Drinking to Be Someone You Are Not – Gene D.

I, too, am an alcoholic, and I apologize for not wearing a jacket or anything like that. I don't want to put you down or anything, but, you know, when Lou asked me to come, you know... She said, come on down to the salad we have at the meeting down there. And my experience when I was drinking with the salad was just a little old hole in the wall called a hard light. And I thought that maybe five or six of us would get together here and just sort of bat it around a little bit. But I didn't have any idea. that there's this many people here, and I'm further embarrassed because there are many people here who have heard my story, but that's their fault. There are people here tonight who didn't identify themselves as newcomers, and I know they're new, and I don't know whether it hurts me or confuses me, but there are even guys sitting in this room that I know are still drinking, and I knew them eight years ago. and damn it, they're still here and they probably still position out the same line of shit they did eight years ago. And I'd like to thank the major here for inviting me here. The Salvation Army has changed a lot or possibly hasn't changed a whole lot in San Francisco by far outside any services in the field of alcoholism than any other city in the country. I have been a guest for the Salvation Army and put my hand on the green box and all of those things in the past, but I had never seen any of the facilities like they had here. I was amazed when I first came to San Francisco eight years ago and saw that deal that they had up on Army Street. And I even said then, I says, My God, if I'd ever run across that when I was drinking, I'd still be driving one of them trucks for $5 a week and living there, you know? And now when I see this, jeez, I'd even drop my rate for $5 and I'd ride you back in a truck and sell a few TVs. Like you do. Like I used to do. I had a regular little route of my own, you know. The Sally had one route and I had another route. And depending upon how good I was in with the driver, it always determined how good we were going to do that day. We were fair enough about it, though. We let the rally have some, and we kept some. And eventually the cops took care of that. But I would like to, just for my own good tonight, I would love to tell you a story. I would not like to tell my own story tonight, just for the hell of it. I've been going around San Francisco now for about the last three years saying the same thing every time I speak. I always say, well, I don't know what to talk about. You've all heard my story over and over again, and now I found out I haven't really told it in about three years. I tell little parts of it every now and then, but maybe I should refresh myself because the first chapter was being read. I reached for the 24-hour book trying to get an idea in my head, and there it is right there for today. And I'd like just to read the first two sentences of the thought for today in case you haven't read it. It says, as we look back on all of these troubles that we used to have when we were drinking, the hospitals, the jails. We wonder how we could have wanted that kind of life. As we look back on it now, we see our drinking life as it really was. And we're glad we're out of it. And that's right. Now I don't know whether or not you're glad you're out of it, but I'm damn glad I'm out of it and I keep it as a constant reminder as often as I can of what in hell it was so that I will be glad to be out of I spent a little time here this evening getting a good, fat, fresh refresher course. I went up and visited a new alcoholic facility on Valencia Street that I know just started up, that Mac they call it. I don't even know what Mac means. At first I thought it was sort of an addition to McDonald's, Big Mac or Little Mac or something like that. But whatever it means, it's good. It's great. I'd like to make an opinionated statement right now. As far as I'm concerned, and it's only my own opinion, places like that match. And places like this, groups like this can do more for any sick alcoholic who's seeking recovery than any city-funded program that I know. And that goes to your Laguna Honda Hospital, that goes through your state hospitals and all of them other do-good organizations. The answer is right here in groups just like this. The answer, again, in my own opinion, lies with the recovered alcoholic helping the recovered alcoholic. Most beautiful thing in the world is to just sit up there at night. And I even saw a kid up there in that max tonight who I know has only been on the program about, oh, at the most four months. But he's been sober. He was sitting there talking to some guy who must have been 80 years old, who as far as I concern will never get sober, who hasn't got no idea in the world of ever getting sober. He's worried about where he's going to get his next jug. This kid was right there firing it home at him, see? Now, I don't think you'll get that guy sober, but what an experience that guy's getting tonight, who's trying to help him, say. And then who is to say that old guy, who I think is not going to make it, might right now have experienced the last drink he's ever going to have. Because I, too, at one time sat in little places like that. In Chicago, they call them the mustard tea. And there's nothing more than little storefronts like that scattered around Madison Street and State Street and Clark Street. There's one out in Broadway