Anonymity and Humility – Big Book Study Saturday Speaker – Part 2 of 2 – Clancy I.

This tape was produced in the spirit of AA's 12th step to carry the message. Members of the fellowship should bear in mind AA's 11th tradition regarding anonymity at the level of press, TV, and films and the use of this tape. Anonymity to this extent is actually the practice of genuine humility. We assure that humility expressed by anonymity is the greatest safeguard that AA could ever have. My name is Clancy Emmeslund and I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad to be here tonight. Glad to be in the New York Nurse Association Amphitheater. I just, uh, I am very glad to be here. Some of you all heard my sad story. God, I had a terrible time getting here. We landed in Chicago yesterday afternoon. I was planning to get here for the evening session last night. They said all the planes from East Coast are canceled. There's no way to get here at all and then I about four o'clock this morning I finally found out there was one seat on a plane at 615 to Albany and I sat between the two fattest people in North America tried to read the Chicago Tribune and got here and I got to the hotel and they had no reservation for me they canceled me because I didn't show up yesterday and they never heard of me and I there were people looking so I tried to act decently I wanted to say For Christ's sake! I said, oh really? Perhaps you could find them. Anyway, I finally got a little sleep so I feel great tonight and I'm sorry I missed Joe and Charlie. I was glad to hear them share the big book and I am glad to be participating tonight. I was telling them at dinner tonight that I am getting a little older. I realized that because I didn't get much sleep last night so today I knew I was not so young as I used to be But when I turned about 70, I went to the doctor among my manual physicals. He had me start taking iron tablets, which I guess you do before you get older. And I've been taking them for a couple of years and no big deal. I just take iron tablets. But then about three months ago in some sort of fit of wildness, I tried a Viagra. and I had no idea if you're taking iron tablets you're not supposed to take Viagra and now every four hours they face north take that off the tape or like there's an old guy in our group he says why just take an eighth of a Viagra every morning what the hell do you do that for just so I won't pee on my shoes but we are gathered here not to tell Viagre jokes I don't guess some of you recently probably saw that A&E special on Alcoholics Anonymous which he did a very good job and the World Service Office contacted me about in February, asked me if I'd be willing to be interviewed among other people. I said, sure. And as you know, you maintain anonymity. You don't give them your name. And there's a little meeting hall in West Los Angeles. The whole south wall is kind of glass and doors. And they went till the sun was pouring, and they put a chair in front of it and sat me there and put a camera there. And I believe very much in anonymity, I think it's a very great spiritual concept. Because of my work, the nature of the work I do in Los Angeles, I get on television a lot and in newspapers and in different things, being quoted and so on as an authority on some thing. But in AA you never do. But I must admit, even after I believed what Adam and Eve did, when I sat there and that camera was looking at me, I knew that this was going to be seen all over North America and probably other nations. And then the camera started to roll. I had a terrible temptation just to go I fought it back but it was is our starting time inconvenient gentlemen this is this is not your regular New York meeting I didn't mean to offend anyone but the thing about that he asked me some couple two or three questions that did not appear in the show I guess my answers weren't sufficiently zippy I finally talked about some other things but the questions he answered me were kind of interesting because I think they are they kind of give a different feeling And they took me aback because usually in those kind of interviews, they ask you questions like, well, how many members are there in your fellowship and where do you have your meetings and so on. And this guy apparently knows something about AA because he asked me right off. He said, why is it that some alcoholics seem to be able to get sober without going to AA and others have to go to AA? How do you explain that? And that's absolutely true. Anybody that knows, been around very long, knows there are some people, maybe not very many of them, but who seem tobe alcoholic, who seem to be able to get sober and they're always held up as examples to people like us now why can't you be like Uncle Leo my mother's Uncle Leo was a drinker he stopped drinking in like 1924 why can'T you be like Uncle Leo I never could think of an answer I thought of it after he was dead I don't think he ever smiled after 1924 but some people there are some people who to all intents and purposes by any measuring stick are alcoholics when something sufficiently intense threatens their security maybe the loss of a job or the loss of a family where the family leaves them or they something terribly threatens them they suddenly realize the nature of what they're going to say I quit man I quit that stuff and they quit and they never drink again and there are some other people who seem to be alcoholics who are not only emotionally but are physically addicted to alcohol and they need to be physically withdrawn. They're the people for whom treatment centers were originally created and you take them off step by step and they realize the nature of their problems at the end of all this time and they say, oh man, I quit! And they quit. And then there's another type of alcoholic. It's an interesting thing. You're studying the book this week, this weekend, you know, and Bill Wilson wrote this book he realized there were other types of alcoholics he didn't really know who they were or what they were he couldn't really define them there wasn't that much knowledge about them but you knew there were different types so again and again in the book that you're reading this weekend he describes alcoholics of our type he doesn't talk about what the other types are but alcoholics are our type so what is our type and that's the other type and they are people who to all intents and purposes are alcoholic but something happens that severely threatens their security maybe the loss of a job or family leaves them or death or something and they quit but eventually always begin to drink again and these people can be physically addicted withdrawn in a treatment facility and little by little they just realize the nature of the chaos in their life and they say I quit but eventually always drink again and those are alcoholics of our type and these are the people who have often always baffled medical people and baffLED psychiatrists and bAFFLED religious people and most sadly have baffLEd their families and loved ones. I bet there isn't an alcoholic in this room tonight who hasn't at one time or another been faced with that terrible look of sorrow and dismay and disappointment. How could you? You promised this time you said this time that you promised how could you be drunk again and there's no answer to it the only answer is that when it pushes my guilt button and I feel worse than they do about it then the answer comes out things like ah leave me alone god damn it get away from me and that is not much of a satisfactory answer but that's the answer you give because I don't know the answer either and that's alcoholics of our type and I didn't want to go through this whole answer with this guy so all I could tell him was well there seems to be a small percentage of alcoholics who seem to be able to stop drinking on their own. In fact, incidentally you know there's a hospital a hospital in Seattle at one time in the 1960s advertised they could return alcoholics to social drinking well their director wound up in a padded cell so they had to discontinue that advertising but since they've advertised they can help you off alcoholism in 10 days with a couple follow up visits of course we laugh at that but it's really true because they help alcoholics of that type get off and they have name after name after people who have done it but that's alcoholics are their type alcoholics our type the vast amount are the ones who are baffled and troubled and cursed with the thought that maybe I'm of that type but if I do quit I'll be all right and discover you're not I didn't want to go through all that with him so I guess he didn't use that question to answer then he asked another question which is another interesting question he said why is it that some alcoholics okay so they quit drinking