Dr. Tiebout Said I Had an Iron Curtain Between Myself and Reality – Bob P.

Thank you, Larry, and good morning, friends.
My name is Bob, and I'm an alcoholic, and I, too, want to thank Vivian and Dwight and
the other members of the committee for making it possible for Betsy and myself to be here
for this conference, because, of course, for me, it's coming home.
Well, I was born and raised in Kansas City and Lawrence, and I'm married to a gal from
Salina, so what a privilege it is to be here this weekend, and I just hope that all of
you, I just, this is my earnest hope for all of you, that you have had half as good a time
as we have had so far in this convention.
I've had such a thrill, I mean, I've seen so many old friends here like, you know, Larry
and Ken, I can't name them all, and I have the thrill this morning of having right down
here on the front row and the second row a whole bunch of non-alcoholics who are the
members of our family.
I've had so many friends who have come to hear me speak this morning, and I tell you,
it's easy to talk to alcoholics, but I'm not so sure about it.
Like a family reunion down here, and then there are, as a little pocket of my relatives
from Salina and Lawrence, some of them I've not really known very well before, until,
by golly, on Friday night they turn up here in AA.
And I tell you, sharing with them has just been one of the most heartwarming things that's
ever happened to me this weekend, God bless you for coming down.
And to the speakers, of course, I certainly thank Dwight and Vivian and whoever put the
program together for putting together a program of nothing but my friends.
George, that spoke to you on Friday night, he and I served together on the Board of Trusts,
the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous, way back in the sixties.
And he just gives you such a solid old-time AA program talk, just great.
And of course, having Bob Smith here, I could just listen to him all day.
The idea that somebody who was actually present, one of our co-founders, Bill Wilson and Dr.
Bob, met for the first time, is sitting here with us having coffee and meals, is just unbelievable.
It just absolutely blows my mind.
And of course, Eve Marsh is a dear old friend, back from the General Service Office, as she
calls it, close to the heartbeat of AA.
I think that slogan has been preempted by somebody else here recently on TV.
But anyway, it was great hearing her.
And of course, we just...
Betsy, my wife, who doesn't normally...
She has a very merry personality, but she doesn't laugh out loud very much.
Last night, she was nearly rolling on the floor at Julian.
And so it's just been a wonderful, wonderful weekend.
And especially because all of you are here.
I have seldom experienced a more enthusiastic AA audience than this one.
You're absolutely wonderful.
Because of kind of the historic angle that we have been talking about some of the time
this weekend, because Bob S. is here, and because this is Sunday morning, and we're
supposed to have a spiritual meeting, really, it might be appropriate to take just a few
minutes before I start telling about how it was.
Dr. I'm glad to be here.
I'm glad to be here.
Thank you.
I'm so glad that you could join us.
Thank you.
Dr. Thank you.
It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you.
I had a little bit of a shock.
I don't know what happened or what it's like now.
To trace the spiritual underpinnings of our fellowship, how many of you, if I may ask,
if I can see your hands, how many of you were at the International Convention celebrating
the fiftieth anniversary in Montreal?
And I said, Oh, that's great, yeah.
Good, good, good.
Well, I apologize to all you, because what I'm going to do, of course, is say just about
what I said on Friday night as we...
Is that right?
as we opened that convention at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
And that is that although we arbitrarily traced the founding of AA
from the meeting of Bill and Dr. Bob out in Akron in 1935,
when Bill himself was asked about the beginnings of AA,
he liked to trace it back a few years earlier than that
to the study of the great Dr. Carl Jung over in Zurich, Switzerland.
And on this particular occasion, Dr. Jung had called into his study
one of his patients who had been there for about a year,
a young man named Roland Hazard.
And Roland was the scion of a well-to-do family here
in the United States.
But he was a terrible drunk and a disgrace to the family.
And so they had had him off at the various cures of that particular time
and, of course, without any success.
And so having the means to do so,
they had sent him all the way across the ocean by boat in those days
to be in the care of the greatest physician in the world at that time.
And that was the great psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Jung.
Well, Dr. Jung was saying to Roland on this particular morning,
he said, we, in effect, he said,
we've tried for the last year to bring about
some deep-seated psychological and emotional changes in you.
And we really haven't had any success.
And so we are going to discharge you.
And Roland was, of course, I'm sure, startled at this.
And he said, in effect,
well, then, is there no hope?
And Dr. Jung replied, none.
Except, he said, we do know that some people have been able
to recover from alcoholism
if they have been able to have a transforming experience of the Spirit.
And Roland said, yeah, but how do I bring that about?
Where can I find that?
And Dr. Jung, of course,
said, I don't know.
And so Roland left,
and he went back to drinking,
and he came back to the United States.
And somehow, and we don't know how,
he got connected up with a religious movement of the time,
which was called the Oxford Groups.
And these people were,
as Bob was saying the other day,
and thank you for those personal insights
into the early Oxford Groups, Bob,
they were,
as he said,
pursuing the values of early Christianity,
and they followed certain spiritual principles,
which included surrendering their wills to God
and praying a lot
and asking for God's direction in their lives
and freely confessing their faults to one another
and making amends or restitution to people that they had harmed
and trying to help their fellow man.
And by following these principles,
apparently, Roland,
was able to have a transforming spiritual experience
take over in his life
because he quit drinking.
Now, by another one of these incredible coincidences
that we have in AA,
he was on vacation up in Vermont during this time,
and it just happened by coincidence
that it was on a weekend
when a childhood buddy of his
had gotten into a drunken driving accident,
which consisted,
of driving a car across somebody's lawn
through the front partition of the house
and into the living room.
Roland was able to go to the judge,
whom he knew,
and to tell him of his own recovery
and ask if the judge would parole this Ebby,
for that was his name,
this Ebby into his care,
and that's what happened.
And so Roland and Ebby went back to New York,
and they went to the Oxford,
Ebby went to the Oxford Groups,
and somehow,
he had a transforming experience of the spirit,
and he quit drinking.
And in an attempt to follow the principles
of helping your fellow man,
his mind went back to a drinking buddy of his
who was named Bill Wilson.
And Bill was,
he had been a wonder boy of Wall Street, of course,
and at that moment,
he was sitting over in his kitchen
in Brooklyn Heights.
He had drunk himself out of his career,
he had nearly drunk himself out of his marriage
because his good wife was clerking in Macy's
to keep body and soul together.
He was stupefied and hopeless
and absolutely at the end of his rope.
And that's the way that Ebby found him.
