Action in AA Is Medicine That Fits Every Circumstance — Not Understanding the Program but Doing It – Sybil W.

You are lovely Sybil. I know that she has a wonderful message for us, and that's the next. Sybil from Los Angeles. Dear fellow members and friends, my name is Sybil Willis, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. I've looked forward to coming back up here for a very long time. Two years ago this May, I think, when Jim and I came up here, and we talked in Monterey, saw some friendly faces here tonight that we met then, and then we've made new friends already today. And so it goes in Alcoholics Anonymous. Friends. And this is one thing that I can tell you that I didn't have as a practicing alcoholic. As a matter of fact, I'll go back a little further and tell you that I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. I was so fearful and so timid and so frightened most of my life. I think I was born scared, but I don't think I ever did have many friends. And the few that I had, I have lost long before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, with the exception of one, possibly two. No one believed in me. I didn't believe in myself. As a little girl, I was scared and frightened and timid. And I remember then that it was very difficult for me to live in this big, terrible world even as a little child without being scared so much of the time. And I remember going down to my grandfather's little grocery store in a small Texas town. Very small, I should say. I think it only had a little store and a few houses and a school. And I would go down to my grandfather's store to get a little candy or something because he petted me and he called me his little Goldilocks. And I must have been three or four years old, something like that. And on the way down the trail, going down to this grocery store, there was a pet deer, a little fawn, I suppose, to be examined. And I remember that I was a little scared. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of him but I couldn't help but think to myself, well, he's a little bit different. He's a little bit more strong. He's a little bit more aggressive. He's a little bit more aggressive. I had to be very careful. And I remember this was the most terrifying experience for me. And I went on down to grandpa's store because I wanted to do a little bartering, a little trading, so to speak, because I'd had a little pet chicken that I'd raised and had grown into a little pullet. And it finally laid an egg. And I thought, well now then, I've got something that I can take down there the candy that he'd been giving me, and it was a little tiny egg, and I laid it solemnly on the counter to get my gumdrops with, and instead of his making a big game out of it as he usually did, I mean, I always thought he was such a kindly man and such a jolly fellow. He was a little gruff that day, and he took the egg and he gave me the candy, but he sent me on away, and I was hurt. And I wondered, what's the matter with Grandpa? Why didn't he play with me much today? And I walked down the railroad tracks, and I remember the store was right along the tracks, and as I walked along, I was counting the ties or skipping over them or maybe walking on the rails or something, and I came to a brown bottle, and I sat down and I picked it up and I took the cork out. And I... Smelled it. And actually, I can remember that this was the most heavenly fragrance that I had ever smelled. It was an empty whiskey bottle. And I'd never smelled this before, but it fascinated me, and I sat there and I smelled that, and I thought, I've seen bottles like this before. And I remembered then that in the back of Grandpa's store, there were always cases of them, empty. Now, a child isn't going to put two and two together, and I didn't. I didn't then. But I remembered I had seen those bottles back there. And so I sat there, and I smelled this empty bottle, the cork, and I played with it, and I cuddled it, and I took it home, the same as another little child would have with a doll, I guess. And I didn't realize this again. I didn't realize this again. I didn't realize the significance of that until I was well into my teens, possibly nearly 20 years old. Because when Grandpa died, when I was about five or six, why, I just saw Grandpa die. Old men just die, that's all. And I was heartbroken over it. And as I was growing up, why, I would hear the family kind of whisper around about Grandpa, and that was about it. When I was nearly 20 years old, I found out that Grandpa died of alcoholism. It's dear, sweet, kindly, gentle man that I love so much. I'm not saying that that made me an alcoholic. I'm just telling you that those things do happen in families. Sometimes there'll be a family of 15, maybe a dozen children, and maybe 11 of them will not be alcoholic, and maybe one will. I don't think I inherited this from Grandpa. But I don't think that... This gave me a tendency to be an alcoholic, the very fact that my father and my mother hush-hushed the subject of booze. That was the way they were brought up. This was the thing that they did. They wouldn't allow it in the house. They wouldn't allow any discussion about it. We came from this small Texas town, and I remember, of course, Texans do exaggerate. My father did. He had a tremendous personality. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a great man. He was a great man. And I can remember that he would make quite a thing out of it by telling neighbors that if a rattlesnake bit him on the arm, that he would take a dull, rusty knife and cut his arm off up at the elbow before he'd let anyone take an eyedropper or whiskey and put on the wound, even if he knew it would cure him. And as a child, I thought, well, now, you know, I wonder what that stuff's like. What can it be that Papa won't even consider using it for medicine? If a rattlesnake bit him. And I pondered about that a bit. But I never came across any of it, and it never was in the house. So when I was 16, I was out with a bunch of kids at a sort of a carnival-like thing in connection with the plant where my dad worked, all-day picnic. I was supposed to have wound up with a dance that evening. And a bottle was passed around, this crowd of teenagers. I thought to myself, what's the stuff? That's the stuff I've been hearing about all my life. And now I'll get a chance to find out what it's going to do. I'm going to find out. And I'd watch people go to that one and that one. It got closer to me, and I couldn't wait. I just couldn't. And then finally, when the bottle was handed to