At Fifty Years Sober I Don’t Have Issues—I Have Subscriptions 🤣 — Eddie W.

I am an alcoholic. For a few meetings that I came to, I didn't even know what that meant. My definition of an alcoholic, for those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I can never safely ever take another drink of alcohol. I have a sponsor. I am a sponsor. I have a home group. My sobriety date is 6-16-1961. On March the 1st, I will have been married 60 years to my high school sweetheart. Just to show you don't have to be part of your recovery. I was very little part of that marriage for a long time. We got married for better or worse. I got all the better. She got all the worse. I'm going to do this a little backwards. I'm going to tell you about the first drink that's insignificant. March the 13th. I was in the nine-month run. We had a little bar that was 15 miles from my house. In a little place called Wilsona in the Mojave Desert. Now there was a group that gathered around there, generally three women. They all knew what to do to get free beer and we kept them drunk. I took one of them home one night because she didn't have a car. She was afraid she'd step on one of the ten kids in the living room. So I helped her get to her bed. The next day when I seen her, she had calamine lotion from one end to the other. And I said, what's that? She says, I was too tired yesterday to take a bath before I came down to the bar. So I just put on calamine lotion. Well, if any of you know what that is, that's for, we used it for poison ivy, poison oak. She would have glowed in the dark if I would have looked. The next night, same crowd. In those desert bars, they were generally 10 to 15 miles apart. We drank that night until 2 o'clock. Took a six-pack to get home on. Now it was 12-ounce cans. I don't know where the 16-ounce cans come from the next morning. But I was back to the bar about 9.30 because they opened at 10. I threw a Marine Corps blanket over the rock that was sitting there. And I started reading the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here come the barmaid. And she wanted to hear, so I read out loud a little bit. I reached down and I kicked over her 16-ounce can of Lucky Lager. And she says, what are you doing? Get off the blanket. I'm leaving. Well, where are you going? I'm going to find an AA meeting. And if you want to ever see me again, that's where you'll find me. That's been true. Now, nine months prior, this date, I found a little ad in the paper that says, if you think you're having a problem with alcohol, call this number. I called it, and the first guy that introduced himself was a guy by the name of Loren Satt. Long since dead. He's retired. The only thing he asked me once, he said, are you being sick and tired of being sick and tired? There was nothing else. If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, come to my house. Well, that was halfway to the bar, so I was able to make that in quick time. I opened the refrigerator to offer me a cold drink, and there was a six-pack of beer in there. Well, this kind of set me to wondering about being able to make it seven days. Bought a half pint, drank a half of it before the meeting and a half after. These were loners. They were all people that was past 65 at that time. They had a roving meeting. And they met at different houses one day a week. Now, one guy claimed to have been in the federal penitentiary. And I says, for what? Stealing cigarettes. Well, you don't go to the federal pen for stealing cigarettes. He says, you do if it's a carload at the time. So I'm associated with people that's twice my age at the very best. But when I became, well, later on I went to that, they ended up putting me on some Giggle pills. They couldn't keep me in the bed. I was reading the book of alcoholics and I was on the line, long to anybody that didn't listen to me. When I got out, they took me off the pill. I bought two tall cans from Lucky. Nine months later my average consumption was a case and a half, a tall once and a half pint. Now, there's a lot of you in here I can't tell about the, the craves when they set in. But I can tell you that if somebody had come in here, cut your gut open and the rats was eating at it then you know what it's like to need a drink i've drank all kinds of things to stop the shakes stop the agony of the shakes and not listen to that half of the brain that says one will take care of it i've drank gasoline and milk i've drank extracts i've gone to the garbage can where i threw everything out the night before tried to drain stuff out of the cans just to get it out and i i don't know what's that one of mine but she'd always drain the vacuum cleaner bag right on top of this stuff so you were sifting soap between your teeth just to stop her was it just back then yeah i came from one when they began to tell me about god i thought well here we go people in the family that was in the masonic lodge here we go another gone non-drinking organization that's not really got a whole lot to offer you incidentally i'm a 32nd degree mason in the shrine i had to find out what they had as well you walk into a little meeting when i go