And Ebby tried to tell Bill
what had happened to him.
Very unlikely in the case of this drunken little guy.
And Bill, being an unbeliever,
he was not buying any of this God stuff.
And so he was doomed to go out
and have another horrendous binge
which ended him up in a drying out hospital of the time.
Not his first time there, I might add.
And Ebby called on him there
and he repeated his message
that we could recover
if we were able to have a transforming experience of the spirit.
And after Ebby left,
Bill, at absolute depths of despair,
he called out to this God that he didn't believe in.
And he had an instantaneous spiritual experience
and he never drank again.
Now, of course, after that,
he tried to sober up all the drunks in New York
without any success,
dragging them off the bar stools
and out of the gutters
and out of the missions and the Bowery.
And he said,
nobody was listening.
And he, in an attempt to regain his life,
he found himself out in Akron
on a proxy fight.
And you heard from Bob the other day
what happened out there.
But when Bill and Dr. Bob met
in the gatehouse of the Cyberling estate,
for one thing,
Bill was not trying to preach to him.
Bill was going to him, to Dr. Bob,
for sharing with another alcoholic
in the hopes that he himself could stay sober at that point.
But he also carried the message
that he had received from Ebby,
who had received it from Roland,
who had received it from Dr. Young.
And that message,
and this is what is amazing to me,
that message survives in that,
the end of that How It Works,
which was read this morning
and is read,
thousands and thousands of times every day.
You and I have heard it
until we can recite it by heart.
But listen, if you will,
to see, to be, and see
that probably,
this is Dr. Young, you see,
probably no human power
could have relieved our alcoholism.
And see,
God could and would
if he were sought.
Now,
in my job at the General,
General Service Office,
your General Service Office,
and, you know, making talks a lot,
working with alcoholics over many, many years,
I've talked a lot about carrying the message.
I mean, we all talk about it a lot,
about carrying the message.
You know, it's in the 12 steps.
And I'll be absolutely honest with you,
until about two years ago,
when all this sort of came together,
I didn't really know
what the message of Alcoholics Anonymous,
and I'll bet if you asked a thousand people,
you'd get a thousand different answers.
I mean,
the message that I hear a lot recently is,
is don't drink and go to meetings.
And I heard from my own sponsor,
the message,
if you want a drink,
eat something sweet.
And, of course,
I think we would all agree
that the message that we carry
to the alcoholic who still suffers
is our own message.
It's our own experience and strength and hope.
But I'm sure that the message
that was carried by Dr. Bob,
by Bill to Dr. Bob,
and really the message of Alcoholics Anonymous,
is that God could and would,
if he were sought.
Now, when I'd been in AA for about six months,
I went to a meeting where I heard
an old-timer say something
that changed my way of looking
at Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I'd like to share it with you
because it may be similarly useful to you.
And what this old-timer said was,
AA doesn't teach us
how to handle our drinking.
Now, at that point in my life,
I must say that that got my attention
because I sure thought
that that's what I had been doing
for about six months,
was learning how to handle alcohol.
My drinking.
But he said,
no, he said,
we all know that the way
to handle our drinking is to quit
if we're alcoholics.
But if we don't know that,
there's always a lot of people around us
who are trying to tell us that.
And he said that,
he said we've all quit drinking.
I mean, alcoholics, you know,
they quit when they're in jail
or when they're in hospitals
or when they go on a pledge
or they quit for Lent
or they're quitting every once in a while.
But the trick is not to quit drinking.
The trick, you see,
is to stay stopped.
And that's what I could never do.
And I immediately identified with this.
At one time in my life,
I had quit drinking for,
at the very worst part of my alcoholism,
I had quit for ten months,
proving, of course,
that I was not an alcoholic.
And I had to go back to drinking.
And so what this man said,
he said,
AA doesn't teach us how to handle our drinking.
AA teaches us how to handle sobriety.
And that's what none of us could handle
in the first place,
and that's why we drink.
I mean, it's so simple.
It just lit a bulb in my head
when he said that.
And I found that so useful
in talking to non-alcoholics ever since
who will say to me,
you know, you haven't had a drink
in X number of years
and still you're going to those meetings.
You're not an alcoholic.
Why do you have to go to those meetings?
And, you know, it's a fair question
coming from somebody in the outside world
and it's a little hard to answer
unless you fall back on what I was just saying.
Because it is true.
I don't have a drinking problem.
I haven't had a drinking problem
for nearly 26 years.
And I'm not going to have.
I'm not going to have a drinking problem
as long as I don't drink.
And I won't drink
as long as I stay away from a drink
one day at a time
and keep going to meetings.
What I do have
is the problem
of coping with life
every day sober
without the help of booze
to help me along.
Because I depended on it
to do absolutely everything.
Right?
And that's cut off.
You've still got to cope with life
every cotton-picking day.
And, of course,
that's what we've all been sharing here
this weekend
and what we share
at all of our AA meetings.
And that's what really makes
AA so enduring
and so beautiful.
Now,
as I say,
I was born and raised
right here
and there was a time
when there was nothing
particularly unusual
about my youth
except that this was back
in the Depression years
and before.
And my father
had a kind of a tough time
making a living in those days
and so we moved around
an awful lot.
We moved actually
eighteen times
in my first thirteen years of life.
And that meant
that I went to Gladstone School
and I went to Makachak School
and I went to some
one-room schoolhouse
over on the way out
on the Kansas side.
And at each place
that I would go,
I don't know whether you men
in the audience
have had this experience,
but you know,
you go into a new school
and if you're the new kid,
why, the boys that are there,
they sort of test you,
which basically means
beating you up.
And so,
about the time,
you know,
I literally can remember
over here
going down one side of a street
when the other boys
were on the other side of the street
because, you know,
I knew they'd throw rocks at me
or beat me up or something
if I was over there with them.
And so you'd feel kind of rejected
and kind of lonely
and kind of out of it.
I was an only child
and I was kind of skinny
and shy
and introverted anyhow.
And so about the time
that I would come out of my shell enough
to make some friends,
you know, two or three
real good friends,
and poor dad would
hook, pull up stakes
and we'd move on
to some other place
and I would repeat it all over again.
Well, I tell you this only because
what it did, I think,
in retrospect,
is that it made me kind of retreat
into a fantasy world of my own.
I was a daydreamer.
I solved all my problems
of those times
by kind of living a different life
in my imagination.
Part of that was that
I really,
I read an awful lot
and I identified
with whatever I was reading about.
And especially,
I went to movies.
God, I saw every movie
that was made in those days.
All by myself.