me, I just tipped it up, shut my eyes, and drained whatever was left in it. I stood there however many minutes that one can stand there when they've never smelled or tasted anything like that before, with the exception of when I was a child, and I'd smelled that cork and that empty bottle. And I passed out, fell unconscious, and didn't know another thing until the next day. Now, a great many of us are like that. Now, a great many of us are like that. Now, a great many of us are like that. Now, a great many of us are like that. A great many people will drink, and they'll never feel remorse, and they'll never feel ill. They'll never think a great deal about it for a long time. They'll just figure, well, I had a few drinks Saturday night, and they'll go back to work Monday, and they'll not feel any particular guilt feelings or remorse. But when I awakened in my mother's bed, and I realized that I had been hauled home and put to bed from being drunk. For the first time in my life, I knew what remorse was, and I was sick, and I wanted to die, and I didn't want to live, and I pleaded, and I promised that it would never happen again, begged for their forgiveness, and within a few days, I was drunk again. And with the very best intentions in the world, I followed this pattern for 16 more years. By younger years, I could drink. I could take it, physically, but never mentally. I always did it against my own judgment. I always did it against my own particular code of ethics. I didn't want to drink, and yet, some part of my brain, very tricky, very cunning, would make it possible for me to suffer that way. And within X number of days... I would repeat the performance, and it was intolerable. I was married to a young fellow when I was in my teens. I was married to a sailor boy who was an alcoholic. I didn't know he was, because I didn't know that I was one, and I didn't know what an alcoholic was. It was during the Depression. Times were very bad. Neither of us seemed to be able to make very much money, because the money that we made, we drank up. And I didn't know what an alcoholic was. And upon this occasion, we decided that we would leave Los Angeles, and we would go up to Bakersfield, and possibly find a little work. At that time, there was a great deal of fruit, grapes, peaches, apricots to cut. They didn't think much about it in the summer times then, for kids to go up and spend the summer like that. So, my brother, Clyde, who never did drink, and doesn't to this day. He's a great man. He's a great man. He's a great man. He drove us as far as Mojave. And we got out, and our intention was to take a freight train on over into Bakersfield. I had $20 in my shoe, and that was about it. And when the freight train pulled into the depot, it was about midnight, and it didn't quite stop. And I never saw so many hobos on a train in my life. They were on top. They were in the cars. They were everywhere. And this thing never did stop. And so, we got out. And so, Bill swung aboard and reached down to get me, and I couldn't make it, so he got off. The train was gone. And so, we hitchhiked over the hill there to Hatchipee and finally got a ride into Bakersfield. And on the outskirts, there's a little town called Arvin. We managed to get over to Arvin, and there was some fruit to be picked and hauled. And Bill got a job hauling it, and I got a job cutting it, or rather, stacking the grapes on the trays and picking it. And I got a job cutting it, or rather, stacking the grapes on the trays and picking it. And I got a job cutting it, or rather, stacking the grapes on the trays and picking it. And I got a job cutting it, or rather, stacking the grapes on the trays and picking it. And I didn't mind the sun 120 and better. I didn't mind it a bit. And we thought our sole purpose in going up there was to get away from booze. And we thought if we could get up there and spend the summer, that everything would be all right. And we wouldn't have to come back to town and do this anymore. And we thought if we could get up there and spend the summer, that everything would be all right. And we wouldn't have to come back to town and do this anymore. But it wasn't but a day or so until we found that in the evenings, all of the youngsters and the people who were doing the same thing, picking fruit for the summer, gathered around a big camper and packed them in a bag, and they were going to pick fruit. and spend the summer, that everything would be all right, and we wouldn't have to come back to town and do this anymore. But it wasn't but a day or so until we found that in the evenings, all of the youngsters and the people who were doing the same thing, picking fruit for the summer, gathered around a big campfire, and they passed bottles of wine around. Well, the bottle was passed around. I drank. He drank. Finally, I became maudlin. And I remember looking up at the moon and thinking, my gosh, what am I doing here? Why am I not back home? Same old thing. I left there to get away from me, and I brought me with me, and here I am up here. What am I doing here? And we walked down those rows of grapes, staggering our arms around each other, trying to hold each other up. And all of a sudden, I heard strains of music, and I wondered where it was coming from. And as we walked, we got a little closer to it, and we could see in the distance it was a revival tent. And so we stopped and we listened to the hymns, and we looked at each other, and with one accord, we staggered in, and we sat in the back. Pretty soon, the minister said, we're now going to turn to page so-and-so and sing hymn number so-and-so, and all of you that want to be saved, come down in front. Well, we did. We were sitting in the back, and we marched or walked or stumbled up in front, and these good people up there, as we knelt there, suddenly a horrible thing happened. I got sick then and there. And I don't remember being picked up and carried out of there and taken back to the cottage where we were staying. But I did awake just before daylight, and I said, how did I get out of there? And he said, I picked you up and carried you out. And I said, I don't know. And he said, I don't know. And I said, they're still there praying for you. I understand. They prayed for me all night. And I said, well, I can't let the sun rise on me in this town. I've got to leave. And he said, well, I'm going to stay, at least for another week or two. So I hitchhiked back over to the Ridge Router, and I made my way back to Los Angeles, and so, so sick. And I don't mean physically. That part of it I could take. I