Gaming the System: Signing Slips and Missing the Point of AA – Brian P.

Brian M. from New York City. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Brian, and I'm an alcoholic. And before I get wound up, I'd like to thank the committee for having me out here. And it's really a pleasure to see some old friends, and to make some new ones. My name ist Brian. I'm a alcoholic. I come from New york, and... I don't remember the first time I picked up a drink but somehow looking back over my life I seem to be able to remember more things about growing up as a boy than I can about most things as a man and I remember the 1st time I had a blackout I was about 13 years old a friend of mine Johnny and I we had some money in our pockets from hustle papers in the saloons the night before and we went 97th street in the back of this here vacant building and it was a wine all laying around and I give this one guy a kick in the ass I'd give him the high sign, and he came up, and when he come out, we gave him the money to go get us three bottles of Sneaky Pete. That was Muscatel, I think at the time it was 37 cents a pint. And I remember this man as one of the most handsomest men I could ever remember. He stood about six foot two. He had jet black curly hair, big blue eyes. The most he could have been was anywhere from about 28 years old to maybe very early 30s. And here he was, an old, old, young, dirty man. He was a wino. and I come from a work ethnic background and the only requirement for becoming a man was a desire to work as long as you had a desire to work, you could beat your wife, beat the kids beat the system, you can beat anything you want as long As you had the desire to work. And these winos, they had broken the cardinal rule, they no longer worked and had been ostracized to the ballpark and to the vacant lots and the back of vacant buildings and I remember three years prior to that this man had been a war hero I remember Mayor LaGuardia was trying to get his picture taken with him and Mayor and Senator Mark Antonio and all the hoi polloi in New York were trying to have this guy and have his picture take and win because Tokyo Rose and the Pacific kept mentioning on her program that they had the special scouts out trying to kill this guy because he was causing such havoc. And here he was, an old young dirty man, a wino. And he went and he got the three bottles of sneaky peat and he came back and he Got His and he scurried back off into the back of the building and Johnny and I went way in the backof the lots I cracked my pint, Johnny cracked his. I started drinking mine. He started drinking his. We started laughing and giggling and body punching and arm wrestling and Indian wrestling. And we knocked off the two pints. I remember walking up the street to get this wine or go get us another pint. And I remember I was only about this high. I'm bumping into the people. I'm pushing people. And it was my first experience with beer muscles, what you call beer muscles. I was a real world beater. I went back in there. You know, we kicked the guy. Got him back out. He got his three more pints and remember cracking that second pint It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It was Saturday. I remember cracking that second pint, and the next thing I knew, I come out of a blackout. My mother was holding my head over the kitchen tubs. I was throwing up all this wine into the tubs, and my two brothers are leading over, and they were pounding the hell out of me, screaming at me. Where had I been all day? Because my mother was beating them. The neighbors had come in and told her that her son was drunk and staggering all over the street. And my brothers and their friends and the posses, they scowled at the whole neighborhood looking for me, and they didn't find me until about 11 o' clock at night. And I just couldn't tell him where I had been. I mean, it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon when I put that pint to my mouth, and here I was 11 o' clock at night, and I just didn't know. Now, up until the age of 13, I had being drunk many a time. But this was the first time I pulled the blank. This was the fist time that something else took place. And I knew that something had happened. And a couple of days later, I'm walking up the neighborhood, and one of these big guys come walking down, and I stopped him. And I started to explain what had happened, and I remember the guy, I remember looking up at his face, and he had hair hanging in his eyes and he was rocking back and forth with a big smile on his face listening to me and when I was finished he turned around and said to me kid were you drinking and I said yeah yeah I was drinking he said were you drunk I said yes I was drunk and he just leaned back and shrugged just give me this here big shrug he didn't mention anything he just shrugbed he tossed my hair and walked around me it seems like all my life I have been born and raised with that shrug, this alcoholic shrug. I remember I'd walk into a bar. There wouldn't be a soul in the bar. I'd say, where the hell is everybody? They'd say out around looking for Joe's car. He doesn't know where he parked it last night. They'd be going up and down and around looking at the car. And somebody would say, was Joe drinking last night? They'd said, yeah. Was Joe drunk last night ? They'd just shrugged. They wouldn't say anything. They'd walk in the barn. They'd go, Mary is going crazy. She doesn't even know where she left her kids. She's insane. She's running all over the place looking for the children. And somebody says, is Mary drinking? They say, yeah. Is Mary drunk? They say yeah. And they just shrugged. They wouldn't say, it was like a blank, I don't know, they just shrugged I was 14, you had to be 16 to get in the pool room So we broke into the rectory and I robbed a pad of baptismal papers and the seal And I forged my papers so I could get into the poolroom And at 16, you have to be 18 to get your semen papers without consent And I used the phony papers to get my semen's papers was, and at 17, I just turned 17, I ran away and I went to sea. And the shrug followed me. No matter where I went, this shrug, I mean it was like some kind of voodoo or juju. I mean I remember I was in Singapore I was on a nightclub and I got into a fight and I was pretty bad beat up and pretty bad cut up and the gendarmes came and they took me to the hospital where they sewed me up and then they took me and they threw me in their tank for three days and in those days Singapore was still a British crown colony and then when they pulled me out, they put me in the docket, I remember the judge, the magistrate was sitting up there and the English magistrate, he had a big white curly wig, long flow curling wig and black robes. Representing me was the American consulate. And when they called me out, they took me out of the doocket. I looked like one of these punk rockers of today or one of those wrestlers. The head was shaved like a mohawk and all stitched up and all the hair was standing straight up in all different colors from the blood and the peroxide and the face was all swollen and discolored and the shirt the t-shirt was stuck to the stitches and all all blood and I was a mess. And I was standing there in the docket, and I remember the magistrate leaning over saying to the American counselor, he says, was the bloke drinking? And the American counselor leaned over and he said to me, were you drinking? And I leaned over, and when I looked at the American Counselor, eyeball to eyeball, one American to another. And, I said, was I drinking? I said of course I was drinking. You don't think I look like this sober, do you? I say what the hell kind of an American do you think I am anyway. I said, of course I was drinking. They were drinking. We're all drunk. And he looked up and he said to the magistrate, yes, your magistrate. The bloke was drinking and the judge leaned back and he went like this here. The American council went like that. The captain went like dat. And I went like