Barney M. on the Disease Concept, Service, and the Daily Reprieve

Thank you. My name is Barney and I'm an alcoholic. I want to thank him for letting me sit next to Lynn for the whole dinner. That's the best deal I've had in a long time. It looks to me, I don't know, I've only been in Iowa a couple days, but it looks to me like the younger people have it together here and the old timers are all out of hand here. Just crazed old timers we have here. I want to thank Bob McSee for being my host here this weekend and for cruising me around Des Moines today and showing me a little bit of the town and for talking me out of the bungee jumping contest. I wanted to do it. Bob had everything he could do to hold me back. But he promised to show me where your lottery scratchers were, so I was... I'm obsessed with that, so that got me off the bungee jumping for a while. I want to thank Greg for having called and invited me to come here. I have never been in Des Moines and it has been an enjoyable trip for me and I want to thank him for doing that. And I want to thank Dan Byrne because... Without Dan, I wouldn't be here tonight. I... Actually, without Dan's tie, I wouldn't be here tonight. How do you like it? Looks good, eh? I came 2,000 miles without a necktie. So I was real glad to be able to run into Dan today. And he... He had quite a collection. I think he's been stealing ties. You go to your room tonight, check your wardrobe because... Dan's got quite a few in there. I... I don't know. I... I'm always delighted to be invited to participate in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I believe that... participating in... participating in... in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and being involved in some way actively in Alcoholics Anonymous allows me to stay sober. And my measurement of... of a talk... You know, you hear people in AA all the time say, well, it was a good talk, it was a bad talk, it was a dramatic talk, it was a tearful talk, it was... a lot of things, you know. But my measurement of a talk for me is very simple. There's one my sponsor gave me years ago. He said, look, kid. If you talk and you don't drink at work... ...you're going to get some of this. Because I think that... any participation in AA, whether it's speaking or making coffee. As a matter of fact, I think coffee makers are hell of a lot more important than the speaker. Oh, we've got some coffee makers in here. I really do. I mean, you can have an AA meeting without a speaker. We've got lots of speakers. That's no problem. You can't have an AA meeting without coffee. They'll kill you. So you've got to have the coffee maker. And... and... But I am from an active group in Los Angeles. My home group is the Pacific Group in Los Angeles, which contributes a lot of speakers to Alcoholics Anonymous, some of which are really good. I'm sorry that you got me tonight. There are a number of people, and it is the largest regular weekly meeting of AA in the world. Clancy likes to tell everybody that. There are 1,200 folks there every Wednesday night, and it's sort of a convention there every Wednesday night, but it's a wonderful meeting, and it's an active meeting. There are probably about 400 or 500 people in that meeting who are activists, who are busy putting that meeting on. There are people who have jobs in that meeting for which they don't need the job done, but they give them the job anyway so that they feel like they're part of, because it wasn't. And I was part of that meeting until I became a part of Alcoholics Anonymous by making coffee and mopping floors, and in those days washing coffee cups. That's before Styrofoam. And just being actively involved in AA, folding chairs, setting up chairs, whatever. That was when I began to understand that I was a part of this thing. Before that, I was going to their meetings. I was going to your meetings. When I started making coffee, baby, I was going to my meetings. And that's the truth. They were drinking my coffee, and it was then that I began to understand that I was more part of things, because my instinct, and the instinct of most of the alcoholics I've ever worked with, is to feel separate from, and apart from, and cut off from, and distinct from, and different from, and I don't know any alcoholic that ever came in the room that didn't think his case was different a little bit, one way or another. And so by nature, people like me, and maybe like you, feel alienated, and apart from, and separate from. And so it's important for people like me to be given jobs in AA, and to be told, as I was told by a sponsor, get busy! You know, we don't need you as part of the audience. We got lots of those. What we need you to do is mop floors, and mop floors on Tuesday night. And so if I don't tell you anything else tonight, if you're new, please listen to that. Because it was so important to me to become a part of Alcoholics Anonymous, and to participate in one way or another. And that's why it's such a privilege for me, a privilege for me, to come to an AA meeting, and be able to stand here, and talk to people like you, whom I respect and admire, because you are a day at a time, apparently getting some kind of a reprieve from a disease that can kill you. And by so doing, by coming here, and by being here with me, you're allowing me to participate in that with you, and giving me a chance, maybe, to get that daily reprieve with you. And I feel terribly privileged to be asked to do that. I hear people think, talk like they got a right to be in a meeting of AA. I don't think I have a right to be in a meeting of AA. I don't have any rights. I burned them all up. I used them up. This is a privilege for me to be here. It is a privilege for me to be in any meeting. And nobody owes me anything in AA. And I need to remember that as often as I can, and as much as I can. Because if I don't, my ego will get out of whack, because it does in a second. And I can begin to think I know something. And if I begin to think I know something, I start making observations. Of course, I never make any judgments. I never judge others. I just report what I see. And I see a lot going on around here. This is a Chicago night. Maxine, who just gave a wonderful... Alan on talk. I thought... I'm sorry you missed it. Buy the tape. How much are these? Maxine, you got another one! Jesus! Holy Christ! Oh, wow! As God made it be, Master Billy. My mother always said that. I think she was right. But Maxine gave a great talk. And this is kind of a Chicago night, in a way, because I grew up in Chicago. Was born in New York and raised in Chicago. On the south side, incidentally, when you said 76th and what? Ashland. 