An Insidious Illness of Mind, Body, and Soul — Willpower Alone Never Conquered Any Disease – Gil L.

I don't know why I always get the pleasure and the privilege of introducing all the drunks from Texas, but it seems like I do.
And the bean pickers from California and the prune pickers.
You know, last year we had a beautiful little gal from North Carolina. Did I introduce her? No.
We have had many good speakers. You know, we had a wine oak from Texas here one time.
We get a lot of cracks about these Texans, but have you heard about the Arizonans?
I think you all know what I'm talking about. Back during the Dust Bowl in Texas and the Depression,
all the Okies were trying to make it to California where it was a little greener.
An Arizonan was just an Okie that didn't quite make it to Texas.
But it is a privilege to introduce to you tonight,
this speaker. I've heard some of his talk.
And I tell you right now, he packs a terrific message.
So I'm going to give you Gil Lamb from USU, Texas.
Thank you very much, Paul, Father Bob, and Helen, and Tina, Ray.
Glad to be here with you.
I had to.
And the people here that I wanted to briefly mention here,
Don and Tina and Paul and Debbie and Nick and Lois and my friends down there from Louisiana,
A.G. and Lou and Paul and Sue and Wally and Marguerite,
you know, they made me feel real welcome here today.
And, well, they acted just like West Texans.
That's what they did, just as friendly.
My name's Gil, and I'm an alcoholic.
I'm an ex-drunkard, but I'm still an alcoholic.
And it is by the grace of God, this program of AA and people like you,
both alcoholics and non-alcoholics, and with a great deal of help from my daughter and my late wife,
that I'm able to be here in Sedona, Arizona, this evening.
It took all of that for me, and that came close to not being enough.
I want to say to any of you that might be here for the first time or knew your first time,
you're having trouble with alcohol and you haven't been able to do anything about it.
And you're here seeking help.
But it isn't a sign of weakness.
It's a sign of damn good judgment.
I used to tell a little joke, and it happened to be true, to open up with.
And don't let all these notes here fool you.
I'll tell you why I've got these notes here.
Horace Ford,
who was quite an educational speaker and quite an AA in the Southwest,
was one of the first evangelists, I guess, I ever heard in AA,
or one of the circuit boys, you know, speak.
And he got along in this talk, and he was talking about an old boy out at the side of the road with a suitcase,
and the sweat was pouring off of him, and his eyes were red,
and he was sunburned, and he was shaky.
And a fellow pulled up, and I was very interested in that old boy
because it hadn't been too long that I was right out there at the side of that road, you know.
And he said a car drove up, and then he strayed in this talk.
And he never did get back to this poor devil out there at the side of the road, you know.
And I said, if I ever make a talk, I'm going to try not to leave anything out.
So I've got this to kind of help bring me back.
Anyway, if my wife were with us tonight, I know she'd want me to tell this,
but I used to tell her, and I'll tell you, I don't believe I drink so much.
I don't believe that I disappear for a day or two here like I do
if you'd let me keep my whiskey in the Frigidaire like other fellows get to.
I could go in there and take my little drink out of that and sit down and eat and go on to bed.
And she said, by God, you stay sober long enough to buy a Frigidaire,
and we'll try that one of these days.
And that happened to be the truth.
That is one of the things she had on her want list, that we buy a refrigerator.
You know, we have a lot of trouble figuring out sometimes just what constitutes an alcoholic.
I heard this definition, that an alcoholic was a person who,
when he went to a show, he imagined that he was the hero.
And he went to a funeral, he imagined that he was the corpse.
And he goes to a wedding, he imagines he's the groom.
Goes to a football game and the old boy makes that backhanded catch there
and runs for the touchdown, that's him.
You set him down to eat, he wants to make love and he gets in bed and he gets hungry.
I thought at the time they'd give me some to eat.
I had a few people here today say, where in the hell is Muleshoe, Texas?
Well, you just go 500 miles east till you get there.
You go 500 miles east till you smell something.
And turn about 100 miles south till you step in something and that's Muleshoe, Texas.
If you ever come through there, be sure and stop and see us.
By the way, I am co-owner of a little radio station down there.
And call letters are K-M-U-L, K-Mule, they would be.
I'm not going to try to sell any advertising.
We don't quite reach over the hill out here.
And I have three programs on the air.
Oh, they're kind of a...
I'm a kind of a male, you might say, Dorothy Dix or Ann Landers.
I give advice to the lovelorn and announce about the new babies
and find lost dogs, hogs, sheep, goats and so forth.
Announce all the AA meetings and a few other little things like that.
You know, Muleshoe has a population of 4,945.
At the AA meeting the other night, we had 32 there.
And they say for every drunk that sobers up, 20 other people are affected.
For every drunk that sobers up, 20 other people live a happier, more wholesome life.
20 times 32 is 640.
So I claim in a little town like that, that that is a lot of credit can go to AA
in the field of health, education and welfare.
And you know, every darn bit of it is done without any federal aid.
And there's not many educational and welfare and health programs
that can make that statement.
We have a physical education teacher down there named George Washington.
Now you couple that with Muleshoe, Texas and I'll tell you,
old George has some trouble sometimes calling home.
Let him get over here in San Bernardino, California and get a hold of the operator
and say, operator, this is George Washington.
And she says, uh-huh.
And then he comes back with, I want Muleshoe, Texas.
And she...
Now this is the truth, so help me.
George used to be the football coach out there at Lazz Buddy.
Now you folks that don't know where Lazz Buddy is, it's right near Bug Tussle.
You look it up on your...
Look it up on your map.
But George was gonna call up another coach over there at Martin, Texas.
And he said, uh,
Operator, this is George Washington.
And she said, uh-huh.
He said, I want to speak with John Paul Jones at Martin, Texas.
He hasn't got that call through yet.
But that happened to be the truth.
John Paul Jones was the coach over at Martin, Texas.
You know, through this radio station, we didn't have rural telephones out there for a while.
And so we'd have an old boy or girl that needed some help around there real bad.
So I'd just say and hope the FCC wouldn't mind that there was an emergency call for so-and-so down at the Muleshoe Motor Company.
And when he came to town, would he contact some of the people down at the Muleshoe Motor Company?
And this old boy would come in there, and he'd call up the radio station, and we'd tell him what the score was.
Finally, we got the rural telephones put in.
