Almost Anybody’s Judgment Is Infinitely Better Than Yours – Vince Y.

Please join me in welcoming our speaker tonight, Vince Y. from Upland, California. Good evening. My name is Vince, and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you for inviting me to Portland. It's a delight to be here. And the sun actually came out today for a while when I was in my hotel room, which surprised me. I expected a lot of overcast weather. You have a beautiful city, however, sunshine or not. But it's really a lovely place to be. And thank you for inviting me. I'm glad I'm here. And this looks like a, there's nothing like a packed room for an AA meeting. You know, it really is. There's a certain electricity here, and you can feel it going on. You know, you can know what's happening here tonight, and I'm glad to be a part of it. I should tell you, the people who are new, I would like to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous and tell you that that's where you are tonight. Incidentally, you're an AA, which is a preposterous kind of a thing, isn't it? I mean, Jesus, I mean, who the hell ever expected to end up here? But you're an AA, and if you're like me when I was new, you will find this a paradox. You will, it is illogical. It makes no sense. There's no rhyme or reason to it. You are, for example, you are surrounded, by a couple hundred people here who admittedly cannot manage their own lives, but will be delighted to take yours on. And hopefully, you will allow them to do it, because that seems to be the prescription in Alcoholics Anonymous, to understand that almost anybody's judgment is infinitely better than yours. And hopefully, you've reached that point of desperation, and you're able to do that. That seems to be the answer. The answer here, I know that if you are new, we have never met you, but we know everything about you. We know, for example, you have had a bad year. Things have not gone well this year. And the end result of which is you're in AA. This is not where you wanted to be. I know that that's certainly, I'm going to tell you about my first AA meeting, which was a long time ago. It was in November. November of 1965. I know girls. I know. He cannot be that old. I understand. And it's true. I was only seven at that meeting. And it was, as a matter of fact, it reminds me, this meeting, it was in the basement of a Presbyterian church on a Friday night in Long Beach, California. And it was a big speaker meeting like this. And it was a big deal, really, back then, because I'll tell you, there... There were not... There wasn't an AA meeting on every corner in those days, as it seems as though there are today. And it was not... It was just... This was a big event in the Long Beach area. I mean, everybody showed up to this meeting on Friday night. And it was a big speaker meeting like this. And they all dressed up. And they wore coats and ties. And the ladies... I mean, it was a big deal. Everybody came in the Long Beach area to this Presbyterian church on this Friday night for this AA meeting. And most of those people, the overwhelming impression that I had at my first AA meeting was that none of these people looked alcoholic. I mean, they looked good. They looked good and they sounded good. And nobody looked like an alcoholic, as opposed to this room tonight, as I look out over here. There's several of you that look like you belong. But nobody at the Los Altos meeting in Long Beach, California, on that night... Look, except me. You could have picked me right out. I was the only... I had on a filthy T-shirt and a ripped pair of jeans. I had not shaved or bathed in over a week. And I spent the previous five days in the Long Beach City Jail due to a series of unfortunate circumstances. Clearly not my fault. The police department in Long Beach, California, is fascist. Turns out. And they had abused my civil rights on a regular basis. It turns out, in those days. And I ended up in the Long Beach City Jail. And then I ended up in the basement of this Presbyterian church on this Friday night. And I sat in the back of the room, right up against the wall back there. And that's where most new people sit, incidentally. You don't want to get up too close here. If you don't have it, you could catch it. You really want to get in the back. And I sat in the back up against that wall. And I should tell you from the outset, I'm Irish and I'm Catholic. And I'm from New Jersey. And I have difficulty with people from Texas. We had a chemistry problem, it seems. And I sat next to this guy who was about 6'5 and he had on cowboy boots and a 10-gallon hat in his lap. And his name was Tex. And Tex wanted to hep me. He told me, he said, Boy, I'm going to hep you. Jesus Christ. And I remember thinking, why don't you go hep somebody? Why don't you go hep somebody else? Leave me the hell alone. But he was going to hep me. And the first thing he did, he put in my lap a handful of these pamphlets that have described everybody here. I mean, we don't care what your aberration is here. We have some kind of a pamphlet that will cover you. And he put these pamphlets in my lap. And on top of the pamphlets was this card with the 20 questions on it, which is a test where you say, we don't do this much anymore. So many people come here from the treatment, which is a good thing, incidentally. But there was no such thing in those days. So old-timers spent an inordinate amount of time convincing you that you were alcoholic and that you belonged. And you used to take this test. And this test, these 20 questions, were devised by the medical school at Johns Hopkins. They have determined how alcoholic you are by the way you answer these questions. I don't know what that means. But if you're new and some old-timers want you to take the test, take the test. It pleases them. And they treat you better. You know, it's really, it's as good a reason as any to take the test. And the way this, the criteria is, if you answer, you want to answer no to these questions. It's what you really want if you don't want to be here. If you answer yes to one question, you may have a drinking problem. If you answer yes to two questions, you do have a drinking problem. Three or more, and you indeed are an alcoholic. So I took the test for text. And I answered about 16 or 17 of these questions yes. I remember I answered no to the question, do you seek lower companions? I could not find any. I mean, you know. Where the hell do you go after the Long Beach City? I mean, you know. And the meeting began. And we began in precisely the same way we began here tonight. They read essentially what is our approach. If you are new, and you wonder what it is we have, that's what we have. Those 12 steps, that's Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you are to recover here, it is required that you take them. The requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. The requirement for