some some don't have to go to AA and they stay sober why do they have to go to AA why do people have to go to AAA or real alcoholic, stop drinking they don't get any, why's that and that's a that's puzzle I mean it puzzled me but it took me back again because I had to really stop to think about that and it made me think about my own life now why would you do that now I'm not a masochist by any nature I despise pain I despide pain mentally in myself I despize physical pain I despice all kinds of pain now why would I who despise pain reasonably intelligent don't want to be in trouble come to AA under duress go to AA with troubles in my life leave again and then slip year after year after years after years after years the worst years of my life came after good people who were trying to help me in Alcoholics Anonymous not because I was going to AA but that's the years it got so bad I came to AA as kind of a high bottom drunk medium high bottom drink and over a period of years I became a medium bottom drunk and the last day I drank up till now two big guys threw me out of a skid row mission in Los Angeles at 6.30 in the morning and said stay out of here you damn bum I tried to explain to them I'm not a bum three years ago I was on the faculty of the University of Texas ads that I helped write, the old Elsie and Elmer ads for the Borden company were running that very weekend in Life and Time I've had my picture in the New York Times for one of my achievements how many people do you know who have had their picture in the NY Times for oneof their achievements but it's hard to explain these things in mid-air when I stood outside of that damn old mission on a cold rainy morning not much colder and less rain than it is tonight this is a nice warm summer rain but then it's just a cold drizzly winter rain in Los Angeles and I had a terrible feeling I just had a horrible feeling I've heard people describe it since then And I thought, maybe that's it. It's a feeling I'm sure some of you have had. Here comes a gentleman who runs the restaurant I had dinner at tonight. I didn't get any dessert. What kind of restaurant is that? Get out of here! No hard feelings. But that feeling, and I'm sure people have had it, because you don't have to be in Skid Row to have it. The feeling of there is no friendly direction. There's no direction if you follow it far enough there's going to be someone there glad to see you. You just get to a point where you feel you've burned them off, whether you have or not. And you think, well, sure, on Skid row. A few years ago, I remember a guy asked me to make a 12-step call up in the Hollywood Hills and went to this lovely home and the butler allowed me to come in and introduce me to this inside maid who took me to this big bedroom almost as big as this room and Oscar on the walls and theater critics awards and just all in white just to make anybody happy and over in the bed in the corner a big enormous bed a guy huddled up and crying he had taken his teeth out so he wouldn't choke and we talked a while but nobody likes me and you know just a drunken reaction he'd been sober for about 12 years been a very famous playwright and we kind of lured him out of that bed over a period of time and got him to go to some meetings and after about 3 or 4 months he was really doing good and we were very happy and one Friday he called up and said I don't think I can go to the meeting by tonight I said yeah I gotta go Bill said no no I my psychiatrist feels I'm putting too much dependence on a I got to sort these things out I said I you know what you go to be in question doing good for the first time and oh don't worry about so we tried to talk about it when he wouldn't come so okay Sunday morning picked the LA Times he committed suicide same boom and I don't mean that just because you missed a Saturday meeting commit suicide but there's there is something to be have to be said about no matter how much money you got or how little you got, sometimes when you're trapped in yourself, you need to get out of there badly. But I still had that damn mission. If some old guy would come up to me that morning and said, you know, Slim, you're dying. You've done 120-some pounds. You've lost your wife and children and never see them again. You've lossed your career. Once upon a time they called you a boy genius. Now you can't even get a job washing dishes. you've lost your clothing but you lost your clothing in Phoenix I guess where you were a couple weeks ago right before that guy put you in jail where they kicked out your front teeth and I know that has happened because my gums were swollen up my lips were bleeding you're an only child and your mother is no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you up in Wisconsin because your stepfather is so tired of watching you manipulate her and give her a story and play on her sympathy and get some more money and then break her heart one more time he would rather have her think you were dead than the way you are. Now, you've been going to AA off and on for almost 10 years and you sit in those meetings when you have to go and you shit smugly and think how unintellectual and how dumb these people are and how simple in their beliefs. But you're dying. Why don't you just go back to AA one more time before you die? Admit you're an alcoholic and do something about it before you go. And if I were in a mood to be honest, which I may or may not have been, but if I was in a mode to be honestly that had to say, pal, it isn't the way it looks. I'm not an alcoholic. I wish I were. I wish I were, I'll tell you. If I'd have been an alcoholic, my problems would have gone over a long time ago. I know there's something wrong with me. I'm never questioning that. I've known there's nothing wrong with myself since I was a little boy. There's something missing in me. I don't know what it is. But I just don't seem to relate to people. I don' t seem to be able to maintain relationships. I know that I've concealed whatever's wrong with me as long as I could but I try never to let people get too close to me because if they get close to you there's something wrong with you and they don't like you anymore I can't maintain a one-to-one relationship I don't have a feeling of confidence I don'T feel like I fit in a lot of the time and I've spent thousands of dollars as an adult in psychiatry to get to the reasons for it I've read books some I understood and some I didn't I did get involved in a little fringe back porch religion sitting around discussing the meaning of life. But the only thing I ever found that really changed it, I found when I was 15 years old. I ran away from home early in the Second World War. Ran away, hitchhiked to San Francisco. Had no idea how far it was. Got a ride, one ride all the way from Minneapolis. I died. And I lied my age and got some merchant marine papers, and I was on a ship in the South Pacific before my mother didn't know I was up in Superior, Wisconsin visiting my aunt. And on that ship, I was this high and pimply-faced and stupid beyond belief. In fact, I think about that sometimes. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or any bad taste. But you can hardly pick up a newspaper now that's reading adult sexually abusing children and all kinds of children, their own children, other people's children, strange children, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, everybody. And I think about that hitchhiking across the country at the age of 15, dumb, dumb, getting on a ship with the scum of the earth. I mean, really, all the good guys had gone to the Navy by that time and these were the scone, dirty, filthy, rotten, drunken scum. And I never was molested once. It makes you feel unattractive. Well, anyway. on this on this ship I was treated like an idiot because I wasn't you know I get to be the ship fool things like hey kid get out of the engine room tell them we need a left handed wrench hey kid go up on the bridge tell the captain we need some elbow grease one day these guys used to sit around and drink they all brought whiskey they weren't supposed to but nobody ever checked them out one of these guys said how about you junior you think you're man enough for a little snort and he shoved that bottle in my face and I drew the line because I might have been a screwed up kid but I was a Norwegian Lutheran and we are just a cut above your usual Christians. And I suddenly realized for the first time they've all got black hair. These are the Catholics I've heard about. and I was just about to tell her I could feel my pimples just stand up I was about to say don't you ever stick that bottle in my face I'm a Lutheran I promised my mother and grandmother I wouldn't drink and I'm not going to drink and I're not going to be like you people and wind up like you people you're terrible