76th and Ashland. I'm from 67th and Blackstone. We'll talk... We'll talk later. Okay. Not too long. Not too long, he says. Maxine, he's tough, Maxine. Why do you think I set him up? I know. She says, that's why I set him up. Listen, all I have to do is stand here and repeat what they're saying. I don't have to say it out loud. Everybody be in stitches. I'll say it. I'll say it. I'll say it. Anyway, I am from Chicago. Grew up on the south side of Chicago. And I grew up in a neighborhood of mostly six flat buildings. Not very many people had individual homes. Matter of fact, I never actually knew anybody who lived in a real house until I was in college. Everybody that I knew lived in these apartment buildings. Six flats, they called them. And we didn't have a hell of a lot. My dad was in the restaurant business, and he never made much money. We didn't have much, but we didn't really know we didn't have much because everybody else was in pretty much the same shape. It wasn't until I began to go to movies a little bit, and I began to discover that there was a whole new wonderful world of goods out there that people could have. And until I began to see people playing golf at the South Shore Country Club, and I saw the kind of cars that they drove. And I saw that we didn't have a car in my family. And I saw people began to people had things. People actually owned things. And that impressed me. I was very impressed by stuff. Because somehow or other, my definition of success, somewhere along the line, apparently became the accumulation of stuff. I became obsessed. I became obsessed with the idea that if I could just get a lot of stuff, then I would know that I was okay. Then I would know that I was doing well. I mean, God, he's doing well. Look at his stuff. Look at that car he drives. Man, that guy's got it together. Look at the house he lives in. Look at them clothes he's wearing. A lot of stuff. TVs and stereos. On and on and on and on. And I don't know. Nobody ever wrote that down for me or told me that. I just assumed. I assumed that somewhere along the line. If I can just get a lot of stuff, I'm going to be okay. Then I'm going to feel good. Then I'm going to know and they're going to know that I'm okay. Because down deep inside, I didn't feel okay. And I knew that I didn't feel okay. I just didn't know what the hell was the matter. I felt inadequate much of the time. I felt inadequate because I was not as good as, not as handsome as. Not as smart as. Not as tall as. Not as short as. Not something. Because I kept comparing myself to everybody around me and I kept coming up short. Because my brain tells me, for whatever reason, I'm just not good enough. I don't know where the hell that comes from. It's just the way I was born. When I was, I don't know, we were going down the assembly line and God was putting us all together. And I went by, you know. He's hitting everybody's wires. And I, oh Jesus. There goes Barney. Well, the hell with it. And he just kept. And that's how I felt. And I didn't know why the hell I felt that way. I didn't know what was the matter. But I just, I got good grades in school. I did what the nuns told me to do. I had the Dominican nuns in grammar school for eight years. And I had the Carmelite priest for four years at Mount Carmel High School in Chicago. Wonderful. And I had the great men, great men, who did the best that they could, I'm sure, to teach me a set of standards, a set of rules that I could live by so that I could be comfortable and happy. I didn't know that. I thought they were just rules. I thought they were just trying to tell me what to do. And there is something peculiar about me that rebels the minute I think somebody's trying to tell me what to do. I heard at the business meeting today. I'm telling you, I punched three guys and I don't even have a vote. So I know I'm not alone in here today. But I tell you what, I think a successful business meeting at AA is where nobody gets killed. So I think you did all right. I didn't see any bodies coming out of there. So I figure it must have been a success. Ring up another AA business meeting. Holy Christ. Alcoholics, you know. I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge. I have a better idea. Shut up. Shut up. I'd like to make a motion. How would you like to get a smack? I'll second that. Who just made the second? I don't know. What are we voting on? Who cares? Who cares? You ain't going to get this kind of fun at a Kiwanis meeting. I'll tell you. I'll tell you that. Oh, it's... How the hell did I get off on that? I don't know. I mean, I know we need to get to the dance here pretty soon, so I've got some people that she wants to dance. We've got to get moving here. He's ready. I can tell that. I can tell that. I'm going to dance with you. Oh, you ain't dancing with me, pal. No, no. I may be from California, but I ain't that weird. I'll tell you that. Woo! But I... I just had some very, very good time. I had some very, very good time. I had some very, very good time. I had some very, very peculiar feelings about myself and about life and about the world. I felt frightened a lot of the time, and I had no idea what the hell I was frightened about. I was scared as a kid. I was frightened of the nuns. I was frightened of the priests. I was frightened of authority figures in general. Cops scared me. My parents scared me. My father was a strong disciplinarian, and he scared me. And my mother was a drunk, and she scared me. And I just had a lot of fear of authority figures and fear of life. I was frightened to death, I suppose, that maybe somebody was going to find out. I don't know what the hell I thought they were going to find out, but somebody was going to find out. Somebody was going to learn the real secret about me. And I'll tell you one of the secrets about me, one of those rotten little secrets that we hide, one of those rotten little things that comes out every once in a while. I happen to be a moral leper. Now, I never told anybody that. And a moral leper is not only somebody who sins a lot, but somebody who enjoys it thoroughly. And I knew you weren't supposed to like it that much. And somehow I knew I was different from the other people that were sitting in church as I sat there looking at the statues in the stained glass windows and watched people doing their rosary beads. I knew they were