recovery, however, is different. The requirement for recovery is you must take those 12 steps. Now, I listened to those 12 steps read at that meeting. And I will tell you, I heard nothing new. I'm the end product of eight years of Dominican nuns and four years of Jesuit priests. And I want to tell you, this stuff is really superficial. I've read Aquinas and Augustine, and I know apologetics, and I can prove, you know. And this, stop it. I mean, really. This is pseudo-Protestant pap. And I understand how it might help you if you are uneducated and Protestant. I mean, I listened to this stuff, and I thought, what, are they going to sing some hymn about bringing in the crops next? You know. This is really ridiculous. So, somewhere in my subconscious, I dismissed these 12 steps. I said to myself, somewhere my case is different. I am not like you. And the meeting went on, and there were nice people participating. And they said innocuous things that were inapplicable to me. I mean, these were nice people who drank too much, came to the Presbyterian church on Friday night, and they didn't drink anymore. It isn't that nice. And I said, where do you send the more difficult cases? And he said, shut up. Something equally as appropriate. And at the end of the meeting, if I had any doubts as to whether I belong there or not, they had what you did here earlier. In Southern California, they celebrate, they call them birthdays. They have cakes. They give them cakes with candles on it. I found this embarrassing. I mean, really. A room full of middle-aged people. Singing happy birthday to some moron who didn't have a drink for a year. And they give them a cake with a candle. I mean, God, please. I mean, this should take place at a mental institution. You know, in the day room. Right after dance therapy. You know, you can have birthday parties for the alcoholics. And they had a series of people who had these birthday parties. And one in particular, was this woman who was about 110. And clearly, she was sober for a bit of fire on top of this cake, you know. And she got up here and started to blow out the candles. And it seemed as though the pulmonary disease would get her before she got them out. But she blew the candles out. And she got up here and she said her name was Phoebe. And that she was an alcoholic. And then she said something about, did I want what she had. Not tonight, Phoebe. I don't think so. And that was my first AA meeting. And I think you could safely say that I did not have a spiritual awakening. But I'll tell you what I did. For the next three and a half years, I stayed sober. As physically sober then as I am tonight. Right in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I stayed busy in the middle of AA. I did everything there was to do here. I made coffee. Set up the meeting. Chaired meetings. Spoke at a young people's convention. Did everything there was to do in Alcoholics Anonymous except one thing. I did not take these steps. And as a result, my alcoholism got worse. And it got worse while I was sober and busy in the middle of AA. And I will bet you there are some people here tonight who are precisely in that state of mind and body. You've been here some appreciable length of time. And you're very busy. But you haven't begun the spiritual program. And you are getting worse. And you know you're getting worse. And I'll tell you something else. So does everybody else. This is not a secret. Everybody knows who's getting better here. And everybody knows who's getting worse, don't they? Nobody has to tell anybody either. You just know. People who get better here, who are getting better here, wear it, don't they? You can see it. Recovery is visible here. You can see it in people's eyes. You can see it in their persona. Their sense of purpose. They change. People change. And I would sit here. And I would watch people come in. And something would happen to them. Somebody would sprinkle some kind of fairy dust on them. And I think, do they have secret meetings? Have you ever felt like that? They met somewhere without you. And really shared what, you know. And that's the way that I felt in the middle of AA. And, I mean, on the outside, wonderful things happened to me. I mean, I really did. I mean, I got a great job. I have a, I should tell you, I have a, I come from a wonderful family. An Irish Catholic family. Nobody else is an alcoholic. I have, I am the fifth child in a family of five children. I have four older sisters. And my youngest sister is 11 years older than I. And my father is 11 years older than I. And my father was 50. And my mother was 45 when I was born. And it was a big Irish Catholic family with all these girls. And then so late in their life, here I came. And I want to tell you what it was like. It was the prince had arrived. I mean, my sisters were just, they, it was during the war. They dressed me in soldier suits and sailor suits. And I have pictures. I mean, would make you throw up. They took me on dates with them. You know, they really did. They just, and my father and my mother. My father was especially, was just, he was beside himself with me. He just loved me so much. He couldn't, you know, he or he had a son after all this late in life. And it was just, I mean, he never said a cross word to me until the day he died. He just loved me so much. My earliest recollections of Christmas are my father up in the bedroom in the middle of the night. He would wake me up at 3 o'clock in the morning. He'd be kneeling beside the bed. And he would wake me up and he would say things like, I just saw the sleigh leave. Let's go downstairs. And the entire family would get up and go downstairs and celebrate Christmas at 4 a.m. Because my father could not wait. That's true. So I was loved and cared for and nurtured and given tremendous values. We were affluent. He was the vice president of a railroad. We didn't, you know, we didn't think that. We had the best of everything and it was healthy discipline. All of that existed in my life. And I will say something about the Roman Catholic Church. I'm a product of the Roman Catholic Church. You can't get more of a product of the Roman Catholic Church than I, I suppose. And I have nothing bad to say about nuns or priests. All I received from the Roman Catholic Church was this remarkable education in spite of my behavior. I was not molested, tortured. Perhaps I wasn't appealing. I don't know why. But it was not my experience. So I have nothing bad to say about my education or my religious training. That training, that religious training probably saved my life when it came time and I had to get better here. Probably that was the beginning. Probably that fundamental religious training enabled me to get better here when I finally was out of desperation motivated into taking these steps, which was a long time after that. But at any rate, that's from whence I come. Now, my parents died within one week