and Wilson, one up on Division Street. They're little places you can get run in off the road or if you happen to know the cop that's on duty, instead of getting run in for the night, they'll take you over there and throw you down on one of old sofas and that's good i can't say that that's where i got aaa but that's where i learned a lot about aa that's where a lot of the the proof was shown to me that this program does work now i don't really know why i'm an alcoholic and i don t know why you're an alcoholic it doesn't make a hell of a lot difference i guess why we are alcoholic i blamed it on a lot things i blamed on the fact that i was a product of a broken home and i blamed it on the fact that i was born and raised in the lower east side of new york city in a ghetto-like atmosphere i blamed that on my mother being shacked up with a hoodlum and i had to live with them and i claimed it on my father because he wasn't shacked up and i thought i was a misfit and i blame it on everything uh i think i know why i'm an alcoholic i think i know why we're all alcoholics or rather why we use alcohol if there would be one basic thing that identifies all alcoholists and their use of alcohol in my opinion it's this we all drink differently from the social drinker in this respect We drink to be somebody that we're not. That's why you and I drink. We try to be heroes, we try to be lovers, we cry to be fighters, we try the be great financial wizards, educational wizards. Always something that we are not. I've done this in the beginning, that's why I think I used alcohol continually in my drinking career because I couldn't stand what i really was and by anesthetizing my mind with the drug alcohol i could temporarily become anybody that i wanted to be i used to do crazy things like uh when i first got started to get bald i usedと hang around in chicago this was before i made the madison street when i could still hit the hotel cocktail lounge and crap like that and just to create a little attention you know what i'd do i'd go into some fancy hotel like the stevens and i'd sit in the cocktail lounge for a while and and i'd see who was in town playing baseball and if it was the brooklyn dodgers at that time i would go out into the lobby and i give the bellhop two or three dollars and i'd say in five minutes come into the barn and page leo de rocha and then i'd run like hell and i get back in the goddamn cocktail lounge everybody's sitting in there pretty soon this guy had come in say mr leo derosa please i thought everybody believed that i was leo devotion because this made me a big man in there i imagine the bartender boy we got another freak in here today but that's how i operated and uh i was in a position not by choice a position that just came about through certain circumstances where i had a terrific inferiority complex certainly after the war was over i entered the construction trade as a layman as an apprentice bricklayer. And through a lot of angle shooting and the fact that bricklayers were scarce, I rose pretty fast in my trade. And I played my cards right, and I bought the right guys a couple of drinks. And the first thing you know, I was a general masonry superintendent for what has become to this day now the largest construction company in the world. Well, about four years later though, these construction guys started getting into educated guys the guys that were graduating from the university and i found myself in a very unique predicament i was the boss over a lot of guys who had degrees they were engineers and architectural structural guys and hell i have been lucky to get out of high school and even though i could compete with them i didn't feel as though i could so i had to drink to cover up what mistakes i was going to make in front of these guys because they caught me on a lot of mistakes and when i needed help in trying to be there equal i drank more because i used alcohol for another reason i was telling somebody this last night alcohol is if you know in the early stages is a pretty handy thing to have some of you guys that are residents of this place right now it's a pretty handy thing for you to have right now isn't it if you didn't have it you might have to be walking out there on the rain tonight see but you're an alcoholic so it's good to have it alcoholism can be a catch-all for a lot of character defects you can blame a lot of your inabilities on alcoholism just like some of us used to say oh honey i would have been good for all night, but I had a few drinks, you know, and fell asleep. Or I could have done that if I hadn't been drinking. Or, honey, I wouldn't have done that if I haven't had a couple of drinks, you know? So it's handy to have until we cross over this invisible line that they refer about in Alcoholics Anonymous, this line that takes us from the world of the so-called social control type drinker to the world of the alcoholic. And remember always, the alcoholic is not a guy that can't drink. Alcoholics haven't lost the ability to drink. What makes the alcoholic different than the social drinker is that we have lost the able to control our drinking. And once we lose that control, we're done. We're wiped out. And the only way we can get out is to stop drinking. We have a chapter in our book that clearly tells about people like you and i who who at one time had to use facilities such as this and other songs of escape mechanisms from from alcoholism people who kept trying to regain that control but inevitably