And, uh, that gun had caused a lot of trouble, because it's 35 cents every time you call.
They hadn't got it ironed out and put it on the merchants yet to absorb that cost.
So a lot of these old boys were really using up that telephone, you know.
And it got the mountain up on the bills.
And old Shine out there was having a lot of trouble with these operators.
And he was arguing about his phone bill there with one of them one day.
And the argument got hotter, and it got a little nastier.
And finally, right at the last, old Shine, in no uncertain terms, told this old gal what she could do with that telephone.
Well, it wasn't but two or three days until the co-op manager was out there.
And he said, Shine, I understand you had a little trouble with the office.
He said yes, and he went into his story about what he was all upset about.
And he said, well, Shine, I understand that you said some pretty mean things to one of the operators.
Shine said, yes, I did.
I understand you told one of the operators just what she could do with that telephone.
He said, I sure did.
He said, Shine, we're not going to put up with that.
We're not going to do it.
He said, you go over there to that telephone and say, do you apologize to that young lady, or we're going to take your telephone out.
Well, old Shine, of course, he did.
Of course, he really didn't want to lose that telephone.
But he went over to the phone, and he finally got this operator, and he said,
you're the young lady that I had the argument with the other day?
He said, yes.
He said, are you the young lady that I told what she could do with this telephone?
She evidently said yes, and he said, well, get ready, because they're bringing it in.
That's page one.
We have now covered page one.
Doesn't this inspire you?
Make you want to say something?
See how much fun you can have?
You don't have to be down there telling how much money you used to make or are going to make.
I heard one guy say,
to his wife, you know, this story goes that he did say this to his wife,
that he'd been down going to those AA meetings, and they hadn't helped him in a bit.
He talked about those guys that go down there, and they come right home and go to sleep.
Said he hadn't helped him.
Said, I just lay here and lay here and lay here, and said, get up and go to the bathroom,
and finally go to sleep.
Said, see, it's helped you already.
You get up and go to the bathroom.
He went to his wife's house in hickaway.
You come back, It's all how he planned.
And his wife, she's a pretty B Route.
You know, we really have something going for us here in Arizona.
It's something I've never seen.
You've never seen something like it.
New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, California, all over this nation,
in fact, all over the world, in this program of alcoholic snogs.
And I wonder sometimes if we really appreciate it.
I wonder sometimes if we're really grateful enough for it.
Well, not long ago I took a little drive for 185 miles and talked at an AA meeting
and went back home that night because I had to be there the next morning.
And I got a card from a man that said if I'd have known he was going to be there, I'd have been there.
And I think sometimes that there is only one person probably that can carry the message
to a new man.
I believe that some people have gone away from AA and died because a certain person wasn't there.
That certain person with that personality that was compatible with that person that was there that night,
that certain person that had that certain little smile or had that certain way of saying something
wasn't there to inspire and encourage this man or this woman to come back.
And along that thought about are we grateful enough for what we really have going for us,
I want to tell you a little story that happened 100 years ago this January.
It happened in New York City.
It was bitter cold.
And a man was brought into Bellevue Hospital reeking of alcohol.
Although it was bitter cold,
he didn't have alcohol.
He didn't have on any underwear, he wore no socks, he wasn't wearing a hat.
He had on a light thin top coat and a light thin suit.
He had a cut on his head and a little cut along here on his neck and a burn on his leg.
They put him to bed in the poor ward and three days later he died and the records said of injuries
accidentally received.
We know today that he died of acute alcoholism.
Almost unnoticed in his clothes was a little round purse.
And in this purse was 38 cents and a crumpled slip of paper on which was written,
Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts.
People didn't pay much attention to a drunk being brought into Bellevue Hospital and dying.
It happened right along.
Besides, there was a war going on between the states.
They had other things to think about.
But there was something a little different about this man that was to draw his attention
to people all over the world.
For this man had written some songs that people on both sides in this war were singing.
My Old Kentucky Home, Old Black Joe, Beautiful Dreamer, Genie with the Light Brown Hair,
Camp Town Races, and others.
And with years after his death, these songs were seen to become more and more popular.
They seemed to express the love and the longing that the plantation owner and the plantation
worker had alike for their home.
So years after his death, biographers, men of science, and others went back into the
history of this man to see why a man who had given the world so much in beautiful folk music,
should have died alone, misunderstood, and seemingly unwanted.
Now, they talked to people that had known him.
And some of them said, well, he seemed to withdraw from society.
Well, that is the way of an alcoholic.
They drop out of civic clubs.
They drop out of other groups.
They stop going to church.
They quit having anything to do with any of the finer things of the community.
Then another person said he was given to fits of drinking.
And, of course, I term that to mean he was a periodical.
We go along and we stay sober and we're not happy about it, and we're doing something for somebody else,
and finally we're let go, and you might say we just have a fit.
Another one said, I have seen him promise Jeannie on everything that was holy that he would never do it again,
and that he would be drunk within a fortnight.
I have done that, promised someone that I'd never do it again and mean it, and I'm sure that he did too.
And then one party said it became easier for him to cry than to laugh.
And I can understand that.
And then in this story a doctor says there was one lady gave us the answer that they could not see.
She said this seemed to come upon him insidiously.
And that's what it is.
An insidious illness of the mind, the body, and eventually the soul, alcoholism.
We take a few drinks, drinking socially along.
We start getting drunk on the weekends.
Maybe then we start getting drunk in the middle of the week, and we shouldn't.
Then we start having semi-blackouts, then total blackouts,
and finally we've got to have something the next morning to settle us down so we can go on.
And it has us, this insidious thing called alcoholism.
Stephen fosters feelings for his family.
Ran deep.
And I think I know how he felt when he wrote these words.
All up and down the whole creation.
Sadly I roam, longing for the old plantation and the old folks at home.
All this world is sad and dreary everywhere I go.
How my heart grows weary, far from the old folks at home.
Stephen Foster wanted to go back and sit down around that round table and be a part of that family.
But he just couldn't do it.
He just couldn't fit.
Their thinking was, Stephen, if you really loved us, you wouldn't get drunk.
They were saying, and they didn't know it, Stephen, if you loved us, you wouldn't be sick.
It was kind of like saying to a tubercular, if you really loved us, you wouldn't cough.
It's like saying to a hay fever sucker, if you really loved us, you wouldn't sneeze that way.
Same thing.