back i took the tall can over and i went back and called warren's hat and i said what do i do he said well there's a new meeting started in lancaster younger folks and i think you might stand a chance three people at that meeting that are still sober one i'm with 54 years one of them with 51 years and we had a gal that tried so hard she finally got her so daddy in 73 she married three members before that you always like to get a 12-step call when it was her on the other end i've always wondered something maybe somebody can answer it before we leave here tonight why when you go out on a 12-step call do they age? do they age? beans the night before. You know, my car has been saturated, the side of the car. I mentioned that the meeting was younger folks. We had the old-timer with five years, his sponsee that had three. There was a lady there that had about a year and a half. She never did tell her story. But everybody else was in their first year. We didn't have somebody to tell us about the book. At chapter three, we read chapter five. We had donuts and coffee and then we went into the meeting. And we discussed things like books. Okay, you're not okay, but it's okay. We read poetry. But if you weren't to a meeting, you got six phone calls by 8.30, well, that's a lie, by 10 o'clock because the meeting ran from 8.30 to 10. As to why you weren't there. Now, that was terribly hard for somebody trying to date and stay sober at the same time. Because the phone calls would beat me home invariably. The next place that we moved was 18 months later. There was one AA meeting in town that I was able to scratch the people up that had been going to it. There was three of us. So I'm 18 months older. I'm the one with seniority. Now, there wasn't just a whole lot of things that we could tell. The gal was kind of an extrovert. She wasn't a professional, except she didn't take money for it. The guy was a drummer that didn't go on 12-step calls after 8.30 at night. In six years, I took 210 12-step calls, sometimes three at night. I don't know if December 1 of them ever stayed sober in that first group, but I did. I decided to start a contracting business. An office manager came to me and she says, I have a very dear friend that's in the United States. I said, I'm in the psychiatric hospital and they want meetings here. Would you go talk to the psychologist? I went to talk to the psychologist. We started two meetings a week with the understanding that he didn't tell me how to run a meeting. I wouldn't tell him how to run the hospital. He says, you can have my office. And if you outgrow that, you can have the rec room. If you outgrow that, I went to college. Well, he was a liar. Because we outgrew the rec room in a hurry. I went to him and I said, you know, you can have two rec rooms side by side. We can take a petition out between the two of them. And I'll do the electrical work I was contracting. We'll fix it up first class for you. And we did. The best period of recovery that hospital ever had. The medication, I'd tell him to throw it away. He'd call me up and yell at me for telling him to throw it away. Finally, the agreement we came to was, you let me have it for three days. Up their stomach, whatever was necessary. You can have it for six months. You can have it for six months. You can have it for six months. And if they're not sober, I get them back. Every time I speak, I look around and I see the empty seats. That lady that was responsible for me starting that meeting, last time I talked to her, I said, don't ever call again. I'm going to drink myself until I die. And she did. Alcoholic convulsions. It's not a pretty sight. Every time I hear somebody say that, I think I've got a drink left in me, but I don't know if I have a sobriety. What the hell is the matter with you? I send out approximately 10,000 emails a year to people with AA anniversaries. I got one back this week, and the gal said, oh, I had an awful problem with my life, so I had to drink. Three months later, I had to drink again. Two months later, I had to drink again, and I'm just now sober. What is it, the message that we're not getting out? I think, perhaps, we don't tell enough about the disease. There is absolutely nothing in this world that I can think of, and I've offered it, and I'll offer it tonight. If anybody can tell me what a drink will make better, I'll go have a drink with you. I'll put you back up. You come into AA, and you say, this will carry me through everything. That's one side of your brain. The other one says, Ralph, we can probably go back to recovery. I have had four kinds of cancer. I have lost a business. I went to the United California Bank for four years in a row. Four full years to get them in court once. I lost a fleet of trucks. And when I went to Mayo Clinic, and they was going to cut my leg off at the hip, the guy says, we might be able to save it. And I said, well, if you don't leave me a stud, because I've already started designing a wooden leg. What is the matter with you? Hey, I have a program. It tells me to accept what I cannot change. And the courage to know the difference. Every doctor in Mayo Clinic knew me