I would be sitting
in the matinee
in the Dickinson Theater
up in Lawrence
or the Plaza Theater down here
and I would be watching
whatever was on the screen
and boy,
I was living that life
up there.
You know,
if it was a war movie,
boy,
I was leading them over the top
and, you know,
if it was a cowboy movie,
I was galloping over the plains
with six shooters
going from both hips.
But the kind of movie
that I really loved
and that I really identified with
was something like
those old Fred Astaire movies
with the top hat
and the white tie
and the tails
as he would be
dancing across Central Park
with his wife.
Ginger Rogers in his arms.
And that was the way
I was going to live,
my friends.
And as I got into high school,
I went to Southwest High School
over here
and as I got into high school,
I decided I was going to be
a writer by trade,
which I was.
And I went over to KU
and it was at that time
that I guess I had my first drink.
It was down on the plaza
and it was,
it was,
it was a Tom and Jerry
and then it was another Tom and Jerry
and a whole bunch of Tom and Jerrys
and of course I got terribly drunk
and ended up throwing up
behind a sign out here
in Waldo or somewhere
and sleeping on the grass
of my friend's house
and sick as a dog
and swearing off the next morning
and of course by that night
I was ready to try a beer again
and that's the way it went.
But it was just college type of drinking.
And then in the last year of,
of college,
I sold my first article
to a national magazine.
Now I was 20 years old.
My,
my family all along
had given me lots of strokes
for doing well in school.
The only reason I did well in school
was because I read a lot
and the only reason I read a lot
was because I was a lonely child.
But anyhow,
I was a kind of an overachiever in school
and so my parents had given me
this expectation
that I could do anything in the world
that I wanted to.
And I ask you,
if you're 20 years old
and you've sold an article
to a national magazine,
that proves it, doesn't it?
And so,
that article was picked up
by the Reader's Digest
and I became,
the subject of it
was kind of a controversial thing
and it became the subject
of some,
some columns
by Ed Sullivan
and William Allen White
and people like this
were writing about me,
you know, me.
So,
as soon,
as school let out,
I beat it back to New York
to live like Fred Astaire
and to make my name in New York.
I was going to write
the great American novel
or the great American play.
Well, it turned out
that the only job
I could get writing and editing
happened to be with a big company
working on their company magazine.
But don't knock it, you know.
I had my,
I had an office
in Rockefeller Center
and I lived in a men's club
in Manhattan
and glamorous,
New York
and,
and it was,
it was absolutely great.
And I was thrown in
with a bunch of,
of people
who were considerably
older than myself.
I was 21 at that time
and most of the people
in the company, of course,
were somewhat older than that
and it was their custom
to go down after work,
to go down to the mahogany bar
of,
of the English Grill
and have their martinis
and Manhattans,
Manhattans were very big
in those days
and they invited me
to go down with them
and, of course,
I was thrilled to death
because this was
right in line
with the way
that I pictured myself
being the man about town,
the bon vivant
in,
in New York City.
So,
I became a daily drinker
when I was 21
and I remained
a daily drinker
all the rest of my life
until I came into
Alcoholics Anonymous.
Now,
there were danger signs
at that time
but you don't ever
pay any attention to them.
Then along came World War II
and I went into the Navy.
I was a,
a gunnery officer
on a destroyer escort
and we couldn't drink
on shipboard, of course,
but boy,
we sure did make up
for it ashore
and I got into my first
disciplinary problems
in,
in the Navy.
I remember I was
dating Bessie by this time.
She'd gone through KU
and come back to New York
and she was making her,
her career as an artist
and so we had met
and I would be dating her
but on at least one occasion
why I had
disgraced myself
on a liberty
over in the Azor Islands
and consequently
when I got to New York
I was in hack,
as we say in the Navy,
which means that
I was serving time
locked up in my
stateroom
with an armed Marine guard
outside
instead of being
able to get off
and have fun
with Bessie.
But with,
with Bessie
it was in the last
year of the war
and all of our,
all of our courtship
was done, you know,
at the store club
and the cafe society
downtown
and all these glamorous
places in New York.
She liked to drink
and I liked to drink
so that's really
what we did
during our,
our courtship
and in the last year
of the war
we were married
and I was still
on the ship
and just had
a brief leave
but we went on
our honeymoon
over to the
resort over
in the Pocono Mountains
and I just
want to tell you
that,
that for those
five days
we had
an iced
silver bucket
of champagne
by the bedside
day and night
and that's the way
we lived.
Right?
And
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
uh
I had to go back
to sea
and then
the,
the,
uh,
war
was about to end
I got transferred
back ashore
I want to tell you
an Al-Anon story
uh,
this is really
Betsy's story
but since she's not
speaking this weekend
I'll spoil it
won't I
for next year
but oh the hell
with it.
Uh,
Betsy's gonna speak
at this same
conference next year
they tell me
isn't that right?
But anyway,
uh,
we were,
uh,
transferred to
Washington,
D.C.
where I was in
the Navy Department
down there
and on this
particular night
uh,
our,
um,
we had been
invited to
a party
that was
clear across
Washington
and,
uh,
Betsy's brother
Mark was also
down there
in,
in,
uh,
Washington
at that time
so we borrowed
his car
which was
mistake number
one
and we,
uh,
we went
clear across
Washington
to get to
this place
and we had
to go through
really the
toughest,
worst part
of,
of
Washington
and,
uh,
it was a
very wet
party.
I mean,
everybody got
absolutely smashed
and by the wee
hours of the
morning we had
to come back
home.
And,
uh,
of course,
uh,
Betsy,
who never
really bugged
me about my
drinking ever,
uh,
on this
particular night,
we'd only been
married,
you know,
just a few
months,
and,
uh,
she had
the temerity
to say to me,
now,
darling,
don't you think
that I should
drive home?
And,
of course,
I said,
no,
I can't drive.
Oh,
man,
so I got in
behind the,
I got in
behind the wheel
and we drove
down,
we got into
this very
worst part
of Washington.
Some gink
in front of me,
he stopped
at his stop
sign and I
didn't stop
and I smashed
into the rear
of his car
and broke
the radiator
and all of
the radiator
fluid drained
out and,
uh,
the guy ahead
wasn't so dumb,
he just drove
on.
But,
uh,
there I was
and so
I said to
Betsy,
I'm going
to go report
this to the
police.
And so
I left her
and I went
off into the
night.
And,
uh,
as she tells
it,
she says
that she
was,
uh,
you know,
scared.