Now his family never ceased to love him and to help him when they could.
If they were guilty of anything, it was ignorance.
An ignorance that was born of tradition and environment.
And I want to repeat that.
An ignorance that was born of tradition and environment.
Not ignorance from lack of intelligence.
People are just like the parrot repeating what they've heard down through the years, traditionally.
Oh, they just like it that way.
Oh, she'd rather be that way than any other way.
He does that just to hurt his people, that's why he does it.
Oh, she glories in him.
Just, just glories in him.
They've said that for years and years.
They've said that for years and years and years.
Now that was a hundred years ago.
And I submit to you that if it weren't for Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm prejudiced,
that situation would be just about the same today.
You know, some people think that this will not happen in their family.
You know, some people think that this will not happen in their family.
You know, some people think that this will not happen in their family.
You know, some people think that this will not happen in their family.
It's a very fine, rich, Christian heritage.
I'm sure that Stephen Foster's father didn't think that that would happen to his son.
That he would die at the age of 37 in the poor ward of Bellevue Hospital.
A victim of his own sick body and his own personality.
A victim of his own sick body and his own personality.
No, Stephen Foster's father was a great temperance worker.
He hated alcohol.
People think of a tornado hitting another person's town.
They think of an earthquake happening somewhere else.
They think of somebody else having cancer.
Stephen Foster didn't have the opportunity
to come into this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
He didn't have anybody to offer him the second chance.
He was indicted, arraigned, tried, convicted, and sentenced
to a life of loneliness and finally death,
and not one person interceded for him.
There was no one like you to go to him
and offer to walk along with him and help him with this problem
that you understand so well.
There was no one to say,
Stephen, I did not have to hire an attorney
to intercede.
I took my case direct to the most supreme judge of all judges,
and in spite of a crowded docket,
my case was heard,
and I was granted a reprieve just for today.
There was no one to say,
Stephen, we have a group down here
that will share our experience and our faith and our hope with you,
and we'll help you lick this thing,
just one day at a time,
if you want to come in with us.
So I submit to you.
As some of us say,
I don't think I'll go tonight.
There's a pretty good TV show on.
I don't know, I already had my shoes off.
I used to never take mine off.
I had somebody come along and want to buy a drink,
and I was just...
I wanted to be ready.
I want to tell you that if any of you have to go,
I won't feel bad,
because I've had them walk out when they paid to get in.
But I'm not going to come down here
and just unload half the wagon.
If you think I am, well, you need your help.
I'm going to try to unload it all.
You know, there are quite a few illnesses
besides alcoholism that cause a lot of trouble
to the family and to the town in general.
There are ill-tempered people.
Those people that lose their temper at the drop of a hat.
They can embarrass their families.
They can cause civic groups to split wide open.
Churches not to function properly.
And unless those people will admit
that their temper is uncontrollable
and they want to do something about it,
there won't be anything done about it.
There are people who are chronically intolerant.
And they can create a lot of trouble, too.
There are people who are chronically self-willed.
They have willed it that way, and no matter what happens,
neither to the right or the left,
that's the way it's going.
The chronic gossip.
The chronic liar.
All of those things. Mental conditions.
And there are people whose bodies are chronically allergic
to the pollen of certain flowers and weeds.
There are people who cannot eat sugar.
There are people who are the chronic diabetic.
There are people whose bodies are chronically allergic
to tomatoes, to fish, to eggs, to many other things.
Now, I can eat all those things.
All of them I want.
But my body is chronically allergic to alcohol.
Those mental problems, I'm working on them.
I'm affected by those quite a bit.
But I admit it.
But this alcohol, a drink of alcohol,
does something to me.
To my personality and to my entire being
that it doesn't do to other people.
I had my first drink when I was about 15 years old
and played in a high school band.
We were on our way to play for a football game
and one of these old boys had swiped a quart
of his dad's fine bonded whiskey.
The reason I knew it was fine bonded whiskey
was because it said so.
Now, we didn't have the buses then.
If you took the band along,
somebody had to price the automobile.
And I'm going to smoke and be comfortable.
We pulled off the side of the road,
uncorked that liquor.
First old boy took a drink of it
and you know he went...
His eyes bugged out
and the tears rolled out of his eyes.
He had an expert.
He went through the same gyrations.
Passed it on to this...
to this third boy
and he took a big drink of it.
But he didn't react like the rest of them.
He turned a little pale and he started to tremble
and he nearly dropped that bottle
as he handed it over to me.
Now, I want to tell you a little bit about this fella.
This fella tried to drink with us
for the next four years that I know of.
Every time we'd have anything to drink,
he'd try to drink with us
and he'd get sick on one or two little drinks.
And we'd have to ride him around to where he got into,
and he didn't appreciate that he could slip through the house
without his folks by him and that.
If he had a date,
well, we'd have to take her home for him
and then ride him around.
Bathe his face with a little wet cloth.
He tried like the very devil to drink with us.
I was in the company of this man about 18 years ago
and one of these four boys had died in delirium tremens
out at the hospital.
And we were talking about this old boy.
And we were talking about alcohol and alcoholism.
He knew what it had done to me.
It had made a tramp out of me.
But this old boy said in a, I thought, a self-righteous manner
that he was glad that he had the will to leave it alone
before it did to him what it had done to some other people.
And he said that to the wrong person
because I had seen this fella try with all of the will at his command
to drink.
He didn't want to be called a sissy or a wet blanket
or a panty waist.
He wanted to drink.
He wanted to be one of the boys.
Instead of being grateful
that he couldn't become a drunkard
or a heavy drinker or an alcoholic,
he was taking credit for solving a problem
that by the grace of God he was never harnessed with.
And you know, I'm afraid many of us do that.
Many of us can look at somebody and say,
I know what I do.
It's that I have so-and-so.
Here's the way I'd solve that.
And we don't know a damn thing about it.
We don't know what we'd do.
By the grace of God, we've been spared
having to face that problem.
Yet we'll sit back and just glibly tell how we'd solve it
instead of being grateful
that we don't have that problem
and try to have a compassionate feeling
toward that person who does have that problem.
You know, I can't eat this boiled okra.
That's the slick way they figure it out.
I just can't do that.
Just as sensible for me to say
I'm sure glad I have the will to leave it alone.
As it was for this old boy to say
he was glad that he had the will
to not drink.