suffered less control if you take a good look at yourself and i'm talking to those of you who need this place right now Now, those of you who are new to AA, even though you didn't identify yourself, you sit in here just like I'm standing in here because I'm just as new as you. You tried desperately to control your drinking and you lost. You lost. And if you don't believe this, take a good honest look at yourself and try to pick out the last time that you had control of your drinking. The last time when you knew exactly what was going to happen the day you started to drink. The most insane thought that any of us can ever have is that we think we know what's going to happened if we get drunk. A couple of you hot shots in here think that, well, Hal, I'll stay in here for a month, make myself 20 on the truck, sell a few TVs, get a little bankroll, send out the flyers. The friends will send in the twos and threes and stuff like that. In a couple of months, I'll have about 80 bucks and a couple o' chips for two weeks rent someplace. And you think, well, I can go out and have a big time and if I go on my ass again, I can always go back to the sally. I used to think that. I usedと think that, and there were times when I got away with that. But never forget this. You or I, or nobody that walks the face of this earth, whether they are alcoholic or non-alcoholic, knows what's going to happen the next time they drink. Sitting in this room are men who have possibly gone through their last recovery, who no longer will ever recover from the next drunk. Possibly sitting in thisroom are men and women who've got 500 drunks left in them. But do you know who they are? I don't, and I know you don't. So it might be you who's not going to recover, and it might быть you as the 500 left. When I first saw the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was nothing more than 24 years old, 24 years old. And this was back in 1949, actually, 50 to be exact. And I was brought to a meeting about this size. I didn't go there drunk. I had a few drinks before I went in. I had some vodka so you wouldn't smell it. But I knew what was taking place, and I listened. And I'll never forget that night. It was in the spring. And I had never been exposed to anything like this. Alcoholism wasn't as out in public attention as it is now. and AA was as underground as the French Resistance was in World War II. And, you know, you're still ducked inside doors to go to meetings. As I sat there that night, a guy got up to speak by the name of John Cavanaugh and I can see him as plain as day right now. He had on a pair of khaki pants and a white T-shirt that had grass stains all over this side. and he hadn't shaved his face was dark and his hands were dirty and uh this guy got up and he gave one hell of a talk jeez i didn't really know what some of the things warty was talking about he was talking to me about skid row i didn t even know what in the hell skid roll meant and he was talkin about living in abandoned automobiles and empty refrigeration boxes he was talkin about jumpin freights in the proviso yards and he mentioned dts and convulsions and he said something about swallowing your tongue and I even lost five minutes of the meeting rolling my tongue around in my mouth trying to figure out how the heck are you going to swallow your tongue, you know? What this guy was doing that night is the same thing that A.E. does every night all over the world. He was sharing his experience with me and people like me who were there. He was telling us exactly what was going to happen to us If we were going to persist in this insane illusion that some of you still persist in, that somehow, someway, someday, that you're going to be able to enjoy and control your drinking. You have had it. You must accept this. Sure, I can't get any great big educated guy down here from Stanford University with a bunch of letters after his name to get that point across to you. I have no credentials. The people in AA don't have credentials to impress upon you the truth in what I'm saying to you right now, but the credential that I have is the best shot you've got right now and that's my own experience and if you think I'm lying, you're a lot sicker than you really are because I have No reason to lie to anybody or no member of AA has the reason to lie to anybody about our past experiences, how we recovered, how we stayed recovered. If there was one thing that I could single out that would be the most important thing that you could tell anybody on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, it would be this. Not that the entire program isn't important. Every bit of it's important. And I don't like to attach any more of a degree of importance to any particular part of it than another but in my own mind the one thing that i think is very important that you who seek this recovery those of you who see this new way of life must you must fully accept the truth in the people just like you who are now sober because that's all you've got to go on There's nobody sitting in classrooms in the big universities learning how to show you a new way of life. There's no big books in the library for you to read to show you a new of life, and there's only one group of people who have experienced what you're experiencing now and have recovered, and they call these groups Alcoholics Anonymous. I was watching the news tonight on television, very dramatic, the return of the prisoners of war and all of that