of each other when I was 12. My father had a massive heart attack and died. And my mother, who was ill ever since I was born, she had congestive heart failure. And she passed away. And she passed away a week later. So we had this big, two big Irish wakes and funerals in the space of about nine days. It was, you know, it was a bad time. There's no question about that. But I had this wonderful family. These sisters were now all completed their education and they were married and they were all married to wonderful men. All of them are still married. You know, the ones are still alive. Two of them are still alive. They're still married. The same husband. No divorces. Let me give you, I'll give you a picture of my relationship to my family. In the entire history of all of my family, all of the cousins and aunts and uncles and brothers, there have been a total of four divorces. Three of them are mine. Now that is a picture of my relationship to my family. So I, my alcoholism is not my family's fault. It's not the church's fault. I made a terrible discovery here. Terrible discovery. When I finally wrote that searching and fearless moral inventory. And the word moral is not there by mistake, incidentally. It is not a psychological inventory designed to get you in touch with your feelings. That's gas. It is precisely what you think it is. We want to know your secrets. The terrible nickel and dime compromising, shameful, crummy secrets that you're never going to tell anybody. Tell us. And you're free. You're free. You don't carry them anymore. They're gone. But I didn't know that then. Now I, I went to school. When I tell you I went to, I went to Jesuit prep schools and I used the plural because I went to four of them. And the reason I went to four of them is I was thrown out of the one I was in every year for some kind of bad behavior. I am a good student, however. I get A's. I, I test well. I mean, I really test well. If life were a written test, have you ever felt that way? I wouldn't be here. I'd have gotten an A. Unfortunately, life is not a written test. You have to live it. But I did well academically. In my senior year, I was valedictorian of my class. I had the highest grades in the class and the best academic record. And I was due to give the valedictorian address at graduation. But graduation was in May. And unfortunately, in April, I stole this priest's car to go joyriding. And I didn't get to give the address at graduation. I did not get to attend graduation. They said, don't come to graduation, please. And, just don't. And if we ever have a reunion, don't come. Don't come. That's the way that I went through school. Now, I went to a good university in the East. I went to one of the best schools in the East. And I did well academically. But I was in academic, I mean, disciplinary probation every semester for drunk, some kind of bad behavior connected to drinking. And it was the beginning of the 60s. Just the very, very beginning. So, they were starting to tear the campus apart. And I'd be on probation for drinking. You know, and it just seemed unfair. It really did. And I would get, I went to school in upstate New York, so I would, if I was going to a fraternity party or a sorority party, you didn't want to be around me, because I was somehow going to embarrass you. So I was left alone a lot. And I would come to in snow banks, in February, in somebody's car. They would carry me out to a car and dump me in the car. And I'd come to in some snow bank. In Ithaca, New York, in February it's cold. And that's, and I came to one morning, and I'm a blackout drinker, and I don't remember what I do, what I drink. I don't remember. And I woke up one morning in a sorority house. In this young lady's bed. With her. And the house mother standing, I mean, it's really grim. It's really not a good way to begin your day. And it's that kind of behavior. And I, in the middle of my senior year, in the second semester of my senior year, I went on a party weekend with some fraternity brothers. We went down to New York, Manhattan, and we got drunk. And I went into a blackout. And I called my family for money. And they said no. And I showed them. I joined the Navy. Now, I left an Ivy League university in the middle of my senior year with a 3.8 GPA in biochemistry and joined the Navy. Which was a, really a bright kid. And I found myself coming out of a blackout and coming to on a train, going from New York to Great Lakes, Illinois, to the Naval Training Center to go to boot camp. And I told this chief, I said, you know, this has been a bad mistake. I have a paper due. And they said, you're in the Navy, kid. And I got to Great Lakes and I started boot camp in the Navy as an enlisted man. And they gave me a test. And boy, I'll tell you, and you can't drink. You're confined. So I did well on the test. And they came in one day in this classroom where we were taking these tests. And they said this, you know, you can't drink. So I started taking these tests. And they said this captain wants to see you. They want to talk to you. And I went to see this captain. And they said, we want to send you to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to a nuclear weapons program. We'll become a guided missile technician. And then they gave me psychological testing. They changed their mind. And I was on course to go to medical school. So they said, well, how would you like to be a corpsman in the Navy? That's what we'll do for you because that's really what, you know, where you want to go when you get out. So they sent me to Naval Hospital Corps School. And I did very well. I graduated at the top of the class. And they sent me to a more sophisticated medical program where they trained corpsmen to go on ships that did not have doctors. And so the training was more sophisticated. It was the very first physician assistant program. And it was in the Navy. And it was at the Thessalonica Naval Medical Center. And I went through that program. And there were, I don't know, 20 some of them, 27 or 28 of us that went through. And only six of us graduated. So that's what it was, that kind of a program. And at the last week in that school, they came in and said, the captain wants to see you again. I went to see the captain. And he said, we want to send you to OCS in Newport, Rhode Island, and commission you an officer in the Navy. And I said, well, by then I was in the Navy long enough to know that officers sure lived a lot better than enlisted men. And I said, well, that sounds like a great idea. So I went to Newport, Rhode Island. I went through OCS. I was commissioned an ensign in the Navy. And I was sent to the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa as a medical administrative officer to the Marines, which was a, I said, whoa, wait a minute. But that's where I went. And so I went to the 3rd Marine Division, reported to the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa. And they sent me to the 5th Marines, which is a, the 5th Marine Regiment are the guys that landed on Guadalcanal. You know, they were really, and me, which was, and so I reported into them and they didn't have a job for me. They couldn't figure out what to do with me. They didn't have a battalion aid station yet. So they sent me to this, they put me in this officer's club on the northern end of Okinawa and forgot about me. And I'll tell you, I forgot about them too. It was just fine with me. My duty consisted of sleeping till about noon. Getting up and reporting to the cocktail lounge of this officer's club for duty. And that's what I did. Day after day. I drank Hagen Haag pinch. 