the good people, and they were getting it, and I wasn't getting it. As a matter of fact, most of my life, I sat there looking at the statues in the stained glass windows and watched people doing their rosary beads. And I suppose the best way to describe how I felt is I should have just carried a sign around. And whenever anybody talked to me, I would just hold up my sign. And the sign would say, I don't get it! Because I didn't know how to be a man. I didn't know how to be, how I was going to get rich. I didn't know how to do anything right. I felt really clumsy around girls when I was a kid. And I thought nobody else. I just felt that way. You know, not until I got to AA did I realize I'm in rooms full of people who have experienced many of the same emotions that I have felt. Because alcoholics are just neurotics. I mean, we feel things deeply. But they're just, with most of the alcoholics I know, we just seem to feel things with more intensity. And the other difference about us is that we relieve a lot of our feelings with alcohol. That may not be true in your case, it certainly isn't mine. I felt, I felt like I was in the wrong place most of the time. The wrong church. The wrong school. The wrong job. The wrong city. With the wrong woman. My set of friends didn't seem right for me. I never was quite comfortable with what the hell was going on. And I just knew that I was a weirdo and I was strange. But I always had that funny feeling that if I could go over there, it'll be okay. Over there, it's going to be better. I heard a guy in AA describe it perfectly. When I was in my first year, a guy got up at a meeting and he said, I've felt all my life that a spaceship is going to land. And I thought, I'm going to be out here, maybe tonight. And three guys are going to get out that look just like me. And they're going to say, come on Barney, we're going home. And I can just say, thank God, I've been with these aliens so long. I knew something was wrong, but I never could put my finger on it. And that describes me as well as anything I know. Just that weird feeling of being different and strange and just uncomfortable about life. But desperately wanting to be successful. Desperately wanting to be rich and famous. I knew that was going to fix it. Desperately wanting to accumulate as much stuff as I could. And I went to the University of Notre Dame and I got out of there. And I went into the radio broadcasting business by accident. I just fell into that business. And I started working for a little radio station in Monroe County. I started working for a radio station in Monroe, Michigan. And then I went to Toledo. And then I went to Detroit. And suddenly my career took off like a skyrocket. And for no particular reason. I just happened to be there. And things began to happen. And I began to get better jobs and better jobs. And by the time I was 26 or 27 years old, I was the anchorman for a television station owned by ABC in Detroit. And I was very successful. The ratings were terrific. And the guys in New York, the suits we used to call them, they would invite this other guy and I to go to New York and talk to the other suits about how we did it. And we would fly to New York. And here we are. I was 26. He was 28. Jesus! Can you imagine? And we're going to New York. And we're going to go into the ivory tower at ABC on Avenue of the Americas. And we're going to go up to the auditorium. And they brought in all the suits. All the guys from Madison Avenue. The guys from all the stations around the country would come in. The sales guys. The sharp guys. The slick guys that looked good and smelled good. And we lectured them. We told them how we got those wonderful ratings in Detroit. And the only thing that was interesting about that is that we had no idea. Now you want to talk about a situation where you feel frightened and inadequate and out of place. That was it, baby. That was it. But I had to pretend. I had to. Jesus, when I got to AA, they said act as if. I know how to do that. I've been doing it all my life. I'm the world's biggest phony. I know how to pretend. I know how to do that. I know how to look good. I know how to sound good. I know how to be swift and sharp and slick. I know how to do that. The problem always is how I feel. The problem is that how I feel doesn't match how I look. And I don't know how to tell anybody how I feel because how I feel is not manly. How I feel is not strong and tough. How I feel is weak. How I feel is rotten and frightened and inadequate. And I don't want anybody to know that. And so I walk around with a sense of having it together. I did that all my life. I can remember waking up sometimes with some of the most horrendous things. I used to do these hangovers. I used to drink. I thought I ought to throw that in. I would wake up with these god-awful hangovers. And I'd be so sick and I'd be so tired and I'd just be... Many, many mornings when I just knew I couldn't get up and go face them again and try to be anything anymore. Because I didn't feel like much of anything. I felt like a... Like just a burned up turnip. And just...just used up and tired and just...I can't face them anymore. I can't go one more day and try to pretend that I'm together when I'm not together. When I'm so god-damn scared I don't know what to do and I'm going to lose what I got. And I'm not going to get any more and my stuff's going to go and I don't know what to do. But I always...almost always managed to get in the shower. Because I had this rule about...if you're going to drink, you better get in there and go to work. So I'd go to work. Take the shower and put the clothes on and get in the car and drive into the office. What the hell are you going to do? You drive in and you walk in and here's the news director walking down the hall. And you're the anchor man. You walk in and the guy says, Hey, Barney, how you doing? What you going to do? Tell him the truth? How's it going, Barney? Well, I'm... I'm afraid. Really? What are you afraid of? I don't know. Beats the shit out of me. Woke up feeling that way again. I just... Probably has a lot to do with my childhood. How much time have you got? We could... Well, we got a show to put together. Well... You go sit in the newsroom and you're surrounded by producers and writers. People that you know are a lot brighter than you are. And you're... they're all sitting there and you're the anchor man. And they say, How's it going, Barney? Well, I... I have a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and