stuff, very touching. And they were showing the film clip of the last bunch that they brought to were prisoners of the Viet Cong who had held over an extra 12 hours or something like that. And John Chancellor, I believe, was the news broadcaster, and he made a statement. He said, he was referring to the look in these men's eyes and the joy on their faces and that he said none of us could possibly understand the joy that lies in the hearts of these men tonight because we haven't been there and that's just like us it's just like uh i couldn't possibly convince you how beautiful it is now but i have been there I wish that there was some way That I could pull out of my head Just like that All of the thoughts And all of the desires And all the reasons Why I want to be sober today Instead of being drunk like I used to And just take them and run over And put them into your head But there's no way I can do that There are two ways that I know how One is by attraction And the other is by sharing with you my own hopes, my own experiences. When I became an alcoholic, I became a person who needed to drink. When you need to drink, you are definitely an alcoholic. The day I needed to drink came at age 24 because I was sick. I had experienced the dry heaves for the first time in my life. I was scared to death. I knew nothing about alcoholism, and I thought I was going to die. Do you remember that morning when you thought you were going to die? And I went right to somebody that saved my life, a bartender. And I said, I'm going to die, what do I need? And he gave me a drink. And i discovered the same thing that you discovered. I thought that drink got me well. Now I was drinking to fulfill a need. I was drunken to get well. How insane that appears to me now as I stand here sober, when I know it would be chemically impossible for the same thing to get me well that got me drunk. It's an impossibility. But we all thought that, didn't we? You remember the mornings when you were ready to sell your best friend's shoes to get a drink, don't you? When you would have robbed for a drink or did rob or stole or lied or if you're a chick prostituted your body or maybe some of you guys had participated in a homosexual activity. All of that utter degradation and humiliation that you and I go through as a result of that day when alcohol finally becomes the most important thing in our life. And that day comes. It comes to all of us. Some accept it a lot earlier than others. Some accept the truth in those who have gone before. And in essence, they say, Christ, I believe him. I'm going to knock it off now. Others don't. Just like in this room tonight, undoubtedly sit somebody who's saying what the hell hurry up a bunch of sure you know how i know that because i did that i did uh i used to sit way in the back i sit close to the dormitory door that's where i used but as soon as the meeting was over i could rush like hell and they had to get the corner bunk the corner bed they tell me you got room here well that's nice But the corner bunk in any dormitory is the best. Because you're sure of only having one side of you taken by a nut. You've got the wall on this side. So if some guy comes screaming out of the bed, he's on that side, isn't he? You don't have too much of a chance of two of them crossing in midair right over you. I don't know why I ever accepted this program. How about that? I told that to Paul Gardner today. paul was such a lovely secretary and me and him was talking about stuff and he says when did you accept the program i got to thinking when the hell did i accept it and i thought and i said i can't think right now paul and then i left him and then for the rest of the day i've been trying to think when was the time that i accepted it i don't think i've ever reached that time I don't think I have fully accepted the fact that I'll never drink again I don' t want to drink again don't get me wrong and I'm not positive I've had my last drink and perhaps that's why I have to do this 24 hours at a time that's right sometimes I got to do it a little bit shorter than that I think if I fully accepted that I have turned my life and my will over to God, as it says, I'd get a little complacent. I'd forget where I come from. I'd figure that, well, I can go around and do anything I want. God will make sure I don't drink. And I know better than that. I know more than that because I can remember nights when I sat in the gutter back there on Madison Street, one night in particular I'm thinking of, and I had come from an AA meeting. Well, actually, I was asked to leave the AA meeting Because I was drunk I didn't really get thrown out The guy just says, what a gooder group Why don't you get out of here, you know So I got out And he was nice He gave me some wine that he'd taken off another guy And I sat out there in the curb Waiting for my buddy who was still in there to come out My buddy I always get a kick out of that You call these guys on the street your buddies I never got a Christmas card from any of my buddies Whenever I was doing hard time, I never got a cart of cigarettes from my buddies. My buddies never called up to see if I was alive or anything like that. But anyhow, I waited for my buddy out there drinking that wine. And I was sort of hurt. My ego was hurt, you know. It's pretty low when you finally get kicked out of a group of another bunch of drunks. Pretty low. And I'm not going to lie to you. I was mad at God. Well, I was always mad at Gott in those