She locked
the,
the,
the doors
of the car
and she
sat there
and she
sat there
and she
sat there
and nothing
was happening.
So she
finally decided
she had to do
something and she
had about 15
cents in her
pocket and so
she had
noticed a,
uh,
a,
um,
phone booth
down the
street a little
bit so she
got out of
the car
and went
down to the
phone booth
and she
called the
police.
And she
said,
have you
seen a
naval officer
in a white
uniform in
there to,
to report
a,
an automobile
accident?
Well,
no,
they hadn't.
Uh,
and she
said,
well,
I'd like
to report
the accident.
And they
said,
well,
was there
anybody
hurt?
She said,
no.
And so
they said,
well,
we're not
really
interested.
So,
uh,
she didn't
know what
to do.
So,
she only
knew one
other number
in Washington,
D.C.,
and that
happened to
be her
home,
our home.
So she
rang in.
And,
of course,
it just
rang and
rang and
rang and
rang,
and finally
I answered.
And,
and,
when I,
when I
heard their
voice,
I said,
where the
hell are
you?
And she
says that
at that
moment she
had a little
vision of
what life
was going
to be like
in the next
20 years.
And so
we came
back to
New York
after the
war and,
and,
uh,
I went
back to
work at,
at Shell
and we,
eventually we
had a couple
of kids
and eventually
had three
kids and we
moved out
to the suburbs
and,
you know,
we had
absolutely
the greatest
house,
you ever
saw,
just a
lovely place
and we
treasure the
memories of
that place,
a beautiful
family,
lovely wife
and children
and I had
a,
really a
very good
job,
uh,
with,
uh,
Shell
and,
uh,
everything
was going
for me.
And you
know that
no alcoholic
can stand
that.
So I
drank.
And I
drank more
and more.
The old
progression
took over.
And,
uh,
I began to
have some
troubles in
my life,
none of
which I
associated in
any way
with booze.
But,
uh,
I was having
trouble,
for example,
with,
uh,
with lying,
actually.
Uh,
I,
I suppose,
uh,
I had been
trained,
if you will,
to believe
that a gentleman
doesn't lie,
a gentleman's
word is his
bond and all
of this kind
of thing.
And yet I
found myself
lying about
almost everything.
I just lied
habitually,
uh,
to Bessie
about where
I'd been
and what I'd
been doing
and to my
boss for why
I was late
and everything,
you know.
Um,
and I think
it, uh,
it kind of
disturbed me.
It kind of
ate away at me.
I didn't know
what was
happening.
I'd like to
share with you,
um,
a comment on
this that was
made by,
by a non-alcoholic
psychiatrist named
Dr. Abraham Tversky
who practices
in Pittsburgh.
He's a wonderful,
wonderful man.
Great,
great guy.
Great understanding
of AA.
And he wrote
an article which
was intended
to tell other
alcohol,
other doctors
how to,
uh,
specialize in
the treatment
of alcoholics,
which is what
Dr. Tversky
does.
And,
uh,
he was saying
in this article
he was
commenting that
they should
be aware
that alcoholic
patients lie
a lot.
And,
uh,
he said,
as a matter of
fact,
you may be
surprised that
they are maybe
the only people
in the country
who will pay
$100 an hour
to go to a
psychiatrist and
lie about why
they're there.
That's true.
But he,
he also said,
and this is the
part that really
I,
I related to,
uh,
he said
that,
in this article,
he said that the
best advice
that he had ever
gotten on this
subject had come
from a member
of Alcoholics
Anonymous
very early in
Dr. Tversky's
practice,
when he had been
complaining to this
AA about this.
And, uh,
the AA member
had said,
why,
Doc,
he said,
you can tell
when an
alcoholic is lying
if you just know
how to watch
his lips.
And Dr. Tversky
said,
oh,
is that right?
How's that?
And the AA member
said,
if his lips
are moving,
he's lying.
That comes
from one of our
non-alcoholic
friends.
How about
that?
Um,
I was also
having,
uh,
a lot of
trouble with
the shakes
and with
tremors,
you know,
and with me
they were more
like the leaps
and I couldn't
possibly have
lifted up a
glass,
you know,
and got it to my
lips in those
days.
And,
uh,
and God
forbid that
I would ever
have to
eat soup,
for example,
at a,
at a,
uh,
important
business luncheon
or something,
you know,
I,
I would sit
there
absolutely
paralyzed with
fear as I
looked down
at the soup
before me.
Finally,
I would
get the spoon
all right,
and I'd get it
into the soup
and I'd get it
up about this
far and it
would go like
this,
you know,
and,
so,
you know,
the alcoholic
solution is to
quit having
soup.
But,
uh,
I,
I did,
uh,
that,
that kind of
fear really
spread into a
lot of different
parts of my
life.
And then I
discovered
that if I
had a,
a belt
of vodka
before I
started that
lunch,
as soon as
I got that
vodka,
all this
inside,
I was shivering
inside and
outside,
you know,
and as soon
as I got
that,
boy,
I could just
feel this
peace coming
all through
my body
and out to
the ends
of my fingers
and my toes
and then,
boy,
I could
lift up
glasses,
I could
drink soup,
I could
sign my
name,
I could
never do
that before,
um,
I could
answer phones,
I could
do all kinds
of things
like that.
And so
from that
moment on,
I was
absolutely
hooked
on
always
being under
the influence
of alcohol.
I could
not function
unless I
had some
alcohol
in my
system.
I see
people
nodding
down here.
Did you
have that
experience?
And that
in turn
reminds me
of a,
actually a
Grapevine
article of
about three
or four
years ago,
maybe more
now,
that was
by somebody
writing from
down in
Australia or
New Zealand,
but I
thought they
really had
an insight
because they
said that
when an
alcoholic
takes a
drink
in order
to do
some
act
that the
normal person
does naturally,
like answer
the phone
or answer
the door
or make
love
or any
of those
things,
when an
alcoholic
takes a
drink to
do that,
he gives
up forever
and absolutely
the possibility
of doing
that particular
thing again
without a
drink.
And that
was exactly
my experience.
One morning
on the way
to work,
I was
falling apart
and so I
had the
recommended
morning drink,
my first
one,
I guess.
And I
never went
to work
again after
that without
a morning
drink.
Again,
I'm indebted
to the
Grapevine
for a
one-liner
when they
said that
when an
alcoholic
does something
once,
it's a
habit.
And I
think that's
really true.
We are so
obsessive and
compulsive
that it's
just
unbelievable.
I was
having an
awful lot
of trouble
coping with
other areas
of my
life.