because I was a smartass. I went in for radiation, and the gal, the head doctor there, Dr. Fish, says to the addict, I beg your pardon, I associate her with fish. I said, when you're all through with me, will I be able to dance? And she says, that's our goal. And I said, thank God, because I never could dance. She never spoke to me again. I had a friend in L.A. that went in for radiation, and he says, oh my God, to me, I'm going to lose my hair. He looked like Jack that day. He didn't have a hair on his head to start with. The doctor got pissed off. Pardon my language. I don't accept that from people talking to the podium. I'll try to contain myself. It's a program. You go to the meetings. You build your foundation under you with AA. You start drifting away. I made up my mind that I had to have a backup other than AA to change smoked cigars. When I was finally able to kick that habit of chewing for 20 years, I decided that's my backup. Should I ever want a drink, I will smoke a cigar. I so enjoyed them. Do you know how foul and vicious and vulgar a cigar is? After you haven't smoked for 20 years? I mean, the car smell. My car smelled. I wanted a gag. And I thought, well, probably alcohol is the same way. Now, twice in my years of sobriety, I have done that. I called my sponsor one time. We used to give him a dime, and I'd phone over and say, call before you take a drink. I walked into a bar, ordered a beer, called him, and he says, what in the hell are you doing in a bar? How'd you know? Now, think about it. Most bars sound alike. The ones I went into smelled alike. I mean, if you're running out of the trough down through the middle of the place, that wasn't my kind of club. I like to drink in a lot of black bars. There's one reason for that. You get there early, and you buy the first round. You'll never buy another one, because everybody that comes in buys a round. A place in Tulare, California. Have you drank there, Jack? No, I haven't. Had a swinging door, like the old Western bars. When you walked into this bar, the guy at the first stool would tackle you. If he could keep you out, you took the first stool. And it was up to you to bellybutt the next guy that came in. Really quite a fun place. I walked into that bar one night, and I had to go up to your old real bed. I told the bartender, six, double, seven, there. I'll be right back. He came back and downed him, and he says, you must have been thirsty. No, I wanted to get to that level. Remember that level? You get there, and then you maintain it. Then you get to where you can't get drunk, and you can't get sober, and you can't get sick, and you can't get well. I mean, it is a real feeling of accomplishment when you stop shaking. Well, I picked that can over, but that was my last drink. I didn't know what I had to do to maintain it. In my heart, that there would never be another drink. Now, again, I don't play with it. My granddad used to say they farmed amongst a bunch of Mennonites, and they wouldn't eat pork. But if they got to your house, they'd eat all the pork gravy. So he'd say they didn't eat the devil, but they drank the broth. I do not eat rum cake. Knowingly, I take nothing with alcohol in it. I mean, put the name of dog crap in where you read alcohol. On any label, we got some chicken over at Trader Joe's here the other day, and they get, it's cute with sushi, or what do you call it, saki. Well, I don't cook off. You won't take that gamble? I don't. At one time from the podium, I don't use Listerine mouthwash, and one of my sponsors says that's evident. The first convention that I went to was around, up in Bakersfield, California. There were eight of us. One of the girls going to club had three months on me. Her husband was a dentist, and they had the big station wagon. And we went to Bakersfield. At that meeting, we all decided to stop smoking. We ended up on the steps, drunk and passed out. My dad, he wasn't a good out. He was terrible. He was a thimble drinker. One thimble full, and he was not eating a damn fruitcake. Two thimbles full, and he was breaking the, blaming the barfing by the peanuts at the bar. He always got bad peanuts. What is this about us that we don't recognize our disease that we've always got something else we can blame it on? Well, the first guy, we didn't call sponsors in. Not out in the desert. The first guy that told me about the meeting was Lauren again. She says, why do you think you drank? I said, it's my wife. Get rid of her. Probably it's the kids. Don't worry about it. When she leaves, they'll go too. Well, they're not paying me in that. I was taking half the paycheck to drink on. One half. We split the check in half. I used the three kids to make the payments. But I'll tell you, when I quit drinking, I had the best credit of anybody in the world. All of you, it's too young in here, I think, to remember Seaboard Finance. Your friendly, lending neighbor. I would go to Seaboard, borrow a thousand dollars, go pay my debt off a bank of America. When I got behind, go to Seaboard. I had a furniture loan on three boxes and a couple of mattresses for $4,500. That's only cost $14,000. But I'd gone back and