could take the hangover. They were awful. But I believe I got drunk a thousand times thinking of that. And did you know that it was only a few months ago, I'll say a few weeks ago, at the Burbank Group in Los Angeles that I ever related that experience about getting drunk and going into a church? Because I was convinced that there was never another alcoholic or AA member that ever did a thing like that. And it was something that I couldn't tell, couldn't talk about, and didn't want to think about. And I believe it was one of the things, just one of the things, that caused me to drink again and again and again. Well, the sailor boy was out of my life. The drinking did that. And I continued to drink until finally I knew that it was a matter of life or death. My little girl was in school. I could see that the time had come, when she would be in junior high and then high school and that she would bring children home from school and that undoubtedly there would be times when she'd find me drinking, drunk, never know what condition she'd find me in or I wouldn't be at home at all. And so I wanted to quit so desperately. And I remember in 1939, I was down in San Diego and I picked up a magazine, Time or Liberty, I'm not sure which. And I saw a little piece in that magazine. Couldn't have been as big as this. It didn't say much. It just said that there were some people in New York who had banded together to try to stop drinking and they called themselves Alcoholics Anonymous. It didn't say anything that would attract people very much. But I looked at that and I thought, they're trying to quit drinking? Who? I must cut this out and save it. But I didn't. I lost it. If I tore the clipping out, I lost it. But I knew that there was an Alcoholics Anonymous, but I didn't know what Alcoholics Anonymous was. The thing that impressed me, there were people who wanted to quit drinking. And you see, I had this secret that I thought no one knew about. I didn't think my mother knew it. My father knew it. Or my brother, who now lives in Texas, that doesn't drink. And I didn't know that I had a brother who was an alcoholic. Not until I was in my late 20s. He was hiding it from me and I was hiding it from him. And circumstances brought us together in that I was ill for a long time and he took me home to live with him, to Convalesce, because he just adored me and I worshipped him. His name was Tex Adams. A great, big, huge Texas fellow weighed nearly 300 pounds. And after this very serious illness, and I lived at his house, I was in a wheelchair for a long time, finally one day he picked up my pen and he said, Sib, honey, he says, your little wrist isn't as big as a toothpick. And he said, I kind of think maybe that the doctor would want to build you up with a little beer or a little glass of wine now and then. I guess he was getting awful thirsty and I know I was. And I said, yeah, I guess the doctor would think that'd be a good idea to build me up. And he says, well, it just kind of happens that it just happens that up in the cupboard here in the kitchen that I made a little home brew. And he said, maybe I'll just give you a little glass of that for your health. And I said, you do that. And we got drunk together. First time, but not the last. Because there began the team, a brother and sister team, drinking ourselves into scrapes together and helping each other out of scrapes. And I bailed him out of jail 89 times. And I kept him out of jail at least 80 times more. And yet those very cops that would throw him in jail would drive me home. I never got thrown in jail, but I've been in many a scrape with him, but not thrown in jail. And there was no earthly reason why not. But going back to the time when I read about this article about AA two years later and I hadn't seen my brother text in quite a while, because he was doing a stretch in county jail and then he'd get in, he'd get out, and I'd considered him lost. He was known as the king of Skid Row by this time. He had a wholesale vegetable business down on Skid Row, some trucks that would pull out at dawn with cantaloupes and peaches and oranges and things of that nature, winos that would peddle them for him by the bucketful. And it had come to the point to where he had tried to get me to quit drinking and he would threaten to pin my ears back and come into bars and drag me out. This would be during his sober period when he was oh so virtuous and he was trying to get me to stop drinking. And we didn't get along. I concluded he was alcoholic, he concluded I was, and we couldn't drink together because we fought, so we temporarily just parted. So I was drinking here in 1941 and it was intolerable and I thought I can't live like this, my little girl's going to be taken away from me. And I remember calling him, calling down the hall to the bathroom to get just a small sip of water. I had been drunk and I couldn't walk. I was too weak. And when I finally took that small sip of water which I knew would stay down, I heard the voices out in the backyard and it was the neighbor women over the fence next door and they were talking about their flowers and their gardens and their children and their PTA and they went in the kitchen and had a cup of coffee and they'd come out and they'd put her around with their laundries and I was listening to their chirping, happy little voices and I was so lonely. I had never had a neighbor and I'd never been a neighbor and I didn't think I ever would be and I don't believe anyone in this world except another alcoholic will understand how lonely I was and I didn't want to be that way. So I couldn't drink. I couldn't bear that another minute so I got dressed and I left the house and I got in the car and I drank my way down this way and up to San Francisco and back over the Ridge Rout and back home and then it was that I stopped to take a Turkish bath to get in shape to go home and make my usual excuses as to where I'd been and I'd run out of them and I didn't know what to say or do and before I took this Turkish bath I thought I'll buy a Saturday evening post so that I can read a little bit possibly in order not to sink and I bought the post and I took it downstairs and after the Turkish bath I picked it up and it said on the cover Alcoholics Anonymous by Jack Alexander and it was the March 1, 1941 issue and I read just a little bit because I thought that's the thing I read about two years ago and there it was. March 1, 1941 two years later and I hadn't done a thing about my drinking but there it was again those people that wanted to quit drinking and