Ego Writes Its Own Commandments and Calls the Violations Resentments – Ted B.

Up here as long as you want to, because Jack's done run his mouth 30 minutes. So keep us on 10 if you want to. I just met Ted about 30 minutes ago, and I asked Joe, I said, you know, what's something good I can say about him? And Joe said, well, he said, I still can't think of a damn thing good to say about a judge. And so not only is Ted an alcoholic, he's a judge. And I talked to him and got to know him a little and seemed like a decent guy. I was telling Joe, you know, the first few judges I met in my drinking career I sure didn't like. I remember some quotations that wasn't famous, but, you know, Jack talking about them. I remember this judge saying, $303 or 303 days, you know. And he said, Last time it was going to be $1,000 or $1,000. And that was what I remember about judges. But after coming into the program, I met some good ones, and I know Ted will be good. And I know you all are going to enjoy him. Help me welcome Ted B. from Texas. Hello, I'm Ted Bishop, and I'm an alcoholic. And today. It has been by the grace of God and with the help of the people and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since August 19, 1974. And I'm very grateful for that. Thank you. And I want to thank Chris and his committee for inviting me up here. And I want to thank Joe and Glenda and Bud for allowing me to spend the day with them. And if Joe ever kicks off, I'll be there. If Joe ever kicks Glenda out, she's got a place at my house as a cook, I'll tell you that. And I want to say hello to my old friend Nancy from Shreveport and Skinny and Catherine. It's nice seeing you all again. And I brought a new drunk with me from our group. He's got 85 days. Joe, stand up over here. This is Joe. Thank you. And Skinny gave me a little thing here. It must be conference approved since Skinny gave it to me. And the title of this is Don't Jump to Conclusions in Alcoholics Anonymous. It says, The sky was blue, the moon was high. We were alone, just she and I. Her hair was brown. Her eyes were blue. I knew just what she wanted me to do. So with all my courage, I did my best. I placed my hand upon her breast. I trembled. I shook and felt her heart. Slowly, she spread her legs apart. I knew she was ready, but I didn't know how. This was my first experience milking a cow. Now, much to做 through my BLMO incident and all that. No one else did it except me! And this is my first experience in this room. I didn't like these done. I think I'm the first editors on this call. You'll see that we've been drinking alcohol all year. A lot of things are my first experience. Overall, the derailment of your time and my introduction was, lie longer, he lied down and died. Oh, it's great to have fun in Alcoholics Anonymous, isn't it? It's a pleasure being here tonight. I feel comfortable here in Ruston, Louisiana, and I feel the spirit. I had a lot of trouble with unmanageability when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a lawyer, and I was a judge, and I had money, and I had a house. I had two cars and garages to put them in. So for me to say that my life was unmanageable became very difficult for me. But I've got a sponsor in Lake Providence, Louisiana. Most of you know him, Tom O'Sullivan. And he told me this. He said, Ted, just because, he says, if you have a car, you have to be able to drive it. And I said, well, I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have a car. I don't have uncontrollable bowel movements. The fact that you can sing beautifully does not make your life manageable. And, you know, somewhere along the line, I had to come to that point in my life. But some of the worst drinking I ever did, I was a judge there in two cities, Texas City and Lamarck, and they're about halfway between Houston and Galveston on Highway 45. And the way I started off my days as a judge was that I opened up the Caravan Club at the Holiday Inn in Texas City every day at 11 a.m. I was always the first one there. And I would sit there and I would drink vodka martinis on the rocks. And I liked to drink those things because they had great big old huge olives in them. And I always said that I drank those things because I liked the olives. And really, I didn't drink those things because I did because those things would get saturated with vodka and you could eat those things and get, you know, high eating those olives. And I would sit there and I would drink those vodka martinis and perhaps there might be something that was coming up in court that afternoon that was of some concern. But as I would sit there and drink those vodka martinis, it became eminently clear what course of action that I was going to have to take when I got to court. And I would sit there and I'd drink those things until I couldn't stand up. And then I'd go over and I'd sit down and I'd start holding court. And court started at two. Well, sometimes it started at three. Sometimes it started at four. Sometimes it didn't start at all because I didn't make it. But that didn't make any difference because court didn't start until I got there. And I would go over and I would sit down and they would bring people before me, many of them I guess just like you, and I would be sitting there drunk. And I would wonder why in the world you people couldn't control your drinking like I was doing. And, you know, I didn't know what was going on most of the time. The only way that I knew that a case was over was all the lawyers would sit down. And I'd mumble something and the lawyers would say, what did that judge say? And I had a clerk who had been covering me for years. And she said, he says you're guilty and the fine is $52.50. Move on. Let's move on to the next case. Well, you know, you'd drink too if you'd had to listen to some of the stuff I had to listen to. We were sitting there trying a murder case one time and the district attorney was asking the witnesses in what part of the anatomy was the deceased shot. And she said, judge, do I have to answer that? And I said, you sure do, young lady. She said, judge, you won't believe this, but he was shot right in the subpoena. And so when the police got there, he was