Big Book Study – Searcy W. – The 60th Anniversary Of The Big Book – 1999

Stand up just a minute and rest our rear ends. Just stand up just a second. Come on. Yeah, be seated. Yeah, my name is Circe and I'm an alcoholic. I'm Circe. And by the grace of God and the help of all of you people, Al-Anon and Al-Ateen and Al-A-Tots and Al-A-Tours and all in between, I have not had a, or found it necessary to take a drink since May 10th, 1946. And, uh... And the only reason I mention the length of my sobriety is because I'm damn proud of it. That's the only reason I talk about it. We're gathered here because we're faced with the fact that we're powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanageable. But with the help of God, they are manageable. Thank God. So I'm not here because I'm 53 years sober. I'm not here because we had a convention. I'm here because I'm an alcoholic and I found the way to sobriety and joyous, happy living through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's the only reason I'm here. I'm here if it's possible to carry this message to those who still suffer. And if we ever forget where our primary purpose is, we're a lost cause. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help somebody else stay sober. Right? And before that, that's the end. You know, Carl Sandburg said one time, whenever a society or civilization perishes, there is always one condition present. They forgot where they came from. And we're here to celebrate the 60th anniversary. We're here to celebrate the 60th birthday of the writing of the big book and the publishing of the big book. And like Bob Smith, you know, I'm so glad we have the big book. And I'm so glad that old Rockefeller, when Bill Wilson needed some money to print the big book with, he turned him down. He said, the only way I can hurt this thing is to give it money. And like Bob often said, and we talk about, imagine if Rockefeller had given those hundred first members of Alcoholics Anonymous a million dollars, it would have been a hundred thousand dollars each, and we wouldn't have any AA. Well, I'm not going to have a drunk-a-logger tell you a drunk-a-logger. We had a guy in our group the other night that talked two hours and forty-five minutes, and when he got through, he was still in the same bar. He went through several wives and divorces and divorce counseling and all that. Bob and I had an agreement, Bob Smith and I had an agreement, so now we're going to try to talk about the solutions of what's the problem. We know what the problem is. Hell, we drank too much and did too many other things in our lives that we didn't like. And that's the problem. But the solution is, that I found it through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and you people. That's where I found it. So, I'm going to tell you a little bit, though, about myself. You know, I've got some good measurements. These are not my measurements of my body. I'm 89 years old. I've been married to the same woman for 65 years, and I've been sober 53 years. I was raised out in West Texas, a sorry damn country. And I was raised on a farm, and it was a sorry damn farm, too, I'll tell you. There were seven of we children in my family, and I did not inherit alcoholism. I'll tell you that. My father, mother, grandfather, nobody in my family ever had the problem with drinking until I came along. And I had two brothers in Alcoholics Anonymous, and one of them was sober 35 years and died. The other one was 28 years, and he died. But it did not run in my... I did not inherit alcoholism. I developed alcoholism in the process of, because I have an X factor in my life, whatever the hell that is, I don't care. But you add alcohol to it in large doses over a various period of time, and you cross that line into compulsive pathological drinking. That's the only kind of drinking that's a disease to me. So, I finally got to leave that farm, and I went and I had an old land up in Stanford, Texas. I'm getting in a bigger town now. It's about 1500. And I finished high school there, and I'd played a lot of sandlot baseball. And I had a contract when I finished high school to go to Midland, Texas in the oil field. They were developing the oil field in West Texas, and there was a lot of oil out there, and a lot of money. And they would have a lot of money, and they would hire people to play, like guys myself, play baseball. But we had to work. We had to have a job. And so I went out there to play with this baseball team. And they made me work for a large motor company out there. And I worked on everything in that motor company. They taught me how to do these things, you know. A kid like me off the farm, I didn't know how to do anything except chop cotton or something like that. However, back to my father and mother, I learned some things from them that stayed with me, and they were the cause of me eventually