they gave a box number to communicate with them. I don't know what the article said I didn't know then we do now all of us because we have it in pamphlet form the reprint one of our most popular AA pamphlets but you see hope was reawakened and I asked them I asked the attendant for paper and pencil and for the first time in my life I believe I had a stamp and a paper and envelope all together they brought it to me and I wrote this most pitiful letter and I said no one knows that I'm an alcoholic at least I've never admitted it to anyone else but I am and I'm at the point of suicide if you can help me tell me where your hospital is and I'll come back there and I'll take the cure. I thought that's what it would be like would be like the Mayo Clinic where you would go back and take certain treatments I knew that they were all alcoholics but I thought surely it would be some uh well I what else except they all sat around and took pills I didn't know what it would be and I got the letter off and I got my answer within a few days from wonderful Ruth Hock the little non-alcoholic stenographer who helped our co-founder Bill W. with the manuscript with answering all of the inquiries from all over the world when A.A. was new she worked for him in a small car polishing business he was broke and of course just when he had this idea and this thing started the mail wasn't very voluminous and as it grew and then they began to get this marvelous national publicity why the letters came in by the thousands and so Ruth was still there she'd helped him with the manuscript and she answered my letter and she enclosed a pamphlet and in this letter I told her I said tell me where the big hospital is where the A.A.s get well and I'll take a plane back there immediately she said that isn't necessary you have a group in California and they meet at the Elks' Temple on West 6th street in Los Angeles on Friday night well Friday night rolled around and it was raining and it was raining and it was storming, and I have never since seen the rain come down the way it did that night in Los Angeles, buckets full of rain. I was married to a non-alcoholic who had been taking care of my little girl for me and trying to take care of me, but he was completely fed up and was about ready to walk out on me. He volunteered to drive me down because I wasn't able to. I wasn't able to even get dressed. I tied this red flannel bandana around my hair and tucked it all up underneath, and my eyes were bloodshot, my face was puffed up, and I had some kind of a little thing going in my cheeks that I couldn't control. It twitched, and it twitched, and it twitched, and I didn't want people to see it twitch, and the more I didn't want them to see it twitch, the more it twitched. And I stuttered and I stammered, and I couldn't even talk. So he drove me down there. Now, why didn't I look out the window and say, It's raining tonight. Let's go next Friday night. Mysterious things happen. Mysterious and wonderful things happen because it wasn't planned that way for me. I was sick, and it was raining, but I did go. I don't believe it was anything that I did at all. I went down there, and there weren't too many people there. We walked in the lobby of this Elk Temple, and it was quite a huge thing. And if I thought I was frightened and timid and shy as a little girl when I was in school, and if I thought I was frightened and timid and shy until I had some alcohol in me before I went to a dance or to a party or to mingle with people at all, you can imagine how frightened I was that night to take the big plunge to go down and find out how to quit drinking. About 18 or 20, maybe 25, I don't know, just not very many people, because they were sitting around a big banquet table. A few wives, a few women here, and a gal or so here, and three or four fellows standing up and talking and everything. And no one paid too much attention to us. And so the meeting started. Actually, not the meeting, but it was to get them to sit down and be quiet. And he rapped on the table, and he said, this is the regular meeting of Alpha. It's anonymous in California. We're a band of ex-drunks who have gathered together to obtain and maintain our sobriety on an all-time basis without any mental reservations whatsoever. I sat there and I thought, no, all-time basis, no mental reservations. And I thought, well, they've all signed in. They've all signed in. They've signed up. They've pledged. And I thought, I can't do that. How do I know what I'm going to do tonight or tomorrow or the next day? And I didn't know when they were going to give me the business to sign and pledge and maybe raise your right hand and put one on the Bible or something or other. And I just, all those thoughts flashed through my mind. And then he continued, but he said, now before the meeting gets started, the women will all have to leave. Leave the room and wait out in the lobby until the meeting is over. Well, I thought that they knew I was a drunk and that this was their cute way of throwing me out. And so with my head down, I just got up and I ran down that aisle and out into the lobby there. And it didn't matter to me that the other women there got up and left. I thought I had been singled out to be thrown out. So I spoke around. I was behind pillars and posts and in the ladies' room. And I managed not to speak to a soul while my non-alcoholic husband sat in there. And I thought, boy, when he comes out, I can't wait if he'd just hurry up and tell them all about me and come out with my pills. Why, I just don't know how I can live through this. So I'd bite my fingernails and I'd pace up and down out in front. And I'd go back to the ladies' room and I'd look at these women all sitting over on the Davenport there. And I thought, well, pretty soon they're going to notice me. And talk to me. And I don't want to tell them I'm a drunk. Not those women, you know. And the meeting went on and on and on and on. And because it was the only one, they were hungry and thirsty for this fellowship. And 8, 30, 9, 30, 10, 30, 11, 30, or 12 didn't mean a thing because they drove in from San Bernardino and Long Beach and just anywhere there was an alcoholic once a week to the Friday meeting. I guess it was nearly midnight. When those big doors were opened up, meaning that the women could go back in and have refreshments with them. So I sought out my non-alcoholic husband right away. And I said, well, what'd they do? What'd they do? Did you tell them about me? He said, well, what'd they say? Because it was the darndest thing I ever heard of. But