For example,
I had a
great deal
of trouble
dealing with
any criticism.
I couldn't
stand being
balled out
when I was
in the Navy
and afterwards
I didn't
like to be
criticized.
I still
have trouble
this way,
actually,
but not
nearly what
I did then
because,
for example,
being a
writer,
I had an
editor,
and the
job of an
editor is
to criticize
the writer's
writing.
Now,
most writers
accept this
as a part
of the job
and they
don't have
any trouble
with it,
but I had
a great deal
of trouble
handling this.
It really
disturbed me
that this
really
ignorant
boob
of an
editor
would have
the nerve
to fiddle
around
with my
classic
prose.
You can
relate to
this,
can't you,
Kerry?
But I did
find that
if I was
going in
to see my
editor about
a piece of
coffee,
if I had
a drink
before I
went in,
I didn't
much care
what he
did to
it.
And so
that was
the way,
you see,
that I was
coping with
life in
every way.
In fact,
I want to,
particularly because
the family's
here, I want
to share
with you,
an example
of how I
was coping
with life,
and that
was when
Betsy,
Marty's
parents,
were having
their 50th
wedding anniversary,
and they
chose to
have it back
in our
part of the
country.
They came
to our
house,
a gathering
of the
family,
maybe 20,
30 people
at that
time.
A lot of
the people
here were
there.
And that
morning,
as I went
in, commuting
from Connecticut,
where we lived,
into New
York City,
to go to
work, Betsy,
I say,
never did
this, but on
this particular
morning, she
said, now,
darling, she
said, you
know how
important this
occasion is
tonight.
And she
says, I do
hope that
today you
won't have
too big
a lunch.
Yeah, you
know, I knew
what she
meant, and
she knew I
knew, but
you know what
happened.
I had a
very big
lunch, indeed.
No food,
but a very
big lunch
otherwise.
And I
continued drinking
in the afternoon,
and I
continued drinking
on the bar
car on the
New Haven
Railroad on
the way home,
and I'm
afraid that
when I got
there, I
was in
very sorry
shape.
I stumbled
down off
of the
train with
my coat
buttoned up
crooked and
my hat on
the side of
my head and
in no
shape.
And poor
Betsy, she
was noticeably
cool.
We drove
home, and the
party was already
underway, and
everybody was on
the patio out
and back, and
I went in the
front door and
of course made
a beeline for
the pantry where
the bar was set
up, because I
sure didn't
need a drink.
And I had
one, and I
blacked out.
I don't
remember, really,
what happened
for maybe a
half hour or
more after
that, maybe an
hour after
that.
I sort of
came to, when
they hauled
me out from
under the
grand piano
where I had
taken refuge,
clutching my
drink to my
breast, because
I had the
feeling that
they were going
to take it
away from
me.
And of
course, when
they found
me, that's
exactly what
they did.
And they
sent me to
my room for
the rest of
the evening.
Now, I was
at this time
44 years
old.
And actually,
my wonderful
brother-in-law,
Clyde, he's
not here today,
but of all the
members of the
family, he came
up to the room
and he tried to
comfort me, and
he tried to say
maybe I needed a
change of job or
a change of
location, and he
was really trying
to help me.
He was the
sweetest,
kindest thing.
As Betsy
said this
morning, he was
the only one
that gave a
damn.
But anyhow, that
was the way that
I was coping
with life
generally, I
guess, in
those days.
So the
progression had
gone on, and
I didn't look
much like I
didn't do now
because in
those days I
was much, much
heavier, and I
had a great
big beer
belly, pot
belly, and
distended
abdomen, and
I had jowls,
and I had
a lot of
broken blood
vessels all in
my face, and I
had yellow
eyeballs, and
I was really a
mess.
And in this
period, I
became aware
of a lump
in my
abdomen, and
I felt it
grow and
grow, and
I knew
that this
was curtains,
and so I
finally got up
nerve to go
to our
family doctor,
and he
stretched me
out, and
he felt around
a little bit, and
then he asked
me a question
that some of
you may have
been asked at
one time or
another.
He said,
Bob, how
much do you
drink?
And in that
moment, I
actually didn't
lie to him.
I sort of
toted it up in
my head, and
I said, oh,
eight or
nine drinks a
day, and
you know, he
looked startled,
and what I
didn't tell him
actually was
that my
drink of
choice in
those days was
hundred-proof
vodka chased
with Valentine's
ale.
Which was, you
know, a
Russian
boilermaker, you
might say, and
it really did
it to you.
And it was
about eight or
nine of those
that I had, and
he said, you
don't mean
every day.
And I said,
sure, every
day.
And he said,
well, we may
have a clue
as to what
your trouble
is.
And so he
gave me a
liver test,
a liver
function test,
and of course
it came out
that my
liver function
function test,
my liver was
badly, badly
damaged.
And of course
that was what
this was, a
great swollen
lumpy liver.
And he
set me
down and
he read me
the riot act
that a
doctor should.
He said,
some people
can drink
and some
people can't.
You're in
the latter
category.
And he
said, every
time you
look at a
bottle, you
should see
it on the
label, because
that's what it
is to you.
And he, you
know, he really
threw the
sphere of God
into me, and I
left his
office, and I
went home, and
for ten months
I didn't
drink.
Now, he had
not mentioned
Alcoholics
Anonymous.
I don't think
he knew anything
about Alcoholics
Anonymous.
So I was
doing it
completely on
my own, and
it was a
kind of a
long recuperation,
and I had
to keep going
back for tests
all the time,
and finally at
the end of ten
months after a
lot of treatment
and things were
going okay,
I went back
to his office
one day for
the usual
stuff, and
he gave me
a liver
function test,
and he sat
me down in
his office
afterwards, and
he said,
you have made
a remarkable
recovery.
He said,
your liver
has regenerated
itself, and
it's probably
as well off
as it's ever
going to be.
And he said,
you don't need
to come back
anymore.
So I guess
subconsciously I
had been looking
forward to this
moment, so at
any rate, I said
to him very
casually, you
know, I said,
well, John,
does that mean
then that on a
hot summer's day
when I've been
out cutting the
lawn, maybe I
could have a
cold beer?
And he looked
a little troubled
by that, and so
I added, or
a fine wine
with dinner,
which was a
crock, as you
know.
I never had a
fine wine with
dinner, but
I said,
I never had a
fine wine with
dinner.
And he said
to me the
fatal words to
the alcoholic.
He said, well,
Bob, one won't
hurt you.