Well, it passed that liquor to me
and I want to tell you as a young man
and I'm still that way,
I felt inadequate.
I was afraid of competition.
Around two or three of my friends
I was all right but let somebody else come up
that I didn't know too well
and I'd step out of the conversation.
I might say something wrong.
I might get into a conversation that I couldn't compete.
And I might embarrass myself so I'd step back.
So I know now that deep down within
I was just a little afraid of life
and I still am today.
But thank God I know tonight
what not to do about it.
I know that I sat over there this evening
and I did
and I was very apprehensive about
talking here this evening
just as much so as I was two weeks ago in Chicago.
Just as much so as I was two weeks before that
in Louisiana.
That I'll just have to get up here in the raw
without any tranquilizers
of any kind
or any alcohol
and just do the best I can.
And if it's all right, okay.
And if it isn't, okay.
I don't have any idea
where in the hell I am in this talk right now.
Where I am?
Do you know where I am?
What part of it am I?
Well, I ought to tell you.
I'm glad she reminded me.
I took that drink
and in a few short minutes
when it had time to hit the bloodstream
and it doesn't take long
a surge of certainty shot through my body.
It was false certainty
but it was there.
And I felt like for the first time in my life
that I really belonged.
And I wanted another drink
and I wanted another drink
and I wanted another drink.
And I wanted another drink
and another drink.
And I was the only one of those four boys
that got drunk.
One of the boys, as I said,
developed over a period of years
and died with delirium tremens.
One of them couldn't drink
and the other boy got married and quit.
That's the four boys that was in that car.
If there had been a truthful, constructive,
intelligent program in my town
about alcohol and alcoholism
it's possible that I could have been saved
an awful lot of hurt
and my family could have been saved
a great deal of embarrassment.
But there wasn't any such program.
There was a program of hatred and fear
toward alcohol.
There was a scary program about it.
I was told that people who drank would lie.
People who would drink would steal.
People who drank were immoral.
I couldn't go along with that.
One of my friend's father drank.
I'd seen him.
I'd never seen him under the influence.
But I thought he was one of the finest men in that town.
I know that he made a mistake.
He drank before us but he didn't know any better.
People are still doing that today, I'm told.
Millions of them.
But he didn't tell us that what is one man's meat
can be another man's poison.
He didn't tell us because he didn't know.
He didn't tell us that what is
temperate drinking for one person
can destroy another.
I was also told that alcohol would cause heart trouble,
ulcers, hardening of the arteries,
that it would destroy nervous tissue
and that it would put you in the gutter.
I had an opportunity now and then
to play with a dance band.
They had an older fellow that played trumpet with them
but when he couldn't go with the band, I got to go.
And I got to observe some of these people at first hand
and they didn't any of them look like they were
suffering from heart disease or ulcers
or hardening of the arteries.
And they weren't in the gutter.
And I found out that the overwhelming majority
are not in the gutter.
A very small percentage of the people are down on Skid Row.
The most of them are in fine homes,
pet houses if you please, sheltered.
We don't know how many alcoholics there are today.
How are you going to get a survey walking up the hallway?
Lady, do you have a drunk in your house?
No.
You know all these figures?
Four million, five million.
Why, dadgummit.
There's no telling how many she's got back there
in the back bedroom, I think.
Say no, no.
And then this old bit about the ulcers,
I think everybody in the family will get ulcers
before the drunk will.
The sign's blowing, you know, and the whistles and everything,
and they're pulling their hair out,
and maybe the drunk's peacefully sleeping up there.
Nice hotel somewhere.
Yeah.
They're the ones who'll get the ulcer.
Short time after I took my first drink,
another lad and myself were to play a duet
in the high school auditorium for a benefit.
And I had a high note to hit,
and about every third time we'd play this,
I'd squawk that high note.
And I just knew when we got out there that night on that stage,
that'd be the time I'd squawk it.
And I worried about that, and I thought about this liquor.
Didn't anybody know it,
but I got a couple of shots of this liquor that night.
I went out on that stage
and played my part with all the poise and assurance of a finished artist.
I didn't know it, but right then I was starting to lean on the glass crutch
that later on in life was going to crumble beneath me and cut me up very badly.
I think if I could tell you what an alcoholic is in one sentence,
it'd be a person who drinks to face situations,
not a person who drinks to enjoy a situation
or to make a good situation a little better.
They drink to face that situation at all.
I recall one time when my father was coming clear out to this part of the country from Kentucky,
and I thought, and I thought about that,
and what was I going to say to him,
and how was I going to explain a lot of these things,
and the day before he arrived, I got drunk.
I faced that situation.
I didn't know what I was going to tell him,
and so I took care of it.
I got drunk to face that situation.
You know, I have a daughter that,
you could have got 50 to 1,
that I'd never be able to send her through high school, let alone college.
You could have got 50 to 1.
Well, my daughter's in college now, I'm happy to say,
and I told her I wanted her to know all about alcohol and alcoholism,
and I didn't want her to look down her nose at people who drank or people who got drunk,
but I wanted her to be informed,
and when she saw a young boy or girl walk off,
on that college campus and continue to get drunk every weekend,
that she could realize that that person was probably lacking in some psychological equipment,
and they were trying to cover it up,
and maybe she could, through a friendly word, help somebody.
I've also told my daughter that she need never apologize to anybody for not taking a drink,
and that a well-mannered host,
a hostess wouldn't insist that you drink something that you don't want.
I've also told my daughter if she thought she had to drink to be around some people,
that maybe she should find other companions.
If she had to drink to do certain things,
they must not be right.
Now, I believe tonight my daughter has a very tolerant attitude toward drinking people.
I believe that she has been able in some way to help carry a message of health and hope,
second-handed, into some families.
But I think that I strength the lives, as far as the educational program,
and I'm interested in that,
in getting the truth, the absolute truth,
the unvarnished truth to the young people,
not a bunch of hokum like I used to hear.
They can't run from it,
and there's no use fighting it.
It's kind of silly to fight something over here that'll stay in a damn bottle if you just leave it alone.
It won't jump up on you.
We had a fellow come to our church the other Sunday.
This is kind of good.
As I said, I'm going to unload the whole load.
Come to our church the other Sunday and he got up there and showed all these pictures.
Laughed, looked, and he had all of them.
And I'll be damned if my mouth didn't start watering before he got through.
He's supposed to make you hate whiskey.