he said, you know, I just don't get it exactly. He said, fellow after fellow stood up there and they were bragging. One guy would say, I drank a fifth a day for 10 years. Another. The guy get up and say, I drank two fifths a day for 30 years. And then he said, the third guy got up there probably and said, he'd been in 15 nut houses. And, uh, another guy said that he was an ex con. And, uh, he said he was smiling real happy about the whole thing. And he said, the funny part of it was they all kept looking at me and he says, I where they were talking to me because he said, they'd throw in little things like easy does it first things first. And well, he said, I don't know. I'm fairly confused. I mean, I said, they're bragging. It's bunch of people I ever heard of. And just when I was trying to figure the whole thing out, he said, they all stood up and said the Lord's prayer. Here I am. Well, I got hysterical and I kicked my heels and I beat him on the back seat floor of the car and I screamed like a Comanche Indian. And when he pulled up in front of our house and got out of the car, I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I jumped over in front and put it in gear. And I barreled off into the night and all hope gone. I thought I might as well do a good job of it. And I was really, I thought they kicked me out of there. They knew who I was. They knew they were all set to get rid of me. I didn't know they were wives and it was a closed meeting. So long about two o'clock, I was really ready. And I was sitting in the car. I was sitting in this bar and they were getting ready to close up. And I thought, now's the time to call them up. I'll sure tell them a thing or two. So I put, I called and I had been given a number by Ruth Hawk when she'd written me. And I called poor old, long suffering Cliff Walker, who took all of the 12 step calls for the area because there was no central office. Now imagine Cliff got up and went to work at four o'clock in the morning and I called him at two. And I said, hello. My name is Debo and I am ready. You may send your ambulance anytime. Just send the AA ambulance and pick me up. He said, you sound like you're in a bar. I said, naturally. Well, he said, we don't rescue drunks from bars. Oh, I said, you don't? He says, no, you're drunk. I says, well, of course. I went down to your meeting tonight sober and I couldn't get in. So I thought that the requirement was that I had to get drunk. So I took care of that. No, he says, you're all mixed up. What do you mean? I said, well, I did go down to the meeting and they had me leave the room. He said, did you tell them you were an alcoholic? I said, no. Well, he said, sober up, go home and come back and just tell them you have a problem. It's as simple as that. After talking to me a while, I was really burned up and I was indignant and I was real nasty with him. And he couldn't console me. And I said, look, I've had a very poor reception. And I said, look, I've had a very poor reception. And particularly after I had my letter of authorization from New York. I said, I have a good notion to write them and tell them about the treatment that I've had. And the first one that's going to get fired is going to be you. But of course, as drunks will, if they don't get killed in the process, I drove the car home and I didn't get killed. And I did sober up. And I did go back. Well, again, I don't know if I'm sober or not, but I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. Now, I mean that thin line between life and death. Suppose I'd put it off three months, three years, fifteen years, or just X number of hours, days, minutes, or years. How do I know whether I had any more drugs left in me or not? I was ready. I was looking, and I was searching, and it was the right time for me, which I am sure it was for everyone. every last one of you. Because I did go back, but I didn't go alone. This may have had something to do with it. This jigsaw puzzle, this pattern of life that we have so little to do with. I didn't drink that week, and my brother Tex came over, this great, big, bloated, blurry-eyed Texan that had been drinking with me so many years. He came over, and he saw me sober, and he liked what he saw, and he said, what have you done? And I got real cagey, and I said, nothing that would interest you, Tex. I said, you've always said you were a social drinker and that you could take it or leave it alone, but I said, I've joined a very exclusive club of drunks. And I said, their purpose is not to drink anymore. And he says, good for you, sis, you never could take it like me. And he says, I'm glad that you did. And he said, I'll tell you another thing. Those winos that work for me down there on my vegetable truck need this thing because I've seen them die like flies. He said, many times, he said, I've seen them die like flies when I've been in jail with them, and they just don't make it. He said, they get convulsions, they get DTs. He said, they can't quit. He said, they're not like me. They can't quit. They need this thing. Whatever you have, if it's a club for drunks, they need to get in. Oh, no, now, I said, wait a minute, Tex, don't you laugh. I said, I had a hard enough time getting in. But don't talk about these other fellas. Well, he says, I'm going to the meeting with you Friday. And I says, oh, no, you can't. I said, the first thing they'd do is they'd find out that you're not an alcoholic, and then they'd throw us both out, and there we'd go again. Well, little did I know that this was the proper psychology to use. Actually, it was self-preservation with me. I wasn't putting on a mask. But he was that kind of a guy. If I had begged with him. If I had pleaded, and I said, oh, Tex, come on down just once with me. Won't you please just kind of look it over? Try it a little bit. Maybe you'll like it. If I'd have said any of those things, he'd have died drunk. But no, he kept insisting he wanted to go down and take those winos that were working for him. And he said, finally, I'll make a deal with you. He said, I'll come over Friday night with those guys, and I won't be drinking that night. And I won't open my mouth down there. He said, well, I'm not an alcoholic. I said, well, okay. So I was fearful about it, but Friday night rolled around, and Tex pulled up in front of my house with his vegetable truck, and standing up in back were 11 winos. And they didn't want to be there, believe me. He had laid the law down to them. He said, yep, you go or you don't work tomorrow. And if they didn't work, they didn't get the jug the next