So between
the time that he
said that to me
and by the time
I got home,
which was maybe
ten minutes later,
what he had said
to me was
translated into,
guess what,
Betsy, I can
drink again.
And of course
she was overjoyed
to hear that.
But nevertheless,
I just said,
jump on the
train, and I
went into town,
and I went down
to the great
oaken bar at
the English
Grill, and I
said, Sam, set
them up.
We're in business
again.
And so he set
up the vodka
and the ale,
and I had it,
and of course
it didn't hurt
me.
And you know
the story.
I don't need
to even tell
you.
It was maybe
a week before
I had another,
and maybe
another week or
two before I
had another
one or two.
And then it
was
Christmastime,
and I was
going to
Christmas parties.
And you know,
as rational
people, you
know you can't
go and have
just one drink
at a Christmas
party, so
you know, I
rationalized it.
You let the
drink metabolize
for about
45 minutes,
and then to
your body,
the next drink
is just like
one drink,
and you
know.
So I went
on a business
trip, and at
the end of
that business
trip, I
had not
intended to
drink, and
yet,
I had not
at the end
of that
time, I
was drinking
just as
desperately
and
alcoholically
and crazily
and insanely
as I had
been when
I had first
noticed the
lump in my
abdomen.
And so there
followed two
years of
really insane,
terrible
drinking.
My liver
got much
worse, of
course went
into cirrhosis
of the liver
right away,
and I
had all
kinds of
bad physical
things happen
to me.
I got so
weak that I
couldn't even
turn on and
off a faucet
in our house
that worked
kind of hard.
I got so
weak I
couldn't lift
up my
suitcases to
go on business
trips that I
still had to
go on all
the time.
I got
spontaneous
bruising all
over my
body.
I became a
bleeder.
I mean, I
had nose
bleeds that
you wouldn't
believe.
They just
would not
stop.
I had to be
taken out of my
office on two
different occasions,
once by stretcher
and once in a
wheelchair with a
nosebleed.
Can you imagine
this?
Took me down
to the infirmary,
they cauterized
your nose,
they stuffed a
lot of gauze
up there, and
they stuffed a
lot of cotton
up there to
the point that
it makes it
difficult to
drink.
But not
that difficult,
you know.
And I did
have these
spontaneous
bruises,
great big
green and
purple and
blue bruises
all over my
body.
And partly
it was due
to the fact
that at that
time I was
falling down
a lot, and
I was running
into furniture
a lot.
But it was
also just sort
of spontaneous
bruising that
happens because
whatever it
is that causes
your blood to
coagulate, your
liver stops
making it,
and you just
become a
bleeder of
this kind.
I would wake
up sometimes
during this
time, and
Betsy was,
of course,
worried to
death.
My doctor was
telling me I
was going to
die.
I would wake
up in the
middle of the
night, and
we share a
double bed, and
Betsy would be
weeping into
the pillow next
to me and
wondering what
in the world
was going
to happen to
me.
So I had
these things in
front of my
eyes, swimming
around, whether
I closed my
eyes or opened
them, and I
knew I had to
have a drink.
But I couldn't
get out of bed
and get a drink
because she was
awake, and I
was sad
because I
knew that she
was so unhappy
because of me.
But with all
of this, I
just said,
well, that's
the way the
ball bounces.
Well, at the
end of this
period, I was
on another
business trip,
and exactly
what the doctor
had been
warning me
about happened
to me.
And that is
that out in
Chicago, I
had been
carousing a
lot for
several days,
and I had a
massive esophageal
hemorrhage.
I lost about
half the blood
in my body
in just a
few hours,
losing it
rectally and
vomiting it,
and it was a
hell.
Well, at that
time, actually,
I had gone
out in the
park first
to sort of
throw up
behind the
bushes out
there and
was kind
of, in a
way, taking
an inventory,
I guess.
It was kind
of a bleak
October day
in Chicago,
and I
sat there
and I
thought to
myself,
now it's
just as
well if I
go ahead
and die,
and I don't
have any
trouble finding
another man,
and he'll
be a better
husband to
her than
I've been,
a better
father to
my children.
And I
was just
wallowing
in this
kind of
self-pity
garbage
that the
alcoholic
gets into,
you know.
And then I
think,
no,
here I
am 1,300
miles
away from
Chicago,
and I
think,
well,
I'm
going to
die in
Chicago,
you know.
And so
I let
the hotel
caller,
house
physician,
and he
was a
tough
bird.
He knew
exactly what
was wrong
with me,
and boy,
in minutes
the ambulance
was there
with the
driver.
At the end
of a week
or so,
with many,
many transfusions,
I was feeling
perky enough
that they
decided to
send me
on home.
But of course,
before they
did,
they said,
now,
you know
what you've
been through,
and if
you ever
take another
drink,
it may
well be
your last.
And I
said,
they had
not told me
about Alcoholics
Anonymous.
So I
didn't know
that it
was the
first drink
that gets
you drunk.
I didn't
know,
as it
tells you
in the
big book,
that the
first drink
sets up
this obsession
and compulsion
that dooms
us to
either go
mad
or to
die
if we
drink.
And so,
I had a
drink.
And the
compulsion
was immediately
set up.
And within
weeks,
I was
sicker
than I
had ever
been before.
And I
had another
massive
esophageal
hemorrhage.
On this
one,
I was at
the hospital
at home,
but it
was worse.
In the
middle of
the
hospital,
the
doctor
told me,
he said,
I had
a
hemorrhage
and I
could
not
drink
any
more
than
I
had
been
drinking
for
20
days.
And he
told me,
well,
I
have
had
that perhaps my higher power, although I didn't call him that in those days,
was intervening in my life and sparing me for something.
And I'd like to think, you know, that it's for exactly this kind of wonderful, wonderful weekend
and this kind of life that we have now.
But at any rate, at that time, after two or three days, they had, again, with a lot of other people's blood in me,
they declared me ambulatory.
And so I got up out of bed and I pulled on my trousers and my shirt and my shoes
and I ambulated down about a block away to the liquor store
and got a bottle of vodka and smuggled it back into the hospital
and I was sucking away on it when Betsy called me.
Now, Betsy had an uncanny ability to know when I had been drinking from 75 miles away.
And so she immediately after this called,
called my doctor and squealed on me and said,
Pierce is drinking.
And he said, oh no, he's in the hospital.
He can't be drinking.
And she said, I know he is.
So he came in absolutely disgusted.
And he said, I can't be responsible for your life any longer.
He said, I'm sending you to a psychiatrist.