But I wouldn't listen to them very long because it does look pretty, you know.
The man in the flat hat up there smiling, you know.
I'm like Horace.
If he stayed over there and I stayed over here, we'd be all right.
Both keep smiling.
But anyway, then he tells you how much all this costs.
How much they spend on advertising.
Now, if we could just stop that advertising.
Hell, when I became an alcoholic, they didn't anybody advertise it.
They had it out there in the sand hills in fruit jars.
Didn't anybody advertise it.
It's up a dark alley on a dark night, you know.
And you brush that sand off.
Say, there goes a little bit of whiskey.
There's a little dirt in it.
That's all right.
I'll take it.
Doesn't matter.
And then they tell these kids, you know, some of them, they think that alcohol is a
stimulant.
You know, it'd be pretty hard to convince me that alcohol is a stimulant when I've studied
a damn bar and had a cigarette burn into my very flesh and not even feel it.
Tell me alcohol is a stimulant.
Drive off the side of the road out into a field and go to sleep in the hot sun.
And not even know where you are.
Had a friend of mine that got into a bed that was already smoldering.
I'm going to burn up.
And tell you he's stimulated, he's completely un-exercised from the sedative action of alcohol.
I believe with all my heart that alcohol is a first cousin to ether and chloroptor.
And I think if we could paint a picture like that and show why people take it.
It's the devil in us.
It's the dead in it up here.
It's got to affect the brain first, because more blood goes to the brain than any other
part of the body.
And the worst of all, it affects that highest level of the brain.
Continually, in my state, they're wanting to make it rougher on the old drunk driver.
And hell gives him to me two to one over that guy that just had two drinks.
It's all right, boy, you couldn't get him out from under that wheel for hell.
Nothing wrong with him, drives better this way than any way I've ever been.
God help us.
But that drunk, you can get out of his way, you can get him out, you can take the keys
away from him, but not this other man or woman.
They think they're all right, just enough cobwebs up there.
But their judgment is impaired.
You know, my mother died when I was a very young man, and she died from a disease that
if you had it in your family, people didn't care much about that.
I'm not associating with you.
They didn't care about their children coming over to our house or our children going over
to their house.
My mother died from a disease about which there was a great deal of misunderstanding.
My mother died from the dread disease of consumption.
If it hadn't have been for my sister, they would have put her in a tent out back of our
house up there in Kentucky to die alone.
She was unclean.
I was never permitted to kiss my mother on the mouth, kiss mother high on the forehead,
and then step back.
Now, today they call that disease tuberculosis.
It's a respectable illness.
There are great drives to educate people about it.
They have all of these stamps, and there are places to sell people, send people when they
have gone into the latter stages.
They have all of these stamps.
And they're places to sell people, send people when they have gone into the latter stages.
They have all of these stamps.
There are places to sell people.
They have all of these stamps.
They've gone into the latter stages of tuberculosis to help them recuperate.
Nothing thought about it.
But some 20 years after my mother's death, I was attacked by a vicious illness.
And it worked just like consumption.
People didn't care to have much to do with you and they didn't want your kid coming over
and vice versa.
It's another disease about which there's a great deal of misunderstanding and worst
of all, downright supranormal.
indifference. I don't think it should be that way, but it is that way. That's why I want to
stay very close to Alcoholics Anonymous. I know that the majority of the people in the town that
I live in say, oh, he's fine, he's doing a wonderful job. But I know that if I were to
get drunk tomorrow, and I'm sorry to say this, because these are good people, the majority of
those people would say, what did you expect? Do you know what his background is? Do you know where
he's from? A short time after my mother's death, a road show came through our town.
They carried about 45 to 50 people, called a repertoire show. They had a band and orchestra,
and I was asked if I'd like to go.
I talked to my aunt about it. My aunt told me, you can be as good a man in show business
in any other walk of life if you want to be. So I went on the road with this show.
I was very young, and that made it pretty nice because they had some young people's parts,
and they were trying to do the impossible to make some of these older people
look like school kids. And so I fit right in, and I was pretty much of a little ham anyway.
So through a God-given ability, I fit right in. I could play in the band and the orchestra,
and I did a few singing faculties. And then I could do this line of parts,
what they called double embrace. But as I gained in this profession, I hope...
But as I gain ...
In this profession, I hope ...
But as I ...
... gained ...
But as I ...
gained in this profession, I also was gaining in my drinking. The alcoholism was progressing and
it became a little heavier and a little heavier and a little heavier. So with all this use,
with all of this ability, they started to warn me about this drinking. It was affecting my work and
I would slow down. I would quit. I would do this and I never did anything. And they finally let
me go. But I built up a pretty good reputation. So I managed to step onto another show with a
better line of parts, I'd say, and a better salary. And that made me pretty cocky. I said
those people didn't realize real talent when they had it. So I stuck my nose a little deeper
in the fruit jar. But that lasted about two years. And they finally decided they could get along
without me. And then I was offered a chance to go with what was considered one of the best
repertoire shows at that time in the United States.
On one day, I was offered a chance to go with one of the best repertoire shows in the United States.
On one day, I was offered a chance to go with one of the best repertoire shows at that time in the United States.
On one day, I was offered a chance to go with one of the best repertoire shows at that time in the United States.
On one day, I was offered a chance to go with one of the best repertoire shows at that time in the United States.
And I was in a condition that I stay sober. Well, that buoyed me up. I said,
this is real fine. I never dreamed that I'd have a chance to go with this show.