I... I feel that I don't fit here very well and I... People are smiling. People are smarter than me here and I... Somebody's going to catch on one of these days and I'm going to... I'm going to lose my job and... Besides, my wife is really pissed this time. I think she's going to divorce me and I'm frightened of that and... I have all these children to take care of and I can't bear the responsibility anymore. It's more than I can handle. I got all these bills coming in and I... I'm making a lot of money here but I... I spend more than I make and I... See, because... And by the way, the answer to the question is, I'm fine, how are you? That's the answer. That's the only answers I deal with out there. Try the other ones on them sometime. Somewhere in my early twenties, around twenty-one, twenty-three, I made the magic discovery that every alcoholic has to make sooner or later. It was a wonderful discovery. Nobody put a plaque on the wall but it happened. And the discovery was so simple and it's this. Once I begin to drink, I feel better. Ooh, wow. That's something everybody in this room takes for granted if he's drunk. The Al-Ans don't understand but the drunks do. We all know that. But do you know that only one out of ten of us have that experience? And I didn't know that. I'm out there drinking with them people and I think they're all getting the same kick out of it that I am. But you know that only one out of ten of us has that experience. I know, I'd have a big A on my chest. I had no way of knowing. I mean, nobody walked up to me and said, Well, it seems you have a physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession and... Probably a guy like you shouldn't drink. It'd be better if you didn't. I would have said what her husband said, Bullshit. That kind of response I understand. But nobody told me that. Nobody said anything for years. I just have to drink it hard and work it hard and make it a living and get in stuff. However, there's this peculiarity about my drinking that just... Well, it would break your heart. Because here I have this wonderful stuff that absolutely makes me feel really good. And yet when I drink it, bizarre things happen that I don't plan. Once I begin to drink, I have no way to accurately predict what the hell's gonna happen. I just don't know. Sometimes I have a few drinks and go home. Not often. Most of the time, I begin to travel. I'm not going to go to the movies. I'm not going to go to the movies. I'm not going to go to the movies. I'm not going to go tocafe. I'm not going to go to the movies. I'm going to go to the movies. And I won't. I move around pretty good. I go from bar to bar. I go from city to city sometimes. Occasionally from country to country. One time I woke up at the Miami airport. This is an example. On a Saturday afternoon, I came to, in the Miami airport. And the last thing I can remember was sitting in a bar in Detroit on Friday night having a couple of drinks. I don't know why the hell I went to Miami airport. I don't know why the hell I went to Miami. I don't know. I didn't even know where I was. And you don't want to ask. Because it's embarrassing. And you're trying to look good. If it ever happens to you. My suggestion is try the newspaper rack. I finally figured that out. And I went over. The trouble in Miami is at that airport, they have a lot of Washington Post and New York Times. So it's not real certain, you know. But they've got a lot of Miami Herald, so it's a pretty good guess. And you get home and the inevitable questions begin. Where have you been? Tell them the truth and there's another question. They don't just leave it at one question. If you would just say, I went to Miami and they'd leave you alone, it'd be all right. But you've got somebody like Max, Maxine's sitting there and she's saying, why did you go to Miami? And the answer to that question is, I don't know. But I think I was on my way to Jamaica. I had a college roommate that lived in Jamaica. And my theory is that's probably what I had in mind. But on the other hand, maybe it was the Virgin Islands. Because that always seemed like a pleasant place to me. The answers are never satisfactory. So what the hell is he used to tell them? It's embarrassing and it's tiring. Oh, is it tiring? And after a while, you begin to beat yourself up pretty good physically, as you well know. And I began to beat myself up pretty good physically by the time I was, over 30, it was starting to hit me pretty hard. And people, well-meaning people, people who cared about me, would suggest to me from time to time, Barney, do you know, do you have any idea what you're doing to your liver? No. Do you understand what's going on with your kidneys? Well, I understood that, because I had a pain in the lower back and I knew what was going on. I understand that. I don't want to think about it, but I know. Do you realize what you're doing to your family? Yes. Yes. Yes. But I'm taking care of my family. I am paying for things here. Look at the stuff they have. Look at the house they have. Look at the car they have. I am taking care of things. These kids are very lucky. Well, my wife didn't feel very lucky. And the friends that I had, really from time to time, would say, Barney, you appear to have, a drinking problem. And I knew that that wasn't true. Because when I drink, I feel better. That's not a problem. Not for me. If it's a problem for you, hit the road, pal. No, no, no, no. From time to time, over the years, I quit drinking. Because the heat was on, or because she was putting too much pressure on, or because the boss was really on my case, because you could just function through so many hangovers under those hot lights. And after a while, they know. They just know, and your reputation gets really bad. Because when you're on television every night, they recognize you. And whatever you do out there, you're not exactly invisible. And the word gets back. But I always figured the ratings are good, leave me alone. And for the most part, they did. But I was always, I was always frightened. One of these days, they're going to just call you in and say, hey, you're a drunk, you're no good, you're out of here. But I had to act tough, and I had to act like I didn't care, and I had to act because when I quit drinking, and I tried this lots of times, I would quit drinking for days and days and days. I would stop sometimes a week and a half. And I wouldn't have any booze, and I would go home at night, and I would take out the garbage, and I would