days. And I held the bottle up, you now. But just to show you what a con I was, and I just thought of that. When I first held it up, you know, there was about four inches in there. And I figured, well, wait a minute. And I drank just about down to about a half an inch. Then I proclaimed it. I said, go ahead, if you're so powerful, knock that out of my hand. I didn't want him to knock the four inches out. And God never knocked that out. Knocked that out out of our hands. And just like God isn't really going to keep me from drinking, if I make up my mind to drink, even though I have turned my will and my power over to him, I can break that pledge any time I want. I can tell God to go get screwed any time I want, and I have done that, right? So what defense have I got? What do I have to do to stay sober then? Do I have to do like it said in that little book That I read to you? Do I ask to remember a few years back? Do I gotta remember a little hole in the wall On West Madison Street, 70 cents a night To Mohawks, in case any of you guys are from Chicago Laying on that piss-stained mattress for a couple of weeks Convulsive DTs kicking out the mirror behind the door Smashing the mirror in the dresser My own blood all over the goddamn place a guy pour and a half a pint of some kind of juice into me to keep me alive till an ambulance got there. That's what I have to remember because that's the last drink I've ever had. And this program and that little book, things like that little books, remind me to remember that last drink because guys like you who are still drinking remind me that I can still start tomorrow too. You didn't remember where you came from That's why you got drunk the last time You forgot about all the hell Your own degree of hell Whatever the hell it was Maybe you forgot about the ten days You've done in San Bruno The six months you've done In Mendocino or Napa Maybe you forget about the night The kids told you to get The hell out of the house They didn't want to see you around anymore Or your friends called you up And said, get lost See, you forget About all of them things When you start that drug It's the biggest mistake that every alcoholic makes. Whenever he has that slip, that's what they call it, a slip. I have never bought that word. All it is when you start drinking again means that you never accepted the first step in the beginning. So never mind that slip crap. Slipping to me is when we slide on something slippery. There's nothing slippery out in front of me right now. Jim Beam is not slippery. Scotch ain't slippery. So how the hell can I slip on that? I have to drink it. I have order it. I have pick it up, put it in my mouth and swallow it. If that's a slip, then I'm all confused. And you didn't think of that. Just like I never used to think about that. Because as soon as I decided to drink, all I associated my drinking with was the good part of the drunk. I have never been on a drunk in my life and neither have you. That didn't start out good. They all start out good. I could go right here in San Francisco tonight and get drunk. I've never had a drink in the state of California, so it's a cinch. I'm not 86th in any place around here. There's a hell of a lot of states that I can't say that about. But here, I know I could walk into a joint. There must be a saloon close by here someplace. They'd never have a Salvation Army here if there wasn't a salcoon close by. But how would it start now? Save me and some guy in here. How about me and you going out and having a few drinks? Will you look all right? You're sober, you're clean, I got a few dollars in my pocket. We'd be welcome in most any saloon in town right now, wouldn't we? I'd get in there tonight, I don't know how you'd act, but... Tonight at the beginning it is drunk, I'd probably start talking about, uh... Well, baseball season is coming up, We'd start talking about baseball and eventually get around to broads and sex. There's no doubt about that. Then I'd start telling the bartender what a great guy I used to be and how many great things I'm going to do in the future. You know, I wouldn't talk to him about today because today you always have to prove. And practicing alcoholics never talk about them now. So tonight possibly me and this bartender would get along pretty good. He'd like me because I'd be paying for my drinks. I got about $43 in my pocket here. I'm doing good tonight. And he might even say goodnight to me when I leave and see you tomorrow. Tomorrow I'd go back, second day of my drunk. And maybe tomorrow we wouldn't talk too much. You know, we'd all talked out today, so he'd come and wait on me when he got up to my end of the bar every now and then or we'd pass a few pleasantries during the day. And then would come the third day of mine drunk and then he'd start talking to me again. But he'd be saying things like this. Watch your language, will you? Do you have to talk so loud? We got women in here. Then the fourth day of my drunk would come. And he'd say, look, stay down here at this end of the bar. Don't let them other people see. But you're fly, that's right. Stop spitting on the floor. Then about the fifth day of his life, of my drunkenness. He'd come out from behind the bar, now. But are you the son of a bitch that's drinking the wine in the can? What do you mean you want me to hold a check? Then what would I be doing the next day like some of you have done, right? Want me to put the stools up for you? Want me to sweep the floor? Anybody