DOD. He said, what is that DOD? She said, dead on the driveway. A man and woman separated and the boyfriend moved in. And the husband decided to forgive his wife and came back and caught the boyfriend and his wife in bed. And the boyfriend came to my court to file charges on the husband for disturbing the peace. I had to look up peace in the law books. And, you know, I was also supposed to marry people, but I had a problem there because I was drunk most of the time. But I solved that. I was officing with a real estate man there in Texas City and I taught him the marriage ceremony. So if people came to me to get married and I was drunk, well, he'd perform the ceremony. I was in office 12 years. We've got a lot of sinners running around Texas City and Lamarck right this very day. And, you know, I was a cute drunk. I specialized in cuteness. If I was able to perform a marriage ceremony, I'd say, now, I know that this marriage was made in heaven. At the same time, I'm a little older and I'm a little wiser than you. And in case this thing don't work out, well, here's my attorney at law court. And I created confusion wherever I went. People would come to my court and they'd say, you're not the judge, because they'd been married by the real estate man. I was also the coroner of Texas City and Lamarck. I used to pronounce people dead. Everybody dead. Everybody dead. Everybody died of a heart attack. It's on record that in that county there were more heart attack victims than at any other period in the history of that area. They called me out there one time and they had this guy laying in the middle of the floor. And I went up and I looked at him and I said, he's dead. They moved him into the bedroom and they all went outside and I passed out in the living room. I woke up in the ambulance dead. They left us stiff. They said he looked better than I did. And about two years before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought my hair was getting a little bit thin on top and I didn't want all the ladies losing interest in me. So I went up and I had a hair transplant. And the doctor said, we can, you know, I'm going to put you 20 plugs of hair right around the top of your head here and give you a nice head of hair there at $5 a plug. And I said, man, that's a wonderful price. So I went up there and what they do, they dig holes up here in the top of your head and then they cut out little circles of hair from the back of your neck and they take these things and they plant them up on the top of the head and they grow just like corn, you know. And I stand here before you tonight with 20 plugs right around the top of my head, right here. And you know, I still have this fear that someday all my hair is going to fall out and these plugs are just going to be standing up there just like that, you know. That was some time ago, you know. Nowadays it's more modern, they can get hair from almost any parts of the body that they want to. But I want everybody here to know that my plugs came from the back of my neck. . . And I had the approval that I wanted, all the sex that I wanted, and all the power that I wanted. Why in the world would a world be put together where you couldn't have everything you wanted? That wasn't right. And it wasn't right that it wasn't right. I tried to straighten everybody out so I could get what I wanted the way I wanted it, but they wouldn't listen, they retaliated and they put me down. I resented that. Everywhere I went, people left. I said, there they go. . I must pursue them. . For I am their leader. . I had no rules, I had no principles to live by. I tried to adopt yours by doing things that I thought would please you. But I got tired of trying to please all you dummies. . But that didn't stop me from keep on trying. . I tried religion as a way of life. . I'd go down there and have some guy and he'd be standing up here just like this and he'd be saying something like this, friends, there's coming a day. It's going to be here soon. It's going to be here when you least expect it. It's going to be a judgment day. It's going to be a final day. . And all your butt up in front of this wide screen and they're going to flash back on every rotten, lousy, miserable, filthy, despicable thing you ever did in all your life. I didn't feel too good. . You know, I got the idea in church that you had to feel bad in order to be good. . You know, I used to say in my getting ready, run old Ted up there on the screen, you know, and all the dummy sinners were sitting around, you know, they don't know their turn's coming up next. And they're all sitting around saying, shame, shame, shame. And I rebelled against religion. I tried success as a way of life. As I told you, I was a judge and a lawyer. I was a successful person in that respect. I had charge accounts at every liquor store in Texas City, Lamarck and one in Galveston. That's success. But the thing that I was looking for wasn't there either. . I guess the best way you could describe my life before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous would be to say, I almost made it. Everything I ever did, I almost. . And then I did something that was to become my downfall. I did just whatever I felt like doing. . But you know, if you have taken your feelings and you have cut them off and you try to live on this kind of stuff, you're going to be crazy as hell. And I was. I was just crazy as hell when I got to AA. I remember I'd be sitting there and the knives and the furniture would be whizzing by my head and I would look at this crazy, demented wife of mine, knowing that it was driving her crazy because I would not react to what she was doing. She said I smirked at her. . I remember I'd been in AA about six months and I heard there was going to be a psychiatrist talking somewhere and I said, boy, this is what I need to straighten me out as a psychiatrist. . He'll be able to help me. And I went to this convention in San Antonio and this psychiatrist was courting a little jingo. He said, if you can smile when things go wrong and say it doesn't matter, if you can laugh off cares and woes and trouble makes you fatter, if you can keep a cheerful face when all around are blue, you