Well, you know, I knew I wasn't insane.
But I was in no condition to argue.
So he sent me to a psychiatrist.
And here's where my higher power truly intervened in this alcoholic's life.
Because he sent me to a psychiatrist who happened to practice in the same suite of offices as he did.
That's the only reason he sent me to him.
But the name of the man that he sent me to was Dr. Harry Thiebaud,
the one professional in the world at that time who knew more about alcoholism
than anybody.
Many others that Bill talks about so much in A.A. Comes of Age,
who was at that time serving as a non-alcoholic trustee
on the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
But, of course, he didn't let me know that.
He talked to me exactly twice.
And the summation of that, as he told Betsy, actually,
he said, I can't help your husband.
He has an iron curtain drawn down between himself,
and reality.
And I'm sure that some of you relate to that.
It's just like Dr. Silkworth, in his opinion, in the big book.
He says the alcoholic gets to the stage where he can't differentiate
or can't distinguish between reality and fantasy.
And he believes that alcoholic behavior is normal behavior.
And that's exactly where I was at that time.
I was at that stage in my life.
And Dr. Thiebaud said to me, he said, I can't help you.
But he said, see, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
He said, I can't help you.
But he said, I know somebody who's had the same problem that you've had,
and will you call him?
And I said, no.
And he said, well, he said, if I call him, oh, that's what I said.
I said, I don't know.
I don't know what I said.
I don't know what I said.
I don't know what I said.
I don't know what I said.
I don't know what I said.
I don't know what I said.
And what I said was, I said, no, I don't want to bother him.
And Dr. Thiebaud gave me a little lesson in AA right then, because he leaned back and
he chuckled a little.
He said, these are very peculiar people.
They don't consider that a bother at all.
And so he said, if I call him, will you speak to him?
So of course I spoke to him, and the man who was to become my sponsor, I spoke to him then.
His name was Stu Jones, and he was a fabulous man.
He was just what I needed.
He happened to be the town attorney for the town of Greenwich, Connecticut.
So he was a big shot, you know.
So like many of us, I could relate only to people on my social station.
And so he also took me to my meetings in a Porsche sports car, which ain't too bad, you
know, for starters.
And he wore a beret.
And he had a great big guardsman's mustache.
And he laughed a lot.
He had a big deep voice, and he just laughed a lot.
And he was a marvelous potter.
He had a potter's wheel and made beautiful ceramic stuff.
But he also had a black belt in karate.
So you know, he was a simply great man.
And after my first meeting that he took me to, I remember he took me back and he said,
well, what did you think of it?
And I said, oh, it was okay.
He was a great man.
And he said, well, do you have any questions?
And I said, yeah, I said, Stu, how in the world can you be so cheerful and so happy
all the time when you know you're never going to have another drink?
And he said, oh, he said, I haven't quit drinking for life.
And I said, you haven't?
And he said, no, he said, it's possible that I could drink tomorrow.
And he said, as a matter of fact, consider it.
And I said, well, you know what?
Considering my record, people would say it's likely that I will be drinking tomorrow.
But he said, I didn't drink today.
And it was already at night, of course, by this time.
And he said, that's the way we do it.
Tomorrow's another day.
I won't drink then either.
So you see, little by little, he began to suck me into this philosophy of alcoholism.
And I began to go to meetings, but I did not quit drinking.
I was just too sick.
I was too drunk, my friends, too motorist, in too bad shape.
And so at the end of about a week, which was really, in a way, as I look back on it, the
worst insane drinking.
I don't even have time to tell you about that.
But at the end of this week, it was the third of July in 1961, and the little town of old
Greenwich, Connecticut, was having its annual fireworks display.
And our social life had deteriorated.
I mean, it was terrible.
It deteriorated greatly during this time, as you can imagine.
But on this particular night, we had agreed to meet some other people with their children
and have a little family picnic in the backyard, and then go down to this fireworks display.
And the family picnic turned out to be a bonanza for me, because the bar was set up in the
kitchen.
We were picnicking out and back.
The bathroom was in the house, and of course, I had to go through the kitchen to get to
the bathroom.
And so I was nipping each time that I went through.
And I got steadily worse and worse.
And we were late getting to the fireworks display.
It was dark, and all the streets were just filled with parked cars around this little
park.
And so I took the family down there, and I let them off and said, I'll go park the car,
which I did.
And I went back down to this park, and of course, the fireworks displays were going
on.
And I couldn't remember, and I doubt it, if we even made any arrangements to meet.
But I sure couldn't remember.
If they did.
And so I just started wandering around the park, trying to find my family.
And of course, it was just wall-to-wall people with their families and their tablecloths
and their picnic baskets and their perambulators and all of this kind of thing, which I was
stumbling around over, hunting for my family.
And then, boy!
Off would go this tremendous explosion up in the air.
And the sparks!
The sparks would come down around me, you know, like this.
And in that moment of light, I could look around, and I'd see these people looking up
at me kind of angrily, you know, but no family.
And then it would be dark, and I would go stumbling on.
And boy!
Off would go this thing again, and the sparks would come down around me.
And you know, to me, it was like a scene out of Daddy's Inferno.
And then, boy!
Blam!
Blam!
Blam, an camera goes out of sight!
And that's all I'd do, to YouTube, all day long.
And I would turn around and the marks would start to
seem to disappear.
to where the cars park. And I thought, boy, that is stupid, because they don't know where
the cars park. And I thought, I don't know where the cars park. So my solution was to
trail off after the people who were leaving the park. And halfway up the hill, what you
people had told me in the few meetings that I had gone to came home to me. It just struck
me that my life was unmanageable. So I sat on a rock and cried. And it was there that
Bessie's sister, not this one, but another one, found me. And she put her arms around
me and said, they're there. And she led me back to the car. And sure enough, the family
was there. They had found it. And we went home.
And in the...
Kitchen, I've got to tell you this, because in the kitchen when I got there was a drinking
buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in about a week, because I'd been going to these AA
meetings. And he was sitting there at the kitchen table with the big book of Alcoholics
Anonymous spread out before him with another man that I didn't even know. You know what
was going on. They had been down in the park. My friend Don had been down in the park. And
he had seen me and saw what bad shape I was in.
And so he had come to call. And it was your classy 12-step scene, except that he was drunker
than I was. He had been coming to AA for about a week, like I had. And he was making his
first 12-step call.
Applause
Applause
The beautiful thing about...
The beautiful thing about that is that about seven years later he came in, and I was his
sponsor.