But here it was, so I just quit drinking. And I went on that show with a fierce determination
not to drink. And it lasted three weeks. The second time they passed the bottle around,
I took a drink. And you've heard it and I've heard it too.
a little drink never hurt anybody god i wonder how many people that killed a little drink never
hurt anybody come on you read about it you hear about it all the time he or she started drinking
again and that's the end of it when some idiot said come on a little drink never hurt anybody
well i took that little drink and away we went i was fired and rehired three times
and finally for good and i remember what he said to me as long as i live if you ever decide
you want to stay sober we'll be glad to have you back you know i'd already decided i wanted
to stay sober i didn't want to lose that job i liked those people i liked everything about it
you
but i couldn't stay sober there wasn't anyone to tell me that willpower was a fine thing but
willpower and willpower alone never conquered any disease whether it's diphtheria cancer or
alcoholism the will to get well yes the will to do something about it is a wonderful asset
but the will and the will alone will not cure the sickness i was about ready to concede that
i was completely
like a
willpower or i was wrong willed or just plain no good well i decided to go out to california i had
a sister out there didn't anybody know me out there i'd go out there and still a young man i'd
start all over went out there after being there a short time i went out and auditioned for a radio
play that eventually went on the air coast to coast i auditioned for this and went home to wait
and you know how we are we want everything to fly back together in the next year or two and i'm not
sure how long it's going to take but i'm not sure how long it's going to take but i'm not sure how long it's going to take
24 hours so i didn't hear from them in about 24 hours and i began to yam about it and taste the
floor finally one day the phone rang and they said that i had been given that part and rehearsals
would start such and such a date and we would go on the air right after the election that was when
roosevelt was running for the first time well i had already taken a drink that day and that little
drink that never hurt anybody started me on a drum it set up a compulsion within me over which i had
no control and i don't believe all the angels in heaven or all the devils in hell could have stopped
me from drinking that day because it had to run its course then it's a foregone conclusion i had
not taken a drink i had taken a drunk when i took that little drink i wound up over at san bernardino
and everything was over i came back and i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i
had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i had a drink i
came back and left there with an old indian boy i couldn't stay around my sister anymore she
didn't understand me i didn't understand myself i left there with an old indian boy and we went
to leadville colorado from leadville colorado up to climax 13 miles up the hill i got a job
up there as a shoot blasters helper working with dynamite they were caving in that whole
mountain it had a certain percentage of malibu in the minute they couldn't work it from the
top due to the heavy snow so they were working underneath dog holding drifting
and blasting it down so we'd wrap this dynamite around a batting stick
slip a fuse in there and light it and then it was my job to shove it up in there and wedge it
oh nice work real nice work you'd say it's real dangerous no it wasn't near as dangerous as that
whiskey down in leadville that dynamite only went off occasionally unexpectedly and hurt or kill
somebody
but every time i went down there and uncorked one of those drinks it tore me down mentally
physically spiritually financially every way could tear a person down
and finally i couldn't stand that whiskey and that powder smoke anymore
i got so sick that i couldn't stay up there and i started back to texas
and we used to have a line in one of the shows and i never did think of it before
but now i thought i knew what it meant that line was to be without the
friends is a serious form of poverty
i certainly knew what it meant now because i'd drunk myself away from most of my friends
and those who were the nearest and dearest to me seemed to be able to do the least for me
and as it usually happens when you've drunk yourself away from people of influence those
jailhouse doors start opening for you and the sicker i became the more often they put me in the
prison the more despondent i became the longer i was kept in jail and i bet i've heard this 500 times
i can't understand the fellow like you i've heard it from people in all walks of life
i can't understand a fellow like you you go out here and you work and you get the confidence people
and you build up and then you go out and get drunk and you tear it all down that's the insanity of
alcoholism but i just me not me me is a物
didn't know it at that time. I tried to talk to several people, people that I thought were
pretty smart people, but it seems when I'd go in to see them, they'd look at their watch,
and you knew what they were going to say, that they had an appointment in five minutes
or something, or they'd look out the window, or they'd look down at my clothes. And I used
to like to wear good clothes. And that would embarrass me, and that would throw me off
balance. And it just seemed that I couldn't say anything to them.
But finally, I went to see one fine old judge out in West Texas. He had been a fine attorney.
He'd been a good cattleman, and he'd been a successful farmer, and he was making a good
judge. And I went in to see Judge Tom, and as Ben's
best I could, I tried to tell him about the things that had done, the things that had
happened to me, and laid it out there and asked him for an answer. And when I got through,
old Judge Tom said, Gilbert, I just can't understand a fellow like you. And I seemed
to fall into a pit of total, complete darkness, for God knew I didn't understand myself.
Now, this had been tried once before to send me down to the safe hospital at Austin, and
we had a little hearing in there, and one doctor said at this hearing, if you ask me,
he's got one of the fastest minds in this room, and you can understand what that did
to me for the next year. That got out to me, you know. And these drunks had said,
old Lamb's smarter than the whole damn court. Yes, sir, give me another drink. Write another
check. And, uh, but this time, no protest. I was sick, I didn't care what happened to
me, it didn't matter, and they sent me down to Austin to be locked up, as far as I know,
for the rest of my natural life. As a hopeless, habitual drunkard, not for the
treatment of alcoholism. The word alcoholism wasn't used then.
Shortly before going down there, though, my wife had read in Reader's Digest about a group
of people around New York and Akron, Ohio, and these people formerly drank just like
I was drinking, and these people had gotten sober, and they were helping other people
to get sober. And my wife wrote to that box number that they told to write to in New York
City.
She wrote to me, and she said, I'm going to ask if there was anybody around Austin, Texas,
that knew anything about this fellowship. They answered her letter immediately, and
they're still answering those letters, ladies and gentlemen. They answered that letter immediately,
and sent along a little pamphlet that gave her hope and gave her a box number to write
to in Austin, Texas. And the day that box number, that day, that letter she wrote in
Austin, Texas, was received, Ed dropped everything that he was doing there and went to the New
York City Law Firm to get into that place to see me. Well, he didn't walk up and say,
I'm from Alcoholics' Monarchs. They'd ask you, what in the Sam hell is that? He started pulling
wires to get in there to see me. And Ed didn't have the time or the money to spare at that
time either. He needed to be minding his own financial fences. He needed to be building
up his own reputation again, and that wasn't the way to do it, to be outside the New York
City Law Firm. He needed to be minding his own financial fences. He needed to be building
up his own financial fences. He needed to be João de Mello de Mello of the New York
City Law Firm and it had been necessary to get him there. And he had theJ Bradford,
and around the member of the Tablet House. There was a professor there at that place
knocking on the door, trying to get in to see somebody. But finally, he did get in and
they put us off into a little room and I looked into those big blue eyes, the old Ed's. He
didn't look at his watch. He didn't look out the window. And he didn't look down at my
clothes and my shoes.嘃 He said, Do you want a beret?éralMust have one. He said, Do you want
one?嘃 noch mais, دعهاة aboard my cab.них gravels and histor engagements. He said, Do you want a beret?"ď
to tell me about some of the things that have happened to you?" And I did. And I talked and I
talked and it seemed so easy to talk to him. The words just rolled out and I began to feel better
all along. And finally I got through and I said, I guess that's it. And old Ed said, I understand.