forth and back and forth covering up my debt. Sledgehammer on my toe one time and totally almost annihilated a little pinky. Appointment with the doctor went in the nurse had me take my shoe off and sit on the end of the bed. Whatever they call those examining tables. And he walked in and I broke down in tears. I've got to stop drinking. Lock me up. He says, you go back to AA one more time. Well, I'm not ready. Every time I get sober, I go tell him what the cure is for all the drunks that came in and talked to him. So he knew I had been involved. He said, if you go back and don't ache this time, I'll lock you up. Has anybody ever seen the outcome of the surgery? So the veterans coming out of veterans' hospitals in Sepulveda, 36 GM&S patients, general medical research patients, the rest of them are class Q crazy. Gray matter at all. Nothing left of them. Well, you go in for drinking, they give you a handful of pills and send you back on your way. So you've changed one addiction for the other at the best count. I wanted to go there. I've already seen the results. I wanted to stop drinking in the worst kind of a way. I wanted to stop drinking in the worst kind of a way. I wanted to stop drinking in the worst kind of a way. I wanted to stop drinking in the worst kind of a way. And could not control one day of it. One of the young ladies from Lookingbird did and I put it so plainly. She said, just because the monkeys off you back don't mean the circus left town. Another one that I like is saying, I don't have issues anymore, I have subscriptions. When that little guy in your head, now it was easy for me because when I was drinking, the angel said on one shoulder, the love of the devil. on the other, and I talked to them. One night I left my famous little bar in Wilsona two miles down before the road teed off, and at the end of that was boulders bigger than this room. I'm doing 90 miles an hour on a dirt road when I finally realized how close I was getting to Brody Deck. And I looked at the angel and I said, is this that a sign? And you can look two miles away, and there's this little red sign that says beer. Well, God wants me to have another drink. You read the sign, see where you want to. But you remember, when God is silent, he's up to something. He's like a two-year-old. You don't want him to be quiet too long. I tried church again. I tried it very diligently. In fact, I'm an ordained Southern Baptist. What do they call them? Deacons. Love my widow ladies. I mean, man, you take them a little box of candy, they bake you bread for a month. I'm not talking down to it. And I'm not talking down to the affiliation that I had with the Masonic Lodge. Not at all. I learned something from every one of these places. I think it all worked two neighbors for three years before we knew that each other belonged. Neighbors, right across the street. Now, I knew she was good-looking because we're the best women in the world in AA. You know, you clean them up, polish them up, band-aid. We're good. There's so much we can do to improve our program. How good do you want it? Now, I'm pretty well excessive to anything that I do. It's still a trait of mine. We moved out of California to Missouri. I wanted to be a cowboy. So I bought this little seven-acre patch. And I got my two long horns. Well, that was fun. Two weeks later, I bought 14 more. Then I bought a hairdresser. I was 65 when I sold them all off and started registered stock. And I said, I'm going to stop this when I get a national grand champion bull. I was second home the day he won. But I did get him. I go to excess with everything I do. I spend four to six hours a day on AA. I correspond with people all over the world. I mentioned that before. I have a sponsor in New Zealand, one in Sweden. I correspond daily and send articles. I go to Sweden, who comes out in an international blog. I have two friends in India I correspond with. I don't do it to find out about their country. I don't know how they run their meetings. I got a question from one of them one time, and it says we have an outfit moving in, and they use the 12 steps. But they're not AA. What can we do about this? Now, some of you people that's been around a few years have seen several of them come and go. I have. I have an original manuscript. There are only three made from an outfit called Victorious in the Lord. Everything is parallel with the scripture. So, the preacher got a hold of me, asked me to go meet with this guy. He wanted to start a program at our church. We had an 80-year-old guy there that would meet up on his wife before he'd go to bed. So he thought perhaps I could help him out. And that was trying to say, where do you get your sobriety? Alcoholics and non-alcoholics. I said, I promise. What do you got against it? Nothing. Well, why did we reinvent the wheel? AA has stood for a long, long time. Freed. Freed from the drugs, the use of drugs and alcohol. 