness, slow in coming, in my attitudes and outlook on life in general. It’s also been great getting rid of secrets, learning how to be a friend, learning from the older gentleman who sponsored me. I found a sense of purpose and usefulness in simple acts of service, like driving others to meetings, and making coffee at them.

My daughter wrote me off when she was 14. She was 19 when I finally admitted defeat and went to detox and rehab. When she got married, she asked me to give her away.

What’s hard about being in recovery?

One of my favorite acronyms and one of the first I heard was for the word SOBER: Son Of a Bitch, Everything’s Real. That sums up how I had to begin coming to terms with things I avoided, unconscious that I’d been medicating pain I didn’t know I had.

Early in sobriety, I couldn’t support myself working, and also go to school, which was important to me. I applied for social security disability. I was turned down twice and appealed twice before a judge, who finally ruled in my favor. In the interim, however, I had to be on welfare, which, in my blue-collar background is considered a crime.

During Covid, it was very hard for me when AA meetings were shut down. But I survived. Most of my life is now AA meetings and medical appointments, which is partly a function of old age.

How has your character changed? What's better about you?

What’s better about me is the willingness to face my character defects, to seek counsel, and learn from peers who have gone before me, then to act on what their example shows me is possible.

It’s a total change of character and way of looking at the world and people around me. I have learned to be more patient, tolerant, and compassionate. I’ve learned the power of forgiveness and validating other people’s experiences, which involves listening, something I had to learn.

Ray Cocks as a young enlistee in Vietnam.

What do you still need to work on? Can you still be a monster?

I heard in a lecture: “A young man who can’t cry is a monster, and an old man who can’t laugh is a fool.” As a young man in the military, I was fully aware that I was capable of doing monstrous things. Fortunately circumstances didn’t push me to that. I can happily say that as an older man I can laugh, even at myself.

One thing I thought in early sobriety was to make a tee shirt printed with “Instant asshole, just add alcohol.”

I’m painfully aware of being emotionally “crippled.” I feel the person I was is someone I know intimately but isn’t me now. The monster lies dormant, though, and could be very easily awakened.

What’s the best recovery memoir you’ve ever read? Tell us what you liked about it.

I don’t read recovery memoirs. Stories I’ve read in Alcoholics Anonymous are dismal reminders of the darkness that once enveloped me, reminding me only how much worse it could have been, and may yet be, should I forget where I came from, and wound up.

What are some memorable sober moments?

Too numerous to mention. One that I often share is that my daughter wrote me off when she was 14. She was 19 when I finally admitted defeat and went to detox and rehab. When she got married, she asked me to give her away.

Going back to Vietnam four times and meeting former enemy soldiers has been profoundly healing.

Singing with Ars Choralis at the concert “Music In Desperate Times: Remembering the Women’s Orchestra of Birkenau,” honoring women Holocaust survivors, still leaves me without words to describe my feeling of awe. We performed the concert at St. John the Divine in New York City, and then we traveled to Berlin with it. A few survivors were present.

It’s been great getting rid of secrets, learning how to be a friend, learning from the older gentleman who sponsored me. I found a sense of purpose and usefulness in simple acts of service, like driving others to meetings, and making coffee at them.

Are you in therapy? On meds? Tell us about that.

I’m not currently on meds, though in the past I’ve had to be on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. I’ve been in therapy since even before recovery. Horrible nightmares drove me to see a counselor shortly after my return from Vietnam. I have remained in some form of therapy ever since.

What sort of activities or groups do you participate in to help your recovery? (i.e. swimming, 12-step, meditation, et cetera)

Since day one of recovery, I have done everything within my power to improve my quality of living: therapy, going back to school, membership at the YMCA for exercise, Twelve Step meetings, yoga, meditation, singing in a chorus, retreats and writing workshops, travel, volunteer work. I’m still assimilating the incredible experiences of the past thirty-one years.

Are there any questions we haven’t asked you that you think we should add to this? And would you like to answer it?

I can’t think of anything at the moment, though by midnight tonight I might. I haven’t mentioned the improvements in my relationships because they are so close that all I can really say is, life is all about relationship—to everything and everyone.