60 cents a pop, which I'll tell you, that was, I mean, you can't find a lot wrong with that. And nobody bothered me. Nobody ever, I just, I kept my mouth shut. I really did. And pretty soon they put another guy up in this officer's club and he was a, a surgeon at Okinawa. A surgeon out of Temple University. But he was a bad drunk and they didn't want him around patients. So they stuck him up in this officer's club and he and I bonded. And we became brothers. And we both got up at noon every day and went to the cocktail lounge. Went out in the villages at night and just had a great time. We grew beards and wore shorts. Couldn't keep track of our uniforms after a while. They didn't know where the hell they went. And it just, it was just grand. It really was. And I mean, I loved the Navy. You know, I really did. It was just. And then one day, this Marine Corps major called us up and said that the regimental commander of the 5th Marines, this bird colonel, was having a dinner party for all of the officers in his command. And we had to show up. And we panicked. I mean, we had to shave, get our hair cut, scrounge up some uniforms and go to this colonel's dinner party. And we did. And we sat on the other side of the room as unobtrusively, as unobtrusive as you could possibly be. And the colonel looked at us. And he said, who are those guys? He said, there are two officers in my command. I've never even met them. What do they do? And the major told the colonel, he said, one of them is a doctor. He said, I don't know what the other guy does. But, he said, give them a job. So, we were put in charge of the neural disease control for the island of Okinawa. And what our duty consisted of is these marines would get gonorrhea and syphilis and lymphogranuloma venerum. They get diseases you only saw in textbooks. And in marines, oddly enough. I think they're the only two places they ever existed. And our job was to, the marines would get treated. And our job was to find out what bars they frequented and go down and find the young ladies. Make sure they were treated. And if we saw fit to quarantine the bar, we would get to quarantine the bars. So, this presented a very interesting what we did. So, our duty really consisted of driving all over Okinawa in a jeep every day from bar to bar. And we would drink for free. Because they knew we could close them. We could quarantine them. So, you know, we drank for free. And that's what we did. The best scotch. And, you don't want to drink too much though and have these girls start looking good. Because, you knew why you were there. So, you walked a fine line. But that's what we did. And pretty soon our tour of duty came up. And we got sent back to the United States. And I went back up to Cornell and I got my undergrad degree. And, got accepted tentatively at a couple of medical schools. A couple of them the very best in the country. But, with the proviso that I had a social problem. And that I should go out in the world for a year or so and work or do something productive and grow up. And then reapply. He went back to Temple. And he finished his residency in thoracic surgery. And he's a cardiovascular surgeon in Philadelphia today. Who's not yet been to AA. I guess if you need a bypass I'd stay the hell out of Philadelphia. Have it here. But, I was interested. I was in Philadelphia to speak at a convention not long ago. And I called him up and we had lunch. And I don't think he's an alcoholic. And that's odd. Because he certainly seemed to drink as I did in those days. But it brings me to an interesting conclusion. Heavy drinkers are not necessarily alcoholics. As it turns out. Isn't that odd? Alcoholism is not determined by how much you drink. It's determined by what it does to you. And for you incidentally. Which is perhaps even more important. Than what it does to you. But anyway. We'll talk a little bit about that in a few minutes. But anyway. I got my degree. And I was confused. As to what to do. So I got married. Which has always been the answer to confusion for me. And I married a girl who was a lovely girl. And deserved better than she got. I will tell you that. To say that we were incompatible. Is to understate it. We never should have had a second date. Remember those relationships? When we got married. Which is. I know that makes sense to you. And we. And I applied to med school at SC. And we came. Moved to Southern California. And moved into her parents' home. She is now pregnant incidentally. Happens immediately. Doesn't it? And. We are. In her parents' home. And we have a whole summer to go through. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. up on Bolsa Avenue in Santa Ana with some Samsonite luggage and no money, and I now have a pregnant wife whose marriage is over, and she's pregnant, and it's just hideous, and I'm so ashamed. Now, I'm a blackout drinker, and the ambulance calls were colorful, some of them. I have come out of a blackout with the lights and the sirens going, and I have to turn to my attendant next to me and say, like, where are we going? And the crowning glory to my ambulance career was one night in Newport Beach. I came out of a blackout driving slowly around a cul-de-sac, and you know how you lock on to something and you can't quite get out? And I'm just slowly going around, and the red light's going on top, and it's going in these people's bedroom windows, and they're all coming out on the porch in their pajamas, and I'm watching this ambulance slowly go around this truck. Yeah, slowly go around. And the attendant with me is saying, like, you've got to get out of here. You know, and I'm saying, I'm doing my best. Sometimes they expect more of you, don't they, than you can possibly get. And they finally sent a police car in to lead me out of the cul-de-sac. Unfortunately, that was the end of my ambulance career. I lost my license, and my driver's license, even. I lost everything, and I spent the, that's the package I brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. Yeah. But in 1966, a new profession opened up in civilian medicine called the Physician's Assistant Program. And the very first PAs were people such as I, who had this training in the military, and I was maybe the third