recognizing that there is a power greater than I am, and that's God. My dad used to have prayer meetings on Sunday night. And he and my mother would get on their knees and pray. I thought it was kind of silly. But I learned, I heard him pray for our neighbors that I knew damn well he didn't like. He prayed for them in the hope that they would straighten their lives out and do something with their lives, you know. But anyhow, in this playing baseball, I was a pitcher of a sort. And this is semi-pro ball now. And our baseball manager, you know, I never did like to drink with a sorry drinker. I don't know about you. I'd like to drink with somebody, just drink and drink and drink, puke it up and drink some more. These people that say, like my wife, you know, she'll drink a grasshopper. Whatever the hell that is, I don't know. But she'll sip on it and we'll finish eating and it's still sitting there. It's a damn waste of money, you know. I like to drink it, break it down. We had a guy named Red Hill that was our third baseman. And Red was a sorry drinker. He would drink two or three drinks and just pass out. He couldn't handle alcohol at all. Nothing like me. Nothing like me. Well, our baseball manager was Doc Ellis. And Doc had a funeral parlor. And every Sunday night after the baseball game, we'd go to the funeral parlor and drink homebrew in Act City. And like all drunk dudes, you know. And this night at the funeral parlor, old Red had about two or three beers. We drank homebrew then. And I know most of you don't know what homebrew is, but it's some kind of macaroni and cheese or something fermented that'll make you drunk. And Red had a couple of bottles of beer and passed out. And we were disgusted, we who could handle alcohol, with Red. And so after a while, we decided we'd teach him a lesson. And we picked him up and put him in a casket. And we folded his arms and put all the flowers on him. There was nothing. And we stood back to listen to what his reaction would be. And then we heard Red say, he reached and felt himself and looked up and all around, he said, well if I'm not dead, why am I here? And if I am dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom? Laughter. Laughter. Laughter. Laughter. You can imagine Red later on came in the program. Well, we played baseball. We didn't have big stadiums like you did, like the John Stadium and all those. No, we played out. That was a ranch country, and we played out in the cow pasture. And if you knocked a home run, you'd have to hit it a mile to go over one of those fences, you know, out there. But in that cow pasture, what ended my career one time, I slid into what I thought was third base. And I quit playing baseball. They gave me a job with this motor company, and I did well with it. And they promoted me to manager and general manager. We had everything from Abilene, Texas, to El Paso. About 600 miles. Distributors for Dodge trucks. And in those days, you don't know what you are. I see you're smog here, but you don't know. That doesn't compare to the sandstorms in West Texas. Those clouds of dirt and dust would come into West Texas, and it would tear up a motor on an automobile. So Chrysler put an oil filter on. He smartened it out. And we sold the hell out of those Dodge trucks. Those oil companies. Big oil companies. Pipeline companies. Bunkers. And so I had a good job and a lot of money. And I had to do a lot of entertaining. You can understand that. You know. And I entertained and entertained and day and night and day and night. I'm talking about the road to alcoholism now. And you keep following that pattern. And if you have that, whatever that is in there, and going somewhere down the line, you're drinking, talking, drinking, drinking. On the road to alcoholism. And you heard about that. Will not even go home this time. Well, today the union Brew Days happened a little over 50 years ago. They didn't. They didn't. They didn't have any avoir power, the freedom. And, you know, I'm like, oh, three pure accusations ofоне were out there. But after them, you began to think about, oh, hey, we're going to make a lot a differenI Then what's going to happen next? There's going to be a big problem. Then I walked in there. It all started out nicely. I pulled out my dog for a moment. I threw it. I got a job. you really get into, and I got on those four horses, terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. And I rode them out. I stayed with that. Well, here, you know, after so long, your luck changes, for one thing. Do you ever notice how your luck changes when you get to where you can't? I started working for a narrow-minded employer. And then I decided I'd take the geographical cure. So I went from Midland to Corpus Christi, Texas, as credit manager of the Packard Automobile Company. It's a sorry damn car, but they were putting me off. And I took the geographical cure. That's unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. And I got to Corpus Christi, and my daughter, my drinking got worse. And to make a long story short, I got in trouble with my, well, I'd take that old Packard and go out on the King Ranch. It was 360,000 acres out there. And I'd go out there loaded with whiskey and just drink, stay out there four or five days. And I was on a very strict diet, as most alcoholics work, cheese and crackers and booze, you know. That's all I had. Well, anyhow, I found out that the Packard people were very narrow-minded. And they fired me. And I got fired. I tried to get other jobs. Here's what happens. You keep going down and you're bewildered. You don't know what the hell's happened. But the further you go, the worse it gets. And then you get into that terrible situation where you don't know, you can't get out, you can't get in, you don't know what to do. And I hired out to, the wrong kind of person, I finally hired out to a guy that had some pickle trucks. They serve with hamburger joints. And you say, take a CEO like me driving a damn pickle truck? A big shot like me driving, oh my God. So I got out of the city to drive this truck. And on the way to Mexico, we stopped at the hamburger joint and they were closed. We went on to Mexico, another drunk with me. And I traded that load of pickles and onions for boots. And came back and, you know, I found out the police were narrow minded. They put me in jail. My brother bailed me out and I went to Dallas. And I went to work at a defense plant out in Dallas. And we alcoholics are pretty sharp, you know. But we know phonies when we see them. And they put us in jail. And they put me studying time out there, what these people were doing with their time. And I discovered in my very way of looking into their time, that a lot of them were, we were going to lose the world, World War II if we didn't get something done. So I volunteered to go into service. And boy, that's a mistake. When you're 33 years old, you've been sober about 20, you've been drunk 20 years. And you're addicts. And you're out there trying to do basic training. Believe me, you better watch out. I wound out in some terrible places at terrible times. I went in the service and they sent me to Cheyenne, Wyoming, the most terrible place in the world. And I stayed there 11 months and I didn't do any drinking and basic training because I couldn't breathe. And when I got out of there, I went back to Dallas, Texas. And immediately they hired me for five to handle to five states with an electric auto light company out of Toledo. And they moved me to Lubbock, Texas. And I went out there. They knew I had a drinking problem, but they didn't know how bad it was really. Anyhow, on a day there, and I was traveling with one of my sailmen. He was a destroyer. He was a destroyer. He was a destroyer. He was a destroyer. And he had a distributor sailman. And we were in the little town of Odessa, Texas out there. And I had to have a drink. I was about to die. And I told this guy that his car broke. And I said, I'm going to the hotel while you're having the car fixed. And on the way, you see, an alcoholic's smart. I knew there was a liquor store between there and downtown. So I went and got me a pint of whiskey. And I ran into an old drinking buddy of mine, Bob Skimmerhorn, who I had done a lot of drinking with. He was a sorry drinker too, but he had a lot of money. And I ran short. I know none of you ever did, but I ran short of money a few times, now and then. Well, I'd steal his money, and he'd pass out, and I'd steal his money, and I'd just stay drunk. He kept me drunk about 10 years. But I ran into Bob, and I hadn't seen him in some time, and I said, let's go have a drink. I'm about to die. And he said, I'll go with you. We went up to the room, and we talked a little. And he said, I'm not drinking today, but you need a drink. You're in bad shape. Go on and have you a few drinks. And I asked him what kind of venereal disease he had. You know, it must be something. I'd never seen him turn a drink. Never. Well, anyhow, he said, here's what happened. I'd get up and drive at night and drink. And in front of the airport, where the old airport is now, he said, I ran into a carload of ladies, and three of them were killed. And you can imagine the anguish my mother and the problems we've had and the anguish of having killed somebody drunk. It was the most terrible thing you ever heard of. And he said, I found. A bunch of guys are in Dallas, and we meet together, and I found a way not to drink. And I've been sober 10 months. And I said, my God, that's impossible. No way he could stay sober 10 months. But anyhow, he said, I'll send you this book. I want you to read it. It's a big book. And wherever you'll be next week. No, he said, I'll send it to your home. I said, don't send it there. My wife's thinking. I've got a drinking problem. And he sent it to Amarillo, Texas, in a hotel. And I was drunk, drunk, drunk. And you know, I had that big book, and I thumbed through it 500 times. Never did read it, but I stayed drunk. Isn't that amazing? I never did read it. I didn't know what was in it. But I took it home and hid it from my wife, I thought. And she read it and put it back and waited. She said, that sounds good, but he'll never do that. Well, anyhow, Bob told me on that occasion, when you go as far as you can go, you can't go another step. You call me. Come to see me. I'll try to help you. You need some help. And so I lost that job in November. Another narrow-minded employer. And I stayed drunk every day from the latter part of November, 45, to April 46. And that moment of clarity came. When that sunlight of the Spirit, something happened. And they said, you better go look up, Bob. You've gone as far as you can go. And I got on the plane, went to Dallas. And Bob was out of the city, so I got some more drunks. And we got drunk, stayed drunk until Saturday. And he came and took me in an ambulance out to a, a dry knot joint. We didn't have recovery centers like we do now. But I was there. And they, in that, and they would give us an ounce of whiskey every, every four hours. And I'd been drinking a pint every four hours. So you can imagine how much good that'll do. This old Irishman in there said, listen, Cersei, if you will, in the morning, turn that drink down. And that'll be today. And if you'll turn that, and if you don't ever take a drink today, you don't ever take another drink. I said, well, I'll be damned. Now you tell me. I turned that drink down. And for some unknown reason, I didn't need a drink. For some, I don't know why, I'd always had to have a drink. But they took me to AA. And we went down downtown Dallas to 912 and a half Manning Park in front of a liquor store. And I said, I'm going to get a drink. And they said, I'm going to get a drink. And I said, I'm going to get a drink. And they said, I'm going to get a drink. And I said, I'm going to get a drink. And they said, I'm going to get a drink. And I said, I'm going to get a drink. And I said, I'm going to get a drink. And then I knew AA had worked. You know, when they told me to take me to AA and park in front of the liquor store, that'd work. That'd be all right. But we went upstairs, and there were 10 guys in there, all happy, joyous, and free. And they were members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And here is where God intervenes and helps sometimes. There was only one guy in all those 10 that could have done what he did and showed me what he did. me a way that I did not have to drink on a daily basis he took me to the 12 step there were no 12 positions in he took me to the same said do you believe in God I said yes I believe he said I want you to commit in the morning before you get that you not I don't you promise in your proposition a commitment to God that you and I take a drink just for 24 hours and he gave me the solution and there were only four members of alcoholics and I was between Fort Worth Texas and Phoenix there's a 1500 miles not a group and there were only four members well finally we would develop some groups and by going back and forth the Dallas North the AA just begun in that country and so we had groups a mushroom then and all of a sudden we had a lot of groups and and there the thing was working and a was working good and Bill Wilson would come to Texas and and help us down there for get some group to where it's a lonely thing when you don't have a group to have people after even I need you people so as we went along no group will you will you will form clubs we are the cause in the southwest of having the 12th or napolitan the already governed dis Chuck and it's still going to take a long time you know we were so we had different streams and stations and exhibitions which arm had clubs and they caught themiscuu B and instadt oh Mary ran off of the money and no no John trying to run the club no that and we kept bill worse than awake all night you know they were about 25 people gathered in Lubbock, Texas. They came to Amarillo, and we got in the plane, and he poured out some notes. And he said, I want you to read these and see what you think about them. And I read them over carefully, and I said, Bill, this is all right for you Yankees, all right. But we don't need it down here. We love each other. Oh, how we love each other. What it was was the 12 traditions. Aren't you glad I didn't start this thing? Well, anyhow, Bill was there many times, many trips. Bill came to visit with us and showed us how to solve these situations and what to do about them. And so, anyhow, Bill sent me off to Yale School on a plane. And I went there on alcohol studies after I raised hell with him so long and asked him so many questions. And I went there and got all this knowledge and came home, you know, and I was going to save everybody. And so after a while, after a couple of years, Dr. Jelinek hired me, and they brought the Yale School on alcohol studies to Fort Worth, TCU. And then after a while, they hired another guy and myself to do educational work to establish local committees for education. And so I was working on alcoholism and so forth. And in about, to make a long story short, I think we spread the disease pretty good. After a while, then Dr. Jelinek became ill. Dr. Jelinek was a scientist, and he came from South America to head the Yale School at New Haven. And we were riding along one day, and I asked, I said, Blunky, you're a banana scientist, and then you go, you're an alcoholic. How in the hell do you go from bananas to alcohol? He said, they're just alike. They get away from the bunch and get peeled. So anyhow, there came a time Dr. Jelinek became ill, and he said, the greatest need we have is some hospitals where an alcoholic can go into and sober up and go into AA and stay sober. And so we started some hospitals. And a long story short, because I don't have very much time, a long story short, Bill came to visit this clinic we had in Dallas one time in 1953. And I said, Bill, what would you rather see happen now in AA that's never happened? He said, I'd rather see Abby have a chance to get sober. Abby went to Bill. Bill was in the hospital, Towns Hospital, you know, for the 40th time. And he was in the Oxford group. And Bill said, what's this religion you got? He said, well, it's not religion, it's spirituality. Well, what do you do? What's the bottom line? He said, we trust God, clean house, and help others. And we haven't been able to improve on that since then. You know, it's still that way. So anyhow, we got Abby down, sobered him up, and Abby stayed sober off and on three or four years at a time. But to make things straight, he finally died up in Upper State, New York here. And he was sober. He was sober for two and a half years when he died. But he had periods of sobriety, three and a half, four years. He nursed, and he was crazy about women like I am. And he fell in love with this RN, a nurse, and he nursed her for two and a half, three years. She was hopeless and helpless. And then he got drunk when she died. So we've learned a lesson in these things. How? You know, I see the thread. The thread of spirituality woven through all of the program of the fabric of AA. It's all through there. From the beginning, from everything that happened, like for the things we got from the Oxford group and so forth. It all reverts back to the power greater than we are. And these 12 steps of recovery and alcoholics and all of it were not written by somebody that sat down and wrote out 12 steps. They did. They did. They did those things. And as a result, they stayed sober. How do we know AA worked? It worked because it worked from the beginning. Why? Because it's what they did. And those who did those things and experienced those steps stayed sober. And those who didn't, didn't. And that's true today. So I wish I had two or three days to talk. We made a lot of mistakes in alcoholics. A lot of mistakes. And we did things wrong in a lot of cases, most cases. But here are the things. We talked about the things to do to stay sober. I'm going to tell you about how not to stay sober and how we didn't stay sober in the beginning. And these are the 12 steps prior to the AA program. We admitted. We were powerless over nothing that we could manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone else who would allow us to. We came to believe there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world was insane. We made a decision to have our loved one's friends turn their will and lives over to our care, even though they couldn't understand us at all. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of everyone we knew. We admitted. We didn't just return to being a fool, we admitted to the whole world at large the exact nature of everybody else is wrong. We were entirely ready to make others straighten up and ship out. We demanded others to either shape up or ship out. We made a list of all persons who had harmed us and became willing to get even with all of them. We got direct revenge on such people wherever possible, except when they do something to them. when to do so would cost our lives and at the very least the jail sentence. We continued to take the inventory of others and when they were wrong, promptly and repeatedly reminded about it. We sought through bitching and nagging to improve our relations with others and we couldn't understand them at all, asking only that they knuckle down under ours. Having had a complete physical, emotional and spiritual breakdown as a result of these steps, we tried to blame it on others and to get sympathy and pitity in all our affairs. But, but, yeah I know it. But I've got to read that. We had early promises. I've got to read the promises too. And Fred almost stole my thunder out of my book. Here are the early promises. You'll know your full name and address. You'll be able to shave yourself. You'll be able to dress and undress yourself at the appropriate time and places. You will at all times know the city, state and country you're in. You will routinely be able to find matching socks. You'll be able to smoke if you wish without burning the holes in the clothes or furniture. You'll lose the fear of food. You will spend less time in the bathroom. You'll be able to walk a straight line and pass the balloon test. You'll lose the fear of police cars in your rear view mirror. You'll be able to answer the doorbell without looking through the keyhole first. You'll realize what a mess you've been in your life. You'll be able to be a good man. You'll be able to be a good woman. You'll be able to be a good man. You'll be a good woman. Video The Only Design Powerえーinea mi ru instead of loneliness, self-respect instead of self-contempt, self-confidence instead of helplessness, a clean conscience instead of a sense of guilt, the respect of others instead of their pity and contempt, a clean pattern of living instead of a purposeless existence, the love and understanding of our families instead of their doubts and fears, the freedom of a happy life instead of the bondage of an alcoholic obsession. So I'm going to take a little more time, about a minute. I know I spoke over in England their 50th anniversary over there in 1997, and they talked 20 minutes over there. And that's amazing. Maximum. Nobody ever talked to them, no matter who you are. And so I barely got to introduce myself over there. But there is no doubt in my mind that, and this is experience, strength, and hope, that the answer to all of our problems as an alcoholic, the solution is to experience the 12 steps of alcoholic non-violence. I don't mean read them and know them and talk about them, just experience like our founders did. Experience those things. And as a result, they stayed sober. So, old Bill told me one time, I said, why are we talking about Abbey? And he said, and Abbey asked me to be his sponsor before he died several times. He was sober two and a half years before he died. And we talk about those things and how nobody is hopeless and helpless in this fellowship. There is not anyone, anywhere, anytime that cannot be helped by someone. And each and every one of you out there are the only one who can help somebody that's looking for a way out. You're the only one who can do it. Nobody else. You can't. Each one of you. There's somebody you can help. So, I'm gonna, don't leave, I'm not gonna sing this song. But back to Stanford, Texas, there was a guy named Stuart Hamlin that wrote a lot of songs. And he went to Hollywood and wrote a lot of religious songs for those religious movies. And he came into Alcoholics Anonymous about three years before he died. And asked me to be his sponsor. And I told him, I thought he wrote, you've heard his old songs, some of this old house and things like that. And he wrote this, it is no secret what God can do. And these are the words, I'm not gonna sing it, don't leave. The words go something like, the chimes of time ring out the news another day is through. Someone slipped and fell, was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength, your courage to renew. But do not be disheartened, cause I've got news for you. It is no secret what God can do. There is no night for any light, you'll never walk alone. You'll always feel at home wherever you may roam. There is no power can conquer you while God is on your side. Just take him at his promise, don't run away and hide. It is no secret what God can do. If you're not as close to God as you once were, make no mistake about who moved. And if you're near or close to God, make no mistake about who should move. So I challenge each and every one of you, all of us together, that we come to the realization that we have the greatest way to rid ourselves of the rubbish and trash in our lives that we don't want in there and remove the need to have alcohol in our life. We have that program. That's the solution. And I want to say, the most important thing in my life, in my life, in my life, in my life, in my life, in my life. Is I want to start a new life. And let's hold on to it. Let's keep it. Let's keep it. So I challenge each one of you, let's abandon ourselves to God as we understand God. Clear away the record of the past. Admit our faults to our fellows. And I have no doubt in my mind that whoever you are, wherever you came from, wherever you've been sober or anything about it, that all of us someday, somehow, somewhere, will meet again. Until then, God bless all of you and I love you. Amen.