better have your head examined, bud. There's something wrong with you. . And you know, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about because I could do all those things. . And you know, I think this doing whatever I wanted to, this self-will run riot, all started before I ever took a drink. And I think the big book may be talking about me when it talks about young people who think that they can stop drinking on self-will and are surprised to learn that they cannot because of the peculiar mental twist, the queer mental quirk of their minds. . And I think the book is about the spiritual quirk of the mind already acquired and firmly established. . I told you I rebelled against religion. . I didn't like some guy up in the sky being able to know everything that I did and I liked even less the idea that he might know everything that I was thinking. . And I cast aside any idea of a power greater than myself and I became supreme in the universe. . You couldn't tell me anything. I already knew it all. . And I began doing just whatever I damn well felt like doing. . And I practiced it as a way of life and a lot of times I got by with it. . And the times that I got by with it convinced me that I could get by with it all the time and it blinded me to the times that I didn't. . But I was afraid to do a lot of things. . But then I found alcohol and it all came together. me because alcohol gave me the courage to do the things that I wanted to do that I was afraid to do. I did not seduce women because I was drinking. Alcohol gave me the courage to do what I already wanted to do. My modus operandi really was very simple. I want what I want when I want it because by God I want it. That was my whole philosophy of life and contained all of my principles. And this queer mental quirk, this peculiar mental twist was, I believe, to later assert itself during my drinking career as this. By God, I can get away with anything that I want to. And this time it's going to be different. I am going to be able to do it. I am going to be able to control and enjoy my drinking. But deep down I knew the truth. I could no longer control my drinking. And you know, if you can no longer control your drinking, you're set apart from other people. Because drinking is an established practice in this country. And if you can no longer drink, then you are different and you are left out and you are abandoned and you are alone. So I kept on drinking. And I drank until I just could not drink anymore. I mean, I couldn't drink anymore. Look, without alcohol, let me tell you something. I was a jerk. I was a nothing. I was a real nerd. But by God, with alcohol, I was magnificent. I was witty. I was charming. And I was suave. Man, I've always hungered for suavity. And I couldn't drink anymore. But I kept desperately trying to drink. And finally I tried to stop drinking using some very silly methods. I didn't think they were silly then, but I can look back on them now and see that they were silly. And one of the first things that I started doing was jogging. But that made me thirsty. And I tried yoga. I tried transcendental meditation. But all I could do was sit there and watch the world go by. All I could meditate on was why the jogging and the yoga wouldn't work for me. I tried psychiatry. I went back in my youth. I found out that I hated my father. Well, I hated just about everybody, really. I wasn't okay. And by God, you weren't either. I had a troubled childhood, and it's certainly been a long one. I tried taking glutamine and tycopan that chemistry professors swore would work. I read some books by a doctor at the Veterans House. I read some books by a doctor at the Veterans House. I read some books by a doctor at the Veterans House. I read some books by a doctor at the Veterans House. I read some He said, I had a bad hypothalamus, and this is a gland located up here in the center of your brain. And he says, what happens when you start drinking, this hypothalamus just goes nuts and starts swirling around in there? And he animates if I would have a brain operation and have my hypothalamus removed, that I'd be able to drink like everybody else. And you know, I was thinking seriously about this, because something had to be done. But I got on reading about this, and I found out it also contributes to your diabetes. And I uncontrolled appetite and sex, and at that time I was not willing to go to any lengths to get sober. So I didn't get that operation. Dr. Tintera said I had bad adrenaline glands, and he said if I would just take adrenaline cortex extract, this would fix up my adrenals and I'd be able to drink like everybody else. And I used to get large, big old shots of this adrenaline cortex extract in the rear end, and the only effect it had was that I had to stand up when I drank because I kept on drinking. I read somewhere that you could drink an ounce of alcohol an hour each hour, night and day, and it would never harm you. And I said, my God, where's this information been? I'll just drink an ounce an hour, and I'll get on that right level, and I'll be that way for the rest of my life. I went down and ordered a drink, finished it in 15 minutes. Forty-five minutes to go. I said, well, what do I do? I'll have the next hour's drink. Now, when the next hour gets here, I won't have that drink. I got drunk. But I thought these things were working. I was a periodic drunk, and I would walk up and down the streets of Texas City and Lamarck telling all my friends, why don't you stop drinking like I've done? Feel wonderful. Oh, it's great. You ought to try this way of life. And I guess you can go. I was so together already that I had a little brain damage when I came to AA. And I could just see myself somewhere. And this vision is just as clear to me today as it was then. I would be somewhere, and I would be on this high mountain, and there would be people down this mountainside and up this next mountain and over the next slope, and it would be all around me a veritable sea of humanity. And I would rise, and I would be dressed in these white robes, and they would be gently shimmering in the breezes, and this great circular shaft of light would be descending from the heavens