licensed PA in the state of California. And I went to work in an emergency room in East Los Angeles, nights. And I knew an Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was in on the ground floor of this new profession. And I'll tell you what, I loved it, and I did it well, too. I was really well trained, and it was exciting in that emergency. We triaged everything. We had shootings, and stabbings, and industrial injury from Kaiser State. We had everything went through that emergency room. And I was the guy there. The doctors went to bed, and I was the guy. And it was really exciting. And I met another girl, a beautiful girl, a daughter of a long-time sober AA member, and we fell in love, and we got married. She went to Al-Anon, and we were really precious, is what we were. I mean, we had really, I was, had this great job on this. It was a new profession, and she was beautiful, and gone Al-Anon, and we, but nobody had taken any steps. There was no spiritual recovery anywhere. There was just, and I would go into this emergency room, and I would get depressed. I would get inadequate, and not up to the task, and feelings of insecurity, and loneliness, and I don't have a program, but I have an excellent medical education. So I know how to take care of depression. I know how to treat depression. I used dexedrine, 15-milligrams Spantrols. And by the time I was through, I was taking five or six a day. Now, anyone that knows anything about amphetamine abuse will understand. That's got you moving right along, I say. Whatever you're doing, it will be in a hurry. The problem with that is, the fifth or sixth day, when you've not really slept nor eaten. hair stands out on end like that. But I tell you, your eyes are dilated over here like this. And I'd get this white crud that would come down here in the side of my mouth. And I'd show up in the emergency room to help the sick. And the guy that was there would never want to go home. You know, he would look at me and say, Vince, you need to get some sleep. Get something to eat. Thank God for medical science. There's a remedy for that. It's a drug called Demerol. Now, Demerol is, a lot of you know what Demerol is, don't you? I bet you think it's a narcotic. It isn't. It's a synthetic. But that's academic. It's irrelevant. You don't have to worry about it. The problem with Demerol, and I'm going to say this because we need to talk about it in AA today. Narcotic addiction and alcoholism are not the same thing. And everybody ought to know that. And the reason they're not the same thing is because they're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. It's narcotics come from opium. All of them. Morphine, dilaudid, heroin. It's all the same stuff, really. Maybe buffered a little bit differently. It's all the same stuff. And they're addictive. Narcotics are addictive, I'll tell you, for everybody. I mean, you inject heroin intravenously or morphine intravenously, you'll get addicted. Period. Case closed. There's no, you don't need to, they're psychologically and physiologically addictive. You don't need to worry about whether you have an addictive personality or, you know, you need a syringe and a needle. What you need. That is not true with alcohol. Oddly enough. Turns out, nine out of ten people who drink alcohol do it with impunity. Nine out of ten. We represent only one out of ten. Those other nine people who drink alcohol have an entirely different experience than you and I had. They don't, they're what is known as social drinkers. And they, I don't understand them, but they are, they are people who say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. They say things like, no more for me. I'm driving. Or I'd love to have another, but my wife's waiting dinner. I'm going home. Really? Well, you go home, Slim. I'm going to Las Vegas. I have never met a social heroin user. It's a different, now many of us here are both. And that's okay to be. You, but you, to function here. You must be an alcoholic. Whatever else you did is wonderful. I mean, it's just an added bonus. And it's just fine. And everybody's welcome. And so, but I always like to say that. Let me go back to Demerol. The other real problem with Demerol is that people care about where it is. I mean, it's absurd. Yeah. They'd come in in the morning and open the narcotic door and all the dope would be gone. And they'd say things to me like, Vince, Vince, where is the Demerol? And I would say, I don't know. It was here a while ago. And it would get really sticky. And the bad part of that, the people who care the most about Demerol are the people in the medical quality of their life. And they're the ones who care the most about it. And they're the ones who care the most about it. And they're the ones who care the most about it. And they're the insurance board, the state of California. They have a grave concern. And they came into that emergency room one night and placed me under arrest. Now, you must remember, this is a long time ago. There were no such thing as programs for impaired physicians. It was the program was the L.A. County Jail. And they wanted you out. They didn't, they were not interested in, they didn't want it known. They didn't want anybody to know about you. They didn't want anybody to know there were any drugs. They didn't want anybody to know that you were gone. And they brought me down to the L.A. County Jail. And they charged me with a felony appropriating narcotics for my own use, which subsequently reduced to a misdemeanor. I did not have to go to jail, but I lost my medical license. And I spent the summer of 1972 drinking one half gallon of vodka every day, living in an apartment by the airport in Englewood, California. My wife left me. They took the car, the furniture, the refrigerator, and left just me with very little money. And I went over every day. To the Safeway Market and bought a half gallon of supermarket brand vodka for $7 a half gallon cocktail hour, right? In the summer of 1972. And I would take it back to the apartment and I would drink it in the middle of the living room floor. And that's the way. And I came out of a blackout in early September of 1972, sitting on a park bench on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport. And I don't even remember how I got there, except it was, the temperature had to be about 120 and I had on a three-piece wool suit and a white shirt and a tie. And don't ask me how that came about. But I ended up on that park bench on that day in early September of 1972 with some luggage next to me and very little money. And I knew I needed a job and I went to the paper stand and I bought a L.A. Times or an Orange County Register, I guess it was. Brought it over to the bench and I looked in the classified ads for a job and I found a job as an apprentice embalmer for a mortician in Costa Mesa, California. Don't laugh. What else am I going to do? I don't have a medical