and I don't want I'm trying to be good I was jut about to say that she says well you think you're mad enough and I heard the voice say god damn right so I had my first drink of whiskey out of the first bottle of whiskey I was ever close to I'd never been close and it burned my mouth and burned my throat and burned my stomach and burned my throat and burned my mouth and burned his shirt the last time I saw him and I felt so I still can't remember the humiliation I don't know if I can really remember but I think I can to this day I don' t know any single feeling that is more painful than public humiliation and embarrassment where people just make you feel like a fool in public. And I would have just liked to smash them, but I couldn't if I had a gun out of shot them. The one thing I might have done, I'm glad I didn't think about it, if I would've thought of it, they'd have thrown me overboard, but I might've thought, all right, you, lean over. Yeah. Take that. Just give them one in the old eye just to teach them a lesson. but all the way across the central pacific I was thinking of that guy Seabank one of those guys Seabanks every day when nobody's around taking a drink and that stuff I hate it made you throw up I'd have to wipe it up so they didn't know I want so desperately to be accepted by these people I want to desperately for them to think I was a man remember we were just coming into Pearl Harbor they're still digging up ships off the bottom and I was down there taking a drinking the day before my 16th birthday taking a break in that crap and I took a drink and I held it down and then I couldn't breathe why do people drink it oh god then all of a sudden something strange happened I found myself feeling significantly better and I realized that's why people are drinking alcohol I didn't know that I never had any insights maybe some of you had insights a few years ago I heard a guy he just gave me the pips when I held that first drink down I knew I'd gone into a new garden of experience a garden with many flowers and fruits to be savored in the coming years until I had to leave that garden to come to this wonderful program where I found people such as you God I wish I'd known that all I knew was if you don't puke and you can breathe it makes you feel better that's what I learned and now I didn't think much about it when you're teens you learn things I learned to smoke on that ship Nobody in my family smoked, but they all smoked. So I smoked and puked and smoked and pukED them. One day I smoked and didn't puke and smoked two or three packs a day every day for the next 47 years until I realized I was going bald. But you know, we were talking about that before the meeting. Joe and I outside about, I am still a smoker by nature. I had to quit a few years ago because of a throat problem. It's a funny thing the doctor told me a few times. If you don't stop smoking and you're going to die. Oh, really? If you're not smoking, you might go mute. It's all a matter of values. But I am still a smoker by nature. I still can't understand people who say, I smoked for 40 years and I've stopped now. Oh, someone lit a cigarette within a mile of here. I went on another ship, the Aleutians. When I was a little older, I went in the Navy and stayed in the Navy. The war was over. I was up in Northern California in the hospital and they passed around some tests. I've always been good on tests because I read a lot. And I did very well in those tests. They gave me a high school diploma from the Armed Forces Institute. After that, I started college because I'm still a junior in high school technically. Back to Wisconsin and went to college. And that really was a great, most of you know everything, but anybody in this room old enough to remember the fall of 1946 going to school. But it really was remarkable because as the first time and last time in American history that millions of people all got out of the service at once and they all had the GI Bill so they could all go to college whether you wanted to go to a good college or not, you made some money by going and you'd have all kinds of colleges ahead of red buildings and you sit in the freshman English class there'd be some hardened old Marine Sergeant 50 years old, didn't I? Next to some little honey just out of Plum Valley High School. Were you in the war? Yeah, do you put out? But some of them did. I got along all right. Then I went to college and I got out of college and I went out in the world and became a sports writer which is still the favorite job I ever had and in college I'd met this girl with coal black hair and black flashing eyes I'd never seen anyone like that in our church she won my heart after she won me heart she said, I'm Catholic and I thought, that's all right with me but what do my family say I tried to escape but she had me so we got married and my grandmother went into depression for about two years but we were out in the world we did rather well but then my wife began manifesting the terrible habits of Catholic women that I knew nothing about and nobody I knew anything about but you find out that is this in case there's any little Lutheran boys here thinking about getting married if you marry a good Catholic girl you are about to have a big family whether you want one or not I became a national distributor of small Catholics I remember saying to my wife can't we use birth control she said no now for using who are young there's some young people here it's hard to believe that in those days nobody ever talked about condoms I mean not a common thing but then don't tell me everybody what condom you might hear some low-grade person in a cheap bar and say something like I got a rubber and even these people wouldn't dare go and buy them you'd have to hire some really depraved person and even they'd be ashamed hey give me some cigarettes and some rubbers and it still shocks me as a Lutheran to see how much has changed over the last 50 years, you know. At least in the drugstore where I live, these kids come in and say things like, hey, give me some condoms! And some cigarettes. You know, it's weird. But I worked around, and I had ups and downs. I was very emotional. I used all the tools I'd learned in my early years and drank and smoked and lusted effectively and did a lot of things and had some ups and downs. Sometimes I drank a little too much and I was still a young guy. Some people in my hometown had heard of AA, they didn't know what it did but they suggested I might go to a meeting so I went to a couple meetings and I Was 22 which is not very young in AA now but then no one had heard about it even 15 or 20 years ago. And there was a nice bunch of old burned out fools with gray hair sitting around I don't know what they were saying I'm sure new people like for these years get the same feeling I have sometimes it seemed to me they were seeing things like I stayed drunk around the clock for 20 years one day I walked through that door and they told me to put the plug in the jug and I did and I've just never been so god damn happy maybe I should say this as I say there are some young people here tonight and I want to say something we sometimes forget to say this in my home group in Los Angeles the biggest group of a thousand people every Wednesday night but we have a lot of young people in our group now I'll tell you something I tell them, and I'll tell you, if you're like the young people in our group, I want to remind you, you are the AA leaders of tomorrow. I'm going to tell you something else. If you're Like the Young People in Our Group, I'm really glad I'm to be dead. Wow. Nothing personal, just a death wish. Have you ever heard of a death Wish? But I went to AA off and on for the next few years I drink a lot sometimes and I go to AA but I know there wasn't a problem their problem was stopping drinking that doesn't help me my problems are much deeper more complex let's say I got into psychoanalysis I found out how I'd been victimized by fate many times brought tears to my eyes I'll tell you been hurt by the depression been hurt by the Norwegian Lutheran Church that used to hurt me I hear to find out that the church that I loved and tried to obey very poorly had repressed my psyche if I knew then what I know now I would have formed adult children of Norwegian Lutherans we could have hired a couple co-dependents and sat around being pissed off every week needless to say I've been hurt a lot I discovered a lot of things and I found out reasons that seem to give me these emotions I have and I really it's a great breakthrough if you're doing this you know I suggest you if you want to find out go do it go and find out it's such a good feeling I now know why I have these feelings of inadequacy that don't fit in I have These feelings of being less than I have This feelings of not able