and playing in my tassel locks, and this strange, eerie, haunting melody would be playing from afar and yet so near. It seemed like it was rock of ages. And I would rise, and I would give them this message. I would say, tired and weary, desperate and hopeless, want a new and better way of life? Oh, come unto me. Oh, ye who are weary. Oh, ye who are weary. Oh, ye who are weary. Oh, ye who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. For thine yoke is heavy while mine is light. Yea, and verily I say unto thee, go, my children, and drink no more. I was a crazy son of a bitch when I got to Alcoholics and Alcoholics. Every time I stopped drinking, I always left a reservation. I said, now, this is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, I mean it this time, King's X and Tickalock. All the way around, last time I'm going to have a drink. Unless maybe something comes up real bad later on that just makes it absolutely necessary. And you know something I always did? I was campaigning for judge, and I ran into this old-timer in AA. His name was Sam Harkins. I know Nancy remembers him. Skinny. And this guy didn't have nothing. He was just a pipe fitter. And he said, Ted, he's always asking me to go to AA for some reason. And I said, no, I don't want to go to AA. But here he had a different story. He said, Ted, I see you're campaigning for judge, and he says, we have about 500 alcoholics over at the Civic Center this weekend. Why don't you go over there and pass out your cards and ask them for their vote? Well, I didn't think these kinds of things were going to happen. I didn't think these kinds of people voted. But I wasn't really willing to pass up any opportunity, so I went over there and started passing out my cards. My name is Ted Bishop. Vote for me for judge. You people are doing fine work here. Keep up the fine work. And I had a special campaign slogan for the ladies. I would say, ladies, before you go to bed, think of Ted. I lost the election. And Sam invited me to a meeting of the 518 group. And I had been drinking with an alcoholic there, a bad alcoholic. He was a millionaire. I was trying to get his law business. Mine wasn't doing too well for one reason or another. And so I went down to this meeting, and I said, Sam, I've come down here, but I want you to understand why I'm here. I've got a real wealthy businessman here in Texas City. He's a bad drinker, bad alcoholic. And I said, he's too ashamed to come down here. I said, do you have any literature that I might take to him to help him? And Sam gave me a big book. And I took it home, and I read it, and it looked a little bit churchy to me. So I took the book and sold it to the millionaire's wife for ten bucks. I had to put ten dollars in the plate later on for that little trick. But it was shortly after this that this millionaire came to see me. He wanted me to help him. And I knew that I couldn't help him because I was coming to the realization that I could not help myself. And so what I did, I had been to these two meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I had wanted to go back, but by this time I was a judge, and there was no way for me to go down there without ruining my career. And so I told this millionaire, I said, well, Billy, what you need to do is to go to this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been down there to a couple of meetings. I've been trying to help them out. And I'll take you down there. You can get started in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll go with you so that you'll be comfortable. And so that's the way I got started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, bringing this millionaire. And sometimes they'd call on me to talk, and I'd explain alcoholism to them. It was obvious to me that they didn't understand it, and I had read so much about it, and I would tell them first stage, second stage. Primary, secondary, everything that didn't have a thing in the world to do with recovery. Well, that's what I was telling them. You know, the newcomers thought I made great talks. Man, they'd line up, and they'd shake my hand. Old-timers, they'd just sit in the back of the room, and they wouldn't say a word to me, you know. I figured they were probably jealous because I had gotten it all together so quickly and was putting it across so much better than any of them could. And sometimes they'd call on me to talk. I'd say, my name is Ted Bishop. My law office is right down the street here about three blocks. My law hours are... Nine to five. And I want you to know that I appreciate having an organization like this where a judge like myself can send people like you who need this kind of help. God bless you, and I'd sit down. I'd been coming to AA about four months, and I got one of these big cards in the mail. And it was this dog Snoopy in the peanuts column. And Snoopy had woodstock and all the little birds lined up there, and he was giving them a message. I mean, he was really laying it on them. And the caption on this thing said, If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, just baffle them with your bullshit. It was unsigned. I found out later that an Al-Anon sent it. And the people started looking at me very strangely in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I could see that I needed a little bit more cover. So what I did, I started sentencing people to Alcoholics Anonymous from my courtroom. They had to make two meetings a week for 90 days, or I would suspend their driver's license. So everybody went to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I would go to these meetings, and I would check off the names of the people that I had sent to AA. I'd walk up and down the aisle, and I'd say, Are you here? Are you here? If you don't make these meetings, I'm going to have to issue a warrant for your arrest. And I had people jogging. I was buying vitamin pills for $5. I was buying vitamin pills for $5.50 and selling them to the drunks for $11. And then I made a rare mistake. I went to a conference with Sam Harkins and his wife, Sia, in Al-Anon. And I thought what it was, they were going to take me up there, and I was going to explain to everybody