cut the grass, and I would take the kids to Y Indian Guides and Little League, and I would snap too and be a good husband and a good father. And I was right there looking sharp, cleaned up, looking all right. Every day! Well, I tell you what, you just run out of humor after about a week. Because life to me, when you're sober, and when you're not drinking, and when you're just doing the right thing all the time, is so boring, you can die. It's like life on a, it's like watching a 1935 William Powell movie, you know. Black and white, small screen, no fun. Fairly interesting, but not really. But if I drink, baby, it's stereophonic sound, and it's cinemascope, and it's full color, and it's wonderful. And that's the difference. So, if I had anything, I would have described it as a sobriety problem . If I stay sober too long, I get crazy. I really can't deal with life very well. I begin to get nervous, and jerky, and irritable, And right on edge, right on edge. And after about a week and a half of that, I can't take it anymore. I cannot. Because the responsibilities are piling up on me. The bills are still coming in. Those kids are still here. By the way, we had six of them. Those kids are still there. She's still there with her problems. I'm sober a week and a half. She's still bitching at me. You know, the boss is still, he still wants performance. He still wants his ratings. Every day. And the tension and the nervous feelings that I get from just being alive are more than I can bear. And so, it's necessary for me to go out and have a couple drinks. What's the big deal? It's going to take the sharp edges off. It's going to take the sharp edges off a little bit. I've been good for a week and a half. They got theirs. Now I'm going to get mine. And I go out to have a couple of drinks and I end up in Miami or Jamaica. Or I end up punching cops. Or I end up with trouble. I end up with a lot of trouble. When I drink, I got trouble. But drinking makes me feel better. And I know it. And it did it in 1950. And it did it in 1960. And it did it in 1970. And if I had a few tonight, I'd probably do it again. It makes me feel better. It just blots out the mind. It takes a certain pressure off of me. And surprise. Society is untenable for a person like me. Oh, a few days is all right. I can do that. But long-term, never-ending, forever. Society is awful. And well-meaning people who suggest to me that maybe I'd feel better if I didn't drink do not get it. It just always makes me feel better. It's a good thing. I'm glad I'm doing it. It's a good thing. I'm glad I'm doing it. I'm glad I'm doing it. My wife divorced me. My wife divorced me. I looked at her and I said, we've been married 14 years. I don't think you should do this. I'm Catholic. Ha ha. I hadn't been inside a church in 15 years. And she said, Well I've got to go. I can't stand it anymore. I can't live this way anymore. And I said, Well I…. I guess I can't stop you. custody of the six children. She said, oh, you can have them, and she left. It seems somebody had taken her to some Al-Anon meetings. And a judge that I had never met ordered my house sold. My house! And he ordered that the two lawyers split what was left. And hers was a member of AA. And I resented lawyers for a long time. But I get my revenge now. I sponsor one. You can bet he's working his steps. But I took those six kids, and I rented a little apartment in Santa Monica. She handed me this basket. It had to be this big, full of bills. Because she'd been paying them for all these years. I just gave her the paychecks. But I was paying my bar bills first, so there was no money left to pay the bills. So here's this big basket, and she says, here, smartass. Deal with those. I'm tired of looking at them. I'm looking through these bills, and I said, God, this is dead money. What are you doing here? I said, there's stuff here we don't even own anymore. We're still paying on it. It's not fair. And she was gone. I was talking to myself. I was as scared as I'd ever been. I was frightened. I was angry. I blamed her for what had happened. I really did. I knew that she'd been disloyal. I knew that she had turned on me. And I knew that I was going to have to do something. Now, I know what I do. When the chips are down, when the jackals are leaping at my throat, I drink. So that's what I did. I got real drunk. Near as I could figure that night, and later I tried to figure it out. I had about two quarts of scotch and a half a bottle of Jim. I was on a beam that night. So I was going pretty good. And about three o'clock in the morning, I came to. I was like a bing, hello, the lights are on. And for just a little while, I wasn't drunk anymore. Now that's disquieting when you've been working hard at it all night. And suddenly you can think again. And what dawned on me was that those six kids were in this apartment all by themselves. The oldest one was 12. The youngest one was a year. I'd left them alone. And I was doing my thing. But there wasn't anybody there with them anymore. And I owed all this money. And I had all these problems. And I had to get my act together. And I said to myself, self! Get your act together! And then I was drunk again. But somewhere in that drunken stupor that night, I called a guy that I knew was a member of AA. He's the guy I used to take her down on. He's going to be a speaker here in this hotel next week. November 1st, October 30th, whatever that is. Keith C. is his name. And he had taken her to these Al-Anon meetings. And one night he handed me his card. And I couldn't imagine why this man wanted me to have his card. And I'll tell you something that really struck me strange. I waited and waited and waited for the message from this guy. And he never gave it to me. Eddie R. used to say when he was alive, he'd say, The only worse than getting the message is waiting for the message. And this guy told me about his drinking. He never talked to me about mine. He talked to me about his. And he drank a lot. He drank a lot of beer. I didn't drink that much beer. So I wasn't like him. And he was a pool cleaner. I mean, that's... He lost his work as a pool cleaner. Because he drank too much. But I wasn't a pool cleaner. I was a television news anchorman. So I didn't hear too much. But this particular night I called this guy and I said, Look, you have to know right away I am not an alcoholic. All right? You see, I know. Social drinkers call me all the time at 3 o'clock in the morning. He said, What do you want? I said, Well, It occurred to