12 steps. One young lady that used to come in my shop, she had 20 attempts on her life and 22 incarcerations in the meth house. We'd get on to one of our plan benches and roll up. Vice Chair of Emotional Health Anonymous. How many of these programs have you seen start? Charlie Narcotics Anonymous will come back and visit our meetings. Why? What is it we have to get? It's the companionship one with another. The word legacy hadn't even been invented yet. It came in 1964. Our inventory. Not by the book. I have an article that was printed in 1971. It says, we're just now beginning to understand the three column inventory. Clarence Snyder says there's only three phases, admittance, submittance and restitution. Now Bill always took the wiggle room out of everything. He'd tighten the knot a little bit on anything that was working. That's why we had 12 steps instead of six. And I drift into history in a hurry if you let me. I love the history. I studied the history of alcohol. 3000 B.C. The Chinese used to insist that you had two drinks before you made the vote at a meeting. Because it loosened up your thinking. So unless they said they had a problem with a few drinkers. So all the way through life there's been a problem with a few drinkers. One of the groups that came into LA, I was doing, I was doing the Wells Fargo building, downtown LA, a 52-story building. And here come the inspector, and on the back of my hard hat I had Easy Desert. You remember the VA? Yeah. He says, I don't need that. I took the cure. And he carried a picture of himself and his billfold puking in a pan. To remind him that he got sick if he got drunk. Where the hell does this come from? Does anybody need to remind you that you get sick? You get drunk? I do a lot of things. You know, I hear people talking. It'll push me back. Somebody was talking about apple cider the other day. I used to go to the mountains and get the gallon. Let it start working just right. That's pretty mellow. A couple of times I made Buck Sargent in 14 months. It's unheard of. I made Corporal again in 15 months. Because I had to have a false ID to go to town to drink. We decided we weren't going to start our family until I got out of the Marine Corps. And we didn't know what that date was. My son was born at 3 o'clock in the morning. I got discharged at 2 o'clock that afternoon. Now let's see some of the rest of you try that. Coming down across the ridge right out in Bakersfield, California. I was clipping along there pretty good and the cops stopped us. We had an open six pack in the front seat. And he said, What the hell is your hurry? I said, Well, I had a son born this morning at 3 o'clock I haven't seen. I got discharged at 2 o'clock. He said, I'm the only cop between here and Bakersfield. Get the hell out of here. And we went. Things that some of you young folks don't have the opportunity to experience. I used to give the police officers drunk driving lessons. Some of them drank at the house. But this one stopped me one night. He says, My God. Can you still see that straight line? I said, Well, actually, there's two of them there. But the thing you've got to realize is if you close one eye and keep tilting your head, that'll come into focus. He says, Does that really work? Next time he stopped me, he says, That works. Now, we had a boy there in town that was owned by a wrestler. Mean sucker. I don't know how much of that is fake and how much isn't. But he showed me a couple of holes I didn't want to know about. Anyhow, I got there at 6 o'clock when they opened. At 2 o'clock that night, I got stopped by the CHP. And the guy says, Have you been drinking? And I says, Hell, I'm so damn drunk I can't stand up here. Either take me in, lock me up, or let me go. And he says, Well, I see you only live down here a few blocks. Wait till our taillights disappear. We'll go to the left. You go to the right. And be very careful. Don't kill anybody. It's not that way anymore. It cost you $20,000. They want to grab you. I don't think I can afford to drink anymore. Well, the short can of beer is $0.21. The tall can is $0.25. Here and there is a buck and a quarter for a half. I know you sell booze. The nice thing about it is I could mix Moscow mules in the reefer. God, I love those things. Of course, you know what they're like. Nobody smells you. This store was called Fox Market Sin. They had a chain of liquor stores called Tarzano Liquors. I was palming about $20 a night. I mean, it's easy to keep up when everything comes out to a quarter. Called me into the manager's office one day. Said, we want to talk to you about your till. Okay. They said it was off. How much? Ten cents. You've worked with us for three years. That's the first time your till has ever been off a penny. Would you like to be the manager of our liquor store? The manager of our, I think it was 28th Street? 