to maintain a one-to-one relationship I understand you know but one day he suddenly realized I know why but I still haven't yeah it's not much of a breakthrough you know the only reason The only use possibly I can think of is it might be late in the night, some night in a bar when you're having to get in a beef with some big moose. What the hell's wrong with you? Then you can tell them. I was repressed as a child that everyone was completely nurtured. I read books. I had a lot of feelings. I'd go to AA from time to time and among other things, because they're such simple people they mean well and then they want you to return to God and that may work for people like you but it doesn't work for people like me if you're a Norwegian Lutheran and you have been I remember telling someone I've broken all ten commandments when you break three you're gone in our church and I've broke ten, some of them accidentally but I've break them and I don't want to hear about God which is God exists, I'm damned. In fact, it was sometime before I realized in going over my life, I never really broke all the Ten Commandments. I've never really coveted my neighbor's manservant. But where I live, I should say yet. But you know, I remember reading a very famous German philosopher of having dinner with a German tonight, a German philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche. And he was kind of an eccentric guy, but I remember reading it and thinking, God, that's good. He says, among other things, he said, God is dead. Why are you concerned about God? Perhaps once he existed to set the orbs of the world. But look about you, there's chaos. Chaos! All that is left is natural law. God is death. I mean, that could be. I hope that's true because I got a chance if it is. and the only sad thing you read too much of Nietzsche and you finally discover he died in the insane asylum then you go back and wonder how this happened and it turned out it wasn't as bad as I thought he wasn't crazy he just got a bad case of syphilis just a good time guy like me in fact there's a theological seminary in Chicago that has a very famous quotation it says God is dead signed Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1884 and beneath it, it says Nietzsch is dead, signed God 1906 when I went to and it seemed to me as I have a lot of emotions that's the way it is when you're a creative writer you have emotions, you have sensitivities I remember sitting thinking it's almost as though I came off the assembly line I didn't get the last operation where they put the protective covering I didn' t get the veneer I just got my emotions right on the surface I can have my feelings hurt in a tenth of a second you never show it, but I just feel bad what did that guy say about you? did he bother you? no! but in my mind there is a new name to go and get that son of a bitch someday and pull his fingernails out and watch him dance, you know. It's just feelings and emotions and everywhere I went to work they would like me but eventually I couldn't I didn't have an emotional blow up or I'd get drunk or they wouldn't like it or I would quit and go to a different job because I had a pretty good impressive resume of things I had done and I worked in some big places and I probably never could maintain a one-to-one relationship couldn't understand that until after I was sober sometime and working with others and I began to understand why because it's a rather common thing for people like me because looking back I can see that when you have very little self-worth you must get your approval from outside of you so all I ask of you if you were to have a one-to-one relationship with me you just treat me special all the time I don't realize I'm saying that but that's what I'm doing because if you treat me especial I feel average if you treat me average I feel rejected and no one's going to treat you special all the time in fact being treated average is kind of an acceptance but when I see that happening I suddenly realize well I never liked her anyway and on and on you never can get anything out of it never sustain anything it's like reading Shakespeare by lightning flash oh god that was good but then it's over for a long time this year I was kind of keeping my own but I guess I wasn't because one day I found myself in Dallas, I got fired at Tracy Lott, big advertising agency where I'd been working on LCD Elmer ads and I'd done very well for them but I got hired because I hadn't been to work for a while and that weekend was the first time my wife and children left me I came home off a drunk and they were gone the furniture was gone my clothes were on a pile on the floor and they had repossessed my car and they'd taken my home and I had to get out of Dallas because I knew they'd put me back in that Texas nuthouse again which I'd been unjustly committed to sometime before and I what they had then they had drive away cars for you where you could, you bring your car down and somebody would say I want my car delivered to Chicago and then they'd find a driver for you and I knew the guy did that so I got a car to go to Los Angeles I got as far as El Paso and got drunk with some friends I got to Phoenix and got in a beef with a cop and got put in jail and lost my clothes I lost the car I never could find that and my teeth were gone and I went out of there and went to the A club the next morning hustled some money got to Los Angeles spent a week on the streets and threw it out of the mission and just a few weeks before I'd been something and stood in the street corner and nobody said anything to me that morning I just stood there and I knew that there was somebody told me there was an A club at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax wherever the hell that was I found where that was And I said, where's Wilshire and Fairfax? You always say Wilshire. It's all the way down here. You have to go up here to Hill Street, but over to Wilshire then West. I did that. I walked and walked and walking. This rain is 72 blocks. I counted later in my car some years later. And I got to this club, but I didn't want to go in there with a bunch of AA fanatics and goofs and crazinesses and God. But I had to get out of that rain. And I went in that... A woman in New York City asked me one time, how could you possibly walk that far when you were so sick and desperate and of course the answer is very simple we all know it that's the only time you can you could do it no other time but when you're sick and desperate enough you'll do what you gotta do and I hung around that damn club and it was just tedious because it was full of these same idiots I've been listening to for years work the steps go to a lot of meetings turn it over to God I don't know anything more lugubrious than an intelligent slipper having to listen and talk about AA. And I hung around there. That night there was a meeting and I ate about four pounds of cake and somebody talked about gratitude and I almost puked it up again and you're still reading I had no place to sleep and the guy said there's an old abandoned Mercury in the parking lot can you park it down? Let me sleep in an abandoned car. Yeah, that's right. Good. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Next morning I went to the club to have a spiritual meeting it was Sunday morning I ate about four pounds of cake and there's some more of this crap in that afternoon I just went crazy in the afternoon that is a meeting kept raining and went to bed that night in a bad and kind just put on for days I remember thinking maybe I'm dead maybe my grandmother was right this is what happens if you marry a Catholic you just spend their eternity listening to idiots talk about AA I had no idea then or thereafter that would be my sobriety didn't want it to be, had no desire for it to me. I got sober a lot of times where I wanted to be sober. I can think about that when I was talking a little while ago about this, talking about some people get stopped if you have a good enough reason. I had a good enough reason one night I was in jail in the mid 50s early 50s and I never went to jail as a big fella I get in jail overnight you know how I get into jail overnight because I'm stupid every time I drink enough I challenge cops I don't know why I do it it's just a bad habit come on you blue belly son of a bitch come on stupid but I was in jail this one night again I'd go out in the morning and they had to come down and tell me gee we couldn't find you last night your little son died while you were off drunk and I felt so bad because I had a bunch of little girls and one little boy and when he died just as though the light went out and I thought so bad Oh, God, that felt bad. And they let me out of jail and I went home and I still remember that weekend like it happened a couple months ago. I