puke in the car? Can I clean it up for you, Trish? Then the seventh and eighth day I'd be out there in the front in the morning begging, pleading for that drink. That's the part I've got to remember. I don't have to remember the night me and you walked in. I can remember the pleading, the dying, thinking I was going to die if I don' t get that drink When I came to your program, I guess if it's the day I accepted, nothing had changed from the first time I came. I was six years getting my first year of sobriety. But for the benefit of any of you who are new here, I just want to make this statement. I could stand up here for the next two hours and tell you about prison. I could tell you About 37 Admissions to Mental Institutions All Over the Country. I could Tell You About Blackouts That Make You Shiver. I Could Tell YouAbout Loss of Respect. I could tell you about a son spitting in my face and saying, don't you ever tell anybody you're my father. I could talk to you about your father I could say something about waking up in Macon, Georgia once trying to figure out what in the hell I was doing in Macdon, Georgia trying to think if I knew anybody in Maccon, Georgia or what I could possibly be doing there and not being able to come up with anything and then after sitting on the side of the bed for maybe an hour a little recollection would come back and i'd remember that three days ago i had been in chicago illinois for 31 dollars in my pocket and i wonder how the hell did i get to make a judge it was only 31 dollars this would cause me to be nervous so i'd reach into my pocket to get a cigarette and instead of coming out with a pack of cigarettes i'd come out with 782 dollars and then for the rest of my life right up until today i'd have to live with wondering where i got 782 in a three-day period between chicago illinois and macon judges what happened did i get desperate for a drink what did i do when it became important for me to drink did i rob did i steal did i murder did i participate in a homosexual activity i don't know blackouts don't ever confuse them with passing out we have all passed out passing out is nothing more than a period of time going by in your life always measured in hours but during that period of time you are immobile out on the bar passed out in the booth on the kitchen table on the couch leave him alone he's sleeping you've heard that that's passing up blacking out for those of you who may not be familiar with it it's almost the exact same thing With these exceptions, a period of time is going to go by in your life, sometimes measured in days, not hours. And during that period of Time, you are going to be mobile and you are gonna be able to walk. You are going appear and be capable of functioning almost 90% normal. And no one around you will be aware that you're walking around in a semi-hypnotic state. let me tell you of a blackout that happened to me just to prove to you what you could possibly do in that semi-hypnotic state there was a time in my life when i raced harness horses i was a driver for harness Washington Park racetrack in Chicago Illinois like all practicing alcoholics it was important for me to know how much money i had coming how much money i could spend or how far i could go with what money i had so i was always on top of my financial status anyhow usually low and i can recall one morning walking through the stable area at that racetrack on my way to get a drink on the other side of the parking lot in a place called the home stretch as i passed the racing secretary's office. He hollered out his little window to me, and he said, Dutch, are you going to pick up your check for last night? I stopped, and I thought about the previous night's races. I had been in both parts of the daily double, but I'd finished way out of the money. I'd come seventh in the fifth race and about eighth in the sixth race. No purses there. I hollared back. I said, Charlie, you must have made a mistake i didn't win anything last night he sort of laughed a little bit he's all hell he said get over here he said you come in third in the ninth race well i didn'T even recall being in the third inthe ninth race let alone finishing third now that might not sound like a lot of time to you one mile race with a horse horses i had weren't great and they weren't bad on a fast track they could do a mile in about three five two seven something like that two minutes and seven seconds so maybe that's not much of a blackout but there's a little bit more to a horse race than just the actual running there's a 15-minute period before that race that has to take place you've got to bring your horse out on the track got to parade them in front of the grandstand got to take him to the first turn put the tongue tie in wheel them around take them to the stretch and jog them down to the gate and back and then turn and we didn't roll with the gate can go off in front this band that takes about 15 minutes then you race your mile then after you cross the finish line another 15 minute period especially if you're finished in the money gotta take your heart down slowly probably the middle of the first turn wheel them remove the tongue tie go back before the grandstand signal to the judges on top of the grand stand so whether you've got a foul claim or an inquiry against the condition of the race because you're in the money you have to take the horse back to the paddock and run them through a saliva test urine test to make sure you didn't