da. And ladies and gentlemen, that's the story of my life. There was just one shrug after another. That's where alcohol took me, ladies ladies and gentlemen, it reduced me and my life to a human shrug. They said the ship sailed for Panama last night. Is Brian aboard? Did Brian go home last night? Is Brian coming out today? Does Brian have any money left? Where is Brian? And that's it, ladies and gentlemen. That's my story. About 1969, I come out of a blackout. I was on a drunk and And I had a phone, and I was crying into this here phone. And the voice at the other end of the phone was saying, Take it easy, Brian, take it easy. Give us your address, we'll send a couple of men over to talk to you. And I couldn't quite figure out what this voice was who wanted to send a few men over. Who wanted to sent a couple men over there to talk with me. So I kept throwing words out, hoping maybe he'd bite and I could fill in a round of sentences and figure out who this guy was. And he kept saying, Take it easily, Brian. Take it easly. Give us our address, send a pair of men to talk. Finally, I said, What do you mean, send a paar men over here to talk? He said, Who the hell are you anyway? He says, I'm so-and-so from Intergroup. Now, if you've never heard the word Intergroup before, you must admit it sounds like some kind of a communist word, you know? It's something out of George Orwell's 1984. I said, Intergroup? I said what the hell are you talking about, Inter Group? I said who the hell am I anyway? He says I'm So-and‑So from Inter Group, Alcoholics Anonymous. I said Inter Group AlcoholicsAnonymous? I said how the hell did you get my number? He said you just call us up. I said I call you up? What the hell do I call your up for? And he said take it easy, Brian, take it easily. He said, give us your address, we'll send a couple. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't you be sending anybody over here starting trouble. You want something, I'll give you something. I'll get me a punch and a puss. That's what I'll give you. And I hung up the phone. By 1970, I'm on the junk again. And I'm talking to this guy again. And he told me where the meeting was. And the meeting wasn't the old Butterfield Group in 72nd Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenue. And I went to the meeting. And the only thing I could remember the speaker saying was, stay out of one bar, one bar at a time. Now, I'm sure in my rummy head what the man was saying was stay away from one drink, one drink at a time. But I heard stay out of one bar, one bar at a time. And I walked out and I walked up to 72nd Street and 3rd Avenue, and I worked all the way along 3rd Avenue to 93rd Street. I mean, there were bars all over the place, right and left, no matter which way you went, there werebars. And I worked into one of these here bars that I drank in. I ordered up my usual sobering-up drink, which was a large club soda with a twist of lemon. And I'm standing there, and all of a sudden I felt I felt my body starting to shake, and boom, before I knew it, I went into a fit. And when I come out of it, I was in an ambulance with this big attendant kneeling atop me. My friend Jackie was with me. This big attendant was kneeling on top of me, and he was trying to force something into my mouth. And I heard the sirens, and I didn't know where the hell I was and who this guy was or who was on top me. And I started to grab him. I rolled him over. I got on top him. I started beating the shit out of him. He started screaming to the driver to stop the ambulance. The ambulance came through a screeching halt. The guy comes running around. He opened the door. I kicked him in the puss. I jumped over him, and took off like a shot. Jackie kicked him in the puss, and he took off like a shot. I'm running down this block with Jackie after me, and I'm hunting up this here block with Jacky after me. I spotted a bar. I run into the bar. I'm huffing and puffing in the bar, and Jackie comes running in there after me and he's huffin' and puffin'. I grabbed him. I said, what the hell happened? God damn it, what was all that about? What happened, Jackie? He says, I don't know. He said, you come into the mall. Everything was all right. You went into some kind of fit. Now, the only thing I could attribute a fit to was this intergroup acknowledgement stuff. I mean, I figured I was at the meeting. And I remember it must be osmosis or because behind the speaker was a sign, think, think. And, I mean, they had told me to stay out of one bar, one bar at a time. I passed all those bars and nothing happened to me. I go in one stinking bar and I wake up in an ambulance. And I said to Jackie, Jesus Christ, no wonder these people are anonymous. I mean they could kill you in broad daylight and never leave a fingerprint. I said, what's this anonymous stuff, Jackie? Jackie. I said, they had one crack at me, they goddamn near killed me. And I tell you, Jackie, I'm wise to those bastards, I'll tell you that. In 1969, we were a few days out of the Suez Canal and I was on the drunk. And all of a sudden the word went through the ship that a storm was coming up and it went out and they started to batten down the hatches and battened down the portholes and this and that. And somehow I thought the storm was there for me. And when the storm hit, I come off watch, I was drinking, and when a storm hit I said, all right, you're looking for me, I'll give you a meet. And I had a bottle in my hand, opened the door and I slammed it and I went out on deck and I started laughing and kicking and peeing against the storm and defying the storm, and singing and punching and peing, and the storm would slam me all over. The end result was it busted my shoulder. They wanted to take me up in Alexandria but I said no, in a week or so we'll go through the canal and be up in Naples. I'll ride the ship until Naples, I stayed drunk until until we got to Naples, where they took me off and they took me to the hospital. They had me there for three days and then they put me in a body cast with a big bar, one of them big bars that was like this here. Now I hadn't drank in about a week, a week and a half and the agent came and drove me to Rome to the airport and the plane was about to take off two or three hours and I said to the guy, look you don't have to hang around with me, I said what the hell, I'm here now I know what the gate is. I said you're married? He said yeah you got kids? Yeah. I says look, go ahead take off. I'll just get some cards and write the boys in a bar and let them know what the hell was going on. Yeah, take off. He did. And I got a couple of postcards. They sat at the bar. I started writing. And all of a sudden, I had a little cappuccino and then I'm looking at the brandy. I said, hey, give me a little brandy, a little fundador. I started drinking. The end result was drunk as hell and shit on the plane. By the time the plane hit New York and they opened up the hatch, I come stumbling down that ramp like a drunken runaway construction boom. I'm staggering all over. I'm hitting the wall. I fell on the escalator and I jammed it with the bar and people were falling all over me. In 1970, we're about five days out of Seattle, bound for Japan. And again, a storm is coming up that's out and batting down, and I figured, Jesus Christ, it's that storm still looking for me. And by the time it hit, I said, you want me? All right, you're going to get me this time. And I staggered out on the deck and slammed the door, and I'm yelling and punching and cursing and spitting against it and peeing against it and singing. And the enemies all the way picked me up and slammed me up against the housing and shattered the lower part of my back. So they had me on my belly tied down until we got to Japan pan where they took me off, and they operated on me and had me there for 16 days. And then the agent picked me up, and I hadn't drank now in about three weeks. A month maybe, I don't know. The agent picked be up and took me out to the airport. And we had about two