remember sitting in the living room, our living room Sunday before the funeral on Monday with my two brothers-in-law and my father-in law and nobody said an unkind word to me. He said, can we get you some more coffee, can I see your pop or something? But you could just see their eyes. You dirty son of a bitch. They're smiling. and the next day when I buried my little son I put my hands surreptitiously on his casket I said John this will never happen again in our lifetime I swear to you son I won't and I stopped drinking right there and I went back to work shortly thereafter usually when I stop drinking something happens it's almost as though I stop drink for a little while and one day I get up in the morning and there's a spring in my gut and every from then on it's just a matter that gets tighter you get more and more nervous more and more intense and eventually you drink because drinking is the only thing I know gets rid of that pressure when you're young it's not bad because you know you can say I'm going on the wagon now baby no more for me then you go off for a while and one day the spring is back you get in bed well I'm on the wagon that's okay but when you get older it gets worse because now you have to start promising people you've got to start promising your family or your judge or your employer or something but I didn't have to promise anything when my son died I was off and I had no desire to drink I felt so sorry he died but I had a good feeling that he hadn't died in vain this would change my life and then one morning sometime later much to my chagrin I got up one morning and there was that damn spring and then it just started to get bad because a little more tense a little more nervous every day. Not only all the bad feelings of discomfort, restlessness, now the self-pity. My little boy is gone and they ask me out. Nobody understands how I feel. My little daughters who I was doing it for, their noise made me crazy. Mary, take your sister to go to your room. Let daddy alone. I'm sorry. We'll play tomorrow. The job I liked, I didn't like it anymore. That city in Texas, I hated that city. And I needed a couple drinks just to ease off. but I wound my son's casket and what do you do then and I went day after day like this one day my wife took the children and went to mass and I put the car in the garage and hooked up a hose and exhaust pipe and turned on the motor and went asleep and died I didn't know what else to do I just couldn't stand it and a neighbor happened to be watching us next door out of his window kitchen window I guess wondering what the old crazy bastard was doing down there heard the motor running and I didn t come out and he ambled over there and found me dead in the car he pulled me out and beat my chest rushed me in the hospital oxygenated me examined me at length determined I was seriously mentally ill and committed me to the state insane asylum nothing on my commitment paper said alcohol it said schizophrenia paranoia nothing with alcohol now that's how I get when I stop drinking folks stopping drinking doesn't help people with my emotions there's something wrong deeper inside of me I should say in passing I was there about two weeks I started to feel better and I thought well whatever's happened to me I shouldn't be in here and some big rube said better not try to run away from this hospital boy that gave me an idea it took me about two weeks to find out how to get through a door and across the yard and over the fence and I was gone and then I discovered it's an escape-proof hospital I'll tell you I don't know if you've ever been in West Texas but you suddenly realize they can see you running for three days times when the field glasses came out well there goes that little young son of a bitch now they gave me electric shock treatments for the next four months when you get that you don't run much after that what's your name boy ask them at the desk I think they know and you know how I got out of there because an old guy named Les Ross in Big Spring, Texas, put in the first experimental alcoholic warden of the state of Texas in that hospital. By the time I had enough sense back, and I realized he was an AA, and I played him like a zither, and i got out of there as a recovered alcoholic. And I never had another drink until I ran out of Thorazine. But that's how I get when I stop drinking, boy. That's not a drinking problem. And I stopped my drinking. It wasn't going to help me. I offered to tell, why would I Why would I stop this time? I'll tell you something. You know, there are authorities in Alcoholics Anonymous. We all know about it. When they have conventions in New York, they bring in speakers from California and Chicago and Texas. When we have conventions In California, we bring in Speakers from New York and Chicago And Texas. When they Have Conventions In Texas, They bring in Speaker From New York And California. I mean, the further away you come, The bigger authority you are. I'm a kind of a minor authority in Toronto Canada, I'm happy to say I go there every February and in the morning I talk about like the traditions or the steps or history of AA in the afternoon we have a question answer meeting and at night I tell my story well a couple years ago and I kind of like that because I discovered I have a facility to kind of on these question answer meetings to weave a tapestry of BS while I think of the answer I was talking a few years ago, and some woman in the back said, Clancy, I have a question. If you don't mind, I wouldn't like one of your long answers. She said, every year we hear about how long you slept and how terrible it was. And now you've been sober forever and how wonderful it is. What was the difference? What changed it? Just did a sentence or two, not some long story. What was it? I had to explain to her I can't possibly tell you that in a sentence or two it's much too complex, I wanted to go back and slap her is what I wanted to do. But I'm too nice a guy really is what it is you know, and I thought God what a rotten she shouldn't even be in here she doesn't know spirituality when she sees it that night I was taking a shower before the meeting and an answer came but it's a crappy little answer I didn't like it I like answers with a little panache a little zip if there are new people here tonight I'd like to have them leave and say things like did you hear what Clancy said? wet birds don't fly at night did you hear what Clancy said never mind if the horse is blind keep loading the wagon these answers mean nothing but they give the newcomer hope The answer I thought of was such a tedious, tawdry little thing. This was the first time I ever felt so bad that I began taking actions I did not believe in and I thought were stupid. I didn't do it to stay sober. I did it just so I wouldn't get thrown out of that club. And I wound up allowing people who weren't qualified to do it to tell me what to do. And I hated myself because I thought I'm selling out for the little bit I got left. For example, there wasn't any styrofoam cups in those days. Just porcelain. Every meeting had porcelaine cups. Everybody had to wash tissues afterwards. Every guy said, you, without the teeth, do you want to have washed tissues tonight? If I had any strength left on it, I'd say, no, I don't want to wash dishes tonight or tomorrow night or ever. How do you like that? Instead, I found myself saying, mm-hmm, mm-hm, mm. God, I hated myself for that. Hey, you, Slim, you want to help us set up the meeting? Why don't you sweep the patio? And gee, it was just terrible. I slept in an abandoned car and these people ordered me around and eat cake mainly at meetings. Once in a while somebody would buy me a malted milk across the street. And eventually I stayed sober a while. I didn't want to stay sober. It was hideous. I get a feeling a little better, but it wasn't their fault. And then you get to the next step, of course, which if you're sober at all, the next steps is that they go, time to get a sponsor! And I'd had sponsors over the years. I'd have some good sponsors. I'll tell you, if you are new and you are thinking about getting a sponsor, be very careful, because no matter how nice they appear, they all want to stick their nose in your business. Nice to see this actor come into the movies and I mean he was seen in the movies he always played loving roles uncles and brothers-in-law gave people money and took care of them and he was not he's just a character he's not a star but he's and I see him coming out of the club my funny one day I said that's going to be my new sponsor I'll get some money from him I'll go to New York I'll give him I'll buy some front teeth I'll Get Some Clothes I'll Go On Top I'll Come Back and Buy This Club and Burn It That's What I'll Do I Said Bob Would You Be My Sponsor I Guess I Kind