how the judges were sending everybody to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went up there. It was at Dallas. And nobody asked me anything. And they were sitting around talking about this being a program of attraction rather than promotion. And I said, Now, wait a minute. There were a lot of people in the room. And I said, What we need is a nationwide campaign of publicity. Put it in all the newspapers, radio, television. Tell everybody about AA and then how judges are sending them there. And then everybody will be in Alcoholics Anonymous. And Sia, this Al-Anon, Al-Anon me. Have you ever been Al-Anon'd? She said, Judge, just why in the world are you coming to Alcoholics Anonymous in the first place? I didn't like that question. And there's a lot of people in the room. And I said, Well, I'm coming to see that Billy comes, and I'm coming to see that all these people that I sent to Alcoholics Anonymous comes. And she says, I think you're coming to Alcoholics Anonymous because you are attracted here to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason that you are attracted. Judge is because you are an alcoholic. Man, I built that club up from nothing. And Sam came over and said, Judge, he said, I guess you'll just have to go down and pick up a chip like all the rest of us did. Oh, it's very embarrassing. I was very humiliated. And I went back to my room and I sweated some when I drank, but nothing like that night. Man, the sweat just pour off of me. Fifteen minutes. I was in alcohol. Alcoholic. Fifteen minutes. I wasn't. Fifteen minutes. I was an alcoholic. Fifteen minutes. I wasn't. But the thing that really worried me was just tore me up. I said, What if I go down there, pick up a chip, join Alcoholics Anonymous? And then ten years later, it turns out that I'm not really an alcoholic. I said, My God, that'll be ten years completely gone out of my life. But I didn't. I didn't have anything else to do. You know, I wasn't drinking. What difference does it make what you do in Alcoholics Anonymous if you're not drinking? Your life's over anyway. So I went down and we got back and I picked up a chip and everybody clapped just like they knew all the time that I was an alcoholic. And there I was, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was not impressed with your cornball sign. I was not enchanted with your great thoughts and beautiful poetry. And I didn't want to hear about God. I thought that you were the luckiest people in the world to have a wonderful fellow like me join up with you. Well, I'll give you a kind of idea. Have you ever asked a doctor or a judge or a lawyer a question and just have them look at you like you're not there? I used to wear some little half glasses, gold rims. Half glasses are much more intimidating than full glasses. And I would sit on the bed. I would sit on the bench and they would bring people before me. They were always down here below me. And maybe some of you have been before a judge, sometimes charged with some crime. Do you know what that means when a judge looks down on you like that? That means you are a dumb bastard. And I am Mr. Wonderful. And that was my attitude when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was terrified that somebody was going to find out that I was an AA. And I remember some nurses came to a meeting there we had. And it was an open meeting and I knew all of them. And I sat there praying through the whole meeting that the chairman wouldn't call on me. And he didn't. And those nurses saw me sometime after that and they said, Judge, Judge, what in the world were you doing down there at that meeting? And I said, Oh, I'm kind of a spiritual advisor down there. They do good work. They do good work. But, you know, that wears off after a while after you associate with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went to the other extreme and I was telling people. That I was in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I knew a sergeant over there at the police station. I went over and I told him, I said, Sergeant, did you know that I've joined Alcoholics Anonymous? And he got up from where he was sitting and walked around the table and shook my hand. And he said, I sure am glad to hear that, Judge. And, you know, I'd always been kind of a secret drinker, you know. Everybody in Texas City, Lamarck, and half of Galveston knew that I was a drunkard. I was a drunk. But I didn't want one single soul in this world to know that I was trying to change my life. And, of course, I was running around AA trying to find the answer. You know how we are. Just tell me what the answer is. And I was at a meeting one time and this guy says, In order to stop drinking, it is first necessary that you stop drinking. Now, I'd never heard that anywhere. It hadn't been in those books I read. And I said, That's not right. In order to stop drinking, first of all, it's necessary to find out how to stop drinking. To stop drinking without knowing how won't work. And while you're finding out how not to, you can keep on drinking while you're finding out how not to drink. And I went up to this other guy and I said, How does this thing work? And he says, Just don't take the first. Drink. And I said, Well, give me something I can understand. You know, I don't want to believe anything. I want to understand everything. Have you ever tried to explain Alcoholics Anonymous to somebody outside of Alcoholics Anonymous? They say, Oh, isn't that nice? You know, they understand what you're saying, but they don't believe a word of it, do they? And so I kept this up and I finally decided they kept giving me these don't take the first drink stuff. And I finally decided that these people had been so long since they drank, they didn't understand this thing. What I'd do, I'd go out and find out how AA works and I'll come back and I'll tell all them. They'd be glad to know. And so I took a leave of absence from Alcoholics Anonymous and I got drunk. And I had to come crawling back before these. And I had to come crawling back before these. Same old goose. And I've traveled here tonight at great expense and no little inconvenience in order to bring you this spiritual message. Don't