or three hours to go before the plane took off. I said, you're married? Yeah. You got kids? Yeah, I said. You don't have to worry about me. I know where the plane is. I'll just sit at the bar and get a couple of postcards and write the boys and let them know what's going on. And I sat there, and it's all right and a few postcards, and all of a sudden I tell the guy, hey, come over here. Put the kettle on. Put some of that sake. Heat up a little sake. Not too hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Next thing I'm sucking on, next thing I got sun. I'm all drunk in the plane. And I passed out, and by the time I came to it, there was a whole big puddle of blood in the seat where the drain had come out. And they got me in the back with my pants down, and they were trying to wipe me clean, and they borrowed one of those old-fashioned Kotex off a lady, and they got it there packing me. And by the same time the plane got to Anchorage, they had to get my luggage out. And by this time we got to New York, I'm thinking about it, and I said, Jesus, the hell is this going to see? I said, it seems like every time I go to sea anymore, there's like a whole school of angry Moby Dicks out there waiting for me. I mean, it's nothing against Captain Ahab. They're looking for me! No, I like going to sea, but I don't want to die over the goddamn thing. I figured, ah, to hell with it. I'll let the Moby Dick have it. I don'T give a goddamn, you know. I went back working as a sandhog in the tunnels. Now, for those of you who don't know what a sandhug is, where did the miners in New York who do the work underneath the river, the compressed air workers, It's where you go in the compression chamber and, you know, you decompress and it bends and all that sort of stuff. So I went back to work in the tunnels. And I was on the junk. And all of a sudden there was banging at my door, banging at the door. And I hear, come on, Brian, open up the door, open it up, I'll kick it down. And it was the union shop steward. Open it up! Open it Up! And I get up and I open the door and he comes into the apartment. He said, Jesus, what a stink! What the hell are you doing? He went over and he opened the windows. Jesus, he said, what? went. I was on a drunk. I mean, the bottles were all over the place. I said, Jesus, keep your voice down. God damn you. Let all the neighbors know what's going on. Shut up, guy. What the hell do you want? He said, Christ, what the hell are you doing? He said, when are you coming back to work? I said. What's the big deal? I'm just having a couple of drinks. He said. How long have you been drinking? I said. I don't know. I kind of remember people coming and going, going in and out. I said about a week. He says. You've been on a drink this time six weeks. He said. He can't keep covering the job. I would say dynamite around the job Amy wants you to go back to work. He says, when the hell are you coming back? I said, what's today? He said, today's Wednesday. I said all right, you tell him I'll be back there Monday. He said look Brian, can I take book on it? Will you be back Monday? And I said you take book of it. I said I'll back Monday and all I ever needed most of my life is come off a drunk was usually three days and I just needed quiet, a floor, a toilet and water. Usually I go through the whips and the wingers and the shakes and the horrors and the runs and usually I could come out of it in about three days, and I did. And I went back to work at 7 o'clock Monday morning. At 9 o' clock they called for the dynamite. I packed all the dynamites in a powder car. We get in a cage. I drop 850 feet to tunnel level. We go in, and as you go through the compression chamber and you get close to the heading, everything stops, and they knock out all the lights for fear that maybe an electric light may hit one of the charges and start it off. And we're sitting on the car, and they take us all the way up to the heading, and it's not unloading the dynamine, and it starts to load the dynamide. but everything is by flashlight and headlights and it's eerie and they're all up there loading the dynamite next thing I went into a fit and he started screaming what's going on and he said I don't know Brian where is he he's over there watch out you're standing on him and I'm flopping all over the place so they called out for an ambulance and they heard something about the dynamites in New York at that time there was a lot of dynamite being stolen off the jobs a lot places being blown up and the next thing i know by the time they got me out Now, I'm looking up and I'm laying in the cage. And they get the hook and they're taking me out. And the mayor was there and all the bomb squad and the SWAT team. And they're all there with guns and binoculars and baseball bats. And by the time they get out and they lay me down, I am there in the cave. The mayor started blowing his top that they wasted his time with this here drunken fool. And what the hell is going on? And I was in a lot of trouble. They were claiming I was an epileptic. And if you are an epilectic, they won't allow you to work in the tunnels for fear that maybe I could have set the charge off and killed all those men. or they don't want me running the motor. Maybe I'll go into a fit on a motor and have a runaway train muck and kill everybody in the tunnel. And they wouldn't let me go back to work until I went to Lenox Hill Hospital for a whole series of epilepsy tests, which I did. And I went through all these here tests and a couple of days later I'm sitting outside the neurosurgeon's office and he stuck his head out. He said, Mr. Mines? I said, here, please give me the high sign. I get up and just as I walked into his office I stopped and I took a deep breath and I walked in and he's sitting there at the desk He's going to be shuffling around all these charts. And he said, well, Mr. Mines, everything here looks pretty negative. And I heard the word negative. And I let my breath out just a little bit. And I said, what do you mean negative? He says, well things here look pretty good. And I left my breath down just a bit. Just a little more. I said do you need to say I'm not an epileptic? He said no, no, you're not an epilepsy. You're an alcoholic. I said yeah, yeah, I said yes. But I'm an epileptics right? And he said, no, you're an alcoholic. I said, then I didn't have an epileptic fit. He said, nah, you had an alcoholic seizure. You're an alcoholic. I said oh thank God, thank God. I leaned over, I hugged him and kissed him. I mean what the hell did I care about being an alcoholic? As far as I was concerned any man worth his salt was an alcoholic You see the key was I wasn't an epileptic. I wasn' a wino. Now if they say you're a winos, forget about it. I mean they don't even have the decency to count from one to three. You're just out, and not only are you out, but don't you come back. So telling me I was an alcoholic was like the bank president putting his arm around me and telling me, don't worry about the next loan, Brian, it's yours. Don't worry. I mean, I couldn't care less. I had the doctor put it, write it on a note, and I went back to the job to the safety engineer. I walked in. I threw it on the desk. I said, here, I'm an alky. Now there ain't nothing hairy that's right here. And he read the note. He read the notebook. He said, oh, so you're an alcoholic, Brian. I said yeah. He said so am I. I said no kidding. He said you going back to work? I said, yeah. He said, you want a drink? I said sure. He pulled out a bottle and closed the door. I sucked on it. He sucked on It. They called for the dynamite. I get on the cage. All of a sudden we're dropping down 850 feet. I see all the light and the rocks going by and life was good. I mean here I had my job. They couldn't fire me. I'm only an alcoholic. I just found a newfound friend who's an alcoholic with a bottle tucked away. I mean I had it. But Joe, a friend of mine who had been sober in AA for seven years, he had heard about the trouble I was in. and he came over to me