Of Want But You Have he says alright kid but I want you to do what I say oh sure Bob I want sobriety on an all time basis I've often thought about that I look back and think that guy should have won the academy award for every loving role he ever played in the movies because they were foreign to his nature I'll tell you he turned out to be a right wing fascist AA pig I felt like Quasimodo can I ring the bell now Bob and I used to wonder why I would take that crap from that guy because my stock in trade as an adult maybe some of you had this feeling I don't take crap from anybody that's my stocking trade as a adult I've had big jobs that I worked hard to get and somebody gives me too much crap take your job and shove it get yourself another boy I don't know how many nights in bars somebody might say you don't seem to be so much to me you don' t think so you try me and I get knocked on my can a lot but they know I'm tough and I don' take crap this guy gave me crap that you can' t believe why would I take that crap you know It's a funny thing. When I was sober, I began to understand why I didn't take any crap from anybody. You know why? Because all of my life, I think I secretly knew that I was a weakling and I hated it. I hated being a, detest being a weaklings and knowing inside of me just like white worms, just a weak. And I would do anything to protect it. Now I would quit jobs. Now I'd fight. I'd do anything. Like in that movie, when I saw the movie Back to the Future with that kid it was your chicken and he would do whatever they said and that's the way I was the irony of AA is this you stay here long enough you do this stuff that you'll hear about this weekend and eventually you get strong and then you can afford to be weak but you can't afford to be weak when you're weak it's a funny thing but why did I take that crap from this guy because I'll tell you I hate, you know who I like I like people who like me. I have no respect for them. I think they're stupid, but I like them. I hate people who can see through me because they know I'm a phony and I hate it! And this guy could see through me and knew I was a phoney and I hated him! But he also liked me. And I did things to win that old fool's approval I wouldn't have done for my father or my employer or for baby Jesus. I wouldn'T do it for anybody. just to win his approval little by little. And eventually I stayed sober on the actions of alcoholics. I was never even intended to. I mean, he had no sense of understanding. I'd say, Bob, I'm living in an abandoned car. I'm wearing these old clothes. I used to be something. Look at me, Bob. I'm hungry much of the time. What am I going to do? He said, get a job. I said, Jesus. Look how terrible I look. He said. Get a terrible job. I followed that direction to a T, I'll tell you. But I got jobs. I got fired because I had a smart mouth. I think one of the great turning spots in my life came, and you were just talking about it earlier tonight. When I was about six months sober, I'd been living on a guy's sofa, and his wife made me leave because I'd put out a few cigarettes under the sofa. Most of them I'd pop the ashtray. She was a snot. And I'm temporarily back sleeping in that abandoned car again, briefly, just between engagements. And a guy named Mike Ross got me a job as a dishwasher at the Gated Alcatraz, and I got fired at that after two days. And I thought, I might as well be dead. Six months, and then I might As well be Dead. I decided to just walk in the ocean and kill myself. The reason I had seen that was a star is born. I liked the way that guy killed himself. So I walked, going to walk to the ocean. And I walked and walked and couldn't find the ocean, Jesus. and I stopped and the guy said where's the ocean pal he said well you're in western Beverly Hills you have to go past the veterans hospital about another five miles oh screw that I'm not going to do that and I'll call up my sponsor I hated to call him because he didn't like to hear bad news if I told him I was fired he'd be crossed I thought to myself I used to be an award winning writer I'll tell him a story that is so touching and sad and poignant that even he will realize that this is not just a run of the mill guy he's got here. And he'll come down and say, I misunderstood you, son. Let me help you. And I call him up. Hello, Bob. This is Clancy. Why aren't you working? Never mind. Let me explain something to you, Bob, you know. I know I've lost my family, and I'll never see them again. I've loss my career and all these things. I can accept that. But there's something you don't know, Bob because I've never told you. Would you ask how many A's go to a place where I'm going make fit in. Bob, I don't fit in AA. I go to meetings and people don't even want to sit next to me. And I go out and sit in the club and have a cup of coffee. They get up and leave. People tell their newcomers to stay away from me and I just like to kiss to death on them. Nobody calls on me in participation meetings and they called me once and maybe never called on me again. People laugh behind my back. Then somebody struck me. This is all true. God, I burst into tears. I said, Bob, what am I going to do? What am I gonna do? Write your damn inventory the way I told you. And I just told him the week before, I've taken my inventory of the psychiatrist. Why would I want to take it with an out-of-work actor, for God's sake? What's he gonna do, sir? Cut, we'll take that again. Cut, you know, crap. I said Bob, you don't understand. In my judgment, that's the last thing in the world I need. My God, I'm so full of remorse and regret that I've lost everything and no one left me. Bob, in my judgment I need something much more intense than some writing of my sins down. And he explained that to me. He said, in your judgment? Who cares about your judgment you're living in an abandoned car for Christ's sake. If I wanted your judgment I'd put my head in the back window and ask you for it. He said you're a loser you're not a loser God, my heart got going I walked out of there it's a good thing I turned left if I'd turned right I'd have been in the ocean I said, Solomon give me some paper I'm writing my inventory and I wrote he gave me a pad I wrote stuff I was so upset I wrote terrible stuff I wrote pages I got all done I felt better because I proved it didn't work but that was the end of that and I jammed it on the car seat of my man car and I felt alright again a couple days later he came by and said well get in the car take your inventory I said no Bob I'm not ready for that shut up he explained we got in the car and he gave me a flashlight and he drove from Santa Monica to Oxnard about 40 miles and he says read it and it really read even worse than I remembered it just terrible stuff a guy asked me one time why don't you tell your psychiatrist these things it's very simple, when you're paying that kind of money you can't risk rejection you did what sir? get out of my office but first wash off that chair and we got to Oxnard and I felt so bad and I thought God he's going to make me walk back I remember I said well that's all Bob you done now? that's the best thing you've done since you got sober kid And I said, thought it was. I've taken that same trip over 200 times since then on the driver's side and some other puke over there with a flashlight. Let me explain this part before I read it. and the amazing thing to me has always been in my experience that all good alcoholics inventories are the same they contain the same elements widely divergent specifics but they all contain lack of self worth fear guilt terrible resentments and occasional lashing out at the world to punish them for hurting me and say, you know, a few years ago I listened to a daughter of one of the most famous men in the 20th century and four days later a guy just out of the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. Same inventory. Specifics entirely different with the same emotions. That's one of things that helped me to understand finally that's what makes AA so effective for people like you and me. It works at a level that I cannot judge or understand. It's way down beneath that. And it's that way all over. Now I know Joe and Charlie have been they've traveled all over the world and I've been sober a long time so I've been asked to come and speak at a lot of places in the last few years I've been asked to speak in places like Cape Town and Durban and Johannesburg and I was in Oslo last year and London and Bristol and Dublin and Belfast and Berlin and Paris I was an Australian for a week you'd think you'd really find exotic AA in all these places but except for the accidents you hear the same feelings and same emotions you hear right here. That's why Joe and Charlie's big book study is so effective all over the works, is dealing