And I'm here to tell you tonight, those were the kindest, the most comforting words I've ever heard
in my life. He said, I understand because I've done a lot of those things that you've done.
I've hurt a lot of people and I didn't want to hurt them. I've told a lot of lies when I didn't
want to tell them. And he said, there's very little of a constructive nature being done
about this thing.
But he said, I want to tell you Gil, there's a group of us that meet every Wednesday night,
right off the mezzanine of the old Driscoll Hotel here. And we meet there and we share our faith and
our hope and our experience with each other. And we call on a kind and loving God as we understand
him to help us to stay sober just for today. We don't ask him for any car payments, any new
furniture or anything like that, or clothes for the wife. We say, please God, just for today,
help us to stay sober.
He's the one that told me that no science, art or human agency has ever been able to do anything
about a cure for alcoholism. But we have found a way to arrest it one day at a time. And he said,
if you are an alcoholic, we need you and you need us. Well, certainly I wanted to go with him.
He wrote to my wife. She came down there. A few more wires pulled.
And I got out of this place. And I went to an AA meeting. And there was an old boy sitting there
with the most beautiful sport coat on you've ever seen. And a big diamond ring on his finger. And I
said, that's the man that's got this program. That's what I want. I want some good clothes again
and a big automobile. And I started following him and he led me right into the sewer.
And old Ed came back to me and he said, look,
we don't follow personalities in this program, we follow the principles of the program.
Remember that. And I started over and again. And Dan,
there's a man from John Hopkins University Hospital,
came through Austin,
kind of talk to him. He came up there with the blackboard, and all the charts and everything.
And he convinced me with the outcome that we are gonna fight for good things,
we are gonna get through that.
capt chu
me beyond a shadow of a doubt that alcoholism was a sickness. And that's the first time I was
convinced. And you know the way my sick mind began to work? I got to thinking about all these people
back down the line that had taken advantage of me, a sick man.
And I wanted to save my money and I wanted to get back down there and hurt those people.
And I got drunk again. And old Ed came back to me and said, he says in this book, Gil,
that if we are to be free from alcohol, we must be free of anger, resentment, and fear.
You got to get rid of that resentment. Resentment is like burning down your house to get rid of a
rat. You got to get rid of it. Well, you know, with all of that, I had seven years
of flop houses and jail houses to go through with yet. And I woke up in Joplin, Missouri,
in one of the filthiest jails I've ever seen.
In my life. And that little flame deep down within us that makes us want to try
once more time, one more time, had completely died. I said, I can never go back and tell my
wife, let's go to AA because I know she'll say, what do you want to go for?
This is the end of it for me. I had on a dirty white shirt and there's nothing anything dirtier
than a dirty white shirt. My whiskers were out. I had a car somewhere around there and
neither the finance company nor me knew where it was. But three days later, I managed to
get out of that jail. And here is where the miracle starts. I never thought I was going to die. I never
I never thought I was going to die. I never thought I was going to die. I never thought I was going to die. I never
thought I was going to die. I never thought I was going to die. Stay the hell away from this place until
I'm done dying. I remember there was a man, and you could see that there was a man, who had a book
of alcoholics' anonymous. And the書ite heaven was reading this. And he said that he was a busy
man. And he said to me, you looked kind of sick right outside this jail.
And I said I'm awful sick and I was. I couldn't hold my hand steady at all. Not even
gripping them together, they bullshit. And he asked me about alcoholics' anonymous,
said have you ever read the book Alcoholics Anonymous
and I said I've memorized part of it
he said maybe you're sicker than some of the rest
I said I'm a whole lot sicker I guess
I said no I don't think there's anything for me
he said oh I wouldn't say that
and he told me about going over to St. Louis
and buying one of these books
don't that look like a drunk's book
look at that color
I wish they'd have kept putting that on there
that list looks like drunk to me right there
but that's the one in 1939
anyway this man talked to me a little while
and he found out that I was going to A.A. down at Lubbock, Texas
and he said I'll be back in a minute
and if I'd have known where he was going
I wouldn't have been there when he came back
he called Lubbock, Texas
and he came back and he said
I've talked to some of the people down at Lubbock
and I said uh-oh
and then he told me he said yes I've talked to Carl
and I did a double uh-oh
because I'm the old Carl that contractor
two chances were too many according to him
and I'd had two chances to talk to him
and I'd had two chances to talk to him
and I'd had twenty-two
and then he looked me in the eye
and why Carl said this I don't know
said Carl told me to help you
if I possibly could
he believed you deserved it
now in A.A. you know
they don't care anything about statistics
just make a monkey out of statistics
this A.A. program does
why Carl said this
I don't ever know
and that little fire deep down within me
rekindled
and oh I wanted desperately to have just one more chance
and then he told me
you have some wonderful friends down there
and you heard the old boy or gal say
there's nothing wrong with me
that a couple of thousand dollars won't cure
some of them won't cure me
somebody could have handed me just twenty dollars then
and I believe it would have killed me
but instead he made that phone call
and he brought me those words of encouragement
and he gave me a little time
he took me over and hospitalized me for three days
and drove me out the edge of town
and I started back nervous
sick, scared
but I had it for me
and I started back nervous, sick, scared
but I had it for me
now it's gone
in the car
in the back of an A.A. club
in Lubbock, Texas
I went to an A.A. meeting
I saw two people there at that A.A. meeting
that I have desperately needed to know
all my life
if they hadn't have been there
I don't know what I'd have done
you've heard that God has made no substitute for you
you remember that
I went on down to Tahoka, Texas
and we started driving thirty miles to a meeting
and thirty miles back
twice a week, and many times, three times a week. And that kept going on and on and
on until finally one year of sobriety. Those steps seemed to be a little broader. They
seemed to be a little brighter. They made a little more sense. Everything seemed to
make a—I don't know what happened. But it just seemed that I had unconditionally
surrendered, that under no conditions could I drink alcohol, no matter who it was with
or what kind of a bottle it's packaged in. I am an alcoholic, and I can't drink. Thank
you. And by golly, the beautiful things that started
happening to me. I'd been sober about eighteen months, and they asked me to speak at a Tri-State
conference.
And then the next month, they sent me to New York as a deli.
And I've been scared to death of airplanes.
And I looked out there and saw that AA on that airplane tail.