license. I got to do something. And the job paid $85 a week and it came with this fringe benefit of this bachelor apartment over the room where they kept the caskets. Jesus. I mean, so you'd walk through the casket room in the morning with a hangover. There'd be all these open caskets and this tape recording of this music and these birds chirping and, Jesus, it would set you free and really. And I had that job for about a week and a half. And I didn't like this undertaker and he didn't like me and I got drunk and stole his hearse. I came out of what I hope is my last blackout sitting on shoulder of Pacific Coast Highway, driving the wrong way at six o'clock in the morning with a young lady next to me who I do not recall meeting, who was screaming at the top of her lungs. She had that look that these women get with me. I never understood why. You know, I really, if you have a date with me sometime long after midnight, I'm going to look at you and you're going to have that look. Your eye makeup is going to be running down your face and you're just really crying. And I always think, well, how do I do this? I always seem to end up with these neurotic women. You know, I really do. They just, I have this predilection to predispose, to choose these unstable women. And I told this girl, I said, you know, you're really unstable. You should get some counseling, get on some medication. You really, you overreact. And... That was September the 20th, 1972. I have not had a drink of alcohol, nor have I used any mood-altering chemical from that date to this. And that's a little over 32 years. And that's, someone took a cake in that star-crossed class of 1972. October the 11th or 10th, I believe it was, which is, you got sober about three weeks after me. Vintage year, wasn't it? Yes, it was. And then, and sat on that hearse. And if you would have, if you could have materialized in the back of the hearse and foretold my future, what you would have told me would have been staggering. You would have said, today, you're going back to AA. And I would have told you that's ridiculous. I don't, I know, I'm willing to admit that my life is chaos. And I'm willing to admit that I probably have severe mental, mental defects. But if there's one thing I really know that does not work, it's AA. I have been to AA. It does not work for me. Now, it might work for you, and it might work for everyone. It doesn't work for me. I've been there. But you would have told me, no, you're going back to AA. And it's going, your experience will be entirely different. And it will be different because for the first time in your life, you will have the necessary ingredient for recovery. And you know what that is? It's a word called desperation. You will be desperate enough for the first time in your life to take actions you do not agree with and direction from people you do not like and who you consider your intellectual inferior. But you will do it because you are desperate and you are out of ideas. So if you're new here tonight, my wish for you is that you are out of ideas. I hope you don't have one idea you left. I hope you don't have a plan. If you have a plan, tell us about it. Share it with us before you execute it. But I was desperate that sitting in that hearse. And I went to the Alano Club in Costa Mesa, which was, you know, first I brought the guy's hearse back to him. He was upset. He had been in the apartment over the casket room throwing my clothes out the window. And I gathered them all together, put them in a cardboard box and reported to the Costa Mesa Alano Club because I don't know what else to do. And I sat at the coffee bar and I had some coffee. I had an AA meeting there that noon. And I'd like to tell you that I was struck with something. I have nothing. It was a terrible meeting. It was six out of work Texas plumbers sitting around this Formica coffee table talking about how they put the plug in the jug. Really? I mean, but I had nowhere else to go. And another meeting there that night. And the same thing except they brought their wives. Which was dreadful. And the next day I scrounged up some money and rented a room for $11 a week. Do you know what an $11 a week room is like? Your imagination is correct. They're generic. They're all the same. And I moved into this $11 a week room and I thought I'll have to stay here a couple of weeks. I don't think I can ever live in a place. I mean, the naked light bulb in the ceiling. It was disgusting. It was a hovel. And I thought I can't. I'll have to stay here clearly a couple of weeks. Until I can get things together. And I cannot live here that long. Two years later when I moved out of that room. I had an entirely different perspective. Now in that two year period of time I spent in Orange County and I got sober. And I'll tell you. My first two years of sobriety were unremarkable. You could not. I got jobs. My medical license was gone. I couldn't get a job. It was the only thing I was really trained to do. I was afraid. I was ashamed to talk to my family. I got jobs and lost jobs that are undisciplined. I lost a job as a gas station attendant for being incompetent. I lost a job as a $1.87 an hour drill press operator in this ridiculous machine shop. Where you went in in the morning and sat on a stool and pulled a handle. And you put a hole in a copper plate. And then you took the copper plate and you put it in that bucket. You can't do that wrong. Except I managed to put a hole in the wrong place. And about 800 of these copper plates went down. Formant of this machine. I was in a machine shop who was from Dallas. He came up and said to me, Son, we've got to let you go, boy. He said, I can see that you're a real trier. That you're not quite bright enough to do this kind of work. And I told him, I said, bright enough? I said, you redneck moron. I said, I am a graduate of Cornell University. Never say that to these guys. I tell you, he never did that. He said, I'll tell you what, boy. You ought to go on back there and take a course in drill press operating. And he was right. And it was pouring rain that day. And I walked from this machine shop to this $11 a week room. And I got soaking wet. And I had bronchitis. And I had a fever. And I didn't have any medical insurance. And I just, I couldn't believe it. I got to this place. A mail had caught up with me. And one piece of mail was a letter from this physician in upstate New York. Inviting me to join a committee for my college class reunion. I remember reading this letter and thought of the incongruity of my, how the hell did this happen? This is in Congress. How can you go from there to here? How can I be? How do you answer this letter? What do I say? I can't make it this year, Dr. Medoff. I've just lost my job as a drill press operator. Absolutely imbecilic. But I went to meetings every night. And that night. I went to the meeting down on this big, on the Belleville Peninsula. This big speaker meeting. Much like this. Really great, electric, exciting meeting. And I had to walk down there. And I walked in the rain down there. And the speaker that night was a, there's some old timers here that might remember the name. His name was Norm Alpey. And he was the quintessential speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous. This guy was a, he was a wonderful man. And he, the best way I can describe him is if, if Frank Capra was to invent an AA speaker, it would be Norm Alpey. And Jimmy Stewart would play him. He was a Mr. Everyman. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. And he, and he, he had this AA story about these four daughters who, who hated him because he was violent. And then he got sober and they, they grew to love him. And he talked about, he talked about taking him downtown. Buying them prom dresses and then walking them down the aisle and giving them away to some jackass that didn't deserve them. And the church was filled with AAs and they'd be crying because, and he would tell this story and he, he was the same every time you heard him. It was the same story, but you could mouth it. But it was, every time you heard it, it was as though this was the first time you heard it. And I've come to understand. I've come to understand that as the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. It isn't the words. It's the music. And if you're new, listen for it. Listen for the music. You can hear it and you can feel it. And that's the story of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that night, Norm Alpey was the speaker. And I didn't seem particularly moved any more than when I had heard him before. But I went back to this terrible room and I found myself on my knees beside the bed in this crummy, it was ridiculous. It was crazy. Why would I do such a thing? And the prayer I said was simple and very, I mean, it was, you know, nothing about Aquinas or Augustine or, it was simply, God, please help me. Because I'm afraid and I'm alone. I can't make it anymore. And my recovery began that night. That's how it started in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I stayed sober for two years. I was sober for two years. And I didn't, I acquired some material possessions. I worked for a carpet layer as a gopher, $10 a day and dinner. And I acquired a 1964 Chevrolet convertible with no brakes and a hole in the top. And I used to drive this to this big fancy meeting on the Balboa Peninsula. And I'd pull it into the parking lot and they'd immediately get in their BMWs and Mercedes and put them on the other side of the lot. And they were always asking me questions like, do you have insurance on that car? I hadn't had a driver's license in three years, why the hell would I have insurance? And time passed and I knew that I needed a sponsor and I didn't have one. And that was, I don't recommend that. If you're new, I'd get one tonight. But I knew who the sponsor had to be. And I didn't like the notion. This guy was a big speaker in AA and he spoke all over, but he was, and he was crazy. I mean, you knew that he was 15 years sober at the time, 14. And he was... He was nuts. I mean, this guy was mentally... But he was very bright and, you know, he was very glib. And he also apparently, in spite of this evident illness, he had this apparent amazing capacity to help the losers in Alcoholics Anonymous. And it was amazing. They would get this guy for a sponsor and they'd join his fascist AA group on the west side of Los Angeles. And they would... You'd see them months later. And they would be transformed. They would have jobs and they'd pay child support. And they would, you know... And I got this guy. I asked him to be my sponsor. And he said that he would. Is this meeting over? What time the hell is this over? 20 minutes. Oh, Christ, that's a lifetime. All right. So... He said, come down and see me. This mission he ran on Skid Row in LA. He was the head of this mission. And he had been in advertising for many years and very successful. He was the guy that invented Elsie and Elmer Borden, the cows. Young people don't remember that. Us old folks do. And he quit advertising and he went to run this mission on Skid Row after he got sober. And he just had this capacity to help the losers. So I asked him to help me. I'll never forget what he said. He said, I will help you on one condition. That you can accept the very simple proposition that your best judgment about your life is terrible. And that my judgment about your life is infinitely positive. Better than yours. And if you will do everything I suggest you do. And in your case, without debate. I will help you. And so I thought about that. And I made that unholy pact with the devil. I agreed to do what he said. He made me move into that mission and live there. I said, wait a minute. I live in Newport Beach. And he looked at my car and he said, do you have insurance on that car? And he said, give me the keys. And he said, the second... I said, why should I... My car. Why should I give you the keys? And he said, the second most profound thing. He said, you should give me the keys. Because law-abiding citizens such as myself have a right to drive on the city streets free from morons like you. It's difficult to argue with that, isn't it? So I gave him the keys. He took the car and parked it in front of his house in Venice. And he said, you're going to look for a job during the day down here. But on the weekends, on Saturdays, we play softball across the street. We barbecue hot dogs in my backyard. And you get to visit your car. And then when you get a job and get a license and get insurance, I'll give you the keys back. Well, it took me longer than we would have liked. And so I watched my car decompose in front of this guy's house for an eight-month period of time. But I moved to that mission. I lived there. He gave me $8 every day. I put on this suit. He said, I want you to get on the bus that runs up Wilshire Boulevard. And every time you come to a medical practice or a hospital, get off it. Go in there and talk to the administrator. And tell them that you no longer use drugs or drink. And you're sober over two years in Alcoholics Anonymous. You need help getting your medical license back. And you need a job. And I thought, that's the most preposterous, stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. This is the best you have? Now, that's what I thought. What I said was, okay. And he said, I want you to come down to my office every day. I'm going to give you an allowance, $8. And you go outside. You get on that bus. I did that. And I did it for eight months. And one day in June of 1973. I went out on a Friday morning in this three-piece suit with this $8. And I had some money. I had rat holes from the day before. And I got on this bus. And the first thing I did was I sat down in this huge wad of chewing gum. Got it all over the