day. So they'd say, oh, Tex, do we have to? Yeah, you have to. Well, they crawled in the truck, and I got up in the cab there with him, and we went down to this meeting. Now, by this time, the Saturday Evening Post article had really hit, and the mail had come in. You never saw mail like that anywhere in your life. Bushel baskets full of mail that had reached New York, had been read, and then diverted back to the local area. So this time, Tex, myself, and these winos, we occupied the first two rows. And Big Brother Tex sat there, and he'd look up and down to keep his boys in line. And I was sitting there wondering if anybody was going to find out, you know, and wondering about the whole thing. But I liked what I saw. Now, program, the program, that didn't mean anything to me. I didn't know anything about a program. I didn't know anything about the therapy of it. I didn't know about the spiritual principles of it. I didn't know anything except. Well, here's why that made me want to do this. I was sitting there with a little group of friends, and I looked around me. I had a little group of friends that looked around there, and people were shaking hands with me, and they had heard that I had been there the week before, you know, and they were petting me and they were pampering me a little bit. And it was really making me feel nice and good and comfortable. And for the first time since I was that high, I knew I belonged somewhere at last. Now, I felt that. I really felt that way. Now, these things got to work here, and we went down to the CHR and we went to this e-mail booth, and I got to this place, and they had this email, and they had this e-mail that after. I heard what they said. It wasn't particularly meaningful for me at that very moment. I was so concerned with myself and wondering if I could live up to what these wonderful people were doing, wondering if I was going to let them down, wondering if I had what it took to stay sober. Because, you see, we weren't talking about 24 hours at a time then or one day at a time. Those people there, when they made that statement when they opened the meeting about we're here on an all-time basis without any mental reservations whatsoever, it was simply because the three or four men had started there in Los Angeles, and they just read from the book, and they got the habit of reading the fifth chapter to open it, and then they probably said among themselves, we'll never drink again. It got to be a little ritual that they'd say, we accept this on an all-time basis without any mental reservations whatsoever. It was kind of like a school. I mean, the next one that would come in, he'd hear that, and if he led a meeting, he'd say, I'm going to drink. And he said that, too. And then after a bit, then I imagine Juan A. A. talking to his new baby would say, well, now look. Oh, now just wait a minute. Look, all you have to do is take it from one heartbeat to the next. Of course we want to stay sober, and it will add up to a long length of time if we're successful, but don't think about tomorrow. Just think about today. I can imagine that. It kind of got started that way with one guy yearning over his baby, telling him, now don't worry about tomorrow. Just be sober right now. Call me up. Call me up tonight if you're feeling a little edgy. And so at this meeting, I didn't hear any of that, but I did know that there were people there, and they were sober, and I had faith in them. I had absolute faith that they were sober, and they were going. I believed every word that they said, and I liked the way they looked, and I had absolute confidence that they weren't going to drink, and that they could help me stay sober. And so at the conclusion of this meeting, Frank Randall began trying to get rid of this mail that had come in and get the 12-step calls made. So naturally, he would have to hold up 30 or 40 or 50 letters in Hawaii, and he'd say, if there are any of you here who live down at the beach, hold up your hand and take this mail and go and ring those doorbells. You can get those people down here next week. And then the guys would raise their hands and so forth. Anybody here from San Bernardino? Anyone here from Orange County? Anyone here from Glendale? And so forth. And the guys say, here, I'll take that, and so forth. So he got on to about, oh, two or three dozen letters. And then he said, now, the rest of these letters that I've gathered up here, he says, I've sorted them out. They're all from the women, and so we've got a woman alcoholic here, Sybil, and so we're going to put Sybil in charge of the women. I was in. I mean, I blogged. I even had a job to do. I told them that I didn't know what to say or do or how to do this thing. I was honest about it. And so Frank and Cliff and these people who were being so awfully good to me, still are, said, well, why don't you just go up and ring the doorbell and have the letter in your hand that they wrote? And he said, you wrote a letter. And I said, yes, I wrote a letter. And they said, this work has to be done by next Friday. We just can't let these pleas for help go unanswered, and there's so few of us that every one of us has got to do it. And this is a unique situation. So why don't you just take the letter, ring the doorbell, and when they answer the door, say, did you write this letter? And they'll say, yes. Say, well, I wrote one like yours last week, and I'm going down there and find out what they have to offer. Would you like to ride down with me, and we'll find out together? And he said, let it go at that. Oh, I said, I can do that. So I took the letter. Well, I noticed my brother Tex was awfully quiet, sliding home. And much to my amazement, the next morning, he came over, and he said, well, I had nothing to do today. Just for kicks, I thought I'd get on the old Plymouth and go around with you and punch some of those doorbells. And that began a 12-year brother-sister team. He never had enough time to do that. He never drank until he died of a heart attack in an AA meeting in October of 1952. He had a marvelous touch with the new men. Great, big, rough, dynamic guy. If a guy came out of Lincoln Heights, Yale, old Tex had a sack of bullderm, and he'd toss it over to him and he'd say, here, have the neckings, you know. And he could talk to these new guys. He had a marvelous touch with them. He was always a new man, thought like a new man, right up to the top of his head. And he was always a new man. And he was always a new man until the day he died. One of my sponsors, I've had a lot of them. Maybe I leaned on him and