1820? To manage our liquor stores? Now, do you realize what a temptation that was? But I was in the third week of apprenticeship with the electrical local. I felt like I shouldn't give that up. I did not give that up. I said business as I said earlier. Instead of sending my reputation into a tailspin, everybody in the country wanted me. In San Diego, I was running three divisions. We're a very large electrical outfit down there. They called me in one day in front of the board because my expense account was only one-third of what everybody else's was. And I didn't have to buy on booze. And I didn't buy on booze. I didn't buy anybody that worked for me. Won't give it away. Should you have it in your house, that's up to you. Dr. Bob kept it in his house. Drove any nuts. Because somebody might come up about to go into DTs who will have to get them a drink. Well, I found out that Orange Juice and Curl Syrup will do the same trick. You start getting the glucose in them, you're going to save them. If you're not, you're probably just as well if they don't make it. This program, but I think 5% of the people in it do the work. And 5% of the people in it get the food. 5% of the people in it get the total benefit of what AA has to offer. We're building a foundation. We're starting a whole life. The drinking was before. It is not an option. As Bill, I tell everyone, drinking is not an option. Figuring that you might be able to do it again someday. I came in with the idea that my first year of sobriety, I'd go down to Mexico and drink like I wanted to. You know, get you a fifth of creme de coco and walk the streets. Or tequila. I was always trying to catch that worm. It's a journey you go on that has only one end. We used to just talk about it. I adopted the story because I'd heard it someplace. Everything you hear here is something that I've heard before. But about the story about the 800-pound gorilla. On my bulletin board, you will see a picture of it. You will see a picture of an 800-pound gorilla. Because you're walking down the path with your sponsor. And he says, we go to the left here. And he says, yeah. But listen. You hear those girls over there swimming? I know they're skinny dipping. He said, no. We go to the left. Well, I think I'll go look. Well, when he gets over there, it's an 800-pound gorilla. And he beats the hell out of it. And this story goes on. It's a shaggy dog story. It goes on and on. You walk with your sponsees. You walk beside them. You don't push them. You don't lead them. You don't shove them. I had a guy one time say, here's what you're supposed to do. And if it works out, let me know. I'll try it. They took my big book away from me one time. Said, you're reading too much into it. And gave me the gist for today. And I think that comes out of the Al-Anon program. So it's probably a better Al-Anon member. Dress as becomingly as possible. Do something nice for somebody today and not get caught. Find no fault with anybody. For about two years ago, I decided I will find no fault with anybody. I will not criticize. I will not talk about them behind their back and stuff. I'm still trying to get my 10 bays in. That is the hardest task I ever set out for. But I will try it if I've got to lock myself in a room. And they probably have to take a computer because I'd be complaining about something. I spent one solid with the archivist in New York. Asked them a question and they sent me the brush-off answer. So I invited them down to my place to look at my archives if they didn't know any more about it than that to me. The first guy that was sober in Arizona. I know the first meeting that he attended in viewing old tapes. And he attended the first meeting at the seasonal hotel in Los Angeles. And I've got to tell you one that we were... This guy by the name of Cliffy Walker. One of the most wonderful people you'd ever hope to meet in your life. He was a delegate for California. He ran the first central office out of his house. He was sober about three weeks. At the first meeting, both Gordon, came from Arizona, and Cliffy were at the same time. And Cliffy were at this meeting. Gordon was able to stay sober. Cliffy wasn't. My wife's were corresponding. Well, Cliff delivered milk in a horse-drawn carriage type of thing. And they bought him a new truck. So he decides to come to Phoenix to meet Gordon. Full load of milk. Phoenix to find out what kept Gordon sober. Gordon was still sober four and a half months later. His wife was still corresponding. The first one that ever made it there. It took me six years to find that. But you know why that's fun? I want to know what makes people drink. I got one today. The gal says, I'm 32 years sober, and I have continually done 90 and 90. And it's a wonderful life. Why? I mean, question yourself. Why can that be a wonderful life? Because you don't have time to get stupid. And I'm very capable of getting stupid. I'm very capable, and my mind runs off with itself. I was at the meeting one time. I was in the psychiatric hospital. And a girl broke down in tears and says, You've got no idea what it's like when they take your car. I says, How about three commercial pieces of property, all rented? A fleet of trucks, the line trucks. I had two electrical licenses. I used to back my play. So they could only take one of those. I'm here to tell you, you can get through anything sober. There's nothing that demands your drink. Except that stupid half of your brain. Stupid half of your brain is going to keep talking to you and say, Hey, baby, you had one. The one that I like the best is the man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man. Chinese proverb 3,000 years old. Thank you, guys.