and he said, Brian, please. He had been 12-stepping me all along. He said, please why don't you come to a couple of AA meetings with me? And I agreed. And the only reason I agreed was because I couldn't just seem to get a handle on these convulsions. Every time I was coming off a drunk night convulsing subway platforms in the middle of the street you just didn't know when they were going to hit. And I went. We made back-to-back meetings. And at the second meeting I heard the speaker guarantee that if you don't pick up the first drink you can't get drunk. He guaranteed that it's impossible, impossible to get drunk if you don't pick up the first drink. It's not the second, the tenth, or the fifteenth. If you don'T pick up that first drink, you can'T get there. You can'T Get Drunk. And he guaranteed this. And the meeting broke, and I made a beeline for the stairs, and everybody stopped. And they started to say the Our Father. And I was shocked. And I searched out the crowd, andI spotted Joe. And there was Joe. He had his eyes closed. He was holding his two fingers. as he was kind of rocking back and forth in his heels saying, yeah, Father. And I looked at him and I said to myself, oh, Joe, Joe. What the hell did they do to you, Joe? I mean, here was a man that was born and raised, went to sea, got locked up together and here he is now psalm singing to Jesus and psalms singing with the best of them. I said, ah, we went for coffee after but a couple of blocks away from the school. We're sitting down having coffee and the people from AA started to fill in around the place and I leaned over to them and I say, said, Joe, just between you and me, Joe. Nothing to do with these people here. I said, Joe, did you understand what the guy said up there? That it's impossible to get drunk if you don't pick up the first drink? And Joe says, sure, yeah, I understand that. I said, Jo, Jojo, deep down in the caverns of your bowels, Jo. Did you really understand what the guys said up that? That you can't get drunk if you know, pick up that first drink. Joe said, Yeah, yeah. I understand it. What the hell are you talking about? I I said, now Joe, if you understand him, what the hell are you doing there for seven years? I said this is my second meeting and I understand it. Of course, Joe, this guy guaranteeing you that you can't get drunk if you don't pick up the drink. Can't you see, Joe? You're being bullshitted, man. God damn it. You're throwing in good money in a basket full of happy horse shit. I said what's wrong with you, man? I said of course. That's like me guaranteeing yo, Joe. If you don' t leave the house tomorrow, you won't get run over by a train. Can't yo see? It's bullshit, man." And Joe said, look, look Please, why don't you take this here meeting book I said, Joe, Joe Maybe you don't mind Sitting there in the front row Humped over, splinting up at the speaker Slurping your lips for sobriety Like some kind of A.A. Quasimodo I said Joe Sucking around my lips and slurping And sucking around people isn't my idea Of what being a man is all about What the hell ever happened to you Joe What happened to your pride and your dignity What are you sucking around these people for You went to sea? You don't know when a storm hits, you're going to head right into it. What's wrong with you? Joe said, please, please. He said, look, why don't you take this here meeting book? Just then, the bells from the church started ringing and I broke out laughing. I said, Joe, you better get back there. Somebody got your job. You better hustle up. I went out. We walked out the door. Joe went one way. I went the other way. I turned the corner. I started to pick up a little speed and I figured, let me get the hell out of here before the ambulance comes, you know, because I'm wise to these bastards, I'll tell you that. and that was around around this time I guess in 1971, about this year time in 71 and it went all through these little holidays and all through the big holidays and I never picked up a drink and it came to March 17th, St. Patrick's Day and I come from Yorkville and I live in 86th Street and born and raised in that neighborhood and that's where the parade breaks up and that is where everybody meets generation after generation we all meet in 86st Street And I remember my nieces came in from Westchester. We were walking up toward the parade and had a camel head coat and a Russian Cossack hat on with all sorts of sprigs of shamrocks and a big green tie, and everybody was yelling at me, waving, and we're all slapping each other on the back. And we got up there, and I'm watching the parade. They're passing around a bottle, and the bottle came to me, and I pulled the plug. I took a couple of shots. And that first drink always put me in the grip of the grape. This time I was in the gripe of the great for two weeks. For two weeks, I never left the apartment. I had the doors locked, the windows locked, the shades drawn, the phone off the hook. The only phone call I made was to the liquor store across the street in the morning to have the booze delivered. And for two weeks, I was totally isolated. And only an alcoholic would understand the fact that I loved it. That total maudlin isolation. The only friends and enemies I had was the furniture. I would stand in the middle of the room with my shoulders back and my head up, the wind gently tussling my hair. there. My eyes squinted toward the horizon with mirth, my nostrils flaring with excitement, my teeth bad with lust, my chest gently heaving, my hands opening and closing slowly. I would stand there truly a man amongst men. All things to women. Jackie and Nassus would be kneeling on the ground with their arms around my knees saying, I love you Brian, please, please take the money, take the money. And I'd look down at her and I said, money? Money can't buy a man like me. AndI'd pick her up and I'd throw her out the door. Next minute they'd be banging at the door. I'd open it up and it'd be Sophia Loren. Please, Brian, just once, just once. And I'd fight and I'd slam, I'd slammed the door and I yelled through the door, why don't you women leave me alone? God damn it, can't you see I'm only human? Leave me alone. I stand in the middle of the room huffing and puffing, huffING and puffING because I had just knocked out Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship of the world. And I would always knock him out March 16th so I could lead the St. Patrick's Day parade and leave it I wouldn't and they would see me right in 8060 where I'd make that wide turn at 5th Avenue and the major domo would be looking over his shoulder with the big stick in the air and when I got right in place he'd bring it down and the bands and the bagpipes and the drums and the flutes and the fiddles and everybody just pick up and they're screaming and yelling and the cops would be skittering all over on the horses and the other cops would hold their arms trying to hold back this surging crowd of women and you could hear the women yelling and there he is, there's Brian there's the champ, my God that's him and every now and then I'd hear one of the cops say what a man, what a man I'd be standing in the middle of the room and I'd been holding up a bottle and I've been weaving back and forth and the hair would be wild and matted with sweat and the beard would be as old as the drunk and the vomity dribbly old t-shirt, everything I drank and puked would be all over the t- shirt and hanging off my hips would be these warm, wrinkled, faithful, farty pair of shorts. And I'd be weaving back and forth and the tears would be coming down my eyes because it was the third year in a row I had won the Academy Award. Well anyway, April Fool's Day, 1972, Integral finally came and they got me. And they took me off. They took me on to a five-day detox. And I don't ever want to forget that. I remember they were taking me down the drunk section, and my brother-in-law had one arm, and the nurse had the other arm. And the hair was wild and matted from that two-week drunk, and a