hype them before the race it takes another 15 minutes so they had an 8x10 glossy print picture of me sitting in a selfie with horse by the name of full time in front of me going right past the tote board which gave the time of night date of the month month and year actual visual proof that i was in that race actual proof that there was at least a 32 minute period in my life that i can't recall but yet i was normal enough to take a horse out on the track with nine other horses and nine other drivers normal enough to take them around a half was the half mile track past the grandstand twice with 20 000 people screaming at their top of their lungs normal enough to finish third yet i don't know it what else can i do in 32 minutes maybe i could could do like my friend Don in Soledad. Not too long ago was in Soledead, got to talk it to a guy who most of you know everybody in the joints is in there on a bum beat. I'll tell you that. They've been framed or not their fault. I was invited down there to speak at their anniversary. If you've never experienced anything like that here's how it takes place. You go in and the group the outside guys go in and the group all together usually early in the morning about 10 o'clock in the mornings and they assign one of the inmate members of the AA group to act as sort of your guide or your host for the day and it's this guy's little obligation a job to stay with you all day so that you'll know how to get from building to building and meeting to meeting and if you want to go to men's room he shows you where that is and shows you to get coffee and you get to be quite chummy with whoever your host and it was ironic this kid's name was charles too i walked with this kid all day long and that night when we were leaving in a group he walked over to the room where we go to pick up our stuff that we had to check in and said goodbye to him and he said goodbye to me and he says that there's one thing that sort of bugged me i'd like to ask you And I said, sure, what's true? He says, how come you didn't ask me why I'm in here? He says all the tourists always do that. And I say because I know better. I said I've had some hard time laying on me and I said I know what the rule is. You don't tell anybody nothing unless you want to tell them. So if you want tell me, that's your business, I said but I'm not going to ask you. He says I'd like to tell you he says not that I'm copping out he says it's not that think I'm innocent And not that I think I'm in here in a bum beef, but when you talk today about driving them harness horses, he says, I knew you should hear this. He said, I'm here for murder. And he says I'm sentenced for murder, he said, but as far as I know, I have never been in the city of Salinas, California in my life, and he says if my life depended upon it, I couldn't find the motel where the crime was permitted. And he said, I'll swear on my own mother's name. He says, the only time that I've ever seen the victim was when in the courtroom they showed me a picture of her body. He said, yes, I came too. I was being held in the Monterey County Jail. Her blood was all over my clothing, all over by hand. My fingerprints matched the weapons. And he says, I was convicted of murder. He says, I have no doubt that I did it. He said, but I had no recollection of doing it. She said, the last thing I can remember, I went to San Diego. I was in a little town just outside of San Diego in about the sixth day of a drunk. The next thing I knew, I wasn't in the Monterey County Jail. That didn't make too much of an impact on me when he told me that right there and there. I have heard that kind of a story from, from a thousand times. But as I was driving back that night, I got held up in the traffic in Morgan Hill where it gets a little congested on Sundays. And I was sort of creeping along thinking, and I got to thinking of what that kid told me. And then I got into thinking of that own, that 32-minute period in my life. I wonder how long it would take a guy on a drunk to to walk into a strange town and hustle up some local pig in a bar wheeler over to a motel getting a big beach in the motel grab one of them little things that they keep flowers in the motels in the moment of that alcoholic rage that you and i are familiar with fall off and whack her across the side of the head with that baby and not even know you did it. I wonder if I could get that done in 32 minutes. I wonder if I did that on the way to Macon, Georgia. I'll never know. Just like I'll never know if that kid was in a blackout or whether he was just laying something on me. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference with this exception. I accept that. I accept alcohol for exactly what this program says it is. I think A.A. has got the best definition in the world for alcoholism, cunning, baffling, and powerful. You and I don't know, do we, what alcohol is going to do to us. You already know what it has done to you. You don't now what's in store for you if you drink again. Maybe you're gonna go to Macon, Georgia, huh? Or maybe it'll be you in Soul of Dead that I'll see the next time. Or maybe there'll be somebody close to you that should kill. Because as alcoholics, when we drink, we enter into a period of temporary insanity. I am not a lawyer, but let me tell you the legal definition of insanity. In order to commit a person to an insane asylum, a state hospital, he has to be mentally ill, insane. You know what the law requires to prove