take the first drink and you won't get drunk. That still don't sound right to me. You know, I got to watching you alcoholics and I could see that you had a lot of similar experiences. You were alike in an amazing number of ways. And I said, that's the way they stay sober. They're alike in so many ways. And so I made a, you know, I figured that I would help you out and make a list of these things. I call it the BBB of AAA. It's the Bishop Big Book of the Association of Alcoholics Anonymous. And this is in the form of questions. My question is you don't have to answer if you understand them while you may be one. Why is it that an alcoholic always thinks that he's the most unusual, the most unique, and the most important person in all the world? Why is it that an alcoholic can't be shown anything? Old Drunk and I were there at Christmas trying to fix something. He grabbed it from me and said, here, let me show you. And I grabbed it back and I said, let me show you. He grabbed it and said, let me show you. Let me show you. And my wife, the Al-Anon, she came in and grabbed it from both of us. She said, let me show you. Both of you. And she fixed it with a pen. Why is it that an alcoholic can't take directions from anybody? You wives, don't tell your old drunk husbands what to turn on the road. Don't do that. Why is it that an alcoholic always says, leave me alone. Just leave me alone. But God just can't stand to be lonely. Why is it that an alcoholic always thinks he is entitled to continuous and extra excitement? And if things get a little bit slow, he'll go look for the biggest pile he can find and he'll start stirring. You watch him. Why does an alcoholic always think the other fellow hasn't got the least idea of what he's talking about? Why is it that most alcoholics hate Christmas and get that queasy feeling every time they get a gift or a compliment? Why is it that an alcoholic is never, never, never, never, never, never in God's sight? Why is it that an alcoholic could never feel in the jobbar's world satisfying? There is absolutely no way. Why is it that an alcoholic keeps on making the same old mistakes time after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time, after time? Why does the alcoholic always hate the drunks? but always manages to get drunk himself. Why, if an alcoholic won't ask for help and hates even worse to accept it. Why, if an alcoholic must always have everything his way, right down to the smallest, teensiest, weensiest, itziest, bitsiest, tiniest, weeniest detail. Why, an alcoholic hates to stand in line or wait for anything. Why, an alcoholic will never admit anything. Why, an alcoholic just sits around waiting for something bad to happen. Man, I know it's going to happen. It's going to be bad, too. I wonder when it's going to be. I know it's coming. Why, an alcoholic is always fine. You ever see him? Hello, Joe, how you doing? Fine, just fine. How are you, Bill? Fine, just fine. They're dying and they're just fine. You know, I hate to go by one of these drunks' funerals and they've got the casket open. I hate to stick my head in there. I'm afraid he's going to sit up and say, I'm fine, you know. And why is it that no matter what you say to an alcoholic, no matter what you do to an alcoholic, it is inevitable, inevitable that he is going to drink again unless a miracle occurs in his life. I took your inventory. That's what I did. There wasn't any need to take mine. I wasn't really an alcoholic. I was different. Man, was there no one on this planet who can understand what I'm talking about? The police stopped me. They didn't put me in jail. They'd take me home, put me to bed, and I'd get up about 3 o'clock in the morning and I'd run down to the Lamarck jail and they had an old drunk dentist down there. And they'd say, we've got that old drunk dentist in here, Judge. You want to cut him loose? And I'd say, no, I'll leave him in there. He's a bad drunk. And then I'd go out and get a pint under my seat and I'd take a drink. But you can see the difference, can't you? He was in jail and I was out. He paid the fine and I collected it. So I was different. I was different. You know, I had a slight problem when I got to Alcoholics Not. I was a bit of an alcoholic. I wasn't really an alcoholic. I might have been slightly alcoholic or a little bit alcoholic or just about alcoholic or barely alcoholic or a technical alcoholic or a textbook alcoholic or on the verge of being an alcoholic or if I kept on drinking I was going to be an alcoholic. But I wasn't really an alcoholic. Not really. And if you're not really, really an alcoholic, then you're not really an alcoholic. Not really. And even if I was, I was a hell of a lot better one than you were. I can tell you that. Some of the people in AA started noticing my attitude and they started giving me things to do. Well, I didn't have anything to do. I wasn't drinking. And before I knew it, I was going to all these old AA dances and I didn't even dance when I was drinking. And every time somebody got sick in our group, I had to go to the hospital and visit them. And I never went to visit anybody in hospitals unless it was to slip a buddy a drink under the doctor's nose. Every time somebody got sick, every time somebody died in the group, I had to go to the funeral. I never went to funerals. Unless I had a pint hit out somewhere. I mean, if a guy's dead, he's dead. He don't know whether you're at his funeral or not. And the thing they did that really was the worst thing that I ever did, they used to take me around to all the people's houses in AA and I would just have to sit there and visit with them. They must have thought I was a weatherman or something. The first thing they'd say is, Do you think it's going to rain? And they'd say stuff like, Little Billy started kindergarten this morning and I think to myself, The hell he did. And then they'd say stuff like, How much was your electric bill this month? Have you seen my children's pictures and their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children's grandchildren? Oh, hell yeah. Let me see them all. I was really with it. I was really with it. Well, I was still looking for this answer