vomity, dribbly old T-shirt, and naturally those warm, wrinkled, fateful, farty pair of shorts. I mean, they went with me. If I staggered and fell in the street, they staggered и fell inthe street. If I got locked up, they got lockedup. And mark my words, ladies and gentlemen, shorts like that one day will be holding their own meetings, believe me. And God knows they deserve them. And I had these old pea-stained pair of pants with the fly open, half closed. I never needed a belt. I just pulled them off and kicked them in the corner, picked them up and slid them on. And the paint-stain pair of slippers, the right foot on the left, the left foot on the right, and this is the way they're taking me down. And I remember as we got closer to the nurse's desk, right opposite was the men's lounge. And I saw this guy through the corner of my eye step out, and he spotted the three of us coming down. He went back in. I could hear him say, hey, guys, come out and look at this guy, a real wolf man. Take a look at his face. Look at this man here. here. And they come out and they all start laughing and going, oh. And I say, don't touch them, nurse. You'll get locked. Your fingers will rot off one day at a time. Watch it. Don't touch them. Don't anybody breathe. You will get black lung. I remember one guy saying, nah, he's not real. He's in April Fool's Day. They're just trying to scare us. That guy's not real? And this is my first time in my life, ladies and gentlemen, that a man or woman ever laughed at me in my face and I couldn't do anything about it. I mean, remember I was standing there looking down. And you know how the voices go to work on you? The The voices start lashing into me saying, look at that. Look at them laughing at you, you dirty, stinking bastard. You've been nothing but trouble all over this world. All your life you've been Nothing But A Disgrace. You've never done anything right. Look at him. For once in your life try to do something right. Get your head up and look at these bastards in the face. Get your hair up and looking at them. And I kept trying to bring my head up, trying to suck wind into my chest just to get my head up a little bit, but I just couldn't get my head out. It seems like somebody had used a machete and cut off all my neck muscles or my back muscles. I just could not get my hair up. And if there was one thing at that moment, ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could have done, and that was to grab myself by the head of the hair, yank my head up, and spit right into my face. That's how I felt about myself. It was the second day over my 38th birthday, and I was physically bankrupt, mentally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, financially bankrupt, and sexually bankrupt. I see now in retrospect I've been slipping in and out of infancy since I was about 28 years old. And it was tough sexually faking it over the years. I was a sand hog and a bartender And a seaman, I'd be in the bar And the guy would turn around and say Yeah, I took the girl home last night And I made love two or three times And this guy over here, he took the girls home And he made love to her three times And this guys here, He took the girlfriend home And he make love two of three times Well, I see now sobriety That if these guys are taking these girls home Making love two to three times a night One thing is for sure They weren't drinking what I was drinking That's for sure You don't drink that shit And go home making love two three times You go home and fall out of the bed Two or three time I know for a fact you're going to get up and pee-pee two or three times. That much I know. And I don't want to belabor this sex thing, but the only reason I'm bringing it up is because maybe, maybe some guy out there just kind of knows what I'm talking about. As for the women, they know what I'M TALKING ABOUT. And I got out in five days, and they suggested... I don't know if you hear it here, but in New York there's a suggestion of 90 days, 90 meetings. And I came up and I got the meeting book and I suggested get right up front. 90 days. 90 meetings, 90 days 90 meetings and I get out and I sat up there in front and I would buttonhole all the old timers and I call them aside and I say, where did you get this idea 90 days? 90 meetings? Where did you Get that concept? And they said, I don' t know Brian, you know, it's just a suggestion, you Know, a period, you know a commitment to yourself and sobriety. I mean, I don't know. And I would ask all of them. But nobody seemed to know and it was important to me, ladies and gentlemen. It was important for me to find out why this 90 days because it seemed like all my life when I was a kid I was always being beaten at school for these mystical numbers, these esoterical numbers. I remember there was the 12 apostles, the 10 commandments, the 12 lost tribes of Israel, the 7 deadly sins, and the 9 planets, and the 4 winds, and the 7 seas. Columbus was on the other... I mean, Moses was in the desert for 40 years and Columbus was on the Atlantic for 40 days and 40 nights. And now me, 90 days, 90 meetings. But nobody seemed to know. Nobody seemed to knows. But it didn't take me long. It didn't took me long to figure it out. And I came to the conclusion that you have to be here 90 days 90 meetings just to understand what the hell they're talking about. Because there's a very sophisticated way of speaking in AA like a secret jargon the topic would be you see in not taking the action you took an action they'd go oh my god what a topic oh what a subject or they would turn around and say you see when you made a decision not to make the decision that's when you make your decision holy god they'd be lined up from here to there with big books sponsor Sponsor, sponsor. I'd be there in the front row, you know, like a hole in my chest. I could hardly breathe figuring somebody's hoodwinking me. Man, somebody's hoodie-winkinging me here. The one that always got me was, You see, you can't keep it. You have to give it away. In fact, you have to Give It Away to keep it, and the more you give away, the more your money is. The more you get, you'll have to Giving It Away To Keep It. And I lean over and I say to Joe, Joe, what the hell are they giving away? They don't run. And they go all the way down to get a seat. I see them go down to sit somewhere else, and I say to myself, Go ahead and run, you stinking AAS kisser. It seems like that's all they do around here anymore. Stay away from a drink, come to meetings, and kiss ass, you know? I said, Well, there'll be a cold day in hell before they get a man like me to bend over and kiss. I'll tell you that. and I would sit there and I'd look at the women I'd turn around and look at the women, all beautiful women all different types and shapes all beautiful and my heart would go out to them it seemed like their whole life was over it just seemed like the whole life now revolved around needle pointing I mean in the back of the room every now and then I'd hear a big burst of oohing and aahing and I knew they just discovered a new floral pattern. And I'd sit there and I'd look at them, and in my mind's eye, I'd see them sitting at the meeting rock and pearl one, drop two, identify. Pearl one, curl three, identify just purling and curling and identifying, I guess, until a menopause and then death, you know? And I say to Joe, I say, Joe, it's unfair. It's unfair to get the screwing, Joe. I said, look at him. You could see they never did anything, Joe. They never did a thing and they never will now, Joe their sponsors will see to that and I'd sit there and I look around at all the sponsor guys and they all had names like Crash and Dash and Biff and Griff and I come from New York and the saloons of 3rd Avenue but it had simple names names of dignity and meaning names like Killer and Crush and Knuckles I mean to this day you can go to any bar in New York on 3rd avenue You don't have to ask the bartender who Harry the Nose is. You just look around, you'll spot Harry the Nose. It was simple. And