me. Because I have a lot of problems in my life that are not related to drinking. My problems relate to this bitch wife I had. And this responsibility that I've inherited with these six children. And all this money I owe. About $80,000, as near as I can figure. And I don't have any money. And my house is gone. That lawyer, that judge. And I feel pressure. And as near as I can figure out what I need is about six months, six months of no drinking at all. Then I'll be fine. I'll get my act together. I'll get my bills paid. I'll get my life organized. Because I have been a successful man. I have made it out there in the world. I didn't say I wasn't a pool cleaner. But that's what I meant. I have been something. And he said, Well, we just do this thing a day at a time. I said, No, no. Six months. That was the first time. And it happened many times after that that I knew he couldn't hear me. He became my sponsor. And he used to say, you know, at the beginning he said, You're going to go to a meeting every day. And I'd say, But I don't drink every day. And he'd say, Yeah, I know. You're going to go to a meeting every day. He never gave me rational, logical reasons for these things. I spent a lot of time in those early months in AA looking for a chapter entitled, Why it Works. And I couldn't find it. I said, How it works. I don't want to know that. I don't want to know about steps. I don't want to know about God. I want to know intellectually, what is it you people are doing, so I can find out and get the hell out of here. Of course, I'm not real thrilled about your meetings, okay? I ain't ready to sit in these rooms and listen to this crap anymore. Anyway, he started taking me to meetings. We'd go to meetings every damn night. They did the same thing. Read the same crap out of the book like they can't remember it. Jesus, Chapter 5 and how it works. All right, I got it. Yeah, fine. How about Chapter 9 or something? Let's get the hell out. Let's get some of the stories in the back. What are we reading Chapter 5 for? Then after the coffee break, the traditions, whatever the hell they were, I had no idea. They kept reading it like it was important. They applauded it. Jesus. And people got up and told these horrible stories. I didn't identify with that stuff. Guys that went to jails and hospitals and institutions and 19 marriages. Come on. There wasn't an anchorman among them. So I sat in the back of the meetings, and I did what I did well. I scorned them and I scoffed and I made fun of them, sometimes loudly. But I hated their meetings. And I told this man, I said, I don't understand what's going on here, okay? I'm not, you tell me, you're feeling good, you people. You don't drink and you feel better. I hear him say it. I don't feel better. I've tried that a thousand times. It doesn't work for me. I get crazy when I don't drink. Oh, well. Probably you need a little of our special therapy. What's that? Well, you're going to be the floor mopper on Tuesday night. And I would say, what's that got to do with drinking? And he'd say, you'll never do, you'll never know if you don't do it. And I became the coffee man. And I became the coffee maker on Saturday night. I became the greeter on Thursday night. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. I hated AA. I hated people that thought they were doing well. I was a reporter, so I checked these two guys out. Oh, yeah. Our founders. Broken down stockbroker from New York. Never got rich even after he got sober, this guy. And his buddy over here is the Akron proctologist. That's true. I bet you didn't know that. Do you know how AA started? He did his last hemorrhoidectomy with a beer in him. And he bought it for him. Because he was shaking so bad he couldn't do the surgery. Here, Bob, try this. How'd you like to have been that patient? AA started with a hemorrhoidectomy. Shouldn't be a big surprise, I guess. Certainly not in my group. I went to AA, and I went to AA, and I went to AA, and I mopped floors, and I made coffee. And even when I had 30 days, he said, Okay, we have a new thing for you. You're going to pick up newcomers. I said, I am a newcomer. He said, no, these guys are newer than you. And he gave me the name of a guy to go down at the business. He gave me the name of a guy to go down at the Bimini Hotel, and the Royal Palms Hotel, and these Skid Row Hotels. I didn't want to go to those places. He said, just go pick this guy up and bring him to the meeting. I said, what am I supposed to tell him? AA stinks, and I hate the book, and I think the meetings are crazy. And the speakers are lying, and some of them are probably getting paid. He said, no, just bring him to the meeting. We'll talk to him. So I'd bring him to the meeting. He'd come to the meeting. I'd go to the meeting. I'd go to the meeting. He'd come to the meeting. I'd go to the meeting. So I'd bring him to the meeting. I hated AA. Hated it with a passion until one day I had a spiritual experience. I was sitting in a meeting, and this redhead walked by. She had the greatest legs in North America. And I started chasing her around the meeting. And she wouldn't date me. I was trying to get her to just have coffee, anything, you know. And she'd look at me, and she'd say, I don't date newcomers. She had three years sobriety forever. She'd say, I don't date newcomers. And I'd say, well, I'm new now, but I'll be old later, so let's have a little coffee and talk about it. You know what I mean? One night she looked at me. I just kept pursuing this woman. And one night she looked at me, and she said, how many children do you have? I said, I have six, but you'd hardly notice them, just little, small. When I was seven months sober and seven months hating it, but seven months with my fanny in the chair, I heard a guy talk one night, and I identified with him. I didn't plan to do that. It just happened. And I didn't identify with this guy's drinking habits. I didn't identify with this guy's drinking pattern. I didn't identify with the fact that he'd been in Skid Row and that he'd had his teeth kicked out in the Phoenix drunk tank. That wasn't my story. He'd left his family in mailboxes all over America. I didn't identify with that. What I identified with was how this man felt about himself, about other people, about life, because he described a set of emotions to me that absolutely rang my bell. He talked about fear in a way I'd never heard of talked about. And he talked about a sense of anxiety and not fitting in most of the time. And he knew that