in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was at the 24-hour club in Houston one night and I stood straight up right in the middle of the meeting and I said, Look, look, there it is, the answer I've been looking for. I found it. And see, this Al-Anon was with me and she pulled me down by the seat of the pants and she said, Sit down, you crazy thing. You're disrupting the meeting. And I said, Look, I found the answer. And you know what it was? It was this sign that says, Thank, Thank, Thank. And you know, I got to looking at that thing and I got to studying it and I got to meditating on it. And I didn't know whether I was supposed to have a little thank and then a great big thank and another little thank or whether I was supposed to have a big thank in the middle and two outs. I had a little thank. And I got to thinking about that thing and I could not think what the hell it was I was thinking about. That sign almost got me drunk. I was at a ladies' meeting not too long ago and this lady said, they had one, it was a ladies' club and they had that sign up on the wall and I'm always trying to help others and I said, What are you doing with that sign up there on the wall? I said, Alcoholics don't think, they feel. And she says, If you think I'm going to put feel, feel, feel up there, she says, you're crazy. Well, I've been coming to Alcoholics Anonymous about four months when I picked up a chip and the night that I came, that I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, this millionaire asked me to be his sponsor. I was five minutes in AA and I was sponsoring somebody with four months of sobriety. And I told him what I knew about the deal. It was a pretty short conversation. And four months later he went home and he took a 12-gauge shotgun and he blew the top of his head off. And they called me and they told me what had happened and I thought, How could this guy do this to me after all I've done for him? And I said, I'm going to do something for him. And they had the funeral a day later and I was the honorary pallbearer. I didn't even know what an honorary pallbearer was. But I was walking along behind the back of this casket and I guess everybody saw me as an honorary pallbearer, but reality set in as I was walking along that casket. And I think for the first time I saw myself as I really was. A liar. A pretender. And a cheat. And, you know, for a long time I did not know what to make of this story in Alcoholics Anonymous, so I just told it without attaching too much significance to it, other than it was a moving incident in Alcoholics Anonymous. But looking back on it, you know, I think that at that moment, I was very much in awe of that. And I was very much in awe of that. I remember I said, God help me. And I think that at that particular moment, the ego was gone. And that it was not me, it was somebody else. And I think that at that point in my tenure in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was given a free ride in Alcoholics Anonymous because the drink thing was gone right then. And, you know, sometimes it takes a long time in Alcoholics Anonymous to see the things that have already taken place in your life. And I remember I said for a long time in Alcoholics Anonymous that I had a spiritual awakening of the educational variety. But looking back on it, I was given the grace of God at that period of time because I was a spiritual awakening. And I was able to continue on in Alcoholics Anonymous without drinking. What I got in Alcoholics Anonymous, I just got. But what I have earned in Alcoholics Anonymous, I own. But free rides don't last forever. And I continued on in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a judge and I was a lawyer who smart-alecked his way into Alcoholics Anonymous and began sending people to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I would run down and I would sponsor them. And I would gather them all up in my automobile and take them all over South Texas. And I would tell them, get in my car, we're going to these meetings and I'm sponsoring you. And I used to go into these meetings and, you know, all over South Texas. And I would have pigeons on the right. I would have pigeons on the left. And I would walk into these things with my array. You've seen me in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I got by with this stuff for five long years in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wasn't drinking. And I was helping others. And I don't knock two-stepping today because I think it kept me sober for five years in AA. But, you know, you can blow yourself up on your own smoke in Alcoholics Anonymous. And you can get pretty high. But smoke has a way of dissipating. And then you've got to come down. And the down is pretty hard. Because I remember that all of a sudden, I was in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I started developing all these resentments. I didn't even have any when I got to AA. And I started developing all these fears. I'd never been afraid of anything. I had panic attacks every time the phone rang. I wouldn't answer it. Certified mail terrified me. I used to take stuff to the courthouse to file it. And I'd stay there all day and be just terrified there was something that was wrong with it. And I wouldn't file it. And I'd go back and do the same thing the next day. And I'd go back and do the same thing the next day. And I'd go back and do the same thing the next day. And it got to a point in Alcoholics Anonymous that, really, I was in worse shape after five years in Alcoholics Anonymous than the day that I showed up at the doors of AA. And I finally had to do something. I had to take an inventory. And if I was to have to tell you about that, I think that what I always say is that I think that the basis of all my resentments, is this. I was resentful because I was not God. And I think that's the basis of all the other resentments that I have. And if I can't be God, then I'm going to play like I'm God. That's the resentment and that is the revenge that I took. What I did in life was that I would create commandments as I went along in life. My own commandments. Ted's commandments. And if somebody did