back of my trousers. And I was just, I got off the bus halfway up Wilshire to the beach. And I went into this gas station restroom. And I tried to wipe the chewing gum off with wet paper towels. I did. I found myself. I found myself looking in a mirror in this men's room. And I'm in this three-piece suit with black socks and my pants. And I look grotesque. The biggest loser. I was two years and eight months sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. All I had was this prayer. And faith in this maniac who was having me do these stupid things that were not applicable to me. And irrelevant. And hopeless. And I knew I was going to drink that day. And I got back on the bus and I rode to the beach. I got off the beach and I went to this little mall in Santa Monica. Not the big one that's there now. But a little tiny one. That's all that was there. And they had this cafeteria. When you got a tray and you went through the line and you got your lunch and you set it down. And went outside to get a newspaper to read while I ate my lunch. And a busboy came by and took my lunch. Took my lunch. And I knew that the only chance I had to stay sober was maybe if I sat in a movie. I wouldn't drink. And I walked from Santa Monica to the UCLA campus in Westwood. And I got in line to buy a ticket to the movie. The Godfather 2 was the big movie. I stood in line to buy a ticket to the Friday matinee. And while I was standing in this line, somebody called my name. And I turned around and came face to face with the administrator of the medical center in which I was arrested in for stealing Demerol. And he said, Vince, how are you? And I said, well, I'm okay. I'm in AA and I'm sober too. And he looked at me. He said, you look terrific. And he put his arms around me and started to cry. He said, we thought you were in an institution. I'm so glad to see you. And he said, when have you worked last? I said, I haven't worked in a long time. And he said, we have a urologist that's joined our group practice who's a member of the Medical Quality Assurance Board. And he's going to be in the clinic tomorrow. I want you to come down. I'm going to introduce you to him. We'll have lunch. And maybe he can help you get your license back. And if he can, would you like to go back to work in the emergency room? I said, yes. And I went back to work in the very same emergency room. And that next day was a Saturday. And I went down and I met that urologist. Within 60 days, my license was restored. And I went back to work in the very same emergency room. And I worked there for the following two and a half years as a PA. And I will tell you, no drugs were missing. And I took these steps, 1 through 12, precisely as they're outlined in this book. And I read that inventory to that sponsor with a flashlight one night. While he was driving up to Ventura to make a talk. And my life flourished. And many great things began to happen to me. And in 1976, I made mistakes here. And I want to tell you if you're new, you're not... Alcoholics Anonymous is not inoculation from life. That's not what this is about. You'll make every mistake here. In 1976, I met this cute little redhead. And I met her in September. Got married in October. Divorced in November. Now that... You would call that a mistake. And the last time I saw her, she was on the way back to her daddy's ranch in El Dorado, Texas. So... But time went on. And I didn't drink and I didn't run. And I was safe. And in 1975, a girl got sober at our group. Her husband was dying of lung cancer. And she got sober while she took care of him. And that's a trick. And he passed away and she stayed sober. And we began to date. And we fell in love and we got married. And we're still married today. And we've been married last week for 24 years. And I will tell you... If you know me, that's a trick. But I'm going to tell you something. I mean... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I love my wife more with every breath I take. And I will tell you that without embarrassment and unabashedly. My marriage is better today than it was the day we got married. And it all is a result of Alcoholics Anonymous. She's sober 29 years. And I'm sober 32. And we've had a wonderful life. Now, bad things have happened. There's no question about that. We... I was... I got into a new profession. And rehabilitation counseling. And I made a lot of money. And had big homes in Pasadena. And Mercedes. And BMWs. And... All of that happened. And it was wonderful. And then they changed the law that governed what we did. And my income went from $250,000, $300,000 a year to $30,000 in one year. That's a drop. And... But we did okay. We sold the house. And we did... You know, we were fine. It was tough. And there were some bad moments. I celebrated all of that with a heart attack. And had bypass surgery. But we got better from that. And we soldiered on. And we were surrounded by people who loved us. And we were infused with the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. Always. And last summer, I had a colonoscopy. And I had colon cancer. I had surgery. And I never had one symptom from the cancer at all. But the chemo almost killed me. And I had... It was just a dreadful, dreadful year. It was horrible. But we... We were surrounded by people who loved us. And they took care of us. And we do that for each other here. And I've come to understand, laying in the intensive care unit in the City of Hope in the month of February with pneumonia, on six liters of oxygen, which is a lot of oxygen. And they told me that I may be oxygen dependent. Because I had so much lung damage. And... In my 45th minute... I'm not oxygen dependent on the treadmill. I wanted to give them a call last week and tell them that, you know. But I'm in good shape. And I work out. And I'm fine. And I'm not oxygen dependent. And it's a miracle. I mean, I got better from the chemo. And I feel better than I've felt in 20 years. And... But we were surrounded by people who loved us. And I want to tell you, some of them were Al-Anon. And I love the Al-Anons. And if you have anything bad to say about Al-Anon, don't tell me about it. The Al-Anons are... They're wonderful, wonderful, loving. These women came to the intensive care and made me drink. Have you ever had an Al-Anon coming at you with a glass of Ensure? You will drink it. I promise you. You will drink it. But they sat with me and they came and they loved me. So I've reached the conclusion that when all is said and done, when we know all we can know, and we've studied everything and we've been to every kind of a workshop and a seminar, there's only one thing that it's about here. And that is we take care of each other. That's all. So if you're new, after 32 years of every kind of exercise you can take in Alcoholics Anonymous, that's it. We are here to take care of each other. You have taken care of me. Thank you for inviting me to Portland.