then I had nicknames for all the speakers. I'd sit there and it seems like all the speakers had a little gimmick that they were selling. And it'd be First Things First Perry, Easy Does It Diane, Joy Boy Gary. You know, they had all these nicknams. And I was sitting there and they introduced this one speaker. And he got up and his name was Charlie. And Charlie got up and he said, I picked up a drink. I fell down a flight of stairs stairs, and I surrendered. And they all started to applaud and hug him and kiss him, get his autograph, invite him to parties. I sat there stung. I mean, I fell off gangways, barstools, garbage cans, and never, never in a million years would I ever tell a shit story like that in public. I remain in front of the girls. I remember saying to myself, this guy will never get a girl with a story like that. He better tell them he fell up the stairs. Then Then maybe you'll take a shot. I immediately nicknamed him Staircase Charlie. And about a week later, they introduced Stairspace Charlie. And I said, oh, there's Stairface. And I got right up front and I zeroed in on every word this man was saying because it was important to me to find out what kind of a staircase it was that made him surrender. Now, maybe he's going to say he picked up a drink and he fell down a four-story spiral staircase. All right, all right, yeah, yeah. Maybe, say, he picked up a drink and he went five flights between the banisters. All right, you go five flights in a header, man. Yeah, I'll buy that one. But there was something about the way Charlie stood and the way he talked and the way he spoke. I knew that this guy was strictly a two-step foyer job. I mean, you know, I knew. And he went into his story, and he said, I picked up the drink, I fell down a flight of stairs, and I surrendered. And they all started to applaud and hug him and kiss him and get his autograph and invite him to parties. I'm saying to myself, why don't this guy tell the real story? Nobody, not even a kid picks up a drink and falls on a flight of stairs and surrenders. Why don't he tell me? The guy had been drinking all day. The guy was drunk when he fell on a flyer of stairs. You see, they kept hammering away at me. Keep bringing the body, Brian. Keep bringing it. Keep bringing a body. Sooner or later, their head will follow. Here it was a week later. I'd heard that same story, but this time I heard it just a little bit different. And a week late, they introduced Charlie again. This is the third time in a month I'm listening to this guy. I knew his story by heart. And I'm sitting there, and as he got into a story, as he get into getting close to picking up that first drink, I felt my stomach tighten up. And I said, uh-oh, Charlie, watch that drink, Charlie. Watch the drink. And it got closer and closer to picking it up. I said Jesus, Charlie can't you see what you're doing? Watch the thing, Charlie! And Charlie said, and I picked up the drink, and I said oh well, grease the banisters, there goes Charlie. I know in my heart of hearts that once he picked up that drink no way in hell could he beat the staircase. case. I mean, I had laid odds from here to Vegas. I knew that guy was going. I just knew he was going down that flight. And it was the first time I fully identified with the first drink. And I kept going to the meetings, and I kept Going to the Meetings. And I stayed away from the closed discussion meetings and the step meetings because of the concept of God. I've been born and raised in a religion that offered God, and I walked away at 14, and nobody, including you, was about to start ramming God down my throat. But I happened to be at a beginner's meeting when they went into the concept concept of God. One said it was this, another said it was this and another said that. I remember this young man raising his hand saying the way he had heard God was G-O-D good orderly direction. When I heard that G-o-d good order direction speaking only for myself ladies and gentlemen it seems like my chest split open and centuries of venom and stink poured out. Now here was a God that I could understand as far as I was concerned that's what God was supposed to have been all along was good order lead direction but the way I was raised the born and the God that was presented I just couldn't buy it and I remember leaning back and just sort of relaxing and behind the speaker it had first things first keep it simple let go and let God and the way I read it was first things first keep it simple let go and let good orderly direction and at that moment I literally turned my will and my life over to care for good orderly direction as I understood it which was you AA and the only thing you were asking of me was to try to stay away from a drink try to do the best that you can today Brian and if you can get to a meeting That's all you were asking of me. And everything became good orderly direction in my life. I go up to the job, and I see the guys fighting on the job and getting fired. I walk along the street, andI see a guy dragging a woman out of a cab by the hair of the head, dragging her back into the bar because he hadn't finished drinking yet. I see some guy urinating between two cars, puking up against the wall. I walk by a bar, andi see a guys sitting there vacantly staring out in the street. Vacantly staring at a light passing him by. I see som young old dirty man peddling around the corner to get enough for a bottle. And I said to myself, there but for the grace of good only direction goes I. And it made all the sense to me because I no longer did any of those things because I trusted in you. And all you were asking of me was to try to stay away from a drink, try to do the best that I can, try to get to a meeting, try to help another alcoholic. And it wasn't that it was a concept of God because they kept telling me, Brian, don't worry about God. If you pick up a drink they won't be sending God back to the detox. They'll be sending you to the detox. It's you and that first drink. Remember that, Brian. The word that got me, ladies and gentlemen, was that word direction. All my life I had been looking for some type of direction. I'd be a liar if I stood up here and told you all I ever did was drink and carouse around. That wasn't me at all, ladies und gentlemen. That was not me at al. All my live I have been trying to do the right thing. I was always shining my shoes, trying to put my best foot forward. I was almost washing my face, combing my hair, trying to make that first good long-lasting impression. I was also saying I'm sorry. I was always making events. I was trying to pay my bills. I was doing the right thing. I was an alcoholic. I was picking up a drink. And I was in the years of the desolate always. And here I was sitting in a room full of alcoholics offering me good old direction in my life. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I may have been everybody's drunk, but I assure you I was never anybody's fool. I knew right then and there that if I didn't make it with you, I was not going to make it. and let me tell you for the newcomers around here if you don't make it in here with us and you're an alcoholic, you're not going to make it because this is a disease where ignorance is not bliss you pay the price man I've yet to see anybody come in through the doors of AA tiptoeing through the tulips out of ignorance I've seen them all come in dragging their ass through the weeds because of the ignorance of this disease no, no,no I knew right then and there that if I didn't make it here, I was not going make it and everything became good all the direction and I was going to meetings and going to the meetings. I was about a year sober. I was working on a 4 to midnight shift up and I was still with the dynamite. And usually I would get up early in the morning, about 11 o'clock, I'd have breakfast right outside this Bonnie Google's. There was a nightclub on 86 Street and they had like a park bench outside. And I was sitting there this one afternoon, just killing time waiting to go to work, and I had a cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other hand of mine. I'm just sitting there watching people go by and all of a sudden, this little kid come running up the street. It looked like a little Shirley Temple, little dimple knees and little curls in and she had a lollipop and she comes jumping right up on my lap. And she's looking at me and she's pushing the lollhipop at me. I've got the golf and the cigarette and I'm looking down at this kid and she is pushing the lollypop. And the mother came up and the mother said she wants you to lick the lollipop. So I took the lolloipop and I put it in my mouth and I took a big slurp and rolled my eyes and I stuck it out and the kid took it and popped it in her mouth and she was jumping up and down and she started skipping up the street. The mother looks down at me and I looked up at the mother and the other mother turns around feeling of love, this tremendous feeling just sort of lifted me off the bench and just sortof poured out of me looking at this mother and child walking up the street and I said to myself the first thing, this is good orderly direction. This is good orderedly direction because up until then everything was good orderedlly direction but for the first time since I heard those words good orderedley direction this was the first times that the feelings did not quite fit the words something was different and I heard myself saying to me me, this is not good orderly direction. This is the God they've been talking about. This is the god of the rooms. This isthe god of sobriety. I just couldn't believe it to be sitting there with a container of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other, the taste of a lollipop in my mouth and God. Ijust couldn'tbelieve it. I was just overwhelmed that this was God. And I said to myself, God, God bless you, God. Like I went over his head to his boss I mean, what the hell are we all about God? And everything started coming together. There was that good, orderly direction in my life. There was God in my wife. And I was about four years sober. And I hadn't gone to sea in four years. And I got a phone call from the Union in San Francisco. And they told me that they were crewing up the bicentennial ship to Maine, up in Maine on the East Coast. And would I like to be one of the crew that were using the East coast crew? And I wasn't. And I had sailed in four year and I never sailed sober in my live. life. And I went. And they said they'll be sending flying us up in about two weeks. And about a week before I left, a friend of mine, Roy, had been on a drunk and a sponsor and another guy was going over to pick him up at 6 o'clock in the morning to take him to a detox. And whatever went through Roy's head, I don't know, ladies and gentlemen. But before he got there he opened the window and he dove out 27 stories. And when he got here it was a mess. He had five kids, a wife. It was a mess." And Roy was half Jewish and half Catholic. His mother flew flew in from San Francisco, and they were fighting over the ashes. And it was at the memorial. I mean, it was just a mess, the families fighting what to do with the ashes And I got his sponsor together, and we got the families together. We sat down, and I told him I'd be leaving in about a week. And Roy had gone to sea earlier in his life, and I thought he'd be too happy to take the ashes and bury them at sea. And that was about the only thing they agreed on, and THEY agreed on it. I remember Roy coming up to my apartment with the shopping bag and the can with Roy in it. And about a week later, they flew me up. We sailed and were on our way to Panama. I went up and I saw the captain. I asked the captain, I'd like to have Roy buried at sea. They said, you know, to have a burial at sea, Brian, you need the death certificate. Do you have the death statistic? And I said, no. He said, all right, call up from Panama and have them mail the certificate out to the coast. Well, we're burying him in the Pacific. I said all right. I called my wife from Panama. And when I got there, we sailed from San Francisco. Before I left, I had bought five long stem roses, one for each one of the kids. and I bought a long yellow one for the wife. And the captain come and he asked me, he said, well, Brian, where do you want to bury him? And I said, if it's possible, I'd like to bury them on the international dateline. Now, the international Dateline, ladies and gentlemen, is one of Earth's phenomenons. It's a time zone. And that split second passing it, you're either in tomorrow or you're into yesterday. It's not retarding the clock one hour a day. I mean, you go one day into tomorrow or one day until yesterday. And I remember they would drill into my head in these meetings that one of the hardest things an alcoholic can do, it seems, is to live in the now. We're either in tomorrow or we're in yesterday. And it just pleased me to have at least one of us buried on the international date line on the internal now, and that'll be Roy. And it Just Pleased Me. And the day came, and all the passengers came out, and the crew came up, and all of a sudden you could feel the ship slowing down, starting the black smoke belching out. The cadets were there. We put the ashes with the American flag over the plank. I put the roses on top of it. And I'd staple the roses to that little plastic serenity prayer card we had. I sort of made a bouquet out of it, and I made sure that the captain closed the service with the Our Father. And I remember they picked it up, and they dumped them, and all of a sudden I could see the roses being sucked into the wake of the shipment, and all OF a sudden you feel the ship's not going to pick up again, pick up speed, and you hear three blasts from the whistle, the ship swivel, saluting Roy, the party brother, and the ship there. And as I watched the roses be sucked in, And I couldn't help but think that I don't know what went through Roy's head when he dove out that window. You know, he was drunk and alone. But here he is being buried with dignity by the AA Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was buried with Dignity. And that's what we do in these rooms, ladies and gentlemen. We dignify each other. They say the eyes are the windows of the soul. And when the newcomers come in, what they see in our eyes is hope. But what they don't see in the extended hand is that gift of dignity. dignity. We dignify one another, ladies and gentlemen. I'm proud to say we dignify one another. And I went up to the captain. I got the longitude and the latitude. I had some photographs taken. So when I got to Japan, I mailed them to the wife. So to this day, any time they want, they can go to the map. They can just trace out the longitudes, the latitudes. And the wife can turn around and say, this is where my husband was buried. The children can turn about and say this is were my father was buried, and in time, the the grandchildren, this is where Grandpa was buried. And they can say it with dignity. We gave them that dignity. They may never even know anything about AA, ladies and gentlemen, but we gave them the gift of dignity. And the ship sailed on, and before I left, I had registered with GSO as an internationalist. And I gave me the internationalist list, and that's people who travel all over the world, the meetings that they can make all over the world. And on it was the loners list, people that have a loan on lighthouses and in little points all over the world, and they're alone pretty much. And on it was this here priest, a missionary, up way back in the hills in Taiwan somewhere. And I started to correspond with him. And he wrote, he said, Brian, if you ever get any time, and I appreciate it, if you can get here, I'd like to take my first step with you. It had been so over five years, and he had never told his soul, had never tell his story to another living alcoholic. Everything was through tapes and letters from GSO and people who write and correspond with these people. And finally the ship