stayed sober because of him or through the knowledge that I gained from him. Maybe it was too drunk holding on to each other. It could have been a little of that. Could have been a little bit of group therapy. It could have been the people. It could have been the 12-step call. It was a lot of things. my fears began to go but you know what tech said he wasn't dry behind the ears yet he was a brand new guy when all of a sudden he said fib i'm tired of driving down to the mother group with this great big car but you know what tech said he wasn't dry behind the ears yet he was a brand new guy when all of a sudden he said fib i'm tired of driving down to the mother group with this great big car full of people all the time. We were picking them up wherever we found them. He said, doesn't make sense. He said, that meeting now, there's 200 or 300 people down there. They don't need us. We live way out here in one of the suburbs. I'm going to start a group. I said, Tex, you can't start a group. We've got a group. Well, no, he says, we were calling on guys out here in Long Beach and Southgate and Linwood. It'd be all right if we had another meeting. And I said, oh, the boys downtown won't like that, Tex. I said, they won't like that at all. They'll think you're in competition with them. No, he says, I think I'll start a group. Oh, the boys downtown didn't like it, so they incorporated their group. Well, this didn't mean very much. Tex just laughed at them. I mean, we laugh at these things today because he just went ahead and started the group at Southgate. Moved to Huntington Park finally and it's been known as the hole in the ground. It was a participation meeting. So this meant that I would go to his group on one night and down to another group and back to his group and I was just talking back and forth to meetings and over to Cliff Walker's home meetings. And finally I started the women's group. I was totally unable to talk, but I would have this women's group and then they'd sit around in a circle and I'd let them all do the talking, clear around the circle. I still was in charge of all the women. This meant that any 12-step call that came to anyone there. There was no central office or anything like that, but they'd refer it to me and I had a book full of these names of the women. Then I'd relay it out to Susie and Mary and Josephine or whoever it was. They'd make the call and they'd report back to me. And I knew what was happening to this girl that I had given them. And then they would bring the girl to the meeting, the mother group, on Friday night and then we'd go in another room and have our women's meeting. So I kept track of them all because Frank said that I was in charge of them. And I couldn't understand it. One day, I was in charge of them. And I couldn't understand it. One day, I was in charge of them. And I couldn't understand it. And I couldn't understand it. So I came to the meeting one night at the Great Big Mother group meeting when in came this girl who had come in about six weeks after I'd had. And she was there faithfully and I'd given her a lot of these calls to make. And here she came down the aisle with five or six other women like a mother hen with a brood of chicks. And I looked at them and they were strangers. And they hadn't been processed by me at all. And I thought, well, she can't get away with that. It's the system. The system's going to be shocked. So I went up to her and I said, hey, I didn't give you those calls. I said, you didn't report to me. She says, no, several years. I tell you, I live down at Santa Monica, you know, Westwood, and I have a lot of girls I used to drink with. And she says, and they tell me about other girls that drink, and wherever I see one of them or they call me or anything and they want to keep drinking, I bring them here, you know, to get help. And I'm not going to report to you or anybody. I'm just going to bring them to the meeting if they want to come. And so I just backed off, and I didn't have much to say. And I went home that night to my brother Tex, and I said, Tex, that girl Kay has upset the system. And I said, everything's just shocked. I don't know what to do. I said, the boys. I said, the boys downtown on the committee aren't going to like that a bit. I said, what am I going to do? I said, she practically defied me. She said she's going to make a 12-step call any time she got good and ready without reporting to anybody. She said, Deb, honey, if you're smart, next Friday night you'll make a pretty little speech up in front of your little women's group and just tell them that due to the past circumstances and other work that you think you'd better resign as secretary of the women's group before you're thrown out. And this I did, and I felt rejected. Once again, and I was sort of bled, and I hemorrhaged around the landscape for quite a while. I couldn't believe that this had happened to me, but these were the growing pains. But yet, still I had not, in Alcoholics Anonymous, during this fascinating time, just trying to find out what everyone was doing to stay sober, a tremendous number of 12-step calls, going to the meetings, high excitement, marvelous, wonderful feeling, which sustained me. I still wasn't getting rid of my fear, my basic fear, maybe, that I had been born with, I don't know, or had acquired. Maybe it was just my temperament. But I would go to those meetings, down at the mother group, which was now 300 or 400, to my brother Texas group, which was 18 or 20, and I would sit in the back, and there I would cry. I would clench my fists, and get down as low in my seat as possible, waiting for this night, the horrible, awful night that might come when they might call my name, and I would have to get up in front. And I would sit like that, and riding home with my brother Tex, he would notice that I had actually cut little half-moons of blood in the palms of my hands, suffering, afraid that I was going to be noticed, and afraid that I wasn't going to be noticed, maybe. But I was going to be noticed. I knew that if the day ever came, when they ever called on me to get up in front, that I couldn't live through it. I was so afraid that I would let them down, and that they'd be ashamed of me, or they'd feel sorry for me, or something. So finally, my brother Tex said, look, he says, I'll tell you what we'll do. Everyone in our group now is working on the fourth step. They're trying to find out what makes them tick. They're trying to find out what they are like, what it means to them. This business of living, as it affects them individually, and