something that I didn't like, I would write a commandment against them. And I said, thou shalt not do that. And my life was a life of shouldhood. And I have a sign on my refrigerator door that says, I will not should on myself today. And the should is in brown. Because I found that shouldhood, inevitably, leads to shouldhood in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I've come along pretty far in that respect. You know, I always thought that every time that I said something that it had to be something deep and profound. But that isn't the way it is at all, is it? Nobody wants to hear anything deep and profound. You know, they just want to share with you what's going on in their life. And you know, I've become a pretty good listener in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it was probably the worst character defect that I had when I got to AA because I absolutely would shut out people when they told me anything. And it was just a way of living within yourself and extreme selfishness and self-centeredness. You know what a belief is? A belief is knowledge gained through other people's experiences. Somebody called me and asked me to come to Ruston, Louisiana. It was Chris and Joe. And I'd never heard of Ruston, Louisiana. But I'd never heard of Ruston, Louisiana. But I looked it up on a map, and Joe told me there was a Ruston, Louisiana, and Chris told me that there was a Ruston, Louisiana. And I looked it up on a map, and it had a little red circle there, and it said Ruston, Louisiana. Somebody had put that on a map there and had taken the time to draw it out. And I came to believe, based on what you people told me and what I could see from what other people had done with maps, that there really was a Ruston, Louisiana. And so I came in here yesterday, and Joe and I drove up and down the streets of Ruston, Louisiana. And we saw your buildings, and we saw some of your people, we saw some of your citizens, we saw your roads, we saw your streets. And you see, I no longer believe that there's a Ruston, Louisiana. I know that there's a Ruston, Louisiana, because I've experienced it. And all I really know in Alcoholics Anonymous is what I've experienced. And this is what I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have had and experienced it in Alcoholics Anonymous. And it has changed me from what I was to what I'm trying to be today. And what I'm trying to be today is the best Ted that I can possibly be today. I have no idea what that is. I'll never be authentic until the day I die. When I die, you can say that's Ted. But until then, I'm in the process of change, and will continue that process as long as I continue to grow in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I can't explain anything that has happened to me. I have no explanations. I have no... Nothing I can tell you, really. It's all a mystery to me. All I can tell you is that it happened. And the only thing that makes any sense at all is that somewhere along the line, I had a direct encounter with a power greater than myself. That's the only thing that makes any sense. And I think every alcoholic... I have to watch Wizard of Oz. And... You know, Dorothy's trying to get back to Kansas. And she says she doesn't have the power to get back. And the witch of the North says, Dorothy, you've always had the power to go back to Kansas. And the straw man said, Well, why didn't you tell her that? And the witch, she said, it wouldn't have done any good. She had to find out for herself. And I had to find out for myself in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I hear new people a lot of times saying they haven't got the program. They don't feel right. Things are not going right. They're not serene. They're not happy. And on and on and on and on. I'll tell you the story about the fishes. There were some fish, and they were swimming under the San Francisco harbor there. And there was a cafe above them. And they heard people that kept talking about the great value of water and how valuable water was and the great things that water could do and how water could make you into a completely different person. And one of the fish said to the other one, he said, did you hear that? And the other fish said, yes, I did. And the fish said, I wonder where we can find some of that water. And the fish said, well, I don't know. I heard they had a lot of water in the Bay of Japan. And the other fish says, is that right? He says, yeah. Well, let's swim over there and get some. So these fish took off swimming across the Pacific Ocean to the Bay of Japan looking for the water. And you see, that describes me in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was in the water and I was looking for the water. I was looking for the water. I was looking for the water. I was in the power and I was looking for the power. And if you're here in Alcoholics Anonymous tonight and you're sober, you're in the water. You don't have to search any further. You are in the water. Just stay here and everything's going to be all right. I believe that there's only one promise to the alcoholic is the result of working the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I believe that that promise is that he will be restored to sanity. And no matter what the troubles of life may bring, and life will surely bring more troubles to me as they have in the past, and life will bring more troubles to you. That's the way life is. But if the sanity is there, if I'm on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the sanity is there, and I will be able to meet those problems as they come about in Alcoholics Anonymous. And if I stood here tonight and if I did not have the faith and the trust that the serenity would be there when I needed it, when the problems came to me in Alcoholics Anonymous as they almost surely will in a world that is collapsing around us every day, I'd walk out that door right now and I'd never come back. I'd never come back. But I believe that there's only one purpose and I believe that that is here, that will be here, if I but keep maintaining the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and stay with you people. Thank you a lot. Thank you.