But anyway, the following morning I came down, and there was Betsy, as was at our house.
And I came down, and there was Betsy with this docker who had resigned me. And Betsy
had been in touch with my employer. She had been in touch with our minister. She had been
in touch with a lawyer and had commitment papers drawn up.
And...
What was going on was a discussion of where I was to be committed. And that's what I stumbled
in on.
You know, today they call these interventions, you know, but interventions had not been invented
in those days, except Betsy invented one.
And so, as they were discussing whether to send me to the state nuthouse or the state
hospital or a sanitarium or what.
I opted from something I had heard in an AA meeting. I said, well, how about High Watch
Farm, naming a treatment center, the great granddaddy of all treatment centers, up in
Kent, Connecticut. It's described in AA Comes of Age, if you're interested. Beautiful spiritual
place, hundreds of acres of beautiful scenery and a lovely old colonial farmhouse and spirituality
that just comes out of every shingle, you know.
I didn't know that then, of course. The reason I had chosen High Watch Farm was because they
had a minimum five-day staying period and so I could get over the hill in a hurry and
get back to my drinking.
But that's where they ended up, threw me in. I, of course, was full of rage and hate and
resentments and self-pity. And I told anybody who would listen that I was not really, I
didn't really belong there. I was a victim of a conspiracy, which was, of course, true.
But somehow or other, during those days and two weeks that I was there, this iron curtain
between me and reality began to crumble. And I began to relate to the people around me,
and I'll tell you, it really took place mostly with my arms in the dishwater. I would not
have been caught dead doing dishes at home, but up there on the drunk farm, I was doing
dishes.
and I was talking and sharing as we do to the people who were wielding the drying cloths on the other end.
And I began to come out of this shell, this shriveled up little soul of mine began to kind of open up.
And I guess I began to have the beginnings of a transforming spiritual experience.
Because at the end of the two weeks, I came back to Greenwich.
I began to go to meetings.
I became very enthusiastic and very involved right off.
About six months after I was in, it just occurred to me that if I could go back to drinking with a magic pill
that would make it possible for me to drink without ever causing any physical problems
or any problems in relationships or job or anything,
I realized.
I wouldn't be interested.
Alcohol simply held nothing for me anymore.
And that was no will of mine.
That was my higher power having lifted this compulsion to drink that had driven me so far.
And so it's been like that a day at a time ever since.
And the benefits that I have received from this fellowship and this program are beyond description.
In my case.
I think one of the greatest was the restorations of physical health.
And I became a physical fitness nut.
I'm a real bore on this subject.
I'm an avid skier.
I am an enthusiastic sailor.
I run two to five miles every morning and have for the last 19 years.
Running out here this morning over these windy hills with the sun just rising,
with the sky.
All pink and it was just gorgeous.
I do my 11th step every morning as I'm running and I run through a litany of all of the blessings
that God has given me in terms of health and family and job.
Certainly my job for you to the privilege of working for Alcoholics Anonymous for the last 20 years.
I'm very grateful for that.
And certainly in terms of the blessing that I received over the last 12 1⁄2 years in doing what my heart is in,
has been one of the greatest blessings that anybody can ever have.
So I go through this litany,
and I thank God for these blessings which I cannot possibly deserve.
And that is the key, my friends, because that's the definition, isn't it, of God's grace.
That we receive what we cannot possibly deserve.
And yet we do.
And it's just beautiful.
S.P.V.
great blessings that I've had. Betsy, of course, stuck with me through all this with everybody
telling her she should leave me, that I was going down the tubes. And she joined Al-Anon at the same
time that I joined AA. And so she recovered along with my recovery. And although we always had a
good marriage, it's put our marriage on a different spiritual base that has been absolutely
beautiful for these last years. And my children, of course, who were pretty young and just going
into the, the oldest one just going into his teen years, when I came into AA, I was there for them
when they needed me in their teen years. I was a father to them. And now there are, of course,
many grandchildren. And what I love is that
we
have
a
hear them talking to their friends, not the grandchildren, but the children talking to their
friends about troubles, marital troubles and financial troubles and moving troubles. And I
hear them saying over the phone, well, you know, this too will pass. And it's just a day at a time,
you know, and things that you just wonder where they got it. Just wonderful. And of course, for me,
the real blessing is comes back to what that old timer said. And that is that I've at least have a beginning on how to handle sobriety a day at a time.
And the ways that we learn that are so myriad in AA. You know, we come in here with all this guilt and this remorse,
and we're told that we got to get rid of that kind of garbage and replace it with positive thoughts. And we can get rid of that kind of garbage without getting rid of that kind of garbage.
the guilt and remorse by practicing the steps that we've heard about so much this weekend,
particularly the 4th and 5th and 6th and 7th and 8th and 9th, cleaning a house.
And I was told, it was such a help to me when I first came in, they said that I should learn
to differentiate between my wants and my needs, and boy, that really hit me, because I was
the greatest wanter that the world ever produced.
I drove a Mercedes at one time, but I was very discontented because I wanted a larger
Mercedes.
And that was the way it was in my life, when my life was based on materialistic things.
And they said, when I came in here, they said, your wants will never be satisfied, because
when you get one, it's replaced by another want.
But your needs will always be perfect.
Provided by a loving God.
You heard Julian say that last night.
It's just so true.
It's been our experience, certainly, for the last 15 or 20, 25 years.
And we learn to, you know, live a day at a time.
You know, this is a part of the world's religions, to live a day at a time.
But we're the only people in the world, we in Al-Anon and A.
I think, who go to meetings every week and just talk about this and practice it all the
time, living a day at a time.
And we are, you know, granted the things in the serenity prayer, the courage to change
the things that we can, to accept the things that we cannot change.
And this has made it so different in my life in accepting criticism and that kind of thing.
And so.
So, as was said, I just echo what a previous speaker has said.
And that is that, well, first of all, that this reality that I ran away from all of my
drinking life, and really long before that, from the time that I was, what, five years
old, I was running away from reality.
And lo and behold, we come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and we discover that this reality
is absolutely beautiful.
And.
And this reality exists only this very moment, this heartbeat, this breath, because the one
that's past, you can't ever do anything about that.
And the heartbeat that's ahead, it may be there and it may not.
So, really, all that you've got is this very moment.
And this very moment, you know, this morning, in this beautiful place, all you beautiful
people, has to be just one of the most beautiful.
Realities that I personally can picture.
And as one of the other speakers said, I think it's basically because we are finally at peace.
Remember what he said?
He said we're at peace with ourselves and with our fellow man and with God.