he was more sensitive than everybody he knew. He just felt things more deeply. And he went on and on and on. And he said, if you're walking around with a set of emotions anything like what I'm describing, and you seem somehow unable to control and enjoy your drinking, there's a name for that. Oh, really? Yes, it's a disease. Oh, my God. It's called alcoholism. Oh, geez. And I went up to this guy after the meeting and I said, Jesus, if what you're saying is true, I may be alcoholic. He said, aren't you the guy that mops the floors on Tuesday? I said, yeah. He says, you're here a long time. I said, seven months is your quick study, aren't you kidding? Well, now I know I'm an alcoholic. I don't like AA any better, but I knew I was an alcoholic. And Carol and I ultimately, I got her to go out with me and we got married. And she had two children and I had six children, so we put the eight together. And we began to trudge the road of happy destiny. And I'll tell you what, he knew the word he was using when he used it. Trudge was correct. I got a big job when I was two and a half years sober with CBS. I went back east. I was going to be a big shot then. Now I'm sober. I'm going to get mine. And I found the AA to be different. And I'm alcoholic, baby. I translate different, bad. If you change something on me, I don't like it. So I did the only thing that any right-thinking egomaniac can do. I denied them my presence. I didn't butch go to their meetings. Besides, I was busy trying to get rich and famous. I was speaking to Kiwanis clubs and Rotary clubs and gathering people together and trying to get them to watch this station. And I was busy. And I was crazy. And I got crazier by the day. This woman I had married turned out to be not so serene. She was the original liberated woman. And she didn't particularly care what I thought about anything. And she had a little different approach to AA than I did. She went to meetings. And then she really turned on me. She went to Al-Anon meetings too. All right, easy, Dazza. Let's see. See how they get? You got to keep quiet. Anyway. I'm only kidding. I love Al-Anon. I went to Al-Anon a lot when my, I'll tell you that later. No, I haven't got time to tell you that. But I had a kid who was crazy and I went to Al-Anon. Anyway. I'm going to stop this in a minute. But it's important, I think, to let you know that I had a lot of difficulty back east. And I had problems with my job. And I had problems with my wife. And I had problems with living. The same problems that I had had all my life. And I wasn't using AA to apply to them. Because now I figure I'm sober and I'm going to get rich and famous. And then I'm going to feel better. See, I never had gotten over that thought. If I just get rich, then it's going to be all right. Well, I got crazy. And I got nervous. And I got jerky. And I got irritable. And I got in a lot of trouble. When I was on that job about 14 months, they fired me. Then I really got depressed. And then I came back to California and I worked in San Diego for a while. And then I quit the job I had there. And I was really getting down. And a guy said to me one night, he said, You really got to go to meetings, Barney. You got to go to meetings. Jesus. You know, it's important to you. I don't know. I don't go to meetings. He said, You got to work with newcomers. I said, Well, I've tried working with newcomers, but I'm no good at that. Everybody I ever worked with got drunk. He said, Well, you're going to have to do it because newcomers may save your life. You've got to do that. Critical. He says, You must begin to pray. And I said, I can't pray because it makes me feel like a phony. I don't believe in God. He said, Well, that's okay. You are a phony. What the hell do you care? Say a phony prayer. I said, Can you do that? He said, Sure. Oh, I didn't know that. Well, if you don't have to believe it, I can do it. He said, Yeah, say the prayer a lot. Take out one in the book for me. Take out one in the book for guys like you. I said the prayer a lot, and I prayed to a phony God because I didn't believe in God. And I knew I was a phony, and God was a phony, and the prayer was a phony, and I thought it was funny. And I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. But when I was unemployed in San Diego for five months, I ran out of money again. I went broke again. I don't mind going broke drunk, but I went broke sober. That's no fun. And I was six years sober. I was sponsoring guys who were in better shape than I was. Because I began to do that, too. I began to tell them the truth. I didn't know what else to do. I'd sit and I'd talk to them. I'd say, Look, I just, you got to take action. That's all I know. I only know action here, okay? I do this because somebody told me to do it. I talk to you because it's action in AA. I don't like you. I do this because it's action. I'd say, I'm a sick son of a bitch. Don't you understand that? I'm saying a phony prayer to a phony God. I don't know anything. I'm just crazy. Just crazy. And these goofy guys I sponsored look at me and say, I really identify with you. And I, you know, I don't know what the hell to tell them except let's go to a meeting. I don't know what to say. Clancy finally told me one time, he said, really, the principal job of a sponsor in AA is to keep the baby amused until AA works. And once I got that, I was okay because I know how to keep them amused. Go make some coffee, mop some floors, fold some chairs. My wife, when I was six years sober, was divorcing me. My children were using drugs, a lot of them, drinking. I couldn't control them. I couldn't control her. I had no money. I was broke. I was ready to drink. And I knew that I was ready to drink. And that was sounding okay to me by that time. And I went down and sat in front of a bar in La Jolla, California one night for the better part of two hours, I guess. And I felt so bad about me and about life and about my situation that I just was ready to cry. But I never went in the bar because somehow I guess I'd been to too many meetings by that time. And I just, I don't know, I just knew drinking wasn't going to make any better. And you're really kind of screwed when you know drinking ain't going to help. And I went down and sat on the beach in La Jolla and it was midnight and it was March. It was cold out there. And I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried because I was so sad with me. And I was so miserable about my life. And I was so sure finally that I was a real loser. And