this inventory is a marvelous thing, and you've done marvelous things in AA, but you're staying sober, making 12-step calls, but you're not getting all of the dividends that some of the other people are. And he said, I think maybe if you participate and try to lick this fear, which has permeated every area of your life, that it might help. And he said, we've got to start by making you get up in front. So he said, suppose at my little group meeting next week. Suppose we get there early, 7 o'clock, and you and I go out in the kitchen, and we'll make the coffee. And then he said, Joe will come in, and we'll say, hello, Joe, have a cup of coffee, and then Mary will come in. Hello, Mary, come on, have a cup of coffee. We'll all talk about what a wonderful meeting it was last week. Pretty soon, then there's John, and Dick, and the rest of them, and then there's six or eight, or nine, or ten, and he says, it'll just be a kind of a gab session. And he said, I'll talk to you later. And he says, time will go along pretty soon. After we've been there an hour and a half, we will have had a good old conversation with every last person there. And he says, we'll mill around and talk like that. He says, on our feet, as we do before a meeting. But he says, then, when they all sit down, they're just the same friends you've been having such a good time with for an hour and a half. And then he said, I'm going to open the meeting and call on you. And he says, that'll get rid of your fear. And he says, let's give it a whirl. Well, I had a week to think about that, so I typed out about three or four lines of something or other, about a step, I guess. And I did. We got there early, and I talked to everybody, and I knew the big moment was coming. The big moment was coming, and pretty soon it did, and he opened the meeting, and he said, and now, for the first speaker tonight, I'm going to call on my sponsor, Seb. So I got up. I made my way down there, and I turned around, and I said, I know my name. I've been sober four months. Thank you. And read whatever it was on my little sheet. I don't know what I said. I suppose I said that because I walked back to my seat, but I couldn't think because of this tumultuous applause. I never heard such a, so much applause in my life. To me, why I sat there, and I folded my arms. Somebody put a... I put a cigarette in my mouth, and I shook my head, and I thought, how about that? How about that? Am I really that good? And in this slow, nice glow of accomplishment, a feeling, slight feeling of self-confidence, and I grinned around a little bit, and I thought, well, that wasn't so bad. And then they all were talking about this fourth step, taking the inventory, and the 11th. And they're talking about admitting they're powerless over alcohol, and they're making amends and all that stuff, and I don't know much about that book. And suppose I went down to the mother group, the big group, and they called on me down there. I'd better be prepared. I'd better read that big book. So I couldn't wait until I got home that night, and I read that big book, and I was really fortified for my big moment when I was called on downtown. Of course, the time came when I was called on downtown, and I didn't, no pearls of wisdom, nothing. It was hard, and I suffered. But I did find that, for me, action, activity, and Alcoholics Anonymous is very important, that it had to be, for me, medicine that I could use, and doses that would fit any circumstance of life. I know that when the children... They're down, and tragedies befall me, as they have in these 21 years, wonderful, glorious honeymoon years, and then human troubles have happened to me, as they will to people everywhere, whether they've ever had a drink or not. I found that Alcoholics Anonymous can sustain me and carry me through, because the love and the fellowship and the friendship that I've found here. That's the thing that has helped me, the principles that I've heard talked about, the new people who come in that I've been privileged to watch grow, the old-timers who've been so kind to me. So many of my sponsors have been the new people who will just, after a few weeks, get up and say something that I'll think, well, isn't that wonderful? I never heard that before. Just to think. I mean, after all, this girl has only been... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've been sober two months, and this has helped me more than anything I've ever heard in my life before. Every time I go to a meeting, it's new, and it's fresh like that, and I've found that no matter whether the sun is shining and birds are singing, we go to our meetings because we want to see our friends, not because we're craving a drink, actively craving a drink, but because it's our way of life. We'll go there sometimes just for the sheer joy of going, and then other times we're troubled, and we'll go because we're troubled. And this is the kind of medicine that I'm thinking about, the medicine that will help us all to live in sobriety and to know that we have found a home here for as long as we want it, the thing that we try to make every newcomer feel, if we can, that it's his, it's hers for the taking, the thing that we know that this thing is so available to alcoholic everywhere, that we've only actually begun, that this is still so new and we know but little, that it doesn't really matter whether every chair in this auditorium is filled tonight because for every empty chair that we have here, and there are but few, there's an alcoholic somewhere right out here tonight in this town of Santa Cruz getting ready for either a potential drop. We'll occupy that chair over there one day. One that might not realize at all that she has a problem. A chair down here, there might be a little girl somewhere tonight in her house, wondering what she's going to do about her baby, wondering what she's going to do about her husband, wondering if he's going to leave her, wondering if she can keep her home, wondering if the neighbors know. Another little girl. Another little girl. Another little girl might be in jail tonight, going to get out and have to start all over, may not know about us at all. For some of those chairs, there may be guys that were here, there may be gals that were here and they're lost for a while and they'll come back. So the important thing is, is that when they do, when they arrive in good time, at the right time, they'll find us here waiting to help them. And I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. To help them as we've been helped. Thank you very much.