with the same book, dealing with a lot of different things. Dealing with the very same emotions that all of us have, that we all have always thought made us unique and different. If we are different at all, it is because we are so similar. And that's such a hard thing to understand. And you don't find that out by thinking your way through, it's by doing the things and taking the actions and doing the inventory and making the amends certainly where those 12 promises are. and little by little I took those emotions and did the actions my emotions didn't do very well I wasn't a very good newcomer member but eventually I stayed sober much to my surprise I had little jobs finally got inside the little apartment I had of my very own with a little hot plate I loved that and I was two years sober finding out a job as a writer someone took a chance on me as awriter in a medical corporation I still didn't have any front teeth but I'd stashed a little money I sent money to my kids my stash of money too. I said, I've got some front teeth money, Bob. I'm going to get it and go hit that company. He said, you've got front teeth, buddy. Why don't you send that to your kids? Jesus, Bob! They all got front teeth. He said they've got a crappy father too. Send them the damn money. So I sent them the money and I went to work at this company holding my lip like this. They didn't know I didn't have front teeth. They thought I'd been burned in a fire, I guess. But I went to work every day, and my sponsor and sister did that, and I learned some great lessons. I learned Some Great Spiritual Lessons There. And I want to tell you some great spiritual AA lessons. Now, what do you think? What are the spiritual AA Lessons? Meditation, love of God. Yeah, they're all good. But let me tell you something else that's even more daily. Do what you said you would do. Be where you said you would be when you said you wouldn't be there. Don't take out your hostility on people who can't answer back children employees waiters and waitresses on days you know you're having a bad day watch that damn mouth because you can just cut people to ribbons and never have i don't know what happened and on and on i never could do those lessons very well but i tried but then was five years sober as a advertising manager that big corporation i had front teeth then. I smiled. If you're new, they say, you know, the book says we are like men who have lost their front teeth. We never grow new ones. Yes, you do. When I was seven years sober, another guy and I were brought to Hollywood, and we cried something called Boss Radio. It became the number one hard rock station in the world. We all wore shiny suits and said things like, what's coming on down, baby? I was 10 years sober. I was downtown doing public relations for oil companies. 15 years sober, I was a marketing director at Beverly Hills. And I was five years sober with the same wife and all those children had their crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to a post office box in Dallas. Leaped out of their post officebox, fled to my side. nine months and ten seconds later another Catholic hit the street thank God somebody got me a metronome then I got to do the rhythm system it beats coitus interruptus or whatever it is they call it now they're all grown up my youngest kid is 35 three of my daughters are in AA all turning 11 this year we were all together at the international convention two weeks ago and we all participated in the same meeting. And only one of my kids has ever turned bad. She's become a district attorney. We had so hoped she'd be a public defender, but no. But we all, you know, I live in West L.A. with the same wife. Been married many years now. A lot of years, 51 or something. and the other thing I should say is that you have to be careful sometimes A can change your opinion too much when I was 15 years old I was working in Beverly Hills and doing very well in some hideous fit of do-gooderism, I found myself leaving that job and for the last 26 years I run the mission on Skid Row that threw me out in 1958 and people said why are we going to give up your great career and not try to run that damn mission like I told him at dinner I can never think of a good answer for that while there was such a significant decrease in salary, I thought it was spiritual it's not a treatment center, we're way below that we're just watching people die and trying to keep them alive nothing at all to do but it's an interesting thing isn't that fine? now I live very comfortably I'm in that same position that you always hear speakers in I used to be down and out and now I'm wonderful and don't you wish you were that is really seems like the message but all of this has just been an introduction to a five minute talk this has been a long introduction we're not here yet but there might be some people who are kind of new at night and you may wonder well that's very interesting another success story of Jesus like that woman in Toronto but when did this guy ever become an alcoholic he was an alcoholic when he drank he was not an alcoholic when he got sober. Now, all of a sudden, he's an alcoholic. What do you do? Go to Al-Anon and catch it? What do I do? And the reason I knew I couldn't be an alcoholic, I'm sure some of you had this feeling, my problem is not alcohol. It is what I'm drunk, but that isn't it. My feelings are much deeper than that. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink because i'm a feeler, because I think too much, I guess. And I have a couple drinks and that makes it better. Sometimes I drink too much and people say your problem is alcohol, but it isn't. I'm glad that I survived long enough here for the worst of motives to discover something that book says. It says my problem is not alcohol. In fact, I think it's safe to say if your problem was alcohol, you're in the wrong place. Now doesn't that sound a little weird? But I can, seems to me there's proof of that. I can prove that in five seconds. If alcohol is the problem, detoxes turn out recovered people. And they don't. Treatment centers turn out recovered people, jails, hospitals, they don t. They turn out sober people with varying amounts of information about what may be wrong with them. But I ll guarantee if they be of our type, unless something dramatic happens after that, sooner or later they must always eventually drink again. Well, if the problem isn t alcohol, was it? Is it something the old timers are keeping from us? It's just like Scientology. You have to buy new videos or tithe your income or something. No? Everyone in this room and every newcomer that comes in, A, almost knows what's wrong. They don't know what it is. It's something called alcoholism. You say, well, that's the same thing. Alcohol, alcoholism, that'S stupid. Well, I'll guarantee you that's The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Learn, almost here. there's a tremendous difference I'll guarantee if you be of our type the day will come when your sanity and existence will depend on remembering the difference so what's the difference? well, you could talk about that for two hours but let's put it in one sentence for tonight an alcohol problem is overcome by stopping drinking and cleaning up your act however in this strange peculiar thing called alcoholism which unfortunately for you and me often looks exactly the same to the naked eye. This mind-consuming, perception-distorting, bodily-eroding, eventually fatal thing called alcoholism. You'll discover that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no significant long-term effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't stand it. But even that doesn't make you an alcoholic. One other thing must be present. You must be one of the 6 or 7 or 8 percent or whatever. Nobody knows exactly of people who get an unnatural reaction to alcohol. So that should be easy to figure out. What's this unnatural reaction to alcohol? Well, you go to meetings, you think, well it's people that stay drunk all the time. Nah. That is the unnatural reaction. In fact, nobody can stay drunk all of the time they say they do but no human body can stay drunk two weeks. Well, it makes you act crazy. I heard the speakers, they're all in the nut house, they all in jails and prisons Some people act that way and some people don't. I see people die today who have never acted crazy once and they're dead at my feet. I feel like saying, gee, you haven't acted crazy enough to die. So what is this unnatural effect? It's something I never would have guessed for 10,000 years. It isn't what alcohol does to you at all. Just the opposite. It turns out alcohol has to do something special for me that it doesn't do for most people. And if it doesnít do that for me, it will never do anything to me because when it starts to get bad I'll