that he is insane? Nothing more than to prove that he placed his life in jeopardy or the life of someone else in jeopardY. Anybody who is an alcoholic has placed somebody's life in jePoody, most of all your own. But what about the guys that you and I know who spend the rest of their lives confined in penal institutions who did the exact same thing that some of you have done in a moment of alcoholic rage hauled off and belted the wife one right in the mouth not meaning for her to tumble over and strike her head on the corner of a marble coffee table and kill her or how about a woman down at the hatchaby who got mad because her her husband threw away a booze, and she threw the empty bottle at him, not meaning for it to crash against the side of his head and kill him. These are all parts of alcoholism. These are also parts of drinking. These are part of alcohol. These are parts of temporary insanity. These are both part of drinking, and I don't care whether you want to be an alcoholic or not. Remember this, you don't have to be an alcoholic to quit drinking. All you have to do is be honest enough with yourself to realize that alcohol is causing your life to become unmanageable. Unmanageble in some areas only at this time. But in the progression of this disease, people like me and the other people in the A.A. with their experience will prove to you this, that it will get worse I'm not laughing at you but if you think you're down now you haven't seen anything yet now's the time to get off because to be going to go through another 10 years of this hell this program is going to be exactly the same in February of 1983 as it is in February of 1973 don't sit around waiting for it to change you're going to have to make the same decision 10 years from now that you have to today and you make them decisions with yourself you don't have to sober up for anybody else if you think what you're doing is great then keep doing it keep doing this is what you want go ahead but if you've had it you've got it up to here and you're about ready to choke on your own self-disgust and you are so disgusted with what in the hell you have not only done to yourself but to those around you then come on along with the rest of us because we know just how you feel and we felt that way too there is no need for you to stay here there is not need for me for you to stay at this low point in your life because from the moment that you stop, it's all up. They're going to talk to you a lot, sure, about a guy called God who's going to scare the hell out of you and you're going bitch and you'll moan some of you. I did too. But what's so bad about accepting the fact that there is a God? Isn't that so wrong? If all you have to do is accept a God to make yourself whole to give you a license. That's all you've got to do? That isn't much. You guys are pros. You've done a lot worse than that to stay drunk! All you've gotta do is say, God, I need help. Don't ask the guy next to you in the bar for help. Don't have to block him just for help Ask God. And if you doubt that there's a God that exists and I'm not a religious guy I don't go to church I don't do none of that formal stuff. I don' t know them prayers that they talk about. And let me tell you how it was proven to me and how I've suggested a lot of people prove it to themselves, especially you guys who are in residence right here. I'm going to give you one damn good opportunity tonight to find out that there is a God and that the greatest thing of all is that this God does have a power, that this God is a gracious God, a forgiving God and that he just waits for you to ask for that help when you go to bed tonight in these little rooms you got around here I don't know if there's one of you in a room or two in a home or whether you're eight in the room it don't make any difference and if you're ashamed to let somebody know you're praying and you don't have to get down on your knees I don' t get down on my knees nobody wants to be a big guy like you down on your knees, do they? You don't want to blow all your class. You don' t even have to fold their hands, you know. And you can even smoke while you're doing it. That way I don't think you're just smoking. Or better yet, put the blanket over your head like you do in jail. You know, you don' T want the guy in his cell to know you're getting religious. And then talk to this God tonight. You don''t even have To talk out loud. You talk like you think. You think the words you're talking. And here's what I ask you to do tonight, for about the first time in a long time, forget about yourself. And then tonight you say to God like this, Hey God, make tomorrow a pretty nice day and then name somebody. Name somebody whom you think you're going to be around tomorrow. whom you're going to get a good chance to observe all day tomorrow and then forget your prayers and go to sleep and then tomorrow morning when you get up don't you tell anybody who you prayed for don't say a thing and then you watch and you watch what kind of a day whoever you pray for has i can almost guarantee you i can't of course but i can almost guarantee that your prayers will be answered because you know what has proven that to me each of us who sits in this room tonight whether you are religious whether you believe in god or not you are here as a result of someone else's prayer maybe you don't believe that your mother might and your kid might or your wife might. Somebody cares and somebody prays. Thank you very much.