I just got right on it.
Yeah, I was DC-7, drunk continuously seven years.
I said, this is mine.
And a stewardess says, watch your step.
And I said, girly, I've got to watch all 12 of them now, every day.
And we went in there over New York City.
It looked like every light in the world had been turned on below us just for me.
And I went up in the Empire State Building, and I went out to see the Statue of Liberty,
and I went in the Underground Railroad, and I went to the fine ball game.
But I want to tell you the most inspiring thing to me
is when I walked in.
It was that little office where some young lady had written a letter to my wife
and sent a pamphlet that had given her hope
and given her a box number to write to down there to Austin, Texas.
And ladies and gentlemen, they're doing it today all over the world.
They're answering these letters, and they asked you and I to send $3 apiece per year
to help them keep that office going.
And let's do that, will you?
Yeah.
It wasn't long before we moved up to Muleshoe.
Texas, that is.
Oh, I'm going to wind up in a minute now.
Don't get discouraged.
I can get this all through, you know, here in one night,
and then you won't be inviting me back, and I'll go on somewhere else.
No return engagement stuff.
Yeah, I moved up there to Muleshoe, and after being up there a little bit,
it was a small town.
You know, the old boy said,
I understand you make a talk on alcoholism.
Would you speak to the Lions Club?
Well, what was it going to do?
What was it going to do?
I went home and talked to those and my wife,
and we decided that I had done about everything to me that could be done.
There wasn't anything.
So I needn't worry about these damn Lions.
So I went in there, and I told my story.
And, of course, I didn't mention alcoholics and arms.
But I told about these friends that came to my assistance with the program
and changed it up considerably, you know.
And I told them I was speaking there for an understanding, not for myself,
but for that man and woman down the street that they probably had been saying,
you know, unkind things about them.
You might tell them that there's hope for them
and that I'd like to make their acquaintance.
I'd like to try to help them, tell them what happened to me.
And after that, why, of course, the Rotary Club is not going to be outdone.
And then you speak to the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood and Womanhood
and Girlhood and everything else.
Then they asked me to talk to a blue and gold district banquet of the Cub Scouts.
You know.
You can imagine my jokes.
All right.
I'll tell you what you can do.
You can take this A program and turn it around,
and those kids will get the message.
I didn't realize that.
And it isn't too hard, either.
To talk about sharing with somebody else
and to talk about that little boy or girl over there with a club foot
or skin blemishes,
don't make fun of them.
Because, but for the grace of God,
that could be you.
You know that kind of an approach?
Yeah, you can do that.
And then, a little later on,
they were having a Chamber of Commerce banquet there,
and that is in 1957.
Everybody in town knows I'm a drunk.
An ex-drunk, thank God.
And there was a couple of boys there from the newspaper that I knew,
one from Lubbock, one from Amarillo,
and they, of course, they honor the man of the year.
And I knew who it was going to be.
They let me in on it.
There was a young banker there.
So I told these boys about it,
and they'd written down the name,
and they had his age and everything.
And so they started this exchange of plaques,
and you've been to these Chamber of Commerce banquets, haven't you,
where the president, the retiring president,
gives the incoming president a plaque,
and then the incoming president gives the outgoing president a plaque,
and then the vice president does the same.
They exchange plaques.
It's a plaque-y night.
I was thinking along about this thing,
that this plaque business might be a pretty good thing to get into, you know.
They'd given away so many plaques,
and then he came down and said,
now we come to the highlight of the evening
when we award a plaque to our outstanding citizen of the year.
And they called my name.
I couldn't hardly make it up there
to accept that.
I could only think of to say what half God wrought.
And I tell you that not as a victory for me.
That wasn't a victory for me,
but that was a victory for old Ed down here at Austin.
And that was a victory for Mr. John Parker in Joplin, Missouri.
And that is a victory for old Carl down in Lubbock.
And that was a victory for this program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, I ran across this little item,
and I've talked, I know, too long.
And I think what we all want to do,
why we came in,
and why we want to stay here.
And it says I have to live with myself,
and so I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able,
as the days go by,
always to look myself straight in the eye.
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things that I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking nobody else will know
the kind of a man I really am.
I don't want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect.
I'd like to disappear.
I don't want to deserve all men's respect.
And here in this struggle for fame and pelt,
I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to look at myself
and know that I'm just bluster and bluff,
an empty show.
I never can hide myself from me.
I see what others, they may never see.
I know what others, they will never know.
I can't fool myself.
And so, whatever happens, I want to be
self-respecting and conscience-free.
I want to tell you,
you who have had a lot of trouble with this program,
you keep coming back
because, like I did,
you will meet somebody
that you desperately need to know all your life.
If you'll keep coming back to A.A.,
I'll bet you my life,
and I've already bet my life,
that God in this program will keep me sober.
I'll bet you my life
that you'll hear something you've needed to hear all your life.
And you'll fall in love with this program.
And you'll go wherever they ask you to go
and do whatever they ask you to do.
Whatever they ask you to do.
Whatever they ask you to do to try to help another human being.
I'm so glad that this young man was here
for his first meeting of this nature tonight.
I'm sorry that I've talked so long,
but I want to tell you how important you are.
I was invited down here to Huntsville, and I didn't go.
And then they sent me another invitation to come the next year,
and here's what it said.
There's at least one useful and highly important task.
There's at least one useful and highly important task.
There's at least one useful and highly important task.
That's the most important task in this world
that will not be done unless you do it.
There's some place upon which there'll never be a smile of joy
unless you put it there.
There's someone with a breaking heart
that'll never have the courage to try again
if you don't share with them your courage.
There is someone that'll not get through this day of doubt
unless you pass along a simple word of encouragement.
God has provided no substitute for you.
for you you remember that the next time you're going to stay home for an a.a meeting or tell
some old boy or girl about that that has taken this and filled their bucket and then gone home
and put it on deep freeze somebody that they're pointing at say well he or she doesn't go and i'm
not going to go either somebody's dying because of them you know the person you save today
may be your salvation for tomorrow and i read this in a little orphans home magazine
it says i met a stranger in the night whose lamp had ceased to shine
i paused and i let him light his lamp for mine a storm came up in the night and it shook the
world about and when it finally calmed down my lamp was out but back to me this stranger came
his lamp
still glowing fine. He had retained that precious flame, and this time his lamp lighted mine. Thank you.