got in one day. We were going to be there long enough, and I rented out a car with a driver, and we went clippity-clap over the hills and dills and rice paddies, and I got to meet this man. And I spent the whole day with him going through his fifth step. And here we would go long tangents of Chinese, and I'd see his eyes rolling in retrospect, and then he'd come back into English, and he'd go in and out and in and on just talking, and I'm looking at the paper, and what the man is saying is not what was on the paper. and I realized how lucky I was to have sobered up in the United States, to have sobered up with a sponsor, to have been able to talk eyeball to eyeball with another human being because what this man was talking about wasn't what was on that paper. And I realized that I was how lucky I had been to sober up with other alcoholics but I also realized how blessed he was to have sobred up with the letters and the tapes and photographs that were sent from people like you and the people of Integral. And I came back, and with the help of people in the program, they helped me get into Fordham University. In 1982, I graduated from Fordham University with a degree in fine art. And I did a lot of things, ladies and gentlemen, in sobriety. I did an tremendous amount of things. And I didn't do it for nothing. I did all the good things, too, drunk. But the one thing, the one thing that I did that I'm the most proudest of was the thing that i was the deepest ashamed of. And that was a deep dark secret. A shame that I had was the fact that I couldn't drive a car. Just frightened. I'm not talking about the inability to do it. In the tunnels, ladies and gentlemen, I could run anything down there. You put me in a plane, I'm sure I could fly a plane. But there's something about a car that I'm phobic. And I just couldn't ride a car, and I was always ashamed of it, that I couldn'T drive. AndI was going with a young lady, and one day she come up on a Saturday. I'm sitting there in the kitchen. She knocked at the door, and she came in. And she said, Come on, get your clothes on. She said, We're going somewhere. Andshe threw on the table her driver's license. She said, you're going to driving school. I said, oh man, let's not get into that. She says, come on, come on. Let's go. And literally took me by my hand about five blocks along First Avenue to a driving school and I registered. And every day the guy would pull up outside of the house with the car and I'd get in and I go all the way up to Yonkers Raceway, wherever he took me. And when I would come to the meeting at night, the people would know that I had a driving lesson that day because I'd come in looking like the Michelin Man. I'd be all locked up and I'd been sitting there and the day they they took me for the exam. They took me down. Everybody was calling me up and wishing me luck in this and I took them. And about two weeks later, I came home and I opened the mailbox and there was a letter from the motor vehicle bureau. I remember taking it up and I sat at the table in the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea and I, I opened it up and there was the driver's license. I mean, this is beyond, I never, never, this was beyond fantasy ladies and gentlemen. Never did I fantasize that I owned a Cadillac and picked up girls or I was a great racing car driver. That was beyond fantasy. I just never even thought in those terms, and here I had a driving license. And about six months later, I had the one day, whatever it was on a Saturday, I just sort of got up and I got dressed, I went over to Avis and I rented a car. And it was important to me to find a diner because the epitome of success in driving was to go to a dinar. I'd seen it on television a few times and I read about it in books where the guy would pull into the diner with the car and he'd get out and he's walk in and sit down at the counter and order a cup of coffee. And the waitress would phone all over him and everybody would be looking at him and he would be like a hero. And that was what I had in my head. And the only diner I knew was about 25 miles out in Rockaway. And I got in the car, I saw it driving out, the cars are beeping, I'm holding air and the sweat is running down. And finally I got out there and I pulled into the parking lot of this here diner, The only diner I knew And I got out and I started walking up the stairs And all the water was squishing out of my shoes And I'm wringing wet And the pants are stuck to my ass with sweat And I walked in I sat at the counter and I'm winging wet And I ordered up a cup of coffee And the waitress put the cup of tea in front of me And ladies and gentlemen That is the peak moment of my life today That is I have never been so proud of myself As I was at that moment They say everybody has 15 minutes in the sun Well, I had about three cups of coffee in it, and I'm telling you that. And I remember coming out, getting in the car, and I was backing out the car out of the parking lot. And you know how the voices go to work in here? The voices kept lashing at me saying, look at him backing that car out. Look at him looking over his shoulder, turning that wheel with one hand. What a man! What a men! And I drove the car back. I drove back, and that's, I guess, maybe five years ago or so. and that was the last time I rented a car. And hell with that, ladies and gentlemen. Karen picked me up and that's good enough and Perry and I and Diane will get me to the airport and that is driving enough for me. I mean if it comes that I have to pull a car from one side of the street to the other New York says I am the man. They gave me a piece of paper but that is it. And I did a lot of things ladies and gentleman drunk and sober a lot o things. And I am 58 years old 58 years today old today and I am a college graduate and I got a driver's license and I'm going on 21 years of sobriety and I wish I could stand before you today and tell you ladies and gentlemen I finally know what I want to be when I grow up I mean here I am fully potentiating I'm really making my mark but the fact is ladies and gentleman I really don't know whatI want tobe when Igrowup but the important things that I've learned in these rooms ladies and gentlemans it's not so much as whoyouare the thing to understand is whoyouarenot I am not that man dragging a woman out of the cab by the hair of the head dragging her back into a bar I'm not that young man the FBI took off in handcuffs In Mobile, Alabama and had to stand trial For near beating a man to death I'm Not That Young Man The FBI Took Off In New York And Had To Stand Trial For Mutiny I'm NOT That Old Young Man Standing On The Corner With His Hand Out Looking For A Bottle Of Wine I'M NOT THAT MAN THANK GOD VACANTLY STARING OUT AT LIFE PASSING AND BY OUT OF THE SALON NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THANKS TO YOU I AM NOT A LOT OF THINGS TODAY AND SOMEHOW BY SEEING THE MANY THINGS THAT I AMNOT SOMEHOW I BEGIN TO SEE THE MAN Y THINGS I AM am. And on those rare occasions when I do have the courage and the wisdom to take a long, hard look, I see the many things I can still become if I continue to adhere to the principles of this program, if I continue staying away from the first drink, if I keep coming to meetings, if I continue reaching out to the suffering alcoholic. I was in San Francisco a few years back and I heard a young lady pretty much sum it all up for me. She seemed to have taken all of this and the steps and the traditions and Bill and Bob and you and me and all the literature and all these conventions and reduce it to its lowest denominator, she said, by no means has AA opened the gates of heaven and let me in. But they sure have opened the gate of hell and let my out. Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here, I kneel before you on one knee. I kneEL and I thank the Almighty God for each and every one of you. And on my other knee, I thank each and everyone of you for me. Thank you for ME, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.