quit but what must it do for me it must have the unnatural ability to almost instantly alter my perception of reality it must almost instantly change my relationship to the world around me it must always instantly make me taller and more self-contained and damn smaller and less threatening to me and if it does that I don't know anything in the world better they can talk all they want about narcotics I've been working with addicts for 25 years. I'm not an addict, but I know a great deal about addiction. I know about heroin and the great euphoria it gets. And I know eventually you don't get there anymore, so you have to take more and more. Heroin addicts always die from overdoses when they die. And eventually it gets so bad they sometimes go in the hospital and kick so they can get out and get their body fresh to get that feeling again. Cocaine addict is this great thing. It's supposed to be such a wonderful thing. Now so much of it is crack cocaine, this terrible goddamn stuff. People, I see them die around me all the time on Skid Row. But there's a great feeling of euphoria. But eventually it's a speed drug and the side effects of speed drug are always the same, growing paranoia, growing restlessness, discontent, terrible addiction. Eventually your body starts to go, and alcohol doesn't do that. Alcohol, for people like me, fills the holes and makes everything all right. Maybe at the end it gets pretty bad, but for a long time I can justify it. And I know that alcohol isn't the problem, it's these damn holes I've got to fill. And there's no social acceptance of cocaine or heroin, but there's social acceptance of drinking because you don't understand. And this great thing it does for me, and there's only one thing wrong with it, if it does that for me sooner or later I have to come to depend on it to get me away from untenable sobriety. And one day it gets to be a problem. Then I'm going to try to quit. But now sobriery, as bad as it was before, is a little bit worse because I haven't taken care of that. and I tried for a while but eventually I have to drink but I can't keep drinking so I eventually have to get sober and I can not stay sober so I got to drink and that is called alcoholism and today in America where there is more sobriety than any place in the history of the world it is estimated that about 95% of alcoholics still die drunk I think it is safe to say a number of people in this room will die drunk not because A doesn't work but because my mind will work me out of it My sponsor, Bob, told me that. And I thought, this old bastard is trying to frighten me. But a few years later when I saw him withdraw from AA and eventually drink and die drunk, he proved it to me. It's not that I'm going to try to spook anybody or scare anybody. That's just the fact of life. And that's why it's important for people like me, and you, I suppose, if you're of our type. If you're here, I propose you are. To come to understand that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a place to get sober or shape up. There's a series of conditions you do here little by little that keep you sober. I have seen bank robbers in AA stay sober who are actively robbing banks, but they're working with newcomers and going to meetings. I don't know if this is a comfortable sobriety, but they were staying sober. They finally got busted in a meeting in West L.A. Cops came and said, are you? What have you been doing? Robbing banks? I wasn't sharing it with us, sumbitch. As it turns out, there's an old thing about philosophy that really is true about AA. It says in philosophy, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And I think in AA you almost say the only things necessary for the triumph for alcoholism is for the good men to do anything. To do nothing, not to do any bad things. You just don't have to. I think the best way to describe it I don't want to get out of here, of course, but it seems like most of us want to live with some balance in our lives. I always think of it as balance. And people like me, over a period of my early years, on this side of the scale, a big black hideous thing gradually formed and just... I found that drinking made the scale disappear for a while. But then you get sober again and now it's a little bit worse. And you go to AA finally, it's just so bad. Look what's happening over here. Oh, just ignore that. We won't worry about that. Yes, you will. Work on the other side of this cow. There's nothing wrong with this one. This one's got a big thing on it. Oh, it's just... If you get desperate enough, then okay, what do you want me to do? They give you a little bucket called actions and a little spoon. And eventually you keep doing this. One day that damn old swing starts to move. And you just... God, it is great. I feel good again. Oh, it's wonderful. And the only sad thing is through some celestial prank, there's a tiny hole on this side. Every time you get that baby ready, oh God, it was just wonderful. I'm so grateful. Oh, Jesus Christ. And if you don't do it far enough, you don' t have to do anything bad. You just have to stop doing that. And one day, because that thing never goes away. You have to, one day you're down again. It's an amazing thing. I look over my life, what AA's allowed me to do live with some degree of dignity come to believe in a God that loved me much to my surprise my first higher power was my sponsor for a year and a half and then AA eventually I listened to enough guys did enough things so I could remember fight with fear praying to God one night my little partner saying thanks for God's people give me some no lightning bolt I've come to be that God loves me and he loves me no more than you and no less than you. When I go to work in the morning, I do something that none of you do. I'll do it Monday morning. I step over the bodies of dying men and women to get to my office. When i go home at night, I step on the bodies of dying man and women get to home. But why doesn't God love them? I believe God does love them as much as he loved me when I was there. But they do not. They have not decided to surrender their will to a different way of life. So it isn't really anything so mystic or mysterious. It just is a matter of surrender. You talked about that today at length in this meeting you talked about inventory tomorrow you'll talk about making amends and getting to the more spiritual aspects of the final steps but it really boils down to this I suppose what makes the cornerstone of AA structure in my life, it took me a long time to realize doing what ought to be done when it ought to be done no matter how you feel that is the final backstop against anything and some of the great gratifications and none of us have become wonderful or perfect I must say this morning at 6 o'clock I sat in that plane in Chicago and the guy behind me was sick and I'm sitting with these two fat people and I can't get a cup of coffee I said to myself, isn't it a wonderful day? well I don't remember saying that exactly I said something that offended everybody around me but you know that's part of life the goal of I think sometimes in the morning I don't want to go down to Skid Row anymore I don' t want to see those dying people I don''t want to do that anymore but I go home at night and I feel like I've done more than I ever did going down those elevators from Beverly Hills popping my fingers and if you're kind of new I don'T want to give you the wrong impression even if you go to AA even if we take these actions under duress whatever you take them even if you do these things we can't guarantee you that in 15 years you can have your own mission there's only so many missions to go around I got mine but we can guarantee you I think that you may live with a degree of dignity and you'll walk straight into the world and you won't have to look over your shoulder and see who's catching up and you've come to discover whatever pain it took a guy asked me one time looking back over your life what would you change I thought about that a lot. And the answer was, I wouldn't dare change a thing because every one of them seems to be necessary to get me standing here tonight safe and sane and sober. And when the guy asked me that question, why don't some people stay sober? I mean, why don'T some people need AA? Why can'T they stay sober ? I didn't want to give that long answer. So he asked me some other questions I could answer. And we went on about it. But I think about that A lot. I thought About that A Lot. Why do some people Stay sober here and some people Don't? because they are not willing to make the surrender. And that's what we are here to do, to help one another do that. And I very much appreciate your kindness. Thank you. Thank you very much. Wait a minute. Since the chairman does not choose to get back up, You are dismissed.