I didn't like that about me. But I was. And I accepted it. I just knew that I'd lost the battle. I had lost the battle of life. And I knew it finally. Finally. Finally. Now I didn't know that. And I did for a long time after that that I was really beginning the really ugly, evil, painful process called surrender. But that's what was going on. I thought surrender was going to be some real bright, happy, cheerful kind of thing. When you woke up one morning and you just said, Oh, what a lovely day. I think I'll just accept God in my life and turn my life and my will over. It went that way with me. As long as I had one idea left to be successful at anything, I had no chance at surrender. It's when I ran out of ideas and I ran out of plans and I ran out of power and I ran out of patience with myself and I ran out of everything that I was finally able to say, Help! And I gave up. I surrendered. And I knew that I had given up because I was a loser. And I decided I would just get some kind of a stupid job and I will go to work every day and I don't care how much money I make anymore. I'm tired of worrying about it. I'm just going to show up every day and try to look alert so they don't fire me. And I got a stupid job working for a television station. I was working for a television station. I was working for a television station. I was working for a television station. I was working for a television station. I was working for a television station in Los Angeles, a place I used to be an anchor man. I was working for a television station in Los Angeles, a place I used to be an anchor man. I went to work as a reporter. It was kind of demeaning for me, but I did it. Took the job. Most of them up there don't remember now and didn't remember then how wonderful I used to be. I got a 23-year-old kid who talks to me every morning like I'm a dummy. But that's the way it is. And I went back to work there not with the notion that I was going to get anything, not with the notion that I was going to achieve anything, not with the notion that I was going to win any worlds, only with the notion that I was an absolute loser and I had no chance left to my own devices. And I went there with the notion I will just show up every day and try to look alert and hope they don't fire me, just do what they tell me to do and shut up. That's what I've been doing ever since. And something very peculiar has happened. I don't feel pressure anymore. I don't feel pressure anymore. When you're not responsible for your career and your achievements, you don't feel pressure. When you feel a sense of being powerless, there is no pressure. Why? Because I've got a higher power. It's his problem, not mine. I just do the footwork. I just show up every day and look alert. The outcome is his problem. I don't assume responsibility for that. I just do what I'm supposed to do. He does what he's supposed to do. Works out pretty good. So far. I can't tell you about tomorrow. I know how it's working now. The people I work for apparently are very embarrassed. They keep giving me raises. It's a damnedest thing. I make more money today than I've ever made in my life. I haven't asked them for a dime. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. . . I got a home in La Jolla still. I got cars. I got a car. She's got a car. The children have all grown and done very well. The oldest boy finally went to AA when he nearly died, not because of anything I did, but because he didn't want to die, and he's sober over ten years. My wife is 23 years sober. A couple of weeks ago, on the 25th of July, on the 25th of May, my wife came up to me. She came up to a guy who cannot, left to his own devices, stay sober for longer than a week and a half without getting crazy, and she handed me that. And it's got two X's on it. . . . If you're new and you don't know Roman numerals, it's more than a week and a half. . And I've had nothing to do with that, because I am one of the weakest, most frightened, craziest people I know. I have had absolutely nothing to do with that. AA has done whatever it has done. All I do is show up and look alert. By the way, I don't know how to get along with my wife either. I'm not sure how to make her happy. I don't know how to make her love me. I don't know. I tried. Didn't work. So I just do at home what I do at work. I just show up and look alert. . My sponsor suggested one time, my sponsor said, why don't you just look at her and say, how are you? And listen for the answer. I never thought of that. . And he says, you're not allowed to tell her how you are unless she asks. . Sometimes she doesn't ask. . But Carol and I have a good life today. We have eight grandchildren now. Some of whom are going to need AA, I think. A little granddaughter was walking down the street with her the other day. They walked past and had 31 flavors. The kid's five years old. And she said, Grandmother, have I ever told you that chocolate ice cream makes me feel very, very good? . Carol took her to a women's stag. . . But it's a good life today. We have these children and these grandchildren and this good life. And we're fine. I mean, our health has been, she had cancer a year and a half ago. And she's doing fine now. She's doing much better. And I'm way overweight and trying to do something about that. So I don't die tomorrow. . So we're trying to struggle through all this stuff. But the fact is that we have a sense of constant awareness that we're really okay. That we're really comfortable in our own skin. I don't walk around frightened anymore like I did. I have nothing to prove anymore. It is no longer important for me to be the richest man in the cemetery. . I just don't think about it anymore. I just go to Des Moines if somebody calls. . I go and I talk to a group of people I don't even know about something I don't even do anymore. . And it seems to make sense somehow. . And I don't understand all this stuff. There is no chapter entitled Why It Works. I never found out. . And I'll tell you one thing and then I'll shut up because it's way time to dance now. . I finally, finally, finally over a long period of time have come to believe that a power greater than myself . can restore me to sanity. I don't think he's done it yet but I think he can. . I simply have accepted the notion in my life that I can't do it. . I've accepted the notion in my life that the first two words of the Our Father mean exactly what they say. . Isn't that complicated? . God love you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .