Dave R. at the Tri State – 1970

Hi there, welcome to the Sober Circle channel. Enjoy this speaker tape. Let's open our meeting with a moment of silent meditation followed by the surrender prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the willingness to know the difference. My name is Willard Pegg, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of the Central Group in Greensboro, North Carolina. I've been sober ever since I could remember. I'm going to tell this little story because I think if you'll listen to it, it will mean a lot. This man came home from work this night and was sitting and watching television, and a little boy came to him and says, �Dad, do you believe everything you hear?� And the man thought for a few minutes and he says, No son, I can't say that I do, but why do And then the little boy says, Well, do you believe everything you see? And Dad thought for a few minutes and he said, Yes, son, I believe everything I see. But why do you ask? And the little boys says, You know that old school-made schoolteacher of mine, says, Yes. He says, The day in school, a little mouse ran across the floor, and when he ran up her legs, and she squeezed them with her knees. She squeezed a gallon of water out of them. And I feel like this morning they were going to get a whole lot out of it if they were able to put in it. I believe that's why I told that story. So if you listen, I believe you'll get a whole lot out of it. I was speaking this morning with a man that I've known for many years. I heard him when he first started on the circuit, and he was one of the wickedest old men I've ever known. We called it cussing in those days, and he was a cusser, I'll tell you. Now, little girl, I'm Blackstone Virginia Hatchman one day. But Dave, if you'll just clean it up a little bit, we'll appreciate it. And this started him out and he's a real clean speaker now. This man came with this program. He belonged to THE Church, he's a Republican, he is an alcoholic, and I don't know if he who was this when he came to Erie, or not, but he is now, a pokerholic, a hillbilly lawyer. So see, that man had a lot to overcome. Some of it he has overcome. He used to remind me of this story. This young man died and went to heaven, and a little later on there was a young lady who died and then went to Heaven, and they met up there and wanted to get married. And it seems that St. Pete runs a show up there, and you have to go through him to do anything. So they went to St. Peter and told him they would like to get married. And he said, I can't let you get married now, but come back in a hundred years and I'll see what we can do. It seems like that's a short term. So at the end of a hundred years they went back and told him they were still in love and they'd like to get married. And he says, well, I won't let them marry me. I'm not going to let you marry me, I'm I can' t let you give married yet. He says, come back at the end of another hundred years and I' ll see what we can do. So they waited, and at the end of the second hundred years they went back and told him they were still in love, and they would like to get married. He said, Well, I'm going to let you get married this time, but I want to tell you this. Marriage is final up here. And the boy says, Well I don't fully understand what you're talking about. And he says, I'll tell you son, it took us two hundred years to get a preacher up up here to marry you, and we're not expecting any lawyers at all." I have a great hope for Alex Baker this morning because I believe he's going to make it. He really does. He still got a lot of changing to do. Not very long ago he was over in the state of Texas, and he violated some laws over there and almost got arrested. I think he'll tell you a little about that himself this morning. Truly, our Speaker is a fine man. He is a real honest-to-God A member. He talks about it, but he also lives it, and this is what counts upon him. He's a former delegate to the General Service Conference. He's really a rock of AA in East Tennessee. He's a real gentleman, and I don't believe we needle Dave a lot. And I think we should talk about the good things about Dave just a minute or two. Dave is an excellent speaker, and his story means much, and this is why I told that little story in the beginning. If you will really listen, I believe we'll get more out of it than we had when we came. So it was a great deal of pleasure that I introduce to you Dave R., the Sage of the Smokies, Maryville, Tennessee. Thank you. Well, I don't know that I have very much left to say. You already know all about me, but I do appreciate very much the latter part of your remarks. And I suppose to follow the usual course in these meetings, I will tell you that my name is Dave Rozier, and I am an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the help of people like you, I haven't found it necessary to drink anything containing alcohol since September 22, 1949. As Willard told you, I'm a member of the Maryville, Tennessee group of AA. It's the best group in the whole wide world. And I say that with humility because I started the group. Gene and I had been attending a group over at Knoxville, 15 miles away, for about nine years, and we decided it was time we had one in Maryville. And we started, and most of the time it was just Gene and me, and occasionally just one of us there, but Finally another poor soul dropped in, and after experimenting a while he kept it, and the group grew. Of course I presided at all meetings. I read the purpose and the steps and discussed whatever might be on my mind, and if there time left, I would occasionally let one of the other boys say a word or two. I got there early. I started the coffee, got everything in readiness, and that group just went along fine. But as happens in so many cases, these upstarts with six or seven or eight years sobriety, started making suggestions. And they kept just boring in, you know. And you know what my job is now with that group? I'm the general program chairman. Now we have an actual program chairman every month, and I'm the one who appoints the program chairman. That's every damn thing I have to do with a group. And you know it's miraculous the way a group will progress without the old-timer having his finger in every pie. But it is a wonderful group, some wonderful folks, and I had some notes here. When they just tell your story, it knocks the hell out of you. I am happy to be in Shreveport again, where there are so many old friends, not only Louisiana, Texas. There's the King of Texas up in the front row here. And the joining station, I believe at this meeting, seriously, I believe I see more old-timers from various parts of very south and southwest than I see anywhere else. And that speaks well for your whoever runs it, and now you know who. But I do thank Watt and his committee for letting me come back again to Shreveport. Now, after talks like Harold's and that cutie from California, Luann, I'm just in the wrong league here. I can't match talks like that. But you've paid my way down here. Frankly, I'm not worth it, but I'll do my best to earn it. I don't have much new for you. All I have is the simple story of a simple drunk who found sobriety and a new way of life through AA. Most of what I say is, or a great deal of it will be something I've read or heard. There's not much original here. But I would like for the, this meeting's supposed to be over at 11? Don't say she walked by. But I would like to look at a fellow back down there. He had my name, but I like to think of him as a different person, tragic figure, comical, and occasionally a rather lovable lush. And I don't want to judge him too harshly. And as I say, I like to think of him as another man who bore my name. And in doing that, I think probably my talk will differ from the typical in two respects. I hear occasionally a talker speak of having a period of sociable drinking? I never had that. I never enjoyed it. You know, a sociable drinker, I think, is a person who doesn't have any appreciation for good liquor. I say I didn't. I never drank socially because the first time I drank, I got sick. I don't mean nauseated. I mean sick. And the next time and the next time. And eventually when I got to the point where it didn't make me sick, I was already hook. I was an alcoholic. So I didn't have the pleasure of that delightful interlude I hear some of you speak of as sociable drinking. You know, puking and sociability just don't And another aspect in which I think my story differs is that I started a little later than the average. I was almost thirty before I started drinking, and there was no reasonable excuse for it at all. I had finished Vanderbilt Law School second in my class. The damn bookworm beat me out of first place. I'd established a practice in a small county seat up in the mountains of East Tennessee, I had built up a pretty nice practice. For the first time in my life I had some money I could call my own. I was able to take care of my mother and baby sister. I taught them in the Bible class in the church in the mountains, where we have descriptive names for some churches, like the Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Catholic Church. But when we say the church, that's the Baptist Church. They even elected me alderman of this town, a commissioner I believe you called him. That may or may not be considered an honor. And I was keeping company with the most attractive young lady in town. Now I say that not bolsterly, but to point out that I had no problems, nothing bugging me. Why should a fellow in that situation start drinking? You know, I'd hear these fellows tell about the drinking parties they'd been on, parties which I wasn't invited. And I made up my mind that my life was not complete, that I was missing something. Well, I sure as hell was. And I found out later what some of those things were that I'd been missing and none of them were good. It didn't take very long for me. Of course, my business fell off. Nobody wants a drunk lawyer, drunk doctor, or anything else. Then my credit eroded. People started avoiding me. They didn't fire me as Sunday-school teacher, I just didn't go back, amongst the damn hypocrites anyhow. And I didn't run for alderman any more. And I just went on down, and in the meantime I had married this lovely girl. And we had two little, two babies, 15 months apart, little girls. I had a friend in Congress who learned about my plight, and he came over to see me one And he asked me how I would like to have a job with the government. And I told him, Well, I would, uh, like to consider it. I went home and told my wife about it. She says, You call Congressman Reese right now. I said, No, honey, that's not done that way. I'll call him tomorrow. Well, we had breakfast the earliest the next morning we'd ever had since we'd been married. And her parting words to me when I started in the office was, You call Mr. Reese the first thing. And I did. And I got the job. I believe it was Senator Penrose, an old-timer from Pennsylvania who said once that a government job is the last refuge of the incompetent. There may be those who will question that, but in my case it was true. Now, that was way back young. And I went on under one administration, Then in 1932 the great catastrophe hit this country, and you know who was elected. Well, I stayed right on and got promoted. Some friends had come up, and then we were right in the Depression then, you know. And my friends had came up from Tennessee and said, Dave, how do you hold on? Well, I had an answer. I said the Democrats don't have sense enough to run the country, and they've got to have some of us Republicans do it. Now that's smart! When good lawyers were just, good Democratic lawyers were just itching for the job like I had, and blowing butt, that's a drunk. Another thing I did in my government career, I fell out with my boss. That's another smart thing. But it's a drunk, you know. We go around these joints, we don't pick on a little fellow, we pick on the big fellow. Some day we're going to book a big fellow! Of course, we get a lot of hell beat out of us in the course of it, but some day we are going to do that. Well, the only thing to say to me was that my boss wasn't right bright. He didn't have much sense. But you can imagine a drunk and a fool just locking up like two wildcats! And as a result, there wasn't any work coming out of our unit. had chosen us back just like kids do on the Sandlot. He had his First Lieutenant, I had mine right on down the line to the two messengers. One was mine and one was his. And each side was always trying to get something on the other. And practically no work went out of the unit. Of course, I was continuing my drinking. You see, a thing like that demands help. You just got the drink. It's a sandwich. And in the meantime, I built up a pretty bad attendance record. But I had a doctor who for five dollars would give me a certificate that I was ill. See, in the government service you can't just go off and take it on annual leave. You've got to apply for your annual leave in advance. But sick leave, of course the person gets sick, but they can't help that. I didn't pay a great deal of attention to it, but one day the personnel officer called me down and he had a whole raft of these certificates. I said, Rozier, I'm no doctor, don't pretend to know anything about medicine, but as a I know that no human being could have intestinal flu as long and as often as you have and still be alive." Now, he says, you either start coming in here the morning after payday or bind you a new disease. Well, I promised him I would, and I kept my word. I found a new disease. Well, this had to come to a head sometime, and of all departments in Washington it had to be the Interior Department. Some of you older heads will remember Secretary Harold Ickes. He was a rough baby, but honest as the day is long. And he called my boss and me and our respective first lieutenants down to his office. He said he had been worried about that division, it was the Division of Investigations of the Interior Department. He said he was going to worry about it, but he couldn't get any answers. And he said, There's no work coming out and I've had to make a decision, and I have made that decision. I'm going to abolish the thing right now. It says there is no more division of investigations. But he said I'm trying to take care of all of you somewhere else in the department. And I was one of the first ones he looked at. He said, "'Rosier, there's a junior internship open out in the Billings, Montana, office'." Siberia! You know that hurt. I said to myself, Here, I've given eleven of the best years of my life to my government, and they offer me a job they give kids just getting out of law school. Oh, I didn't say anything. I didn' t want to hurt the old man's feelings. And you know, I looked around Washington at various other departments and units, and none of them seemed to have any need of my particular type of ability. And it was necessary that I return to Tennessee and try to build a practice of law again. They were building a big ordinance works at Kingsport, Tennessee. They were spending $75 million. Now back in 1941 that was a lot of money. And I figured if I went there, some of it would stick to my fingers. I didn't know just how, but where there's that money. You know us drunks, we always like to be where money. But coming down on the train, I did a little thinking, serious thinking, and I concluded that my drinking probably had something to do with my difficulties. And I made up my mind to do something about it. And I will say this in my defense. I went to Kingsport, opened my law office, and I didn't drink a thing containing alcohol, liquor, wine, beer, of that nature, for almost three weeks. And at the end of that time I took a friendly a drink with some friends and wound up in their friendly jail. Now that's a great recommendation for a lawyer to a new town, to get in jail. But I got in and in and in. They told it on me, it could or may not have been true, but I guess they told it to a thousand lawyers. A drunk was brought in, and he says, I started questioning, and he said, I want to talk to my lawyer. And the officer said, Who is your lawyer? said, Mr. Rozier. And the officer says, Well, Mr Rozier's in the next cell and as soon as he sobers up I'll get you together. But I just kept on getting in jail and getting in jail, and my law business didn't prosper. In fact it didn't get off the ground. And I had taken down what at that time was a substantial sum of money that accumulated in my retirement account. I had spent it, I had spend what I could borrow, I begged some money and spent it. I was even accused of stealing money. Now, that was a dirty lie. I want to tell you exactly what happened. They elected me adjutant of the American Legion post there in Kingsport. as adjutant, it was my duty to collect dues. It was also part of my duties to send those dues on to headquarters at Nashville so the men would get their membership card back. Now, I performed fifty percent of those duties to perfection. I really collected those dues. But I was a little dilatory about sending them home to Nashville. So the most natural thing happened. I got their money and my money mixed up. Now, in the law, that's known as the commingling of assets. Well, having mixed them up like that, when I spent money, I didn't honestly know whether it was their money or my money. You can see that. Until it was all gone. And then I knew I'd spent their money and mine, too. Well, you know how they start rumors about you when you're drinking a little? And I heard this little mumbling, and it kept increasing in volume. And finally, I went out and got a couple of friends to sign a note for me with their mouth. I don't remember whether it was a 30-, 60- or 90-day note. They paid it whenever it became dear. And I got the money on the note and sent it to Maxwell in a puff, and I said, that'll take care of it. Now, in looking in retrospect, as I said in the beginning at this fellow, I was a victim of a giant conspiracy. People just ganging up on me, that's what a conspiracy is. And the best I can figure, it started with my comrades in this American Legion post. They wanted to destroy me. They didn't fire me as adjutant. They figured that if I kept collecting views, I would do the very same commingling job again. And how right they were! You know, it's a peculiar thing about us drunks. We'll get caught in a bear trap and just finally get out, and as soon as our ankle is healed, we'll go right back. Isn't that right? Oh, they caught this guy! And I did. Well, the same old thing. I wonder why we're not getting our membership cards back. I wonder if Dave sent the money in. And I did. Well, the same old thing. I wonder if I was not getting our membership card back. I wonder that Dave sent the money in. I wonder whether he still got it. I believe he may have spent it. Word came to me that one little old fellow in the post said, He's guilty of fraudulent breach of trust. Well, when the hell does that little old idiot know about fraudulent breaches of trust? That's for all you talk. Judge talk. Gee, he just happened to be right, but he didn't know it. And then the final blow came to me that one of them had said, He has stolen our money. Well, that required getting these legal brains working, you know. I had to analyze that situation. So I got me a jar, a mason jar, of course. of white lighting, and I went to my office and started analyzing. Now, I said, they accuse me of stealing. Well, there's no such offense as stealing. It's larceny. That's the proper legal term. Now I said let's see what is larcening. Larceny is the unlawful taking of the goods or money of another with the intention of converting it to one's own use and depriving the true owner thereof." Now, I said, let's just set the facts up against that definition. Did that money come into my hands unlawfully? No! It was my duty to collect it. Did I intend to deprive them of it? No! I meant to pay them back. I didn't know just when or how, but sometime I was going to pay it back. And there was the answer. I didn't steal their money because I didn' t commit the crime of larceny. Embesonment, yes, but not larcenies! But that's just another example of how they'll build a mountain out of a molehill because the fellow takes a few drinks. Well, it was time to go out again, you know then. I had the answers, see? All I had to do was get a couple of fellows to sign my notes. Well, there are a lot of people in Kingsport who pretended to be my friends, but do you know not a one of them would sign my note? they wouldn't stand still long enough for me to ask them. And things were just getting tough. One dreary morning I was in my office. I don't know how I happened to be there in the daytime. I'd usually come in and sleep. We had one of these couches that you've heard those dirty stories about, that lawyers have in their offices. I'd come in and sleep, and early in the morning I'd be gone. Ain't nothing pleasant happening anywhere. Ain' t nobody coming in with any nice news or nothing over the telephone about a little old check or something that had got hung up somewhere. But I was sitting there, and who should walk into my office but my My brother, he was living in Kentucky at that time, said he was just passing through Kingsport. You don't come from Kentucky and pass through Kingspore! You run right into a mountain! See, I saw what was coming! Another one of these family conferences. You ever been in one of those? They usually happen on a Monday morning of all times. Here's old Joe. He's lying there, dying, just plain dying. Mouth full of cotton, shaking. Here's Footsteps up out in the hallway and the door to his room squeaking, you know. He looks up and there she stands. Joe, why do you do this to us? How does Joe know? And after a long pause. Joe, we love you. Imagine that. They've poured out his liquor. They won't let him get out before he can get a good shot. And they are denying him the one thing that would put life back into his body, and they have the unmitigated gall to say we wouldn't. I could see this family conference developing, and he said, Well, how have you been? I said, Well, pretty good. He said, How's business? Well, I said you know it takes a little time to build up a law practice in a new town. I'd only been there three years and a half. He said, How are money matters? I said, Well, they could be better. And finally he looked me right in the eye and he said, how much do you owe those boys? See some big mouth. got all the way to Kentucky. Well, I gave him a figure. He said, well, is there anything else bothering you? Well, the only thing bothering me back then was something that had jail connected with it, and I said, Well, there are a few checks outstanding. He won't know what they amounted to. And I gave him a figure on that. It was tremendously low, it turned out. And And he said, Well, can you pay him? I said, well, not just right this minute. I didn't have a dime on me. He said, Well, Eleanor and I have been talking. That's his wife. She said, You've had a lot of trouble. If you've been lonely, this lovely girl had passed away. The doctor said it was heart trouble, and I know it was, a broken heart. She had seen this fine, upstanding young lawyer just disintegrate as more than she could bear. He said, we've been thinking about selling out in Kentucky and moving back to East Tennessee. At that time, Kentucky was one of the few states still Democratic. And he said, I want to bring my boy up in Republican territory, and I want I want to send him to Maryville College. Now, my brother's a fellow who really looks ahead. At that time his boy was one year old. And he said, we have thought about having you to come and live with us. But, did you ever get that one? I wouldn't have opened my mouth to save his life. And after waiting some while he said, we'd have to have an understanding about your drinking. I said, you needn't worry. I've had it. And he said, I'm glad to hear that. Now my brother, he's a pretty good fellow, but he's led a terribly monotonous life. He's thought about such things as supporting his family and buying a home and educating his son. He's never really lived! So he got me out of Kingsport just ahead of the sheriff, came down near Marital and bought place some five or six miles out, set me up in an office there, bought me some clothes, had my teeth fixed. You know, a drunk's always got to have his teeth worked on. And he would bring me in from the farm every morning to the office and pick me up at the end of business hours and take me back, and he would drop in at odd times during the day. See? He didn't trust me. And I thought, oh boy, you've got me under your thumb right now, but one of these days, I'm going to show you one that you'll never forget. Now, I didn't get drunk intentionally, really. But after some three or four months, I was getting to feel pretty good, and I knew that I couldn't drink a whole lot. But I said, if I get me a pint, I can take a drink about the middle of the morning, and another in the middle of the afternoon, and unless he's lucky to come in, I believe it was 18 minutes isn't it? Stays on your breath, whatever it was. I'll get by with it. So I got me a pint, so somewhere about 9 or 9.30. And when I ordered my third pint just before noon, I was in pretty good shape. So I got out and for the next day or two, I don't know much, but I don't know a thing about it. But I came to the second or third morning, and I was sitting on the edge of a bed in one of these establishments on a side back road that we refer to as tourist courts. You know, they cater to transient trade. I mean, transient as hell. You didn't know what And I was hating everybody, but most of all the fellow who put me there, my brother. And after a while he drove up to the very first part and I just thought, Oh boy, if you say two words to me, I'm going to whip you till you can't see. And he must have thought the same thing. So he came out and opened another door that was never locked, you know. People go in there and put a chair up against it when they finish—I mean, when they're done. Well, he looked in, he said, �How are you?� I said, ìI'm all right.� He said, well, let's go. I said, go where? He said, home. Well, he was my brother and I was hungry and I decided to go with him and I got in the car and started off toward the farm. There wasn't very much conversation going on. I didn't think of any topic worthy of discussion And finally he said, you know, when you came with us we hadn't understood it. He said, would you care to talk about it? I said, I'm glad you brought it up. This has been a lesson to me." And the poor fellow, in the same words and the same tone of voice, said, I'm glad to hear that. Well, he took me on back to the farm and Elvner washed my shirt and some other clothes, and I shined my shoes. A couple of mornings later, I went back to the office. It was another one of those times when I was sort of getting up to doing something, as I had so many times. But it was always tomorrow, you know. That's the matter that I had to get straightened out. Isn't that the silliest reasoning you've ever heard, a junk straightening something out? But I felt that I'd turned over a new leaf. I heard a speaker say not too long ago that the only man that ever had any luck turning over leaves was old Adam. I didn't have too because it was just a very few weeks until I was back at a similar place to the one before, and my brother didn't come for me that time. He sold out and moved away before I ever sobered up. I saw a friend of mine after I got sort of walking around sober, and he said, Well, I understand the feast was gone. I said, Yeah, what? He said, In fact, I saw him the day he left. Did he ask? I asked him about what was going to become of you. You know what he said? he said to hell with him. Now, you imagine that! Your only brother deserting you at a time when he might be of some help to you. And oh, what a liar he was! You know, he said said he was moving there to bring his boy up in Republican territory. Where do you suppose he moved to? Biloxi, Mississippi. And his boy never saw the inside of Maryville College. He finished LSU about three years ago. That's the way they'll lie to you. So my brother they was in the conspiracy. Well, they just started getting in one after the other. The lawyers there in Maryville, they joined the conspiracy, and just nothing. One day I was over at court, and it was in session, and I walked along between the judge and the jury and stepped on something slick and fell. And then one day I was over at court, and there was a lawyer there with a real deep voice, and he was a crackerjack lawyer, and ruthless as he could be. And his nickname was Bully. And he was trying to case against a young lawyer, And finally he asked one of his witnesses a patently leading question, and there's more than I can tell. I didn't have a thing to do with the lawsuit, I was just sitting over there. But I jumped up and said, �I object.� And the judge says, �The objection is good, that it comes from the wrong quarters. Well, probably those things wouldn't have been too bad, but I collected some money for a lady, some $600, and got it mixed up. And you know that's way over 20 years ago, and I still hear echoes of that thing. But back then, that terrible lawyer wrote her, taking poor Widow Jones' money. And that was really laughable. She's not poor at all. She still lives in the rich old moment. Now, if any you fellows still have a little larceny left in your heart, and if you were first-class drunks, you'd still have just a little speck of it. And you get to the point where you've got to have money. You go out and rob a bank or hold up a train, but you be mighty sure you don't ever defraud any old widow on it. Well, the lawyers appointed a committee to start disbarment proceedings against me. That's like taking a carpenter's hammer and saw and painter's brush, just any whole means of livelihood. But I had a friend on this committee who talked the other members into waiting until they caught me sober and talked to me. Well, I sure kept them waiting. In fact, the committee never acted. I beat them in the AA. So the lawyers were in the conspiracy. Well, my office was in a little bank building there Well, the only skyscraper in town five stories, and had elevators on a building that did. And one of these presidents—did you ever have any dealings with a president of a little one-horse bank? There, there, there's the king of the road. They usually have a desk way over in the corner, and they'll get you over there and talk to you so you can be heard all over town. And he had little things. Well, one thing was I kept the night janitor from sweeping out the corridors. Well, now, these people who criticize us, they never ask for any explanation. If they had, I could have told them that old Doc was a good old fellow and we both liked to drink. And I'd bring a jar one time, and maybe next time Doc would bring a jar, and we would get in the office and settle the affairs of state. It usually would be around daylight before we got through. But no, he didn't want any explanation at all. He cared a little blame the floors weren't being swept. Then one time I came by this sissy dentist's office and he had a lady strapped in where she couldn't get up, and I leaned my elbow up on his arm of his chair and told a dirty story. But the most laughable thing was that he said, I abused the elevator girls. Now Now, you just imagine that. These girls are 18, 19 and 20, and I was 50 years old and past. Now what earthen image would a 50-year-old man have in those cute little 19-year olds? And if they'd have told the truth, they would have said that I never heard of one of them. I was just as gentle with them as I knew how to be. That's another instance of how people will just build up things on you when you're not guilty at all. Well, these two daughters are up now grown. One was a senior in high school and the other a freshman at the University of Tennessee. They had long since let me know that they'd just a little rather I wouldn't come around. And that cut deep. A man's own children, his own flesh and bone, denied me. And I worried again about what this younger generation was coming through. Of course they knew I would either be drunk or have a hangover or be smelling like a goat But I put them in with this ring, this conspiracy that had developed all around me. And then it was jail, jail, and jail. The last year and a half I drank, I didn't have a room. I would sleep in my office, a bootlegging joint, just where I rep quite often in jail. And I would sober up just a few days before criminal court and make enough to sort or exist on. And I specialized in liquor cases. I knew more about the law of searches and seizures than any other lawyer in Tennessee, but that was all I knew about it. But that assured my liquor supply. And being in jail, it got to where it didn't mean a thing to me. I was in jail in Maryville three nights, hand-drawn. And when I got out, I said, I'm going over to Knoxville where a man can take a drink or two and not be treated like a bum. And I caught the 2.30 bus for the 15-mile ride to Knoxvile at 2. 30 in the afternoon. as the shades of night were falling, where do you suppose I was? And the next morning I had an experience that I'd never had before. I went to court. Now, I've been really usually able to get a bond, you know. But I'd overlook one little detail. Knox Bombing Company had been taking me out and taking me but I sort of failed to pay. And it got away up in the morning this first night I was in the Knoxville jail, and this officer, I told him to ask the Knox bonding man to come up, and he came back after a while and said he wasn't coming. I said, Well, have one of the other bondsmen come up. He says there ain't none of them coming for you." Atrocious grammar! There they were. And one of the older fellows, sort of a leader, got to straighten his clothes up, you know. every jail there's a leader. He's not elected, he's not appointed, he just emerges. He is the biggest, meanest fellow there. And we'd already been down to court and I said, well where are we going now? He said, the workhouse. Oh hell no, I said that. There's got to be something happened. But you know, I got paroled out of the workhouse by a man who said he was paying my fine. Now, it just cost five dollars. He said, well, I'll pay it and you can pay me back. I said, all right, I'II do it. And I got in and he said, oh, you had three dollars in your pocket when they brought you in." Well, that never happened before. I said, �Well, I need that to get my laundry out.� And he looked at me and smiled in a knowing way and said,�Well, Keldy, Sergeant, I said to give you three dollars.� And I I went down and got it, and I was going toward the bus station, fully determined. And I made a discovery. I was nervous. I needed just one drink, and when I turned, I went away down to the holler—you know, For some reason or other, the farther down you get, the bigger drink you can get for the money. And you'd get them for a quarter down there, and I had twelve of them in my apartment. I said, ìI'm just going to take one here.î And I took one. No message. I took another. Now, I remember starting on the third, but I woke up on that very same bunk. five times in a row. And then I decided, sure enough, that I was going back to Maryland and I was gonna have this thing out. I went to my office, locked the door, And I didn't mean to leave there until the thing was resolved. And I'd been in close places before, and I said, Well, old Dave can figure a way out of this. But you know, the more I thought, the less—well, I saw no light at all, just like being in a bottomless pit. Then the thought came to me, maybe God would go, oh no, no. No, I've lived my life and I've got too much pride to go crawling up to God or man or any other being. And God couldn't help me if he wanted to. I've committed the unpardonable sin. Now, I didn't know what the un-pardonable sin was, but I knew I'd hit all the bases. And somewhere in there I got it. And then the argument that, well, God's not interested in people like me, is to find people who go to church on Sunday, who support his work. But then the parable of the ninety-nine sheep and the one that was lost, and the parables of the prodigal son came to me. Then I had to say this, it's for me. I'm the one who is interested in it. And I prayed just as Harold did. And I think anyone else in our position, there's only one prayer we can make. help me? And I did. Just three words. But in the attitude of mind I had at that time, I was saying a lot more than that. I said, God, I'm whipped. I'm through. I've finished. And after the life I've lived, you don't owe me anything. And I can't promise you anything Because I'm all out of resources, but out of your goodness and mercy and compassion, please help me. As I told you earlier, that was September 22nd, 1949, and I haven't had a drink since. You can have your own idea about whether God answers prayers, but I know. The next night I went over to the meeting place of Alcoholics Anonymous in Knoxville. It was back in what they call showrooms. It was an old hotel. Some of you may remember that in the old days the drummers would come to town with great trunks that they'd open up and lay out the merchandise, and the people would come in and buy samples. They don't do that any more. They send the lady buyer to New York, and for some reason the store manager always has to go with her. I've never figured that out. But they go up there and make their orders, and they ship them. Well, this was not a meeting night, but there were several fellows sitting over, sort of a circle talking. As I walked in and looked at them, they were clean-shaven and decently dressed and clear-eyed. I was in the wrong place. I was looking for people like me. And I didn't turn. I just started making a U-turn, and one of the fellows said, Come on back, fellow. You're in the right place. and how true that was. I've been going back ever since. It's been a wonderful experience, one that I didn't deserve. Being sober is a wonderful change. Now we're running late, but we started late. And I know you are going to be wondering about some of these people and things. And I'll close that out very briefly for you. The office that they were about to put me out of, I'm still in the same back building, still on the same floor. I had one room then. Now I've got a suite. You know, give a drunk a couple of bucks, you know, he's got this thing. And, you know, I get some of the bank's business now. Now they didn't start giving me business the very day that I went there. In fact, they waited eight years and a half, but they finally I'm well situated there. My brother and I got along fine now, with the passage of time I found it in my heart to forgive him. He visited me this last weekend on his way to in New York for his son's wedding. My daughters are both married. One has four children, the other one two, and those grandchildren think their granddaddy hung the moon. And I know told them that. It's been a long time since either one of my daughters told me that rather I wouldn't come around. In fact, if I go to see one, as soon as I leave, she's on the phone to her sister, Daddy's just been here. This is the second time he's been here since has been to see you. I get home, the phone's ringing off the wall, and it's the other one. Well, you know what? I'm going to be on the plane Friday night, honey. I've got a good thing going. I'm not going to blow it. I was at both their weddings sober, and if nothing else had come out of this, that would have been enough. The oldest one I know says, oh, she was married a couple years after I came to AA, and things were not too great a shape, but we did have a pretty nice little country wedding. But Rosemary came along a few years later. And boy, we did it up in grand style. Hired people to put the ferns and satin ribbons and all that stuff around. The carpet down the aisle wasn't good enough. We put bed sheet material all the way up there. Dressed up, you should have seen me, a white dinner jacket, one of these pleated bosom shirts with fur straps, midnight blue trousers, patent leather It cost plenty though. You know what they charged me to rent that outfit just for two The lawyers, I'm still at that bar. They never did throw me out. Remember, this happened in 1949. You know what they did just two years later, in 1951? They elected me president of the very Bar Association, they were getting ready to throw me out just two years earlier. Isn't that wonderful? Not because of me, but that's just an example of how people will treat us when they know realize that we are trying our best to do something about our problem. Those folks back yonder that I said was in a conspiracy, that wasn't it at all. They wanted to help me, but I wouldn't give them a chance. And once I gave folks a chance, they've all been wonderful. Is that about all these ? Oh, the elevator girls! Do you know what that fogey board at that bank did just a few years ago? They put in push-button elevators. Can you think of anything less romantic than a push-button elevator? And all those things are fine. But through AA, somehow I have been able to develop a relationship with my creator that I've never had before. I see him as a God of mercy and compassion, not a God of retribution, not somebody who's standing saying, well, you did so-and-so on a certain day. Just like the father of the prodigal son, when we turn around and start back, he runs to meet us. And that is the big thing that AA has really meant to me. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dave. See you there, Edith. You left a lot of us to take more than we brought up. Don't forget to get your banquet tickets. have just a little time left to get them what asked me this year and say something good about him and i forgot it but maybe somebody will now if you'll stand and we'll close this meeting by Let us pray together in the Lord's presence. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses to give for us and trespass against us, and lift us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.